Seed Corn of a Future Army: The Mobilisation of the Poles and the Creation of Polish Military Formations in the First World War

Abstract

With the outbreak of the First World War, the warring camps wished to cultivate Polish loyalty and mobilise Polish manpower to their respective causes. Mobilisation included the mobilisation of rank and file reservists of Polish nationality as an ongoing wartime process and the creation of Polish military formations driven by wartime requirements for military manpower. The mobilisation of Poles and the creation of Polish military formations during the First World War supplied over 2,000,000 soldiers to three armies of the partitioning powers and with the cessation of hostilities had a significant role in the post-war reconstruction of the Polish Army.