The First Horse Army in Ukraine + Battle of Radzymin added

[Mark Plant]

I've wondered for a while about Budenny's campaign in Ukraine -- why it went so much worse than against the Whites, and whether he could have made it to Lublin in time to prevent Pilsudski's attack from the Wieprz.

In doing that I've tracked down some original material by participants, which I am going to put onto Pygmy Wars over the coming months.

First up, the Soviet side, written by the Konarmia's Chief of Staff : https://pygmywars.com/rcw/history/konarmia_ukraine/konarmia_ukraine_intro.html

(I've also finally fixed the security issues with the site, so you shouldn't get warnings about that any more.)

[Dr Bogo]

Thanks for this Mark, looking forward to reading

[trev]

That sounds interesting Mark.  That's an impressive selection of maps!  I really need to learn to read Cyrillic though, or find some good OCR software.

Cheers for posting.

[cuprum]

I recommend the ABBYY FineReader program (I have version 11). Now I can read literature in almost any language without problems (problems arise only with hieroglyphs).

[Mark Plant]

I use Convertio to put pictures into text.

Modern OCR software is amazing. I find that DeepL is the best from Russian and Polish, but Google Translate is not bad. MSWord is less good, but at least gets you an impression quickly of whether a document is worth bothering.

My problems arise with abbreviations. You just have to know that D.P. is Infantry Division in Polish, for example.

[trev]

Thanks guys.  I'll give those a go.  Abbreviations and specific technical language will probably be a translation software problem for a good while yet.

[Mark Plant]

Next update on the Konarmia page;https://pygmywars.com/rcw/history/konarmia_ukraine/konarmia_ukraine_intro.html. This time a Polish account of the fighting around Rivne in early July 1920.

I had thought that the First Horse Army had burst through the Polish front south of Kyiv and then pretty much advanced unopposed until Zamosc/Komarow. It turns out to be much more complicated. Klyuev's account glides by some of the more awkward moments, so you have to read some of the Polish accounts to see that it was far from plain sailing.

Biernacki gives details on how the Polish 2nd Army was able to distract and deflect the Horse Army at Rivne. While not a Polish victory, it wasn't a loss either (except of ground). The biggest issue facing the Poles wasn't the Soviet cavalry but their own poor communications and bad reconnaissance. They could beat Budenny when they could catch him.

And despite all the fuss about the Battle of Komarow, the Polish cavalry was not really much of a threat to the Konarmia. It was the infantry that harried him.

[Sparrow]

A massive “thank you” for all of this. It makes fascinating reading 👍

[Mark Plant]

Ok, so last one, at least for a while. I've added Arczewski's account of the 18th ID fighting the Konarmia: "Ostrog - Dubno - Brody".

This the one that started me on this corner of the RCW, and trying to find all the places it mentions in its rather detailed account almost broke me. There's quite a few maps, and for most of us here they are helpfully in Latin script.

For those not interested in the whole 110 pages, the last 10 are Arczewski's summary of the correct way to fight an army like Budenny's, and is interesting just as a stand alone section.

https://pygmywars.com/rcw/history/konarmia_ukraine/konarmia_ukraine_intro.html

[Ignatieff]

Fantastic stuff.  looking forward to reading this.  Thanks Mark

[Mark Plant]

So I finally finished the book "Battle for the Outskirts of Warsaw, August 1920" (Bój Na Przedmościu Warszawy) edited by Waligóra.

The top one at: https://pygmywars.com/rcw/history/warsaw/warsawintro.html

It is a monster of a book, over 400 pages in A4, plus 50 of appendices. I reckon on these things taking about an hour a page, minimum, so this has taken me about 500 hours (and four months).

With that comes massive detail about everything. It takes quite a long time to even get to the fighting, most of which is pretty dull, but once you do it gives everything you could want to know about the fighting, especially around Radzymin, with really helpful maps.

With it being so big, I will have made quite a few mistakes -- the original authors certainly did -- so please pass on anything you notice that seems wrong.

[Pan Marek]

Mark-
Amazing.  Thanks for your hard work.  Now, time to read!

[trev]

Wonderful stuff Mark. Thanks for posting it.