Talk:Blue Army (Poland)

As someone trying to research the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920-21, I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to these formations between the time they arrived in Poland, and the start of that conflict.

As far as I can determine, these units disappear from the order of battle in late 1919 or early 1920. The mystery is why? These units, with their air and armored assets, would have been of the most up-to-date, modern (for the time) type. Given the hodge-podge and improvised nature of the rest of the Polish and Red armies, these units would also have been the most powerful units in Eastern Europe as well. I cannot conceive of a good MILITARY reason why these formations would have been broken up, and their power diluted.

Reasons that have been advanced include

1. Having broken their promise not to use the “Blue Army” in offensive operations, the Poles needed to appease the angry Allied Powers. The “Blue Army” needed to disappear, and was broken up for this reason. The veterans of the Army were salted throughout newly raised formations to provide a stiff backbone for unleavened recruits.

2. The Blue Army was formed in France under the authority of Dombrowski, Pilsudski’s rival. Concerned about the political allegiance of these troops, Pilsudski had the army broken up and salted with native Poles, who were likely to be more favorable to the man who had remained in Poland, (Pilsudski), then to the one living out the war in Paris, (Dombrowski.)

3. The majority of American Poles in the Army decided to go home at the end of the Great War. (The US Congress would eventually appropriate funds for ships to bring these troops home.) This, and the impact of influenza at the end of 1919, left so many holes in the roster of these units, it was thought better to distribute the remaining troops into newly forming units.

I would rather this question be given more importance, in the discussion, as well as more detail of the battles and maneuvers the Blue Army participated in.

I must also add my opinion that the emphasis of the first sentence, and devoting a full quarter of the text to “controversies” and pogroms, makes it seem the most important contribution “Blue Army” was suppression of the Jews, not military defense of Poland. While an important question, I don’t think it should be the major emphasis of the article.

{{-}}— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ozzaib (talk • contribs) 15:23, 8 November 2013

What's going on with the archives for this talk page? Entries from 2017 are smeared all across pages 2-6. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 16:27, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

: It also seems that the editing to the lede was in contravention to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blue_Army_(Poland)/Archive_6#RFC:_use_of_a_reference_source_that_was_taken_down_by_the_encyclopedia this RfC from 2017]. Icewhiz (talk) 16:43, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

:: No idea how you get that. Also, that was, well, um, one of "Godric's" closes. Non-admin. Screwed up a lot of closes. This one isn't that bad (though it's not about what you claim it is), though obviously it has problems (like calling it "Unanimous" when it's clearly not). Volunteer Marek 17:47, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

::: The 2017 RfC was on the material edit warred in the past few days out of the lede. {{ping|Winged Blades of Godric}}'s close was inline with consensus.Icewhiz (talk) 18:05, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

::::Agree. RFC was closed after 3 wanted to keep and the edit warrior wanted to remove. It looks like he waited a few years and decided to remove thinking others forgot. And then edit-warred to keep it out after others restored it. And here we are.Faustian (talk) 02:12, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

:::::Again, Godric is/was not an admin, he was doing a lot of sketchy closes at the time (for example, by not waiting sufficiently for discussion to conclude) and this is illustrated here in his obviously incorrect statement that the !vote was unanimous, which it wasn't. Also this RfC was just about whether a particular ref could be used. That's a different issue. The issue here is whether the sentence is WP:DUE in the lede. Volunteer Marek 05:02, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

:::::::The RFC was: "Should the Introduction paragraph continue to display a reference source from Encyclopedia Judaica (reference source citation [1]) when it was taken down by the website, and is a dead link (currently retained by use of Wayback Machine). Also, should the same reference source citation display the entire paragraph from the encyclopedia?" Consensus was to keep the reference. It is implied that consensus exists that the sentence being referenced should also be kept in the lede.Faustian (talk) 05:08, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

::::::::Yes, the RfC was about a particular reference, not whether the sentence is DUE in the lede. And contrary to Godric's statement, it wasn't unanimous. Volunteer Marek 16:13, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

:::{{u|Volunteer Marek}}, please provide evidence for {{tq|Screwed up a lot of closes}} from the exact time-span or retract with an apology.If you have any problems with my closures, you know about the subsequent procedure to overturn it.Right?

:::

:::As to unanimous, any RFC on a content-dispute almost-always means that there is at-least one opposer. So, in a sense, if every participant takes a contrarian stand to that opposer, it is unanimous.

::::You can disagree with my interpretation of the word but that doesn't change the fact the essence of the closure, in favor of inclusion of the source, was quite-valid.If you have any qualms, AN is thatway.

:::

:::Interestingly, (whilst I have not looked at this dispute and does not have any interest, either) I see that you have noted the supposed locus of dispute to be independent of the previous RFC.So, I'm genuinely amazed as to why every rebuttal of your's also feature a concurrent statement about mine being a non-admin, usage of unanimous and all that.Cheers!∯WBG^converse 11:49, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

::::"So, in a sense, ... it is unanimous." Yeah, I'm sorry but there is no "sense" in which not-unanimous somehow means "unanimous". No matter how much you try to magically wish it to be true. Maybe there's like an online encyclopedia where you could look that up or something. "Unanimous" isn't a word you "interpret". It's like saying that you "interpret" 2+2 to equal 5. So take those excuses elsewhere. And yeah, there were complaints about your closes. I have no idea what your last sentence is suppose to actually mean or what is "interesting" about it. Volunteer Marek 06:56, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

:::::Thank you. I note that you are yet to provide a diff (that's the way evidence is provided over en.wiki), from that particular time-span or later. And, WP:AN is always available, for a challenge of any of my closes, you do not agree with. Best, ∯WBG^converse 07:17, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

(od) There's some badly fallacious reasoning in some posts in this thread. Whether a particular close was proper or not has nothing to do with whether the closer made poor closes in the past. It presumes that the closer is incapable of learning (and also that the alleged bad closes were actually bad). Also, if it required an admin to close, WP:NAC and WP:RMNAC would not exists.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:40, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Poland as a sovereign entity played no part in World War I although individual Poles served in ALL the belligerents armies. The comment "it joined other Polish military formations fighting for the return of Poland's independence" is a complete fiction as a resurrected independent Poland was guaranteed by the Allies BEFORE the Armistice of 1918. If the writer is saying they returned to Poland to act as terrorists then that is another matter. 2A00:23C4:B654:1D01:8544:4F7C:C856:C077 (talk) 10:02, 21 April 2025 (UTC)