Origins and establishment The
List of Polish wars chronicles Polish military involvement in armed conflicts since the year 972. The present armed forces trace their roots to the early 20th century, yet the history of Polish armed forces in their broadest sense stretches back much further. After the
partitions of Poland, during the period from 1795 to 1918, the Polish military was recreated several times during national insurrections that included the
November Uprising of 1830, the
January Uprising in 1863, and the
Napoleonic Wars that saw the formation of the
Polish Legions in Italy.
Congress Poland, being part of the
Russian Empire with a certain degree of autonomy, had a separate Polish army in the years 1815–1830, which was disbanded after the unsuccessful November Uprising. Large numbers of Poles also served in the armies of the partitioning powers, the
Russian Empire,
Austria-Hungary, and the
German Empire. During
World War I, the
Polish Legions were set up in
Galicia, the southern part of Poland under Austrian occupation. They were both disbanded after the
Central Powers failed to provide guarantees of Polish independence after the war. General
Józef Haller, the commander of the Second Brigade of the Polish Legion, switched sides in late 1917 and, via
Murmansk, took part of his troops to
France, where he created the
Blue Army. It was joined by several thousand Polish volunteers from the
United States. It fought on the French front in 1917 and 1918. The Polish Army was recreated in 1918 from elements of the three separate Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German armies, and armed with equipment left following World War I. The force expanded during the
Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1922 to nearly 800,000 men, but was then reduced after peace was reestablished. inspecting troops during the
Armed Forces Day parade in
Warsaw, 2007 At the onset of
World War II, on 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Polish forces were overwhelmed by the
German attack in September 1939, which was followed on 17 September 1939 by
an invasion by the Soviet Union. Some Polish forces escaped from the occupied country and joined Allied forces fighting in other theaters, while those that remained in Poland splintered into guerrilla units of the
Armia Krajowa ("
Home Army") and
other partisan groups which fought in clandestine ways against the foreign occupiers. Thus, there were three threads to the Polish armed forces from 1939: the
Polish Armed Forces in the West, the
Armia Krajowa and other resistance organizations fighting the Germans in Poland, and the
Polish Armed Forces in the East, which later became the post-war communist
Polish People's Army (LWP). Until the
fall of communism, the army's prestige under communist rule continued to fall, as it was used by the government to resettle ethnic minorities immediately after the war (
Operation Vistula), and to violently suppress opposition several times, during the
1956 Poznań protests, the
1970 Polish protests, and during
martial law in Poland in 1981–1983. The LWP also took part in the suppression of the 1968 democratization process of Czechoslovakia, commonly known as the
Prague Spring. That same year, Marshal of Poland Marian Spychalski was asked to replace
Edward Ochab as chairman of the
Council of State, and General
Wojciech Jaruzelski, at that time the
Chief of the General Staff, was named to replace him. Jaruzelski, a known Soviet loyalist, was put in place by the Soviets in order to ensure that a trusted group of officers was in control of one of the least trusted armies in the Warsaw Pact.
Republic of Poland ,
Operation Uphold Democracy,
war on terror, and
Operation Serval After January 1990 and the collapse of the communist bloc, the name of the armed forces was changed to "Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland" to accord with the Polish State's new official name. Following the subsequent disbandment of the
Warsaw Pact, Poland was admitted into
NATO on 12 March 1999, and the Polish armed forces began a major reorganization effort in order to conform to the new Western standards.
Involvement in Afghanistan (2002-2014) From 2002 until 2014, Polish military forces were dispatched to the
International Security Assistance Force mission in
Afghanistan, led by
NATO. Poland's contribution to ISAF was the country's largest since its entrance into NATO. Polish forces also took part in the
Iraq War. From 2003 to 2008, Polish military forces commanded the
Multinational Division Central-South (MND-CS) located in the South-Central Occupation Zone of Iraq. The division consisted of troops from 23 states and totaled as many as 8,500 soldiers.
Invasion of Iraq (2003) special operations unit secures a section of the port of
Umm Qasr in
Iraq, 2003 In March 2003, the Polish Armed Forces took part in the
2003 invasion of Iraq,
deploying special forces and a support ship. Following the destruction of Saddam's regime, the
Polish Land Forces supplied a brigade and a division headquarters for the 17-nation
Multinational Division Central-South, part of the U.S.-led
Multi-National Force – Iraq. At its peak, Poland had 2,500 soldiers in the south of the country.
Peacekeeping missions Other completed operations include the 2005 'Swift Relief' in Pakistan, in which
NATO Response Force-allocated personnel were dispatched.
Polish Land Forces personnel sent to Pakistan included a
military engineering company, a platoon of the
1st Special Commando Regiment, and a logistics component from the 10th Logistics Brigade. Elsewhere, Polish forces were sent to
MINURCAT in Chad and the
Central African Republic (2007–2010). As of 2008, Poland had deployed 985 personnel in eight separate UN peacekeeping operations (the
United Nations Disengagement Observer Force,
MINURSO,
MONUC,
UNOCI,
UNIFIL,
UNMEE,
UNMIK,
UNMIL, and
UNOMIG).
Fully professional armed forces (2010) armored vehicle on patrol in
Ghazni, Afghanistan, 2010 Formerly set up according to
Warsaw Pact standards, the Polish armed forces are now fully organized according to
NATO requirements. Poland is also playing an increasingly larger role as a major European peacekeeping power in the world through various UN peacekeeping actions, and cooperation with neighboring nations through multinational formations and units such as the
Multinational Corps Northeast and
POLUKRBAT. As of 1 January 2010, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland have transitioned to a completely contract-based manpower supply system. On 10 April 2010, a
Polish Air Force Tu-154M crashed near Smolensk, Russia, while it was travelling to a ceremony commemorating the
Katyn massacre. On board the plane were the President (Commander-in-Chief), the Chief of Staff, all four Branch Commanders of the Polish Military, and a number of other military officials; all were killed. In 2014–2015, the
Armed Forces General Command and
Armed Forces Operational Command were both established, superseding the previous individual service branch command structures.
Homeland Defence Act (2022) Prompted in part by the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the
Homeland Defence Act was unanimously passed by the Polish parliament on March 17, 2022, and signed into law by President
Andrzej Duda the following day. In accordance with the act, Poland intends to roughly double the size of the armed forces to 300,000 personnel, and to spend at least 3% of GDP on the defence budget in 2023. This includes increasing the size of the tank fleet by adding approximately 1,000 new tanks and adding 600 new howitzers to Poland's ground forces. Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister
Mariusz Błaszczak said that it is Poland's goal to build the most powerful ground forces of all the North Atlantic Treaty Organization members in Europe. ==Equipment==