Mieczysław Mackiewicz

Mieczysław Mackiewicz (9 May 1880 near Kowno – 6 August 1954 in Bangor, Wales) was a Polish general.

Biography

In partitioned Poland, Mackiewicz joined the Imperial Russian Army and fought in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), reaching the rank of a captain. In 1913 he secretly joined the Polish pro-independence organization Związek Strzelecki, and worked with Józef Piłsudski. During the First World War, he fought in the Russian Army against the Germans, and was captured in 1915. He formed a Polish school for NCOs in prisoner-of-war camps. In 1918 he joined the Polish Army. He took part in the Polish-Lithuanian negotiations in Suwałki and fought in the Polish-Soviet War, where he commanded infantry divisions and operational groups; He was wounded in 1920, and promoted to general in 1927. He retired in 1935, but joined the Polish Army again during German invasion of Poland in 1939 as a volunteer. Eventually he joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West. After the war he settled in the United Kingdom, where he died in 1954.

Honours and awards

• Order of Virtuti Militari
• Order of Polonia Restituta, Officer's Cross
• Cross of Independence
• Medal of Independence
• Cross of Valour – four times
• Gold Cross of Merit