Date 27/4/1916
My Dearest Mother
How is your precious health and wellbeing. Thank God I am of good health, and all is well with me. Beloved mother, I am send you my photograph together with my friends on this postcard.
My warmest greetings and kisses, your grateful son, Jan M.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE
MIŁOSZEWSKI AND RAFALĄT FAMILIES
3. Early life - Austrian Empire
Jan as a young boy joined the Sokoły paramilitary scout organisation in 1911 and was active in its ranks until 1914. On 15th August 1916 he was called up to the Austrian army and by 1st September 1918 was a sergeant serving on the Italian-Austrian front. At the end of the First World War he was a prisoner-of-war until he joined the Garibaldi regiment in a Polish army that was being formed in Lamandria di Livaso in Italy. On 16th December 1919 the regiment was transported to France; where it joined the 7th Polish Rifle Regiment, part of Polish General Haller's army.
This was a time of great uncertainty in Central Europe. The First World War had been lost by the German and Austrian/Hungarian axis and in the chaos Poland had regained her independence on 11th November 1918. It was a known fact that Poland’s independence would have to be defended and the country would have to establish itself between aggressive neighbours. The Bolshevik (Communist) revolution that had been started in Russia in 1917 was turning its attention to Europe. The Bolsheviks saw the newly independent Poland as a serious impediment to their dream of converting Germany and the rest of Europe to Communism and were constantly making armed incursions into the eastern 'kresy' (borderland) regions to test Poland’s resolve. In 1919 these incursions effectively became a war against Poland. Poland's war against the Soviets was to be decisive in preventing Soviet hordes from invading Europe and spreading their Communist ideology in the chaos of post-war Europe. Unfortunately this situation is one of the many that has never truly been recognised by historians, who instead saw it as belligerence of the newly independent Poland.
Jan, now part of General Haller’s army, which had been trained and equipped by the French, returned to the newly independent Poland. The regiment in which he was serving was renamed the 49th Polish Borderlands Rifle Regiment.