First graduating class of Polish Officers trained at officers at the Canadian School of Infantry

In late December 1916, well before the sanctioning of the Polish army in France, 23 chosen men from the ranks of the Polish Falcons crossed the border into Canada to be trained as officers at the Canadian School of Infantry at the University of Toronto. They called themselves ‘the desperadoes’. This was an enormous victory towards Polish independence as this was the foundation to creating a national Polish Army.
There was a total of 259 graduates of the Officers’ School of Infantry in Toronto. In the summer of 1917, the school was moved to Camp Borden to accommodate the growing class size and was made up entirely of Polish-Americans. This was where the Officers’ School of Infantry training program transformed into a Polish Officers’ school. The graduates of this program would go on to help train the recruits at Camp Kościuszko. Image courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives.