It’s August 1920, and the armies of Bolshevik
Russia have reached the gates of the capital.
Desperate Polish forces prepare to defend
the city – and maybe even prevent the spread
of the revolution to Central Europe: it’s
the Battle of Warsaw.
Hi, I’m Jesse Alexander and welcome to The
Great War.
By August 1920, the Polish-Soviet War had
been raging for over a year.
What had started as a guerilla border war
had turned into a full-on conventional conflict
in the spring of 1920, as Polish forces advanced
east into Belarus and Ukraine, capturing Kiev
in May.
But the Red Army recovered and launched a
major counterattack, which would reach a dramatic
and decisive stage at the Battle of Warsaw
100 years ago.
The Red Army offensive began in June, when
the Southwest Front, under General Yegorov
and the political supervision of Joseph Stalin,
pushed the Poles back in bloody fighting.
After the initial victory near Kiev, General
Semyon Budyonni’s 1st Cavalry Army captured
Rowne, Lutsk, Brody, and had surrounded Lwow.
This advance was slowed by determined Polish
resistance and skilful use of fortified towns
and cavalry by the Polish commander, General
Edvard Rydz-Smigly.
The fight for Brody was particularly bloody.
Isaac Babel, who was with the Red Army, recalled
the aftermath: “A field of horror, strewn
with mangled dead, inhuman cruelty, unimaginable
wounds, crushed skulls, young, white naked
bodies flashing in the sun, lost notebooks
laying about, single pages, paybooks, prayer
books, human corpses in the grain.”
(Lehnstaedt 89) By early August, the Red Army
had stopped at Lwow, in what had become a
drawn-out siege.
The main Bolshevik offensive was launched
further north in July, by General Mikhail
Tukhachevsky’s Western Front in Belarus.
After three days of fighting, Polish lines
broke and the Bolshevik advance began to gather
momentum.
The Reds had about 160,000 combat troops against
about 115,000 under Polish General Szeptycki
– and the Bolsheviks had a 3 to 1 advantage
in artillery (Lehnstaedt 85).
But the cavalry was the key to the Red Army’s
success, as mounted units used the wide open
spaces to outflank and surround Polish units.
Tukhachevsky, who was himself partly of Polish
origin, was younger and more willing to take
risks than his older Polish counterparts,
and it paid off.
In particular, the advance was led by the
1st Red Cavalry Corps, under Persian-born
Armenian General Hayk Bzhishkyan, better known
as Gaia Gai.
Gai was able to keep the Poles off balance
by using the Lithuanian and German borders
to cover his flank, and even managed to defeat
a Polish force equipped with French tanks
at Grodno on July 19.
One advantage they had was that Polish intelligence
had been able to read some Red Army telegrams
within a few days of them being sent, which
did help the Poles try to predict the general
disposition of Bolshevik forces . The Poles
also tried to stabilize the front by using
old German trenches from the Great War, but
could not stem the tide.
During the Red Army’s advance, Lithuania
joined in on the Bolshevik side, to recover
the disputed city of Wilno, Vilnius, from
the Poles.
By August 1, the Red Army was in Bialystok
and Brest-Litovsk, just 200km from Warsaw.
A week after that, Tukhachevsky’s spearheads
were northwest of the Polish capital, which
came under direct threat of encirclement.
So within a month of launching their attack,
the Red Army was deep in the heart of Poland.
The rapid advance of Bolshevik forces now
plunged the country into a crisis, which both
united and divided its citizens.
The string of defeats had deeply shaken the
Polish army, government and society.
The army had suffered heavy losses, lacked
weapons and equipment, and morale was on the
verge of collapse.
Desertions increased, some officers openly
spoke of a coming Bolshevik victory, and many
civilians fled the city.
Some unions called for peace with Russia.
Pilsudski was painfully aware of the situation:
“This breakdown of our forces, this sinking
morale was, in my view, [Tukhachevski’s]
greatest triumph.”
(Lehnstaedt 89) and he later admitted: “I
could not trust the morale of the troops or
the civilians, or the leaders of either group.”
(Lehnstaedt 115).
The government also faced a political crisis.
Partisan divisions in the Polish parliament
became even more intense than usual, and Pilsudski
twice offered his resignation, which was refused.
Prime Minister Grabski resigned, and was replaced
by Wincenty Witos, the head of the Peasant
Party.
Witos headed up an all-party government which
weakened Pilsudki’s socialists, but was
expected to be more appealing to the Bolsheviks
during negotiations.
Things were so bad that Pilsudski sought to
overcome the difficulties in parliament by
creating the Council of National Defence,
which in some ways functioned as a parallel
parliament.
The crisis also worsened relations between
Catholics and Jews.
There had already been numerous outbreaks
of anti-Semitic violence and pogroms during
the war, and now that defeat seemed near,
the association of Jews with the Bolshevik
enemy caused trouble in the army.
The War Ministry placed a quota for Jews in
the army, limiting them to 5% of the army.
Some Jews had joined the Bolsheviks, but most
accepted conscription, and Jews already made
up more than 5% of Polish troops.
As a result, thousands were put into labour
battalions digging trenches around Warsaw,
and others were simply kept in internment
camps.
This measure was removed after the Battle
of Warsaw, which some took as vindication
of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.
(Lehnstaedt 112-113).
The threat to Poland and its capital also
laid bare the divide between the peasants,
who made up the majority of the population,
and m iddle-class urban residents, especially
the educated.
Peasants had suffered terribly since 1914,
and resented the state’s inability to protect
and care for them when in the army.
They often felt less connected to the nation
than their urban counterparts: “The peasants
held the Polish elites responsible for an
independence which in their eyes had only
replaced the habitual prewar order with a
lot of trouble at the new state’s borders
which was now about to descend upon them.”
(Boehler 131) Slowikowski recalled a peasant
in his unit scoffed at the notion of fighting
for national honour: “What does honor give
me when the lice are biting?!
Did you see all the soldiers from our company?
Do they all have boots on their feet?
And you know how many haven’t got shirts?
Their uniforms are draped on naked bodies.
Honor, my ass!
If there’s nothing to eat, the lice are
biting, and the soldiers have no underpants.
[…] Whoever wants war is welcome to fight,
but it’s a farmer’s job to cultivate the
soil.”
(Boehler 134-135)
Although the crisis facing Poland in August
1920 caused tensions in Polish society, it
had also galvanized and unified some groups,
especially the urban middle class.
For high school graduate and army volunteer
Michal Slowikowski, the coming battle was
personal: “The question of whether Warsaw
would defend itself was an issue not only
for the nation, but for individual citizens,
too.
Could the beautiful mirage of freedom really
be coming to an end?”
(Boehler 134) Urbanites like Slowikowski were
united like never before by the threat to
their nation.
100,000 men volunteered for the army, mostly
students, scouts, and craftsmen.
Peasants were under-represented among volunteers,
but they did accept the draft of 1920.
Women also volunteered in non-combat roles
like sewing uniforms and nursing.
The Church, political parties, civic societies
and professional associations all mobilized
like never before.
Despite the suspicions of their fellow citizens,
many middle-class Jews also donated money
and volunteered to fight, and most workers’
unions also supported the cause.
This national mobilization of the middle and
educated classes and the Church crystalized
around the idea of Poland as the defender
of Christian European civilization against
the lesser, barbarous and foreign civilization
of the east, sometimes portrayed as Judeo-Bolshevik,
and sometimes as quote “tatar-byzantine.”
Prince Lubomirski reflected this view in a
speech: “The war which Poland is carrying
on is not one of conquest, but exclusively
one of defense.
The Bolsheviks invaded Poland at the moment
of its liberation and we were forced to take
up arms in our defense.
[…] We have only wanted to protect those
regions peopled by Polish subjects, to liberate
them from the oppression of Bolshevism, and
to create around us friendly nations who will
stand with us against the barbarism of the
East.”
(Reed 223) Pilsudski himself was more concerned
with Polish sovereignty and borders than ideological
questions.
Poland was both divided and united in the
face of defeat – and it also called on its
British and French Allies to help.
French and British reactions
The existence of Poland as an independent
state was vital to the post-war order the
British and French were trying to create.
Poland was to play a role in containing Bolshevism
on the one hand, and in weakening Germany
on the other, but there were also disagreements.
The French were more strident in their anti-Bolshevik
position, whereas the British had tried to
gain influence by entering into trade negotiations
with them.
Both Britain and France had clashed with Poland
over the extent of Polish territorial claims,
and over the rights of minorities in Poland.
Now, the looming victory of the Red Army spurred
Allied action.
An Inter-Allied Military Commission was sent
to advise the Poles, led by General Henrys
and Viscount D’Abernon.
The officers of the commission, however, like
General Weygand and Charles de Gaulle, were
sometimes ignored by their Polish counterparts,
since their experience with trench warfare
on the Western Front did not apply to the
wide-open spaces and smaller firepower in
the East.
The British and French also got involved directly
with the Poles and Bolsheviks at the negotiating
table.
In July, they forced the Poles to accept,
in principle, a border at the Curzon Line,
even though the Poles wanted a border further
east.
The British then gave an ultimatum to the
Bolsheviks, demanding that they stop their
advance at the line or the Allies would be
free to assist the Poles more directly, and
the economically important trade deal talks
between Britain and Russia would be stopped.
This sounded like a serious threat, but British
and French hands were partly tied by domestic
politics, since there was no stomach for a
new war.
So the Allies were attempting to help Poland,
even though the relationship was a difficult
one.
Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks had problems of
their own.
Success on the battlefield had presented some
new problems for the Bolsheviks.
As the Red Army advanced westwards, there
were disagreements about what to do next,
and internal rivalries heated up.
Commander in Chief Sergey Kamenev wanted to
stop at the Curzon Line, whereas War Commissar
Leon Trotsky thought the army should be able
to cross the line temporarily if necessary.
Lenin was more hawkish, and orders were given
to push past the Curzon Line in mid-July.
The Bolsheviks also wasted no time in setting
up puppet soviet states in Galicia and also
in Poland.
The Polish Revolutionary Committee was established
in Bialystok and headed up by Polish Bolshevik
Feliks Dzerzhinsky, head of the Cheka secret
police.
The Polish Revolutionary Committee made no
bones about what they had planned: “All
representatives of the Polish bourgeoisie
and landowners, all who support White Poland,
will be arrested and sent to concentration
camps.”
(Engelstein 501)
Now although the Bolsheviks had plans to rule
Poland and Galicia, there is a debate about
how far or under what circumstances they wanted
to use the expected victory in Poland to spread
the revolution into Europe.
Some, from the leadership down to the lower
ranks, like Isaac Babel, felt that the Red
Army was on an unstoppable historical march:
“We will wage war forever.
Russia has thrown down the gauntlet.
We will march into Europe to conquer the world.
The Red Army has become a factor in world
politics.”
(Lehnstaedt 93).
But given the weakness of the Red Army, it
is unlikely that this could have been achieved
by force alone.
Because of this, some historians have emphasized
the Bolshevik leadership’s caution.
Tukhachevsky, for example, wanted to offer
Germany its 1914 borders, even though he made
public statements about bringing the revolution
to the heart of Europe.
Lenin, on the other hand, hoped that if the
Red Army was able to get close enough to Germany,
Hungary, and Romania after defeating Poland,
the workers of Central Europe would rise up
in revolution on their own – though no specific
military plans for this were drawn up.
Stalin and Polish Bolshevik Karl Radek thought
a European revolution unlikely, and Trotsky
feared Allied intervention if the Red Army
went too far – but there was general agreement
that Poland’s presence in Ukraine and Belarus
was a strategic threat to Russia.
In the end, both ideological and military
reasons contributed to the Bolshevik decision
to continue the invasion of Poland past the
Curzon Line.
While the Red Army marched and Bolshevik leaders
debated internally, negotiations with the
Allies and the Poles went on.
A series of talks took place, which reached
their peak in early August after the Poles
requested talks, and the British proposed
conference.
There was much back and forth, with the British
threating to cancel trade talks with Russia,
and the Soviets suggesting a Polish border
east of the Curzon Line, but at the price
of a disarmed Polish military.
Bolshevik Lev Kamenev assured British Prime
Minister Lloyd George Poland’s independence
was safe: “[The Red Army advance did] not
predetermine in the slightest the question
of the character of the peace treaty and does
not constitute a threat to the independence
and integrity of the Polish state in its ethnic
borders.”
(Engelstein 503) But the British intercepted
telegrams that showed the Bolsheviks were
not sincere, and were stalling to allow their
forces to decide the issue on the battlefield.
Viscount D’Abernon was outraged: “[The
Bolsheviks] pride themselves in hitting below
the belt and in breaking their word.”
(Engelstein 503) This was all part of the
Bolshevik strategy pairing negotiations geared
to buy time with military action, which they
had used in the spring negotiations with Poland
as well.
So the Bolsheviks were divided – but they
were able to buy time while negotiating, and
now their army was on the cusp of victory.
Except that the Red Army that stood at the
gates of Warsaw was more fragile than it looked.
One thing that put the Red Army in a difficult
position was the lack of coordination between
Tukhachevsky’s Western front and Yegorov’s
Southwestern front.
Geography played a role, since the two armies
were divided by the natural barrier of the
Pripet Marshes, but politics was the real
problem.
Trotsky and Tukhachevsky were close, whereas
Stalin, Budyonni and Yegorov formed a rival
clique.
Militarily, it made sense for the Southwest
front to shift as many forces as it could
to help the Western front at Warsaw instead
of wasting time in Galicia.
Tukhachevsky pressured Kamenev to do this,
but Kamenev at first issued unclear orders.
Stalin and Budyonni delayed, and argued that
they could not move west until they had taken
Lwow.
The presence of General Vrangel’s White
forces in Crimea was also a distraction, as
Stalin wrote to Lenin on August 12 – just
days before the Battle of Warsaw began: “It
is my impression that the commander in chief
and his boys are sabotaging the work of organizing
victory over Wrangel.
In any case, they do not show a tenth of the
desire to win that they certainly show in
the fight against Poland.”
(Engelstein 506) All this infighting would
waste precious time that the Red Army would
soon desperately need.
And they weren’t getting the support from
the Polish population that Lenin had counted
on either – most Catholic Poles were hostile
to the Bolsheviks, just as Stalin had predicted.
The behaviour of Red Army troops as they advanced
did not endear them to the locals either – both
Christians and Jews were targeted in spite
of friendly Bolshevik propaganda, as Isaac
Babel recorded: “The population expects
a saviour, the Jews expect freedom – and
the Kuban Cossacks come riding in…”
(Lehnstaedt 94) Local Poles sometimes rose
up against the invaders, and there were attacks
on local Jews, as a Red Army report indicated:
“[The locals] emerged onto the roads, entire
villages at a time, armed with rifles, pitchforks,
[and] axes, attacking our supply trains, capturing
soldiers.
Communists, Jews, commissars were shot; Russians
were roughed up.”
(Engelstein 510)
As if that weren’t bad enough for the Bolsheviks,
despite recent victories, the Red Army had
been weakened.
Poland had been devasted by years of war since
1914, and passable roads, intact bridges,
and food were rare, which led to problems
of supply and morale.
Isaac Babel recalled a letter home he wrote
for illiterate soldier: “Send me what you
can, what you are able to.
Please slaughter the spotted wild boar and
send me a parcel…Every day I go to bed hungry
and without clothes, so it’s terribly cold.”
(Lehnstaedt 83) Combined with combat losses
and desertion, about 116,000 Bolshevik troops
now faced 156,000 Polish defenders (Lehnstaedt
118).
So a vulnerable Red Army under divided leadership
now stood ready for the final assault on Warsaw,
and perhaps victory in the war.
Tukhachevsky’s launched his assault on Warsaw
from the east and north.
He knew his forces were overextended, but
gambled that the poles would not be able to
react in time.
East of the city, Polish forces occupied new
trenches dug in haste, as well as old German
trenches left over from the Great War, and
Polish General Lucjan Zeligowski admired the
Germans’ handiwork: “One must admit that
they built [their trenches] very well.”
(Lehnstaedt 123) Near Radzymin, on August
14, the Red 16th Army began to push against
Polish defences, and at first drove the Poles
back.
But General Haller’s defenders rallied,
and soon recaptured the lost ground and more
, with the help of French tanks – a victory
did wonders for Polish morale, and some historians
have argued that this was the decisive turn
in the battle.
To the north of the city, things went equally
badly for Gaia Gai’s Red cavalry.
They were stopped by inexperienced Polish
forces under General Sikorski in an unlikely
victory that prevented Warsaw from being enveloped
from the north.
Sikorski’s attack was a very risky move,
and the chance destruction of a Red Army radio
transmitter has been said to have avoided
a Polish catastrophe by interrupting Bolshevik
communications at a critical moment.
Some historians consider this battle north
of the city to have been the decisive moment,
not Radzymin.
Regardless of which was more important, both
of these fronts had to hold long enough for
Pilsudski’s planned counterattack in the
south to work.
Since August 6, the Poles had been planning
a very risky counteroffensive, which would
lead either to a smashing victory, or total
defeat.
He ordered a difficult re-positioning of Polish
forces during the fighting, and withdrew some
units from Galicia to bolster the front south
of Warsaw.
The plan was to push north near Lublin, to
cut off the Bolshevik forces threatening Warsaw
– the Poles didn’t know it at the time,
but this was exactly where the Red Army was
weakest.
But the Poles had to hurry.
If Budyonni’s cavalry were to finally begin
moving west from Lwow, they could catch the
Poles in the flank or rear and all would be
lost.
Since Polish defences around Warsaw were holding,
Pilsudski was able to launch his daring attack
on August 16, days before Budyonni finally
accepted orders to move.
Tukhachevsky had learned of the preparations,
but did not believe his intelligence reports.
The Polish attack was a smashing success,
despite the confusion reigning on both sides.
They faced little resistance as they raced
120km into the gap and began to cut off Bolshevik
lines of communication and supply.
Budyonni was too far away to intervene, and
Tukhachevsky’s overextended and exhausted
forces found themselves in an impossible position
– they could not take Warsaw, and they could
not defend themselves with the enemy behind
them.
Three Red armies were routed within the space
of a few days, and a chaotic retreat eastwards
began.
Supply trains and artillery were abandoned,
and Gaia Gai’s cavalry was cut off and crossed
into East Prussia, where they were interned
by the Germans.
As the remaining Red forces withdrew, the
Polish population that had generally refused
to support them now in some cases rose up
against them, as a Red Army commissar reported:
“[The locals] were extremely hostile to
us…In many cases the retreating units conducted
rearguard battles with the local population,
during which the Red Army soldiers dealt brutally
with the insurgents.”
(Engelstein 507) He went on to note that in
Bialystok, “Even the Jewish population took
part in the hostile actions.”
(Engelstein 507) The Red Army had been beaten,
not only by the Polish army, but also by Polish
citizens who rejected its presence.
The Polish victory at Warsaw was as complete
as it was surprising, and its importance was
discussed at the time, and by historians afterwards.
Two thirds of Tukhachevsky’s army was killed,
wounded or captured – perhaps 100,000 men.
In Catholic Poland, many felt that divine
intervention had granted them victory, and
the battle became known as the Miracle on
the Vistula.
Hugh Gibson, the US ambassador to Poland,
rejoiced: “The Polish news is too good to
be true and if it will only continue this
way for a little time I am sure all will be
well again.”
(Reed 230) Viscount D’Abernon wrote a book
calling Warsaw one of the decisive battles
in Western history, and the famous military
theorist JFC Fuller also included it in his
list of decisive battles.
On the Bolshevik side, there was now general
acceptance that peace with Poland had to be
made.
Lenin later reflected on what might have been:
“If Poland had become Soviet, the Versailles
treaty would have been shattered, and the
entire international system built up by the
victors would have been destroyed.”
(Engelstein 507) Lenin blamed Stalin for the
failure, and so did Trotsky, who wrote: “If
Stalin and Voroshilov and the illiterate Budyonni
had not had their own war in Galicia and the
Red Cavalry had been at Lublin in time, the
Red Army would not have suffered disaster…”
(Davies 211)
Regardless of individual roles, Bolshevik
and Red Army command and control had clearly
failed at the critical moment, and the Polish
gamble had paid off.
Not only had Poland prevented a Bolshevik
conquest and perhaps stopped the spread of
the revolution, but ironically the result
of the Battle of Warsaw may have had benefits
for the Bolsheviks as well.
If they had won, the Allies might have been
provoked into intervening and potentially
overthrowing them.
In the words of historian Laura Engelstein:
“Polish victory may have saved Europe from
Bolshevism; it also saved Bolshevism from
Europe.”
(Engelstein 510)
So by the third week of August 1920, the Poles
had won a major victory, the Red Army was
on the run, and armistice talks began at Minsk.
But the Polish-Soviet War was not yet over
– there would be more battles, and months
of difficult and very unusual negotiations
ahead.
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