At the end of September 1939, successive Polish commanders made decisions about surrender with a heavy heart. They often encountered misunderstanding in their own ranks. This was the case with General Juliusz Rómml, who almost cost his life for the order to lay down the arms.
The protests of general Rómmel's capitulation order near Warsaw testify to the spirit of the defenders at the end of the struggle with the aggressor. Individual units in the defensive sections did not want to lay down their weapons. Only the intervention of the direct commanders, who presented the whole tragedy of the situation and the nonsense of further fight, prompted the soldiers to obey .
As a result of the uncompromising attitude of the masses of soldiers, an accident happened in the command of the "Warsaw" army, as a result of which General Rómmel almost lost his life. On September 29, a cadet named Piłsudski reported. The general, believing that it was someone from the family of the late Marshal Piłsudski, ordered the cadet to be let in.
An officer cadet in full combat gear, a rifle in his hand, marched into the room. But it must have cost him too much of his spiritual strength to appear before the general. For when Rómmel asked where he was coming from, he would cry instead of answering.
It was an extraordinary time, and therefore the reactions could have been extraordinary. General Rómmel, who had a little older son in the army, felt towards the young man more of a father than a high superior. He walked over to the cadet and hugged him. Then the midshipman explained that he came from the trenches, where they were always victorious, they repelled all German attacks and with every contact they dominated them in every respect.
- That is why the unfortunate order to surrender - he reported to the general - surprised and terrified everyone incredibly.
An interesting fact is a fragment of Apoloniusz Zawilski's book "Battles of Polish September" (Horizon 2018 sign).
When the general calmly explained to the young man what the country really found itself in, when he convinced that further bloodshed was pointless, the midshipman took a pistol out of his uniform and throwing it on the table, he exclaimed:
- I didn't know anything. We, in the company, know nothing. I thought the general had betrayed us. I have come to shoot the general. Please hand me over to a court-martial.
This poor and tragic Kordian of 1939 was a symbol of hundreds of thousands of soldiers for whom defeat after promises of dazzling victories was an inconceivable phenomenon ...
Source:
The above text was originally published as part of the monumental work of Apoloniusz Zawilski Battles of Polish September (Horizon 2018 sign). The title, lead, illustrations with captions, bolds and subtitles come from the editorial office. The text has undergone some basic editing to introduce more frequent paragraph breaks.