Virtuti Militari

The Order of Virtuti Militari (Military Virtue) is Poland's highest military decoration for valour in the face of the enemy, equivalent to the British Victoria Cross or the US Congressional Medal of Honor.

The order was created in 1792 by King Stanislaw August Poniatowski. Among the first to be honoured with the order was mj. gen. Tadeusz Kościuszko. It consists of 5 classes, in the grades of a Cross, Grand Cross, and medal. During the Second World War, the Virtuti Militari was often bestowed to senior military officers of foreign militaries who had helped liberate Poland from German occupation. The Virtuti Militari is still an active decoration and remains the highest award of the modern day Polish military.

The recipients of the Grand Cross are:

• Marshal of Poland Józef Piłsudski
• Marshal of France, Poland and the United Kingdom Ferdinand Foch
• Ferdinand I of Romania
• Albert I of Belgium
• Alexander I
• Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
• General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower
• General of the Army Douglas MacArthur
• general Alexiey Antonov
• Marshal of the USSR Leonid Brezhniev (order cancelled on July 10, 1990)
• Marshal of Yugoslavia Josip Broz-Tito
• general Nikolai Bulganin
• Marshal of the USSR Andriey Grechko
• Marshal of the USSR Ivan Koniev
• Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery
• Marshal of the USSR and Poland Konstanty Rokossowski
• Marshal of Poland Michał Rola-Żymierski
• General Ludvík Svoboda
• general Karol Świerczewski (posthumously)
• Marshal of the USSR Alexander Vasilievski
• Marshal of the USSR Georgiy Zhukow

Famous recipients of other classes of the Virtuti Militari include:

• colonel Berek Joselewicz
• the city of Lwów
• ORP Błyskawica
• general Charles de Gaulle
• Lieutenant commander Jan Grudziński
• Flying ace Josef František
• Jan Karski
• Janusz Żurakowski
• Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły
• colonel Ignacy Oziewicz
• Batalion Zośka fighting in the Warsaw Uprising
• general Stanisław Maczek
• general Kazimierz Sosnkowski
• Stanisław Skarżyński
• Gustaw Herling-Grudziński
• general Wojciech Jaruzelski
• major Henryk Sucharski, defender of the Westerplatte
• general Józef Haller de Hallenburg
• general Antoni Chruściel "Monter", commander of the Warsaw Uprising
• general Walerian Czuma, defender of Warsaw during the Siege of Warsaw in 1939

For more pictures of the Virtuti Militari see the Polish BambooWeb article

See also

• List of military decorations