The goal of Piłsudski and his followers was independence and liberation of Polish territories, and for that reason he became a temporary ally of the weakest of the partitioning powers, Austro-Hungary.
ZWC was led by Piłsudski, and below him was the Main Council (Rada Główna) and Association Department (Wydział Związku) composed of four members: Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Władysław Jaxa-Rożen, Stefan Dąbkowski and Zygmunt Bohuszewicz.
From its inception, ZWC received crucial support in the highest circles of the Austrian Empire, which was preparing for war with Imperial Russia.
As the Great War (World War I) loomed on the horizon, Austrian officials supported Polish organizations that favored an "Austro-Polish solution" and opposed the National Democrats and Roman Dmowski) who, before reaching for Polish independence, wanted the Poles and all their territories to be placed under a single state, which at the time could be achieved only by the Russian Empire.
[2] Cooperation between Austro-Hungary, the most conservative regimes in Europe,[3] which proved to be the most liberal of partitioned powers, and provided a great deal of autonomy and religious freedom to its Polish subjects,[4] and Pilsudski, a Polish Socialist revolutionary, who was involved in the past in bank and postal robberies, sabotage and subversive destruction as means to achieve the political goals.