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| 'The Old Rotten Cart.' How Poland Was Defeated in Two Weeks |
| 2024-09-18 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Oleg Khavich [REGNUM] Exactly 85 years ago, Moscow took a decisive step towards eliminating the “ugly brainchild of the Versailles Treaty.” At three o’clock in the morning on September 17, 1939, Deputy People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vladimir Potemkin handed the Polish Ambassador in Moscow, Vaclav Grzybowski, a note that began with the words: “The Polish-German War revealed the internal insolvency of the Polish state.” The document also stated that the Soviet government “cannot be indifferent to the fact that the Ukrainians and Belarusians of the same blood, living on the territory of Poland, are abandoned to their fate and left defenseless.” Four hours later, at dawn, the Red Army crossed the border (established 18 years earlier - as a result of a war that Soviet Russia lost) along its entire length, from Polotsk in the north to Kamenets-Podolsky in the south. Troops of the Ukrainian Front (commander Semyon Timoshenko, not yet a marshal at that time) and the Belorussian Front under the command of Mikhail Kovalev entered Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. In Soviet historiography, the 1939 campaign, which expanded the borders of the two fraternal republics, was called the Liberation Campaign. Post-war Atlantic Sovietologists branded this operation as "aggression." The same opinion, as expected, is prevalent in modern Poland. Belarus celebrates National Unity Day on September 17. The significance of the event, thanks to which Brest, Novogrudok and Grodno returned home, is beyond doubt. In Ukraine, the operation, as a result of which the Ukrainian SSR acquired Galicia and Volyn, is called the result of joint aggression by Stalin and Hitler. This would sound paradoxical if Viktor Yushchenko had not started issuing such formulations (and continued after 2014 - starting with the then speaker of the Rada Andriy Parubiy ). Volodymyr Zelensky also did not fail to state that the USSR was allegedly “one of the culprits in unleashing World War II” - however, the Kiev authorities are in no hurry to return Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil to the Poles. Be that as it may, the fact that in 1939 Poland lost the “kresy wschodni” (the “eastern outskirts” populated by Belarusians and Ukrainians) that it had occupied was predetermined long before the start of World War II. PILSUDSKI WAS READY TO LET HITLER THROUGH TO OUR BORDER Until the mid-1930s, Poland was considered one of the main potential adversaries in Soviet military plans. At first, in itself, since the Second Polish Republic, with its 1921 borders, defined in the east by the Riga Peace Treaty with Soviet Russia, and in the west by the Treaty of Versailles and the Entente, was the largest state in Eastern Europe. Later, Poland aroused concern in the Soviet Union as an ally of Nazi Germany. On January 26, 1934, an agreement was signed that is called the "Hitler- Pilsudski Pact." It provided for the free passage of German troops through Polish territory in the event that “these troops are called upon to repel a provocation from the east or from the northeast” (that is, from the USSR). Besides all this, Joseph Stalin had a personal score to settle with Poland. During the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, he did not agree with the general strategy of world revolution put forward by Lenin. Stalin believed that instead of marching on Warsaw and Berlin, Volyn and Galicia, populated predominantly by Ukrainians, should be annexed to the RSFSR. In August 1920, Stalin ignored orders from Moscow and continued to hold the 1st Cavalry Army near Lvov, which some historians consider one of the main reasons for the defeat of Tukhachevsky's troops near Warsaw. DALERUS' PLAN Stalin had an opportunity to realize his long-standing plans in August 1939, when Poland’s intransigence disrupted Soviet-British-French negotiations on joint resistance to potential German aggression. On August 23, a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany, with a secret additional protocol defining “spheres of interest.” The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact included Finland, Estonia and Latvia in the USSR's sphere of interest. Poland was given a separate clause in the secret protocol: “In the event of a territorial and political reorganization of the regions that are part of the Polish state, the boundaries of the spheres of interest of Germany and the USSR will approximately run along the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula and San.” A kind of response to the Soviet-German pact was the treaty between Poland and Great Britain on mutual assistance of August 25, 1939. The document contained mutual promises of military assistance if one of the parties was attacked by any European power. On the same day, Hitler moved the date of the attack on Poland from August 26 to September 1 and sent a negotiator to London. This was not a German diplomat, but a Swedish citizen, Birger Dahlerus, a close friend of Heinrich Goering. Dahlerus traveled from Berlin to London several times before August 30, 1939, where he even met with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. But it was not possible to reach a compromise on the Polish issue. STRANGE WAR. "THE OPPONENTS ARE PATHETIC PEOPLE" On the morning of September 1, 1939, German and Slovak troops (the latter included units of Ukrainian nationalists under the command of Roman Sushko ) crossed the borders of Poland. Hitler did not expect Warsaw's Western allies to enter the war, expecting that Poland would repeat the fate of Czechoslovakia. At a conference on August 22, 1939, specifically devoted to Poland, he declared: "Our opponents are miserable little people, I was convinced of that in Munich. Now it has become even more likely that the West will not intervene. Therefore, we must take the risk with iron restraint." The Fuhrer guessed only partially. On September 3, 1939, France and Great Britain declared war on the Third Reich. But it was very strange from the very beginning: French troops crossed the border into the Saar Basin on September 6-7 and pushed back the advanced German units. But the depth of the attack was only 1 km, the French actions were very slow, and the Allied air forces were completely inactive. And already on September 12, 1939, French troops stopped their offensive altogether. On the same day, at the first meeting of the Supreme War Council of Great Britain and France in the Piccard town of Abbeville, chaired by Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, a decision was made to abandon the promised actions of ground forces on the Western Front to Poland and the British air raids on Germany. Warsaw was not informed of the decision taken in Abbeville by its Western allies, who had previously pushed Poland into war. Moreover, the next day, the commander of the French military mission in Poland, Louis Faury, informed the Chief of the Polish General Staff, General Wacław Stachiewicz, that the planned full-scale offensive on the Western Front had to be postponed from 17 to 20 September. But no offensive was planned, and the French divisions were ordered to retreat to their barracks behind the Maginot Line. HOW RIBBENTROP CONVINCED MOLOTOV It is worth noting that from the very beginning of the Polish campaign, Germany was pushing the USSR to take control of its "sphere of interest" in Poland. Thus, on September 3, 1939, Ribbentrop sent a telegram to the German ambassador in Moscow, Werner von der Schulenburg, which, in particular, said: "Please discuss immediately with Molotov and find out whether the Soviet Union considers it desirable for Russian armed forces to intervene at the appropriate moment against Polish armed forces in the area of the Russian sphere of interests..." On September 9, Ribbentrop seemed to have succeeded. During a meeting with Molotov, Schulenburg received information: the USSR would soon begin introducing troops into Poland. But a few hours later, when it became clear in Moscow that the German message about the beginning of the battle for Warsaw was false, the Soviet decision was cancelled. On September 10, at a meeting with Schulenburg, who emphasized the need to activate the Red Army as quickly as possible, Molotov stated that the Soviet side would need “two to three weeks” to prepare for action. Molotov also noted that intervention by the Soviet side was possible as a reaction to the further advance of German troops, to protect Ukrainians and Belarusians from the “German threat,” but this was currently impossible due to the latest reports from the German news agency DNB. The message mentioned by Molotov quoted Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch as saying that “further military action on the eastern borders of Germany is no longer required.” Such statements, Molotov noted, create the impression that a Polish-German armistice would soon be concluded – and in this case the USSR would not start a “new war.” However, this was a political game. On September 11, the Belorussian and Kiev special military districts received an order to deploy field administrations of the districts to the Belorussian and Ukrainian fronts. GALICIAN "GASKET" At the same time, on September 12, 1939, at a special meeting on Hitler’s train, issues regarding Poland and the Ukrainian population of this country were discussed. According to Hitler’s plans, it was necessary to create “spacer states” loyal to the Third Reich on the border with the USSR between “Asia” and the “West”: Ukraine (on the territory of Galicia and Volyn), a territorially reduced “Polish” quasi-state modeled on Slovakia, and Lithuania. On September 15, the head of the Abwehr (German military intelligence) Wilhelm Canaris noted in his diary that the Fuhrer had chosen a course to create a “Ukrainian state” and he would have to organize an “uprising” through the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)*. And the final "Polish question" will be resolved by "making peace" with an "independent Polish state" that will be created from the remaining territories. Later, German radio reported that " the German armed forces have no hostile relations with the Ukrainian population in Poland." It is difficult to say whether such plans were real or a bluff aimed at accelerating the introduction of Soviet troops into Poland, preparations for which were already in full swing. "TO AVOID INCIDENTS" On September 14, the Belorussian and Kiev military districts received directives from the People's Commissar of Defense Klim Voroshilov and the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Boris Shaposhnikov "On the beginning of the offensive against Poland." At 2 a.m. on September 17, 1939, Stalin received Schulenburg and informed him of the imminent advance of the Red Army. “In order to avoid incidents,” Stalin proposed to the German leadership to stop the advance of German troops and withdraw the units that had broken through to the Bialystok-Brest-Lvov line, and also to prohibit German aviation from flying east of this line. An hour later, the above-mentioned note was handed to the Polish ambassador Grzybowski. It stated, among other things, that the Red Army would take “under its protection the lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.” The same argument was repeated in Molotov's radio speech on the same day. THE BEGINNING OF THE CAMPAIGN. THE RED ARMY "DISORIENTS" THE POLES The total number of Soviet troops at the beginning of the operation was: in the Belorussian Military District more than 200,000, in the Kiev Military District more than 265,000 soldiers and commanders. The soldiers were told that they were going to Western Belarus and Western Ukraine not as conquerors, but as liberators of their Ukrainian and Belarusian brothers from oppression, exploitation and the power of landowners and capitalists. The Lithuanians were not mentioned, despite their subsequent occupation of Vilno and the Vilnius region. The term "Liberation Campaign" appeared in Soviet terminology later - at the beginning of 1940. Also, the generally accepted name for this operation became the "Polish Campaign" of the Red Army. As of September 17, 1939, there were about 340,000 Polish soldiers in the eastern voivodeships of Poland. These were mostly the remnants of units defeated by the Germans or territorial divisions being formed. Directly on the border there were up to 25 battalions and 7 squadrons of the Border Guard Corps (BGC) - about 12,000 people. As subsequent events showed, the most active participants in the fighting were units of the KOP, gendarmerie, Polish colonists who received land in Galicia and Volyn for free, and members of paramilitary organizations. The Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, gave the order on the radio on the evening of September 17 “not to engage in combat with the Soviets, only in the event of an attempt on their part to disarm our units… units to whose location the Soviets have approached must negotiate with them with the aim of allowing the garrisons to leave for Romania or Hungary.” As General Vaclav Stachewicz recalled, the Polish units were "disoriented by the behavior of the Bolsheviks" because they generally avoided opening fire, and their commanders "claimed that they had come to help Poland against the Germans." The Soviet soldiers, for the most part, did not shoot, treated ours with demonstrative sympathy, shared cigarettes, etc., and repeated everywhere that they were coming to help Poland, the general noted. "YOU ARE SLAVS..." September 17, 1939 was effectively the last day of the existence of the Second Polish Republic, as interwar Poland was called. The country's president, Ignacy Moscicki, who was at that time in the Carpathian town of Kosiv, announced the transfer of his residence and all the highest organs of power "to the territory of one of our allies." In the evening of the same day, he crossed the border of Romania together with the Polish government, and on the night of September 17-18, Marshal Rydz-Śmigły left Poland along the same route together with the command of the Polish army. According to Molotov’s figurative formulation in his speech at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on October 31, 1939, “nothing remains of this ugly brainchild of the Versailles Treaty, which lived off the oppression of non-Polish nationalities.” Organized resistance to the Red Army units that lasted more than a day was shown only in a few cases: in the cities of Vilno, Grodno, Ternopil, the villages of Navuz and Borovichi near Kovel, and in the Sarny fortified region. Lvov, which was under siege by German troops on September 17, was officially surrendered to the Red Army on September 22 by the city garrison commander, General Vladislav Langner. According to legend, after signing the surrender protocol, General Langner said: “We are fighting Germany. The city fought them for 10 days. They, the Germans, are the enemies of all Slavs. You are Slavs…”. THE RESULT OF THE TRIP. "LIKE AN OLD ROTTEN CART" As a result of the “Polish campaign”, an area of 196,000 square kilometers (50.4% of the territory of Poland) with a population of about 13 million people came under the control of the USSR. It was almost entirely within the Curzon Line, recommended in 1918 by the Entente as Poland's eastern border. The territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were annexed to the Ukrainian and Belarusian SSRs in November 1939. The Vilnius region, together with the city of Vilno (now Vilnius), was transferred to Lithuania on October 10, 1939. As a military operation, the Red Army's "Polish Campaign" lasted from September 17 to 29, with losses on the Soviet side being quite insignificant - just over 1,000 killed, 2,000 wounded and 300 missing. On the Polish side, 3,500 were killed, up to 20,000 were missing, and 250,000 to 450,000 were captured. Overall, the operation was perceived as a model for any future war that the USSR would start whenever it wanted and would end victoriously and easily. In a celebratory order on November 7, 1939, the USSR People's Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov asserted that "the Polish state, at the very first military clash, fell apart like an old rotten cart." True, there was a man in the Soviet leadership who tried to at least partly cool the euphoria. “The Polish campaign did us terrible harm, it spoiled us. Our army did not immediately understand that the war in Poland was a military stroll, not a war,” said Joseph Stalin at a meeting of the high command on April 17, 1940, after a much less successful campaign in Finland. And later, many participants in the Great Patriotic War noted in their memoirs the enormous harm inflicted on the army and society by the overweening attitudes after the “Polish campaign”. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 ...And Poland has never forgotten a minute of it. Mike |
| Posted by: MikeKozlowski 2024-09-18 16:56 |
| #1 Ah. The Poles are the troublemakers. Now I understand. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2024-09-18 10:15 |