Polish Legions in WWI

[IvanPutski]

May I suggest this thread on militaria, photos, etc. associated with the Poles who fought for a Free and Independent Poland by serving in the Armies of the major combatant powers in WWI?

[IvanPutski]

Here's a start: a Recruiting poster for the Blue Army in France by Benda.

[IvanPutski]

Trying to jump start this thread; here are some Haller's Army pictures...

[IvanPutski]

And a few more...

[IvanPutski]

Here's a Haller's Army Veterans tunic from the 1920's - 30's. Note the shadows left from the removal of the shoulder eagles sometime over the years, which is a common occurrence with the veteran's pieces. Also shown is a matching horizon bleu cap made in the US pattern. And finally, a photo of three Haller's Army vets.

[A.J. Zawadzki]

Hello Ivan,

Very nice uniform. Intersting to see how the traditional Polish pre-war style collar tabs were used on this veteran's closed collar type tunic. Most of the veteran's tunics I've seen have the open style collar, as visible in your photo of the three vets.

Great post Ivan! Now let' see some more activity on this thread from others.

Tony

[IvanPutski]

Hello Ivan,

Intersting to see how the traditional Polish pre-war style collar tabs were used on this veteran's closed collar type tunic.

Tony

And of course there are numerous examples of wartime (not veterans') French-made horizon blue tunics with Polish-style collar tabs added after 1918-19, as they were often re-worked with Polish insignia after Haller's Army reached Poland. (See photo above in Post #4). I have seen examples with Polish Style collar insignia but which still retained French rank insignia, and others that had all the insignia replaced (rank insignia included); also examples that had Polish collar and rank insignia but still retained other French sleeve insignia, and some that retained French collar insignia but had Polish sleeve insignia. I even know of a uniform from a Polish-American volunteer that is a US tunic with Wz.19 Polish specialty sleeve insignia, that is in a private collection. So what I guess I'm saying in my confusing way is that there may be an ideal -- but certainly there is no norm. You can pretty definitively tell when a Horizon Blue tunic is in its original WWI state (i.e, how it looked when it was worn in the Polish Army in France). But as soon as those uniforms were worn across the Polish border, you see all kinds of modifications occurring...

[IvanPutski]

Here are some French-made Adrians in horizon blue with the large Haller's Army eagle affixed to the front.

[IvanPutski]

...and one that was originally horizon blue, but was repainted after the force got to Poland.

[3mk]

Heres one