Camp Kościuszko

Established to train an army for a country which did not yet exist, Camp Kościuszko saw over 22,000 soldiers pass through Niagara-on-the-Lake in the latter years of the First World War. Travelling from as far as California and Texas to join the Polish Army, the men who lived, trained, and occasionally died at the camp helped forge a reconstituted Poland in 1919, and in the process became forever ingrained into the fabric of the small village where they called home for their months of military training.

This area has long been associated with the British, and later Canadian militaries. From its origins as Fort George and Butler's Barracks in the War of 1812 to the Korean War (1950-1953), soldiers and militiamen trained and had been stationed in the area east of the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake in defence of Canada. By the First World War, the Commons and site of Fort George were known as Camp Niagara, and was used as a training ground for the Canadian Expeditionary Force between 1914 and 1917. A combination of declining recruitment and the expansion of the Canadian army base at Petawawa led to the Canadian army significantly scaling back its active use of the camp. With the United States entering the war in April of 1917, a second life came to Camp Niagara in the form of some 22,000 Polish recruits coming from the United States to fight in the newly created Polish army in France. The new Polish Camp was designated The Tadeusz Kościuszko Polish Army Training Camp; informally, Camp Kościuszko.

The First World War served as a catalyst for national ambition of the Polish Diaspora - Polonia - which had been without a country to call home since the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795. Many Polish cultural and social groups existed in the United States and Canada, many of which supported ambitions for a reborn Poland. One such organization was the Polish Falcons, a fraternal nationalist organization. Another, the Polish Central Relief Committee (PCKR), lobbied the American and Canadian governments for increased recognition of a Polish state and for the creation of a Polish Army to fight in the Great War.

The recruitment of American Poles was attended with much confusion due to the changing status of the US in the First World War. While the United States was a neutral nation, its government prevented the recruitment of Poles from the country for fears of violating its status and aggravating one of the belligerents. Once the United States became an associated power in April 1917, the institution of a draft complicated jurisdiction over Polish-Americans, who held a variety of citizenship and statuses. The selective service refused to allow American Poles who were eligible to be drafted into the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) to join the Polish Army.

Even upon recruitment and arrival at Camp Kosciuszko, the jurisdictional difficulties of Polish soldiers were not over. As the Polish army was funded and overseen by France, recruits had to face three separate physical inspections: one at the recruitment office, one upon their arrival at the camp, and a final one by a French medical examiner prior to embarkation. The results of these medical tests did not always align, and around 1500 men were turned back at some point before leaving for France for medical reasons.

Camp Niagara would come to be known as Camp Kościuszko by the men who trained there, named for Tadeusz Kościuszko, a hero of both Polish and American Revolutions - a champion of the many Polish-American trainees at the camp. Lieutenant-Colonel A. D. LePan, who had trained a trial group of Polish officers at the University of Toronto in 1916, was appointed commandant of Camp Kosciuszko at the age of only 23. LePan, along with 28 Canadian officers and 180 newly trained Polish officers from Toronto arrived in Niagara-on-the-Lake on September 28, 1917, followed in five days by the first contingent of recruits from Buffalo.

The designated area for the Polish Camp, adjacent to Camp Niagara of the Canadian army, was located in the Commons, an area which had long been used for grazing by local farmers. As a result, roving cattle were the first invaders with which the Polish army had to contend, and eventually the Niagara-on-the-Lake town council raised fines on livestock trespassing on the camp premises, much to the ire of local farmers.

An agreement between the American and Canadian governments allowed thousands of Americans of Polish origins to cross the Niagara River and train on behalf of the Polish National Committee in Paris. The immense costs of transporting, training, and equipping was borne by France, which sought an independent Poland to act as a brake on Germany, France's primary antagonist. The Canadian army undertook the training of the Polish volunteers with some French advisors arriving gradually, however the sudden influx of thousands of recruits quickly overwhelmed the assigned training staff. Complications arising from the army's diasporic character and misunderstandings over the transportation, equipment, and costs associated with the force meant that the soldiers had nowhere to go after completing their training.

The camp's population quickly outstripped the capacity of the four barracks buildings that were constructed for the camp along the modern-day treeline on the west side of Queen's Parade, each only holding 300 men, and for the rest of 1917 many Polish trainees lived under canvas in a massive tent village, even in the winter months when temperatures dropped well below freezing. A headquarters for the Polish Army was established inside of the historic location of Fort George (see Jefferys' sketch), and a hospital was later added. The residents of Niagara-on-the-Lake were initially deeply skeptical of the thousands of foreign troops seemingly invading their idyllic town; the town's jail was reinforced with new bars and locks in anticipation of the supposedly rowdy, uncouth Poles.

The town quickly warmed to the residents of Camp Kościuszko when they were discovered to be conscientious soldiers instead of wild brutes; this change of heart was largely due to the prodding of Mrs. Elizabeth Ascher, Niagara-on-the-Lake Correspondent to The Standard. Ascher's leadership in the community and use of her position as a journalist leveraged public opinion in favour of the Poles by detailing the great sufferings of the polish homeland during the course of the war and giving favourable mention to those who provided assistance to the soldier, either through donations, billeting, or hosting events in honour of the troops. Soldiers were billeted in private residences, businesses, and civic buildings, with the Polish Army pay office being hosted in the courthouse. Many officers rented private cottages, typically only used in the summer, and quickly became ingrained into the town's social scene.

The Artwork of C.W. Jefferys

Charles William Jefferys, a British-born Canadian artist, was commissioned by Lord Beaverbrook's Canadian War Records department to illustrate life at Canadian Army camps during the First World War. Jefferys' artwork depicts soldiers training at Camp Niagara (including Camp Kościuszko) and Camp Petawawa, major centres of activity of the Canadian Army in preparation for its European and Asian operations in that conflict. Digitizations of his artwork has been graciously provided by the Beaverbrook Collection of War Art of the Canadian War Museum; a full catalogue of this collection can be found on the museum's website.