Ukrainian Galician Army
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Ukrainian Galician Army (Ukrainian: Українська Галицька Армія, Ukrayins’ka Halyts’ka Armiya, UHA), was the Ukrainian military of the West Ukrainian National Republic during and after the Polish-Ukrainian War.
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[edit] Military Equipment
The Ukrainian Galician Army obtained its arms from Austrian depots and from the demobilized Austrian and German troops who streamed through Galicia by the hundreds of thousands following the collapse of the Central Powers during World War I. However, the centers of Austria's military industry were far outside Galicia and subsequent difficulty with resupply was a major factor in the loss of the war with Poland.
[edit] Armed Forces
The government of the West Ukrainian People's Republic was well organized and was able to mobilize over 100,000 troops by spring 1919, 40,000 of whom were battle-ready. Due to Ukrainians' generally poor socioeconomic status, the army had a disporoprtionately low ratio of officers to other ranks. In the Austro-Hungarian Army, ethnic Ukrainians had accounted for only two out of 1,000 officers (in comparison, Poles had made up 27/1,000 officers in the Austrian military). As a result, although most of the junior rank officers were Galicians the government of the West Ukrainian People's Republic relied largely on former high ranking officers of the defunct Russian Army, such as General Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko, to take on the post of commander and general staff. It also staffed many positions with unemployed Austrian and German officers.
The Ukrainian Galician Army reached its greatest strength in June 1919, where it had 70,000 to 75,000 men, including reserves. It had very limited cavalry but artillery, consisting of ex-Austrian pieces, was a strength. The UHA fielded 40 airplanes, and until April 1919 enjoyed air superiority over the Poles.
[edit] Sich Rifles
A former unit of the Austro-Hungarian Army, the 1st Brigade of Sich Riflemen (Ukrainian: Sichovi Striltsi) became the elite force of the Ukrainian Galician Army during the war against Poland. It was formed in 1914 by former members of youth and paramilitary organizations and fought in Galicia and Ukraine against the Russian Empire throughout the first world war. At its peak this brigade had 8,600 men, not all of whom fought in Galicia.
[edit] Jewish Battalion
The Ukrainian Galician Army fielded a Jewish battalion (Zhydivs’kyy Kurin’ UHA) recruited from Ternopil and led by Lieutenant S. Leimberg. Formed in June, 1919, it attained a strength of 1,200 men and participated in combat against the Poles in July 1919 and subsequently against the Bolsheviks. The battalion was decimated by a typhus epidemic in late 1919 and its surviving soldiers were reassigned to other units within the Ukrainian Galician Army.[1]
[edit] References
- Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6.
- A web site including information about the Ukrainian Galician army
