5th Rifle Division (Poland)

However, their rule provoked many protests and uprisings led by a variety of generals and political parties, from monarchists through anarchists to republicans.

In accordance with treaties with France signed the year before, the units formed in Russia were to be a part of the Allied Polish Army.

The action of forming a new unit was started on July 1, 1918, by major Walerian Czuma, a veteran from the 2nd brigade of the Polish Legions who was taken POW during World War I.

Kolchak's government hastily ordered the evacuation of Omsk 6 November 1919, but this quickly turned into a disorderly rout along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The Entente had determined the order of the withdrawal, with the echelons of the Allied Forces first—Czechs, Serbs Romanians and Poles, and then the masses of Russian refugees and remaining White Armies.

As the forces of the Red Army approached the log jam of trains backed up before Novo-Nikolaevsk (Novosibirsk) in early December, the Poles had to put down a local revolt by White troops.

At Taiga 22 December 1919 the Polish Legion made a stand against the Red Army but were badly beaten losing many of their trains.

Many of their trains began to break down, and the Poles were forced to abandon them and join the exodus that streamed along the frozen tracks beside the railway.

As the remaining trains limped towards Krasnoyarsk, the town was occupied by the Siberian Partisans of Shchetinkin 4 January 1920, even though the Poles still controlled the station.

The Czechs were better equipped and strong enough to later fight their way through Kansk to Irkutsk, where in conference with the Allies and the new Soviet they were allowed to withdraw without further destruction of the railway (17 February 1920).

However the Polish Legion had no choice but to negotiate with the Red Army and asked to be allowed to return to Poland through Russia, but the Bolsheviks demanded that they surrender.

[1] The Poles were interned at the Viona Gorodock P.O.W camp at Krasnoyarsk, where many subsequently died in the typhus epidemic that was devastating Siberia at that time.

Soon they were joined by approximately 5 000 volunteers from Kalisz, Kutno, Łódź, Włocławek and other towns of Western Poland and the "Officers Legion" became a core of the reformed Siberian Brigade (Polish: Brygada Syberyjska) formed on July 12, 1920.

The Siberian Brigade became a core of the Polish defence lines in the area and managed to hold out all assaults on the fortress organised by the Red Army.

Before the outbreak of World War II the 82nd regiment was attached to the Polish 30th Infantry Division commanded by Brigadier General Leopold Cehak.