Warsaw 1920 by Adam Zamoyski

Author:Adam Zamoyski
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007284009
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

The Battle for Warsaw, 14 August

Russian calculations of Tukhachevsky’s forces at the beginning of the battle for Warsaw vary between totals of 101,269 and 132,189 front-line combatants; according to the lower estimate, 68,573 were operating in Sikorski’s sector, and only 32,696 were facing Latinik. The latter, with 42,485 men, supported by heavy artillery, tanks and aircraft, was therefore relatively safe, while Sikorski would be outnumbered by over two and a half to one. But Sikorski’s position was far worse than even those figures suggest.32

The line between the East Prussian frontier and the fortress of Modlin, laid down as his front in the order of 6 August, had already been breached by Gai’s Konkorpus and other Russian units. And Sikorski’s Fifth Army, supposedly 26,000 strong, existed only on paper. Krajowski’s 18th Division was still on its way from Brody. The Siberian Brigade had arrived, but its equipment had gone astray. There was no sign of the 9th Division, while the 17th Poznan Division was just trudging in after its long retreat, desperate for a few days’ rest. The Volunteer Division had also arrived, but Sikorski had doubts as to the military worth of these untried civilians. As his left flank had already been turned by Gai and Shuvayev, he drew up the forces at his disposal along a defensive line behind the river Wkra, with his left wing anchored on the little town of Plonsk and his right on Modlin, and hoped for the best.

He was predictably angry when he received Haller’s order to attack at dawn on 14 August in order to distract the Russians from the Radzymin area, and pointed out that he had no army with which to do this: the cavalry he had been promised had finally arrived, minus its ammunition train; the Siberian Brigade was still without its rifles; the Volunteer Division’s supplies were on a siding outside Kraków. After some sharp telegraphic exchanges with Haller and his chief-of-staff, during which Sikorski sarcastically explained that he could not win battles with lists of non-existent units, a compromise was reached: on the afternoon of 14 August he went into action with the forces at his disposal - Krajowski’s 18th Division and the Siberian Brigade, some 8,000 men in all.33

Tukhachevsky could hardly contain his delight when he heard about this attack. ‘For five weeks the White-Polish armies had continuously avoided any encounter with us, on account of the poor morale of their troops,’ he wrote. ‘It was only on the Vistula that they decided to fight, after being reinforced with fresh formations. We knew that somewhere we would come upon their main forces and smash them in a decisive engagement. And now the enemy himself was giving us the opportunity of doing just that; his Fifth Army, weakest in spirit and numbers, launched an attack on our XV and III Armies, while our freshest and most spirited units, the divisions of the IV Army, hung poised over its left flank. The Front command could hardly control its joy…‘ 34

They could well afford to rejoice.

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