1917 - Polish National Army
After a long absence from the field of battle - an interval of fifty-four years - the Polish standard, the white eagle on the red field, again appeared on the battle line. In the west, the Government of France gave its consent to the organization of an autonomous Polish Army; and in the east the Provisional Government of free Russia has followed suit. At last Poland takes her place in this war beside the allied powers as a nation fighting for her rights, for her independence, and for the reunion of all her territories in one Polish State in accordance with the military program of the Allies. The Polish Army in France was an "autonomous" army, or a national Polish Army. This army stood under the Polish standard, had the Polish command, Polish uniforms, Polish officers, and will take the oath to unified and independent Poland.
The decree, which was signed by Raymond Poincare, President of the French Republic, at Paris, on 04 June 1917, read as follows: "Article 1. There is created In France, for the duration of the war, an autonomous Polish Army, placed under the orders of the French High Command and fighting under the Polish colors. Art. 2. The raising and maintenance of the Polish Army are assured by the French Government. Art. 3. The arrangements in force in the French Army concerning the organization, grades, administration, and military justice are applicable to the Polish Army. Art. 4. The Polish Army shall be recruited (1) from among the Poles now serving in the French Army; (2) from among the Poles of other origin admitted to pass into the ranks of the Polish Army in France or to contract a voluntary engagement for the duration of the war under the standard of the Polish Army. ..."
The Polish National Army, thus accorded allied recognition, consists of detachments fighting hand in hand with the powers associated against Germany on the soil of France, Italy, and Russia. A Polish force in France, consisting of volunteers recruited in various lands, and particularly in the United States, was created by the decree of June 4, 1917. A year later it was made an independent military organization fighting under its own flag and commanded by Polish officers exclusively.
The solemn ceremony of presenting flags to the first division of the Polish Army in France, which took place on June 22, 1918, was attended by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and by the President of the Republic of France, who addressed the assembled soldiers of Poland. The Polish Army, thus newly constituted, fought gallantly in July on the battlefields of Champagne. A Polish detachment was also present on the Italian front.
In Russia the principle of the independence of Poland necessitated the constitution of a Polish Army completely autonomous, commanded by Polish officers, and fighting under the Polish national standard. In view of the proclamation by the Russian Provisional Government of an independent and unified Poland and of the appointment of the Liquidation Commission, which is to liquidate all the interests of Poland with Russia, the cause of a separate Polish Army in Russia and the exclusion of the Polish troops from the general Russian Army had to come by the very force of events. Almost immediately upon the proclamation to the Poles by the Provisional Government of free Russia a meeting of Polish soldiers in the Russian Army was held in Minsk, at which resolutions were adopted calling for the creation of an autonomous Polish Army. The idea of creating a Polish Army out of the Poles "dispersed in the sea of Russian troops" took root very quickly in the Polish community in Russia.
The Polish Military Union arose in Moscow on 11 April 1917, and declared for the creation of a Polish Army. On June 13 a Congress of Delegates of Military Poles in session in Petrograd resolved, by an overwhelming majority, that the Government of free Russia should without delay proceed to the reunion of the military Poles scattered over the vast territories of the Russian State in a distinct military unit under Polish leaders and a Russian commander in chief.
On 17 July 1917, the Russian Chief General Staff ordered that the Polish soldiers desiring to enter the Polish Army should be grouped in separate divisions and sent where the Polish Army is forming-the Government had permitted the Poles to create a distinct Polish Army with its own staff and under the supreme command of a Russian commander. Up to the middle of July 1918 there had enlisted in this Polish Army 320,000 soldiers, and the number increased after the promulgation of the order of the General Staff of July 17.
Early in September 1918 a movement was reported to be on foot for the formation of a Polish Army in Siberia for the purpose of fighting westward toward its own country. A small force of Poles is co-operating with the allied expedition in the north of European Russia.
The National Department of the Polish Central Relief Committee of Chicago, whose Chairman was I.J. Paderewski, the pianist, issued an appeal on Oct. 6, 1917, calling upon unnaturalized Poles in the United States to enlist under the Polish standard. The document is in part as follows: "Providence has decreed that on the centennial of the death of Thaddeus Kosciusko there arises a Polish national army upon the Continent where he so valiantly fought for freedom. France has given life to this army and has offered her aid and support."
The new-born Republic of Poland was almost strangled in its cradle by the enemies which encompassed it around in 1919. Germany and Russia, two of three powers which had partitioned Poland and kept her submerged for upward of 140 years, resented the restoration of the ancient kingdom. The Ukrainians and Bolsheviki, having inherited Russia's hatred for Poland, also united in effort to throttle the new nation. The Czecho-Slovaks, who had fought under the Austrian colors during the War but had since become the proteges of the Allied nations and been granted the boon of national independence, assisted in the plot. The Lithuanians, too, those half brothers of the Prussians, and like them of Tartar-Mongol descent, endeavored to prevent the realization of Polish independence.
During 1919 the Poles, with Gen. Pilsudski as their commanderin-chicf, were engaged in three wars. Two of them, with the Ukrainians and the Czechoslovaks, were not of great importance. Hostilities were started with the Ukrainians on account of the disputed territories in Galicia. At the beginning of the following year a settlement was made after which the Poles and the Ukrainians joined forces to fight the Bolsheviks. The dispute with the Czechoslovaks was also on the subject of disputed territory. The duchy of Teschen, though small, is valuable because of its coking-coal and thriving industries, and for this reason both Poles and Czechs were anxious to possess it. In the summer of 1920 the dispute was settled by a decision of the Council of Ambassadors, which awarded to the Czechs the whole mining region and the chief railway running through the territory. As a result the town of Teschen is cut in two.
The third and most important war was that with the Bolsheviks. The war was caused by the German troops evacuating the eastern territories in a way which was contrary to agreement and which allowed the Bolsheviks to occupy the territory before the Polish troops could be brought up. The local population in the occupied zones appealed to the Poles for aid and, as a further advance seemed imminent, the Poles were forced to fight. The Poles have been accused of entering into this war with the Bolsheviks with imperialistic and aggressive aims. It seems clear, however, that this was not the case. The Polish army was small and was engaged in hostilities elsewhere and the financial and industrial condition of the country was such that unnecessary war would not be undertaken.
Two months after the Armistice, the German "Republic" defiantly massed an army on the Polish and Lithuanian frontiers and declared war against poor struggling Poland, yet the Supreme Council at Paris neglected to give the word which would enable Marshal Foch once for all to put an end to Prussian aggression. The Bolshevists, whose leaders at least were German agents, naturally joined in the conspiracy to throttle Poland. With 800,000 armed enemies assailing her from four sides, and with at the beginning a force of less than 60,000 to defend her frontiers, poor bleeding Poland nevertheless triumphed over the Russo-German League.
Gen. Pilsudski succeeded in organizing in Poland an army of 85,000 men, of whom scarcely 40,000 were immediately available for use on the the frontiers, most of them having been detailed for instruction in the interior of Poland. The Polish Cavalry, still in process of formation, comprised 12 regiments of Lancers. The Artillery consisted of 32 batteries of various calibers. It was hoped by spring to increase this Army to a strength of 150,000, and eventually a force of 500,000 was contemplated.
In addition to Gen. Pilsudski's Legion, there were four Polish Divisions in France, forming a corps of 40,000 men largely recruited in America and commanded by Gen. Haller. When the Armistice was arranged in November, 1918, this Polish corps had asked permission to return to Poland, but their prayer had been denied.
For nearly five months these Polish patriots, who had helped to defend France and England from the German peril, were detained in France while German armed forces were permitted to work their will in the Baltic States. And even when permission was given the Polish soldiers to assist their oppressed nation, their passage through Germany was prohibited by the military powers of Germany who seemed to hold in disdain the decrees of the Allied delegates sitting in Paris. Poland was also compelled to defend herself on her Western border against the encroachment of the Czecho-Slovaks, who aimed at seizing the coal mining region of Karvin on which Poland depends for the largest share of her mineral resources. This region had been awarded to Poland but the covetous Czechs and Germans hoped to wrest it from the Poles.
With Allied assistance, the Poles in the summer of 1919 had organized a formidable army, numbering 500,000 effectives. The new Polish Army, whose operations were now under the scrutiny of Field Marshal Foch, defended 1,500 miles of front against Bolshevist and German forces, standing as the barrier in Europe against Bolshevist invasion from the east and at the same time resisting German encroachments from the west.
During 1920 Poland served as the center of the resistance to the spread of Bolshevism, and her political history is very much bound up with her military history. By June 1920 statements of French and Polish military experts were that the Soviet army would be unable to cross the Dnieper, Berezina, and Dvina, because of the strong defence of the Polish army, which had prepared in advance the most up-to-date positions for passive defense, on their western banks. Nevertheless, thé Russian cavalry crossed these rivers with extraordinary ease and penetrated in the rear of its enemy, thus producing a panic amongst the fighting body of the Poles, and facilitated the crossing of these rivers by the Red infantry. Finally, all the natural obstacles, namely, the Dvina, Berezina, Dnieper, Narev, and Bug, were forced by the Soviet army. The chief terms proposed by the Bolsheviks were: the reduction of the Polish army to 50,000, together with a small civic militia; the surrender by the Poles of all arms and war materials with the exception of those necessary for the reduced army; and the demobilization of all war industries.
As her Army gradually grew in size, until it attained a final strength of 500,000 effectives, the Poles not only broke the German assault, but defeated and pursued the Bolsheviki 200 miles beyond the frontier. The Red Army's military supremacy over the territory of the soon-to-be Soviet Union was unchallenged and acknowledged by the world's major powers. All of this made what happened next even more shocking. Later in 1920, the Soviets would find themselves utterly defeated and thrown back by the Polish Army, an organization nearly one-tenth the size of the Red Army fielded by a state that had been obliterated from existence for 120 years and reconstituted only 2 years prior.
Owing to Russian procrastination the peace conference was not held until Aug. 17, by which date the military situation had changed with remarkable rapidity. The Russians had advanced too fast and too far and were not prepared for any sudden couater-offcnsive. When Gen. Pilsudski, therefore, organized a general counter-attack the Bolshevik armies collapsed and retreated in disorder. Indeed, Poland might easily at this juncture have crushed Bolshevism completely had not the same coterie of politicians at Paris, the same Supreme Council which had failed to send her any military aid in her early distress, sternly forbade her further to pursue the Bolsheviki.
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