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

by George Bruce

  At the same time, however, again in Volhynia, the leader of another Soviet detachment invited the Polish captain of a partisan unit and his adjutant to their camp to ‘coordinate mutual action against the Germans’. They, too, did not return and some time later their bodies were found at the site of the Russian camp.[51] The evidence was slender, once again, but it was enough to make the Secret Army wonder what the future held when the Red Army poured over the frontier into Poland.

  Meanwhile, collaborating closely with Moscow, and reacting to the swift advance of the Red Army, the Polish Communists set about the formation of a secret underground state in opposition to the one formed in 1940 loyal to the Government-in-exile. They began talks with small left-wing splinter groups of the Peasant Party and the Polish Socialist Party about the formation of a united political organization to be called the National Home Council.[52]

  Its first meeting, under the chairmanship of Wladyslaw Gomulka, who had succeeded to the party leadership, took place on New Year’s Eve in a house on Twarda Street, Warsaw. Boleslaw Bierut, a veteran Polish Communist, was nominated president of the newly formed organization. Without delay it issued a manifesto claiming that the ‘National Home Council of Poland’ was ‘the factual political representation of the Polish people’ until the war ended.

  Challenging the authority of the London Polish Government, it claimed the authority to issue legislative decrees and set up throughout central Poland embryo provincial, county, municipal and rural peoples’ councils staffed by Communists — but none, of course, in the eastern territories claimed by Stalin.

  In response to this challenge to its authority, the Government-in-exile branded the National Council of Poland as ‘a fraud and an agency of a foreign power’.

  Three days later, on the night of 3 January 1944, the first Red Army spearheads crossed the frontier of the province of Volhynia and entered Poland. What the Polish Government-in-exile both feared and expected had now taken place. It issued a declaration pointing out that if a Polish-Soviet agreement had preceded the crossing of the Polish frontier it would have enabled the underground Polish army to coordinate its action against the Germans with the Soviet military authorities. The Polish Government still ‘considered such an agreement highly desirable’.[53]

  On the same day, Prime Minister Mikolajczyk broadcast to Poland from London: ‘We are entering a turning-point of history. We should have preferred to meet the Soviet troops not merely as allies of our allies, fighting against the same common enemy, but as our own allies as well.’ With this statement the split between Moscow and the Polish Government grew even wider.

  The diplomatic battle had also been joined over the issue of the frontiers of Poland. Stalin stuck to his demand for eastern Poland as far as the Curzon Line and the north-eastern part of East Prussia, including the ice-free port of Konigsberg. Churchill supported him by bringing pressure on the London Poles to accept these demands and the extension of their territories in the west as far as the Oder-Neisse Line.

  Stalin[54] also demanded in letters to Churchill and Roosevelt that Sosnkowski and other ‘pro-fascist imperialist elements’ should be removed from the Polish Government and be replaced by democratic-minded people, which would, ‘one is entitled to hope, create the proper conditions for normal Soviet-Polish relations, for solving the problem of the Soviet-Polish frontier and, in general, for the rebirth of Poland as a strong, free and independent state.’[55]

  Stalin’s attitude to the legitimate Polish refusal was one of outraged innocence, expressed with menace that grew stronger with each Soviet defeat of the Nazis. ‘I am more convinced than ever that men of their type are incapable of establishing normal relations with the USSR,’ he wrote to Churchill on 3 March 1944. ‘Suffice it to point out that they, far from being ready to recognize the Curzon Line, claim both Lwow and Wilno. As regards the desire to place certain Soviet territories under foreign control… the mere posing of the question is an affront to the Soviet Union.’

  Churchill, who had tried to settle these frontier issues before the Red Army entered Poland, knew well enough that only compromise could save her independence.

  In a declaration of war aims in Warsaw on 15 March 1944, the Council of National Unity stated that Poland’s eastern frontier should stay as established by the Treaty of Riga in 1920, and not be moved westward to the Curzon Line; that all East Prussia and the port of Danzig must be Poland’s and that vital Polish economic interests should be permanently secured along the Oder river in Germany.

  Even if Stalin had any goodwill towards the Secret Army and the underground civil authority in Warsaw, little of it could have remained after this challenge to his territorial demands. Three days afterwards, on 18 March 1944, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR authorized the expansion of the First Polish Army Corps in Russia into the First Polish Army. Stalin would soon have a military force apart from the Red Army in Poland which could help him to impose a puppet government.

  On 15 March 1944, a delegation of the Communist Polish Workers’ Party and its civil organization called the National Home Council, headed by Edward Osobka-Morawski and Marian Spychalski, were called to high level talks in Moscow. Making their way across the German-Soviet front with the help of a group of Soviet partisans, they crossed the Bug river, were in due course picked up by a Soviet transport aircraft and flown to Moscow.

  Here on 22 May 1944 they met Stalin, who told them he was ready to recognize the National Home Council of Poland,[56] once it had established an executive organ. It would be useful to him in his negotiations with Churchill and Roosevelt, who wanted him to recognize the London Polish Government, which in its existing form he had no intention of doing. Stalin agreed with the delegation that the National Home Council and its supporters should form the nucleus of the new Polish Government and head the ministries. He also promised to supply the underground People’s Army in Warsaw with arms.

  He had now all but cleared the way for the establishment in Poland of a communist government. Only General Komorowski’s Home Army stood in his way. But Stalin was a veteran in the art of luring his enemies to their destruction.

  Chapter Six: Tempest fails

  Komorowski and the Secret Army staff had reached an important turning-point in January 1944. The question: whether to stop all military action against the Germans until Stalin agreed to renew diplomatic relations with the London Polish Government; or no matter what Stalin’s policy was towards this Government, to go on fighting the Germans in Poland and to launch Operation Tempest as they retreated into the country’s eastern areas?

  To Komorowski, who believed that he held the trump card of the Secret Army, the choice in this issue was clear. Not to come out into the open and fight the Germans would, he believed, be fatal to Poland’s cause, because the Soviets would seize on the fact as ‘proof’ of their argument that the Secret Army was hostile to them. Furthermore, public opinion in Poland would turn against the instigators of such an order. It would have been looked on as next to capitulation. Therefore he was quite certain that the army must risk coming out into the open as the Soviets advanced into Poland, even without liaison or contact with the Soviet command, or even any clue as to what action the Red Army might take against a non-communist force emerging in the battle area. ‘We had to take up battle — it was a matter of principle; once again we faced questions of our freedom and independence.’[57]

  General Sosnkowski, whom Stalin hated so much and whose dismissal he was then vigorously urging upon Churchill and Roosevelt, argued that the issue should depend strictly upon the resumption of Russo-Polish diplomatic relations and the Soviet acceptance of Poland’s Treaty of Riga eastern frontiers. He believed that without this all Poland’s sacrifices and losses would be in vain, because Stalin was determined to smash the old Poland and set up in its place a communist satellite state, perhaps even a new republic ruled from the Kremlin.[58] Prime Minister Mikolajczyk, however, overruled Sosnkowski and so Komorowski’s momentous polic
y of fighting the Germans whatever the circumstances went ahead, with all its grim implications for the future.

  Unfortunately, both the London Government and Komorowski still believed that Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt would recognize Poland’s contribution to the Allied cause, and would therefore bring diplomatic pressure or even military force to bear on the Soviets to prevent Polish territory being seized and the nation’s freedom crushed. Cut off in beleaguered Poland and dependent upon the not very illuminating radio messages of his London colleagues, how could Komorowski know the whole truth — that the two Allied leaders hoped for Stalin’s aid in the war against Japan? Roosevelt, caught in the electoral web which periodically paralyses US foreign policy, had set himself the impossible goal of offending neither Stalin nor the seven million Americans of Polish descent.

  In secret, at Tehran early in 1943, he had told Stalin that ‘as a practical man’ he did not wish to involve the US publicly in the Russo-Polish dispute, but he agreed that Poland’s eastern borders should be moved to the west and the western border even to the River Oder.[59] It was as good as an invitation to go ahead. Stalin told the President that he ‘understood’.

  Komorowski had not been informed by his Government of the bitter arguments about the frontier issue then being pursued in the diplomatic field between Prime Minister Mikolajczyk on the one hand and the British Government on the other, acting in support of Stalin.

  So Komorowski was shocked when early in February Mr Jan Jankowski, the Government delegate in Warsaw, received from Prime Minister Mikolajczyk a message[60] asking for reaction to the proposal that the Curzon Line should be taken as a basis for negotiations with the Soviets about Poland’s revised eastern frontier. ‘Will you please state the position of the home country on Poland’s eastern frontier in the event of Germany’s total defeat… taking into account the decision of England and America not to fight for Poland’s eastern frontier, and the possible danger of the Soviets creating “faits accomplis” in the remaining part of Poland,’ the message ran. It also mentioned Stalin’s demand for the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief, General Sosnkowski, and of General Kukiel, Minister of Defence.

  Jankowski, in an uncompromising reply[61] on behalf of the Council of National Unity representing the four main parties, strongly objected to any talks with the Soviets about the revision of the eastern boundaries, because they were already settled by the 1920 Treaty of Riga:

  In spite of our terrible sacrifices, the Polish nation is determined to fight the new Soviet aggression for its own independence and Europe’s freedom. The Polish nation believes that the Allies and the world will understand its attitude and actively support it… We shall not give in or bend; on the contrary, there will be a breakdown and anarchy in the Polish nation if there should be submission to Soviet demands. Knowing the real aims and methods used by our eastern neighbour, we do not attach any serious importance to agreements regarding the functioning of our authorities in the Soviet occupied territories, because we do not believe that they would be loyally kept. The Polish people are fully aware of the seriousness of the present moment — and the unity of their views and firm will to fight for the freedom, integrity and independence of the Mother Country is complete.

  The Red Army was then embattled with the Germans in Volhynia, eastern Poland. Komorowski, in a special order, reminded area and sector commanders[62] that Tempest should start from the eastern boundaries, without special orders, at the moment of German retreat ‘as in this way we can make it quite clear that the eastern boundary provinces belong to the Republic… It must be carried out regardless of the behaviour of the Soviets towards us’.

  If ever military commanders faced fatal pitfalls over and above the normal hazards of war, Komorowski’s Secret Army commanders in eastern Poland were so confronted. He warned them of the dangers of premature mobilization. ‘They could easily be annihilated by the retreating Germans.’ Should the Soviets, on the other hand, try forcibly to disarm them or compel them to be absorbed into General Berling’s Communist People’s Army, the commander was authorized to order his troops to refuse and to go into hiding. Before going to meet Red Army commanders to discuss liaison, Secret Army commanders must appoint a second-in-command ready to take over, ‘under conspiratorial conditions’ in case the commander were arrested — in which case he was likely to be shot. If a unit commander’s proposals for military liaison with the Red Army were refused the unit should hide its weapons and disband, so as to avoid fighting with the Soviets. When fighting the Germans in these disputed territories alongside Soviet units, commanders must reveal themselves to Red Army commanders: ‘At the command of the Government of the Polish Republic, I am reporting as a military commander, with proposals for arranging military cooperation against the common enemy with Soviet Armed Forces entering the territories of the Polish Republic.’ He was then to add that Home Army detachments belonged to the Polish Government and were under the orders only of its Commander-in-Chief.

  In other words, on top of all the other hazards, commanders were ordered to risk their lives and liberty by throwing down the gauntlet to Red Army officers and Soviet commissars. They were to tell the Soviet giant which had destroyed the German military machine and driven it back all the way from Moscow: ‘These lands are Polish! Here we rule!’ even though Stalin’s commissars had already begun confiscating estates and establishing collectives in these lands he had decreed were Soviet.

  But as the eleventh hour neared there was not much else left to Komorowski except to stake all on a few desperate throws of the dice, to try to raise the White Eagle of old Poland again.

  The first throw occurred in March 1944 when the Polish 27th Division, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Oliwa’ launched Tempest in the Kowel and Wlodzimierz regions of Polish Volhynia, territory claimed by Stalin. About half the strength of a normal infantry division, at 6,000 strong it was composed only of two regimental battle groups, the 50th and 24th Infantry Regiments; it also lacked the normal heavy weapons.[63]

  On 20 March for the first time the Home Army’s 27th Division and the Red Army fought side by side as allies and engaged the Germans in the battle for Kowel.[64] The battle was hard, the losses heavy.

  Six days later, on 26 March, Colonel ‘Oliwa’, OC 27th Division, went to a meeting with the Red Army’s General Sergeyev and Colonel Kharitonov to discuss military cooperation. The Soviet officers, having already ‘ascertained the views of the Central Soviet authorities, expressed their readiness to enter into cooperation with the Polish Underground Army’. The conditions were:[65]

  operational subordination of the Polish Forces to the Soviet Command locally and also beyond the Bug River: recognition of the Polish Forces as a division under Polish authorities in Warsaw and London: the Division to be absolutely free to maintain contact with them: a regular Polish division to be formed out of the existing Polish partisan detachments: no partisan activity in the rear of Soviet Forces: full field equipment and armament for the Polish Division to be supplied by the Soviet authorities.

  The terms were fair and generous, even though they prohibited partisans behind the Red Army lines supporting the emergence of a Polish administration in the disputed eastern territories. But Komorowski, who received them by radio from ‘Oliwa’, turned away from the path which could have led to a limited agreement with the Soviets. Like Sosnkowski, he was only interested in full-scale diplomatic rapprochement based on recognition of the old frontiers in the east. A few days earlier, in a message to London dated 23 March, he had argued that ‘because of the failure to re-establish diplomatic relations… it is not advisable hastily to contract liaison with the Soviet Command on our own initiative. It would be better to implement Tempest independently for as long as possible.’[66]

  He therefore composed a reply which differed from the Soviet conditions in insisting that the Division would be subordinated to the Soviet Command only temporarily until the problem of its tactical dependence was settled diff
erently by a Polish-Soviet agreement. Secondly, it ordered that the division should be organized with drafts from Volhynia and that the conscription of these men should be regulated by the Division itself in agreement with the Soviet authorities. Komorowski also reserved for himself the right to appoint officers above the rank of battalion commander, leaving the divisional commander powers of promotion below this rank. The Division was to pursue war aims defined by the ‘Central authorities of the Polish State’. It was not to be transferred to Russia and all soldiers in it were bound to take the Secret Army loyalty oath.[67]

  Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk welcomed the Soviet offer. He sent Ambassador Raczynski to tell the British Government that although they were by no means certain as to the future attitude of the Soviet authorities they were none the less ready for their part to contribute with full energy to a further development of friendly relations.[68]

  General Sosnkowski took an entirely different view. ‘I doubt whether the Soviet Command’s promises will be fulfilled… and even if they were I do not believe there will be a favourable outcome of this experiment,’ he said in his reply to Komorowski. ‘The subordination of the Division to you and me would probably be completely illusory. It would be useful if it might procure a quantity of arms and save at least a part of these men and units. I expect that at a certain stage attempts to include the division in Berling’s army will be made.’[69]

  Komorowski agreed. ‘We appraise the Soviet attitude to us realistically,’ he replied to the Commander-in-Chief on 19 April 1944.

  We expect nothing good from that side, nor do we delude ourselves that they will loyally cooperate with the independent Polish units… We regard it as necessary that our every move should be consistent with the sovereign rights of the Republic…

  Hence, my instructions to the Commanding Officer of the Volhynian Area included conditions of a kind which the Soviets would certainly refuse to honour. I have in a separate order instructed that if this should happen, the Commanding Officer of the Volhynian Area must break through the German rear to the territory under my direct command.