The Meeting in Magdeburg

Magdeburger is decorated for the occasion with Polish and Nazi flags

Hitler, view from the back, speaking with high party officials

Mayor of Magdeburg is greeting Martin Bormann

The Magdeburg Sting 1936

Polish-bolshevik War, Prelude to Victory

On August 1, Brest-Litovsk fell and the Narew and Western Bug River-today's eastern border of Poland-were crossed by the Red Army, the last river barrier before the Vistula River and Warsaw had been breached. Polish attempt to defend the Bug river line with 4th Army and Group Poleska units stopped the advance of the Red Army for only one week. The Red Army had been marching for three weeks at an average speed of 12 miles a day. Their ongoing advance seemed unstoppable.

On August 2, Units of the Russian Northwest Front, after taking Lomza and Ostroleka (by Gej-Chan) and crossing the Narew River, were only 60 miles from Warsaw. Fortress of Brześć which was to be the headquarters of Polish planned counteroffensive fell to the 16th Army in the first attack. The Russian Southwest Front had pushed Polish forces out of Ukraine and was closing on Zamość and Lwów, the metropolis of south-eastern Poland and an important industrial center, defended by the Polish 6th Army. The way to the Polish capital lay open. Polish Galicia's Lwów (Ukrainian Lviv) was besieged, and five Russian armies were approaching Warsaw. Polish forces in Galicia near Lwów launched a counteroffensive to slow the Soviets down. The 6th Army of general Jedrzejewski and elements of the Ukrainian forces defended Lwów, and the 2nd Army and Group Operacyjna Jazdy attacked from Styr towards Brody and Radziwillow.

Between 29 July and 2 August, during the battle of Brody, Polish 18 Division of Infantry managed to recapture Brody surrounding parts of Soviets forces. This had put a stop to the retreat of Polish forces on the southern front.

Western public opinion, swayed by the press and by left-wing politicians, was strongly anti-Polish. Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George was a Soviet sympathizer and authorized British sales of large quantities of armaments (including modern tanks) to fill urgent Soviet orders, at the same time blocking any British moves to aid Poland. The Polish cause in the United Kingdom was supported only by the head of the British military mission to Warsaw, General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart and a few politicians led by the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, who advocated moving Royal Air Force units to support Poland. 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. 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 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. In Gdansk harbor, British troops were used to unload munitions ships because the mostly German longshoremen went on strike when they learned of the cargo; similar things happened in Czechoslovakian Brno. The Hungarians, who had experienced communist regime led by a jew; Béla Kun, became aware that Poles were fighting for their freedom, so tried to extend a helping hand. They planned to dispatch a 30,000-man cavalry corps to join the Polish Army, but the Czechoslovak government denied them passage across Czechoslovak territory. Their attempts to help Poland succeeded in the crucial period of the war, when several trains loaded with Hungary-made Mauser rifles reached Poland. That help was remembered by Poles as another manifestation of the traditional Polish-Hungarian friendship.

On August 10, 1920, Russian Cossack units under the command of Gay Dimitrievich Gay (sometimes called by Poles Gaj-Chan (pronounced "Guy Khan")) crossed the Vistula River, planning to take Warsaw from the west that is from the direction opposite to that of the attacking main Soviet forces.

On August 13, an initial Russian attack under General Mikhail Tukhachevski was repulsed. The Polish 1st Army under Gen Franciszek Latinik resisted a Red Army direct assault on Warsaw stopping the Soviet assault at Radzymin. The Soviet commander-in-chief, Tukhachevski, feeling certain that all was going according to his plan, was actually falling into a trap set by Piłsudski. Budionny's 1st Cavalry Army, much feared by Piłsudski and other Polish commanders, was effectively neutralized in the battles around Lwów.

August 14, 1920, the Polish 5th Army under General Władysław Sikorski counterattacked from the area of the Modlin fortress, crossing the Wkra River. It faced the combined forces of the numerically and materially superior Soviet 3rd and 15th Armies. The struggle at Nasielsk lasted till August 15 and resulted in the near-complete destruction of the town. However, by the end of that day the Soviet advance toward Warsaw and Modlin had been halted and soon turned into retreat. Sikorski's 5th Army pushed the exhausted Soviet formations away from Warsaw in a near-blitzkrieg operation. Polish forces advanced at a speed of thirty kilometres a day, soon destroying any Soviet hopes for completing their enveloping manoeuvre in the north.

By August 16 the Polish counteroffensive had been fully joined by Marshal Piłsudski's "Reserve Army". Precisely executing his plan, the Polish force, advancing from the south, found a huge gap between the Russian fronts and exploited the weakness of the Soviet "Mozyr Group" that was supposed to protect the weak link between the Soviet Fronts. The Poles continued their northward offensive crossing the Wieprz River and moving towards Minsk Mazowiecki-Kaluszyn-Siedlce-Biala Podlaska line; with two armies following and destroying the surprised and confused enemy, they reached the rear of Tukhachevski's forces, the majority of which were encircled on August 18 Only that same day did Tukhachevski, at his Minsk headquarters 300 miles east of Warsaw, become fully aware of the proportions of the Soviet defeat and order the remnants of his forces to retreat and regroup - but it was already too late.

The Soviet armies in the center of the front fell into chaos. After the Polish 203rd Uhlan Regiment broke through the bolshevik lines and destroyed the radio station of Dmitry Shuvayev's Soviet 4th Army, that army continued to fight its way toward Warsaw alone, unaware of the overall situation. Only the Russian 15th Army remained an organized force and tried to obey Tukhachevski's orders, shielding the withdrawal of the westernmost 4th Army. But defeated twice, August 19 and 20, it became part of the general rout of the Northwest Front. Tukhachevski ordered a general retreat toward the Western Bug River, but by then he had lost contact with most of his forces near Warsaw, and all the bolshevik plans had been thrown into disarray by communication failures.

The bolshevik armies retreated in a disorganised fashion, entire divisions panicking and disintegrating.

In the morning of August 16, the 1st battalion of Polish 54th Infantry Regiment was sent from Lwów towards the village of Nowosiólki (east of the town of Krasne) in order to help the volunteer units organised in Lwów by Major (later a general) Roman Abraham. Upon its arrival, the battalion found the town occupied by the Red Army and recaptured it. However, the following day it was endangered by encirclement and was ordered to withdraw towards Lwów.

In the morning of August 17 it was taken by surprise near a train station in the village of Zadwórze and was completely destroyed by forces of the Red 6th Cavalry Division of the 1st Cavalry Army. All Polish soldiers, approximately 200, were killed or missing.
At the same time a battalion of approximately 500 volunteers organised by Roman Abraham under command of capt Boleslaw Zajaczkowski was marching from Krasne along the Lwów-Tarnopol rail road. Shortly before noon, the group reached the village of Kutkorz, it was attacked with machine gun fire from the nearby village of Zadwórze. Capt Zajaczkowski ordered his men to form a line and started an assault towards the village. After a short fight, 330 Poles captured the train station. However, the village was not taken and soon the Polish forces were counter-attacked by the units of 6th Cavalry Division.

By dusk the Poles' ammunition was almost completely depleted, yet the Polish unit managed to repulse six consecutive cavalry charges Captain Zajaczkowski decided that the further defence of the station was impossible and ordered his units to retreat towards Lwów. However, the retreat was halted by three bolshevik airplanes strafing the Polish defenders. After suffering heavy casualties, Zajaczkowski ordered his men to organize a last pocket of resistance near the lineman's hut. After hand-to-hand combat with sabers and bayonets, the Polish resistance was broken. Out of 330 Polish soldiers who seized the train station earlier that day, 318 were dead. Several dozen wounded Poles were captured by the Red Army and murdered. Captain Zajaczkowski himself committed suicide in order not to be captured by the enemy. Only twelve Polish soldiers returned to the Polish lines to recount what had happened during the battle.

The advance of Budionny's Cavalry Army toward Lwów was halted by this small Polish force sacrifice preventing Soviet cavalry from seizing Lwów and stopping vital Polish reinforcements from moving toward Warsaw.

Among the Polish soldiers killed in the battle was 19-year-old Konstanty Zarugiewicz, a student of the 7th course of primary school and a veteran of the 1918 defence of Lwów, for which he was awarded with Virtuti Militari and Krzyz Walecznych. His body was never found. In 1925, when the authorities of Warsaw and the commanders of the Polish Army decided to build a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, his mother Jadwiga Zarugiewiczowa was chosen as the person to select the coffin to be transported to Warsaw and buried in the grave.

In 20 August, 1920, Polish army had reached the strength of 737,767, so there was rough numerical parity between the Polish army and the Soviet forces acting against it - 950,000 on the Soviet side. Although Soviet Russia had reserves totaling 4 million soldiers, due to shortage of arms they were not at the front as Russia could only produce 100,000 rifles per month.

On 22 August, TKRP, a communist "puppet government", staffed by jews, created to lead future Soviet Poland, was disbanded.

On 29 August, Budionny's 1st Cavalry Army fought the first battle with units of Polish 1st Cavalry Division. A small "Special Battalion" led by major (later general) Stanisław Maczek fought a successful delaying battle near the village of Warez. Later that day Polish 1st Uhlans Regiment found several bolshevik units undefended and took 150 POWs, 3 pieces of artillery and 7 machine guns in the villages of Lykoszyn and Tyszowce.

Prolog Cavalry Players Trip Meeting Airport Boat ride Castle Visiting Bad Harzburg Epilog Executions Photos The End