Polish military formations 1914–1918

In the First World War Poles fought not only in the armies of the three partitioning powers but also in formations of their own, on both sides of the front. Alongside Austria-Hungary fought the Polish Legions of Józef Piłsudski, and after their break-up in 1917 the Polish Auxiliary Corps and the Polish Armed Forces. On the Russian side came the Puławy Legion, the Polish Rifle Brigade and Division and, after the revolution, three Polish corps, and in France first a company of volunteers in the Foreign Legion and then a Polish Army called the Blue Army after the colour of its uniforms. Mieczysław Wrzosek estimated the whole volunteer military effort of the Poles in 1914–1920 at about 180 to 200 thousand soldiers, and their officers became the cadres of the Polish Army.

Formation	Side	Years	Commanders	Largest strength	Fate
Polish Legions (I, II and III Brigade)	Austria-Hungary	1914–1916	Józef Piłsudski, Józef Haller, Zygmunt Zieliński and others	over 25,000 in autumn 1915 (Wrzosek); between 30,000 and over 40,000 passed through its ranks	renamed the Polish Auxiliary Corps in September 1916
Eastern Legion	Austria-Hungary	1914	Józef Haller	about 6,200 volunteers (Polish Wikipedia)	disbanded in September 1914, about 800 men went over to the Legions
Polish Auxiliary Corps	Austria-Hungary	1916–1918	Stanisław Szeptycki, Zygmunt Zieliński	nearly 21,000 (April 1917)	disbanded after Rarańcza in February 1918
Polish Armed Forces	Germany	1917–1918	Hans von Beseler, Felix von Barth	352 officers and 4,813 other ranks (October 1918)	a nucleus of the Polish Army
Bayonne men	France	1914–1915	French officers	a company, just over a hundred men	bled white in Artois in May 1915
Puławy Legion	Russia	1914–1915	Witold Gorczyński, Antoni Reutt, Jan Rządkowski	17 officers and 909 other ranks	joined the Polish Rifle Brigade in autumn 1915
Polish Rifle Brigade, later Division	Russia	1915–1917	Piotr Szymanowski and others	about 30,000 in June 1917, with the reserve regiment (Wrzosek)	joined the I Corps in August 1917
I Polish Corps	Russia	1917–1918	Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki	about 29,000	disbanded at German demand in May 1918
II Polish Corps	Russia, Ukraine	1917–1918	Sylwester Stankiewicz, Józef Haller	651 officers and 6,267 other ranks (1 May 1918); 7,000–8,000 according to other sources	capitulated after the battle of Kaniów on 11 May 1918
III Polish Corps	Ukraine	1917–1918	Eugeniusz de Henning-Michaelis, Juliusz Rómmel	nearly 3,000	disarmed by the Austrians in June 1918
Polish Army in France	France	1917–1919	Józef Haller (from October 1918)	17,000 in November 1918; 68,433 soldiers shipped home in 1919	joined the Polish Army in 1919

The Polish Legions

On 6 August 1914 the First Cadre Company of Piłsudski’s riflemen marched out of Kraków and crossed the border of the Kingdom of Poland. The uprising the Commandant had counted on did not break out, and the Austrians wanted to disband his units. They were saved by the Supreme National Committee, set up on 16 August, which took the Polish Legions under its patronage. The order creating them was signed on 27 August by the Austro-Hungarian commander-in-chief. They were always headed by a Pole, but he was a general or senior officer of the Austro-Hungarian army. Recruitment and support for the Legions were run by the Military Department of the Supreme National Committee, headed by Władysław Sikorski.

Besides the riflemen from Kraków, the Eastern Legion was formed in Lviv from Sokół squads and other organisations not linked to Piłsudski. According to Polish Wikipedia 6,200 volunteers joined it. With the Russians approaching, the legion was evacuated westwards, and under the influence of opponents of cooperation with Austria most of the volunteers went home. On 21 September at Mszana Dolna, during the Austro-Hungarian retreat, it was decided to disband it. About 800 legionaries gathered around Captain Józef Haller took the oath and joined the Legions’ 3rd Infantry Regiment.

Piłsudski’s riflemen became the 1st Regiment, which in October 1914 fought at Laski and Anielin and in December became the I Brigade. In Piłsudski’s absence the brigade, commanded by Kazimierz Sosnkowski, fought the heaviest battle of that year at Łowczówek. The 2nd and 3rd Regiments were sent to Hungary, where they helped drive the Cossacks out of Máramaros, and in April 1915 the II Brigade, called the Carpathian or Iron Brigade, and the III Brigade were formed. In June the II Brigade fought at Rarańcza in Bukovina. In the autumn of 1915 all three brigades stood in Volhynia, where they took Kukle, Kamieniucha and Polish Hill.

According to Wrzosek, at their peak in the autumn of 1915 the Legions had over 25 thousand soldiers, about 15 thousand of them in front-line units. According to the Museum of Polish History 30 thousand men passed through their ranks, according to Wrzosek over 40 thousand. They fought their biggest battle in July 1916 at Kostiuchnówka, where for three days during the Brusilov Offensive the I and III Brigades held up a Russian corps and lost about 2 thousand men. The successive commandants of the Legions were Generals Rajmund Baczyński, Karol Trzaska-Durski and Stanisław Puchalski, and then Stanisław Szeptycki and Zygmunt Zieliński.

From the Auxiliary Corps to Rarańcza

After Kostiuchnówka Piłsudski asked to be discharged in protest against the Legions being treated as auxiliary troops. The Austrians made partial concessions, and an order of 30 September 1916 renamed the Legions the Polish Auxiliary Corps. After the Act of 5 November it was to become the nucleus of the army of the new Kingdom of Poland. On 10 April 1917 Austria-Hungary placed the corps, nearly 21 thousand strong, under the Governor-General of Warsaw, Hans von Beseler, commander-in-chief of the Polish Armed Forces then being formed, in German the Polnische Wehrmacht.

Piłsudski argued that an oath from the Polish army could be accepted only by the prime minister of a Polish government. On 9 and 11 July 1917 most legionaries of the I and III Brigades refused the oath. Officers from the Kingdom were interned at Beniaminów, other ranks at Szczypiorno, and the legionaries from Galicia were drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. On the night of 21–22 July the Germans arrested Piłsudski, and Sosnkowski with him. The Polish Armed Forces shrank to a handful: by various counts from just over a thousand to just under 3 thousand soldiers. According to Wrzosek, in October 1918, when the Regency Council took over supreme authority over them, they numbered 352 officers and 4,813 other ranks. They became one of the nuclei of the Polish Army.

The rest of the Legions, above all Colonel Haller’s II Brigade, most of which had taken the oath, the Austrians took back under their command as a new Polish Auxiliary Corps under General Zieliński. When in February 1918 the Central Powers promised the Chełm region to Ukraine, the legionaries saw it as a new partition. On the night of 15–16 February part of the brigade, according to Polish accounts about a hundred officers and fifteen hundred soldiers, broke through at Rarańcza across the Austrian front. On 19 February the Austrians disbanded the corps and interned between about 4 and 5.5 thousand detained soldiers in Hungary. The participants of the breakthrough who were caught were tried at Máramarossziget for treason, but the trial ended with an amnesty.

The Bayonne men

In France, Poles wanted from the first days of the war to fight the Germans under their own banner. Russia would not agree to a separate Polish legion, so the volunteers were left with the Foreign Legion. On 22 August 1914 the first Poles were accepted into it in Paris, between a hundred and eighty-odd and about three hundred men according to different authors. They were sent for training to Bayonne (PL), after which they were called the Bayonne men (PL). They formed a company that was almost entirely Polish but had French officers, with a banner bearing a white eagle. At the Russian embassy’s demand, further volunteers were scattered among other companies of the Legion.

In the second half of October the company, just over a hundred men strong, went to the front in Champagne. On 9 May 1915 it went into the attack in the Second Battle of Artois. It took German trenches near La Targette and Neuville-Saint-Vaast but lost about three-quarters of its strength. The historian Marek Gałęzowski notes that until the Polish army in France was formed in 1917 it was the only compact Polish unit that fought on the Western Front under a white-eagle banner.

The Puławy Legion and the Polish riflemen in Russia

On the Russian side the first Polish units were formed under the patronage of Roman Dmowski and the National Democrats, as an answer to Piłsudski’s Legions. The way was opened by the appeal of Grand Duke Nicholas, but the Russian command did not trust the Poles. Witold Gorczyński obtained permission to raise a legion, which from 4 December 1914 gathered at Puławy, and the surplus volunteers were sent to Lublin, where the Lublin Legion was formed. The Puławy Legion numbered 17 officers and 909 other ranks. In February 1915 the Russians banned the name “Polish Legion” and renamed it the 739th Novo-Alexandria Militia Druzhina.

The legion had its baptism of fire on the night of 19–20 May 1915 at Pakosław near Iłża, where of 493 men it lost 42 killed, 60 wounded and 11 missing. In the summer it covered the Russian army’s retreat from the Kingdom, clashing along the way with Poles fighting on the other side. Of about a thousand men, 7 officers and 105 NCOs and privates were left. Under an order of 22 September 1915 from the chief of staff to the commander-in-chief, General Mikhail Alekseyev, its remnants joined the new Polish Rifle Brigade of General Piotr Szymanowski at Bobruisk.

In the spring of 1916 the brigade went into the line near Baranovichi, on a sector that proved quiet. In January 1917 it was moved to the Kiev area and expanded into the Polish Rifle Division. According to Wrzosek, in June 1917 the division had about 30 thousand soldiers, 17 thousand of them in the reserve regiment at Belgorod. In July it joined the 7th Army during the Kerensky Offensive and came under heavy fire near Brzeżany, while the uhlan regiment, expanded from its cavalry squadron, charged at Krechowce. In August the division and the uhlans were sent to the I Polish Corps then being formed.

The three Polish corps in Russia

After the February Revolution Polish servicemen in Russia met in June 1917 at a congress in Petrograd, which set up the Supreme Polish Military Committee (PL), the Naczpol. At its request General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki took command of the I Polish Corps in August: on 6 August according to Rafał Sierchuła, while according to Wrzosek the order appointing him was issued on 8 August. The plan provided for three rifle divisions and about 70 thousand men, but in December the corps numbered about 29 thousand soldiers. Dowbor built it as an old-style army, without soldiers’ committees, with the officers in command.

On 25 January 1918 the corps took up arms against the Bolsheviks, who wanted to disarm it, and in February it seized the Bobruisk fortress. When the Germans moved east, Dowbor concluded with them the Bobruisk convention, which recognised the corps as a neutral force. In May the Germans issued an ultimatum, and on 21 May the corps was disbanded. According to a return of 10 May it then numbered 23,661 men. In all about 23.5 thousand soldiers, including 1,800 officers, were taken to the Kingdom, and several hundred opponents of the capitulation set off for Ukraine, the Kuban and Murmansk, to join smaller Polish units.

The II Polish Corps began to be formed in December 1917 in Bessarabia by General Sylwester Stankiewicz, from Poles serving in the Russian armies of the Romanian and South-Western Fronts. In March 1918 the legionaries from Rarańcza joined it, and at the end of March Haller took command. The corps marched east to cross the Dnieper but halted near Kaniów. According to its strength on 1 May it numbered 651 officers and 6,267 other ranks, according to other sources 7–8 thousand men. On the night of 10–11 May the Germans attacked its quarters. The corps defended itself all day and, when its ammunition ran out, capitulated, and Haller made his way to France via Moscow and Murmansk.

The III Polish Corps, created on 12 December 1917 according to Wrzosek, was formed in Ukraine by General Eugeniusz de Henning-Michaelis. It acted in agreement with the Polish landowners and defended their estates against the rebellious peasants. By the third decade of January 1918 nearly 3 thousand officers and men had gathered at its assembly points. After heavy fighting with Ukrainian peasant bands, in April its remnants, as the Separate Light Brigade of Colonel Juliusz Rómmel (PL), came under Austrian control, and on the night of 9–10 June the Austrians disarmed about 2 thousand soldiers. According to the Institute of National Remembrance the Polish formations in Russia numbered over 50 thousand soldiers in all in 1918.

The Polish Army in France

On 4 June 1917 President Raymond Poincaré signed the decree creating an autonomous Polish army, fighting under a Polish banner but subordinate to the French high command. The Russian veto had fallen with tsarism. The army was organised by the Franco-Polish Military Mission of General Louis Archinard, and its soldiers came above all from the Polish community in America: over 20 thousand volunteers passed through the training camp at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada. At the turn of 1917 and 1918 the 1st Polish Rifle Regiment was formed, and from 22 February 1918 political leadership of the army was exercised by Dmowski’s Polish National Committee.

On 22 June 1918 the army’s regiments received their colours. The 1st Regiment was already fighting in Champagne. On 13 July Haller reached France, and on 25 July the 5th Company of the 1st Regiment took a hill near Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand and beat off three counter-attacks. The agreement of 28 September recognised the army as allied and co-belligerent, and on 4 October the Committee appointed Haller commander-in-chief. In October the 1st Polish Rifle Division took over a sector of the front in the Vosges.

In November 1918, according to Wrzosek, the army numbered only 17 thousand soldiers. It grew after the Armistice, when former prisoners of war from the German and Austro-Hungarian armies joined it, including from camps in Italy. In 1919 it was taken by rail across Germany to Poland: according to Wrzosek exactly 68,433 soldiers, by most estimates about 70 thousand. Well armed by the French, with artillery, aircraft and tanks, in May 1919 it went on the offensive in Eastern Galicia.

In the east the war did not end for the Poles. From the autumn of 1918 General Lucjan Żeligowski formed the 4th Polish Rifle Division, first in the Kuban and then in Odessa; it returned home on 17 June 1919. In Siberia the 5th Polish Rifle Division of Colonel Kazimierz Rumsza, 10,772 soldiers strong in April 1919, fought alongside the Czechoslovaks and the Whites. It covered Kolchak’s retreat and in January 1920 capitulated east of Krasnoyarsk. Under the agreement of 28 September 1918 both belonged to a single Polish Army under Haller’s supreme command.

What the formations left behind

In the autumn of 1918 the cadres of the reborn Polish Army came from all these formations, from the Polish Military Organisation and from the partitioning armies. On the seniority list of 1921, covering 24,876 officers, former officers of the Russian army made up 30.7 per cent, of the Austro-Hungarian army 29 per cent, of the Legions, the Polish Military Organisation and the Polish Armed Forces 21 per cent, and of the Polish Army in France 3.7 per cent. Among the verified officers of the former Russian army about 1,800 came from the I Polish Corps. Each group had its own verification commission.

Living together was not easy. Marian Romeyko recalled that the cadre was divided into “broad-gauge men”, “Catholic Dowbor men”, “legun” legionaries and “Austrian wire-fixers”, and that officers clustered in units of “their own”. In 1920 generals judged that officers from the Austrian army were better trained professionally, while the legionaries excelled in zeal and initiative. Politics divided them too: Haller and Dowbor-Muśnicki did not belong to Piłsudski’s camp, and their dispute with the legionaries lasted throughout the interwar years. Yet in 1920, during the Battle of Warsaw, the old rivals fought together: the Northern Front commanded by Haller included the armies of Sikorski and Bolesław Roja.

Historians judge these formations differently. In the tradition of Piłsudski’s camp the Legions were the nucleus of the Polish army and proof that the Poles had won independence by themselves. Wrzosek held that the efforts to create a Polish army in Russia brought meagre results compared with the number of Poles in the Russian army, while he rated the efforts around the Polish Army in France very highly, because its recognition as an allied army meant recognising Poland as a member of the coalition. Military historians stress that Rarańcza and Kaniów mattered above all politically and morally: they showed that Poles in Austrian and Russian uniforms were ready to fight the Central Powers for the Polish cause.