What made Poland such a formidable nation pre WWII...

What made Poland such a formidable nation pre WWII? There's plenty of examples of them winning battles while severely outnumbered so why is that? Was their cavalry just that good? Or was it something else?

i can just as well go back and cherry pick as many defeats of poland throughout history. your pic is meaningless

God's help

But seriously speaking, Poland took the best elements of western European culture and eastern orthodox culture. It made Poland much earlier enlightened country. For example, Black plauge of 1347 hadn't reached Poland because Poles hadn't killed cats - assumed devil agents - as pope ordered, thus cats eliminated rats spreading deseases In that period Poland also accepted thousand of Jewish refugees escaping persecutions in the west. That's why Poland developed high economy - because of Jewish banksters. (Also because of rich grain fields).

Of course you could but that doesn't invalidate the pic. I want to know why those battles, and the many more that aren't shown, actually happened to see if there's a trend either with Poland or with their enemies.

theyre bloodthirsty ruthless mongoloid slavs who masquerade as Europeans

killing is natural for them

Polish hussars

But were they really that effective? I know that they were a very specialized heavy cavalry but I assumed that they were meme warriors who seemed more effective than they actually were.

That's actually really interesting. I knew they avoided the plague but I thought it was due to isolationism and not cats. But how did this translate into a military that is famous for winning battles while heavily outnumbered?

>I assumed that they were meme warriors

You assumed rightly. In reality Poland just had a strong martial tradition. For example, Polish consultants were indispensable in helping America win its war for independence, teaching everything from tactics to discipline to fortifications.

Isolating the borders influenced Poland's survival more to be honest. Cat anecdote just shows how developed was Polish thought.

On the army - Poland was back then a vast country, and so it bordered many various neighbours who fought different styles. Poles not only developed tactits to fight each of them - they evolved their army taking experience of fighting these various opponents and added foreign influences, making them better at the same time.
Winged Hussars were much more evolved, heavier version of light Hungarian hussars, introduced by a Hungarian king of Poland - Stephen Bathory
There was also another kind of heavy cavalary - Pancerni, based on Mongol/Tatar heavy riders
Infantry had Swedish and German influences.
But let us remember spirit of a soldier also counts. Polish nobility developed its own culture which promoted battle courage, fight against foreigners and religiosity. At the same time it also promoted accepting Ottoman and southern infuences.