Polish Army

“ Polish peasantry (not serfs) served in the ranks by enlistment, and the officers belonged mainly to the smaller nobility. Mr. Nicholas B., with his Napoleonic record, had no difficulty in obtaining a lieutenancy, but the promotion in the Polish army was slow, because, being a separate organization, it took no part in the wars of the Russian Empire against either Persia or Turkey. Its first campaign, against Russia itself, was to be its last. ”

“ At daybreak they were marching. "They shall not flee!" said Kalinovski. "Stop them with cavalry; open on the cowards with cannon!" One part of the Polish army hurried to stop the other; there was a discharge of artillery; some of the fugitives rushed on, but most of them stopped. Then a second discharge of artillery, and a battle began. The Cossacks gazed on this wonderful scene; when their amazement had passed, they attacked the enemy, and indescribable slaughter began. ”

“ The leader of the legions was the gallant Dombrowski. "Fellow-citizens! Poles!" cried he in his manifesto to his nation in language strangely prophetic of the hour that is scarcely past, when we have seen a Polish army in Polish uniform fighting for liberty by the side of the Allies in the European War: "Hope is rising! France is conquering. The battalions are forming. Comrades, join us! Fling away the weapons which you have been compelled to bear. Let us fight for the common cause of all the nations, for freedom." [7]
In these early days Napoleon's betrayal of Poland was a tale still untold ”

“ We are learning that town and fortress Warsaw has capitulated before Russian force, that Polish Army has withdrawn to Modlin region, that only 24 thousands Poles were in Warsaw when it was attacked and threaten, that 36 thousands were in Podlasie and at least, when it was written order reigns in Warsaw. ”

“ Certainly a Polish army will soon arise from your brave ranks, and this army will defend and guard your country. We are glad that we (sic) are able to fight still further shoulder to shoulder with you. A free Kingdom of Poland! Hurrah!”
Now these were very “handsome expressions” considering that the last act of the Polish legions was to march away without permission from the front at Stokhod, and again this emphasises the enormous importance that Germany attached to the power of Pilsudski. ”

“ Germany, which before the war had a peace establishment of 800,000 men and reserves running into millions, has to-day a total army of 100,000 men—about one-third the size of the Polish army. The formidable German equipment which for four years pounded the cities and villages of northern France to dust is either destroyed or scattered for display amongst the towns and villages of the victors. The Austrian army, which had in 1913-14 a peace establishment of 420,000 men and a reserve of two or three millions of trained men, has to-day been reduced to a tiny force of 30,000 men. ”

“ Warsaw lay in the rear of the Polish army. Behind it flowed the Vistula, with but a single bridge for escape in case of defeat. Victory or death seemed the alternatives of the patriot force.
RUSSIAN PEASANTS.
The struggle was for the Alder Wood, the key of the position. For the possession of this forest the fight was hand to hand. Again and again it was lost and retaken. On the 25th, the final day of battle, it was held by the Poles. Forty-five thousand in number, they were confronted by a Russian army of one hundred thousand men. ”

“ The Poles are the most emotional nation in Europe, and from Kalisz to Biala and from Mlava to Stopnika they abandoned themselves to their joy. Thereafter the Polish enthusiasm for the war vied with that of the Russians themselves. The effect was immediately felt in the army. In one of the early dispatches received at Petrograd from the front, mention was made of the furious heroism of the Polish regiments. In Russia, therefore, the results of the Proclamation were to remove the last shreds of apathy and to weld both the subjects and the armies of the Tzar into one pulsating whole. ”

“ IX. The sovereign alone shall have the power to determine the participation of the kingdom of Poland in the Russian wars, as well as in the treaties of peace which that power may conclude.
X. In every instance in which Russian troops may be introduced into Poland, or Polish troops into Russia, or in the event of the passage of these troops through any province of either of these kingdoms, the support of such troops, and the expences attendant upon their journey, shall rest entirely with the nation to which they belong. The Polish army shall never be employed out of Europe. ”

“ The Prince helped the peasants to bury him and the other dead.
“Then alone, not certain where to find the body of partizans which was constantly moving about in all directions, he resolved to try and join the main Polish army facing the Russians on the borders of Lithuania. Disguised in peasant clothes, in case of meeting some marauding Cossacks, he wandered a couple of weeks before he came upon a village occupied by a regiment of Polish cavalry on outpost duty.
“On a bench, before a peasant hut of a better sort, sat an elderly officer whom he took for the colonel. ”

“ The Provisional Government had declared the independence of Poland, and the Poles now counted themselves “foreigners”; Polish formations had long ago existed on the South-Western front, though they were breaking up (with the exception of the Polish Lancers) ; having given permission to the Ukrainians, the Government could not refuse it to the Poles. Finally, the Central Powers, by creating the appearance of Polish independence, also had in view the formation of a Polish Army, which, however, ended in failure. America also formed a Polish Army on French territory. ”

“ This Austrian army, after being heavily reinforced, so that it amounted to about 500,000 men, began to march northward towards Warsaw. It was then still further reinforced by a German army which had advanced from Posen, and invaded the Polish province of Kalisch. In Poland, therefore, there was a very considerable army which seriously threatened Lublin and Warsaw, and would require heavy and probably extended operations before it could be forced back. ”

“ If the development of the Political situation should show that a surprise at the beginning of the war is out of question, because of well advanced defense preparations on the part of the Polish Army, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army will order the opening of the hostilities only after the assembling of sufficient additional forces. ”

“ In a measure separate battles in this Polish campaign sink, at this time, into insignificance. For the total number of men involved, the extent of the battle ground, the frequency of engagements which under any other circumstances would, without any doubt, have been considered battles of the first magnitude, stamped them at this time as "minor actions." The fighting, however, was as furious as at any time, the hardships as severe as anywhere, and the valor on both sides as great as ever. Again the wonderful mobility of the German army organization was one of the strongest features. ”

“ In the hope of regaining from Napoleon the freedom of their country, the former soldiers of the Republic, no less than the rising young Polish manhood, panting with [183] passionate patriotism and with the warlike instinct of their race, enrolled themselves in the French army. "Poland has not perished while we live," was the song, the March of Dombrowski, with which they went to battle, and which to this day forbidden though it has been by their oppressors, we may hear Poles sing at national gatherings. ”

“ That he did the correct thing by his stand for the just interests of the Polish population is proved, for example, by the impressive fact that barely a year and a half after the defeat of the Polish people in a campaign of 18 days, the concentration of German army masses against Russia in the Polish area took place without any disturbance worth mentioning, and that the Eastern railroad was able, with Polish personnel, to move the troop transports up to the most forward unloading points without being delayed by acts of sabotage. ”

“ As not only the troops, but the gendarmes and the Customs officials, were removed from the frontier districts, and the Custom houses were closed in anticipation of an Austrian advance before the Russian mobilisation was completed, people could pass into Austria without examination at the frontier, and many Poles took the opportunity of thus escaping enlistment into the Russian Army and joining the Polish legions which were being formed at their own expense by the Poles in Galicia for service with the Austrian [Pg 343] Army. ”

“ The Germans compel captured officers to work with the men, spit at them and drive them about bare to the waist.
A competent eyewitness in East Prussia says that the German communications are very good, and that underground telephones are frequently discovered. Large forces are in close contact here, and the Russian counter-stroke has much impressed the enemy. Our men bear fatigue and privations with great endurance.
The Polish population shows the greatest alacrity in assisting the Russian troops both in the country and in the towns. All Poles now readily speak Russian. ”

“ Their numbers equalled, according to Kościuszko's computation, one single column of the Russian army. An empty treasury, an empty arsenal, were behind them; they were pitted against seasoned soldiers, trained in successful war; but the fire of patriotism ran high through their ranks. Many of the nobles, following the old traditions of Polish history, raised regiments in their own provinces, armed them at their own cost, and in person led them to the field. ”

“ In the cause of humanity it may be said that Japan stands shoulder [182] to shoulder with Russia. Russia need fear no enemy in her rear while Japan is her Ally.”
There is no doubt that the Russian Army had been in many ways improved since the war with Japan. The greatest advance had been in the matter of the working of the General Staff. The most remarkable feature of this Polish campaign was the methodical way in which the huge armies engaged on the Russian side had been concentrated and were now moved and supplied in a difficult country and on a front of many hundred miles. ”

“ At Radom—now in Russian hands again after a month’s occupation by the enemy, and where his invasion plan is supposed to have been perfected—the following proclamation to the Polish inhabitants was issued by the commander of a Russian army corps: “Poles! Our wounded officers and soldiers, and also our prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the enemy and had passed through the town and province of Radom, [111] speak with deep gratitude of your cordial treatment of them. You have tended the wounded, fed the starving, and sheltered from the enemy those escaping from captivity. ”

“ It is the motto of the Polish population on whichever side of the Russian frontier; and may the purification of which it speaks lead to happier things: for no nationality has been tempered in a harder school than that of Poland. ”

“ I saw at Kielce ample evidence of the enthusiasm of the Poles for the Russian cause; they show the greatest courtesy and kindness, especially in the villages. I am told on good evidence that at Kalisz, when a German soldier defaced a portrait of the Tsar, a Polish official struck him in the face, and for this was bound to a telegraph post for two days, and then taken down and shot. All evidence of prisoners shows that the Russians are treating enemies as well as their own comrades—often [Pg 51] I have seen them giving the captives the best of everything. ”

“ The Austrian Army in these Polish campaigns suffered under the serious disadvantage that, amongst the various nationalities serving in it, there were many men whose sympathies were with the enemy, or whose hearts were not on the Austrian side. The Slav soldiers felt they were fighting against their brother Slavs of Russia, and there were also in the Austrian army in Galicia Italian regiments from the Venetian border about Trieste and Fiume. ”

“ A century and a half has passed since the living body of Poland was torn in pieces, but the soul of the country is not dead. It continues to live, inspired by the hope that there will come for the Polish people an hour of resurrection, and of fraternal reconciliation with Great Russia. The Russian Army brings you the solemn73 news of this reconciliation which obliterates the frontiers dividing the Polish peoples, which it unites conjointly under the sceptre of the Russian Tzar. ”

“ The responsibility for these excesses is borne for the most part by the undisciplined and ill-equipped Polish recruits who, uncontrolled by their inexperienced and oftimes timid officers, sought to profit at the expense of that portion of the population which they regarded as alien and hostile to Polish nationality and aspirations. It is recognized that the enforcement of discipline in a new and untrained army is a matter of extreme difficulty. ”

“ The initial and general planning of the attack on Poland, however, had to be examined, checked, corrected, and perfected by the field commanders who were to carry out the attack. In a document issued in the middle of June 1939 (C-142) , von Brauchitsch as C-in-C of the Army passed on the general outlines of the plan to the field commanders-in-chief (the Oberbefehlshaber of Army Groups and Armies) so that they could work out the actual preparation and deployments in accordance with the general plan:
“The object of the operation is to destroy the Polish Armed Forces. ”