My own rough outline of Polish-Soviet forces on the eve of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920. I used my h

My own rough outline of Polish-Soviet forces on the eve of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920. I used my horrible editing skills to outline where the rough respective positions of the Soviets and Poles were on the map in order to demonstrate the strategic power of the Pripet Marshes and how the Poles took advantage of them in a way that was very similar to the earlier Battle of Tannenberg. The red outline shows the Soviet forces, yellow shows Polish forces. The region of Polesia is depicted on the map, as the Pripet Marshes, so named because they’re formed by the River Pripet. One can clearly see that they so divided Eastern Poland so that one had to move either north or south of the marshes. Now in early 1920 Pilsudski launched an offensive into the Ukraine to the south of the marshes, where he faced Soviet General Aleksandr Illyich Yegorov. This offensive initially went well. Pilsudski took Kiev, and with Semyon Vasilievich Petliura declared the Ukrainian People’s Republic. So far so good. But things were to go downhill. Pilsudski was alarmed by how rapidly the Soviets were retreating. He had in fact defeated few Russian forces, mostly just isolated garrisons. The young Charles de Gaulle was volunteering with the Poles and spoke enthusiastically of Poland’s mastery of movement and mobile warfare. But Pilsudski was not nearly so elated. He was afraid. He knew that he was moving so quickly because he simply wasn’t meeting any resistance. The Soviets were running away. Trotsky had a plan, and this plan is precisely what Pilsudski was frightened of, though he knew not what it consisted of. The plan was simply to draw the Poles into the Ukraine. East of Kiev the Poles engaged Semyon Mikhailovich Budyenny, a legendary cossack whose fast moving cavalry burst through the Polish lines and created havoc in their rear. While Yegorov and Budyenny were playing games with the Poles, Trotsky’s masterstroke fell like a hammer on Poland. Starting just around Minsk, some 40 Soviet divisions under Marshal Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky began a massive Soviet offensive north of the Pripet Marshes. When it became clear what the deal was, Pilsudski’s army collapsed and ran back to Poland as fast as it could. Tukhachevsky didn’t bother trying to prevent the Poles from returning, but instead drove everything before him like he was marching in a victory parade ceremoniously towards Warsaw. Fortunately the Pripet Marshes continued to keep Yegorov and Tukhachevsky separated. Pilsudski hastily cobbled together a front to hold back Yegorov, while shifting everything he had to Warsaw. Pilsudski ordered Haller to hold Warsaw and the fortress of Modlin protecting the northern crossing of the Vistula to prevent the Russians from encircling the city. Meanwhile he himself gave Yegorov the slip, the latter remaining south of the Pripet Marshes, much to the east, engaged in the Battle of Lwów (German: Lemberg, Ukrainian:Lviv, now in the Ukraine). When Tukhachevsky arrived outside Warsaw, he planned to repeat Ivan Paskievitch’s plan of 1831, to cross the Vistula to the north near Wloclawek (Paskievitch had crossed farther north, in Thorn, which was then part of Prussia who was allied with Russia), and attack Warsaw from the rear, from the northwest. Unlike Paskievitch who crossed the Vistula unopposed using Prussian territory, Tukhachevsky would have to force his way over the river. For this his effective command was reduced to 24 divisions, most of which would be hurled at Modlin. Red Army forces pushed against Modlin and towards Warsaw, entering the suburbs of the capital and engaging in tough close quarters fighting that severely stretched the Poles. Everything was going according to plan for the Russians. Then suddenly the Polish Sixth Army under the personal command of Pilsudski erupted on the Russian left (southern) flank, smashing through to the rear of the Soviet forces. The surprised Soviets quickly responded to this threat, but Polish forces under Haller in the west, and the Fifth Army under Wladyslaw Sikorski struck at the Russians from the north and west. Soon the Russians were caught in a pincer and their entire Western Front was disintegrating. Tukhachevsky back in Minsk realised the gravity of the situation and ordered a full-scale retreat. It rapidly turned into a rout. Desperate to maintain a solid front west of the Pripet Marshes, Tukhachevsky intended to stand on the Nieman at Grodno, but was defeated at the Battle of the Nieman. With the Soviet Western Front under Tukhachevsky driven north and east of the marshes, the Poles turned to deal with Yegorov and Budyenny, coincidentally joined by Joseph Stalin as political commissar. At Komarów the Polish cavalry under Juliusz Rómmel defeated the “Red Cossack” Budyenny rendering the position of Yegorov untenable. The Soviets had been defeated in detail by a daring flank assault as Pilsudski had planned. Most contemporaries were stunned. The French “advisors” had not deemed it possible. Weygand and others had mocked Pilsudski’s plan as “amateurish.” Yet he had achieved a startling victory as decisive as that of any French general of the First World War, on par with the Marne itself. Trotsky’s genius was thwarted by Pilsudki’s. His whole plan was to keep Pilsudski south of the marshes while Tukhachevsky struck north of them. It’s interesting to note that neither Trotsky or Pilsudski had any formal military education, but had learned their trade by doing. Leon Trotsky proved to be a brilliant organiser and an inspiring leader. He personally took charge of the Red forces in Leningrad, which Lenin proposed to abandon but Trotsky rejected. In a strange irony Stalin and Kamenev threw their weight behind Trotsky against Lenin. Trotsky’s heroism was awarded the Red Banner. He greatly swelled the ranks of the Red Army, possessing charismatic appeal to the soldiers. In one instance there were a number of unenthusiastic deserters who had retreated from a battle, moving behind the lines, trudging along. Trotsky ran out exclaiming “Comrade deserters! Comrade Trotsky would like to have a word with you!” For over an hour Trotsky talked to them, and at the end they were cheering so loudly that Trotsky couldn’t hear himself speak. They all returned to the front to fight for the Reds. As the creator and the life force of the Red Army Trotsky was instrumental in Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, and his position as head of the army caused him to be demonised even more than Lenin for some time, with many propaganda posters depicting Trotsky as Satan. But for all his achievements, he was defeated by Pilsudski which was perhaps the most bitter disappointment of the Bolsheviks. Stalin and Yegorov blamed Trotsky and Tukhachevsky for the defeat, the latter being compelled to defend themselves. Some date Stalin’s rivalry with Trotsky at this point, and it’s interesting to note that both Trotsky and Tukhachevsky were killed by Stalin later. So in some measure it can be said that not only did Pilsudski save Europe, but he created a dangerous division in the Bolshevik Party which was to result in a bloody contest of wills after Lenin’s death, that was to ultimately lead to the domination of Stalin. On the map you can see where Pilsudski was. Between the Vistula and the Bug, north of Lublin around the city of Siedlce. To the south lay the Soviet Southwestern Front under Yegorov, around the city of Lwów whose communications stretched to Tarnopol and thence eastwards into the Ukraine. To the north, forming an arch from Warsaw northeast to Bialystok, thence to Grodno and on to Minsk in Belarus; was the Soviet Western Front commanded by Tukhachevsky. The Poles and the Pripet Marshes lay in between the two Soviet fronts, especially the fortresses of Lublin and Kowel. Tukhachevsky took Brest(-Litovsk) on the Bug, but did not continue south. The Poles were able to strike Tukhachevsky from the west and the south while Yegorov was unable to help him. Then later the Poles turned south to deal with Yegorov. One at a time. -- source link
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