Poland celebrates Armed Forces Day
President Andrzej Duda, PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak and parliamentarians on Thursday attended the main National Armed Forces Day celebrations in Katowice, capital of south Poland's Silesia industrial basin.
The main event of the celebrations was a military parade of about 2.6 thousand troops and 180 military vehicles, including tanks, transporters, mobile cannon and missile launchers. Also on show were 60 aircraft, including F-16 fighters, transporter planes and helicopters. Polish-stationed US, British, Romanian and Croatian troops also participated in the parade.
The celebrations, usually held in Warsaw, were moved to Katowice in commemoration of the centenary of the First Silesian Uprising (1919).
In his address at the festivities, Duda spoke of the 1919-1921 Silesian Uprisings in which Poles fought against the region's German population for its inclusion into Poland. Duda said that although the insurgents were not part of the Polish armed forces, they fought for the Polish cause, and were therefore "like Polish soldiers."
Quoting a well-known passage from Poland's national anthem, Duda said the Silesian insurgents were driven by the idea that "what the foreign force has taken from us, we shall with sabre retrieve."
"I think that is what (...) the Silesian were thinking when, under German repressions, they took up arms to fight for (the region - PAP) to be Polish," Duda said.
The president assured that the Polish government was determined to modernise the Polish army and raise defence spending, and thanked Poland's NATO allies for their military presence in the country.
Duda also laid flowers at a memorial to the Silesian Uprisings.
In his address, Morawiecki called the Armed Forces Day military parade "a demonstration of Polish unity," and added that the day also marked the 99th anniversary of the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, in which the Polish army halted the westward-advancing Red Army on the outskirts of the Polish capital.
Recalling this year's centenary of the First Silesian Uprising, Morawiecki said its participants "shaped the borders of a reemerging Poland with weapons in hand," and stressed that their heroic struggle contributed to Poland's freedom.
"Our soldiers' fortitude showed how much Poles value freedom and independence. Our love of freedom, resistance to tyranny and pursuit of law and democracy has influenced the fate of the world. (...) Today we are facing good times, and are able to fulfill our fathers' and grandfathers' dreams. They drew the country's borders with their blood and their dream of (...) a strong, just and solidary Republic can come true today," the PM said. Morawiecki also assured his government will do all in its powers to modernise the Polish army.
Blaszczak said National Armed Forces Day was a good occasion to "show pride in being Polish." He also thanked the 1919 Silesian insurgents, observing that their effort ensured the Silesian region's inclusion into Poland.
Earlier at Armed Forces Day celebrations in Warsaw, Blaszczak assured that the government planned to expand and modernise the Polish armed forces.
National Armed Forces Day observations also took place at the Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius, Lithuania, where Polish embassy officials and the local Polish community laid wreaths at a memorial tomb housing the heart of Poland's inter-war leader Jozef Pilsudski and his mother's remains. (PAP)
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