Military History Of Poland

"A thousand soldiers knelt in Warsaw’s square, The solemn oath of battle sternly taking; They swore, without a shot, the foe to dare, With bayonets’ point their deadly pathway making. Beat drums! march on, and let our country tell That “Poland’s Fourth” will keep its promise well.So said, and bloody Praga saw it done. Right where the foe in thickest mass was rushing, We charged, and not a comrade fired his gun, But each with deadly bayonet on was pushing. Praga shall tell how, mid the blackened air, Poland’s “Fourth Regiment” was bleeding there.When, from a thousand throats of fire, the flame At Ostrolenka on our columns falling Mowed down our ranks, we broke our way, and came With the sharp bayonets’ point their heart appalling. Let Ostrolenka, joined with Praga, say That “Poland’s Fourth” has kept its vow to-day.Yes, many manly hearts then sank to rest, To the war-fiend a noble offering bringing; Yet to his oath each man was true, and prest On to the end, still to his weapon clinging; Yes, with unloaded gun and steady eye, Poland’s “Fourth Regiment” marched on to die.O, woe to us! woe to our land forlorn! O, ask not whence or how this misery came! Woe, woe to every child in Poland born! Our wounds break open when we hear her name. They bleed afresh, but most our hearts are wrung When “Poland’s Fourth” is named by any tongue.And ah! dear brothers, who to death have gone, But, dying, from our souls shall perish never; We, who still live, with broken hearts move on, Far from our homes, the homes now lost forever; And pray that God in heaven may quickly send The last of “Poland’s Fourth” a blessed end.From Poland’s confines, through the misty air, Ten soldiers come, and, crossing Prussia’s border, The sentry challenges with, “Who comes there?” They stand in silence. He repeats the order. At last one says, “Out of a thousand men In ‘Poland’s Fourth’ we are the only ten.”"

"When the emissary of Your Majesty, Oneš of Hurka, brought the definite news of victory and the praiseworthy armistice, it caused me great joy in my heart, which no pen can describe nor my voice express as is fitting. (...) Where, then, are the two swords of the enemies? They were indeed cut down with those swords with which they tried to terrify the humble! Behold, they sent you two swords, the swords of violence and of pride, and have lost many thousands of them, having been utterly defeated. Where are the swords, where the caparisoned horses, where the mail-clad warriors in whom they trusted? Where are the innumerable ducats or treasures?"

"And the Polish units, abandoning a hesitation which delayed them, threw themselves with many regiments at the enemy, who were positioned in sixteen regiments, in which found refuge also those who had suffered defeat under other banners, and the Poles waged a mortal battle against them. And although the enemies put up a resistance for some time, ultimately, surrounded by great numbers of the king's army, they were put to the sword and virtually all units fighting in the sixteen regiments either perished or were taken prisoner. After defeating and crushing the enemy's army, during which – as it is known – Grand Master Ulryk, marechals, commanders and all the more prominent knights and lords of the Prussian army perished, the remaining crowd of enemies beat a retreat and once they turned tail they began to run away with determination."

"The battle turned into carnage and pursuit. Those who refused to surrender, died. There had been many battles and engagements in those times across the world, but none of those alive remembered a devastation so terrible. At the great king's feet fell not only the Teutonic Order, but all of Germany, whose foremost knights supported the Teutonic avant-garde that was biting deeper and deeper into the Slavic flesh. Out of seven hundred "white cloaks" leading this Germanic deluge, only fifteen survived. More than forty thousand bodies lay in eternal sleep in this blood-soaked field."

"You will tremble at my voice: Grunwald, swords, King Jagiełło! Armors were hacked while wind blew and howled; piles of corpses, piles of bodies, and a river of blood flowed! It is there!!..."

"The most portentous national disaster was not the sad downfall of the Hohenstauffens owing to the intrigues of Papal and French policy, but the defeat of Tannenberg, which resulted in the loss of a large portion of the colonisation work of centuries, and the cession to the Poles of West Prussia and Danzig, and which put an end to the proud independence of the State of the German Order of Knighthood. (...) It may be questioned whether, had it not been for the black day of Tannenberg, the State of the Order of Knighthood would have been able to keep the East permanently German, in defiance of the superior power of Poland."

"To arms! Fight the Germans wherever you encounter them! Assault their transports, provide information, aid Polish and Soviet soldiers! On liberated territories, fulfill mobilization orders and enlist for the Polish Armed Forces, which will avenge the September defeat and, together with the armies of Allied Nations, will deal the Germans another Grunwald!"

"Events arising out of the Polish‑German War has revealed the internal insolvency and obvious impotence of the Polish state. Polish ruling circles have suffered bankruptcy. . . . Warsaw as the capital of the Polish state no longer exists. No one knows the whereabouts of the Polish Government. The population of Poland have been abandoned by their ill‑starred leaders to their fate. The Polish state and its government have virtually ceased to exist. In view of this‑state of affairs, treaties concluded between the Soviet Union and Poland have ceased to operate. A situation has arisen in Poland which demands of the Soviet‑Government especial concern for the security of its state. Poland has become a fertile field for any accidental and unexpected contingency that may create a menace to the Soviet Union. . . . Nor can it be demanded of the Soviet Government that it remain indifferent to the fate of its blood brothers, the Ukrainians and Byelorussians White Russians inhabiting Poland, who even formerly were without rights and who now have been abandoned entirely to their fate. The Soviet Government deems it its sacred duty to extend the hand of assistance to its brother Ukrainians and brother Byelorussians inhabiting Poland."

"At 4.45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, the tranquillity of daybreak in Western Poland was shattered by a deafening military thunderclap. Five German armies comprising more than 1.8 million men swept across the Polish borders, launched from ideally situated bridgeheads in Western Pomerania, East Prussia, Upper Silesia and German-controlled Slovakia. Almost as loud as the barrages of the German artillery were the roars of engines; the German advance was spearheaded by more than three thousand tanks and hundreds of armoured cars and personnel carriers. From the sky, Ju-87 dive-bombers shrieked down on the hastily mobilizing Poles, their precision bombs destroying bridges, roads and supply convoys, their terrifying sirens sowing panic among the defending forces. The aim was to avoid the protracted attrition of the last war by achieving rapid penetration of territory and swift, annihilating encirclements of enemy forces. With its devastating combination of artillery, infantry, armour and air power, this was precisely what the blitzkrieg made possible."

"Guderian - who was happy to describe himself as Liddell Hart's disciple and pupil and even translated his works into German - had learned his lessons well. In September 1939 his panzers were unstoppable. The Poles did not, as legend has it, attempt cavalry charges against them, though mounted troops were deployed against German infantry, but they lacked adequate motor transport and their tanks were fewer and technically inferior to the Germans'. Moreover, like the Czechs before them, the Poles found Anglo-French guarantees to be militarily worthless. At the Battle of Bzura they mounted a desperate counteroffensive to hold up the German assault on Warsaw, but by September 16 their resistance was crumbling. By the 17th the Germans had reached the fortress at Bresc (Brest) on the River Bug. On September 28 Warsaw itself fell. Eight days later the last Polish troops laid down their arms. The entire campaign had lasted barely five weeks. The Poles had fought courageously, but they were outnumbered and outgunned."

"The joint invasion of Poland was celebrated with a parade by the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in Brest Litovsk."

"The generals of the two invading armies went over the details of the prearranged line that would mark the two zones of conquest for Germany and Soviet Russia, subsequently to be rearranged one more time in Moscow. The military parade that followed was recorded by Nazi cameras and celebrated in the German newsreel: German and Soviet generals cheek by jowl n military homage to each other's armies and victories."

"Germany, who has latterly come to unite about 80 million Germans, who has brought certain neighboring states under her sway and who has strengthened her military might in many respects, has evidently become a dangerous competitor for the principal imperialist powers of Europe - Great Britain and France. They therefore declared war on Germany under the pretext of fulfilling their obligations to Poland. It is now clearer than ever how far the real aims of the governments of these powers are from the purpose of defending disintegrated Poland or Czechoslovakia."