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{{Infobox Military Conflict|conflict=Polish-Soviet War|image=|caption=The final borders layout settled by the war.|date=1919–1921|place=Central Europe and
Eastern EuropeThe question of victory is not universally agreed on. Russian and Polish historians tend to assign victory to their respective countries. Outside assessments vary, mostly between calling the result a Polish victory and inconclusive. Lenin in his secret report to the 9th Conference of the Bolshevik Party on September 20, 1920, called the outcome of the war "In a word, a gigantic, unheard-of defeat" (see The Unknown Lenin, ed. [Richard Pipes,
Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-06919-7 Document 59, Google Print, p. 106).]
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
[Ukrainian People's Republic
[Mikhail Tukhachevsky (Western Front)
Aleksandr Yegorov (Southwestern Front)
Semyon Budyonny 1st Cavalry Army (Soviet Union)|commander2=
Józef Piłsudski Edward Rydz-Śmigły
Symon Petlyura,
Józef Piłsudski: marzyciel i strateg, (Józef Piłsudski: Dreamer and Strategist), Tom pierwszy (first tome), Wydawnictwo ALFA, Warsaw, 1997, ISBN 8370019145, p. 453–453>
113,518 wounded,
51,351 taken prisoner-->The
Polish-Soviet War (February [1919 – March
1921) was an armed conflict of
Russian SFSR and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic against the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic, four
nascent states in post-World War I Europe. The war was the result of conflicting expansionist attempts. Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established by the
Treaty of Versailles following the
Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, sought to secure territories which she had lost at the time of partitions; the Soviets' aim was to control those same territories, which had been part of Imperial Russia until the turbulent events of the World War I. Both States claimed victory in the war: the Poles claimed a successful defense of their state, while the Soviets claimed a repulse of the Polish
Kiev Offensive (1920) and Belarus, which they viewed as a part of
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War.
The frontiers between Poland and Soviet Russia had not been defined in the Treaty of Versailles and post-war events created turmoil: the
Russian Revolution of 1917; the crumbling of the
Imperial Russia, German Empire and
Austria-Hungary empires; the Russian Civil War; the
Central Powers' withdrawal from the Eastern Front (World War I); and the attempts of
Ukrainian People's Republic and Belarusian National Republic to establish their independence. Poland's
Chief of State, Józef Piłsudski, felt the time expedient to expand Polish borders as far east as feasible, to be followed by the creation of a Polish-led federation (
Międzymorze) of several states in the rest of East-Central Europe as a bulwark against the potential re-emergence of both German and Russian
imperialism.
Vladimir Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge that the
Red Army would have to cross in order to assist Communist Party of Germany and help conduct other European revolutions.
By
1919, the Polish forces had taken control of much of Western Ukraine, with victory in the
Polish-Ukrainian War; the West Ukrainian People's Republic had tried unsuccessfully to create a Ukrainian state on territories to which both Poles and the Ukrainians laid claim. At the same time, the Bolsheviks began to gain the upper hand in the Russian Civil War and advance westward towards the disputed territories. By the end of 1919 a clear front had formed. Border skirmishes escalated into open warfare following Piłsudski's
1920 Kiev Offensive in April 1920. He was met by a nearly simultaneous and initially very successful Red Army
counterattack. The Soviet operation threw the Polish forces back westward all the way to the Polish capital,
Warsaw. Meanwhile, western fears of Soviet troops arriving at the German frontiers Interallied Mission to Poland in the war. In midsummer, the fall of Warsaw seemed certain but in mid-August the tide had turned again as the Polish forces achieved an unexpected and decisive victory at the Battle of Warsaw (1920). In the wake of the Polish advance eastward, the Soviets sued for peace and the war ended with a ceasefire in October 1920. A formal
peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on 18 March,
1921, dividing the disputed territories between Poland and Soviet Russia. The war largely determined the Soviet-Polish border for the
interbellum.
Names and dates
The war is referred to by several names. "Polish-Soviet War" may be the most common, but is potentially confusing since "Soviet" is usually thought of as relating to the Soviet Union, which (by contrast with "Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic") did not officially come into being until December 1922. Alternative names include "Russo-Polish WarSee for instance Russo-Polish War in
Encyclopædia BritannicaRusso-Polish War (1919–20), military conflict between Soviet Russia and Poland, which sought to seize Ukraine (...) Although there had been hostilities between the two countries during 1919, the conflict began when the Polish head of state Józef Pilsudski formed an alliance with the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlura (April 21, 1920) and their combined forces began to overrun Ukraine, occupying Kiev on May 7. Polish-Russian War of 1919–20/21" (to distinguish it from earlier Polish-Russian wars) and "Polish-Bolshevik War". Wojna polsko-bolszewicka. Entry at Internetowa encyklopedia PWN. Last accessed on 27 October 2006. This second term (or just "Bolshevik War" (Polish language:
Wojna bolszewicka)) is most common in Polish sources. In some Polish sources it is also referred as the "War of 1920" (Polish:
Wojna 1920 roku).For example: 1)
Janusz Cisek,
Sąsiedzi wobec wojny 1920 roku. Wybór dokumentów. (
Neighbours Attitude Towards the War of 1920. A collection of documents. - English summary), Polish Cultural Foundation Ltd, 1990, London, ISBN 0-85065-212-X 2) Janusz Szczepanski,
Wojna 1920 roku na Mazowszu i Podlasiu (War of 1920 in Mazowsze and Podlasie), Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna, 1995, ISBN 83-86643-30-7, 3 ) Władysław Sikorski,
Nad Wisłą i Wkrą. Studium do polsko - radzieckiej wojny 1920 roku, (At the Vistula and the Wkra : a Contribution to the Study of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920), 1928; latest edition, Warsaw, Agencja Omnipress, 1991, ISBN 83-85028-15-3
Other points of contention are the starting and ending dates of the war. For example,
Encyclopedia Britannica begins its article with the date (1919–1920), but then says "Although there had been hostilities between the two countries during 1919, the conflict began when the Polish head of state Józef Pilsudski formed an alliance with the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlyura (April 21, 1920) and their combined forces began to overrun Ukraine, occupying Kiev on May 7." while the Polish
Internetowa encyklopedia PWN as well as some historians—like Norman Davies
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 22—clearly consider 1919 as the starting year of the war. The ending date is given as either 1920 or 1921; this confusion stems from the fact that while the ceasefire was put in force in fall 1920, the
Treaty of Riga was signed months later, in March 1921.
While the events of 1919 can be described as a border conflict and only in early 1920 did both sides realize that they were in fact engaged in an all-out war, the conflicts that took place in 1919 are closely related to the war that began in earnest a year later. In the end, the events of 1920 were only a logical, though unforeseen, consequence of the 1919 prelude.
Prelude
{{ImageStackRight|200|, 1795. The colored territories show the extent of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, just before the first partition. Blue (north-west) were taken by Kingdom of Prussia, green (south) by Austria-Hungary, and cyan (east) by
Imperial Russia.-->
In the aftermath of World War I, the map of Central Europe and
Eastern Europe had drastically changed.Thomas Grant Fraser, Seamus Dunn,
Otto von Habsburg,
Europe and Ethnicity: the First World War and contemporary ethnic conflict, Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-11995-2, Google Print, p.2 Germany's defeat rendered its plans for the creation of Eastern European puppet states (Mitteleuropa) obsolete,Geoffrey Jukes,
Peter Simkins,
Michael Hickey,
The First World War, Osprey Publishing, 2002, 184176342X, Google Print, p.84, p.85 and Russia saw its Empire collapse followed by a descent into Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War.Erik Goldstein,
Wars and Peace Treaties, Routledge, 1992, ISBN 0-415-07822-9, Google Print, p.51 Many nations of the region saw a chance for real independence and were not prepared to relinquish the opportunity; Russia viewed these territories as rebellious Russian provinces, vital for Russian security, THE REBIRTH OF POLAND. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor
Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006. but was unable to react swiftly.
With the success of the
Wielkopolska Uprising (1918–1919), Poland had re-established its
statehood for the first time since the
Partitions of Poland#Third Partition and seen the end of a 123 years of rule by three imperial neighbors: Imperial Russia, German Empire, and
Austria-Hungary. The country, reborn as a
Second Polish Republic, proceeded to carve out its borders from the territories of its former partitioners.
Poland was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. Virtually all of the newly independent neighbours began fighting over borders: Kingdom of Romania fought with Hungary over Transylvania, Kingdom of Yugoslavia with Italy over Rijeka, Poland with Czechoslovakia over
Cieszyn, with Germany over Poznań and
Polish-Ukrainian War over
Eastern Galicia.
Ukrainian People's Republic, Belarusians,
Freedom wars of Lithuania, Estonian Liberation War and
Latvian War of Independence fought against themselves and against the Russians, who were just as divided.Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 21. Spreading communist influences resulted in communist revolutions in
Munich, Berlin, Budapest and
Prešov. Winston Churchill commented: "The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies begin."
Adrian Hyde-Price,
Germany and European Order, Manchester University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-7190-5428-1 Google Print, p.75 All of those engagements – with the sole exception of the Polish-Soviet war – would be shortlived border conflicts.
The Polish-Soviet war likely happened more by accident than design, as it is unlikely that anyone in Soviet Russia or in the new Second Republic of Poland would have deliberately planned a major foreign war.
Norman Davies,
God's Playground. Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present. Columbia University Press, 2005 . ISBN 0-231-12819-3. Google Print, p.292 Poland, its territory a major frontline of the First World War, was unstable politically; it had just won the difficult conflict with the West Ukrainian National Republic and was already engaged in new conflicts with Germany (the Silesian Uprisings) and
border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia. The attention of revolutionary Russia, meanwhile, was predominantly directed at thwarting counter-revolution and
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War. While the first clashes between Polish and Soviet forces occurred in February 1919, it would be almost a year before both sides realised that they were engaged in a full war.
.In late 1919 the leader of Russia's new communist government,
Vladimir Lenin, was inspired by the Red Army's civil-war victories over White movement anti-communist forces and their western allies, and began to see the future of the revolution with greater optimism. The Bolsheviks proclaimed the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and agitated for a worldwide communist community. Their avowed intent was to link the revolution in Russia with an expected
German Revolution and to assist other communist movements in
Western Europe; Poland was the geographical bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to do so.Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc.,
1972.) Page 29 Lenin’s aim was to restore control of the territories ceded by Russia in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was to infiltrate the borderlands, set up soviet governments there as well as in Poland, and reach Germany where he expected a socialist revolution to break out. He believed that Soviet Russia could not survive without the support of a socialist Germany. By the end of summer 1919 the Soviets managed to take over most of Ukraine, driving the Ukrainian government from Kiev. In early 1919, they also set up a
Lithuanian-Belorussian Republic (Litbel). This government was very unpopular due to terror and the collection of food and goods for the army. It was not until after the Kiev Offensive had been repelled, however, that some of the Soviet leaders would see the war as the real opportunity to spread the revolution westwards.
Ronald Grigor Suny,
The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508105-6, Google Print, p.106 Indeed, the Bolsheviks stated:
Before the start of the Polish-Soviet War Polish politics were strongly influenced by Chief of State (
naczelnik państwa) Józef Piłsudski.
Józef Pilsudski, Polish revolutionary and statesman, the first chief of state (1918–22)
of the newly independent Poland established in November 1918. ( Józef Pilsudski in
Encyclopedia Britannica)
Released in Nov., 1918, returned to Warsaw, assumed command of the Polish armies, and proclaimed an independent Polish republic, which he headed. ( Piłsudski, Joseph in
Columbia Encyclopedia) Piłsudski wanted
PrometheismTimothy Snyder,
Covert Polish missions across the Soviet Ukrainian border, 1928–1933 ( p.55, p.56, p.57, p.58, p.59, in
Cofini, Silvia Salvatici (a cura di), Rubbettino, 2005).
Timothy Snyder,
Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-300-10670-X, ( p.41, p.42, p.43) and create a Polish-led
" hoped to incorporate most of the territories of the defunct Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Commonwealth into the future Polish state by structuring it as the Polish-led, multinational federation."Aviel Roshwald, " Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, the Middle East and Russia, 1914–1923", p. 37, Routledge (UK), 2001, ISBN 0-415-17893-2
"Although the Polish premier and many of his associates sincerely wanted peace, other important Polish leaders did not. Josef Pilsudski, chief of state and creator of Polish army, was foremost among the latter. Pilsudski hoped to build not merely a Polish nation state but a greater federation of peoples under the aegis of Poland which would replace Russia as the great power of Eastern Europe. Lithuania, Belorussia and Ukraine were all to be included. His plan called for a truncated and vastly reduced Russia, a plan which excluded negotiations.prior to military victory."Richard K Debo,
Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–192, Google Print, p. 59, McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, ISBN 0-7735-0828-7.
"Pilsudski's program for a federation of independent states centered on Poland; in opposing the imperial power of both Russia and Germany it was in many ways a throwback to the romantic Mazzinian nationalism of Young Poland in the early nineteenth century. But his slow consolidation of dictatorial power betrayed the democratic substance of those earlier visions of national revolution as the path to human liberation"James H. Billington,
Fire in the Minds of Men, p. 432, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0-7658-0471-9
"Pilsudski dreamed of drawing all the nations situated between Germany and Russia into an enormous federation in which Poland, by virtue of its size, would be the leader, while Dmowski wanted to see a unitary Polish state, in which other Slav peoples would become assimilated."Andrzej Paczkowski,
The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom, p. 10, Penn State Press, 2003, ISBN 0-271-02308-2
David Parker,
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W. W. Norton & Company, 2001, ISBN 0-393-02025-8, Google Print, p.194 "
Międzymorze Federation" of independent states comprised of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and other Central Europe and
East European countries emerging out of crumbling empires after the First World War.Zbigniew Brzezinski in his introduction to Wacław Jędrzejewicz’s “Pilsudski A Life For Poland” wrote:
Pilsudski’s vision of Poland, paradoxically, was never attained. He contributed immensely to the creation of a modern Polish state, to the preservation of Poland from the Soviet invasion, yet he failed to create the kind of multinational commonwealth, based on principles of social justice and ethnic tolerance, to which he aspired in his youth. One may wonder how relevant was his image of such a Poland in the age of nationalism.... Quoted from this website This new union was to become a counterweight to any potential imperialist intentions on the part of Russia or Germany. Piłsudski argued that "There can be no independent Poland without an independent Ukraine", but he may have been more interested in Ukraine being split from Russia than in Ukrainians' welfare."The newly found Polish state cared much more about the expansion of its borders to the east and south-east ("between the seas") that about helping the agonizing state of which Petlura was a de-facto dictator. ("A Belated Idealist."
Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), May 22–28, 2004. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.)
Piłsudski is quoted to have said:
"After the Polish independence we will see about Poland's size". (ibid)One moth before his death Pilsudski told his aide: "My life is lost. I failed to create the
free from the Russians Ukraine"
< Oleksa Pidlutskyi,
Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century),
Kiev, 2004, ISBN 966-8290-01-1, . Chapter
"Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli
(the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3–9, 2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian. He did not hesitate to use military force to
Polish-Ukrainian War to
Galicia (Central Europe) and Volhynia, crushing a West Ukrainian People's Republic in the disputed territories east of the
Western Bug river, which contained a significant Polish minority, mainly in cities like
Lwów (Lviv), but a Ukrainian majority in the countryside. Speaking of Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the
Triple Entente—on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany," while in the east "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far."
Margaret MacMillan,
Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003, ISBN 0-375-76052-0, p.212" In the chaos to the east the Polish forces set out to expand there as much as it was feasible. On the other hand, Poland had no intention of joining the western intervention in the Russian Civil War or of conquering Russia itself.JOSEPH PILSUDSKI. Interview by Dymitr Merejkowsky, 1921. Translated fom the Russian by Harriet E Kennedy B.A. London & Edinburgh, Sampson Low, Marston & Co Ltd 1921. Piłsudski said: “Poland can have nothing to do with the restoration of old Russia. Anything rather than that – even Bolshevism”. Quoted from this site.
Course
{{ImageStackRight|200| poster. Text reads: "This is how the landowner's ideas end." poster showing Polish cavalry and a Bolshevik soldier with a starred cap. Text reads: "Beat the Bolshevik"-->
1919
Chaos in Eastern Europe
In 1918 the German Army in the east, under the command of
Max Hoffmann, began to retreat westwards. The territories abandoned by the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and History of Independent Bulgaria#World War I) became a field of conflict among local governments created by Germany, other local governments that independently sprang up after the German retreat, and the Bolsheviks, who hoped to incorporate those areas into Soviet Russia. As a result, almost all of Eastern Europe was in chaos.
On November 18,
1918, the Soviet Supreme Command issued orders to the Western Army (Russia) of the Red Army to begin a
Russian westward offensive of 1918-1919 that would follow the withdrawing German troops of Oberkommando Ostfront (
Ober-Ost). The basic aim was to secure as much territory as possible with the few resources locally available.
At the start of 1919, Polish-Soviet fighting broke out almost by accident and without any orders from the respective governments when self-organized Polish military units in
Vilnius (Wilno) clashed with Bolshevik forces of Litbel, each trying to secure the territories for its own incipient government. Eventually the more organized Soviet forces quelled most of the resistance and drove the remaining Polish forces west. On
January 5, 1919, the Red Army entered Minsk almost unopposed, thus putting an end to the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic. At the same time, more and more Polish self-defense units sprang up across western Belarus and Lithuania (such as the Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defence).Grzegorz Łukowski and
Rafał E. Stolarski,
Walka o Wilno. Z dziejów Samoobrony Litwy i Białorusi, 1918–1919 (
Fight for Wilno. From the history of the Self-Defence of Lithuania and Belarus, 1918–1919), Adiutor, 1994, ISBN 83-900085-0-5 and engaged in a series of local skirmishes with pro-Bolshevik groups operating in the area. The newly organized Polish Army began sending the first of their units east to assist the self-defense forces, while the Russians sent their own units west.
In the spring of 1919, Soviet conscription produced a Red Army of 2,300,000. Few of these were sent west that year, as the majority of Red Army forces were engaged against the Russian White movement; the Western Army in February 1919 had just 46,000 men.
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 39 In February 1919, the entire Polish army numbered 110,000 men; in April, 170,000, including 80,000 combatants
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 41 while by September 1919, it had 540,000 men; 230,000 of these were on the Soviet
Front (military). | url = | format =|accessdate = -->Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 83
By 14 February, the Poles, who had been advancing eastwards, secured positions along the line of
Kobryn,
Pruzhany, and the rivers
Zalewianka and Neman River. Around 14 February, at Mosty, the first organised Polish units made contact with the advance units of the Red Army. Bolshevik units withdrew without a shot. A frontline slowly began to form from Lithuania, through Belarus to Ukraine.
First Polish-Soviet conflicts
The Battle of Bereza Kartuska (1919) took place around February 14 - February 16, near the towns of Maniewicze and Biaroza in Belarus. By late February Target Vistula had come to a halt. Both Polish and Soviet forces had also been
Polish-Ukrainian War, and unrest was growing in the territories of the Baltic countries (cf.
Estonian Liberation War,
Latvian War of Independence, Freedom wars of Lithuania).
In early March 1919, Polish units started an offensive, crossing the
Neman River, taking Pinsk, and reaching the outskirts of
Lida. Both the Russian and Polish advances began around the same time in April (Polish forces started a major offensive on April 16), resulting in increasing numbers of troops arriving in the area. That month the Bolsheviks captured
Grodno, but soon were pushed out by a Polish counteroffensive. Unable to accomplish their objectives and facing strengthening offensives from the White forces, the Red Army withdrew from their positions and reorganized. Soon the Polish-Soviet War would begin in earnest.
Polish forces continued a steady eastern advance. They took Lida on April 17 and
Nowogródek on April 18, and recaptured Vilnius on April 19, driving the
Litbel government from their proclaimed capital. On August 8, Polish forces took
Minsk and on the 28th of that month they deployed
tanks for the first time. After heavy fighting, the town of Babruysk near the
Berezina River was captured. By October 2, Polish forces reached the Daugava river and secured the region from Desna (river) to
Daugavpils (Dyneburg).
Polish success continued until early 1920. Sporadic battles erupted between Polish forces and the Red Army, but the latter was preoccupied with the White counter-revolutionary forces and was steadily retreating on the entire western frontline, from Latvia in the north to Ukraine in the south. In early summer 1919, the White movement had gained the initiative, and its forces under the command of
Anton Denikin were marching on
Moscow. Piłsudski viewed the Bolsheviks as a lesser threat to Poland than their contenders,
Peter Kenez,
A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-31198-5, Google Print, p. 37 as the White Russians were not willing to accept Poland's independence, while the Bolsheviks did proclaim the
Partitions of Poland null and void. By his refusal to join the attack on Lenin's struggling government, ignoring the strong pressure from the Triple Entente, Piłsudski had likely saved the Bolshevik government in Summer–Fall 1919. He later wrote that in case of a White victory, in the east Poland could only gain the "ethnic border" at best (the
Curzon line). Oleksa Pidlutskyi,
Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century),
Kiev, 2004, ISBN 966-8290-01-1, . Chapter
"Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli
(the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3–9, 2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian. At the same time Lenin offered Poles the territories of
Minsk,
Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, in what was described as mini "Treaty of Brest-Litovsk"; Polish military leader Kazimierz Sosnkowski wrote that the territorial proposals of the Bolsheviks were much better than what the Poles had wanted to achieve.
Diplomatic Front, Part 1: The alliances
{{ImageStackRight|200| (left) and exiled Ukrainian leader
Symon Petlura (second from left) following the
Treaty of Warsaw (1920).'s propaganda poster issued following the
Treaty of Warsaw (1920). The Ukrainian text reads: "Corrupt Petlura has sold Ukraine to the Polish landowners. Landowners burned and plundered Ukraine. Death to landowners and Petlurovites."-->In 1919, several unsuccessful attempts at peace negotiations were made by various Polish and Russian factions. In the meantime, Polish-Lithuanian relations worsened as Polish politicians found it hard to accept the Lithuanians' demands for independence and territories, especially on ceding the city of Vilnius (Wilno), Lithuania's historical capital which had a Polish ethnic majority. Polish negotiators made better progress with the Latvian Provisional Government, and in late 1919 and early 1920 Polish and Latvian forces were conducting
Operation Zima against Russia.Daniel Kochan, Łotewski sojusznik. Last accessed on 25 October 2006.
The
Treaty of Warsaw (1920), an agreement with the exiled Ukrainian nationalist leader
Symon Petlura signed on April 21,
1920, was the main Polish diplomatic success. Petlura, who formally represented the government of the
Ukrainian People's Republic (by then
de facto defeated by Bolsheviks), along with some Ukrainian forces, fled to Poland, where he found
political asylum. His control extended only to a sliver of land near the Polish border. In such conditions, there was little difficulty convincing Petlura to join an alliance with Poland, despite recent conflict between the two nations that had been settled in favour of Poland.Richard K Debo,
Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1921, pp. 210–211, McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, ISBN 0-7735-0828-7. By concluding an agreement with Piłsudski, Petlura accepted the Polish territorial gains in Western Ukraine and the future Polish-Ukrainian border along the Zbruch River. In exchange, he was promised independence for Ukraine and Polish military assistance in reinstalling his government in Kiev.
For Piłsudski, this alliance gave his campaign for the Międzymorze federation the legitimacy of joint international effort, secured part of the Polish eastward border, and laid a foundation for a Polish dominated Ukrainian state between Russia and Poland. For Petlura, this was a final chance to preserve the statehood and, at least, the theoretical independence of the Ukrainian heartlands, even while accepting the loss of Western Ukrainian lands to Poland."In September 1919 the armies of the Ukrainian Directory in Podolia found themselves in the "death triangle". They were squeezed between the Red Russians of Lenin and Trotsky in the north-east, White Russians of Denikin in south-east and the Poles in the West. Death were looking into their eyes. And not only to the people but to the nascent Ukrainian state. Therefore, the chief ataman Petlura had no choice but to accept the union offered by Piłsudski, or, as an alternative, to capitulate to the Bolsheviks, as Volodymyr Vinnychenko or Mykhailo Hrushevsky did at the time or in a year or two. The decision was very hurtful. The Polish Szlachta was a historic enemy of the Ukrainian people. A fresh wound was bleeding, the West Ukrainian People's Republic, as the Pilsudchiks were suppressing the East Galicians at that very moment. However, Petlura agreed to peace and the union, accepting the Ukrainian-Polish border, the future Soviet-Polish one. It's also noteworthy that Piłsudski also obtained less territories than offered to him by Lenin, and, in addition, the war with immense Russia. The Dnieper Ukrainians then were abandoning their brothers, the Galicia Ukrainians, to their fate. However, Petlura wanted to use his last chance to preserve the statehood - in the union with the Poles. Attempted, however, without luck."
Oleksa Pidlutskyi,
ibidYet both of them were opposed at home. Piłsudski faced stiff opposition from Dmowski's
National Democrats (Poland) who opposed Ukrainian independence. Petlura, in turn, was criticized by many Ukrainian politicians for entering a pact with the Poles and giving up on Western Ukraine.Prof. Ruslan Pyrig, "
Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Bolsheviks: the price of political compromise",
Zerkalo Nedeli, September 30–October 6, 2006, available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
Timothy Snyder,
The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10586-X Google Books, p.139
The alliance with Petliura did result in 15,000 pro-Polish allied Ukrainian troops at the beginning of the campaign, increasing to 35,000 through recruitment and desertion from the Soviet side during the war. But in the end, this would prove too few to support Petlura's hopes for indenpendent Ukraine, or Piłsudski's dreams of the Ukrainian ally in the Międzymorze federation.
1920
Opposing forces
near
Dyneburg 1920Norman Davies notes that estimating strength of the opposing sides is very tricky; even generals often had incomplete reports of their own forces.
By early 1920, the Red Army had been very successful against the White movement. They defeated
Denikin and signed peace treaties with Latvia and Estonia. The Polish front became their most important war theater and a plurality of Soviet resources and forces were diverted to it. In January 1920, the Red Army began concentrating a 700,000-strong force near the Berezina River and on Belarus.
By the time Poles launched their Kiev offensive, The Red Southwestern Front had about 82,847 soldiers including 28,568 front-line troops. The Poles had some numerical superiority, estimated from 12,000 to 52,000 personnel.Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.106 By the time of the Soviet counter-offensive in mid 1920 the situation had been reversed: Soviets had about 790,000 people - at least 50,000 or more than the Poles; Tukhachevsky estimated that he had 160,000 "combat-ready" soldiers; Piłsudski estimated enemy's forces at 200,000–220,000.Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.142–143
In the course of 1920, almost 800,000
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 142 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 (Central Europe).
Grigoriy Krivosheev gives similar numbers, with 382,000 personnel for Western Fron and 283,000 personnel for Southwestern Front.Grigoriy Krivosheev,
Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the 20th Century, p. 17
Norman Davies shows the growth of Red Army forces in the Polish front in early 1920:Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.85.
: 1 January 1920 - 4 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry brigade
: 1 February 1920 - 5 infantry divisions, 5 cavalry brigade
: 1 March 1920 - 8 infantry divisions, 4 cavalry brigade
: 1 April 1920 - 14 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry brigade
: 15 April 1920 - 16 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry brigade
: 25 April 1920 - 20 infantry divisions, 5 cavalry brigade
Bolshevik commanders in the Red Army's coming offensive would include
Leon Trotsky,
Mikhail Tukhachevsky (new commander of the Western Front), Aleksandr Yegorov (new commander of the Southwestern Front), the future Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin, and the founder of the
Cheka (secret police),
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky.
The Polish Army was made up of soldiers who had formerly served in the various partitioning empires, supported by some international volunteers, such as the Kościuszko Squadron.Janusz Cisek,
Kosciuszko, We Are Here: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919–1921, McFarland & Company, 2002, ISBN 0-7864-1240-2, Google Print
Boris Savinkov was at the head of an army of 20,000 to 30,000 largely Russian POWs, and was accompanied by
Dmitry Merezhkovsky and
Zinaida Gippius. The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920. In August, 1920, the Polish army had reached a total strength of 737,767 people; half of that was on the frontline. Given Soviet losses, there was rough numerical parity between the two armies; and by the time of the battle of Warsaw Poles might have even had a slight advantage in numbers and logistics.Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.162 and p.202.
Logistics, nonetheless, were very bad for both armies, supported by whatever equipment was left over from World War I or could be captured. The Polish Army, for example, employed guns made in five countries, and
rifles manufactured in six, each using different ammunition. The Soviets had many military depots at their disposal, left by withdrawing German armies in 1918–19, and modern French armaments captured in great numbers from the White Russians and the Allied expeditionary forces in the Russian Civil War. Still, they suffered a shortage of arms; both the Red Army and the Polish forces were grossly underequipped by Western standards.
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 85
The Soviet High Command planned a new offensive in late April/May. Since March 1919, Polish intelligence was aware that the Soviets had prepared for a new offensive and the Polish High Command decided to launch their own offensive before their opponents. The plan for
Kiev Offensive (1920) was to beat the Red Army on Poland's southern flank and install a Polish-friendly Petlura government in Ukraine.
The tide turns: Operation Kiev
{{ImageStackRight|200|
Breguet 14 operating from Kiev airfield,
May 29, 1920, slows the Russian offensive. (Painting by
Mikołaj Wisznicki, 1935.)-->
Until April, the Polish forces had been slowly but steadily advancing eastward. The new
Latvian government requested and obtained Polish help in capturing
Daugavpils. The city Battle of Daugavpils in January and was handed over to the Latvians, who viewed the Poles as liberators. By March, Polish forces had driven a wedge between Soviet forces to the north (Byelorussia) and south (Ukraine).
On
April 24, Poland began its main offensive,
Kiev Offensive (1920). Its goal was the creation of independent Ukraine that would become part of Piłsudski's project of a "Międzymorze" Federation. Poland's forces were assisted by 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers under Symon Petlura, representing the Ukrainian People's Republic.
On April 26, in his "Call to the People of Ukraine", Piłsudski assured that "the Polish army would only stay as long as necessary until a legal Ukrainian government took control over its own territory".,
Włodzimierz Bączkowski, Włodzimierz Bączkowski - Czy prometeizm jest fikcją i fantazją?, Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej (quoting full text of "odezwa Józefa Piłsudskiego do mieszkańców Ukrainy"). Last accessed on 25 October 2006. Despite this, many Ukrainians were just as anti-Polish as anti-Bolshevik, and resented the Polish advance.
The Polish 3rd Army easily won border clashes with the Red Army in Ukraine but the Reds withdrew with minimal losses. The combined Polish-Ukrainian forces entered an abandoned
Kiev on May 7, encountering only token resistance.
The Polish military thrust was met with Red Army
counterattacks on 29 May. Polish forces in the area, preparing for an offensive towards Zhlobin, managed to push the Soviets back, but were unable to start their own planned offensive. In the north, Polish forces had fared much worse. The Polish 1st Army was defeated and forced to retreat, pursued by the Russian 15th Army which recaptured territories between the Western Dvina and Berezina rivers. Polish forces attempted to take advantage of the exposed flanks of the attackers but the enveloping forces failed to stop the Soviet advance. At the end of May, the front had stabilised near the small river
Auta, and Soviet forces began preparing for the next push.
On
May 24 1920, the Polish forces in the south were engaged for the first time by
Semjon Budyonny famous 1st Cavalry Army (
Konarmia). Repeated attacks by Budionny's Cossack cavalry broke the Polish-Ukrainian front on
June 5. The Soviets then deployed mobile cavalry units to disrupt the Polish rearguard, targeting communications and logistics. By June 10, Polish armies were in retreat along the entire front. On
June 13, the Polish army, along with the Petlura's Ukrainian troops, abandoned Kiev to the Red Army.
String of Soviet victories
The commander of the Polish 3rd Army in Ukraine, General
Edward Rydz-Śmigły, decided to break through the Soviet line toward the northwest. Polish forces in Ukraine managed to withdraw relatively unscathed, but were unable to support the northern front and reinforce the defenses at the
Auta River for the decisive battle that was soon to take place there. Battle Of Warsaw 1920 by Witold Lawrynowicz; A detailed write-up, with bibliography. Polish Militaria Collectors Association. Last accessed on 5 November 2006.
Due to insufficient forces, Poland's 200-mile-long front was manned by a thin line of 120,000 troops backed by some 460 artillery pieces with
{{Infobox Military Conflict|conflict=Polish-Soviet War|image=|caption=The final borders layout settled by the war.|date=1919–1921|place=
Central Europe and
Eastern EuropeThe question of victory is not universally agreed on. Russian and Polish historians tend to assign victory to their respective countries. Outside assessments vary, mostly between calling the result a Polish victory and inconclusive. Lenin in his secret report to the 9th Conference of the Bolshevik Party on September 20, 1920, called the outcome of the war "In a word, a gigantic, unheard-of defeat" (see The Unknown Lenin, ed. [Richard Pipes, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-06919-7 Document 59, Google Print, p. 106).]
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
[Ukrainian People's Republic
[Mikhail Tukhachevsky (Western Front)
Aleksandr Yegorov (Southwestern Front)
Semyon Budyonny 1st Cavalry Army (Soviet Union)|commander2=
Józef Piłsudski Edward Rydz-Śmigły
Symon Petlyura,
Józef Piłsudski: marzyciel i strateg, (Józef Piłsudski: Dreamer and Strategist), Tom pierwszy (first tome), Wydawnictwo ALFA, Warsaw, 1997, ISBN 8370019145, p. 453–453>
113,518 wounded,
51,351 taken prisoner-->The
Polish-Soviet War (February [1919 – March 1921) was an armed conflict of
Russian SFSR and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic against the
Second Polish Republic and the
Ukrainian People's Republic, four nascent states in post-
World War I Europe. The war was the result of conflicting expansionist attempts. Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established by the
Treaty of Versailles following the
Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, sought to secure territories which she had lost at the time of partitions; the Soviets' aim was to control those same territories, which had been part of Imperial Russia until the turbulent events of the
World War I. Both States claimed victory in the war: the Poles claimed a successful defense of their state, while the Soviets claimed a repulse of the Polish Kiev Offensive (1920) and Belarus, which they viewed as a part of
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War.
The frontiers between Poland and Soviet Russia had not been defined in the
Treaty of Versailles and post-war events created turmoil: the
Russian Revolution of 1917; the crumbling of the
Imperial Russia, German Empire and
Austria-Hungary empires; the Russian Civil War; the
Central Powers' withdrawal from the
Eastern Front (World War I); and the attempts of Ukrainian People's Republic and
Belarusian National Republic to establish their independence. Poland's
Chief of State,
Józef Piłsudski, felt the time expedient to expand Polish borders as far east as feasible, to be followed by the creation of a Polish-led federation (
Międzymorze) of several states in the rest of East-Central Europe as a bulwark against the potential re-emergence of both German and Russian
imperialism. Vladimir Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge that the
Red Army would have to cross in order to assist Communist Party of Germany and help conduct other European revolutions.
By
1919, the Polish forces had taken control of much of Western Ukraine, with victory in the
Polish-Ukrainian War; the
West Ukrainian People's Republic had tried unsuccessfully to create a Ukrainian state on territories to which both Poles and the Ukrainians laid claim. At the same time, the Bolsheviks began to gain the upper hand in the Russian Civil War and advance westward towards the disputed territories. By the end of 1919 a clear front had formed. Border skirmishes escalated into open warfare following Piłsudski's 1920 Kiev Offensive in April 1920. He was met by a nearly simultaneous and initially very successful Red Army counterattack. The Soviet operation threw the Polish forces back westward all the way to the Polish capital, Warsaw. Meanwhile, western fears of Soviet troops arriving at the German frontiers Interallied Mission to Poland in the war. In midsummer, the fall of Warsaw seemed certain but in mid-August the tide had turned again as the Polish forces achieved an unexpected and decisive victory at the Battle of Warsaw (1920). In the wake of the Polish advance eastward, the Soviets sued for peace and the war ended with a
ceasefire in October 1920. A formal
peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on
18 March,
1921, dividing the disputed territories between Poland and Soviet Russia. The war largely determined the Soviet-Polish border for the
interbellum.
Names and dates
The war is referred to by several names. "Polish-Soviet War" may be the most common, but is potentially confusing since "Soviet" is usually thought of as relating to the Soviet Union, which (by contrast with "Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic") did not officially come into being until December 1922. Alternative names include "Russo-Polish WarSee for instance Russo-Polish War in
Encyclopædia BritannicaRusso-Polish War (1919–20), military conflict between Soviet Russia and Poland, which sought to seize Ukraine (...) Although there had been hostilities between the two countries during 1919, the conflict began when the Polish head of state Józef Pilsudski formed an alliance with the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlura (April 21, 1920) and their combined forces began to overrun Ukraine, occupying Kiev on May 7. Polish-Russian War of 1919–20/21" (to distinguish it from earlier Polish-Russian wars) and "Polish-Bolshevik War". Wojna polsko-bolszewicka. Entry at Internetowa encyklopedia PWN. Last accessed on 27 October 2006. This second term (or just "Bolshevik War" (
Polish language:
Wojna bolszewicka)) is most common in Polish sources. In some Polish sources it is also referred as the "War of 1920" (Polish:
Wojna 1920 roku).For example: 1)
Janusz Cisek,
Sąsiedzi wobec wojny 1920 roku. Wybór dokumentów. (
Neighbours Attitude Towards the War of 1920. A collection of documents. - English summary), Polish Cultural Foundation Ltd, 1990, London, ISBN 0-85065-212-X 2)
Janusz Szczepanski,
Wojna 1920 roku na Mazowszu i Podlasiu (War of 1920 in Mazowsze and Podlasie), Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna, 1995, ISBN 83-86643-30-7, 3 ) Władysław Sikorski,
Nad Wisłą i Wkrą. Studium do polsko - radzieckiej wojny 1920 roku, (At the Vistula and the Wkra : a Contribution to the Study of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920), 1928; latest edition, Warsaw, Agencja Omnipress, 1991, ISBN 83-85028-15-3
Other points of contention are the starting and ending dates of the war. For example,
Encyclopedia Britannica begins its article with the date (1919–1920), but then says "Although there had been hostilities between the two countries during 1919, the conflict began when the Polish head of state Józef Pilsudski formed an alliance with the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlyura (April 21, 1920) and their combined forces began to overrun Ukraine, occupying Kiev on May 7." while the Polish
Internetowa encyklopedia PWN as well as some historians—like Norman Davies
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 22—clearly consider 1919 as the starting year of the war. The ending date is given as either 1920 or 1921; this confusion stems from the fact that while the ceasefire was put in force in fall 1920, the Treaty of Riga was signed months later, in March 1921.
While the events of 1919 can be described as a border conflict and only in early 1920 did both sides realize that they were in fact engaged in an all-out war, the conflicts that took place in 1919 are closely related to the war that began in earnest a year later. In the end, the events of 1920 were only a logical, though unforeseen, consequence of the 1919 prelude.
Prelude
{{ImageStackRight|200|, 1795. The colored territories show the extent of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, just before the first partition. Blue (north-west) were taken by
Kingdom of Prussia, green (south) by
Austria-Hungary, and cyan (east) by
Imperial Russia.-->
In the aftermath of World War I, the map of Central Europe and Eastern Europe had drastically changed.Thomas Grant Fraser,
Seamus Dunn, Otto von Habsburg,
Europe and Ethnicity: the First World War and contemporary ethnic conflict, Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-11995-2, Google Print, p.2 Germany's defeat rendered its plans for the creation of Eastern European puppet states (Mitteleuropa) obsolete,
Geoffrey Jukes,
Peter Simkins, Michael Hickey,
The First World War, Osprey Publishing, 2002, 184176342X, Google Print, p.84, p.85 and Russia saw its Empire collapse followed by a descent into Russian Revolution of 1917 and
Russian Civil War.Erik Goldstein,
Wars and Peace Treaties, Routledge, 1992, ISBN 0-415-07822-9, Google Print, p.51 Many nations of the region saw a chance for real independence and were not prepared to relinquish the opportunity; Russia viewed these territories as rebellious Russian provinces, vital for Russian security, THE REBIRTH OF POLAND. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006. but was unable to react swiftly.
With the success of the Wielkopolska Uprising (1918–1919), Poland had re-established its statehood for the first time since the
Partitions of Poland#Third Partition and seen the end of a 123 years of rule by three imperial neighbors: Imperial Russia,
German Empire, and
Austria-Hungary. The country, reborn as a
Second Polish Republic, proceeded to carve out its borders from the territories of its former partitioners.
Poland was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. Virtually all of the newly independent neighbours began fighting over borders: Kingdom of Romania fought with
Hungary over Transylvania, Kingdom of Yugoslavia with
Italy over Rijeka, Poland with Czechoslovakia over
Cieszyn, with Germany over
Poznań and Polish-Ukrainian War over
Eastern Galicia. Ukrainian People's Republic, Belarusians,
Freedom wars of Lithuania, Estonian Liberation War and
Latvian War of Independence fought against themselves and against the Russians, who were just as divided.
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 21. Spreading communist influences resulted in communist revolutions in
Munich, Berlin, Budapest and
Prešov.
Winston Churchill commented: "The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies begin."Adrian Hyde-Price,
Germany and European Order, Manchester University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-7190-5428-1 Google Print, p.75 All of those engagements – with the sole exception of the Polish-Soviet war – would be shortlived border conflicts.
The Polish-Soviet war likely happened more by accident than design, as it is unlikely that anyone in Soviet Russia or in the new Second Republic of Poland would have deliberately planned a major foreign war.Norman Davies,
God's Playground. Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present. Columbia University Press, 2005 . ISBN 0-231-12819-3. Google Print, p.292 Poland, its territory a major frontline of the First World War, was unstable politically; it had just won the difficult conflict with the West Ukrainian National Republic and was already engaged in new conflicts with Germany (the
Silesian Uprisings) and
border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia. The attention of revolutionary Russia, meanwhile, was predominantly directed at thwarting counter-revolution and
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War. While the first clashes between Polish and Soviet forces occurred in February 1919, it would be almost a year before both sides realised that they were engaged in a full war.
.In late 1919 the leader of Russia's new
communist government, Vladimir Lenin, was inspired by the Red Army's civil-war victories over
White movement anti-communist forces and their western allies, and began to see the future of the revolution with greater optimism. The Bolsheviks proclaimed the need for the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and agitated for a worldwide communist community. Their avowed intent was to link the revolution in Russia with an expected German Revolution and to assist other communist movements in Western Europe; Poland was the geographical bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to do so.
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico,
2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 29 Lenin’s aim was to restore control of the territories ceded by Russia in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was to infiltrate the borderlands, set up soviet governments there as well as in Poland, and reach Germany where he expected a socialist revolution to break out. He believed that Soviet Russia could not survive without the support of a socialist Germany. By the end of summer 1919 the Soviets managed to take over most of Ukraine, driving the Ukrainian government from Kiev. In early 1919, they also set up a Lithuanian-Belorussian Republic (Litbel). This government was very unpopular due to terror and the collection of food and goods for the army. It was not until after the Kiev Offensive had been repelled, however, that some of the Soviet leaders would see the war as the real opportunity to spread the revolution westwards.Ronald Grigor Suny,
The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508105-6, Google Print, p.106 Indeed, the Bolsheviks stated:
Before the start of the Polish-Soviet War Polish politics were strongly influenced by Chief of State (
naczelnik państwa) Józef Piłsudski.
Józef Pilsudski, Polish revolutionary and statesman, the first chief of state (1918–22)
of the newly independent Poland established in November 1918. ( Józef Pilsudski in Encyclopedia Britannica)
Released in Nov., 1918, returned to Warsaw, assumed command of the Polish armies, and proclaimed an independent Polish republic, which he headed. ( Piłsudski, Joseph in Columbia Encyclopedia) Piłsudski wanted
PrometheismTimothy Snyder,
Covert Polish missions across the Soviet Ukrainian border, 1928–1933 ( p.55, p.56, p.57, p.58, p.59, in
Cofini, Silvia Salvatici (a cura di), Rubbettino, 2005).
Timothy Snyder,
Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-300-10670-X, ( p.41, p.42, p.43) and create a Polish-led
" hoped to incorporate most of the territories of the defunct Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Commonwealth into the future Polish state by structuring it as the Polish-led, multinational federation."Aviel Roshwald, " Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, the Middle East and Russia, 1914–1923", p. 37, Routledge (UK), 2001, ISBN 0-415-17893-2
"Although the Polish premier and many of his associates sincerely wanted peace, other important Polish leaders did not. Josef Pilsudski, chief of state and creator of Polish army, was foremost among the latter. Pilsudski hoped to build not merely a Polish nation state but a greater federation of peoples under the aegis of Poland which would replace Russia as the great power of Eastern Europe. Lithuania, Belorussia and Ukraine were all to be included. His plan called for a truncated and vastly reduced Russia, a plan which excluded negotiations.prior to military victory."Richard K Debo,
Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–192, Google Print, p. 59, McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, ISBN 0-7735-0828-7.
"Pilsudski's program for a federation of independent states centered on Poland; in opposing the imperial power of both Russia and Germany it was in many ways a throwback to the romantic Mazzinian nationalism of Young Poland in the early nineteenth century. But his slow consolidation of dictatorial power betrayed the democratic substance of those earlier visions of national revolution as the path to human liberation"James H. Billington,
Fire in the Minds of Men, p. 432, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0-7658-0471-9
"Pilsudski dreamed of drawing all the nations situated between Germany and Russia into an enormous federation in which Poland, by virtue of its size, would be the leader, while Dmowski wanted to see a unitary Polish state, in which other Slav peoples would become assimilated."Andrzej Paczkowski,
The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom, p. 10, Penn State Press, 2003, ISBN 0-271-02308-2David Parker,
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W. W. Norton & Company, 2001, ISBN 0-393-02025-8, Google Print, p.194 "Międzymorze Federation" of independent states comprised of Poland, Lithuania,
Ukraine, and other
Central Europe and
East European countries emerging out of crumbling empires after the First World War.Zbigniew Brzezinski in his introduction to Wacław Jędrzejewicz’s “Pilsudski A Life For Poland” wrote:
Pilsudski’s vision of Poland, paradoxically, was never attained. He contributed immensely to the creation of a modern Polish state, to the preservation of Poland from the Soviet invasion, yet he failed to create the kind of multinational commonwealth, based on principles of social justice and ethnic tolerance, to which he aspired in his youth. One may wonder how relevant was his image of such a Poland in the age of nationalism.... Quoted from this website This new union was to become a counterweight to any potential
imperialist intentions on the part of Russia or Germany. Piłsudski argued that "There can be no independent Poland without an independent Ukraine", but he may have been more interested in Ukraine being split from Russia than in Ukrainians' welfare."The newly found Polish state cared much more about the expansion of its borders to the east and south-east ("between the seas") that about helping the agonizing state of which Petlura was a de-facto dictator. ("A Belated Idealist."
Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), May 22–28, 2004. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.)
Piłsudski is quoted to have said:
"After the Polish independence we will see about Poland's size". (ibid)One moth before his death Pilsudski told his aide: "My life is lost. I failed to create the
free from the Russians Ukraine"
< Oleksa Pidlutskyi,
Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century),
Kiev, 2004, ISBN 966-8290-01-1, . Chapter
"Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli
(the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3–9,
2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian. He did not hesitate to use military force to
Polish-Ukrainian War to Galicia (Central Europe) and Volhynia, crushing a
West Ukrainian People's Republic in the disputed territories east of the Western Bug river, which contained a significant Polish minority, mainly in cities like Lwów (Lviv), but a Ukrainian majority in the countryside. Speaking of Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the
Triple Entente—on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany," while in the east "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far."
Margaret MacMillan,
Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003, ISBN 0-375-76052-0, p.212" In the chaos to the east the Polish forces set out to expand there as much as it was feasible. On the other hand, Poland had no intention of joining the western intervention in the Russian Civil War or of conquering Russia itself.JOSEPH PILSUDSKI. Interview by
Dymitr Merejkowsky, 1921. Translated fom the Russian by Harriet E Kennedy B.A. London & Edinburgh, Sampson Low, Marston & Co Ltd 1921. Piłsudski said: “Poland can have nothing to do with the restoration of old Russia. Anything rather than that – even Bolshevism”. Quoted from this site.
Course
{{ImageStackRight|200| poster. Text reads: "This is how the landowner's ideas end." poster showing
Polish cavalry and a Bolshevik soldier with a starred cap. Text reads: "Beat the Bolshevik"-->
1919
Chaos in Eastern Europe
In 1918 the German Army in the east, under the command of Max Hoffmann, began to retreat westwards. The territories abandoned by the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and
History of Independent Bulgaria#World War I) became a field of conflict among local governments created by Germany, other local governments that independently sprang up after the German retreat, and the Bolsheviks, who hoped to incorporate those areas into Soviet Russia. As a result, almost all of Eastern Europe was in chaos.
On
November 18, 1918, the Soviet Supreme Command issued orders to the Western Army (Russia) of the
Red Army to begin a Russian westward offensive of 1918-1919 that would follow the withdrawing German troops of Oberkommando Ostfront (
Ober-Ost). The basic aim was to secure as much territory as possible with the few resources locally available.
At the start of 1919, Polish-Soviet fighting broke out almost by accident and without any orders from the respective governments when self-organized Polish military units in Vilnius (Wilno) clashed with Bolshevik forces of Litbel, each trying to secure the territories for its own incipient government. Eventually the more organized Soviet forces quelled most of the resistance and drove the remaining Polish forces west. On January 5, 1919, the Red Army entered
Minsk almost unopposed, thus putting an end to the short-lived
Belarusian People's Republic. At the same time, more and more Polish self-defense units sprang up across western Belarus and Lithuania (such as the Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defence).
Grzegorz Łukowski and Rafał E. Stolarski,
Walka o Wilno. Z dziejów Samoobrony Litwy i Białorusi, 1918–1919 (
Fight for Wilno. From the history of the Self-Defence of Lithuania and Belarus, 1918–1919), Adiutor, 1994, ISBN 83-900085-0-5 and engaged in a series of local skirmishes with pro-Bolshevik groups operating in the area. The newly organized Polish Army began sending the first of their units east to assist the self-defense forces, while the Russians sent their own units west.
In the spring of 1919, Soviet conscription produced a Red Army of 2,300,000. Few of these were sent west that year, as the majority of Red Army forces were engaged against the Russian White movement; the Western Army in February 1919 had just 46,000 men.Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 39 In February 1919, the entire Polish army numbered 110,000 men; in April, 170,000, including 80,000 combatantsNorman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 41 while by September 1919, it had 540,000 men; 230,000 of these were on the Soviet Front (military). | url = | format =|accessdate = -->
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 83
By 14 February, the Poles, who had been advancing eastwards, secured positions along the line of
Kobryn,
Pruzhany, and the rivers
Zalewianka and
Neman River. Around 14 February, at Mosty, the first organised Polish units made contact with the advance units of the Red Army. Bolshevik units withdrew without a shot. A frontline slowly began to form from Lithuania, through Belarus to Ukraine.
First Polish-Soviet conflicts
The
Battle of Bereza Kartuska (1919) took place around February 14 - February 16, near the towns of Maniewicze and Biaroza in Belarus. By late February
Target Vistula had come to a halt. Both Polish and Soviet forces had also been
Polish-Ukrainian War, and unrest was growing in the territories of the Baltic countries (cf. Estonian Liberation War, Latvian War of Independence, Freedom wars of Lithuania).
In early March 1919, Polish units started an offensive, crossing the
Neman River, taking
Pinsk, and reaching the outskirts of Lida. Both the Russian and Polish advances began around the same time in April (Polish forces started a major offensive on April 16), resulting in increasing numbers of troops arriving in the area. That month the Bolsheviks captured Grodno, but soon were pushed out by a Polish counteroffensive. Unable to accomplish their objectives and facing strengthening offensives from the White forces, the Red Army withdrew from their positions and reorganized. Soon the Polish-Soviet War would begin in earnest.
Polish forces continued a steady eastern advance. They took Lida on April 17 and Nowogródek on April 18, and recaptured Vilnius on April 19, driving the
Litbel government from their proclaimed capital. On August 8, Polish forces took Minsk and on the 28th of that month they deployed
tanks for the first time. After heavy fighting, the town of Babruysk near the Berezina River was captured. By October 2, Polish forces reached the Daugava river and secured the region from Desna (river) to
Daugavpils (Dyneburg).
Polish success continued until early 1920. Sporadic battles erupted between Polish forces and the
Red Army, but the latter was preoccupied with the White counter-revolutionary forces and was steadily retreating on the entire western frontline, from
Latvia in the north to Ukraine in the south. In early summer 1919, the White movement had gained the initiative, and its forces under the command of
Anton Denikin were marching on Moscow. Piłsudski viewed the Bolsheviks as a lesser threat to Poland than their contenders,
Peter Kenez,
A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-31198-5, Google Print, p. 37 as the White Russians were not willing to accept Poland's independence, while the Bolsheviks did proclaim the Partitions of Poland null and void. By his refusal to join the attack on Lenin's struggling government, ignoring the strong pressure from the
Triple Entente, Piłsudski had likely saved the Bolshevik government in Summer–Fall 1919. He later wrote that in case of a White victory, in the east Poland could only gain the "ethnic border" at best (the
Curzon line). Oleksa Pidlutskyi,
Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century), Kiev, 2004, ISBN 966-8290-01-1, . Chapter
"Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in
Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3–9,
2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian. At the same time Lenin offered Poles the territories of
Minsk, Zhytomyr,
Khmelnytskyi, in what was described as mini "
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk"; Polish military leader
Kazimierz Sosnkowski wrote that the territorial proposals of the Bolsheviks were much better than what the Poles had wanted to achieve.
Diplomatic Front, Part 1: The alliances
{{ImageStackRight|200| (left) and exiled Ukrainian leader
Symon Petlura (second from left) following the Treaty of Warsaw (1920).'s propaganda poster issued following the Treaty of Warsaw (1920). The Ukrainian text reads: "Corrupt Petlura has sold Ukraine to the Polish landowners. Landowners burned and plundered Ukraine. Death to landowners and Petlurovites."-->In 1919, several unsuccessful attempts at peace negotiations were made by various Polish and Russian factions. In the meantime, Polish-Lithuanian relations worsened as Polish politicians found it hard to accept the Lithuanians' demands for independence and territories, especially on ceding the city of Vilnius (Wilno), Lithuania's historical capital which had a Polish ethnic majority. Polish negotiators made better progress with the Latvian Provisional Government, and in late 1919 and early 1920 Polish and Latvian forces were conducting Operation Zima against Russia.Daniel Kochan, Łotewski sojusznik. Last accessed on 25 October 2006.
The
Treaty of Warsaw (1920), an agreement with the exiled Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlura signed on April 21, 1920, was the main Polish diplomatic success. Petlura, who formally represented the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic (by then
de facto defeated by Bolsheviks), along with some Ukrainian forces, fled to Poland, where he found political asylum. His control extended only to a sliver of land near the Polish border. In such conditions, there was little difficulty convincing Petlura to join an alliance with Poland, despite recent conflict between the two nations that had been settled in favour of Poland.Richard K Debo,
Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1921, pp. 210–211, McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, ISBN 0-7735-0828-7. By concluding an agreement with Piłsudski, Petlura accepted the Polish territorial gains in Western Ukraine and the future Polish-Ukrainian border along the
Zbruch River. In exchange, he was promised independence for Ukraine and Polish military assistance in reinstalling his government in Kiev.
For Piłsudski, this alliance gave his campaign for the Międzymorze federation the legitimacy of joint international effort, secured part of the Polish eastward border, and laid a foundation for a Polish dominated Ukrainian state between Russia and Poland. For Petlura, this was a final chance to preserve the statehood and, at least, the theoretical independence of the Ukrainian heartlands, even while accepting the loss of Western Ukrainian lands to Poland."In September 1919 the armies of the Ukrainian Directory in Podolia found themselves in the "death triangle". They were squeezed between the Red Russians of Lenin and Trotsky in the north-east, White Russians of Denikin in south-east and the Poles in the West. Death were looking into their eyes. And not only to the people but to the nascent Ukrainian state. Therefore, the chief ataman Petlura had no choice but to accept the union offered by Piłsudski, or, as an alternative, to capitulate to the Bolsheviks, as Volodymyr Vinnychenko or Mykhailo Hrushevsky did at the time or in a year or two. The decision was very hurtful. The Polish Szlachta was a historic enemy of the Ukrainian people. A fresh wound was bleeding, the West Ukrainian People's Republic, as the Pilsudchiks were suppressing the East Galicians at that very moment. However, Petlura agreed to peace and the union, accepting the Ukrainian-Polish border, the future Soviet-Polish one. It's also noteworthy that Piłsudski also obtained less territories than offered to him by Lenin, and, in addition, the war with immense Russia. The Dnieper Ukrainians then were abandoning their brothers, the Galicia Ukrainians, to their fate. However, Petlura wanted to use his last chance to preserve the statehood - in the union with the Poles. Attempted, however, without luck."
Oleksa Pidlutskyi,
ibidYet both of them were opposed at home. Piłsudski faced stiff opposition from Dmowski's
National Democrats (Poland) who opposed Ukrainian independence. Petlura, in turn, was criticized by many Ukrainian politicians for entering a pact with the Poles and giving up on Western Ukraine.Prof. Ruslan Pyrig, "
Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Bolsheviks: the price of political compromise",
Zerkalo Nedeli, September 30–October 6, 2006, available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.Timothy Snyder,
The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10586-X Google Books, p.139
The alliance with Petliura did result in 15,000 pro-Polish allied Ukrainian troops at the beginning of the campaign, increasing to 35,000 through recruitment and desertion from the Soviet side during the war. But in the end, this would prove too few to support Petlura's hopes for indenpendent Ukraine, or Piłsudski's dreams of the Ukrainian ally in the Międzymorze federation.
1920
Opposing forces
near
Dyneburg 1920
Norman Davies notes that estimating strength of the opposing sides is very tricky; even generals often had incomplete reports of their own forces.
By early 1920, the Red Army had been very successful against the
White movement. They defeated Denikin and signed peace treaties with Latvia and Estonia. The Polish front became their most important war theater and a plurality of Soviet resources and forces were diverted to it. In January 1920, the Red Army began concentrating a 700,000-strong force near the Berezina River and on Belarus.
By the time Poles launched their Kiev offensive, The Red Southwestern Front had about 82,847 soldiers including 28,568 front-line troops. The Poles had some numerical superiority, estimated from 12,000 to 52,000 personnel.Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.106 By the time of the Soviet counter-offensive in mid 1920 the situation had been reversed: Soviets had about 790,000 people - at least 50,000 or more than the Poles; Tukhachevsky estimated that he had 160,000 "combat-ready" soldiers; Piłsudski estimated enemy's forces at 200,000–220,000.Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.142–143
In the course of 1920, almost 800,000
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 142 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 (Central Europe).
Grigoriy Krivosheev gives similar numbers, with 382,000 personnel for Western Fron and 283,000 personnel for Southwestern Front.
Grigoriy Krivosheev,
Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the 20th Century, p. 17
Norman Davies shows the growth of Red Army forces in the Polish front in early 1920:Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.85.
: 1 January 1920 - 4 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry brigade
: 1 February 1920 - 5 infantry divisions, 5 cavalry brigade
: 1 March 1920 - 8 infantry divisions, 4 cavalry brigade
: 1 April 1920 - 14 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry brigade
: 15 April 1920 - 16 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry brigade
: 25 April 1920 - 20 infantry divisions, 5 cavalry brigade
Bolshevik commanders in the Red Army's coming offensive would include
Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Tukhachevsky (new commander of the Western Front), Aleksandr Yegorov (new commander of the Southwestern Front), the future Soviet ruler
Joseph Stalin, and the founder of the
Cheka (secret police),
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky.
The Polish Army was made up of soldiers who had formerly served in the various partitioning empires, supported by some international volunteers, such as the
Kościuszko Squadron.Janusz Cisek,
Kosciuszko, We Are Here: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919–1921, McFarland & Company, 2002, ISBN 0-7864-1240-2, Google Print
Boris Savinkov was at the head of an army of 20,000 to 30,000 largely Russian POWs, and was accompanied by
Dmitry Merezhkovsky and
Zinaida Gippius. The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920. In August, 1920, the Polish army had reached a total strength of 737,767 people; half of that was on the frontline. Given Soviet losses, there was rough numerical parity between the two armies; and by the time of the
battle of Warsaw Poles might have even had a slight advantage in numbers and logistics.Davies,
White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.162 and p.202.
Logistics, nonetheless, were very bad for both armies, supported by whatever equipment was left over from World War I or could be captured. The Polish Army, for example, employed guns made in five countries, and
rifles manufactured in six, each using different ammunition. The Soviets had many military depots at their disposal, left by withdrawing German armies in 1918–19, and modern French armaments captured in great numbers from the White Russians and the Allied expeditionary forces in the Russian Civil War. Still, they suffered a shortage of arms; both the Red Army and the Polish forces were grossly underequipped by Western standards.
Norman Davies,
White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 85
The Soviet High Command planned a new offensive in late April/May. Since March 1919, Polish intelligence was aware that the Soviets had prepared for a new offensive and the Polish High Command decided to launch their own offensive before their opponents. The plan for Kiev Offensive (1920) was to beat the Red Army on Poland's southern flank and install a Polish-friendly Petlura government in Ukraine.
The tide turns: Operation Kiev
{{ImageStackRight|200| Breguet 14 operating from Kiev airfield, May 29, 1920, slows the Russian offensive. (Painting by Mikołaj Wisznicki, 1935.)-->
Until April, the Polish forces had been slowly but steadily advancing eastward. The new
Latvian government requested and obtained Polish help in capturing Daugavpils. The city
Battle of Daugavpils in January and was handed over to the Latvians, who viewed the Poles as liberators. By March, Polish forces had driven a wedge between Soviet forces to the north (Byelorussia) and south (Ukraine).
On April 24, Poland began its main offensive, Kiev Offensive (1920). Its goal was the creation of independent Ukraine that would become part of Piłsudski's project of a "
Międzymorze" Federation. Poland's forces were assisted by 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers under Symon Petlura, representing the Ukrainian People's Republic.
On
April 26, in his "Call to the People of Ukraine", Piłsudski assured that "the Polish army would only stay as long as necessary until a legal Ukrainian government took control over its own territory".,
Włodzimierz Bączkowski, Włodzimierz Bączkowski - Czy prometeizm jest fikcją i fantazją?, Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej (quoting full text of "odezwa Józefa Piłsudskiego do mieszkańców Ukrainy"). Last accessed on 25 October 2006. Despite this, many Ukrainians were just as anti-Polish as anti-Bolshevik, and resented the Polish advance.
The Polish 3rd Army easily won border clashes with the Red Army in Ukraine but the Reds withdrew with minimal losses. The combined Polish-Ukrainian forces entered an abandoned
Kiev on
May 7, encountering only token resistance.
The Polish military thrust was met with
Red Army counterattacks on 29 May. Polish forces in the area, preparing for an offensive towards Zhlobin, managed to push the Soviets back, but were unable to start their own planned offensive. In the north, Polish forces had fared much worse. The Polish 1st Army was defeated and forced to retreat, pursued by the Russian 15th Army which recaptured territories between the
Western Dvina and
Berezina rivers. Polish forces attempted to take advantage of the exposed flanks of the attackers but the enveloping forces failed to stop the Soviet advance. At the end of May, the front had stabilised near the small river
Auta, and Soviet forces began preparing for the next push.
On
May 24 1920, the Polish forces in the south were engaged for the first time by Semjon Budyonny famous
1st Cavalry Army (
Konarmia). Repeated attacks by Budionny's Cossack cavalry broke the Polish-Ukrainian front on June 5. The Soviets then deployed mobile cavalry units to disrupt the Polish rearguard, targeting communications and logistics. By
June 10, Polish armies were in retreat along the entire front. On June 13, the Polish army, along with the Petlura's Ukrainian troops, abandoned Kiev to the Red Army.
String of Soviet victories
The commander of the Polish 3rd Army in Ukraine, General
Edward Rydz-Śmigły, decided to break through the Soviet line toward the northwest. Polish forces in Ukraine managed to withdraw relatively unscathed, but were unable to support the northern front and reinforce the defenses at the
Auta River for the decisive battle that was soon to take place there. Battle Of Warsaw 1920 by Witold Lawrynowicz; A detailed write-up, with bibliography. Polish Militaria Collectors Association. Last accessed on 5 November 2006.
Due to insufficient forces, Poland's 200-mile-long front was manned by a thin line of 120,000 troops backed by some 460 artillery pieces with
Polish-Soviet War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Polish-Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921) was an armed conflict of Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the short-lived Ukrainian ...
Polish-Soviet War in 1919 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
edit] Chaos in Eastern Europe. In 1918, the German Army in the east was the most powerful force in the region. Even more importantly, it was not only undefeated, it was victorious ...
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Pages in category "Polish-Soviet War" This category contains only the following page. P. Polish-Bolshevik War
SOVIET-POLISH WAR OF 1919/1920
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This book, written in 1972, is the definitive history of the background and events of the Polish-Soviet Russian War of 1919-20. The book gives a good review of the build-up to ...
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Polish-Bolshevik War - Wikiquote
The Polish-Bolshevik War also known as the Polish-Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921) was an armed conflict of Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish ...
Soviet (Russo)-Polish War - MSN Encarta
Soviet Russo-Polish War, 1919-1920 war between Soviet Russia and Poland. An independent Poland was established in 1918, but its eastern frontiers...
YouTube - Polish - Soviet War '20
The Polish-Soviet War (February 1919 -- March 1921) was an armed conflict of Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the Ukra...
