17 September 1939

As a result of the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, which ended it, Germany not only suffered severe territorial losses, especially in the east, but also found itself politically isolated. The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles also significantly reduced the Weimar Republic's defensive capabilities and its ability to rebuild its military potential. As a reminder, Germany could only maintain an army of around 100,000 men, but with no air force, no armoured weapons and a token navy. They were also bound by a ban on the transfer of armaments and war material.  Soviet Russia found itself similarly isolated internationally, and in 1918, after the Peace of Brest with Germany, was not only forced to withdraw from the war under humiliating conditions, but also lost Belarus and a large part of Ukraine. The Bolsheviks' seizure of power also did its part. Attempts by the Bolshevik state to regain the former western governorates of the Tsarist state in 1920 were successfully resisted by Poland. Soviet Russia's difficulties were compounded by the deep economic crisis that followed the devastation of the First World War and the civil war of 1918-1922.

 

In view of the economic constraints imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, as early as the turn of 1920/1921, a plan was conceived in Reichswer command circles to establish confidential cooperation with Soviet Russia in the military sphere. To this end, the Special Group "R" (i.e. Russland) was also created to coordinate possible cooperation in this regard. In turn, the Bolsheviks, aware that cooperation with Germany would not only benefit them in the economic sphere and especially in the modernisation of their own armed forces, but would also allow them to emerge from political isolation, eagerly agreed to cooperate. In 1921, political and economic delegations were exchanged. A further step was the signing of the German-Soviet Treaty of Political-Economic Cooperation in Rappallo on 16 April 1922, which, above all in the political sphere, was a success for both countries. For it appeared that the Western powers, concerned at the prospect of closer cooperation between these two pariahs of Europe, had become willing to allow Germany, and soon Russia, to emerge from isolation. 

 

However, this had no effect on the cessation of German-Soviet contacts. In November 1922, the Soviet government granted the 'Junkers' company a concession to operate an experimental plant and a factory for aircraft engines and fighter planes manufactured on an aluminium basis in Filach, near Moscow. The agreement also stipulated that a large part of the production would be purchased by Soviet Russia at preferential prices. German engineers were also to train the Russians. However, it soon became apparent that, contrary to the agreement, the machines produced in Filach were not performing as expected, while the Germans, apart from general issues of production technology, were not so eager to pass on their knowledge of construction techniques to their Soviet colleagues. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, mainly due to the world crisis, the plant was closed down.

 

On the other hand, German-Soviet cooperation in aircraft and tank training was much better. This task was carried out by teaching and experimentation centres in the USSR headed by German officers. Between 1925 and 1933, a German aviation school operated in Lipetsk, from which 220 German pilots graduated. Tank training and trials with armoured weapons took place from 1927 on a German-leased training ground near Kazan, which was visited by, among others, Heinz Guderian, one of the Wehrmacht's best armoured troop commanders during the Second World War. In addition to Germans, Soviet officers were also students at this school. The Reichswera also conducted chemical weapons tests at training grounds in the USSR (in the so-called Tomka located in Volsk in Saratov Governorate and Podosinki near Moscow). German-Soviet military cooperation was discontinued with Hitler's rise to power in 1933.

 

The concessions of the Western powers to Hitler's aggressive policy, culminating in the Munich Agreement in 1938, caused Stalin to become distrustful of the West. It was at the turn of 1938/1939 that a change in his attitude towards the Third Reich became apparent, despite ideological differences. The Führer, too, began to see the advantages that an alliance with the USSR could bring him. In view of the change in the stance of Great Britain and France, who, in the face of the Third Reich's successive territorial annexations - the occupation of Bohemia, the German protectorate over Slovakia, the annexation of Klaipėda, and claims to Poland - strongly protested and were willing to give it security guarantees, Hitler also began to seek an agreement with Stalin. He hoped that in the face of the German-Soviet alliance, the Western powers would lower their guard and maintain the same reserve towards Poland that they had shown towards Czechoslovakia during the Munich Conference. The Soviet dictator, on the other hand, used negotiations with Great Britain and France, which urged him to ally with the Third Reich and possibly help Poland and the Baltic states, almost to the very last moment in order to force Hitler into the most favourable terms. Obviously, from both sides, this was a cynical game that was mainly aimed at isolating Poland.

 

The nuances of Hitler's policy at this time are mentioned in his memoirs by Nicolaus von Below, one of his aides: "Meanwhile, certain signs from Moscow allowed one to infer that Stalin was also interested in changing Soviet policy towards Germany. The Lithuanian Foreign Minister, a Jew who enjoyed special respect from the Western powers, was replaced by Molotov in May 1939. To my question as to what interest Stalin might have in uniting with us, Hitler replied by pointing to the economic difficulties in Russia and by remarking that "that sly fox Stalin" saw an opportunity to eliminate in this way such an uncertain factor as Poland. It is in our interest to reach an agreement with Russia, for we can thus isolate Poland and at the same time scare off England. Its main task will be to continue to avoid war with England. Germany is also not armed for such a battle, which after all would have to be fought to the death. Hitler hoped that once the German-Russian pact was concluded, talks with Poland could be resumed and England excluded from the game."

 

Between 12 and 23 August 1939, while Soviet-English-French talks were taking place in Moscow and Foreign Commissioner Vyacheslav Molotov was multiplying impossible demands (including that the British and French governments force Poland to agree to the march of Soviet troops through its territory in the event of a German attack), confidential Soviet-German talks were already underway. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, in view of the approaching date of the start of the invasion of Poland, pressed for them to be finalised as soon as possible. On 23 August, after negotiations that lasted intermittently for less than four hours, a non-aggression treaty and a top-secret protocol were signed. Here are its contents: "On the occasion of the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the undersigned representatives of the parties discussed in strictly confidential talks the question of the demarcation of their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. These talks led to the following agreement:

 

    In the event of territorial and political transformations in the districts belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern border of Lithuania will be the line dividing the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR. In this regard, both sides recognised Lithuania's interest in the Vilnius region.

    In the event of territorial and political transformations in the districts belonging to the Polish State, the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR would be demarcated roughly along the lines of the Narew, Vistula and San rivers. The question whether it is desirable in the interests of both sides to preserve the independence of the Polish State and the question of the boundaries of such a State will ultimately be resolved only by the course of future political events. In any case, the two Governments will resolve the matter by friendly agreement.

    As regards South-Eastern Europe. The Soviet side indicated its interest in Bessarabia. The German side has made it clear that it has absolutely no interest in these territories.

    The given protocol is considered by the parties to be strictly secret.

 

Moscow, 23 August 1939, on behalf of the German Government j. Ribbentrop, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of the USSR V. Molotov".

 

Obviously, this was more of a political declaration, as the spheres of influence in question were not precisely demarcated during the talks: this would not happen until 28 September, when the Third Reich and Germany would sign a treaty of friendship. What adds piquancy to the whole affair is the fact that a few hours later, through the German diplomat Hans Herwarth von Bittenfeld, an employee of the US embassy in Moscow, Charles Bohlen, found out about the provisions of the German-Soviet Pact, and the relevant report by the American ambassador in Moscow, Lawrence A. Steinhardt, was sent to Washington in a flash. Unfortunately, the Americans did not share this knowledge with the Poles. No less interesting is the fact that the contents of the secret protocol also came to the knowledge of the French at the time, who also failed to inform their Polish ally.

 

In any case, the dice had been thrown and the course of history could not be changed even by the fact that, on 25 September, Great Britain and France confirmed their Allied commitments to Poland.

 

The development of the plan for the Soviet army's entry into Poland was handled by a military mission of several people under the leadership of military attaché Commander 2nd rank M.A. Purkaev. Purkayev, which arrived in Berlin on 2 September. The Soviet servicemen were assisted by the new USSR ambassador to Germany, Skvartsev. On 3 September, faced with the advance of the Wehrmacht, which had broken through the Polish army in a border battle, Ribbentrop first urged Molotov that the Red Army should begin operations against Poland. By 14 September, when the Soviet foreign commissar assured him that the operation would begin within the next few days, the German official had approached Moscow several more times about the matter.

 

On the night of 16-17 September, German Ambassador Walter von Schulenburg was summoned to the Kremlin and informed by Stalin and Molotov that at 6 a.m. Soviet troops would cross the Polish-Soviet border all the way from Plock to Kamieniec Podolski (in fact they would do so several hours earlier). To this end, they asked a diplomat to ensure that German aviation would not cross the Brest-Lviv line from then on. The Soviet politicians pledged that the USSR air force would carry out air raids east of this line. They took the opportunity to read out to Schulenburg a note which was soon to be handed over to the Polish ambassador, Wacław Grzybowski. As we recall, the Polish diplomat summoned urgently at 3 a.m. on 17 September to the office of Secretary of State Potemkin refused to accept this document, which contained a twisted argumentation of the reasons for the Soviet war operation in Poland. Its text was the height of cynicism: "The Polish state and its government have effectively ceased to exist and therefore the treaties concluded between the USSR and Poland have lost their validity. The Soviet government could not remain indifferent to the fact that the Ukrainian and Belorussian populations living on Polish territory were defenceless and had been left to their fate. In view of these circumstances, the Soviet government ordered the Red Army troops to cross the border and take into custody the lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus". In such circumstances, the Fourth Partition of Poland was beginning.

 

Apla

Soviet aggression in the light of international law

 

The USSR, in carrying out its armed attack on Poland, grossly violated a number of international treaties binding upon it: two bilateral Polish-Soviet treaties and three multilateral treaties, whose signatories included Poland and the USSR. The two bilateral ones are: The Peace Treaty concluded at Riga on 18 March 1921, in which Russia (RFSSR) and Ukraine (UFSR) renounced all rights and claims to the lands located west of their borders (this refers to the lands of so-called Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, defined by borders in Article II of the Treaty), and the Non-Aggression Pact concluded in Moscow on 25 July 1932, extended on 5 May 1934 until 31 December 1945, in which Article 2 was significant: "In the event that one of the Contracting Parties is attacked by a third state or by a group of third states, the other Contracting Party undertakes not to give, either directly or indirectly, aid and assistance to the attacking state for the entire duration of the hostilities." According to Article 3, even the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was already a breach of the aforementioned Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact: "Each Contracting Party undertakes not to take part in any agreement from the point of view of aggression openly hostile to the other Party".

 

The Soviet aggression against Poland was a violation of the following multilateral treaties: The Pact of the League of Nations of 26 June 1919 (the USSR was admitted to this organisation in 1934), whose Art. 10 proclaimed that "The members of the League undertake to respect and maintain against all external aggression the territorial integrity and present political independence of all members of the League"; the Briand-Kellogg Pact, signed in Paris on 27 August 1928, which in international relations constituted a renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy; and the Convention on the Definition of Assault, concluded in London on 3 July 1933 by the USSR and its neighbouring states (except Finland) in Europe and Asia: in Art. II (point 2), an aggressor state is defined as one that makes "an invasion by its armed forces of the territory of another state, even without a declaration of war".

Warfare

To fight or not to fight

 

On 17 September, between 1 and 2 a.m., i.e. even before Molotov attempted to hand a note to Ambassador Waclaw Grzybowski in the Kremlin, in which the Soviet authorities motivated the initiation of military action against Poland, Soviet border guard and Red Army units invaded Poland's borders. Two fronts, the Byelorussian and Ukrainian, were specially created for operations against the western neighbour. In addition to the general directive to rapidly dismantle the enemy and reach the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Vistula and San, both groupings were given specific tasks. The objective of the Byelorussian Front under the command of 2nd Rear-Admiral Mikhail Kovalev (comprising 3 armies - the 3rd, 10th, 11th and 4th - as well as the Dzerzhinskaya Horse-Mechanised Group and 23rd Independent Rifle Corps, with 9 rifle divisions, 6 cavalry divisions, 7 tank brigades, 1 motorised brigade and 6 artillery regiments, totalling around 200,000 troops and 2,800 men. The main task of the Front was to seize the main political and economic centres of the region, i.e. Vilnius and Grodno, as quickly as possible, and prevent the withdrawal of enemy troops to Lithuania and Latvia.

 

A much more important task fell to the Ukrainian Front under the command of Commander Semyon Timoshenko, 1st rank. However, this grouping, also consisting of three armies - the 5th, 6th and 12th - had stronger and more numerous motorised units at its disposal (in addition to 9 rifle divisions, 7 cavalry divisions, 8 armoured brigades and 1 motorised brigade, totalling 265,000 troops and around 2,700 combat vehicles, were a kind of stinger). Its task was not only to seize Lvov in an instant, but also to prevent the evacuation to Romania of the Polish army units concentrated on the so-called Romanian foreground, as well as the highest dignitaries of the Polish authorities.

 

In total, therefore, Stalin threw more than 460,000 troops and some 5,500 armoured combat vehicles against Poland in the first wave, supported by some 1,800 aircraft. In the following days, the Soviets included even more numerous second-row troops in the fight, bringing the total number of soldiers involved in the 'liberation campaign' in western Belarus and Ukraine to around one million, supported by border protection troops and the NKVD.

 

In the face of such a force, the Polish army and the units of the Border Protection Corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza) could not resist much. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that most of the human reserves, armaments and ammunition from the WP and KOP garrisons in the east had been thrown into battle against the Germans. It is estimated that on 17 September, approximately 300,000 WP and KOP soldiers were stationed in the eastern provinces (20 battalions scattered along the 1,400-km border with the USSR and 4 guarding the border with Lithuania), of whom approximately 100,000 could effectively fight the Soviet army. Unfortunately, the high command was also not up to the task. The first information about the Soviet attack, which reached the Headquarters in Kuty (Kołomyja) at 6 a.m. on 17 September, surprised Marshal Rydz-Śmigły. Reportedly, his first reaction was to put up a fight. However, as more reports came in, the Polish Commander-in-Chief realised that, given the size of the Soviet invasion, Polish resistance was pointless. (Box: information on Soviet preparations for Poland and the reasons why the Polish government did not recognise the Soviet invasion as a state of war with the USSR).  It is also not out of the question that, in this almost hopeless strategic situation, he considered that the main task was to save as many combat-capable units as possible. This would be evidenced by his order, which he issued on the evening of 17 September to the troops fighting in the east: "The Soviets have entered. I order a general withdrawal to Romania and Hungary by the shortest routes. Do not fight the Bolsheviks, except in case of an attack from their side or an attempt to disarm the troops. Tasks of Warsaw and cities to defend against the Germans unchanged. The cities approached by the Bolsheviks should negotiate with them on the exit of garrisons to Hungary and Romania, Commander-in-Chief". Obviously, the Polish government protested strongly against Soviet aggression, which was expressed in its communiqué issued later that day, and in the notes handed over by the Polish ambassadors to the French and English governments. What was sadly missing from these was a statement that, as a result of the USSR's aggression, Poland found itself at war with that state. This was the nature - albeit in veiled form - of the notes of 30 September, which the Polish ambassadors handed to the Allied governments on behalf of the Polish government: "In view of the grave violation of the sacred rights of the Polish State and of the Polish nation, perpetrated by the agreement of 28 September between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (we are referring to the Soviet-German Treaty of Friendship and Border - ed.), disposing of the lands of the Republic of Poland for the benefit of both aggressor states, I assume, on behalf of the Polish Government, the most formal and solemn protest against this forged collusion between Berlin and Moscow, devoid of all international obligations and all human morality. Poland will never recognise this act of violence and, in view of the justness of her cause, will not cease fighting until the day when her lands are liberated from the occupiers and her legal rights are fully restored. By the heroic resistance of its army, by the patriotic sacrifice of its entire population, manifested in the heroic defence of its capital Warsaw, Lwów, Vilnius, Gdynia, Modlin and so many other cities, the Polish nation has clearly demonstrated to the world its indomitable will to live free and independent. Relying on the unanimous sympathies of countries respecting freedom and good faith in relations between nations, and trusting in the constant support which the covenant agreements guarantee her, Poland will continue the struggle with all the means at her disposal, believing in her future and ultimate victory."

 

Unfortunately, due to communication difficulties, Rydz-Śmigły's memorable order did not reach many units. The confusion of many Polish commanders, who did not know how to treat the Soviet troops entering Poland, also played its part. It was a practice for Soviet troops to enter Poland with white flags and the slogan: 'we are coming to help you, "na Giermanca". Of course, the Soviets quickly threw off the mask of 'allies' and began arresting them. Soldiers and officers were first in line, followed by Polish officials and civilians. And this was only the beginning of the tragedy.

Vilnius, Grodno, Kodziowce

 

The poor armament of the three KOP regiments ("Glubokie", "Vileyka" and "Baranovichi"), equipped only with small arms, machine guns, rifles and grenades, which guarded the border in the Byelorussian section, made their resistance short-lived. Already in the afternoon hours of 18 September, the first Red Army units reached the suburbs of Vilnius. The city, in spite of its meagre ammunition supplies, but with the use of fortifications of the so-called Vilnius Warfare Area - had the capacity to resist the invaders, even for several days. Within the Reserve Centre of the 1st Legion Infantry Division and the Reserve Centre of the Vilnius Cavalry Brigade in Novaya Vileyka, several thousand soldiers were quartered in Vilnius, who could be supported by three KOP battalions, recently drawn from the Lithuanian border, and volunteers. Unfortunately, a resilient and decisive command was lacking. Acting Defence Commander, Colonel Jarosław Okulicz-Kozaryn, after consultation with his direct superior, General Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński, Commander of Corps District III in Grodno, decided to abandon the defence and withdraw the troops to Lithuania.

 

Upon hearing this, there were riots in front of the District Complementary Headquarters: accusations of treason were hurled from the crowd of volunteers who were waiting for their weapons to be issued. There were also incidents of suicide among officers. Despite this, some of Okulicz-Kozaryn's subordinates, who left Vilnius at 7pm, disobeyed his order and greeted the enemy with fire. However, these were cover actions that allowed the last troops to withdraw from Vilnius towards Lithuania. Colonel Kazimierz Rybicki, a veteran of the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1919-1920, who, in defiance of Okulicz-Kozarin, tried unsuccessfully to organise the defence of the city, bitterly observed the tragic fate of Vilnius: 'The misled - deceived city, the candlestick of Polish culture in the north was abandoned, given over to the prey of the Moscow savagery...'.

 

Fighting at several points in the city continued until the evening of the following day. The credit for this goes to the groups of soldiers remaining in the city and to the various volunteer detachments made up of Vilnius youth (students, gymnasium students and scouts).

 

The course of events in Grodno was completely different. Although the nominal defence commander, the already mentioned General Olszyna-Wilczyński, had already left the city on 18 September, the remaining commanders and officials in the city did not abandon their hands. Admittedly, at first the defenders' forces were few (infantry and airmen from Lida, parts of Baon KOP Troki and Baon Obrona Narodowa Postawa from Half-Brigade ON Dzisna, as well as two reserve cavalry regiments - 101 and 102 Lancer Regiments), but thanks to the energy of Vice President Roman Sawicki and several senior officers, mj. However, thanks to the energy of Vice President Roman Sawicki and several senior officers, including Major Władysław Benedykt Serafin, commander of the District Supplementary Commission, and Captain Piotr Siedlecki, who took over command of the city's defence, it was possible to organise significant reinforcements in the form of police detachments and junior and senior high school students. It is worth noting that during the battle for Grodno, unlike in Vilnius, the defenders made extensive use of petrol bottles - a simple yet effective weapon against tanks and fighting vehicles. It should be added that, on the night of 21-22 September, the city's defence was reinforced by the Reserve Cavalry Brigade "Volkovysk" of General Waclaw Przezdziecki, who took over command of the city's defence from Colonel Siedlecki. In the meantime, there was brief fighting in the city with the V column in the form of local communist-dissidents - mostly of Jewish nationality - who attempted to take control of the city centre. Similar incidents occurred in nearby Skidel. However, thanks to a quick response, both revolts were suppressed.

 

The fighting for the town lasted from 20 to 22 September and despite the weakness of their forces, the defenders managed to inflict heavy losses on the aggressor: The Soviets lost more than 200 dead and wounded and about 20 combat vehicles. After capturing the city, they executed nearly 300 defenders in retaliation. However, most of the troops, led by General Przezdziecki, managed to withdraw to Lithuania.

 

Nevertheless, the battles of Kodziowce and Shatsk were the most glorious episodes in the fight against the Soviet forces in Belarus.

 

On the evening of 21 September, the 101st Cavalry Regiment, under the command of Major Stanislaw Zhukowski, after safely retreating from Grodno and crossing the Niemen River, stopped near the village of Kodziowce, 7 km from Sopoćkiń. Here he was attacked by a column of Soviet tanks, which, without infantry support - as if on parade - drove through the settlement. Mine traps prepared by the lancers did little to counter the tanks' armour. The decisive battle began on 22 September at 4am. After keeping the infantry away from the buildings, the Poles let some Soviet machines into the village. Bottles of petrol were set in motion, and games of these ran out of paraffin lamps collected from houses. When this ammunition was exhausted too, our cavalrymen grabbed for 'hand' work. The example was set by Cpl. Khoroshukha, who jumped onto the turret of a Soviet tank and started to hit the barrel of the tank's heavy machine gun with the butt of his own rifle. He bent the red-hot barrel in a flash. By 8.30 the battle was over. In total, the Soviets lost 17 machines and several hundred killed and wounded. Polish losses were smaller, but, given the thinness of their forces, also severe. Among those killed was the Regiment's commander, Major Zhukowski. The victory at Kodziowce allowed the Reserve Cavalry Brigade "Wołkowysk" of General Wacław Przezdziecki to reach Lithuania safely.

 

In the third decade of September, in Volhynia, General Wilhelm Orlik-Rückemann managed to bring together the scattered KOP Regiments (Polesie Brigade, Sarny Brigade, smaller KOP battalions), as well as state police units, and groups of settlers and soldiers who had lost contact with their units. This strong grouping (around 7000-8000 men), the General decided to lead out of Volhynia beyond the Bug River, where he planned to join the units of General Franciszek Kleeberg's Independent Operational Group "Polesie". Along the way, however, he had to face overwhelming enemy forces. On 28-29 September at Shatsk, where, thanks to the excellent work of his artillerymen and heavy machine gunners, as well as the poor artillery skills of the enemy, he first managed to smash most of the units of the Soviet 52nd Rifle Division, and then to take the town. Unfortunately, on the other side of the Bug River, luck turned against General Orlik-Rückemann's Group. At Wytyczno, faced with another clash with Soviet units which, according to the agreement with the Germans on the demarcation of zones concluded on 28 September, were just retreating behind the line of the Bug River, and the exhaustion of soldiers and ammunition, the general decided to end the battle and disperse his troops. He was only 50 km away from General Kleeberg and his SGO "Polesie". Fortunately, most of his soldiers managed to reunite with this unit and take part in the battle against the Germans at Kock.

Tarnopol, Lwów 

 

Marshal Rydz-Smigly's directive from the afternoon of 17 September to offer conditional resistance to the Red Army was far more significant in the south than in the north. Here, because of better communication, his order reached many more commanders, and the order contained in it to withdraw to Hungary or Romania was much easier to carry out. Another matter is that Rydz-Śmigły reinforced his directive with separate orders to commanders of individual tactical units: one of them was Colonel Stanisław Maczek, commander of the Motorised Cavalry Brigade. There were also - and this is worth mentioning - a few incidents when local commanders went even further and outright forbade fighting in any situation with the encroaching Soviet troops. A disgraceful example of this was Gen. Mieczysław Smorawiński, commander of Corps District No. II in Lublin (residing in Lutsk on 17 September), as well as Col. Jan Skorobohaty-Jakubowski, who was old but reinstated in 1939, and Brig. Gen. Leon Bilewicz, who arbitrarily took command of the Officers' Legion in Dubno and forbade fighting with the Soviets.  

 

As a result, many of the units that were able to fight effectively against the eastern invaders were evacuated abroad without a fight. Needless to say, this and the abandonment of defence on the so-called Romanian foreground was not well received by much of the officer corps.

 

Despite this, some troops resisted. The first to do so, of course, were the KOP Regiments ("Rivne" and "Chortkiv"), which, apart from sporadic battles with Soviet troops, had to face bands of local Ukrainians during their retreat, "setting fire to settlers' houses and murdering anyone who admitted to being of Polish origin".

 

Unfortunately, in Ternopil, where considerable military forces were concentrated and with which the Soviets could be repulsed, the military authorities (General Aleksander Narbut-Luczynski) failed to organise defence. To make matters worse, after the evacuation of the army, the mayor of the town, Stanislaw Widawki, already at midday on 17 September, issued an unfortunate appeal to the inhabitants to welcome the encroaching Soviet troops. This did not save him from being arrested by the occupying forces. He was killed at Katyn.

 

Troops of the Polish army left many cities without attempting to defend them. Such situations occurred in Pinsk, Włodzimierz Wołyński, Rowne and Stanisławów, among others. In many cases, the main opponents of the military columns heading towards the Romanian or Hungarian borders were armed groups of Ukrainians, who tried their best to make life miserable for the Polish soldiers. For example, in the vicinity of Kolomyja on 19 September, where a group of Ukrainians and Jews with the support of a small armoured detachment of Soviet troops disarmed a company of State Police and Border Guards. The rule, however, was to attack Polish military units. In a situation where regular Polish Army units were retreating, local volunteers took up the fight. Such an episode occurred, for example, in Trembowla, where, on the evening of 17 September, a Polish language and history teacher at the local secondary school, Lieutenant Bronisław Komplikowicz, a former Legionnaire reserve, rallied several schoolchildren and members of the local Riflemen's Association, who fired at the Soviet troops entering the town. The fight did not last long, and after laying down their weapons they were all slaughtered.

 

The hasty withdrawal of the Polish high command and government from the country as a result of false information about the faster-than-expected pace of the Soviet advance shows what chaos in Polish political and military circles the Soviet aggression caused. The most telling evidence is the defence of Lwów against the Germans and its surrender to the Soviets.

 

Lwów had been successfully repelling Wehrmacht attacks since 12 September. It is true that on 19 September, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski's group did not manage to break through to the city from the west, but on the same day evacuation trains from Radom, Deblin and Starachowice with a large transport of armaments and ammunition (including 4 anti-aircraft guns of 40mm) reached the city. including 4 40mm anti-aircraft guns, 12,000 rifles and carbines, 2,000 cekaemes and 4,000 erkaemes, 7 million rounds of rifle ammunition, 100,000 artillery ammunition and 50,000 hand grenades). Lviv's garrison consisted of 25 infantry battalions, which had about 80 guns and 16 anti-aircraft cannons. The morale of the defenders - soldiers and volunteers - was also high. This was evidenced by the initiative of General Marian Januszajtis, who, in the face of the fighting in the city, easily managed to form special companies out of civilians equipped with bottles of petrol, the so-called "Lvov Petrolmen" - as the ingenious general himself called them. This and the food reserves, estimated at two to three months, and fuel reserves, estimated at three to six months, allowed at least a few days' defence of the city. At the time, Warsaw was still defending itself. In this situation, the defence of Lwów against the Germans, and soon the Soviets in a moral sense, would have been a strong demonstration before the world that the Poles, even in the face of two invaders, were not going to sell their skin cheaply. However, the Lvov defence command, headed by General Władysław Langner, came to the conviction that further resistance was pointless and that bombing would lead to heavy civilian casualties and the destruction of the city. It was also calculated that the Soviets would inevitably join in the assault on the city - hand in hand with the Germans. Incidentally, only General Langner knew the full wording of Marshal Rydz-Śmigły's famous directive of 17 September. However, he kept the part about resisting the Red Army in case it interfered with the withdrawal of Polish units towards the border to himself. This attitude was incomprehensible, all the more so because on 20 September a plan was drawn up in the command of the 35th Infantry Division to leave the city and break through to Hungary, which, in the face of Langner's opposition, was not realised. It should be added that the chances of this happening were high, because in the evening of that day the Germans, who had apparently already come to an agreement with the Soviets about "ceding" the city to them, began to retreat westwards, while the Soviet troops had not yet managed to take up positions around Lviv, especially the crossings of the Dniester and Stryi rivers.

 

In any case, on 19 September, Soviet troops appeared to the east of the city, while on the night of 20-21 their advanced armoured column was repulsed at the Lychakivska Quadrangle in Lviv. Several hours earlier, the defence command had rejected the German ultimatum to surrender the city. In such a situation, General Langner independently decided to enter into capitulation talks with the Soviet command. On 22 September, a capitulation agreement was concluded with the Soviet command in Winniki near Lwów.  All officers were entitled to personal freedom and inviolability of movable property, as well as the opportunity to go abroad. However, it soon became apparent that the Soviets did not intend to keep their word. Almost all officers from Lwów were arrested and deported to prisoner-of-war camps in the USSR. This was the beginning of their tragedy, which culminated in Katyn and Kharkov.

 

A few more words about the Cavalry Group under the command of General Władysław Anders, which, like the Independent Operational Group "Polesie", had to fight battles with two aggressors. This unit suffered heavy losses as a result of battles with the German 28th Infantry Division on 22-24 September near Tomaszów Lubelski. Although the General managed to negotiate with the enemy the possibility of leaving to the south, towards the Hungarian border, the worst was yet to come. On 27 September, near the village of Wola Sudkowska, the Group, or rather what was left of it - the Novogrudok Cavalry Brigade - ran into four Soviet cavalry regiments supported by 40 tanks and infantry. Anders, aware of the superiority of the enemy and the plight of his troops, tried, as he had done with the Germans, to negotiate. Unfortunately, the Soviets arrested the MP and moved to attack. In the course of several hours of fighting, in which the Poles inflicted heavy losses on the enemy (they destroyed some 20 tanks and armoured cars), the Brigade was broken up, and in the following days most of its soldiers were taken prisoner. Only a few managed to break through to Hungary. The wounded Anders was captured by the Ukrainians, who handed him over to the Soviets.

 

The balance of 1939 in the east was tragic for Poland. In the course of twelve days of combat operations, the Red Army occupied a territory with a total area of 190,000 km/2, which was inhabited by 12 million people. It is estimated that in the Polish-Soviet fighting, 3,000-3,500 military and civilians were killed on the Polish side, and about 20,000 were wounded or declared missing. Some 18,000 Polish servicemen managed to escape from the German-Soviet 'clamps' to Lithuania and Latvia, while more than 70,000 managed to escape to Romania and Hungary. Some 240,000-250,000 soldiers of the Polish Army, KOP and State Police officers, including some 10,000 officers, were taken prisoner by the Soviets and almost all of them were murdered in Katyn, Kharkov, Starobelsk, Ostashkov and Tver.

 

The Soviets probably lost 2.5-3 thousand dead and 6-7 thousand wounded. In many cases, these losses were due to poor training, inexperience and abysmal command, which, combined with appalling chaos, resulted in numerous non-combat losses, and in at least two cases led to fighting between their own units (Novogrudok and Ternopil).

 

Contrary to what Soviet propaganda proclaimed, that the aim of the Red Army was to liberate the Ukrainian and Belorussian populations, the aim was to inflict a devastating defeat on the Polish Army and liquidate the state. The typical method was to be the physical elimination of the officer corps and the political and cultural elite of the Polish population in the borderlands. Although the executions of Polish prisoners of war and the repression of the Polish population in the borderlands would not begin until 1940, the Soviets were already committing crimes in September 1939. In Vilnius they shot 300 defenders. The same happened to General Olszyn-Wilczyński and his adjutant, who were shot without trial by a Soviet patrol in the area of Sopotsk. The mass murder without trial of officers, non-commissioned officers, policemen, and also civilians - in and around Grodno (about 300 people), near Augustow (30 policemen), in Polesie (150 officers) and many other localities - testify that the Soviets began the planned extermination of Poles as early as September 1939.  

 

 

 

Apla: International implications of the Rydz-Smigly Directive - was there a war with the Soviets or not?

The Red Army's incursion into Polish territory took the Polish command by surprise. Minister Józef Beck recalled that for a long part of the day "the Marshal hesitated as to what orders he should give the army as to how to fight the Soviet troops". A two-front war meant huge losses and the devastation of the Polish soldier. Therefore, his decision only in the afternoon of 17 September not to resist the Red Army, apart from obvious cases of repelling attacks or attempts at disarmament, was the result of, on the one hand, a situation that the Polish command had not taken into account, and, on the other, an attempt to minimise the losses of the Polish Army units. In the worst case scenario, Polish soldiers were threatened with captivity. After all, no one, not even in the darkest calculations, assumed that for many of them it could be tantamount to extermination.

 

However, the directive of the Commander-in-Chief and the address of the President of the Republic of Poland to the Polish nation lacked a declaration of the state of war between the Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union. The most likely reason for this was concern about the position that Poland's Western Allies would have to take in the face of Soviet aggression: the Allied Treaties with France and Great Britain concerned mutual obligations in the event of an armed conflict with Germany. Unfortunately, the lack of such a declaration on the part of the Polish authorities resulted in the unclear status of Polish servicemen and civilians who were seized by the Red Army on the territory of the Polish state. In the near future, this mistake was to have lamentable consequences.

 

 

 

Daily life

 

During the attack on Poland, the Soviet command wanted to keep the losses of its troops to a minimum. In addition to appropriate tactical guidelines, such as avoiding close combat in favour of isolating and outflanking enemy groupings or even bypassing them, the aim of the effortless occupation of the Polish territories that had fallen to the USSR as a result of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentop Pact was to win over the national minorities living there. Of course, this concerned the Byelorussian and Ukrainian populations, as well as Jews, whom the Soviets regarded as a convenient element with which to create ad hoc structures capable of maintaining order until a strong administration based on "specialists" from the USSR could be established. The directives from USSR People's Commissar of Defence Kliment Voroshilov and Chief of the Red Army General Staff Boris Shaposhnikov to the War Councils of the Byelorussian and Kiev Special Military Districts about launching an offensive against Poland contained a clear instruction that the air force should avoid bombing uncovered cities and towns not occupied by large enemy forces. Soviet troops were also to spare the local population in terms of provisions (of course, this order did not include the Polish population): "Organise for the BOWO groups an uninterrupted supply of all types of provisions, not allowing any requisitions and arbitrary accumulation of food and furze in the occupied areas". In practice, this was not always the case: according to the accounts of Soviet officers, the victualling, not to mention the supply of fuel to the motorised units, worked badly. It was therefore common for starving soldiers to first seek supplies from the Polish population, usually associated with landowners and "lords" or "half-lords", and when that failed they did not hesitate to brutally loot anyone they could find. The Red Army's effort to ensure trouble-free provisioning of provisions was also to be facilitated by the rapid introduction on the occupied territory of the exchangeability of the rouble for the zloty at a ratio of 1:1. It is worth adding that all transactions in Soviet currency on the occupied Polish territory were extremely advantageous for the Red Army.

 

Another Soviet gesture towards the 'liberated' Byelorussians and Ukrainians was to acquiesce in a crackdown on their class oppressors, which in no way meant looting the Polish population, which in many cases degenerated into ethnic cleansing. The slogans of Soviet propaganda were first hammered into the heads of the Red Army at rallies just before the aggression began. One such proclamation read: "Dear comrades the dangerous time of reckoning with the Polish nobility has come. The party and the government call you to battle. We will give the brotherly hand of help to the peoples of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. We will fulfil the sacred debt to the fatherland". On the other hand, on Polish territory, Soviet politrukhs, at rallies or in leaflets scattered from aircraft, were already directly agitating local civilians or rank-and-file soldiers of the Polish Army to desertion, robbery and murder: "turn your weapons against the landowners and capitalists", or "beat officers and generals". As can be seen, the leaflets distributed in Polish were written in terrible Polish. Those in Ukrainian and Belarussian sounded more frightening. One of them, signed by the Ukrainian front commander Semyon Timoshenko, is a kind of instruction manual for carrying out the slaughter: "With guns, scythes, pitchforks and axes, beat your eternal enemies - the Polish masters who turned your country into a lawless colony, who polonised you, trampled your culture in the mud and turned you and your children into cattle, into slaves". Incidentally, her rhetoric is confusingly reminiscent of that in Bohdan Khmelnytsky's proclamation to the Ukrainian people at the beginning of the 1648 uprising. It is also possible that in Timoshenko's mind, who was Ukrainian by origin, the idea of becoming not only the 'New Khmelnytsky', but even eclipsing his achievements as a Cossack leader, may have been born.

 

In addition to hateful leaflets, the Soviets massively circulated caricatures and posters which, in a rather unsophisticated manner, denigrated the Polish state and everything associated with it. A typical motif of these was a Red Army man stabbing a Polish general-in-chief with a sabre-pin or stabbing a Polish eagle with a bayonet, whose general's cap falls from his head.

 

With the help of such aggressive propaganda, the Soviets succeeded in successfully mobilising the local Byelorussians and Ukrainians to crack down on the Poles, with whom the communist Jewish poor generally collaborated. It is true that the soldiers of the Polish Army, of Byelorussian and Ukrainian origin and sometimes of Jewish origin, not only did not raise arms against their officers and non-commissioned officers, fighting shoulder to shoulder first against the Germans and then against the Soviet aggression, but the situation was completely different with the civilian population.  In the Vilnius, Bialystok and Brest provinces, which were inhabited by a large proportion of Byelorussians and Jews, there were several rebellions against the organs of the Polish state. Such incidents occurred especially in Grodno and nearby towns and in Skidel. In Grodno, a few hours before the arrival of the Soviet army, there was fighting in the city centre (Batory Square), where groups of Jews (some of whom, under the pretext of fighting the Soviets, snatched weapons from the local barracks) tried to take control of a strategic area through which the roads towards Vilnius and Lida ran. Thanks to the energy of Brig. Gen. Waclaw Przezdziecki, it was possible to quickly pacify the actions of the V column both in and around Grodno and in Skidel, where the communist Jews managed to take control of the town for a few hours.

 

Already at the end of September and the beginning of October, they were zealously carrying out the tasks of the People's Militia for the Soviets, tracking down youths and scouts who had taken part in the defence of Grodno in the area: 'The Soviet authorities began to look for "Polish volunteers" in our municipality. But fortunately, they did not arrest anyone in our municipality, because the population in our municipality was purely Polish, they were all Roman Catholics, and although at that time a lot of older people spoke Belarusian on a daily basis (they called it 'simply' speech), but they felt Polish. People in our country favoured each other and there were no denunciations to the Soviets. And those searches for volunteers, I have to say openly here that it was done by Grodno Jews. In the first months, the Soviets gave total power to the local Jews. And so the Jews would come to us in the village as militia or even NKVD, and they would say to us youngsters: "You went to fight for the Lords, I'll give you, job two, your Poland", recalled one of these 'volunteers'.

 

It was a rule that the occupying power created councils and committees at various levels, whose task was not only to administer the localities, but to carry out preparations for the elections that were to precede the incorporation of Western Belarus into the Socialist Republic of Belarus and the USSR. Their representativeness in terms of nationality - according to Soviet pragmatics - was such that local representatives - usually a Belarusian and a Jew - were assigned to the Soviet representative-chairman (usually drawn from the depths of the USSR).

 

The persecution of the Polish intelligentsia also began quickly. Among those arrested were Wacław Myślicki, the headmaster of the H. Sienkiewicz Private Secondary School, and Konstanty Terlikowski, a member of the Sejm, as well as almost the entire local bar of lawyers. The repressions caused Poles threatened with arrest to flee en masse to the German occupation.

 

A symbolic act of erasing Polishness from Grodno was the demonstrative public burning of tens of thousands of Polish books by the Soviets in Volovich Square in early 1940.

 

As we remember, in Vilnius there were also short-lived fights in which gymnasium youth, students and scouts were actively involved. Although there was no Fifth Column action, soon after the Soviet army entered, the city's population, apart from the communist Jewish poor who spontaneously formed militia units, received the occupiers with restraint. Crowds did not flood into the street, and here and there groups of Vilnius residents rather curiously watched the Red Army. Within days, the city ran out of basic foodstuffs. The reason for this was the influx into the city not only of military personnel, but also of Soviet officials with their families, who, taking advantage of the opportunity to make purchases in roubles, plundered the grocery shops and more. The result was high prices and empty shelves.    

 

The Soviets also rapidly began to take over Polish offices and factories and to invigilate the Polish intelligentsia. In doing so, they enlisted the help of Jews and Poles with leftist views, who intentionally or unintentionally informed the occupying forces about the nature and influence of particular professional circles and the mood of the population. Another way for the Soviets to weed out the 'bourgeois-capitalist' element was through registration campaigns for refugees, officers and graduates of Stefan Batory University and J. Piłsudski State Technical School. The Soviets guaranteed each applicant the possibility of returning to their previous places of residence (refugees) or the right to live and work in Vilnius (officers and students). In the case of military officers and students, this usually ended in prison and deportation deep into the USSR. Fortunately, most of them felt the writ with their noses and stayed away from the Soviet registration office. Unfortunately, during the first occupation of Vilnius (the USSR handed the city over to Lithuania by agreement at the end of October 1939), the Soviets deported about 230 members of the intelligentsia, generally Poles, from the city. Before leaving, the occupiers also managed to dismantle and transport to the USSR several local factories and plants, including the private radio factory ELEKTRIT, which before the war was the main supplier of radio receivers to the Polish market, and stripped the city of coal and other fuel materials, as well as food.

 

In terms of attacks on civilians and soldiers, the course of events in Volhynia and the provinces of Ternopil, Lviv and Stanislawow was much more tragic. There, Ukrainians (often in collaboration with Jews and Red Army men) dealt cruelly with Polish settlers and prisoners of war. There was also no shortage of attacks on army columns retreating towards the Hungarian and Romanian borders. It is estimated that in September 1939, in Volhynia alone, Ukrainian gangs murdered around 1,400 Poles.

 

As early as the night of 17-18 September, the entire Podhajec area was burning in a blaze of fires. The situation was similar in other villages as well. One witness described the horror of the events that unfolded in the very first days of Soviet aggression as follows: "Before the Bolshevik militia appeared, the Ukrainians were smashing Polish state police posts and attacking soldiers returning home from the front, murdering a Polish soldier, who was, by the way, defenceless, to God's fault. Dozens of murdered Polish soldiers were later dumped by the streams of the Horynia and the Styr. In landed estates there were numerous incidents of murdering the Polish population, and infants were put on pitchforks and attached to cards "that they were Polish eaglets", and then stuck in piles of manure to haunt the Polish population for days."

 

In Lviv and other cities of the region, repression quickly began. Here, as in Vilnius, the Soviets used various methods to try to catch dangerous elements: repression, the stimulation of denunciation and various seemingly friendly gestures. In response, the Poles quickly began to create underground structures. In Lwów, as early as the turn of September and October, the Polish Victory Service was being organised, which was renamed the Union of Armed Struggle in November. The Lwów ZWZ was headed by Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, incidentally the commander and founder of the disbanded SZP. Local conspirations, such as the "Girl Scouts' Emergency" in Włodzimierz Wołyński - an organisation which helped Polish officers in hiding, the wounded, fugitives, the elderly and children - as well as the UAS Secret Scout Organisation ("Młody Las"), which was active in Tarnopol and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, in view of the terror and increased surveillance of the occupying forces, underground activity in Eastern Lesser Poland was very dangerous. In 1940, the NKVD succeeded in disrupting the Lwów ZWZ, which ended with Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski's slip-up and arrest. The activities of the "Young Forest" ended similarly.

 

          In December 1939, the Kremlin began preparations for the deportation of part of the Polish population living in the "western districts" annexed to the USSR. The first to be fired upon were to be the military settlers and the forest service, who had received land in Volhynia in the early 1920s as part of the military settlement action. Eventually, as a result of three deportation actions carried out in the first half of 1940, the Soviets deported some 275,000 Poles to the north of the USSR, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan. However, before this happened, on 27 October 1939, the People's Assemblies of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, elected through 'elections', passed a resolution to incorporate their lands into the USSR. The Verkhovna Rada approved it, which meant that all inhabitants of the newly annexed areas were granted Soviet citizenship.

 

 

 

Apla:

 "In Lviv, in autumn 1939, a play by Alexander Korneychuk entitled 'Bohdan Khmelnytskyi' was staged in a newly opened theatre. "Bohdan Chmielnicki". The finale of this play was shocking. After the final victory of the play's protagonist over the Polish army, they bring onto the stage the original banners of the Polish army fighting in the defence of Lviv against the Nazi invasion, seized by the Red Army. They spread them out on the stage of the theatre. Chmielnicki steps on them, stands in the middle of the stage and makes a fiery speech. Its last words were: "Vsiech Lachiv wyżeniem za Wisłu, a kak tam nie budietie małczać i tam najdiom" (we will drive all the Lakhs beyond the Vistula, and if you do not keep quiet and there we will find you). There was an explosion of applause from the Red Army, with which the theatre hall was filled." (from the memoirs of Franciszek Wilk, PSL activist, long-time member of the National Council in exile)

 

Apla

"The Ukrainians in their overwhelming majority wished for the Soviets. They built triumphal gates. They greeted them with flowers. They believed that the Soviet army was bringing them national and social liberation. They showed widespread joy at the Polish defeat. Many Jews immediately associated themselves with the Soviet authorities and collaborated with them. They acted openly as enemies of the Poles. It soon became apparent that the Bolsheviks had not come at all to "liberate" the Ukrainians and Byelorussians from their Polish masters, but were concerned with territorial gains. Soviet troops passed beyond the Bug River. From the beginning of October, they began to retreat, and in retreating they took with them whatever they could and had time to take (cattle, horses, food, even church vestments and ornamental plants, such as palm trees), and along with the material possessions of sympathisers, local communists, members of committees they had set up, militia, also quite a few Jews fearing repression by the Germans. The Soviet commissars urged the Ukrainian population to "unmolest" the Polish lords. This was the beginning of the robbery that later became something natural, ordinary for Ukrainians. The Bolsheviks immediately made it clear to everyone what Soviet law was and who was in charge, who decided on human life and death. The NKVD set about annihilating the existing system and destroying the strata with political, social and economic power. Poles were treated as enemies, subject to destruction. Many landowners, clerks, policemen, military officers, judges, refugees from central Poland and active patriots in general, who could resist the introduction of the Soviet system, were imprisoned. After the "elections" on 22 October 1939 and incorporation, on 1-2 November 1939, by decrees of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, into the Soviet Union, Poles were treated as Soviet citizens. They were tried as counter-revolutionaries for their participation during the Second Polish Republic. They had to serve in the Red Army, participate in never-ending "pro-agitation", training courses. The Polish state and its history, its dignitaries, were ridiculed. Religion was ridiculed in meetings and lessons, crosses were taken away from schools, day-care centres, institutions. Through denunciation and spying, all life, every inhabitant, was controlled. The Soviet authorities showed special consideration to Jews. Soviet propaganda insulted the feelings of Poles at every turn." (an excerpt from the account of Władysław Siemaszko, at that time an employee of the municipal office in Verba, Włodzimierz Wołyński County)