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Polish-Soviet War

Battle of Warsaw
Battle of Warsaw. Painting by Wojciech Kossak.
Polish-Bolshevik War
Conflict Polish-Bolshevik War
Date 19191921
Place Central and Eastern Europe
Result Polish victory
Combatants
Russia Poland
Commanders
Mikhail Tukhachevsky Józef Piłsudski
Strength
>5,000,000, ~36 divisions >500,000
Casualties
30,337 KIA and DoW
51,374 MIA presumably dead
113,510 WIA
Uncertain, KIA estimated at 60,000


"Polish-Bolshevik War" refers to the war (February 1919 – March 1921) that determined the borders between Bolshevist Russia and a once again independent Poland. Polish forces defeated the Bolshevik Red Army and stopped it from spreading the communist revolution into the war-weary Western Europe.

The war started in 1919 when Polish forces begun securing eastern territories, annexed by Russia in the partitions of Poland in late 18th century and simultaneously, Bolshevicks begun their fist push towards the West, codenamed Target Vistula. In 1919 Poles had the upper hand, gaining controle of most of the disputed territories. In April 1920 a new Bolsheviks counter-offensive proven to be much more successfull, throwing the Polish forces back west all the way to the Polish capital of Warsaw. In mid-Augist the Polish forces achieved an unexpected victory, against all odds crippling the four Bolshevik armies at the Battle of Warsaw (hence known as the Miracle of Vistula). The Polish forces advanced east, and the war ended with ceasefire in October 1920 and a formal peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, signed on March 18, 1921.

Contents

Different names

The war is referred to by several names. A common one is "Polish-Soviet War," which is potentially confusing, since "Soviet" is usually thought of as relating to the Soviet Union, which did not officially come into being until January 1924. Alternative names include Russo-Polish War and Polish-Russian War of 1919-21. In Polish histories it has come down as the War of 1920 (Wojna 1920 roku), while Soviet historians often either called it the War against White Poland or considered it a part of the War against Foreign Interventionor the Russian Civil War.

Prelude to the war

‘If Charles Martel had not checked the Saracen conquest at the Battle of Tours, the interpretation of the Koran would be taught at the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.
Had Pilsudski and Weygand failed to arrest the triumphant advance of the Soviet Army at the Battle of Warsaw, not only would Christianity have experienced a dangerous reverse, but the very existence of Western civilisation would have been imperilled. The Battle of Tours saved our ancestors from the Yoke of the Koran; it is probable that the Battle of Warsaw saved Central and parts of Western Europe from a more subversive danger – the fanatical tyranny of the Soviet.
On the essential point, there can be little room for doubt; had the Soviet forces overcome Polish resistance… Bolshevism would have spread throughout Central Europe and might well have penetrated the whole continent.’
-- Edgar Vincent D'Abernon 1


In 1918, with the end of the First World War, the map of the Central and Eastern Europe has drastically changed. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 3 March 1918 in which Russia has lost all of the European lands it seized in the previous two centuries to Imperial Germany, was repudiated by the Bolshevik government in November 1918 following the armistice and surrender of Germany and her allies and the ending of World War I. However Germany was not keen to see Russia grow strong again and seizing the opportunity that it was still in control of those territories, acted quickly to grant limited independence as buffer states to nations of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. As the Germany defeat rendered its plans for Mitteleuropa obsolete and Russia sunk into the depths of the Russian Civil War, those new nations saw the chance for real independence and none of them were prepared to easily let go of this rare gift of fate. At the same time, Russia viewed those territories as its rebellious provinces, but was much weakened and transforming herself into the Soviet Union through the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War that had begun in 1917.


Meantime, with the success of the Greater Poland Uprising in 1918, Poland regained her independence lost in 1795 with the Third Partiton of Poland. After 123 years' rule by Poland's three imperial neighbors, the Second Polish Republic was proclaimed and the newborn country was carving out its borders from the territories of their former partitioners, Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary. The Western Powers, which were delineating the new European borders after the Treaty of Versailles, did it in a way unfavorable for Poland, as Germany now decided to retain many of its eastern gains to recompense itself for expected loses in the west. Western borders cut off Poland from coal-basin and industrial regions of Silesia, which would led to the Silesian Uprisings of 1919-1921, and the eastern Curzon line left millions of Poles, living behind the river Bug, inside the Russian borders.

Polish contemporary politics was under strong influence of Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski, who envisioned a federation (the "Federation of Międzymorze") to comprise Poland, Lithuania, western Ukraine (centered at Kyiv) and other Central and East European countries emerging from crubmling empires after the First World War, constituting a Polish-led confederation. The new union would have had borders similar to those of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 15th18th century, and its strength was to counterweight and restrain any imperialistic intentions of both Russia and Germany. To this goal, Polish forces set out to secure vast territories in the east.

In the chaos prevailing in the first months of 1919, it is unlikely that anyone in Bolshevic Russia or in the new Second Republic of Poland would have deliberately planned a major, foreign war. Attention and policies of the revolutionary Russia was predominantly directed at that time at dealing with the internal problems of counter-revolution and Western Powers intervention. The new Bolshevic Russia had barely survived its second winter of blockade and mass starvation and was in the middle of the bloody civil war. Lenin’s could claim control over only a part of Central Russia, encircled from all sides by powerful internal and external enemies who denied Bolshevicks all access to the outside world. Even if the Bolshevik leaders had wanted to attack their western neighbours, they would have been physically incapable of doing so.

Lenin motivations

However, this begun to change at the end of 1919, when Vladimir Lenin, leader of the new Communist government of Russia, passed once more into a period of buoyant optimism, inspired by Red Army's victories in the Civil War over the anticommunist forces of White Russian and their western allies within the Russian borders. The Bolsheviks acted on a conviction that the historical process would very soon lead to the rule of the proletariat in all nations, and that the withering of national states would eventually lead to a worldwide communist union. Lenin felt more and more confident that the Revolution would survive and soon sweep triumphant over Europe and rest of the world. The main source of coming war with Poland lay in the Bolsheviks’s declared intention of linking their Revolution in Russia with the expected revolution in Germany. Lenin saw Poland as the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to link up the Russian Revolution with the communist supporters in the German Revolution, and to assist other communist movements in Western Europe. This course of action was quite explicit in early Bolshevik ideology, and was a necessary step if the Soviet experiment in Russia was to be brough into line with Marxist doctrine.

Revolutionaries at machine gun posts, Berlin, November 1918
Enlarge
Revolutionaries at machine gun posts, Berlin, November 1918

Germany of 1918-1920 was seething with social discontent and political confusion. In eighteen months since the abdication of the Kaiser, it had seen one communist revolution, two provincial soviet republics (like the Munich Soviet Republic), three reactionary putsches, at least four general strikes, and five chancellors. In July 1920, the Weimar Constitution had been in force for only twelve months and the humiliating Peace of Versailles for only six. The central government was beset by the separatism, by the close scrutiny of the Allied powers and by the constant war in the streets between Spartacist League's armed workers’ detachments and the right-wing Freikorps. The western advance of the Red Army threatened to destroy the Versailles agreement and thus, whatever its other consequences, to free Germany from the humiliating restraints placed upon her. Many Germans thought that another revolutionary rising was the necessary prelude to Germany’s escape from the grip of the victorious western Entente. As Lenin himself marked: That was the time when everyone in Germany, including the blackest reactionaries and monarchists, declared the Bolshevists would be their salvation.

In April 1920 Lenin completed The Infantile Disease of ‘Leftism’ in Communism, a work which was intended to guide the Revolution through the few remaining months before its final stages. As his mood gathered momentum, he became overconfident, messianic even, and was less and less likely to resist the drift towards more serious war with Poland. According to the theory prevailing with Lenin supporters, the Revolution in Russia would perish unless it could be joined by revolution in Lithuania, Poland, and, most essentially, in Germany. The debate in Russia was not whether the Polish bridge should be crossed but how and when. Lenin formulated a new idea of "revolution from outside". The Soviet offensive into Poland would provide an essential opportunity "to probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army." It would be the Soviet Union's first penetration into Europe proper, the first attempt to export the Bolshevik Revolution by force. Lenin in one of his telegrams exclaimed: We must direct all our attention to preparing and strengthening of the Western Front. It is necessary to announce a new slogan: Prepare for war against Poland2.

The political purpose of the Red Army’s advance was not to conquer Europe directly. The Red Army of 1920 could hardly be sent with 36 divisions to achieve what the Tsarist army of 1914-17 had failed to achieve with 150. Its purpose was to provoke a social change and revolution. When Soviet main offensive begun in April 1920, Red Army's commanders and soldiers were told, and probably believed, that if only they could reach Warsaw and defeat Poland on time, the 'opressed masses of the proletariat' would rise almost worldwide and start the final struggle to create the 'workers paradise'. In the words of General Tukhachevski "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to world-wide conflagration. On Vilno-Minsk-Warsaw march".3

On November 18, 1918, Vladimir Lenin issued orders to the Red Army to start an operation code-named Target-Vistula. The basic aims of the operation was to drive through the Eastern and Central Europe and support the communist revolutions in Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Bolshevik Russian forces did not anticipate any serious opposition on the way.

The Campaign

1919

In 1918 the German army in the east collapsed and, without any pressure from the outside, started a retreat westwards. Demoralised officers and revolted soldiers abandoned their garrisons en masse and returned home. Only a limited number of units was routed and still preserved any combat strength. The areas abandoned by the Central Powers became a field of conflict between the local governments created by Germany as part of their plans, local governments that sprung up after the withdrawal of the Germans and the Bolsheviks that wanted those areas to be incorporated to the Bolshevik Russia. Internal struggle for power prevented any of the governments in Belarus to gain enough power and the situation in Ukraine was even more complex with an ongoing conflict between the Makhno's anarchists, communists, White Russians, various governments of Ukraine and the reborn Polish Army.

At the begining of 1919, fighting broke out almost by accident and without any orders from the respective governments, when self-organized Polish military units in Kresy ("Borderland") areas of Lithuania, Belarus and western Ukraine clashed with local communist units and Bolshevik forces, each trying to secure the territories for its own organising government.

After initial struggles with the local opposition and self-defence forces, the Red Army finally started a slow offensive in late December 1918. On January 5, 1919, it entered Minsk almost unopposed, thus putting an end to the short-lived Belarusian National Republic. At the same time the Polish and Belarusian self-defence units sprung up across western Belarus. Ill-equipped and composed mostly of local recruits, they were determined to defend their homes from what the newspapers described as a Red menace. Similar Bolshevik groups were operating in the sector and a series of skirmishes ensued. The Polish Army started sending the units eastwards to help the self-defence, while the Russians did the same, but in the opposite direction. The open conflict seemed inevitable.

Small Polish forces (12 artillery battalions, 12 cavalry regiments, and 3 artillery batteries) had been securing the eastern border. The southern sector, from the Pripyat River to the town of Szczytno, was assigned to Grupa Podlaska (the Podlaska Group, later known as Grupa Poleska), commanded by General Antoni Listowski . These units had concentrated near Antopol and moved toward Brzesc, Pinsk and Bereza Kartuska. The Wolyn region was assigned to Grupa Wołyńska (the Wolyn Group) under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły. The northern sector, from Szczytno to Skidel , was protected by Dywizja Litewsko-Białoruska (the Lithuanian-Belarusin Division) under General Wacław Iwaszkiewicz-Rudoszański , concentrated near Wołkowysk .


The first serious armed conflict of the war took place February 14 near the town of Mosty and Bereza Kartuska, in Belarus. The Bolshevik offensive came to a halt by late February and it became apparent that the Red Army will not break through the Polish lines by half-hearted attacks. In early March 1919, Polish units started their own offensive and captured the cities of Słonim (March 2) and Pinsk (March 5). Northern units reached the outskirts of Lida and stopped for several weeks. Both the Russian and the Polish offensives started at the same time, which resulted with an increasing number of troops being brought to the area. In April the Bolsheviks captured Grodno and Wilno, but were soon pushed out by the Polish counter-offensive. Polish decisions regarding further action in the east were taken at the begining of April, when Józef Piłsudzki determined that Polish forces must maintain the initative on the eastern front.

The Polish Army proved to be a far more difficult opponent than the Russians had assumed. Although the orders for the Target-Vistula operation were never withdrawn, the Russian plans were soon made obsolete by growing Polish resistance and eventually by Polish counter-offensive in April. Unable to accomplish their objectives, the Red Army withdrew from their positions and started a reorganisation, after which the Polish-Bolshevik War started for good.

Until early 1920, the Polish offensive was quite successful. Sporadic armed conflicts erupted between the Polish forces and the Red Army, but the latter was preoccupied with the Russian Civil War and the White Russian conterrevolutionary forces.

1920

From success to defeat: The Kiev Operation

In January 1920, the Red Army began concentrating a 700,000-strong force near Berezina River. In total, the Red Army totaled 5,000,000 at that time, with millions of Russian recruits to draw from. The Soviets had at their disposal many military depots handed down to them by German armies withdrawing from Eastern Europe in 1918-19 and modern French armament (including armoured cars, armoured trains, trucks and artillery) captured in great numbers from the Whites Russians and the Allied expeditionary force following their recent collapse in the Russian Civil War. Poland, on the other hand, fought with whatever was left after the World War I. The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1919 to over 300,000 in 1920 (the Polish Army is unlikley to have exceeded 500,000 at any given time during this war). Polish army was created from soldiers formerly serving in diffrent partitioning empires supported by unexperienced volunteers and recruits. Logistics were a nightmare, based on whatever equipment could be captured. Polish army was supported by guns made in five countries and used rifles manufactured in six different countries, each of them used different ammunition. Equipment was in poor shape.

On March 10 it opened its counteroffensive. Bolshevik commanders of the coming offensive included Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Leon Trotsky, future Soviet Union ruler Joseph Stalin and future Cheka founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky.

On April 24 Poland begun the Kiev Operation , aimed at creating a independent Ukraine, to become part of Piłsudzki's Międzymorze Federation. Poland signed a military alliance with the Ukrainian People's Republic of Symon Petliura. Peltura, after defeat of his government from the bolsheviks hands found asylum in Poland and now headed the new Ukrainian Army. The joint Polish - Ukrainian political campaign which goal was to raise the patriotic spirits among the population the plans to form a strong Ukrainian army capable of taking over the positions against the Soviets in Ukraine, while initially succesfull, had to be abandoned due to lack of time. The local population was tired of several years of war and the Ukrainian Army reached the strenght of only 2 divisions.

The plan of Kiev Operation was to beat Soviet troops on the Polish southern flank and establish a friendly government in the Ukraine. After winning the battle in the South, Polish General Staff planned a speedy withdrawal of the 3rd Army and strengthening of the northern front where Pilsudski expected the main battle with the Red Army to take place. As it is often the case the actual course of events was different than envisioned.

The 3rd Army easily won border clashes with the Soviets and the combined Polish-Ukrainian forces captured Kiev on May 7 encountering only token resistance, but the Bolshevik army, although badly mauled, avoided total destruction. Polish offensive stopped at Kiev and only a small bridgehead was established on the eastern bank of Dnieper. This military thrust soon met with a Red Army counterattack. On May 24, the Polish - Ukrainian force was engaged by the Semyon Budionny and his famous 1st Cavalry Army for the first time. Polish-Ukrainian forces succeeded in slowing and even defeating the Red Army on several occasions, The morale was high, Polish-Ukrainian forces were eager to defend Dnieper Ukraine and confident in their ability to withstand the Soviet offensive. Repeated attacks by this elite Budionny's cossack cavalry broken the Polish Ukrainian front on June 5th and on June 10th Polish armies were retreating along the entire front. It was a bitter day for the Poles and Ukrainians on June 13 when Kiev was evacuated and left to the Soviets. Petlyura's Ukrainians, although small in numbers fought bravely and with fierce determination throughout the rest campaign. In face of almost unlimited Russian reserves and slow growth of Ukrainian army Polish and Ukrainian forces were ordered to retreat and while the units mangaed to withdraw in order and relatively unscathed, they were tied in Ukraine and lacked sufficient strenght to support Polish Northern Front and strengthen defenses at the Auta River during the decisive battle that was soon to take place there.

Bolsheviks' string of victories

As a result of the insufficient forces the 200 miles long front was occupied by 120 thousand soldiers backed by some 460 artillery pieces divided between 1st and 4th Armies and Polesie Group. Soldiers were spread in a thin line along the whole length of the front. Gen. Szeptycki , commander of the Polish North-Eastern Front, did not have any strategic reserves at his disposal. This linear formation was an effect of the Great War type thinking: "Establish a fortified line of defence". Such tactic proved its merit on the Western Front which was saturated with troops, machine guns and artillery. On the contrary, the front in Eastern Poland was weakly manned, supported with inadequate artillery and almost no fixed fortifications. Pilsudski on many occasions called for the "strategie de plein air," a strategy of open spaces, instead of fixed positions, but his appeals fall on the deaf ears.

Against Polish linear formation Red Army gathered their North-Western Front lead by young general Mikhail Tukhachevsky. His troops were organized in four armies: 4, 15, 3 and 16 north to south respectively. Their number exceeded 108 thousand infantry and 11 thousand cavalry supported by 722 artillery pieces and 2913 machine guns. These troops were massed against Polish front reaching in decisive points a four-to-one advantage in numbers.

Tukhachevsky launched his offensive on July 4th along the axis Smolensk-Brest-Litovsk. For three days the outcome of the battle was hanging in a balance but numerical superiority of the Russian troops finally prevailed. The battle was full of wasted opportunities, encirclements, breakthroughs and heroic deeds. One of such feats was performed by two battalions of the 33rd Infantry Regiment which stopped advance of two and a half Red Army divisions for a full day, denying them opportunity to turn northern flank of the Polish front. Infantry of the 33rd Regiment still managed to withdraw after a day of heavy fighting. Thanks to stubborn defence of Polish units Tukhachevski's plan to break the front and push defendants south-west into the Pinsk Marshes failed. Nevertheless, starting July 7th Polish forces were in full retreat

Resistance was offered again on the line of "German trenches", a heavily fortified line from the days of the Great War. This well prepared line of field fortifications presented a unique opportunity to stem Russian offensive. The battle for Vilno , as it was later called, took place from July 11th to July 14th. Also in this encounter history repeated itself, Polish forces were not sufficient to adequately man the whole line of defenses. Soviet forces were able to select weakly defended part of the front and break through. The whole front was forced to roll back because, once again, Red Army turned the northern flank. From that time on Polish war communique were constantly repeating the same phrase "because our northern flank was turned by the enemy our armies are forced to retreat west"

Polish forces were sent into retreat. In south, Galicia, General Semyon Budionny's Red Cavalry Army advanced far into the Polish rear. In the beginning of July it became obvious that to Poles that Russian objectives were not limited only to pushing its borders further to the West. Poland's own independence was at stake.

Soviet forces were relentlessly moving forward with an incredible in those days speed of 20 miles a day. When Grodno fell on July 19th Tukhachevski gave order to occupy Warsaw by August 12th. When Brest Litovsk fell on August 1st and Bug River was crossed by the Soviets the last river barrier before Vistula and Warsaw was broken through. Red Army was marching for three weeks with average speed of 12 miles a day. Their continuous advance seemed to be unstoppable. Soldiers of the North-Western Front, after taking Lomza and crossing river Narew on August 2nd, were only 60 miles from Warsaw. The South-Western Front pushed Polish forces out of Ukraine and was closing on Lwow, important industrial center of southern Poland. Road to Polish capital laid open. Polish Galicia's Lwów (Ukrainian Lviv) was besieged (Battle of Lwów (1920) ) and five Russian armies aproached Warsaw.

The international reaction

Western public opinion influenced by the press and left wing politicians, was vehemently anti-Polish. Many foreign observers expected Poland to be quickly defeated and become the next Soviet republic. Great Britain proposed negotiations between Poland and Russia, to stabilize the border at the Curzon line or further to the west, but the negotiations proposal was disregarded by the Soviets, who expected a quick total victory. Russian terms amounted to total capitulation and even than Lenin was stalling the negotiations to give his troops time to take Warsaw and conclude the war in their favor. Britain's Prime Minister of the time, David Lloyd George, once a strong supporter of the tsarist Russia, switched to being a pro-Soviet sympathier and authorised shipment of large quantities of armament (including modern tanks) by Great Britain hurriedly to fill the urgent Soviet orders. On August 6th, 1920 British Labor Party published a pamphlet which stated that workers of Great Britain would take no part in the war as allies of Poland. French Socialist, in their organ L'Humanite, declared "Not a man, not a sou, not a shell for reactionary and capitalist Poland. Long live the Russian Revolution. Long live Workman's International." Poland suffered setbacks due to sabotage and delays in transit of war materials. Workers of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany refused to transit any war materials to Poland. In the Gdansk harbor British troops were used to unload a ammunition ships because dock workers, mostly German, went on strike when they learned about the cargo, similar events repeated themselves in Czechoslovakian Brno.

Only France continuing its politics of countering Bolshevics, now that Whites in Russia proper have been almost completly defeated, sent a new, although fairly small, expeditionary corps to Poland's aid. Among members of the French expeditionary corps were Maxime Weygand, Charles de Gaulle and Edgar Vincent D'Abernon. Also Hungarians, who had their own experience with the bloody regime of Bela Kun, tried to extend a helping hand. They planned to dispatch a 30 thousand cavalry corp to join Polish Army, unfortunately this idea was derailed by the Czechoslovak government refusal to allow them passage through Czechoslovak territory.

Lithuania joined the Soviet side in the war against Poland. This decision was dictated by the desire to incorporate Wilno into Lithuania and fear of the Red Army standing on Lithuanian borders. The city of Wilno was made the capital of Lithuania, despite being mainly Polish and Belarussian in ethnicity. In 1920, a Polish army took control of the city. Despite the Poles’ claim to the city, the League of Nations chose to ask Poland to withdraw. The Poles did not. Theoretically, British and French troops could have been asked to enforce the League’s decision. However, France did not wish to antagonise Poland, seen as a possible ally in a future war against Germany, and Britain was not prepared to act alone. Thus the Poles were able to keep Vilna.

The tide turns: Miracle at Vistula


On August 10, Russian Cossack units under Censored page crossed the Vistula River. On August 13, an initial Russian attack under General Mikhail Tukhachevsky was repulsed. In the ensuing Battle of Warsaw, the Polish 5th Army under General Władysław Sikorski and Marshal Piłsudzki's Reserve Army threw back the Russian forces near the Wkra River, and on August 16 the Polish counteroffensive reached the rear of Tukhachevsky's army, majority of which was encircled on August 18.


The Soviet armies in the center of the front fell into chaos. Some divisions continued to fight their way toward Warsaw, while others turned to retreat, lost their cohesion and paniced. The Russian commander-in-chief lost contact with most of his forces, and all the Soviet plans were thrown into disorder by the loss of contact. By the end of August the 4th and 15th Armies were defeated in the field, their remnants crossed Prussian border and were disarmed. Nevertheless, these troops were soon released and fought against Poland again. The 3rd Army retreated east so quickly that Polish troops could not catch up with them, consequently, this army sustained the least loses. The 16th Army disintegrated at Bialystok and most of its soldiers become prisoners of war.


On August 31 Budionny's Cavalry Army, attempting to come to the aid of Russian forces near Warsaw, was defeated and encircled by Polish cavalry at Komarów, in the greatest cavalry battle since 1813 (and one of the last cavalry battles ever) and further at the Battle of Hrubieszów .

Tukhachevski managed to reorganize the eastward-retreating forces and in September established a new defensive line near Grodno. In order to break it, the Polish Army had to fight the Battle of the Niemen River (Semptember 15-September 21), once again defeating the Bolshevic armies. After the in mid-October Battle of the Szczara River the Polish Army had reached the Tarnopol-Dubno -Minsk-Drisa line.

The exhausted Poles were unable to fully exploit their new advantage, however, and the Soviets sued for peace. A ceasefire was signed October 12, and went into effect October 18.


Aftermath

The Soviets offered the Polish peace delegation significant territorial concessions and the exhausted Poles, pressured by League of Nations decided to sign a compromise Peace of Riga on March 18, 1921, splitting the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Soviet Russia. The treaty was in fact a violation of the military alliance that Poland had with Ukraine, prohibiting a separate peace treaty. Such a solution has deeply worsened relations between Poland and the Ukrainian minority, who felt betrayed by their Polish allies, the feeling which was exploited by Soviet propaganda and resulted in growing tensions in the 1930s and 1940s. As Poland kept the city of Wilno, this further poisoned the diplomatic relations between Poland and Lithuania. To a smaller and thankfully diminishing extent, repercussions from those events still influence the foreign relations between those countries. Finally, such a solution, while being favoured by some Polish politicians like Roman Dmowski, who wanted to create a smaller, more homogeneous state, was a killing blow to Piłsudzki's dream of recreating the powerful Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The treaty avoided ceding historically Polish territory back to Russia, and ethnic Poles initially had two Polish Autonomous Districts within the Soviet Union, with an eventually tragic outcome for the Poles. The Ukrainian minority in Poland received some internal autonomy within the southeastern voivodships of Poland, but plans for a broader autonomy or for introduction of a federation finally came to nothing.

According to the British historian A.J.P. Taylor, the Soviet-Polish War "largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more. (...) Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution." Certainly, Bolshevic defeat in this war prevented Poland from becoming a new soviet republic, and likely saved Germany, Czechoslovakia and nearby states from suffering the same fate.

However, the Bolsheviks were not destroyed, only defeated and delayed for one generation. Russia managed to keep control over many western territories, with their vast economic resources, and Soviet second attempt at the communist crusade was much more succesfull. In 1939 Soviet Union allied itself with Nazi Germany, signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and attacked Poland on the 17th September of that year, ensuring the Polish defeat in the Polish Defence War of 1939 and sealing the fate of the Second Polish Republic. From that time, Soviets occupation rivaled German attrocities, resulting in millions of deaths, when all who were deemed dangerous to the communist regime were subject to sovietization, forced resettlement, imprisonment in labor camps (the Gulags) or simply murdered, like Polish officers in the Katyn massacre. Participation in the Polish-Soviet War on the side of Poland was an offence often resulting in the capital punishment. Soviet attrocities commenced again after the Poland was 'liberated' by Red Army in 1944, with events like the persecutions of Armia Krajowa soldiers and executions of their leaders. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Soviet Union suceeded in conquering more territories then old Imperial Russia ever did, finally fullfilling the part of Lenin's dream of bringing the communist revolution to Germany. Until 1989, as long as the communists held power in the People's Republic of Poland, the Polish-Soviet war in the history textbooks was either completly omitted, minimalized or presented to fit the 'truths' of the commnunist propaganda.

The military strategies of the Polish-Soviet War heavily influenced Charles De Gaulle, then an instructor with the Polish army who fought in several of the battles. He and Władysław Sikorski were the only military officers who, based on their experiences of this war, correctly predicted how the next one would be fought. Although they both failed in convincing their commanders-in-chief to heed to those lessons during the early stages of the Second World War, they were recongnized in its later stages, when they both rose through the ranks of their militaries-in-exile and eventually commanded the entire military forces of their respective countries.

List of battles

  1. Soviet "Target Vistula" offensive (January-February 1919)
  2. Battle of Bereza Kartuska (February 9, 1919: the first battle of the conflict)
  3. Operation Wilno : Polish offensive to Wilno (April 1919)
  4. First Battle of Lida (April 1919)
  5. Operation Minsk : Polish offensive to Minsk (July-August 1919)
  6. Battles of Chorupań and Dubno (July 19, 1919)
  7. Battle of Daugavpils : joint Polish-Latvian operation (January 3, 1920)
  8. Kiev Offensive (May-June 1920)
  9. Battle of Tarnopol (July 31-August 6, 1920)
  10. Battle of Warsaw (August 15 1920)
  11. Battle of Raszyn, Battle of Nasielsk , Battle of Radzymin (August 14-August 15, 1920)
  12. Battle of Zadwórze: the "Polish Thermopylć" (August 17, 1920)
  13. Battle of Sarnowa Góra (August 21-August 22, 1920)
  14. Battle of Komarów: great cavalry battle, ending in Budionny's defeat (August 31, 1920)
  15. Battle of Hrubieszów (September 1, 1920)
  16. Battle of Kobryń (September 14-September 15, 1920)
  17. Battle of Dytiatyn (September 16, 1920)
  18. Battle of Brzostowica (September 20, 1920)
  19. Battle of the Niemen River (September 26-28 1920)
  20. Battles of Obuchowe and Krwawy Bór (September 27-September 28, 1920)
  21. Battle of Zboiska
  22. Battle of Minsk (October 18, 1920)
  23. Battle of Lwów

See also

External links:

  • Electronic Museum of the Polish-Soviet War http://www.electronicmuseum.ca/Soviet-Polish-War/spw.html
  • Maps of the Polish-Bolshevik War: [1] http://www.geocities.com/hallersarmy/maps.html , [2] http://www.iyp.org/pilsudski/maps.html
  • The Polish-Russian War and the Fight for Polish Independence http://home.golden.net/~medals/1918-1921war.html
  • Józef Haller and the Blue Army http://www.geocities.com/hallersarmy/index.html
  • Onwar.com http://www.onwar.com/aced/nation/pat/poland/fussrpoland1919.htm
  • Russo-Polish War bibliography in English http://www.york.cuny.edu/~drobnick/russo.html

Notes

  1. The eighteenth decisive battle of the world: Warsaw, 1920. See references below.
  2. Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. See references below.
  3. Tukhachevski, M., Order of the Day July 2nd, 1920

References

  • Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0712606947
  • Jeremy Keenan , The Pole: The Heroic Life of Josef Pilsudski, Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd, 2004, ISBN 0715632108
  • Richard M. Watt , Bitter Glory: Poland & Its Fate 1918-1939, Hippocrene Books, 1998, ISBN: 0781806739
  • Edgar Vincent D'Abernon, The eighteenth decisive battle of the world: Warsaw, 1920, Hyperion Press, 1977, ISBN 0883554291
  • W. Bruce Lincoln , Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War, Da Capo Press, 1999, ISBN 0306809095


Last updated: 05-02-2005 01:18:33