Polish Armed Forces in the East (Polish: Polskie Siły Zbrojne na Wschodzie) (or Polish Army in USSR) refers to military units composed of Poles created in the Soviet Union at the time when the territory of Poland was occupied by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the Second World War.
Broadly speaking, there were two such formations. The first was the Polish government-in-exile-loyal Anders Army, created in the second half of 1941 after the German invasion of the USSR led to the 30 July 1941 Polish-Soviet Sikorski-Mayski Agreement declaring an amnesty for Polish citizens held captive in the USSR. In 1942 this formation was evacuated to Persia and transferred to the Western Allies, whereupon it became known as the Polish II Corps and went on to fight Nazi German forces in Italy, including at the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Following this, the remaining Polish forces in USSR were reorganised into a Soviet-controlled Polish I Corps in the Soviet Union, which in turn was reorganised in 1944 into the Polish First Army (Berling Army) and Polish Second Army, both part of the Polish People's Army (Ludowe Wojsko Polskie, LWP).
In 1944, the Polish People's Army was reorganised to become the military of the communist-ruled People's Republic of Poland.
Read more about Polish Armed Forces In The East: Anders Army: 1941-1942, Berling Army: 1943-1945, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words polish, armed, forces and/or east:
“Use the stones of another hill to polish your own jade.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“In literary circles, the men of trust and consideration, bookmakers, editors, university deans and professors, bishops, too, were by no means men of the largest literary talent, but usually of a low and ordinary intellectuality, with a sort of mercantile activity and working talent. Indifferent hacks and mediocrities tower, by pushing their forces to a lucrative point, or by working power, over multitudes of superior men, in Old as in New England.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The very nursery tales of this generation were the nursery tales of primeval races. They migrate from east to west, and again from west to east; now expanded into the “tale divine” of bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)