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The Battle of Warsaw (; , ), also known as the Miracle on the Vistula (), was a series of battles that resulted in a decisive Polish victory and complete disintegration of the Red Army in August 1920 during the Polish–Soviet War.

After the Polish Kiev offensive, Soviet forces launched a successful counterattack in summer 1920, forcing the Polish army to retreat westward. The Polish forces seemed on the verge of disintegration and observers predicted a decisive Soviet victory.

The Battle of Warsaw was fought from August 1920, as Red Army forces commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky approached the Polish capital of Warsaw and the nearby Modlin Fortress. On August 16, Polish forces commanded by Józef Piłsudski counterattacked from the south, disrupting the enemy's offensive, forcing the Russian forces into a disorganized withdrawal eastward and behind the Neman River. Estimated Russian losses were 10,000 killed, 500 missing, 30,000 wounded and 66,000 taken prisoner, compared with Polish losses of some 4,500 killed, 10,000 missing and 22,000 wounded.

The defeat crippled the Red Army; Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, called it "an enormous defeat" for his forces. In the following months, several more Polish follow-up victories secured Poland's independence and led to a peace treaty with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine later that year, securing the Polish state's eastern frontiers until 1939.

The politician and diplomat Edgar Vincent regards this event as one of the most important battles in history on his expanded list of most decisive battles, since the Polish victory over the Soviets halted the spread of communism further westwards into Europe. A Soviet victory, which would have led to the creation of a Soviet-established government in Poland, would have put the Soviets directly on the German border, where they were expecting or were promised aligned forces.

Prelude

In the aftermath of World War I, Poland fought to preserve its newly regained independence, lost in the 1795 partitions of Poland, and to carve out the borders of a new multinational federation (Intermarium) from the territories of their former partitioners, Russia, Germany, and Austria.

Orders of battle

Polish

thumb|Polish soldiers on the way to the front

thumb|Polish infantry at the Battle of Warsaw

thumb|Graves of Polish soldiers who fell in the Battle of Warsaw, [[Powązki Military Cemetery, Warsaw]]

3 Fronts (Northern, Central, Southern), 7 Armies, a total of 32 divisions: 46,000 infantry; 2,000 cavalry; 730 machine guns; 192 artillery batteries; and several units of (mostly FT-17) tanks.

<!--SCROLL DOWN-->

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|+ style="font-weight:bold;" | Polish army

|-valign="top"

! width="110px" style="font-weight:normal" | Northern Front <br /><small>Haller</small> !! width="110px" style="font-weight:normal" | Central Front <br /><small>Rydz-Śmigły</small> !! width="110px" style="font-weight:normal" | Southern Front <br /><small>Iwaszkiewicz</small>

|-valign="top"

| 5th Army <br /><small>Sikorski</small> || 4th Army <br /><small>Skierski</small> || 6th Army <br /><small>Jędrzejewski</small>

|-valign="top" style="background:#eee;"

| 1st Army <br /><small>Latinik</small> || 3rd Army <br /><small>Zieliński</small>

|-valign="top"

| 2nd Army <br /><small>Roja</small> || ||

|}

Fronts:

  • Northern Front: 250&nbsp;km., from East Prussia, along the Vistula River, to Modlin:
  • 5th Army
  • 1st Army – Warsaw
  • 2nd Army – Warsaw
  • Central Front:
  • 4th Army – between Dęblin and Kock
  • 3rd Army – between south of Kock and Brody
  • Southern Front – between Brody and the Dniester River

Soviet

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|+ style="font-weight:bold;" | Red Army

|-valign="top"

! width="300px" style="font-weight:normal" | North-Western Front <br /><small>Tukhachevsky</small>

|-valign="top"

| 4th Army <br /><small>Shuvayev</small>

|-valign="top" style="background:#eee;"

| 3rd Cavalry Corps<br /><small>Bzhishkyan</small>

|-valign="top"

| 15th Army <br /><small>Kork</small>

|-valign="top" style="background:#eee;"

| 3rd Army<br /><small>Lazarevich</small>

|-valign="top"

| 16th Army<br />Sollogub

|-valign="top" style="background:#eee;"

| 1st Cavalry Army<br />Budyonny

|}

Battle plans

Polish

thumb|right|upright=0.5|Polish commander [[Józef Piłsudski]]

By the beginning of August, the Polish retreat had become more organized, as their supply lines were steadily shortened. At first, Józef Piłsudski wanted to stop the Soviets at the Bug River and the city of Brest-Litovsk, but the Soviet advance resulted in their forces breaching that line, making that plan obsolete. After the battle, many reports suggested that the plan was in fact prepared either by Weygand or by the Polish Chief of Staff Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski.

General Omelianovych-Pavlenko's Ukrainian Army and General Jędrzejewski's 6th Army, both placed under the overall command of General Iwaszkiewicz, were assigned to repel attacks on Lviv (Lwów) and did not participate in the Battle of Warsaw. Their role also involved disrupting Soviet troop movements in Galicia and preventing a junction with General Tukhachevsky's army. According to the historian Thomas Fiddick in 1973, rumors of disobedience to orders on the Soviet side by General Semyon Budyonny, or possibly even Joseph Stalin, were baseless. Moscow had decided for political reasons to reinforce the Crimean front at the expense of the Polish front. It meant it was replacing its goals of Europe-wide Communist revolution with a sort of "peaceful coexistence" with the West amidst internal consolidation. However, more recent historians have stated that Stalin disobeyed orders in early August 1920 when he attempted to conquer Lvov rather than transfer his troops to assist Tukhachevsky's forces that were attacking Warsaw. In Moscow, Lenin and Trotsky blamed him for his behaviour in the Polish–Soviet War. Tukhachevsky himself blamed Stalin for his defeat at the Battle of Warsaw.

Battle

First phase

thumb|left|Positions before the battle

While the Red Army pushed forward,<!--Please specify date--> Gayk Bzhishkyan's Cavalry Corps, together with the 4th Army, crossed the Wkra River and advanced towards the town of Włocławek, the 15th and 3rd Armies were approaching Modlin Fortress and the 16th Army moved towards Warsaw. The final Russian assault on Warsaw began on August 12. The Soviet defeat was therefore considered a setback for Soviet leaders supportive of that plan (particularly Vladimir Lenin).

A National Democrat Sejm deputy, Stanisław Stroński, coined the phrase, "Miracle on the Vistula" (Polish: ), to underline his disapproval of Piłsudski's earlier "Ukrainian adventure". In response, Poland's Prime Minister Wincenty Witos commented, "Whatever you want to write and say – whoever you want to dress in laurels and merits – this is 1920's 'Miracle on the Vistula'."

Breaking of Russian ciphers

According to documents found in 2005 at Poland's Central Military Archives, Polish cryptanalysts broke Russian ciphers they had intercepted as early as September 1919. At least some of the Polish victories, not only the Battle of Warsaw but also other battles, can be attributed to this. Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski, credited with the original breakthrough, received the Order of Virtuti Militari in 1921.

See also

  • Blue Army (Poland)
  • Siege of Warsaw (1939)
  • Stefan Mazurkiewicz
  • Battle of Warsaw 1920, a 2011 film by Jerzy Hoffman

Notes and references

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Further reading

  • Biskupski M. B. "Paderewski, Polish Politics, and the Battle of Warsaw, 1920," Slavic Review (1987) 46#3 pp.&nbsp;503–512 he was trying to get American support for his comeback in Polish politics in JSTOR
  • D'Abernon, Edgar Vincent, Viscount, The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World: Warsaw, 1920, Hyperion Press, 1977, ; reprinted with a foreword by Andrzej Duda, Helion & Company, 2020, .
  • Davies, Norman. White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish–Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, .
  • Davies, Norman. "The Soviet Command and the Battle of Warsaw," Soviet Studies (1972) 23#4 pp.&nbsp;573–585 says the Soviet failure of command was responsible for its defeat
  • Fiddick, Thomas. "The 'Miracle of the Vistula': Soviet Policy versus Red Army Strategy," Journal of Modern History (1973) 45#4 pp.&nbsp;626–643 in JSTOR
  • Fuller, J.F.C. The Decisive Battles of the Western World, Hunter Publishing, .
  • Hetherington, Peter. Unvanquished: Joseph Pilsudski, Resurrected Poland, and the Struggle for Eastern Europe (2012) pp.&nbsp;425–458 excerpt and text search
  • Watt, Richard M. Bitter Glory: Poland and Its Fate, 1918–1939, Hippocrene Books, 1998, .
  • Zamoyski, Adam. Warsaw 1920: Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe (2008) excerpt and text search

In Polish

  • M. Tarczyński, Cud nad Wisłą, Warszawa, 1990.
  • Józef Piłsudski, Pisma zbiorowe, Warszawa, 1937, reprinted by Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1991, .
  • Mikhail Tukhachevski, Lectures at Military Academy in Moscow, February 7–10, 1923, reprinted in Pochód za Wisłę (March across the Vistula), Łódź, 1989.
  • Robert Szymczak, Polish–Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw, Historynet
  • 3 scans Polish maps
  • "Bolszewik złamany Gazeta Wyborcza article about breaking of Soviet ciphers.