Polish troops in 1939
The Polish Army is the ground force of Poland's military, founded in 1918. The army was recreated from elements of the militaries of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Russian Empire, using equipment left over from World War I. The Polish Army expanded to 800,000 troops during the war with the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1922, during which it managed to hold back a Soviet offensive on the Vistula River and conquer lands in what is now Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. However, the Polish Army's strength decreased during peacetime, and it had just 500,000 troops in 1939.
In 1939, the Polish Army had 800 outdated tanks and 22 regiments of cavalry, an even more outdated idea. It was no surprise that Poland was defeated in one month in September-October 1939 by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and the Polish Army's officers either fled to London, England to form a government-in-exile, or they were imprisoned and/or executed in Russia. After the war, Poland's army was revived, but it never saw action, as Poland was at peace during the Cold War. In 1999, the Polish Army was reformed after the war's end, and it was divided into the Pomerania Military District and the Silesia Military District, both with a strength of 50,000 troops. Poland contributed to the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the important partners of the United States. In 2016, the army had a strength of 77,000 troops.