ABSTRACT
Appeal to Polish traditions of patriotic voluntary service presented an alternative, or at least a supplement, to professional eighteenth century warfare. The miniature Polish army might control peasant disorders but it could not protect the borders. Inefficiencies vitiated the functioning of even this tiny army. In form the Polish army continued to separate the Foreign Contingent, whose training and weaponry resembled the Saxon army, from the National Contingent or National Cavalry, an ill-disciplined mounted force made up almost entirely of nobles without infantry or artillery support. The Polish army bloodily suppressed a Cossack and peasant uprising in the Uman district of eastern Galicia in 1768, but rarely fought against the Confederates, perhaps because the commanders feared for the loyalty of the troops. Appeal to Polish traditions of patriotic voluntary service presented an alternative, or at least a supplement, to professional eighteenth century warfare.
