Siberian Brigade

Polish 5th Siberian Rifle Division (Polish: 5. Dywizja Strzelców Polskich; also known as the Siberian Division and Siberian Brigade) was a Polish military unit formed in 1919 in Russia during World War I. The division fought during the Polish-Bolshevik War, but as it was attached to the White Russian formations, it is considered to have fought more in the Russian Civil War. Its tradition was continued in the Polish Army as the 30th Infantry Division.

During World War I Russia entered a period of rapid decline. Internal problems led to an outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Initially the revolutionists promised new world order and putting a bloody war to an end. However, their rule provoked many protests and uprisings led by a variety of generals and political parties, from monarchists through anarchists to republicans.

In the turmoil of the Russian Civil War many nations started to form their own military units. Among them was a large number of Czechs and Slovaks that defected on the Russian front or were taken POW and formed the Czechoslovak Legion. The unit started an armed rebellion in Siberia and managed to effectively liberate much of the area from the Reds. At the same time Poles present in Russia also started to form their own units. In accordance with treaties with France signed the year before, the units formed in Russia were to be a part of the Allied Polish Army.

The action of forming a new unit was started on July 1, 1918, by major Walerian Czuma, a veteran from the 2nd brigade of the Polish Legions who was taken POW during World War I. Soon a new division was formed. The unit was composed of three infantry regiments, supported by an assault battalion, Uhlans regiment, artillery regiment, battalion of engineers, tabors and medical corps. The volunteers came from a variety of places: the core of the new unit was formed of POWs of the former Austro-Hungarian Army and local Poles. Some of the latter were descendants of Poles forcibly resettled to Siberia after failed November Uprising, January Uprising and other struggles with Imperial Russia.

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