Through Potocki Wódka I endeavoured to revive a rich family heritage which had been lost to history. True Spirit was born.
I proceeded to tell my story around the world, one bottle at a time, making interesting encounters and chance discoveries along the way.
Over time, I distilled and assembled them into something unique. The books below recount, in three languages, the finest hour of forgotten heroes who brought Poland back to life in 1918. Like good vintages in the cellar, they are worth having in your library.
Frères d’Armes 2024
The first edition of “Frères d’Armes” was a premonitory initiative as the war in Ukraine gave it a relevance which it could have never claimed otherwise. Hence this second improved 500-page version, rewritten in Warsaw and designed in Paris. I tried to highlight how the French and the Poles, who had achieved so much together in 1918-1920, let their great victory be spoilt by politics and national short-sightedness, while Germany and Russia prepared their revenge.
Frères d’Armes 2020
I knew that the French had played a crucial role in supporting Poland in its life-or-death struggle. Its outcome would decide the fate of Europe, but I never suspected to which extent until I started writing “Frères d’Armes” (“Brothers in Arms”). The French had recruited, trained and equipped six divisions which were sent to Poland in 1919 as well as appointed a military mission counting over a thousand officers. Among them a young captain named Charles de Gaulle. Yet in the summer of 1920, it was general Weygand’s energy and wisdom which helped the Poles defend Warsaw and hold the Vistula. The ensuing campaign led by Piłsudski and Sikorski ended with the complete routing of Lenin’s hordes. Europe was saved, albeit for a mere twenty years. Family members appeared here and there on group photos, including in front of our palace in Lvov.
The book, written in collaboration with Frédéric Guelton and illustrated with the help of Małgorzata Grąbczewska, was published under the patronage of the French Embassy in Warsaw.
Out of Print
Americans in Poland 1919-1947
Editing “An American in Warsaw” I realised how a few devoted Americans had helped Poland in difficult times, which led me to writing and organising the exhibition “Americans in Poland 1917-1947” in 2019 in collaboration with a Warsaw city institution, Vivian Reed and financial support from the US Embassy in Warsaw. We invited Anthony J. Drexel-Biddle III, whose father had been America’s last pre-war ambassador to Poland, personally appointed by FDR. Biddle’s opposite number in Washington at the time was Jerzy Potocki, Alfred’s brother. The exhibition was remarkably well made and interesting, relying in great part on archives of the Hoover Institution. The contribution some of these Americans made to Poland, stands to this day: Maurice Pate, whose lifelong concern for the destitute, in particular children, led to the creation of UNICEF in 1947, and the pilots of the Kościuszko Squadron, who fought valiantly in the Polish-Bolshevik war and devised new dive bombing tactics.
Order 120-page exhibition catalogue:
An American in Warsaw
A chance encounter with Vivian Reed in Stanford led me back to Paris where I met Michael, whose father Hugh Gibson had been America’s first ambassador to Poland and a close collaborator of Herbert Hoover. Michael had been our guest in Łańcut with his parents in the 1930s and wanted his father’s memoirs published. He passed away before “An American in Warsaw” actually came out, but with the knowledge Vivian and I had arranged a publishing deal in Poland and in the US. The crowning moment came in September 2018 when the new US Ambassador presented the book to the media at her Warsaw residence, clutching it like a talisman: “This is about No 1, I am only No 28!”. Meanwhile Michael and Monika Gibson celebrated with Potocki Wódka at their Paris apartment. The following year the Polish edition won the prestigious Oskar Halecki history book award in the category: “best source publication on the history of Poland in the 20th century”.
