Summary

The Battle of Warsaw, customarily referred to as the Miracle on the Vistula - a military operation fought from August 13-25, 1920 between the Red Army advancing on Warsaw and northwest of it and the Polish Army, grouped on the Vistula and Wieprz rivers, the decisive battle of the Polish-Bolshevik war.

Finding themselves in a critical situation, at the threshold of a defeat expected by many, Polish Army units managed to repel and defeat the advancing forces of the Red Army's Western Front, commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The victory of the Polish side in the battle radically changed the course of the war, preserved the independence of the resurgent Republic of Poland, and derailed Soviet plans to establish a Soviet republic in Poland, an offensive into Western Europe and plans to spark an international revolution.

The key role was played by the Polish Army's counteroffensive against the left wing of the Red Army advancing on Warsaw and north of it. The battle plan was developed according to the directive of Commander-in-Chief Jozef Pilsudski with the active participation of Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army Tadeusz Rozwadowski, and carried out by Commander-in-Chief Jozef Pilsudski, led out from above the Wieprz River on August 16, 1920, while tying up the main Bolshevik forces on the outskirts of Warsaw.

This was a turning point for the Polish side, which, since the end of the offensive on Kiev, had been forced into a chaotic retreat westward by Soviet troops. At the turn of July and August 1920, the situation of the Polish army was becoming critical. An attempt to stop the offensive of the Bolshevik forces on the Bug River line failed. At the beginning of August, the fortress of Brest was surrendered, and the Red Army gained an open road to Warsaw. Polish forces seemed close to collapse, and observers predicted a decisive Soviet victory. On August 6, Polish troops were ordered to retreat toward the Vistula River in order to regroup forces, prepare a counter-offensive and organize the defense of the capital. General Jozef Haller formed the Volunteer Army, and the position of Military Governor of Warsaw was assumed by General Franciszek Latinik.

The battle began on August 13, 1920, when the Red Army troops, led by Mikhail Tukhachevsky, approached Warsaw. The fighting took place in an area reaching south to Wlodawa on the Bug River, north to Dzialdowo. The defensive phase of the battles focused on General Jozef Haller's Northern Front. General Franciszek Latinik's 1st Army, although initially forced to retreat in the Radzymin area to a second line of defense between Nieporęt and Rembertów, eventually successfully halted the Soviet advance on the Warsaw foreground, while General Władysław Sikorski's Polish 5th Army took offensive action on the Wkra River on August 14.

The decisive blow to the Northern Front of the Red Army was dealt by the shock group of Commander-in-Chief Jozef Pilsudski, leading a counter-offensive from above the Wieprz River on August 16, breaking the positions of the weak Mozyr Group near Kock and Cycow, and then coming out to the rear of the Red Army, frontally attacking Warsaw. The Polish army's actions forced an unorganized retreat of the Red Army to the northeast. The Red Army suffered significant losses. From that point on, for weeks to come, the Polish Army remained on a permanent offensive. Polish forces shifted to pursuit operations, claiming successive victories.

According to British politician and diplomat Edgar D'Abernon, the Battle of Warsaw was one of the eighteen landmark battles in world history. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin called it a "tremendous defeat" for his forces. The Red Army's strategic defeat in the Polish-Bolshevik war was sealed in the battle on the Niemen River (September 20-28, 1920), which was victorious for the Polish Army and ultimately derailed plans for a renewed Red Army offensive against Poland.

In Polish historiography, the most established name for the battle is the Battle of Warsaw or, according to spelling rules, the Battle of Warsaw.

There is also the popular term Miracle on the Vistula. The creator of this phrase was Stanislaw Stronski, who on August 14, 1920 recalled the similarly dramatic position of France during World War I in September 1914, when the unexpected rejection of German troops from the outskirts of Paris was called the Miracle on the Marne. It was first used in public debate by Wincenty Witos and was eagerly raised by Pilsudski's political opponents, who questioned the Marshal's merits in preparing and carrying out the operation. With all this in mind, the phrase took on a religious connotation, as the Church (also hostile to the Marshal) very quickly picked up on the designation of the battle as a miracle and decided to combine its decisive day falling on August 16 with the day celebrated the day before, the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of the Polish Crown.

Both the name Battle of Warsaw and the name Miracle on the Vistula are opposed by Prof. Lech Wyszczelski, who instead proposes the term battle on the outskirts of Warsaw. As he stresses, it was not Warsaw that was the main target of the Soviet troops, no missile fell on it, and the hostilities were conducted over 450 kilometers.

Red Army

The commander-in-chief of the entire Red Army was Sergei Kamenev, reporting directly to Commissar of War and Navy (Narcovoyenmor) Lv Trotsky who was also (like Stalin) a member of the then five-member Politburo (politburo) consisting of: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev as full members, Pyatakov and Bukharin as deputy members.

The Red Army was pushing with forces grouped into two operational compounds:

Mikhail Tukhachevsky's Western Front participating in the Battle of Warsaw with political commissar Ivar Smilga:

The Southwest Front of Alexander Yegorov with political commissar Joseph Stalin, which did not take part in the Battle of Warsaw:

The armies of the two fronts were initially separated by a huge complex of Polesie swamps and interacted with each other in an extremely loose manner. As they advanced, the operational gap in the center of the grouping, filled only with weak formations, widened even further.

This occurred in defiance of the instructions of the Supreme Command of the Red Army on August 3 and 11, ordering the redeployment of significant forces of the Southwest Front (Budionny's Horse Army and Voskanov's 12th Army) from the Malopolska and Volyn areas of hostilities to the Warsaw direction.

The right wing of Tukhachevsky's army (Sergeyev's (Shuvaev) 4th Army and Gaia Corps) was given the task of capturing the area of Grudziądz and Toruń and forcing the Vistula from Dobrzyn to Wloclawek. The 15th Korka Army was also ordered to forsake the Vistula River (between Plock and Vyszogrod).

The center of Tukhachevsky's forces was directed to Modlin (Lazarievich's 3rd Army) and to Warsaw (Sollohub's 16th Army).

Covering the left wing of the 16th Army was entrusted to Timothy Khviesin's Mozyr group, approaching from Wlodawa over the Vistula River north of Deblin.

The main forces of the Southwest Front, meanwhile, were on the Strypa River (Molkochanov's 14th Army) and near Brody (Budionny's Horse Army) and were pushing toward Lviv, while Voskanov's 12th Army was forcing the Bug River south of Wlodawa.

Thus, most of the Western Front's forces were advancing in a northwesterly direction - north of Warsaw - and the bulk of the Southwest Front's forces were advancing in a southwesterly direction - toward Lvov.

A total of about 104-114,000 soldiers, 600 guns and more than 2,450 machine guns participated in the Battle of Warsaw alone.

Polish Army

The first step to strengthen the country's defense force was the establishment of the State Defense Council on July 3, 1920. "The decision in matters where the livelihood and lives of nations are at stake must be as swift and electrifying as the decision of those who carry death, the defenders of the country." Numerous volunteers began to arrive at the Council's appeal, bringing, in addition to "numerical strength," the moral strength resulting from the duty to defend the Fatherland. The number of volunteers was about 80,000 soldiers. Initially, it was intended to form a volunteer army, but Pilsudski decided to create battalions and only one volunteer division. Polish women also responded to the call, forming the Women's Legion, operating mainly in auxiliary services. A cavalry operations group was also created, and remnants of the 5th Siberian Division arrived from Siberia. In July, vintages from 1890 to 1894 were called into service, and at the crucial moments of August 1920, despite huge losses, the army's numbers exceeded 900,000 soldiers.

The Soviet armies were countered by the Supreme Command of the Polish Army with forces grouped into six armies and formations guarding the Vistula River from Toruń to Wyszogrod (the 20th Infantry Division - the former 2nd Lithuanian-Byelorussian Division), as well as reserve and volunteer battalions.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces was Jozef Pilsudski, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army was Tadeusz Rozwadowski. The Polish forces were divided by them into three fronts:

General Joseph Haller's Northern Front:

General Edward Smigly-Rydz's Central Front:

General Waclaw Iwaszkiewicz's Southern Front (manned the section from Brody to the Romanian border, did not participate in the Battle of Warsaw):

The Polish side had 29 infantry divisions at its disposal, including one volunteer and one Ukrainian, and three cavalry divisions.

In the last days of the retreating operations, in the course of defensive fighting on the outskirts of Warsaw, two shock groups were formed in the Wieprz River area, personally subordinated to Marshal. Jozef Pilsudski.

They included three divisions from the 4th Army:

As well as two divisions from the 3rd Army:

and the cavalry brigade of Colonel Felix Jaworski.

The first strike group centered in the Deblin area. At this group (by the 14th Division of General Daniel Konarzewski) Marshal Pilsudski himself placed his command post. Next to it, by the 16th Division, General Skierski. General Edward Smigly-Rydz stood by the 1st Legion Infantry Division. The top-level commanders were at the divisions primarily to raise the morale of the army, to establish confidence in the success of the operation.

The Polish Army participating in the Battle of Warsaw numbered 113-123 thousand soldiers, 500 guns and more than 1,780 machine guns, 2 squadrons of aircraft, dozens of tanks and armored cars and several armored trains.

The Military Governorate of Warsaw, established on July 29, 1920 by the Minister of Military Affairs to establish public order and security and organize defense in the besieged city, also operated throughout the battle. The Governor combined the duties of military commander and head of the civil administration. General Franciszek Latinik was appointed as Military Governor of Warsaw.

On the night of August 5-6, 1920, the general concept of how the battle would be fought was being worked out at the Belvedere. The deliberations returned to the ideas that had been troubling the minds of the entire Polish military leadership since late July. The intention was to stop the Red Army's attack in front of Warsaw with part of the forces, and to reconstitute operational reserves on the right wing and hit the enemy's southern flank with them.

On the morning of August 6, Marshal Pilsudski finally chose a region for concentrating troops for the counter-attack. Of those proposed by the Chief of the General Staff, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, the vicinity of Garwolin or the Wieprz River, the Marshal decided on the latter place. The representative of the French military mission, General Maxime Weygand, preferred a concentration area close to Warsaw and a shallow, less risky flanking maneuver with the possibility of deepening the defense in the direction of the capital. The Marshal decided to move the strike group to the south, beyond the line of the Wieprz River, and make a deep maneuver not only to the wings of the Soviet Western Front, but also to its rear.

On the afternoon of August 6, order No. 8358 was issued

"The rapid advance of the enemy deep into the country, and his serious attempts to break through the Bug River to Warsaw, prompt the Supreme Command to move the northeastern front to the line of the Vistula River while accepting a major battle near Warsaw.

In brief, the planned maneuver consisted of a sudden breakaway of the Polish army from the Soviet army and a deep secret regrouping of the Polish divisions in such a way as to take up the defense of the capital based on the defenses on the Vistula, Narew and Orzyc rivers and the bridgehead Modlin - Warsaw, and from behind the Wieprz River to lead a decisive counterattack with a maneuver army. This counterattack was to be made under the cover of the armies standing on the Bug River and in the south.

On the night of August 8-9, General Tadeusz Rozwadowski drafted Special Operations Order No. 10,000, which was the final modification of the Warsaw Battle Plan. It assumed additional reinforcement of the Northern Front and imposed on General Sikorski's 5th Army, in addition to defensive tasks, also offensive tasks. The order ended with the words: with the legs and valor of the Polish infantry we must win this battle.

On August 12, Jozef Pilsudski left Warsaw for his headquarters in Pulawy. Before leaving, he tendered his resignation as Chief of State and Commander-in-Chief to Prime Minister Witos. In a letter to the prime minister, he noted that in his opinion, since the peace talks with the Bolsheviks had yielded nothing, Poland must count on the help of the Entente countries, and these made it conditional on the Marshal's departure. Witos, however, did not accept the resignation.

In the first days of August, the staff of diplomatic missions left Warsaw for Poznań, and their archives were also evacuated. The heads of the diplomatic missions left the city on August 14. Only Nuncio Achilles Ratti (later Pope Pius XI) and an Italian MP remained in Warsaw.

Battle on the outskirts of Warsaw

On August 13, the first day of the battle, there was a rapid assault by two Soviet tactical compounds, one division from Lazarevich's 3rd Army and one from Sollohub's 16th Army. They were advancing on Warsaw from a northeastern direction.

Two divisions of the Red Army, which had recently covered a march of more than 600 kilometers, struck near Radzymin, broke through the defenses of Colonel Boleslaw Yazvinsky's 11th Division and captured Radzymin. Then one of them moved on Praga, while the other turned right - on Nieporęt and Jablonna. The dramatic battle of Radzymin began, which is sometimes mistakenly considered the "Battle of Warsaw" in Polish legend.

The failure prompted the commander of the Polish Northern Front to give instructions for General Sikorski's 5th Army to launch an early offensive from the Modlin area to relieve General Latinik's 1st Army, which was covering Warsaw.

On the following day, i.e. August 14, fierce battles were already being fought along the eastern and southeastern fortifications of the Warsaw advance - along the section from Wiązowna to the Radzymin area. The Polish forces put up stiff resistance everywhere and the advancing Soviet troops did not achieve any serious success. A more stable situation in the area of the Warsaw foreclosure, took place in the area south of Radzymin on the section from Stara Milosna through Wiązowna, Emów up to Swierk, where fierce and effective resistance was put up from August 13 to 16 by units of the XXIX Infantry Brigade of Colonel Stanislaw Wrzalinski.

On August 15, a concentrated attack by the Polish reverse divisions (General Zeligowski's 10th Division and General Jan Rządkowski's 1st Lithuanian-Byelorussian Division), after day-long fierce battles, brought great success. Radzymin was regained and Polish troops returned to positions lost two days before. On August 16, intensive fighting continued on the battle lines of the Warsaw Premies, but the situation of the Polish troops was partially improving.

In the Modlin zone, hostilities also initially yielded no clear resolution.

Fights on the Wkra River

General Sikorski's 5th Army, which on the orders of the Northern Front commander moved on August 14 to attack in the direction of Nasielsk, was making progress. However, these were successes of local importance.

Only two days later, that is, on August 16, a concentrated strike by Sikorski's army, led from the southeastern forts of Modlin and from above the Wkra River, led to the capture of Nasielsk. It gave the opportunity to continue further operations on Serock and Pultusk.

On the left wing of the Polish front, the Red Army's superiority became apparent. Shuvaev's 4th Army and Gaia's 3rd Cavalry Corps, were pushing on Plock, Wloclawek and Brodnica, and had already begun forcing the Vistula River in the Nieszawa area.

Counterattack from the Wieprz River

Influenced by the news coming from the Warsaw area and Włocławek and Brodnica, the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army decided to launch an offensive maneuver from the lower Wieprz River.

Jozef Pilsudski led the counter-offensive from above the Wieprz River on August 16, 1920 with the forces of 5 divisions. The 4th Army, which he personally commanded, consisted of the 14th Poznan Division, the 16th Pomeranian Division and the 21st Highland Division. Its forces numbered 27,500 infantry soldiers, 950 cavalrymen, 461 machine guns and 90 field guns.

The divisions of the shock group, which had a huge advantage over the weak Soviet Mozyr Group, moved with a broad front to reach the Warsaw-Brest highway already on the second day of the assault. This prognosticated an exit to the rear of the Soviet forces near Warsaw. The right wing of the assault was covered by the 3rd Legion Infantry Division marching to Wlodawa and Brest. Near Warsaw, the Soviet troops were tied down by a vigorous offensive turn by part of the Polish forces from the foreground, supported by tanks attacking in the direction of Minsk Mazowiecki, the so-called 2nd Striking Group of Stanislaw Wrzalinski.

The progress achieved already on the first day of the assault was considerable. The 3rd Legion Infantry Division occupied Wlodawa. The 1st Infantry Division of the Legions sectioned Wisznice - Wohyń, while the 21st Mountain Infantry Division and the Wielkopolska divisions 14 and 16 reached the Wilga River border, occupied Garwolin and advanced patrols near Wiązowna. The 2nd Legion Infantry Division, flown in from the west bank of the Vistula River, took over as the strike group's retreat.

On August 17, Polish forces reached the line Biała Podlaska - Międzyrzec - Siedlce - Kaluszyn - Minsk Mazowiecki.

Pilsudski went to Warsaw and on August 18 gave the appropriate orders to regroup. It was intended to create a pursuit group, which, especially on the right wing, would cut off the enemy's retreat to the line Brest-on-the-Bug - Bialystok - Osowiec, leading to its entrapment. As part of the central front, still under the personal command of the Commander-in-Chief, a new 2nd Army was formed under the command of Gen. Rydz-Smigly. It was composed of the 1DP Leg., 3DP Leg., 4 BK, 21 DP, 1 DLit.-White. (from the 1st Army), 41 pp (from the 5th Army) and "Jaworski's ride". This army was ordered to pursue the Międzyrzec-Bialystok axis with simultaneous manning of Brest-on-the-Bug. The 4th Army was tasked with pursuit along the Kaluszyn - Mazowieck axis. In the northern (northeastern) direction, along the Warsaw - Ostrow - Lomza axis, the 1st Army reduced to 8 DP and 10 DP was to lead the pursuit. The 5th Army was to operate in the direction of Przasnysz - Mlawa and cut off and eventually deal with the enemy's 4th and 15th Armies and the Gaia Cavalry Corps. The 3rd Army (7DP and 2nd DP Leg.), transported by rail to Lublin, was to cover operations from the east. It can be briefly said that the Supreme Commander's guiding thought was an operation that would "throw" the enemy to the German border and cut him off from the roads leading east. However, these directives were not fully realized, as the 1st Army delayed its action, and ultimately headed northeast into the cities in the direction of the 5th Army's (northwest) operations, thereby enabling the Soviet 3rd and 15th Armies to retreat eastward.

In his book, Pilsudski characterizes this final period of the battle as follows: Not a poor contredanse, but a furious gallop roared the music of war! Not day with day, but hour with hour! The kaleidoscope shot to the beat of the furious gallop, not allowing anyone in command on the Soviet side to stop at any of the danced figures. They were bursting at a moment's notice, putting under terrified eyes brand new figures and new situations that completely surpassed all assumptions and made plans and intentions.

At the same time, the rest of the Polish army went on a counteroffensive along the entire length of the front. The 5th Army from across the Vkra River struck the 15th and 3rd Bolshevik Armies. As a result (explained below) of the lack of communication with the command and the fatigue of the soldiers, most of the Soviet troops went into an uncoordinated retreat. Part of the Soviet forces, the 3rd Gaikhan Cavalry Corps (two divisions) and part of the 4th and 15th Armies (six divisions), unable to break through to the east, crossed the German border on August 24, 1920 and were interned in East Prussian territory.

Breaking the ciphers of the Red Army

According to documents of the Central Military Archives found in recent years and revealed in August 2005, the Red Army's ciphers were broken by Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski as early as September 1919. Thus, the maneuver of the Polish counteroffensive succeeded, among other things, thanks to the knowledge of the Soviet side's plans and orders and the ability of the Polish command to use this knowledge.

As Mieczyslaw Sciezynski wrote about the work of Polish radio intelligence during the period of the conflict in question, "the enemy himself kept our command accurately informed of his moral and material condition, of his numbers and losses, of his movements, of victories achieved and defeats suffered, of his intentions and orders, of the staging area of his commands and the dislocation areas of his divisions, brigades and regiments."

One of the most important successes of Polish intelligence during the Battle of Warsaw was the interception and deciphering of the 16th Army command's radio dispatch of August 13 regarding the capture of Warsaw:

Map and order

The success of the plan for an operation involving such a deep maneuver largely depends on keeping its contents a deep secret.

The Supreme Command of the Red Army already captured the plan of Polish operations near Dubienka on August 13. The commander of the Stefan Batory Volunteer Regiment - Major Waclaw Drohojowski - was killed there. A mapbook was found with him, and in it a battle order along with a map. However, the Russians came to the conclusion that this was a Polish mystification, which was intended to force them to cover the left wing of the attacking grouping and thus stop the assault on Warsaw.

Getting a radio station

One of the most important episodes of the Battle of Warsaw was the capture by the Kalisz-based 203rd Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Major Zygmunt Podhorski, of the 4th Soviet Army headquarters in Ciechanow on August 15, and with it - the army's chancellery, warehouses and one of the two radio stations used by that army to communicate with the command in Minsk. The Poles knew that at the time, the other radio station was turned off because it was moving to another location. At that time, front commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky ordered the 4th Army to turn back to the southeast and strike at General Sikorski's army, which was fighting near Nasielsk.

The quick and effective deciphering of this order by the Poles made it possible to analyze the situation and led to the instant decision to tune the Warsaw transmitter to the frequency of the Soviet radio station and to begin effectively jamming the much more distant transmitters from Minsk, so that the second Soviet radio station that the 4th Army had at its disposal, once it was set up in its new location, was still unable to receive Tukhachevsky's orders. This was because Warsaw had been broadcasting Scripture texts on the same frequency for two days without a break - the only sufficiently extensive texts that the Citadel command, where the Polish transmitter was located, had ad hoc managed to give the radio operators to transmit continuously.

The possibility of broadcasting fake orders to Soviet troops wandering in Pomerania was also considered, but the idea was abandoned, not wanting to expose themselves to breaking Soviet ciphers.

The select 4th Army, having lost its headquarters and communications with the front command, lost its coordination of operations. Having not received orders from Minsk (more accurately: not being able to hear them) changing the direction of its operations, the army with its six divisions continued to advance along the line determined by the recently received orders, which drove it all the way to the present eastern part of Toruń (later, some military historians ironized that the army at that time was fighting not against Poland, but against the Treaty of Versailles). In this way it was eliminated from the battle for Warsaw.

Hungarian material aid - ammunition

Allied aid from France was not arriving because of the blockade of supplies by Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, which occupied Zaolzie on July 28, 1920. The Second Socialist International, supporting the Bolsheviks, agitated dockers and sailors to block the transshipment of supplies reaching Poland by sea through the port of Gdansk. In early July 1920, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Pál Teleki decided to help Poland by transferring military supplies free of charge and delivering them at its own expense at a critical moment in the war by way of Romania and further along the Chernivtsi-Kolomyja-Stryi railroad line: 48 million Mauser rifle cartridges, 13 million Mannlicher cartridges, artillery ammunition, 30,000 Mauser rifles and several million spare parts, 440 field kitchens, 80 field stoves. On August 12, 1920, a shipment of, among other things, 22 million Mauser cartridges from the Manfréd Weiss factory in Czepel reached Skierniewice by this route.

As a result of the Battle of Warsaw (and the subsequent Battle of Niemen), on October 15, Polish and Soviet delegations concluded an armistice in Riga, and in March 1921, on its basis, a peace treaty was concluded, which until the USSR's aggression against Poland on September 17, 1939, settled Polish-Soviet relations for eighteen and a half years and demarcated the Polish eastern border.

Losses

Losses on the Polish side were: about 4,500 killed, 22,000 wounded and 10,000 missing. The damage inflicted on the Soviets is unknown. It is assumed that about 25 thousand Bolsheviks were killed, 60 thousand were taken into Polish captivity, while 45 thousand were interned by the Germans.

Controversy

Tukhachevsky blamed Joseph Stalin for the defeat of the Russian army at the Battle of Warsaw. He claimed that Kamenev's directive to transfer the 1st Horse Army and the 12th Army from the Southwest Front to his command was blocked precisely by Stalin.

Others argued (Shaposhnikov, Budionny, Tulenev, Golikov, Timoshenko, Voroshilov) that the real responsibility fell on Tukhachevsky, who badly organized the operation to capture Warsaw.

It is significant that all of the aforementioned officers survived 1937, earned high ranks and lived to a long age. And those who indicated that Stalin was to blame ended their lives with Marshal Tukhachevsky in 1937 as part of the so-called "Great Purge.

In 1920, a dispute heated up in Poland over the authorship of the Warsaw Battle plan and the naming of the victor. From a purely technical point of view, the author of the plan is General Rozwadowski, but Marshal Pilsudski, as Commander-in-Chief, considered himself the designer of the Warsaw victory. Also, many historians admit that the concept of the battle belonged to the Marshal, which was later put on paper by Gen. Rozwadowski. However, there are a number of pieces of evidence confirming Pilsudski's dire mental condition.

All operational orders from August 12 to 16 bear the signature of General Rozwadowski, who is considered by some historians to be the main architect of the victory over the Bolsheviks. In addition, there is controversy over the fact that Pilsudski resigned from his posts on August 12 to Prime Minister Witos and went on the night of August 12-13 to the Bobowa estate to his daughters and future wife Alexandra. It should be noted, however, that at 10 a.m. on August 13 he was already in Deblin, where he held a briefing with Generals Smigly-Rydz and Skierski, and spent August 14 and 15 inspecting the regiments of the Central Front.

The opposition further complicated the situation by putting forward, in order to discredit Pilsudski, a number of candidates to whom the Poles were supposed to owe the victory in the Battle of Warsaw, in addition to Rozwadowski, including Haller, Weygand and Sikorski. This was also served by emphasizing the "miraculousness" of the victory over the Vistula.

Today it can be said with certainty that two authors of the victory remain: Rozwadowski and Pilsudski; unfortunately, there is no objective view of the entire dispute, which is highly controversial and contains a lot of inaccuracies. Operational orders alone, education, and planning skills speak in favor of Rozwadowski, but the August 15 letter would point to Pilsudski. This does not change the fact that Poland achieved victory thanks to the unanimous cooperation of the supreme command, which was able to hide grudges and personal resentments at a critical time for the country.

In the history of the art of war, however, the Battle of Warsaw is an example of a decisive maneuver, the end result of which was achieved by the commander's keen thinking, the diligent work of the staff and the high skill of officers and soldiers on the battlefield.

Simon Goodough - a popularizer of war and military history - in his book Tactical Genius in Battle, published in 1979, placed Jozef Pilsudski among the victors of 27 of the greatest battles in world history. He listed him among such strategists as Themistocles, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus and Condeus.

The significance of the Battle of Warsaw is still an object of historical research. The British ambassador to pre-war Poland - Lord Edgar Vincent D'Abernon called it already in the title of his book "The eighteenth decisive battle in the history of the world." In an article published in August 1930, he wrote: "The modern history of civilization knows of few events possessing greater significance than the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, while it knows of not a single one that is less appreciated.... If the Battle of Warsaw had ended in victory for the Bolsheviks, there would have been a turning point in the history of Europe, for there is no doubt that with the fall of Warsaw, central Europe would have stood open to Communist propaganda and to the Soviet invasion (...). The task of political writers ... is to explain to European public opinion that in 1920 Europe was saved by Poland."

Polish historian and expert on Polish-Russian relations, Professor Andrzej Nowak, in his book The defeat of the empire of evil. The Year 1920 proves the thesis that the Polish victory saved Western Europe from the communist revolution: "In Lenin's correspondence with Stalin at the end of July 1920, there is a systematic recurring theme: if we knock Poland out, we'll get Lvov - this was the perspective of Stalin, who was bogged down with his front not on the heroic defense of Warsaw, but Lvov. Well, Stalin said that they would capture the said Lviv first, and then all of Galicia up to Krakow would be Bolshevik, and the Russians would go further, smash the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, enter Vienna, and eventually sovietize Italy as well. Stalin names these specific countries that were to fall victim to the advancing Soviet offensive as early as 1920. These ambitious plans for the conquest of virtually the entire European continent lay in ruins. They lay in ruins because they were stopped by Poland."

French General Louis Faury, in an article in 1928, compared the Battle of Warsaw to the Battle of Vienna: "Two hundred years ago, Poland, under the walls of Vienna, saved the Christian world from the Turkish danger; on the Vistula and on the Niemen, this noble nation once again rendered to the civilized world a service that had not been sufficiently appreciated."

In turn, British historian J.F.C. Fuller wrote in his book The Battle of Warsaw 1920: "Shielding central Europe from the Marxist contagion, the Battle of Warsaw turned back the hands of the Bolshevik clock ... it stopped the potential outbreak of social discontent in the West, almost nullifying the Bolsheviks' experiment."

In 1930 a commemorative medal was minted with the contents On the tenth anniversary of the Miracle over the Vistula River (reverse) and Father St. Pius XI did not leave Warsaw in 1920 (obverse), issued by the Warsaw Mint and designed by Stefan Rufin Koźbielewski.

On the occasion of the anniversary of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw, both by a resolution of the Polish Sejm of the eighth term on June 13, 2019, and by a resolution of the Polish Senate of the ninth term on October 18, 2019, the year 2020 was established as the Year of the Battle of Warsaw. Patrons of the year 2020 were dedicated to a special edition of the Sejm Chronicle.

On August 21, 2020, as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw, a plaque commemorating the activities of the Military Governorate of Warsaw and Governor Franciszek Latinik during the Battle of Warsaw in August 1920 was unveiled on the Resursa Obywatelska building at 64 Krakowskie Przedmieście Street in Warsaw.

In 2020, in connection with the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw, the National Bank of Poland introduced a collector's 20 zloty banknote 100th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw.

A museum commemorating the Battle of Warsaw is being built in Ossow, where one stage of the battle took place.

Sources

Developments

Sources

1. Battle of Warsaw (1920)
2. Bitwa Warszawska
3. a b Nazwa pisana wielkimi literami stanowiąca wyjątek w pisowni nazw wydarzeń historycznych. Zob. Edward Polański (red.): Wielki Słownik Ortograficzny PWN. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2011, s. 58. ISBN 978-83-01-16405-8.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Szczepański, Janusz. "Kontrowersje Wokół Bitwy Warszanskiej 1920 Roku". Mówią Wieki (in Polish). Archived from the original (Controversies surrounding the Battle of Warsaw in 1920) on May 14, 2008. Retrieved May 12, 2008.
5. Janusz Odziemkowski. Wojna Polski z Rosją Sowiecką, 1919-1920 (Polens Krieg mit Sowjetrussland, 1919-1920). In: Mówią Wieki. 2/2005, S. 46–58.
6. Jan Bury: Polish Codebreaking during the Russo-Polish War of 1919-1920 (Memento des Originals vom 3. Dezember 2007 im Internet Archive)  Info: Der Archivlink wurde automatisch eingesetzt und noch nicht geprüft. Bitte prüfe Original- und Archivlink gemäß Anleitung und entferne dann diesen Hinweis.@1@2Vorlage:Webachiv/IABot/www.findarticles.com. In: Cryptologia. Bd. 28, Nr. 3, Juli 2004. ISSN 0161-1194.
7. Las bajas soviéticas se refieren a las operaciones relacionadas con la batalla de Varsovia, desde la lucha al acercarse a la capital hasta las batallas de Białystok y Osowiec.
8. Fue un diputado del partido polaco Endecja, contrario a Piłsudski, quien acuñó este nombre de forma irónica para subrayar su desacuerdo con el ataque del líder polaco a Ucrania. Sin embargo, pocos entendieron el tono irónico y mantuvieron el nombre.
9. Véase Mancomunidad Polaco-Lituana.
10. Hungría, que ya había sufrido una corta experiencia comunista bajo el mando de Béla Kun, fue el único país en intentar apoyar militarmente a Polonia. Véase República Soviética Húngara.
11. Se refiere a Praga, una ciudad polaca, y no a la capital checa.