Jozef Haller de Hallenburg (13 August 1873 – 4 June 1960) was a Lieutenant-General of the Polish Army during World War I, the Russian Civil War, the Polish-Ukrainian War, and Polish-Soviet War.
Biography[]
Jozef Haller was born on 13 August 1873 in Jurczyce, Austria-Hungary (present-day Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland), 10 miles to the southwest of Krakow. From 1895 to 1906 he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army and reached the rank of Captain, before becoming the leader of the Sokol paramilitary group that sought Polish independence. He became a commander of the Polish Legion of the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and fought against the Russian Empire in hopes of liberating eastern Poland from them. Haller commanded Polish troops after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1917) against the Central Powers, as it became illegal for Polish troops to be stationed in Ukraine. At the Battle of Kaniow, general Zierhold's German 28th Landwehr Brigade (12,000 troops) routed 8,000 Polish troops and his corps was interned. Haller fled to Moscow in the Soviet Union and in July 1918 took over the Blue Army, a Polish military formation. In 1920 he seized Pommerania and took Danzig (Gdansk), and also fought against the Red Army with a force of Polish volunteers.
After the 1926 coup by Josef Pilsudski, Haller was forced into retirement and he lived abroad. He died in London, United Kingdom in 1960.