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{{Short description|Military unit (1917–1921)}}
{{Other uses|Blue Army (disambiguation)}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}}
{{Infobox military unit
| unit_name = Blue Army<br /><small>Haller's Army</small>
| native_name = {{lang|pl|Błękitna Armia}}<br />{{lang|fr|Armée bleue}}
| image = Jeneral Haller przysiega na wiernosc Sztandarowi. (81937553) (cropped).jpg
| image_size = 325px
| caption
| dates = 1917–1919
| country = {{flagicon|FRA}} [[French Third Republic|France]]<br />{{flagicon|POL}} [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]]
| allegiance =[[Allies of World War I|Entente Powers]]<br>[[White movement|Whites (anti-Bolsheviks)]]
| branch = [[Polish Legions in World War I|Polish Legions]]
| command_structure =
| size = 68,500
| battles = [[World War I]]<br />[[Polish–Ukrainian War]]<br />[[Polish–Soviet War]]
| commander1 = [[Józef Haller von Hallenburg]]
| commander1_label = General
| commander2 = [[Louis Archinard]]
| commander2_label = General
}}
[[File:Wojsko polskie Francja.png|250px|right]]
The '''Blue Army''' ([[Polish language|Polish]]: ''Błękitna Armia''; [[French language|French]]: ''Armée bleue''), or '''Haller's Army''', was a Polish military contingent created in [[France]] during the latter stages of [[World War I]]. The name came from the French-issued [[French Army in World War I#Uniforms|blue military uniforms]] worn by the soldiers. The symbolic term used to describe the troops was subsequently adopted by General [[Józef Haller von Hallenburg]]
The army was formed on 4 June 1917, and was made up of Polish volunteers serving alongside [[Allies of World War I|allied forces]] in France during [[World War I]]. After fighting on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]], the army was transferred to [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]], where it joined other Polish military formations fighting for the return of Poland's independence. The Blue Army played a pivotal role in ensuring Polish victory in the [[Polish–Ukrainian War]]
▲The '''Blue Army''' ([[Polish language|Polish]]: ''Błękitna Armia''; [[French language|French]]: ''Armée bleue''), or '''Haller's Army''', was a Polish military contingent created in [[France]] during the latter stages of [[World War I]]. The name came from the French-issued [[French Army in World War I#Uniforms|blue military uniforms]] worn by the soldiers. The symbolic term used to describe the troops was subsequently adopted by General [[Józef Haller von Hallenburg]] himself to represent all newly organized [[Polish Legions in World War I|Polish Legions]] fighting in western Europe.
▲The army was formed on 4 June 1917, and was made up of Polish volunteers serving alongside [[Allies of World War I|allied forces]] in France during [[World War I]]. After fighting on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]], the army was transferred to [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] where it joined other Polish military formations fighting for the return of Poland's independence. The Blue Army played a pivotal role in ensuring Polish victory in the [[Polish–Ukrainian War]], and later Haller's troops took part in Poland's defeat of the advancing [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] forces in the [[Polish–Soviet War]].
==History==
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The emergence of the Blue Army was closely associated with the [[American entry into World War I]] in April, 1917. A month earlier, [[Ignacy Jan Paderewski]] submitted a proposal to [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]] to accept Polish-American volunteers for service on the Western Front in the name of Poland's independence. Some 24,000 Poles were taken in (out of 38,000 who applied)<ref name="E-E-S" /> and after a brief military training, they were sent to France to join General Haller,<ref name="Kochanski" /> including many women volunteers (PSK). Polish-Americans were eager to fight for freedom and the American-style democracy because they themselves escaped persecution by the empires who partitioned Poland a century earlier.<ref name="J-K">{{cite book |author=Anna D. Jaroszynska-Kirchmann |title=Polish American Press, 1902–1969 |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qpBlAgAAQBAJ&q=%22Blue+Army+%28Haller%E2%80%99s+Army%29%22 |pages=464– |isbn=9780739188736 }}</ref> When the war erupted, the American Polonia created the Polish Central Relief Committee to help with the war effort, although ethnically Polish volunteers arrived in France from all Polish diasporas at the same time numbering over 90,000 soldiers eventually.<ref name="E-E-S">{{cite book|editor1-first=Melvin|editor1-last=Ember|editor1-link=Melvin Ember|editor2-first=Carol R.|editor2-last=Ember|editor2-link=Carol R. Ember|editor3-first=Ian|editor3-last=Skoggard|title=Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. Volume I: Overviews and Topics; Volume II: Diaspora Communities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7QEjPVyd9YMC&pg=PA260|year=2004|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-0-306-48321-9|page=260|access-date=22 July 2017}}</ref> The [[Allies of World War I|Entente]] responded in kind by recognizing the [[Polish National Committee (1917–19)|Polish National Committee]] formed in France (led by Dmowski) as Poland's interim government, with Wilson's written promise (issued on 8 January 1918) to recreate a sovereign Polish state after their victory. Poland's long-term occupier, Tsarist Russia, got out of the war, overrun by the [[Bolsheviks]] who signed a treaty in Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918, which was voided after Imperial Germany was overthrown in November 1918 and the successor revolutionary government surrendered in the 11 November 1918 armistice.<ref name="Kochanski" />
[[File:Komitet Narodowy Polski in Paris 1918 ( Polish National Committee), concerned by France as provisional Polish goverment.jpg|thumb|
[[File:Sztandar ofiarowany Armii Polskiej we Francji przez mieszkańców Filadelfii NAC 1-H-292.jpg|thumb|right|Flag offered to the Polish Army in France from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.]]
The Blue Army was formally merged into the Polish Army after [[First Armistice at Compiègne|the Armistice]] between the Allies and Germany.<ref name="E-E-S" /> Meanwhile, three interim Polish governments emerged independently of one another. A socialist government led by Daszyński was formed in Lublin. The National Committee emerged in Kraków. Daszyński (lacking support)<ref name="Reddaway1971">{{cite book|editor1-first=William Fiddian|editor1-last=Reddaway|editor2-first=J. H.|editor2-last=Penson|editor3-first=O.|editor3-last=Halecki|editor4-first=R.|editor4-last=Dyboski|title=The Cambridge History of Poland: From Augustus II to Pilsudski (1697–1935)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=As43AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA477|year=1971|publisher=Cambridge University Press Archive|page=477|id=GGKEY:2G7C1LPZ3RN}}</ref> decided to join forces with [[Piłsudski]] who was just released by the Germans from Magdeburg. On 16 November 1918, Poland declared independence.<ref name="Kochanski" /> A decree defining the new republic was issued in Warsaw on 22 November 1918. A month later, Paderewski joined in from France. At about the same time, heavily armed Ukrainians from the ''Sitchovi Stril'ci'' ([[Sich Riflemen]]) seized the city of [[Lemberg]], and the battle for the control of the city erupted against Piłsudski's legionaries.<ref name="Reddaway1971" /> It was a high-stakes gamble with all sides attempting to establish a new regime ahead of the European peace conference in Versailles of January 1919. Similar Polish uprisings erupted in Poznań on 27 December 1918,<ref name="Reddaway1971" /> Upper Silesia in August 1919 then again in 1920 and May 1921 — separated by the ad-hoc (or outright illegitimate) plebiscites with trainloads of German agents acting as local inhabitants.<ref name="Kochanski" /> In the spring of 1919, the Blue Army (no longer needed in the West) was transported to Poland by train. The German forces were very slow to withdraw.<ref name="Reddaway1971" /> In all, some 2,100 soldiers of the Blue Army who enlisted in France from the Polish diasporas died in the fighting, including over 50 officers serving with Haller. Over 1,600 men were wounded.<ref name="E-E-S" /> Haller's army included 25,000 ethnic Poles drafted against their will by the German and Austrian armies, out of 50,000 conscripts from across partitioned Poland. They joined Haller from the POW camps in Italy in 1919.<ref name="Reddaway1971" /> The final borders of Poland were set only in October, 1921 by the [[League of Nations]].<ref name="Kochanski">{{cite book|last=Kochanski|first=Halik|author-link=Halik Kochanski|title=The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EJ5vIyDBpLcC&pg=PA5|access-date=23 July 2017|year=2012|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-06816-2|pages=5–9}}</ref>
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[[File:Polish FT-17 tanks near Lwów.jpg|thumb|right|Blue Army's [[FT-17]] tanks near the city of [[Lwów]] (''Lviv''); [[Polish–Ukrainian War]], c.1919]]
Haller's troops changed the balance of power in [[Galicia (eastern Europe)|Galicia]] and [[Volhynia]]. Their arrival allowed the Poles to repel the Ukrainians and establish a demarcation line at the river [[Zbruch]] on 14 May 1919. The Blue Army was equipped by the [[Allies of World War I|Western Allies]], and supported by experienced French officers specifically ordered to fight against the [[Bolsheviks]] in the [[Polish–Soviet War]], but not the [[Ukrainian Galician Army|forces of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic]]. Despite the diplomatic conditions, the Poles dispatched Haller's Army against the Ukrainians first, instead of the Bolsheviks. The tactical initiative was done in order to break the stalemate in eastern Galicia. In response, the allies sent several telegrams ordering the Polish government to halt its offensive, as using the allied-equipped army against the [[Western Ukrainian People's Republic]] specifically contradicted the status of the French military advisors, but the demands were ignored.<ref name="Watt">{{cite book| author=Watt, R. | title=Bitter Glory: Poland and its fate 1918–1939| location= New York | publisher= Simon and Schuster | year =
===Polish–Bolshevik War===
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===Anti-Jewish violence===
Throughout the fighting on the Ukrainian front, soldiers from the Blue Army assaulted local Jews, believing that some of them were cooperating with Poland's enemies.<ref name="encycj">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Landau|first=Moshe|author-link=Moshe Landau|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08257.html|title=Haller's Army|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Judaica|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717075923/http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08257.html|archive-date=17 July 2011|quote=Haller's army ("Blue Army"), force of Polish volunteers organized in France during the last year of World War I, responsible for the murder of Jews and anti-Jewish pogroms in Galicia and the Ukraine... Attacks on individual Jews on the streets and highways, murderous pogroms on Jewish settlements, and deliberate provocative acts became commonplace.|access-date=5 October 2015|df=dmy}}</ref><ref name="auto">[[Heiko Haumann]] (2002), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ypcWuuGVvX8C&q=Haller&pg=PA215 A History of East European Jews.]'' Central European University Press; pg. 215, via Google Books. Notes not included.</ref><ref name="international">Carole Fink (2006), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qdhVBvhaWuYC&q=Haller&pg=PA230 Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938.]'' Cambridge University Press; pg. 227, via Google Books.</ref> In [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|eastern Galicia]] this included fighting a Jewish battalion of the [[Ukrainian Galician Army]] under the leadership of Solomon Leinberg.<ref>Alexander Victor Prusin (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914–1920. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4llpAAAAMAAJ&q=solomon+leinberg|title=The Ukrainian Quarterly|date=1987|publisher=Ukrainian Congress Committee of America|language=en}}</ref>
On 27 May 1919 a soldier by the name of Stanisław Dziadecki who served in one of the Blue Army's rifle divisions in [[Częstochowa]], was shot and wounded while on patrol. A Jewish tailor was suspected of the shooting, and was promptly executed by Haller's soldiers and accompanying civilians, who proceeded to loot Jewish homes and businesses, killing 5-10 Jews and injuring several dozen more.<ref name="Carole Finke 2006 pg. 230">Carole Finke. (2006). Defending the Rights of Others The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], pg. 230</ref><ref name="Wakounig2012">{{cite book|author=Marija Wakounig|title=From Collective Memories to Intercultural Exchanges|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5e5w8T1DNWwC&pg=PA196|date=28 November 2012|publisher=LIT Verlag Münster|isbn=978-3-643-90287-0|page=196}}</ref> Pavel Korzec wrote that as the army traveled further east, some of Haller's soldiers, as a way to exact retribution, continued to loot Jewish properties and engage in violence.<ref name="Strauss p. 1034–1035">{{harvnb|Strauss|1993|pp=1034–1035 footnote 20}}</ref> Willian Hagen described Haller's troops together with civilian mobs as assaulting Jewish policemen, beating worshipers and destroying Jewish prayer books in synagogues in eastern [[Chełm]]. Polish police and regular army soldiers were occasionally able to restrain Haller's troops.<ref>William W. Hagen. (2018). Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.316-322</ref>
According to [[Howard Sachar]], in the year and a half prior to the Blue Army's arrival, the total number of Jewish casualties in the region was between 400 and 500; Haller's troops' violence caused this number to double.<ref>Howard M. Sachar. (2007). ''Dreamland: Europeans and Jews in the Aftermath of the Great War'', Random House LLC: page 25.</ref> The Morgenthau Report estimated that the total number of Jews killed as a result of actions made by the Polish military (including the Blue Army) did not exceed 200–300.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028644783|title=The Jews in Poland
====Causes====
According to [[Alexander Prusin]] there were a number of causes for the anti-semitic acts of the Polish forces. Socioeconomic tensions regarding land reforms and conflation of Jews with the landed class led to the feelings of hostility. Also, the lack of appropriate government compensation to the Polish soldiers led to soldiers viewing the looting of Jews as partial re-compensation for their service. For soldiers from Western Poland who remembered how many Jews have previously collaborated with Germany during a recent Polish-German conflict in 1919, this allowed framing of anti-semitic attacks as retribution on enemies of the Polish nation. Further, for many Poles Jews were associated with Bolshevism, and the [[National Democracy (Poland)|Endeks]] in particular promoted the stereotype of [[Jewish Bolshevism]].<ref name="Prusin 2005 pg. 103">{{cite book |author=Alexander Victor Prusin |title=Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914–1920 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jb5tAAAAMAAJ&q=Haller |year=2005 |location=Tuscaloosa, AL |publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]] |isbn=0817314598 |page=103}}
==Personnel==
===Veteran status of Polish-American volunteers===
[[File:Polish American vets of World War I.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Polish-Americans]] who fought in the Blue Army. Image taken in [[Detroit, Michigan]] (1955) and featured in [[Life Magazine]]]]▼
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 resulted in the subsequent refusal by Polish-Americans to again help the Polish cause militarily.<ref name="communities">Martin Conway, José Gotovitch. (2001). ''Europe in exile: European exile communities in Britain, 1940–1945.'' [[Berghahn Books]] pg. 191</ref>
<gallery>
File:Uczestnicy Zjazdu SWAP w Cleveland.jpg|Polish Veterans Association Convention Cleveland Ohio 1921
File:Weterani z Placowki 57 SWAP w Elizabeth NJ.jpg|Polish Veterans Association Elizabeth City New Jersey 1928
▲
</gallery>
===Jewish volunteers===
[[Polish Jews]] enlisted and fought alongside ethnic Poles within the Blue Army, serving as soldiers,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iMBtAAAAMAAJ&q=%C5%BCydzi+w+armii+hallera|title=Żydzi bojownicy o niepodległość Polski: 1918-1939
===Notable persons===
[[File:Ludwik Marian Kaźmierczak in the uniform of Haller's Army with fiancée Margarethe.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Ludwig Kasner|Ludwik Marian Kaźmierczak]] the paternal grandfather of the German chancellor [[Angela Merkel]], in Blue Army uniform, 1919]]
* [[Ludwig Kasner|Ludwik Marian Kaźmierczak]], the paternal grandfather of the German chancellor [[Angela Merkel]],<ref>[https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article114407379/Kanzlerin-Angela-Merkel-ist-zu-einem-Viertel-Polin.html Kanzlerin Angela Merkel ist zu einem Viertel Polin], Die Welt</ref> and an ethnic Pole born in [[Poznań|Posen (Poznań)]], [[German Empire]] served in the Blue Army. During World War I, he was drafted into the German Army in 1915 and fought on the western front. After being taken as a prisoner of war in France, he joined the Blue Army, and subsequently fought in the Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Soviet wars. After ending his service Kaźmierczak emigrated back to Germany.<ref>[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/all-in-the-family-poles-pleased-to-learn-of-polish-heritage-of-angela-merkel-a-889207.html All in the Family: Chancellor Merkel's Heritage Pleases Poles], Der Spiegel</ref><ref>[http://www.thelocal.de/20130314/48523 Merkel's Polish roots emerge in new book], The Local</ref>
* [[Stanisław Jackowski (officer)|Stanislaw Jackowski]], Commander of the II Batallon of the 1st Tank Regiment.
== Order of battle ==
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<!-- P -->
*{{cite journal |last=Pliska|first= Stanley R. |date= 1965|title=The 'Polish-American Army' 1917–1921|journal= [[The Polish Review]]|volume= 10|issue= 3 |pages=46–59|jstor=25776612|lccn=57034642|oclc =260158745|issn=2330-0841}}
*{{cite thesis |last=Ruskoski|first=David Thomas
*{{cite book |last=Skrzeszewski|first=Stan | title = The Daily Life of Polish Soldiers Niagara Camp, 1917-1919 The Newspaper Columns of Elizabeth Ascher, St. Catharines Standard, 1917-1919|year=2014| publisher = Niagara Historical Museum| url= http://www.niagarahistorical.museum/media/Standard1917-1919Draft2-StanSkrzeszewski.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010011410/http://www.niagarahistorical.museum/media/Standard1917-1919Draft2-StanSkrzeszewski.pdf |archive-date=10 October 2018 }} <small>- Total pages: 100</small>
*{{cite book |last=Strauss|first=Herbert A. | title = Current Research on Anti-Semitism: Hostages of Modernization, Volumes 2-3|year=1993| publisher = [[Walter de Gruyter]]| isbn= 9783110137156 }} <small>- Total pages: 1427 </small>
*{{cite book |last=Valasek|first=Paul S. | title = Haller's Polish Army in France|year=2006| publisher = Whitehall Printing| isbn=9780977975709 }} <small>- Total pages: 432 </small>
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[[Category:France in World War I]]
[[Category:Poland in World War I]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Military history of
[[Category:Polish armies]]
[[Category:Polish diaspora organizations]]
[[Category:Polish diaspora in Europe| ]]
[[Category:Polish–Soviet War]]
[[Category:France–Poland military relations]]
[[Category:Military units and formations established in 1917]]
[[Category:Military units and formations of Poland in World War I]]
[[Category:Jewish Galician (Eastern Europe) history]]
[[Category:Anti-communist
[[Category:Antisemitism in Poland]]
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