How ready is Poland in 2026?

The Defence Readiness Index (PWRI) puts Poland's readiness without allies in 2026 at 4.46/10, and 5.07/10 with alliances (NATO) – measured relative to the threat and demands of the era. On the with-allies reading 1683 (5.15) still sits higher, though the gap falls inside the uncertainty bands. Three eras stand high on both readings at once: 1410, 1683 and 2026. What sets today apart inside that trio is not the score but the alliance dimension: a treaty with an Article 5 threshold, permanently stationed troops, prepositioned equipment and joint plans. Allied troops had stood on Polish soil before, from the Tatar auxiliaries of 1655 to the French Military Mission of 1920, but on an incomparably smaller scale and in a looser form. The present-day bottleneck is civil protection.

Is Poland's 2026 readiness unprecedented?

Not without allies. On the reading without them (4.46), 2026 does not stand out from the strongest historical anchors: 1410 (4.75) and 1683 (4.69) score higher, but the index cannot tell any of those differences apart from today. By the same rule 6 of the 9 other columns are indistinguishable from it, 1831 (4.32) among them. Three eras stand high on both readings at once: 1410, 1683 and 2026. What sets today apart inside that trio is the alliance dimension (5.07 with allies, an Article 5 threshold with troops stationed, equipment prepositioned and joint plans), not the composite score.

What does 'readiness ≠ survival' mean?

Higher readiness does not guarantee victory. The standalone readings for the lost war of 1831 (4.32) and the won war of 1920 (4.01) differ by 0.31 of a point, less than the uncertainty band on either of them (1.25 and 1.50). This index cannot tell those two eras apart, and one of them lost while the other won. Alliances, scale and chance decided the outcome, not the numbers alone. The index measures preparation; it does not predict the course or outcome of a war.

Is this a forecast of war?

No. The index does not predict whether war will break out or whether a defence would succeed. It measures defensive readiness at a moment in time, relative to the threat characteristic of the era – conditional analysis, not a probability forecast of aggression.

What sources is the index based on?

On 885 cited sources and 1654 evidence items, organised in four reliability tiers (from T1 official down to T4 other), with mandatory counter-evidence for every dimension and an adversarial red-team review. Historical columns may cite only evidence available at that era's cutoff date (ex ante).

How is readiness measured?

Each era is scored across 10 dimensions – Forces & command, Equipment, Reserves, Logistics, Allies, Strategic shield, Civil protection, Infrastructure, Economy, Intelligence & cyber – on a 0–10 scale relative to the era's state of the art, in two families: with allies and without allies.

Wieki Gotowości The year 2026 against six centuries of history · Defence Readiness Index

How ready is Poland today (2026)? The Defence Readiness Index: a sober, source-grounded reading of Poland's readiness, measured against six centuries (1410–2026 + a 2030 projection), always relative to the threat and demands of each era. One of the three highest readings in the series on both measures, but not a survival forecast.

Thesis: readiness ≠ survival. This index cannot tell the 1831 and 1920 scores apart: less than the uncertainty on either of them separates the two. One of those years lost and the other won. Outcomes were decided by alliances, scale and chance, not the bare numbers. This is not a war forecast, we measure preparation, not whether war will break out.

Readiness and aftermath – across the ages

Scale 0–10 (relative to the era's threat). "With allies" is the reading with real allied support, "Without allies" the reading by own forces. "Aftermath" described after the fact (firewalled, does not affect the score).

Every score carries an uncertainty band, and the bands of neighbouring eras overlap heavily. A difference of a few tenths of a point therefore does not mean one era scored better than another: only the extremes of the series are distinguishable. The table is ordered chronologically, not by rank.

Year	Era	Threat	With allies	Without allies	Outcome	Aftermath / stakes
1410	Grunwald	Teutonic Order	4.78±1.50	4.75±1.75	mixed	limited – the state survived
1655	The Deluge	Sweden (+ Russia)	2.72±1.25	2.90±1.50	mixed	heavy – demographic collapse
1683	Vienna	Ottoman Empire	5.15±1.25	4.69±1.25	win	limited – the state survived
1792	The Constitution	Russia	3.04±1.50	3.10±1.50	loss	heavy – loss of autonomy
1794	Kościuszko	Russia + Prussia	2.41±1.50	2.56±1.50	loss	catastrophic – loss of statehood – 123 years
1809	Duchy of Warsaw	Austria	3.79±1.25	3.67±1.25	win	limited – the state survived
1831	November Uprising	Russia	4.02±1.25	4.32±1.25	loss	heavy – loss of autonomy – 87 years
1920	Battle of Warsaw	Bolshevik Russia	3.77±1.25	4.01±1.50	win	limited – the state survived
1939	September	Third Reich (± USSR)	3.89±1.50	3.88±1.50	loss	catastrophic – occupation – 6 years
2026	The Present	Russian Federation (+ Belarus)	5.07±1.25	4.46±1.25	open	open – the cost has not fallen due yet

Crises without full-scale war

Simplified assessments of responses to specific threats. Comparisons within this group are approximate: check the threat type. These numbers do not form an annual series of Polish readiness.

1956 – Polish October 1956 – threat of Soviet intervention (8th Plenum of the PZPR) (with allies 1.80±1.50) A rough composite (light quota, not to be compared 1:1 with the sound columns of 1410–2026). Deliberately the with-allies reading < the without-allies reading: a perverse 'alliance' (the Warsaw Pact: the aggressor) and Soviet manning of the command lower the adjusted score below the standalone one, rather than raising it. The main calibration takeaway: despite a very low the with-allies reading (~1.8) war did not occur, because the deterrence was decided mainly by the absence of intent for full invasion and Moscow's calculation (plus third parties), not by Polish readiness. This is a warning against naïvely mapping the with-allies reading, hence outcome: a low the with-allies reading does not predetermine war when the adversary has no intent to wage it. Contrast: Hungary a few weeks later, with a comparable will to fight, but Nagy declared exit from the Pact (removing the Soviet 'exit route') and was attacked; Gomułka stayed in the bloc and avoided intervention (an ex post example, outside the dimensional evidence).
1981 – Martial law 1981 – supposedly averted USSR/Warsaw Pact intervention (the Solidarity crisis 1980-81) (with allies 1.40±1.50) A rough composite in a light quota and of weak commensurability; it must not be compared 1:1 with the sound columns. Convention: the with-allies reading computed conditionally on the reference threat (the own hegemon USSR/Pact), which controls the officer corps, doctrine, equipment supply and strategic weapons and keeps troops on PPR territory. On this view the mass and equipment are an asset of the Pact serving the threat, not a defence against it, so an honest composite comes out low and with a wide band. The gap between the without-allies reading (~2.9) and the with-allies reading (~1.4) is itself a finding: standalone, the PPR looked moderately ready, but against its own hegemon defensive readiness collapses to ~1.4, and even that figure is barely commensurable.
2014 – Crimea and Donbas 2014 – risk of the NATO–Russia escalation spilling over onto Poland (with allies 5.50±1) A rough composite (light quota, a directional signal, not to be compared 1:1 with the sound columns of the index). The with-allies reading ~5.5 (band ±1.0) clearly above the without-allies reading ~3.4, consistent with the picture of 'the without-allies reading flat, NATO the differentiator'. Note: the NATO boost is smaller than in the 2026 column, because in 2014 the allied forward presence was thin (before the eFP of 2016/2017); this relative, smaller the with-allies reading−the without-allies reading difference is an honest signal here, not a precise number. Most important: low proximity and the dominance of absence of intent mean that this point should not be read as strong evidence of the effectiveness of the deterrence threshold.
2022 – Full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine (24 Feb 2022) – Poland a NATO front-line state, no attack on Poland (with allies 5.00±1.50) A rough composite (light quota, a directional signal, not a model): the without-allies reading ~3.8, below the 2026 column ~4.5, since Poland was before the modernisation leap (a smaller army, no delivered Patriot, ~2.2% of GDP); the with-allies reading ~5.0, practically level with the 2026 column (~5.1). The entire the with-allies reading minus the without-allies reading difference (~+1.2) comes from the allied dimensions: d05 (not scored without allies, 7.5 with allies), d06 (+2.5), d01 (+2.0), d04/d09/d10 (+1.0). This shows that the higher reading of this point comes almost entirely from the alliance, but it does not prove that the alliance, rather than national readiness, decided the security of the front-line state. Do not compare 1:1 with the sound columns.
2025 – Drone incident over Poland (9–10 September 2025): a sub-threshold hybrid probe (with allies 6.70±1.60) A rough light-quota composite (a directional signal, not to be compared 1:1 with the index's sound columns). The with-allies reading ~6.7 sits appreciably above the without-allies reading ~5.1, so NATO is the differentiator, especially in d05/d06. The higher the with-allies reading level co-occurs with the incident being kept below the threshold of war, alongside visible solo gaps (low-altitude defence d02, detection d10, civil protection d07). A single case does not establish a correlation.
2026 – A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile near Tarnawa-Kolonia (30 July 2026) – an armed sub-threshold probe that was not stopped (with allies 5.50±1.50) A rough light-quota composite (a directional signal that must not be compared 1:1 with the index's sound columns, nor with the 2026 column, which measures readiness against full-scale war). The with-allies reading ~5.5 against the without-allies reading ~4.2. NATO remains a differentiating factor: the with-allies reading minus the without-allies reading gap here is 1.3 against 1.6 in the September 2025 drone incident (6.7 against 5.1). In this episode the alliance did not prevent the event, responded by air alone, and spoke collectively only after thirteen days, with no new reinforcement measures. The distribution of scores is strongly uneven: the dimensions actually tested by the reference threat (d02 3.5, d06 3.0, d07 2.5, d01 4.0, d10 4.5) sit clearly lower than the background dimensions (d03-d04, d08-d09 around 5-6). The lowest scores on this card concern capabilities directly involved in responding to a single missile. The card does not establish how Poland would fare in a full-scale war.

Future scenarios

Conditional ranges. Compare scenarios within the same year, checking the assumptions about deliveries, Russia and NATO. Each scenario shows readings with and without allies.

Without allies: Poland’s own capabilities against the threat, with no assumed allied military intervention. Foreign procurement remains in the model. The ranges are a conditional scenario test; they do not include the full uncertainty of the baseline assessment.

2030

Conditional ranges on a 0–10 scale
Scenario	With allies	Without allies
programmes delivered · Russia: baseline reconstitution · NATO/USA stable	4.8–6.3	4.2–5.7
delivery slippage · Russia: baseline reconstitution · NATO/USA stable	4.6–6.1	4.0–5.5
programmes delivered · Russia: baseline reconstitution · NATO/USA weakened	4.4–5.9	4.2–5.7
delivery slippage · Russia: rapid reconstitution · NATO/USA weakened	3.4–5.4	3.1–5.1
programme disruption · Russia: rapid reconstitution · NATO/USA weakened	3.2–5.2	2.9–4.9

Assumptions: programmes delivered · Russia: baseline reconstitution · NATO/USA stable

Programmes delivered on schedule (Apache, Wisła II, Miecznik, Krab/K9, Homar-K, K2PL, Narew).
Russian reconstitution window ~2029 (NATO-agreed intelligence; Breuer/Freuding); baseline.
NATO/USA stable: The Hague 5% commitment, posture revision maintains the eastern flank.
The without-allies reading: Poland’s own capabilities against the Russian threat, without allied military intervention. Imports count once delivered and operationally ready; delivery and technology-transfer risks are captured by the programme delivery axis. A change in US presence alone does not move the without-allies reading with the same deliveries and threat. Allied deterrence is excluded from the assessment, so the average runs over the remaining nine dimensions.

Assumptions: delivery slippage · Russia: baseline reconstitution · NATO/USA stable

Typical documented slippage (F-35 ~1 year, FA-50PL ~1.5-2 years, Borsuk, 155mm ammunition ramp-up, Tarcza Wschód slow); absorptive risk.
Russian reconstitution window ~2029 (NATO-agreed intelligence; Breuer/Freuding); baseline.
NATO/USA stable: The Hague 5% commitment, posture revision maintains the eastern flank.
The without-allies reading: Poland’s own capabilities against the Russian threat, without allied military intervention. Imports count once delivered and operationally ready; delivery and technology-transfer risks are captured by the programme delivery axis. A change in US presence alone does not move the without-allies reading with the same deliveries and threat. Allied deterrence is excluded from the assessment, so the average runs over the remaining nine dimensions.

Assumptions: programmes delivered · Russia: baseline reconstitution · NATO/USA weakened

Programmes delivered on schedule (Apache, Wisła II, Miecznik, Krab/K9, Homar-K, K2PL, Narew).
Russian reconstitution window ~2029 (NATO-agreed intelligence; Breuer/Freuding); baseline.
Reduction/volatility of the USA on the eastern flank (October 2025 drawdown; Trump announcements; strategic pivot).
The without-allies reading: Poland’s own capabilities against the Russian threat, without allied military intervention. Imports count once delivered and operationally ready; delivery and technology-transfer risks are captured by the programme delivery axis. A change in US presence alone does not move the without-allies reading with the same deliveries and threat. Allied deterrence is excluded from the assessment, so the average runs over the remaining nine dimensions.
Scope caveat: this is a sensitivity test on the American presence alone, not the full cost of a withdrawal. The materiel channel stays switched on at the baseline level, because programme delivery sits on the on-schedule variant: the cell assumes Washington reduces its presence but still approves technology transfers and delivers programmes on time. The difference against the stable variant must not be cited as the full cost of a US withdrawal.

Assumptions: delivery slippage · Russia: rapid reconstitution · NATO/USA weakened

Typical documented slippage (F-35 ~1 year, FA-50PL ~1.5-2 years, Borsuk, 155mm ammunition ramp-up, Tarcza Wschód slow); absorptive risk.
Rapid reconstitution after a Ukraine-Russia armistice (Danish/Lithuanian intelligence: 2-5 years regionally).
Reduction/volatility of the USA on the eastern flank (October 2025 drawdown; Trump announcements; strategic pivot).
The without-allies reading: Poland’s own capabilities against the Russian threat, without allied military intervention. Imports count once delivered and operationally ready; delivery and technology-transfer risks are captured by the programme delivery axis. A change in US presence alone does not move the without-allies reading with the same deliveries and threat. Allied deterrence is excluded from the assessment, so the average runs over the remaining nine dimensions.

Assumptions: programme disruption · Russia: rapid reconstitution · NATO/USA weakened

Delivery disruption: absorptive barrier, NIK audits, bottlenecks (Homar-A without US consent).
Rapid reconstitution after a Ukraine-Russia armistice (Danish/Lithuanian intelligence: 2-5 years regionally).
Reduction/volatility of the USA on the eastern flank (October 2025 drawdown; Trump announcements; strategic pivot).
The without-allies reading: Poland’s own capabilities against the Russian threat, without allied military intervention. Imports count once delivered and operationally ready; delivery and technology-transfer risks are captured by the programme delivery axis. A change in US presence alone does not move the without-allies reading with the same deliveries and threat. Allied deterrence is excluded from the assessment, so the average runs over the remaining nine dimensions.

Without a state of its own

A descriptive case, outside the ranking and without a numerical score. This part enters neither of the readings nor the extremes of the series.

1914 · The Polish lands and Polish organisations facing the war

State of preparations as of 27 July 1914 · card concept, dossier in preparation

What people, resources and room for action did Polish organisations have on the eve of the war?

Why no numerical score? In 1914 the Polish lands lay within three partitioning states (Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian), and Polish organisations operated under three separate legal orders. There is no single state and no common command, so the card receives neither a with-allies nor a without-allies reading.

The three partitions side by side · as of 27 July 1914

The two Galician unions stand separately: their strengths come from separate studies, and no study gives a sum.

Austrian partition · Austria-Hungary: military formations: legal, arms with the army's consent [HC-1914-001, HC-1914-019, HC-1914-003]; Związek Strzelecki (Riflemen’s Association): 6.4–8 thousand [HC-1914-001, HC-1914-019]; Polskie Drużyny Strzeleckie (Polish Riflemen’s Squads): c. 6 thousand (one source) [HC-1914-003]; Sokół permanent squads: c. 6.9 thousand (one source) [HC-1914-005]; Austria-Hungary: service in the land forces: 3 years (one source) [HC-1914-003]; legal frame: autonomy, provincial Diet [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-014]
Russian partition · Russia: military formations: underground only [HC-1914-003, HC-1914-018, HC-1914-012]; members of riflemen's formations, summer 1914: no figure from two sources [HC-1914-003, HC-1914-018]; legal frame: Russification, state of reinforced protection [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-004]
Prussian partition · Germany: military formations: no legal formations [HC-1914-008, HC-1914-021, HC-1914-006]; Sokół in the Reich, members (1913): c. 11.8 thousand (one source) [HC-1914-008]; legal frame: Germanisation, police supervision [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-006, HC-1914-008]

Poles under arms in the three partitioning armies before the war: 250–300 thousand (one compilation) [HC-1914-020]

Two orientations, one nation in three armies

Dmowski, 1908: With Russia against Germany. National Democracy saw Germany as the main threat and counted on autonomy for the Kingdom under the Russian sceptre. [HC-1914-010, HC-1914-011, HC-1914-002]

Piłsudski, Paris lecture, 21 February 1914: With Austria against Russia. The independence camp built riflemen's organisations in Galicia and saw Austria as an ally against Russia. [HC-1914-012, HC-1914-013, HC-1914-002]

“The tragedy of its destiny, condemning it to a sizeable enlargement of the military ranks of the three partitioners, may also set its sons against one another in hostile ranks.” (Józef Piłsudski on the Polish nation, lecture at the Geographical Society in Paris, 21 February 1914 (English rendering of the Polish translation of the French report) [HC-1914-012])

Guiding questions

Who could act? (Organisations · leaderships · aims) Each organisation is described on its own: where it operated, who led it and how much freedom of decision it had.
Whose were the resources? (Cadres · arms · money) For every resource we ask who held it, who had access to it and who decided on its use, because a soldier's origin or a depot's location does not settle who could dispose of them.
On whom did the decision depend? (Consents · patronage · constraints) Who provided support, on what terms, and who could withdraw it?

The three partitions side by side · as of 27 July 1914

Cells with text in italics are explicit evidence gaps: no two independent sources, or a finding that is an inference rather than a citation. The bracketed references point to the source list below.

Preparations up to 27 July 1914 in the three partitions
question	Austrian partition	Russian partition	Prussian partition
Legal framework	From the 1860s Galicia had autonomy, with a provincial Diet in Lwów and an administration in Polish hands, and the right to form parties and associations under the Austrian law of 15 November 1867. Statutes were approved by the Governor's Office in Lwów. [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-005, HC-1914-014, HC-1914-001, HC-1914-013]	In the Kingdom of Poland Russification continued and Polish was excluded from the public sphere. After the 1905 revolution the country lived under martial law, replaced in 1908–1909 by a yearly renewed state of reinforced protection (martial law lasted in the Piotrków governorate until 1914). Associations could be legalised from 1906 by governorate boards. [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-004, HC-1914-009]	Germanisation removed Polish from administration, courts and schools, and the Reich associations law of 19 April 1908 (§ 12) required public meetings to be held in German, with narrow exceptions. Polish societies were legal but under constant police supervision, which fined them for uniforms, badges and songs. [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-006, HC-1914-007, HC-1914-008]
Military and paramilitary organisations	Operating legally were the Związek Strzelecki and “Strzelec” (from 1910, run by the secret Związek Walki Czynnej; about 6.4–8 thousand members), the Polskie Drużyny Strzeleckie (from 1911; about 6 thousand in the summer of 1914), the Sokół permanent squads and the Drużyny Bartoszowe (from 1908). The army supplied instructors and rifle ranges; the police kept watch and confiscated arms in 1913. [HC-1914-001, HC-1914-003, HC-1914-005, HC-1914-019, HC-1914-012]	There were no legal formations. Cells of the Związek Walki Czynnej and of the Polskie Drużyny Strzeleckie (the PDS “foreign” districts) and the Organizacje Wojskowe im. Waleriana Łukasińskiego, founded in 1910, worked underground; for conspiratorial reasons not even estimates of their strength survive.Evidence gap: for the strength of the ZWC and PDS cells in the Kingdom not even estimates survive, so the card gives no figure at all. [HC-1914-003, HC-1914-018, HC-1914-001, HC-1914-012]	Sokół operated legally as a gymnastic society, regarded by the authorities as hostile since 1903; drills with arms were run on their own initiative by individual nests (Poznań, Buk, Bydgoszcz, the Berlin district in 1913). In 1912–1914 a few clandestine Polskie Drużyny Strzeleckie arose among secondary-school youth.Evidence gap: the absence of legal paramilitary formations is an inference from the legal framework (no. 6) and from the literature on Sokół (no. 8, 21), which describe only attempts to militarise individual nests; none of these sources states the absence outright. The strength of Sokół and of the clandestine squads rests on a single source each, so the card does not give it. [HC-1914-008, HC-1914-021, HC-1914-006]
Political camps and orientations	The Austro-Polish orientation: the conservatives and the Polish Circle in the Reichsrat (chaired by Juliusz Leo) combined loyalty to the monarchy with extending Galicia's rights. From October 1912 the independence camp gathered in the Provisional Commission of Confederated Independence Parties (the riflemen's associations and, formally, the PDS); Sokół and the Drużyny Bartoszowe stood under National Democratic influence, outside the Commission. [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-001, HC-1914-005, HC-1914-014, HC-1914-015, HC-1914-016]	Roman Dmowski's National Democracy (“Niemcy, Rosya i kwestya polska”, 1908) saw Germany as the main source of danger and sought an understanding with Russia, counting on autonomy for the Kingdom; its deputies formed the Polish caucus in the Duma. The independence camp that grew out of the PPS founded its secret military organisations (the Związek Walki Czynnej) from 1908 in Galicia, not in the Kingdom. [HC-1914-010, HC-1914-011, HC-1914-002, HC-1914-017, HC-1914-001]	Polish politics stayed within legal resistance: the deputies of the Polish Circle in the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag, and Sokół, whose ideological profile was shaped by National League members. There was no pro-German orientation; before the war Germany was regarded as the main enemy.Evidence gap: no peer-reviewed study of the Polish Circle's position in the Reichstag in 1912–1914 was found; item no. 8 mentions it only in passing. [HC-1914-008, HC-1914-002, HC-1914-006]
Conscription into three armies	Poles from Galicia were subject to universal service in the Austro-Hungarian army (3 years in the land forces). Before the war the independence camp said publicly that a war would set Poles from the three armies against one another (Piłsudski's Paris lecture, 21 February 1914). [HC-1914-003, HC-1914-012, HC-1914-013, HC-1914-020]	Poles from the Kingdom were conscripted into the Russian army. National Democracy assumed that in a war with Germany Poles should side with Russia, which after victory would unite the Polish lands and grant them autonomy. [HC-1914-020, HC-1914-002, HC-1914-010, HC-1914-011]	Poles from the Prussian partition were conscripted into the German army. The Sokół leadership kept to legal resistance; attempts to militarise the nests were few and lacked the authorities' consent. [HC-1914-008, HC-1914-021, HC-1914-020]
Who decided on people and arms	The riflemen answered to the Chief Command (Józef Piłsudski, chief of staff Kazimierz Sosnkowski) under the Provisional Commission; the PDS, the Sokół squads and the Drużyny Bartoszowe had their own leaderships, and the first joint conference (8 July 1914) produced no common command. Any use depended on the Austrian authorities: on statutes, arms and rifle ranges. [HC-1914-001, HC-1914-003, HC-1914-005, HC-1914-019]	No one legally. The underground cells had no lawful room for action under the state of reinforced protection, and decisions about them rested with leaderships in Galicia (the Związek Walki Czynnej and the Provisional Commission, the PDS Chief Command). [HC-1914-004, HC-1914-003, HC-1914-018]	No one legally. The board of the Union of Polish Sokół in the Reich controlled only the structure of a gymnastic society and kept to legal resistance; drills with arms depended on the initiative of individual nests, without the authorities' consent. [HC-1914-008, HC-1914-021]

What the war changed: 1914–1918 (the ex post part)

Later events do not raise the assessment of the July preparations and rest on a separate evidential basis.

27 July 1914 · cutoff
3 August 1914 · The Cadre Company The unit is formed in Kraków. This is already the state after the adopted cutoff of the preparations.
August 1914 · The Legions initiative The organisation of Polish formations alongside Austria-Hungary, dependent on the consent of the Austrian authorities.
1917 · New institutions The Polish National Committee in Paris and the Regency Council: further, separate centres of action.
1918 · The rebuilding of the state The end point of this story. The outcome was not known to those organising the preparations in July 1914.
1914–1918 · Scale of mobilisation Estimates of Poles mobilised into the three partitioning armies range from “over 3 million” (no. 17) to 3.4 million (no. 20) (1.4 million Austria-Hungary, 1.2 million Russia, 0.8 million Germany). In the Prussian partition nearly half of Sokół's members were in the army at the very start of the war. Some of those mobilised fought against each other. [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-017, HC-1914-020, HC-1914-008]

1914–1918: 3–3.4 million Poles in three armies (1.4 / 1.2 / 0.8 million) [HC-1914-002, HC-1914-017, HC-1914-020]

Evidence for the card

The bracketed references above point to the entries of this list; the same list stands in the project's source register.

HC-1914-001 · Mateusz Drozdowski: Polish Paramilitary Organisations before 1914 (v. 1.0) · 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Freie Universität Berlin) · T2
HC-1914-002 · Piotr Szlanta: Poland (handbook article, v. 1.0) · 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Freie Universität Berlin) · T2
HC-1914-003 · Waldemar Potkański: Polski ruch paramilitarny na terenie Galicji przed wybuchem wielkiej wojny w roku 1914 [Waldemar Potkański: The Polish paramilitary movement in Galicia before the outbreak of the Great War in 1914] · Kwartalnik Historyczny, vol. CXVI (2009), no. 2, pp. 175–196 (IH PAN; scan in RCIN) · T2
HC-1914-004 · Stanisław Wiech: Stan wojenny w Królestwie Polskim (1861–1905) [Stanisław Wiech: Martial law in the Kingdom of Poland (1861–1905)] · Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, vol. LVIII (2023), no. 1 (IH PAN; scan in RCIN) · T2
HC-1914-005 · Jan Snopko: Polskie Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne „Sokół” w Galicji 1867–1914, Białystok 1997 [Jan Snopko: The Polish 'Sokół' Gymnastic Society in Galicia 1867–1914, Białystok 1997] · Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku (monograph; scan in Repozytorium UwB) · T2
HC-1914-006 · Staatliche Maßnahmen gegenüber der polnischen Minderheit und den Bevölkerungen in den überseeischen Gebieten des Deutschen Reichs 1871 bis 1918 [State measures towards the Polish minority and the populations of the overseas territories of the German Reich, 1871 to 1918] · Wissenschaftliche Dienste des Deutschen Bundestages (Dokumentation WD 1 - 3000 - 040/18) · T2
HC-1914-007 · Vereinsgesetz vom 19. April 1908, § 12 [Associations Act of 19 April 1908, § 12] · Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt 1908, Nr. 18, S. 151–157 (Wikisource transcription with the scan from Commons) · T1
HC-1914-008 · Janusz Karwat: Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne „Sokół” zaboru pruskiego w dążeniu do niepodległości [Janusz Karwat: The 'Sokół' Gymnastic Society of the Prussian partition in its striving for independence] · Dzieje Najnowsze, vol. XXVI (1994), no. 4, pp. 5–21 (IH PAN; scan in RCIN) · T2
HC-1914-009 · Wojciech Jaworski: Towarzystwa śpiewacze w Królestwie Polskim (1859–1914) [Wojciech Jaworski: Singing societies in the Kingdom of Poland (1859–1914)] · Studia Historyczne, vol. LVII (2014), no. 1 (225), pp. 45–66 (PAN Oddział w Krakowie) · T2
HC-1914-010 · Roman Dmowski: Niemcy, Rosya i kwestya polska, Lwów 1908 [Roman Dmowski: Germany, Russia and the Polish Question, Lwów 1908] · Nakładem Towarzystwa Wydawniczego, Lwów (H. Altenberg) [published by the Towarzystwo Wydawnicze]; Google/Internet Archive scan · T1
HC-1914-011 · Michał Leśniewski: Dmowski, Roman (v. 1.0) · 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Freie Universität Berlin) · T2
HC-1914-012 · Józef Piłsudski: O polskim ruchu strzeleckim (odczyt w Towarzystwie Geograficznym w Paryżu, 21 II 1914; sprawozdanie z „Bulletin polonais” 15 IV 1914) [Józef Piłsudski: On the Polish rifle movement (lecture at the Geographical Society in Paris, 21 February 1914; report in the 'Bulletin polonais' of 15 April 1914)] · Józef Piłsudski, Pisma zbiorowe, vol. III, Instytut Józefa Piłsudskiego, Warszawa 1937, pp. 250–253 (scan of the 1937 edition at pilsudski-pisma.online) · T1
HC-1914-013 · Jerzy Gaul: Trzymajcie się z Zachodem... Józef Piłsudski w poszukiwaniu polskiej racji stanu [Jerzy Gaul: Hold with the West... Józef Piłsudski in search of a Polish raison d'état] · Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych, Warszawa 2023 (monograph) · T2
HC-1914-014 · Damian Szymczak: Zmierzch galicyjskiego austrofilizmu i idei austro-polskiej. Michał Bobrzyński jako minister dla Galicji i kwestia wyodrębnienia Galicji (1916–1917) [Damian Szymczak: The twilight of Galician Austrophilism and of the Austro-Polish idea. Michał Bobrzyński as Minister for Galicia and the question of separating Galicia (1916–1917)] · Galicja. Studia i materiały, no. 1 (2015), Instytut Historii Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego, ISSN 2450-5854, p. 21 ff. · T2
HC-1914-015 · Stanisław Pijaj: Archiwum Koła Polskiego w parlamencie wiedeńskim (losy i stan zachowania materiałów) [Stanisław Pijaj: The archive of the Polish Circle in the Viennese parliament (the fate and state of preservation of the materials)] · Studia Podlaskie, vol. 32 (2024), Uniwersytet w Białymstoku · T2
HC-1914-016 · Anna Czocher: Małopolscy Bohaterowie Niepodległości. Juliusz Leo (1861–1918). Przez Austrię do Polski [Anna Czocher: Lesser Poland Heroes of Independence. Juliusz Leo (1861–1918). Through Austria to Poland] · Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Oddział w Krakowie · T3
HC-1914-017 · Mirosław Szumiło: Polacy w walce o niepodległość 1914-1918 [Mirosław Szumiło: Poles in the struggle for independence 1914-1918] · IPN Przystanek Historia · T3
HC-1914-018 · Mariusz Jarosiński: Polska Organizacja Wojskowa [Mariusz Jarosiński: The Polish Military Organisation] · dzieje.pl (PAP / Muzeum Historii Polski) · T3
HC-1914-019 · Anna Kruszyńska: 110 lat temu powołano Związek Strzelecki [Anna Kruszyńska: 110 years ago the Riflemen's Association was founded] · dzieje.pl (PAP / Muzeum Historii Polski) · T3
HC-1914-020 · Mariusz Jarosiński: 500 tys. Polaków straciło życie w armiach zaborczych w I wojnie światowej [Mariusz Jarosiński: 500,000 Poles lost their lives in the armies of the partitioning powers in the First World War] · dzieje.pl (PAP / Muzeum Historii Polski) · T3
HC-1914-021 · Andrzej Bogucki: Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne „Sokół” w Bydgoszczy 1886-2016 [Andrzej Bogucki: The 'Sokół' Gymnastic Society in Bydgoszcz 1886-2016] · Kujawsko-Pomorska Szkoła Wyższa w Bydgoszczy, „Miscellanea”, vol. VIII, no. 1 · T3
HC-1914-022 · kalendarium [timeline] · Muzeum Historii Polski · T3
HC-1914-023 · wystawa o Legionach Polskich [exhibition on the Polish Legions] · Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi · T3 · dead link, archive

Method. The case is described separately, and dependence on a great power is not converted into an alliance premium. The absence of a comparable score does not mean zero capacity to act. The cross-section of the preparations (up to 27 July 1914) and the later events rest on separate evidential bases; every number on the card carries a reference to the source list, and a single-source number is marked as such.

Rhymes of history

No real alliance leads to catastrophe – Isolation, or guarantees on paper only. All four eras ended in heavy or catastrophic consequences, and readiness in them was low: 2.4 to 4.3 on both measures. So these cases say nothing about what high readiness would have done. (1655, 1794, 1831, 1939)
Real support raises the threshold of aggression – When an ally (or the union’s own mass) is physically present, the threshold of aggression rises. The name is about the threshold, not about survival: survival also depends on scale and chance, and one of these eras is still open. (1683, 1920*, 2026*)
An internal rift completes the outsider’s work – Targowica or the magnates' capitulations: the internal enemy often completes the external one's work. (1655, 1792)
Reforms that come too late do not save the state – Even sound reforms (the 3 May Constitution) cannot save a state when they arrive too late. (1791–1792)
Neglected opportunities leave gaps in the system – The missing Polish connection to the NATO fuel pipeline (CEPS) lowered the infrastructure and military mobility score in 2026. What the index flags as the bottleneck there is something else, civil protection, so this is a gap recorded in the rationale rather than the one the index points at. (2026)
Twice, a collapse was followed by a rebirth – Two cases: 1918 and, in a limited form, after 1945. Neither is in the index, because neither is a scored era. Two cases are too few for a rule, and 1794 cost a hundred and twenty three years without a state. (1918, 1945–1989)

* 1920: no physically present combat ally (the advisory French Military Mission, about 600 officers; the Franco-Polish alliance came only in 1921), and the alliance dimension is among the lowest in the series here. * 2026: an open column with no outcome, so it stands there as an instance of the mechanism, not its confirmation.

Methodology

What we measure: The index assesses Poland's defensive readiness at a given moment, relative to the threat characteristic of the era, not in a vacuum. This is not a forecast of whether war will break out, nor whether the defence would succeed.
Scale 0–10 (relative): Assessment relative to the state of the military art of the era: 0–2 defencelessness · 3–4 functions with bottlenecks · 5–6 solid with gaps · 7–8 high readiness · 9–10 aggression becomes irrational. 10 is a model, no one in the series attains it.
What the uncertainty band means: The band on a score is a judgement about the strength of the evidence base, not a confidence interval: no significance level and no probability distribution sit behind it. The anchors are the same across every era column: ±0.5 where the evidence is strong and concordant, ±1.0 in the typical case, ±1.5 to ±2.0 where the base is thin or divergent, with intermediate values where the material calls for them. The band on an era column's composite index is the root mean square of the dimension bands, rounded up to 0.25; crises without war carry a separately estimated band. We do not tell two readings apart while less than the narrower of their two bands separates them; at bands of this width a difference of tenths of a point is not a difference.
Two measures: “With allies” counts real allied support (today: NATO), “without allies” counts own forces only. This is not always the same profile plus one score: an alliance can change what forces, logistics and command are worth. In 7 of the 10 columns it shifts something besides the allied dimension, and for the 2026 column as many as 7, though in some columns it is a difference on a single score. The difference can be negative, because the allied reading adds a dimension that does not exist without allies, allied deterrence, and that one can score below the rest of the defence. What counts is real presence, not guarantees on paper.
Ex-ante discipline: Historical columns are assessed solely on the basis of what decision-makers could have known at the moment of cutoff, without hindsight. The validator enforces this rule at the level of the evidence.
10 dimensions: Forces & command · Equipment · Reserves · Logistics · Allies · Strategic shield · Civil protection · Infrastructure · Economy · Intelligence & cyber. The main result is the profile; the aggregate index is secondary, with an uncertainty band and a sensitivity test on the weights.
How ten scores become one number: The composite index is a weighted mean of the dimension scores, computed with three weight sets at once. The published number is the plain mean of those three results, and the spread between them is the sensitivity test on the weights: for the 2026 column it comes to 0.26 of a point at a reading of 5.07 with allies, and 0.15 of a point at 4.46 without. In the standalone reading the allied dimension is not scored, and the weights of the remaining nine are renormalised. The full sets, each summing to one hundred per cent: equal weights: Forces & command 10%, Equipment 10%, Reserves 10%, Logistics 10%, Allies 10%, Strategic shield 10%, Civil protection 10%, Infrastructure 10%, Economy 10%, Intelligence & cyber 10%; combat-capability emphasis: Forces & command 15%, Equipment 15%, Reserves 10%, Logistics 15%, Allies 10%, Strategic shield 8%, Civil protection 5%, Infrastructure 10%, Economy 7%, Intelligence & cyber 5%; resilience emphasis: Forces & command 7%, Equipment 7%, Reserves 10%, Logistics 12%, Allies 8%, Strategic shield 7%, Civil protection 17%, Infrastructure 12%, Economy 10%, Intelligence & cyber 10%.
Cost and consequences – after the fact: The human cost and long-term consequences are described ex post and firewalled: they never feed, sort or weight the readiness assessment. This is a separate layer of memory, not a measure.
Sources and counter-evidence: Every piece of evidence has a citation, a date and a tier (from T1, official, down to T4, the rest). For each dimension countering evidence is mandatory: a dossier without counter-evidence does not pass the check. Links are checked; for dead ones we give an archive. The base is predominantly Polish-language: 669 of 885 registry entries, against 195 in English. The remaining 21 are German (12), French (4), Russian (2), Swedish (2) and Latin (1). A reader without Polish can therefore check the figure and the path to the source, but usually not the source itself.
Adversarial review (red team): Three independent adversarial passes, run by a model rather than by people, were told to overturn the scores instead of confirming them: they hunted for badly placed anchors, missed counter-evidence, breaches of ex-ante discipline and bands set too narrow. The record sits on 27 of the 110 dimensions of the whole scoring corpus, spread across 11 columns, and covers 10 of them; the only column with no entry is 1792. There are 35 entries. Twenty-one of those 27 dimensions can be opened on this page; the difference is what the page does not show as a separate column: 1939B, the scenario variant of 1939. Thirty-two record a recalibration of a score, a band or a cap, five record a challenge considered and rejected with reasons, and two belong to both groups at once: the central value was defended and the band widened instead. The text of the challenges on the dimensions this page opens can be read in the components drawer. Beyond those, the record sits in the reviewer's working shorthand next to each dimension in the scoring layer, with a summary of some columns in the review log red-team-log.md; the repository is private, so that part cannot be checked without access to it.
Crises without war are scored differently: Crises without war carry a lighter evidence quota than the era columns, and a rough composite instead of the full scoring procedure. They are a directional signal, not a measurement on the same scale. A crisis reading (2025: 6.70 with allies) can sit above every era column (the peak of the series is 1683: 5.15), and that does not mean readiness was greater that year. A crisis measures resilience against one sub-threshold event, an era column measures readiness against full-scale war. The two sets of numbers should not be placed side by side.
Limitations: The index measures the development of the state apparatus relative to the scored dimensions, not survival against an overwhelming advantage of scale (that lives in the unscored threat context). This is why the index cannot tell the reading of the lost year 1831 apart from that of the victorious 1920. Nor do the ten dimensions score separately several functions on which a state's ability to operate under strain depends: people's psychological resilience, the continuity of basic services (water, food, medical care, payments) and dependence on space services such as satellite navigation and communications. They appear in the evidence of broader dimensions, but none has a score of its own, and in the 2026 column health care currently has no evidence admitted to scoring. A high dimension score therefore does not settle whether these functions would hold up in a war.

Sources

Based on 885 sources in total and 1654 evidence items of the scored index plus 23 evidence items of the descriptive cards (tiers: T1 110 official · T2 281 research · T3 423 journalism · T4 71), with mandatory counter-evidence. Links checked: 867/885 live. The base is predominantly Polish-language: 669 of 885 registry entries, against 195 in English. The repository is private, so the address is given for the record: https://github.com/kgluszczyk/worrier.

About the project

This index arose as a continuation of the author's private attempt to anchor his anxiety about the impact of war on himself and his family in Poland, to give it measure, context and history, instead of the fear alone. Co-created with an advanced AI (Fable 5): source research, dimensional assessment and the texts emerged in a human–model dialogue, under human oversight and under hard rules of honesty (ex-ante discipline, human-cost firewall, mandatory counter-evidence, red-team review).

State of knowledge: the “today” column (2026) and the projections are frozen as of 29 August 2026. Historical columns are assessed ex ante, solely on what was knowable on that era's cutoff date.

For all who had to stand ready.

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Wieki GotowościDefence Readiness Index

Wieki GotowościDefence Readiness Index

Wieki Gotowości The year 2026 against six centuries of history · Defence Readiness Index

Readiness and aftermath – across the ages

Crises without full-scale war

Future scenarios

2030

Without a state of its own

1914 · The Polish lands and Polish organisations facing the war

The three partitions side by side · as of 27 July 1914

Two orientations, one nation in three armies

Guiding questions

The three partitions side by side · as of 27 July 1914

What the war changed: 1914–1918 (the ex post part)

Evidence for the card

Rhymes of history

Methodology

Sources

About the project

Frequently asked questions