The Warsaw Uprising: 1 August - 2 October 1944 (Major Battles of World War Two)

by George Bruce

  In the Kremlin on 3 December 1941 Sikorski and Stalin in the presence of Molotov, Polish Ambassador Kot and General Anders, had discussed the issue:[40]

  Sikorski: I have with me a list containing the names of approximately 4,000 officers who were deported by force and who presently still remain in the prisons and labour camps. Even this list is not complete since it contains only names which we were able to take from memory… These people are here. Not one of them has returned.

  Stalin: That is impossible. They have escaped.

  Anders: Where then could they escape?

  Stalin: Well, to Manchuria.

  Anders: It is impossible that all could escape… I know that groups of Poles were already prepared for release and departure but they were retained at the last moment…

  Stalin: Surely they have been released, but as yet have not arrived.

  Sikorski: Russia is immense and the difficulties are great. Maybe the local authorities did not carry out the orders.

  Stalin: I want you to know that the Soviet Government has not the slightest reason to retain even one Pole. I released even Sosnkowski’s agents who attacked us and murdered our people.

  Such unsatisfactory discussions gradually changed Polish irritation to anger. Then, in April 1943, came the climax. The Germans announced the discovery of mass graves in Katyn Forest near Smolensk, containing the bodies of thousands of Polish officers in uniform. They had, it was said, been discovered by the German Intelligence Corps, who had been puzzled by birchwood crosses erected by Polish villagers. The facts of the existence of the graves had already been verified by responsible Poles taken there by the Germans.

  From Berlin, the Germans announced that they had set up a Committee of Inquiry, which had ‘proved’ that the Russian NKVD had shot the Poles in 1940. Nothing perhaps could have been better timed to strain still more the already threadbare relations between the Soviets and the London Polish Government and its Home Army. Komorowski observed the tremendous impression made upon the people. ‘No one asked who was responsible. Grief and sorrow plunged thousands of families into mourning. All other thoughts were swept away. The men had been the élite of the Polish nation… who had all been mobilized as reserve officers in 1939.’[41]

  The facts were revealed to the Russian public on 16 April in an official Soviet statement:

  Goebbels’ gang of liars have, in the last two or three days, been spreading revolting and slanderous fabrications about alleged mass shootings by Soviet organs of authority in the Smolensk area, in the spring of 1940. The German statement leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish war prisoners who, in 1941, were in areas west of Smolensk, engaged in road building, and who, together with many Soviet people, inhabitants of the Smolensk province, fell into the hands of the German hangmen, after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Smolensk…

  This announcement told the Poles for the first time that their officer-prisoners had spent the years from their capture in 1939 onwards road-making in the Smolensk region.

  On 17 April the issue came to a head. General Kukiel, Polish Minister of National Defence, declared that his Government had applied to the International Red Cross for an impartial on-the-spot investigation of the massacre. The Germans soon after announced that they, too, were seeking such an investigation through the German Red Cross.

  But the Soviets refused the Red Cross permission to examine the graves at Katyn, on the grounds that it would be held under German terrorist auspices. And on 21 April in a message to Churchill, Stalin accused Sikorski’s Government of ‘striking a treacherous blow at the Soviet Union to help Hitler tyranny… and adopting a hostile attitude to the Soviet Union’. The Soviet Government, he said, had therefore decided ‘to interrupt relations’ with that Government.[42] And none of the arguments against it that Churchill set out in two long and eloquent messages persuaded Stalin not to do so.

  The final break must, from Stalin’s point of view, have been a godsend. The main obstacle to his plans for a Polish Government allied to Soviet Russia had gone with this break with the London Poles. He did all possible from then on to undermine international confidence in them. The very next day in a Pravda article, Wanda Wasilewska forecast the creation of a Polish Army in Russia to fight by the side of the Red Army. And this army she said, would not be under the jurisdiction of the Polish Government in London, which was preventing active resistance to the Germans.[43] It was a significant forecast of a new Soviet-sponsored regime in Poland. Two weeks later, on 9 May, it was officially announced that the Council of People’s Commissars had authorized the formation of the Polish Kosciuszko Division, and that this had begun.

  Meanwhile, the Soviet radio broadcasts to Poland intensified the campaign against the Sikorski Government: ‘The Polish Government has taken the treacherous step of an understanding with Hitler, foe of the Polish and Russian people, foe of all peace-loving people’; and ‘The Polish Government’s aggressive lust has led it to agreement with the Hitlerite Government, which is tearing asunder the Polish nation’, were typical attacks.

  Received in Poland at a time when the Nazis were intensifying their campaign of repression against the Polish people and the Secret Army, these attempts to discredit Poland and deprive her of material aid from her allies, roused fury against both the Soviets and the Polish Communists.

  Rowecki reacted by informing General Sikorski that in view of the Russo-Polish dispute he had now cut down operations against the Germans, especially their lines of communication leading to the East.[44]

  He again proposed an ‘offensive reaction’ by the Secret Army against the Soviets were they to enter Poland in pursuit of the Germans without first reaching an understanding with the Government. It included sabotage in the eastern territories, destruction of the Red Army’s lines of communication where possible; battles against the Soviets wherever success was likely; or staying underground to wait for a suitable chance to strike.

  But General Sikorski refused to change the order that the Secret Army should cooperate with the Red Army. He realized the Soviet danger, but his military realism led him to try to win a favourable solution through diplomatic action.

  But in mid-1943 destiny, accident or conspiracy snatched both of these two leaders away within three days of each other. Ever since November 1939, Rowecki had been saved from the enemy by the Secret Army’s vigilance. Suddenly, on 30 June 1943, the Gestapo sealed off a whole street, arrested him in one of his hideouts and flew him to Berlin at once for interrogation. The loss of this leader who had united and trained the Secret Army was immense, yet his lack of realism — his failure to win a useful understanding with the Communists — cost Poland dear.

  Three days later General Sikorski died in an RAF aircraft crash in Gibraltar harbour, so mysterious that it has never yet been properly explained. In him Poland lost a truly great leader, both statesman and soldier.

  The unity of purpose Sikorski had imposed on the Secret Army to guide its attitude to the Soviets went with him. His death opened the way to the tragedy of Warsaw. Destiny, accident or design, had played into Stalin’s hands again. He was now able to exploit underground Poland’s despair by a move in direct opposition to the Secret Army.

  Chapter Five: Stalin shows his hand

  German loudspeakers in Theatre Square and beside the ornate fountain in the leafy Saxon Gardens triumphantly blared out the death of Poland’s trusted leader. Crowds wept in the sunshine. People had hoped that Sikorski would unite the nation and lead it to freedom and social justice after the war. Now that he was dead, emotions ranging from bitterness to hopelessness and despair temporarily overcame it.

  In London President Raczkiewicz appointed as Prime Minister Stanislaus Mikolajczyk, one of the Peasant Party leaders, and General Sosnkowski, whom Sikorski had sacked, as C-in-C of the armed forces, including the Secret Army. Strongly as Mikolajczyk opposed this appointment it went through; the 1935 Constitution made it the President’s choice alone; and to him, not to Parlia
ment, or the Government, was the C-in-C responsible for his conduct of the war. The right-wingers in the Government-in-exile valued Sosnkowski’s known anti-Sovietism, and insisted on the appointment. Winston Churchill accepted it reluctantly.

  One of Sosnkowski’s first moves was to appoint Komorowski, Rowecki’s Deputy Commander in Warsaw, to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Secret Army. Opposition to this appointment also was strong. Komorowski had not attended the Polish Staff College before the war. As a cavalryman, he lacked the necessary infantry experience. Politically he was well over to the right, and probably the main reason for his appointment was that he saw eye-to-eye with General Sosnkowski.

  By October 1943, nearly four months later, the Red Army in a rapid advance had inflicted heavy defeats on the Germans at Orel, Kharkov, and the lower Dnieper, and had retaken Smolensk. Komorowski realized that soon it would pursue the Germans into Poland and gradually occupy the country. He sent messages to Sosnkowski and Mikolajczyk again raising the vexed question of the Home Army’s attitude to the Red Army entering Poland without agreement while driving back the Wehrmacht.

  Sosnkowski saw his freedom from responsibility to all but the President as entitling him to lay down the Secret Army’s political line. In two blunt directives to Komorowski[45] in October 1943 he said that the Secret Army should regard the Soviets as enemies unless they recognized the Riga Line of 1920 as the post-war frontier of Poland; agreed that the London Polish Government’s representatives should administer Polish territories liberated by the Red Army; agreed that mixed Allied commissions should act as observers; and allowed Polish divisions formed in Russia to be transferred to Polish control, or be disbanded. In addition, he proposed that the Western Powers should safeguard the ‘lives, rights and property of our citizens’ and refuse to recognize territorial changes brought about by an armed force. He remarked at the same time that Britain and the US were clearly reluctant to promise aid for an uprising, most likely for political and geographical reasons. Like Rowecki, Sosnkowski was driven by his fanatical anti-communism to call for hopelessly unrealistic policies.

  He now agreed in discussions with fellow ministers that there should be no nationwide uprising without Anglo-American aid, but with the strange reservation that ‘acts of despair are sometimes unavoidable in the lives of nations, owing to the feelings of the nation, the political symbolism of such acts and their moral significance for posterity’.[46] He realized that such an act of desperation might bring about the ‘wholesale slaughter’ of civilians by German troops in furious retreat through Poland.

  The Government, having to some extent reaffirmed its authority over Sosnkowski in the conduct of the war, eventually formulated its own plans of action for the Secret Army if the Red Army entered Poland without consent. These included an uprising shortly before the Russo-German front rolled into Poland, but only if the Anglo-Americans were advancing deep into Europe and could guarantee substantial aid, including air cover. If this was not guaranteed, intensified sabotage and diversionary operations were to be launched instead as the German armed forces retreated, an operation codenamed Burza (Tempest).

  If Russo-Polish diplomatic relations had been re-established Tempest should be launched in liaison with the Red Army. But if relations were still broken and the Red Army entered Poland without consent, the Home Army should launch Tempest against the Germans, but, together with the civil authority, remain underground until further orders, undertaking self-defence if necessary.[47]

  These vague and hypothetical instructions, ordering the Secret Army to attack the retreating Nazis, then run back into hiding in face of the Russians, caused impatience, if not contempt in Warsaw and Komorowski decided to assume the prerogative of the man-on-the-spot. He issued his own orders and informed the Commander-in-Chief in a message:

  I have given all commanders and units orders to come into the open after taking part in operations against the retreating Germans. Their task will be to avow the presence of the Polish Republic. My order is at variance with that of the Government. I see no reason to create a vacuum on Polish territory as a result of military inaction in face of the Russians by the Army, which represents Poland and her legal authorities. To conceal our mass organization under the Soviet occupation would be impossible. I will limit to an indispensable minimum the number of commands and units which disclose their existence. The remainder I will try to safeguard by formal demobilization. In case of… Russian occupation, I am assembling in the utmost secrecy the skeleton network of a new clandestine force unconnected with the Home Army, to be at your disposal.[48]

  Komorowski had thus gone far to win freedom of action from the Commander-in-Chief and the Government.

  His order to province and district commanders, given instead of the Government order, on 26 November 1943,[49] stated clearly that the main battle task was action against the Germans, and that self-defence only would justify armed action against the Soviets entering Poland in pursuit of the retreating Nazis. The fighting would take the form of either a universal and simultaneous uprising, or of intensified diversionary operations (Tempest) throughout Poland. He went on:

  Tempest operations shall take the form of intensive harassing of the retreating German rearguards, together with strong diversion of the whole area, particularly against rail and road communications. A special radio message in code will order the start of Tempest, and receipt of it by province and district commanders is equivalent to an order to make ready for action. Main intention: to start action when the German forces can be attacked with maximum effect. Avoid friction with Soviet partisan detachments. After completing operations against the Germans local Polish commanders should declare their identity to the local Red Army commander. The Polish authorities always remain the rightful rulers, with due consideration to requests by the Soviet commands. Attempts to incorporate Home Army units into the Soviet or Berling’s forces should be resisted.

  This order gave Secret Army provincial and district commanders the enormous responsibility of deciding when and where to launch their units into action. Painstakingly Komorowski met them all during the winter of 1943-4, and discussed the situation with them to help them realize what they were up against, so that as far as possible he could be certain they would ‘find the right moment and place for bringing their detachments into action’.

  Not until February 1944 was he to receive the Government’s approval for his decision to reveal the Home Army to the Soviets, with the proviso that in doing so commanders should make it clear that their unit was part of the Polish armed forces, under the orders of the Polish Government, the C-in-C and the Commander of the Home Army. This Komorowski had already done.

  Meantime, in a message to London Komorowski declared that the Polish Workers’ Party and its military arm, now called the People’s Army, were strong enough to start a premature uprising. In late 1943 the Polish Workers’ Party had throughout Poland no more than 12,000 members, although its People’s Army had nearly 40,000, and weapons for only about a quarter of them.

  Komorowski nevertheless told London[50] that they must be prepared for a struggle against the Communist organizations, who were probably planning to set up a government obedient to Moscow. He suggested the formation of a special security corps ‘to maintain law and order’ in the liberated territories before the administrative organs of the Polish Government were in operation.

  At the same time, October 1943, he ordered Secret Army guerrilla formations to ‘combat brigandry’ and suppress ‘plundering and subversive brigand elements’. Komorowski claimed later that the object of this order, ambiguously expressed, was simply to deal with the bands of brigands who were living in the forests and terrorizing the peasantry. The Communists, who had no doubt suffered in clashes with Secret Army formations, protested that the order was directed against them. They procured a copy of the order and sent it to Moscow. Stalin used it at Tehran to buttress his argument that the Government-in-exile’s Secret Army was more eager to fight Communists
than Nazis.

  The affair caused suspicion and disquiet in London. Defending himself, Komorowski assured Mikolajczyk that he had no desire to launch civil war in Poland. He requested the Government to issue a political and social manifesto — the ideological banner of the Secret Army — guaranteeing the introduction of the constitutional, economic and social reforms for which the people had been waiting for so long.

  Preparations for the Tempest operation began in December 1943. Commanders of large partisan formations deployed their men in areas which straddled the German lines of communication; and in the eastern provinces — those disputed by the Soviet Union where Tempest would begin — all Secret Army men were mobilized. Commanders were supplied with their own code and a short-wave transmitter; arms and ammunition, boots, caps, short topcoats and medical equipment, all made in secret workshops and smuggled to the forest rendezvous.

  Still anxious, Komorowski again ordered unit commanders to do all possible to avoid trouble with Soviet partisan detachments operating in Poland. He received from Volhynia, in eastern Poland ‘alarming reports’ in reply. On 7 November 1943, ‘Bomba’, one of his best commanders, in charge of a formation of 640 men, was invited by the leader of a Soviet partisan unit to meet to discuss combined action against the Germans. The Polish officer set out for the meeting with fourteen men. They did not return and were never seen again. Bearing in mind the vigilance of German troops in the vicinity this in itself was not evidence that the Russians had wiped out the Poles; or indeed, that this foreshadowed a hostile policy towards the Secret Army.