From church pulpits and in the meeting rooms of various Polish social clubs, national and international leaders appealed for volunteers to fill the ranks of an independent Polish army, made up of Poles living outside the historic boundaries of Poland. Among those leading the campaign was Roman Dmowski, often called the father of Polish nationalism. Dmowski’s voice was joined by internationally acclaimed composer and pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, along with the leader of the Polish Falcon Alliance of America, Pittsburgh’s Dr. Teofil A. Starzynski and, locally, Buffalo’s esteemed Dr. Francis Fronczak. Their goal was the restoration of Polish independence, lost when the empires of Austria, Prussia and Russia carved up the once-proud nation into partitions throughout the last quarter of the 18th century. 

As thousands fled the gathering war clouds in the early 20th century, which were sweeping up men from every village, township and city in Poland for service in the regiments of foreign emperors, the festering resentment of the fleeing refugees became fertile ground for recruitment.  From this resentment evolved the concept of a “Kościuszko Army,” so named in honor of Thaddeus Kościuszko, the Polish-Lithuanian military engineer who led the last uprising to save his native land in the 1790s, following distinguished service in the American Revolution. With the formation of such an army would come the promise of an independent Poland when victory was achieved over the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Recruitment pleas fell first on fertile ground in France and England, where thousands of Poles had fled, but would fully bloom across the Atlantic, where even greater numbers of Polish immigrants had relocated, seeking jobs in the expanding industrial centers like those in the Great Lakes region of the United States. 

America’s neutrality at the outbreak of hostilities in Europe hampered initial efforts to raise such an independent army, and severe restrictions were imposed upon the leaders of the recruitment effort in the United States. Starting late in 1916, President Wilson’s agreement with Dmowski and Paderewski specified that only resident aliens who could show proof of exemption from U.S. armed service eligibility could be recruited into the new Polish Army. In addition, bending to congressional wishes, this foreign fighting force was forbidden to train on U.S. soil. Seeking an alternative, albeit geographically feasible solution, Paderewski relentlessly lobbyied the British government which, in turn, “encouraged” the Government of Canada to step forward to assist. In response, Canada offered teachers and classroom space at the University of Toronto, as well as facilities at Camp Borden outside of the city for the establishment of an officer and medical corps school.  In addition, and closer to the border, they provided a training facility at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, to prepare the enlisted men of the new fighting force for combat.  Joining in what was becoming a truly multi-national effort, the Government of France agreed to provide the military uniforms and to equip and financially support the army once it was fully trained and operational. The distinctive “French-Blue” uniforms would provide the identity for the “Polish Blue Army” once it was deployed in France.

In October 1917, the first ten recruitment centers were set up in major cities across the Northeast and Midwest—at Buffalo, New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston and Milwaukee, along with Wilkes-Barre, PA, and Bridgeport, CT. Each of these cities not only had a significant Polish population, but each laid claim to an established organization that, for nearly 20 years, had trained a fighting force for just such a mission. Located in the heart of the industrial centers, these “nests” were the hub of Polish cultural celebrations, social contact, legal advice, financial support and athletic training. They were ready on day one to sign up an army to fight for Poland. The Polish community in Buffalo will serve as a model for better understanding the larger phenomenon, while also shedding light on conditions existing in Polish communities in large and small cities throughout the Northeast. These conditions made it possible to raise a volunteer army committed to freeing the Polish homeland rapidly and with ease.

By 1892, over 13,000 recently arrived Poles were living in the City of Buffalo, largely settled in overcrowded tenements on and around Alabama Street. The living quarters were dingy, three-room flats where typically large families, by necessity, had to live. The rents charged for these squalid spaces were exorbitant, but the new immigrants were powerless and without a voice in the government. Established Buffalonians along with the German and Irish immigrant populations, who predated the Polish immigration by a generation or more, looked upon the Poles with contempt because they were uniformly poor, non-English speaking and illiterate. Even the Catholic Church, to which the vast majority of the Polish immigrants belonged, provided little solace for the new arrivals, mainly because the priests and bishops were mostly Irish or German. The later arriving Italian immigrants experienced a similar frustration with the church.

Beginning with the opening of St. Stanislaus Church in 1874 in Buffalo, and Holy Trinity in Niagara Falls in 1902, the trend of establishing Polish churches, staffed with Polish-speaking clergy, began to ease the disconnect of the immigrants.  Nonetheless, poor working conditions, inferior pay and social stigma continued to suppress and anger the Poles. 

The September 1901 assassination of President McKinley by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist of Polish ancestry, fueled a growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, where questions of immigration policy were being raised. Future President Woodrow Wilson, while teaching at Princeton, wrote that immigrants, particularly those coming from the undesirable areas of Eastern Europe, were a drain on the economy and were responsible for rising crime rates in cities in the Northeast, where they tended to gather in ethno-centered neighborhoods.  In his 1901 book, A History of the American People, Wilson observed that, “Immigrants poured steadily in as before, but with an alteration of stock which students of affairs marked with uneasiness. Men of sturdy stocks of the north of Europe had made up the main strain of foreign blood which was every year added to the vital working force of the country…but now there came multitudes of men of the lowest class from the south of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland who had neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence.” Wilson added that the number of arrivals were such that it seemed the countries of southern and eastern Europe “were disburdening themselves of the more sordid and hapless elements of their populations.”  

A crusade launched in the early 1880s by newspaperman Edward H. Butler, founder of the Buffalo Sunday Morning News and later the daily Buffalo Evening News, reported the unsanitary living conditions and unearthed levels of poverty unheard of in other sections of the city. Yet little was achieved by the muckraking series which sought to alleviate these atrocities. As a result, the Polish community looked inward for protection, support and solutions to the problems besetting its people.   And as Polish neighborhoods grew in size, so did the outside impression that the East Side—and similar areas in Niagara Falls, Dunkirk, North Tonawanda and Lackawanna—were nothing more than Polish colonies. Helping to solidify this impression was the growing number of ethnic Polish clubs that sprang up in these neighborhoods. 

By the first decade of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of the expatriates who made up “Polonia”—the common title applied to Poles outside the historic boundaries of Poland—lived in Canada, Brazil, Italy, England and France, with the greatest number in the United States. But Polonia’s dispersed sons and daughters, however scattered, were never far from fellow Polish countrymen, language immersion, translation services, custom practices, financial counseling and legal advice. As they settled into established ethnic urban neighborhoods located near the factories and small rural farming villages, the Catholic Church established Polish parishes with Polish-speaking priests, who in turn encouraged the creation of many Polish clubs and social organizations. These clubs sprung up in the Polish enclaves in the industrial centers of Buffalo, Dunkirk, Lackawanna, Niagara Falls and North Tonawanda, as well as many smaller enclaves including Olean and Perry, and are still operating today. 

The oldest fraternal benefit organization, by far, was the Polski Roman Catholic Union (ZPRK), while the largest and most influential was the Polish National Alliance (ZNP). Other smaller organizations included the Sokoly (Polish Falcons), the Polish Women’s Alliance of America (ZPA) and the Polish Union of America (Unia). The Polish National Alliance gave birth to the Domy Polskie (Polish Home) movement, which sought to keep the Polish community together through a non-religious social atmosphere.

These clubs often focused on a particular need or a particular mission. An essential element of the Polish Falcons movement, for example, was the effort to provide exercise classes and the promotion of healthy living using a military model. Thus, the Polish Falcons clubs were often associated with athletics. Other clubs, like Pulaski clubs, supported choral concerts and dance programs. Occasionally clubs consolidated. For instance, the Echo Club in Niagara Falls came into existence when the Lutnia club, which was a mixed voice singing society, merged with the uniformed gymnastic organization of the Sokoly (Polish Falcons) in 1905. That stronger and more robust club answered the need for a social center for the city’s Polish population offering meeting rooms, athletic facilities, entertainment and even a restaurant. A similar consolidation occurred in what is now the Dom Polski in North Tonawanda.

Regardless of its name, by the early 1900s when the Polish immigrant population was exploding and the public perception of Poles in general continued to be one of contempt, the club movement provided the haven for newly arrived immigrants to mix with the established Polish population. Offered services included instruction in Polish folk dancing, band formation, language classes and Polish reading rooms. In addition, meeting places were provided for the Polish Mutual Aid Society, the Polish Businessman’s Association, the Polish Savings and Loan, as well as various singing societies. In these environments, the calls for re-establishing the Polish nation fell on receptive ears.  

Buffalo’s Broadway Dom Polski, established on July 16, 1905, provides an example of how the clubs were easily transformed into recruitment centers for the Polish Army. Citizen committees at the Dom Polski were formed with the express purpose of identifying and recruiting qualified candidates for this new fighting force. Adhering to the criteria imposed by the United States government, immigrants who had not yet been granted citizenship, or had not submitted the proper forms to qualify for U.S. citizenship, could be approached for potential inclusion. The first step would often be an invitation to an assembly. Motivational speakers would plead the case for an independent Poland and remind those in the audience about the conditions that so often caused them to leave their homes in the first place. This was often followed by the harsh and effective tactic of reminding the immigrant that their own relatives still lived in the homeland under these terrible conditions.

These emotional enticements, combined with the harsh economic reality of squalid living conditions, long working hours and low wages, plus the resentment and fear of frequent physical abuse by Americans outside of the Polish neighborhoods, forged a perception among Poles of being outsiders. The influence fostered by the Church or social clubs such as the Polish Falcon “nests” and the Dom Polski clubs, as well as the Pulaski social clubs, added cohesiveness to an already close-knit cultural group, and was often enough to cement an uncommitted and fearful immigrant to a cause. From this incubator, a ready and trained force grew, determined to find a way to free the homeland. 

As early as 1907, Dr. Starzynski, the Pittsburgh-based president of the Polish Falcons Alliance of America, wrote to Polish Falcon leadership in both the eastern branch in New York City and the western branch in Chicago, urging them to reach out to all “nests” within their jurisdiction to form rifle teams and conduct drills among the membership. By October 1917, this highly trained and organized nucleus of an “army” was ready, and the Falcons organization turned over its recruiting activities to the organization established by Roman Dmowski, called the Polish Military Commission, who then oversaw the activities through the end of the war.

After an overnight stay at the Buffalo Dom Polski and in other arranged halls, the first wave of 800 volunteers were fed, given clean clothes, provisioned and provided with mail service and entertainment. They were then transported to the Exchange Street or the Terrace Street train stations for the short trip across the Niagara River to Fort Erie. From there they would be transported by train or by truck the 25 miles to the camp at Niagara-on-the-Lake. 

Under the command of Canadian Army Colonel Arthur LePan, the first group of volunteers arrived at Camp Niagara in October of 1917. There they found only the old race track grounds but no barracks to welcome them near the ruins of Fort George. After pitching the supplied canvas tents, the men began building permanent billets but could not complete them before the onset of winter tested their resolve. Throughout the harsh winter of 1917-18, the growing number of recruits exceeded the camp’s capabilities, and the officers sought out additional accommodations in nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake’s hotels, unoccupied summer residences, old canning factories and even the town hall. During the first winter, the town’s residents provided the additional facilities at no cost, but as the lucrative summer tourist season approached, the villagers renegotiated the compensation for housing and were paid, but at a reduced rate. Remarkably, the village provided free electricity and water to the camp throughout its existence.

The influx of volunteers in the first three months of operation pushed the camp’s capacity to overload. Pleas to the United States were answered and approval came in December to move 600 of the soldiers who were ready for deployment across the river to Fort Niagara for a brief stay before transport to Buffalo and a train ride to New York City for ship-boarding and the voyage to France. At the same time, other groups of soldiers were shipped directly by train from Canada to New York City. This process, dependent upon ground transportation and the camp population, would continue until the closure of the camp. By July of 1918, all Polish soldiers fighting on the side of the Allies came under the command of General Joseph de Hallenburg Haller, a decorated soldier who had been elevated to the rank of commander-in-chief by the Polish command.  

Some initial resentment in Niagara-on-the-Lake over the fact that the soldiers were foreigners was reported in the press, but overall relations between the townspeople and the soldiers were friendly and without incident. The local newspaper, the Niagara Advance, reported “both from a financial and social point of view, we [the people of Niagara-on-the-Lake] benefited greatly but it goes without saying that we regret the departure of our Polish friends, more because they were our friends than because their sojourn here was a financial benefit…they were, first and always, soldiers and above everything gentlemen.”

In a series of columns and news items written for the St. Catherine’s Standard between April 7, 1917, and June of 1919, Elizabeth Ascher confirmed this warm and cordial relationship between the town and the Polish Army soldiers.   

Remarkably, only two outbreaks of disease occurred in the camp, when 41 men died from two separate occurrences of influenza and resulting complications. The Catholic cemetery in Niagara-on-the-Lake contains the graves of 24 of the Polish volunteers who could not be returned to relatives in the United States and these are remembered in a ceremony each year. A plaque was erected in 2017 by the Niagara Polish Cultural and Historical Society in Lewiston to commemorate the contribution of these brave Poles. 

It is not documented exactly how many of the 38,000 Polish volunteers of Haller’s Polish Army recruited between 1917 and 1919 returned to America. Ship registries from the troop transports, including the last officially authorized Polish Army transport to leave France in 1921, reveal a total of about 24,000 men and women. However, it cannot be ascertained if these ships carried only Haller’s Polish Army soldiers and nurses. The calculated 37 percent casualty rate for returning Polish Army soldiers would appear to be considerably higher than estimates of French war dead, but it cannot be known with certainty whether all of the 14,000 who failed to return by 1921 died in action. Some may have been too severely wounded to return, and some may have simply stayed in Poland. Still others may have come back to America years later. Even though precise WWI casualty records are unavailable, an analysis of French regular army and French colonial force casualty estimates (the Polish Army was considered a “colonial” army) reveals a tragically high percentage of soldiers killed-in-action. No figures are available to determine how many of the wounded perished later from their wounds. Poor medical facilities and a lengthy time between injury and hospitalization was common during the First World War and it can be assumed that wounded Polish Army soldiers suffered under similar conditions up until the time the armistice was signed. So it is possible that the total casualty rate among Polish Army veterans could have been extremely high. 

Regardless, the numbers are not the only tragedy. Those that did return were not welcomed back with open arms. The first to return faced stringent new U.S. immigration laws and some were immediately deported. In addition, repeated snags and endless negotiations stalled the return for hundreds of other soldiers and nurses. And if that were not enough, many faced charges stemming from alleged violations of U.S. conscription laws, contending that they joined the Polish Army illegally, and were fined or imprisoned. And, like all veterans, many suffered the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD (“Shell-Shock” in the primitive parlance of the time), and were unable to hold down jobs or support families after repatriation. The stories of two Buffalonians, now buried in St. Stanislaus Cemetery in Cheektowaga, bear out this difficult resettlement effort. 

Stefan Ryszkowski, who before the war was a commercial editor of Buffalo’s Polish Newspaper, Poles in America, served as a Blue Army recruiter and later served in France. When he returned to Buffalo he was unable to resume his former job,or hold any other. Today he would be identified as having combat fatigue and PTSD. Eventually he joined PAVA, Buffalo’s Polish Army Veterans Association Post #1, and gave the rest of his shortened life to improving the lives of his fellow veterans. 

Ryszkowski’s friend, Anastazja Hanna Kamienska, born Annette Wiechniarek in Poland, joined the Polish White Cross organization in 1916 along with Helena Paderewski, founder of the White Cross and wife of the famous composer and pianist. She met and married Capt. Bronislaw Kaminski in 1921 and, after multiple emigration frustrations, came to Buffalo five years later. In Buffalo, she became a leader of the Polish Falcons and the Polish Women’s Alliance and, with Ryszkowski and Katherine Hodkiewicz, established the ladies Auxiliary of PAVA and assisted Blue Army veterans with jobs, housing and medical needs until her death in 1937. 

The historical record is indisputable. Fighting in France, and later Poland, Haller’s Polish Army performed bravely. This resolute group of immigrants contributed to the defeat of the Central Powers and the restoration of Polish independence. Concurrently, these same men and women who delayed their own freedom and dreams of citizenship to fight for the freedom of their homeland, helped safeguard American freedom and improved life in America after their return. 

We owe these freedom fighters and all who fought a great debt.