John Gunther wrote after Rydz-Śmigły and Beck were interned in Romania that "They ought, one might say, to have been interned somewhere else before". As the Commander-in-Chief of Polish Armed Forces, Rydz-Śmigły took complete responsibility for Poland's military defeat in September 1939. Rydz had proven himself an extremely able commander on smaller fronts in earlier wars, but was not an experienced strategist in a great conflict. Indeed, in 1922, in an evaluation of Polish generals, Piłsudski had written about him: "in operational work he displays healthy common sense and a lot of stubborn energy. I could recommend him to everybody as a commander of an army, I am however not sure if he possesses sufficient abilities to function as commander-in-chief in a war between two states."