[1] The raid by the 203rd Uhlans is sometimes referred to as "the Miracle of Ciechanów. It is worth mentioning that General Denikin accepted independent Poland only west of the Bug river. One of the fights which became legendary was the one near Ossowo on 14 August, where a chaplain of the volunteers from Warsaw, priest Ignacy Skorupka died holding a cross in his hand. The  Western Rifle Division, consisting of Polish communists, marched among the ranks of the Red Army. [20] This initial success of the Red Army prompted Piłsudski to move up his plans by 24 hours. After all, Poland was only the starting point for attacking western and southern Europe. He simply understood that Russia, be it white or red, would always be an imperialistic state. Tukhachevski intended to strike Warsaw from two sides – his main forces advanced on the capital of Poland from the east, while one of the Bolshevik armies was to flank Warsaw from the north, cross the Vistula river near Płock, and attack the city from the west. "Polish military cryptographers had broken Red Army radio codes so that Piłsudski knew the location of Soviet units in August 1920. Under this agreement, small Russian units later joined Poles in the fight against the Bolsheviks. At the same time in 1919, the Bolsheviks had gained the upper hand in the Russian Civil War, having dealt crippling blows to the Russian White Movement. In the end, only a handful of Hungarian volunteers managed to take part in the fight against the Bolsheviks, south of Lwów. The Katyń Massacre is often perceived as Stalin’s revenge for the lost Battle of Warsaw. This way, a bloc of “Intermarium” states was to be created. On 17 September 1939, he invaded Poland while it was defending itself against the Germans occupying half the country. [26], According to documents found in 2005 at Poland's Central Military Archives, Polish cryptologists broke Russian ciphers they had intercepted as early as September 1919. A plan of the offensive was ready and the Red Army mustered its troops near Smoleńsk. On 4 July 1920, the Western Front led by Mikhail Tukhachevski commenced a decisive attack in Belarus. To better understand the origin and importance of the battle of Warsaw, one needs to become acquainted with a short summary of the Polish-Bolshevik war and, first and foremost, to get to know the goals of both fighting sides. He pondered and checked these considerations during the night of 5–6 August, ruminating alone in his study at Belweder in Warsaw. The authorship of the plan is a matter of some controversy. The war with the Bolsheviks should not be regarded as a Polish-Russian war. On August 16, Polish forces commanded by Józef Piłsudski counterattacked from the south, disrupting the enemy's offensive, forcing the Russian forces into a disorganized withdrawal eastward and behind the Neman River. Furthermore, Polish military radio-telegraphers sometimes blocked Tukhachevsky's orders to his troops by reading Bible excerpts on the same wavelength as that used by the Soviet commander." Revolutionary committees and red militias were established in the field, introducing new Soviet order. Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski, credited with the original breakthrough, received the Order of Virtuti Militari in 1921. After retreating from the Bug River area, those armies had not moved directly toward Warsaw but had crossed the Wieprz River and broken off contact with their pursuers, thus confusing the enemy as to their whereabouts. The Catholic Church played an important role in mobilising the society. [7], Davies argues that the Soviet failure was caused by its tardiness in moving forces in for a frontal attack on Warsaw. Unfortunately, the Belarusians, with their weak national identity, were indifferent to this offer, while the Lithuanians, already being in possession of their own state, proved to be hostile to the idea. Hence, they needed to get rid of the “barrier”, meaning, as Joseph Stalin wrote, “the dwarf national states wound up between the two huge sources of revolution in the East and West”. The Mazyr Group had already been defeated on the first day of the Polish counterattack. The Council was fully authorized to make decisions regarding war and peace. The offensive between the Vistula and Bug rivers, carried out from 16 August  1920, forced Tukhachevski’s army to retreat in panic. Nineteen years later, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed, and Stalin began his conquest of Europe. [22], From that moment on, Sikorski's 5th Army pushed exhausted Soviet units away from Warsaw, in an almost Blitzkrieg-like operation. [6] The Russian strategy called for a mass push toward the Polish capital, Warsaw. stated in the Vice Presidential debate of October 7, 2020, that Abraham Lincoln, 8Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain, and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the. Furious fighting also took place north of Warsaw and on the Vistula river in Płock, in defence of the crossing. Only after it had ended, was it possible to initiate talks. As far as the party…, At 43K word length, I will pass, TYVM. Several days before the final battle, 35 million rifle cartridges and 30 thousand Mauser rifles reached Warsaw that way. [1][7] In early August, Polish and Soviet delegations met at Baranavichy and exchanged notes, but their talks came to nothing.[8]. The German troops then systematically retreated from the occupied lands of Ukraine, Belarus and other Baltic states. Piłsudski’s main goal was the rebuilding of a strong Poland, capable of surviving between Germany and Russia. For three days, the city’s fate was undetermined, but in the end, the enemy’s attack was countered. The final Russian assault on Warsaw began on August 12. In view of the above, we can see that the Polish-Bolshevik war actually began on 3 January 1919, although it was not formally declared. On 8 January 1919, the Soviet newspaper “Izvestia” announced the establishment of the Revolutionary War Council of Poland, a cornerstone for a future communist government. Consequently, the Polish armies found what they had hoped for—a large opening between the Soviet fronts. Piłsudski himself admitted in his memoirs that it was a gamble; he decided to go forward with it due to politicians' defeatist stance, fear for the safety of the capital, and the prevailing feeling that if Warsaw were to fall, all would be lost. The Head of State recognized the key importance of Ukraine for the future shape of this part of Europe. The railway line was also covered by the allied Ukrainian army, led by Gen. Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko, which defended the almost 150 kilometre-long stretch of the Dniester river. Battle of Warsaw. Additionally, five divisions of the 5th Army were to protect Warsaw from the north. He did not acknowledge Ukraine’s independence and was not interested in any compromise. Under these circumstances, the clash between Poland and Bolshevik Russia was inevitable. Little remembered in the West, the Battle of Warsaw was in fact one of the most significant land engagements of the 20th century. There were only token Polish resistance 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 advance). After the Second World War, they were forced to succumb to Moscow, but they could not be incorporated into the Soviet Union entirely. Hence, some historians call the 1920 war the Polish-Ukrainian-Bolshevik war. They realized that under the circumstances, it was the only possible way to avoid a devastating defeat. [7][20] Further, Semyon Budyonny, commanding the 1st Cavalry Army, 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. I would note that the term Miracle on the Vistula is a contemporary one, many of the Polish participants attributing the victory to Mary. Only the 15th Army remained an organized force; it tried to obey Tukhachevsky's orders, shielding the withdrawal of the westernmost extended 4th Army. In reality, it was a pre-emptive attack, similar to the Vilnius offensive of April 1919. After initial successes, by the end of August, three of them—the 4th, 15th and 16th Armies, as well as the bulk of Bzhishkyan's 3rd Cavalry Corps—had all but disintegrated, their remnants either taken prisoner or briefly interned after crossing the border into German East Prussia. The Ukrainian troops, as well as Savinkov’s Belarusians and Russians tried to continue their war against the Bolsheviks on their own, but within a month they were defeated by the overwhelming forces of the enemy. Godson...my mistake. [18] According to the historian Thomas Fiddick, rumors of disobedience to orders on the Soviet side by General Semyon Budyonny, or possibly even Joseph Stalin, were baseless. Criticism was levied on the logistical side, as suggested concentration points were as far as 100 to 150 miles (150 to 250 km) from many Polish units, most of them engaged on the front lines, and all of that a mere week before the planned date of the counterattack. Who r…, I pity your grandson. [4] Vladimir Lenin viewed Poland as a bridge to bring communism to Central and Western Europe, and the Polish–Soviet War seemed the perfect way to test the Red Army's strength. On 7 May, the troops under Gen. Rydz-Śmigły’s command captured the abandoned Kiev. Nonetheless, this date has not entered the Polish national consciousness, being overshadowed by other events of the year 1920. Godson...my mistake. Budyonny resented this order, influenced by a grudge between commanding South-Western Front generals Alexander Ilyich Yegorov and Tukhachevsky. [7], Red Army losses were about 15,000 dead, 500 missing, 10,000 wounded and 65,000 captured, compared to Polish losses of approximately 4,500 killed, 22,000 wounded and 10,000 missing. Almost 50 thousand Bolsheviks, whose escape route had been cut off, took refuge in the German Eastern Prussia. Polish bishops, in a letter to the faithful, stated that Bolshevism was the enemy of Christianity and culture in general, leaving behind nothing but death and destruction: “Truly, the spirit of the anti-Christ is its inspiration, its motivation for plunder and conquests ”. Strategically, it reversed an ideological onslaught that might otherwise have carried Soviet Communism into Western Europe in 1920 — an eventuality the consequences of which can only be imagined by posterity.

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