page_title: Battle of Lemberg (1918)
section_title: Ukrainian takeover
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Lemberg (1918) / Ukrainian takeover
caption_attribution_description: English: Ivan Boberskyi, Mykhailo Voloshyn, Longyn Tsehelskyi - Ukrainian politicians of ZUNR (1918-1919 in uniforms of Ukrainian Army 1918 ( Sitchovi Strilci)
context_page_description: The Battle of Lemberg took place from November 1918 to May 1919 and was a six-month long conflict in what is modern-day Ukraine. The battle was fought between attacking forces of the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the local Polish civilian population, assisted later by regular Polish Army forces for the control over the city of Lviv, in what was then eastern part of Galicia and now is western part of Ukraine. The battle sparked the Polish-Ukrainian War, ultimately won by Poland.
context_section_description: Between 3:30 and 4:00 A.M. on November 1, 1918 Ukrainian soldiers occupied Lviv's public utilities and military objectives, raised Ukrainian flags throughout the city and proclaimed the birth of the new Ukrainian state. The Austrian governor was interned and handed over power to the vice-director of the governorship, Volodymyr Detsykevych, who in turn recognized the supreme authority of the Ukrainian National Rada. The Austrian military commander called on his subordinates to recognize the Rada as well. Colonel Dmytro Vitovsky became commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian forces in Lviv, which numbered 60 officers and 1,200 soldiers. Lviv was proclaimed the capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic, which claimed sovereignty over Eastern Galicia, the Carpathians up to the village of Komańcza in the west (Komancza Republic), Carpathian Ruthenia and northern Bukovina. However, a large part of the claimed territory, including the city of Lviv, was also considered Polish by many of the local residents. While the Ukrainian residents enthusiastically supported the proclamation and the city's significant Jewish minority remained mostly neutral towards the Ukrainian proclamation, the Polish residents, constituting the majority of Lviv's inhabitants, were shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state.
caption: Dmytro Vitovsky (in the middle) accompanied by two officers, 1918
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "758", "Image ImageLength": "960", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2018:11:03 10:12:57", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6965", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "758", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "960"}