Battle of Rarańcza

On 15 February 1918 the columns of the Second Brigade of the Polish Legions set off from their quarters near Czernowitz towards the front. Officially this was to be a four-day field exercise. In reality the legionaries were going to break through the Austro-Hungarian line near the village of Rarańcza in Bukovina, cross over to the Russian side and join the Polish corps being formed in the east. On the night of 15–16 February part of the brigade, according to Polish accounts about a hundred officers and one and a half thousand men, reached the abandoned Russian trenches. The rest, together with the baggage trains and artillery, fell into Austrian hands. It was an armed protest by Polish soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army against the peace treaty that the Central Powers had concluded at Brest a week earlier with the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

The brigade and the treaty

The Second Brigade grew out of the Legion battalions that in the autumn of 1914 had fought the Cossacks in the Carpathians. It was called the Carpathian or the Iron Brigade. In June 1915 it had already fought at Rarańcza. From July 1916 it was commanded by Colonel Józef Haller. Unlike the First and Third Brigades, broken up in the summer of 1917 after the oath crisis, most of its soldiers took the oath and remained in the Polish Auxiliary Corps, whose commander was General Zygmunt Zieliński. In the autumn of 1917 the Austrians moved the corps to Bukovina, and at the beginning of January 1918 they withdrew it from the front and quartered it around Czernowitz: the headquarters at Łużany, the 2nd Infantry Regiment at Stare and the 3rd Regiment at Nowe Mamajowce, the artillery in the surrounding villages. The cavalry was later moved to Galicia.

According to the chronicle of the Legions, the soldiers learned from the newspapers on 12 February that the Central Powers had signed a peace with Ukraine which gave it the Chełm Land and part of Podlasie. In the ranks of the Legions it was regarded as a new partition of Poland and a betrayal by Austria, which the legionaries had served since 1914. Strikes and demonstrations broke out in the Kingdom, and the Regency Council issued a protest. On 14 February a requiem Mass was held at Nowe Mamajowce for Major Włodzimierz Mężyński (PL), who on hearing of the treaty had died of a heart attack in a Kraków hospital. Those attending the service tore Austrian decorations from their uniforms.

The council and the plan

On the same day, or according to some accounts a day earlier, a council of commanders was held. General Zieliński advised laying down arms, which he considered an honourable way out. Younger officers proposed a march on Lviv and a rising in Galicia, seizing the oil basin, or going underground. The idea of Captain Roman Górecki (PL) prevailed: to break through the front and join General Dowbor-Muśnicki’s I Polish Corps or other Polish formations in Russia. The plan was drawn up by Lieutenant-Colonel Michał Żymierski and Major Józef Zając. Haller approved it and placed himself at the head of the operation. He sent his Order of the Iron Crown back to Emperor Charles I, and dzieje.pl quotes his words: “better a foolish deed than inaction”. The brigade command prepared a proclamation “To the Polish Nation”, explaining that the legionaries were leaving for the place “where a Polish armed force is being formed”. A letter renouncing obedience was left for the Austrians.

Rarańcza was chosen because it lay closest to the quarters, and the legionaries knew the ground from heavy fighting in June 1915. East of it the front had practically ceased to exist. The Russian army was disintegrating, and in many places the trenches on both sides stood empty. The secret, however, could not be kept. The commander of the Austro-Hungarian VII Corps, General Ferdinand Kosak, declared an alert and sent two cavalry divisions against the Poles, but they were too far away to arrive in time.

The crossing

The 2nd Infantry Regiment led the way. At about six in the evening it ran into sub-units of the Austro-Hungarian 53rd Infantry Regiment, made up mostly of Croats. After a short but bloody fight the Croats were routed, and the Legion battalions deployed into a skirmish line and pushed on towards Rarańcza despite rifle fire. The 3rd Regiment, closing the column, managed to get ahead of the slow-moving baggage trains, so it was not cut off by an approaching Austrian armoured train. The trenches were unmanned; only the barbed-wire entanglements caused trouble. There were not enough wire cutters, so the soldiers threw their greatcoats over the wire and walked across them. By the morning of 16 February the legionaries were on the Russian side.

Losses in the fighting were small: Polish accounts speak of 16 killed and a dozen or so wounded, according to other accounts several dozen. The loss of the baggage trains and artillery proved far more painful. The Austrians stopped the artillery regiment soon after it left its quarters. They also surrounded and arrested the rear units of the infantry, the baggage trains and the corps staff with General Zieliński. On 16 February at Synowódzko in Galicia Austrian and German troops surrounded and disarmed the 2nd Uhlan Regiment, which had been stationed too far away to take part in the operation. Only the infantrymen of the 2nd and 3rd Regiments broke through, without supplies, warm clothing or ammunition, into territory controlled by rebellious peasants and the remnants of the demoralised Russian army.

Punishment and the road ahead

On 19 February the Austro-Hungarian authorities dissolved the Polish Auxiliary Corps. The detained legionaries were taken to Hungary, to camps at Huszt (Khust), Máramarossziget and several other places. According to various authors, between about 4,000 and 5,500 soldiers were interned, not only from the corps but also from other Polish units. Many were later drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and sent to the Italian front. The investigation covered more than a hundred officers and men, who in June were put on trial at Máramarossziget for mutiny and treason. It was ended only in the autumn of 1918 by an amnesty proclaimed by the emperor.

Haller and his soldiers moved north through Khotyn, crossed the Dniester and reached the area of Kamianets-Podilskyi, and then, when German and Austro-Hungarian troops began entering Ukraine, turned back towards Bessarabia. On 6 March the brigade halted in the area of Soroca and joined the II Polish Corps. At the end of March Haller took command of the whole corps. In May the Germans demanded its disarmament, and on 11 May 1918 at Kaniów the corps, after a day-long fight, had to lay down its arms. Haller made his way to France, where he took command of the Polish Army.

Rarańcza did not change the situation on the Eastern Front, which was dying out anyway. It had, however, enormous political significance. For the first time Polish units fighting alongside the Central Powers openly broke with them, arms in hand. For Poles at home it was proof that the army had not accepted the surrender of the Chełm Land, and for Austria a signal that it was losing its last Polish allies. Those killed at Rarańcza were exhumed in 1926 and buried in the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lviv.