Battle of Warsaw (1920)

Background

Poland's eastern frontier was undecided when the Great War ended, and by 1920 Piłsudski's Poland and Lenin's Russia were fighting over it. Lenin also saw Poland as the road along which revolution might reach Germany and western Europe. On 21 April Piłsudski allied himself with the Ukrainian leader Symon Petlyura, and their forces entered Kiev on 7 May. A Soviet counteroffensive followed. Budyonny's cavalry broke through in early June and Tukhachevsky's Western Front attacked on 4 July. The Poles fell back across the country: Grodno fell on 19 July, Brest on 22 July and Białystok on 28 July. Talks at Baranavichy in early August came to nothing.

On the night of 5–6 August Piłsudski devised a new plan. The army would withdraw behind the Vistula, hold bridgeheads at Warsaw and on the Wieprz, and gather a strike force in the south, from which it could hit the Soviet flank. Polish cryptanalysts, who had been reading Russian ciphers since September 1919, gave the planners a good picture of the enemy's moves. Who deserves credit for the plan is disputed. Piłsudski is usually credited, but Paderewski told the Allied leaders that the French general Weygand had the idea, and post-battle reports named Weygand or Rozwadowski. Wandycz and Odziemkowski argue that the French mission proposed only a minor two-division counterattack, while Davies describes Piłsudski and Rozwadowski working out the details together.

The armies

The Polish army that fought for Warsaw belonged to a state barely two years old. One English-language account, uncited on this point, lists three fronts and seven armies: Haller's Northern Front, Rydz-Śmigły's Central Front, which supplied the strike group assembled on the Wieprz, and Iwaszkiewicz's Southern Front. Sikorski's 5th Army held the sector north-east of the capital, with Skierski's 4th, Latinik's 1st, Roja's 2nd, Zieliński's 3rd and Jędrzejewski's 6th Armies elsewhere. A few tank units, mostly French FT-17s, were available, along with armoured cars and armoured trains.

Tukhachevsky's front, with about 24 divisions in four armies, was strung out along a wide arc after a month of rapid advance: Shuvayev's 4th Army on the northern flank, Kork's 15th, Lazarevich's 3rd and Sollogub's 16th Army, facing Warsaw itself, with Bzhishkyan's 3rd Cavalry Corps on the right. Its communications proved fragile. Overall direction came from Sergey Kamenev, and Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army belonged not to Tukhachevsky but to the South-Western Front, then pressing towards Lwów. How far Moscow's political priorities, and Stalin's role with the South-Western Front, kept it from joining the battle is argued over, and the sources used here disagree.

The battle

Prelude, to 11 August. The Polish plan assumed the Red Army would batter itself against Warsaw while Piłsudski's group, concentrated around the Wieprz south-east of the capital, struck north into its flank. CDB90's single engagement, WARSAW (253), runs from 14 to 26 August and so begins after the first and hardest phase of the Soviet assault.

First phase, 12–14 August. On 12 August the Red Army attacked the Praga bridgehead frontally. The 16th Army went for Radzymin, north-east of the capital, which changed hands several times. The sources differ on whether it fell on 13 or 14 August. Sikorski's 5th Army was broken at this point. Around midnight, the Polish 203rd Uhlan Regiment raided a Soviet command post and destroyed the radio station of the 4th Army, and Polish radio operators are said to have blocked the remaining frequency by broadcasting passages from Genesis, leaving the 4th Army out of touch with its headquarters.

Second phase, 14–15 August. On 14 August the Polish 5th Army counterattacked across the Wkra, to the north. Fighting at Nasielsk lasted into 15 August and largely destroyed the town. The Soviet advance on Warsaw and Modlin stopped, and the Poles retook Radzymin on 15 August. Sikorski's army, using tanks, armoured cars and armoured trains, pushed the Soviet units back by about 30 kilometres a day.

Third phase, 16–21 August. On 16 August Piłsudski's Assault Group marched north from the Wieprz. It met little resistance from the weakened Mozyr Group, advanced 45 kilometres on the first day and liberated Włodawa. In Minsk, Tukhachevsky recognised the defeat on 18 August and ordered a retreat, but many orders arrived late or not at all. The 1st Legions Infantry Division made a forced march from Lubartów to Białystok, 262 kilometres in six days, cutting off the 16th Army. The 15th Army was beaten twice on 19 and 20 August. By 21 August organised Soviet resistance had ended, and between 25,000 and 30,000 Soviet troops crossed into East Prussia, where they were interned. The Soviet Southwestern Front was routed by the end of August.

What decided it. The sources agree on the outline even where they differ on detail. Piłsudski's Assault Group met a Mozyr Group too weak to stop it and covered 45 kilometres on its first day. The Soviet 4th Army, on the northern flank, had lost contact with its headquarters, and Tukhachevsky's order to retreat on 18 August reached many units late or not at all. The Soviet armies, strung out on a long front, were left to be cut off one by one: the 16th Army at Białystok, then the 15th.

Aftermath

The losses were lopsided. The usual figures put Polish casualties at roughly 40,000, including about 4,500 killed, while the Soviet total is 110,000 to 126,000, of whom 65,000 or more were captured, with a further 30,000 or so interned in East Prussia. The Poles took about 231 guns and 1,023 machine guns. The Soviet Southwestern Front was routed by 31 August, when Budyonny's cavalry were beaten at Komarów. Tukhachevsky regrouped near Grodno and lost again on the Niemen on 15–21 September. A ceasefire was signed on 12 October, and the Treaty of Riga followed on 18 March 1921. Lenin called the result an enormous defeat. A Soviet plan to overthrow the Lithuanian government was dropped.

The argument over causes has never stopped. Davies blames Soviet tardiness and command friction, Fiddick the decision in Moscow to shift resources towards the Crimea, and more recent historians accuse Stalin of disobeying orders by attacking Lwów instead of supporting Tukhachevsky. The name 'Miracle on the Vistula' was coined by the National Democrat Stroński as a jibe at Piłsudski's Ukrainian adventure, and Witos answered in Piłsudski's favour. Diaries of participants credit the Virgin Mary, and the turn of the battle on 15 August falls on the Feast of the Assumption. The long-held belief that Allied intervention saved Poland, with Weygand at its centre, is now treated as a myth.

Wargaming it

The battle is a gift to the operational-level wargamer and a harder fit for the tactical one. A scale of one counter to a brigade or regiment, with a 10-kilometre hex or a 15-kilometre grid map covering Warsaw, the Wkra and the Wieprz, captures what mattered: space, speed and information, not firepower. Both armies were small by 1914 standards and fought in loose formations, so even a division is a modest unit.

The interesting decisions are asymmetric. The Polish player must decide how long to let the Soviets bleed against Praga and Radzymin before committing the Wieprz group, and must trade that against the risk of losing Warsaw first. The Soviet player faces a wide front, bad communications and orders that arrive late, and could be given delayed or disrupted order rules to reflect the collapse in the 4th Army's wireless link and the late retreat order of 18 August. A hidden-movement mechanic suits the Polish strike group, whose location Tukhachevsky did not know.

The what-ifs are well known: Budyonny's cavalry joining the northern battle, the Mozyr Group holding Piłsudski's thrust, or Radzymin and Nasielsk both falling a day earlier. A balanced scenario might begin on 13 August and end on the 18th, with a victory condition for the Soviets of holding Radzymin and a Vistula crossing for three consecutive turns.

Maps and pictures