He served with distinction in the II Brigade of the Legions, and held the posts of platoon, company and battalion commanding officer.

On October 30 he left the ranks of his unit and the following day he joined the Polish Army, even before Poland officially declared her independence.

After the end of hostilities and a brief period in Belarus and Lithuania, Smorawiński became the organizer and commanding officer of a newly formed 9th Legions' Infantry Regiment.

During the Polish retreat following a successful Bolshevik offensive in Belarus, Smorawiński was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and assigned to the 4th Legions Infantry Brigade as its commanding officer.

During the May Coup d'État of 1926, Smorawiński led a small troop of his men from Kielce in support of Józef Piłsudski's forces fighting in Warsaw.

Until September 14, 1939, he remained in Lublin, after which he was evacuated with a small troop to Kowel (modern Kovil) and then to Włodzimierz Wołyński, in what is now Ukraine.

He was to organize new reserve units for the Polish-German front there, but his mission became unachievable after the Soviet entry into the war on the side of Nazi Germany on September 17.

Instead, on September 18 he demobilized most of ordinary soldiers and NCO's under his command, and led a group officers towards Hungarian or Romanian borders.

[5] Among the Katyn victims were 14 Polish generals including Leon Billewicz, Bronisław Bohatyrewicz, Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller, Aleksander Kowalewski, Henryk Minkiewicz, Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski, Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lviv), Franciszek Sikorski, Leonard Skierski, Piotr Skuratowicz, and Alojzy Wir-Konas.