Polish campaign (1939). The invasion of Poland in 1939 may have been very likely, sandwiched as she was between Germany and Russia when both were under the absolute dominion of the most ruthless rulers in their histories; but it was not inevitable. The iconic view is that Nazis, in pursuit of Lebensraum in the east, were certain to roll over Poland once ‘the West’ in the form of British PM Chamberlain and French PM Daladier had ‘sold out’ Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938. But this is to acquit the rulers of both Czechoslovakia and Poland, whose job it was to preserve their nations' integrity. The Czechs were militarily prepared, and the elaborate defences they surrendered in the Sudeten could well have inflicted a reverse on the Germans, had Hitler's bluff been called. The Poles were not even militarily prepared and what we may only with charity call their diplomacy between the world wars meant that they were without useful allies when their turn came. Specifically, under Pilsudski and his foreign minister and eventual successor Col Józef Beck, the Poles not only pursued a dispute with Czechoslovakia over Cieszyn, but also took advantage of its dismemberment to seize the disputed territory. Non-aggression pacts with the Soviets in 1932 and the Nazis in 1934 were pieces of paper, and the Poles knew it. The Polish regime was if anything even more anti-Soviet than the Nazis, but lacked the wit to see that by 1939 neutrality between her two neighbours was not an option. Without a Soviet alliance, Beck was not in a position realistically to deny the Nazi demand for a solution to the absurdity created by the Treaty of Versailles that put Poland in the way of the territorial unification of East Prussia with the rest of Germany. He settled for a vapid alliance with Britain on top of the known-to-be-useless alliance with France instead.
The failure of Beck to accept the need to buy off one of his over-mighty neighbours by accepting one set of territorial concessions created the circumstances for them to pursue the realpolitik he refused to accept. Stalin and Hitler concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, a non-aggression pact whose secret clauses dealt with the dismemberment of Poland, and a week later after a fabricated border clash involving concentration-camp inmates dressed in Polish uniforms, the Germans introduced Poland and the world to blitzkrieg. WEISS involved Army Groups North, with 15 divisions in East Prussia and Pomerania under Gen Fedor von Bock, and the main Army Group South with 26 divisions in Silesia under Rundstedt. Between 1 and 6 September the Luftwaffe destroyed the Polish air force (a remnant fled to Romania) and thereafter Stuka dive-bombers flew freely over Polish territory, hammering communications neural points and any sign of organized resistance ahead of the two panzer-led pincers that encircled and destroyed the Polish army.
The Polish campaign, 1939.
(Click to enlarge)
Correctly calculating that the Maginot Line and the mentality that produced it precluded a direct advance by France into Germany, and that Belgian neutrality would inhibit any other incursion, Hitler denuded his western frontiers and committed his military forces to a campaign designed to achieve swift results. Britain's ultimatum and declaration of war on 3 September was discounted in advance and on 17 September another reason for swiftness was revealed when the Soviets attacked Poland on the Belorussian and Ukrainian fronts. The partition of Poland had been agreed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but each party judged it prudent to occupy its allotted territories before the other could get there.
Things did not all go the Germans' way. The fast-moving mechanized columns proved vulnerable to flank attacks, and the Poles managed one such on 9-12 September at Kutno, mauling a division from Blaskowitz's Eighth Army before themselves being defeated. By contrast, the Red Army encountered little opposition, having waited until the Poles were committed (and defeated) before rolling in to pick up the spoils. Warsaw held out until 27 September and technically the campaign continued until 5 October, but it was really all over by mid-September. A nation of 35 million people under authoritarian and even militaristic leadership had succumbed in two weeks. There are no accurate estimates of Polish losses, but the Germans had only 8, 000 dead among their 50, 000 casualties. The Polish campaign confirmed Hitler's instinctive preference for swift, daring military action over the necessary mobilization of Germany for the protracted war to which he eventually committed her. It also laid bare the chasm between the stated objectives of France and Britain and their ability to enforce them. The poor quality of Soviet soldiers occupying eastern Poland was also noted, so that after another lightning success against France in 1940, he doubled his bet once too often and launched BARBAROSSA.
Many of the Polish officers who fell into the hands of the Soviets were herded together and murdered by Stalin's NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) in the Katyn forest. Tens of thousands of Polish patriots fled to Britain by various routes and provided among the highest motivated units in the battle of Britain and later in the campaigns in Italy and North-West Europe, with Monte Cassino, Falaise Gap, and Arnhem among their many battle honours. This was to no avail, for in 1945 their nation was occupied once more by the Soviets for a further 35 years. Once again, ‘guarantees’ from the West proved tissue-thin in the face of the geopolitical realities within which this unfortunate nation has been enclosed since the emergence of Russia and Prussia as imperial powers.
— Hugh Bicheno
