Piłsudski expected that only a conflict between the powers who partitioned Poland in the late 18th century could restore Poland as a country; he also viewed the Russian Empire as the worst of Poland's occupiers. Therefore, he decided to temporarily support the Central Powers. In 1906 Piłsudski, with the knowledge and support of the Austrian authorities, founded a military school in Kraków for the training of Bojówki, a military arm of the Polish Socialist Party. In 1906 alone, the 750-strong Bojówki, operating in five-man units in the former Congress Poland, killed or wounded some 1,000 Russian officials. Bojówki were certainly not above robbing Russian authorities to obtain funds for their operations, and by 1908 Piłsudski and his organization were desperately short on cash. Piłsudski expressed his thoughts about this violent action in a last will or obituary that he wrote to a friend before the raid:
The robbery
In September 1908, the Bojówki assaulted a Russian mail train near Vilna. The train was carryingtax revenues from Warsaw to St. Petersburg. Piłsudski personally led the raid; it was the only one he personally took part in, the rule of the bojowka being that each member must take part in at least one armed attack. The group that took part in the robbery numbered 20 people – 16 men and 4 women Among the members of the Bojówki who took part in that action was his lover and future wife, Aleksandra, and three future Polish Prime Ministers: Tomasz Arciszewski, Aleksander Prystor and Walery Sławek, and other notable politicians and activists of the Second Polish Republic era, like PSP activists Edward Gibalski, Jerzy Sawicki, and W. Momentowicz. The Bojówki group had known about the train for weeks and took that time to familiarize themselves with the area. On 26 September, six of them were on the train as passengers, the rest assembled at the little train station at Bezdany, in the presence of several guards unaware of their intent. When the train stopped at the station, the revolutionaries sprang into action, dividing into two groups: one assaulted the train, the other took control of the train station offices, cutting the telephone and telegraph wires. The Poles had several bombs; at least two were thrown into the carriage with the escort by Gibalski and Balaga. One Russian soldier was killed and five were wounded in the short firefight before the rest surrendered. Piłsudski with others prepared the final dynamite charge which opened the mail car and destroyed the iron boxes within. After the Poles took control of the station and the train, they put the money in bags and escaped. Piłsudski went with the group that carried the heaviest bags and escaped through the nearby river.
Aftermath
The loot from that raid was about 200,000 Russian rubles, a fortune in contemporary Eastern Europe. The money was supposed to cover the costs of building a tram system in Vilnius. Piłsudski used those funds to aid his secret military organization. The raid become known in Eastern Europe as one of the most daring and successful train robberies.
