Fighting two enemies

	Fighting two enemies

According to the outlines of the defence plan, the Republic of Poland was to wage war with Germany in coalition with France and Great Britain. For this reason the Polish Army was to effectively resist the enemy until the initiation of the anticipated allied offensive in the west, to inflict possibly high casualties upon the aggressor's troops and to engage its main forces, which would then make it easier for the allies to launch an offensive. Thus, the primary aim was not to keep control over any specific territory, although for political and economic reasons it was intended for the nothernmost and westernmost regions to be defended. (i.e. Silesia, Pomerania, Wielkopolska).

The declared mobilization enabled the Poles to develop seven armies and one detached Operational Group. After completion of the mobilization process the Polish Army was to comprise, amongst others: 39 divisions and 3 infantry brigades, 11 cavalry brigades, as well as 2 armoured-mechanized brigades. The mobilized army amounted to over 1 million soldiers, equipped with around 880 combat vehicles, 4300 pieces of artillery and 400 aircraft, in the first line.

Preparing themselves for this aggression, the German troops formed two army groupings: "North" (2 armies) and "South" (3 armies). Their task was to destroy Polish forces before reaching the line of great rivers (the Bug-Narew, the Vistula and the San) and thus preventing the local German - Polish conflict being transformed into a world war.

The German army concentrated for operations in Poland amounted to 1.85 million soldiers, supported by approximately 2800 combat vehicles, around 10,000 pieces of artillery and almost 2100 aircraft. It comprised: 44 infantry divisions, 4 motorized divisions, 7 armoured divisions, 4 light divisions and 1 cavalry brigade. All the fast formations the Germans had at their disposal were concentrated along the Polish border. In the west only a few infantry divisions remained, mostly of inferior quality, with vastly inferior equipment.
 

At 4:45a.m. on 1 September, the German army, without declaring war, launched an attack across their entire border with Poland. It is worth noting, however, that in some parts of the country fighting started even earlier - not to mention the clashes with German saboteurs which began in the evening of 31 August. For instance, a German air raid on the town of Wieluń took place at 4:40, while one on Tczew was as early as at 4:36. In particular, the air raid on Wieluń was purely terroristic in character, for the town lacked any Polish military units or formations, so its victims were entirely civilian. The city was 70% destroyed and over 1200 inhabitants were killed.

The Luftwaffe's attacks on defenceless towns and villages, hospitals, columns of refugees, or even people working in their fields, lasted throughout the entire campaign.

From the very beginning of operations, Polish troops offered strong resistance. Near the village of Mokra (in the Częstochowa area), soldiers of the Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade effectively stopped the attack of the 4th Armoured Division. In the course of the battle, which lasted the entire day, the Poles destroyed over 100 enemy combat vehicles - of which 40-50 were tanks. In spite of the losses suffered they maintained combat ability. On 2nd September they still effectively suppressed the movements of this division and, on the next day - also of the troops belonging to the 1st Armoured Division.

In Pomerania intensive fighting took place in the Tuchola Forest, with the cavalry attack near Krojanty becoming quite legendary. It was launched by detached troops of the 18th cavalry regiment, against the troops from the 20th Motorized Division. This brave Polish attack on the enemy's infantry caused part of Gen. Heinz Guderian's 19th Armoured Corps to go on the defensive.
 

On 3 September saboteurs, attempting to take control of the city of Bydgoszcz, shot at the withdrawing Polish troops. As a result of a counteraction, by 5 September approx. 300 Germans were killed in combat or shot on the verdicts of military courts. In an act of revenge, after the arrival of the Wehrmacht on 10 September, around 1500 Poles were killed in street executions, and several thousand more were killed later on. Falsifying the events of 3rd September, the Germans nicknamed this day "Bloody Sunday".

The Germans met with strong resistance to the north of Warsaw, on the fortified position near Mława. The Polish 20th Infantry Division and the Mazowiecka Cavalry Brigade were attacked by five infantry divisions, one armoured division and one cavalry brigade belonging to the 3rd Army. The fights lasted there from the first day of the war until 4 September, with both sides suffering heavy losses, amounting to 5000 soldiers.
 

Due to the vast German superiority, resulting from having a greater number of well-equipped troops, as well as the operational initiative, the Polish "Kraków" Army commenced to withdraw from the outskirts of Kraków as early as on the night of 2/3 September. As a consequence it led to the withdrawal of the entire Polish Army along the western stretch of the front.

On 3 September the governments of France and Great Britain declared war against Germany. Thus, the invasion of Poland turned into a European conflict and Hitler's plan, which had assumed the political isolation of the "Polish offensive", collapsed already on the third day of the war.

By then, however, the Germans gained a major military superiority across the entire Polish front. After disbanding the second echelon of the "Prusy" Army near Piotrków Trybunalski and Tomaszów Mazowiecki, the 4 Armoured Army reached the outskirts of the capital as early as the evening of 8 September. The attack on Warsaw launched on the next day collapsed and in the fight with the defenders the division lost several dozen combat vehicles and went on the defensive.

On other stretches of the front the German troops crossed the line of the rivers: the Narew (6 September, near Różan) and the Bug (9 September) in the north, reaching the Vistula in the centre and the San in the south.

At this point it is worth to mention the heroic stance of Capt. Władysław Raginis' formation (720 men, 6 guns) near Wizna, at the river Narew. From 7 until 10 September it resisted the entire 19th Armoured Corps (2 armoured divisions, 1 motorized division, 1 infantry brigade), with several thousand soldiers and 160 tanks in its first echelon.
 

On 9 September the "Poznań" Army, commanded by General Kutrzeba, attacked the German 8th Army at the river Bzura. In the next days its attack was reinforced by the forces of the "Pomorze" Army. The Poles disbanded the enemy's 30th Infantry Division while the other units of the 8th Army suffered heavy losses and started to withdraw. In that area the Polish Army gained operational initiative.

The Polish attack at Bzura surprised the Germans. They were forced to bring in additional forces, not only from the 8th Army, but also from the 4th and 10th Armies. In effect, a relative stabilization of the front followed along the line of the river Vistula. The Poles thus gained time for reorganizing their previously disbanded or dispersed troops.

The "Poznań" and "Pomorze" armies' attack at Bzura had the effect of lengthening the duration of hostilities on Polish territory. It was a significant factor from the point of view of the anticipated (expected in the forthcoming days) offensive of the western allies.

The battle at Bzura and then the withdrawal of the remaining troops towards Warsaw, in order to reinforce the capital's defences, lasted until 22nd September. These actions were accompanied by activities of the following German units: 2 armoured divisions, 3 light divisions, 1 motorized division as well as 12 infantry divisions and one brigade. On the Polish side, 8 infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades took part. It was the greatest battle of the Word War II of the entire war - in fact, until the fighting in the USSR in 1941.

In spite of the engagement of large number of troops and units at Bzura, on the other stretches of the front, the Wehrmacht was still moving forward. In the south they even reached the city of Lwów - far to the east, and commenced a siege (12th September). In the centre they reached the Lublin area, while the 19th Armoured Corps, attacking from the north, reached the city of Brześć on the river Bug. The Germans appeared also on the eastern outskirts of the capital, Warsaw.

In this situation the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshall Rydz-Śmigły took the decision to organize the defence on the so-called Romanian bridgehead, in the south-eastern part of the country. They were to head the armed formations from other parts of the country in order to wait until the offensive in the west had commenced (the general attack was to start before 17th September), after which the concentrated remaining troops were to launch a counter-offensive.

By mid-September the pace at which the German forces were progressing slowed down noticeably. The armoured and mechanized units were short of fuel as well as ammunition; troops were overtired with the intensive fighting and marching. The activities of the air force were also diminishing. The German troops, which until then had managed to take control over almost half of the country, reached areas with an inferior road network, which made the use of the "fast" units more difficult. The Polish Army, although defeated, still had large forces, amounting to about 500,000 soldiers. In such conditions the front could become stabilized, which would have had unfavourable consequences for the Wehrmacht.

Realising that the political and military situation was getting more complicated, the leadership of the Third Reich exerted pressure on the Soviet authorities, insisting on their military intervention in Poland. Eventually the Soviets decided to launch an attack in the morning of 17 September.

This new aggression came as a surprise to the Polish authorities, since they had expected that during the Polish - German fighting the Soviet Union would maintain neutrality. On that assumption the Polish forces along the Soviet border had been reduced to a minimum. Protection of the border was provided by the formations of the border corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza), whereas numerous reinforcements were moved towards the centre of the country.
 

The Soviet troops commenced their concentration across the Polish border in the first days of September. The Soviets organized two fronts: Belarussian and Ukrainian (7 armies and 1 horse/mechanized group). They consisted, amongst others, of 2 corps as well as 12 armoured brigades, 18 infantry divisions and 13 cavalry divisions. The forces numbered around 470,000 soldiers and had at their disposal, among others, around 5500 combat vehicles, and were reinforced almost every day.

Under those circumstances the Polish troops were not able to effectively resist the new aggressor. The Soviet army was attacking across the entire border. In the south, breaking the resistance of the KOP "Czortków" regiment, they entered the "Romanian bridgehead" threatening the safety of the country's highest rank authorities who had been evacuated there: the president, government and the Supreme Commander.

Facing the threat of Soviet captivity, which would entail serious political complications, the Polish authorities crossed the Romanian border on the night of 17/18 September, where they were duly interned. Realising that the battle on Polish soil had been lost, the Supreme Commander issued an order for the troops still fighting, to make an attempt to cross the country's borders.

Despite being largely disorientated, the Polish formations took up the fight with the Soviets. The area around the town of Sarny in the Polesie district was an arena of serious clashes: volunteers and few regular troops of the army defended the city of Grodno (20/21 September); battles were waged near the village of Kodziowce (21/22 September), near Władypol (27 September), Szack (28 September), Milanów (30 September) and Wytyczno (1 October).

This Soviet aggression, accompanied by the simultaneous dropping of an offensive by the western allies, effectively determined the fate of the campaign in Poland. The Polish troops, often surrounded by the Germans from one side and by the Soviets from the other, were successively forced to capitulate.

The garrison of Lwów surrendered to the Soviets (22 September), the troops fighting in the area near Tomaszów Lubelski surrendered to the Germans (27 September), as well as the troops defending the capital and Modlin (28/29 September). The last battle of the campaign was waged by the Detached Operational Group (SGO) "Polesie", commanded by General Franciszek Kleeberg near Kock (1st - 6th October). Surrounded by the Germans and the Soviets, they laid down their weapons to the Wehrmacht troops. This group was the last formation of the Polish Army fighting in the 1939 campaign.

It is worth remembering the defence of the seaboard. The fighting on land, sea and in the air had been going on there since 1st September. The main defended areas included Gdynia, Westerplatte, a military depot on the territory of Gdańsk (from 1 until 7 September) and the Hel peninsula. Personnel of the naval garrison on this peninsula laid down their weapons on 2 October.

The fact that volunteers from Hungary and Czechoslovakia also fought on the Polish side, and their formations shared the fate of the Polish Army troops is little known.
 

Material losses inflicted upon the Germans were large and amounted to: 993 combat vehicles, over 500 aircraft (of which almost 300 irreversibly), around 370 guns and mortars. By the commencement of the offensive in the west, i.e. by May 1940, the German industry effectively managed only to compensate for the losses suffered by the Wehrmacht in Poland.

In the course of this campaign the Germans applied unprecedented methods of breaking the resistance that had been unknown until then. They bombed cities, shot prisoners of war as well as civilians. Sabotage was organized on a large scale, and for the first time the armoured forces and air force were used on a massive scale.

On the night of 28/29 September a treaty "about borders and friendship" was signed in Moscow between Germany and the USSR. The main consequence of the treaty was marking out of the new border between the two states. It was to run along the rivers: Pisa, Narew, Bug and San. A part of the Polish Republic, with an area of 201,000 (out of 389,000) square kilometres, and inhabited by around 14 million people (out of almost 35 million) was thus incorporated into the Soviet Union.
 

 

Emblems of the Polish Army units (until 1939)

 

Edward Rydz-Śmigły, the Marshall of Poland (1886-1941) (1886-1941) During the World War I he had served in the Polish Legions, later was nominated to general commander of the Polish Military Organisation (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa). From 1918 he was in the Polish Army, and during the Polish-Bolshevik war (1919-1920) he was commander of a division, then of an operational group, the army and front. From 1935 he was the General Inspector of the Armed Forces. In 1936 he received the highest military rank - The Marshall of Poland. In 1939 he became the Supreme Commander. After the Soviet invasion he crossed over into Romania, where he was interned. In 1940 he fled to Hungary, from where he managed to return to Poland. He attempted to undertake activity in the resistance movement. He died on 2 December 1941 in Warsaw. He was decorated, amongst others, with the 2 and 5 class Virtuti Militari orders, with the American Military Pulaski's Order, and the French 1st class Honorable League.

 

The forces of the 1939 campaign Polish Army: - 1 000 000 soldiers, - around 880 combat vehicles, - around 4300 pieces of artillery, - around 400 aircraft. LOSSES: - around 210 000 killed and woundedh, - around 650 000 prisoners of war, - almost the entire equipment (small parts were evacuated abroad). Wehrmacht: - 1 850 000 soldiers, - around 2800 combat vehicles, - around 10 000 pieces of artillery, - around 2100 aircraft. LOSSES: - around 45 000 killed and wounded, - 993 combat vehicles, - around 370 guns and mortars, - 521 aircraft. Red Army (after 17 September its forces were gradually reinforced): - around 470 000 soldiers, - around 5500 combat vehicles, - over 1000 aircraft. LOSSES: - several thousand killed and wounded, - several dozens of combat vehicles, - 10 - 20 aircrafts.

 

1939 campaign in Poland