The Puławy Legion is formed

On 4 December 1914, according to Wojciech Jerzy Muszyński, the historian of the formation, the first 70 volunteers from Brest and Chełm arrived in Puławy, which the Russians called Novo-Aleksandriya. They were quartered in the buildings of the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry. So began the formation of the Polish Legion, known after the place where it was formed as the Puławy Legion: the first Polish volunteer unit on the Russian side and the answer of the National Democrats to the Legions that had been fighting Russia since August alongside Austria-Hungary under the command of Józef Piłsudski.

Russian consent

The way had been opened by Grand Duke Nicholas’s proclamation of 14 August, but the first attempts to form Polish units alongside the Russian army came to nothing. Success came only to Witold Gorczyński (PL), a landowner from the Šiauliai district born in 1878 and an activist of the “Sokół” gymnastic society. He had the support of the command of the South-Western Front. On 31 October he received a telegram saying that the high command allowed him to form a legion, and on 9 November a patent from the chief of staff of the commander-in-chief, General Nikolai Yanushkevich, to raise “Polish druzhinas”. A document approved on 17 November by Grand Duke Nicholas, however, gave them a modest role: reconnaissance and sabotage behind enemy lines, like partisan units. The Russian command did not trust the Poles and did not give the legion the status of regular troops. On 21 November it was assigned quarters in Puławy. Gorczyński received the rank of lieutenant colonel and on 1 December, according to his biography, became head of the Polish Volunteer Legions. Polish studies give these dates without saying whether they follow the Julian or the Gregorian calendar.

National Democrat patronage

In November political patronage over the legion was taken up by the Polish National Committee, founded in Warsaw on 25 November, which brought together Roman Dmowski’s National Democrats and the conservatives of the Kingdom. Its politicians obtained an assurance from the Russian high command that the legion would not be used against Piłsudski’s units. Muszyński believes this was one of the few promises the Russians kept.

At the end of December several hundred more volunteers arrived in Puławy from Warsaw and even from Vilnius and Kyiv, among them Snarski’s partisans and Count Tyszkiewicz’s uhlans. Most were secondary-school pupils; among the older men, members of the intelligentsia and craftsmen predominated. The surplus volunteers were moved to Lublin, where the II Polish Legion, known as the Lublin Legion (PL), began to form. Polish words of command were a problem, because in the Russian partition they were used only in volunteer fire brigades (PL). The first instructors came from there, and so did the custom of addressing one another as “druh” (comrade), described by one of the first volunteers, Wiktor Leopold Obst.

Legal rebels

The Russian quartermaster service almost openly sabotaged deliveries of uniforms and equipment. Many Russians saw the legion, as Muszyński writes, as a legally operating unit of Polish rebels. Gorczyński made up the most pressing shortages by improvisation and bribes. The legionaries received rifles and ammunition only at the beginning of January 1915. They were given neither transport nor artillery, and instead of Russian Maxim machine guns they got captured Austrian ones, for which there was never enough ammunition.

The formation was completed at the end of January 1915 under Lieutenant Colonel Antoni Reutt (PL), who took command of the battalion on 17 January. The Institute of National Remembrance takes 12 January 1915 as the date the legion was formed. The legion numbered 17 officers and 909 other ranks, roughly an infantry battalion. The legionaries wore Russian uniforms, and their only Polish mark was shoulder straps with the letters “1LP”, for First Polish Legion. Soon the Russians curtailed its Polish character too. In February 1915 a decision by the Governor-General of Warsaw, Pavel Engalychev, removed the National Committee’s activists from the legion, the name “Polish Legion” was banned, and the unit was renamed the 739th Novo-Aleksandriya Druzhina of the State Militia. Gorczyński, pushed down to a staff officer’s post, resigned. The legionaries nevertheless kept Polish words of command and their banner with Our Lady of Jasna Góra.