The pride of the Polish Officer Corps, and the most popular units in their military establishment, were the cavalry brigades. A romantic but expensive hold- over from Poland's military traditions, these cavalry units had very little place on the battlefields of the twentieth century. Even the Polish High Command finally admitted the obsolescence of this favored arm of the service, and were proceeding with a plan to convert these units into motorized brigades.

At the time of the invasion, this conversion had just begun. There still remained 11 cavalry brigades and 12 squadrons of Frontier Guards cavalry on active duty within the Polish Armed Forces.

The Polish cavalry brigades contained some 38 regiments of lancers and dragoons, formed into five 4-regiment brigades ("Nowogrodek", "Pomorze", "Wolyn", "Suwalki", andPodole'), and six 3- regiment brigades ('Podlasie", "Mozowsze", "Wilno", "Kresy", "Krakow ", and "Wielkopolsk ").

The cavalry brigades were known primarily by the name of the region from which they drew their recruits. Some attempt had been made to modernize these units by the inclusion of 65 motorized transport vehicles and an armored reconnaissance battalion in each brigade. This battalion consisted of an armored car company with seven WZ-29 or WZ-34 armored cars, and a tank company, with thirteen Polishmade tankettes.

In addition to the 11 regular cavalry brigades, 12 squadrons of Frontier Guards cavalry saw service as independent commands. Six squadrons were combined into the "Western" Frontier Guards Cavalry Regiment under Army "Lodz". Three more squadrons formed part of Operational Group "Grodno " and, during the later days of the campaign, combined with the other three squadrons from the Soviet frontier to form the "Eastern" Frontier Guards Cavalry Regiment.

Several ad hoc cavalry commands were formed during the course of the campaign, especially by the various National Guard commands, but few of these commands even reached squadron size. The only large ad hoc cavalry formation which should be mentioned is the "Zaza" Cavalry Division. The division, consisting of Cavalry Brigades "Edward" and "Plis" was assembled by Operational Group "Polesie" during the last days of the campaign, from remnants of the "Suwalki" and "Podlasie" Cavalry Brigades.

More Polish Army 1939

Introduction
Cavalry
Mechanized
Artillery
Anti-Air Defense
Air Force
Order of Battle