Two-finger salute


The two-finger salute is a salute given using only the middle and index fingers, while bending the other fingers at the second knuckle, and with the palm facing the signer. This salute is used by the Polish Armed Forces, other uniformed services, and, in some countries, the Cub Scouts.

Two-finger salute in Poland

The Polish two-finger salute is only used while wearing a headdress with the emblem of the Polish eagle or without this emblem. The salute is performed with the middle and index fingers extended and touching each other, while the ring and little fingers are bent and touched by the thumb. The tips of the middle and index fingers touch the peak of the cap, two fingers meaning honour and fatherland.
It is not clear when the two-fingers salute appeared in Polish military forces. Some see its origin in Tadeusz Kościuszko's 1794 :Image:686px-Smuglewicz Kosciuszko.jpg|oath. Others state that it came from Polish soldiers in the Congress Kingdom army around 1815. At that time, apparently the Tsar's Viceroy in Poland Grand Duke Constantine said that Poles salute him with two fingers, while using the other two to hold a stone to throw at him. Another legend attributes the salute to the remembrance of Battle of Olszynka Grochowska in 1831, when a soldier who lost in the battle all his fingers but the middle and index ones, saluted his superior with the wounded hand, and died after it.
It symbolized God and Country.

Cub Scouting

Many Cub Scout sections also use a two-finger salute. The salute was devised by Robert Baden-Powell and originally represented the two ears of a wolf cub, since the original programme was based on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. However, Cubs in several national associations now use the three-finger Scout salute used by the rest of the Scout Movement.