5 Zlotych Józef Piłsudski - Rifle Corps

This issue commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the Polish Legions under Piłsudski in August 1914 — the volunteer force he organized under Austro-Hungarian auspices to fight Russia and, in his calculation, leverage Polish independence from whichever side eventually lost. The Rifle Corps designation specifically recalls the earlier clandestine paramilitary organizations he built in Galicia before the war, training cadres that would form the Legions' officer backbone.

By 1934, Piłsudski was governing Poland as an authoritarian strongman following his 1926 coup. Commemorating his own military movement on national coinage was entirely in character.