Riflemen's Association

In 1908 the clandestine Union of Active Struggle was founded in Lviv on Józef Piłsudski's initiative to train cadres for a future rising against Russia. Using Austrian rules on voluntary rifle training, in 1910 it set up legal offshoots: the Riflemen's Association in Lviv and the "Strzelec" society in Kraków. Piłsudski was commandant-in-chief and Kazimierz Sosnkowski chief of staff. Alongside them worked the Polish Rifle Squads, founded in 1911 by young people of the "Zarzewie" movement, with the same programme and similar training.

According to various figures the Association had between 6,400 and 8,000 trained members in 1914, and the Squads about 6,000. From them came the First Cadre Company, which marched out on 6 August 1914, and then the I Brigade of the Legions. In the Kingdom of Poland the Warsaw Squads and the Union of Active Struggle merged in the autumn of 1914 into the Polish Military Organisation. "Riflemen" remained the common name for Piłsudski's soldiers.