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| {{Other uses|Blue Army (disambiguation)}} | {{Other uses|Blue Army (disambiguation)}} | ||
| The '''Blue Army''' (]: ''Błękitna Armia''), or '''Haller's Army''', was the Polish army formed in France in the latter stages of ]. The names come from the troops' French blue uniforms and the army's commander, General ]. | The '''Blue Army''' (]: ''Błękitna Armia''), or '''Haller's Army''', was the Polish army formed in France in the latter stages of ]. The names come from the troops' French blue uniforms and the army's commander, General ]. | ||
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| ===Controversies=== | ===Controversies=== | ||
| After the Blue Army's arrival in Western Ukraine, varying newspaper reports in Western Europe and America surfaced that Haller's troops engaged in acts of violence against the local Jews and Ukrainian populations who where rightly or wrongly viewed as sympathizers of the Bolshevik cause. As a result of such reports, Jews world wide perceived the Blue Army as particularly harmful. As the army traveled further East, some of Haller's soldiers were accused of cutting with their bayonets the beards of Orthodox Jews. Among the worst offenders within the army's ranks were the 23,000 Polish-American volunteers, who were relatively late in joining the unit, and thus poorly disciplined. In an effort to curb the abuses, Haller himself issued a proclamation demanding that his soldiers cease cutting off beards of elderly Orthodox Jews, and complained about the violent antisemitism of the Polish-American soldiers to the American envoy ]. Also, in due course the troops involved in these confirmed incidents of antisemitism did receive punishment for their actions. | |||
| Although the Blue Army is highly regarded by the Poles; many Ukrainians and Jews generally see its actions in a negative light.<ref name="holocaust"/> | |||
| After their arrival in Western Ukraine, Haller's troops engaged in acts of violence against the Jews.<ref name="international"/> As a result of such actions, Jews perceived Haller's Army as particularly harmful.<ref name="bare_url"/><ref name="HeikoHaumann"/><ref name="web"/> As the army traveled further East, Haller's soldiers in particular looted Jewish houses, pushing local Jews off moving trains, and with their bayonets cut off the beards of Orthodox Jews. The latter act was referred to by Haller's soldiers as "civilizing" the Jews.<ref name="bare_url" /> Haller's army, along with Poznan regiments, committed ] in ], the area around Lviv, and Grodek Jagiellonski.<ref>Alexander Victor Prusin(2005). ''Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, pg. 103. "Two Polish units - Poznan regiments and General Jozef Haller's Army - especially earned the reputation as notorious Jew baiters and staged brutal pogroms in Sambor, the Lwow district, and Grodek Jagiellonski."</ref> Among the worst offenders within Haller's army were the 23,000 Polish-American volunteers, who were relatively late in joining the unit, and thus poorly disciplined. Those officers and soldiers from the Blue Army who targeted the local Jews believed that they were acting in Poland's defence, because they assumed that the victims were collaborating with Poland's enemies, either West Ukrainian forces, Bolsheviks, or Lithuanians <ref name="threatening"/> even though many of the civilians killed were not hostile to the Polish military in any way.<ref name="binghamton"/> It is likely that the cultural shock of finding themselves confronted with unfamiliar groups with different customs led to a feeling of being threatened that provoked the violence.<ref name="Eichenberg"/> | |||
| In an effort to curb the abuses, Haller himself issued a proclamation demanding that his soldiers cease cutting off beards of elderly Orthodox Jews,<ref name="publication"/> and complained about the violent antisemitism of the Polish-American soldiers to an American envoy.<ref name="Kapiszewski"/> Some Polish government officials, supported by their French allies, claimed that the Germans published antisemitic tracts and falsely attributed them to Haller's army in order to weaken Polish claims in eastern Europe. Polish sources furthermore claimed that the Jews were grateful that the Poles had liberated them.<ref name="international"/> | |||
| In an effort to counter the more outrageous claims of alleged antisemitism that was being reported by the press, Polish Government officials, supported by their French allies, and the United States envoy to Poland ], confirmed that many of the alleged antisemitic tracts attributed to Haller's army were infact a product of willful disinformation based purly on hearsay and confabulation emanating from Russian and German government sources, in an effort to discredit the new Polish Government, and in the process weaken the much needed Allied support for the new Polish state. | |||
| ⚫ | |||
| ⚫ | One example of such misinformation that persisted to this day, is that Hallers' troops were accused of committing the ] of 1918. Historian ] stated that after helping to capture ], some army units together with Polish civilians, engaged in three days of violence against the Jewish and Ukrainian inhabitants of the city, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths . But, the Blue Army's participation in the pogrom is highly disputed, and according to the ''Cambridge History of Poland'', when the Lwów Pogrom actually took place the Blue Army was still in France fighting on the ]. Also, it is noted that the first units did not reach Poland until the spring of 1919, nearly five months after the actual pogrom happened. The ''Kronika Polski'' lists April 14, 1919 as the start of the first troop transports form France to Poland, and historian Kay Lundgreen-Nielsen stated in that the first units of the army did not leave France until April 15, 1919, its departure having been delayed by opposition from Britain and United States, requiring a special protocol before the Blue Army was allowed to return home. | ||
| Despite examples of antisemitic behavior exhibited by some troops within the ranks of the Blue Army,<ref name="bare_url" /><ref name="HeikoHaumann" /><ref name="Goldstein"/> many ] enlisted and fought within its ranks, some even received a commission and were entrusted with leadership positions. Jews serving in the Blue Army's 43rd Regiment of Eastern Frontier Riflemen were listed as combat fatalities, and historian Edward Goldstein identified approximately 5% of the unit's battle casualties as being Jewish.<ref name="Goldstein"/> | |||
| From the Ukrainian perspective the army's arrival was a significant factor that that led to the eventual demise of the independent ], and it's ultimate incorporation into the new Polish state.{{citation needed|date=April 2013}} | Despite examples of antisemitic behavior exhibited by some troops within the ranks of the Blue Army, many ] enlisted and fought within its ranks, some even received a commission and were entrusted with leadership positions. Jews serving in the Blue Army's 43rd Regiment of Eastern Frontier Riflemen were listed as combat fatalities, and historian Edward Goldstein identified approximately 5% of the unit's battle casualties as being Jewish. From the Ukrainian perspective the army's arrival was a significant factor that that led to the eventual demise of the independent ], and it's ultimate incorporation into the new Polish state.{{citation needed|date=April 2013}} | ||
| == Order of battle == | == Order of battle == | ||
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The Blue Army (Polish: Błękitna Armia), or Haller's Army, was the Polish army formed in France in the latter stages of World War I. The names come from the troops' French blue uniforms and the army's commander, General Józef Haller de Hallenburg.
The army was created in June 1917 as part of Polish units allied with the Entente. After the Great War, the army was transferred to Poland, where it took part in renascent Poland's eastern conflicts. During the Polish-Ukrainian War, the Blue Army helped break the stalemate in Poland's favor. During the Polish-Bolshevik War, the Blue Army played a critical role in Poland's successful defense against Soviet forces.
Some soldiers from the Blue Army were involved in antisemitic violence during the struggle in the east, where political Jewish organizations found themselves sharing platforms with Bolshevik Russia as well as revisionist Germany.
History
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.
Transfer 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.
After World War I
.
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".
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.
Postwar
After the war, the Polish-American volunteers who served within Haller's Army were not recognized as veterans by either the American or Polish governments. This led to friction between the Polish community in the United States and the Polish government, and subsequent refusal by Polish Americans to again help the Polish cause militarily.
The 15th Infantry Rifle Regiment of the Blue Army was the basis for the 49th Hutsul Rifle Regiment of the 11th Infantry Division (Poland)
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.
Controversies
After the Blue Army's arrival in Western Ukraine, varying newspaper reports in Western Europe and America surfaced that Haller's troops engaged in acts of violence against the local Jews and Ukrainian populations who where rightly or wrongly viewed as sympathizers of the Bolshevik cause. As a result of such reports, Jews world wide perceived the Blue Army as particularly harmful. As the army traveled further East, some of Haller's soldiers were accused of cutting with their bayonets the beards of Orthodox Jews. Among the worst offenders within the army's ranks were the 23,000 Polish-American volunteers, who were relatively late in joining the unit, and thus poorly disciplined. In an effort to curb the abuses, Haller himself issued a proclamation demanding that his soldiers cease cutting off beards of elderly Orthodox Jews, and complained about the violent antisemitism of the Polish-American soldiers to the American envoy Hugh S. Gibson. Also, in due course the troops involved in these confirmed incidents of antisemitism did receive punishment for their actions.
In an effort to counter the more outrageous claims of alleged antisemitism that was being reported by the press, Polish Government officials, supported by their French allies, and the United States envoy to Poland Hugh S. Gibson, confirmed that many of the alleged antisemitic tracts attributed to Haller's army were infact a product of willful disinformation based purly on hearsay and confabulation emanating from Russian and German government sources, in an effort to discredit the new Polish Government, and in the process weaken the much needed Allied support for the new Polish state.
One example of such misinformation that persisted to this day, is that Hallers' troops were accused of committing the Lwów Pogrom of 1918. Historian William W. Hagen stated that after helping to capture Lwów, some army units together with Polish civilians, engaged in three days of violence against the Jewish and Ukrainian inhabitants of the city, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths . But, the Blue Army's participation in the pogrom is highly disputed, and according to the Cambridge History of Poland, when the Lwów Pogrom actually took place the Blue Army was still in France fighting on the Western Front. Also, it is noted that the first units did not reach Poland until the spring of 1919, nearly five months after the actual pogrom happened. The Kronika Polski lists April 14, 1919 as the start of the first troop transports form France to Poland, and historian Kay Lundgreen-Nielsen stated in that the first units of the army did not leave France until April 15, 1919, its departure having been delayed by opposition from Britain and United States, requiring a special protocol before the Blue Army was allowed to return home.
Despite examples of antisemitic behavior exhibited by some troops within the ranks of the Blue Army, many Polish Jews enlisted and fought within its ranks, some even received a commission and were entrusted with leadership positions. Jews serving in the Blue Army's 43rd Regiment of Eastern Frontier Riflemen were listed as combat fatalities, and historian Edward Goldstein identified approximately 5% of the unit's battle casualties as being Jewish. From the Ukrainian perspective the army's arrival was a significant factor that that led to the eventual demise of the independent West Ukrainian People's Republic, and it's ultimate incorporation into the new Polish state.
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
- M. B. Biskupski, "Canada and the Creation of a Polish Army, 1914-1918," Polish Review (1999) 44#3 pp 339-380
- Joseph T. Hapak, "Selective service and Polish Army recruitment during World War I," Journal of American Ethnic History (1991) 10#4 pp 38-60
- Paul Valasek, Haller's Polish Army in France, Chicago, 2006
References
- Julia Eichenberg (2010).The Dark Side of Independence: Paramilitary Violence in Ireland and Poland after the First World War Contemporary European history, 19, pp.231-248, Cambridge University Press
- Carole Fink. (2006).Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878-1938. Cambridge University Press, pg. 227
- Holly Case, Cornell University (6 September 2011). "Review of Carole Fink, Defending the Rights of Others" (PDF file, direct download 146 KB). H-Diplo Review (at) H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online. Cambridge University Press, 2006. p. 4. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
- 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
- Martin Conway, José Gotovitch. (2001).Europe in exile: European exile communities in Britain, 1940-1945. Berghahn Books pg. 191
- Stanley R. Pliska, "The 'Polish-American Army' 1917-1921," The Polish Review (1965) 10#1 pp 46-59.
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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