Polish Armed Forces in the context of "Edward Rydz-Śmigły"

The Polish Armed Forces in the East (Polish: Polskie Siły Zbrojne na Wschodzie), also called Polish Army in the USSR, were the Polish military forces established in the Soviet Union during World War II.

Two armies were formed separately and at different times. Anders' Army, created in the second half of 1941, was loyal to the Polish government-in-exile. After Operation Barbarossa and the consequent Polish-Soviet Sikorski–Mayski agreement, an amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union was declared, which made the formation of Polish military units possible. In 1942, Anders' Army was evacuated to Iran and transferred to the command of the Western Allies. It became known as the Polish II Corps and went on to fight Nazi German forces in the Italian Campaign, including the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Siedlce (Polish pronunciation: ['ɕɛdlt͡sɛ] ) (Yiddish: שעדליץ Shedlits) is a city in the Masovian Voivodeship in eastern Poland with 74,780 inhabitants (as of 2024).

The city is situated between two small rivers, the Muchawka and the Helenka, and lies along the European route E30, around 90 kilometres (56 mi) east of Warsaw. It is the fourth largest city of the Masovian Voivodeship, and the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Siedlce. Siedlce is a local educational, cultural and sports center, with a university, a notable rugby club and two important museums. It also hosts a garrison of the Polish Armed Forces.

The president of Poland (Polish: Prezydent Polski [ˈprɛ.zɘ.dɛnt ˈpɔl.ski]), officially the president of the Republic of Poland (Polish: Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (Prezydent RP)code: pol promoted to code: pl ), is the head of state of Poland. The president's prerogatives and duties are determined in the Constitution of Poland. The president jointly exercises the executive power together with the Council of Ministers headed by the prime minister. The president has a right to dissolve both chambers of parliament in certain cases determined by the constitution, can veto legislation, represents the Republic on the international stage, and is the commander-in-chief of the nation's Armed Forces.

Anna Walentynowicz (Polish pronunciation: [ˈanna valɛntɨˈnɔvʲit͡ʂ]; née Lubczyk; 15 August 1929 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish trade unionist and co-founder of Solidarity, the first recognised independent trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Her firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980 was the event that ignited the strike at the shipyard, set off a wave of strikes across Poland, and quickly paralyzed the Baltic coast. The Interfactory Strike Committee (MKS) based in the Gdańsk shipyard eventually transformed itself into Solidarity; by September, more than one million workers were on strike in support of the 21 demands of MKS, making it the largest strike ever.

Walentynowicz's arrest became an organizing slogan (Bring Anna Walentynowicz Back to Work!) in the early days of the Gdańsk strike. She is referred to by some as the "mother of independent Poland." She was among the dignitaries killed in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash near Smolensk in Russia, which also claimed the lives of Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland and his wife, and the senior commanders of the Polish Armed Forces.

Uhlan (/ˈuːlɑːn, ˈjuːlən/; French: uhlan; German: Ulan; Lithuanian: ulonas; Polish: ułan) is a type of light cavalry, primarily armed with a lance. The uhlans started as Lithuanian irregular cavalry, that were later also adopted by other countries during the 18th century, including Poland, France, Russia, Prussia, Saxony, and Austria. The term "lancer" was often used interchangeably with "uhlan"; the lancer regiments later formed for the British Army were directly inspired by the uhlans of other armies (even though they were never known by that name).

Uhlans traditionally wore a double-breasted short-tailed jacket with a coloured plastron panel at the front, a coloured sash, and a square-topped Polish lancer cap (rogatywka, also called czapka). This cap or cavalry helmet was derived from a traditional Polish cap design, formalised and stylised for military use. Their lances were traditionally topped with a small, swallow-tailed flag (pennon) just below the spearhead.

An army group is a military organization consisting of several field armies, which is self-sufficient for indefinite periods. It is usually responsible for a particular geographic area. An army group is the largest field organization handled by a single commander – usually a full general or field marshal – and it generally includes between 400,000 and 1,000,000 soldiers.

In the Polish Armed Forces and former Soviet Red Army an army group was known as a Front. The equivalent of an army group in the Imperial Japanese Army was a "general army" (Sō-gun (総軍)).

The Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia (SSR LiB), alternatively referred to as the Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and White Russia or simply Litbel, was a Soviet republic that existed within the parts of the territories of modern Belarus and Lithuania for approximately five months during the Lithuanian–Soviet War and the Polish–Soviet War in 1919. The Litbel republic was created in February 1919 formally through the merger of the short-lived Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Socialist Soviet Republic of Belorussia.

Often described as a puppet state of Soviet Russia, during its brief existence the SSR LiB government had limited authority over the territories it claimed. By August 1919, the SSR LiB had lost control over all of its claimed territories, as the Polish Army and, to a lesser extent, Lithuanian Army advanced.

The Land Forces (Polish: Wojska Lądowe) are the ground forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stretches back a millennium – since the 10th century (see List of Polish wars and History of the Polish Army). Poland's modern army was formed after Poland regained independence following World War I in 1918.