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| F-35 |
"War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will" - CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ ("On War")
Logistyka to pierwszy, a zarazem jeden z najwazniejszych elementow przygotowujacych kilkumiesieczne cwiczenia. W ostatnich dniach ruszyla poczatkowa faza tego przedsiewziecia. Wojskowi z US Army i dysponowany przez nich sprzet wyruszyli droga powietrzna i morska do portow w Niemczech, Francji, Belgii i Holandii. Kolejny etap zaklada przerzucenie ich specjalnymi konwojami w miejsca, gdzie zaplanowano glowne epizody manewrow. Skala transportu bedzie ciagle rosla. Przerzut najciezszego sprzetu i uzbrojenia zaplanowano na przelom lutego i marca. Ogolem z ramienia USA stawi sie w Europie 20 tys. zolnierzy sluzby czynnej, Gwardii Narodowej oraz rezerwy. Do tego nalezy doliczyc okolo 13 tys. elementow sprzetu wojskowego. To najwiekszy przerzut zolnierzy US Army na Stary Kontynent od 25 lat. "Cwiczenia 'Defender-Europe20' to sygnal, ze Amerykanie sa gotowi i zdolni do wypelniania zobowiazan wobec partnerow NATO" - deklaruje zastepca dowodcy wojsk USA w Europie gen. Andrew Rohlin (Konrad Wysocki, "Manewry inne niz wszystkie. Rekordowy przerzut wojsk USA do Europy. Choc zasadnicza czesc manewrow pod kryptonimem "Defender-Europe20" zaplanowano na kwiecien i maj, juz teraz dowodztwo armii Stanow Zjednoczonych rozpoczelo operacje przerzutu zolnierzy i sprzetu wojskowego na Stary Kontynent. W jednym z najbardziej strategicznych militarnie wydarzen ostatnich 25 lat, organizowanym m.in. na poligonach w Polsce, wezmie udzial ponad 37 tys. zolnierzy z 18 krajow", GAZETA POLSKA, 29 stycznia 2020).
Strefa wplywow militarnych i politycznych Polski
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| RZECZYPOSPOLITA PO UNII LUBELSKIEJ (ok. 1619 r.) (Wielki Atlas Historyczny) |
Poland Both the general and military histories of Poland have been conditioned by the absence of natural frontiers in the east and the west. The country has been a meeting place for eastern and western influences, frequently acting as a relay station in either direction. Poland has also been shaped by a national consciousness, based around the Catholic religion, which was awakened at an early date through a sense of distinctness from Russian Orthodoxy. After some hesitation in the sixteenth century, Poland rejected the Reformation, partly because of its association with her Germanic enemies. Except during the period of foreign domination (1795-1918), Poland has been involved in more foreign wars than most other European countries, fighting successively, if not simultaneously, against all her neighbours. Although Poland was spared major religious civil wars, she fell prey to numerous internal conflicts which, until the eighteenth century, were feudal in character before becoming more nationalistic.
Although Polish national consciousness has historically leaned more towards the West than the East, in military affairs the two influences have been more evenly balanced. The Kingdom of Poland, founded at the end of the tenth century by Mieszko I, saw a short-lived expansion under Boleslaw I, the Brave (992-1025), in which Brandenburg, Lusatia, Saxony, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Ruthenia were absorbed. It then fragmented into principalities, and Poland was unable to prevent the colonization of the Baltic coast by the Teutonic Knights or the invasions of the Mongols. Under Casimir III (mid-fourteenth century), the reconstituted Polish state turned its attention towards Ruthenia. The Jagiellion dynasty (1386-1572) was in a stronger position to pursue these ambitions after its alliance with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1385), which, at that date, stretched as far as the Ukraine. Poland-Lithuania halted German expansion at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1410. Poland and Lithuania were formally united in 1569.
The introduction of an elective monarchy (effectively from 1572) passed real control of the Polish Republic to the diet (Sejm) and the provincial diets (sejmiki), which then proceeded to emasculate themselves by a voting system which required unanimity (liberum veto, 1573). As Poland entered a long period of decline she had to sustain almost constant wars against Turks, Muscovy and Sweden. In the eighteenth century, Poland fell victim to Russia, Prussia and Austria who successively partitioned her territories in 1772, 1793 (without Austria) and 1795. Between 1807 and 1813, Napoleon reduced Poland to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The Kingdom of Poland was reconstituted in 1815 and granted the larger part of her historic lands. She was placed under the protection of Russia but lost her independence after the Revolution of 1831-2. Poland was not reburn until 1918.
In the period from the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, Poland was one of the most militarized societies in Europe. The petty nobility (szlachta) comprised 12 per cent of the total population in 1773, the majority impoverished. The few rich and powerful magnates patronized their lesser brethren to form private armies which far outnumbered any forces the king could assemble. By ancient custom the magnates enjoyed the right to form sworn confederations to oppose and apprehend any wrongdoer, a situation which resulted in law and order being maintained by the private armies of the most important aristocrats rather than by the monarch. During the Great Northern War (1700-21), between 1733 and 1735, from 1767 to 1768, and in 1791 and 1792 these confederations conducted full-blown civil wars which gave Poland's enemies ample opportunity for intervention. State service was unpopular and the nobility assisted the government only in times of national emergency. After the war against the Turks from 1683 to 1699, it became difficult to persuade the nobility to fight on foreign soil.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries, Poland's huge and indefensible frontiers were open to attack from all directions. While the tribal host provided the manpower, defence was based was based around the royal fortress (grod) and much use was made of inundations and patrols to channel attackers towards these garrisons. Peasants were exempted from military service in the twelfth century, except in the defence of their homes, and their labour was used to support a force of mounted knights. As a consequence , heavy cavalry dominated the Polish feudal army and the proportions of infantry steadily declined. After 1320, all landholders had to present themselves for military service complete with arms, armour, horses and retinue. The feudal host was raised by a levee en masse (pospolite ruszenie) and organized around tribal or clan regiments led by the great families whilst the lesser nobility, towns and royal officials commanded district regiments. In 1340, Poland could field a force of 11-12,000 knights, rising to 18,000 by 1450. The feudal levy was inefficient and unsuitable for campaigning outside Poland. It had largely died out by 1500 and the lords paid a money taz in lieu of their physical service in the field but remained in legal force until the country's collapse in 1795. A permanent force of 2,000 men was established in the 1490s for the defence of Red Ruthenia.
In 1563, a quarter tax on all income derived by leaseholders from crown estates provided money for a standing army of c. 4,000 knights. Military finance thus rested in the hands of the barons and not in the person of the elected monarch. Towns also sent contingents and after 1578, the royal lands provided 'selective infantry'. This was a peasant militia; the 'twentieth field' or the 'select field' on royal estates was reserved for a peasant who owed months' annual military service as a musketeer in return for freedom from serfdom and other duties. He was paid and supported by the remaining nineteen families who did not have to serve. The new standing army was brought to a high professional standard by Jan Tarnowski (1488-1561). not only did he develop horse artillery, military discipline and a medical service, but he adapted the Hussite wagenburg from the supply train. The large, six-horsed ammunition waggons could be chained together into a circular laager providing a defensive location in the flat and featureless steppe. The resulting army was composed of 75 per cent cavalry and only 25 per cent infantry, an imbalance which rendered it incapable of serious opposition to Russian, Swedish, Prussian and Austrian forces.
Stephen Batory (1575-87) introduced reforms and established a mixed force of foreign mercenaries and native volunteers but the nobility regarded a standing army as an instrument of absolutism which might be used to strip away their privileges. Consequently they ensured that the crown was starved of military funds and that small Crown Army (starosty) was confined to frontier defence and never allowed to grow sufficiently to bolster monarchical authority. By the early seventeenth century, the peacetime standing army numbered 12,000 but this could be quadrupled in wartime. The granting of cash for martial purposes was further curtailed in 1652, and by 1700 it was apparent that Poland could not compete in the same military league as her neighbours. When John III Sobieski (1674-96) raised an army to help lift the Siege of Vienna in 1683, his 25,000 men were slowly accumulated from feudal noble cavalry, foreign mercenaries and the Crown Army. In 1717, the Sejm established the Crown Army at 24,000 men (18,000 from Poland and 6,000 from Lithuania), not enough to defend the country or to interfere in internal politics. It was dispersed in garrisons along Poland's borders.
The organization of the Cossack bands which emerged on the eastern marches of Poland was markedly different. The Cossacks existed on the fringes of civilized society and lived by raiding into Poland, Lithuania and Muscovy. With a political centre, the Sich (or Sech) on the Dniepr, elected leaders (atamans or hetmans) and a way of life based on war and hunting, these groups formed federations, occasionally fought each other, multiplied with the aid of the Muscovite state and pushed eastwards, first from the Dniepr to the Don, then to the Urals. They had a certain influence on the cavalry techniques of Central Europe. The Zaporozhian or Sich Cossacks were politically and militarily free, although some served in the Polish starosty as individuals. A number of Cossacks volunteers were registered by the Polish state after 1578 and formed into bands under their own atamans. Their task was to protect the Polish frontier with Muscovy and the Turks. Cossacks also formed military units (vataha) which entered the Crown Army.
A Polish army was conscripted by Napoleon in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw but it was dissolved after the retreat from Moscow in 1812. The Polish army of the Kingdom of Poland, which had been raised by the Tsar, was disbanded in 1832. From that year, Poles served as mercenaries, conscripts and volunteers in the Russian, Austrian, Prussian and later German armies, as well as, in West European services. During the First World War, Poles fought for both the Entente and the Central Powers.
With French assistance, the Polish army was hastily re-formed in 1918. This was largely the work of Marshal Joseph Pilsudski who had covertly created a Polish Nationalist Army After the German-Austrian conquest of Poland in 1915 and 1916. In November 1918, the Polish army amounted to just 24 battalions, 3 squadrons of cavalry and 5 batteries. By January 1919, this had risen to 110,000 men and within one year to 600,000. However, the forces suffered from over-rapid expansion and were poorly equipped and inadequately trained. In 1919, Pilsudski attacked the Soviet Union in an attempt to regain the 1772 boundaries of Poland and, at the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, the Polish army defeated the Russian counter-offensive. Between 1920 and 1939, Poland's standing army of 350,000 was insufficient to defend a land frontier of 3,290 miles. Despite the rapid mobilization of reserves which raised her armed forces to oner one million men, the Polish army with 150 tanks, 400 modern aircraft and 40 divisions was no match for the Wehrmacht in 1939. However, under the terms of the agreement with France and England, the Polish army was intended to hold the Germans for just two weeks by which time her allies were supposed to have launched an attack with 70 divisions in the west. The Polish army achieved this objective.
A Polish emigre army was formed first in France, then later in England, by the government in exile under General Sikorski. Another emigre force, the Anders Army, recruited from among Polish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, fought in the Middle East and in Italy, while resistance was organized within Poland by the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) and, after 1942, by the Armia Ludowa (People's Army) formed by the Communist Party. Between 1943 and 1945, Polish resistance efforts were hampered by rivalry between the Home Army, which was supported by the London government in exile, and the Soviet sponsored People's Army. The Home Army was destroyed in the Warsaw Rising of 1944. After the German defeat in 1945 , Poland passed into the Soviet sphere of influence and joined the Warsaw Pact. Her army was organized on the Soviet model.
The Polish army was fixed at 400,000 in 1948 but by 1955 i was the second largest army in the Warsaw Pact. In 1977, Poland possessed 404,000 men and 605,000 reservists, a mixture of volunteer professionals and national servicemen on two-year enlistments. The army had 15 divisions, 3,800 tanks and 4,200 armoured vehicles. The air force boasted 745 combat aircraft. There was a small navy of 25 missile-carrying fast patrol boats (A. Corvisier John Childs, "A Dictionary of Military History", BLACKWELL PUBLISHERS, Oxford UK, 1994).
00:05 Hrs. Zrywam kartke z kalendarza: "Najwiekszym urokiem swiata jest urok drugiego czlowieka" - ZOFIA NALKOWSKA.
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