4th Rifle Division ( Poland ) The Polish 4th Rifle Division ( ) was a Polish military unit , forming , together with the Polish 5th Rifle Division of the Blue Army , the only part of the Polish military which took part in the Russian Civil War . Under the command of General Lucjan Żeligowski , it operated as an ally of the White movement from autumn 1918 to August 1919 in southern Russia and Bessarabia . History and operations . The 4th Rifle Division could trace it origins to the Polish 2nd Corps in Russia . The 2nd Corps was formed from various Polish units , but primarily the 2nd Brigade of the Polish Legions in World War I , which rebelled against the Treaty of Brest - Litovsk and decided to join the newly - forming Polish army and help secure the territories inhabited by the Poles in the Kresy region . The Polish 5th Rifle Division found itself fighting in the northern territories of the former Russian Empire ; the 4th , in its southern regions . The ever - changing and chaotic currents of the Russian Civil War , coupled with the weak chain of command of the newly reborn Polish Army , meant that the local commanders had much autonomy ; thus the 2nd Corps found it most useful to ally itself with the forces of the White movement , even though Polish commander - in - chief Józef Piłsudski declined to support the Whites with any other units after he had established firm control over the Polish forces in 1919 . Nonetheless this meant that the soldiers of the 2nd Corps were fighting the Bolsheviks and their Red Army even before the Polish - Soviet War began in 1919 . After the Battle of Kaniów on 11 May 1918 , in which the forces of the 2nd Brigade broke through the front and created the 2nd Corps , the Polish commanders entered the alliance with one of the White generals , Mikhail Alekseev , and his Volunteer Army in the northern Caucasus near the Kuban River . By September 1918 the Polish forces in the region , called the ' Polish Unit of the Volunteer Army ' , numbered over 700 people under the command of Col . Franciszek Zieliński , and were engaged in several battles with the Bolsheviks . In October 1918 General Lucjan Żeligowski assumed command of the Polish forces in the east from General Haller . At the same time , General Alekseev died , and General Anton Ivanovich Denikin assumed the command of the White forces in the region . The local Polish forces were reorganized into the Polish 4th Rifle Division , subordinated to the 2nd Corps of the Blue Army of General Józef Haller . By the end of January 1919 the division numbered over 2800 men , including many from the now - disbanded Polish 1st Corps in Russia . At that time Piłsudski ordered the Polish units in the far East to move close to the core Polish territory . Denikin , who received this order through French General Ferdinand Foch , ordered Żeligowski to move to Odessa , a major port west of Crimea . Żeligowski reorganized and strengthened the units in the area , and in December 1918 he found himself facing the Ukrainian forces of Symon Petlura . Reinforced by French and Greek troops , it helped to secure Odessa as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and took part in the fights near Tiraspol . In March 1919 the unit numbered about 3000 men , including a sizeable cavalry contingent . By the end of March the division , and the Allied forces , were no longer fighting the Ukrainians , but the Bolsheviks . Żeligowski was able to influence the placement of his unit , and until May the division successfully screened the retreat of Allied troops from Odessa towards the Romanian lines in Bessarabia . Near the end of May the division was relieved and finally transported to Poland . It was the only major Polish military formation that took part in the Russian Civil War and managed to return to Poland as a functioning unit . The division then took part in the last phase of the ongoing Polish - Ukrainian War , starting from the area near Chernivtsi and Stanyslaviv . This time it was not fighting Petliura ( who was soon to become a Polish ally ) , but one of the other Ukrainian factions , the West Ukrainian National Republic . From 11 to 13 July the division fought its first ( and victorious ) battle near a town with a sizeable Polish population in the area , Jazłowiec . On 19 July 1919 the division was reformed into the Polish 10th Infantry Division and took part in the major conflict of that time , the Polish - Soviet War .