"My Sword! My Sword!"

Your true swashbuckler cannot even rest without his sword. Nearly every day this month Marshal Josef Pilsudski, erratic War Minister and Dictator of Poland, has roared at some member of his entourage:

"What about my sword! Have those -- -- French found it yet? I want my sword!"

Apart from these outbursts the Marshal has been resting (almost to the point of apathy) in the soporific sunshine of

Madeira. When revolution seemed to threaten the little Portuguese isle, the "Lion of Poland" showed a tendency to yawn, to sprawl his bulk with even more abandon upon small wicker chairs.

"Where is my sword!"

Nobody knew for certain. The Dictator had traveled from Warsaw to Bordeaux, where he embarked for Madeira, in a sumptuous private car of the Polish State Railways. Knowing that Marshal Pilsudski might decide to go tearing home at any moment, his Chief of Staff ordered the car held at Bordeaux, had its doors and windows hermetically closed by ornate Polish seals.

Presently from Madeira the station master at Bordeaux received an urgent request. He must find Marshal Pilsudski's state sword. It was thought to be in the car. The station master was formally authorized in the name of Marshal Pilsudski to break the seals, rummage the car, pack up the sword if found, and despatch it by the next boat to Madeira.

The station master did no such thing. In his canny French mind's eye he saw that if he opened the car, and even if he found the sword, afterwards a whole troop of excitable Poles might hold him responsible for whatever else might happen to be missing. With elaborate politeness he cabled to Madeira his refusal to act.

Ensued a month of hectic cabling. Finally last week the sealed car was towed to Warsaw, opened. The sword was found, exactly where Marshal Pilsudski's valet had said it would be. The sword was shipped to Madeira. It arrived safely. Correspondents were permitted to learn why it was so urgently needed.

"When Marshal Pilsudski returns to the Continent," said an aide, "he will go to Rome for a meeting with Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. Naturally on that occasion the Marshal will wear his state sword."

"How will His Excellency go to Rome?"

"Doubtless from Bordeaux in his private car."

Most dramatic appearance of Marshal Pilsudski, complete with private car and sword, was in 1927, when he flabbergasted professionally peaceful Geneva. Arriving in full panoply at the League of Nations Secretariat, Poland's Dictator made for the League Council room, soon confronted Professor Augustine Valdemaras, Prime Minister of Lithuania, fixed him with a baleful glare.

The professor had been arguing previously that it is scarcely right for Poland to hold Vilna, since that city was ceded to Lithuania by treaty. Suddenly with a clank of his great sword, Marshal Pilsudski stomped to his feet, turned upon Dr. Valdemaras.

"IS IT PEACE," he rumbled, "OR WAR?"

"If he really means that he wants peace, I will say peace," said the Lithuanian (TIME, Dec. 19, 1927).

Vilna is still Poland's.

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