During the Second Polish Republic and World War II it was called the Ministry of Military Affairs (Ministerstwo Spraw Wojskowych).

The beginning of the Ministry of Defence's operations is connected with the 1775 establishment of the Military Department within the Permanent Council.

When Warsaw became part of the Kingdom of Prussia after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795), the Prussian Ministry of War headquarters was moved into the local Copper-Roof Palace.

[3][4] After the November Uprising and the introduction of the Organic Statute of the Kingdom of Poland in the early 1830s, the distinctiveness of the Polish defence establishment from the Ministry of War of the Russian Empire ceased to exist.

On 2 November 1918, the commission was transformed into the Ministry of Military Affairs, based at the Copper-Roof Palace.