History
The Corps was formed at the initiative of the Chief Polish Military Committee (Naczelny Polski Komitet Wojskowy), a Polish faction in the revolutionary and split Russian Empire military. It was formed on 21 December 1917 in Soroca (now in Moldavia), then a Bessarabian region disputed by revolutionary Ukraine and Romania. The corps was formed primarily from Poles serving in the former Imperial Russian Army. It was a counterpart to the Polish I Corps in Russia formed in the north, in Belarus and the Polish III Corps in Russia in central Ukraine.
It was commanded initially by General Sylwester Stankiewicz (some sources also indicate it was briefly commanded by General Władysław Glass). In February 1918 the corps merged with the Brigade II of the Polish Legions and by late March Stankiewicz (and/or Glass) was replaced by the brigade commander, General Józef Haller.
The Corps avoided major engagements, and concentrated on protecting the Polish inhabitants of the region.
In March 1918 the corps had about 8,000 soldiers, and was equipped with weapons passed down from the Russian 29th Corps. At that time, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed between Russia and the Central Powers. The Germans demanded that the Polish forces surrender.
Read more about this topic: Polish II Corps In Russia
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)