- Polish Rifle Squads
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The Polish Rifle Squads (Polskie Drużyny Strzeleckie) was a Polish pro-independence paramilitary organization, founded in 1911 by the Youth Independence Organization Zarzewie in the Austro-Hungarian sector of partitioned Poland.
PDS founders included Norwid Neugebauer, Marian Januszajtis-Żegota, Henryk Bagiński and Eugeniusz Homer.
The organization was similar in spirit to, and closely cooperated with, the Riflemen's Association. It too was supported by the Austro-Hungarian government, which wanted to raise a Polish army for use in World War I.
By 1914 the organization numbered 6,000 members. Most of them joined Józef Piłsudski's Polish Legions in World War I.
Categories:- Polish history stubs
- Paramilitary organization stubs
- Military history of Poland
- Paramilitary organizations
- Organizations established in 1911
- Polish independence and revolutionary organizations
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