Ukrainian Armies 1914-55

[Perun]

http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...=S6682~ser=MAA

There can be no region in Europe whose history has been more tortured than Ukraine. During the 20th century Austria, Poland, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania vied for power over parts of this vast and fragmented area; and its divided peoples rose time and again in vain attempts to win their independence. For the first time in the West, this book gives a succinct summary of all the different armed forces raised among the Ukrainians, and of their uniforms and insignia. These are illustrated in colour and in a selection of extremely rare photographs, dating from the Great War to the aftermath of World War II, when Ukrainian guerrillas continued to defy the Soviet authorities until the mid-1950s.

[Perun]

World War I:

1. Volunteer, Legion of Ukrainian Sich Rifles, 1914

2. NCO, Legion of Ukrainian Sich Rifles, 1917

3. Junior officer, Galician-Bukovynian Battalion of Sich Rifles’ Kyiv, spring 1918

[Perun]

The UNR:

1. Volunteer, Battalion of Red Haidamaks, Haidamak Host of NE Ukraine, winter 1918

2. Soldier, Ivan Bogun Regiment, winter 1918

3. Private, 1st Ukrainian ‘Bluecoat’ Division, March 1918

[Perun]

The Hetmanate:

1. Captain, 1st Serdiuk(Guards) Inf Regt., 1918

2. Hetman Pavlo Skoropadski, 1918

3. Personal ADC to the Hetman, 1918

[Perun]

The Directory:

1. Major, HQ 1st Cossack Rifle ‘Greycoat’ Div., 1918-19

2. Commander, Guerrilla Detachment Bojko, 1919

3. Private, Black Zaporozhian Cav Regt, 1919

[Perun]

Directory cont.

1. General Staff officer, 1919

2. Simon Petlura, Commander-in-Chief, 1919

3. Officer, 1st Gutusul Marine Regt, 1919

[Perun]

The ZUNR

1. Cavalryman, 1st Brigade, UHA, 1919

2. Lieutenant-colonel, UHA cavalry, 1919

3. Sergeant-major, People’s Guard, 1919

[Perun]

World War II

1. Junior Officer, Carpathian Sich, 1939

2. Officer, ‘Roland’ Battalion, 1941

3. NCO of a Ukrainian Security Battalion, c.1942

[Perun]

World War II & After:

1. Private, Ukrainian Liberation Army, 1943-44

2. Major, Ukrainian Insurgent Army, 1945

3. Commander, Ukrainian Insurgent Army, 1949

[Rusalka]

Great thread Perun! I love the photos.

The man in the middle in this picture has the costume identical to the Circassian/Northern Caucasian one. It is also the same attire in Abkhazia and Georgia, save the hat, which changes to a bigger one in those areas. As far as I know, the Northwestern Caucasian attire was adopted by the Cossacks (amongst whom were many Northern Circassians too) and it was even used in the Tsar's army later on. Any more information on the Hetmanate? Serdiuk also sounds familiar..

Originally Posted by Perun

The Hetmanate:

1. Captain, 1st Serdiuk(Guards) Inf Regt., 1918

2. Hetman Pavlo Skoropadski, 1918

3. Personal ADC to the Hetman, 1918

[Perun]

Originally Posted by Rusalka

Great thread Perun! I love the photos.

Thank you, you'll get a point for that!

The man in the middle in this picture has the costume identical to the Circassian/Northern Caucasian one. It is also the same attire in Abkhazia and Georgia, save the hat, which changes to a bigger one in those areas. As far as I know, the Northwestern Caucasian attire was adopted by the Cossacks (amongst whom were many Northern Circassians too) and it was even used in the Tsar's army later on.

Well that's the Hetman you're speaking of and he's wearing traditional Cossack(Kozak as Ukrainians use the term) custume. In this same book, theres an interesting photo of him meeting with the German Kaiser in 1918.

Any more information on the Hetmanate?

Sure. http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?AddButton=pages\H\E\Hetmangovernment.htm

Basically the Hetmanate saw itself as restoring the old Hetmanate that existed after the 1648 rebellion against Poland, untill its destruction by Russia in 1782. You can read about that Hetmanate here:
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?AddButton=pages\H\E\Hetmanstate.htm

If you want, I can try posting excerpts from Orest Subtelny's book on Ukrainian history. Also Hrushevsky probably mentions it in an edition of his history(although he was President of the UNR).

Serdiuk also sounds familiar..

They were mercenaries during the original Hetmanate. Interesting they're unit in the PC game Cossacks: European Wars:




http://cossacks.heavengames.com/theg...infantry.shtml

Serdiuk (Ukraine)

Created at: Cossack Barracks
Hit points: 85
Time to Create: 600
Armament: Musket
Ranged Attack: 10
Cost: 70 Food, 15 Iron, 3 Gold
Upkeep: N/A
Value: N/A

The Ukranian army was divided into two portions: Infantry and Cavalry. Cossacks made up the cavalry of the army, and the Serdiuks were the infantry. Serdiuks were almost never seen mounted. Historically, Serdiuks were very weak in comparison to their European counterparts, but in Cossacks: European Wars, Serdiuks are some of the best shooters in the game. They have a long range of fire and high attack. However, they lack bayonets and must be supported by infantry. They also take a bit longer than average to train.

[Perun]

Here are some pictures of Skoropadsky I was able to find

[Perun]

Here are the drawings once again once again

[bocian]

Here is some more on Ukrainian armies...

Most of the site is in Polish, but there is also a summary po Angielsku.

http://genocide007.webpark.pl/index.html

ENGLISH SUMMARY
of the work by
Wladyslaw Siemaszko and Ewa Siemaszko

GENOCIDE
COMMITTED BY UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS
ON THE POLISH POPULATION OF VOLHYNIA
DURING WORLD WAR II (1939-1945)

The monumental work of Wladyslaw Siemaszko and Ewa Siemaszko (father and daughter) on Ukrainian genocide in Volhynia during World War II is like the tome of some voluminous, as yet non-existent work on the totality of the genocide committed against the Polish population during those years. Poles were subjected to genocide - in various forms and on varying scales by the Germans, the Soviets, and the Ukrainians. The German and Soviet genocide is relatively well known and documented. Genocide perpetrated by the Ukrainians, on the other hand, is much more of an unknown as yet. It was not limited to the territory of Volhynia (and a part of southern Polesie), but extended to the whole of Eastern Galicia and even part of south-eastern Poland, well into its present post-Yalta borders. but it must be remembered that the lands of Volhynia were the scene of the first onset of genocide by the Ukrainians against the Poles, resulting in a much higher number of murder victims than was the case in the territories of the individual former provinces of Eastern Galicia (the provinces of Tarnopol and Stanistawow and the eastern part of the province of Lvov) 1. For this reason the authors did right to concentrate on Volhynia.
The concept of genocide, and the term for it, were created in the early forties by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1901-1959). Lemkin spent the thirties as assistant public prosecutor of lhe District Court in Brzezany (Tarnopol province), followed by delegation to an equivalent post in Warsaw, and later hecoming a barrister, as well as lecturer of the Free Polish University there. Already before the war, he was interested in the issue of genocide, termed by him at that time as "acts of barbarity". He managed to reach the United States in 1941 and published his breakthrough work-Axis Xule in Occupied Europe - there in 1944 2. He was also instmmental in the adoplion of the fundamental international treaty in the field of genocide: The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948. Because of this, he was to be nominated twice for lhe Nobel Peace Prize 3. The provisions of the Convention, which has been ratified by the great majority of nation states, must be looked upon today as being ius cogens, in other words such as cannot be overturned (as opposed to ius dispositivum) 4. At the same time, the crime of genocide is writlen into the majority of national penal codes 5.
In accordance with article II of the Convention: "genocide means any of the following acts commilted with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such", using various methods: the first being, of course, "killing members of the group" (art.ll, item an). This is followed by items b/ to e/: "b/ causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c/ deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d/ imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e/ forcibly trans(erring children of the group to another group". It must be clearly said, here, that Ukrainian genocide against the Poles is characterized by several aggravating circumstances.
Firstly, it encompassed, in principle, the most speedy possible physical extermination (murder) on the spot of a l l t h e Po l e s that could be reached, regardless of age or sex 6. In this respect it is comparable only to the German genocide against the Jews - not their genocide against the Poles 7. Concerning the Jews it must be added that in their
extermination in the southeastern border provinces of the Polish Republic, the Ukrainians not only took a very big part in all the acts of genocide, either in conjunction with the Germans or independently under German supervision 8, but also perpetrated similar acts on their own. This already happened in the summer of 1941, as the German armies were
entering the then Soviet - occupied territory 9. Later, after having liquidated the ghettoes together with the Germans, that is mainly after the second half of 1942, the Ukrainians continued to capture and murder individual Jews who had been in hiding 10. All these "actions", it must be kept in mind, were connected with pillage on a huge scale of the
victims' properly 11.
Secondly, Ukrainian genocide was characterized as a rule by tortures of the utmost barbarity. These reached back to the Cossack traditions of the XVII th and XVIII th centuries (the Khmelnitsky Uprising 12 and the uprising of 1768 called "kolistchyzna"13), with the methods in use at that time - hacking Poles and Jews with axes, throwing wounded victims into wells, sawing people alive, horse-dragging, eye-gouging, pulling out of tongues, and other atrocities 14. Such acts of barbarity were not as a rule employed by the Germans or even the Soviets. Of course there were beatings and frequently bestial cruelty during interrogations 15 or in concentration camps (where this was accompanied' by starvation and backbreaking work, sometimes criminal medical experimenlation in German camps, etc.), but it was not usual for the murder thal took place there to be combined with the cutling off or pulling out of parts of the body, sawing, ripping open of the stomach, disembowelment, and so on 16.
Let us add that on a European scale, as far as dreadful tortures go,the genocide commitled by the Ukrainians on the Poles is only comparable, to a certain extent, to the Croatian genocide (by the Ustasi of Ante Pavelic) against the Serbs during World War II from the spring of 1941. However, what was also practiced there on a big scale were mass expulsions, or "conversion" to Catholicism, which meant that a large majority of the Serbs who were within the boundaries of the Croatian state formed in April of 1941 (with acceptance by Germany and Italy) could survive 17. But in the case of the genocide by Ukrainians, the practice was to murder absolutely all the Poles who fell into their hands. The fact is that despite the fabrications of the Ukrainians, there were no "calls to leave" Volhynia directed at the Poles, or simple "deportations". This is totally debunked by the Siemaszko work. Quite the reverse, it was very often the case that Poles who wanted to run away before the genocide already being committed in neighbouring districts reached them were encouraged to remain, with "guarantees" that they would be safe. Or they were subjected to threats that their running away would be considered as treason against lhe Ukrainians. All this was aimed at ensuring that they would all be killed right where they were. This aspect will be pursued later.
Thirdly, the German and Soviet perpetrators were different. German genocide was carried out entirely by "specialized" criminal formations in uniform, in particular the socalled Einsotzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei or the SD (Sicherheitsdiertst), and the Soviets used NKVD troops. This was not how it was with the Ukrainian genocide. The crimes there were committed by two major elements. Dominating the scene were the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of Stefan Bandera and, in Volhynia, the competing forces of Bulba and Melnik as well as the Ukrainian police set up by the Germans in the latter half of 1941 (which deserted in early 1943). But in major genocide operations, there participated thousands upon thousands of local Ukrainian peasants, including the so-called Kushtchov Self-Defence Unils (Somooboronni Kushtchooi Viddily), oslensibly peasant "self-defence" unils which were in fact used by the Ukrainian Insurgenl Army to assist in genocide against the Poles. Added to this were bands armed with axes, pitchforks, etc., often composed of neighbours, who formed a kind of Ukrainian levy in mass. As if this were not enough, these bands were often accompanied by Ukrainian women, youths, and even children, who busied themselves with looting, on a massive scale, arson and finishing off of Poles who had been wounded but survived 18. This took place despite, at times, years of supposed mutual friendship, or bonds of gratitude that had existed towards certain Poles 19.
It is for this reason that I would qualify the genocide in Volhynia during World War II as being clearly Ukrainion genocide, and not, for example, genocide committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Bandera bands, Ukrainian nationalists and so Forth: Contrary to what is often claimed by Wiktor Poliszczuk in his publications (he is later quoted highly favourably in lhis Summary), the genocide in Volhynia - as is documented by the Siemaszko work - was carried out by a broad spectrum of Ukrainians from that area and not only by the "fighters" of the Ukrainian Insurgenl Army. As was already mentioned, there took pari in it thousands and thousands of ordinary peasants (often forced into it by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army), including unfortunately, hordes of greedy women, adolescents and even children at times.
However, it must be made clear that: 1) The claim is not being made that the majority of Volhynian Ukrainians participated in the genocide and the acts that accompanied it, especially as the genocide against the Poles had to be limited, generally, to the countryside (urban areas being firmly held by German garrisons); nevertheless, a significant segment of the Ukrainians of Volhynia were involved. And so the facts alone, as well as the exigency of honesty, demand, or at the very least allow, that we speak in this case about Ukrainians as such, just as the president of Germany, Roman Herzog, quoted later on, does not restrict himself to speaking of crimes committed by the Nazis, etc., but of the crimes of Germans tout court. 2) At the same time, we must express the greatest respect for those Ukrainians who, as is well attested to by numerous examples to be found in the Siemaszko work, aided the Poles by warning them, hiding them briefly, or transporting them to the nearest town. For help of this kind the fanatics in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalisls (especially the notorious Security Service of the OUN, or Slushba Bezpeky OUN) oflen punished their own compatriots by killing them. But all that help was, unfortunately, only a drop in the ocean in the face of the tens of thousands of Poles murdered at that time.
Fourthly, special mention must be made of the viciously criminal stance taken in cases of mixed Polish-Ukrainian marriages. In such cases the Ukrainian assassins often murdered, wherever possible, whole families, including the children, or, at least, the Polish partner. Not only this, but there were instances where the Ukrainian husband (or even the wife) was forced to kill the Polish partner with his own hands 20. Such barbarity was never applied in similar cases of mixed marriage, by the Soviets 21, or in the case of mixed German-Jewish marriages by the Germans. Among these latter, despite the almost total Ausrottung of the German Jews, most of these couples, though severely persecuted and forced into starvation, nevertheless managed to survive the war 22. A characteristic example of this would be the well-known case of Prof. Karl Jaspers, who was married to a Jewess. The couple lived for the years of the war in a tragic state of Suizidbereitschoft (readiness to commit suicide), but neverlesess survived 23. Ordering a German man or woman to kill his or her Jewish pariner was unthinkable.
Fifthly, in the case of German or Soviet genocide against the Poles, the crimes were committed by an occupying force - whereas the genocide by Ukrainians was conducted by Ukrainians who were citizens of Poland, inhabitants of these lands during the II Polish Republic, who did not display even the slightest vestige of loyalty 24. But, let us add, when there was profit to be gained by it, these same Ukrainians continued to refer readily to their Polish citizenship 25. In many cases, using identification documents robbed from murdered Poles, and under their names, they "repatriated" to Poland, or went abroad to the West 26.
Sixthly, Ukrainian genocide was usually accompanied by a barbaric scorched earth policy. After their property and livestock were robbed, the houses and other buildings of the killed Poles were usually burnt down (sometimes even their orchards were destroyed), and public buildings, eg. schools, were also often destroyed. As part of this, there was also total destruction of a large number of historical Polish country houses, with their farm buildings and gardens, as well as Catholic churches and chapels 27. This form of additional barbarism was not usually demonstraled by either lhe Germans or the Soviets 28.
Finally seventhly, the Germans have long admitted to their crimes, and have apologized for them publicty. To take one example, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Roman Herzog, staled clearly in his speech in Warsaw on August 1st, 1994 at the ceremonies to do with the 50'th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising: "I bow before the fighters of the Warsaw Uprising, and before all the Polish war victims. I beg forgiveness for what the G e r m a n s did" (emphasis by R.S.). Russian president Boris Yeltsin also had it in him to make a few gestures, as when he kissed monsignor Zdzislaw Peszkowski on the hand and whispered the words "I apologise" on the occasion of paying tribute to the victims of Katyn on August 25Ih, 1993, at the Powazki cemetery in Warsaw. That evening, the whole of Poland saw it on television 30. As well, the press and literature in Germany, and, for the last ten years, in Russia, openly discuss the genocide committed against the Poles. The behaviour of the Ukrainians, on the other hand, has been, as a rule, complet