The Battle For The Marchlands 0914710826, 9780914710820

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
I. The Background
II. The Birth of Two Armies
III. The Spring Offensive
IV. The Battle of the Berezina
V. Budyonny
VI. Tukhachevsky’s March
VII. The Master Plan
VIII. The Battle for Warsaw
IX. Counter-Stroke
X. Lwow
XI. Lancers and Cossacks
XII. Last Stand on the Niemen
XIII. Peace
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

I l IK BATTLE FOR T H E MARCHLANDS

Adam Zamoyski

EAST EUROPEAN MONOGRAPHS, BOULDER DISTRIBUTED BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK

1981

EA ST E U R O P E A N M O N O G R A PH S, NO. LX X X V III

Copyright ©1981 by Adam Zamoyski Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 81-65952 ISBN 0-914710-82-6 Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Preface THE BACKGROUND THE BIRTH OF TWO ARMIES THE SPRING OFFENSIVE THE BATTLE OF THE BEREZINA BUDYONNY TUKHACHEVSKY’S MARCH THE MASTER PLAN THE BATTLE FOR WARSAW COUNTER-STROKE LWOW LANCERS AND COSSACKS LAST STAND ON THE NIEMEN PEACE Notes Bibliography Index

V 1

12 36 49 58

81 111 125 141 154 163 175 188 193 206 214

PREFACE The Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920 attracted a great deal of attention from military historians between the wars, and countless studies of vari­ ous aspects o f it were produced on both sides of the Polish-Soviet border. These were condemned to be partisan and unreliable, both by the regimes they were written under and by the unavailability of material. The num­ erous studies that have appeared since the Second World War from the pens of Poles and Russians have fared little better, and have tended to be more specialised. Recent interest by British and American historians has centered on the war as an international political episode, or as just a part of the problems facing Soviet Russia in its first years. As a result, the dramatic events o f August 1920 have still not been adequately explained or clarified from the military angle, and the uncertainty as to whether it was Piłsudski, Weygand or the Black Virgin of Czestochowa who were responsible for the victory continues to baffle most people. The purpose of this book is to explain, as simply as possible, how and why the Soviet troops were routed before Warsaw, and what factors and personalities were responsible. The “Miracle o f the Vistula” was no more miraculous than any battle which radically alters the course of a cam­ paign, and the dramatic aura surrounding it is largely founded in ignorance. I have kept references to the political and diplomatic background to a bare minimum, and hope that the resulting generalizations will not offend specialists in this field. I have also avoided any coverage of the course of the war in 1919 or o f General Zeligowski’s WOno operation in 1920, as they were broadly irrelevant to the outcome of the crucial battle. I should like to acknowledge the help and guidance of the late General Aleksander Praglowski and Colonel Adam Minkiewicz; of Colonel Komel Krzeczunowicz and particularly of Colonel Stanislaw Biegański and the staff of the Jozef Piłsudski Institute of London. My thanks are also due to Captain Milewski o f the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum of London, and to Dr. Norman Davies.

CHAPTER 1

THE BACKGROUND "By attacking Poland we are attacking the Allies; by destroying the Polish Arm y we are destroying the Versailles peace, upon which rests the whole present system o f intem atinnational relations. “ —Lenin1 "Poland is the fynch-pin o f the Versailles Treaty. ” Winston Churchill2 "Poland is essential to the whole fabric o f p ea ce” -L loyd George3 The importance of the Russo-Polish campaign of 1920 lies not in the fact that it saved the newly-established independence of Poland, nor in that it confined Soviet Communism to Russia; it decided whether or not the Peace of Versailles was to be destroyed within a year of its creation. Poland was the cornerstone of this peace, the eastern watch-dog against Germany. Had Poland been defeated by Soviet Russia, a power openly dedicated to the destruction of all that the Western Powers stood for, the Versailles system would have collapsed. It had been bought by the Allies at die cost of millions of lives and irretrievable resources. Its col­ lapse would have robbed them of the fruits of victory and placed them in an impossible situation. Had Poland lost, England and France would have been forced into a new war. Ironically, this vital issue was being contested under the gaze of an anxious world by two of its weakest, newest and most insecure states. In August 1920, world stability depended on the performance of a 1

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

self-taught Polish field-marshal of dubious background commanding a new, unreliable and ill-equipped army. It was being challenged by an aristocratic nihilist leading an equally unreliable and ill-equipped but far more danger­ ous horde. Almost anything could have happened, The all-important contest was summed up by the Polish commander as “a half-war, or even a quarter-war; a sort of childish scuffle on which the haughty Goddess of War turned her back. But this scuffle rocked the foundations of two states, and it almost rocked the whole civilized world/*4 To say when this war started and how is not easy. It was never declared; it never even broke out in the normal sense. It merely escalated as both sides were able to field larger armies. For the issues and the causes were already there the day Poland recovered its independence. Relations between Poland and Russia had been dominated over the centuries by the issue of who was to hold sway over the vast March that lay between them, consisting of Byelorrussia and the Ukraine. Behind the purely territorial issue lurked the real conflict; of a Russia trying to break into Europe, and a Poland trying to roll her back into Asia. Russia had at last solved the problem by engineering the Partitions of Poland, which had wiped that country off the map. In spite of repeated insurrections, Poland remained no more than a concept throughout the nineteenth century, and as time passed, this concept became little more than a romantic dream. Suddenly, in 1917, the Romanov empire was swept away by revolution, and the vast structure disintegrated completely as rival factions struggled for power. All its western dominions—Poland, the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltic States—were at that time under German occupation, and therefore beyond the reach of the new-found liberty. At the end of 1918, however, the Austrian and German Empires also collapsed, and a great power-vacuum was created in Eastern Europe. Poland seized its opportunity. In the space of two years, the forlorn hope of Polish independence had grown into a reality, and a very promising reality at that. The three arch-enemies were down, and their military might had evaporated. More important, France, Poland's only real ally over the past two centuries, had just emerged victorious from the Great War, and her influence was paramount. At Versailles, her allies were preparing to fashion a new map of Europe, and there was a space reserved for Poland in it. Poland

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could now look forward to an independent future. She could also enterlain dreams of re-establishing her former ascendancy in Eastern Europe. Russia was beaten, tom by civil war, divided between Bolsheviks, Men­ sheviks, and Whites, but she was still both physically and psychologically a power to be reckoned with. Whatever her regime, die was not going to give up what the Tsars had won. The fact that the Kremlin now sported a red flag in lieu of the twoheaded eagle made very little difference as far as Poland was concerned. When the Bolsheviks came to power they felt besieged and saw their best chance o f survival in exporting the revolution. Germany was the first step and the obvious breeding-ground. Theoreti­ cally, being the most developed industrial state in Europe, it was the ideal setting, and the Soviet leadership was convinced that once Germany was on their side, the revolution would rapidly spread throughout the rest o f Europe. Certainly, the time seemed ripe. Acute war-weariness, discontent and disillusionment with the capitalist system conspired to make the world at large receptive to the new alternative of communism. However, between the Soviet Republic and Germany lay Poland. There were many reasons why Poland refused to be used as a bridge between the two. For one, she had only just recovered her independence, and firmly intended to defend this. The Poles had viewed the Soviet experi­ ment with the utmost suspicion from the very start, and they were patho­ logically incapable o f divorcing it from its Russian origins. To them, Lenin was another Tsar and his internationalism smacked of Russian pan-slavism. Secondly, being in a good position to watch the first couple of years of communism in action, they were treated to all its less attract­ ive aspects, such as the bloodshed, famine, chaos and anarchy. Thirdly, the prime mover of class-hatred was not as strong in Poland as elsewhere. Most of the oppression and hardship of the last hundred years had been equated not so much with the aristocracy, which was in a difficult posi­ tion itself, but rather with foreign domination. Finally, one must remem­ ber that Poland was deeply impregnated with Catholicism. The Poles had always seen themselves as crusaders guarding die approaches to Christendom, and the atheistic message coming from Moscow fell on stony ground. From a purely strategic point of view, therefore, Poland was in the way. Sooner or later, this would have to be remedied. Particularly as

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

Polish policy had grown ambitious as well. It aimed not so much at enlarg­ ing Poland, but at weakening Russia. By amputating all the non-Russian national groups which had formed part of the Romanov Empire, it hoped to reduce the giant to a more harmless size. Rather than just relax on their new independence, the Poles were determined to guarantee its sur­ vival. They were mainly thinking in terms of recreating the old PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, and extending this to include the Ukraine and the Baltic States, if possible. Only within such a framework could Poland remain small but secure. A country which has been oppressed, exploited and denied independent existence for over a century cannot give birth to strength, organization and corporate unity overnight, and Poland would not have presented any problem to Russia, had it not been for the fact that she had a national hero at the helm. His name was Jozef Piłsudski. He was a nobleman turned terrorist, socialist, train-robber, and finally military commander. His early life, which reads like a novel, included spells in Tsarist and German jails, publishing illegal newspapers, and training guerillas in explosives.* His physique was no less impressive. He was rough-hewn, solid and gritty, and he always wore an ordinary ranker’s grey tunic without any insignia. His exceedingly pale face, with its drooping moustache and intense pierc­ ing eyes, was effective to the point of being almost theatrical. “None of the usual amenities of civilised intercourse, but all the apparatus of sombre genius,” noted Lord D’Abemon after their first meeting.3 ** Piłsudski was the product of a typically romantic and patriotic up­ bringing, followed by a lifetime of personal commitment. One can fairly say that he breathed, ate and slept only for the cause of national libera­ tion. Everything else was irrelevant to him. And so it was with politics; he used the socialist movement only when all other activity was out of the question. During his editorship of the party’s organ, he used his position to steer all issues into the background behind that of national independence.

* It is an amusing coincidence that it was Piłsudski who, at the age of nineteen, had supplied Lenin’s elder brother with explosives for the bomb which the latter hurled at Alexander III.3 ** He also noted the well-known story of the reception given by Piłsudski

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After 1905, when war and revolution were in the air, he dropped politics altogether in favor of para-military preparation. As a result of devious negotiations with the Austrian authorities, he set up bases in Austrian Poland. He soon abandoned the original program of sabotage and terrorism, and concentrated on a more long-term project. This in­ volved starling up a whole series of “sporting organizations” and scouting groups, which were given training facilities by the military authorities. Piłsudski was in fact training an embryonic army. With cash procured by armed robbery of Tsarist revenue, he built up stores and printed manuals. In August 1914, the Austrians recognized these troops as ir­ regular auxiliaries and issued them with arms. Thus in the first days of the war, Piłsudski was able to place himself at the head of a Polish Legion serving under its own flag. He promptly marched into the Russian parti­ tion and reoccupied the nearest town in the name of Poland. For the first couple of years of the war, he battled on against Russia, while his Legions grew to a constant strength of 20,000 men. However, as the war ground on the Germans started looking around for new re­ serves o f manpower, and they began to show an interest in the Legions. They were thinking in terms of using these as a nucleus for recruiting an allied Polish army, but Piłsudski was determined not to fight under the German flag. He was also looking for an opportunity to quit the camp of the Central Powers, as he did not wish to antagonize France, England and the United States, whose good will would obviously be of paramount importance later on. He therefore refused to swear the oath of brotherhood with the German Army. He was immediately in­ carcerated in the fortress of Magdeburg, while the Legions as such were disbanded. While some men joined the new Polnische Wehrmacht, most of the legionaries went into hiding and waited. They did not have to wait long. When revolution broke out in Ger­ many, Piłsudski was liberated. On Armistice Day, 1918, he arrived in

to the representatives of the socialist parties who came to congratulate him on his first day in power. He is supposed to have cut short their open­ ing greeting o f “Comrade»” with the retort: “Gentlemen-we both took a ride on the same red tram, but while I got off at the stop marked Polish Independence, you wish to travel on to the station of Socialism. Bon Voyage-but be so kind as to call me sir!” 7

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

Warsaw. While his legionaries emerged from hiding and disarmed the un­ prepared German garrison, Piłsudski proclaimed the resurrection of the Polish Republic, much to the alloyance of the Allies, who were reserving for themselves the right of bestowing statehood and a convenient govern­ ment on the country. There was a Polish National Committee, under the presidency of Roman Dmowski, based in Paris, which the Allies considered to be the most promising government for Poland. Piłsudski was fifty-two years old when he came to power. He was by this stage well established as a popular figurehead, and only the extreme right wing opposed him consistently. His position was ambiguous. Al­ though a compromise was soon reached with die Paris National Com­ mittee, with the nomination of Paderewski as Premier, Piłsudski re­ mained titular head of state and commander-in-chief: a sort of Lord Protector. In the event, he reserved for himself the right to conduct Poland’s general policy during the period of crisis. He felt himself uni­ quely qualified for the job. His credentials gave him one great advantage; he was the only head of state in Europe who had done as much time in Siberia as any of the Bolsheviks, and his opposition to them were therefore free of the guilt-complex which weakened the other enemies of the Soviet Republic. He never posed as the defender of western capitalism: he attacked the Bolsheviks as perverters of socialism. He realized the strength of his own position. His methods were direct and blunt. They inevitably caused the raising of eyebrows, but he counted on success to silence criticism. The immediate problem facing him in 1918 was that of frontiers. He was in Warsaw, and he already controlled a large area of Poland, but all its edges were blurred by uncertainty. The frontiers with Germany and the new state of Czechoslovakia were to be fixed by the negotiators at Paris, and there was little he could do about those. The eastern frontier, on the other hand, would probably be settled by direct negotiation with Russia. Most of the territory up to the 1772 (pre-partition) frontier was at this stage still occupied by the forces of the German Eastern Front, except for the small new state of ethnic Lithuania, on the Baltic.*

* This state had nothing in common with the old Grand Duchy, except for its name.

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The new Lithuania claimed a large part of these lands for herself. The Allies, who were still confident that the Whites would win the civil war in Russia, maintained that the lands must revert to the latter. The Uk­ rainians were too disorganized to take part in the debate, so the Soviets made demands on their behalf. The Soviets had formally recognized the territory as being Polish,' but this did not stop them from sending troops in to "protect Byelorussian communists and workers.” Piłsudski was not particularly concerned with keeping the area in Poland, but he was determined that it should not be given to Russia. He was therefore inclined to cede the areas of mixed population to Lithuania and the Ukraine, provided that some kind of federation was set up between these states. The Lithuanians, however, demanded that Poland recognize much of the territory as unconditionally theirs before negotiating, and deadlock ensued. The Ukrainian issue was complicated by the fact that there was no representative Ukrainian party or government as yet and lhat the western Ukrainians were engaged in heavy fighting with the Pedes over the city of Lwow. Meanwhile, the Germans had begun to evacuate their troops. The Russians formed a new Western Army and ordered it to carry out "deep reconnaissance" into the areas left by the Germans. The operation was, not very tactfully, called "Target Vistula.” 9 'ih e Red Army moved up behind the withdrawing Germans without any opposition, as the Polish Army, such as it was, could not cross the German lines. On 5 January 1919, the Red Army entered Wilno after a short battle with a local Polish detachment. The first shots had been fired in the Polish-Soviet war. By the end o f February, the Red Army had occupied most of the disputed area. On 28 February a new Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania-Byelorussia was set up in Minsk. This situation was intolerable to Piłsudski, himself a native of WOno. He negotiated a corridor with the Germans, and on 16 April he sent all his available reserves on a far-flung raid. Three days later, his cavalry clattered into the suburbs, and on 20 April Wilno fell. There was no immediate follow-up by either side. Operations in this area suffered from unavoidable lethargy. The Russian Western Army had never been intended to fight its way to the Vistula: it was far too weak. It had been set up mainly to exploit the existing situation and see what could be done. Now that it had met with organized resistance, it

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

preferred to give ground whenever pushed. It ranked low on the list of Soviet priorities, as all available forces were needed for the life-and-death struggle of the civil war. Poland too had her problems in this field. Troops were needed to keep the Germans in check in Poznan, to defend Teschen against the Czechs and Lwow against the Galician Ukrainians. As these conflicts died down, however, the Poles were able to devote more troops to the Russian front. Piłsudski was now in a position to widen what he referred to as his “safety cushion against revolution from without.” 10 On 8 August his troops took Minsk, and eventually reoccupied most of the Grand Duchy lands. The Russian forces were powerless to stop this, as their internal prob­ lems were assuming alarming proportions. British and French intervention and support were beginning to tell in the scales of the civil war. The White Volunteer Army of South Russia, com­ manded by General Denikin, began a rapid advance on Moscow. The Red Army suffered defeat after defeat and soon ran out of reserves and equipment. Piłsudski was seriously worried. Nobody could accuse him o f love for the Bolsheviks, but the last thing he wanted was to see the Whites in Moscow.11 He had his own reasons for hating the reactionary Denikin, o f course, but his mind was swayed more by calculation than by sentiment in this case. The Whites enjoyed Allied support, and if they made Moscow all Polish claims would be overriden in their favor. Under their management, Russia would rapidly regain all her lost power and Poland’s continued existence would become a grace and favor. Piłsudski was not a man who resigned himself to fate. He promptly opened secret talks with Lenin. Stalling French and White Russian de­ mands few a supporting advance on Moscow by the Polish Army, he offered Lenin his personal guarantee that the Polish forces would not move an inch until the Red Army had defeated Denikin. Lenin accepted this agreement, despite his misgivings.12 He could not afford to do other­ wise. If Piłsudski had wished to tip the balance in favor of the Whites at this moment, the Red Army could not have stopped him. The fact that he managed to convince Lenin of his good will at this mement meant that the Red Army was able to take reserves from its Western Front. As a result, an estimated 40,000 Riflemen were taken away from this front and used in the battle for Tula, Denikin’s first defeat.13

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Now the balance o f the civil war inversed itself with astonishing speed. At one moment Denikin seemed invincible, but only a couple of months later the Red Army was sweeping all before it, and the White movement crumbled like a house of cards. This phenomenon was a result of all the physical and psychological conditions peculiar to the Russian civil war. A slight reversal initiated the retreat, which consistently snowballed as technical breakdown, the weather, the local population, disease, desertion, insecurity and realignment-i.e. changing sides-all conspired to erode the fabric o f the retreating army. To the Allies, who had watched Denikin’s rout in disbelief, it now seemed that either the people of Russia were behind the Bolsheviks or that the Red Army must have considerable reserves of manpower. They failed to grasp the fact that the outcome had been decided more by Denikin’s incompetence than by the prowess of the Red Army. As the White movement entered its death-throes, the Allies began to trim their «»ik and change their tack. Lloyd George, who had given Denikin over a hundred million pounds’ worth of armament in 1919, suddenly decided that intervention was not justifiable. He would “save Russia by commerce’’ instead. His utterings to the effect that “ the moment trade is established with Russia, com­ munism will go” coincided with a general drift away from intervention and a strong popular current of sympathy for the Soviets.14 Even the French, who had more tangible economic reasons for wanting the Whites in Moscow, were questioning the value of intervention. Thus at the threshold of 1920, when the Soviet state had eliminated opposition within and grown in strength, most of its enemies lost interest and began to turn away, as though the problem did not really exist at all. Bolshevik-bashing had gone out of fashion as quickly as it had come in. And this came at the moment when the Soviets were beginning to emerge as a power in their own right. Having done everything in their power to defeat the Soviet Republic and failed, the Allies now expected peace to descend on the world. They themselves did not make any overtures, but they recommended that Poland and the Baltic States should. Russia now proceeded to offer Poland very generous peace terms11 — too generous in the opinion of most Poles, who assumed that Lenin was simply out to buy time. After some delay, the Poles accepted the offer

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

and suggested a place for negotiations. The Russians suggested another, to which the Poles answered by naming a third, and so the quibbling started. Finally, the Poles broke off the talks and both sides accused each other of playing for time. It is difficult to say who, if anyone, took these talks seriously. Cer­ tainly, Piłsudski did not. It is difficult to believe that Lenin did, as during the three months taken up by the negotiations, he increased the number o f divisions on his Western front from five to twenty.16 This was, of course, only a precaution, but its very extent is significant. It is also worth mentioning that at about the time when the original offer was being made, the Western front commander was instructed to draw up plans for “a deep advance into Poland.** A provisional date in July 1920 was set for their execution, so the Soviets must have been sceptical of the possibility of peace.17 These abortive talks were not totally irrelevant to the campaign of 1920. In the eyes of the west, the Soviets had offered a generous peace. The fact that peace had not been signed seemed to reflect on the Poles. Moreover, the talk o f peace had obscured the fact that there was a war on already, and the first major offensive, which happened to be Polish, was seen as unprovoked aggression. This was to have a direct influence on Poland’s military supply-lines, as well as an indirect psychological effect on the morale of her army during the latter stages of the war. Behind all this diplomatic fencing, military activities had been resumed as soon as the Lenin-Piłsudski pact had run out. On 3 January the Polish Army launched an attack on the city of Dunaburg. After expelling the Soviet garrison, Piłsudski handed the city over to the Latvians. Apart from denying the Soviet Army a strong base for the future, this also helped to cement the already cordial relations between Poland and Latvia. Another factor was that Lithuania, whose eastern tip was adjacent to the city, was now neatly cut-off from Russia, while the northern tip of the Polish front was firmly anchored to a friendly power. Piłsudski had feared that the Soviets might use promises of Wilno to obtain a free passage into the Polish rear through Lithuanian territory. There was little hope for a Russian counter-attack at this stage; the weather cancelled out any offensive by the ill-equiped and still under­ manned units of the Western Front. Nor was the Polish Army planning any immediate follow-up. The operation had been a strategic preliminary.

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While the cold weather lasted, both sides were more interested in saving their forces and planning the summer campaign, which promised to be an a large scale. It would provide the final settlement of the Russo-Polish issue.

CHAPTER II

THE BIRTH OF TWO ARMIES “The Russian A m y is a horde, and its strength Kęs in its being a horde. ” -MJM.Tukhachevsky1 The appointment of Trotsky as commissar for war in March 1918 was intended as a drastic measure. Before the October Revolution, the Bol­ sheviks had systematically destroyed the old Imperial Army by under­ mining every aspect o f military servitude. Having come to power, they tried to confine their needs to small units of Red Guards. Owing to the unreliability o f these, and to the rising tide of counter-revolution, they had launched the slogan of a new Red Army of volunteers. This was a non-starter. When Trotsky started work, the armed forces of the Soviet state were in a sorry condition. The bulk was made up of Latvian troops from the Imperial Army, and these were supplemented by Red Guards and a few battalions o f Kronstadt sailors. They were led by commanders elected from the ranks for their merits during the revolution. Such was the com­ mander dn-chief, Ensign Krylenko. It goes without saying that the virtues o f these men and their units were not those which made for an efficient army. The call for volunteers had brought in mainly adventurers and cut­ throats o f the worst variety. Professional soldiers kept well away from an organization, if one may such such a grandiose term, which stood in open defiance o f all the sacred military values. The great manpower pool of Russia, the peasants, had all gone home. The golden promise of land had lured them back to their villages now that the large estates were masterless. 12

Birth o f Two Armies

IS

Marxist theory was all very well, but the revolution had to be defended and only a regular and efficient army could do this. From the outset, therefore, Trotsky cast aside doctrines in favor of expediency. In his first edict for the formation of the new Red Army he abolished elective command, reintroduced call-up and asserted the notion of discipline from above* His next move was to replace Ensign Krylenko with Colonel Vatsetis, a professional soldier and commander of the reliable Latvian troops. Just as industry needed engineers, Trotsky argued, the army needed professional soldiers. A revolutionary officers’ training school was im­ mediately set up, but this would not bear fruit for some time, and the need was pressing. Hie answer was to use former officers from the Imperial Army. Amid ideological mindsearchings and indignant protests from the ranks of the party, Trotsky was to reinstate 48,409 of these “specialists” in the field and a further 10,339 in the administration over the next two years. The result was that by the spring of 1920 over eighty percent of the Red Army’s commissions were held by ex-imperial Army officers.3 The measure had its teething-troubles. Many of the professional of­ ficers who came forward at the beginning only waited for the opportunity to take their units over to the Whites. The practice was soon remedied by keeping tabs on their relatives and families, who could be contacted in case o f desertion or treason. Others were incapable of adapting their traditional military approach to the somewhat tluid conditions prevalent in the Red Army. The elective commanders who had been demoted and the soldiers who saw their supremacy on the wane were far from pleased by the prospect of having to serve under the flunkeys of Tsardom once again. They often seized the opportunity of the first battle to shoot their new officers in the back. Some party members sought to appease them by explaining that the “specialists” were just going to be “squeezed like lemons (for their expertise) and then thrown away.” To which a group of officers who had volunteered replied that they had not the slightest intention of being thrown away like old lemons and refused to serve.4 It was not a happy menage. All the difficulties rebounded on Trotsky, who had to keep both sides satisfied. If the Red Army ever got off the ground, it was entirely due to his merit.

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BATTUE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

The obvious sine qua non of using former officers was to keep them under strict surveillance. Trotsky worked out a system whereby every officer was given a guardian angel in the shape of a commissar. A twin hierarchy of political officers was established. Trotsky himself stood behind the Supreme Commander, and there was a political counterpart for every officer, right down to the level of company commander. All decisions on policy and some of the wider military issues were discussed by these commissars. This system proved an effective check on any stepping out of line by the officers. It also gave Trotsky a measure of centralized control over the armies in the field. It did, however, furnish endless grounds for friction. The system was almost bound to breed mutual contempt between the officers and the commissars. The officers resented the super­ vision and the meddling in purely military matters, while the commissars were uneasy in the face of superior expertise and saw treason lurking in every order. Most of the commissars saw themselves as young Napo­ leons and tried to relegate their officers to the role of mere advisors. This tended to inhibit the intelligent operation of the armies and largely nullified all the advantages of enlisting the “specialists” in the first place. The party usually sided with the commissars, but Trotsky vehemently defended the officers and encouraged them as much as he could.5 Gradu­ ally, as the army lived through one campaign after another, the points of friction were worn down to an acceptable minimum, and the system worked well enough. Instead of using existing units as he found them, Trotsky preferred to disband them and feed the men piecemeal into various new forma­ tions. In this way he hoped to avoid contaminating the new army with the freebooting partisan ethic of the Red Guards. He wanted to create new universal bonds of solidarity within the army, but he was hampered at every step by the fact that most of his measures stood in flagrant contradiction to the original Bolshevik line of denouncing everything which smacked of the Imperial Army. Esprit de corps and layalty were tricky ones, but he managed to circumnavigate them with another mea­ sure. He used the same communist cells which had destroyed the old army to rebuild the new one. Their unswerving loyalty to the party and their great standing among the other soldiers became one of the most powerful welding forces within the ranks. While the conscripted peasant

Birth o f Two Arm ies

15

were apt to m d t away into the countryside with the ups and downs of the civil war, there could be no mass desertions, and a hard core in every unit could always be counted on. This did not, unfortunately, apply to die cavalry, which was mostly made up of cossacks. Only a very small proportion o f the urban proletariat could ride, and an even smaller pro­ portion were accepted by the cossacks, whose allegiance to the party remained grudging at the best of times. The result was that cavalry units did desert and change sides en masse. The post o f commissar to a squadron of cossacks was not, needless to say, one of the favorites. This deliberate inclusion of hostile and contradictory elements elim­ inated separatism within the army, but at the same time it offset many of the advantages o f centralization. It also helped to cripple the already cumbersome command system. Trotsky himself intended to phase out the dual command and the unit cells as soon as the internal fabric of die army had stiffened, but this was clearly out of the question while there was still a hint o f political nuance in the issues of the war. The very existence of alternative channels of authority and power meant that there was wide scope for usurping these at every level. It is hardly surprising to find that a struggle for control over the Red Army could be felt from the first moments of its existence. Despite the recurring difficulties, Trotsky’s army grew apace, both in numbers and efficiency. It was early called upon to cope with a series of crises which could have meant death for die Soviet Government. Prom the beginning o f 1919, the forces of counterrevolution, dissension and sheer anarchy fortified the armies of the White generals. Kolchak, Yudenich and Denikin repeatedly threatened Moscow and Petrograd as they advanced from Siberia, Estonia and the Caucasus. Trotsky lived in his armored train, continually on the move from one front to another, meting out cigarettes, encouragement and threats.* His army stood die

* Western military circles recounted with gloating horror the story told by Weygand o f a captured Red soldier, who said: “In the old days (Tsarist times), we used to go forward out of discipline; now we do it because we’re afraid of getting a bullet in the back.” Not very much in it, one would have thought. Trotsky’s discipline was perhaps a little more random and final, but hardly any stricter than that o f the Tsars.

16

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

test. One by one, the White armies were rolled back and defeated. It is impossible not to admire Trotsky’s achievement, for it was the Red Army rather than the slogans it carried which won the civil war for the Soviets. Its resilience and responsive performance under good leader­ ship pulled it through some very sticky moments, and it emerged as a force o f uncanny power. Unlike the Red Army, the Polish Army was born of tradition. Not the tradition nurtured by most European armies, but a tradition of in­ dividual achievement, unorthodoxy and partisan warfare, reaching back to the insurrections and originating from the yeomanries of the seven­ teenth century. The motley origins and education of the elements which came together in 1919 only served to underline this. “Uncertainty of the value of his deeds, uncertainty as to their con­ sequences, the thought that streams of blood may be shed in vain-these are some of the burdens on the back of a soldier who has no motherland, no state and no government,” writes Piłsudski, and he should know.6 Yet the century-old phenomenon of the nation without a state had pro­ duced a breed of wandering soldiers with an unshakeable faith in the ultimate reward of their efforts. The Poles who fought in the Great War, whether it was at Verdun or in Siberia, at Tannenberg or in the Kuban, whether it was in Pilsudski’s Legions, in the Polnische Wehnnacht, in the Legion de Bayonne, in Żeligowski’s Division or in the Russian Legion o f Puławy, whether it was for the Allies or for the Central Powers -a ll believed, in some mystically detached way, that they were fighting for their country. Moments when the dying screams of an opponent revealed him to be a compatriot were not easy to bear, but they did not shake the conviction to battle on. When Piłsudski arrived in Warsaw in November 1918, die only avail­ able troops were three regiments of Polnische W ehm acht, * a couple of squadrons o f cavalry and a cadet detachment, some 9,000 men in all.7 The previously disbanded Legions, however, emerged from hiding on the first days, and soon demobilized troops from the Austrian Army began to appear on the scene.

* The Polnische W ehm acht was the result o f the German attempt at recruiting an allied Polish Army out of the Legions.

Birth o f Two Armies

17

Former legionaries presented no problem, as they could easily be fitted back into their old framework. They were used to construct the first three divisions o f the new army. Other units, such as Zeligowski’s and Rumsza’s divisions, formed under Allied aegis in the Kuban and Siberia respectively, found their own way back to the country and needed only very superficial reorganization. The most valuable single contri­ bution, however, was Haller’s Blue Army. This was formed by the Allies in France in 1917, mainly from Austrian and German prisoners of Polish nationality, and Polish volunteers from America. When it arrived in Poland in 1919, it was better trained and equipped than the rest of the army, and even boasted a regiment of seventy tanks. In the former German province of Poznan, a separate army was evolving in the war which was raging between the native Poles and the German colonists, as both returned home after demobilization. By the time the Germans had been ousted from the area, the Poznanian forces had grown to three divisions. The training and efficiency of the rankers and noncommissioned officers was excellent, but there was a dirth of senior officers, as Slavs had not been encouraged in the higher ranks of the German Army. These three elements, the four “ Blue” divisions, the three “grey” Legionary divisions and the three “green” Poznanian divisions, were valuable primarily on account o f their well-established entity, even though their individualism and divergent outlooks caused concern for the unity of the army as a whole. A far greater problem was the assimilation and organization of the vast masses of anonymous soldiery inherited from the Russian and Austrian armies, as well as the volunteers who had never served before. Some idea of the numbers involved can be gleaned from the fact that in 1917 there were no less than 500,000 men, 20,000 officers and even 119 generals of Polish nationality in the Russian Army alone.* The figure for Austria was obviously lower, but it contained a higher proportion o f officers. The total number of volunteers to come forward during the next eighteen months was 300,000, which was enormous, considering that at their peak the entire armed forces never reached the one-million m ark* A light sprinkling of Legionaries helped in this case. They represented a very desirable cementing-force, as they had been totally committed to the cause for several years, and they were devoted to the central figure of Piłsudski. Another benefit was the arrival of General Henry’s mission,

18

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

some fifteen hundred French officers who were to train the army on a uniform French pattern. Despite these measures, and despite the common national origin of the men, the army remained a very motley concoction. It kept the men­ tality of a volunteer army, which was a mixed benefit, and its best units maintained a high level of individuality. It was not easy for groups o f men who had been used to the role of fringe formations in other armies, who had been obliged to develop a highly independent outlook, and who had felt closer ties with their unit and their commander than with die army they happened to be serving in, to suddenly drown their identity in the mass o f this new army. On top o f this, the Polish Army included an extraordinary wide ethnic and social spectrum. There were Poles from Poland, but there were also Poles whose families had lived in exile for generations in all the comers o f the world. There were people of every origin and nationality, some polonized and some hardly speaking the language. There were Lithuan­ ians, Tartars, Cossacks, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians and even some Russians. There were hard professional soldiers, idealistic students, peasants, exalted aristocrats, and various other specimens of all ages. This whole crowd was generally thrown together without any pattern or segregation, and this strange menage produced, on the whole, very high morale. No better example of the state of affairs in the Polish Army can be found than this account of its First Cavalry Divirion, written by an artil­ lery officer attached to it: The 8th Lancers were totally Austrian in character. Discipline was good, and the regiment’s external appearance singled it out from the rest. In no other were the saddles so smartly packed and the stirrups and bits so well polished. The second regiment was the 9th Lancers. It was the product of the fusion of the 3rd Lancers of the Austrian Landwehr with the 2nd Lancers of the Legions. The fact that most of the officers were legionaries was clearly reflected in the external appearance of the regiment. There was less of the lordliness o f the 8th and more of a sense of the citizen-soldier; less elegance, but more dash; less training, but more enthusiasm. From a dis­ tance they always stood out by their crimson cap-bands.

Birth o f Two Armies The 14th Lancers were completely different from the other two. If one could say of the 8th that it was a regiment of am­ bitious lordlings, of the 9th that it was a regiment of idealists, then the 14th was a pack of killers of the highest calibre. It was commanded by the 28-year-old full colonel Konstanty Plisowski (Kostya to his men), and the individuality of this excellent young soldier had left its mark on the regim ent.. . .During the Great War they had all served in the best regiments of the Imperial Russian C avalry.. . .They had learnt to cast aside everything which was not essential in battle, and their outward presentation was therefore not of the best. They only carried lances because they could wield them so well. They also carried a variety o f whips tucked into their b o o ts .. . .They considered fighting on foot quite beneath them. They also had a completely different style of riding. It was more sporting than military; they rode thoroughbreds on short stirrups with a long rein and no bits. They could keep up a pace which nobody else could rival. When they marched at the head of the division, the entire column would move like a harmonium, as all the other regiments caught up at a trot. The 1st Krechowiecki Lancers was considered the oldest Polish regiment of our times, as it had been formed in 1915 on the Russian side, in the Legion of Puławy. Continued service in Rus­ sia had left its mark on the unit, which was uniform, but some­ how very different. They too carried their lances with a sort of carelessness that made them seem very mundane. The 2nd Chevau-Legers of Rokitna were directly descended from the 2nd Lancers of the Legions, and this was very obvious from their general style. The Krechowians looked down on the Chevau-Legers, and these two regiments disliked each other fundamentally. The last regiment of the division was the 16th Poznanian Lancers, and it was completely different from the others. Its equipment, armament and tack were German. Everything was smart, new and solid. The men all wore tall four-cornered shakos with a triple silver tassle and a red rosette. They also wore Prussian-style uhlan jackets and tall German cavalry boots. Nearly all of them had served in the German army, and it followed that

19

20

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS the orderliness end discipline were exemplary. They rode huge, bony end heavy horses, overloaded with equipment. They had everything: sabres and lances, bayonets and spades, gas-masks end canteens. Mounting up .was a major performance on account o f all this, and when they marched past at a trot, they rattled end clanked like an army of knights. But they did look good, and their appearance was enough to inspire respect. The six regiments were like so many children born of the same m o th « , but conceived of different fathers.10

The same could be said of the whole Polish Army at the time. Taking into consideration the rapid and often improvised formation o f these two armies, the conditions under which they trained and fought, and the lack of a strong organized system behind them, it is hardly sur­ prising that leadership played a disproportionately important role both on and off the battlefield. A regular, well-drilled army will achieve won­ ders under a brilliant general, and survive under an incompetent one. An army as fluid as these two could achieve even more inspired successes under a man who knew how to handle it, but it could disintegrate com­ pletely and become worthless under a commander who was insensitive to its moods and its needs. The Red Army was led principally by professional officers of the Imperial Army. There were, of course, notable exceptions; Budyonny the corporal, Frunze the worker, Blucher, Yakir and Timoshenko, to name but a few. But the great majority of higher commands were held by the “specialists.” 11 The advantage of this lay in the fact that the officer corps shared a similar background, training and operational lan­ guage. They also represented the more professional, adaptable and am­ bitious elements of the old Imperial corps. Although old soldiers were surprisingly indifferent to the political issues o f the day, the very nature of the civil war tended to polarize them. As a rule, the conservatives, the plodding, the musty and the vain found their way into the White armies, where they could expect a re­ spectful reception and an easy-going atmosphere. A former officer serving with the Red Army, on the other hand, could expect a tricky time, and as often as not ended up with a bullet in his back. This meant that those

Birth o f Two Armies

21

wbo survived the apprenticeship were more than qualified, in one respect at least. By depriving the Red Army of the duller elements, however, these same factors denied it the great number of catering-corps worthies which are so indispensable to every army. The Red Army’s supply-machine was therefore highly susceptible to large-scale breakdown. Perhaps the greatest advantage the Russians had over the Poles was that by the spring of 1920 the Red Army had been through several gruel­ ling campaigns, and these had singled out the good officers. Kamieniev, the Supreme Commander, had overcome the bias against him and coui '. now concentrate on military matters. Several other “specialists” had managed to establish their reliability, but the most important fact was that youth had been given a chance to prove itself. Fronts were commanded by people like the thirty-six-year-old Yegorov and the twenty-seven-year-old Tukhachevsky. Army groups were mostly led by men in their thirties, and there were very lew over-forties enjoying privileged positions. It is significant that llic twenty-year-old C'huikov and the young Zhukov (both to become Marshals in the Second World War) had already been spotted and given regiments to lead. Their future comrade, Timoshenko, who was ordy four years their senior, was already wielding a division. Nevertheless, while the vicissitudes of the civil war had sorted out the sheep front the goats and brought talent to the fore, they had done nothing for the technical administration of the Red Army, which re­ mained highly primitive and unreliable. Nor had they done much to normalize relations between the warring factions, and too much still relied on good-will. In terms of leadership, the Poles had one great asset-Piłsudski. What­ ever anyone else thought of him, the rank and file loved him with varying degrees of intensity and, what is more important, trusted him implicitly. At the same time, his standing and authority were such that nobody could defy him, and even the most elevated officers had to recognize his intrinsic military value, even though they might disagree with his tactics. Moreover, as head of state and commander-in-chief, he rolled policymaking and execution into one. This was infinitely preferable tc ths Politbureau-Trotsky-Kamieniev-Front-Commander chain. It gave Piłsudski far greater freedom of decision and action, and it eliminated the bane of

22

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

“disscusion”, which brought the Red Army to a standstill on more than one occasion. This advantage, however, was largely offset by two prob­ lems which dogged the efficiency of the Polish Army throughout the war. The first and most obvious was the wide spectrum of officers inherited from various sources. Their training was either Russian, Austrian, German, French, or simply ulegionary.” Under the superficial difflculties-differing language, education, conditioning and so on—lay deeper rifts. The various officer schools of the time taught a variety of divergent strategic con­ cepts and psychological approaches to military problems. An officer trained by the Germans simply spoke a different language from one leaving a French course. These, two, when ordered to carry out a reconnaissance, for instance, might in all consciousness perform two completely different operations. The fact that most of them had fought against each other during the First World War did not help matters either. The second problem was the number of superannuated officers who offered their services. They had attained high rank in one or another of the great military machines of the war, and expected a similar position in the Polish Army. By nature, many of them were ill-suited to the forth­ coming conflict, but it was difficult to dismiss them outright. As there was no real opportunity to try them out before the spring of 1920, many incapable officers were in command of important units even during the decisive campaign. The Legionary officers, on the other hand, felt that their total com­ mitment during the First World War had earned them the right of leading the new army. They were on the whole a younger breed, and their attitude was more suitable to the new conditions, but their sense of discipline was sadly deficient. On the whole. Legionary officers were given a large proportion of active commands, for which they were qualified by their vitality and adapt­ ability. The ex-Russian officers also took a lion's share of the field-com­ mands, as they were familiar with the terrain and had been used to more mobile warfare thoughout the War. Unfortunately, many of those who had lived through the officer-hunts of the revolution suffered from deep insecurity, and they had developed a tendency to glance over their shoul­ ders whenever things started going wrong. Most of the higher commands as well as most of the staff-work went to the former Austrian officers. The Royal and Imperial Army had been

Hirth o f Two Armies

23

Ihe only one not to practise any form of racial or religious discrimination and many o f its Polish officers were as a result given staff training and high commands. The same could not be said for the German Army, where Die philosophy o f the Übermensch was already firmly established. The few Poles who did attain high rank in this army were, moreover, ill-suited to play a role in the forthcoming operations, as were all those who had spent most of the Great War puzzling over how to capture a lew square feet o f barbed wire and trenches. Generally, although the Polish Army could draw on an almost un­ limited supply of trained personnel, and did not need to ensure their loyalty by drastic measures, it had no real chance to try out these men or select the most suitable before the main campaign. Also, it lacked the strong centralizing force which bound the Red Army together. Time und again, "legionary” officers would ignore their "German” or "Rus­ sian” superiors, with disastrous consequences. Although these conflicts were never as blatantly dangerous as the commissar-officer struggles of the Red Army, they could be just as disruptive and far more difficult lo localize or stamp out. The armament o f the two armies was even more motley than their human make-up. Some units could have set up quite a museum. There were sabres dating from the seventeenth century, Napoleonic field-guns, and surplus lances from the Franco-Pmssian war of 1870. There were also the latest available—tanks, planes and machine guns. Poland was producing no arms of her own at this time. The army was equipped from inheritance, capture and import. This presupposed an alarming melange. The Polish infantry were armed with rifles from halfa-dozen different countries. The most widespread was the Austrian Mann­ licher, an accurate but delicate weapon which often became useless under the stress of bad conditions and inexperienced handling. This rifle was supplemented by German Mausers, English, Lee-Enfields, poor-quality French war-productions and even Japanese rifles. As one can easily im­ agine, the supply and servicing of this collection stretched the endurance of the Polish quartermastership almost to the breaking point. There were agonizing moments when a unit would run out of ammunition, but was unable to borrow from a neighboring unit, which was using different rifles. With predictable frequency the wrong ammunition would be delivered, and the soldiers would have to use only their bayonets.

24

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

Field-guns were no less of a problem. Canadian howitzers jostled with Italian mountain-guns, often in the same battery. Again, formid­ able positions would fall silent just because some supply-officer had sent a train-load in the wrong direction. If a battery was unfortunate enough to lose its guns, it could rarely be issued with new ones of the same make, and all the crews would have to be retrained in the use of the new ones. The Red Army had one enormous advantage in this field. Its basic weapon, the Lebel rifle, was of home production. Vast stocks of these had been inherited from the Imperial Army, and these were supplemented by a steady trickle from the two factories still in operation. It was a simple, sturdy rifle, ideally suited to the treatment it received. It was highly inaccurate at long ranges, but this was of little consequence, since most o f the “Red riflemen” had never been taught to aim. As a basic combat weapon for this type of warfare, it was greatly superior to the Mannlichers et al o f the Poles. But its greatest virtue was undoubtedly its uniformity. The Russian supply-machine was even less capable than the Polish of ensuring the delivery of exotic ammunition to some out­ lying unit. Towards the end of the civil war, the Red Army did in fact capture and recycle a great deal of English and French equipment and material via Denikin and Kolchak, which meant that they too could field the most modem arms with the concomitant problems. The great pièce de resistance as far as this war was concerned, was the machine-gun. On account of the terrain and the sort of situations which cropped up in this type of fighting, this weapon played a more important part than artillery, except on the rare occasion when large forces con­ fronted each other in pitched battle. Here too, the Poles were unlucky. They were equipped with a selection of European models, most o f them delicate precision pieces with a tendency to jam or overheat unless regu­ larly oiled during and after use. The Russians’ Maxim, on the other hand, was every soldier’s dream; it was almost unbreakable, and could without cleaning or oiling for long periods. Although the Russians were superior in terms of dose-combat weapons, they could not challenge the supremacy of the Poles in the field of tanks or planes.

Birth o f Two Armies

25

The Russians possessed as many if not more aircraft as the Poles, but the latter only recorded one short bombing-raid by the Soviet Air Force during the whole war. This stemmed mainly from the lack of trained pilots on the Russian side. Also, the regular and reliable servicing pro­ grams essential for aircraft proved beyond the capacity of the Red Army’s quartermastership. The few available pilots and machines were used mainly for reconnaissance and liaison, but even these activities were curtailed as the war ground on. The Soviet Air Force did not really get off the ground until much later. The Poles, on the other hand, were quick to become airborne. There had been many Polish pilots in the German and Austrian air forces, and they set up the Polish Air Force in the first months of 1919. They started off with old Fokkers left by the Germans, but soon purchased a fleet of Breguet bombers from France and a consignment of Ballilias from Italy. Pilots were not wanting, thanks to a rigorous training program, and to the arrival o f a Major Fauntleroy and ten other American volunteers. By the summer of 1920, over a dozen fighter and bomber squadrons were operational. They were based in a number of trains, which provided quarters for the pilots and ground crews as well as workshops, and they would establish airfields wherever convenient. They represented a great psychological trump, but they were unable to exert a real influence on the events. A column of cossacks on the march could be harrased, dis­ organized and retarded by one of their bombing-raids, but it could not be wiped out or stopped. Tanks were another fundamentally irrelevant luxury. The Poles had a full regiment of Renault tanks, but it did them little good. These vehicles had been built for the conditions of northern France, where they were never expected to cover more than a couple of miles, and where they received regular servicing. In Poland, they were a terrible burden for the supplyeervices, and their performance never justified this. If there had been a possibility of using them all en masse, they might have had some effect, but such a concentration was too cumbersome, and they were usually used in twos or threes. They were mechanically unreliable at the best of times, but the dusty and hot conditions of the Polish summer rendered them pathetically prone to breakdown. They were always being ; surrounded by hordes of cossacks beating their sabres on the armor, and

26

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

cavalry had to rescue and tow them back with monotonous regularity. Their mechanical weakness made them useless for mobile warfare, while their armament was not heavy enough to make them formidable in defense. Armoured cars, of which there was a very wide variety, were of much greater value. They were only used for diversionary operations, for which they were best suited, as they could move quite fast and hit just as hard as the tanks, and were less of a liability. Both sides made frequent use of them, and there were many in circulation. There were proper armoured cars—Austins, Fords and Renaults—and then there were the home-made varieties, such as the armour-plated Fiats of the Poles and the famous Putilov conversions on the Russian side. The only successful combination of mobility and heavy-fire-power to emerge in this war was the armoured train. This item had made its first appearance during the civil war, and the Poles had also started using the idea as early as 1918. There was obviously no rigorous model, but most of the trains followed a general pattern. They were built something like a battleship; a locomotive sandwiched between two or more person­ nel-carrying carriages bristling with machine-guns made up the central part. This finished up at both ends with a carriage bearing heavy guns, and a platform-car carrying track-laying and other equipment. Some were only sandbagged, but most were armour-plated throughout. The usual crew ran to about ISO men, but an additional strike-force of up to 200 men could be taken on board as well. These trains were invaluable in conditions where some kind of security was at a premium. They could patrol long stretches of track, support infantry in the attack on most towns, cover its flanks, strike into the enemy’s rear or evacuate pockets of men. They collected and carried their own ammunition, and they could supplement their fuel by cutting down trees, so they presented no problems in terms of supply. They could only be liquidated by a direct hit on the engine, or by capture, which was unlikely to occur unless the tracks had been cut on long stretches. And they were ny no means irreplaceable. Two damaged ones could be combined into one strong one, and extra carriages were not difficult to come by. Hence their popularity. Although the number fluctu­ ated a good deal, as some were split up and others joined together, one can count some 70 trains operating in the Polish Army during the 1920 campaign, and the Red Army in all likelihood had many more.13

Birth o f Two Armies

27

All of these weapons suffered from the same basic defect: their fields of operation were limited. There was only one device which overcame this completely, and it became one of the Red Army’s most lethal weap­ ons, although it was just a soap-box creation. It was called the “tachanka,” and its origin makes a good story. An ex-convict by the name of Nestor Makhno founded a gang of cut­ throats in deepest Ukraine in 1917, and it was his wont to ride about he plains o f southern Russia under the black banner of anarchy, plunder­ ing and slaughtering noblemen, Jews, communists, priests and anyone else who incurred his displeasure. His safety lay in his mobility. His long trots followed by sudden appearance where he was least expected became legendary, as did his equally rapid evacuation, after one night of orgiastic drunkenness and slaughter. His only real problem was how to combine the heavy rapid fire power of a machine-gun with his mobility. His idea was to mount all his machine-guns on the backs of light car­ riages, or buggies. The result was the “tachanka.” It could gallop up to the enemy, turn around, open fire, and then gallop away, still firing, if the enemy started retaliating. It was fast, light, unobtrusive and per­ fectly lethal. From now on, Makhno became the real master of the Uk­ raine, and he played an important part in the defeat of Denikin. It so happened that the Bolsheviks, who were prepared to fraternize with the Devil himself if he contributed to the demise of Denikin, made an alliance with Makhno, and they sent a young cavalry officer to liaise with him. The name of this officer was Georgii Zhukov*. Zhukov’s mission was a complete failure, as Makhno was rather color-blind when it came to differentiating between the Whites and the Reds—to him, good booty was good booty, whoever it belonged to.** But Zhukov saw the “ tach­ anka” in action, and he was impressed. On his return to service in the Red cavalry, he convinced his superiors to adopt the idea. He developed it and trained men in its handling, and the result was accepted as the Red cavalry’s main support arm.13

* Marshal of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. **On his death-bed in the Hôpital Girardot, Paris, in 1934, Makhno boasted to journalists that he was dying of fifteen “ White” and twelve “Red” wounds.

28

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

Of all the weapons in use in this theater, the tachanka provided the most satisfactory fusion of fire-power, mobility, resilience and adapt­ ability. It became in 1920 what the tank became in 1941. The tachanka, however, was not complete in itself. It belonged to the cavalry, and could not really act independently of it. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this war was the re-emergence of cavalry as an arm in its own right, particularly as neither the Polish or the Red Armies had considered it worthy of independent existence at first. The Red Army suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of Deni­ kin's White cossacks, and they learned their lesson so well that they formed even larger corps of cavalry, with which eventually they bull­ dozed Denikin out of southern Russia. They then passed the lesson on to the Poles, who lost heavily at their hands for lack of cavalry, and who were eventually obliged to form greater cavalry units themselves. The Red Cavalry was composed of cossacks, cavalrymen from the Imperial Army, and just about anyone else who could sit on a horse. There was nothing elitist about it. It lived entirely off the land, travelled light and moved fast. Its basic weapon was the sabre, but each man also carried a carbine, a variety of long knives, the famous cossack whip, and anything else that might come in handy. The only real support weapon was the tachanka, as field-guns were a liability and only slowed down the horsemen. The Red Cavalry possessed one other weapon: the mystique of the eastern horde. They were terrifying as they trotted along on their shaggy little steppe horses, giving an exaggerated impression of numbers. They wore the remains of Imperial cavalry uniforms, supplemented at will by bright red or yellow breeches of the very baggy variety, soft boots and an assortment of headgear, ranging from the traditional fur caps and Tartar bonnets to English peaked caps and even the occasional French helmet. They took their equipment wherever they could find it. Some sat on beautiful Circassian saddles, others on a Persian rug or just an old cushion. They carried sabres worthy of museums, and an extraordinarily ornate selection of cartridge-cases and sword-belts pulled off the dead bodies of White generals. On the march, they moved in long serpentine columns. In the attack, they came in waves which billowed and con­ tracted, given an impression of harmonious animal motion.14

Hirth o f Two Armies

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The Polish Cavalry was a very different kettle of fish. At the beginning of 1920 it was still comparatively small (10,000 sabres in all), as much as a result o f the shortage of horses as of the belief generally held after the Great War that cavalry was a romantic anarchronism. It is difficult to talk of it in general terms, as every regiment was a world unto itself. Some swore by the lance, others by the sabre, and others by the rifle. Some would not have been caught dead out of the saddle, while others dismounted to fight whenever they could. Its strength lay in the fact that it had a quality o f elite about it. Desertion was unheard of, and morale was always exemplary in the Polish Cavalry. Their training was thorough, their discipline was strong, and their horses were fast, which meant that regiments manaeuvered perfectly. This gave them a great advantage over their opponents, who were only used to two words o f command; “forwards” and the other, which was never necessary. It was thanks to these qualities that the lancers were able to score against the far more numerous cossacks without ever being swallowed up in their mass. The lancers too were imposing by their turnout, though in a somewhat different way. They were less gaudy, but their uniform elegence was for­ bidding to the cossacks, who admired the orderliness they themselves would not practice. The Poles wore grey, greenish or khaki tunics and blue breeches, and the various regiments were distinguishable by the colors of their caps, their multicolored trimmings and their lance-pennants. Not all the regiments carried lances, but those which did knew how to use them -they could keep twice their number of cossacks busy by an endless performance o f passes and lunges which exasperated the cossacks, who could not reach the lancer with their sabres. In the charge, the lances were a chilling sight, and the cossacks kept well clear in these cases.* Apart from the regular Lancer and Chevau-Leger regiments, the Poles could also muster a couple of irregular cavalry formations. One such was

* One eye-witness tells how, during the battle of Rowne, where the Poles were completely surrounded, he saw a platoon of lancers lying down behind a slight rise, while their horses rested in the dip. Every now and then, the men would get up and wave their lances in motion above their heads. Their officer explained that he had been keeping the cossacks on the other side o f the ridge at bay for several hours by this method.

30

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

Jaworski’s Hone, a volunteer brigade composed of cut-throats, old cavalry­ men, country squires, stray cossacks and schoolboys whose age excluded them from the army proper. It was commanded by Major Jaworski, a typical old-style Polish noblemean who was only happy when he was in the saddle. Another similar unit was Nowicki’s “Hussars of Death,” an exalted company of men. There was also a regiment of Polish Tartan, a couple o f brigades o f Don Cossacks and, last but not least, a band of dubious origin, styling themselves the Army of Byelorussia. This was commanded by one Bulak-Balakhovich, a renegade Red Cavalry officer whose bravery and dash only just outshone his cruelty and anti-semitism. Needless to say, the last two formations had to be kept under strict surveillance, and could not be unleashed indiscriminately. The theater in which these two armies were about to fight deserves more than a passing mention. It is not an area in which any number of different manoeuvres may be carried out; the natural configuration is so rigid that the possible variants are extremely limited. The front held by the two armies in 1920 was over a thousand kilometers long, but only about half o f this could be used for major operations. The arena is shaped like a triangle. Its western tip pivots on Warsaw, and the other two bases on Smolensk and Kharkhov. The northern edge is hemmed in by the East Prussian, Lithuanian and Latvian borders, which are defined by a chain of lakelands and forests. The southern side is bordered by the Czecho-Slovakian and Romanian borders, which run along the Carpathian mountains and the river Dniester. The eastern edge fades into the steppe. The center of this triangle is taken up by another wedge, the great expanse of bogs, riverlands and forests popularly known as the Pripet Marshes. This means that there are factually only two narrow corridors along which all east-west movement must pass. The northern one bears the Warsaw-Grodno-Wilno-Vitebsk-Smolensk-Moscow highroad, while the southern one runs from Lublin, through Rowne and Zhitomir to Kiev or Odessa. It is no coincidence that these corridors are littered with names that have become famous—Smolensk, Orsha, the Berezina crossings, Kiev, Poltava, and many more. Whether it was the Turks or the Tartars, Napoleon or Charles XII, there were no alternative routes. Given this geographical construction, it is plain that Russian armies moving westwards down both corridors, must converge and eventually

Ilirth o f Two Arm ies

31

meet around Brest or Lublin, if they keep a straight course. Polish armies, on the other hand, radiate and move away from each other as they ad­ vance. But this in itself is confusing, for the two Russian armies will be based on Smolensk and Kharkhov respectively, and even when they make physical contact on the other side of the obstacle, they remain as two independent groups. The Polish armies, on the other hand, appear more vulnerable on account of their divergence, but in fact remain less so, as they enjoy the common base of Warsaw. The main danger for both comes when they pass the Pripet area, for a gap will arise between the two extended arms. Unless the operation is extremely well-coordinated, the two armies will continue advancing with a gap between them, even when the marshes are not there to fill it. The other important feature of this theater is simply the space-factor. It is a long way from anywhere to anywhere else, and the scarcity of good roads and important towns, as well as the profusion of rivers both great and small, turns it into an exhausing march at the best of times. The weather only serves to make it more so. Both Napoleon and Hitler dis­ covered what the appalling winter conditions can do to an army here, and Piłsudski was careful to campaign only in the summer m onths. Even so, the baking heat of midsummer made long marches exhausting and dried up many of the rivers, which were potential defenses. To these hazards must be added the problems of communications. In 1920 there were hardly any metalled roads in the area, and the existing tracks fluctuated between being morasses of mud in spring and unbear­ ably dusty sand-pits in summer. Bridges were scarce, and often damaged by the last six years o f war. Railways represented the only reliable means of getting from one place to another, but these were mostly single-track lines, and they were thinly spread over a wide area, lust to complicate matters, the Poles had inherited three different railway networks: a dense one from the Germans, a fair one from the Austrians, and a highly primitive one from the Russians. The three systems had been designed with Berlin, Vienna and Moscow in view, and they did not sit comfort­ ably around Warsaw. Moreover, the Russians used a wider gauge than the rest o f Europe, which meant that Poland had been obliged to convert all the former Russian tracks to fit the rest. With every advance by either army, all the tracks had to be converted one way or the other, so that supplies could reach the advancing army, unless a suitable quantity of enemy rolling-stock had been captured in the advance.

32

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

Means of verbal communication were hardly more effective. The tele­ phone network was parlous to say the least, and highly vulnerable to snipping by marauding cavalry or peasants who needed wire. The whole subject of signals and liaison during this campaign gets its fair share of curses in every general’s memoirs. Most divisions managed to keep a semblance of radio contact with somebody while things were going well, but this tenuous link broke down all too easily when events took a turn for the worse. Ultimately, it was the mounted messenger who kept con­ tact open, and this would have been perfectly sufficient, had it not been for the phantom possibility that the enemy’s transmitters might be working. The combination of weather, terrain and doubtfull liaison introduced an enormous element of luck into the operations. At best, one might overhear the enemy’s order, issue one’s own in a matter of hours, and remain informed of developments throughout. At worst, news of an enemy breakthrough might trickle in three days late, and the resulting orders might never reach the units concerned. However fast decisions were made, reaction was always slow, and execution of the order might or might not take place. This meant that if one side made a move and seized the initiative, the opposing commander, if he knew what was good for him, must think in terms of a counter-attack planned a week or more in advance. This would give a horseman the time to locate all the appropriate units and deliver the instructions. The use of aircraft for such delivery of orders was not favored, as all too many pilots had touched down in the middle of an enemy grouping, and the orders had fallen into the wrong hands: it was extremely difficult to navigate re­ liably in a countryside with so few main roads or other landmarks, and there was little difference in the appearance of the troops from the air. In 1920 the overall strength of the Red Army reached a peak of fiveand-a-half million men.ls This compared favorably with the top Polish figures of just under one million. This advantage, however, dwindled drastically as it approached the battlefield. Less than one seventh of the Red Army total were combat effectives, while the Poles managed to put almost a quarter of their total into the field, which meant that the original five-and-a-half-to-one ratio was reduced to a mere four-to-one. In fact, the next stage brought it down to three-and-a-half-to-one, as the Red Army could only muster 70 operational divisions against the

Mirth o f Two Arm ies

33

Polish 20.* It was only in the field of cavalry that the seven Polish brigades were drastically outnumbered by the sixty-odd Russian ones.1* In these conditions, it is easy to sympathize with the continual com­ plaints issuing from every Russian work on the subject. The Red Army’s hase camps must have been a strange sight indeed: four million soldiers who never lifted a rifle but needed feeding, clothing and supervision. A vast stock of cannon-fodder which could be fed in if things started going wrong. And yet here lay the backlash of the seemingly decrepit Red Army. Although it appeared to be incapable of concentrating more lhan ten percent o f its effectives against the Polish Army, it was more than able to keep that figure constant by pouring in yet more reserves from its almost inexhaustable resources. The Poles had committed as much as they could to the Russian front, and they had no corresponding pool o f manpower behind the lines. They were forced to stake their ail where the Russians staked comparatively little. The Red Army could afford to lose a whole campaign, but the Poles could not hope to survive the loss of one major battle. As the two armies faced each other in the lull that preceded the 1920 campaign, one thing seemed evident. The Polish Army was formed on a regular pattern and organized on western lines, but it lacked the equip­ ment and the material reserves to maintain this form under the conditions in which it was going to fight. The Red Army, on the other hand, had grown out of revolution and evolved doctrines, strategy and methods adapted to the very worst conditions of the civil war and to the most primitive terrain. Being the stronger of the two, and because it is easier to impose disorder on weak order than vice-versa, it was sooner or later bound to impose on the Polish Army a blend of warfare for which the latter was fundamentally unprepared. The Russian civil war was a political war, and the rules which usually govern behavior in normal international conflicts do not apply in poli­ tical wars. There is no nonsense about respecting the enemy. In a politi­ cal war, the enemy is a form of vermin which must be stamped out com­ pletely, and as a result, the usual military values are inversed. Courage

* If anything, Russian divisions tended to be smaller than Polish ones.

34

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

or loyalty, which might earn a soldier the respect of his captors in normal circumstances, only served to make his end more gruesome in Russia. “Officer” was a dirty word. This meant that while the fanatics stuck to their guns, the vast majority of combatants saw the war largely in terms of personal survival. This all-pervading sense of insecurity was manifested in many ways, but its principal symptom seems to have been the astonishing determina­ tion to be on the winning side. Entire divisions changed sides on various occasions, and some even managed to change back again when their new ally came to grief. This largely explains the speed with which the fortunes changed during the civil war: a minor setback or even a mood could turn a victorious army into a disintegrating shambles in a very short space o f time. This insecurity also produced another side-effect; brutality. The White generals mostly kept their spirits up with heroin or cocaine, while hashish did for the lower ranks, especially in the armies based in the Caucasus. In other places, there was, of course, vodka. But by far the most satis­ factory and the cheapest way of alleviating the nervous tension seems to have been by taking it out on somebody else. There was no better way o f curing fear or insecurity. The ideal was to catch a commissar or an officer. When such was not readily available, a priest or a bolshevik sympathizer could be unearthed, failing which there were always the Jews. The latter had a rough time of it: every White solider knew that “all Jews were papns and bolsheviks/' while the Red soldiers maintained that “ail Jews were bourgeois capita­ lists,” which meant carte blanche as far as slaughter was concerned. One could fill a chapter with the fine points of torture and death meted out on various occasions, but the most common are sufficient to illustrate the point. A commissar might be fed communist leaflets until he choked, or roasted over a fire. An officer might be buried alive, but the most popular method was to strip him naked, and then carve all the appro­ priate epaulettes, chevrons and stripes out of his skin. It simply did not pay to get caught. Although these conditions did not follow the Red Army into Poland in all their ghastliness, the attitude which inspired them did. Polish officers were usually shot on capture,* priests and landowners who were unwise enough to stay on after the retreat were also generally dealt with, while

Mirth o f Two Arm ies

35

ihe Poles used to hang commissars off-hand. Nevertheless, the Interna* liunal nature of this campaign did predude mass slaughter of people not directly involved. It is important to appreciate the presence of this psychological under­ tone, as it does much to explain the way in which retreats snowballed into flight. There were moments when heroics were strictly reserved for enthusiasts or fanatics, and any man who knew what was good for him needed no prompting to make himself scarce. There was a moment at which this insecurity almost washed away the Polish Army completely. What saved it was the fact that there were many fanatics, and also that there was Piłsudski—solid, determined and reassuring.

* The Russian commanders often complained about their lack of in­ formation about Polish movements and intentions, which was a direct result, according to them, of the habit of diooting all captured officers before they had been questioned.

CHAPTER m

THE SPRING OFFENSIVE 'T ilstu kki told m e that every commander who had tried to take die Ukraine had come to grief. . . M is answer was that he fe lt his luck stood so high that he thought he could risk it, but he added: 4You see, I was wrong!9'* —General Carton de Wiart Considering the vastness of the area to be defended and the relatively small forces available, static defence was an absurdity recognized by both sides. When the conditions of supply and communication were added to this, it seemed safe to assume that whoever seized the initiative and kept moving would stand the best chances of survival. Thus, from the very beginning, both staffs thought only in offensive terms. The Poles were very conscious of the size-factor. They were obsessed by the reality that if both states were to mobilize their full potential, the Polish Army could be completely swamped. The obvious course was to win the race for the spring offensive and to knock out one of the two Soviet groupings, after which the other could be dealt with. If the Poles could hang on to the offensive in this way, they could frustrate all Russian efforts at bringing their superior resources to bear. The land dried out faster in the Ukraine than in the Byelorussian theater of operations, which was an important consideration. One the other hand, it was even more important to ensure that this first offensive eliminated the more dangerous of the two Russian groupings. If the first offensive misfired, the Poles would find themselves in a very difficult position. Piłsudski therefore decided to wait and see where the Russians were concentrating their main forces. 36

7he Spring Offensive

37

Russian plans were more definite, and they were drawn up long before Piłsudski had made up his mind. They were less concerned with an early start, as they relied more heavily on the concentration of superior num­ bers. Kamieniev, the Supreme Commander of the Red Army, had drawn up the final version at the beginning of March.* This consisted of a strong attack delivered by the armies of the Western Front from the Smolensk area, supported by a subsidiary offensive by the South-Western Front from the Ukraine. Although the Vistula was mentioned, along with “deep penetration into Polish territory,” and “extensive operations in central Poland,” the ultimate goal was left vague. The immediate aims were to defeat the Polish Army and to occupy the borderlands. If and when this had been achieved, the further course of the campaign would be dis­ cussed. At the same time, it was made fairly obvious that the operations entailed the eventual capture of Warsaw.3 The operations were originally scheduled for June, but the problems of transporation and regrouping delayed this. There was also the fact that Denikin’s remnants were still holding out in the Caucasus, and the Red Army’s best divisions were needed for mopping up the area. Meanwhile, Piłsudski had decided to consolidate his position further. He ordered General Sikorski’s group, operating in the Pripet area, to move forward. On 5 March, Sikorski took Mozyr, thereby driving a wedge between the two Russian fronts and at the same time securing a central pivot for the next Polish offensive. This time there was an immediate Russian reaction. It came from Yegorov’s armies in Volhynia and the Ukraine. These mounted a series of retaliatory attacks on Mozyr and Zwiahel, and although they were unsuccessful they impressed the Poles. Yegorov's troops seemed to be better armed than they had been up until now, and the appearance of armoured cars and planes in this lethargic theater o f war seemed signi­ ficant. It confirmed recent intelligence reports which had observed in­ creased activity in Russian bases in the Ukrainian sector.4 Piłsudski was delighted. It seemed that the first major Russian concen­ tration would take place in the Ukraine. This meant that he could almost start right away, as the ground here was almost dry. It also meant that he could indulge one o f his great political dreams.

38

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

When the Red Anny had occupied the Ukraine, the Ukrainian National Anny of Ataman* Petlura had been forced to take refuge in Polad for the winter. Petlura needed support to see him back to Kiev, which suited Piłsudski admirably. If the Poles could defeat the Russian concentration in this area, Petlura could set himself up in Kiev once more. As soon as the Ukrianian Army had grown large enough to defend the area, the Poles could leave altogether.5 With the appearance of an allied Ukrainian state on the map, the Polish-Russian frontier would be halved, and the Polish Army could comfortably concentrate on the Byelorussian theater in the north. Piłsudski calculated that if he struck soon, Petlura could be well on his feet by the beginning of July, and most of the Polish forces could then be concentrated in the north against the Russian summer offensive. Piłsudski was quick to make up his mind. On 31 March, the Polish Army began to regroup. On 14 April, all officers were withdrawn from training courses and sent to the front. On 25 April, Piłsudski signed a military convention with Petlura, promising support as far as the Dnieper (Poland’s frontier before 1772), and a treaty of alliance with Prime Min­ ister Mazepa. Just as Piłsudski was setting off for the front, to take personal com­ mand, he was warned about what happened to Charles XII and Napoleon when they had presumed to attack Russia, to which he is reported to have answered: “Yes, but they were idiots—they did not possess my military genius!”* As dawn broke on 25 April, one Ukrainian and nine Polish divisions moved into battle. On a knoll overlooking the crossing over the river Slucz, the troops could see the morose mounted figure of Piłsudski, who enjoyed adding a Napoleonic touch to these occasions. The young army was swelled with pride. To every soldier it seemed that after two cen­ turies their country was at last emerging from the shadows of failure and defeat. It was obvious to all that the decisive campaign had begun, and nobody doubted the outcome. Their morale rose with every step they took through the beautiful Ukrainian countryside, and they were spoiling for a fight.

* Ataman—traditional cossack title for a leader.

The Spring Offensive

39

Not so Yegorov’s two armies. The XD Army, commanded by Mezheninov, which was holding ISO miles of the front, was not an impres­ sive force. It was a collection o f second-rate units; more of an occupation force than an army, and it was seriously undermanned and under-equiped. Its day-to-day problems included desertion and continual aggravation from Ukrainian partisans.7 Its three main groupings, at Korosten, Zhitomir and Berdichev, formed a shallow arc some two hundred kilometers west of Kiev, their headquarters. Further south, the front was held by the smaller but more efficient XIV Army, commanded by the brilliant twenty-four year old Uborevich. He too had his fair share of problems. Two brigades of Galician Riflemen serving in his army, some 11,000 men in all, heard rumors of Petlura’s forthcoming advance, and decided to transfer their allegiance to him.* The Galicians played havoc with Uborevich’s other units, before marching off to join Petlura. Thus, on the eve of the Polish offensive, Uborevich was floundering about in the problems of collecting his dispersed units and discouraging them from following the Galicians' example. It is impossible to establish with any certainty the strength of these two armies. Soviet sources give a series of conflicting figures, the lowest of which is 11,0009 and the highest upwards of 20.000.10 Some count only riflemen, while others include all combatants, but sometimes exclude brigades which were in reserve at Kiev or else engaged against partisans. Suffice it to say that the seven-and-a-half fairly skeletal Soviet divisions were heavily outnumbered by the nine-and-a-half full Polish ones. The whole area behind the Soviet front was far from peaceful. It was positively crawling with bands of Petlurist cossacks and small detach­ ments o f White irregulars, left behind by Denikin’s rapid withdrawal. They were a great nuisance to both Mezheninov and Uborevich, but the greatest threat was Makhno, the inventor of the tachanka. This gentleman was operating on the right bank of the Dnieper, deep in the Russian rear, with a very large force. He was actually in alliance with the Red Army at

* These brigades, originally in Austrian service, had tried to wrest Galicia from the Poles. Having been defeated, they joined Petlura. When the latter's luck ran out, they joined Denikin, only to desert him in turn and join the Red Army*

40

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

this moment, which meant that he only occasionally molested Mezheninov and Urorevich. Unknown to them, he was also in alliance with Petlura, and he was to mark this alliance in due course by one of his most spectacular massacres.11 Oddly enough, Mezheninov had made no contingency plans against a Polish attack. He had noticed intensified activity across the front, and he had heard rumors, but he had assumed that the Poles were merely pre­ paring yet another retaliatory raid of the sort being exchanged since the beginning o f the year. Not for one moment did he suspect the propor­ tions of what was about to hit him. His orders were merely to remain passive and avoid involving his weak army in any heavy fighting. In June or July, he would be strongly reinforced, and then his superior, Yegorov, would lead him into the Polish offensive. In view of this, Mezheninov pulled back some of his more exposed units and waited.13 Pilsudski's plan was a primitive form of Blitzkrieg. His main aim was not to capture territory, but to destroy and knock out to Russian armies. He intended to do this by sending cavalry deep into the Russian rear to cut off and isolate their forces in pockets which his own armies could then digest thoroughly in their own time. He aimed to destroy Mezheninov’s forces in the first instance, and to turn on the defenceless Uborevich when the first stage was completed. The first to move out were the three cavalry spearheads. From the north. General Romanowski’s brigade lunged towards the railway linking the Russian northern wing with Kiev. From the Polish center, General Sawicki’s brigade rode out to isolate Mezheninov’s center. Further south, the cavalry division began its far-flung raid on Koziatyn, the nerve-center of Mezheninov’s southern wing. This last force, which consisted of 3,500 sabres and two artillery troops, was in fact the only one strong enough to cope with its task. It enjoyed the added advantage of being commanded by a more cap­ able man than the other two. General Romer. He was an “ Austrian” artillery officer, young, elegant and energetic, and in the event far better suited to the job than the other two, despite their long cavalry service. Piłsudski had mapped out a roundabout course for Romer, running through thick forests, and seemingly making for Zhitomir. In this way he counted on total surprise when the cavalry finally swerved south towards Koziatyn. The three cavalry groups plunged unnoticed into the

The Spring Offensive

41

thick forests behind the Russian front, and silently and painfully made their way along deserted paths and tracks. A few hours later, Pilsudski’s main forces launched the frontal attack. In the north. Colonel Rybak’s group pounced on the right wing of the XQ Army, commanded by the young Golikov, and sent it reeling with the force of its attack. The two Russian divisions even left their trans* mitters behind in the rush, despite Golikov's attempts to rally them.13 In the center, the strongest Polish concentration. General SmiglyRydz’s Third Army, made straight for Mezheninov’s center at Zhitomir. The Russians tried to block the main road, but Polish motorized infantry by-passed them on deserted country tracks and trundled into Zhitomir in the early hours of the next morning. Further south, General Listowski's Second Army started its march on Koziatyn, while fwaszkiewicz’s Sixth Army tied down Uborevich frontally. The Polish attack developed with speed, particularly in the center. To the Russian infantry, who had grown used to half-hearted and sporadic border skirmishes, it seemed as though all hell had been let loose. They were further unnerved by the fact that several Polish air squadrons were flying around the dock, strafing and bombing all Russian installations in sight. Faced by these odds, the rank and file gave up any notion of defence. This fact was to save Mezheninov. By the end of the first day, before he had understood what was hap­ pening, Mezheninov had lost all contact with Golikov’s two divisions, and he had heard nothing from the other sectors of the front.14 At dawn on 26 April, Smigly-Rydz’s Third Army had taken Zhitomir. At the same time, Sawicki’s cavalry had cut the Zhitomir-Kiev highway, and Mezheninov’s center was isolated. Now only the southern wing at Berdichev and Koziatyn was still intact. It lay further from the Polish front, and thereby acquired a day’s grace. Unfortunately, the total break­ down o f communications prevented any news from reaching it, and when the 44th Rifle Division at Berdichev came under attack on the following afternoon, it was as surprised and unprepared as the other units had been. After a short battle, the 44th Division decided to quit Berdichev. It began to fall back on Koziatyn,where it hoped to find stronger posi­ tions, reinforcements and a railway link with headquarters at Kiev. But there was a surprise in store for it.

42

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

The Spring Offensive

43

44

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

Romer’s Cavalry Division, which had covered almost 200 kilometers in thirty-six hours without being spotted, was by this time riding into Koziatyn from the northeast. It managed to overrun most o f the town in the gathering dusk before the garrison had understood what was hap­ pening. The Russian troops centered around the railway yards were quick to recover from their surprise, however, and they managed to hold out until Romer’s second attack on the next morning. Nevertheless, by mid-morning on 27 April, the town was in Polish hands, and the 44th Division was unable to enter it. In an attempt to avoid encircle­ ment, this unit swung to the south, only to collide head on with spear­ heads of Listowski’s Second Army. Mezheninov’s southern wing had virtually ceased to exist. By this time, only forty-eight hours after the first shots, the fate of the XU Army appeared to be settled. Mezheninov had lost control of his units, and he no longer had any contact with his neighbor, Uborevich, who had been forced to abandon his headquarters at Zhmerinka in great haste. On 26 April, Mezheninov had sent out orders to all his troops, but only those at Koziatyn received these. On the next day, he had him­ self received orders from his superior, Yegorov. The latter insisted that Korosten, Zhitomir and Berdichev be held at all costs.15 Neither of them knew that all three towns had been in Polish hands for some time by then. So far, the Polish plan had worked perfectly. The southern wing of Mezheninov’s Army had been all but wiped out, while both the center grouping and Golikov’s wing were in full retreat, with their roads blocked and the Poles hot on their tails. Had the XU Army been in slightly better shape, it would probably have succumbed completely. As it was, the situation seemed so hopeless and chaotic, that the immediate reaction, from commander to ranker, was to flee for all it was worth. In the cir­ cumstances, it was the healthiest possible reaction. The massed columns of Russian soldiery streaming back towards Kiev simply swept aside the puny cavalry brigades of Sawicki and Romanowski, which were trying to hold them up. The result was that almost two-thirds of Mezheninov’s effective troops escaped the clutches of the Polish in­ fantry, which was unable to keep up with them. Piłsudski was baffled by the pace of developments. After three days’ fighting, he had moved his whole front forward by some 200 kilometers, and the XU Army was nowhere to be seen. At this point in his plan.

The Spring Offensive

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Listów ski’s Second Army and part of the Third should have wheeled southwards into the flank and rear of Uborevich’s army, but he did not give the order. The sudden void in front of him was perplexing and omin­ ous; no combination o f Russian prisoners and casualties could even sug­ gest that he had defeated Mezheninov's main forces, and if he did not, where were they? Slowly, he began to understand what had happened. He had over­ estimated his enemy and applied too much pressure in front. This being so, it was worth trying again, and he decided not to implement the plan­ ned manoeuvre against Uborevich, whose army he now knew to be too small to warrant large-scale operations. Piłsudski knew that the Red Army would do everything in its power to defend Kiev, for political as well as military reasons. It could only do this, however, if it was given time to marshall its forces and tidy up Mezheninov’s army. Piłsudski decided to allow the Russians this time, and he hoped to be more fortunate in cornering Mezheninov this time around. The main Polish forces did not move for the next ten days. They used them instead to tidy up and reorganize. Colonel Rybak’s Group was absorbed into Smigly-Rydz’s Third Army, which was to play the leading role in the battle for Kiev. The cavalry, now reinforced, was sent out in two groups, one to the north and the other to the south, with orders to cross the Dnieper and move into Mezheninov’s rear. The general assault was to being on 9 May.1' Piłsudski had guessed right. On I May, Kamieniev, the Supreme Com­ mander o f the Red Army, declared that Kiev must be held at all costs, at the same time making the necessary arrangements to reinforce Mez­ heninov.17 The latter was rallying his units and tidying them up as they drifted back towards Kiev. On 5 May, the first of the promised rein­ forcements arrived, in the shape of the Bashkir Cavalry brigade. Every­ thing seemed to be progressing well. Meanwhile, General Romanowski’s cavalry, which had been sent out on to cross the Dnieper to the north of the city, found a complete ab­ sence of any Russian detachments. Intrigued, Romanowski sent patrols out in every direction. One of these, consisting of a platoon of ChevauLegers, reached the outskirts of Kiev without seeing any trace of the enemy. Fascinated by this, the patrol climbed into a tram which was

46

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

about to drive into the city. As they trundled into the center, they saw only the odd small detachment of Red soldiers. A Russian officer, who had the misfortune to hail the tram, was pulled in for questioning, and the platoon left as it had come.1* That evening, Romanowski occupied the city with his brigade, and notified Smigly-Rydz, who was just setting up his heavy artillery. On the next morning, 7 May, the Third Army entered Kiev without firing a shot. Exactly when and why the defence o f the city was abandoned is not entirely clear. According to Mezheninov, who had received firm instruc­ tions on this point, the 7th Rifle Division and the 17th Cavalry took up outer positions which they only gave up under serious pressure from the Polish Third Army,1* which was completely unaware of having exerted it. While the two Soviet divisions streamed across the Dnieper bridges on 6 May, Mezheninov had sanctioned the withdrawal. The XII Army had one again escaped destruction, in spite of its commanders. At a glance, it seemed an impressive triumph for the Poles. In just under two weeks, they had defeated two Russian army groups, occupied a large area including the capital of the Ukraine, and all at a cost of a little more than one hundred dead. Valuable equipment had fallen into their hands, as the rapid retreat prevented the Russians from evacuating their stores.* The Polish Army had acquitted itself weD of its first major offensive. Everything had gone smoothly, without a hitch. The elation of the Poles reached a high level, and Pilsudski’s prestige soared. Piłsudski himself “admitted to feeling uneasy,” as General Carton de Wiart tells us.31 He realized that despite the apparent success, the whole operation had failed in its wider purpose. Mezheninov’s army had been badly battered but not annihilated. Uborevich’s had been sent reeling, but would have a chance to regain its balance. PQsudski was beginning to realize that he had made a mistake in anticipating a large Russian concentration in the Ukraine. The units he had defeated were not those

* At Koziatyn alone, Romer took 8,000 prisoners, 3,000 railway wagons, 500 horses, 176 machine-guns, 120 locomotives, 27 field-guns, 7 hospital trains, 3 airplanes, 1 armored car, 1 armored train and various supplies. All very useful to an army w hidt relied heavily on capture as a source of supply.30

The Spring Offensive

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which were to lead the attack into Poland in July. On the other hand, he had laid himself open by engaging almost half of the Polish Army, which was now condemned to defend a vast tract of territory. There was little that Piłsudski could do at this stage. He could hardly pursue Mezheninov across the Dnipper-thaf would be courting disaster. So he did what he had to do; he took a small bridgehead at Kiev, dissolved and sent home Listowski’s Second Army, and went over to the defensive, hoping for the best. Now everything turned on Petlura. If he could set up an administration and raise some sort of any army during the next few weeks, the whole offensive would not have been in vain. But the Ukraine, whose national identity had been repressed for centuries, had been severely bled by six years of war and revolution. It had been psychologically exploited by no less than fifteen different regimes in three years,* and the dominant resulting attitude was, not surprisingly, one of utter cyncism. The small educated lcass had been drastically thinned, not only by war, but also by reprisals of every conceivable nature, while the urban middle class was mostly made up of Jews, Germans, Russians and Poles, and their allegiances were as varied as their origins. The ephemeral quality of the last fifteen regimes, even when backed by the apparently invincible power of Germany, had taught people not to commit themselves. Realizing this, Smigly-Rydz set up his headquarters in the city, surrounded it with troops and held parades. All seem to be agreed that this exhibition of military power was the most impressive Kiev had seen sine the beginning of World War I, but time was the only element which would break down the scepticism of the majority.33 Time, however, was a highly priced commodity at this moment. Petlura was in fact only given four weeks, and he made very little progress. His army, which had consisted of some 12,000 men at the beginning of the campaign, never rose above 30,000.” His greatest oroblem in this field

* The Ukraine had seen rule by Tsarist Russia, Austria, Germany, a National Directorate o f Ukrainians, Bolshevik Russia, a Ukrainian Peoples' Soviet, the White Army, Petlura and finally die Poles, all in varying shapes and guises.

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS

was to get his hands on all the partisans and irregulars operating in his name all over the Ukraine. The cossack ethic was still strong among these people, who greatly preferred their own brand of warfare, free of the shackles of discipline and policj Despite all his efforts, Petlura could not overcome the main stumblingblock, which was the chronic shortage of qualified manpower. Polish troops, which were urgently needed elsewhere, were still needed to run the railways, telephones and other administrative services. As it was, there were barely enough of them to defend the area against the everincreasing concentrations of Russian troops. While Petlura floundered in his problems, time was running out.

CHAPTER IV

THE BATTLE OF THE BEREZINA The Polish offensive did not worry the Soviet leadership from the military point of view. No important Russian forces had been impaired, and it was most unlikely that the Poles would continue their advance. On the other hand, the Kremlin was quick to realize that it had been dealt a trump which it would have been criminal to squander.1 Piłsudski had made a major mistake in not courting public opinion before launching his offensive. The world at large saw Kiev as a Russian city, and they had never heard of Petlura. The result was that when, in the first days of the offensive, the Soviets started making indignant pro­ tests about Polish imperialism, they reaped a huge measure of sympathy. Few people realized that neither army had the slightest moral right to be in the area at all, and that there was little to choose from between Polish and Russian 'Imperialism/’ The result was that the vast majority of public opinion throughout the world was easily convinced that Pił­ sudski had invaded Russia and started a new war, neither of which was the case.41 The day after the Poles had marched into Kiev, the New Statesman of London was venting the opinion that “it is therefore impossible for anyone who is concerned for the future peace of Europe to hope for anything but an early disaster for the Polish armies.” 2 Two days later, dockers in the port of London refused to load the "Jo lly George ” a ship carrying military supplies bought in England by the *

* By repealing all the treaties of partition made by successive Tsarist governments since 1772, the Soviet had officially renounced all claims to the territories west of the Dnieper, excluding Kiev, in Poland’s favor. 49

50

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Polish Government. A week later, the Executive Committee of the Com­ munist International, sitting in Moscow, issued the following manifesto: Transport workers, railwaymen, dockers, seamen! Do not dis­ patch supplies or food to Poland, for it will be used in the war against workers' and peasants' Russia. German railwaymen! Do not pass trains through from France to Poland. Dockers of Danzig! Do not unload ships destined for Poland. Austrian railwaymen! Not one train must get through from Italy to Po­ land.3 This effectively closed two of the Polish Army’s supply-lines and placed the third in jeopardy. By invading the Ukraine without adequate preparation in the field of propaganda, Piłsudski had completely for­ feited public opinion for Poland throughout the world. Allied govern­ ments were irritated by his independent action. Churchill and the anti­ bolshevik camp were distressed that he had struck now and not in 1919, when Denikin needed help. Lloyd George saw it as pure trouble-making at a moment when resumption of trade seemed possible. They would not look kindly on future demands for help. Inside Russia, the Polish occupation of Kiev had very much the same effect as a stick prodded into an anthill. A call went up fo the defense of the fatherland, and the invaders were denounced in frenzied articles. Public opinion responded superbly: the Whites and the Reds were one thing, but Poles in K iev-that was intolerable to any Great Russian.4 De­ spite Lenin’s personal intervention and recommendations insisting that chauvinism was to be avoided at all costs,3 both the appeal and the re­ sponse were heavily loaded with national feeling. Trotsky was even obliged to close down the Red Army staff journal for insulting the Poles on racial grounds.6 Whether they liked it or not, the Soviet leadership were obliged to ride this wave of patriotism, if only out of military necessity. The Polish offensive had brought thousands of volunteers into the ranks of the Red Army. Former officers at last found an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of the Soviet Republic without having to fight against their comrades in the White armies; they could volunteer to fight against Poland, a traditional enemy. The old Tsarist General Brusilov came

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forward to offer his services, and on 30 May published a letter in Pravda, calling on all his former colleagues to join him in defending the threatened fatherland. In Moscow alone, over 1,500 former officers were accepted for service during the following week.7 At no stage in the civil war had either side reaped such a response. Piłsudski had not only made himself unpopular in Europe, he had provoked a full-scale national crusade. From now on, he would have not just the Red Army against him, but a regular Russian army. This was already beginning to tell in Byelorussia, where the Russian Western Front was gradually being built up for the summer offensive. New units fresh from victory against Denikin on the southern front took their place in the line, as well as refills and replacements for the older units. But on 29 April, while the Polish offensive was unfurling in the Ukraine, the Western Front received its most important single addition in the shape of a new commander, a man who was to become something of a legend. Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was possibly the most glamorous and fascinating personality of a war which abounded in rich characters. He was twenty-seven years old, and his thin, slightly gauche but always elegant figure, his swarthy complexion and lank black hair, were remini­ scent of the young Napoleon, with the exception that Tukhachevsky was an aristocrat down to his fingertips. Above all, he was beautifulł‘the most beautiful man in the world, with the physique of a Greek God,” according to one acquaintance.8 Tukhachevsky's numerous biographers endow him with lineages that include aristocrats, peasants, Italians, Tartars, a crusader and even, need one say it, Gengis Khan. He himself was not averse to encouraging these and many other rumors, but in fact his parents were perfectly normal members of the Russian nobility. The young Tukhachevsky had enjoyed an upbringing typical of his class. He himself was not. From a very early age, he began to display all the qualities of a superstar; he could not help drawing attention to him­ self, and he often caused scandal by his exploits. His French governess never recovered from the shock of seeing him baptise his three cats in the names of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and then swear at them for misbehaving.9 In 1914 he was gazetted lieutenant in the Semeonovsky Foot Guards. He was sent off to the front, where he was decorated for bravery no less

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than six times in as many m onths, before being taken prisoner in February 1915.10 After five attem pted escapes, the Germans incarcerated him in the fortress o f Ingolstadt, where they kept the more homesick Allied officers. Here, he sought mainly the company o f Frenchmen, on whom, naturally enough, he made a lasting impression. General de Goys writes: He was a fine Russian, whose tall, elegant, slim figure stood out well under his national tunic. He had the clear eyes of a Slav, full of reserve and breeding. His perfect bearing, his decided step, both matial and graceful, and the charm which emanted from his person immediately fetched him the sympathy o f his fellows. . . .Eager to learn, he never ceased to question me with deferential and intelligent curiosity. Gradually, my first impression of the slightly effeminate lieutenant gave way to that o f a mature man, who possessed energy, ambition, and a cold, implacable will. He loved the soldier's art with passion, and nothing else seemed to interest him .11 Tukhachevsky realized how much he fascinated the Frenchmen, and he did not omit to play up to this on occasion. He would drive them mad with melancholy by playing the theme of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony over and over on his violin. Or he would shock them by announcing that Versailles was pretty enough, but might be improved by the construction o f a factory between the palace and the canal. After discussing literature for hours, he would conclude that all books should be burnt, so that the soul o f man could be liberated.12 Paradoxically, Tukhachcvsky’s captivity was his moment o f greatest freedom. At Ingolstadt, he could say and do things which could not pass in either Tsarist or Soviet Russia. He often released all his pent-up frustration and dissatisfaction in virulent outbursts such as this: The Jews brought us Christianity, and that is reason enough to hate them . And anyway, they belong to a low race. You cannot understand this, you French, for whom equality is a dogma. The Jew is a dog, son of a bitch, and he spreads his fleas throughout the world. It is he who has done more than any other to inoculate us to the plague o f civilization, and

w ho

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53

would like to give us his morality, the m orality o f m oney, o f c a p ita l. . . The great socialists are Jews, and the socialist doctrine is a branch o f universal C hristianity. . . I loathe all socialists, Christians and Jews!13 One day. Captain Fervaque, a fellow inm ate, walked into his cell and found him building a grotesque monster out o f lewdly painted cardboard. In its hands it held a bom b. Tukhachevsky superciliously explained that this was “Pieroun,” the God o f War and Destruction, and he proceeded to kneel before it. Fervaque listened in awe as Tukhachevsky went on: “We will enter into the state o f Chaos, and we will only emerge from it with the total ruin of civilization.” 14 He did not care whom he served. When he heard of the revolution in Russia, he merely commented: “Communism does not worry me. 1 had lands, but they were all mortgaged up to the h ilt. . . .Why should 1 care whether it is w ith the Red Banner o f the O rthodox Cross that I conquer Constantinople?” 15 Nonplussed by his flamboyance, one Frenchman finally summed up Tukhachevsky as “ du champagne dans le piano.” 16 But Tukhachevsky was more than just an effervescent freak. All his ramblings and ejaculations pivoted on his dissatisfaction with the state of the world. His romantic soul turned away from the squalor o f con­ temporary life, and sought refuge not in love or idealism, but in a belief that only destruction and chaos could liberate the natural primitive soul of man. As he came into contact with the business o f everyday life, many o f these adolescent notions were eroded. What remained was his instinctive love o f war. History interested him too, but only insofar as it concerned war or warriors. He never tired o f the great men like Caesar and Napoleon, w ho, by their energy, their contem pt for prejudice and their genius, were able to assert themselves and trample others underfoot. Tukhachevsky was determined, as he put it, to be a general or a corpse by the age o f thirty. He finally managed to escape from Ingolstadt in 1917, whereupon he made his way back to Russia. On reaching Moscow, he offered his services to Trotsky. In spite of the suspicions aroused by his birth and previous record, Tukhachevsky’s ability and loyalty were soon recognized. He was put in command o f the first Red Army on the Siberian Front, where he distinguished himself by saving the situation several times and finally

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driving Admiral Kolchak’s White army back to Vladivostok. He was then transferred to the Southern Front to deal w ith Denikin, and it is here that he first came across the the “Tsarytsin circle” —Stalin, Voroshilov and Budyonny. They were attem pting to run the Southern Front on highly independent lines, taking little heed o f Trotsky’s directives, and they resented Tukhachevsky's incursion into what they believed to be their territory. Needless to say, he took an equally strong dislike to them , resenting their cliquishness and their continual meddling in his affairs. Then, in April 1920, he received his most im portant ap p o in tm en tthe Western Front. He was to lead the Red Army in its first international campaign. He arrived to find the armies in a sorry state. He reported to Kamieniev that the troops o f the Western Front "did not inspire much confidence,” and noticed that the fruitless fighting against the Poles over the last year had bred “ uncertainty and even a sort o f shyness” in them. The units arriving from the Denikin Front, however, enjoyed a high morale and confidence, and he expected to rely heavily on these in the coming operations.17 The Polish offensive in the Ukraine provided an excellent focus for agitation in the ranks, and even some of the despondent old units were caught up in the excitement and carried along on the crest of the wave of patriotism. On the other hand, the offensive had also provoked a series of telegrams from the high command, demanding immediate diver­ sions by Tukhachevsky in order to draw some o f the Polish forces off from the Ukraine. Almost before he had arrived at his new post, Tukha­ chevsky was therefore obliged to plan an offensive. Although his concentration was by no means ready, he had a marginal superiority over the Poles, who could muster 95,000 men against* his own 115,000, but this in itself did not tip the balance in his favor. What did was the system of defense the Poles had adopted along this front.18 The Poles had only relatively small forces at their disposal in this theater, but they needed to keep the whole length o f the front herm eti­ cally sealed, in order to keep out agents and agitators. As a result, all available forces were stretched out along the front in a long thin cordon. Lach division was allotted a sector of the front line, and it possessed only its own small reserve a few kilometers further back, while no such thing as an army or front reserve existed. This had worked well enough

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while the Russians could only mass a relatively small expeditionary force; Ihe immediate divisional reserve could be called upon to deal with the threat. How that Tukhachevsky could drive in spearheads o f two or more divisions at a few kilometers o f Polish front, he could be sure o f piercing it. Once one link in the Polish chain had given way, the debacle was un­ avoidable, as there were no spare links in the area. Tukhachevsky’s main forces were concentrated between Vitebsk and Orsha, more or less in the center of his front, which meant that he had a choice in where to deliver the main blow. The swampy, thickly-wooded hanks of the Berezina made most o f the front impassable to large armies, and there were only tw o corridors through which a full-scale attack could be m ounted: to the south, in the Diumen area, and in the north, near Polotsk. Tukhachevsky chose the latter. His plan was simple. He intended to tie down the Polish Fourth Army defending the Minsk area by an attack on Borisov and a diversion on Ihumen. Meanwhile, his main forces, in the shape of (Cork’s XV Army, were to advance from Polotsk in a south-westerly direction towards Molodeczno. If his original attack was successful, Kork was to wheel round to a southerly course, drive the Polish First Army back on to the Fourth at Minsk, and then pressure both into the Pripet Marshes, where they could be cornered and gradually destroyed.19 On 14 May, one week after the Poles had taken Kiev, Tukhachevsky struck. He was just in time; Piłsudski had ordered his own armies to sally forth on 17 May, w ith the intention o f taking the railway junction o f Zhlobin. Had the Poles succeed in this, they would have outmanoeuvred the Western F ront completely: they would have been in a position to strike at the Russian rear and thereby cripple all attem pts at mounting a new offensive. As it was, the Poles were taken o ff balance. This was the first full-scale offensive ever launched by the Red Army on this front, and the First Army was easily driven back by Kork. A t the other end o f the front, Sollohub’s XVI Army floundered through impossible terrain towards Borisov, whose fall seemed imminent. Nevertheless, the Russian attack developed slowly. The first few days should have been decisive, b u t the first five passed w ithout either o f the tw o Russian groups having made any real break­ through. By the same token, the Poles were given time to recover their wits.

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Piłsudski appointed General Szeptycki,4 a distinguished and capable “Austrian” officer and the Polish second-in-command, to take over the N orthern Front (which corresponded to the Russian Western Front). At the same tim e, he ordered General Sosnkowski, his old right-hand man from the Legions, to assemble all spare units in north-eastern Poland into a reserve arm y.20 By this tim e, the impetus o f the Russian attack had run out. The First Army had brought Kork to a standstill outside Molodeczno, while the Fourth had thrown Sollohub back across the Berezina. On 1 June, Szepty­ cki was able to launch his counterattack. Sosnkowski’s Reserve Army advanced from Swieciany, while part o f the Fourth Army, under General Skierski, moved northwards, making for the exposed flanks of Kork’s arm y. But they were unable to bite off Tukhachevsky’s spearhead. The latter was quick to realize what was threatening, and he pulled his forces back out of reach across the river Auta. Szeptycki was keen to follow and pursue his advantage, but on 4 June Piłsudski called him back. He ordered the tw o Polish armies to take up defensive positions along the Auta and w ait.21 Szeptycki was extremely uneasy. He did not like the new aggressive spirit o f the Russian armies facing him, and he would have liked to defeat them while he still had the opportunity. He realized the danger was not past, and that it would grow rapidly if unchecked. However, Piłsudski was firm on this point as he believed that “ the physical strength and the morale o f the First Army are on the point o f exhaustion.” He was also uneasy about the vulnerable layout of the Polish front.22 For Tukhachevsky, the three weeks' fighting has been most instruc­ tive. He had found the Poles very different from the White troops he had been used to. On 12 June, he reported to Kamieniev that “ the enemy handles his armies excellently,” and that their training, organization and tactics were those o f a regular army. He was impressed by what he called their “harmony o f movement,” and concluded by saying that “ the Polish *

* Count Stanislaw Szeptycki (1867-1938), professional soldier in Austrian service. Commander o f Pilsudski’s Legion 1916-1917. He then became military governor o f Austrian Poland 1917-1918. Then he became Chief-ofStaff o f the Polish Army 1918, and then commander o f the Northern Front.

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Army exudes Europeanism.” His own units had shown a marked defici­ ency in these very fields. Although their morale had been good, like the general standard o f their com bat, their organization and field-work left much to be desired.23 Writing in 1923, Tukhachevsky speaks of a great moral victory, which it was in some measure, but at the time he was far from pleased by the outcome. His contem porary reports and Sergeyev’s* remarks indicate that the retreat had been dictated from below.24 Tukhachevsky had sanc­ tioned a withdrawal it would have been unwise to prevent. Even some o f the newly-arrived units had shown shyness towards the Poles, whose reputation among the Russian rank and file was great. For instance, a cavalry brigade consisting of two regiments, the “Thunder of Victory” and the wUn vanquished,” had surrendered en masse to a single troop of Colonel Anders’ 15th Lancers.***25 In fact, Tukhachevsky’s little offensive had been anything but inef­ fectual. He had taken enough ground to give an impression of victory, which was good for morale, and he had taken the opportunity to get the feel o f his own armies and to assess the military caliber of his pro­ tagonists. In a wider context, the fighting had very im portant consequences. Pilsudski’s last chance to retain the initiative, by striking at Zhlobin and disturbing the Russian preparations, had been denied him. Now he had lost the lead entirely. He had prevented Szeptycki from engaging in pursuit, because the situation in the Ukraine had taken a drastic turn for the worse. In this situation, Polish strategy was reoriented. From being offensive in character, it was suddenly forced into a corner, and for the next two m onths, Piłsudski was to devote all his energy and re­ sources to patching up the situation on the tw o fronts alternately, trying to stave o ff one while he dealt w ith the other. At this point, he was obliged to stave off the still slight threat o f Tukhachevsky in favor of saving the situation in the Ukraine. Not only did Tukhachevsky’s offen­ sive not distract any Polish troops from the Ukraine, the Ukraine dis­ tracted tw o divisions from Byelorussia on 13 June.26

* One o f Kork’s divisional commanders, later commander of IV Army. ** Later General Władysław Anders, commanded the Polish 2nd Corps at Monte Cassino, 1944.

CHAPTER V

BUDYONNY “B ut this is not w ar-There are no corpses! The divisions advance and retreat w ithout anyone knowing w h y. . . . M -M ajor Charles de Gaulle1 The Ukraine had been deceptively peaceful during the m onth o f May. While the Poles sat and w aited, the two Russian armies had kept their distance in anticipation of the signal for the attack. This was to come in the shape of the arrival of the Red Army’s most glamorous and uni­

versally dreaded formation, the First Cavalry Army; Pervaya Konnaya Armia, or just Konarmia I. The power of this unit lay as much in legend as in fact, and to under­ stand the birth of this legend it is necessary to take a close look at the men who created and led it. It had been launched in the summer of 1919, as Trotsky’s answer to the problem of dealing with large armies of White cossacks which roamed the Bolshevik rear so frequently. To organize and lead it, he had chosen Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny, a daring choice. Budyonny was a tall, well-built man of forty, the image o f the typical regimental sergeant-major. He was a fine horseman and he cultivated a swashbuckling image aimed at disguising the fact hat he was not a cossack, but an ordinary Russian peasant. When he espied Zhukov reading Das Kapital, he exclaimed: uThis is my Karl Marx!” drawing his sabre and waving it about.2 This just about sums him up. He was semi-literate and impermeable to wisdom, his only obvious assets being his physique and his instinctive cunning.

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Budyonny

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Before the Great War, Budyonny had seen long service in the cavalry, and he had finally attained the rank of corporal. In 1917 he joined the ranks of the Bolsheviks. At the defense of Tsarytsin (later Stalingrad), he had been noticed and singled out by Voroshilov, and from then on his future was assured. Inevitably, he became the blue-eyed boy of the Stalin-Voroshilov faction; his combination of blind loyalty, bravery and stupidity were exactly what they expected of their ideal military com­ mander. Voroshilov, who became the political officer of the Konarmia, led Budyonny by the nose, and this suited the latter perfectly. They were constant friends, as they complemented each other’s shortcomings; Klim (Kliment Yefreimovich Voroshilov) did the brainwork, while Budyonny did the fighting. They made an efficient pair, and they gave Stalin, who was political officer to the South-Western Front, effective control over the unit and, to some extent, over its movements. Trotsky was well aware of the fact that the Konarmia was beyond his control, and he said of Budyonny that “wherever he leads his gang, there will they go; for the Reds today, tomorrow for the Whites.”3 By which he meant that the Konarmia was virtually Stalin’s private army, but he could do very little about this anomaly without provoking a pitched battle with the entire Tsarytsin faction. By the spring of 1920, the Konarmia had grown to include four full divisions of horse, which could muster between them 18,000 sabres, 52 field-guns, 5 armored trains, 8 armored cars, and a squadron of fifteen planes.4 The latter were largely symbolic, as there was nobody to fly them, but they followed the Konarmia wherever it went, until they were captured by a Polish raid, still in their cases. The Konarmia’s tactics were simple—to avoid like the plague any heavy fighting. Budyonny would approach an enemy position, grope about until he found the weakest spot, and then apply the combined strength of all four divisions to it. By sheer weight of numbers and in­ timidation, he would smash his way through. Then,without looking to right or left, he would rush deep into the enemy’s rear, where his troops would fan out and spread panic by disrupting every installation in sight. At this point, the breached front would usually collapse and melt away into a retreat which the Konarmia would do its best to turn into a rout.

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The whole system relied on surprise, rapid concentration of all forces at a given point, and always being at least one move ahead of the enemy. Budyonny hated having to dismount his men or attack a position frontally. If there was ever a flank in sight, he could be counted on to turn it. He also disliked meddling with enemy cavalry: the White cossacks tended to be superior to his own troops, and they felt none of the instinctive terror which made infantry so defenseless against him. When a brush with cavalry was unavoidable, the Konarmia’s usual tactic was to tempt the other side to charge and then veer off to the side, while the tachankas and field-guns did the rest. Certainly, the Konarmia was a force to be reckoned with, but its strength was more than doubled by its reputation, which Budyonny nursed carefully. He always did his utmost to keep away from engage­ ments which might test the essential fighting worth of the corps, and its potential is therefore very difficult to determine. Opinions on the subject vary considerably. General Carton de Wiart expressed a cold and detached view: This bolshevik force. . .was largely composed of cossacks. Cos­ sacks are the most disappointing cavalry soldiers, for they have neither enough training nor enough discipline to make them efficient in modern warfare. What they lack in skill, they try to make up for in brutality and m urder. . . . s One might, however, argue that the Konarmia was never called upon to operate in conditions of “modern warfare,” and its psychological assets were more than clearly visible to men who had faced it personally: The tactics of cossack warfare had changed very little. Despite the existence of guns and rapid-firing tachankas, they still pre­ ferred the mounted charge, and they certainly knew how to use their sabres. The cossacks were formidable on account of their warlike spirit, their weight of numbers, but above all by the licence and cruelty. He who has heard the howls and whistles of a charging ‘wave’ will admit that even the heart of an old soldier quailed. It was well known that a cossack sabre spared no one.*

Budyonny

61

Perhaps the most objective appreciation of the Konarmia comes from another Polish cavalry officer, who writes: The Horse Army had more suggestive power than actual strength. It only possessed a few elite detachments, amounting to no more than two divisions. The rest consisted of, let us call them ‘mount­ ed people,9 riding horses which should never have left the plough. This swarm of horsemen would raise gigantic dust-clouds on the horizon, blotting out everything for miles around, and giving the impression of a great, fastmoving and fantastic force pouring into every free gap, and finally kindle a feeling of utter impotence in the enemy ranks.7 One thing was certain; both physically and psychologically the Kon­ armia was the Red Army’s most powerful weapon, and it was purpose built to make the most of civil war conditions. According to Kamieniev’s original March plan, the Konarmia was to leave the Caucasus, where it was engaged in mopping-up operations, at the beginning of June. It was to join Yegorov’s front in the Ukaine some­ time in July,* but the Polish offensive had speeded up the transfer, which began immediately after the fall of Kiev. The Poles knew o f the Konarmia’s impending arrival, and their feelings were mixed. Piłsudski himself treated the prospect lightly, a view in which the majority of his staff concurred. To them it seemed ridiculous to get flustered about a band of Russian horsemen, however numerous or savage, when there was well-drilled infantry, machine-gun sections and artillery at their disposal. It was a logical enough opinion, but it was not shared by everyone. General Karnicki, the new commander of the Polish Cavalry Division, had very serious doubts. He had held very high rank in the Tsarist army before the Great War, and Piłsudski had consequently dispatched him when the French had insisted that a Polish liaison officer be sent to Denikin’s headquarters. Karnicki had thus been a witness to the defeat and disintegration o f the White army. He had seen the Konarmia slicing through fronts, regardless of machine-guns and armored cars, and turning steady infantry into panic-striken crowds. He was not treating the prospect of its arrival on the Polish front lightly.

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While the Poles waited and wondered, the Russians were busy planning their counterattack. Kamieniev visited Yegorov’s headquarters in Kharkhov, and together they worked out the final version. In the first instance they decided to concentrate entirely on amputating the protruding limb of Smigly-Rydz’s Third Army at Kiev. Mezheninov was to tie down the Poles by attacking the bridgehead while two flanking groups folded back the two wings of the Third Army. Meanwhile, the Konarmia was to pierce the Polish front further to the south and west, and then move back eastwards in order to close the ring around the Third Army. When the latter had been thouroughly digested, Mezheninov, Uborevich and Budyonny were to lead an offensive on Rowne and Lublin.9 Although the Russian staff knew little about the layout of the Polish defences, they had hit on the right plan. There were two Polish armies in the Ukraine at this time, the Third based at Kiev and Iwaszkiewicz^ Sixth at Zhmerinka. They were deployed in a thin screen along the parameter of Polish occupation, and they could be easily pried apart. Their vul­ nerability was increased by the behavior of General Smigly-Rydz. The latter was one of Pilsudski’s favorites from the Legions, and for this reason, he was given important commands despite his youth. He was undoubtedly a very fine soldier and an efficient commander, but his qualities were essentially those of a second-in-command. He was no policymaker or strategist. Moreover, he had taken the Ukrainian venture more seriously than Piłsudski himself, and he was determined to keep Petlura’s regime in Kiev whatever happened. He had therefore made the city his own headquarters, and massed about half of the Third Army and the whole Ukrainian army in or around it. This move obviously helped to increas Petlura’s chances, but it was an unwarranted military risk. It meant that his headquarters was hundreds of miles from that of Iwaszkiewicz, and the links between them were highly tenuous and within easy reach of a shallow enemy thrust. With the arrival of a mobile, strong Russian army on the scene, Smigly-Rydz had become a sitting duck. The only Polish reserve in the area was Karnicki’s Cavalry Division, but this only amounted to some 3,000 sabres, and there was no reliable liaison with it. The Ukrainian forces were still very weak and as yet un­ trained, so they could not be called upon in case of emergency. Until lately, the Poles had still enjoyed a comfortable superiority in the Uk­ raine, but the arrival of the Konarmia had violently tipped the scales in

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Livor of the Russians, who could now muster some 40,000 combatants in the area.10 In these circumstances, it was madness for the Poles to maintain a passive screen of defense. Sooner or later the Konarmia would lie able to batter its way through at some point. After an amazing overland march of almost 800 miles in one month, i he Konarmia drifted on to the scene.* It was first spotted by a Polish airman as it bore down on its concentration point at Human,11 and on 30 May a squadron of the 8th Prince Jozef Poniatowski Lancers came lacc to face with a small detachment while on a deep reconnaisance mission. Contact had been made. On 26 May, Budyonny began to grope his way along the extended wing of the Third Army. He gave the Polish 7th Infantry Division a baptism of fire which proved too much for it, and it went reeling back in panic. Just as Budyonny was preparing to exploit his advantage, however, Karnicki’s cavalry bore down on his flank. While Smigly-Rydz motored down from Kiev to admonish the 7th Division, the two cavalries began to duel. Budyonny was under the impression that Kamicki had two divisions at his disposal, and he was careful. For Karnicki however, this was a difficult moment. Before the Great War, they had served together in the same cavalry regiment; Kamicki as commanding officer, Budyonny as trooper. It was Karnicki who had promoted Budyonny to the rank of corporal. Now the venerable old general was faced by this corporal wielding an army more than six times the size of his own unit. The ex­ perience was too much for him. He was obsessed with protecting his own little force, and his caution lost him the initiative. The first major engagement occurred near Wolodarka, where Kamicki pinned down one of the Konarmia’s divisions. A whole new saga began, as the two armies of horsemen grappled with each other in a type of combat which had been exiled from Europe with Napoleon. A young Polish ensign writes of what he saw and felt on that day: It was the late afternoon of 29 May 1920. The sun was already dipping in the west. The 1st Krechowiecki Lancers deployed

* The pace of the march was such that the Konarmia had to shoot an average of fifty horses a day.

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS to the left and at a trot began to move up the slight incline, towards the bolsheviks. As we came over the ridge, we caught sight of a huge wave of Budyonny’s cavalry, also trotting, coming down from the next ridge into the dip. The bolsheviks had the setting sun in their eyes, and presumably could not make out the strength of their opponent. Both sides slowed to a walk and came to a standstill opposite each other. A colorfully dressed rider galloped out from the swarm of cossacks on a superb black charger, and waving his sabre above his head, he shouted: ‘Well, my Lords! I’m cossack Kuzma Kruchkov-who’ll take me on?’ At this, a murmur ran along the row of officers standing in front of the 1st Lancers: ‘Radecki! Yes, Radecki!’ Captain Radecki (the best swords­ man in the regiment) passed his sabre to his left hand to make the sign of the Cross, and then began to move towards Kruchkov at a walk. Kruchkov sprung towards him at a gallop. Radecki par­ ried the first cut aimed at his head, and himself slashed fiercely to the right and down, cutting Kruchkov open from the collar to the waist. At this point, a howl went up amongst the cossacks. H e’s dead! Dead! The Devil!’ they shouted, and the whole lot turned tail before the already charging regiment. . . . We started at a gallop,arched low in our saddles, lances at the horse’s ear, sabres raised high for the cut. A man who has not been through all the emotions of a cavalry engagement can never appreciate the exhilaration and frenzy which a charging horse­ man experiences. The nerves are stretched to breaking-point, the fear one might have felt vanishes, while the horse carries at a full gallop, warmed by the passion of the rider, frenzied and ready to trample or bite.1*

Budyonny was not pleased. Karnicki’s raid had forced him to pull back and leave the Polish infantry alone. A couple of days later, one of his brigades of Don cossacks shot their political officers and went over to join the Poles. On the same night, Karnicki again lunged at his flank, throwing the Konarmia back to Wolodarka, whereupon Budyonny attempted to encircle the Poles, without success. On 1 June, he made one final effort to break through the front, but just as the Konarmia

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was massing for the attack, a Polish counterattack began. After two «lays' heavy fighting, in which he nearly broke through the defenses ! the 13th Division the attempt ended in stalemate. A general rethink was evidently necessary. The first attempt at breaking through had pro­ duced no positive results, and Budyonny called off his forces for a couple of days. The relative peace that followed was welcome to both sides, which needed to lick their wounds and digest their first impressions. The other sectors of the Ukrianian theater had by no means been in­ active all this time. On 29 May Mezheninov had stepped up his attacks on the Kiev bridgehead, and further south, Yakir’s Group had gone into action. This force had been formed round the unhappy remnants of the 44th Rifle Division, which had suffered so badly near Koziatyn earlier. I.E. Yakir, a promising twenty-four year old and one of the few Jews to hold high rank in the Red Army, had been brought in to restore order and forge an army out of the mess. His group had been reinforced by a fresh division and a special brigade from Moscow, while cavalry support came in the shape of Kotovsky; a rather large man resplendent in yellow fur-trimmed tunic and red cap, followed by a brigade of equally flam­ boyant riff-raff of every race and creed, whose incredible skill and bravery had earned them a great reputation during the civil war.* In Kiev, Smigly-Rydz watched with uneasiness as the Russian attack was launched. He decided to buy time with some active defense. On 1 June, he had sent two battalions of Legionaries down the Dnieper on rafts. They disembarked some fifty kilometers downstream, and using the tall steppe grass as cover, penetrated into the rear of Mezheninov’s 58 th Division, which was attacking the bridgehead. This action effectively disorganized the XII Army's plans, and the bridgehead was quiet for several days.14 At the same time, another Legionary task-force pounced on the Mos­ cow brigade of Yakir’s Group, sliced through it and descended into the

* Kotovsky himself has been described as: “Nobleman, anarchist, swash­ buckler, adventurer, executioner, burner of palaces, convict, music-lover, hero of cheap novels, or just a desparate Russian from Moldavia.” His soldiers used ot proudly announce: “We are not soldiers of the Red Army, we are the soldiers of Kotovsky.” 13

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rear of the luckless 44th Division, which was so discouraged by this victimization that it withdrew from the battlefield completely. On the next day, 3 June, Mezheninov and Yakir jointly appealed to Yegorov. They insisted that a minimum reinforcement of two divisions was es­ sential before they could deal with Smigly-Rydz.15 In fact, they did not need to worry, for it was easy for the latter to score against them by using his best shock-troops in this way, but it would be very much more difficult to sustain a long attack, considering what some of his other units were like. He was merely buying time at the rate of days. He was under the illusion that as long as he stood firm in Kiev, Piłsudski would reinforce him in time, or send a relief column. The first Russian success came to the north of Kiev. Golikov experi­ enced none of the problems which beset Mezheninov, as Smigly-Rydz had left rididculously inadequate forces to defend this stretch of river. On 1 June, Golikov had thrown his forces across the Dnieper. The first across were the Bashkir cavalry, a formidable combination of red caps, impassive yellow faces and curved sabres, and they had little difficulty in brushing aside the few squadrons of Polish cavalry. By the time Goli­ kov’s infantry (the 7th and 24th “Iron* Divisions) arrived on the west bank, there was little left to be done. The first act in the encirclement of the Third Army was complete. In spite of this, Mezheninov was still unable to achieve even local success against the strong Polish positions at Kiev, and he was obliged to wait for Budyonny to loosen things up a little. The latter had called a conference of all his commanders together on 2 June. They all reported total lack of success and a corresponding ebb in morale.16 Exhausted from its long march, and depressed by the week of fruitless fighting, the Konarmia was feeling despondent. Budy­ onny attributed this to superior Polish tactics and fire-power, but in fact the problem went deeper than this. During the last stages of the campaign against Denikin, the Konarmia’s reputation had risen so high and the morale of the White armies sunk so low that it rarely had the chance to do any serious fighting. Continuous easy success had spoilt the troopers, and they expected to be able to trot all the way to Warsaw. They were understandably outraged to find that the Poles were not impressed. The Polish infantry knew little of the Konarmia’s reputation, and they had been taught to regard it as a ridiculous

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Russian anachronism, with the result that they stuck to their guns with obstinacy instead of putting up their hands. Budyonny decided that a little more organization and preparation was called for. He urged his officers to implement a more flexible ap­ proach. He insisted that they make fuller use of their firepower by at­ tacking on foot with the support of artillery and armoured cars. The men were only to be allowed to charge once the Polish positions had been breached.17 Budyonny had at last discovered a gap in the Polish defenses. There was a void ten kilometers wide where the Third and Sixth Armies should bave touched but did not. A typical slip in efficiency, begging for the Konarmia. The attack was to begin on 4 June. The whole Konarmia was to be drawn into a phalanx ten kilometers wide and ten deep, and it was to hit the Polish front between Samhorodek and Sniezna, which would hopefully be still undefended. Having slipped through the front, the Konarmia was to rush on and reach the Koziatyn-Kiev railway by nightfall. While Budyonny had been revising his strategy, the Poles were re­ considering the situation. They did something which should have been done weeks before or not at all; General Listowski, whose Second Army had been dissolved four weeks earlier, was put in command of the Uk­ rainian Front. He was to exert authority over all Polish units in the area, (n the event, he exerted authority over nobody at all. There had been no ready made frontal command, and Listowski never had time to set up the appropriate system, let alone to establish any effective means of liaison with the various units supposedly under his orders. He too had noticed the gap between the two armies, but there was precious little that he could do about it. Listowski did what he could; he detrained Sawicki's Cavalry Brigade, which was slowly being transported bade to Poland and happened to be passing through Koziatyn, and bundled it off to fill the gap in the front. He also mustered a couple of battalions of reserve infantry, which he likewise sent off to the front. Finally, he despatched orders to Karnicki, whose division was the official frontal reserve, telling him to place himself and his unit at Sawicki’s disposal.18 It looked at though he had managed to scrape together a force capable of holding the gap, tempor­ arily at least.

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At his point, however, nature took a hand in the proceedings. On 4 June the skies opened up, and the entire Polish radio network, such as it was, packed up in the downpour, with the result that Kamicki re­ ceived no orders at all.19 On the other hand, Budyonny was forced to put off his attack. Neither side gained anything from this delay, and the situation remained unchanged when, on 5 June, the Konarmia went into action. In the thick morning mist, the 11th Division tried to storm Sniezna, a small village manned by a company of Sawicki's infantry. Budyonny was disappointed to find that the Poles had managed to improvize a defense after all. “The nut was harder to crack than we expected,” he complained to Voroshilov as they watched the fourth assault come to nothing. They then rode over to Samhorodek, to see how the 14th Divi­ sion was faring. Here too, the situation was not encouraging. The Poles would hold their fire until the dismounted cossacks had come up close, and then mowed them down with well-aimed volleys. Budyonny ordered his men to wait while he carried out a reconnais­ sance. He finally found his spot; a stretch of boggy heath watched by a dozen lancers, at which he personally led the charge. The way into the village lay open for his whole division to pour in. During the fierce street fighting that followed, Budyonny expressed surprise that the Polish infantry did not “try to save their lives” -i.e ., join the Red Army, like most of the White troops.20 Samhorodek fell. The victorious cossacks ten turned on Ozierna, where a Polish battalion had been holding out against the 4th Division since morning. The Polish captain could see no hope, and he had ordered a fight to the end, aiming to delay the Konarmia for as long as possible. It was only a matter of time. Meanwhile, at Pustovarov, no more than fifteen kilometers away, the Polish Cavalry Division sat and listened to the cannonade. That morning Karnicki had received orders to give up his command and wait for Sawicki’s instructions.21 He was evidently piqued by the decision to replace him, and he did not do what anyone else would have done-march on the sound of the guns. In the late afternoon, Ozierna fell. The defense had lasted ten hours, and there were no survivors. As the Konarmia began to pour through the breach in the front, Sawicki’s last remaining force attempted to stem

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(he tide. The 12 Podolian Lancers charged into the swirling mass of cossacks, only to be mown down by fire from armored cars and tachankas. The flood-gates were wide open and the Konarmia swept on, further and further into the Polish rear. Kamicki arrived in Samhorodek that evening, just in time to bury the dead. The front had closed up again, but Budyonny was behind it. The next ten days were as crucial as any during the war. The balance could have been drastically tipped either way. Both sides had ample opportunity to do each other serious harm, and both fumbled about in a game of military blind-man’s-bluff, letting chances slip through their fingers one after the other. The Polish positions were nowhere badly damaged, and now that Budyonny was behind them, they could have become a trap for him. This required two things; unified command and good coordination, neither of which existed. On the other hand, Budyonny could have march­ ed eastwards and closed the ring around Kiev. Had the Poles managed to remove Budyonny and his army from the scene, the whole Russian South-Western Front would have lost its teeth. Had the Russians destroyed Smigly-Rydz at Kiev, they could have walked into Poland. Both were elite forces, and both were irreplaceable. That the Poles should have failed is understandable. They were illprepared to meet such a contingency, and they were too much on the defensive. Smigly-Rydz was still flogging the dead horse of Petlura’s Uk­ raine, and considered lasting out in Kiev as his first priority. He ignored Listowski’s orders to fall bade, and the latter had to refer to Piłsudski for his signature before the obstinate general could be induced to leave the city.3* That Budyonny should have bungled the situation is indeed surprising. He was after all implementing a clearly defined and straightforward plan which could hardly fail to work. And yet fail it did, through no fault of his own. On 6 June the Konarmia reached the Koziatyn-Kiev railway. Its next move, according to the standing orders, should have been to turn east and march on Kiev.33 Instead of this, Budyonny ordered to divisions to raid Zhitomir and Berdichev, while the other two remained where they were.3* The two raids, of course, had enormous effect. The cossacks swept through both towns, putting to the sword everthing that moved

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and setting on fire everything that did not. By the end of the day, the Polish rear was in a state of complete panic. When the two divisions rejoined the pack, Budyonny began to move on Koziatyn. Budyonny claims that he was carrying out his orders in this. The orders leaving Moscow, however, were quite specific that the Kon­ ar mia should march on Kiev. Even to a semi-literate like Budyonny there could have been no ambiguity, and yet he was marching in the diametri­ cally opposite direction. Budyonny may have been many things, but he was not insubordinate. Voroshilov was there to make sure of that. The trouble seems to have been that while Kamieniev ordered the carrying out of the original plan (that of concentrating entirely on the destruction of the Polish Kiev grouping), Yegorov and Stalin were keen to prevent the Polish Sixth Army from making its escape.25 Having cut the Polish Third Army’s lifelines at Zhitomir and Berdichev, they left its final demise to the other Russian units around Kiev, and redirected Budyonny towards Koziatyn, into the rear of the Sixth Army. On 8 June, therefore, Budyonny made for Koziatyn. But the previous day’s procrastination had cost him dear, for the Polish cavalry had at last been gathered together into one unit and was waiting between him and Koziatyn. The Konarmia was therefore condemned to spend the day in fruitless and exhausting fighting. Charge followed charge as each side tried to draw out and isolate part of the enemy force. A young Polish officer’s account of scenes that were rapidly becoming mundane gives some idea of the shape the fighting took: It was not until the afternoon that our turn came. We were standing to our horses in the village. We could hear continual shooting and the clamor of charge after charge. The orders T o horse!’ and 'Mount!’ galvanized the squadron, and we were soon marching out by platoons through the fences and orchards to the right of the country road. The meadow in front of us had a stream running through it, and our horses began to founder on its boggy banks. Beyond the meadow, a field stretched away to a nearby ridge. The muddy banks were quickly matted with straw, while the doors of a nearby barn were laid across the stream, which we began to cross one by one, leading our horses.

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The squadron deployed by platoons on the firm ground, and two scouts cantered off towards the top of the ridge. As soon as they had looked over, they quickly turned back towards the squadron-commander, who in turn rode up the rise. He immedi­ ately turned back, shouting out the order: ‘Sabres—lances!9 accompanied by his usual battlecry of ‘Come on, boys—get those sons of bitches!’ We set off in slighly loose order at a trot to begin with, gradu­ ally passing into a canter. As soon as we had reached the top of the rise we flew into a headlong gallop down towards the first thick wave of cossacks which was making for us. Behind them we could see a broad valley and more cossacks advancing in waves. Slightly to the right, one of our retreating regiments was engaged in a melee. I remember that at the first moment of collision a colorfullydressed cossack girl flashed by on my right, aiming her revolver at me. Then a cossack turned just in front of me, so I tried to stick him with my lance. I chased him for a while, reaching di­ agonally to the left with my lance-point, which he kept deflect­ ing with his sabre. Then suddenly, with a sideways glance, 1 noticed another cossack coming at me from the left and behind with his sabre raised high for the blow. To this day I can remem­ ber that terrible moment—a moustachioed face and the evil glint of a sabre above my head. Without thinking, I threw my lance over to the left and spiked him in his right side, just below his raised arm. Our horses collided with the impetus, the cossack slid out of his saddle, and for a moment we galloped alongside each other, while 1 tugged at the lance, which was pulling me out of the saddle with his weight. At last 1 managed to free the lance, the cossack fell to the ground, and at that moment Lieutenant Zamoyski galloped up, calling us to turn back with him. The cossacks were riding off in disorder and our squadron came under heavy fire from tachankas. . . . 36 At the end of the day, the Poles retreated to the shelter of Koziatyn, and Budyonny turned away in disgust. On the next morning, he began to march east, on Kiev. He had lost contact with his front command, and

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as he was getting nowhere with the Polish cavalry at Koziatyn, he decided to turn back and make for Kiev.27 The Konarmia was now moving in the right direction, which was something. On 10 June, it reached Fastov and made contact with Yakir’s Group, which had already folded the Polish southern wing back towards Kiev.28 In spite of all the delay, Budyonny was still on time. By the end of the next day, he could have sealed off Smigly-Rydz, who had just received Pilsudski’s telegram ordering him to evacuate. Yegorov and Stalin had not been idle either. On 10 June they had written out fresh orders for Budyonny, who received them on the next day.29 These were that he sould leave the Polish Third Army to Yakir and Mezheninov, and himself make for Koziatyn. Budyonny queried them, but after receiving confirmation he set off.30 On the same day, Smigly-Rydz began his long homward trek along the railway to Korosten. Amusingly enough, he too was disregarding orders, which were to fall back on Zhitomir and sandwich the Konarmia in the process, but at least he was moving in the right direction.31 He only had to clear a passage through Golikov’s extended wing, and then he was free.* By some per­ verse force of circumstances, the two armies which had been meant to meet were now moving in divergent directions. The Kiev encirclement had failed to materialize. The situation was bad enough left at that, but fate seems to have had it in for Budyonny. On 13 June, while he was attacking Zhitomir, new orders reached him.32 He was to swerve northwards and prevent the retreating Third Army from making Korosten. It must have sounded like a bad joke. Only two days previously, he had been in a position to corner the Third Army at Kiev, whereupon he had been ordered to drop the prey and go elsewhere. Now that the prey was well out of reach, he was to run after it again. But this time he was not quite so keen. He decided against going on this new jaunt. He merely sent off two divisions under Voroshilov, while he himself tussled with the Polish cavalry outside. Zhitomir.33

* Smigly-Rydz’s main reason for retreating via Korosten was the railway line; he was thus able to evacuate no less than 40 trainloads of supplies and refugees.

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Voroshilov failed to intercept the Third Army. Worse still, on the night of 14 June he made camp without the necessary precautions, and was rudely woken by chaotic exchanges of fire. Smigly-Rydz’s rearguard had lost its way and fallen behind the retreat, and had stumbled right into the Konarmia’s encampment while trying to make up for lost time. Luckily for Voroshilov, the Poles were as surprised as he was. Also, it happened to be the 7th Division, which had bad memories of the Konarmia, and was consequently only too pleased to shoot its way through and move on. He was therefore able to withdraw without too many casualties, and he sheepishly turned back to rejoin Budyonny.34 The latter was furious. He did not like the idea of some third-rate Polish infantry unit walking all over his glorious Konarmia one single bit. Voroshilov blamed everything on the divisional commanders, but the few heads that rolled did nothing to sweeten Budyonny’s temper. Ever since he had finally managed to break into the Polish rear, he had been treated like an errand boy. He had been prevented from achieving any positive results, his troopers were exhausted and depressed by the glaring absurdity of the marches and counter-marches, and by 18 June the Polish front had closed up again—in front of him. His time and energy had been wasted, and all the advantages arising from the breakthrough had been squandered. Between them, Yegorov and Stalin had bungled the affair to quite spectular proportions, and Kamieniev was full of re­ proach. The matter was not, however, clarified further for reasons which the reader may imagine.* Apart from the largely irrelevant capture of most of the territory lost to the Poles in April, there was only one bright side to the picture. The Konarmia’s little field-day behind the lines had thoroughly shaken-up the

* It is interesting to note that after being strongly admonished by Kami­ eniev for having distorted the plan of action, Stalin covered his tracks by cabling Lenin on the veiy same day that Kamieniev had tried to change the plan, but that he, Stalin, had decided to stick to the original one, and had therefore ordered Budyonny to move on Kiev immediately after breaking through the Polish front. See D irektivy Glavnono Komandovania, p. 693.

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Poles. It had given every soldier in the Ukraine something to think about, and it had sown the seeds of insecurity in every heart. The rate of deser­ tion rose dramatically, and in Kowel alone the none too efficient Polish military police were catching up to 300 deserters a day.35 Even the cavalry, which as a rule enjoyed higher morale and was by nature less susceptible to insecurity, felt profoundly disheartened. Al­ though it still felt superior to its opponents, it was patently too weak, now that it had dropped to no more than 1,000 sabres,36 to do the Konarmia serious damage. One Polish cavalry officer described attempts to defeat the Konarmia in these conditions as beating a feather bed with a stick. The Konarmia could absorb any amout of skirmishing. The commander of the Cavalry Division, General Sawicki, was so depressed by the situation that he finally withdrew his division com­ pletely and recrossed the Slucz, not far from where he had crossed it seven weeks before, in a very different frame of mind. Sawicki was an immensely fat, kindly man of middle age, who could only displace him­ self by way of a well-sprung buggy complete with steaming samovar and tea-serving orderly. He was totally incapable of adapting to the con­ ditions the Konarmia was imposing on his unit.37 The Konarmia too was exhausted and dispirited. It had not had one easy day since it broke through the front, as it had been dogged at every step by Sawicki’s cavalry. As it was now well ahead of the other Russian armies, Budyonny decided to call a halt and enjoy a few days9rest. The inexhaustible General Romer saw his chance. With Pilsudski’s permission, he quickly collected two infantry divisions and all the re­ maining cavalry, and sallied out of Zwiahel.38 Budyonny had not been expecting such an attack, and he was not prepared to receive it. Romer was thus able to push him steadily back towards Zhitomir, at the same time inflicting heavy casualties. This was the sort of fighting the Kon­ armia responded worst to, and Romer could have achieved some measure of success had he not been called back by the nervous Smigly-Rydz, who was now in command of the Ukrainian Front. The latter had decided to fortify and stabilize the new front, which ran along almost exactly the same line as that held before the Kiev of­ fensive.39 As the units took up their positions, Piłsudski wrote to Szepty­ cki on the Northern Front, assuring him that “there will be no further withdrawal on the Ukrainian Front.”40

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Exhausted as he was, Budyonny could not afford to let the Poles con­ solidate their new front. On 26 June, he found an almost undefended spot and broke through. On 27 June Zwiahel fell. Once again the Poles trudged backwards with Budyonny hot on their heels. They fell back towards Rowne and the comparative security of the river Horyn. The Cavalry Division was by this stage down to 800 sabres and it could not hope to take on any part of the Konarmia. With its eclipse, all possibility of challenging Budyonny seemed to have gone, and the instinct of selfpreservation took over the minds of the Front Command. The Ukrainian adventure was well and truly over. The Sunday picnic atmosphere in which the offensive had been launch­ ed in April had given the Poles a false sense of security. Fine new regi­ ments had marched out into the beautiful Ukrainian steppe full of hope and confidence. Elegantly clad lancers had galloped off with sabres jingling and pennants streaming, and they had been overwhelmed by their own success. Now the tables had turned drastically and all the ugliness of real war had overtaken them with a vengeance. They streamed back in tattered uniforms, leaving behind them a trail of corpses and abandoned equipment. The situation of the Polish armies by the end of June was delicate but by no means critical. In the north, Szeptycki’s front stood untouched. In the south, Smigly-Rydz’s three armies had formed up once again behind the Horyn, presenting at least the outward appearance of a new front. From the stratetic point of view, however, the situation was noi good. The whole basis of Pilsudski’s strategy throughout the war had been to use one of his fronts as a shield while he used the other as a sword. By alternating and defeating first one and then the other of the two Russian groupings, he had hoped to hold on to the initiative and prevent them from both striking simultaneously. He had failed. His sword in the south had been blunted, while his shield in the north was weakening. Now he was in the position of a gladiator with only two shields as weapons, having to face two fully-armed protagonists. It was not until this moment that Piłsudski recognized the special qualities of the Konarmia.41 He also realized that with it the SouthWestern Front was a serious threat, while without it the other two armies were just a collection of second rate units. The XII and XIV Armies had

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not recovered from the drubbing he had given them in April, and it would be enough to amputate the Konarmia to gain peace on this front. Piłsudski decided to take a risk in favor of eliminating the Konarmia from the scene. He weakened his shield in the north and thereby managed to form a small operational group, consisting of two infantry divisions and a brigade of cavalry, which he hoped to use against Budyonny. Pilsudski’s shortage of cavalry was the main problem. The emaciated division of Sawicki could by this time muster only a pathetic 400 sabres,43 and although a large cavalry depot had been set up at Zamosc, it would be some time before new units could be raised. Piłsudski therefore decided to strip Szeptycki of his last cavalry brigade, Belina-Prazmowski’s 1st. This was one of the elite Legionary formations; its armament was of the best and its reputation was corresponding high. Its arrival on the Uk­ rainian Front was to carry great weight.43 These reinforcements were incorporated into the re-formed Second Army and placed under the command of General Raszewski, a former colonel of Prussian hussars. Raszewski was a solid and dependable man, and he lacked neither energy nor imagination. Nevertheless, his appoint­ ment was a disaster. It was to bring out into the open all the indiscipline and inefficiency lurking among the higher echelons of the Polish com­ mand, and it provoked one of the most ridiculous and depressing epi­ sodes in the history of the Polish officer corps. Budyonny did not believe in waiting for his enemies to get ready, and he struck before Raszewski was able to organize his group. On the night of 2 July, the Konarmia crossed the Horyn, dispersed a reserve infantry bridage and made for Rowne. The chaos that followed was monumental, even by 1920 standards. The first to suffer was the unfortunate Sawicki. The tattered remnants of his division were rapidly encircled. Then the trains carrying Belina’s brigade began to arrive in the area. As they could not make it to Rowne, which was already being invested by the cossacks, the lancers had to detrain in the open countryside, handing the horses down from the high platform cars one by one. The ammunition train had not arrived. Nor had the artillery. Belina was ill and absent, and his two regimental com­ manders were busy in Warsaw, petitioning Piłsudski and vying with each other for Belina’s post. Their unfortunate regiments were finaOy able to unload and assemble, but leaderless and surrounded, they could do

Budyonny

19

little to stop Budyonny, who continued to close in on Rowne almost un­ molested.44 The 3rd Legionary Division, which was supposed to defend Rowne, abandoned the town without good reason. Its commander, General Berbecki, could not even be bothered to notify “that Prussian Raszewski,” or, for that matter, the company of tanks which was effectively holding off the main forces of the Konarmia. As a result, Budyonny swept into Rowne, capturing men, equipment and staffs which had not had time to evacuate 45 That night, Sawicki’s cavalry managed to escape by muffling hooves, sabres and spurs, and creeping through the camp of one of Budyonny’s divisions.* Having disentangled himself, Sawicki proceeded to march westwards, away from the battlefield. On the morning of 4 July, Budyonny set up his headquarters in Rowne.** The XII Army, now under the command of Vaskanov, moved up in support. The Konarmia paused, presumably to count its booty, and this gave Raszewski his chance. The only problem was that two of the units he needed were at that moment moving away from the battle­ field as fast as they could. Red in the face but perfectly buttoned and gloved despite the baking heat, Raszewski drove about the area, trying to restore a semblance of order. He finally caught up with Berbecki’s 3rd Division and obliged it to turn about. The Legionaries now began to advance on Rowne from the northwest, while another Polish division, the 18th Marcher Rifles, began to thrust at the Konarmia’s flank from the south. On 8 July, Raszewski marched into the town at the head of the 3rd Division, nearly capturing Budyonny himself in the process. The 18th Division was beginning to make headway from the south, and a possibility of slicing the Konarmia in two had arisen, but suddenly Smigly-Rydz ordered a general retreat to the next river barrier, the Styr.46 On 11 July, Budyonny once again occupied Rowne, while the Poles fell back by another sixty miles. Budyonny’s victory was spectacular,

* The Konarmia always slept between dusk and dawn, and it took a fullscale battle to wake it. ** In the Hotel Versailles!

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and it was the high-water mark of his success. He had taken prisoners by the thousand, equipment by the waggonload, and he had further upset the Polish defenses. More resounding than his victory, however, had been the Polish defeat. The whole structure of the Ukrainian Front had been soundly shaken and had momentarily perched on the edge of fiasco. The invasion of the Ukraine was rapidly turning into an invasion of Poland. While Raszewski had been trying to re-take Rowne, Tukhachevsky had struck in the north, and therein lay the reason for the general retreat to the Styr. Piłsudski could no longer afford to waste effort on theatricals of the Rowne variety, as he was now fully committed to fighting both Russian fronts at the same time.

CHAPTER VI

TUKHACHEVSKY’S MARCH "Something like the kingdom o f A ntichrist is moving upon the whole Christian World. 99 —D. Merezhkovsky1 While Budyonny had been stealing the limelight in the Ukraine, Tukhachevsky had worked hard at transforming what he had inherited into an army capable to sustaining a major campaign. Conveniently enough, he had been able to establish his headquarters in his own pre-revolution country seat just outside Smolensk. By day, he applied himself to military matters but by night he entertained in the best possible style, as though the century had never turned. Although outward appearances remained the same, Tukhachevsky’s adolescent severity and asceticism were begin­ ning to give way to well-earned indulgence. Wine, women and the violin were taking up his time to an alarming degree, according to witnesses, but his energy at least remained unimpaired, and he was determined to achieve the greatest results in the forthcoming campaign.2 During the month of June, a continuous stream of reinforcements and refills had poured into the area. Renowned units such as the 33rd Kuban and the 27th Omsk Rifle Divisions arrived to swell Tukhachevsky’s ranks, while new commanders were sent to lead the three new armies he was creating. Kork and Sollohub remained in their places, but they were joined by Lazarevich, who was to lead the new III Army, and Khvyesin, who was to command the Mozyr Group, a small force designed to cover the Pripet Marshes. Sergeyev, who had commanded one of Kork’s divisions during the battle of the Berezina, was promoted to lead the new 81

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IV Army. They were all “specialists,” and they had all reached the rank of colonel in the Imperial Army, all except for Khvyesin, who was a barber from Saratov.* Of all Tukhachevsky’s new acquisitions, however, none was to have a more resounding effect than Gai’s cavalry corps. This unit, known as Konkorpus III, was not originally intended to carry enormous weight, but its later successes balanced against the less spectular achievements of the other units made it assume a primary role in the campaign. It was composed of two cavalry divisions and one infantry brigade, so it was about half the size of the Konarmia, and of course it lacked the latter’s reputation. Its commander made up for this weakness and in time forged a reputation which eclipsed that of the Konarmia. Gaia Dmitrievich Bzhishkyan was an Armenian born in Tabriz, Persia, in 1887. He changed his name partly because no one could pronounce it and partly because when they tried it sounded like the Armenian for “ass.” As G.D. Gai he was drafted into the Russian Army in 1914, where he saw long service against the Turks. In 1918 he formed a Red Guard detachment in Samarkand, but was soon forced to flee by the Whites. He then marched his little gang halfway across Russia, flghting his way through the cossack lands, and eventually arrived in Samara, where he joined the Red Army of Siberia, commanded by Tukhachevsky. He was briefly in command of the 24th Simbirsk “Iron” Division (now under Golikov in the Ukraine), after which he succeeded Tukhachevsky and took over the First Army. In September 1919, Gai started work on a Circassian Cavalry Corps for Tukhachevsky on the Denikin front, and after the defeat o f the latter was sent after Tukhachevsky to the Western Front, where he was to forge a cavalry corps out of existing stocks.3 Gai was a remarkable man. He lacked training, and in this respect resembled the earlier Red Army leaders, but his uninhibited approach to military questions and his versatility made of him a far better general than Budyonny. Gai was no cavalryman, but he understood and devel­ oped the use of cavalry as a spearhead to greater effect than Budyonny. He was only inferior to the latter in his choice of protectors. Aided by this team o f professionals, Tukhachevsky was able to remould his army very quickly. The amnesty he had declared for deserters brought

* Sollohub was even a Count of Polish-Uthuanian descent, as it happens.

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some 100,000 men back to the ranks, which greatly increased his re­ serves.4 After subjecting these and the new arrivals to the most rigorous inspections, he sent the battleworthy to the front and the rest to his depots.* By the beginning of July he disposed of a manpower pool of over 800,000 men in his rear.1 The official Soviet history gives the number of his front-line combattants as 97,000,6 while Putna puts it as high as 160,000.7 Tukhachevsky’s own estimate of 120,000 seems the most reliable in the circumstances.* This gave him an almost twofold superiority over Szeptycki, who could muster between 60,000 and 80,000 men at best* This was not, however, what worried Szeptycki most. His armies, the First, the Fourth and the Pripet Group, were not in a healthy state; morale was low, they were understaffed and desertion was rearing its ugly head. These troops had been stuck out in the depressing landscape of forest and bog for so long that they all entertained the same desire, namely to go home. Only the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Division felt any strong urge to defend the area. Apart from this, there were blatantly too few men to defend a front 600 kilometers long, and no cavalry reserve to provide for emergencies.10 Szeptycki could see Tukhachevsky’s planes circling the area daily, and he realized what this meant. Being a cautious man, he had eyed Pilsudski’s Ukrainian offensive with apprehension from the start. He was convinced that the Northern Front was the all-important one, and that the Ukraine was only a subsidiary theater, and he was against engaging large forces there. By the end o f June, he knew that the avalanche was not far off, and had begged Piłsudski to send reinforcements.11 He knew there were none that could be spared, and although he disapproved of the strategy in which he was an instrument and could see little hope of survival, he resigned himself and faced the disaster with stoicism. He did not have to wait long. On 3 July, the following order was read out in all companies, squadrons, platoons and batteries of the Russian Western Front:13

* No effort was spared to make the men aware of the importance of the impending campaign. The 33rd Division alone (15,000 men) was put through a gruelling program consisting of 11 meetings, 100 reading ses­ sions, 1,000 discussions, 25 lectures, 104 cell meetings, 37 general meet­ ings, and 20 "spectacles,” all in a period of three weeks.13

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS Order of the Revolutionary War Council of the Western Front. No. 1423. SMOLENSK 2/VII/1920. SOLDIERS OF THE RED ARMY! The time of reckoning has come. In the blood of the defeated Polish Army we will drown the criminal government of Piłsudski. Turn your eyes to the West. In the West the fate of World Revolu­ tion is being decided. Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to World Conflagration. On our bayonets we will bring happiness and peace to the toiling masses of mankind. The hour of attack has struck! To the West! On to Wilno, Minsk, Warsaw-Forward! Commander-in-Chief, Western Front: TUKHACHEVSKY Members of Revolutionary War Council: SMILGA UNSZL1CHT Chief-of-StafT, Western Front: SCHWARZ

Tukhachevsky’s plan was very similar to that followed in May. He intended to encircle and annihilate the Polish First Army, thereby out flanking Szeptycki's other two armies, which he then proposed to drive sideways on to the Pripet Marshes.14 This time, however, he was deter mined to achieve immediate results with his first move. In the north he arranged a small-scale “Sedan;” he concentrated three of his armies some 100,000 men in all, against the First Army’s 36,000. The First Army should have been demolished in the space of one or two days Sergeyev’s IV Army was to outflank the Poles from the north, Kork’* XV Army was to deliver a withering frontal attack, while Lazarevich’* HI Army was to drive round as a southern pincer. When the First Army had been disposed of, the three Russian armies were to wheel southwarc and attack the Fourth Army, which would at the same time come undei frontal attack from Sollohub’s XVI Army. Khvyesin’s Group was to dc no more than tie down Sikorski’s Pripet Group,*

* Khvyesin’s Group was little more than a flank guard. It was neithei

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The advance of the main armies was to be accompanied by a deep lunge into the Polish rear by Gai’s Konkorpus. This was to serve an an insurance against Sergeyev’s possible failure to cut off and hold the Poles, but its principal aim was to pave the way for the rapid further advance of the main forces. The notion of the strong, mobile and disruptive spear­ head had by this time sunk deep roots into Russian military thought. It had become unthinkable to launch a major offensive without a Budyonny or a Gai. These Banking-forces made it extremely difficult for the enemy to stand and fight seriously. As long as the Polish front could be repeated­ ly gashed or merely prevented from re-forming, all the Polish units were obliged to trudge backwards in order to avoid isolation. It was a won­ derful labor-saving device, as the ratio of fighting to distance covered was extremely low, and the corresponding moral and physical damage to the Polish Army very great. Tukhachevsky had been ordered to take Warsaw by 12 August,16 which gave him six weeks in which to cover four hundred miles. He could not afford to stop and fight. He reckoned that a crushing initial victory fol­ lowed by a relentless, harassing pursuit would lead him straight through the gates of Warsaw. He had little doubt that the first blow would be decisive, and that the Polish state and what was left of the army would crumble away under the pressure of his advance. During his campaign against Kolchak and Denikin, he had noticed that his army was able to roll on endlessly under its own steam, while the enemy’s ranks thinned through the very process of retreat. He ascribed this, falsely, to the unique character of the Red Army, and faded to appreciate the role played in this by the conditions of civil war Russia. In Poland, things were dif­ ferent. Nationalism, or the urge to defend particular districts, prevented the Polish Army from giving ground in the same way as the White armies had done. Because the Polish Army was anchored geographically, it was bound to toughen under sustained pressure and eventually spring back like an over-stretched catapult, unless it was broken by the first shock. But nationalism was a force the Soviet leadership had not been obliged to take seriously until this moment, and they did not like to admit its

intended to nor capable of assuming a primary role. Its only real claim to fame lay in that its political officer was no less a person than Bela Kuhn, head of the short-lived communist government of Hungary.1S

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existence in the face of communism. It was a serious miscalculation to make, considering that they were preparing to reach out for the capital of one of the most fiercely nationalistic states in Europe. Early on 4 July, Tukhachevsky’s massed artillery opened up on the Polish First Army. It was an impressive fanfare to the general offensive, and such a barrage of fire had not been heard in these parts since 1916. Szeptycki’s heart must have sunk as he heard this confirmation of all his fears. While the Poles listened in awe, Sergeyev moved forward at the ex­ treme northern tip of the front. He was to roll back the Polish wing, let Gai through and then start attacking in a south-westerly direction, into the flank and rear of the First Army. Gai was to cover 40 kilometers and Sergeyev 25 on the first day.17 This was all based on the knowledge that the northern wing of the First Army was only manned by a couple of battalions of infantry in a single line of trenches. It should have been easy for Sergeyev’s two divisions to walk through these, but for some reason the Poles held firm and the red soliders displayed lack of enthu­ siasm, and stalemate ensued. A sergeant in the 33rd Infantry, the regiment responsible for holding the trenches in question, gives an account of “that woeful moring” as he saw it: It was already light when I was woken by the heavy barrage of bolshevik fire which was pounding the trenches held by our 3rd and 4th Battalions. The ground was moaning beneath the shower of heavy and light shells. . . . From the assembly point we could see in the distance the tattered remnants of our 3rd Battalion retreating over the flat fields, closely followed by the bolsheviks. The bullets whining mournfully overhead soon dispelled my sleepiness. Up rode the battalion commander, Second-Lieutenant Fry­ drych, the dandy. He was wearing a summer tunic, patent leather boots and white gloves. He was clean-shaven, perfumed and resplendent, with a riding switch in one hand, his hat cocked over his right ear and a pipe in his teeth. He gave a short order: we were to recapture the positions our 3rd Battalion had lost. He then cantered off to where the bullets were flying most thickly.

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88

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS We set of with as much elan as we could muster. We soon passed the remains of our 3rd Battalion and made for the first lines of bolsheviks. Far away, beyond the Dvina, a bolshevik observer in a ballon was watching our movements and accurately guiding the fire of their artillery, which was beating the hell out of us. ‘Live or be damned! Fix bayonets! Hurrah!* echoed our deter­ mination. We surged forward, and the Russians could not hold our pressure. . . . Frydrych was riding along just behind our first rank. Szymań­ ski, smiling, was walking with us in the extended line, giving orders, slowly and calmly. We were sweating like mad in the pur­ suit, for the sun was beating down like a thousand devils. . . . 18

It was not until late that afternoon that the Poles gave way. Gai and Sergeyev immediately moved on, according to plan, but they could not hope to cover the prescribed distance that day. Meanwhile, in the center of the Russian grouping, Kork’s XV Army grappled with Zeligowski’s 10th and 17th divisions* all day without apparent effect. At the cost of heavy losses, Żeligowski had managed to hang on to most of his positions, although in places he was pushed back by up to four kilometers. Lazarevich’s attack, which was delivered further to the south, met with greater success. It brushed aside the 11th Division of Marcher Rifles and moved forward by some ten kilometers, splitting the Polish front in two. By the evening of the first day, the situation was confusing. The three Russian tendrils which had intended to surround the First Army had hardly moved. Sergeyev’s attack had misfired on account of poor coor­ dination, Kork’s had met with stiff resistance, and only Lazarevich’s had made any headway. Of the two wings which were supposed to fold round the Poles, only Sergeyev’s had begun to wheel, while Lazarevich’s had moved in a straight line.

* General Lucjan Żeligowski, (1865-1947) a professional soldier in Tsarist service 1885-1917, commanded Polish Division in Kuban for Denikin 1919, commanded 10th Division then operational group in First Army.

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On the Polish side, things were not much better. Although the center had held firm, the southern wing had given way in panic. The northern wing never materialized, except for the 33 Regiment; the rest of the 8th Division spent most of the day wondering which way to move. Although the Polish First Army had taken the strain of the first impact surprisingly well, there was no question of its surviving another such on­ slaught. It had managed to keep the attackers at bay only at the cost of many lives and exhausting efforts. There could be little hope of its retak­ ing its previous positions, and it could not just sit where it was, not with Gai on the rampage in its rear. Szeptycki began to think in terms of tactical withdrawal, but the decision was to some extent taken out of his hands.19 The next day was a complete anti-climax. Only the Konkorpus rushed on according to plan. The other three armies advanced half-heartedly, as though unsure of what to do next. Sergeyev complained bitterly that he could not seem to get his men to do anything except step from one foot to the other.20 While the Russian armies procrastinated, Szeptycki ordered his whole front to fall back by 100 kilometers, to the line of German World War I trenches. The trouble was that his northern wing, Zeligowski’s two divi­ sions, never received this order. These two divisions fought on all day against Sergeyev, while the remainder of the First Army retreated un­ molested. That evening, Żeligowski realized that he was all alone, and he too withdrew. If the second day of the offensive was surprisingly quiet, the third was positively sepulchral. Whether Tukhachevsky was really convinced, as he maintains, that “it was perfectly obvious to everyone that the enemy detachments opposite our main attack were completely shattered,”21 or whether, as Sergeyev explains, the Russian troops were incredulous of the success and advanced gingerly in anticipation of a counterattack,22 one can only guess. Whatever the cause, the Russian armies hardly moved forward at all during that day (6 July). Żeligowski felt completely mysti­ fied and in the dark, as he saw no trace of other units on that day, Polish or Russian.23 Without having accomplished the first goal he had set himself, which was the destruction of the First Army, Tukhachevsky now proceeded to implement the second phase. He left the retreating First Army to Gai and Sergeyev, and ordered Kork and Lazarevich to wheel round on

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to the flank of the Fourth Army in the Minsk area.24 During the night of 6 July, Sollohub and Khvyesin had gone into action and crossed the Berezina. Unfortunately, the Fourth Army and Sikorski’s group were already retreating on Szeptyckfs orders, and the best Solluhub could do was to follow them, while Lazarevich’s manoeuvre failed to cut them off. So the Polish southern wing escaped destruction as well. The first three days of the great offensive had yielded very paltry results. Yet Tukhachevsky seems to have been convinced otherwise. His report of the first attack, addressed to Kamieniev, is worth quoting from, simply as an illustration of how far out of touch he appears to have been: SMOLENSK, 7/VI1/20; As a result of bloody and stubborn fighting on 4 and 5 July, the main forces of the Polish Army on the Western Front, concentrated in the Dokszyce-Hermanowicze area, have been completely smashed and are being pur­ sued by our cavalry and infantry. The forceful attack by the XV Army tore apart and swept away the center of the main Polish forces, while the rapid and decisive blow delivered by the III Army threw the Polish forces retreating from Gleboke to Molodeczno back and deflected them to the north. Opposite the IV Army, the enemy was outflanked and defeated and is now in complete rout. At this moment the main forces of the shattered enemy are fleeing towards Swieciany and Podstawy in complete disorder, leaving behind prisoners and other trop­ hies. . . . 2S It is rare to find a military report in which every single statement is so completely divorced from reality. Tukhachevsky knew perfectly well that the First Army did not constitute “the main Polish forces,” and he must have realized that it had not been annihilated; the “trophies” after three days fighting amounted to no more than 3,000 prisoners and 16 guns, according to his own report,26 and this last fact should have been enough to convince even the most sanguine cretin that the enemy had escaped. It is hard to believe that Tukhachevsky could have meant any of this, and the purpose of this report remains a mystery. By far the greater mystery, however, is how this minor Polish defeat could have

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started a retreat which was only halted six weeks and four hundred miles later at the cost o f almost superhuman effort. This absurd encounter, which should have embarrassed Tukhachevsky as much as it embarrassed the Polish command, was to escalate into a crisis of world importance. During the next few days, Tukhachevsky’s armies moved in a south­ westerly direction without encoumtering much opposition. Here and there, they overtook the odd Polish unit, which would fight a rearguard action and move on, but in most places they were up to two days’ march behind the retreating Poles. On 9 July, the Konkorpus took Swieciany, and two days later Sollohub’s 27th Division fought its way into Minsk. In eight days, the strength of the Polish First Army had dropped from 36,000 to 16,000.27 Although desertion had played almost as important a part in this drop as casualties or capture, the units managed to maintain a more or less orderly existence. Nevertheless, there were patently too few men to hold the German trenches, which had been built in 1915 to accomodate a full complement of 420,000 men heavily supported by artillery. The Polish forces were simply lost in the maze of earthworks, and they would have been far better off in the open field. On 12 July, the Northern Front settled into the trenches, while Pił­ sudski issued orders for “a counteroffensive along the whole front.”28 The southern sector of the line was more or less adequately manned, but the northern tip, around Wilno, was skeletal in comparison, as half of the First Army had drifted southward in its retreat. Moreover, Gai had no intention of letting the Poles sort themselves out. He was well ahead of the other Russian armies, and on 14 July, he skirted the northern wing of the Polish front. The Konkorpus rode into Wilno from behind, and the city fell among scenes of total chaos, as the First Army was precipitated into retreat once more. The first Polish city had fallen. Gai Khan, as his Circassians had dubbed him, had scored, and in just over one week he had acquired even more chilling renown than Budyonny. Poland was profoundly shaken. The Russian capture of Wilno had very much the same effect on Poland as the Polish capture of Kiev had had on Russia in May. Coinciding as it did with a critically bad situation on the Ukrainian Front, the event was not merely distressing, but extremely alarming as well. Pilsudski’s enemies, who had been silenced by the previous successes, were quick to respond. A new government was formed, and it immediately asked the Entente for help.

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The Entente wanted to avoid involvement in this war at all costs. This was facilitated by the fact that there was no recognized eastern frontier of Poland, and there was therefore no possibility of defining if and when the country had been invaded. In the event, they took two steps, neither of which were to have any real influence on the course of the war. The first Allied move took the shape of a telegram from Lord Curzon to Moscow, suggesting a ceasefire along a “minimum Polish frontier,” 41 and a peace conference in London under British mediation. The Russian response was predictable. The Soviet foreign minister scorned the pro­ posal and questioned the right of England, which was after all still at war with the Soviet Republic, to influence Polish-Soviet relations. On the other hand, Curzon’s note had made it quite clear to the Soviet leader* ship that England was not prepared to support Poland by force, and Lenin’s immediate reaction was to instruct Yegorov and Tukhachevsky to speed up their offensive.29 Negotiations did, however, get under way between Poland and Russia on a direct basis. Nevertheless, as the prospect of peace grew more remote than ever, Lloyd George put in hand a second measure. He dispatched an Inter-Allied Mission to Warsaw to investigate and advise.♦♦ The Poles, who were expecting arms, were indignant to be sent a crew of busybodies instead. They felt they had been let down, and a grim determination to fight on alone soon succeeded the first mood of depression. All this diplomacy was based on the assumption that the Polish Army had been defeated beyond return. When one considers the feeble reaction of the Entente, and the rumblings of discontent and socialist solidarity clearly audible from every European state, it is easy to see how the Soviet

* Later to become famous as the “Curzon Line.” ♦♦The Mission consisted of Lord D’Abemon, M. Jusserand,and Generals Hackin and Weygand. A large proportion of their energy was channeled into attempts to place Weygand in command of the Polish Army, with­ out success. Weygand was finally appointed assistant chief-of-staff by Piłsudski, but his usefulness was limited by the fact that he could not understand Polish.

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leadership was lulled into dreams of world revolution. Tukhachevsky’s slogans had suddenly become more than just empty words. A provisional Soviet government for Poland was formed in Moscow, and a publicity campaign was launched to rouse the Polish proletariat. A great map of Europe hung on the wall in the hall of the III Communist International, which had just opened its session in Moscow. Every day, the little red flags showing the positions of the Russian armies were moved forward, and the excitement swayed even the more skeptical, including Lenin himself. Trotsky was one of the very few who anxiously looked at the little white flags marking the Polish armies. As the Poles retreated from Wilno and the German trenches, Tukhachevsky’s armies began to wake form their original euphoria. They began to chase instead of just following. A few days after the fall of Wilno, they caught up with part of the First Army, which had been outflanked outside Lida by the Konkorpus, and inflicted defeat on it. Szeptycki now fell back on the third natural line of defense, the rivers Niemen and Szczara. This new front faced northeast, with its northern tip anchored to the fortress of Grodno, its center pivoting on Baranowicze and its southern tip at Pińsk. Szeptycki had decided to mount a counterstroke from the Baranowicze area, thereby exploiting the fact that his own main forces had drifted southwards while the most exposed Russian spearheads at Grodno were far ahead of the three Russian armies. His main problem was that all available rolling-stock was being used for evacuation, and this left him with no rapid means of regrouping his forces for the attack.30 While he was still trying to mount this attack, the Kon­ korpus wasted no time. On 19 July, Gai fought his way into Grodno, making mincemeat of Polish plans as well as of the garrison. A series of local counterattacks by units of the First Army retook the fortress, but they could not hold it, and on 24 July Gai was once more master of the place, while Sergeyev and Kork crossed the Niemen in several places. Gai pressed on into the Polish rear, and the whole front totered back in disorder once more. Even Sikorski’s Group at Pinsk, which had been under very little pres­ sure, was forced to fall back on Brest in order to maintain the continuity of the new front. The fourth and last line of defense before Warsaw ran along the rivers Bug and Narew, and roughly cooresponded to the “Curzon Line.*' Piłsudski

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insisted that this be held at all costs, and for the first time sent some reinforcements to the front. He replaced Szeptycki, who was bed-rid­ den with dy sentry and had grown pessimistic besides, with General Jozef Haller. Szeptycki had completely lost faith in Pilsudski’s ability to win at this stage, and he was himself too tainted in the public eye with the defeat on the Auta, although he had done as well as could be expected. Haller, on the other hand, was a former Legionary and had been com­ mander of the Blue Army in France, and he was a well-respected and solid figure who inspired confidence. Now that the two fronts had drawn level and stood on the last ditch of ethnic Poland, so to speak, Piłsudski could not countenance any fur­ ther withdrawal. He was still underestimating Tukhachevsky’s forces when he thought that an old general and a few hundred reinforcements could stabilize the Northern Front, but this is what he hoped. He was having one last try at the tactic of erecting a screen in the north and lashing out at the Konarmia with his stronger concentration in the south. He therefore begged Haller to hold on for as long as possible on the Bug-Narew line, hoping to have defeated the Konarmia within the next week and to be in a position to use the freed divisions to strike north­ wards into Tukhachevsky’s flank in a counterattack pivoting on Brest. Having been assured that Sikorski would hold out at Breast for at least ten days,31 Piłsudski turned his full attention to the Ukrainian Front, where the time seemed ripe for a decisive move. As Tukhachevsky’s offensive gathered in momentum and speed, Yegorov’s front was grinding to a halt. Budyonny’s final capture of Rowne had been a week behind schedule,32 and the Konarmia was in no state to make up for this delay. On the other hand, the Polish troops on this sector were becoming steadier and had learned how to deal with cavalryeven in open country. Budyonny could no longer expect the same shat­ tering results from his lightning blows; the mystique of the Konarmia was no longer a military factor, and the army’s success now corresponded solely to its fighting prowess. Despite heavy reinforcements33 and changes in command, the two supporting armies, the XII and XIV, were destined to remain second-rate formations, and the Konarmia was still obliged to pave the way for their advance. This slowing down of Yegorov’s Front was not in itself a bad thing. It permitted supplies and refills to catch up with the front line, which

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had over-stretched its communications, and it never slowed down enough to give the Poles a significant breathing space. It was only worrying in its implications for the conduct of the campaign as a whole, for at this vital moment, when the two Russian fronts had passed the wedge of the Pripet and when they were poised for the final lunge at the heart of Poland, they began to lose their sense of direction. It will be remembered that the original plans for the Polish offensive had been drawn up in a defensive and preemptive mood. The first and most important object had been specified as clearing the Poles out of the Ukraine and Byelorussia and defeating their armies. Although the Vistula and Warsaw had been mentioned, Kamieniev had let it be known that he did not expect these targets to be reached in the same breath as Wilno and Kiev. He had expected the first stage of the offensive to take time, and he envisaged a pause when the Russian armies reached the Brest longitude, during which further aims and strategy could be discussed and worked out. In the event, Budyonny had ousted the Poles from the Ukraine in four weeks, while Tukhachevsky had done the same in Byelorussia in just under three. Although Budyonny reported con­ tinuing resistance, Tukhachevsky sent back glittering reports of victories in which the Polish Army had allegedly ceased to exist. Acting on these reports and encouraged by the enthusiasm of the Comintern, Kamieniev was prepared to let the advance grind on to the gates of Warsaw. The principle of breathless advance was not a bad one. The Red Army’s greatest premium was its ability to rush on with the impetus of a tidal wave. If the Polish Army really had ceased to exist there would be no problem; if it was still in existence, the very pace of the Russian advance would prevent it from organizing a determined resistance. Moreover, by precipitating events, the Soviet leadership could nip the already remote chances of Allied intervention on Poland’s behalf. If Tukhachevsky could keep up his original pace, he could be approaching Berlin before the first troop-ship left London. The only alternative was to halt along the “Curzon Line,” bring the exhausted armies back to full strength and then either bulldoze the Polish Army out of existence or cow the state into submission. Had the Soviet leadership but known it, they would have won a great diplomatic victory by adopting the latter course, for their “peacefull intentions” would have been confirmed, and the Entente would have put pressure on Poland to

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make an unfavorable peace rather than provoke a world crisis. But the Russians were convinced that the Entente stood fair and square behind Polish claims, and they had to consider the question from a military point of view. All the Russian generals later claimed to have been in favor of pausing on the Bug to refit and then launching a new offensive at Warsaw. Even Tukhachevsky, the greatest advocate of the tidal wave principle, explained lo friends that he had been in favor of a halt but had been overruled by everyone else.34 In fact, it is highly unlikely that any of the Russian commanders advocated such a course at the time. They knew far too well that all the assets of the Red Army would have been at a discount in the battle of attrition which would follow such a pause. The best course at this stage was undoubtedly to plough on as fast as possible, and this is what Tukhachevsky did. Unfortunately, in putting his head down to charge, the Russian bull closed his eyes. As the Russian armies embarked on the final and most important stage of the offensive, strategy and timing were thrown to the winds. That in itself would have been no problem if an original master-plan had been followed. As no such plan ever existed, one might have ex­ pected Kamieniev to start formulating one at this late stage. Crass and irresponsible as it may seem, however, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that he, or anyone else for that matter, made the slightest effort to organize this last lap of the offensive. Kamieniev merely agreed that the advance must continue, although he knew better than anyone else that whereas “straight ahead” meant Brest-Warsaw-Poznan-Berlin for Tukhachevsky’s front, it meant Bucharest-Sofia-Constantinople for Yegorov’s front. Of course, Yegorov had been ordered to take a share in the campaign against Poland; he was to clear the Poles out of the Ukraine by launching the offensive along a line running Kiev-RowneLublin, but at no stage had he been involved in any plans to take Warsaw. In the second half of July, Tukhachevsky began to bombard Kamieniev with demands that at least two of Yegorov’s armies should be placed under his own command and incorporated into the Western Front.35 He was in fact suggesting that the boundary between the Western and South western Fronts be shifted southwards, so that all the forces facing Poland would become the responsibility of one front, while the other could con­ centrate on its southern problems. This was logical, but no longer possible.

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Such a reshuffle would take time, and it would be difficult for the three armies still based on Kiev to cooperate fully with those based on Smol­ ensk. At the end of July, there was still a possibility of arranging some measure of cooperation between all the Russian armies in Poland, but Kamieniev’s dithering and hesitation cancelled it out fairly decisively. He agreed with Tukhachevsky, who considered himself a logical com­ mander of all the forces in Poland, and led him to expect the prompt transfer of the three armies in question.36 He mentioned the possibility of the reshuffle to Yegprov, but left it sufficiently vague for the latter to assume that nothing would come of the proposal.37 He new very well that Stalin had not the slightest intention of parting with the Konarmia, and he was obviously loath to cross swords with him. Thus, in the interests of satisfying everyone and keeping himself out of trouble, Kamieniev was giving both sides the impression that they would get their own way. Tukhachevsky began to count on the support of the Konarmia, while Stalin and Yegorov began to think of using it for their own local aims. This in itself need not have been fatal, if only the two fronts had carried on their advance in a straight line. Tukhachevsky’s course at the end of July would have brought him to the Vistula on a front stretching from the East Prussian frontier down as far as Dęblin. Yegoro^s course in July aimed at reaching the same longitude between Lublin and the Czechoslovak border. Thus the two fronts could still have swept across Poland in a concerted line, even without any cooperation between them. As luck would have it, however, these original axes were distorted beyond recognition, particularly in the case of the Konarmia. After Rowne, Budyonny was to make for Luck.38 He therefore veered to the south, pierced the Polish lines and began his usual flanking march on the town. This time, however, he had not broken through with suf­ ficient violence; he had simply bent back the wings of the Second and Sixth Armies without defeating either. The result was that they sprang back at his flanks as the Konarmia marched through the gap, like a pair of swing doors. Isaac Babel, then serving in the Konarmia, writes: “The mainspring of the toughened Polish strategy was beginning to unwind with an awesome hiss. We were being hemmed in. For the very first time in the campaign we could feel on our backs the devilish lash of

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flank attacks and blows from behind-a taste of the same weapons which had served us so w ell” 39 The most irksome of the two swing-doors, Krajowski’s 18th Division of Marcher Rifles, latched on to the flank of the Konarmia and would not let go. Budyonny diverted half of the Konarmia and borrowed an infantry division from Yakir to deal with this threat, but the Poles re­ fused to be intimidated. General Krajowski was well past retirement age, and he had been given what was possibly the most decrepit division in the Polish Army, the tail-end of the "Blue Army" raised in France. In a matter of weeks, he had turned it into the steadiest and toughest of the lot. He held cavalry in the utmost contempt, and he looked down on Budyonny as some sort of conceited imposter. He had taught his men to form squares whenever the latter hove in sight, and the Konarmia was as powerless as Ney at Waterloo. Now Krajowski was holding on to Dubno with all the obstinacy of his old age, and nothing could make him budge. For several days the Konarmia tried to dislodge him. Budyonny spent sleepless nights conferring with Voroshilov and Zotov, his Chief-of-Staff, wondering whether to carry on regardless of Krajowski, or whether to turn around and deal with him once and for all.40 They Anally decided in favor of the latter course. Accordingly, on 19 July, the entire Kon­ armia reinforced by Yakir’s 44th Division and Primakov’s 8th “ Red Cossack” Division bore down on Krajowski’s 18th at Dubno. A ridi­ culous encounter followed, for the Poles were well entrenched and deter­ mined, while Budyonny could think of nothing more reflned than the cavalry charge with which to defeat them. He battered on all day long with truly epic obstinacy, using the Konarmia like a heavy tank. His own account is typical:41 And then, at the arranged moment, our artillery began to thunder . . . . and when the noise of the cannonade had died away, a wave of many thousand horsemen supported by tachankas rushed the enemy trenches from all sides with shouts of ‘Hurrah!’. It looked as though nothing could stem this irresistible surg­ ing flood which destroyed everything in its path like a hurricane or a mountain torrent in the thaw. But the enemy did not flinch, he showed remarkable determination, and he met our units with

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Polish Forces

I

Russian Forces

C

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS concentrated fire. The horsemen could not stand this and fell back on their original positions. Then came a second, a third . . .a fifth attack on horseback, and then on foot. I manoeuv­ red.* with regiments and brigades, trying to probe the weakest spot in the enemy’s defences—all in vain. Everywhere, the enemy hung on stubbornly. The fighting went on without interruption during the whole day. The machine-gun barrels were red hot. Everywhere, men were falling, dead, wounded or just exhausted. . . .

Luckily, Timoshenko, commander of the 6th Chongar Cossack Divi­ sion, skirted the Polish positions and found a gap behind them, while Prim­ akov, with his Red Cossacks, broke through the Sixth Army front and also appeared in Krajowski’s rear. The latter drew back just in time, re­ treating on Radziwiłłów.** The Konarmia was able to move once more. Budyonny should have tried to put Krajowski out of action while he had the chance. On 22 July, the latter was on the offensive again, this time as part of a concerted attempt by the Second and Sixth armies to close up the gap between them and dissect the Konarmia in the process. Krajowski thrust up from Radziwiłłów and reached the meeting-point, but his opposite number from the Second Army, the incompetent com­ mander of the 6th Cracow Division, made little headway and turned back without joining up with Krajowski.42 This attempt was followed by another, which was similarly bungled, and several more, which achieved even less. Every time, Krajowski had made it to the point of juncture, and every time he was forced to fall back, having met no one. Only once did the 6th Division make it, and it was several hours late. Piłsudski, who was watching these efforts with keen interest, talks of “some sort of fatal impossibility of coordinating more than one unit in a combined

* For “manoeuvred” read “charged.” It is considered highly doubtful by most historians that Budyonny knew any other word of command. **The aristocratic connotations of this name were purged in 1945, when it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR as Krasnoarmieisk—literally “Red Armyvflle,” in commenoration of Budyonny’s glorious victory there in 1920.

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manoeuvre.”43 Whenever one pincer attacked, the other retreated and vice versa, an absurd pattern which looked as though it might become a habit. The next three days (1-3 August) witnessed the first full-scale operation mounted by the Poles with the aim of defeating the Konarmia. The two divisions already hemming in its flanks were joined by the 3rd Legionary Division and two freshly revamped Cavalry Divisions from the Zamosc depot. For the first time since the beginning of the campaign the Poles had managed to field a cavalry force large enough to take on the Kon­ armia seriously, and this was to clinch the action by attacking Budyonny from behind. This time, however, the traditional lack of coordination found a power­ ful ally in the lack of discipline of some of the Polish commanders. Colonel Orlicz-Dreszer, one of the offenders in the Rowne affair, was now in com­ mand of one of the four cavalry brigades. He had an excessively high opinion of himself, and being of Legionary background, only the faint­ est notions of discipline. He did not like or agree with Sawicki, who was unfortunately sill in overall command of the cavalry, so he put his "radio out of order” and moved off on his own. The meant that Sawicki wasted a whole day looking for the stray brigade before setting out with his other three brigades. In spite of this, Sawicki’s group successfully cut into Budyonny’s rear and went into action. Budyonny writes that this was the first time he had ever lost the initiative, and he was seriously worried.44 As he exclaimed in front of Babel: “The vermin are choking us. We must either win or die.”45 By 3 August, the Konarmia was beginning to crack under the strain. As the three infantry divisions pressed their attacks home, Budyonny was forced to give up Brody and order a retreat,46 but the only exit was already blocked by the Polish cavalry. This was just about to launch a full attack driving the Konarmia westward onto the bayonets of the ad­ vancing infantry, when Sawicki suddenly received orders to withdraw immediately. The more intelligent commanders understood that this must be a high-level strategic decision, and that a day’s delay would matter little. They therefore urged Sawicki to carry on regardless and finish the job now that victory was so clearly within reach. Sawicki hummed and hawed and finally gave in to his newly-appointed French adviser.

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an off-the-peg colonel who did nothing but mutter exasperating variations of “un ordre c'est un ordre!" The result was catastrophic. Not only did Sawicki throw away a golden opportunity of dealing Budyonny a deci­ sive blow, but his own brand new division was severely mauled as it disengaged and retreated under the attacks of the Konarmia, which was by now desperately trying to break out of the encirclement. The order to interrupt the operation had come straigt from Piłsudski. On the night of 1 August, Sollohub had launced a violent massed attack on Brest. Sikorski’s attempted defense had been disorganized by sabotage in his rear, and the town fell. With the fall of Brest, the fourth and last line of defense before Warsaw was down. With it, the idea of a counteroffensive from the center had fallen through. The luxury of dealing with the Konarmia individually now had to be foregone in favor of a more fundamental plan of defense. Warsaw was directly threatened. The Ukrainian Front, which was still the stronger of the two, would have to be weakened. It would have to fall back and assume a passive countenance. Had Piłsudski disposed of better communications, he might have realized how little time was needed to finish the job at Brody. But he had no news from the battlefield, and he could not make on-the-spot decisions. He had to think of Warsaw, so he ordered the Ukrainian Front to become a shield once more. The two weeks' fighting leading up to and culminating in the battle of Brody was the first heavy engagement seen on the Ukrainian Front. Until this moment, both sides had acted more by intimidation and mano­ euvre than by actual force of arms. Now, for the first time, the Polish foot-soldier had understood that by breaking through the front, the Konarmia was exposing itself, and he had acted accordingly. It was as though after the Dubno breakthrough the Poles had decided to call Budy­ onny's bluff, and this meant trouble for the latter. The sort of fighting which developed during the Brody episode favored the Polish infantry and at the same time undermined the two greatest assets of the Konarm ia-its mobility and its reputation. Budyonny was well aware of this and as the fighting became heavier, he became progressively more anxious. He and Voroshilov hardly slept at all during those days; they were alwasy to be found at any point where morale was beginning to flag, Voroshilov exhorting, Budyonny leading charges and advising.

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The Polish retreat came as a blessing to Budyonny. For one, he had narrowly escaped being caught in a trap. On the other hand, even if he had managed to break out of the encirclement, the extra day's fighting might have proved fatal. Just how close the Konarmia had come to com­ plete breakdown can be seen from Budyonny's accounts. "The troops had reached the outer limits of human endurance. . . everywhere people were collapsing with exhaustion, unable to move,”47 he writes. He cabled Kamieniev that the horses were so tired they could not even swing their tails at the flies, let alone carry their riders. He concluded that "fully aware of its responsibilities, the revolutionary war council of the Kon­ armia declares that whatever the political demands of the day, the Kon­ armia cannot be expected to do what is beyond its power. In the interests of saving the cavalry, which may one day be essential to the Soviet Re­ public, we insist that you approve the immediate tactical withdrawal of the Konarmia. . . Without waiting for a reply, Budyonny fell back and called a rest. New uniforms, supplies and reinforcements were brought up. In order to in­ vigorate the exhausted cossacks, and also to check any repetition of a recent desertion of some 500 Don Cossacks to the Polish side, the poli­ tical officers embarked on a rigorous program of "party-political” and "cultural-enlightenment work.” This consisted of newspaper readings, reading lessons and "discussions on the internal and international position of the Soviet Republic.’*49 It needed more than a few days’ work, however cultural or enlighten­ ing, to put the punch back into the Konarmia, and through it into the whole of Yegorov’s front. Although no one realized it at the time, least of all the Poles, the Battle of Brody marked a turning-point in the course of the campaign. From this moment, the Konarmia ceased to play a deci­ sive role in the operations. It was three weeks behind schedule, and its recent exertions not only rendered it incapable of catching up this delay, but forced it to retire for a week's rest. Unless Tukhachevsky paused and waited for it to catch up, he could in no way expect to use it anywhere near Warsaw. Although the situation was at last beginning to favor the Poles, this was not at first apparent. The fall of the last line of defense before the capital had profoundly shaken Poland and Europe as well. To most

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people it looked as though the Polish Army had lost all ability to fight, and there seemed to be little reason to expect the retreat to ever stop. By the second week of August, Tukhachevsky’s armies were homing on Warsaw itself. For six weeks, they had advanced continuously, moving the front some 600 kilometers to the west. This fine march was perhaps Tukhachevsky’s finest military achievement, and it was only his energy and powers of organization which had kept it going so relentlessly. Before starting, he had ensured the rapid advance of his units by providing them with a large quantity of peasant carts (33,000 between his four armies),50 and in the wake of their progress he was rebuilding bridges and converting tracks with the greatest speed. Piłsudski noticed with admiration during his own counteroffensive that Tukhachevsky had converted the tracks to the Russian wide gauge as far as eighty kilometers from Warsaw,51 which was a remarkable achievement considering the poor technical resources of the Red Army. Piłsudski himself was loud in praise for this advance, “that beautiful march,” as he called it, and he was fascinated by the effect it was having: This incessant wormlike movement by large numbers of enemy troops, interrupted now and again by a sudden leap forward, a movement continuing for weeks on end, gave the impression of something irresistible rolling on like some heavy, monstrous cloud. . . .There was something hopeless about it, something that destroyed the inner qualities of men and broke down the resistance of armies. For the military, this advance was like a horrific kaleidoscope, producing a fresh picture every day, in which new geographical names, numbers of regiments and divi­ sions jostled with new time-factors and fresh calculations of distances. Although this kaleidoscope revolved slowly, its ir­ resistible monotony of movement soon created a chaotic jumble of unfinished counter-measures, unfulfilled orders and reports, all totally irrelevant to the relentlessly cristallizing new situation. Under the spell of this advancing storm-cloud the state totter­ ed, will-power broke down and soldiers felt insecurity in their hearts.52

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The situation of the Northern Front was indeed very bad, and the improvized and volunteer nature of the Polish Army began to tell. The First Army had all but cracked under the strain. Many of its senior of­ ficers had shown themselves unequal to the demands of the situation created by the escalating retreat, and the military machine was still too primitive to grind on when individual cogs failed. To make matters worse, many of the untrained younger officers either panicked or simply gave way to defeatism. Some were so haunted by the certainty of capture that they had stripped their uniforms of all insignia of rank.53 In the ranks, the sheer exhaustion coupled with the feeling that the commanders had lost control of the situation, induced complete apathy. Thousands deserted outright, but the great majority simply retreated, often in whole platoons, and joined the supply-columns of their own or other units, where at least they might get a ride back to wherever the retreat would stop. Thus by 19 July the 5th Division of General JedrzejewskTs group could only muster 500 front-line effectives, while about four times that number of its soldiers were hanging about a day or two’s march ahead, clogging up roads and railways, and often ditch­ ing equipment so they could take a ride in a supply-cart.54 The field gendarmerie were simply not equipped to deal with a problem of this magnitude, quite apart from which it was difficult form them to know what to do when faced with a meandering platoon, often led by its officer, which claimed that it was looking for its regiment, the rest of which was probably doing exactly the same. The result was deepen­ ing confusion, which impaired the functioning of that part of the army which was still trying to fight, and gave the overall impression that the Northern Front had in fact disintegrated, a false impression as it turned out. Jedrzejewski’s Group was the hardest hit, and it was the extreme example. Its neighboring Group, Zeligowski’s two divisions, presented a very different picture. His 10th had been dubbed “Zeligowski’s Iron Division” by the Whites in 1919 when he had been serving under Denikin, and he had subsequently led it straight through Red and Ukrainian ter­ ritory to get back to Poland. His toughness and recklessness were a by­ word throughout the Polish Army, and his 700 kilometer long retreat was not only orderly but defiant as well. He was one of the few who fought all the way back to Warsaw, but even he writes:

108

BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS At the time I pondered deeply on the psychology of retreat, for it weighed heavily on the whole army. Six weeks of con­ sistent backward movement had created a sort of compulsion to retreat. The soldier thought about it when he went to sleep, and it was his first thought on waking. It grew to the propor­ tions of a disease, and its germs were in every bloodstream. During those long weeks we withdrew after every engagement, regardless of whether we had won or lost; it was not cowardice, or despondency, or lack of determination, but more of a habit which had warped every mind. This habit was the most dan­ gerous of all; where and when and in what conditions could it be overcome?55

The root of the trouble was not hard to locate; it lay in the strategic role prescribed to Szeptyckfs front. This front had been too weak to contain the rising tide in the first place, and it could hardly be expected to stem the surging flood once it had given way. And yet this was ex­ actly what it was called upon to do. It was required to play the part of a shield while Piłsudski tried to liquidate the Konarmia. Since it was unable to carry out this role, on account of its weakness and of Gai's continual skirting motion, its units developed a persistent sense of failure and inadequacy. The psychological stress of retreat was augmented by the political undertones of the campaign. Terrible rumors circulated about what happened to prisoners, particularly officers, volunteers or former Legion­ aries (who all wore some distinctive markings on their collars). It was not unusual to see insignia of rank loosened and kept pinned on, so that they could be thrown away in a hurry. Those of the upper classes and the intelligentsia shuddered at the thought of being caught by "the other side," while peasants crossed themselves and prayed to God that He would not deliver them into the hands of Gai Khan and his eastern infidels. The physical conditions were not much better. A solider in the 37th Leczyca Infantry wrote: The road of retreat is infernal. The heat, the lack of water, the stench of rotting corpses and the forest fires are turning it into a sort of hellish torture. . . .Continual shooting from the flank

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and rear. . . .There is nobody left to come and relieve us 56

The pace of retreat was such that Sikorski claimed a dozen soldiers of his Pripet Group “had gone demented from exhaustion.” 57 The troops had worn out their boots and uniforms. Food was irregular and insuf­ ficient. Only unripe fruit and milk could be found in the villages on account o f the time of year. The result was widespread cholic and diar­ rhoea on both sides. Streams of refugees clogged up the already over­ loaded roads, increasing the chaos and spreading the panic. The absence of any Polish cavalry added to the sense of isolation and insecurity, and every unit or group of men fended for itself. It looked very much as though the whole structure of the Polish Army had given way, and to the casual observer, the hope of making it stand and fight must have seemed remote indeed. The worst effects of the retreat, however, were to be seen hundreds of kilometers behind the front. Piłsudski talks of “the most dangerous front of all-th e internal front.” 58 At least on the battlefied the soldier could see that his own failure was greater than the enemy’s success. Legend was tempered by reality, and there was little belief in the mysti­ que of the Red Army. Moreover, the soldier still believed that back in Warsaw somebody was planning something and controlling the situation. In Warsaw, on the other hand, it looked as though nobody was doing anything at all, and the power of the Russian armies loomed greater at a distance. The peace talks, which had been reopened at the end of July, were not taken very seriously in Poland, although the government was eager to negotiate. The Allies, who now saw the whole war developing into a crisis of European proportions, were even more anxious for a settle­ ment, but when the Soviet proposals* were finally received, they too were forced to recognize the fact that only the Polish Army could save

* These were essentially that Poland was to reduce her army to an overall figure o f 50,000 men, hand over her armament to Russia, together with various other concessions, and adopt the Curzon Line as the eastern frontier.

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Poland from becoming a Russian satellite. And it was not difficult to guess what they thought of the Polish Army. The foreign military attaches, who were leaving Warsaw along with their embassies, came to take their leave of General Haller and shook his hand “like that of a bankrupt cousin.” 59 But Poland was by no means beaten, nor was Piłsudski. During the whole period o f the retreat he had been doing his utmost to create re* serves and supplies which could be used at a decisive moment later on. In mid-July, he had launched the idea of raising a new army of volunteers, and even he was amazed to see as many as 164,615 come forward during the next six weeks.60 General Haller was given the task of organizing them. He formed some 30,000 of them up into an independent division, and distributed the rest in platoons and companies which were individ­ ually attached to regiments already in the field, or simply sent them up to the front as refills for regular units. These volunteers represented a very wide social spectrum, ranging from members of parliament, teachers and civil servants to students, workers and peasants. The majority, however, were of the under twenty age-group, and their arrival in the ranks raised the morale of the defeated or retreating units considerably. Like any injection of fresh blood, how­ ever, the effects did not come into force until the middle of August, at the moment when they were most needed. At the same time, the Polish Quartermastership was working overtime to build up large stocks of equipment and ammunition at Warsaw. Although their work was hampered by the general shortage and the fact that the Danzig supply route had been cut by striking dockers, while the railway routes through Czechoslovakia and Germany were subject to frequent sabotage and stoppage, they managed to satisfy the basic needs of the army. In short, Poland mobilized all her available resources, in a mood of determination to fight one last battle.

CHAPTER VH

THE MASTERPLAN ‘T h e Polish Arm y seems fo r the tim e being almost to have ceased to exist as a coherent fo rce. . . . " New Statesman, London, 31 July 1920 Despite the collapse of the last defensive line before Warsaw, the Russian armies were not able to continue their advance as before. Żeli­

gowski^ Group, by now only a skeletal force o f hardened veterans, fought a desperate rearguard action in the marshy Narew basin, in the Ostroleka-Lomza-Ostrów triangle. This diversion kept Kork’s XV and Lazare­ vich’s III Armies pinned down for six whole days. “This was our first serious delay,” writes Tukhachevsky, and he was so surprised to find resistance at this stage that he concluded that it must be a planned action by the main Polish forces.1 At the same time, Sollohub’s XVI Army, which had crossed the Bug and taken Brest was caught in a vigorous counterattack by Sikorski’s Group and forced to fall back across the river. Both of these actions were in fact the belated result of orders is­ sued before, in accordance with Pilsudski’s plan of launching a counter­ offensive from the line of the Bug. It was not until the end of the first week in August that Tukhachevsky was able to resume his westward march. When he did, his armies began to close in on the capital itself. In the north, Gai and Sergeyev had met no serious resistance and they were consequently far ahead of the other armies. This extended Russian arm hanging over Warsaw looked ominous

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on the map, and it seemed to preclude the Poles even dreaming of recon­ structing a north-south front to protect the city. At a glance, Tukhachevsky’s position was perfect and left no chance open to the Poles. In fact, Tukhachevsky had reached a very critical moment, and much depended on his next moves. A major reassessment of the plan which had brought him this far was clearly called for. This plan had consisted of three principal acts. The first was to defeat at least one of Szeptycki’s armies in Byelorussia, the second was to launch a great “tidal wave offensive*’ on the backs of the fleeing remnants, and the third was to sweep into Warsaw on their tail, thus preventing the Poles from organizing a last stand at the gates of their capital. Tukhachevsky’s first hitch had been that he failed to destroy a single division of Szeptycki’s, let alone one of his armies. In his writings and his lectures, he persists in maintaining that he did destroy Szeptycki’s main forces. He claims to have “smashed, shattered, pulverized, complete­ ly demoralized and rendered unfit for further action” Zeligowski’s two divisions no less than three times between the Dvina and the Bug, which might sound like a contradiction. One might also note that Zeligowski’s Group seemed fit enough for action during its six-day effort in the Narew basin, where it mesmerized seven of Tukhachevsky’s divisions. Putna, whose reputation was not at stake, gives a more objective view of the first lap of the offensive:* During the period when the Armies of the Western Front en­ joyed the most favorable numerical superiority, they success­ fully carried out a series of operations in the area between the Berezina and the Bug, but they did not once manage to destroy or seriously disrupt the Polish Armed Forces acting in the same area.2 Granted that he had failed in the first act, Tukhachevsky was still in a strong position as his armies surged forward during the month of July.

* Vitovt Putna: born 1893, Latvia. N.C.O. in Tsarist Army, 1919-1920 Commander of 27th Omsk Rifle Division. One of the most promising of the divisional commanders on the Western Front. Shot 1937.

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He had, after all, precipitated the Polish front into disorganized retreat, a retreat which, apart from causing physical losses on the Polish side, exhausted, demoralized and broke down the resistance of his enemy. If he could keep the Poles running all the way to Warsaw, he still had a chance of achieving the second and third objectives in his plan. The Polish Army and State might easily crumble under the pressure of his advance. Certainly, his experience of the civil war had led him to expect this, and he did not differentiate between his previous campaigns and this one. This was risky planning, for the endless advance could only be kept up if the land through which it moved could supply him with mat­ erials and men. It had worked in Siberia and it had worked on the Don, where Tukhachevsky’s armies had snowballed at the expense of the re­ treating enemy. This had happened as a result of a whole series of con­ ditions peculiar to the civil war, and he should have taken into account the essentially nationalistic basis of the present campaign. Few recruits came forward from the villages in Byelorussia and even fewer in Poland, and there was no real possibility of incorporating Polish prisoners or deserters into the ranks of the Red Army. On the other hand, the long advance through increasingly hostile territory had not only thinned his own forces, but also cooled much of their patriotic ardour. Tukhachcvsky again tells us that his units were “ strong in spirit and did not fear the enemy,“3 but one wonders how he could have known, since he was reclining in comfort in Smolensk, some six hundred miles away. Putna, who was at Warsaw with the front line, writes: There were signs of great weariness amongst our troops; the condition of the armies, and particularly of their rear, was a source of very serious alarm to me.4 The truth was that Tukhachevsky was intoxicated by the splendor of his long advance. He did not bother to look too closely at the toll it was taking in his army. He studied it on a map, and on a map it looked very impressive. As far as he was concerned, the war had been all but won, and the final act of taking Warsaw would set the seal on the achieve­ ment. In fact, his problems were only just beginning. On 4 July, Tukhachevsky had been able to contrive a threefold superi­ ority over Szeptycki’s First Army. On the Vistula six weeks later this

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superiority had dwindled away and even slightly inversed itself.5 In July, he had possessed the fullest information about Polish positions and forces. Now he had none at all. In July he had been able to lean heavily on his bases and take the ßeld with a full complement of men and equipment. Now his forces had been thinned and his supply-lines taught to the break­ ing point by the rapid advance. In July, his strategic position had been ideal, with no preoccupation apart from the static enemy in front of him. Now his flanks were exposed, his rear open to partisan activity and the enemy an unknown quantity. In spite of all of this, Tukhachevsky still held onetrunp; he had the in­ itiative. The Poles would not be able to wrest this from him as long as he kept up his pace. Thus at the beginning of August everything was staked on the one card of speed. And this last card was wrenched out of Tukhachevsky’s hand by Żeligowski and Sikorski when they managed to halt his progress for six days. Those days were crucial. They gave the Poles a breathing-space and they allowed the other Polish armies to tear them­ selves away from the Russian pursuit. Tukhachevsky could still hope to sweep into Warsaw on the tails of the fleeing Poles, but now that he had lost contact with some of their forces, he had no way of knowing whether he was still on their tails. The pause had given them the opportunity to dodge or side-step his re­ newed advance, and if they had used the time well, he was done for. By resuming his advance on 8 August, Tukhachevsky was not merely resigning himself to the usual risk of winning or losing a battle, he was effectively staking the survival of his whole army on the assumption that the Polish Army was not capable of seriously opposing him. Tukhachevsky seems to have been oblivious of the importance of the moment. He clung to his view that he had pulverized the First Army, and he now rushed on in pursuit of what he liked to believe were the “main Polish forces.” He did not contemplate the possibility of Poland rising to the occasion, and he instinctively felt she was beaten. In this, he grieviously underestimated his opponent. There was on the Polish side a man with enough authority and magnetism to rally the fleeing remnants, a man who always fared best when the odds were against him-Pilsudski. Piłsudski returned to Warsaw after the fall of Brest. His hopes of saving the situation by a thrust from the Brest area had fallen through.

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He was deeply depressed and weighed down by responsibility.6 He had after all launched the campaign, and now all eyes were on him, as both his supporters and his enemies wondered what would happen next. It was obvious that only resolution and daring could save the capital and the young state. It was also obvious that whatever any of his enemies thought of him, he was still the only figure with enough authority to lead the country at a time like this. A fresh plan, new decision and a determined stand were needed to bolster up the tottering state and to rally all the flagging elements. Only Piłsudski could provide these, and by this stage his opponents had stopped trying to interfere in his con­ duct of the campaign. Piłsudski writes that “everything seemed black and hopeless,“ but he realized what was expected of him. He made it known that he would announce a plan on 6 August-the sixth anniversary of the day on which he had led his little Legion out of Cracow in 1914. Piłsudski was a super­ stitious man, and he chose the date especially, for he felt the coming trial was going to be decisive for him and his country as his decision had been in 1914. Of one thing he was convinced; something had to be done to break through the psychological malaise of the army. No degree of bolstering or reinforcement could bring this about in the existing situation. A clear and decisive break had to be made. The army must be shown that pre vious strategy had been shelved along will all the failure it entailed, and that a completely new approach both vigorous and reasonable had been adopted. General Weygand of the Inter-Allied Mission, and Count Rozwadowski the Polish Chief-of-Staff, had been working for some time on how to save the situation, and their plans were very similar. Rozwadowski was for strengthening the two wings of the Northern Front, thereby relieving the pressure on the center.7 Weygand wanted to create a strong force in the Ostroleka-Lomza area, which, having stabilized the Polish Northen wing, would proceed to launch a counterattack. As far as he was con­ cerned, the absolute precondition for any further action was the stabili­ zation of the front and the creation of “une ligne forte/* But the forces covering the approaches to Warsaw were to be no more than screens, with all available reserves being used in the northern sector.8 This plan, logical and sensible as it undoubtedly was, was not suited to the prevailing

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conditions» and was certainly not decisive enough to produce the requisite revolution in the army’s morale. Piłsudski realized this» and with characteristic scorn left the two gen­ erals to pore over their maps and figures while he went off to work out his own plan, not deigning to tell them that they were wasting their time. He was sticking to his original concept—that of a pronged attack delivered from the center upwards. It was the obvious move, since his only reserves were on the Ukrainian front, and he had been contemplating it ever since the two Russian fronts had passed the Pripet. Only now it would require some very close planning. On the night of 5 August Piłsudski shut himself up in his room in the Belvedere Palace. “Crushed by responsibility for the state and its capital,” he collected his thoughts.9 His hesitation and uncertainty reminded him of Napoleon’s reflection that a general working out a plan is in the same state as a woman giving birth. Alone in the night, he kept hovering over the various possibilities, unsure of his own judgment, and more than ever conscious of the fact that he was a self-taught amateur. “At times I could really hear something sneering and jibbering at me from the corners of the room as 1 sat there making decisions and calculations based on the absurd and the ridiculous,” he writes.10 Piłsudski had decided to take a major risk. He abandoned all notion of holding the line of the Bug. He would disengage his armies, pull them back, and transfer the decisive clash to the very gates of Warsaw. He was buying time with space. He intended to leave a strong but passive screen around the capital, and to use the rest of his army to strike upwards from the center, across the flank and backs of the four Russian armies closing in on their prize. The plan seemed dangerous, as one false move could bring about the fall of the city, but at least it gave the Polish Army one last chance of recovering its balance. The other point to recommend this plan was that whereas Weygand’s and Rozwadowski’s would have brought about a pitched battle which might eventually have brought the Russian armies to their knees, this one was far more elegant and could at the same time achieve far more spectacular results. He was prepared to take risks and apply cunning and movement where they intended to apply sledge­ hammer tactics. If it ever got off the ground it could hardly fail to produce the greatest results.

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Piłsudskie worst problems arose in trying to work out the details of execution. One vital premis was that Warsaw must be ensured against capture, and this meant that it had to be heavily endowed with troops. To Piłsudski it seemed ridiculous that such a large proportion of his forces should have to play this seemingly passive and unimportant part when he was racking his brains to find enough men for the strike-force.11 But there was no escaping the fact that if Warsaw fell the game would, to a certain extent, be up. He resigned himself to the fact that the leading role would have to be played by the smallest force. On the morning of 6 August, General Rozwadowski called at the Bel­ vedere and the final orders were worked out. The Polish forces were re­ organized entirely. The Northern Front, under General Haller, was to stretch from the East Prussian border down to Puławy on the Vistula. Its role was to defend Warsaw and tie Tukhachevsky down frontally. A new Central Front, commanded by Marshal Piłsudski himself, was to stretch from Puławy along the river Wieprz and down as far as Sokal. It was composed of a strike-force facing north and a screening group facing east. The Southern Front, under General Iwaszkiewicz, was to tie down Budyonny and defend Lwow and the Drohobycz oilfields.12 The whole process of regrouping was extremely complicated and haz­ ardous. Most of the forces of the Northern Front were falling back on Warsaw automatically, but the Fourth Army, retreating from Brest, was on a course which would bring it to a stretch of the Vistula where there were no bridges. Here, then, was the obvious choice for the strike force. Piłsudski pulled it off southwards to the line of the Wieprz, but this meant a lateral march along Sollohub’s front during which anything could have happened. Sollohub, however, noticed nothing and failed to attack at that moment, and the Fourth Army took up positions at Dęblin and Kock. This gave Piłsudski three divisions for his strike force. For the rest he turned to Smigly-Rydz, whose Third Army was to play a passive role in the plan. He asked for the 1st and 3rd Legionary Divi­ sions, his two favorite units. Their withdrawal from the Third Army's front had to be carried out with the utmost secrecy. The same went for Iwaszkiewicz’s Southern Front, whence some of the reliable and hardened units of the Kiev campaign were to be with­ drawn. Krajowksi’s 18th Division, for instance, had shown such skill in

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dealing with Budyonny that it was now being sent north to try its hand against Gai. All the tanks and heavy artillery were sent to Warsaw. The Air Force was concentrated around Lwow and the more sparsely defended areas. Part of the cavalry was also sent off to the north against Gai’s Konkorpus. Supplies had to be brought up to the right units, new staffs created and commanders instated. It was something of a race against the clock, and the attendant chaos might have proved fatal. In the event, the whole operation was carried out with a minimum of incompetence and inefficiency. The fact that the regrouping had been successful was the first nail in Tukhachevsky’s coffin. While he pressed on towards Warsaw on the tail of what he imagined to be the main Polish forces, the choice Polish divi­ sions were in fact calmly regrouping on his exposed flank, preparing to strike home. The matador had just managed to side-step the bull, and unless he tripped or his sword broke, the bull was doomed. There was still an enormous element of doubt as to the outcome: the human ele­ ment. No one could tell whether or not the armies which had grown into the habit of retreating after every shot would now stand and fight. Tukhachevsky might bulldoze his way into Warsaw yet. Interestingly enough, both Piłsudski and Tukhachevsky were basing their plans on false assumptions. Piłsudski believed that the main Russian attack would be aimed straight at the Warsaw bridgehead, where all the heavy artillery and the tanks were waiting for it.13 He was in fact quite wrong, as Tukhachevsky had settled on a different course, on the basis of an equally false assumption. Ever since Zeligowskf s action in the Narew basin, Tukhachevsky was convinced that the latter’s group represented the only remaining serious concentration of Polish troops.14 When Żeligowski proceeded to with­ draw along the Bug towards Modlin, Tukhachevsky assumed that the last Polish stand would take place there, on the northern approaches to War­ saw. He also assumed that the eastern bridgehead at Warsaw would be an inferno of trench-works and barbed wire, and he was not anxious to waste time capturing those, particularly as that would only bring him to the Vistula, which would become another barrier if the Poles blew the bridge. He believed that the Poles would not waste men on these bridgehead defenses, but would concentrate all their remaining troops around the fortress of Modlin. Having decided this, nothing could convince him that

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he was wrong. Even when writing three years later, he persisted in this view, although by then it was painfully obvious that the main Polish forces had been to the south and east of the city. Tukhachevsky pre­ ferred to stay on the tail of the main forces and to hack his way into Warsaw through a human wall rather than barbed wire and trenches, so he shifted the whole center of gravity of his front gently to the north and made for Modlin rather than Warsaw itself. On 8 August, two days after Piłsudski, Tukhachevsky Issued his final orders for the assault.15 Gai was to move westwards, by-passing the capital completely. He was to make for Włocławek, cross the Vistula and cut the Warsaw-Danzig railway. He was only to be called in if the Poles needed extra softening up. Shuvayev, who had taken over command of the IV Army from the wounded Sergeyev, was to follow Gai and then veer around to cross the Vistula northwest of the capital. Kork’s XV Army was to strike at Modlin and then move directly south, while Lazarevich’s III Army bore down on the city from the northeast. Only Sollohub’s XVI Army was to knock directly at the eastern bridgehead defenses. Khvyesin’s Group, which had fallen behind in the advance, was to cover Sollohub’s flank and act as a bridge between the two fronts. The city was to be in Russian hands by 14 August. Kamieniev did not like Tukhachevsky’s dispositions, which he consid­ ered unnecessarily risky.16 He was certain that the main Polish forces were retreating not on Modlin but on Warsaw itself. He felt that Tukhachevsky’s spearheads were being directed into a void, and he argued that they were so far ahead they only needed to swerve to the south in order to come between the retreating Poles and Warsaw.17 Tukhachevsky took no notice of the warnings, so Kamieniev made one last effort to con­ vince him, in a telephone conversation on 10 August.18 He had noticed that the troops previously facing Sollohub (Fourth Army) had vanished, and he assumed that they were regrouping somewhere between the Bug and the Vistula. He argued that Tukhachevsky was giving them a breath­ ing space, and he urged him to move Kork and Lazarevich southwards without delay. He also commented on the fact that by shifting his whole center of gravity northwards, he was pulling his own front away from Yegorov’s and thereby exposing his own flank dangerously. Tukhachev­ sky parried this by demanding that the XII Army and the Konarmia be given to him and ordered to close up his flank.19

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On 3 August, Kamieniev had instructed Vaskanov’s XII Army to make closer contact with Khvyesin,20 but now Tukhachevsky himself was mov­ ing away from Khvyesin. Kamieniev eventually agreed to give Tukhachev­ sky the three armies of the South-Western Front, but it was fairly obvious by this stage that they would be largely irrelevant to the events around Warsaw, and there seemed little doubt that these events would decide the final outcome of the campaign. Although Tukhachevsky was a great adept at wishful thinking, he was no fool, and he must have realized by the first days of the month that the Konarmia could not be brought to bear on the forthcoming clash. He was confident in the outcome of the battle, which he expected to have won by 14 August, and he did not need the Konarmia, so he did not count on it. It is rather nice to note that while both Piłsudski and Tukhachevsky had misconstrued each other's intentions, each was given an inkling of the real situation, and both chose to ignore it. A day or two after issuing his own orders, Tukhachevsky was actually handed a copy of Pilsudski’s order, found on the body of a dead officer. Tukhachevsky thought it was a hoax. He backed this view up by the fact that the officer belonged to the 1st Legionary Division and had been killed in action against the 25th Chapayev Division of Vaskanov’s XII Army.21 According to the order, the 1st Legionary Division should have been miles away, preparing to strike into Tukhachevsky’s rear. In fact, the 1st Legionary had decided to win freedom of action for itself by lashing out at Vaskanov before moving away. By the time the order was actually picked off the body, the unit was entraining for its new concentration point. It seems strange that Tukhachevsky should have been so set in his views of what the real situation was, but presumably he trusted to instinct at moments like these. Piłsudski also had a hint of the actual Russian intentions. He received reports from his intelligence and Air Force that large Russian columns had been seen moving between Warsaw and the Prussian border, apparent­ ly by-passing the capital. He assumed that these were just the spearheads of Gai’s Konkorpus making a deep flanking march. He did nothing about it, not that there was much he could do. In the event, it was not a serious miscalculation, although it might have produced some interesting situa­ tions had the Polish northern wing been commanded by a lesser man than Sikorski.

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During the second week in August the two armies drifted towards the great battle. Uneasiness dominated both camps. Tukhachevsky, despite his bravado, could not help wondering whether he was aiming for the right spot, and whether the Poles were still capable of fighting. Pilsudski’s great imponderable was whether the troops which had retreated ceaselessly for six weeks would be able to fight, whether the vanquished could be turned into victors overnight. He was also haunted by the uncertainty of whether the Konarmia would intervene or not. On 12 August, Piłsudski left Warsaw for his headquarters at Puławy, delighted to escape from the oppressive atmosphere in Warsaw. It was a strange moment. Lord D’Abernon of the Inter-Allied Mission writes that while religious processions were so frequent one could hardly drive through the streets, he could not get over "the outstanding insouciance of the population with the enemy at the gates of the city.”22 As a parting shot he adds that “the Prime Minister, a peasant farmer, has gone off today to get his harvest in—Nobody thinks this extraordinary!” But the man with the harvest, Witos, was by no means oblivious to the situation; he talks of it in terms of “a nightmare which took away one’s reason and sense of reality/’23 In fact this extraordinary mixture of coolness and fervor was a typical symptom of the insecurity which pervaded the city. Inevitably, everyone looked to Piłsudski for some hint of hope or despair. He found it a terrible strain to have to exude calmness and con­ fidence when his own mind was so full of doubt and uncertainty. "Pilsudski’s face was terribly tired and haggard, and his eyes shone omin­ ously,” writes one witness.24 Haller agreed that he had “never seen him in such a state of depression and nerves as then,”25 while Carton de Wiart recalls: I was seeing Piłsudski daily, and once when 1 asked him what he thought of the situation, he shrugged his shoulders and said it was all in the hands of the Almighty 26 Weygand rather agreed. When asked by the Papal Nuncio, Cardinal Ratti,*

* Later Pope Pius XI.

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what hope there was for the 14 August, he replied: “Your prayers can help more on this day than all our military skill.9’27 The remark reflected his pique, which was understandable. By allowing him to work away at an alternative plan which he had not the slightest intention of using, Piłsudski had rather cruelly made the point that he considered Weygand’s presence, let alone help, superfluous. On his arrival at the front, Piłsudski was relieved to find that the situation was far less tense than it had been in Warsaw. The troops were in better spirits than he had been led to expect. Their uniforms were in a terrible state, and half of them paraded before him barefoot. He “had never seen such a collection of tramps during the whole war,“28 he writes, but their morale was good. The Poznan Division, indeed, might have been off to a wedding judging by their laughter and songs.29 During the next few days Piłsudski held parades and reviews, visiting in turn all the units of his strike-force. His presence and the existence of the new plan had a galvanizing effect on the men, and they looked forward to the date of 17 August, which he had set for the attack.

CHAPTER VO!

THE BATi LE FOR Wa RSAW “Down with White Poland. . . . Long live Soviet Poland!” 2nd Comintern Congress Appeal to Proletariat of the World. 19 July 1920.1 On 12 August, the day on which Tukhachevsky had originally expected to take the city, the two armies slowly came to grips. Sollohub stumbled across the Polish defenses on the eastern bridgehead and gingerly r robcd them with a series of ineffectual attacks. The movements were becoming slow and ponderous. The tension of the long advance was beginning (o relax now that the goal was in sight. Only the Konkorpus and Shuvaycv’s IV Army were still moving with anything like their original dash. The relentless advance of these two had already obliged the Poles to modify their original plan, which was becoming impossible to carry out. General Sikorski had been ordered to créât a new northern wing for the Polish front by taking up a line between the East Prussian frontier and the fortress of Modlin, but this line had been crossed long before he even arrived to take command. Moreover, the Fifth Army which he was to take command of had only been created on paper by the order of 6 August, and had as yet not materialized. When Sikorski arrived on the scene, he found a dismal mess where his army should have been.2 Krajowski’s 18th Division was still on its way from Brody. The Siberian Brigade was present, but its rifles had gone 125

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astray on the railways.* There was stiU no sign of the expected 9th Divi­ sion, while the 17th Poznanian Division was trudging in after its 600 kilometer retreat, desperate for a rest. The Volunteer Division had also arrived, but Sikorski was afraid of putting too much strain on these civilians in the first moments. They could hardly be expected to hold up the front on their own while the other forces prepared. In these circumstances, there was no point in even dreaming of the original plan, and Sikorski quickly settled on a new one. He decided to fall right back and take up positions along the river Wkra, pivoting on the fortress o f Modlin in the south and anchored to the small town of Plonsk in the north.3 He was effectively giving Gai and Shuvayev carte blanche to rampage around the lower Vistula and the Danzig corridor, but there was precious little he could have done to stop them anyhow. At least now he was in a position to defend the northern approaches to Warsaw. While Sikorski was floundering through his organizational problems, events took a rather familiar turn on the Warsaw bridgehead. This was being held by the reinforced First Army, now under the command of General Latinik, an energetic and efficient organizer with grand ideas on impregnable earthworks and defense by saturation. He had been early disappointed to find that barbed wire was not available, while the sappers had only the vaguest notion of building trenches. Another of his discoveries was that the flat and thickly wooded bridgehead made it impossible for the heavy artillery to aim without the assistance of observation ballons, of which, needless to say there were none. There was nothing for it but to pound away blindly and hope for the best. Nevertheless, Latinik had managed to build three defensive perimeters, albeit of doubtful quality, and to man them adequately.4 On 13 August, however, Sollohub leaned tooheavily on the outer peri­ meter, and the Polish 11th Division needed no further prompting to

* The Siberian Brigade had been formed by the Allies in Siberia from Polish soldiers who had served in the German or Austrian armies and had been taken prisoner by the Russians. Under Colonel Rumsza, it fought for Kolchak in 1919, and was subsequently repatriated by a long sea voyage through Japan to Poland, where it arrived just in time for the battle of Warsaw.

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abandon its positions and flee;the habit was too strong. As a result, the Russian 21st Division captured the township of Radzymin, only nine miles from Warsaw. In fact, this success was partly due to and largely mitigated by the fact that the 21st Division, which belonged to Lazarevich, should never have been in the area at all.5 A mix-up in orders had taken it off course and brought it to Radzymin just as Sollohub’s 27th Omsk Division was moving into the attack. While their combined pressure helped to send the Poles reeling, it also meant that the two divisions became inextricably tangled up. The ensuring bickering as to who should be where effectively cancelled out any energetic follow-up of the attack, and the two units ground to a halt at the very moment when there was little to stop them from sweeping into Warsaw. The effect on the Polish side was predictably shattering. The event was not serious from the military point of view, as there were plenty of reserves on call. What was serious was the fact that the 11th Divi­ sion had evidently not managed to get over the side-effects of the long retreat, and it was impossible to be certain whether the other units would do better. Apart from this, appearances were bad. News travelled back fast, embroidered with rumor, and fear spread throughout the city. If this were to develop into panic, it might have a disastrous effect on the other units defending it. Anticipating this type of situation. General Haller, whose Northern Front command included the First and Fifth Armies, had on the previous day decided that only active defense could shake his troops out of their dangerous habit. He felt inclined to fight rather than wait for Divine Intercession, and he notified Piłsudski of the change in the original con­ cept of the plan. His order read: "Tomorrow, 14 August, we shall do battle for Warsaw, a battle for the freedom of Poland.”6 The primary role in these offensive tactics fell to Sikorski’s Fifth Army. The Polish General Staff were still unaware of Sikorski’s criti­ cal position. They were continuing in the belief that Tukhachevsky’s main forces were making straight for Latinik’s defenses on the bridge­ head, and therefore saw it as Sikorski’s duty to relieve the latter.7 From the records left by Tukhachevsky’s staff it is known that of the total of 101,269 combattants taking part in the battle, 68,573 were concen­ trating solely on Sikorski and only 32,696 were facing Latinik? The latter was therefore relatively safe with his 40,000-odd men on the bridgehead.

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while Sikorski was in for stormy weather with his little army of just over 20,000 men.* On top of this, Latinik had all the heavy artillery and priority in matters of equipment, while Sikorski had to make do with antiques crumbling on the redoubts of Modlin. Haller's orders were that the Fifth Army attack on 14 August at dawn, in order to distract the Russian attention from the Radzymin sector. This infuriated Sikorski, who was physically incapable of carrying them out. His cavalry, which had just arrived, had no ammunition, and the Sib­ erian Brigade was still without rifles. The Volunteer Division was rearing to go, but its ammunition was on a railway siding outside Cracow, while the 17th was down to 2,000 men, having suffered fifty percent losses while trying to defend the Narew crossings at Pułtusk. Well over half of his army would be unable to take the field on the next morning. Never­ theless, after much haggling and irritation on both sides Sikorski agreed to do what he could to mount some sort of attack on the following after­ noon.10 This suited Tukhachevsky admirably. He writes: For five weeks the White-Polish armies had continuously avoided any encounter with us, on account of the poor morale of their troops. It was only on the Vistula that they decided to fight, having been bolstered up with fresh formations. We knew that somewhere we would come upon their main forces and smash them in a decisive engagement. And now the enemy himself was giving us the opportunity of doing just this; his Fifth Army, weakest in spirit and numbers, launched an attack on our XV and III Armies, while our freshest and most spirited units, the divisions of the IV Army, hung poised over its left flank. The Front Command could hardly control its j o y . . . . 11 Tukhachevsky could well afford to rejoice. When Sikorski did attack on 14 August, it was only with Krajowski’s 18th and the Siberian Brig­ ade, about 8,000 men altogether.12 Krajowski collided head on with the

* It is impossible to be more exact over the Polish figures, as the re­ grouping operation reorganized not only armies, but all existing units as well. Moreover, the regrouping and reinforcement was still continuing until the end of the battle.9

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main body of Koik’s XV Army, while the Siberians came up against Lazare­ vich’s formidable Petrograd Division, which flung them back across the Wkra in disorder. By the evening, Krajowski was completely surrounded near Plonsk, and most of the Wkra as well as two of Modlin’s outlying redoubts were in Russian hands. It was not only Sikorski who was in trouble that night. On the bridge­ head, Latinik had gathered his reserves and retaken Radzymin, only to lose it again a few hours later. His troops had been slow to take up de­ fensive positions, and a vigorous attack by Sollohub had not only re­ captured the town, but even broken through the second defensive peri­ meter. If the first fall of Radzymin had made a bad impression, the second produced a deep shock. The first could be attributed to chance or bad luck, or just blamed on the 11th Division, but for the second there was no excuse. Reserves had been poured in and told to hold at all costs, and still the Russian infantry had been able to walk through the defenses. A wave of uncertainty swept through Warsaw, and, what was worse, through Latinik’s army. The men who had decided to stand after the six weeks o f retreat were again beginning to waver. An eye-witness tells of how he saw a battalion of Polish infantry give up its positions and run at the mere sight of cossacks in the distance. When the cossacks drew nearer, they turned out to be nothing more fierce than a herd of bul­ locks.13 What Sikorski describes as “the hypnosis of retreat” was still very strong. The Prime Minister, who toured the front lines on 14 August writes: The danger loomed before us in all its grimness as we watched more and more troops, well uniformed and armed, give way to terror, unable to utter a single word and seeing their only chance in flight. When asked where they were running to, they looked over their shoulders in terror instead of answering.14 That night marked the furthest point of Tukhachevsky’s success. His troops were only about seven miles from the center of Warsaw, and rumor saw cossack patrols in the suburbs. Had Sollohub’s troops been capable of pushing home their attack at night, they might well have captured the tottering capital. The situation in Warsaw itself was alarming. Crowds gathered expect­ antly in the eastern suburbs. A few acts of sabotage punctuated the

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subdued atmosphere. As it was the eve of the Assumption, the churches were crammed with people praying to the Virgin. Others waited with resignation. Pilsudski’s former underground military organization were quietly stockpiling grenades at strategic windows for a last stand in the city itself.15 Everyone listened to the dull thud of artillery coming from the bridgehead and wondered what the situation really was. It was a ques­ tion not even the front-line commanders could answer. Relaxing in his armored train in Minsk, Tukhachevsky was oblivious to the momentous balance that had established itself on the approaches to Warsaw. It was clearly the sort of balance which would be tipped drasti­ cally by a single determined move by either side, but Tukhachevsky had no way of knowing. He had only his maps to guide him, nad his maps told him that he was scoring on the bridgehead while to the north of the city fourteen of his divisions were closing in on Sikorski's four from all sides. On paper, this could not fail. He therefore refrained from reviewing the situation or revising his tactics. He was confident that if his units renewed their attacks as planned on the following day, Warsaw would be his. Unfortunately, this war was governed by logic and rational calcula­ tion even less than most. Early on 15 August, the Russian armies renewed their attacks all along the line. Sikorski and Latinik had been working hard all night to patch up their defenses, with varying success. Latinik had no problem. He was able to call in Zeligowski’s 10th Division, which had been waiting in re­ serve. Reinforced by a couple of companies of tanks, Żeligowski moved forward, prevented Sollohub’s attack from developing and then proceed to take Radzymin from him for the second time. Sikorski was less fortunate. While he was straining every nerve of his ragged army to parry the combined onslaught of Kork and Lazarevich, Haller was breathing down the telephone about the necessity of relieving the Russian pressure on the bridgehead.16 The position of the Fifth Army looked hopeless; in front, it was fighting off two of the Russian armies, while its rear was open to Shuvayev, whose main forces were now within striking distance of it. A lesser man than Sikorski would have given up completely, but he faced the dismal prospects undaunted. He was a fine soldier, but above all, he was a figure of solidity, despite his youth, “a leader in the fullest sense of the word,” as Foch described him.17 Like Piłsudski, he was a man who had learned to fight with his back to the wall.

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As there was little option open to him, Sikorski decided to pretend that Shuvayev did not exist. He would face the problem when it arose, and not before. This might just give him time to deal with the other two problems, Kork and Lazarevich. He decided to start with the latter, which would have the most immediate effect on the situation on the bridgehead.18 On the morning of IS August, therefore, Sikorski sent Major Arciszewski’s armored company (consisting of half-a-dozen souped-up Fords and Fiats covered in armor plating and machine-guns) to harass Shuva­ yev,19 a cavalry brigade under General Karnicki to cut communitions between Shuvayev and Kork, and Krajowski’s 18th to tie down Kork and prevent him from joining up withLazarevich.With the rest of the Fifth Army, Sikorski attacked the latter's 111 Army. Sikor ski's main attack soon ground to a halt. Lazarevich's troops show­ ed great determination to reach Warsaw at all cost, and a grim slogging match developed along the Wkra, which was hotly contested during the whole day. It was only in the north of the Fifth Army’s sector that the situation took a turn for the better. Dependable as ever, Krajowski had set off early that morning with his veterans. Their spirit was totally unimpaired by the grim situation at Warsaw. One of Krajowski’s regiments even smeared mud and charcoal over their faces before going into battle that morning, and then rushed into the fray screeming and howling like a gang of schoolboys. The effect was instantaneous, and, seeing negroes dressed in blue uniforms, Russian officers reported to Kork that French colonial troops had been brought in on the Polish side.30 Karnicki’s cavalry brigade achieved even more spectular results that morning. It slipped through unoccupied territory between the IV and XV Armies, and moved into the rear of Shuvayev’s divisions. Budyonny would have been pround of his former commander, whose performance on that day so closely resembled his own activities. The lancers attacked supply-columns and straggling groups of infantry, and even carried off the unsuspecting staff of the 18th Yaroslav Division. In late morning, the lancers swept into Ciechanów, greeted by a few half-hearted shots from the Russinas and flowers from the populace. On the previous day Shuvayev had moved his headquarters from Wilno to Ciechanów. When Kamicki’s lancers clattered into town, he lept into

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a car with a couple of officers and just managed to make his escape, but the rest of his staff, all the orders and papers, the IV Army funds and most important of all, the IV Army transmitter fell into Polish hands.11 Tactically, the whole incident was eliminated immediately. Kork sent his reserve, the 33rd Kuban Division, to the scene at once, and Karnicki saw no reason to hang onto the town. Nevertheless, this raid had been a godsend for Sikorski. It had so thoroughly disrupted Shuvayev’s army that he would be incapable of attacking Sikorski’s rear for some time. Also, it had diverted the attention of the 33rd Kuban, Kork’s best divi­ sion, while Krajowski’s 18th attacked the rest of Kork’s army. For the Russians, the raid on Ciechanów and the loss of the radio had very grave consequences. Writing three years later, Tukhachevsky claims that Karnicki’s action was directly responsible for the “catastrophic out­ come” of the campaign.22 In fact, it was not so much the loss of the transmitter as the incompetence of Shuvayev and the irresponsibility of Gai which were to blame. It had been their only link with Tukhachev­ sky, but they had already received their orders loud and clear long before it was destroyed. These had been that Gai should keep an eye on Torun and cross the Vistula at Włocławek, and that Shuvayev should veer around into Sikorski’s rear.22 In spite of these, Gai was concentrating on Torun rather than Włocławek, while Shuvayev had dispersed his four divisions in every direction but the right one. It is highly doubtful whether the continued existence of the transmitter would have had the slightest effect during the critical stages of the battle. In the later stages, however, when quick reactions and good liaison might have saved this wing of Tukhachevsky’s front, the loss began to hurt in a very real way. The day of 15 August was in more ways than one the turning-point of the battle for Warsaw. In the north, it gave Sikorski the chance to consolidate his position on the Wkra and to edge Lazarevich away from Modlin. He had finally sorted out his army and placed all his forces in the field, and he had successfully surmounted the crisis. Karnicki’s raid and Krajowski’s activities had won him freedom of action, and had con­ firmed Tukhachevsky in his erroneous opinion that these were “the main Polish forces.” At Warsaw, Latinik had also reached a critical stage and weathered it. Sollohub’s army had pierced the two outer lines of Polish defenses on the bridgehead that day and launched a fresh attack on the capital itself. It

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had been forced to withdraw completely by Zeligowski’s counterattack, which had reoccupied Radzymin by midday. Undeterred, the Russians had gone over to the attack once ag^in, and Radzymin had changed hands for the fifth time as a result. This otherwise unimportant little town had by this stage become the focal point of the whole battle on the bridgehead. For those who believe that battles are won and lost not by generals but by the collective moods of their troops, there can be no better example than the Warsaw bridgehead on 15 August. A journalist who watched the Polish infantry retreating from Radzymin, having been ousted for the fourth time was amazed to find that despite their retreat, the officers and men seemed to have undergone some mysterious transformation from the blind state of terror of the previous day. They all glowed with calm confidence and quietly replied: “It’ll be all right now.” to all his questions.24 It is even more astonishing to find that Putna, whose 27th Omsk Division was bearing the brunt of the Russian fighting for Radzymin, and which had just retaken the town, had also reached a moment of crisis on the afternoon of 15 August, and he writes: The moment had come when not only individual units but the whole mass of the army suddenly lost faith in the possibility of success against the enemy. It was as though the chord which wc had been tightening since the Bug had suddenly snapped.25 That night, Latinik once more lunged at Radzymin and finally retook it. Sollohub’s effort was spent, and his troops put up only a very mediocre resistance. There was no longer any hope of his taking Warsaw. The battle for the city was won, and the initiative was now firmly in Pilsudski’s grasp. He had created a strategic situation which spelled out disaster for Tukhachevsky unless the latter managed to take the Polish capital by 15 August at the very latest. Now that he had failed, he could not escape total defeat. Tukhachevsky, needless to say, was not even remotely aware of this. Nor, for that matter, were the Poles. The night of 15 August was the most anguished Warsaw had ever ex­ perienced. The fact that the Red armies had still suffered no tangible defeat coupled with the news of the third fall of Radzymin that after­ noon gave the civilian population the impression that things were going worse than ever. The Russian commanders, having run into difficulty, had

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instruced their agents in the city to step up agitation and sabotage, and several military installations and warehouses were set ablaze. The Polish Government, fearing that an attempted coup might cause havoc in the city, which was bound to produce panic among the units defending the bridgehead, decided to take every precaution. The police were in action all night, rounding-up suspected conspirators, communists, dispersing meetings and searching for arms. Hardly anyone slept in the capital, and finally day began to break without anything significant having occurred. The moring brought great relief, as it became known that everything was well on the bridgehead. However, Sikorski’s fate still hung on a shoe-string. He had not managed to dispose of Lazarevich on the pre­ vious day, when he had been relatively free to do so, and his time was running out. Sooner or later, Shuvayev’s divisions were bound to turn up in his rear, and Kork was only being held at bay with great difficulty by Krajowski. During that night, the Polish headquarters had intercepted an improvized radio message from Shuvayev to his units, telling them to make for Plonsk with all speed and to attack the Fifth Army from behind. The pursuance of Sikorski’s original plan was becoming increasingly risky under these conditions. A conference was held at the instigation of General Haller at which Generals Weygand and Sosnkowski, the Minister of Defense, tired to dissuade Sikorski from carrying it through.26 They advised him to disengage his forces and fall back from the Wkra to the Vistula, and to take up strong defensive positions around Modlin. Sikorski was strongly opposed to this. The very action of withdrawing to safer positions would annul all the moral advantages of having contested the line of the Wkra successfully, and there was nothing particularly safe about the new positions. Greater fortresses than Modlin had failed during the retreat, and the whole operation would jeopardize his chances of breaking through the defeatism of some of his units. He argued that by withdrawing he would be inviting the eventual combined attack of the three Russian armies, which was exactly what he had been hoping to avoid. He felt that his original concept had become even more of a necessity now, with the only modification that he would have to act with greater speed. He cal­ culated that he could probably defeat Lazarevich on that day (16 August), and that neither Kork nor Shuvayev would be in a position to threaten him seriously until 17 August. Rozwadowski, the Chief-of-Staff, agreed

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with Sikorski, mainly out of a desire to disagree with Weygand, and Haller gave his blessing* The all-out attack which Sikorskfs three divisions launched early on 16 August proved too weak to break the Russian lines. Lazarevich and Kork were already two days behind schedule and they were desperate to drive home their attack on Modlin. The stubborn resistance put up by the Petrograd Division in particular showed that unlike Sollohub’s, these troops still had every intention of reaching their goal. Despite the use of armored trains to support their attack, the Poles ground to a halt, and a complete stalemate developed. Sikorskfs uneasiness turned into anxiety when news reached him that his northern wing was in peril. In an attempt to liquidate Krajowski’s 18th Division, which was operat­ ing over a large area between Ciechanów and Nasielsk, Kork had attacked one of its regiments in force. The Kuban Division, reinforced by a couple of regiments of cossacks, swooped down on an isolated Polish battalion and annihilated it. As the cossacks pursued the fleeing remnants they penetrated deep into Krajowski’s grouping. For a moment it looked as though the division might be sliced in half, but Krajowski rapidly checked the threat and tightened up his defenses. However, just as this crisis had been overcome, the Fifth Army was threatened by another, far more serious. Long before Sikorski had expected it, the 18th Yaroslav Division from Shuvayev’s army had turned up outside the little town of Plonsk. This was only defended by a battalion of sailors and some Pomeranian vol­ unteers, who were ineffectual against large numbers of regular troops. Sikorski drove over to the town as soon as he heard the news, and what he saw shattered his last hope; the garrison had given way, and columns of Russian infantry were pouring into the town, where Krajowski’s supply trains sat defenseless. It looked as though Sikorskfs gamble had failed. The rear of the Fifth Army lay open. At this point, something totally unexpected happened. In a flurry of white pennants, a regiment of cavalry appeared on the Modlin road. It was the 1st Jozef Piłsudski Chevau-Legers, a reinforce­ ment promised to Sikorski some time before. One of the lancers tells what happened next: As the church towers of Plonsk came in sight, we heard the sound

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS of machine-guns and the noise of the Tight raging in the town. We could see individual soldiers running away. There was not a moment to lose. . . .One loud word of command, and like a hurricane, the whole regiment galloped into the broad street leading to the market place, scattering the fleeing soldiers. The market-place itself was so cluttered with carts that it was difficult to get through. At the end of the street leading into the market­ place from the West, we could see the rest of the running gar­ rison, and just behind them the long gleaming bayonets of the Russian infantry. . . . Then, drawing sabres, the whole regiment dashed forward, led by its commander. We charged into the mess, carrying everything before us like a whirlwind and sweeping out the unsuspecting enemy. . . . 27

Although the Fifth Army was provisionally saved by this deus ex machina, Sikorski was still very anxious about the general situation. Shuvayev had evidently managed to make contact with some of his units, and the one Polish regiment could hardly be expected to keep the whole of the IV Army at arm's length for very long. Unless his attack against Lazarevich succeeded, Sikorski would have to call it off by that evening, and adopt the defensive tactics advocated by Weygand and Sosnkowksi, and regrouping under pressure could well mean the disintegration of the Fifth Army. Determined as he was to push his luck to the limit, Sikorski immediate­ ly issued fresh orders for that very afternoon. He commanded the three divisions attacking Lazarevich's III Army at Nasielsk to advance with the utmost speed from three sides. In order to increase the pressure, he order­ ed Krajowski to throw in the Siberian Brigade from the northwest, thus bringing the total number of infantry attacking Lazarevich to 14,500, which more or less evened out the odds. Nasielsk was to be occupied by four o'clock that afternoon “without fail and regardless of cost." Just to encourage anyone who might be feeling tired, he threatened all shirkers with summary court-martial on the spot.28 It seemed doubtful whether the exhausted troops would be capable of making this last great effort. The Prime Minister, who was touring Sikorski’s positions on that afternoon, was skeptical:

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As we drove in the direction of Nasielsk, we passed numerous detachments hurrying into battle. Only a small number of the soldiers had complete uniforms, and these were in tatters. At least half of them had no boots; their feet were bleeding as they marched over the sharp Stubblefields. Many had no tunics on at all, with only the remains of shirts and breeches clinging to their bodies. But they all carried rifles and ammunition, while their talk showed confidence and faith in victory. Some complained that they had marched barefoot all the way from Kiev, others said their boots had fallen apart long before they had even reached Kiev. Their feet looked like pieces of scorched leather, covered in blood and festering sores.39 Fierce fighting developed as the three Polish groups moved in. The pressure brought to bear by the Siberian Brigade began to tell, and the counterattacks of the Petrograd Division grew weaker. Gradually, it began to give ground, as did its companions, the 5th and 6th. The ring tightened despite the gallant resistance of the Petrograd (Party-members to a man), which tried to halt the Polish advance by wave after wave of bayonet attacks. Ammunition was giving out, and the Russian infantry gave way. General Osiński marched into Nasielsk at the head of the 9th Division at a couple of minutes to four, closely followed by the 17th Poznan, the Volunteer and the Siberian Brigade, which entered the town from dif­ ferent sides. Lazarevich’s units streamed back towards Serock and Pułtusk. Although Sikorski had no cavalry with which to pursue them, and other problems to deal with, he was not worried, as they were retreating into the path of Piłsudski’s offensive, which had been launched that morning. He was now at liberty to wheel round to face Kork and Shuvayev with his main forces. Warsaw was saved. Sikorski had struck the blow which not only saved his own skin, but which Tukhachevsky later came to record as the beginning of the end for his European venture: It seemed as though the fate of the enemy’s Fifth Army had been settled. Its destruction would have had a decisive effect on all

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS further operations. But the Poles were lucky. Their Fifth Army was saved. With complete impunity» despite the presence on its flanks of four divisions of riflemen and two of cossacks, it con­ tinued to attack our XV and III Armies. This simply unthinkable and monstrous situation helped the Poles not only to halt the advance of these two armies, but also to push them back step by step whence they had come.30

Although luck did play an important part in the battle of the Wkra, it would have availed Sikorski little had Tukhachevsky kept his subor­ dinates under control. The Fifth Army had literally been within Tukhachevsky’s grasp for two whole days, but he had simply failed to clench his fist. Sikorski’s determination and Tukhachevsky’s remoteness had tipped the scales in the end. Sikorski, whose role was never intended to be a primary one, had in fact mesmerized and finally defeated Tukhachevsky’s main forces during the vital days. He had made it possible for Piłsudski’$ plan to work per­ fectly in spite of the fact that it had been based on false calculation.

CHAPTER IX

COUNTER-STROKE “A flo o d o f telegrams is reporting a great Polish victory. I f they were all to be accept­ ed at their face value it would appear that the whole o f the R ed A rm y in Poland were inim m inent danger o f destruction. . . . Such things, however, do not happen. M New Statesman 21 August 1920 Piłsudski had been watching the first stage of the battle from his head­ quarters in Puławy, glad to be far from what he called the “pontificating cowardice and theorizing helplessness“ of his entourage in Warsaw. At first, all seemed to be going well, as the regrouping operation progressed, but this was not to last. Soon, anxious reports began to pour in from the capital. They made much of the fall of Radzymin, and he began to fear that the First Army had not got over its defeatist mood. He therefore decided to begin his own manoeuvers a day earlier than planned.1 Early on the fine morning of 16 August, Piłsudski launched his five divisions across the river Wieprz. The Fourth Army, which he led per­ sonally, consisted of three; General Konarzewskie 14th Poznan, Colonel Lados’ 16th Pomeranian and Galica’s 21 st Highland Divisions. The strikeforce proper, under Smigly-Rydz, comprising the 1st and 3rd Legionary Divisions and Jaworskie Horse, had the more exhausting task of bringing round the right wing of the offensive and at the same time keeping up with the Fourth Army. 141

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The whole force was to drive forward in a northerly direction, sweeping the whole area between the perimeter of the Warsaw defenses and a line running from Chelm through Brest and Białystok to Grajewo on the East Prussian border. The divisions were to move independently of each other, taking no notice o f what might be happening on their flanks. The essence of the manoeuver was speed and dash.2 There was to be no nonsense about tidying up the rear or leaving any troops in captured towns. The offensive group was too weak to shed effectives on the way—its 25,000 bayonets would have melted away in no time.3 Rather than shreddingit piece by piece, Piłsudski was thrusting a pitchfork into a bale of straw. He knew the conditions of the war and the make-up o f the Red Army well enough to know that if the thrust itself were sufficiently powerful, chaos, fear, panic and disruption would do the rest. By inverting the strategic situation, he could make all the factors which had worked for Tukhachevsky work for himself, with interest. Piłsudski expected to come up against Khvyesin’s “Mozyr Group” on the first day and the main forces of Sollohub’s army on the second. He was very much in the dark as to the strength of the “Mozyr Group;” he knew that one o f its divisions, the 57th, was operating in the Deblin-Kock area, and that another, the 58th, was facing his own 3rd Legionary, but he also knew that it comprised a third force, the “Combined Unit,” which sounded ominously mysterious.4 Hie whole group could have mustered anything between five and twenty-five thousand men, and he had no way of telling. In fact, he need not have worried, as Khvyesin’s combat effect­ ives numbered no more than 11,690 men.3 By the end of the first day of the offensive, Piłsudski was extremely uneasy. Galica’s Highlanders had defeated what looked like half of the 57th Division at Kock, and the 3rd Legionary had brushed aside an unim­ pressive force masquerading as the 58th Division, but apart from this not the slightest contact with enemy troops had been made. The whole force had moved 30-50 kilometers into an area where Piłsudski had ex­ pected to find Tukhachevsky’s left wing, but bar the odd foraging-party, there was no sign o f any Red armies. His anxiety grew, and he began to fear some sort of trap. The Poznan Division had after all by this time reached within some twenty kilometers of the Warsaw perimeter, which was reported to be under heavy attack, and yet there was nothing but silence and emptiness.

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The next day brought no clarification. The strike-force and the Fourth Army forged ahead unhindered. The Poznan Division passed Garwolin, the Highlanders reached Lukow and the 1st Legionary occupied Biala.6 Piłsudski was driving round from unit to unit, asking if anyone had seen so much as a trace of the enemy. He began to wonder whether or not he was dreaming: I could not really make out where reality ended and where dreams took over. Was I dreaming not so long before, when I could feel some terrible thing overwhelming me with its inces­ sant motion, its monstrous paws reaching out for my throat? Or was I dreaming now, when five divisions were gaily and uninhibitedly moving over the same areas they were so recently abandoning to the enemy in the deathly tenor of retreat? This dream was happy, but it could not be real. Obsessed by these thoughts, I reached Garwolin that evening (17th August). I can remember as though it had been yesterday that moment when I was drinking my tea and preparing for bed. Suddenly I lept to my feet; at last I heard a sound of life, a sound of reality, the defening crash of guns coming somewhere from the north. So the enemy was there after all! So the shame I had felt for my weakness and fear in the face of that monstrous thing had not been goundless or irrational! The enemy was there and the music o f battle coming from the north was there to prove it. Having laid down to sleep, I raised by head from the pillow several times just to make sure. The dull sound of guns was calmly, slowly and regularly shaking the night, telling of a battle being fought to a steady tempo. Somewhere near Kołbiel, or maybe a little further, my 14th Division was fighting m the night.7 Throughout the next day, the three divisions of Pilsudski’s Fourth Army made contact with Sollohub’s XVI Army. Just as they were plum­ meting into its flank, Zeligowski’s 10th and Jung’s ISth Poznan Divisions began to move out from the Warsaw perimeter, and the XVI Army sudden­ ly found itself caught between two fires. The effect was shattering. The three southernmost divisions of Sollohub’s army were completely dispersed,

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and their remnants began a headlong retreat, only to find their roads cut by the advancing prongs of Pilsudski’s force. Putna, who was tidying up his 27th Omsk Division after its five-day battle for Radzymin, suddenly became aware late on 17 August that something was wrong. There was no real information; just rumor and suspicious numbers of deserters from other units making tracks in a northeasterly direction. He tried to make contact with Sollohub, but the lines were down. On the next morning Kakurin, commander of the 10th, accompanied by the commander of the 2nd Priamurskaya Divi­ sion, turned up at Putna’s headquarters. They brought the confirmation he had feared. The 8th and 10th Divisions had ceased to exist as cohesive units, and the commander of the 8th had been killed when lancers had raided his headquarters. The Priamurskaya was badly battered, and there was no news of the 17th, the fifth unit of Sollohub’s army. Only Putna’s 27th had survived the first day, as it was in reserve, and he describes the state of Sollohub’s army by the evening of 18 August as “simply catas­ trophic.” ® On 18 August, having seen his offensive strike home, Piłsudski returned to Warsaw. By this stage he knew that it had worked, and that he held Tukhachevsky by the throat. Now he was determined to garrot him finally. He realized that unless he followed through his success immediately, the Russian armies would simply totter back for a few hundred miles, and then launch a new offensive when the Poles had run out of steam. Above all, he was eager to avoid the monotony and danger of the offensives and counter-offensives à la russe which had been ebbing and flowing across the area between the Vistula and Vladivostok since 1917. Soon after his return to the capital, Pilsudski’s exuberance turned to irritation. Nobody in Warsaw was particularly impressed by the actual results of his manoeuver, and only very few people realized that the strategic situation had been completely reversed. One of those few was a young French major serving in General Henrys’ mission for training the Polish Army-Charles De Gaulle. On 17 August, he noted in his diary: Ah, what a fine manoeuver we have here! Our Poles have grown wings. The soldiers who were physically and morally exhausted only a week ago are now rushing forward in leaps of 40 kilometers a day. Yes, it is Victory! Complete, triumphant Victory!9

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To most people, however, it seemed a little early to be building triump­ hal arches. Sollohub had indeed been pushed away from Warsaw, but this was offset by the fact that Gai had now crossed the Vistula at Włocławek and cut the Warsaw-Danzig railway. He was within easy striking distance of Warsaw, on the undefended side. While Piłsudski explained, while old generals shook their heads and while De Gaulle expatiated on the mobility of “his Poles/9 Tukhachevsky was sitting in Minsk, oblivious to what was happening. On 15 August, he had decided that in view of the lack of success he would modify his plan marginally.10 Apparently the Poles needed extra softening up. He there­ fore recalled Gai from Włocławek, ordering him to support Shuvayev’s attack on Sikorski’s rear at Plonsk, obviously not realizing that the latter had turned about to face them, and that Plonsk no longer represented his rear. He also instucted Sollohub to shift his center of gravity south­ wards and to try his luck against a different sector of the bridgehead defenses, while Budyonny was to drop all his previous plans and move on Zamosc and Lublin with all speed.11 On 17 August both Tukhachevsky and Kamieniev were still confident that Warsaw would be theirs within the next four or five days.12 It is amazing logic considering that their whole strategy had been based on speed throughout, and that the original instruction had been that the city be in Russian hands by 12 August at the latest. What is even more surprising is that when, late that evening, Tukhachevsky received news of a Polish offensive from the south, he did not immediately realize his earlier mistake in disregarding the order found on the dead officer’s body. He did not easily give up his own contention that he was pinning down the main Polish forces around Modlin, and he therefore assumed that the new Polish move was no more than a diversion.13 Accordingly, he ordered Sollohub to bend back his southern wing, in order to make a defensive line between Radzymin and Brest, thereby preventing the Polish strikeforce from penetrating the rear of the whole front. At the same time he instructed Sollohub to draw reserves from the 60,000 equipped refills waiting at the bases near Grodno.14 The appropriate order was issued by Sollohub on 19 August, by which time he had lost contact with all his divisions, and it was never received by anyone.15 While he was wondering how to make contact with his sub­ ordinates, he was nearly captured when Jaworski’s Horse raided the XVI

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Army headquarters at Ostrozany in the early hours of 20 August. It was only then that it dawned on him that not only his southern wing but his entire army had fallen back across the Bug. Now only Putna was even at­ tempting to hold the crossings, in order to let the stragglers pass. The other units of the XVI Army were streaming back towards Białystok in utter chaos. But by the time Sollohub had appreciated the dimensions of what had hit him, he had no way of letting Tukhachevsky know. Tukhachevsky had been overtaken by events. He had refused to face up to the reality of the Polish counterattack, and he kept insisting that it could be parried with ease if only Sollohub turned to face south.16 This was impossible for two reasons. One was that the XVI Army had been hit so hard it needed a minimum of two weeks* rest and reorganization, according to Sollohub, before it could even begin to take up positions.17 The other was that Pilsudskfs right-hand prong, the 3rd Legionary was in Brest by 19 August, while the 1st Legionary had already crossed the Narew, Tukhachevsky’s alternative to the Bug for a new front, before the retreating XVI Army had reached it. Although he persisted in his view that the offensive from the Wieprz was no more than a purely local setback, Tukhachevsky was growing anxious about the genera) situation. He had lost control of both of his wings (Shuvayev's and Sollohub*$ groups) and this at a moment when his two central armies were being driven back by the increasingly aggres­ sive excursions of Latinik and Sikorski. He was suddenly faced with the possibility of his whole front being dismembered. At the same time, Lenin, who had decided that the flagging peacetalks must be concluded while the Russian armies were still in a powerful position, insisted that Tukhachevsky make one last sacrifice. Even at this late stage, the fall of Warsaw would be a powerful counter at the peace-table.18 Tukhachevsky’s instinct for self-preservation took over from his tradi­ tional flamboyance, and he decided to pull all his forces together in a tight phalanx. Gai and Shuvayev were to fall back on Mlawa and Ciechan­ ów, whence, having joined up with Kork and Lazarevich, they could mount a final massed assault on Warsaw.19 At the same time, he sent frantic telegrams to Budyonny, ordering him to make for Zamosc and Lublin with all speed, in order to stab Pilsudski’s force in the back.20 This elicited a certain amount of “ I told you so” from Kamieniev, who had disapproved of the rapid westward advance of Gai and Shuvayev.

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Kamieniev now argued that since these two were now far to the west of Warsaw, they may as well “squeeze some benefit out of the fact,” by at­ tacking the capital from the west regardless of what happened to the other Russian armies. If they moved fast, he continued, they could be clattering through the western suburbs of the city by the end of the week, since these approaches were not defended by the Poles. He realized that by engaging these forces deeper, he would be exposing Sollohub, Lazare­ vich and Kork to total disaster, but he maintained that if Warsaw fell, “we will win the whole war.”21 From a military point of view, this was an infantile calculation, for although Pilsudski’s offensive in eastern Poland would have looked somewhat ridiculous if the capital were to fall behind his back, Gai and Shuvayev could not have survived in isolation behind the Polish army, and the city would have remained in Russian hands for a few days at the most. On the other hand, one must remember that Kamieniev was in Moscow, and that his views were dictated by political needs as much as by military ones.22 Tukhachevsky, on the other hand, was primarily concerned with the armies under his command, and with the campaign he had launched. He no longer set such importance by taking the Polish capital. Its value for him had been based on two calculations; one that it provided the perfect focal point for the morale of the army, the other that is fall would prob­ ably topple the Polish state and demoralize the army. lik e all the other Soviet leaders, he had assumed that a revolution would accompany this. In short, he had come to see Warsaw as a sort of winning-post, as the be-all and end-all of his enterprise. By the end of the third week in August, this illusion had been shattered. Tukhachevsky was therefore more inclined to seek a denouement through a fresh confrontation with Piłsudski and the Polish Army. He optimistically calculated that he would be able to reassemble all his forces along a line running from Mlawa through Ciechanów to Ostrołęka.22 He was convinced that Pilsudski’s offensive group would run of of steam and pause to tidy up its formations. Tukhachevsky would seize this op­ portunity to regain the initiative once more. He could strike southwards on a broad front, while Budyonny could move north from Lublin and Piłsudski would be irredeemably caught between two lures. On paper it looked perfect, but all Tukhachevsky’s data was hopelessly inaccurate. He was playing games with patterns and models, completely out of touch

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with a situation which was changing so rapidly that even on-the-spot observers were confused. His orders, which, it must be said, succeeded each other with astonishing prodigality, were theoretically quite sound, but they were still-born where reality was concerned. His own forces were not where he though they were, and those that were still operational were in no condition to respond to his ambitious demands. As for the Polish armies, he had even less idea of where they were, or of what their intentions might be. Far from slowing down the tempo of their advance or pausing, Pilsudski’s five divisions were racing ahead at breakneck speed. ‘T he music of war was no longer drooling out some measly contredanse; it had switched to a full-blooded gallop,”24 writes Piłsudski, and this was no exaggeration. The 1st Legionary Infantry Regiment, for instance, set out on 16 August and covered a first lap of 54 kilometers, followed by three hours’ sleep, then 37 kilometers followed by five hours’ sleep, then 45 kilometers followed by seven hours’ fighting and four of sleep, and then a four-day stretch of 125 kilometers, with only snatches of rest, followed by a fourteen-hour battle for Białystok, and a final march to the East Prussian border. In thirteen days, the regiment had covered over 450 kilometers punctuated by sporadic fighting in which it took 12,670 prisoners and 60 guns at an overall cost of under 250 dead and wounded and a thousand or so pairs of sore feet.25 After the first couple of days, the impetus gathered by Pilsudski’s offensive force had set all the other units of the Northern Front in motion. By 20 August, the whole Central and Northern Fronts were advancing in a northerly direction, the individual divisions racing each other to the East Prussian frontier, making to pin down and trap the Russian armies. Before they got there, however, Tukhachevsky had issued his latest, and only sensible order—that of the general retreat. From now on, it was every man for himself as far as the Russian units were concerned. Kork and Lazarevich began to retire eastwards in an impressive block, which made it difficult for single Polish divisions to stop them. As they retreated, however, a gap arose between them and the Konkorpus and IV Army. Sikorski sprang into this gap with his Fifth Army. Gai, who had been receiving contradictory orders one after the other (and all a few days late), only realized on 20 August that he was on his own. During the next few days he reacted like a cornered wolf. He took

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command of all Shuvayev’s infantry,36 as the latter had fled with Kork and Lazarevich and left his men to fend for themselves. He found that half of it, the 53rd and 54th Divisions, had been caught and routed by Sikorski near Ciechanów, but he collected the remnants, gathered up the 12th Division, which had been wandering about the Sierpc area, and made a dash for Mlawa. Krajów ski’s 18 th was waiting for him, stretched in a long line along the Ciechanow-Mlawa railway 37 and Sikor ski’s new cavalry division, under Orlicz-Dreszer, was on its way from Plonsk to intercept him. But the trap set by Sikorski never materialized. Persistent low-lying clouds prevented the Polish Air Force from locating the exact whereabouts of the Konkorpus, and the various units o f the Fifth Army merely waited in a thin arc. Gai took full advantage of this. He moved by day and night, shedding all ballast as well as all those who could not keep up. He reached the Ciechanow-Mlawa railway line in the early hours of 22 August, long before the Poles had expected him. Orlicz-Dreszer, who was riding in the van of his cavalry division, had in fact made contact with the Konkorpus on the previous evening, but the falling darkness and the uncertainty of the situation had prompted him to put off the attack until the next morning, by which time Gai had vanished into the thick mist. Using the mist as cover, Gai drew up all his forces into a tight fist and deployed his entire artillery against a short section of the railway track, where a sleeply battalion of Krajowski’s infantry and an armoured train were lying in wait. The sudden barrage of fire laid on by the Konkorpus’ atrillery at close quarters knocked out the armored train, and the two divisions of cossacks then hacked their way through the infantry. Gai raced on immediately. The next day he pounced on an unsuspecting battalion of the Siberian Brigade, which he put to the sword in no un­ certain manner, battered his way through a screen put up by the 13th Wilno Lancers, taking all their artillery and several hundred prisoners, and kept going.3* But on 24 August, he met his match. The 14th Poznanian Division from Pilsud ski’s offensive group had just reached the East Prussian border and blocked Gafs retreat. Never­ theless, Gai decided to keep trying, despite the fact that the remainder of Shuvayev’s infantry had opted out and crossed into East Prussia. He sent a last message to Tukhachevsky:

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDS Konkorpus III reached Kolno after heavy fighting. Whole in­ fantry of IV Army crossed frontier. Will try to cut through to Grajewo. No shells or ammunition left. Please radio position of new Front. Corps Commander Gai. Corps Commissar Stsibor.29

On the next day he hurled the Konkorpus at the Poles in a tight phalanx, but it was a hopeless undertaking. His exhausted cavalry could not hope to break through the ranks of the Poznanians. He refused to surrender to the Poles, as he knew the evidence he had left behind him would lead him to the nearest gibbet,* so he wheeled to the left and crossed the border into East Prussia, where his men, still singing the “ Internationale” were disarmed and arrested. During the fifty days since the start of Tukhachevsky’s offensive, the Konkorpus had covered over 800 kilometers and borne the brunt of the advance. It had taken thousands of prisoners, consistently terrorized the Poles and spared Tukhachevsky’s main forces many a pitched battle. The loss of the Konkorpus was not only a great sorrow for Tukhachevsky personnally, but also a major castration for the whole Western Front. Meanwhile, Tukhachevsky was desperately trying to extricate his other forces. The remains of the y VI Army needed no prompting; its remnants fled eastwards in small groups, many of them keeping away from the roads and the larger towns. Putna’s 27th Omsk Division was the only fighting force left in this army, its effective strength was by this stage exactly a quarter of what it had been in July.30 Putna now became the left wing of the Russian front. He was personally asked by Tukhachevsky, with whom he made freak telephone contact on 21 August, to cover the flight of the stragglers and survivors from the other divisions of Sollohub’s and Khvyesin’s groups.31 On 22 August, Putna reached Białystok, only to find an awesome situation. The 1st Legionary had taken the town early that morning,

* As they could not take prisoners in their flight, his cossacks meticul­ ously disembowelled some 400 men of the Siberian Brigade who had surrendered near Chorzele.

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cutting the retreat of the main body of Sollohub's remnants. When Putna reached the town, he found a massed column of unarmed deserters, supply-personnel and various other stragglers no less than twelve kilometers long waiting at the western approaches to the town, unable to pass. He immediately attacked and threw the Legionaries out for long enough to let the retreating tide through, but he then changed course, fearing that his own division might be swept along in the chaos.32 On 25 August, he crossed the Niemen and made for Wolkowysk, out of reach of the right arm of the Polish strike-force. Lazarevich's III Army was in much better shape, but its retreat soon turned into flight as well. Kork’s XV Army, the strongest of all, retreated slowly at first, but soon came under attack from two sides and eventually split up. The main problem was that there was no question of protecting the retreat by strong rearguard action, as the prongs of Pilsudski’s offen­ sive group were plummeting into the Russian columns at right-angles. This meant that most of the units had to run the gauntlet four times before they were clear of the threat. Every time one of these units found another Polish attack cutting into its flank, it would generally swerve northwards in an attempt to avoid collision. The result was a terrible bottle-neck of troops and supply-columns rapidly converging on Biały­ stok and Grajewo in the greatest disorder. It was little short of a complete rout. “We retreated from the Vistula in complete chaos," writes Putna, “while the army commanders stared in amazement, completely failing to take in the situation, and, as the operational documents testify, lost control of even their staffs." Tukhachevsky’s front disintegrated into headlong flight, and only the individual instinct of self-perservation saved it from total annihilation. As Putna wrote “the catastrophe had assumed far more grandiose dimensions than even the Poles could have hoped for."33

CHAPTER X

LWOW “Who on earth would try to get to Warsaw by way o f Lw ow ?” -L enin.1 The well-established myth of Tukhachevsky’s military brilliance begins to crumble not with his failure to take Warsaw-any general can make a m istake-but rather with his total inability to comprehend the causes of this failure. In his writings on the subject, he is less concerned with ration­ alizing or explaining the events than with finding excuses for his defeat.2 He kicks off with a whole round of complaints about the state of his armies, their poor equipment and their lack of supplies, but since these considerations never prevented him from launching the battle of Warsaw, he could hardly expect them to explain its outcome. Next, Tukhachevsky leans heavily on the element of luck, which was hardly a relevant factor. Finally, he points to the fact that the Konarmia was not there. But then there was no reason to expect it would be; neither he nor anyone else had ordered it to, and even if they had, there was still a small question of distance and timing to be considered. He may as well have blamed his defeat on not having the Imperial Guard with him at Radzymin. Never­ theless, once made, this point was picked up and argued this way and that for reasons ranging from the personal to the political, and it has success­ fully taken its place in history beside the what-would-have-happened-atWaterloo-if-Grouchy-had-arrived-before-Blucher controversy. Tukhachevsky pointed to the fact that there were two Russian fronts operating in Poland without the slightest coordination, thereby rather neatly transferring all responsibility for the disaster which had overtaken him on to the shoulders of the other front, which was conspicuously idle 154

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at the very moment when he was being beaten at Warsaw. Stalin’s enemies upheld this point, even going so far as to claim that Tukhachevsky had been tricked and betrayed by him, who marched off to Lwow instead of going to the rescue of the Russian armies at Warsaw. Needless to say, Stalin’s supporters later inversed the story and discredited Tukhachevsky, but as always happens in these cases, the first version stuck and has been widely accepted by Western historians, despite its phallacy. To understand what really happened, one must go back to the beginn­ ing of August, to the moment when the two Russian fronts passed the Pripet and drew level. This was the moment at which Kamieniev had in­ tended to review the entire conduct of the campaign and to arrange some measure of cooperation between the two fronts. The main problem at this stage was that while both fronts had successfully reached the Brest latitude, neither had accomplished its initial aim—that of destroying the respective Polish fronsts. This meant that both were heavily engaged with the Polish Army, and there was no leisure to pause and discuss the situation. Yegorov’s front had ground to a halt, while his Konarmia was being badly mauled at Brody. He was behind schedule, he was running out of steam and he had no wish to take part in any major operations in Poland for a couple of weeks at least. Tukhachevsky on the other hand was meeting with little opposition, and he was keen to exploit the last re­ maining asset he held—that of speed. Thus at the very moment when the two fronts had drawn level and made contact, military necessity drew them apart. Yegorov retired for a rest, while Tukhachevsky saw himself obliged to dash on. At the same time, it was suddenly discovered that there were enormous difficulties involved in setting up any direct communication links between the two frontal commands, and Kamieniev remained the only link between the two. As Supreme Commander of the Red Army and the man responsible for its unity of operation, Kamieniev should have imposed some general common purpose on the two front commanders, but he seems to have had no opinions of his own as to how the campaign should be conducted, and he merely condoned their respective dispositions. He allowed Yegorov to alter his course at the end of July, and he approved the latter’s intention

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of using the Konarmia against Lwow.3 Then, on 6 August, he ordered him to withdraw it and to keep it in reserve prior to redirecting it on Lublin.4 Yegorov complied by pulling it back, but he claims never to have received the second part of the cable, and he assumed it was still going to be used for Lwow.5 On 8 August, Tukhachevsky issued his order for the advance on Warsaw and the “ final battle,“ and it is worth noting that this order made no mention of the Konarmia.6 Tukhachevsky took the decision to attack the capital, knowing full well that he could not count on the support, let alone the participation of any of Yegorov’s armies. Moreover, by taking this decision, he moved forward and slightly to the north, thereby consciously leaving behind Yegorov’s front and exposing his own flanks. He, and only he, created the vacuum into which Piłsudski threw his strike-force. It was not until 15 August that, as an afterthought, he order­ ed Budyonny to move on Lublin to cover his flank, realizing that it would take the Konarmia a full two weeks to get there.7 It follows that Tukhachevsky had never counted on the Konarmia, and that the battle he launched for the possession of Warsaw was his own battle, not that of all the Red armies in Poland. He failed in his enter­ prise mainly as a result of his own inability to concentrate his troops at the important points and to understand Pilsudski’s manoeuver. He had been confident of his own power to take the city throughout, and it was only when things started going wrong in a major way that he began to look around for help and, eventually, excuses. Neither Yegorov, Stalin nor Budyonny carry one iota of responsibility for what befell Tukhachev­ sky at Warsaw. They did not, however, manage to avoid involvement. Leaving aside the whole question of the battle for Warsaw, Tukhachevsky was determined to unite all the Russian forces in Poland under his own command. When he began to lunge at Warsaw, Kamieniev gave in to these demands, and on 10 August, he notified Yegorov of the forthcoming transfer of the Konarmia and the XII Army to Tukhachevsky’s command.8 Yegorov again claims never to have received this communication. On 12 August, Kamien­ iev despatched the actual order of transfer, which stipulated that the Konarmia, the XII and the XIV Armies were to pass under Tukhachevsky’s command at midday on 14 August. But Stalin did not give up easily.

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On 12 August, while Kamieniev in Moscow was dictating the order of transfer, Stalin and Yegorov issued fresh orders for Budyonny, who was still in reserve. “ In the absence of orders from above,*’ they instructed Budyonny to take the field and capture Lwow.9 Kamieniev’s directive arrived at Yegorov*s headquarters in Kiev on the next day, by which time the Konarmia was heavily engaged with Polish infantry near Brody. Stalin was all indignation. He said it was “needlessly frustrating,” and he refused to pass it on to Budyonny, claiming, quite rightly, that it should have been issued three days earlier or a week later.10 It was Berzin, his deputy, who eventually countersigned the order and sent it on to Budyonny, who received it cn 14 August. In fact, this order said nothing about the move­ ments of the Konarmia, so Budyonny battled on towards Lwow as before. His progress was slow. After two days* heavy fighting he reached the Bug at Kamionka Strumilowa, but every time he took a step forward, the Poles would counterattack and throw him back. They nearly captured him at night when they overran Lopatyn, and he only just managed to shoot his way out. On 15 August, he crossed the Bug and made a push towards Lwow, but he was thrown back to the river on the next day. At this point he received his first instructions from Tukhachevsky. Their gist was that he should disengage immediately, fall back on Włod­ zimierz Wołyński, regroup and then strike at Zamosc and Lublin.11 It was a futile order. It was aimed at stabbing Pilsudski’s offensive group in the back, but Budyonny could not hope to be in the Lublin area in less than two weeks, by which time the offensive group would be far away. Tukha­ chevsky was by this stage playing with strategic patterns which bore only the scantest relation to reality. Theoretically, he had Piłsudski outflanked on both sides, with Gai in the north and Budyonny in the south, but neither of these could bring the slightest pressure to bear in the vital areas. Budyonny knew nothing of the general situation, but the order seemed to him dangerous, frustrating and pointless. It was also incorrectly signed,* which allowed him to query it. On 17 August, he notified Tukhachevsky

* All orders had to be signed by the military commander and counter­ signed by teh appropriate political officer. This order bore only Tukhachevsky’s signature.

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that he could not immediately comply, as there was no other unit avail­ able to take up his sector of the front, and he explained that it would be far easier for the Konarmia to disengąge after it had beaten the Poles and occupied Lwow.12 He was now moving forward steadily, and he expected the city to be his in the next day or two, but on the same after­ noon he had the first hint of how long it might really take. His cossacks had to literally hack their way through battalions of armed schoolboys near the village of Zadworze before they could move on. Lwow was a proud bastion of Polish influence and aspiration in the east, 4ithe queen of the marches,” and its inhabitants saw sieges as part of their way of life. While Budyonny was closing in, they were busy erecting barricades, manufacturing grenades and forming volunteer units. The military resistance also stiffened as he drew nearer. Iwaszkiewicz had sent every platoon he could spare. He wandered about the positions armed with a bottle of vodka and a stick-the one to keep up his own spirits and the other to keep up those of his troops.13 The Air Force flew round the clock, strafing and bombing the cossack columns as they deployed for the attack. The 2nd Cavalry Division harrassed the Konarmia’s northern flank with great zest. Sawicki had been replaced, none too soon, by the much younger and more adventurous Colonel Juliusz Rommel, an ex-tsarist Guards officer, who was seconded by an even younger chief-of-staff, and together they began to exploit all the virtues of the Polish cavalry to the full. Budyonny saw constant advance as the safest course. On 18 August, he drew up all his forces into a tight formation and moved towards the city. He was still optimistic that Lwow would fall on the following day, which is why he ignored he second directive from Tukhachevsky, which repeated the previous instructions word for word. By 19 August his divisions were only 12 kilometers from the city, advancing in a great semi-circle, and it had by now become apparent that the last lap would take him another two days to cover a* this rate. The prospect of an easy prize was fading, while a third cable from Tukha­ chevsky reminded Budyonny that orders were orders. Voroshilov received a similar reminder in the form of a personal telegram from Trotsky him­ self, insisting on better cooperation with the Western Front Command.14 The combination of all these factors was convincing enough, and Budy­ onny turned about.

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As he marched back to the Bug and then on to Sokal, Budyonny was seriously worried by the morale of his troops. They had fought hard for every inch of ground for the last seven days, and their reward had at last come in sight that m orning-they could see the spires o f Lwow. Then, out of the blue, they had been ordered to turn back. Their immediate guess was that something must be wrong, and it was Budyonny's guess as well; he had not the faintest idea of what was happening on the Vistula.15 At Sokal, the Konarmia joined up with Kuzmin's XII Army, centered at Włodzimierz Wołyński. This unit had been doing little more than mark­ ing time for the last three weeks. On 14 August, Tukhachevsky had asked Kuzmin to attack Hrubieszów and push on through to Lubartów, the general idea being to paralyze whatever Polish troops might be massing for an attack on Tukhachevsky's own flank.16 For some reason, Kuzmin could not gather his forces into anything resembling a spearhead, and his attack petered out after Golikov took Hrubieszów. Without the Kon­ armia, it was powerless to threaten anyone. By the time Budyonny was in Sokal ready to carry out Tukhachevsky*s order, the latter's armies were in full retreat. It was only now that Tukha­ chevsky perceived the pointlessness of dragging the Konarmia away from Lwow, and with true Soviet understatement, he admitted to Yegorov that “the need for the Konarmia in the North had, to a certain extent, passed away." He was still considering using it on the grounds that “every penny counts.''17 As Tukhachevsky wavered on this important issue, the usually latent Kamieniev intervened, picking up with astonishing enthusiasm the plan Tukhachevsky had just dropped.18 He insisted that the raid on Zamosc and Lublin must go through as planned. In a fever of irrationality, he stressed the fact that the raid would provide a “useful diversion," and failed to grasp the fact that if anything was going to help Tukhachevsky back on to his feet for a new offensive, it would be the Konarmia. Being the only undamaged large unit in Tukhachevsky's bag at that moment, it qualified for greater things than diversions. Tukhachevsky had more pressing things to do than to argue with his petulant superior, and the raid went on as planned. On 25 August, Budy­ onny sallied out of Sokal in support of the armies the remains of which were on that very day being herded into cattle-trucks in East Prussia or slinking across the Niemen in tatters. He was charging into a battle which

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had been fought and lost, and the poor man still had no idea of what had happened on the Vistula.19 While he launched his raid into the rear of a strike-force which was already 400 kilometers away, another force was slowly gathering to face him, bent on his destruction.

CHAPTER XI LANCERS AND COSSACKS After the escape of Gai, Sikorski, whose Fifth Army had become re­ dundant, was sent south to take over command of the Third Army on the Bug. The 9th Division from his Fifth Army and Zeiigowski’s 10th were to follow him. With the reinforced Third Army, he was to lead an offensive in Volhynia and liquidate the Konarmia. On his way down, Sikorski was building great schemes for rounding up and overpowering the three Russian armies in the area at one fell swoop, but these dreams were shattered by the Konarmia’s new incursion. Budyonny’s raid started poorly. The low morale and physical exhaus­ tion of his men slowed the pace and robbed the Konarmia of its usual dash. It crossed the Bug and pushed back the 2nd Legionary, the southern­ most division of the Third Army, but it lacked the strength to rout it. It pressed on towards Zamosc, slowly setting a trap for itself; the 2nd Legionary arched its front backwards, while the 13th Division moved up from the south, and by the time the head of the Konarmia had reached Zamosc, it was caught in a long corridor. On 29 August, Budyonny’s 11th Division besieged the town, while the 6th Chongar Division by-passed it and moved on towards Krasnystaw and Lublin. But Zamosc was defended by one of Zeiigowski’s regiments and it was to prove a stumbling-block to the Konarmia, which was anything but a siege force. Later that day, Budyonny began to grow uneasy.1 His flanks were being hemmed in by the 2nd Legionary and Stanislaw Haller’s* 13th from

* not to be confused with Jozef Haller, his elder brother, former Leg­ ionary, then commander of the Blue Army in France, and of the Northern Front during the battle for Warsaw. 163

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the north and south respectively, while the newly arrived 10th of Żeligow­ ski had barred the way to Krasnystaw and was pressing in on the Konarmia from the northwest. Unknown to Budyonny, Rommel’s cavalry, which had been tailing him ever since Lwow, had slipped between the Konarmia and Golikov’s group, which was trying to move up in support. To crown his uneasiness, Budyonny discovered that evening from Polish prisoners he had just taken that Tukhachevsky had been routed on the Vistula and had fled back across the Niemen.3 The news came as a shock to him, as he had been led to believe that he was moving up in support of Tukhachevsky. By the next morning, Budyonny found himself in a narrow salient. Polish shells fired from both sides met in the middle. His first headquarters at Stara Antoniowka were demolished by Haller’s artillery, his second at Miączyn were shelled by the 2nd Legionary, and he was eventually obliged to make do with a command-post in a wood. Two days of tor­ rential rain had turned the dusty roads into morasses. The Konarmia’s artillery could hardly move. Its armored cars were paralyzed. Horses slithered about and carts sank up to their axles in the mud. Even the tachankas were running into trouble. Cases of ammunition had to be jettisoned if any sort of mobility was to be maintained, and outlying units began to run short. Budyonny’s own car stuck in the mud, and he took to the saddle.9 He spent most of that day (30 August) with Voroshilov, riding back and forth inside the tightening ring, in search of an opening or potential breakthrough. The news reached him that the Polish cavalry had been sighted on the road from Tyszowce to Komarow. “That was the alarm signal,” he writes, “the enemy had moved into our rear.”4 He gave this threat full priority for the next day. He put in hand a complex and dan­ gerous regrouping operation, as he wanted to face Rommel with his best divisions, the 4th and 6th Chongąrskaya, and he threw in the Inde­ pendent Brigade, a small but reliable unit composed of party-members. Another significant fact was that he reinstated Timoshenko as commander of the 4th.*

* Timoshenko, former commander of the Konarmia’s 6th, had been insul­ ted and demoted by Budyonny just after the battle of Brody. Budyonny

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On the same day, Sikorski had arrived to take command of the Third Army. He immediately realized that the situation was little short of ideal, as the Konarmia was all but surrounded, but this had happened through a concourse of circumstances, and there was still no sort of com­ munication between the various Polish units.6 Budyonny had only two possible escape routes, one being the way he had come, through Komarow and Tyszowce, and the other through Werbkowice to Hrubieszów. Both were narrow defiles through an area of marshland and low-lying terrain rendered impassable by the recent rainfall. Sikorski would have to shut off both of these exists before applying any more pressure on other sectors, and this would not be made any easier by the poor communi­ cations. Haller and Rommel belonged to the Sixth Army, while the 10th and 2nd Legionary were under his direct orders. He was extremely lucky to gęt his orders for the next day's general attack through to all the units on time. Early on the morning of 31 August, therefore, the various Polish groups moved in, but they failed to nail Budyonny. Their attacks lacked both vigor and cohesion. The 10th and 13th Divisions pressed too hard,while the 2nd Legionary and Rommel’s Cavalry were too weak to hold the Konarmia. As a result, Budyonny escaped. There was, however, one high­ light to that day: the cavalry battle of Komarow. Although its importance for the campaign is slight, this engagement cannot be overlooked, as it was the greatest cavalry-to-cavalry contest for over a hundred years, and the last of its kind in European history. Haller's 13th Division had set off from Komarow at dawn. It moved in two columns, one of which was to march northwards into the Konarmia’s

had ordered him to march along a certain line running through a marshy valley flanked by woods. Timoshenko, whose horses were exhausted by marching through the mire, was afraid of getting stuck in the valley and set upon by Poles, whom he suspected of having hidden in the woods. He therefore made a short detour along a neighboring ridge, whereupon Budyonny appeared, demoted him, and sent the unfortunate division back through the valley, where it did get stuck and promptly set upon by Polish troops, which had indeed been lurking in the woods.s

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flank, while the other made straight for Zamosc, in order to relieve the garrison. Rommel's Cavalry Division was to cover the former and at the same time shut off Budyonny's retreat along the Komarow-Tyszowce route, by moving into the Czesniki area.7 But the cavalry was late. It was also split up. Colonel Brzezowski had spent the night in Komarow with one brigade, while Rommel was still on his way from the south with the order. As soon as Brzezowski received Sikorski’s order, he sent a messenger to Rommel and moved out by himself, with only two regiments, realizing that Haller’s flank was uncovered. He rapidly took in the fact that Hill 255, a rise halfway between Komarow and Czesniki, was the key to the whole area, and he sent the 2nd Chevau-Legers to occupy it. Before long, however, two thick columns of Red cavalry appeared from the north. One, belonging to the 11th Division, made for the distinctly visible blue lines of Haller's infantry, while the other, which was Timoshenko’s 4th, bore down on Hill 255 and dislodged the Chevau-Legers. Brzezowski was only able to stabilize the situation by throwing in his second regiment, the 8th Prince Jozef Poniatowski Lancers, but as the two groups of horse* men grappled with each other, it became increasingly apparent that the Poles would not hold on for long, and after about an hour, he grew seri­ ously worried.8 The situation was saved by the timely arrival of Brzezowski's third regiment, the 9th Galician Lancers. After a spontaneous charge which drove the cossacks back to Czesniki, it came to a halt, as Timoshenko's last brigade appeared on the scene. Both units deployed to face each other, but neither could muster enough elan to attack. Prompted by some age-old convention, the two commanders rode out of the ranks and con­ fronted each other. They drew their revolvers, and twelve shots rang out in rapid succession, but neither fell. As the two duellists glared at each other in peeved silence, a lancer galloped out of the Polish ranks and sabred the Russian in a flash. This elicited a furious charge by the cossacks, and the Poles were once again driven back to Hill 255.9 The melee ebbed and flowed like a tide. Both sides advanced and re­ treated countless times, producing an endlessly changing pattern. The flamboyant and irregular dress of the cossacks contrasted sharply with the more uniform blues and greys of the Poles. The three regiments stood out by the colors on their caps—the orange of the 8th, the crimson

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of the 9th and the white of the Chevau-Legers-although at times the various units were fused into a single swirling kaleidoscope. They fought in a strange silence punctuated now and then by the odd pistol-shot or scream. “Every time some squadron was thrown back/* writes a witness, “it would halt, about turn, and then charge again with renewed impetus. The waves swept backwards and forwards incessantly, and the fighting continued unabated. There was no mercy here. Minds ceased to react to the danger, and men grew oblivious to the moans of their dying and wounded comrades being trampled under the hooves. They just carried on spiking and hacking, and occasionally firing their pistols.” 10 The deadlock was soon broken by the arrival of the Independent Brigade and the intervention of the 11th Division, which had desisted from attacking Haller’s infantry. The two forces worked their way around in a double pincer movement, aiming at outflanking the Poles, but Brzezowski was quick to see the danger, and he pulled his whole brigade back. He drew it up in a square, machine-guns at the ready. But the battle of Komarow had a theatrical quality all of its own. Just as the Independent Brigade prepared to rush Brzezowski from the side, it was caught side-on by a violent and unexpected charge of Ihc 12 Podolian Lancers, which had crept up behind a low ridge and quickly deployed under Captain Komorowski.* The effect was predictable; (lie Independent Brigade beat a hasty retreat, and the other two Russian units began to hesitate. At this moment, the other two regiments of Rommel’s force, side by side in a long line, charged across the field of battle, clearing the whole area up to and beyond Hill 255. The first phase of the battle of Komarow was over. Brzezowski’s men rested and licked their wounds, while Rommel led the three fresh regi­ ments in pursuit of the retreating Timoshenko. The Konarmia had failed to break out. By midday, Budyonny had completely lost the initiative. His flanks were hemmed in. He could move neither forward, towards Lublin, nor backwards, towards Komarow. In the center of his grouping, he was

* Count Tadeusz Komorowski. Later, as General Bor, he commanded the Polish Underground Army during the Warsaw uprising of 1944.

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suffering aggravation from the garrison of Zamosc, which had made a telling sortie. He now knew all there was to know about Tukhachevsky’s defeat, and he realized that he was on his own. Budyonny himself claims not to have given the order for retreat until the early hours of the next morning, but this is immaterial, as he was already moving eastwardly by the early afternoon of that day.11 The situation within the ring was fast deteriorating. The remainder of Żeligowskim 10th had reached Zamosc, thereby linking up with Haller’s 13th, which had just relieved the garrison. Brzezowski’s action on Hill 255 had successfully blocked the Komarow line of retreat, while Rommel was now moving north to shut off the other exit by linking up with the 2nd Legionary, which was likewise homeing on Werbkowice .The situation required quick decision if the Konarmia was to escape. The moment Budyonny decided to break out of the ring, he automati­ cally regained the initiative once again, as the Polish chain of communi­ cation was not rapid enough to deal with the reactions of a cornered fox. It would have required a remarkable degree of telepathy between the Polish commanders to keep him from escaping, and this was not one of their strong points. While the western arc of the ring was securely sealed, the eastern, and more important, was still open. Rommel could have made a dash for Werbkowice and sealed off the last exit, but in doing so, he would be leaving the Komarow road wide open, unless Haller moved east and took over. The latter, however, felt that he had done his bit by relieving Zamosc, and he was slow to react to Rommel’s requests.12 The latter was in a very difficult position in the early afternoon. He knew that three of Budyonny’s divisions were making a dash for Werb­ kowice, and it was clearly his duty to thwart this. But he also knew, that Budyonny’s fourth division, the 6th Chongarskaya, was still far behind and slightly to the south. If Rommel were to turn away from the Komarow-Czesniki area, this division could rush through and take him in the rear. As his orders were to make for Werbkowice, he decided to chance it. He moved on, leaving Brzezowski to follow as soon as he had recovered his strength after the morning’s encounter. Rommel’s Chief-of-Staff, Captain Praglowski, was the real spiritus movens of the Cavalry Division, and he decided to “mislay” Rommel’s

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order, thereby keeping Brzezowski’s brigade in the Hill 255 area.13 It was not until 5:30 that afternoon that he finally instructed the latter to move out and rejoin Rommel. As a shot in the dark, it was a very nice piece of timing. Almost exactly an hour earlier, Budyonny had ordered Pavlichenko of the 6th Division to attack the Polish cavalry on Hill 255, in order to distract Rommel from his purpose of blocking Werbkowice.14 If Brzezowski had abandoned the area an hour earlier, Pavlichenko could have opened the Komarow exit and sandwiched Rommel’s whole division. Shortly before six o’clock, Brzezowski’s men formed up into a column and began to move off, leading their exhausted horses by the reins. About a mile away, in the woods south of Czesniki, Budyonny skulked with his 6th Division, waiting for this moment. Babel paints a vivid picture of this last attack, prepared in a mood of despondency and depression: The Sixth Division was massing in the woods by the village of Czesniki waiting for the signal to attack, but ComDiv Pavlich­ enko* was waiting for the second brigade to come up. Then Voroshilov rode up to the ComDiv and said: ‘You’re wasting time, ComDiv Six, you’re wasting time!’ i am waiting for the second brigade to take up positions, ac­ cording to orders,’ replied Pavlichenko dully. ‘You’re wasting time, ComDiv Six, you’re wasting time!’ re­ peated Voroshilov, giving his reins a tug. ‘For pity’s sake!’ shouted Pavlichenko, wringing his podgy hands, ‘For pity’s sake, comrade Voroshilov, don’t bother me.’ ‘Not bother y o u . . . ’ murmured Klim Voroshilov, closing his eyes. He said no more, but his lips moved as he sat on his horse with his eyes shut. With the snapping of branches and a sound like the whispering wind, the squadrons galloped up through the woods. Voroshilov was stroking the mane of the horse with his Mauser.

* There were no title as such in the Red Army, and people were only ad­ dressed by the rank they held at the given moment, and these were ab­ breviated to ComFront, ComandArm, ComDiv, ComBrig, etc.

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BATTLE FOR THE MARCHLANDb ‘ComandArm!’ he said to Budyonny, 'give the men a little speech before the attack. The Pole is tanding there on the hill, pretty as a picture, and laughing at you.’ ‘We’re in a tight spot, my friends,’ said Budyonny, ‘you must show some spirit, lads. . . ’ T o Warsaw!’ yelled a cossack in bast boots and a bowler hat, staring wildly and slashing the air with his sabre. T o Warsaw!* seconded Voroshilov. Spurring his horse, he rushed into the ranks. ‘Soldiers and commanders!’ he exclaimed with passion, ‘in Moscow, our ancient capital, an unprecedented power is bom. The first Government of Workers and Peasants orders you, soldiers and commanders, to attack the enemy and bring victory.’ ‘Draw sabres!’ sang out Pavlichenko. His red coat was tom , his face wildly distorted. He saluted Voroshilov with the blade of his priceless sabre. ‘Carry on,’ answered Voroshilov with a wave of the hand. He jerked his reins and rode off with Budyonny. They rode side by side on a pair of chestnut mares, in their identical tunics and their gaudy breeches embroidered with silver. The cossacks began to move forward too, the pale steel glint­ ing in the autumn sun. They began to whoop and whistle, but I could sense a halfheartedness in the sound. . . . The wind played in the branches of the Galician oaks like a mad hare, while the second brigade flew through the woods. At a signal from the ComDiv, we rode into the attack, that unfor­ gettable attack by Czesniki. . . .1S

Captain Praglowski, who had just delivered his order to Brzezowski, was now on his way beck to join Rommel. “When I rode up the next rise,” he writes, “1 looked round a n d . . . froze. What I saw both fascin­ ated and horrified me. At a distance of perhaps seven hundred yards, dark waves of cossacks were pouring out of the woods one after an­ other . . . . ” 16 Another Polish officer continues: The sun was already low, and more and more squadrons spilled out of the woods. Great clouds of dust rose up and soon blotted

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out everything; the trees, the sky and the whole horizon. Only a dull murmur, ascending to a blood-curdling howl as it drew closer, betrayed the numbers massed for this final assault. The flood came closer and closer. Curved sabres flashed in the last rays of the setting sun, red banners flapped, and chilling shouts and savage howls rent the air.17 The 9th Lancers, which were marching at the tail of the column, re­ acted immediately by mounting up, turning about and deploying for the charge. The 8th, which was at the head of the column, followed suit a few minutes later. The artillerymen unlimbered their guns where they stood and opened up with everything they had. The 9th Lancers, only some 200 sabres strong after the mornings’ fighting, advanced slowly, sparing their horses. At the last moment they broke into a gallop and crashed into the first wave of cossacks, but they were in loose order, and were swamped almost immediately. After a few moments, they began to fall back, with the cossacks on their tail. The 8th Prince Poniatowski Lancers were by this time trotting up in support, beautifully drawn up in serried ranks. As they advanced in parade-ground style, their squadrons parted to let the fleeing 9th filter through, and then they charged. The cossacks had not seen the second regiment coming, and the sudden appearance of this solid wall of horsemen in place of the retreating 9th disconcerted them. They came to a standstill just at the wrong moment, and when the wave of lancers collided with the hesitant first ranks, these gave way, precipitating the rest into flight. Within minutes, the cossacks were diving back into the woods from where they came and only their tachankas saved them from further pursuit. As the bugles sounded the muster, the lancers rode back to the safety of Hill 255, from which they could survey the field strewn with human and equine corpses, broken lances and banners—it was all over. That night, the 6th Division joined up with the rest of the Konarmia, and on the following morning Budyonny broke through at Werbkowice. He moved faster than the chasing Poles, and on 2 September he crossed the Bug and made contact with Kuzmin’s Xll Army at Hrubieszów. He was safe once more. His raid on Zamosc had been a disaster. He had not only lost a great deal of men and equipment, but the already tottering morale of his troops

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had been dealt a heavy blow.18 The mainspring of the Konarmia’s offen­ sive dash was broken. The only consolation was that he had robbed the Poles of the satisfaction of dismembering it; he had given them a run for their money to the very end. For the Poles, it was a frustrating experience. As usual, they had not been sufficiently prepared to meet the situation, and their movements had lacked coordination. But, Budyonny was a past master at the art of survival. The fact that he survived till 1973 needs no comment. The battle of Komarow itself was a fringe event. It was in no way decisive, but it was not insignificant. It was the first time that Budyonny had not managed to avoid facing the Polish cavalry, and the lancers had won. Brzezowski’s little brigade had crossed swords with three quarters o f the Konarmia at various times o f the day, and it had remained master of the battlefield. For the Polish cavalry, it was a great moral victory, and this was felt in the ranks of the Konarmia, which ceased to play any part after the 31 August. As a vignette, the battle of Komarow was perfect. It epitomized the triumph of will, dash and skill over armament and numbers. It was fought and won by men and horses. It inevitably came to symbolize the belief that men were more important than arms, a belief which was to be so rudely shattered in 1939. Added to this, there was the glamour and the romanticism. This was not one of the last cavalry charges in history; it was a cavalry battle in its own right, even more so than many a Napo­ leonic engagement. Apart from charging each other in every conceivable way, thousands of horsemen had fought like medieval knights, with sabres, lances, knives and even fists, duelling in the saddle for hours on end. In its way, it was certainly one of the most epic battles of the century. As such, it was a fitting finale to the battle of Warsaw, which had become a necessity largely as a result of the remarkable forays of Budyonny and Gai.

CHAPTER XII

LAST STAND ON THE NIEMEN “Polish and French wireless spreads false news about Polish victories. In reality, Rus­ sian forces are intact, retreat was executed in fu ll order. Polish radios about a great vic­ tory are fable. “ Telegram from Chicherin, Russian Foreign Minister. The Times, 9 September 1920. On 25 August the Polish offensive had come to an end as the five divi­ sions of Pilsudski’s force reached the East Prussian frontier. As they mopped up and counted their booty, Tukhachevsky’s last units limped across the Niemen to safety. The Polish haul after ten days* Fighting was 66,000 prisoners, 231 guns and 1,023 machine guns. To this must be added an estimated 10,000 killed, and a further 40-50,000 interned in East Prussia, along with a pro­ portionate quantity of equipment.1 What was more significant was that unlike most battles, where armies have more or less flesh torn off their skeletons, in this case entire bodies had been simply and cleanly removed when they crossed the Prussian frontier. The result was crippling for Tukhachevsky. The Konkorpus had been eliminated completely, along with its equip­ ment, its staff and its invaluable commander. All four of Shuvayev’s divi­ sions, the 12th, the 18th Yaroslav, the 53rd and the 54th, had also ceased to exist. All that was left of the once powerful IV Army was its comman­ der, part of his staff and two regiments which had remained in Wilno.2 175

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Kork’s 4th and about seven-eighths of his renowned 33rd Kuban had like­ wise crossed the Prussian frontier. His other two divisions had suffered only the usual symptoms of the defeat. Lazarevich’s units were all present, but his 21st had almost entirely disintegrated in the Narew basin. Sollohub could point to his 27th Omsk Division, which was in reasonable shape, though now only a fifth of its original strength. His 17th still showed signs of life, but his other three, the 8th, the 10th and the 2nd Priamurskaya were in tatters. Khvyesin’s two divisions had been totally dispersed.3 In short, Tukhachevsky had lost well over 100,000 men, of which a very high proportion were officers, and about two-thirds of his artillery. Of the twenty-one divisions he had led into Poland, eight had been swept off the board, six were in varying stages of disintegration, and only seven were even remotely fit for service, Tukhachevsky had lost more than a battle. He had thrown away an army, an irreplaceable army which had been built up with the most strenuous effort and the finest force the Soviet Republic had been able to raise to date. The Russian high command had been so confident of victory, that they refused to admit failure to themselves or anyone else. The same went, in some measure, for the Soviet leadership in Moscow, which had no very clear idea of what was happening at the front. Tukhachevsky, anxious to forestall any criticism of his conduct of the campaign, hasten­ ed to assure all and sundry that the “ temporary setback” he had suffered on the Vistula was of little consequence. He explained to the ignorant that as a result of his “ tactical withdrawal” the situation was once more well under control. Accordingly, the Supreme Revolutionary War Soviet of the Republic on 2 September ordered Kamieniev to strengthen the Western Front and continue the campaign.4 Tukhachevsky and his subordinates needed no prompting. They were determined to vindicate their failure, which they easily convinced them­ selves had been caused by various circumstances of a technical nature, and above all by “bad luck.” The crisis acted as a tonic on Tukhachevsky in particular, and the next weeks saw him trying to achieve the impossible, and nearly succeeding. The disastrous situation of the Western Front on 25 August was miti­ gated by several favorable factors. The first was that unlike Tukhachevsky’s offensive, which allowed the Poles no respite, Pilsudski’s reached its

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logical term at the Prussian border, and those Russian units which had managed to side-step it and cross the Niemen were quite safe for at least two weeks, while the Poles regrouped. The second consideration was that by falling back on his bases, Tukhachevsky now benefitted from all the resources with which the inefficient Red Army administration had been unable to supply him at Warsaw. A pleasant corrollary to this was that as the transport to the Front had been so ineffectual, an impressive quantity of men and equipment had been stock-piled at the base camps. At Vitebsk, for instance, there were 70,000 uniformed and armed re­ fills simply awaiting incorporation into the front line.s There was no shortage of manpower. On the one hand, new divisions arrived from Russia-the 48th, the 55th, the Special Petrograd and the 17th Cavalry in the first week—and on the other veteran units were bol­ stered up by complements of refills. On 1 September, Tukhachevsky proudly reported that his four armies could muster 85,097 combat ef­ fectives,6 which is remarkable, considering that five days earlier, the figure could have stood at little more than 30,000.* He announced that within three weeks, his four main armies would outgrow their previous strengths, and that he would field a force of 240,000 bayonets for his next offensive.7 His only serious problem was the fact that he had rallier skimmed off the cream in terms of personnel in June, and much of this had perished. Now he was faced with a distinct shortage of qualified commanders, which explains why although he mustered more troops than in July, he crammed them into fewer units. He reorganized his front completely. He positioned Lazarevich’s 111 Army, now his northern wing, along the Niemen around Grodno. It had survived the disaster better than most, and after an infusion of 450 communists from Petrograd and several thousand reinforcements, it was ready to take the field once more. Next in line along the Niemen, he stationed Kork’s XV Army, which was deemed worthy of 1,000 Petro­ grad communists. Kork was given Sollohub’s two best divisions in ex­ change for the battered 33rd Kuban, which was withdrawn to Lida for radical reorganization. Sollohub’s XVI Army was brought up to strength

* Kutrzeba estimates the number of survivors even lower, at 9,100 bay­ onets, 220 sabres, and 82 guns, spread over 12 divisions.8

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by the incorporation of two new divisions from Russia. Next in line came the new IV Army. One of Tukhachevsky’s first acts had been to recreate the IV Army, if only for the sake of appearances. The only thing this one had in com­ mon with the former IV Army was Shuvayev himself. He was given a new Chief-of-Staff in the shape of Mezheninov, late of the XII Army, and the remnants and bases of the Mozyr Group, while Khvyesin was sent off to create a reserve force from the bases of the former IV Army and the two regiments which had remained in Wilno. Quite what purpose was served by these permutations is not easy to determine. They invited some criticism from Putna, whose reorganization and training program was interrupted three times by the reallocation of his division, which eventually found its way into Kork’s army.9 While his armies were refitting, Tukhachevsky turned his thoughts to the future. He was convinced that the Poles had sent all available forces south, to defend Lwow and Lublin, and he assumed that Budy­ onny would keep them busy there for the first week or ten days of Sept­ ember. On this spurious premise he based his whole plan of action. He decided to prepare an attack and launch it at the moment when the Poles, having dealt with Budyonny, would be once again massing against him. He expected to catch them off balance and unprepared. “We had every possibility of tilting the balance back in our favor,“ he writes, “ but if the enemy attacked before us, there was no doubt that we should be beaten. The whole problem amounted simply to which side would be ready to attack first.“ 10 Despite this realistic appraisal of the situation, Tukhachevsky remained confident of the fact that he would be ready first. In this, he could hardly have been more deluded. As certain divisions, such as Żeligowskim 10th and the 9th became redundant at Warsaw, Piłsudski had indeed sent them to the Zamosc area, where they were soon to be joined by Krajowski’s 18th, the 17th Poznan and the 8th. Under Sikorski, they were to liquidate the South-Western Front and clear the whole of Volhynia and Galicia. They did not, however, represent the main Polish forces. Pilsudski’s offensive group had rested on the East Prussian frontier for one day, after which the various units had been entrained and sent off to take up a north-south line west of the Niemen, where some of the units from Warsaw were already waiting.

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By 1 September, many of them were taking up positions opposite Tukhachevsky. There could be no doubt that they would be ready to attack before the Russians. Tukhachevsky’s real dilemma was the role of the Konarmia. He could not conceive of launching an offensive without a cavalry corps, and now that Gai was behind bars in Germany, Budyonny was indispensable. On the other hand, Budyonny was occupying the Poles in Galicia, and this diversion was essential to Tukhachevsky. He tried to withdraw the Kon­ armia from the front line for the rest it badly needed, but whenever the Konarmia withdrew, the entire South-Western Front tottered back help­ lessly.11 The possibility of both stabilizing the situation in Galicia and extricating the Konarmia seemed remote. After his failure to trap Budyonny at Zamość, Sikorski at once set about planning a grand offensive to clear Volhynia and Galicia. He de­ cided to open this with a raid on Kuzmin’s headquarters at Kowel, but this was not to be just one of the accepted cavalry raids; Sikorski was determined to bring the war into the twentieth century. On 10 September, a number of lorries carrying two battalions of in­ fantry, accompanied by two motorized field batteries and escorted by five armored cars sped out of Włodawa at the altogether unheard of average speed of fifteen kilometers per hour.12 The little column took a roundabout route and rolled into Kowel from the north in the early hours of 12 September. The very hint of armour precluded any resistance, and wide-eyed, half-dressed officers rushed for their horses, cars or trains, leaving the Xll Army units west of the town to their own devices. Meanwhile, Sikorski’s main forces crossed the Bug and advanced all along the line. Krajowski marched into Kowel on the next morning. On 14 September Haller and Rommel took Włodzimierz Wołyński, while Żeligowski captured Sokal. Two days later, Haller reached Luck. On 18 September, Rommel chased Budyonny into Rowne, trapping one of his brigades. On the same day Tarnopol fell to the Sixth Army. As it reached the line of the river Horyn, Sikorskfs offensive paused for breath. Athough this temporarily stabilized the Russian front, it could not hide the fact that neither the Konarmia nor either of the other two armies were in any state to lend Tukhachevsky the slightest assistance. Nevertheless, the latter was still optimistic. He hoped to be able to attack

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the, as he thought, unprepared Polish armies in the north and thereby gain time.13 He was no longer thinking in terms of an immediate direct thrust at Warsaw, but rather of an opening action which simultaneously hit the Poles and gave him another respite.14 With time, Russia could crush Poland. PÜsudski was anxious to turn his victory at Warsaw to profit. He knew how resiliently the Red Army could absorb a defeat of even these di­ mensions, and he wanted to win the campaign while he still had the chance. Also, the Entente was exerting pressure on Poland to make peace with Russia as quickly as possible and Piłsudski was determined to seize as much territory as possible before the ceasefire. He knew only too well that the fait accompli was the only valid basis of negotiation. Piłsudski was now faced with a relatively simple situation; a front some three hundred miles long without much in the way of defensive features. However, he was anxious to avoid a battle of attrition, for this would give Tukhachevsky an immediate advantage on account of his own num­ erical inferiority, and it would take too much time. He was determined to impose mobility on this static situation, for that would give him all the advantages. The only doubt he felt was in choosing where to strike. The southern wing of the Russian front was resting on the Pripet area, and that would preclude any rapid Polish action here. There was no point in breaking through the center, for the area behind it was criss-crossed by a multitude of rivers, and even the most successful thrust would get bogged down. The northern sector of Tukhachevsky’s front ran along the strong barrier of the Niemen, and it was domfnated by the fortress of Grodno. The northern tip of Tukhachevsky’s line, however, was sus­ pended in a vacuum, for it petered out on the Lithuanian demarcation line,* and while the Russians could not cover this gap, Piłsudski con­ sidered the territory as Polish and felt no qualms about moving troops over it. Technically, the Lithuanian Army should have covered Tukha­ chevsky’s wing, but Piłsudski knew that it would not and could not

* During Tukhachevsky’s advance, Lithuania had made an alliance with Russia. This allowed the Lithuanians to occupy areas which they had un­ successfully disputed with Poland, including the Wilno area. It was a very loose alliance, as the Lithuanians adopted a wait-and-see attitude, and they were not prepared to fight the Poles openly.

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prevent Polish movement here. He therefore decided to exploit this situa­ tion in order to break up Tukhachevsky’s formation. On 10 September, Piłsudski outlined his plan to Smigly-Rydz and Skierski at a meeting in Brest.ls Skierski’s Fourth Army would keep Kork, SoUohub and Shuvayev busy and at the same time divert Tukha­ chevsky’s attention by a feint attack on Wolkowysk. Meanwhile, SmiglyRydz’s Second Army would do the important work. It was to attack in two groups. One, consisting of three divisions, was to take Lazarevich at Grodno, while the other, of two infantry and two cavalry units, was to assemble secretly in the Augustów forest, and then march on Sejny, brushing aside the Lithuanians as gently as possible, cross the Niemen at Druskienniki and finally pounce on Lida from the north. The object was to defeat Lazarevich’s army and to cut its retreat at the same time, and then to fold it back on to Kork’s and Sollohub’s, eventually pres­ suring all three into the Pripet. The final stage is reminiscent of Tukha­ chevsky’s intentions in July-obviously the prospect of an enemy flound­ ering about in the marshy complex was an alluring one. The frontal attack was to be delivered with all possible force, ils out­ come would give Piłsudski some idea of how much progress Tukliachevsky had made with rebuilding his forces, and at the sumo time it should draw in all the latter’s reserves, thereby creating a vacuum behind the front into which Smigly-Rydz’s flanking group could plunge. Just as a concession to Rozwadowski, who had a perfectionist’s weakness for symmetrical pincer-thrusts, Piłsudski ordered Krajowski’s 18th to support the operation by lunging at Pinsk.16 On 19 September, Piłsudski issued the final orders. Tukhachevsky, whose intelligence service had fallen by the wayside during the retreat, was happily preparing his own future attack, and suspected nothing. His only plans to date were to retake Brest, and he pressed the unfort­ unate Shuvayev to capture the town as fast as possible.17 This meant that the latter expended all the energy he could have used to consoli­ date his army in fruitless efforts. But Tukhachevsky hoped that this might keep the Poles on the defensive, and he was not expecting to do battle along his existing front. When the Poles struck on 21 September, Tukhachevsky was startled, and he had no idea of the dimensions or aims of the attack. But he re­ acted with energy—he knew that passive defense would only erode the morale of his troops, so he ordered Lazarevich to parry the thrust and

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then attack himself. He must have felt relatively confident in his own strength and his ability to tip the balance with it. It is difficult to make out how far this confidence could have been justified. If one is to believe his optimistic figures, he could muster over 160,000 combatants, but it is more than likely that these figures were exaggerated, and that they included thousands of untrained men. It is doubtful! whether he had much more than 100,000-120,000 effectives, only marginally outnum­ bering the eleven Polish divisions facing him with 90-100,000 men.18 The 21st Highland and the Volunteer Division, which were taking on Lazarevich at Grodno, made little headway on the first day. They were expecting to take the city by 24 September, but two days before this, they were caught in a violent riposte from Lazarevich. The III Army infantry fought with such spirit that the Polish attack fell through. The 5th Division faced the Polish attacks by sending in line after line of in­ fantry, up to ten deep at a time, in bayonet charges. The artillery barrage was the mightiest heard during the whole war, even rivalling World War standards, according to French and English officers touring the front.19 The Polish 1st, 12th, and 16th squadrons flew no less than twenty-one bombing raids on Lazarevich's positions.20 Stalemate devel­ oped as the casualties piled up on both sides. Further south, Skierski’s Fourth Army was staging a demonstrative diversion aimed at Sollohub and Kork. The 15th Poznan made a surprise thrust between the two armies and on 23 September took Wolkowysk, whereupon the dependable Putna was called in to liquidate the incursion. He ousted the Poznanians on the next day and steadied the front. Piłsudski was surprised and impressed by Lazarevich’s vigor as well as by the numbers he seemed to be disposing of. He would have felt more tranquil had he known that Tukhachevsky was sending every ablebodied man to Grodno. He was desperate to see his new army through its first crisis, and he feared that the fall of a town like Grodno would be fatal for morale. Indeed, by 24 September all his reserves had been swallowed up by the front line.21 To Piłsudski, however, the firm Russian stand was as mysterious as it was worrying. His troops at Grodno took prisoners from over a dozen different divisions. In fact, there were only four Russian divisions de­ fending the town, but the chaos of retreat and the subsequent reallocation of units had jumbled t*K,m up so far that half of them did not know which

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unit they belonged to, while their papers still mentioned the old unit. To Piłsudski, the prospects of taking the town in a hurry dwindled rapidly, and this was confusing his timing and causing him anxiety over the fate of his flanking force, which could find itself in a trap if Grodno held out. On the evening of 23 September, he decided to halt it. He ordered the 1st Legionary, which was in the van, to mark time while the 1st Lithuanian-Byelorussian came around in a shallower arc than intended and brought pressure to bear on Grodno from behind.33 On the next day the Volunteers and the Highlanders stormed the out­ lying forts of Grodno, but they were totally repulsed. They were then joined by the 3rd Legionary, which had been held in reserve, but the combined might of the three units failed to shake the defenders. In the afternoon, a few battalions of Volunteers swam the Niemen and tried the city’s northern approaches, but they too were thrown back. On 25 Septem ber the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Division made itself felt in Lazarevich’s rear. The defense of Grodno slackened imperceptively. Piłsudski had expected panic to set in at this point, and the fact that it did not again seemed to point to the power and organization of the 111 Army. Now was the logical moment for him to throw the 1st Legionary at Lida, but he was still unsure of himself and he hesitated until that evening, when he heard reports from the Air Force. The pilots had seen thick columns of troops moving eastward and bridges being destroyed in many places.33 Piłsudski heaved a sigh of relief and ordered the general attack. That very evening, the 15th Poznan fought its way back into Wolkowysk. A few hours later the Highlanders and the Volun­ teers stormed the defenses and took Grodno. A few hours after Piłsudski had given the signal for the general advance, Kamieniev ordered Tukhachevsky to retreat.34 Lazarevich was to fall back on Lida with his 111 Army, Kork was to withdraw and at the same time shift his center of gravity somewhat to the south, while Sollohub and Shuvayev were to retreat to the river Szczara. The Supreme Com­ mander had awoken from his previous inertia, and began to take Tukha­ chevsky firmly in hand. He was now full of ideas and suggestions. One was that a new army should be formed at Molodeczno, but he did not specify how and by whom. Now that the Pripet was once more wedged between Tukhachevsky and the three southern armies, Kamieniev took them from under the

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latter’s command and gave them back to Yegorov.35 Kuzmitfs XII Army was by this time only 5,000 bayonets strong. It stepped back inlo the Ukraine with Kuzmin cursing the fact that he had been shunted from front to front to no purpose. Budyonny had been withdrawn completely. The Poles advanced almost unopposed, taking Zwiahel and crossing the Slucz, their front before the Kiev offensive.36 Tukhachevsky was on his own. His retreat, which really had begun as a tactical withdrawal, turned into something of a rout by the end of the first day. The 5th Division, which had been supposed to cover the eva­ cuation from the Grodno salient, lost its nerve and moved off on its own. This left Lazarevich’s other units in a very critical position, and they had to fight their way out of the Grodno area, only to find their retreat blocked by the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Division. By sheer weight of numbers they broke through a second time and moved on. The in­ ternal and external communications of the III Army broke down com­ pletely, and the various units began to act independently and it became every man for himself. Things went more smoothly in the center of Tukhachevsky’s front, largely thanks to Putna and his valiant Siberains. He was acting as a rear­ guard at the juncture of Kork’s and Sollohub’s armies, and he frustrated all the Polish attempts to prize the two apart. On the southern wing, on the other hand, the situation took a drastic turn for the worse. Krajowski’s 18th, with Balakhovich’s Army of Byelorussia in the van, slipped past the left wing of Shuvayev’s army. On 26 September, Balak­ hovich’s cossacks silently emerged from the misty marshes to the north of Pinsk, scattering the IV Army headquarters. Shuvayev, however, could boast past experience in this situation. He and Mezheninov leapt on to their horses and rode west, to join their units, while his staff piled into a train and steamed off in the opposite direction. Luckily for them, and for the enormous Jewish population of Pinsk, Balakhovich’s cossacks discovered a train which had just pulled in from Moscow, containing “presents” to give the warriors of the IV Army heart. The food, choco­ late and cigarettes kept them busy until Krajowski’s arrival.37 The IV Army disintegrated fast, despite Shuvayev’s efforts to keep it together. His 17th Cavalry Division defected to join Balakhovich, and his other two divisions,one of which,the 57th, had still not fully recovered from its earlier misfortunes at Kock, retreated to the prescribed line of the Szczara, but failed to stop on reaching it.

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Two days after his southern wing had ceased to exist as a cohesive force, Tukhachevsky was dealt another blow, this time in the north. The spearhead of the Polish flanking force had descended upon the 33rd Kuban, which was resting at Lida, overpowered it and taken the town. The 21st Division from Lazarevich’s army was sent to restore the situation, but it surrendered to the Poles en masse after a few hours’ fighting. Morale was beginning to give way. The general situation was little short of catastrophic. Lazarevich’s three remaining divisions were cut off. Some units tried to fight their way through, others surrendered, others dispersed into the countryside and trickled through in small groups. Sollohub and Kork were in full retreat, abandoning Slonim and Baranowicze to the Poles. But Lazarevich’s heroic defense of Grodno had paid off; Piłsudski had been obliged to bring half of the flanking forces in at a shallow angle, and this meant that only one division rached Lida. On its own, it could just cut off Lazarevich’s retreat, but it could not push him into Kork’s path, and Tukhachevsky’s center was not hemmed into the Pripet as a result. By 28 September, Tukhachevsky had realized that there was no hope of stabilizing the existing position. Both the psychological condition and the situations o f the various armies threatened them with imminent disaster, and there were no further reserves to be brought up. There was only one straw left, and Tukhachevsky grasped it without hesitating. He ordered a full withdrawal to the line of the Russian trenches facing the German ones the Poles had tried to defend in July.28 He would have preferred to tear his armies away completely, but politics were once again interfering with strategy. It was imperative that he hold as much territory before an armistice was agreed on. Lenin was bombarding Kamieniev with appeals for an advance. When the latter pointed out that the only remaining manpower reserves of the Red Army had no arms or uniforms, Lenin retorted: “I don’t care if they have to fight in their underpants, but fight they must!” 29 It was a race against the clock, as both sides grasped for bargaining counters. Russia had to make peace. Poland was being forced to by the Entente. The ceasefire could not be delayed long. The retreat to the trenches was no more orderly than that from Grodno had been. Like a wall which has not has time to harden, Tukhachevsky’s new army crumbled wherever it was pushed. While Tukhachevsky nurtured

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his flagging optimism with grand schemes of counterattack, Smilga, his political officer, frankly admitted to Kamieniev that "the divisions have completely lost the will and ability to fight.”30 Worse still, the command element was gradually going to pieces, according to Putna.31 Defeatism was rearing its head at all levels. By 1 October, Tukhachevsky’s four armies had dug into the line of trenches. But on the next day, some of Kork’s and Sollohub’s units abandoned them and the Poles crossed the line. There was nothing Tukhachevsky could do except sanction a retreat which he was powerless to control, and he ordered a new withdrawal.32 Kamieniev was dismayed. He begged Tukhachevsky to brace his armies and hold on for another week. The latter did what he could; he ordered a counterattack for 12 October,33 but it was no use. He may as well have tried to halt a stam­ peding herd. Here and there, units like Putna’s were still attempting to hold the line, but the vast majority retreated without much semblance of order. The Poles wasted no time. On 9 October, Żeligowski took Wilno from the Lithuanians. On the next day the 1st Legionary took Swieciany. Kojdanow and Molodeczno followed two days later. In the south, Rom­ mel’s Cavalry Corps rode into Korosten on Kuzmin’s tail. On 15 October, the Poles captured Minsk and reached the Berezina.

CHAPTER XIII

PEACE The Polish armies were more or less where they had been in the spring, but now they were racing ahead almost unopposed. The Russian Western front had all but ceased to exist. Its bulk, the two armies of Lazarevich and Kork, were reduced to a retreating rabble, while Sollohub’s and Shuvayev’s armies had dwindled to skeletal proportions. The XII and XIV armies of Kuzmin and Uborevich could no longer muster a full division between them, and they did not even attempt to check Polish movement in the Ukraine. The Konarmia was far away. Budyonny had been obliged to purge one of its divisions, which had cracked up and marked the fact by a series of pogroms against Jews. There was only one reserve the Soviet Republic could muster in the whole of Western Russia; the VI Army on the Latvian border. The military debacle had provoked erruptions throughout Byelo­ russia and the Ukraine. As the fourth winter since the revolution drew in, there was no hint of improved conditions. The civil war had ravaged the land and the various armies had eaten and burnt everything in the way of food and fuel. It had all been justified by the final triumph of the revolution, but now this triumph seemed more remote than ever and the situation closely resembled that which had sparked off the October revolution exactly three years before. The authority of the Soviet Republic was challenged everywhere. The garrisons of Smolensk and Vyazma tottered on the brink of mutiny. Tens of thousands of deserters from the Red Army took to the forests, where they joined the “Green” armies or simply local bands of men driven to desperation. The number of self-styled Atamans and popular leaders multiplied in the most alarming manner over the borderlands whence even the Cheka had been forced to retire. At the same time, 188

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the Ukraine was threatened when General Baron Wrangcl, who had been nursing the remnants of Denikin’s army in the comparative safely of the Crimea, launched a vigorous offensive along the Dnieper. With the whole of western Russia in the throes of arnarchy, with Wrangel moving northwards, with Petlura once again making for Kiev and with Püsudski’s advance guards on the Berezina, the Soviet Govern­ ment had to face one of its worst crises to date. The Red Army could not save it. The road to Smolensk and Moscow lay wide open before PQsduski’s armies. On 16 October, however, an unfamiliar bugle-call echoed along the advancing Polish lines—the ceasefire. The VI Army, on its way from the Latvian border, did not even bother to detrain at Smolensk; it trund­ led on towards the Crimea. Pçace was the only thing that could save the situation on the Polish front, and the preliminaries had been signed. Both governments were quite content to come to terms. The Poles had seen that the national movements in the borderlands were too weak to build on, and they realized that schemes of federation with these states were premature. On the other hand, they felt that they had made their point vis-a-vis Russia and the world; namely that Poland was able and prepared to fight for its own sovereignty. Likewise, the Soviet leader­ ship had to face the reality that eastern Europe was not ready for the revolution and that the Soviet Republic was yet too weak to impose it on others by force. Both governments had come too close to disaster at various points not to appreciate the blessings of peace, even if it meant compromise. And compromise it was, for neither Russia, which had lost the war, nor Poland, which had won it, achieved what they had hoped for. While Russia had been outmanoeuvered on the battlefield, Poland was defeated at the peace-table, where her strong military position was not brought to bear. The Polish negotiators were so anxious to prove their peaceful intentions to the world at large that they settled for “reasonable” frontiers, rather than demanding the 1772 ones. Nor did they try to make demands on Petlura’s behalf. The latter was soon defeated by the Red Army, and ius remnants had to be disarmed as they sought refuge in Poland once again. Large sections of Polish opinion and a number of other anti-soviet or nationalist elements saw the final settlement as a betrayal and a capitu­ lation.

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When the final treaty was signed at Riga in the spring of 1921, peace descended on the borderlands. It was to last until Russia staked a new claim in 1939. It was little more than a pause or cessation of hostilities, for neither state could resign itself to regarding it as final. In terms of public interest, the whole episode subsided as rapidly as it had emerged. As far as Western Europe and the world were concerned, the Versailles peace had been saved, French hegemony in Eastern Europe had survived, and the whole situation was under control once again. As far as Eastern Europe was concerned, however, the events of 1920 had confirmed the belief that Soviet Russia’s policies would be no different from Tsarist ones. Although Poland's ability to defeat the Red Army brought a measure of comfort to the little states, the fear of the red bogey remained a feature of their attitudes and behavior during the twenties and thirties. Bolshevik expansion had superseded German Im­ perialism as public enemy number one, and Hitler was later able to achieve a great deal by playing on this fear. For Soviet Russia, the adventure had been mortifying but instructive. This defeat had done much to expose an economic crisis which brought home the necessity for internal consolidation. Russia’s failure to make contact with Europe on its own terms combined with this economic introversion to isolate her completely from the rest of the world. For Poland, the war was, of course, a great triumph. It was the first war she had won in over two hundred years, and it seemed a fitting way to mark the rebirth of the state. But the exuberance was tempered by the harsh reality of having “lost the peace,” and by the less glorious necessity of building up an economy from scratch. For six years, the battle fronts had swept these areas in every direction, and it was not easy to learn to live once again. The military discussion which followed the war was rich in absurd assumptions and nonsensical deductions. Participants and observers labored at explaining and categorizing situations which had arisen as a result o f freak conditions and primitive influences. The Russian generals tried to explain their failure in three ways. Tukhachevsky principally blamed the lack of coordination between the two fronts, and, of course, “bad luck.” Others, like Kakurin, pleaded inferiority in numbers and

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equipment. Only Putna and Sergeyev come close to the truth, seeing the defeat as a result of Tukhachevsky’s inability to concentrate his troops at the right points, combined with the disastrous assumption that civil war conditions would apply in Poland. In the west, the main preoccupation was not with how the war had been won, but by w hom When he heard of the victory at Warsaw, Lloyd George sent a communiqué congratulating Lord D’Abernon and General Weygand. Lord D’Abernon congratulated Lloyd George and, for reasons which remain obscure. Sir Henry Wilson (Chief of the Imperial General Staff) presumably for having sent him, D’Abernon to Warsaw. President Millerand congratulated and decorated Weygand with the Legion of Honor. Very few people thought of congratulating Piłsudski or the Polish Army. Nobody in the west attempted to explain the movements of the cam­ paign even in a rudimentary way. General Radcliffe, an eye-witness, dis­ missed it as “an eighteenth-century war.** De Gaulle philosophised about “l’esprit Slave,” but failed to make any judgement, except that Poland had a lot to learn from France. Weygand himself was rich in silences which reinforced the view, still cherished by most Frenchmen today, that he alone was responsible for the victory. His formal declarations to the contrary were accompanied by such bitterness that (hey sounded like false modesty to those who wished to believe the myth. No authori­ tative independent work on the campaign appeared, and as a result, Pilsudski’s henchmen produced studies showing that he and only he had been right throughout, his enemies supported the Weygand theory, and others attributed the victory to God. Coming as it did just after the Great War, with its static trenches, its million-bayonet armies and its heavy concentration of resources, this campaign could not but stand out by its mobility and its infinite variety. The great cavalry groups had, so to speak, led the dance by imposing un­ favorable situations on unprepared or weak infantry units. And, the technical supremacy of the Poles, with their planes and their tanks, had apparently availed them little. These two points were quickly picked up by redundant cavalrymen and sentimentalists all over the world. By arguing them out of context, they strongly affirmed the view that new­ fangled inventions like tanks and planes were a waste of public money, which cavalry still had an important part to play in any future war. This

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is partly why there was still so much cavalry in the European armies at the outbreak of the Second World War. Few people drew the right con­ clusions, namely that the mobility of the horse was only impressive in primitive conditions, and that it was the so far rather static tank that was going to provide the mobile spearheads in future wars. Among these few were two participants of this campaign; De Gaulle and Sikorski. Although these events took place just over fifty years ago, they seem very remote and unreal. This is hardly surprising, as the military and political storms which have swept the area over the past fifty years have wiped away the context and the principal characters. The officer who led the 8th Lancers into the last charge at Komarow lives in West London. Budyonny died in his bed in 1973 at the grand age of 94. They were the lucky ones. Rozwadowski, the Polish Chief-of-Staff, died in suspicious circum­ stances after Piłsudski’s coup d’etat in 1926. In the same year, Ataman Petlura, whom destitution had forced into the profession of cabaret artiste, was assassinated on the Boulevard Saint Michel by a young Jew whose parents had died in a pogrom in Kiev. Piłsudski, on the other hand, died peacefully in 1935. His rival was less fortunate. Between 1935 and 1937, Tukhachevsky, Gai, Sergeyev, Lazarevich, Kork, Sollohub, Putna, Yakir, Primakov, Uborevich and countless others faced Stalin’s firingsquads on charges of conspiracy and treason. When Russia went to war in 1941, the Red Army was led by such incompetent worthies as Budyon­ ny and Voroshilov. Smigly-Rydz, who commanded the Polish Army in 1939, died in War­ saw in 1940. Others, like Stanislaw Haller, Skierski and Plisowski, the young commander of the 14th Lancers, ended their careers in the mass graves in the forest of Katyn with a bullet in the neck. Others still, like old Krajowski, perished in Nazi concentration camps, while Sikorski died in 1943 when his plane crashed off Gibraltar, an accident which is believed to have been not unconnected with his violent opposition to Stalin’s Russia. This dramatic campaign might have changed the face of Europe, but in fact, it changed nothing at all.

NOTES

Notes to Chapter I 1. Quoted by T. Komarnicki in Rebirth o f the Polish Republic: London 1957, p. 604. 2. Evening News, 27 July 1920. 3. Quoted by T. Komarnicki, op. cit.r p. 626. 4. Jozdf Piłsudski, R ok 1920. First Impression, London 1941, p. 165. 5. Lord D’Abernon, The Eighteenth Decisive Battle o f the World. London 1931, p. 39. 6. M.K. Dziewanowski, Piłsudski-A European Federalist’ Stamford University 1969, p. 141. 7. Lord D’Abernon, op. cit., p. 40. 8. Decree of Council of Peoples’ Commissars, 29th August 1918, quoted by T. Komarnicki, op. cit.t p. 446. 9. Bubnov et al., Grazhdanskaya Voyna. Vol. Ill, p. 152. Also />#rektivy Glavnovo Komandovania Krasnoy Arm iy. Moscow 1969, No. 133. 10. J. Piłsudski, op. cit.f p. 147. 11. Dymitr Merejkovsky, Joseph Piłsudski London & Edinburgh 1921, P .9. 12. Piotr Wandycz, “Polish-Soviet Peace Talks in 1920,” Slavic Review, 1965. 13. A.I. Denikin, K to Spas Savietskuyu Vlast o t Gibyeli? Paris 1937. 14. Quoted by T. Komarnicki, op. cit., p. 510. 15. Ib id .,p p. 516ff. 16. T. Kutrzeba, Wyprawa Kijowska. Warsaw 1937, p. 45. See also Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed. Oxford 1970, p. 458. 17. Order No. AKA-1534L22, quoted l.E. Yegorov, Lvov-Varshava. Moscow 1929. 193

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N otes to Chapter II 1. Quoted by P. Fervaque in Le C hef de L 'Armee Rouge. Paris 1928, p. 36. 2. L. Trotsky, Kak Vooruzhalas Revolutsia. Moscow 1924, Vol. II, p. 1234. 3. J. Erickson, The Soviet High Command. London 1962, p. 33. 4. Isaac Deutscher,op. cit., p. 412. 5. Ibid., p.415. 6. J. Piłsudski,Pisma Wybrane. London 1943, p. 206. 7. A. Przybylski, Wojna Polska. Warsaw 1930, p. 35ff. 8. S. Migdal, Pilsudczyzna w Latach Pierwszej Wojny Światowej. Katowice 1961, p. 236. 9. M. Kukieł, Zarys Historji Wojskowości w Polsce. London 1949, p. 230. 10. T. Sariusz-Bielski, Dziewiatak. London 1957. 11. L. Trotsky,Stalin. London 1946, p. 279. 12. M. Zebrowski,Polska Bron Pancerna. London 1971, p. 85ff. 13. M. Tânsky, Joukov-LeM aréchald'Acier. Paris 1956. 14. A. Praglowski^Personal interview, London 1973. 15. J. Erickson,op. cit. p. 97. 16. N. E. Kakurin and V. A. Melikov, Vayna c ByeloPolyakami. Mos­ cow 1925, p. 49. See also V. Putna, K Vislye i Abratno. Moscow 1927, p. 240, and J. Erickson, op. cit., p. 101. N otes to Chapter III 1. A, Carton de Wiart,//