Spanish military participate in the parade of the Polish Armed Forces Day

@ElentirENG ES 8·15·2018 · 19:44 0

Today Poland celebrates the day of its Armed Forces, in memory of the Polish victory against the Bolsheviks in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, which occurred on that day as today.

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This year Spain has been very present at the parade held annually in Warsaw. In the military parade on foot have escorted to the flag of Spain five members, if I'm not mistaken, the Brigade "Guadarrama" XII of the Spanish Army, which since last July is deployed in Latvia.

You can see them in the minute 1:05:22 of the video of the live retransmission of the parade that the Polish Ministry of Defense has made through its YouTube channel (a video in 360º and in 4K quality, by the way):

In the historical part of the parade, which covers different periods in chronological order, Polish reenactors with flags of the Cross de Burgundy have been present. You can see them in the minute 1:47:04 of the video. They recreate the 17th-century Polish infantry, which also used that flag.

It has been a nice touch to see the soldiers of our Tercios, who were the best infantry of their time, preceding what was the best cavalry in Europe: the Polish winged hussars. Last October 12 in Madrid, in the parade of the Day of the National Holiday of Spain there were reenactors of the Tercios of Flanders, commemorating the 450th anniversary of the Spanish Way. Seeing them in Madrid was already exciting, but seeing them parade in Warsaw leaves one speechless. Thanks, Poland!

For the rest, and as the parade in the video begins with a little delay, I indicate some interesting moments of its content:

• 0:30:15: The Iskry aerobatic patrol of the Polish Air Force flies over the site drawing the colors of the national flag.
• 0:31:20: Orders of "baczność" (attention) and "na prawo patrz" (view to the right, usually used to honor the flag) are given and the Dąbrowski Mazurka start to listen, the National Anthem of Poland (one of the most beautiful and brave national anthems of Europe). During the performance of the anthem it started to rain and someone put a blue canvas on the camcorder. They took it off after two minutes.
• 0:56:51: The military parade on foot begins. It is headed, in this order, by members of the five branches of service of the Polish Army: the Land Forces, the Air Forces, the Navy, the Special Forces and the Territorial Defense Forces (created in 2017 as a citizen militia).
• 1:03:20: Representatives of foreign armies. The Spaniards are the last delegation, after the Slovenians.
• 1:06:04: Three groups of young scouts close the military parade on foot. In case anyone is surprised to see them in a military parade, I will say that Poland has a great tradition of Scouting and that Polish Scouts participated in war episodes such as the Soviet-Polish War of 1919, the defense of Poland in 1939, the Polish resistance against the German occupation and especially -in the so-called Szare Szeregi or Gray Ranks- the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
• 1:05:59: Air parade.
• 1:19:23: Motorized parade. The first vehicles are from the Żandarmeria Wojskowa (hence the acronym ZW) or Military Gendarmerie, a Military Police force that in the case of Poland, as also happens in Germany, is an independent institution of the Armed Forces.
• 1:30:13: Armored parade. The following types of tanks are seen in this order: Leopard 2A5, Leopard 2A4, recovery vehicles Bergepanzer 2, and finally the PT-91 Twardy (improved Polish version of the Soviet T-72). Three US vehicles, including an M-1 Abrams battle car, also participate in the armored parade.
• 1:42:30: Historical parade.