The initial core of the division was formed in December 1918 in Minsk, where a group of roughly 1,500 Poles and Belarusians rose to arms to defend the city against the advancing forces of Soviet Russia. In June 1919, the Bolsheviks deployed the Jewish First Guard Battalion from Minsk (at the insistence of its own members) against the Polish Army which included the First and the Second Lithuanian–Belarusian Divisions. The pro-communist Jews had won the first skirmish, forcing the Poles and Belorussians to retreat several kilometers. On August 8, 1919, Polish troops recaptured Minsk from the Bolsheviks. The main attack was in the direction of Maladzechna, Minsk, and Polatsk along the railroad lines.—— English ed. (2011) Random House, , pp. 59, 70. Google Books.</ref> However, due to Russian numerical superiority and lack of support from the side of the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic, the group withdrew towards central Poland. Other such self-defence groups, resistance organizations, and veterans of the Green Army of the Russian Civil War also reached Poland, where they were reformed into a single unit under the command of general Władysław Wejtko formerly from the Imperial Russian Army.