Jeńcy-Polacy z armii państw zaborczych podczas I wojny światowej-przegląd tematyki

To the Poles serving in the armies of the partitioning powers World War I was a dome-stic conflict. Out of over 2 million Poles, about 250 thousand found themselves in captivity of the states at war with one another. Bereft of their own national state and, because of that, also of its care, the POWs-Poles staying in captivity had to rely solely on support from Polish organizations to a large extent. Their situation was influenced by the fact that the powers being at war with one another made efforts to persuade POWs-Poles to be loyal to them and to enlist in the Polish voluntary detachments organized at the side of their own armies, ones that had been alien and enemy before. However, most of the POWs assumed the wait-and-see attitude, which resulted from a number of factors, such as the lack of confidence as to the ultimate course of fights and the final victory, the dislike of putting their own lives and health at risk again, their worrying about the fate of their families and also their not fully crystalized national consciousness. The article offers a review of the subject matter in this respect.