Battle of Warsaw, 1920
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Modern Era
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4 comments
| Mikhail Tukhachevsky versus Jozef Pilsudski: A Soviet army under Tukhachevsky tries to break the defensive lines of a Polish army under Pilsudski. Can Pilsudski’s risky master plan save the capital? Also known as the Miracle at the Vistula. Click on images below to view; first image opens video presentation and second image opens PowerPoint presentation. | Legend |
Desperate, fearful men fought on both sides in this forgotten struggle for Eastern Europe. The prospect of what would happen if either side suffered defeat was well-known in all ranks.
Tactically, the battle seems simple: Tukhacevsky and Yegorov did not cooperate and therefore a wide – literal – rift developed between their two army groups which Pilsudski exploited to roll up the Soviet line from the south. Logistically, the battle is very complicated; Pilsudski was able to organize his logistics satisfactorily enough to actually launch his decisive offensive while Tukhachevsky was not. Western historians cringe at the thought of what would have happened had the Soviet horde been a more organized horde and launched its decisive offensive before Pilsudski.
 The battle was relatively easy to animate compared with other massive, modern battles such as Mukden. As is typically the case, I spent more time determining the strength and casualties of each side. One issue was the fact that my animation featured only the northern half of a wider strategic campaign and so I was forced to do my own arithmetic. Fuller’s Decisive Battles of the Western World was specific as to the size of formations so I only had to subtract the formations not shown in the animation. I was therefore confronted with a casualty figure that exceeded the total number of Soviet soldiers involved. Szymczak put forward the most reasonable casualty figures in “Polish Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw” but these include the wider Warsaw campaign which I was not animating. Nonetheless, I converted these numbers to a percentage and arrived at the figures you see in the animation. Are they exact? Absolutely not. However, they serve their purpose.
- Jonathan Webb
Works Consulted
Dupuy, Trevor N. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present, Fourth Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Fuller, J.F.C. The Decisive Battles of the Western World Vol. 3. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956.
Goodenough, Simon. Tactical Genius in Battle. Oxford: Phodian Press, 1979.
Szymczak, Robert. “Polish-Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw.” History Net. http://www.historynet.com/polish-soviet-war-battle-of-warsaw.htm (accessed Nov. 15, 2008).
Watt, Richard M. Bitter Glory: Poland and its Fate 1918-1939. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.
Images
Jozef Pilsudski: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Pi%C5%82sudski
Mikhail Tukhachevsky: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tukhachevsky
Polish soldiers: http://www.palha.info/20thinf.html
Soviet soldiers: http://www.firstworldwar.com/photos/troops.htm
Tell a Friend:
            Tags: 1900s, armour, attack from a defensive position, Eastern Europe, envelopment of a single flank, infantry, Jozef Pilsudski, land, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, modern day Poland, Modern Era, penetration of the center, Poles, Russo-Polish War, Season 3, Soviets
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4 Comments to “Battle of Warsaw, 1920”
Russians have this inane ability of REPEATEDLY sabotaging each other at the expense of Russian Troops in the field.
GEN Samsonov PUBLICALLY ATTACKED GEN Rennenkampf for not coming to his rescue at MUKDEN 1905. Their ‘hate fest’ for each other was gleefully noted by GEN Hindenberg who bet the farm that GEN Rennenkampf would not do anything to help his arch enemy which was a major factor as to why 2D army was surrounded and destroyed at the battle of Tannenberg (Allenstein).
Fast forward six years later to the Battle of Warsaw 1920. Your article did not do justice to the ‘lost cause’ the Poles were in. Gen Pilsudski had no reserves, had no ammo left and morale was at an all time low. GEN Pilsudski’s decision to throw a ‘hail mary’ pass and assult up the middle was mocked at my Marshall Tukhachevsky, GEN Weygran (FR Attachee), the Polish GEN Staff and field Commanders. Prior to sending up the order, GEN Pilsudski submitted his letter of resignation and remarked “What I do is madness–sheer madness”.
So who lost the battle of (communist) Tours? Budyunne and Stalin who decided to pillage an obscure village than provide reserve support. The gambit worked and Western Europe was saved (until 1945-1989). Marshall Tukhachevsky never forgave Stalin for the screw up and Stalin never forgave Tukhachevsky for the his screw-up. Payback came in 1938 when Stalin had Tukhavchesky arrested and shot and appointed his drinking buddy Budyunne as Southern Front Commander. What was Budyunne’s comment during the Great Purge. I have nothing to worry about—Comrad Stalin only kills smart people!!!
By Debauchee69 on Jun 5, 2010 at 7:46 pm
The victory of reactionary Rightist, imperialist forces here over the Soviet workers’ state, long before developments like this major defeat weakened it (this counter-attack *was* taken in response to imperialist aggression, after all — and it was carried thru with the express aim of linking up with the revolutionists in Germany and in the West) — and which led directly to the degeneration known as stalinism — is not something to crow over and be proud of. i.e.: the article should be a little more objective. Fair and balanced, even. If this is possible here.
By Vlad Lenin on Jun 5, 2010 at 11:03 pm
Vlad, sorry mate, but you seem to be a little uneducated about what Bolshevism really was.
See the Bolshevik invasion of Georgia in 1921 for details, and the mass killings, deportations and oppressions of Georgians that followed, all under Lenin one might add.
Lenin was no better than Stalin, and many contemporaries of both stated that Stalin was “soft” in comparison.
Bolshevism was always going to end in the horrors of the GULAG, I suggest you read Solzhenitsyn for details, or talk to people who survived the system, like my wifes relatives.
As for the Russian assault being a counter attack, more Russophile BS. The Poles were attempting to liberate predominantly Polish populations from the barbaric yoke of Russian imperialism.
God bless the Poles for saving Europe from a system that killed even more people than Nazism (Lenin killed more people than Hitler BTW), Russian bolshevism was responsible for 61,000,000 deaths 1917-1991.
By Andrew on Feb 22, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Vlad and Andrew bring up an interesting question here: which battles’ results should we be “proud” of?
In the case of Warsaw, I felt I provided an objective account which left the above question up the viewer. I did specify that the war began when Poland attacked the Soviet Union but mentioned that the battle is also know as the “Miracle of the Vistula,” a phrase with strong connotations.
To answer the question I have put into words above, I find it difficult to favour any factions throughout history even if they fought against a Soviet system which was, as Andrew mentioned, responsible for a great number of deaths. However, if we begin to examine each factions’ history closely, some peculiar issues arise. For example, are we to view the German victory over Belgium in 1914 as saving the Congo from a murderous system? Between 1880-1920, Belgian actions were responsible for the deaths of 10-13 million Congolese, overshadowing in numerical terms the Nazi genocide in Europe years later. How are we to view the American Revolutionary War fought between the United States and Britain? Are we to cheer for the United States, eventually responsible for the Native American genocide which, “in terms of the sheer numbers killed, the Native American Genocide exceeds that of the Holocaust” (Cesarini, 2004: 381); or do we cheer for Britain, the greatest and arguably most destructive imperialist power of all time?
History is not a simple thing to confront. If there is a deeper goal of this site and the field of military history, it is to remind us that systems and ideas were founded on (and often maintained by) the results of violence, not moral validity.
By Jonathan Webb on Jul 10, 2011 at 12:28 am