Talk:1st Cavalry Division (Polish)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.

Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Additional information and associated task forces:

	This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: `<!-- B-Class-1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations. -->` `\|B-Class-1=yes/no` `<!-- B-Class-2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. -->` `\|B-Class-2=yes/no` `<!-- B-Class-3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. -->` `\|B-Class-3=yes/no` `<!-- B-Class-4. It is free from major grammatical errors. -->` `\|B-Class-4=yes/no` `<!-- B-Class-5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. -->` `\|B-Class-5=yes/no`
Associated task forces (nations and regions):
	Polish military history task force
Associated task forces (periods and conflicts):
	World War II task force

[edit] Name

This article may refer to three Polish formations (which on the pl wiki have separate articles about them). The problem with their names is that two use the word Jazda, one Kawaleria - both really translate as Cavalry. They are:

pl:Dywizja Jazdy - Cavalry Division (no numeral), pl wiki states that it was "formed hurriedly and took part in the April 1920 Kiev offensive). Formed from 4th and 5th Cavalry Brigades and smaller units
pl:1 Dywizja Jazdy - 1st Cavalry Division, formed in July 1920 (according to pl wiki, the current en wiki articles states it was formed in 1919?) - 1924, formed from 1st, 6th and 7th Cavalry Brigades
pl:1 Dywizja Kawalerii (II RP) - 1st Cavalry Division, 1924 - 1930, formed from 4th, 8th and 11th Cavalry Brigades and smaller units

I'd suggest keeping the articles directly associated with pl wiki articles, and adding (Jazdy) or (Kawalerii) to to the name of the article (ex. 1st Cavalry Division (Polish) (Jazdy) and 1st Cavalry Division (Polish) (Kawalerii) - unless anybody can come up with a better disambig name?

While I was able to find that 1 Dywizja Jazdy was transformed into 1 Dywizja Kawalerii in 1924, I am not sure if Dywizja Jazdy was transformed directly into 1 Dywizja Jazdy. All of those units having different brigades does not help, neither. For example, there was also pl:2 Dywizja Jazdy with 8th and 9th Brigades. It is possible (my guess) that in fact all three existed at the same time and 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 10th Brigades were not a part of any Division (do note all brigades have individual articles on pl wiki, too, but they have not enough on op. history and structure to clarify that).

It should be noted that Brigades were numbered in a confusing way; while there were 10 (I to X) Brygady Jazdy, the Brygady Kawalerii (presumably formed in 1924) had much more spread out and confusing numbers, see pl:Szablon:Kawaleria II RP for details (of course this is assuming that template is comprehensive).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure it will be helpful or transparent to have the Polish term in the name of the article, most people, including myselve, have no idea what the word Jazdy means. Kawalerii is easy enough to guess, but I don't think wikipedia shood be a guessing competition. Maybe, Polish Cavalry Division (1920) for the Dywizja Jazdy would be an option while the other two could maintain their current title, except that maybe, (Polish) should be changed to (Poland) to bring it in line with other Polish mitlitary articles.

English sources for those units are hard to come by, I would assume there is a greater wealth of information available in Polish, but the fact that the articles on Polish wikipedia are only stubs too indicates, there may not be all that much either. Regarding the founding year, I found very little preceise information, 1920 is quite possible too. I think, the Brigades are not a clear indication of what became what because they only seem to have been formed on demand, they are not units with any form of tradition. The Regiments are the "true home of the soldier", I think, their movements give much more away what became what from those three Cavalry units. EA210269 (talk) 00:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think, the elusive Dywizja Jazdy could possibly be the unit lead by Kasimirez Sawicki at Brody in August 1920. It seems like it was a hastily assembled formation to break the Konarmia, rather then an official unit. Sawicki is also mentioned in the article of the Polish wikipedia. However, those are just my assumptions, evidence for it is very limited. EA210269 (talk) 09:19, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It's been ages since I read all the books on 1919-1920, so I'm writing solely from my memory. Anyway, I always preferred one article per unit solution over the Polish wiki's "one article per name per unit".

Anyway, early in the war Poland had cavalry regiments, which were then pressed into brigades. Take note however, that often regiments officially considered part of the same brigade in fact fought separately and gathered only occasionally. Hence the brigade numbering system was even more inconsistent than you might think.

Another problem is the naming. Let's set the chronology straight then. The original "Dywizja Jazdy" (under Jan Romer; 4th and 5th Brigades) was at times called the "1. Dywizja Jazdy", even during the initial push towards Kiev in the spring of 1920 (as in: Lech Wyszczelski: "Kijów 1920"). With time it was converted into what became "1 Dywizja Jazdy" (under Juliusz Rómmel). The unit was the same, though the numbering of brigades changed. But take note of the regiments forming both units.

The IV Bde got split and 8th and 9th uhlan regiments were moved to VII Bde, while 14th uhlan regiment was moved to VI Bde. The latter was reinforced with 1st regiment (formerly V Bde), while the remaining regiment of the V Bde (2nd Light horse) got attached to the VII Bde. Out of 6 original regiments forming the Romer's Dywizja Jazdy, 5 got included in the latter Rómmel's Dywizja Jazdy. It was the same unit, with the same command structure and staff, yet was significantly reinforced and reorganized, hence the naming problem.

Following the 1924 reorganization the structure of Polish cavalry units got changed, but the new "1. Dywizja Kawalerii" was still mostly the same unit in terms of staff, traditions and regiment numbers. Sure, it had a modernised structure, yet it was still the same unit with which Rómmel kicked the Russians at Komarów in 1920.

Having written all of the above, I'd keep the article in one place, without splitting it. There's no ambiguity in English and there's no need to disambiguate. //Halibu tt 09:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. More on the post-war reorganization of 1921 (which further complicates the matter) you can read here (Polish, pdf). //Halibu tt

Unable to speak any Polish, I think I've added to the article what I can from English sources I could find. I finished the book I used as my main, but not only, source and there is not much more in it. I think, only somebody with access to Polish sources can improve this article now. Regarding the above, looking at how desperate Poland was in August 1920, I don't think, they worried to much about division or brigade numbers or names, therefore I don't think we can expect the nice, organised system a peace time army would have. Units were moved around based on necessety, not order. And I agree, keep it all one article. Should considerably more information surface, justifing separate articles, it can still be split then. EA210269 (talk) 12:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)