Battle of Komarów 1920

[ts]

Yes, such heads are almost perfect for Polish cavalry, but maybe Mr. Cuprum can also kick his sculptor and have some Polish heads made.
If it has your interest, I will see, what useable pictures and informations I have for the polish cavalry uniforms for Komarov?

[koz10]

The infantry at Komarów were Haller's, the cavalry were not.

I thought I saw pics in the books that Gauntlet used to sell that showed Polish cav in French uniforms.
The Polish Army Museum had lots of very different looking cav uniforms but none that looked like WWII uniforms.

Tachankas are a much bigger issue.

Not at all. The Eureka ones work just fine despite them being thinner. They're easier to put together than they look, too.

[koz10]

The reason the answer is so fast is that I researched it in order to correct Wikipedia. But every time I do so some Pole (I assume it's a Pole) comes along and changes it back again!

Ha! That's a pretty big assumption.

[Mark Plant]

I thought I saw pics in the books that Gauntlet used to sell that showed Polish cav in French uniforms.
The Polish Army Museum had lots of very different looking cav uniforms but none that looked like WWII uniforms.

There were "Blue" cavalry, just not in the 1st cavalry division. I've always assumed that the Blue cavalry was divisional cavalry for the Blue infantry divisions.

Paintings of Komarów show the late uniforms, but I'm pretty sure that's bogus (Polish historical painting of the period is not a great guide IMO). However senior officers wore the formal uniform, and the WWII figures would seem a good start for that. Otherwise too much of the wrong kit, no matter how close the uniform underneath.

[koz10]

There were "Blue" cavalry, just not in the 1st cavalry division. I've always assumed that the Blue cavalry was divisional cavalry for the Blue infantry divisions.

Here's another problem - I've read that Haller's troops were broken up and not kept as a large unit, yet other sources discuss them as divisions. I got a massive book at the Polish Army Museum this fall about Haller and his units. It looks like it describes one large unit. What's the truth as you know it?

Paintings of Komarów show the late uniforms, but I'm pretty sure that's bogus (Polish historical painting of the period is not a great guide IMO). However senior officers wore the formal uniform, and the WWII figures would seem a good start for that. Otherwise too much of the wrong kit, no matter how close the uniform underneath.

My fav is the big counter attack painting with everyone, male and female, in all sorts of uniforms and equipment attacking to drive back the Red hordes - Pilsudski's riding his horse right behind them and the Virgin Mary is exhorting them to victory as ghosts of winged hussars sweep forward. It's actually a cool painting. It's worth the effort to put some longer hair on some figs. 

[koz10]

Yes, along with the oft repeated 'we saved Western Europe from Communism', which is purely speculative. Personally I've always thought that should  the Poles have succumbed the revolution wouldn't have proceeded much further west. The failure of the Spartacists in Germany and the crushing of Bela Kun in Hungary would appear to suggest that enthusiasm for the venture wasn't quite as popular as some would have it. Then there is the considerable antipathy the  British and French governments felt for Bolshevism and had already demonstrated. It's unlikely that a few thousand horsemen under Budyonny or Gai would have caused the collapse of the west, particularly at the end of already attenuated supply routes. I have little doubt that they would have come a cropper against the French, the British or even the Reichswehr.

It's a function of Polish mythology that they fulfilled the role of the Christian bastion against the modern day hordes of Genghis Khan, not sure it bears too close an examination.

It is the basis for a good discussion. The Poles certainly saved themselves from the advantages of communism and given the turmoil at the time it isn't too far a stretch to think that the Red Army wouldn't have entered Germany or other central European armies to liberate them (and as it was a stated goal of the invasion.)

The Red Army of 1920, however, was not the steamroller it was in 1944. An interesting point to consider, given the fears of Bolshevism at the time, if the Red Army entered Germany, would the French and British have fought? Bolshevism in the vastness of far away Imperial Russia is one thing but in your own backyard would have been something else. I agree that, if faced by several great powers, the Bolshevik experiment would not have survived - and how different would the world be had the Poles lost and not saved central Europe from communism? Ah, well, it is only speculation...

[Cory]

Ah, well, it is only speculation...

No, it is also fodder for gaming scenarios.

[Mark Plant]

Here's another problem - I've read that Haller's troops were broken up and not kept as a large unit, yet other sources discuss them as divisions. I got a massive book at the Polish Army Museum this fall about Haller and his units. It looks like it describes one large unit. What's the truth as you know it?

My understanding is, and I would love to have some expert correct me, that the Haller army was kept as the basis of three divisions. A fourth and fifth division which were incomplete were continued using French equipment, the last being in large part American volunteers.

In battle the divisions were spread out, rather than used as one mass, but that was how the Poles worked anyway. It's not like the Legion units were all in one section of the front.

Over the 18 months from the end of WWII to the Warsaw campaign many of the men would have been rotated out as casualties, and whole replacement companies sent, so the personnel would have changed hugely. But the equipment remained mostly French.

The senior officers from France however were deliberately spread to prevent factionalism in the army. This applied to all the separate armies, not just Haller. It wasn't hugely successful, with officers refusing to work with other Poles based on their provinces and armies of origin, but it had to be done.

So in 1920 there were still whole divisions dressed in blue, using French equipment, and largely French procedures. But the people in them had been mixed up, to help assimilate them, both militarily and politically.

[ts]

Troopers and officers from Juliusz Rommels 1st Cavalry Division.
In the background possibly troops from 2. Szwoleżerów (Mounted Rifles) Rokitna. Or maybe some volunteer cavalry, when one considers the uniform of the second officer from the right.

[carlos marighela]

No, it is also fodder for gaming scenarios.

Oh I quite agree that it's good gaming fodder, Would probably make for a great politico-military PBM. Militarily though I doubt there would be much contest. Look at the manpower and firepower of the average Red Army division and then contrast with a contemporary British or French division. The relative differences in training and professionalism and doctrine would be a force multiplier for the latter as well. Put simply the average French or British division would generate a lot more violence than it's Red Army counterpart. Of course neither the British or French armies of 1920 were the same beasts as those of 1918 and in Britain's case, resources were thinly spread. That said a Bolshevik take over of Germany would not have been accepted passively and I'm sure the resources would have been forthcoming.

Then there are the issues of supply and logistics as well as the physical differences between operating in the flat, underpopulated plains of Poland and the Russo -Polish border and Central Europe. Galavanting across the steppe and largely avoiding combat, like Gai's corp did, is one thing, battling through forests, mountains and most tellingly, the urban conurbations of Germany or France is quite another.

[cuprum]

In reality the Bolsheviks had no economic opportunities for the conduct of major war in Europe. Production in the country is at an extremely low level, there were no significant stocks of food and military supplies. On the outskirts of Russia and even in the center periodically arose pockets of armed conflict.
 Maintaining a large-scale trench warfare with European countries, Russia was simply impossible. And do not forget that the Bolsheviks were going to make substantial concessions to the Poles, trying to prevent a war with them. But the Poles, realizing the weakness of the Bolsheviks tried to seize more territory than the Reds offered. After all, Poles waged this war.

[carlos marighela]

Indeed.

Now if people want fertile gaming prospects for an interwar 'what if' in Eastern Germany, consider the Poles vs the Weimar Republic circa 1928/29. A small, weakened but thoroughly professional Reichswehr vs a Polish aggressor, with the prospect of France intervening on the side of the Poles and the Soviet Union on the side of Germany. A copy of that wonderful study of the Reichswehr, The Roots of Blitzkreig, Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform, is an essential read.

[koz10]

No, it is also fodder for gaming scenarios.

Oh, of course! This is a given - heck if people can game Prussians, French and British on US soil during the ACW, this shouldn't be much of a stretch at all!

[ts]

NCO from 8th Lancers with regimental standard.
The Polish regiments brought their standards into battle.
The 8th regiment send their colour back to depot, when the figtings against 1.CavCor. began.
The colour was made by the ladies to the regiment, and destroyed during 1939 not to be captured by the Germans.