Polish-Soviet War.html



Polish-Soviet War, Interwar Period
The final borders layout settled by the war.
Date 1919–1921 Location Central and Eastern Europe Result Peace of Riga1
Belligerents
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic	Republic of Poland Ukrainian People's Republic
Commanders
Leon Trotsky Mikhail Tukhachevsky (Western Front) Aleksandr Yegorov (Southwestern Front) Semyon Budyonny 1st Cavalry Army	Józef Piłsudski Edward Rydz-Śmigły Symon Petlyura
Strength
From ~50,000 in early 19192 to almost 800,000 in summer 19203	From ~50,000 in early 19194 to ~738,000 in August 19205
Casualties and losses
estimated over 200,000 killed 80,000 taken prisoner6 (including rear-area personnel)	47,571 killed7 -96,2508 113,518 wounded,7 51,351 taken prisoner7

The Polish-Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921) was an armed conflict of Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic, four states in post-World War I Europe. The war was the result of conflicting expansionist attempts. Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established by the Treaty of Versailles following the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, sought to secure territories it had lost at the time of partitions; the aim of the Soviet states was to control those same territories, which had been part of the Russian Empire until the turbulent events of World War I. The question of victory is not universally agreed on.¹ The Poles claimed a successful defense of their state, while the Soviets claimed a repulse of the Polish eastward invasion of Ukraine and Belarus, which they viewed as a part of foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War.

The frontiers between Poland and Soviet Russia had not been defined in the Treaty of Versailles and post-war events created turmoil: the Russian Revolution of 1917; the crumbling of the Russian, German and Austrian empires; the Russian Civil War; the Central Powers' withdrawal from the eastern front; and the attempts of Ukraine and Belarus to establish their independence. Poland's Chief of State, Józef Piłsudski, felt the time expedient to expand Polish borders as far east as feasible, to be followed by the creation of a Polish-led federation (Międzymorze) of several states in the rest of East-Central Europe as a bulwark against the potential re-emergence of both German and Russian imperialism. Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to assist other communist movements and help conduct other European revolutions.

By 1919, the Polish forces had taken control of much of Western Ukraine, emerging victorious from the Polish-Ukrainian War; the West Ukrainian People's Republic had tried unsuccessfully to create a Ukrainian state on territories to which both Poles and Ukrainians laid claim. At the same time, the Bolsheviks began to gain the upper hand in the Russian Civil War and started to advance westward towards the disputed territories causing Petliura's forces to retreat to Podolia. By the end of 1919 a clear front had formed as Petliura decided to ally with Piłsudski. Border skirmishes escalated into open warfare following Piłsudski's major incursion further east into Ukraine in April 1920. He was met by a nearly simultaneous and initially very successful Red Army counterattack. The Soviet operation threw the Polish forces back westward all the way to the Polish capital, Warsaw, while the Ukrainian Directorate fled to western Europe. Meanwhile, western fears of Soviet troops arriving at the German frontiers increased the interest of Western powers in the war. In midsummer, the fall of Warsaw seemed certain but in mid-August the tide had turned again as the Polish forces achieved an unexpected and decisive victory at the Battle of Warsaw. In the wake of the Polish advance eastward, the Soviets sued for peace and the war ended with a ceasefire in October 1920. A formal peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on 18 March 1921, dividing the disputed territories between Poland and Soviet Russia. The war largely determined the Soviet-Polish border for the period between the World Wars. Much of the territory ceded to Poland in the Treaty of Riga became part of the Soviet Union after World War II, when Poland's eastern borders were redefined by the Allies in close accordance with the British-drawn Curzon Line of 1920.

Names and dates

The war is referred to by several names. "Polish-Soviet War" may be the most common, but is potentially confusing since "Soviet" is usually thought of as relating to the Soviet Union, which (by contrast with "Soviet Russia") did not officially come into being until December 31, 1922. Alternative names include "Russo-Polish War⁹ [or Polish-Russian War] of 1919–20/21" (to distinguish it from earlier Polish-Russian wars) and "Polish-Bolshevik War".¹⁰ This second term (or just "Bolshevik War" (Polish: Wojna bolszewicka)) is most common in Polish sources. In some Polish sources it is also referred as the "War of 1920" (Polish: Wojna 1920 roku).¹¹

Other points of contention are the starting and ending dates of the war. For example, Encyclopedia Britannica begins its article with the date (1919–1920), but then states "Although there had been hostilities between the two countries during 1919, the conflict began when the Polish head of state Józef Pilsudski formed an alliance with the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlyura (April 21, 1920) and their combined forces began to overrun Ukraine, occupying Kiev on May 7."⁹ while the Polish Internetowa encyklopedia PWN¹⁰ as well as some Western historians — like Norman Davies¹² — consider 1919 as the starting year of the war. The ending date is given as either 1920 or 1921; this confusion stems from the fact that while the ceasefire was put in force in the autumn of 1920, the official treaty ending the war was signed months later, in March 1921.

While the events of 1919 can be described as a border conflict and only in early 1920 did both sides realize that they were in fact engaged in an all-out war,¹² the conflicts that took place in 1919 are closely related to the war that began in earnest a year later.¹² In the end, the events of 1920 were a logical, though unforeseen, consequence of the 1919 prelude.¹²

Prelude

Main article: Causes of the Polish-Soviet War

Partitions of Poland, 1795. The colored territories show the extent of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, just before the first partition. Blue (north-west) were taken by Kingdom of Prussia, green (south) by Austria-Hungary, and cyan (east) by the Russian Empire.

Reestablishment of the Polish state, March 1919

In the aftermath of World War I, the map of Central and Eastern Europe had drastically changed.¹³ Germany's defeat rendered its plans for the creation of Eastern European puppet states (Mitteleuropa) obsolete,¹⁴ and the Russian Empire collapsed, resulting in a revolution and a civil war.¹⁵ Many small nations of the region saw a chance for real independence and seized the opportunity to gain it;¹³ Soviet Russia viewed these territories as rebellious Russian provinces, vital for Russian security,¹⁶ but was unable to react swiftly.¹⁵ While the Paris Peace Conference had not made a definitive ruling in regard to the Poland's eastern border, it issued a provisional boundary in December 1919 - the Curzon line - as an attempt to define the territories that had an "indisputably Polish ethnic majority"; the participants did not feel competent to make a certain judgment on the competing claims.¹⁷

With the success of the Greater Poland Uprising in 1918, Poland had re-established its statehood for the first time since the 1795 partition and seen the end of a 123 years of rule by three imperial neighbors: Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. The country, reborn as a Second Polish Republic, proceeded to carve out its borders from the territories of its former partitioners.

Poland was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. With the collapse of Russian and German occupying authorities, virtually all of the newly independent neighbours began fighting over borders: Romania fought with Hungary over Transylvania, Yugoslavia with Italy over Rijeka, Poland with Czechoslovakia over Cieszyn Silesia, with Germany over Poznań and with Ukrainians over Eastern Galicia. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians fought against each other and against the Russians, who were just as divided.¹⁸ Spreading Communist influences resulted in Communist revolutions in Munich, Berlin, Budapest and Prešov. Winston Churchill commented: "The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies began."¹⁹ All of these engagements – with the sole exception of the Polish-Soviet war – would be short-lived.

1920 map from The Peoples Atlas showing the situation of Poland and the Baltic states with their still-undefined borders after the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Versailles and before the Peace of Riga

The Polish-Soviet war likely happened more by accident than design, as it is unlikely that anyone in Soviet Russia or in the new Second Republic of Poland would have deliberately planned a major foreign war.¹²²⁰ Poland, its territory a major frontline of the First World War, was unstable politically; it had just won the difficult conflict with the West Ukrainian National Republic and was already engaged in new conflicts with Germany (the Silesian Uprisings) and with Czechoslovakia. The attention of revolutionary Russia, meanwhile, was predominantly directed at thwarting counter-revolution and intervention by the Western powers. While the first clashes between Polish and Soviet forces occurred in February 1919, it would be almost a year before both sides realised that they were engaged in a full war.¹²

Polish leader Józef Piłsudski

Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin

In late 1919 the leader of Russia's new Communist government, Vladimir Lenin, was inspired by the Red Army's civil-war victories over White Russian anti-communist forces and their Western allies, and began to see the future of the revolution with greater optimism. The Bolsheviks proclaimed the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and agitated for a worldwide Communist community. Their avowed intent was to link the revolution in Russia with an expected revolution in Germany¹⁶ and to assist other Communist movements in Western Europe; Poland was the geographical bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to do so.²¹¹⁶ Lenin’s aim was to regain control of the territories ceded by Russia in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, to infiltrate the borderlands, set up Soviet governments there as well as in Poland, and reach Germany where he expected a Socialist revolution to break out.¹⁶ He believed that Soviet Russia could not survive without the support of a socialist Germany.¹⁶ By the end of summer 1919 the Soviets managed to take over most of Ukraine, driving the Ukrainian Directorate from Kiev. In early 1919, they also set up a Lithuanian-Belorussian Republic (Litbel). This government was very unpopular due to terror and the collection of food and goods for the army.¹⁶ It was not until after the Polish Kiev Offensive had been repelled, however, that some of the Soviet leaders would see the war as the real opportunity to spread the revolution westwards.¹⁶²² Indeed, the Bolsheviks stated:

Before the start of the Polish-Soviet War, Polish politics were strongly influenced by Chief of State (naczelnik państwa) Józef Piłsudski.²⁴ Piłsudski wanted to break up the Russian Empire²⁵ and create a Polish-led^2627282930 "Międzymorze Federation" of independent³⁰ states: Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and other Central and East European countries emerging out of crumbling empires after the First World War.³¹ This new union was to become a counterweight to any potential imperialist intentions on the part of Russia or Germany. Piłsudski argued that "There can be no independent Poland without an independent Ukraine", but he may have been more interested in Ukraine being split from Russia than in Ukrainians' welfare.³²³³ He did not hesitate to use military force to expand the Polish borders to Galicia and Volhynia, crushing a Ukrainian attempt at self-determination in the disputed territories east of the Western Bug river, which contained a significant Polish minority,¹⁶ mainly in cities like Lviv, but a Ukrainian majority in the countryside. Speaking of Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the Entente — on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany," while in the east "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far."³⁴ In the chaos to the east the Polish forces set out to expand there as much as it was feasible. On the other hand, Poland had no intention of joining the western intervention in the Russian Civil War¹⁶ or of conquering Russia itself.³⁵

Course

Soviet propaganda poster. Text reads: "This is how the landowner's ideas end."

1919

Main article: Polish-Soviet War in 1919

First Polish-Soviet conflicts

The first serious armed conflict of the war took place around February 14²⁰¹² - February 16, near the towns of Maniewicze and Biaroza in Belarus.¹⁶¹⁰ By late February the Soviet westward advance had come to a halt. Both Polish and Soviet forces had also been engaging the Ukrainian forces, and active fighting was going on in the territories of the Baltic countries (cf. Estonian War of Independence, Latvian War of Independence, Lithuanian Wars of Independence).

In early March 1919, Polish units started an offensive, crossing the Neman River, taking Pinsk, and reaching the outskirts of Lida. Both the Soviet and Polish advances began around the same time in April (Polish forces started a major offensive on April 16¹⁰), resulting in increasing numbers of troops

Polish propaganda poster showing Polish cavalry and a Bolshevik soldier with a starred cap. Text reads: "Beat the Bolshevik"

arriving in the area. That month the Red Army had captured Grodno, but was soon pushed out by a Polish counter-offensive. Unable to accomplish its objectives and facing strengthening offensives from the White forces, the Red Army withdrew from its positions and reorganized. Soon the Polish-Soviet War would begin in earnest.

Polish forces continued a steady eastern advance.¹⁰ They took Lida on April 17¹⁰ and Nowogródek on April 18, and recaptured Vilnius on April 19, driving the Litbel government from their proclaimed capital.¹⁶ On August 8, Polish forces took Minsk¹⁰ and on the 28th of that month they deployed tanks for the first time. After heavy fighting, the town of Babruysk near the Berezina River was captured.¹⁰ By October 2, Polish forces reached the Daugava river and secured the region from Desna to Daugavpils (Dyneburg).¹⁰

Polish success continued until early 1920.¹⁰ Sporadic battles erupted between Polish forces and the Red Army, but the latter was preoccupied with the White counter-revolutionary forces and was steadily retreating on the entire western frontline, from Latvia in the north to Ukraine in the south. In early summer 1919, the White movement had gained the initiative, and its forces under the command of Anton Denikin were marching on Moscow. Piłsudski was aware that the Soviets were not friends of independent Poland, and considered war with Soviet Russia inevitable.³⁶ He viewed their westward advance as a major issue, but also thought that he could get a better deal for Poland from the Bolsheviks than their Russian civil war contenders,

Central and Eastern Europe in December 1919

³⁷ as the White Russians - representatives of the old Russian Empire, partitioner of Poland - were willing to accept only limited independence of Poland, likely in the borders similar to that of Congress Poland, and clearly objected to Ukrainian independence, crucial for Piłsudski's Międzymorze,³⁸ while the Bolsheviks did proclaim the partitions null and void.³⁹ Piłsudski thus speculated that Poland will be better of with the Bolsheviks, alienated from the Western powers, than with the restored Russian Empire.³⁷⁴⁰ By his refusal to join the attack on Lenin's struggling government, ignoring the strong pressure from the Entente, Piłsudski had likely saved the Bolshevik government in summer–fall 1919. He later wrote that in case of a White victory, in the east Poland could only gain the "ethnic border" at best (the Curzon line).⁴¹ At the same time, Lenin offered Poles the territories of Minsk, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, in what was described as mini "Brest"; Polish military leader Kazimierz Sosnkowski wrote that the territorial proposals of the Bolsheviks were much better than what the Poles had wanted to achieve.⁴¹

Diplomatic Front, Part 1: The alliances

Polish General Listowski (left) and exiled Ukrainian leader Symon Petlura (second from left) following the Petlura's alliance with the Poles.

Soviet Ukraine's propaganda poster issued following the Petlura-Piłsudski alliance. The Ukrainian text reads: "Corrupt Petlura has sold Ukraine to the Polish landowners. Landowners burned and plundered Ukraine. Death to landowners and Petlurovites."

In 1919, several unsuccessful attempts at peace negotiations were made by various Polish and Russian factions.¹⁰ In the meantime, Polish-Lithuanian relations worsened as Polish politicians found it hard to accept the Lithuanians' demands for independence and territories, especially on ceding the city of Vilnius, Lithuania's historical capital which had a Polish ethnic majority. Polish negotiators made better progress with the Latvian Provisional Government, and in late 1919 and early 1920 Polish and Latvian forces were conducting joint operations against Soviet Russia.⁴²

The Warsaw Treaty, an agreement with the exiled Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlura signed on April 21, 1920, was the main Polish diplomatic success. Petlura, who formally represented the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic (by then de facto defeated by Bolsheviks), along with some Ukrainian forces, fled to Poland, where he found asylum. His control extended only to a sliver of land near the Polish border.⁴³ In such conditions, there was little difficulty convincing Petlura to join an alliance with Poland, despite recent conflict between the two nations that had been settled in favour of Poland.⁴⁴ By concluding an agreement with Piłsudski, Petlura accepted the Polish territorial gains in Western Ukraine and the future Polish-Ukrainian border along the Zbruch River. In exchange, he was promised independence for Ukraine and Polish military assistance in reinstalling his government in Kiev.¹⁶

For Piłsudski, this alliance gave his campaign for the Międzymorze federation the legitimacy of joint international effort, secured part of the Polish eastward border, and laid a foundation for a Polish-dominated Ukrainian state between Russia and Poland.⁴⁴ For Petlura, this was the final chance to preserve the statehood and, at least, the theoretical independence of the Ukrainian heartlands, even while accepting the loss of western Ukrainian lands to Poland.⁴⁵

Yet both of them were opposed at home. Piłsudski faced stiff opposition from Dmowski's National Democrats who opposed Ukrainian independence. Petlura, in turn, was criticized by many Ukrainian politicians for entering a pact with the Poles and giving up on Western Ukraine.^46224547

The alliance with Petliura did result in 15,000 pro-Polish allied Ukrainian troops at the beginning of the campaign,⁴⁸ increasing to 35,000 through recruitment and desertion from the Soviet side during the war.⁴⁸ But in the end, this would prove too few to support Petlura's hopes for independent Ukraine, or Piłsudski's dreams of an Ukrainian ally in the Międzymorze federation.

1920

Main article: Polish-Soviet War in 1920

Opposing forces

A Soviet propadanda poster reading: "A Red present for the White lords" (1920).

Polish FT-17 tanks near Dyneburg 1920

Norman Davies notes that estimating strength of the opposing sides is difficult - even generals often had incomplete reports of their own forces.⁴⁹

By early 1920, the Red Army had been very successful against the White armies.³⁰ They defeated Denikin and signed peace treaties with Latvia and Estonia. The Polish front became their most important war theater and a plurality of Soviet resources and forces were diverted to it. In January 1920, the Red Army began concentrating a 700,000-strong force near the Berezina River and on Belarus.²⁰

By the time Poles launched their Kiev offensive, the Red Southwestern Front had about 82,847 soldiers including 28,568 front-line troops. The Poles had some numerical superiority, estimated from 12,000 to 52,000 personnel.⁴⁹ By the time of the Soviet counter-offensive in mid 1920 the situation had been reversed: Soviets had about 790,000 people - at least 50,000 or more than the Poles; Tukhachevsky estimated that he had 160,000 "combat ready" soldiers; Piłsudski estimated his enemy's forces at 200,000–220,000.⁵⁰

In the course of 1920, almost 800,000³ Red Army personnel were sent to fight in the Polish war, of whom 402,000³ went to the Western front and 355,000³ to the armies of the South-West front in Galicia. Grigoriy Krivosheev gives similar numbers, with 382,000 personnel for Western Front and 283,000 personnel for Southwestern Front.⁵¹

Norman Davies shows the growth of Red Army forces on the Polish front in early 1920:⁵²

1 January 1920 - 4 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry brigade

1 February 1920 - 5 infantry divisions, 5 cavalry brigades

1 March 1920 - 8 infantry divisions, 4 cavalry brigades

1 April 1920 - 14 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry brigades

15 April 1920 - 16 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry brigades

25 April 1920 - 20 infantry divisions, 5 cavalry brigades

Among the commanders leading the Red Army in coming offensive were Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Tukhachevsky (new commander of the Western Front), Aleksandr Yegorov (new commander of the Southwestern Front), the future Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin, and the founder of the Cheka (secret police), Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky.

The Polish Army was made up of soldiers who had formerly served in the various partitioning empires, supported by some international volunteers, such as the Kościuszko Squadron.⁵³ Boris Savinkov was at the head of an army of 20,000 to 30,000 largely Russian POWs, and was accompanied by Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius. The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920.⁵⁴ In August, 1920, the Polish army had reached a total strength of 737,767 people; half of that was on the frontline. Given Soviet losses, there was rough numerical parity between the two armies; and by the time of the battle of Warsaw Poles might have even had a slight advantage in numbers and logistics.⁵

Logistics, nonetheless, were very bad for both armies, supported by whatever equipment was left over from World War I or could be captured. The Polish Army, for example, employed guns made in five countries, and rifles manufactured in six, each using different ammunition.⁵⁵ The Soviets had many military depots at their disposal, left by withdrawing German armies in 1918–19, and modern French armaments captured in great numbers from the White Russians and the Allied expeditionary forces in the Russian Civil War. Still, they suffered a shortage of arms; both the Red Army and the Polish forces were grossly underequipped by Western standards.⁵⁵

The Soviet High Command planned a new offensive in late April/May. Since March 1919, Polish intelligence was aware that the Soviets had prepared for a new offensive and the Polish High Command decided to launch their own offensive before their opponents.¹⁶²⁰ The plan for Operation Kiev was to beat the Red Army on Poland's southern flank and install a Polish-friendly Petlura government in Ukraine.¹⁶

The tide turns: Operation Kiev

Polish Kiev Offensive at its height. June 1920

Polish Breguet 14 operating from Kiev airfield

A Polish cavalry charge at the Battle of Wołodarka, May 29, 1920, slows the Red Army offensive. (Painting by Mikołaj Wisznicki, 1935.)

Until April, the Polish forces had been slowly but steadily advancing eastward. The new Latvian government requested and obtained Polish help in capturing Daugavpils. The city fell after heavy fighting in January and was handed over to the Latvians, who viewed the Poles as liberators.⁴² By March, Polish forces had driven a wedge between Soviet forces to the north (Belorussia) and south (Ukraine).

On April 24, Poland began its main offensive, Operation Kiev. Its stated goal was the creation of an independent Ukraine¹⁶ that would become part of Piłsudski's project of a "Międzymorze" Federation. Poland's forces were assisted by 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers under Symon Petlura, representing the Ukrainian People's Republic.⁴⁸

On April 26, in his "Call to the People of Ukraine", Piłsudski told his audience that "the Polish army would only stay as long as necessary until a legal Ukrainian government took control over its own territory".⁵⁶ Despite this, many Ukrainians were just as anti-Polish as anti-Bolshevik,²² and resented the Polish advance.¹⁶

The Polish 3rd Army easily won border clashes with the Red Army in Ukraine but the Reds withdrew with minimal losses. The combined Polish-Ukrainian forces entered an abandoned Kiev on May 7, encountering only token resistance.¹⁶

The Polish military thrust was met with Red Army counterattacks on 29 May.¹⁰ Polish forces in the area, preparing for an offensive towards Zhlobin, managed to hold their ground, but were unable to start their own planned offensive. In the north, Polish forces had fared much worse. The Polish 1st Army was defeated and forced to retreat, pursued by the Russian 15th Army which recaptured territories between the Western Dvina and Berezina rivers. Polish forces attempted to take advantage of the exposed flanks of the attackers but the enveloping forces failed to stop the Soviet advance. At the end of May, the front had stabilised near the small river Auta, and Soviet forces began preparing for the next push.

On May 24 1920, the Polish forces in the south were engaged for the first time by Semyon Budyonny's famous 1st Cavalry Army (Konarmia). Repeated attacks by Budyonny's Cossack cavalry broke the Polish-Ukrainian front on June 5.¹⁰ The Soviets then deployed mobile cavalry units to disrupt the Polish rearguard, targeting communications and logistics. By June 10, Polish armies were in retreat along the entire front. On June 13, the Polish army, along with the Petlura's Ukrainian troops, abandoned Kiev to the Red Army.

String of Soviet victories

Polish fighters of the 7th Kościuszko Squadron

Soviet offensive successes. Early August 1920

Polish propaganda poster. Text reads: "To Arms! Save the Fatherland! Remember well our future fate."

The Russian counter-offensive was boosted by Aleksei Brusilov's engagement; 14,000 officers and over 100,000 deserters enlisted in or returned to the Red Army, and thousands of civilian volunteers contributed to the effort.⁵⁷

The commander of the Polish 3rd Army in Ukraine, General Edward Rydz-Śmigły, decided to break through the Soviet line toward the northwest. Polish forces in Ukraine managed to withdraw relatively unscathed, but were unable to support the northern front and reinforce the defenses at the Auta River for the decisive battle that was soon to take place there.⁵⁸

Due to insufficient forces, Poland's 200-mile-long front was manned by a thin line of 120,000 troops backed by some 460 artillery pieces with no strategic reserves. This approach to holding ground harked back to the World War I practice of "establishing a fortified line of defense". It had shown some merit on the Western Front saturated with troops, machine guns, and artillery. Poland's eastern front, however, was weakly manned, supported with inadequate artillery, and had almost no fortifications.⁵⁸

Against the Polish line the Red Army gathered its Northwest Front led by the young General Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Their numbers exceeded 108,000 infantry and 11,000 cavalry, supported by 722 artillery pieces and 2,913 machine guns. The Soviets at some crucial places outnumbered the Poles four-to-one.⁵⁸

Tukhachevsky launched his offensive on July 4, along the Smolensk-Brest-Litovsk axis, crossing the Auta and Berezina rivers.¹⁰ The northern 3rd Cavalry Corps, led by Gayk Bzhishkyan (Gay Dmitrievich Gay, Gaj-Chan), were to envelop Polish forces from the north, moving near the Lithuanian and Prussian border (both of these belonging to nations hostile to Poland). The 4th, 15th, and 3rd Armies were to push west, supported from the south by the 16th Army and Grupa Mozyrska. For three days the outcome of the battle hung in the balance, but the Soviet' numerical superiority proved decisive and by July 7 Polish forces were in full retreat along the entire front. However, due to the stubborn defense by Polish units, Tukhachevsky's plan to break through the front and push the defenders southwest into the Pinsk Marshes failed.⁵⁸

Polish resistance was offered again on a line of "German trenches", a heavily fortified line of World War I field fortifications that presented an opportunity to stem the Red Army offensive. However, the Polish troops were insufficient in number. Soviet forces found a weakly defended part of the front and broke through. Gej-Chan and Lithuanian forces captured Vilnius on 14 July, forcing the Poles into retreat again. In Galicia to the south, General Semyon Budyonny's cavalry advanced far into the Polish rear, capturing Brodno and approaching Lwów and Zamość. In early July, it became clear to the Poles that the Soviets' objectives were not limited to pushing their borders westwards. Poland's very independence was at stake.⁵⁹

Soviet forces moved forward at the remarkable rate of 20 miles (32 km) a day. Grodno in Belarus fell on 19 July; Brest-Litovsk fell on 1 August. The Polish attempted to defend the Bug River line with 4th Army and Grupa Poleska units, but were able to delay the Red Army advance for only one week. After crossing the Narew River on 2 August, the Soviet Northwest Front was only 60 miles (97 km) from Warsaw.¹⁰ The Brest-Litovsk fortress which was to be the headquarters of the planned Polish counteroffensive fell to the 16th Army in the first attack. The Soviet Southwest Front pushed the Polish forces out of Ukraine. Stalin <!- What forces did he command at that time? --> had then disobeyed his orders and ordered his forces to close on Zamość, as well as Lwów - the largest city in southeastern Poland and an important industrial center, garrisoned by the Polish 6th Army. The city was soon besieged. This created a hole in the lines of the Red Army, but at the same time opened the way to the Polish capital. Five Soviet armies approached Warsaw. Polish politicians tried to secure peace with Moscow on any conditions but the Bolsheviks refused.⁴¹

Polish forces in Galicia near Lwów launched a successful counteroffensive to slow down the Red Army advance. This stopped the retreat of Polish forces on the southern front. However, the worsening situation near the Polish capital of Warsaw prevented the Poles from continuing that southern counteroffensive and pushing east. Forces were mustered to take part in the coming battle for Warsaw.⁶⁰

Diplomatic Front, Part 2

With the tide turning against Poland, Piłsudski's political power weakened, while his opponents', including Roman Dmowski's, rose. Piłsudski did manage to regain his influence, especially over the military, almost at the last moment — as the Soviet forces were approaching Warsaw. The Polish political scene had begun to unravel in panic, with the government of Leopold Skulski resigning in early June.

Meanwhile, the Soviet leadership's confidence soared.⁶¹ In a telegram, Lenin exclaimed: "We must direct all our attention to preparing and strengthening the Western Front. A new slogan must be announced: 'Prepare for war against Poland'."⁶² Soviet communist theorist Nikolay Bukharin, writer for the newspaper Pravda, wished for the resources to carry the campaign beyond Warsaw "right up to London and Paris".⁶³ General's Tukhachevsky order of the day, 2 July, 1920 read: "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to world-wide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!"⁵⁸ and "onward to Berlin over the corpse of Poland!"¹⁶ The increasing hope of certain victory, however, gave rise to political intrigues between Soviet commanders.⁶⁴

By order of the Soviet Communist Party, a Polish puppet government,⁶⁵ the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee (Polish: Tymczasowy Komitet Rewolucyjny Polski, TKRP), had been formed on 28 July in Białystok to organise administration of the Polish territories captured by the Red Army.¹⁶ The TKRP had very little support from the ethnic Polish population and recruited its supporters mostly from the ranks of minorities, primarily Jews.²² At the height of the Polish-Soviet conflict, Jews had been subject to anti-semitic violence by Polish forces, who considered Jews to be a potential threat, and who often accused Jews as being the masterminds of Russian Bolshevism;⁶⁶⁶⁷ during the Battle of Warsaw, the Polish government interned all Jewish volunteers and sent Jewish volunteer officers to an internment camp.⁶⁸⁶⁹

American volunteer pilots, Merian C. Cooper and Cedric Fauntleroy, fought in the Kościuszko Squadron of the Polish Air Force.

General Józef Haller (touching the flag) and his Blue Army.

Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who wanted to negotiate a favourable trade agreement with the Bolsheviks¹⁶ pressed Poland to make peace on Soviet terms and refused any assistance to Poland which would alienate the Whites in the Russian Civil War. In July 1920, Britain announced it would send huge quantities of World War I surplus military supplies to Poland, but a threatened general strike by the Trades Union Congress, who objected to British support of "White Poland", ensured that none of the weapons destined for Poland left British ports. David Lloyd George had never been enthusiastic about supporting the Poles, and had been pressured by his more right-wing Cabinet members such as Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill into offering the supplies. On the 11 July, 1920, the government of Great Britain issued a de facto ultimatum to the Soviets.⁷⁰ It demanded the Soviets to stop hostilities against Poland and the Russian Army (the White Army in Southern Russia lead by Baron Wrangel), and to accept what later was called the "Curzon line" as a temporary border with Poland, until a permanent border could be established in negotiations.¹⁶ In case of Soviet refusal, the British threatened to assist Poland with all the means available, which, in reality, were limited by the internal political situation in the United Kingdom. On the 17 July, the Bolsheviks refused¹⁶ and made a counter-offer to negotiate a peace treaty directly with Poland. The British responded by threatening to cut off the on-going trade negotiations if the Soviets conducted further offensives against Poland. These threats were ignored.

The threatened general strike was a convenient excuse for Lloyd George to back out of his commitments.^{citation needed} On August 6, 1920, the British Labour Party published a pamphlet stating that British workers would never take part in the war as Poland's allies, and labour unions blocked supplies to the British expeditionary force assisting Russian Whites in Arkhangelsk. French Socialists, in their newspaper L'Humanité, declared: "Not a man, not a sou, not a shell for reactionary and capitalist Poland. Long live the Russian Revolution! Long live the Workmen's International!" Poland also suffered setbacks due to sabotage and delays in deliveries of war supplies, when workers in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany refused to transit such materials to Poland.¹⁶ On August 6th the Polish government issued an "Appeal to the World", disputing charges of imperialism, stressing Poland's determination for self-determination and the dangers of Bolshevik "invasion of Europe".⁷¹

Poland's neighbor Lithuania had been engaged in serious disputes with Poland over the city of Vilnius and the borderlands surrounding Sejny and Suwalki. A 1919 Polish attempt to take control over the entire nation by a coup had additionally disrupted their relationship.⁷² The Soviet and Lithuanian governments signed the Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920 on July 12th; this treaty recognized Vilnius as part of Lithuania. The treaty contained a secret clause allowing Soviet forces unrestricted movement within Soviet-recognized Lithuanian territory during any Soviet war with Poland; this clause would lead to questions regarding the issue of Lithuanian neutrality in the ongoing Polish-Soviet War.⁷³⁷⁴ The Lithuanians also provided the Soviets with logistical support.⁷⁴ Despite Lithuanian support, the Soviets did not transfer Vilnius to the Lithuanians till just before the city was to be recaptured by the Polish forces (in late August), instead up till that time the Soviets encouraged their own, pro-communist Lithuanian government, Litbel, and were planning a pro-communist coup in Lithuania.⁷⁵⁷⁶ The simmering conflict between Poland and Lithuania culminated in the Polish-Lithuanian War in August 1920.

Polish allies were few. France, continuing its policy of co