page_title: Polish Land Forces
section_title: 1939–1945
hierarchical_section_title: Polish Land Forces / History / 1939–1945
caption_attribution_description: English: 7TP Polish Tank, 1939
context_page_description: The Land Forces are a military branch of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 77,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stretches back a millennium – since the 10th century, but Poland's modern army was formed after the country regained independence following World War I in 1918.
context_section_description: The German invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, and the Wehrmacht seized half the country quickly despite heavy Polish resistance. Among the erroneous myths generated by this campaign were accounts of Polish cavalry charging German tanks, which did not, in fact, take place. In the east, the Red Army took the other half of the country in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Following the country's fall, Polish soldiers began regrouping in what was to become the Polish Army in France. Both the Polish Armed Forces in the West and the Polish Armed Forces in the East, as well as interior (partisan) forces, primarily represented by the Home Army (AK) had land forces during the Second World War. While the forces fighting under the Allied banner were supported by the Polish Air Force and Navy, the partisan forces were an exclusive land formation.
  However the army operational today has its roots in the surrogate force formed in support of Soviet interests during the establishment of the People's Republic of Poland after the Second World War. Two Polish armies, the First Army (Poland) and the Second Army fought with the Red Army on the Eastern Front, supported by some Polish Air Force elements. The formation of a Third Army was begun but not completed.
caption: Polish army's 7TP tanks on military manoeuvres before the Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, 1939.
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