[1] He tried to fulfill Piłsudski's dream of making Poland the leader of a regional coalition, but he was widely disliked and distrusted by other governments.

Beck was born into a Calvinist (Protestant) family whose forebears had emigrated from Flanders to Poland in the 16th century, during the rule of Polish King Stephen Báthory.

[4] After the outbreak of the war, Beck was a member of the clandestine Polish Military Organization (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa, or POW), founded in October 1914 by Piłsudski.

Furthermore, its army of 283,000 men was ill-equipped, short of artillery and poorly trained and relied heavily on cavalry because it lacked enough mechanisation.

[10] In addition, Beck resented that countries, such as Germany, used the Minorities Treaty to exert pressure and become involved in the internal affairs of Poland.

[12] After Piłsudski's death in May 1935, a power-sharing agreement was entered into by the various Piłsudskiite factions, led by General (later Marshal) Edward Rydz-Śmigły, President Ignacy Mościcki and Beck himself.

[6] The stability of the ruling group was weakened because of personal conflicts, and none of the three men managed to assert his dominance in the late 1930s completely.

Beck realised that for the immediate future there was no realistic chance of building such a force and so he was prepared to settle in 1937–1938 for a diplomatic bloc referred to as a "Third Europe", led by Poland, which might become the nucleus of a Międzymorze federation.

Beck's "Third Europe" diplomatic concept comprised a bloc made up of Poland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania.

[20] Beck played a decisive role in early 1939 by staunchly refusing Hitler's demands to subordinate Poland and to turn it into a German puppet state.

Hitler demanded for Poland to give away strategic territories to Germany and to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was directed against the Soviet Union.

He also rejected demands for an extraterritorial rail and highway corridor that was to run to East Prussia and the Free City of Danzig, in exchange for vague promises regarding trade and annexation of territories inhabited by Ukrainians and Belarusians in the Soviet Union after a future war.

[21][22] Beck was surprised when Britain, looking for a pretext to confront Germany, announced at the end of March 1939 that it would defend Poland from German attack.

[30] After the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east on 17 September 1939, Beck withdrew to Romania, together with the rest of the Polish government.

He was closely guarded: whenever he went out, hordes of Allied, German and Romanian agents followed him (...) I met him at 5 in the afternoon, and our conversation continued until almost two in the morning, with a dinner break.

Instead, he points out that when British king gave a speech on the radio, only English, French and Polish anthems were played (...) Since I cannot tolerate this kind of wishful thinking, I ask him whether he had ever seriously considered German attack.