July 29, 1920. Echoes of wars.

Ruth Sturtevant Smith at the launching of the U.S.S. Sturtevant on July 29, 1920. The ship was named after her brother Albert Dillon Sturtevant (1894-1918) who served as a U.S. Navy officer and was killed in World War I.

The Navy remembered Albert Dillon Sturtevant on the name of a ship.

He was an aircrewman of a Curtis Model H that had an international crew and which was shot down on February 15, 1918.  The crew survived the crash into the sea, but they were not able to be rescued by an other seaplane, as the waves were too rough.  He was the only American on the aircrew and occupied the position of gunner. He was the first serving member of the U.S. military to be brought down in an air action.

The destroyer named after him and dedicated on this day was lost to mines during World War Two.  A second destroyer was named after him in 1943 and served until 1960.

Villa many have surrendered in the north, but Lower California was going into revolt.

And if course the war between Poland and the Soviet Union raged on.

And there was trouble brewing with the Japanese Empire and its role in what had been the Russian Empire.

July 28, 1920. Villa comes in.

On this day in 1920, President de law Huerta of Mexico and Pancho Villa met and negotiated an armistice.  Villa ended his role as a guerilla leader in exchange for a land grant of 25,000 acres in Canutillo, Mexico.  His remaining 200 troops were to go with him to his hacienda, also receiving a pension of 500,000 gold pesos upon their laying down arms. Fifty of his men were to remain in his service as bodyguards.

Villa and his acknowledged wife, Luz Corral, in 1923.  Villa's domestic situation was complicated but Corral was able to claim the position of legitimacy in regards to his female consorts.

It would be predictable that a character like Villa would not remain outside of politics indefinitely, and that would seem to have not only been correct, but to have lead to his assassination in 1923.  A person can debate whether Villas armistice on this date, or his assassination in 1923, really marked the end of the armed struggle phase of the Mexican Revolution, but the better argument would be this date.  That would, of course, regard the Cristero War that broke out in 1926 as a separate event.

It might be noted, and notable, that no newspapers appear here in our entry for this day.  That's because the news broke sufficiently late, and inaccurately, that it appeared in only one of Wyoming's newspapers. That one reported that Villa had agreed to an unconditional surrender, which he had not.

On that day, the news was focused on the fate of Poland, which was struggling within own borders against the Red Army, and on Resolute wining the America's Cup.

Resolute.

Also on this day, the Duchy of Teschen was divided between the new state of Czechoslovakia and Poland, which must have given its residents at least a little pause, given that the fate of Poland at the time did not look good.

Unknown to the world, Archibald Leach, a 16 year old actor, arrived in the United States with members of The Penders, an acting troop.  We know him as Cary Grant.

Cary Grant in 1941.

Grant had an extremely difficult early youth, which may explain his being on the road at such an early age.  His father was an alcoholic and his mother clinically insane.  His father had committed his mother to a mental hospital and told Grant that she was dead.  He would not learn that she was still alive until after his acting career had taken off.

Air Mail in the United States had two notable events, one being the end of a strike in which it was promised that pilots would no longer be required to fly in dangerous weather.  The other was the taking off of two all metal planes from New York on a transcontinental air mail flight that would take them to a landing in San Francisco on August 8.  Moving the mail by train, actually, might have been quicker in that instance.

July 23, 1920. Gunboat diplomacy?

This National Photo Company news photo from this day was simply captioned "Diplomatic class".  Note, in the upper right hand corner of the photo, the cannon and anchor. . . .

On this same day, Kenya became a British Crown Colony, which it would remain until 1963.  Poland found itself fighting for its life just a day after it sued for peace with the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union rejected it.   Soviet forces were advancing on Warsaw. 

And a mapmaker in Greece this week issued a map on what Greece hoped to look like, following its post World War One expansion into Anatolia.

May 7, 1920. Races

Collegiate airplane race activity at Mitchel Field, Long Island, May 7, 1920.

On this day in 1920 the first ever Collegiate Airplane Race occured in New York.

Collegiate airplane race participants J.T. Trippe (1899-1981) and George Willard Horne, who flew for Yale at Mitchel Field, Long Island, May 7, 1920.

Collegiate airplane race participants Robert K. Perry and Harry Goodman, who flew for Williams College at Mitchel Field, Long Island, May 7, 1920 

 Collegiate airplane race participants Lansing Colton Holden, Jr. (1896-1938) and Zenos Ramsey Miller (1896-1922), who flew for Princeton at Mitchel Field, Long Island, May 7, 1920.

collegiate airplane race participants Joseph Ferdinand Lersch and David Amos Royer, who flew for University of Pennsylvania at Mitchel Field, Long Island,

On the same day, Carranza gathered his troops and departed Mexico City for Vera Cruz, falling back on a tactic he'd previously used against Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.  While this was portrayed as a flight from the city, which was about to be attacked by rebel forces, it also at least partially acknowledged that Mexico City is difficult to defend.

A city which changed hands today was Kiev, which fell to Polish forces in the Russo Polish War.

April 25, 1920. Settlements that didn't settle.

Attendees at the San Remo Conference on this date in 1920.  Matsui, Lloyd George, Curzon, Berthelot, Millerand, Scialoja and Nitti.

This was the last day of the San Remo Conference in which the victors of the Great War, absent the United States, met to determine the fate of various territories left in their hands or at least believed to be left in their hands.  On this day, the issued the San Remo Resoution, which stated,

It was agreed –

(a) To accept the terms of the Mandates Article as given below with reference to Palestine, on the understanding that there was inserted in the proces-verbal an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine; this undertaking not to refer to the question of the religious protectorate of France, which had been settled earlier in the previous afternoon by the undertaking given by the French Government that they recognized this protectorate as being at an end.

(b) that the terms of the Mandates Article should be as follows:

The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22, Part I (Covenant of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognized as independent States, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The boundaries of the said States will be determined, and the selection of the Mandatories made, by the Principal Allied Powers.

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

La Puissance mandataire s’engage a nommer dans le plus bref delai une Commission speciale pour etudier toute question et toute reclamation concernant les differentes communautes religieuses et en etablir le reglement. Il sera tenu compte dans la composition de cette Commission des interets religieux en jeu. Le President de la Commission sera nomme par le Conseil de la Societe des Nations.

The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.

Turkey hereby undertakes, in accordance with the provisions of Article [132 of the Treaty of Sevres] to accept any decisions which may be taken in this connection.

(c) Les mandataires choisis par les principales Puissances allies sont: la France pour la Syrie, et la Grand Bretagne pour la Mesopotamie, et la Palestine.

In reference to the above decision the Supreme Council took note of the following reservation of the Italian Delegation:

La Delegation Italienne en consideration des grands interets economiques que l’Italie en tant que puissance exclusivement mediterraneenne possede en Asie Mineure, reserve son approbation a la presente resolution, jusqu’au reglement des interets italiens en Turquie d’Asia.

As noted, above, the Italian delegation reserved its assent given that the conference hadn't reached a resolution on its interests in Asia Minor.

The results of the conference were momentous and continue to play out today  The British took Palestine as a mandate and the French Syria.  The borders of these mandates were not determined.  The Turkish delegation purported to accept the decisions made at the conference.  The conference also, although not reflected in this resolution, accepted the independence of Armenia and set the monetary amount of annual German reparation payments.

While the US was not there, it continued to exhibit an influence, as the conference also accepted Wilson's proposal on Fiume, even if the Italians really didn't.

As the Cheyenne paper made plain, scandals that are more commonly associated with later eras in fact occurred in earlier ones. And Texas said no to Carranza.

In just a few short months the French would sustain a military defeat against insurgent Syrians and the British would accordingly rush to draw the borders of Transjordan, which is Jordan today, out of concern that the rebellion would spill into territory it was administering. That would set the borders for Palestine.  An insurgency already underway in Turkey would cause the decisions of any Turkish delegation to be questionable, but it did not act in any fashion to attempt to assert any claim to Mesopotamia (Iraq), or its former colonies to the south.  It would not accept, however, the independence of Armenia, which the conference had separately recognized, or the Greek role in Anatolia, which had been assured by the conference.  And Carranza's bid to control who became his successor was turning disastrous for him.

World War One's results were playing out in a different fashion at the Battle of Koziatyn, Ukraine in which a Polish cavalry division penetrated deep behind the Soviet lines.  Over two days it would envelop Soviet forces and destroy two Red Army divisions.

Elsewhere movies with rural settings were being released, both dramatic and comedic.

January 5, 1920. The first Monday of the year. Ice, Raids, Long and Bobbed Hair, and Fighting the Reds

It was the first Monday of the New Year, and the New Decade, the date, being the first of a full work week, when the new year really begins, at least for adults.  

So how did it start off?

Joseph and Thomas Leiter skating on the basin, Joseph takes a fall.  Washington D. C., 1/5/20.

Washington D.C. was apparently having a cold snap, as the Tidal Basin was frozen and children were taking advantage of it for ice skating.

 Miss Betty Baker, daughter of the Secty. of War and Miss Annie Kittleson skating on the Tidal Basin, Washington D. C., 1/5/20.

Admiral Jellicoe was still making the rounds.

Admiral Jellicoe photographed in Secty. Daniels office at the Navy Dept.  1/5/20.

The Supreme Court upheld the Volstead Act thereby wiping out booze for good, or so it would seem, right down to the ultra light beer level.

At the same time, things were developing and heating up in Ireland, where separatists Republicans were fighting the British in their effort to form a separate republic.  A familiar map was beginning to take place there.

Closer to home the Palmer Raids were still being celebrated and a new effort was underway for a sedition act designed to take on home grown Reds, described by the Casper headline writer as "long haired men and short cropped women". That headline actually did catch a hair style trend in radical women, albeit on that was about to spread.  As described by Whitaker Chambers in Witness, radical women of the time bobbed their hair.  Soon, that style, perhaps boosted by the daring radicalism, would spread to the female population in general.

By 1924, bobbed hair would be a flapper thing.  In 1920, it was a Red thing.

Reds and their opponents were at it tooth and nail elsewhere.

In Poland the Battle of Daugavpils concluded with the Soviets retreating into Latvia and being taken into custody there. That was possible as Poland and Latvia, which had been fighting, had concluded an armistice in the struggle between them and had asked the Poles for help. The anti Red forces were approximately half Pole and half Latvian, and fought successfully under Polish command.

Mustered Polish armor in the form of French tanks at Daugavpils.

April 19, 1919. Opening Day, April flowers, Poles advance, Rebuilding the churches, Red Cross in action, Belgians on the stage.

The fateful 1919 baseball season opened on this day in 1919, with the Brooklyn Robbins (what the Dodgers were before they were called that) defeating the Boston Braves twice in a double headers.

J. C. Leyendecker graced the cover of The Saturday Evening Post with a spring centered illustration.  Easter Sunday for 1919 was the following day.

Easter was directly recalled on the cover of The Country Gentleman, but with an illustration featuring a little kid with chicks.  This is a traditional Easter theme, but one I've always found a bit odd.

On this day in 1919, Polish forces entered Vilnius in an event that wasn't Easter focused by any means.

Vilnius in some ways symbolizes the nature of post war Eastern Europe, and indeed to some extent Europe in general.  The Poles entered it as part of their war against the Russian Reds.  The town had been of course in the Russian Empire.  It's population was both Polish and Lithuanian and nationalist from both countries saw it as theirs.  In the context of Russian imperial rule, its mixed population hadn't created nationalist problems, but now it was.

Pilsudski took quick steps to try to make it plain that the sovereignty of the region would be determined by plebiscite which he hoped would result in support for a federal union he envisioned which would have included Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, as well as some other regions in some versions of the plan.  The Poles and the Ukrainians are in fact very close in ethnicity, although they are somewhat religiously divided. The Poles and the Lithuanians, however, are largely Catholic, but the Lithuanians were not close to the Poles in ethnicity.  A newly independent Ukrainian government was horrified by the thought of the town being anything but Lithuanian, and Polish nationalist weren't keen on that thought.  The right to include the city within respective national boundaries lead to the Polish Lithuanian War shortly thereafter.  Ironically, it was only Polish success in the Russo Polish War which kept Lithuania from being invaded by the Soviets and at the conclusion of the Russo Polish War it was included within Poland.  The Lithuanians, however, never accepted that fact and did not establish diplomatic relations with Lithuania until 1938.

Today Vilnius is the capitol of Lithuania, but that reflects the results of World War Two.  After the invasion of Poland by the Germans and the Soviets in 1939, the city was turned over to Lithuania but then shortly thereafter Lithuania was invaded by the Red Army.  It was subsequently invaded by the Germans in Operation Barbarossa, and during their occupation most of the large Polish population and the Jewish population was removed from the city. Today its ethnically a Lithuanian city, the result of German oppression of the Poles and Jews.

The ruins of St. Albain Nazaire in France.

On this day in 1919, the Holy See announced plans to raise funds to repair the 1,300 churches in France damaged during the Great War.

How odd that this would fall so close to current events.

Class in Plainfield, New Jersey, snipping filling for pillows for the Red Cross.

The Red Cross was still at work in Europe and of course in Russia and therefore efforts to support it kept on.

Red Cross headquarters in Archangel.

In Washington D. C. Belgian troops who had been in the United States in support of a Victory Loan campaign paraded to the Keith Theater in Washington D. C.

March 20, 1919. Pershing has visitors, Villa let's his unwilling guests go, the 148th FA set to return home, Red Army seeking to be unwelcome guests.

King Albert and Queen Victoria of Belgium visited Gen. Pershing on this day in 1919.

In Mexico, Poncho Villa, who had taken a part of Mormon figures prisoner a few days prior, let them go.  The released prisoners were residents of Colnia Dublan and still had a ways to go to get home, as he didn't return them to their town.

And news arrived that the 148th Field Artillery was soon to sail home.

The same news was printed in Cheyenne, along with a photo that appeared here sometime ago of a teenage plowgirl.

Both papers printed distressing news that the Soviets appeared set to invade Germany. That news was not merely a rumor.  As the fronts swung wildly in the Russian Civil War it seems that those who saw the Russian Revolution as a global revolution to occur immediately were indeed planning just that.

From the vantage point of a century later, that goal seems insane, and there were those with in the Soviet power circles who disagreed with it then, such as one Josef Stalin.  Those who backed it, such as Trotsky, were not without their own logic however.

The Reds were in fact gaining in the far north and were about to push the Allied mission in Northern Russia out of the country.  At the same time, however, the White offensive in the east was meeting with huge success and observed from there, there were reasons to hope that the Whites would prevail.  In the west, however, the Soviets were now fighting the Poles, who were doing well, but who also formed a wall between Red Russia and a Germany which seemed to be on the brink of falling into the hands of German Communists any day.

The really amazing thing, in retrospect, is that the Allies were rushing home their forces in Europe in the face of all of this.  A Red victory in Germany, which was a possibility at the time, would have resulted in the spread of Communism throughout Europe fairly rapidly, with other countries teetering on the brink of Communist revolution.  Even seemingly stable countries, such as the UK, were having some problems at this point.

Of course, long term, the Reds would prevail in Russia but not in Poland, although they nearly did.  Their failure to win there meant that they were not able to proceed into Germany.  It also meant that Stalin's star rose while Trotsky's fell.

St. Valentine's Day, 1919. The Polish Soviet War commenced, Quixotic Portuguese Monarchist fail, Blizzard shuts things down, League of Nations floated, Novel spellings.

Heroic late war Polish poster.

The Polish Soviet War commenced on this date in 1914 when Polish troops were allowed to occupy a town in current day Belarus by the Germans, as part of the German withdrawal from the region, and were soon thereafter attacked by the Red Army.

The war would go on until March, 1921.

The results of the war are surprisingly disputed.  By most measures it would have to be regarded as a Polish victory given that they held off the Red Army even to the point of defending Warsaw against a Soviet offensive.  Moreover, the first Red Army attack had been given a name that suggested Warsaw was its goal.

Soviet propaganda poster showing the Red Army as liberators.

On the other hand, the initial Polish counteroffensives had been enormously successful and the Polish Army had been able to maintain that stance for quite some time during the war, advancing into territory they disputed in Russia and Ukraine.  The reversals in fortune were enormous and the Poles nearly retreated to the German border in the late stages of the war.  Still, Red Army losses during the Battle of Warsaw late in the war were so severe that the Poles were given a border that closely approximated that of the 1772 partition and therefore granted them most of the territory they were seeking,including the debatable Lithuanian town of Vilnius.  By and large, the Poles gained the territory they were seeking, although less than that which Pilsudski would have wanted for a greater Poland.

Polish propaganda poster showing Polish cavalry, which in fact there was a lot of, fighting bestial troops of the Red Army.

The war at least arguably put an end to the Trotsky vision of marching through Poland and on into Germany and likely cemented a growing rift between Stalin who wished thereafter to build Communism in what remained of the Russian Empire as opposed to Trotsky who argued for an immediate global revolution.

Polish solders with captured Soviet battle flags.  The Red Army may have been a new people's army in theory, but in the field it kept the trappings of earlier armies in having battle flags.

Poland, it might be noted, founds itself in substantial wars from the very first moment of the "Peace" of November 1918.  It's amazing it survived as a state.  It fought all of its neighbors to some degree in one way or another.

Meanwhile, in Portugal, a quixotic effort to restore the Portuguese monarchy, which had never received the endorsement of the former Portuguese royal family, ended and with it the self declared Portuguese Monarchy Of The North.

Portuguese monarchist who fought for a monarchy whose former leaders didn't endorse it.

It's flat out bizarre to contemplate a rebel movement to restore a monarchy occurring in 1919 when in many other nations rebels had successfully operated to depose their nation's monarchies.  Yet, in Portugal, such an attempt was oddly made.  It's hard to figure really, but it is perhaps best understood in the context of it being an ultra conservative revolution with no place to go.

Well, closer to home, sort of . . . .

The Tribune had a headline that today would cause people to recall its occasional nickname, the "Casper Red Star", what with its reference to a "World Constitution".  This referred, of course, to a stout League of Nations.

Rumors were afloat about bribery being a factor on a bill for a new county and a "dry" rally was being planned.

And news of a big blizzard was being reported everywhere in the state.

Hopefully that blizzard wouldn't delay the return of the returning Guardsmen of the 116th Ammunition Train which were anticipated to be home within a week.

The Cheyenne paper remembered it was Valentine's Day.

The second Cheyenne paper noted that communications with the East hung on by a thread, due to the blizzard.

Interestingly, but also without details, that paper also reported that "Dean Huston", a Cheyenne clergyman, would be choosing between two parishes for his new assignment back east.  No other substantial details were provided, but it's likely that he was an Episcopal churchman as the Episcopal Church used that title and that would make sense in context.

And finally the pressed for space Laramie Boomerang resorted to Rooseveltian phonetic spelling, as Wyoming papers in this era occasionally did, for their headline, changing Cheyenne to Chian.  

Theodore Roosevelt, who in spite of his genius was somewhat spealling challenged, had advocated for this movement which would have altered the somewhat bizarre spellings common in English to phonetic ones at large and tried writing that way himself for awhile, but like everyone else, he gave it up. For a brief time, however, Wyoming newspapers would resort to it if headlines seemingly required it, as here.

February 11, 1919. Looking back, seeing the future, and How Dry I Am.

The news on this day, Lincoln's Birthday and a holiday, was a bit ominous.  And knowing the future to come, it proved a scary look into something that was coming.

But also in an insight as to views of the time.

The Casper paper reported that Japan was about to go to war with China. . . which in fact it was, although not for a bit over a decade from the date of the paper.  That things were brewing, however, was pretty obvious.

And the Germans were already discontent with the Versailles Treaty they hadn't even signed yet.

Stores in Casper were taking half a day off in honor of the late President Lincoln.

All the Wyoming papers were reporting that the amount of alcohol that could legally be in a beverage was now down to 1%.  Down from 2%.  Just yesterday, if you keep track of things here, you would have seen that certain religious leaders were unhappy with the 2% figure.  Perhaps their voice had been heard.

A voice that wanted to be heard, as you can read in the papers above, is Frank Houx's, who was insistent that had done nothing improper regarding land rights acquisitions.

And notable cities in the former Russian Empire were changing hands as the fortunes of the Reds seemed to be reversing on the battlefield.

And France and Britain wished to remain friends with the United States going forward, they both had declared.

And the clothing shortage made both the front news, and the cartoons.

Blog Mirror: A Hundred Years Ago: 1919 Advice About Substituting Foods in U.S. to Help Needy Children Abroad

A look at the immediate post World War One World:

1919 Advice About Substituting Foods in U.S. to Help Needy Children Abroad

It's interesting how, in our American memory, when World War One ended, it just ended.  Looking back we just recall the end of the war as the turn to peace and all that was good about that.

But in reality, millions of Europeans were refugees.  We've published some photos of them here recently.  A lot of the French were attempting to return to their homes only to find them destroyed.  French farmers who had been driven out of their lands due to the fighting returned in many cases to find a totally altered landscape (a landscape that we'll be posting some images of here soon).

And this wasn't limited to Europe.  In the Middle East millions were adrift.  An entire people, the Armenians, had been in peril since the beginning of the war and many had been victims of genocide.  Those who had survived had been driven east and west, with some ending up as far away as the United States.  In the region of their homeland, the opportunity to break free from former colonial masters meant border combat with other regions doing the same which were their neighbors.

Fighting raged on elsewhere also.  In Germany fighting went on in individual cities and towns over what Germany was to become.  Germany had been on the knife's edge of starvation in the Fall of 1918 and now that the war had ended, the situation was somewhat alleviated, but only somewhat.  On Germany's borders a war raged with Polish revolutionaries, supported by a newly born Poland, over whether certain regions would be Polish or German.  Likewise, the Poles were fighting off a Czech invasion from the south over which border regions would be Polish or Czech. At the same time the Poles were fighting the Ukrainians over large sections of their frontier due to the rarely noted ethnic fact that the Poles simply grade into the Ukrainians, and the two people are closely related.  And the Poles were fighting off a Red Army invasion as well, part of an effort to impose a Communist regime on Poland and whose Red Army commander, Trotsky, imagined might carry his Red forces all the way to Berlin.

Russia was in an enormously violent civil war, which the United States and the other Allies were participating in, in varying degrees. And not doing too well at the century removed moment either.  The Russian Civil War would prove to be a human tragedy of epic proportions, in no small part because both sides became vicious in regard to the other, and the Communist became genocidal nearly from the onset.  Millions would die in that war, following the Great War in which millions of Russians had died.  Millions more would die due to Communist violence, purges and acts of intentional starvation after the Civil War ended in a tragedy that, for the Russians, started in 1914 and would really only abate just before 1950.

The Reds were also fighting in the Baltics, with all the Baltic nations struggling to break away from the Russian Empire, aided in their struggle mostly by the British, but to a degree by the Finns, who had succeeded in that effort and who had fought their own, brief, very violent, civil war in the closing days of World War One.  All over western Russia and what had been parts of the Russian Empire stranded German troops had yet to return home, with some them still serving in combat at that against Red forces they'd helped come about through their late Imperial government's ill thought out intrigues. 

In a bit of a foretaste of what was to come for all of the remaining European colonial powers after World War Two, the United Kingdom was suffering a rebellion in its oldest colony, Ireland.  The UK was pursuing a policy of ignoring the newly formed Irish Dail, but the IRA wasn't ignoring the UK and had already commenced a terrorist rebellion against it.

Things were a mess.

And today, in 1918, the Imperial German Army attacked . . .

the Polish II Corps in the Ukraine.

This particular Eastern battle after the peace between Russia, or rather the soon to be Soviet Union, and Germany is really confusing and perhaps the German action is somewhat understandable, although it once again demonstrates how the Germans managed to keep on fighting in the East after the Russians. .. or rather the Soviets, had surrendered.

Poland was mostly a Russian province prior to World War One but parts of it were in Germany.  During the war both the Central Powers and Imperial Russia formed Polish units, the Imperial Russian ones mostly by default but some with the goal of achieving some sort of Polish independence.  The Central Powers formed them with the same ostensible purpose, a safer bet for them as Polands vague borders put most of it in the East.  One of those units was the Polish Legions, which was a unit in the Austro Hungarian Army.

The II Brigade of the Polish Legion, lead by Polish patriot Jozef Haller von Hallenburg, had defected across the front lines to join the Russian Polish II Corps.  Haller, an eclectic Pole who had served before the war as an Austrian officer, viewed the terms of the Brest Litovsk Treaty as creating poor chances for Poland and lead that effort.  The Germans, for their part, viewed the Polish II Corps as a violation of the treaty and a threat to the Germans, which may have been a correct view.  On the night of May 10 they attacked the unit achieving a complete surprise but without the effect they hoped for.  Their casualties were heavy in the day long battle.  They did achieve a Polish surrender but only after a bloody fight.

Haller went on to become a Polish hero, surviving the battle and fleeing first to Moscow and subsequently ending up as a major campaigner for recruits for the Poles to serve on the Western Front.  He lead the Polish Blue Army in France.  

He was a significant military figure in post war Poland, commanding troops in the Polish war on its eastern borders that occurred in 1919 and again in the Russo Polish War (peace didn't really come to Poland in 1918).  He became a politician following the Russo Polish War and was living abroad when World War Two started, during which he became part of the Polish Government in Exile.  He did not return to Poland following World War Two and died in old age in London in 1960.