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Revision as of 04:28, 13 January 2011 by Hallersarmy (talk | contribs) (→Fighting in Galicia and Wolynia)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) For other uses, see Blue Army (disambiguation).The Blue Army, or Haller's Army, are informal names given to the Polish Army units formed in France during the later stages of World War I. The army was created in June 1917 as part of the Polish units allied to the Entente. After the Great War ended, the units were transferred to Poland, where they took part in the Polish-Ukrainian War and the Polish-Bolshevik War. The nicknames come from the soldier's French blue uniforms and the name of the army's commander, General Józef Haller de Hallenburg.
History
Formation and Service on the Western Front
The first units were formed after the signing of a 1917 alliance by French President Raymond Poincaré and the Polish statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski. A majority of recruits were either Poles serving in the French army, or former prisoners of war from the German and Austro-Hungarian imperial armies (approximately 35,000 men). An additional 23,000 were Polish Americans. Other Poles flocked to the army from all over the world as well — these units included recruits from the former Russian Expeditionary Force in France and the Polish diaspora in Brazil (more than 300 men).
The army was initially under French political control and under the military command of General Louis Archinard. However, on February 23, 1918, political sovereignty was granted to the Polish National Committee and soon other Polish units were formed, most notably the 4th and 5th Rifle Divisions in Russia. On September 28 Russia formally signed an agreement with the Entente that accepted the Polish units in France as the only, independent, allied and co-belligerent Polish army. On October 4, 1918 the National Committee appointed General Józef Haller de Hallenburg as overall commander.
The first unit to enter combat on the Western Front was the 1st Rifle Regiment (1 pułk strzelców), fighting from July 1918 in Champagne and the Vosges mountains. By October the entire 1st Rifle Division joined the fight in the area of Rambervillers and Raon-l'Étape.
Transport to Poland
The army continued to gather new recruits after the end of The Great War on November 11, 1918, many of them ethnic Poles who had been conscripted into the Austrian army and later taken prisoners by the Allies. By early 1919 it numbered 68,500 men, fully equipped by the French government. After being denied permission by the German government to enter Poland via the Baltic port city of Danzig (Gdańsk), transport was arranged via train. Between April and June of that year the units were transported together intact to a reborn Poland across Germany in sealed train cars. Weapons were secured in separate cars and kept under guard to appease German concerns about a foreign army traversing its territory. Immediately after its arrival the divisions were integrated into the overall Polish Army and transported to the fronts of the Polish-Ukrainian War, then being fought over control of eastern Galicia.
The perilous journey from France, through revolutionary Germany, into Poland, in the spring of 1919 has been documented by those who lived through it:
Captain Stanislaw I. Nastal
Preparations for the departure lasted for some time. The question of transit became a difficult and complicated problem. Finally after a long wait a decision was made and officially agreed upon between the Allies and Germany.
The first transports with the Blue Army set out in the first half of April 1919. Train after train tore along though Germany to the homeland, to Poland.
Major Stefan Wyczolkowski
On 15 April 1919 the regiment began its trip to Poland from the Bayon railroad station in four transports, via Mainz, Erfurt, Leipzig, Kalisz, and Warsaw, and arrived in Poland, where it was quartered in individual battalions;, in Chelm 1st Battalion, supernumerary company and command of the regiment; 3rd Battalion in Kowel; and the 2nd Battalion in Wlodzimierz.
Major Stanislaw Bobrowski
On 13 April 1919 the regiment set out across Germany for Poland, to reinforce other units of the Polish army being created in the homeland amid battle, shielding with their youthful breasts the resurrected Poland.
Major Jerzy Dabrowski
Finally on 18 April 1919 the regiment’s first transport set out for Poland. On 23 April 1919 the leading divisions of the 3rd Regiment of Polish Riflemen set foot on Polish soil, now free thanks to their own efforts.
Lt. Wincenty Skarzynski
Weeks passed. April 1919 arrived – then plans were changed: it was decided irrevocably to transport our army to Gdansk instead by trains, through Germany. Many officers came from Poland, among them Major Gorecki, to coordinate technical details with General Haller.
Fighting in Galicia and Volhynia
Haller's Army changed the balance of power in Galicia and in Volhynia, and its arrival allowed the Poles to repel the Ukrainians and establish a demarcation line at the river Zbruch. on May 14, 1919. Haller's army was well equipped by the Western allies and partially staffed with experienced French officers specifically in order to fight against the Bolsheviks and not the forces of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. Despite this obligation, the Poles dispatched Haller's army against the Ukrainians rather than the Bolsheviks in order to break the stalemate in eastern Galicia. The allies sent several telegrams ordering the Poles to halt their offensive as using of the French-equipped army against the Ukrainian specifically contradicted the conditions of the French help, but these were ignored with Poles claiming that "all Ukrainians were Bolsheviks or something close to it".
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In July 1919 the Army was transferred to the border with Germany in Silesia, where it prepared defences against any possible German invasion.
Haller's well trained and highly motivated troops, as well as their airplanes and excellent FT-17 tanks, formed part of the core of the Polish forces during the ensuing Polish-Bolshevik War.
As with most of the history related to the Polish-Soviet War, information on the Blue Army was censored, distorted and repressed by the Soviet Union during its communist oppression of the 1945-1989 People's Republic of Poland.
The 15th Infantry Rifle Regiment of the Blue Army was the basis for the 49th Hutsul Rifle Regiment of the 11th Infantry Division (Poland)
Jews in Haller's Army
Despite accusations of Anti-Semitism, Jews fought within its ranks, some even rising to rank of officer. Much of the original source material has been lost, stolen or destroyed, first by Nazi occupation during World War II and later by 50 years of Communist suppression. Only recently has some documentation come to the surface.
A number of Jews serving in Haller’s Army were officially listed as fatalities in the 43rd Regiment of Eastern Frontier Riflemen (62 names identified by Edward Goldstein as "Jewish-sounding" out of 1,381, or approximately 5% of the soldiers). This military unit was initially incorporated into the 1st Regiment of the Foreign Legion, but due to protests from the Russian Government, it was split off and renamed the Legion of Bajonczyzy, then to the 1st Moroccan Division.
Edward Goldstein writes about his father’s enlistment after being released from the Austrian POW camps in Northern Italy after the Armistice of 1918. He later went on to serve through the Polish Soviet war of 1919-1921.
Order of battle
- I Polish Corps
- 1st Rifle Division
- 2nd Rifle Division
- 1st Heavy Artillery Regiment
- II Polish Corps - formed in Russia
- III Polish Corps
- 3rd Rifle Division
- 6th Rifle Division
- 3rd Heavy Artillery Regiment
- Independent Units
- 7th Rifle Division
- Training Division - cadre
- 1st Tank Regiment
See also
Bibliography
- Paul Valasek, Haller's Polish Army in France, Chicago, 2006
References
- The Blue Division, Stanislaw I. Nastal, Polish Army Veteran’s Association in America, Cleveland, Ohio 1922
- Outline of the Wartime History of the 43rd regiment of the Eastern Frontier Riflemen, Major Stefan Wyczolkowski, Warsaw 1928
- Outline of the Wartime History of the 44th Regiment of Eastern Frontier Riflemen, Major Stanislaw Bobrowski, Warsaw 1929
- Outline of the Wartime History of the 45th Regiment of Eastern Frontier Infantry Riflemen, Major Jerzy Dabrowski, Warsaw 1928
- The Polish Army in France in Light of the Facts, Wincenty Skarzynski, Warsaw 1929
- Watt, R. (1979). Bitter Glory: Poland and its fate 1918-1939. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Subtelny, op. cit., p. 370
- Wyczolkowski, Major Stefan, Outline of the Wartime History of the 43rd Regiment of the Eastern Frontier Riflemen Warsaw 1928, as commissioned by the Military Historical Office
- Goldstein, Edward. Jews in Haller's Army. The Galitzianer, the quarterly journal of Gesher Galicia, May 2002.
External links
- Haller Army Website
- Józef Haller and the Blue Army
- THE POLISH ARMY IN FRANCE: IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA, WORLD WAR I VOLUNTEERS IN FRANCE, DEFENDERS OF THE RECREATED STATE IN POLAND by DAVID T. RUSKOSKI