The Forgotten Fighting Spirit of Poland

War is not won by standing alone. The evil posed by Hitler required the forces of many great nation to oppose, including the British, the French, the Soviets, and the Americans. However, the contributions of the smaller nations to the Allied war effort largely go unremembered by the general public, especially the contributions of Poland and its Home Army. Mostly seen as a vicitm, rather than a contributor to the overall victory in Europe, Poland's surviving armies get very little mention, if at all within the context of the shallow military historians of today. The foreword to Micheal Peszke's The Polish Underground Army, by Piotr S. Wandycz states that “Poland’s contribution to the Allied war effort is often minimized or glossed over. . . And yet, in proportion to the size and population of their state, the Poles rendered great services in the war against the axis powers.” They helped to reconstruct the German Enigma machine ciphers and handed it over to the French and the British. In the September 1939 campaign, Polish soldiers inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, who lost about 300 planes and 1000 tanks in their Blitzkrieg in Poland. Wandycz says that Peszke’s book can be viewed as a noble attempt to evaluate the military and strategic thinking of the Polish government in exile in Paris and London. Michael Alfred Peszke is no stranger to the field of Poland during World War II. This is his third book related to wartime Poland; his previous publications include The Battle for Warsaw, 1939-1944 (1995) published in the East European Monographs Series, and Poland’s Navy, 1918-1945 (1999) published by Hippocrene. His book is particularly good in describing the history of restructuring the Polish military in Britain, its contributions to the victory of the Allied Forces, and failed diplomatic efforts by the Polish government in exile to restore Poland’s independence. The book’s contents are characterized by consistently dense historical and military information. Peszke is a master of subtlety conveying points in a relatively easy to grasp nature, although the sheer amount of information can overwhelm at times. The narrative of the book is organized chronologically, but several appendices, notes, pictures, and a bibliography allow for further interpretation. The book can be thought of as an arrangement of the largest Polish contributions to the war. It provides the details of the September 17, 1939 invasion when the Soviets broke the Non-Aggression Treaty; it delineates the Polish evacuees in Hungary and Romania, General Sikorski’s war strategy, the Battle of Britain, the problems associated with the Warsaw Uprising, and the following “betrayal” of the Yalta Conference. The Polish Underground Army also deals with Polish participation in the Norwegian and French campaigns and the story of the Polish Parachute Brigade. It provides a narrative on the important events involving the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Polish Home Army, and the Katyn graves. Peszke best section details the “Balkan strategy” and its significance for Poland. From the beginning of the war the Poles tried to convert Romania and Hungary to the Allied side. Sikorski always viewed the Balkan and Danubian countries as an important factor that might lead to a possible victory over the Germans. He also felt that victory could have been achieved by strong Allied forces supported by a clandestine army in occupied Poland, the “soft underbelly of Europe.” Peszke claims that Winston Churchill shared a similar belief. In August 1944, Churchill reluctantly agreed with the Americans to withdraw divisions from the Italian campaign to start the “Operation Dragoon” in southern France. According to Sikorski’s war strategy based on the Balkan alliance, Poland would be reinstituted in its 1939 boundaries, but with the elimination of the East Russia. The plan would have allowed for incorporation of the free city of Danzig into Polish territory. This goal could have been accomplished only by the adoption of the Balkan Strategy by the Allied side. Sikorski considered an alliance based on the old and beneficial relationships between Poland and Romania, or between Poland and Hungary. However, Peszke admits that there appear to be no archival documents to prove that the Balkan Strategy was discussed by Sikorski and Churchill. Peszke also meticulously lays out the Polish plans to fight the Germans in his writing. While other historians have described Poland's plans as grandiose, or at times, absurd, However Peszke doesn't seems to believe that much of what Poland plans is Using the little-known historical documents from the British archives, Peszke pieces together the details of the relationship between the Western Allies, the Soviets, and Poland’s postwar political fate. The appendices feature the Revised Polish-British Air Force Agreement, the article “Cost of the Polish Forces While Based in the United Kingdom”, the article on “Military Symbolism: Occupied Homeland Sends Two Flags to Its Warriors in Exile,” and other documentation. The book supports the thesis that the Polish government in exile, and Generals Władysław Sikorski and Kazimierz Sosnkowski in particular, worked to integrate the Polish forces into the Allied armies. They were tying the Polish underground army to the Western strategic and military goals. Peszke lays out quickly and continuously touts that the long-term goal was to liberate Poland from the Germans and the Soviets, and that the Home Army was established for that purpose. Peszke‘s work also gives excellent insight into the British policies of the Second World War era. It also demonstrates that the Polish Home Army owed its allegiance to the Polish government in the West and was completely loyal to the Polish commander in chief in exile . . . and was aided by supplies from the West. An important point made out by the author is that the Battle of Britain played a special role in the history of the Polish Air Force. The 302nd Poznański and 303rd Kościuszko squadrons were fighting in the air battle over southern England and London. There were also many other Polish pilots fighting in RAF squadrons. Altogether, the Battle of Britain engaged 154 Polish pilots. On September 20th 1940, the BBC even sent the following message to the world about the bravery of the Polish 303 Squadron: “The BBC sends warm greeting to the famous 303rd Polish Squadron with lively congratulations upon its magnificent record and all the best wishes for the future. You use the air for your gallant exploits and we for telling the world of them.” After the successful battle over the British skies, the Polish air strength grew further and included the bomber squadrons, as well as the new fighter squadrons. They were organized into the Polish wing under the command of Major Urbanowicz. The final chapters of the book describe Polish determination and values. The failure of the Warsaw Uprising and the bitterness of the Yalta Conference give the author an opportunity to offer an interpretation of the war and of the moral stance of those states whose representatives signed the postwar treaty agreements. On March 3, 1945, Churchill wrote to President Roosevelt: “At Yalta we agreed to take the Russian view of the frontier line. Poland has lost her frontier. Is she now to lose her freedom? . . . That is the question which will undoubtedly have to be fought out in Parliament and in public here.” Churchill must have known that he lied through his teeth, for the matter had been already decided-but he maintained the “tea and sympathy” appearance. Peszke’s book is comprehensive, mostly well written, but sometimes lacks a quality of depth that could have made the book shine. Sometimes the amount of information is overwhelming in its presentation which could scare off those who are troubled with higher level military history. On the positive side, however, Peszke helps to set up in his readers develop an understand and outlook that most readers would not have had considered about Polish forces. The book challenges the reader to think critically about the interpretations of the Second World War offered up by a large segment of the American perceptions of Polish forces during the Nazi invasion, which mostly overlooks these contributions. Another book that takes it upon itself to tell the tale of the relatively forgotten Polish army is Kenneth Koskodan, the author of No Greater Ally. Kenneth Koskodan, a Michigan State University graduate in Communications, of Polish descent, wrote this book to fill the gap. Its 11 chapters begin with the prelude to World War II and conclude with a chapter mourning Poland’s betrayal by her allies at Yalta in February 1945. Koskodan’s book tells the story in a lively and engaging manner making it accessible for the non-specialist reader. The personal accounts of Polish witnesses to the history of their nation at this terrible time are welcome additions and make for an interesting read. One of these personal accounts is of Zygmunt Kornas, who survived the Soviet GULAG, walked 2,000 miles to reach a Polish Army recruiting center in Kazakhstan, left the USSR with other survivors led by General Władysław Anders for Iran, later the Middle East, and went on to fight under Anders’s command in the Polish 2nd Corps in Italy. Another witness, Anna Dadlez, tells of Polish deportees, including children, and their hunger and death in the USSR. Helena Konwiak speaks of service in the Polish Home Army in German-occupied Poland, also, as does Czesław Korzycki, of fighting in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. These and other personal glimpses as well as some rare, wartime photographs give the reader a good idea of the war experience of individual Poles as well as Polish military actions in World War II. Koskodan describes these actions, beginning with the German-Polish War of September 1939, when the outgunned and outnumbered Polish armed forces fought alone, without the promised Allied help, against the best army in the world. The book details how they fought for six long weeks, or about as long as the French and British fought the Germans in France in May–June 1940—where Poles also fought alongside the French army. The map of the German invasion of Poland (facing page 20, with key at the end of the picture section) is no doubt clear for a military historian, but likely too detailed for other readers. The Polish Podhale Brigade fought the Germans alongside the Allied troops in May–June 1940 during the Norway operation, while the 1st Independent Carpathian Brigade later fought in defense of Tobruk, North Africa. The author rightly emphasizes the important Polish contribution to the British victory over the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, where Poles accounted for about 10 percent of RAF pilots in the critical period of mid-September 1940. Later, Polish bomber crews flew in RAF bomber raids over Germany. Koskodan also writes about Polish underground resistance to the Germans in occupied Poland; about the Polish 2nd Corps’s bloody odyssey of wresting the monastery of Monte Cassino from the Germans, thus opening for other Allied forces the land route to Rome, and about General Stanisław Maczek’s Armored Division’s role in the battle of Falaise in June 1944 and its fighting progress through Belgium, Holland, into northwest Germany. He devotes a whole chapter to Maj. General Stanisław Sosabowski’s lst Independent Polish Parachute Brigade and its long fight for the Rhine bridge at Arnhem—where it reinforced the British 1st Airborne—in the doomed “Market Garden” operation (September 1944), and how Sosabowski was scapegoated for its failure. Koskodan also makes a long empahsis of General Zygmunt Berling’s Kosciusko Infantry Division. Formed in the USSR in spring 1943 as the armed force of the communist-dominated Union of Polish Patriots, later the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity, it grew into the Polish People’s Army which fought alongside the Red Army right up to and into Berlin. He writes, too, about the tragic Warsaw Uprising against the Germans from 1 August to 2 October 1944, when Stalin’s lack of help and cooperation with the Western Allies allowed his former German ally to destroy the anticommunist A.K., along with about 200,000 inhabitants of the Polish capital and 80 percent of the buildings in the west bank portion of the city. Interestingly enough this author omits some important information, that were included in Peszke's book. When writing of the Polish military who escaped to Hungary or Romania and then proceeded to join the new Polish army in France, the author doesn't mention that in reaction to the Soviet attack on Poland on 17 September, Polish commander-in-chief Marshal Smigły-Rydz ordered all Polish units in eastern Poland to make their way to Hungary or Romania, and it was understood that they would proceed to France; also, only a part of the some 84,000 (not 100,000) Polish military who escaped to those two countries (p. 41) managed to reach France. Ed Bucko’s and Bohdan Grodzki’s stories of how they managed to leave Hungary and Romania for France are amusing, but the author should at least mention the fact that the Polish government and High Command decided—on hearing of the Soviet invasion and with the Red Army only a few miles away from their location—to cross into neighboring Romania on the way to France on the night of 17–18 September, but German pressure led to its forcible internment in Romania. Two weeks later, President Ignacy Mo´scicki turned over his powers to Władysław Raczkiewicz and a new government was formed in France with General Władysław Sikorski as Premier on 30 September 1939, and Commander-in-Chief two months later. The new Polish government immediately began to form a new Polish army in France, made up of Poles living in that country, plus the military who had managed to reach France from Hungary and Romania. It is somewhat an exaggeration, as is Koskodan's style throughout the book, to state that the Polish underground resistance movement “would prove crucial to the overall war effort in Europe.” In fact, the most important Polish contributions to the Allied war effort were the Polish fight against the Germans in September 1939, which bought precious time for Poland’s allies, especially Britain, which increased its fighter production between fall 1939 and fall
1940 to 600 per month. It was then able—with the participation of Polish pilots who had made their way to Britain from Hungary and Romania as well as France—to defeat the German attempt to bomb the British into submission and then invade their homeland; the Polish prewar breaking of the German “Enigma” code system mentioned by Koskodan which was turned over to the British and French in July 1939, led to the famous British code-breaking work in Bletchley Park but went unacknowledged for over 50 years. However, Koskodan tries to endow the Polish with more of the glory of these victories without making concessions to the other parties involved. Despite over exaggerating certain military victories being the result of Polish involvement. Koskodan rightly mentions the “monumental” Polish contribution to Western intelligence throughout the war. In fact, Polish Intelligence agents supplied 44 percent of all reports received by British Intelligence from all over German-occupied Europe, 60 percent of which were judged as very important and only 2 percent as unimportant or false. Here the author might have mentioned a recent book on this subject. The largest problem with Koskodan's book may be his bias towards believing that the Polish were completely under appreciated, almost to the point of complete hatred of other Allies towards the Poles, as it seems that he carries an agenda beyond just a simple historical point of view. He seems to believe that it is important throughout the course of his book to drum up more and more sympathy for the Polish forces by overemphasizing certain points of historical evidence or omitting others, as the earlier examples have shown. Koskodan's view of the Polish's role in World War II is much different from Peszke for many reasons. While Peszke is tempered and tends to reside on the dry edge of historical writing, Koskodan does his best with a more enjoyable read, a more passionate read, although his historical biases should be taken with a grain of salt. Peszke's much more broad overview of this time lacks the support of the same level of first source accounts that Koskodan likes to bring into his books. Peszke's much more unbiased ends up being more appropriate for this subject than Koskodan's. It allows the reader to make the logical conclusions that Poland did have a significant role within the Allied war effort, but wasn't as much of an outrage as Koskodan tries to engender with his account. While both agree that without Polish help the Allies may have suffered setbacks and much more extreme losses, Peszke doesn't believe that the overall war would have been lost if the Polish hadn't contributed, citing the power of the Soviet Union to repel Germany and the American help that eventually was added to the war effort. Peszke and Koskodan differ on how the other Allies treat the Polish after they evacuated Poland with the Home Army and government in exile. Koskodan champions that there was plenty of resentment from Britian, while Peszke in his view refutes this idea, saying that France and Britian were more kind than what Koskodan believed when confronted with survivors of Poland. It seems like Peszke's view is more in the right especially after the help of the Polish Air Force in the Battle of Britian. The anger stemming from Koskodan seems to stem from the fact that Poland was not supported by the Allies after the war ended, as they were basically handed over to the Soviets without much fight from the British or the Americans. Peszke doesn't refute this fact, and also does show the concessions the British made during Yalta to appease the Soviets, but he treats this as a separate matter, rather than allowing this one event to twist the underlying themes of his book. All in all, Peszke's book, while at times dry and filled with knowledge that may trouble some non-military historians, presents a more fair and balanced look at the contributions of the Polish to the Allied war effort. Koskadan, while entertaining, takes up too much of a personal bias within his book to get a clear picture of how history really shook out between Poland and the Allies. Both these accounts will open the eyes of those who had not understood the depth of the Polish commitment to the war, but really only Peszke's book will allow the reader to calmly infer the implications of the Polish during World War II.