‘In a Mere Shirt and Capless’: The Uniform Crisis of the Polish Army During the Polish-Ukrainian-Bolshevik War 1918–21

Abstract

This article presents issues relating to the uniforms of the Polish Army during the wars of 1918–21 in the context of the severe economic and epidemic crisis plaguing both the country and the region. Drawing on the accounts of participants and eyewitnesses of the war, and also by making recourse to the largely unpublished documents of the Sanitary Headquarters of the Polish Army Command-in-Chief, I look at the causes, scale and effects of the severe shortage of uniforms and equipment – shortages that would beset and plague Polish soldiers. The second part of the article presents institutional, top-down attempts to improve the situation involving substantial foreign procurements. Asking whether the crisis was ever truly resolved, the findings here offer ultimately a negative assessment of what ultimately transpired. The article’s final section indicates the relationship between the catastrophic situation regarding supplies and the threats posed by the Spanish flu and typhus.