1.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
2.
Polish Land Forces
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The Land Forces are a military branch of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland. They currently contain some 65,000 active personnel and form many components of European Union, Polands recorded military history stretches back for hundreds of years – since the 10th century, but Polands modern army was formed after 1918. When Poland regained independence in 1918, it recreated its military which participated in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921, the Polish land forces as readied for the Polish-Soviet War was made up of soldiers who had formerly served in the various partitioning empires, supported by some international volunteers. There appear to have been a total of around 30 Polish divisions involved, boris Savinkov was at the head of an army of 20,000 to 30,000 largely Russian POWs, and was accompanied by Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius. The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920, in August 1920, the Polish army had reached a total strength of 737,767 people, half of that was on the frontline. Given Soviet losses, there was rough numerical parity between the two armies, and by the time of the battle of Warsaw Poles might have even had an advantage in numbers. Among the major formations involved on the Polish side were a number of Fronts, including the Lithuanian-Belarusian Front, the German invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, and the Wehrmacht seized half the country quickly despite heavy Polish resistance. Among the erroneous myths generated by this campaign were accounts of Polish cavalry charging German tanks, in the east, the Red Army took the other half of the country in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Following the countrys fall, Polish soldiers began regrouping in what was to become the Polish Army in France. Both the Polish Armed Forces in the West and the Polish Armed Forces in the East, as well as interior forces, while the forces fighting under the Allied banner were supported by the Polish air force and navy, the partisan forces were an exclusive land formation. However the army today has its roots in the surrogate force formed in support of Soviet interests during the establishment of the Peoples Republic of Poland after the Second World War. Two Polish armies, the First Army and the Second Army fought with the Red Army on the Eastern Front, the formation of a Third Army was begun but not completed. The end of the war found the Polish Army in the midst of intense organisational development, although the implementation of the Polish Front concept was abandoned, new tactical unit and troop types were created. As a result of mobilisation, troop numbers in May 1945 reached 370,000 soldiers, Military districts were organised in liberated areas. The districts exercised direct authority over the units stationed on the territory administered by them, the southern border, from Jelenia Gora to the Użok railway station was occupied by the First Army. Its headquarters staff formed the basis of the Silesian Military District, in mid-1945, after the end of World War II, the Polish Army, as part of the overall armed forces, the Peoples Army of Poland, was divided into six districts. In June 1945 the 1st, 3rd and 8th Infantry Divisions were assigned internal security duties, the rule was that military units were used primarily against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, while the Internal Security Corps was used to fight the armed underground independence. Often however army units fought the underground resistance, and vice versa, the culmination of the UPA suppression operation was the so-called Wisła Action which took place in 1947
3.
11th Armoured Cavalry Division
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The 11th Armoured Cavalry Division draws its history in a straight line from the formation in March and April 1945, in the region of Łódź of the 11th Infantry Division. In March 1949, on the basis of the 11th Infantry Division, the 6th Tank Regiment, and the 25th Armored Artillery Regiment, the division became a part of the 2nd Armoured Corps. On September 4,1956, the 2nd Armoured Corps headquarters stood down and this iteration was structured and quartered as, In summer 1957 the reorganization of the division was carried out, and in April 1963 it reorganized as the 11th Armoured Division. In August and September 1968, the 11th Armoured Division was one of the Polish units that took part in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, the 11th Armoured Division was structured and quartered as, In 1990 the division was reorganized as the 11th Mechanised Division. In September 1991 the division lost the distinguished name Dresden, in July 1992, the type-designation armoured cavalry was granted, although the division was eventually restructured as a regular armoured division. The new type designation recalled the service of pre-war and Second World War Western Front Polish armoured units, zarys dziejów, Wydawnictwo Chroma, Żary 2005, wyd. I, ISBN 83-922412-3-1 Zdzisław Sawicki, Mundur i odznaki Wojska Polskiego, czas przemian, Warszawa, Bellona,199711 Lubuska Armoured Cavalry Division Map locating division units
4.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
5.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
6.
Polish Armed Forces in the West
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The Polish Armed Forces in the West refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. After the fall of France, in June 1940, the formations were recreated in the United Kingdom, making a large contribution to the war effort, the Polish Armed Forces in the West was composed of army, air and naval forces. The Poles soon became shock troops in Allied service, most notably in the Battle of Monte Cassino, during the Italian Campaign, where the Polish flag was raised on the ruined abbey on May 18,1944. The Polish Armed Forces in the West were finally disbanded, after the war, in 1947, after Polands defeat in September-October 1939, the Polish government-in-exile quickly organized in France a new fighting force originally of about 80,000 men. Their units were subordinate to the French Army, in early 1940 a Polish Independent Highland Brigade took part in the Battles of Narvik in Norway. A Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade was formed in the French Mandate of Syria, the Polish Air Force in France comprised 86 aircraft in four squadrons, one and a half of the squadrons being fully operational while the rest were in various stages of training. Two Polish divisions took part in the defence of France, while a Polish motorized brigade, at the capitulation of France, General Władysław Sikorski was able to evacuate many Polish troops—probably over 20, 000—to the United Kingdom. I Corps was under the command of Scottish Command of the British Army. While in this area the Corps was reorganised and expanded, meanwhile, Polish fliers had an important role in the Battle of Britain. From these a 75, 000-strong army was formed in the Soviet Union under General Władysław Anders and this army, successively gathered in Bouzoulouk, Samarkand, was later ferried from Krasnovodsk across the Caspian Sea to the Middle East where Polish II Corps was formed. By the end of the Second World War, they were 195,000 strong, after the German Instrument of Surrender,1945, Polish troops took part in occupation duties in the Western Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. A Polish town was created, it was first named Lwow, Polish troops were incorporated into the 1945 top secret contingency plan, Operation Unthinkable, the hypothetical attack on the Soviet Union that would have led to an independent Poland. By 1945, there was growing sentiment in Britain, particularly among the trade unions which feared competition for jobs from Polish immigrants. At the same time, there was British and American concern about a state being built in Poland. Argentina and Brazil were also reported ready to offer them homes, Anders argued that he could not advise the soldiers to return to Poland unless the Polish Government promised elections this spring. Bevin, too, wanted immediate Polish elections, but both men knew that the chances were becoming slimmer, in Poland the split between the Communist-Socialist groups and shrewd Stanislaw Mikolajczyks Polish Peasant Party was deepening. Security Police raids on Peasant Party headquarters were reported last week, nevertheless, Bevin argued that, elections or no, the Poles in Anders army should go home. In January 1946 Bevin protested against killings by the Polish provisional government, in February 1946, Time reported Britains Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin told a tense House of Commons last week that terror had become an instrument of national policy in the new Poland
7.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
8.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
9.
10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade (Poland)
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The 10th Cavalry Brigade was a Polish military unit in World War II. It was the fully operational Polish motorized infantry unit during the Invasion of Poland. Commanded by Colonel, later General Stanisław Maczek, it is considered one of few Polish World War II military units not to have been defeated in 1939. Another was General Franciszek Kleebergs Independent Operational Group Polesie, the unit was organized in February 1937, partly as an experiment. It was to be a hybrid between a standard motorized infantry brigade and the French concept of Division legere, as Polish cavalry generals still had some doubts about the value of mechanized forces, there was some opposition against reforming standard cavalry units into motorized units. Testing of the new unit was held in a specially created training ground near Kielce, the brigade was conceived as an emergency unit in the Commander-in-Chief’s reserve. Its task was to screen the areas of concentration of Polish troops, to close gaps made by enemy forces in Polish lines, the brigades first exercise in offensive action in 1939 was considered a failure. It proved to be equipped in anti-tank ordnance to counter enemy armoured units successfully. It was also considered insufficiently versatile, especially compared with a standard cavalry unit. Because of that, several changes were introduced which were later copied during the formation of the Warsaw Armoured Cavalry Brigade. The commanding officer of the unit was Colonel Stanisław Maczek and the chief of his staff was Major Franciszek Skibiński and it is to be noted that, despite being fully motorized, the brigade was still officially named the 10th Cavalry Brigade. However, most printed sources refer to it as Motorized in order to distinguish the unit from its predecessors, during the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, the brigade was attached to the Kraków Army defending Lesser Poland and Silesia. Equipped with only light tanks and tankettes and without one artillery battery, after the Battle of Jordanów Maczeks unit faced the entire German XVIII Corps of General Eugen Beyer and successfully shielded the southern flank of the Polish forces along the Beskides. Supported by several battalions of Border Guards and National Defence forces, for five days Maczek’s brigade effectively slowed the German advance. Despite numerical and technical superiority, the German units daily gain was no more than 10 kilometres, Polish soldiers took advantage of difficult, mountainous terrain, stopping German attacks and occasionally counter-attacking. However, after the front of the Kraków Army was broken to the north of brigades position, the brigade then fought as a screening unit, defending the bridges and fords in Lesser Poland, until it arrived in Lwów and joined the city’s defenders. The unit was to be formed into a reserve during the battle for Lwów to facilitate the withdrawal of other Polish units towards the Romanian Bridgehead. However, the plan was made obsolete by the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union on September 17, after two days, Edward Rydz-Śmigły, Marshal of Poland ordered the brigade to cross the Hungarian border
