But far from being crushed, the Polish army was stronger than it had ever been throughout the campaign. While Tukhachevsky's forces had diminished - they numbered less than 150,000 men actively engaged on both fronts - the Polish army approached the total of 370,000 soldiers - poorly trained and under-equipped - (including 28,000 cavalry). , as of August 20. On the 12th, 185,000 of them were in place.
Given his growing forces, Pilsudski ordered a bold and imaginative counteroffensive. It was later claimed that Weygand had been the instigator of this plan; in fact, it was undoubtedly Pilsudski who designed it alone, working out the details with General Rozwadowski. On August 6, he gave the order to build up a strike force about 95 km south of Warsaw on the Weprz, unaware that Tukhachevsky would attempt to encircle Warsaw from the north. He was therefore well advised to entrust the defense of the Wkra line, upstream of Warsaw, to the Fifth Army (26,000 men) under the command of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, probably the most reliable and capable leader of the two camps. The Warsaw garrison, 46,000 strong, was made up of P0 and armies, and reserve troops. To the south, the strike force was supported by the III0 and D armies (48,000 men). The 20,000 man force, commanded by General Edward Smigly-Rydz (called to command the defeated Polish army in 1939) was made up of formations brought from the south - notably the 1st and 3rd Legion divisions with two cavalry brigades On August 17, this force would advance through Mosyr's group and begin a massive encirclement movement of all of Tukhachevsky's northern armies.The outer edge of this huge sweep would encompass Brest-Litovsk and Bialystok.
Thus Pilsudski had followed Weygand's advice and taken troops from the south, troops which would spearhead his counter-offensive, but Weygand was not associated with the preparation of this plan. It is doubtful that Weygand believed in the ability of the Poles to pull off such a wildly ambitious project Radcliffe was certainly skeptical, realizing that Tukhachevsky would attempt to encircle Warsaw, this shrewd soldier recommended
d first to employ the city garrison to attack the flank of any turning movement. But Radcliffe, a mere foreign observer, had no influence on the course of events; Pilsudski's audacious and unorthodox plan was meant to be implemented.
Carrying it out involved serious risk during the week when forces would be in transit from south to north. Pilsudski himself spoke in disapproving terms of this maneuver and considered it "contrary to all logic and all sound military principles".
Tukhachevsky was also of this opinion. Soviet soldiers of the XII Army had found the plan for Pilsudski's counter-offensive on the corpse of a Polish officer killed near Chelm, but no one wanted to believe it.
As the 1" and 3' Legion divisions were then fighting on the southern front, it seemed highly unlikely that they could spearhead an offensive in the north.
Tukhachevsky decreed that the captured plans were fakes. “Because of the high morale of our troops, he was to declare later, we had the absolute right to anticipate victory. »