Historical story

Piłsudski's forgotten sin. Was it his fault that the Bolsheviks stood near Warsaw?

The Battle of Warsaw could be won a month earlier and it is six hundred kilometers from the capital. If it happened in the outskirts of the metropolis, it was not the fault of Lenin, but because of the inflated ego of Józef Piłsudski. Such a version of the story is not spoken of loudly. However, there is no shortage of arguments to confirm it.

"Piss you chickens, not make politics", "I call it a constitution. And I made up this word, because it is closest to a prostitute "," Who was not a socialist when he was young, he will be a motherfucker in his old age. " These are just a few of Józef Piłsudski's juicy sayings.

They are repeated today with undisguised sympathy and an indulgent smile on the lips. Piłsudski is a great figure and enough. Therefore, he is forgiven for everything and always. The undisputed achievements of the marshal make such an impression on everyone that they do not even admit thoughts, so that he could have weaker moments on his account.

Even his fierce opponents succumbed to the commandant's magic in relation to Piłsudski's most glaring mistakes. Commenting on the retreat of Polish troops to Warsaw, which ended in a great battle fought on August 13-25, 1920, Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz accused the marshal of conducting secret negotiations aimed at saving the Bolsheviks.

The journalist's reasoning was based on the conviction that it is impossible for this clever and skillful Piłsudski to make such a mistake in assessing who is the most dangerous enemy of the Republic of Poland. He must have ascribed dishonorable behavior to him - selling the commander of the "Whites" to the Bolsheviks.

Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz did not believe that Piłsudski could have made such a mistake in assessing the threat posed by the Bolsheviks (source:public domain).

According to Cat, the retreat to Warsaw must have had great reasons. Because only such are at the root of great events. And yet it is enough to look at the statements of Piłsudski himself to understand how many - in the months preceding the unexpected triumph near Warsaw - he made mistakes.

Negating or disregarding

The comments from the first half of 1920 form a coherent whole. Piłsudski had a strong opinion about the Bolsheviks and did not intend to change it. It was his opinion, so it was correct. He was not convinced by any arguments.

Józef Piłsudski in the early 1920s had already formed an opinion about the potential of the Red Army. Did he not, however, disregard his opponent? (source:public domain).

Interview for the Times, February 1920:

Journalist:Are you general Piłsudski was not yet a marshal] is he not afraid of their (Bolshevik) army?

Józef Piłsudski: No, they are such poor soldiers! The Polish soldier is much better. We always beat them. Why should I be afraid of them?

D:The great force argument cannot be ignored. Suppose Trotsky can concentrate 200,000 soldiers in Vitebsk, and the general master can only match them with 100,000, what then?

JP:If the Bolsheviks had achieved success, it would only be very limited and would have been remedied very quickly. It is impossible for Poland to fail in this war.

Interview in "Echo de Paris" February 1920: These are soldiers who are badly led, badly led, without fortitude. The little front guards beat each other well. The main forces following them barely deserve to be called the military. (...) They stay in defense until the evening. When evening falls - they run away. (…) In terms of maneuver, the Bolshevik army is very weak.

Quote for the Daily News, May 1920: The Red Army is completely badly organized. Red soldiers only fight badly and show some courage if they are in an armored train and have a little sense of security. I took 30,000 prisoners (...) It is not easy to send 30,000 back to the Red Army, but we are going to do it. I don't know if this will give a good result, but I really like experiments.

According to Józef Piłsudski, the Red Army soldiers were poorly commanded and deprived of fortitude. In the photo from 1920, a Red Army unit marches to the front line (source:public domain).

Little Grand Marshal

These statements could be treated as buzzing propaganda, were it not for the fact that in his excellent analysis of the Polish-Bolshevik war Piłsudski himself stated that he did not appreciate his opponent. "Budyonny's cavalry approaching us, I admit openly, I neglected," he said. This is perhaps the strongest open admission in the Marshal's legacy own judgment.

Only one sentence can compete with him:" I confess openly that I did not see any reason to be anxious at the time while reading the cables. and specially the attack of the main forces of Mr. Tukhachevsky towards Molodeczno worried me the least. "

This disregard for the opponent had its tragic climax at the beginning of July, when, after a short fight on July 4-6, General Żeligowski gave the order to retreat, which ended almost 600 kilometers away, near Warsaw.

In retrospect, the marshal himself admitted that he completely disregarded Budyonny's cavalry (source:public domain).

Fog of War

Of course, you can (and must) defend Józef Piłsudski. During a war waged on such a vast territory, it is extremely difficult to identify the intentions of the enemy, properly assess the size of the threat from a distance and react appropriately. Piłsudski himself wrote that he was not helped in this task by "timid" telegrams sent from the front by General Szeptycki, in which he reportedly dealt with "insignificant cases".

The fact remains that in the face of a general offensive of the Bolsheviks the Polish army found itself in a situation in which the Commander-in-Chief was unable to react strongly and decisively to nip a threat in the bud. Why? His own analyzes of this period swarm with the phrases "I saw no reason to be anxious", "I neglected", "I couldn't understand" and so on.

In the most important moment of the war, the Commander's thoughts and feelings were completely different from those of his subordinates.

In the face of the general Bolshevik offensive, Józef Piłsudski did not react strongly and decisively enough. As a result, the Red Army reached Warsaw (source:public domain).

The greatest of military theorists, Carl von Clausewitz, wrote:“War is a field of uncertainty; three-quarters of what warfare is based on is clouded by greater or lesser uncertainty. Here, then, first of all, a subtle, penetrating reason is necessary to sense the truth and judge correctly. (...) This uncertainty of all news and assumptions, this constant interfering of chance causes that the agent constantly finds things in a different state in the war than he expected, and this necessarily has an impact on his plans, or at least on the ideas related to these plans " .

The price of disregard

At the beginning of July, Piłsudski disregarded his opponent so much that he was unable to change his ideas about him, even in the face of the facts. Self-confidence, faith in the accuracy of his own assessments, which has brought him success so many times, this time brought a deadly danger to Poland.

True, he won in the end, but the situation of the Republic of Poland meant that we were unable to operate effectively on other fronts - in Upper Silesia, in Cieszyn Silesia.

It is true that Józef Piłsudski finally won the Bolsheviks, but the wasted month undoubtedly influenced the later fate of the Second Polish Republic (source:public domain).

In the end, his idea of ​​creating a Ukraine allied with Poland failed. The controversial demarcation line of December 8 (the so-called Curzon Line) was established in diplomacy, and later became the basis for delimiting Poland's eastern border. Without a doubt, this wasted month and 600 kilometers influenced the fate of the Second Polish Republic.

Of course, the presented hypothesis is of the kind that cannot be conclusively proven. I guess I'm right. Sources from before July 1920 impose this thesis, and the tone of Piłsudski's self-analysis seems to confirm it. On the other hand, there will certainly be people who still say that Cat-Mackiewicz is right. Well, to quote the marshal - right is like an ass, everyone has their own.