In the mid-19th century, northern Italy was among the most influential centres of Polish political emigration. It was there that, with the help of the Italian government, the Polish Military School was founded in 1861. It was the most important place for the training of command staff for the January Uprising.

Preparations for the January Uprising in exile
The cooperation between the Polish and Italian revolutionary movements had already been in place since the 1840s. It was strengthened in 1860, when Ludwik Mierosławski, then in Paris, was appointed by Giuseppe Garibaldi as commander of the International Legion in Naples. The formation did not ultimately come into being, but the fund-raising and propaganda activities conducted to organise it in the foreign and domestic press gained great resonance among Polish youth, who travelled in large numbers to France and Italy. Until the actual establishment of the Legion, it was desired to surround young Poles with at least a minimum of care, so a series of military training courses was organised in Paris at the beginning of December 1860, which later turned into a preparatory course for future officers of the insurgent army. Its director was Ludwik Mierosławski, with General Józef Wysocki as his deputy. The course was run until July 1861. After the course was disbanded, Polish youths began to organise their lives in exile on their own, as the quarrelling circles of the old émigrés did not provide any support for them in the fight for the Polish cause.

In November 1861, the Polish Youth Society was founded with the aim of helping the leaders of the national movement in the country to organise an armed uprising. This activity also included the provision of a competent cadre of officers to be trained by the planned Polish Military School. In view of the reluctance of the French authorities towards this initiative, efforts to set it up were made with the Italian Government.

Establishment of the Polish Military School
Thanks to Garibaldi's intervention, a Polish-Italian Committee was set up in Turin in July 1861, which took steps to launch the Polish Military School. Finally, at the end of September that year, the Government of the United Kingdom of Italy gave its approval for its establishment in Genoa. The authorities provided the school with premises (a two-storey brick building called Casa Bianchetti) and donated money for renovation, adaptation and initial equipment. Young people began to be drawn to Genoa from the rest of Italy, as well as some emigrants from Paris. Already at the beginning of October 1861, 70 candidates for pupils gathered there.

Towards the end of the year, Ludwik Mierosławski also arrived in the city, and began to reform the institution according to his own principles, aiming to subjugate the young people gathered there. On Italian soil, Polish soldiers appeared, uniformed in ash-coloured caps and red, lambskin-trimmed cornets. Their proper education in the command of infantry and cavalry subdivisions was ensured by a large and well-prepared teaching staff (including Marian Langiewicz, Adolf Dulfuss, Józef Czapski and Aleksander Łodzia-Rogaliński).

Mierosławski quite quickly became at odds with the patriotic party in the country, and his dictatorial inclinations led to his students terminating their obedience. Because of these conflicts, he also lost the confidence of Garibaldi, and at the end of February 1862 he left the school's walls for Paris. The Polish Military School found itself in crisis, its numbers dwindling to twenty-odd students. It was to be led out of this situation by General Józef Wysocki, previously Mierosławski's deputy. He arrived in Genoa on 27 March 1862, but being unable to stay there permanently, he appointed his deputies: Colonel Aleksander Fijałkowski, as the school's commandant, and Colonel Aleksander Waligórski, the director of science. The new staff succeeded in restoring due order in the school. Teaching was conducted in the infantry, cavalry and artillery departments. The weekly timetable was carefully defined, and in addition to the basic courses in these three faculties, it included gymnastics, fencing, practical exercises in drawing up cartographic plans, and lectures on, among other things, the theory of the art of war and field fortification. The non-commissioned officer course lasted three months and the officer course a minimum of six months.

Headquarters in Cuneo
At the end of April 1862, the new command decided to move the Polish Military School to Cuneo, a town picturesquely situated at the foot of the Alps in Piedmont. The town had a population of around 5,000 at the time. The school was given a much more convenient location in the building of the former College of San Francesco - a medieval church and monastery complex, the oldest parts of which date back to the 13th century. In the spring of 1862, new arrivals from the country were admitted, bringing the number of pupils to around one hundred. At this time, the uniform of its students was changed, with the introduction of navy blue jackets with amaranth piping, modelled on the Polish legionnaires from the period of the Spring of Nations in Hungary, and white jackets and red cornets in the summer.

Soon the Polish Military School in Italy became so famous at home and abroad that the Russian Empire began to see it as a threat. Eventually, Russia issued an ultimatum to the Italian government, conditioning official recognition of the United Kingdom of Italy, which had long been sought, on the dissolution of the school. Political pressure prompted Victor Emmanuel to issue a suspension order and, on 26 June 1862, to close the school.

The Poles left Cuneo at the end of July 1862. This was the final end of the Polish Military School's activities, as its planned transfer to another country (England or Sweden) had failed.

Commanders of the January Uprising
In the 10-month period of its existence, the Polish Military School educated over 200 non-commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers, almost all of whom took an active part in the January Uprising. Despite its short-lived existence and ambition disputes among the command, the Polish Military School made a lasting mark on history. Among its graduates were some of the best commanders of the Polish guerrilla war of 1863-1864, such as Józef Oxiński and Roman Rogiński.

1862