ONE CONFLAGRATION AMONG MANY
An Excerpt from “White Eagle Red Star”
By Norman Davies
Pages 4I - 47
The Polish army was even less prepared for
war. The Soviets did at least possess a central command and a year's experience
in co-coordinating operations. The Poles had neither. The law which formalized
the structure of the armed forces was not passed in the Sejm (parliament) until
6 February 1919, two weeks after the fighting with Soviet Russia had already
begun. Up to that time the country was defended by a rag-bag of units left over
in Poland from the World War and having nothing in common except their
allegiance to the Republic and to Pilsudski as Commander-in-Chief.
At the moment of the Army Law, Poland
possessed 110,000 serving soldiers. These were increased to 170,000 in April of
whom 80,000 were combatants. A nucleus had been formed from the Polnische
Wehrmacht, 9,000 strong, the remnant
of a force raised by the
Germans in 1917-I8. Some 75,000 volunteers were added in the first weeks of
independence, mainly from members of Pilsudski's Legions, who had fought for
Austria until disbanded in 1917. In December 1918, the Poznanian regiments of
the German army declared for Poland. Conscription, introduced on 7 March 1919,
doubled the men available, but in practice very few of the draftees saw service
in 1919. Polish military expenditure in 1919 absorbed forty-nine per cent of
the national income and was proportionately greater than that of any country in
the world, with the sole exception of Soviet Russia.
In the course of the following months,
various Polish units arrived from abroad. In April,
the Polish army in France commanded by General Jozef Haller arrived, 50,000
well-armed veterans who had been instructed by French officers. They included
elements of the Bayonne Legion, a Polish company attached to the Legion
Etrangere. In June, the Polish division of General Lucjan Zeligowski
tramped into Lwow after a historic three-month march round the Balkans from
Odessa, where it had been campaigning with the Russian Whites. A Polish
detachment from Murmansk reached Poland at the end of 1919, and one from
Vladivostok consisting of 10,000 survivors of the Polish Siberian Brigade
of-Colonel Rumsza, sailed into Danzig in July I920. These last three formations
had been raised among Polish conscripts in the Tsarist army stranded in Russia
by the outbreak of Revolution.
A number of independent units were formed
by the Poles of the Borders. The Samoobrona of Wilno had had its counterparts
in Minsk and Grodno. Most of their recruits, surprised by the pace of the
Soviet advance into the Ober-Ost, found
their own way to the
Polish lines. In the first week of Polish independence a Committee for the
Defence of the Borders (Komitet Obrony Kresow) was formed in Warsaw. Its first
president, Prince Eustachy Sapieha was representative of the
other members, mainly aristocrats, whose main
aim was to recover their occupied marcher properties. It organized and financed
the so-called Lithuanian-Byelorussian Division under General Iwaszkiewicz which
began recruiting in Szczucyn, Zambrow and Lapy; in the event it attracted fewer
volunteers from the Borders than from the cities of central Poland.
The process of amalgamating these
different units and their commands was long and difficult. Most of the ranking
officers had seen service in the Austrian army. General Szeptycki had been
Governor of the Austrian zone of occupation of southern Poland, Tadeusz
Rozwadowski a full General in 19I 3, Inspector of Sappers in the Royal and
Imperial Army, Commander of the Polnische Wehrmacht in 1918, and Minister of
Military Affairs under the German-sponsored Regency Council. Pilsudski
obviously preferred the men who had served with him in the Legions
Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Smigly-Rydz, commander of the secret 'POW', (Polish
Military Organization), Colonel Wladyslaw Sikorski, General Kazimierz
Sosnkowski. A number of officers had seen Tsarist service, notably General
Waclaw Iwaszkiewicz, General Dowbor-Musnicki, leader of the anti-Bolshevik
cause in Byelorussia and one-time commander of the I Polish Corps, General
Aleksander Osinski, commander of the III Polish Corps. No Poles rose to the
highest levels of the Tsarist Staff, owing to a clause excluding Roman
Catholics, nor to the upper echelons of the Prussian Staff owing to sheer
prejudice. The Poznanians provided the best NCO’s but few officers. Some Poles
succeeded in serving in several armies. General
Jozef Haller changed sides three times. In March I918, he took his Austrian
Legionary Regiment over to the Russians in protest against the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk; he fought with a Polish corps in Russia against the Bolsheviks,
before escaping via Murmansk to take command of the Polish army in France.
All these men were forced in 1919 to
forget their old military habits and adapt to the new order. In February a
Ministry of Military Affairs under General Lesniewski was created; also a
General Staff under General Szeptycki, later under General Stanislaw Haller,
which took charge of operations. General Rozwadowski was sent to Paris to
liaise with the Allied governments. Drill books, weapon training, language of
command, rules of seniority, all the details which make an army move, had to be
re-organized. Friction was inevitable. Units with French rifles were issued
with German ammunition; Austrian officers resented serving under Tsarist
colleagues whom they had defeated; Poznanian units disliked serving in the east
when Poznan was still threatened by the Germans in the west. Only in July 1919
was it decided to rely exclusively on French army manuals and procedures, and
to submit to the instruction of General Henrys and his military mission.
Somehow, despite the obstacles, patriotism triumphed, and the Polish army,
defunct since 1831, was reborn.
The 1st Polish Cavalry Division serves as
an admirable illustration of the motley origins of the army as a whole. It
consisted of six regiments. The 8th Uhlans were entirely 'Royal and Imperial'
and were raised from the sons of the Galician gentry. The 9th Uhlans were also
Galicians, although they boasted a more democratic tradition. Many of their
officers had served in the Austrian Landwehr or in the Legions. They were
fitted out with English uniforms. The I4th Uhlans were still more exotic. They
were Russian by training and in large measure Russian by blood. They had been
in the saddle for five years already, having fought in the World War on the
Eastern Front and in the Russian Civil War in the Kuban. They came to Poland
with General Zeligowski. They intensely disliked the Austrian equipment with
which they were issued. The officers retained their high Caucasian saddles,
long reins, short stirrups, and steeplechase style. The 1st (Krechowiecki)
Uhlans had seen Russian service in the Pulavy Legion. The 2nd Hussars were
former Austrian legionaries. The 16th
Uhlans were Poznanians.
They wore antique uniforms, including high rogatywka hats surmounted by a red
rosette. Their horses were unusually large and their Prussian equipment
unusually heavy. Every man carried lance, sabre, bayonet, mask, entrenching
tool, and canteen. On the move they clanked and rattled like a company of
medieval knights. In all these regiments local traditions were strong, and
national patriotism relatively weak. They were like six prodigal sons, born of
the one Polish mother from three different fathers. They were first sent into
battle in April 1920.
The central figure in the organization
of the Polish army was Kazimierz Sosnkowski. He was the Deputy Minister for
Military Affairs. Although not yet thirty-four years of age, he had already the
creation of several armies to his credit. In 1908, whilst still a student in
Lwow, he founded on his own initiative the Zwiazek Walki Czynnej (Union of
Active Struggle), the predecessor of many similar, Para-military, nationalist
organizations. In I914, he was the Chief of Staff of Pilsudski's Legions. In
I917, he succeeded Pilsudski at the War Department of the Regency Council, and
founded the Polnische Wehrmacht. In I918, after a spell in Spandau prison, he
joined Pilsudski in Magdeburg Castle. Pilsudski called him his 'conscience' and
his 'guardian angel'. He possessed the political tact and personal ease which
Pilsudski lacked. In 1919, he was given the task of reconciling Pilsudski’s
consuming military interests with the democratic institutions of the new
Republic. His speeches to the Sejm, his detailed supervision of the Army Bills,
provided the confidence, will, and expertise which overcame the politicians'
reluctance. This young man, whose tall frame and commanding presence were
complemented by a modest disposition and precise habits, performed a feat,
comparable to that of Trotsky or Carnot, which has rarely been recognized
outside Polish circles.
At first, only a small proportion of
the Polish army could be spared for the Soviet front. At no time in 1919 was
the Red Army capable of mounting a major offensive, and the largest part of the
Polish army was used for more urgent tasks on the Ukrainian, Czechoslovak, or
German fronts. In February the 'Ten Thousand' who moved into the Ober-Ost were
organized in two groups. The Northern Group under General Iwaszkiewicz was at
Wolkowysk, and the Southern Group under General Listowski at Brest-Litovsk. The
commander of this Byelorussian Front, General Wejtko, was replaced by General
Szeptycki, whose twelve battalions of infantry, twelve squadrons of cavalry,
and three artillery companies fairly matched the quality but not the numbers of
the Soviet Western Army across the line.
The military equipment available in
Eastern Europe in 1919 was extremely limited. The Polish-Soviet War was fought
on First World War surplus. Both sides had to depend on what they could beg or
capture. The Soviet Western Army benefited from its share of Civil War
trophies--Japanese rifles from Siberia, English guns from Archangel and the
Caucasus. In the later stages, the Poles gained an advantage in that they
received direct supplies from the Allied powers, especially from France.
Distribution of the armaments was uneven. Infantry divisions, which varied in
strength between 2,000 and 8,000 men, might possess anything from forty to 250
machine-guns, and from twelve to seventy howitzers. Only
Jozef Haller's army, fully equipped in France, was up to First World War
standards. Cavalry divisions trailed three or four heavy
machine-guns mounted on horse-drawn pachinko. Transport was effected mainly by
horse-wagons, of which the Polish furmanka, a long, V-shaped contraption,
amazed Western observers by its speed and efficiency. Motor cars were only used
by the most fortunate staff officers. Signaling was rudimentary; radios only
existed at the chief command posts. It was not unknown for units to have one
rifle between three men. For want of anything better, both sides often resorted
to cold steel. Uniforms were as multifarious as the weapons. In theory, the Red
Army wore blanket capes and Tartar caps with a star, the officers not
distinguished from the men. In practice they wore whatever was at hand. Babel
mentions Cossacks wearing bast bandages on their feet and captured bowler hats
on their heads. Tsarist uniforms stripped of their insignia were very common.
The Poles looked no better. The Poznanians wore Prussian outfits; Haller's 'Blue Army' was entirely French. A small white eagle pinned onto Austrian or
Tsarist uniforms, or German helmets painted red and white, caused confusion to
friend and foe alike. When facing the enemy, one had to see not just the whites
of their eyes but the shape of the eagle on their caps before knowing whether
to shoot. Only the Polish officer corps, resplendent in their gold braid and
distinctively shaped hats were obviously dressed for the part.
Artillery
fell far short of World War standards. The Polish 1st Light Artillery
(Legionary) Regiment, for instance, was originally equipped with Austrian
recoilless 9-cm. guns dating from 1875, found in the fortress at Cracow and
pulled by horses from the Animal Shelter. In May 1919, it received an
assignment of Russian three-inchers, captured from the Ukrainians, followed by
an assortment of Austrian, Italian, and French howitzers. Consistent training
and efficient performance were not possible.
Armoured trains soon became a speciality.
The early models were armoured with concrete or with sandbags, the 'advanced'
types with steel plating. They were propelled by an armoured locomotive placed
between personnel cars, which were surmounted by revolving machine gun turrets.
At front and back were heavy gun platforms and wagons carrying track-laying
equipment. The trains could carry a strike force of two or three hundred men,
and represented the only arm disposing of mobile and concentrated fire-power.
In campaigns where control of the railways was vital, they provided a morale
and surprise element of the first importance. Their operations were restricted
however to the railway network and to track of their own gauge. Although in the
first half of 1919 the Polish sappers converted the main routes to standard
European gauge, most of the lines in the eastern areas kept the wide Russian
gauge.
Cavalry remained the principal offensive
arm. In this respect, the war which started in 1919 was no different from those
of previous centuries. The Poles preferred heavy lancers, the Soviets
sabre-swinging horsemen of the Cossack variety. Even so, cavalry was not
immediately available. The Red Army could not concentrate a large cavalry force
on the Polish front until May 1920. The Polish army did not match them till
August of the same year.
Sophisticated equipment did not make its
appearance until the end of the war, and then only in small quantities.
Aeroplanes, tanks, and motor lorries were new-fangled devices which suffered
more from mechanical breakdown than from enemy attacks.
The first months of hostilities saw little
more than manoeuvrings for position. Gradually a front was established, from
the Niemen at Mosty, down the Szczara River, the Oginski Canal, and the
Jasiolda River to the Privet east of pinsk. Its 300-mile length straddled the northern
upland zone, and was bounded in the north-west by the rump of the Ober-Ost in
Grodno and in the south-east by the lands of the Ukrainian Directory. On
average, each side could only field one soldier for every fifty yards of front,
which meant that huge stretches, especially in the south, could be patrolled
but not defended. Attention was concentrated on the northern sector, where the
Soviets had the advantage of a lateral railway. Wilno, the only city in the
area, and Baranowicze, a six-point railway junction, were both under Soviet
control. The Soviets held the superior position, and a Polish offensive would
be needed to wrest it from them. In the spring floods, this was out of the
question. The only event of any strategic importance was the establishment of a
Polish bridgehead across the Niemen. And so for six weeks the front rested.
The Soviet authorities were distracted by
a counter-revolutionary rising in Byelorussia. Two regiments of the Red Army
holding the line against the Ukrainians in the area of Ovruch mutinied, crossed
the Pripet, and marched on Gomel' which they occupied from 24 to 29 March in
the name of a 'free republic'. The suppression of the rising absorbed the
attention of the Soviet Western Command for several weeks at the end of March
and the beginning of April, and took their minds off the activities of the
Poles.
The Poles, too, had their troubles. An
ugly incident occurred at Pinsk, held by the company of a Major Luzynski. In
Pinsk, as in other towns held by the Poles, all public meetings had been banned
for fear of civil disturbance. A guard of only thirty men was posted. On 5
April, the soldiers were called to a meeting taking place behind closed doors.
They assumed it to be a Bolshevik meeting. When resistance was offered and a
crowd formed, they feared a trap. They seized thirty-five people as hostages,
whom Luzynski then ordered to be summarily shot to make an example. The town
was pacified. But the incident was to have international repercussions. Pinsk
was a Jewish town. 20,000 of its 24,000 inhabitants were Jews.