Polish-Soviet War in 1920
Encyclopedia
The Polish–Soviet war erupted in 1920 in the aftermath of World War I
. The root causes were twofold: a territorial dispute dating back to Polish-Russian wars in the 17–18th centuries; and a clash of ideology due to USSR's goal of spreading communist
rule further west, to Europe. At that time both countries had just undergone transition: in 1918 Poland reclaimed independence after 123 years of partitions. In 1917 the October Revolution
replaced tsarist autocracy
in Russia with Soviet rule. The war ended with the Treaty of Riga in 1920, which settled the border issue and regulated Polish-Soviet relations until the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.
, defeating Denikin, and had signed peace treaties with Latvia
and Estonia
. The Polish front, formerly a distraction, became the most important war theater and majority of Soviet resources and forces were diverted into it. In January 1920, the Red Army
began concentrating a 700,000-strong force near the Berezina River
and in the Belarussian SSR. The Red Army totaled 5,000,000, with additional millions of Russian recruits to draw from, but much of that force was still engaged in the civil war. This number of troops was far greater than the number of weapons available, and only one in nine soldiers could be properly classified a fighting man. In the course of 1920, almost 800,000 Red Army personnel were sent to fight in the Polish war, of whom 402,000 went to the Western front and 355,000 to the armies of the South-West front in Galicia. The Soviet manpower pool in the West was estimated at 790,000. The Soviets had at their disposal much military equipment left by withdrawing German armies, and modern Allied armaments (including armoured cars, armoured train
s, trucks and artillery
) captured from the White Russians and the Allied expeditionary forces following their defeat in the Russian Civil War. With the new forces, Soviet High Command planned new offensive in late April/May.
Bolshevik commanders in the Red Army's coming offensive would include Mikhail Tukhachevski (new commander of the Western Front), Leon Trotsky
, the future Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin
, and the founder of the Cheka
secret police, Felix Dzerzhinsky.
, supported by inexperienced volunteers and recruits. Logistics
were a nightmare, relying on whatever equipment was left over from World War I and could be captured. The Polish Army employed guns made in five countries, and rifle
s manufactured in six, each using different ammunition. Before the Battle of Warsaw the 1st Legions Infantry Division comprised three regiments, one of which was armed with German Mauser
rifles, a second with French Lebel rifles (carbines), while the third used Russian Mosin-Nagant
rifles. Each make of weapon took ammunition of a different caliber.
The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920. In 20 August 1920, Polish army had reached the strength of 737,767, so there was rough numerical parity between the Polish army and the Soviet forces acting against it. Polish intelligence was aware that Soviets have been prepared for a new offensive and Polish High Command decided to launch their own offensive before the Soviets. The plan for Operation Kiev was more ambitious then simply to defeat the Red Army on Poland's southern flank. It aimed at creating a friendly government on the captured Ukrainian territories. Afterwards, the Piłsudski and Polish General Staff planned to reassign the 3rd Army to the north, where Polish planners expected a major Red Army's counteroffensive.
–Starokonstantynów
–Szepietówka
–Zwiahel
–Olewsk
–Uborć
–Bobrujsk–Berezyna
–Dyneburg. New Latvia
n government requested Polish help in capturing Dyneburg, and it was, after heavy fighting (3 January – 21 January) by the Polish 1st and 3rd Legion Divisions under Rydz-Śmigły. It was then handed to the Latvians, who viewed the Poles as liberators. By March Polish forces had driven a wedge between Soviet forces North (Bielorussia) and south (Ukraine) capturing the towns of Mozyrz and Kalenkowicze, significantly disrupting Soviet plans for an early offensive.
On April 24 Poland began its main offensive, Operation Kiev, aimed at creating an independent Ukraine to become part of Piłsudski's Międzymorze
Federation and an ally against the Soviets. Poland was assisted by the allied forces of Symon Petliura's Ukrainian People's Republic
. The Polish 3rd Army under Rydz-Śmigły, supported by 6th Army under W. Iwaszkiewicz and the 2nd Army under Listowski, easily won border clashes with the Red Army in Ukraine, which was weakened by dissent and Galician uprisings. The combined Polish-Ukrainian forces captured Kiev
on May 7, encountering only token resistance. The Bolshevik forces, though in bad shape, avoided complete destruction. The Polish offensive halted at Kiev, although it did capture a small bridgehead
on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River
(May 9). Polish forces began preparing for an offensive towards north and the city of Żłobin, which would open the shortest train communication between Polish held Mińsk and Kiev. A Polish-Ukrainian propaganda
campaign aimimg at the formation a Ukrainian army capable of defending Ukraine, while initially successful, had to be abandoned before it yielded any significant results. The population was tired by several years of war, and the Ukrainian Army attained a strength of only two divisions.
Polish military thrust soon met with the Red Army
counterattack
(Soviet May Offensive). The Soviet Southwest Front was commanded by Alexander Ilyich Yegorov. On 15 May the Soviet 15th Army attacked Polish positions near Ułła, and the 16th Army crossed the Berezina River between Borysów and Bobrujsk. Polish forces in that area, preparing for an offensive towards Żłobin, managed to push the Soviet forces back into the river, but were unable to pursue their own planned offensive. In the north Polish forces had done much worse. The Polish 1st Army was defeated and started a retreat towards Mołodeczno, pursued by the 15th army which had recaptured the territory between Dzwina and Berezyna.
Polish forces attempted to take advantage of the exposed Soviet flanks, Armia Rezerwowa attacking from Święciany and Grupa Skierskiego attacking from Borysów were supposed to envelope and crush the advancing Soviet forces, and Soviet reinforcements be stopped by the 1st Army. This time the 1st Army did better but the enveloping forces still failed to stop the Soviet advance. By the end of May, the front had stabilised near the small river of Auta, and Soviet forces begun preparing for their next push, concentrating in the Połosck region.
On May 24, 1920, the Polish–Ukrainian forces in the south clashed with the Semyon Budionny's famous 1st Cavalry Army
(Konarmia). The Polish-Ukrainian forces succeeded in slowing and even defeating the Red Army on a number of occasions. Morale was high: the Polish-Ukrainian forces were eager to defend Ukraine and were confident in their ability to succeed. Polish High Command underestimated the quality of both Budionny's forces and the tactical role of cavalry, which hadn't fared well in the First World War trench warfare
. Repeated attacks by Budionny's Cossack
cavalry however, broke the Polish-Ukrainian front on June 5 and allowed mobile cavalry units to disrupt the Polish rear communication and logistics. By June 10, the Polish armies were in retreat along the entire front. Soviet forces under Golikow crossed Dniepr west of Czerniow cutting the rail communication in that region and Soviet forces under Yakir captured the Bila Tserkva
. The Polish 3rd army in Kiev faced the danger of being completely enveloped.
It was a bitter day for the Poles and Ukrainians when, on June 13, they abandoned Kiev to the Bolsheviks. The small group of Petlyura's Ukrainians did not lose their morale and fought with determination throughout the rest of the war. In the face of near-unlimited Russian reserves and slow growth of the Ukrainian Army, the Polish and Ukrainian forces were ordered to retreat.
Poland's 200-mile-long front was manned by a thin line of 120,000 troops of the 1st and 4th Armies and Group Polesie. Logistics were a problem, and the force had inadequate support of only 460 artillery pieces. Gen. Szeptycki, commander of the Polish Northeast Front, had no strategic reserves, and some forces have been shuffled south to stop the Soviet offensive in Ukraine and Galicia. This approach to holding ground harked back to Great War practice of "establishing a fortified line of defense." Where it was a viable strategy on the Western Front, where each inch was saturated with troops, machine guns and artillery, the spacious fields of the Eastern Front would require a much larger force then those fielded by the Allies and the Central Powers in the West. Piłsudski tried to formulate a newe strategy of "strategie de plein air" (French: a "strategy of open space") rather than to try to tie his insufficient forces to mostly inexistant fixed positions, but his suggestions were not met with approval of other commanding officers. Meanwhile, the Red Army's Northwest Front was commanded by the young General Mikhail Tukhachevski. Tukhachevski forces of 108,000 infantry and 11,000 cavalry, supported by 722 artillery pieces and 2,913 machine guns were divided into one cavalry corps and four armies: the 3rd cavalry and 4th, 15th, 3rd and 16th armies, deployed respectively from north to south. With the advantage of being able to plan their offensive, crucially, the Russians were able to achieve a four-to-one force advantage in the planned break-through points.
Soviet offensive begun on July 4 along the axis Smolensk
–Brest-Litovsk, crossing rivers of Auta and Berezyna. The northern 3rd Cavalry Corps of Gej-Chan was to envelope Polish forces from the north, moving near Lithuanian and Prussian border territories, both unfriendly to Poland. 4th, 15th and 3rd Armies were to push decisively west, supported from south by the 16th Army and Grupa Mozyrska. For the three days the Polish forces hed, yet despite local victories, such as when two battalions of the Polish 33rd Infantry Regiment, held the advance of two and a half Red Army divisions for a full day, securing the northern flank of the Polish front the Russians' numerical superiority eventually won them the day. Tukhachevski's plan to break through and push the southwest Polish units into the Pinsk Marshes
(Błota Poleskie) failed, but the northern theatre proven to be his decisive victory. Gej-Chan broke through the northern Polish units on the first day of the offensive and Polish 1st Army pursued by Gej-Chan forces started a disorganised retreat. From July 7 the Polish forces were in full retreat on the entire front.
Poles attempted to regroup at the heavily fortified line of German World War I field fortifications. The "Battle for Wilno" took place here from July 11 to July 14. Once again, however, the Polish troops were unabe to man the whole front, and Soviet forces broke through one of the weak points in the north. Gej-Chan forces, supported by Lithuanian forces, captured Wilno on 14 July, making Polish plans for defensive along old German trenches useless. On 19 July Grodno fell and after a failed Polish counterattack towards Grodno the 1st Army had to retreat behind Neman River
and was soon pushed further back. The whole front was rolled back. In the south, in Galicia, General Semyon Budionny's Red Cavalry Army advanced far into the Polish rears, capturing Brodno
and approaching Lwów and Zamość
. In early July it became clear to the Poles that the Russians' objectives were not limited to pushing their borders farther west. Poland's very independence was at stake.
The Russian forces advanced rapidly at a rate of 20 miles a day; shocking many commanders and foreign observers who were expecting a repeat of the Western snail paced advance. After the capture of Grodno in Belarus onn July 19, Tukhachevski ordered that Warsaw be taken by August 12. When Brest-Litovsk fell on August 1 and the Narew
and Bug
River were crossed by the Red Army, Soviet forces faced no natural barriers between them and the Vistula River on which Warsaw was situated. Polish attempt to defend the Bug River line with 4th Army and Grupa Poleska units stopped the advance of the Red Army for only one week. The Red Army advance slowed down – but only to 12 miles a day. Units of the Russian Northwest Front, after taking Łomża and Ostrołęka (by Gej-Chan) and crossing the Narew River on August 2, approached the 60 miles radius from Warsaw. Fortress of Brześć which was to be the headquarters of Polish planned counteroffensive fell to the 16th Army in the first attack. The Russian Southwest Front had pushed Polish forces out of Ukraine and was advancing on Zamość and Lwów, the metropolis of southeastern Poland and an important industrial center, defended by the Polish 6th Army. Polish Galicia's Lwów (Ukrainian Lviv) was besieged
, and five Russian armies were approaching Warsaw
.
Polish forces in Galicia near Lwów launched a counteroffensive to slow the Soviets down. The 6th Army of general Jędrzejewski and elements of the Ukrainian forces defended Lwów, and the 2nd Army and Grupa Operacyjna Jazdy attacked from Styr towards Brody and Radziwiłłów, Masovian Voivodeship. During the battle of Brody (29 July – 2 August) Polish forces managed to recapture Brody (18 Dywizja Piechoty) and surround parts of Soviets forces. This had put a stop to the retreat of Polish forces on the southern front, but the worsening situation near Polish capital of Warsaw prevented Poles from continuing that southern counteroffensive and pushing east. After Soviets captured Brześć, the Polish offensive in the south was put on hold and all available forces moved north to take part in the coming battle for Warsaw.
had risen to power, but he had regained it as the Soviet forces were approaching Warsaw. The government of Leopold Skulski
had resigned and new prime minister Stanisław Grabski had transferred all power to the Rada Obrony Państwa (Council of Country's Defence) which consisted of Naczelnik Państwa (the title of Józef Piłsudski), Marshall of the Sejm, prime minister, 3 ministers, 3 army's representatives and 10 members of the parliament. Grabski's government supported by the Western diplomats have attempted to restart peace negotiations with the Soviets, but their attempts were completely ignored by the Soviet Side. Stanisław Grabski resigned and a new government was formed by Wincenty Witos
.
By order of the Soviet Communist Party, a Polish puppet government, the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee
(Polish: Tymczasowy Komitet Rewolucyjny Polski, TKRP), had been formed on 28 July in Białystok to organise administration of the Polish territories captured by the Red Army. It was composed of Polish communists and members of the Politburo
of the Central Committee Soviet Communist Party: Julian Marchlewski
(chairman), Edward Próchniak (secretary), Felix Dzerzhinsky, Feliks Kon
and Józef Unszlicht
. It began operating from 1 August issuing various decrees like nationalisation of industry, promising the creation of Polish Socialist Republic (Polska Socjalistyczna Republika Rad), creating 65 revolutionary committees, issuing newspaper Goniec Czerwony and recruiting soldiers for the 1 Polish Red Army commanded by R. Łągwa. TKRP was disbanded on 22 August.The TKRP had very little support from the ethnic Polish population and recruited its supporters mostly from the ranks of minorities, Belorussians and primarily Jews
. At the height of the Polish-Soviet conflict, Jews had been subject to anti-semitic violence by Polish forces, who considered Jews to be a potential threat, and who often accused Jews as being the masterminds of Russian Bolshevism. At one point during the war, Jewish volunteer officers were imprisoned.
In Moscow, the delegates to the Second Congress of the Third International followed with enthusiasm the progress of the Russian forces. The delegates began to see Poland as the bridge over which communism would pass into Germany, bolstering the Communist Party of Germany
.
In addition, political games between Soviet commanders of Soviet Fronts grew in the face of their more and more certain victory. Eventually the lack of cooperation between Soviet commanders would cost them dearly in the upcoming decisive battle of Warsaw
.
or farther west, but the British proposal was disregarded by the Soviets, who expected a quick victory. Russian terms amounted to total Polish capitulation, and even so Lenin stalled in order to give his armies time to take Warsaw and conclude the war to Russia's advantage. Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George
, once a strong supporter of Imperial Russia, was now a Soviet sympathizer and authorized British sales of large quantities of armaments (including modern tanks) to fill urgent Soviet orders, at the same time blocking any British moves to aid Poland (which he called a historical mistake). The Polish cause in the United Kingdom was only supported by the head of the British military mission to Warsaw, General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart
and a few politicians led by the Secretary of State for War
, Winston Churchill
, who advocated moving Royal Air Force
units to support Poland. On August 6, 1920, the British Labour Party
published a pamphlet stating that British workers are not Poland's allies. The French socialist newspaper L'Humanité
, declared: "Not a man, not a sou
, not a shell for reactionary and capitalist Poland. Long live the Russian Revolution! Long live the Workmen's International!" Poland suffered setbacks due to sabotage and delays in deliveries of war supplies, when workers in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany refused to transit such materials to Poland. In Gdańsk
British troops were asked to unload ships with military supplies because the mostly German workers refused to do so; similar things happened in Czechoslovakia
n Brno
.
Lithuania
's stance was mostly anti-Polish and the country eventually joined the Soviet side in the war against Poland in July 1919. The Lithuanian decision was dictated by a desire to incorporate the city of Wilno (in Lithuanian, Vilnius) and the nearby areas into Lithuania and to a smaller extent by Soviet diplomatic pressure backed by the threat of the Red Army stationed on Lithuania's borders. The new Lithuanian government decided to make Vilnius the capital of Lithuania
(it was the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
), despite it being mainly Polish- and Belarusian-populated in the 20th century (~2% according to the Russian census in 1915, although much higher in the nearby rural areas). The Polish-Lithuanian War
would continue until the autumn of 1920. The Lithuanian alliance with the Bolsheviks was somewhat countered by Latvia
, which unlike her neighbour decided to join forces with Poland in the fight against the Soviets.
Polish allies were few. France, continuing her policy of countering Bolshevism, now that the Whites in Russia proper had been almost completely defeated, sent in 1919 a small advisory group to Poland's aid
. This group comprised mostly French officers, although it also included a few British advisers
. It was headed by British General Adrian Carton De Wiart
and French General Paul Prosper Henrys
. The French mission commanded considerable respect and influence through the activities of its 400 officer-instructors. These men, distributed among the cadres of the Polish Staff, were entrusted with training the officer corps in military science and in the use of French army manuals. The French effort was vital to improving the organization and logistics of the Polish Army, which until 1919 had used diverse manuals, organizational structures and equipment, mostly drawn from the armies of Poland's former partitioners.
In addition to the Allied advisors, France also facilitated in 1919 the transit to Poland from France of the "Blue Army
" (otherwise "Haller's Army"): a force of troops (about six divisions), mostly of Polish origin plus some international volunteers, formerly under French command in World War I. The army was commanded by the Polish general, Józef Haller.
The French officers included a future President of France, Charles de Gaulle
. Anxious for active service and sharing in the anti-Bolshevik ideology, he joined the 5th Chasseurs Polonais of Haller's army. He fought in the eastern alicia (Central Europe)|Galicia, later he lectured on tactics at Rembertów near Warsaw. He won Poland's highest military decoration, the irtuti Militari, but refused a permanent commission in Poland. Upon his return to France he would lecture on military history at Saint-Cyr
, often drawing upon his experiences of the Polish-Soviet War.
The Hungarians, too, who had experienced Béla Kun
's communist regime, became aware that Poles were fighting for their freedom as well. They planned to dispatch a 30,000-man cavalry corps to join the Polish Army, but the Czechoslovak government denied them passage across Czechoslovak territory http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0887068332&id=8keIXDyF_EoC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=Kiev+1920+destroyed&vq=twenty+years+of+independence&sig=e4aU5iIjo6Khe0AHopBdgU988dw. Their attempts to help Poland succeeded in the crucial period of the war, when several trains loaded with Hungary-made Mauser rifles reached Poland. That help was remembered by Poles as another manifestation of the traditional Polish-Hungarian friendship.
In mid-1920 the Allied Mission was expanded by some new advisers (the Interallied Mission to Poland
). They included the French diplomat, Jean Jules Jusserand
; Maxime Weygand
, chief of staff to Marshal Ferdinand Foch
, Supreme Commander of the victorious Entente; and the British diplomat, Lord Edgar Vincent D'Abernon. The newest members of the mission achieved little; indeed, the crucial Battle of Warsaw was fought and won by the Poles before the mission could return and make its report. Subsequently, for many years, the myth
persisted that it was the timely arrival of Allied forces that had saved Poland, a myth in which Weygand occupied the central role.
Weygand had traveled to Warsaw in the expectation of assuming command of the Polish Army, but had found a disappointing reception, aggravated by the fact that around the same time France have frozen its financial aid to Poland. His first meeting with Piłsudski on July 24 began on the wrong foot when he had no answer to Piłsudski's opening question, "How many divisions have you brought?" Weygand had none to offer. On 27 July he was installed as adviser to the Polish Chief of Staff, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, but their collaboration went poorly. He was treated with contempt by many Polish officers, his suggestions were regularly disregarded. One of the few officers who treated him fairly was General ładysław Sikorski. After a while, he threatened to leave, which he did shortly after the Polish victory at Warsaw. Before departing on August 25 he was consoled with the decoration of Virtuti Militari
; Polish highest military award. Upon returning to Paris, he was greeted as the victor of the war, receiving another decoration, French this time, the Grand Order of the Legion of Honor. In his memoirs he admitted that "the victory was Polish, the plan was Polish, the army was Polish." The myth of his victory would carry on in France and elsewhere, even in academic circles.
On August 10, 1920, Russian Cossack
units under the command of Gay Dimitrievich Gay (sometimes called by Poles Gaj-Chan crossed the Vistula
River, planning to take Warsaw from the west, that is from the direction opposite to that of the attacking main Soviet forces. On August 13, an initial Russian attack under General Mikhail Tukhachevski was repulsed. The Polish 1st Army under Gen. Franciszek Latinik
resisted a Red Army direct assault on Warsaw
stopping the Soviet assault at Radzymin
. Tukhachevsky, certain that all was going according to plan, was actually falling into Piłsudski's trap. There were only token Polish troops in the path of the main Russian advance north and across the Vistula, on the right flank of the battle (from the perspective of the Soviet's advance. At the same time, south of Warsaw, on the battle's left front, the vital link between the North-Western and South-Western Fronts was much more vulnerable, protected only by a small Soviet force, the Mazyr
Group. Further, Semyon Budyonny, commanding the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny
, a unit much feared by Piłsudski and other Polish commanders, disobeyed orders by the Soviet High Command, which at Tukhachevsky's insistence, ordered him to advance at Warsaw from the south. Budyonny resented this order, influenced by a grudge between commanding South-Western Front generals Alexander Ilyich Yegorov and TukhachevskyIn addition, the political games of Joseph Stalin
, at the time the chief political commissar
of the South-Western Front, further contributed to Yegorov's and Budyonny's disobedience.Lwów
(Lviv), an important industrial center. Ultimately, Budyonny's forces marched on Lwow instead of Warsaw and thus missed the battle.
The Polish 5th Army counterattacked on August 14, crossing the Wkra
River. It faced the combined forces of the Soviet 3rd and 15th Armies (both numerically and technically superior). The struggle at Nasielsk
lasted until August 15 and resulted in almost the complete destruction of the town. However, the Soviet advance toward Warsaw and Modlin was halted at the end of August 15 and on that day Polish forces recaptured Radzymin, which boosted the Polish morale
From that moment on, Sikorski's 5th Army pushed exhausted Soviet units away from Warsaw, in an almost blitzkrieg
-like operation. Sikorski's units were given the support of almost all of the small number of mechanized units – tank
s and armoured cars – that the Polish Army had, as well as the support of the two Polish armoured train
s. It was able to advance rapidly at the speed of 30 kilometres a day, disrupting the Soviet "enveloping" northern manoeuvre
The Soviet armies in the center of the front fell into chaos. After the Polish 203rd Uhlan
Regiment broke through the Bolshevik lines and destroyed the radio station of Dmitry Shuvayev
's Soviet 4th Army, that army continued to fight its way toward Warsaw
alone, unaware of the overall situation. Only the Russian 15th Army remained an organized force and tried to obey Tukhachevski's orders, shielding the withdrawal of the westernmost 4th Army. But defeated twice, August 19 and 20, it became part of the general rout of the Northwest Front. Tukhachevski ordered a general retreat toward the Bug River
river, but by then he had lost contact with most of his forces near Warsaw, and all the Bolshevik plans had been thrown into disarray by communication failures. The Bolshevik armies retreated in a disorganised fashion, entire divisions panicking and disintegrating. By the end of August the 4th and 15th Red Armies had been defeated in the field, and their remnants crossed the border into East Prussia and were disarmed. Nevertheless the troops were soon released and again fought against Poland. The Bolshevik 3rd Army retreated east so quickly that Polish forces could not catch up with them, and so that army sustained the fewest losses. The Bolshevik 16th Army disintegrated at Białystok, and most of its men become prisoners of war. The Red Army's defeat was so great and so unexpected that, at the instigation of Piłsudski's detractors, the Battle of Warsaw
is often referred to in Poland as the "Miracle at the Vistula." The Soviet cavalry group that was trying to encircle Warsaw from the west, became helplessly isolated from the main forces. Panic started, several major officers abandoned their troops and escaped by cars to Białystok. Gay-Chan took the command, cruelly restored discipline, abandoned everything that would hinder fast march (in that number, he got rid of several thousand prisoners of war, having their throats slashed), and moved his troops so fast, that pursuit was impossible; they found refuge in East Prussia.
On August 17 the advance of Budionny's Cavalry Army toward Lwów was halted at the Battle of Zadwórze
, where a small Polish force sacrificed itself to prevent Soviet cavalry from seizing Lwów and stopping vital Polish reinforcements from moving toward Warsaw. On 29 August Budionny's cavalry moving through weakly defended areas reached city of Zamość
and attempted to take the city in the battle of Zamość, but was soon facing increasing number of Polish units which could be spared from the successful Warsaw counteroffensive. On August 31 Budionny's cavalry finally broke off their siege of Lwów and attempted to come to the aid of Russian forces retreating from Warsaw, but were intercepted, encircled and defeated by Polish cavalry
at the Battle of Komarów
near Zamość, the greatest cavalry battle since 1813 (and one of the last cavalry battles ever). Budonny's Army managed to avoid encirclement, but its morale plummeted down. What was left of Buidonny's 1st Cavalry Army retreated towards Włodzimierz Wołyński on 6 September and was soon again defeated at the Battle of Hrubieszów. Suwalszczyzna was recaptured from the Lithuanian forces.
Tukhachevski managed to reorganize the eastward-retreating forces and in September established a new defensive line running from the Polish-Lithuania
n border to the north to the area of Polesie, with the central point in the city of Grodno in Belarus. In order to break it, the Polish Army had to fight the Battle of the Niemen River
, near the middle Neman River
, between the cities of Suwałki, Grodno and Białystok. Polish forces attempted to surround the Soviet forces, moving through Lithuanian territory and the Pinsk Marshes
. After Polish forces crossed the Niemen River, captured Lida and Pińsk, between September 15 and September 25, 1920, the Polish forces defeated and outflanked the Bolshevik forces, which were forced to retreat again.
On 12 September Polish offensive in Wołyń under gen. Sikorski started. On 18 September Polish forces recaptured Równe, by the end of September Polish forces reached the rivers of Uborcia and Słucza and the town of Korseń. Podle offensive started on 14 September under gen. Lemezan de Sakins and S. Haller by that time reached the line from Stara Uszyca on the south through Zinków–Płoskirów–Starokonstantynów to Łabuń north.
On Ukraine between 8 and 12 October Polish cavalry under Gen. J. Rómmel reached Korosteń. After the mid-October Battle of the Szczara River, the Polish Army had reached the Tarnopol-Dubno
-Minsk
-Drisa line. The Bolsheviks sued for peace and the Poles, exhausted and constantly pressured by the Western governments, with Polish army now controlling majority of disputed territories, agreed to try diplomatic solution once again. A ceasefire
was signed October 12 and went into effect October 18.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The root causes were twofold: a territorial dispute dating back to Polish-Russian wars in the 17–18th centuries; and a clash of ideology due to USSR's goal of spreading communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
rule further west, to Europe. At that time both countries had just undergone transition: in 1918 Poland reclaimed independence after 123 years of partitions. In 1917 the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
replaced tsarist autocracy
Autocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...
in Russia with Soviet rule. The war ended with the Treaty of Riga in 1920, which settled the border issue and regulated Polish-Soviet relations until the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.
Soviet Forces in early 1920
Soviet forces had won a recent series of major victories against the White RussiansWhite movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
, defeating Denikin, and had signed peace treaties with Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
and Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
. The Polish front, formerly a distraction, became the most important war theater and majority of Soviet resources and forces were diverted into it. In January 1920, the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
began concentrating a 700,000-strong force near the Berezina River
Berezina River
The Berezina is a river in Belarus and a tributary of the Dnieper River.The Berezina Preserve by the river is in the UNESCO list of Biosphere Preserves.-Historical significance:...
and in the Belarussian SSR. The Red Army totaled 5,000,000, with additional millions of Russian recruits to draw from, but much of that force was still engaged in the civil war. This number of troops was far greater than the number of weapons available, and only one in nine soldiers could be properly classified a fighting man. In the course of 1920, almost 800,000 Red Army personnel were sent to fight in the Polish war, of whom 402,000 went to the Western front and 355,000 to the armies of the South-West front in Galicia. The Soviet manpower pool in the West was estimated at 790,000. The Soviets had at their disposal much military equipment left by withdrawing German armies, and modern Allied armaments (including armoured cars, armoured train
Armoured train
An armoured train is a train protected with armour. They are usually equipped with railroad cars armed with artillery and machine guns. They were mostly used during the late 19th and early 20th century, when they offered an innovative way to quickly move large amounts of firepower...
s, trucks and artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
) captured from the White Russians and the Allied expeditionary forces following their defeat in the Russian Civil War. With the new forces, Soviet High Command planned new offensive in late April/May.
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, the future Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, and the founder of the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
secret police, Felix Dzerzhinsky.
Polish Forces in early 1920
The Polish Army was made up of soldiers who had formerly served in the various partitioning empiresPartitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
, supported by inexperienced volunteers and recruits. Logistics
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...
were a nightmare, relying on whatever equipment was left over from World War I and could be captured. The Polish Army employed guns made in five countries, and rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s manufactured in six, each using different ammunition. Before the Battle of Warsaw the 1st Legions Infantry Division comprised three regiments, one of which was armed with German Mauser
Mauser
Mauser was a German arms manufacturer of a line of bolt-action rifles and pistols from the 1870s to 1995. Mauser designs were built for the German armed forces...
rifles, a second with French Lebel rifles (carbines), while the third used Russian Mosin-Nagant
Mosin-Nagant
The Mosin–Nagant is a bolt-action, internal magazine-fed, military rifle invented under the government commission by Russian and Belgian inventors, and used by the armed forces of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and various other nations....
rifles. Each make of weapon took ammunition of a different caliber.
The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920. In 20 August 1920, Polish army had reached the strength of 737,767, so there was rough numerical parity between the Polish army and the Soviet forces acting against it. Polish intelligence was aware that Soviets have been prepared for a new offensive and Polish High Command decided to launch their own offensive before the Soviets. The plan for Operation Kiev was more ambitious then simply to defeat the Red Army on Poland's southern flank. It aimed at creating a friendly government on the captured Ukrainian territories. Afterwards, the Piłsudski and Polish General Staff planned to reassign the 3rd Army to the north, where Polish planners expected a major Red Army's counteroffensive.
Operation Kiev
Until April the Polish forces had been slowly but steadily advancing eastward. By early January 1920 Polish forces had reached the line of Uszyca–PłoskirówKhmelnytskyi, Ukraine
Khmelnytskyi is a city in Ukraine in the region of Podillia. It is located on the Southern Buh River and about from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The town's original name was Płoskirów, later Proskurov, but in 1954 was renamed Khmelnytskyi. It is the center of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast in western...
–Starokonstantynów
Starokostiantyniv
Starokostiantyniv is a city in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast of western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Starokostiantynivsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
–Szepietówka
Shepetivka
Shepetivka is a town located on the Huska River in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast of Western Ukraine. The city's population is 48,212 . Shepetivka is a town of oblast subordinance, and the administrative center of Shepetivka Raion .Shepetivka is an important railway junction with five intersecting...
–Zwiahel
Novohrad-Volynskyi
Novohrad-Volynskyi is a city in the Zhytomyr Oblast of northern Ukraine...
–Olewsk
Olevsk
Olevsk is a city in Olevsk Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Olevsk Raion. The population was 10,896 ....
–Uborć
Ubort River
Ubort River is a river in Zhytomyr Oblast and Homiel Voblast , a right tributary to the Pripyat River . The length of the river is 292 km, the area of its drainage basin is 5820 km²...
–Bobrujsk–Berezyna
Berezina River
The Berezina is a river in Belarus and a tributary of the Dnieper River.The Berezina Preserve by the river is in the UNESCO list of Biosphere Preserves.-Historical significance:...
–Dyneburg. New Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
n government requested Polish help in capturing Dyneburg, and it was, after heavy fighting (3 January – 21 January) by the Polish 1st and 3rd Legion Divisions under Rydz-Śmigły. It was then handed to the Latvians, who viewed the Poles as liberators. By March Polish forces had driven a wedge between Soviet forces North (Bielorussia) and south (Ukraine) capturing the towns of Mozyrz and Kalenkowicze, significantly disrupting Soviet plans for an early offensive.
Miedzymorze
Międzymorze was a plan, pursued after World War I by Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, for a federation, under Poland's aegis, of Central and Eastern European countries...
Federation and an ally against the Soviets. Poland was assisted by the allied forces of Symon Petliura's Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...
. The Polish 3rd Army under Rydz-Śmigły, supported by 6th Army under W. Iwaszkiewicz and the 2nd Army under Listowski, easily won border clashes with the Red Army in Ukraine, which was weakened by dissent and Galician uprisings. The combined Polish-Ukrainian forces captured Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
on May 7, encountering only token resistance. The Bolshevik forces, though in bad shape, avoided complete destruction. The Polish offensive halted at Kiev, although it did capture a small bridgehead
Bridgehead
A bridgehead is a High Middle Ages military term, which antedating the invention of cannons was in the original meaning expressly a referent term to the military fortification that protects the end of a bridge...
on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River
Dnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
(May 9). Polish forces began preparing for an offensive towards north and the city of Żłobin, which would open the shortest train communication between Polish held Mińsk and Kiev. A Polish-Ukrainian propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
campaign aimimg at the formation a Ukrainian army capable of defending Ukraine, while initially successful, had to be abandoned before it yielded any significant results. The population was tired by several years of war, and the Ukrainian Army attained a strength of only two divisions.
Polish military thrust soon met with the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
counterattack
Counterattack
A counterattack is a tactic used in response against an attack. The term originates in military strategy. The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy in attack and the specific objectives are usually to regain lost ground or to destroy attacking enemy units.It is...
(Soviet May Offensive). The Soviet Southwest Front was commanded by Alexander Ilyich Yegorov. On 15 May the Soviet 15th Army attacked Polish positions near Ułła, and the 16th Army crossed the Berezina River between Borysów and Bobrujsk. Polish forces in that area, preparing for an offensive towards Żłobin, managed to push the Soviet forces back into the river, but were unable to pursue their own planned offensive. In the north Polish forces had done much worse. The Polish 1st Army was defeated and started a retreat towards Mołodeczno, pursued by the 15th army which had recaptured the territory between Dzwina and Berezyna.
Polish forces attempted to take advantage of the exposed Soviet flanks, Armia Rezerwowa attacking from Święciany and Grupa Skierskiego attacking from Borysów were supposed to envelope and crush the advancing Soviet forces, and Soviet reinforcements be stopped by the 1st Army. This time the 1st Army did better but the enveloping forces still failed to stop the Soviet advance. By the end of May, the front had stabilised near the small river of Auta, and Soviet forces begun preparing for their next push, concentrating in the Połosck region.
1st Cavalry Army
The 1st Cavalry Army was the most famous Red Army сavalry formation. It was also known as Budyonny's Cavalry Army or simply as Konarmia ....
(Konarmia). The Polish-Ukrainian forces succeeded in slowing and even defeating the Red Army on a number of occasions. Morale was high: the Polish-Ukrainian forces were eager to defend Ukraine and were confident in their ability to succeed. Polish High Command underestimated the quality of both Budionny's forces and the tactical role of cavalry, which hadn't fared well in the First World War trench warfare
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
. Repeated attacks by Budionny's Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
cavalry however, broke the Polish-Ukrainian front on June 5 and allowed mobile cavalry units to disrupt the Polish rear communication and logistics. By June 10, the Polish armies were in retreat along the entire front. Soviet forces under Golikow crossed Dniepr west of Czerniow cutting the rail communication in that region and Soviet forces under Yakir captured the Bila Tserkva
Bila Tserkva
Bila Tserkva is a city located on the Ros' River in the Kiev Oblast in central Ukraine, approximately south of the capital, Kiev. Population 203,300 Area 34 km².-Administrative status:...
. The Polish 3rd army in Kiev faced the danger of being completely enveloped.
Bolshevik victories
The commander of the Polish 3rd Army in Ukraine, General Rydz-Śmigły, decided to break through toward the northwest and the town of Korosteń, thus avoiding a direct confrontation with the bulk of Soviet 1st Cavalry Army near Koziatyń. Soviet forces were plagued by communication and coordination difficulties, and Polish forces managed to withdraw in orderly fashion and relatively unscathed, they were tied down in Ukraine and lacked sufficient strength to support Poland's Northern Front and reinforce the defenses at the Auta River for the decisive battle that was soon to take place there. Polish 3rd Army and newly formed 2nd Army regrouped near Słucza and started a series of their own counterattacks. However, Polish counterattacks in June and July all failed after initial successes. In the battles (19 June at Usza, 1 July at Horyń, 8 July at Równe) Bolsheviks were delayed but eventually Budionny's forces advanced east. When eventually in mid July Bolsheviks forces in Ukraine appeared to have been stopped by Polish forces, a new Soviet offensive north would prove even more devastating for the Polish forces.Poland's 200-mile-long front was manned by a thin line of 120,000 troops of the 1st and 4th Armies and Group Polesie. Logistics were a problem, and the force had inadequate support of only 460 artillery pieces. Gen. Szeptycki, commander of the Polish Northeast Front, had no strategic reserves, and some forces have been shuffled south to stop the Soviet offensive in Ukraine and Galicia. This approach to holding ground harked back to Great War practice of "establishing a fortified line of defense." Where it was a viable strategy on the Western Front, where each inch was saturated with troops, machine guns and artillery, the spacious fields of the Eastern Front would require a much larger force then those fielded by the Allies and the Central Powers in the West. Piłsudski tried to formulate a newe strategy of "strategie de plein air" (French: a "strategy of open space") rather than to try to tie his insufficient forces to mostly inexistant fixed positions, but his suggestions were not met with approval of other commanding officers. Meanwhile, the Red Army's Northwest Front was commanded by the young General Mikhail Tukhachevski. Tukhachevski forces of 108,000 infantry and 11,000 cavalry, supported by 722 artillery pieces and 2,913 machine guns were divided into one cavalry corps and four armies: the 3rd cavalry and 4th, 15th, 3rd and 16th armies, deployed respectively from north to south. With the advantage of being able to plan their offensive, crucially, the Russians were able to achieve a four-to-one force advantage in the planned break-through points.
Soviet offensive begun on July 4 along the axis Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...
–Brest-Litovsk, crossing rivers of Auta and Berezyna. The northern 3rd Cavalry Corps of Gej-Chan was to envelope Polish forces from the north, moving near Lithuanian and Prussian border territories, both unfriendly to Poland. 4th, 15th and 3rd Armies were to push decisively west, supported from south by the 16th Army and Grupa Mozyrska. For the three days the Polish forces hed, yet despite local victories, such as when two battalions of the Polish 33rd Infantry Regiment, held the advance of two and a half Red Army divisions for a full day, securing the northern flank of the Polish front the Russians' numerical superiority eventually won them the day. Tukhachevski's plan to break through and push the southwest Polish units into the Pinsk Marshes
Pinsk Marshes
The Pinsk Marshes or Pripyat Marshes are a vast territory of wetlands along the Pripyat River and its tributaries from Brest, Belarus to Mogilev and Kiev ....
(Błota Poleskie) failed, but the northern theatre proven to be his decisive victory. Gej-Chan broke through the northern Polish units on the first day of the offensive and Polish 1st Army pursued by Gej-Chan forces started a disorganised retreat. From July 7 the Polish forces were in full retreat on the entire front.
Poles attempted to regroup at the heavily fortified line of German World War I field fortifications. The "Battle for Wilno" took place here from July 11 to July 14. Once again, however, the Polish troops were unabe to man the whole front, and Soviet forces broke through one of the weak points in the north. Gej-Chan forces, supported by Lithuanian forces, captured Wilno on 14 July, making Polish plans for defensive along old German trenches useless. On 19 July Grodno fell and after a failed Polish counterattack towards Grodno the 1st Army had to retreat behind Neman River
Neman River
Neman or Niemen or Nemunas, is a major Eastern European river rising in Belarus and flowing through Lithuania before draining into the Curonian Lagoon and then into the Baltic Sea at Klaipėda. It is the northern border between Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast in its lower reaches...
and was soon pushed further back. The whole front was rolled back. In the south, in Galicia, General Semyon Budionny's Red Cavalry Army advanced far into the Polish rears, capturing Brodno
Brodno
Brodno is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Środa Śląska, within Środa Śląska County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany. It lies approximately north of Środa Śląska and west of the regional capital Wrocław.The village has an...
and approaching Lwów and Zamość
Zamosc
Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...
. In early July it became clear to the Poles that the Russians' objectives were not limited to pushing their borders farther west. Poland's very independence was at stake.
The Russian forces advanced rapidly at a rate of 20 miles a day; shocking many commanders and foreign observers who were expecting a repeat of the Western snail paced advance. After the capture of Grodno in Belarus onn July 19, Tukhachevski ordered that Warsaw be taken by August 12. When Brest-Litovsk fell on August 1 and the Narew
Narew
The Narew River , in western Belarus and north-eastern Poland, is a left tributary of the Vistula river...
and Bug
Bug River
The Bug River is a left tributary of the Narew river flows from central Ukraine to the west, passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it empties into the Narew river near Serock. The part between the lake and the Vistula River is sometimes referred to as...
River were crossed by the Red Army, Soviet forces faced no natural barriers between them and the Vistula River on which Warsaw was situated. Polish attempt to defend the Bug River line with 4th Army and Grupa Poleska units stopped the advance of the Red Army for only one week. The Red Army advance slowed down – but only to 12 miles a day. Units of the Russian Northwest Front, after taking Łomża and Ostrołęka (by Gej-Chan) and crossing the Narew River on August 2, approached the 60 miles radius from Warsaw. Fortress of Brześć which was to be the headquarters of Polish planned counteroffensive fell to the 16th Army in the first attack. The Russian Southwest Front had pushed Polish forces out of Ukraine and was advancing on Zamość and Lwów, the metropolis of southeastern Poland and an important industrial center, defended by the Polish 6th Army. Polish Galicia's Lwów (Ukrainian Lviv) was besieged
Battle of Lwów (1920)
During the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 the city of Lwów was attacked by the forces of Alexander Ilyich Yegorov. Since mid-June 1920 the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny was trying to reach the city from the north and east. At the same time Lwów was preparing the defense...
, and five Russian armies were approaching Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
.
Polish and Soviet internal politics
With the turning tide against Poland, Piłsudski's political power had been weakened and his opponents, including Roman DmowskiRoman Dmowski
Roman Stanisław Dmowski was a Polish politician, statesman, and chief ideologue and co-founder of the National Democracy political movement, which was one of the strongest political camps of interwar Poland.Though a controversial personality throughout his life, Dmowski was instrumental in...
had risen to power, but he had regained it as the Soviet forces were approaching Warsaw. The government of Leopold Skulski
Leopold Skulski
Leopold Skulski was prime minister of Poland from 1919 to 1920.He was involved in politics from at least the mid 1910s, and served as mayor of Łódź between 1917 an 1919. He became a deputy in the Polish parliament after the 1919 elections, and on 13 December 1919 he became the Prime Minister of...
had resigned and new prime minister Stanisław Grabski had transferred all power to the Rada Obrony Państwa (Council of Country's Defence) which consisted of Naczelnik Państwa (the title of Józef Piłsudski), Marshall of the Sejm, prime minister, 3 ministers, 3 army's representatives and 10 members of the parliament. Grabski's government supported by the Western diplomats have attempted to restart peace negotiations with the Soviets, but their attempts were completely ignored by the Soviet Side. Stanisław Grabski resigned and a new government was formed by Wincenty Witos
Wincenty Witos
Wincenty Witos was a prominent member of the Polish People's Party from 1895, and leader of its "Piast" faction from 1913. He was a member of parliament in the Galician Sejm from 1908–1914, and an envoy to Reichsrat in Vienna from 1911 to 1918...
.
By order of the Soviet Communist Party, a Polish puppet government, the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee
Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee
Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee was a revolutionary committee created under the patronage of Soviet Russia with the goal to establish a Polish Soviet Socialist Republic....
(Polish: Tymczasowy Komitet Rewolucyjny Polski, TKRP), had been formed on 28 July in Białystok to organise administration of the Polish territories captured by the Red Army. It was composed of Polish communists and members of the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
of the Central Committee Soviet Communist Party: Julian Marchlewski
Julian Marchlewski
Julian Baltazar Marchlewski was a Polish communist. He was also known under the aliases Karski and Kujawiak....
(chairman), Edward Próchniak (secretary), Felix Dzerzhinsky, Feliks Kon
Feliks Kon
Feliks Yakovlevich Kon was a Polish communist activist.-Career:Born in Warsaw, Kon's mother was Georgian and was brought up in Russia. He was trained as a historian and a journalist, but was involved in politics...
and Józef Unszlicht
Józef Unszlicht
Józef Unszlicht or Iosif Unshlikht , a Bolshevik revolutionary activist, chekist, and Soviet government official of Polish-Jewish extraction from the Masovian region....
. It began operating from 1 August issuing various decrees like nationalisation of industry, promising the creation of Polish Socialist Republic (Polska Socjalistyczna Republika Rad), creating 65 revolutionary committees, issuing newspaper Goniec Czerwony and recruiting soldiers for the 1 Polish Red Army commanded by R. Łągwa. TKRP was disbanded on 22 August.The TKRP had very little support from the ethnic Polish population and recruited its supporters mostly from the ranks of minorities, Belorussians and primarily Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
. At the height of the Polish-Soviet conflict, Jews had been subject to anti-semitic violence by Polish forces, who considered Jews to be a potential threat, and who often accused Jews as being the masterminds of Russian Bolshevism. At one point during the war, Jewish volunteer officers were imprisoned.
In Moscow, the delegates to the Second Congress of the Third International followed with enthusiasm the progress of the Russian forces. The delegates began to see Poland as the bridge over which communism would pass into Germany, bolstering the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
.
In addition, political games between Soviet commanders of Soviet Fronts grew in the face of their more and more certain victory. Eventually the lack of cooperation between Soviet commanders would cost them dearly in the upcoming decisive battle of Warsaw
Battle of Warsaw (1920)
The Battle of Warsaw sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula, was the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War. That war began soon after the end of World War I in 1918 and lasted until the Treaty of Riga resulted in the end of the hostilities between Poland and Russia in 1921.The...
.
International reaction
Western public opinion, swayed by the press and by left-wing politicians, was strongly anti-Polish. Many foreign observers expected Poland to be quickly defeated and become the next Soviet republic. Britain proposed negotiations between Poland and Russia to stabilize their border at the Curzon lineCurzon Line
The Curzon Line was put forward by the Allied Supreme Council after World War I as a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia and was supposed to serve as the basis for a future border. In the wake of World War I, which catalysed the Russian Revolution of 1917, the...
or farther west, but the British proposal was disregarded by the Soviets, who expected a quick victory. Russian terms amounted to total Polish capitulation, and even so Lenin stalled in order to give his armies time to take Warsaw and conclude the war to Russia's advantage. Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
, once a strong supporter of Imperial Russia, was now a Soviet sympathizer and authorized British sales of large quantities of armaments (including modern tanks) to fill urgent Soviet orders, at the same time blocking any British moves to aid Poland (which he called a historical mistake). The Polish cause in the United Kingdom was only supported by the head of the British military mission to Warsaw, General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart
Adrian Carton de Wiart
Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO , was a British officer of Belgian and Irish descent...
and a few politicians led by the Secretary of State for War
Secretary of State for War
The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...
, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, who advocated moving Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
units to support Poland. On August 6, 1920, the British Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
published a pamphlet stating that British workers are not Poland's allies. The French socialist newspaper L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
, declared: "Not a man, not a sou
Sou
Sou may refer to:* Sou , a type of food pastry* Sou , a film by Theodore Ushev for Shorts in Motion: The Art of Seduction* Solidus #France, French slang for coins...
, not a shell for reactionary and capitalist Poland. Long live the Russian Revolution! Long live the Workmen's International!" Poland suffered setbacks due to sabotage and delays in deliveries of war supplies, when workers in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany refused to transit such materials to Poland. In Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
British troops were asked to unload ships with military supplies because the mostly German workers refused to do so; similar things happened in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
n Brno
Brno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
.
Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
's stance was mostly anti-Polish and the country eventually joined the Soviet side in the war against Poland in July 1919. The Lithuanian decision was dictated by a desire to incorporate the city of Wilno (in Lithuanian, Vilnius) and the nearby areas into Lithuania and to a smaller extent by Soviet diplomatic pressure backed by the threat of the Red Army stationed on Lithuania's borders. The new Lithuanian government decided to make Vilnius the capital of Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
(it was the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
), despite it being mainly Polish- and Belarusian-populated in the 20th century (~2% according to the Russian census in 1915, although much higher in the nearby rural areas). The Polish-Lithuanian War
Polish-Lithuanian War
The Polish–Lithuanian War was an armed conflict between newly independent Lithuania and Poland in the aftermath of World War I. The conflict primarily concerned territorial control of the Vilnius Region, including Vilnius , and the Suwałki Region, including the towns of Suwałki, Augustów, and Sejny...
would continue until the autumn of 1920. The Lithuanian alliance with the Bolsheviks was somewhat countered by Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, which unlike her neighbour decided to join forces with Poland in the fight against the Soviets.
French Military Mission to Poland
The French Military Mission to Poland was an effort by France to aid the nascent Second Polish Republic after it achieved its independence in November, 1918, at the end of the First World War. The aim was to provide aid during the Polish-Soviet War , and to create a strong Polish military to serve...
. This group comprised mostly French officers, although it also included a few British advisers
British Military Mission to Poland
The British Military Mission to Poland was an effort by Britain to aid the nascent Second Polish Republic after it achieved its independence in November, 1918, at the end of the First World War....
. It was headed by British General Adrian Carton De Wiart
Adrian Carton de Wiart
Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO , was a British officer of Belgian and Irish descent...
and French General Paul Prosper Henrys
Paul Prosper Henrys
Paul Prosper Henrys was a French general.Commanded the French army on the Balkan front in the final year of the First World War...
. The French mission commanded considerable respect and influence through the activities of its 400 officer-instructors. These men, distributed among the cadres of the Polish Staff, were entrusted with training the officer corps in military science and in the use of French army manuals. The French effort was vital to improving the organization and logistics of the Polish Army, which until 1919 had used diverse manuals, organizational structures and equipment, mostly drawn from the armies of Poland's former partitioners.
In addition to the Allied advisors, France also facilitated in 1919 the transit to Poland from France of the "Blue Army
Blue Army
The Blue Army, or Haller's Army, are informal names given to the Polish Army units formed in France during the later stages of World War I. The army was created in June 1917 as part of the Polish units allied to the Entente. After the Great War ended, the units were transferred to Poland, where...
" (otherwise "Haller's Army"): a force of troops (about six divisions), mostly of Polish origin plus some international volunteers, formerly under French command in World War I. The army was commanded by the Polish general, Józef Haller.
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. Anxious for active service and sharing in the anti-Bolshevik ideology, he joined the 5th Chasseurs Polonais of Haller's army. He fought in the eastern alicia (Central Europe)|Galicia, later he lectured on tactics at Rembertów near Warsaw. He won Poland's highest military decoration, the irtuti Militari, but refused a permanent commission in Poland. Upon his return to France he would lecture on military history at Saint-Cyr
École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr
The École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr is the foremost French military academy. Its official name is . It is often referred to as Saint-Cyr . Its motto is "Ils s'instruisent pour vaincre": literally "They study to vanquish" or "Training for victory"...
, often drawing upon his experiences of the Polish-Soviet War.
The Hungarians, too, who had experienced Béla Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
's communist regime, became aware that Poles were fighting for their freedom as well. They planned to dispatch a 30,000-man cavalry corps to join the Polish Army, but the Czechoslovak government denied them passage across Czechoslovak territory http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0887068332&id=8keIXDyF_EoC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=Kiev+1920+destroyed&vq=twenty+years+of+independence&sig=e4aU5iIjo6Khe0AHopBdgU988dw. Their attempts to help Poland succeeded in the crucial period of the war, when several trains loaded with Hungary-made Mauser rifles reached Poland. That help was remembered by Poles as another manifestation of the traditional Polish-Hungarian friendship.
In mid-1920 the Allied Mission was expanded by some new advisers (the Interallied Mission to Poland
Interallied Mission to Poland
Interallied Mission to Poland was a diplomatic mission launched by David Lloyd George on July 21, 1920, at the height of the Polish-Soviet War, weeks before the decisive Battle of Warsaw...
). They included the French diplomat, Jean Jules Jusserand
Jean Jules Jusserand
Jean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand was a French author and diplomat. He was the French ambassador to the United States during World War I.-Career:...
; Maxime Weygand
Maxime Weygand
Maxime Weygand was a French military commander in World War I and World War II.Weygand initially fought against the Germans during the invasion of France in 1940, but then surrendered to and collaborated with the Germans as part of the Vichy France regime.-Early years:Weygand was born in Brussels...
, chief of staff to Marshal Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch , GCB, OM, DSO was a French soldier, war hero, military theorist, and writer credited with possessing "the most original and subtle mind in the French army" in the early 20th century. He served as general in the French army during World War I and was made Marshal of France in its...
, Supreme Commander of the victorious Entente; and the British diplomat, Lord Edgar Vincent D'Abernon. The newest members of the mission achieved little; indeed, the crucial Battle of Warsaw was fought and won by the Poles before the mission could return and make its report. Subsequently, for many years, the myth
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
persisted that it was the timely arrival of Allied forces that had saved Poland, a myth in which Weygand occupied the central role.
Weygand had traveled to Warsaw in the expectation of assuming command of the Polish Army, but had found a disappointing reception, aggravated by the fact that around the same time France have frozen its financial aid to Poland. His first meeting with Piłsudski on July 24 began on the wrong foot when he had no answer to Piłsudski's opening question, "How many divisions have you brought?" Weygand had none to offer. On 27 July he was installed as adviser to the Polish Chief of Staff, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, but their collaboration went poorly. He was treated with contempt by many Polish officers, his suggestions were regularly disregarded. One of the few officers who treated him fairly was General ładysław Sikorski. After a while, he threatened to leave, which he did shortly after the Polish victory at Warsaw. Before departing on August 25 he was consoled with the decoration of Virtuti Militari
Virtuti Militari
The Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war...
; Polish highest military award. Upon returning to Paris, he was greeted as the victor of the war, receiving another decoration, French this time, the Grand Order of the Legion of Honor. In his memoirs he admitted that "the victory was Polish, the plan was Polish, the army was Polish." The myth of his victory would carry on in France and elsewhere, even in academic circles.
"Miracle at the Vistula"
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
units under the command of Gay Dimitrievich Gay (sometimes called by Poles Gaj-Chan crossed the Vistula
Vistula
The Vistula is the longest and the most important river in Poland, at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is , of which lies within Poland ....
River, planning to take Warsaw from the west, that is from the direction opposite to that of the attacking main Soviet forces. On August 13, an initial Russian attack under General Mikhail Tukhachevski was repulsed. The Polish 1st Army under Gen. Franciszek Latinik
Franciszek Latinik
Franciszek Ksawery Latinik was a Polish general.He graduated from the cadets school in Kraków and since 1882 served in the Austro-Hungarian Army...
resisted a Red Army direct assault on Warsaw
Battle of Warsaw (1920)
The Battle of Warsaw sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula, was the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War. That war began soon after the end of World War I in 1918 and lasted until the Treaty of Riga resulted in the end of the hostilities between Poland and Russia in 1921.The...
stopping the Soviet assault at Radzymin
Battle of Radzymin (1920)
The Battle of Radzymin took place during the Polish-Soviet War. The battle occurred in the area around the town of Radzymin, some north-east of Warsaw, between August 13 and 16, 1920. Along with the Battle of Ossów and the Polish counter-offensive from the Wieprz River area, the battle was one of...
. Tukhachevsky, certain that all was going according to plan, was actually falling into Piłsudski's trap. There were only token Polish troops in the path of the main Russian advance north and across the Vistula, on the right flank of the battle (from the perspective of the Soviet's advance. At the same time, south of Warsaw, on the battle's left front, the vital link between the North-Western and South-Western Fronts was much more vulnerable, protected only by a small Soviet force, the Mazyr
Mazyr
Mazyr, also Mozyr is a city in the Homiel Province of Belarus on the Pripyat River about 210 km east of Pinsk and 100 km northwest of Chernobyl and is located at approximately . The population is 111,770 . The total urban area including Kalinkavičy across the river has a population of...
Group. Further, Semyon Budyonny, commanding the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny
Semyon Budyonny
Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny , sometimes transliterated as Budennyj, Budyonnyy, Budennii, Budenny, Budyoni, Budyenny, or Budenny, was a Soviet cavalryman, military commander, politician and a close ally of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.-Early life:...
, a unit much feared by Piłsudski and other Polish commanders, disobeyed orders by the Soviet High Command, which at Tukhachevsky's insistence, ordered him to advance at Warsaw from the south. Budyonny resented this order, influenced by a grudge between commanding South-Western Front generals Alexander Ilyich Yegorov and TukhachevskyIn addition, the political games of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, at the time the chief political commissar
Commissar
Commissar is the English transliteration of an official title used in Russia from the time of Peter the Great.The title was used during the Provisional Government for regional heads of administration, but it is mostly associated with a number of Cheka and military functions in Bolshevik and Soviet...
of the South-Western Front, further contributed to Yegorov's and Budyonny's disobedience.
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
(Lviv), an important industrial center. Ultimately, Budyonny's forces marched on Lwow instead of Warsaw and thus missed the battle.
Wkra
Wkra is a river in north-eastern Poland, a tributary of the Narew river, with a length of 249 kilometres and the basin area of 5,322 km². .Towns and townships:* Bieżuń* Radzanów* Strzegowo* Glinojeck* Sochocin...
River. It faced the combined forces of the Soviet 3rd and 15th Armies (both numerically and technically superior). The struggle at Nasielsk
Nasielsk
Nasielsk is a small town in Masovian Voivodeship, Poland. It is located on a major Warsaw-Gdańsk rail line and serves as a junction, with an additional connection to Sierpc....
lasted until August 15 and resulted in almost the complete destruction of the town. However, the Soviet advance toward Warsaw and Modlin was halted at the end of August 15 and on that day Polish forces recaptured Radzymin, which boosted the Polish morale
From that moment on, Sikorski's 5th Army pushed exhausted Soviet units away from Warsaw, in an almost blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg
For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
-like operation. Sikorski's units were given the support of almost all of the small number of mechanized units – tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s and armoured cars – that the Polish Army had, as well as the support of the two Polish armoured train
Armoured train
An armoured train is a train protected with armour. They are usually equipped with railroad cars armed with artillery and machine guns. They were mostly used during the late 19th and early 20th century, when they offered an innovative way to quickly move large amounts of firepower...
s. It was able to advance rapidly at the speed of 30 kilometres a day, disrupting the Soviet "enveloping" northern manoeuvre
Uhlan
Uhlans were Polish light cavalry armed with lances, sabres and pistols. The title was later used by lancer regiments in the Russian, Prussian, and Austrian armies....
Regiment broke through the Bolshevik lines and destroyed the radio station of Dmitry Shuvayev
Dmitry Shuvayev
Dmitry Savelyevich Shuvayev was a Russian military leader, Infantry General ....
's Soviet 4th Army, that army continued to fight its way toward Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
alone, unaware of the overall situation. Only the Russian 15th Army remained an organized force and tried to obey Tukhachevski's orders, shielding the withdrawal of the westernmost 4th Army. But defeated twice, August 19 and 20, it became part of the general rout of the Northwest Front. Tukhachevski ordered a general retreat toward the Bug River
Bug River
The Bug River is a left tributary of the Narew river flows from central Ukraine to the west, passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it empties into the Narew river near Serock. The part between the lake and the Vistula River is sometimes referred to as...
river, but by then he had lost contact with most of his forces near Warsaw, and all the Bolshevik plans had been thrown into disarray by communication failures. The Bolshevik armies retreated in a disorganised fashion, entire divisions panicking and disintegrating. By the end of August the 4th and 15th Red Armies had been defeated in the field, and their remnants crossed the border into East Prussia and were disarmed. Nevertheless the troops were soon released and again fought against Poland. The Bolshevik 3rd Army retreated east so quickly that Polish forces could not catch up with them, and so that army sustained the fewest losses. The Bolshevik 16th Army disintegrated at Białystok, and most of its men become prisoners of war. The Red Army's defeat was so great and so unexpected that, at the instigation of Piłsudski's detractors, the Battle of Warsaw
Battle of Warsaw (1920)
The Battle of Warsaw sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula, was the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War. That war began soon after the end of World War I in 1918 and lasted until the Treaty of Riga resulted in the end of the hostilities between Poland and Russia in 1921.The...
is often referred to in Poland as the "Miracle at the Vistula." The Soviet cavalry group that was trying to encircle Warsaw from the west, became helplessly isolated from the main forces. Panic started, several major officers abandoned their troops and escaped by cars to Białystok. Gay-Chan took the command, cruelly restored discipline, abandoned everything that would hinder fast march (in that number, he got rid of several thousand prisoners of war, having their throats slashed), and moved his troops so fast, that pursuit was impossible; they found refuge in East Prussia.
On August 17 the advance of Budionny's Cavalry Army toward Lwów was halted at the Battle of Zadwórze
Battle of Zadwórze
Battle of Zadwórze was a battle of the Polish-Soviet War. It was fought on August 17, 1920 near the train station of Zadwórze, a small village located 33 kilometres from the city centre of Lwów...
, where a small Polish force sacrificed itself to prevent Soviet cavalry from seizing Lwów and stopping vital Polish reinforcements from moving toward Warsaw. On 29 August Budionny's cavalry moving through weakly defended areas reached city of Zamość
Zamosc
Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...
and attempted to take the city in the battle of Zamość, but was soon facing increasing number of Polish units which could be spared from the successful Warsaw counteroffensive. On August 31 Budionny's cavalry finally broke off their siege of Lwów and attempted to come to the aid of Russian forces retreating from Warsaw, but were intercepted, encircled and defeated by Polish cavalry
Polish cavalry
The Polish cavalry can trace its origins back to the days of Medieval mounted knights. Poland had always been a country of flatlands and fields and mounted forces operate well in this environment...
at the Battle of Komarów
Battle of Komarów
The Battle of Komarów was one of the most important battles of the Polish-Bolshevik War. It took place on August 31, 1920, near the village of Komarowo near Zamość...
near Zamość, the greatest cavalry battle since 1813 (and one of the last cavalry battles ever). Budonny's Army managed to avoid encirclement, but its morale plummeted down. What was left of Buidonny's 1st Cavalry Army retreated towards Włodzimierz Wołyński on 6 September and was soon again defeated at the Battle of Hrubieszów. Suwalszczyzna was recaptured from the Lithuanian forces.
Tukhachevski managed to reorganize the eastward-retreating forces and in September established a new defensive line running from the Polish-Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n border to the north to the area of Polesie, with the central point in the city of Grodno in Belarus. In order to break it, the Polish Army had to fight the Battle of the Niemen River
Battle of the Niemen River
The Battle of the Niemen River was the second-greatest battle of the Polish-Soviet War. It took place near the middle Neman River between the cities of Suwałki, Grodno and Białystok...
, near the middle Neman River
Neman River
Neman or Niemen or Nemunas, is a major Eastern European river rising in Belarus and flowing through Lithuania before draining into the Curonian Lagoon and then into the Baltic Sea at Klaipėda. It is the northern border between Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast in its lower reaches...
, between the cities of Suwałki, Grodno and Białystok. Polish forces attempted to surround the Soviet forces, moving through Lithuanian territory and the Pinsk Marshes
Pinsk Marshes
The Pinsk Marshes or Pripyat Marshes are a vast territory of wetlands along the Pripyat River and its tributaries from Brest, Belarus to Mogilev and Kiev ....
. After Polish forces crossed the Niemen River, captured Lida and Pińsk, between September 15 and September 25, 1920, the Polish forces defeated and outflanked the Bolshevik forces, which were forced to retreat again.
On 12 September Polish offensive in Wołyń under gen. Sikorski started. On 18 September Polish forces recaptured Równe, by the end of September Polish forces reached the rivers of Uborcia and Słucza and the town of Korseń. Podle offensive started on 14 September under gen. Lemezan de Sakins and S. Haller by that time reached the line from Stara Uszyca on the south through Zinków–Płoskirów–Starokonstantynów to Łabuń north.
On Ukraine between 8 and 12 October Polish cavalry under Gen. J. Rómmel reached Korosteń. After the mid-October Battle of the Szczara River, the Polish Army had reached the Tarnopol-Dubno
Dubno
Dubno is a city located on the Ikva River in the Rivne Oblast of western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of Dubno Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
-Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
-Drisa line. The Bolsheviks sued for peace and the Poles, exhausted and constantly pressured by the Western governments, with Polish army now controlling majority of disputed territories, agreed to try diplomatic solution once again. A ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
was signed October 12 and went into effect October 18.