Chapter 94
Chapter 94
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 94
Chapter Title: The Fate of Poland (7)
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March 8, 1940
The Kremlin, Moscow – Capital of the Soviet Union
“What? The Polish regime has changed, and their war is over? What in the world are you talking about?”
Stalin glared at Molotov with eyes full of disbelief. Molotov, sweating profusely, began to speak.
“I-It’s just as I’ve reported, Comrade General Secretary. On March 6th, Lieutenant General Sikorski staged a coup and ousted Rydz-Śmigły. They signed a peace treaty with Germany just yesterday.”
“And why are we only hearing about this now!”
“M-My apologies, Comrade General Secretary.”
Cold sweat trickled down Molotov’s face. Since neither Germany nor Poland had sent any word to Russia, the Soviet Union only learned of the situation when an NKVD agent sent a telegram, not through diplomatic channels.
“What are the terms of their peace treaty?”
“W-We are still confirming the details.”
They didn’t even know if the Polish army had been disarmed. Stalin slammed his fist on the desk.
“This was a setup! I should have known when those German bastards ignored our request for a conference!”
If there hadn't been a prior agreement, Germany would have attacked the moment they heard about the coup in Poland. The fact that the stalled peace talks were concluded so quickly, the day after the coup, made it all the more certain.
His face flushed red with surging anger, Stalin’s mustache twitched as he roared.
“Those damn Germans dare to screw me over again! Declare war and launch the invasion immediately!”
Stalin’s fury, already simmering from the loss of face in Finland, finally erupted, causing his aides to tremble in terror. Who knew which one of them would be purged for getting on his bad side?
“But Comrade General Secretary, our offensive preparations are not yet…”
“They aren’t prepared for defense either, are they? Are you planning to wait for the Rasputitsa? Their main forces are on the western end of Poland, so attack now! Tell them this is their last chance to make up for the blunders in Finland! If they want to keep their heads, they’d better crush those pathetic Poles at once!”
“Y-Yes, Comrade General Secretary.”
Shaposhnikov, having stepped forward only to bear the full brunt of Stalin’s rage, answered while drenched in cold sweat.
“That damn German brat dares to mock me! Ugh!”
Stalin, his eyes still bloodshot with fury, clutched the back of his neck and staggered. His aides panicked.
“C-Comrade General Secretary!”
“Comrade General Secretary! Call a doctor!”
-
March 8, 1940
Warsaw, Capital of Poland
The coup in Warsaw had fortunately succeeded quickly, and the war with Germany was over, but the air of turmoil had not yet settled.
No sooner had Poland signed the peace treaty with Germany than it sold its former capital, Vilno (Vilnius in Lithuanian), to Lithuania.
There was considerable opposition, but Sikorski pushed it through, arguing that if the Soviets invaded, they wouldn’t get a fair price, and worse, Lithuania might side with the Soviets, widening the front.
While Warsaw was busy purging the aristocratic members of the Sejm who had turned the lower house into a puppet and ruled Poland to their liking, and sweeping away the remnants of Rydz-Śmigły and the Sanation, grim news arrived.
Sikorski, now promoted from Lieutenant General to General and serving as the interim Inspector General of the Armed Forces (Rydz-Śmigły's former position), sneered as he read the declaration of war sent from the Russian embassy.
To liberate the Ukrainians and Belarusians suffering under Polish tyranny, to overthrow the illegitimate coup regime, and to protect the Polish people who were incapable of defending themselves.
“The ones who caused the great famine in Ukraine… they’ve got some nerve spewing such shameless bullshit.”
But despite Sikorski’s cynicism, the faces of the Polish leadership were not bright.
“Can we truly stop them?”
At the question from Wincenty Witos, leader of the Polish People’s Party and a candidate for the next presidency, Sikorski gave a bitter smile.
“We must do our best. Fortunately, Germany has been more cooperative than expected, so there is hope.”
As soon as the peace treaty was signed, Germany had swiftly lifted its encirclement, allowing the Poznań and Pomorze Armies to withdraw quickly. They even had the military equipment they had agreed to sell prepared at the border and handled the transport themselves.
Of course, it was their way of asking Poland to bleed for them against the Soviets, but if it was to protect his homeland, that was what he wanted as well.
“The problem is time. We can only hope for the valiant efforts of the KOP and the cavalry.”
The decision to temporarily abandon the eastern border region and establish a defensive line from Grodno to the Bug River had proven to be a wise one, but it would be meaningless if the line was breached before the main army arrived.
“Can they hold out?”
The Border Protection Corps numbered 20,000 at best. Even with the cavalry dispatched as reinforcements, it would be impossible to overcome their numerical inferiority.
In response to Witos’s concern, Sikorski picked up the phone with a heavy expression and said.
“They won’t.”
Sikorski requested the operator to connect him to the headquarters of the Border Protection Corps, then added.
“They are going to die to buy time for our country.”
-
March 10, 1940
Rivne, a border city in southeastern Poland
On March 9, the vanguard of the Soviet army, over 400,000 strong, began their invasion of the undefended Polish border region under the command of Marshals Voroshilov and Budyonny.
Most of the army and armored divisions that had been sent to Finland had not yet returned, so their offensive consisted mainly of infantry and cavalry. Facing them, the Polish Border Protection Corps (KOP) barely numbered over 20,000, even including hastily conscripted locals.
“Ha, the wide-open plains! It feels like my heart is opening up!”
Marshal Semyon Budyonny, with his impressive mustache, gazed out at the vast plains of southern Poland from the front of his guards, the 1st Cavalry Division.
It was not common for a high-ranking marshal of the Red Army to personally inspect the front lines on horseback, but for this old marshal who loved horses more than anything, it was as natural as breathing.
The old marshal’s gaze turned to the small city of Rivne, standing alone on the border between the Soviet Union and Poland, where defensive preparations were underway.
“They refused to surrender?”
“That is correct, Your Excellency Marshal!”
Hearing General Ivan Sovetnikov’s reply, Budyonny raised his binoculars to look at the small city from his horse.
The Polish forces had fortified the city and were ready to resist, but it was clear at a glance that their numbers were hopelessly small.
“They look like less than a thousand men.”
Budyonny lowered his binoculars, clicked his tongue, and spoke again.
“We can’t afford to waste time on such a small city. General Sovetnikov, you will be responsible for its capture. The forces under your command should be sufficient.”
“Yes, Your Excellency Marshal!”
*Sixty thousand should be enough to wipe them out in an instant,* Budyonny thought, and ordered his troops to advance.
“Relay to all units! The vast plains our cavalry have longed for are our battlefield! Crush all resistance and ride to Lviv!”
“Yes, Your Excellency Marshal!”
At the command of the old marshal, a symbol and the most revered figure of the Red Army cavalry, tens of thousands of horsemen began to gallop across the vast plains of Poland.
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March 12, 1940
Pinsk, Eastern Poland, Headquarters of the Polish Border Protection Corps (KOP)
“Reinforcements are impossible! Hold on as long as you can!”
“Where do you expect us to conjure soldiers from thin air!”
“Baranovichi has fallen!”
Urgent reports flooded the KOP headquarters in Pinsk, but no matter how dire the news, they had no means to respond.
Their forces were hopelessly outnumbered, and the Soviet army was storming the border like a tempest with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, trampling the Polish Border Protection Corps.
“Your Excellency, Inspector General. Enemy cavalry is advancing rapidly towards Lviv, and the border is being attacked from all sides. There is a limit to how long we can hold on.”
[I have sent the cavalry that was defending Warsaw to Lviv ahead of time. Hold out for just a few more days until the defensive line is established.]
Brigadier General Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński, commander of the Border Protection Corps, listened to Sikorski’s voice over the phone. After a long moment of deliberation, he finally spoke.
“If we give our lives like this, can we win this war?”
No one wanted to die, but no one in the Border Protection Corps, fighting an enemy not just two or three times their number, but tens of times, was ignorant of the fact that they would ultimately be annihilated.
[The few days, the few hours, that you and your men buy for us will bring us victory.]
Sikorski declared it without hesitation, but Brigadier General Olszyna-Wilczyński had seen the gap between the so-called great powers and his own country during the war with Germany.
*He says that, but surely even Sikorski doesn’t believe Poland can defeat the massive Soviet Union on its own.*
Nevertheless, for the brigadier general who had to order his men to their deaths, the commander-in-chief’s assertion was a great comfort.
“General! A routed unit from the border has arrived! This position will soon be under attack!”
Hearing his staff officer’s report, the brigadier general hesitated for a moment, then spoke into the phone.
“I leave the rest to you, Your Excellency, Inspector General. Wiwat Polska (Long live Poland).”
[I salute your heroic struggle. Wiwat Polska.]
The brigadier general hung up the phone and rose from his seat, shouting.
“Relay to all units! Do not be afraid! The blood we shed will protect our families and our homeland! Better to die with honor than to live as slaves to those Russian invaders again!”
-
March 13, 1940
Rivne, a border city in southeastern Poland
An army of 60,000 Soviet soldiers was crashing like a wave against the small city, defended by a force that barely exceeded 800 men, including locals.
The city was already half-engulfed in flames. The sounds of artillery explosions and machine guns firing filled the battlefield.
“Вперёд!” (Forward!)
“Ура!!!!!!!!” (Hoorah!)
The bodies of Soviet soldiers piled up in front of the defensive line were nearly forming a mountain, but the few hundred Polish soldiers had no time to clear them, busy as they were with the constant fighting.
“What the hell are they saying! Fire, fire!”
“Aaaargh! My leg!”
The chaotic madness of the battlefield, a mixture of shouts and screams, enveloped friend and foe alike.
“За сталина! Ура!!!!!!!!” (For Stalin! Hoorah!)
“Those crazy bastards…”
The momentum of the Soviet troops, who charged forward even after an entire platoon was mowed down by machine guns, struck terror and awe into the Polish soldiers.
The reality was that they were simply charging the enemy lines because hesitating meant being shot by a political officer, but it was hard to watch with a sane mind as the enemy charged, climbing over walls of what used to be their comrades’ flesh.
The defenders of Rivne had held firm for four days against an enemy eighty times their number attacking day and night, but they were now reaching their limit.
They had managed to hold on only because the Soviets were launching incredibly foolish frontal assaults in an urban warfare setting. But now, the machine gun barrels had melted from overuse, and with no replacements, the Polish line was rapidly collapsing.
“Captain! All the bunkers have been overrun! Only a few dozen soldiers are left! At this rate, we’ll be wiped out!”
At the report of his aide, Second Lieutenant Stanisław Brykalski, who had rushed into the command post, Captain Władysław Raginis, still a young man in his early thirties, looked at the telegram he had received from the KOP headquarters.
[The few days, the few hours, you buy will save the motherland. Fight to the last man. Wiwat Polska!]
“Everyone fought very well.”
The sounds of gunfire, screams, and shouts were now audible from the command post. Captain Raginis rose from his seat and drew his pistol.
“C-Captain. Are we all going to die?”
“Probably.”
Hearing Captain Raginis's words, Second Lieutenant Brykalski looked on the verge of tears.
“I… I don’t want to die.”
“Is that so? Neither do I.”
Captain Raginis clenched and unclenched his sweaty fist and said.
“But if we surrender now, do you think they’ll let us live?”
The enemy commander, who had been held up for days by a Polish force of less than a thousand, was raging and launching fierce attacks. He made no effort to hide the fact that captured Polish soldiers in the occupied parts of the city were being executed on the spot.
Raginis grinned.
“Adjutant, let’s die in style and become legends instead.”
“Ugh… I’ll resent you for this, Captain.”
As they spoke, the sounds of gunfire and screams grew closer. Raginis picked up a stick grenade he had prepared.
And then, finally, the gunfire and screams stopped. Hearing only the sound of boots moving in their direction, Raginis gave his sniffling adjutant a grin and pulled the cord connected to the fuse.
“Captain…”
“Well done, Adjutant. We will be remembered with pride by our country.”
Just as Captain Raginis activated the fuse, Soviet soldiers burst in.
To the soldiers who were shouting something in Russian he couldn't understand while pointing their guns, Raginis smiled and waved the grenade in his hand.
The Soviet soldiers, who had frozen in terror for a moment, came to their senses and tried to turn away, but it was too late. The grenade exploded, delivering an impartial death to everyone inside the command post.
-
March 14, 1940
The plains east of Lviv, southern Poland
Semyon Budyonny, commander of the Ukrainian Front, was observing the battlefield through his binoculars from a hilltop.
On the vast plains, tens of thousands of cavalrymen were entangled in a chaotic melee, galloping, firing at each other, and charging.
“Haha, the descendants of the Cossacks and the Uhlans. I never thought I’d see such a spectacle again!”
It was hardly safe for a marshal to be observing the battle so close to the front lines, but no one could stop him.
The Polish cavalry, befitting their heritage as successors to the once-renowned Winged Hussars and Uhlans, the strongest cavalry in Eastern Europe, were fighting a desperate and pitched battle against Budyonny’s elite Soviet cavalry divisions, refusing to be pushed back.
The sight of both sides engaged in a brutal struggle, with only cavalrymen, no tanks, artillery, or any heavy equipment or fortifications, made his old heart pound.
For the old marshal, it was an unparalleled thrill and a spectacle. For the Poles, it was a sacrifice to buy time for their country, staining the plains red with the bodies of their horses and themselves.
“Your Excellency Marshal!”
At the voice of a staff officer who had galloped up, Budyonny lowered his binoculars and looked at him.
“Ah, what’s the status of General Sovetnikov?”
“W-well, the enemy at Rivne put up a desperate resistance. We suffered heavy losses and only managed to capture the city yesterday. They are regrouping now.”
Budyonny clicked his tongue.
“It took him four days to take a city with less than a thousand defenders, with sixty thousand men?”
“Y-yes. My apologies, Your Excellency Marshal.”
Budyonny raised his binoculars again, looking at the Polish cavalry who, despite their numerical inferiority, had been fighting a desperate battle all day and holding their ground.
If they had captured the undefended Lviv, it would have served as a bridgehead for an attack on the west bank of the Bug River. But even as the sky darkened, the Polish cavalry was fighting to the death, not yielding an inch.
If only the infantry could bring up artillery or heavy equipment, they might be able to break through, but since the city had just fallen, it would take days.
He had to admit that his beloved cavalry, now obsolete, lacked decisive power.
In the end, the old marshal, though aged but beloved by his men, chose not to impatiently berate his subordinate. Instead, he raised his binoculars once more.
The old marshal’s wrinkled eyes deeply etched the grand and tragic cavalry battle unfolding on the plains, a sight he might never see again.
-
March 16, 1940
Pinsk, Polish territory occupied by the Soviet Army
“The enemy has already set up a defensive line?”
“I regret to say so, Your Excellency Marshal. It seems they planned from the beginning to establish a defensive line from Grodno along the Bug River, not at the border.”
Marshal Voroshilov pressed his forehead.
Having lost significant face during the invasion of Finland, Marshal Voroshilov had been forced to hand over command to Timoshenko. However, thanks to the consideration of his friend Koba (Stalin), he was given the role of occupying the undefended eastern Poland.
But his forces, which had been storming through eastern Poland, were ultimately delayed by a fierce battle with the Polish Border Protection Corps in Pinsk.
He had been bogged down by a handful of Polish soldiers, allowing the enemy time to establish their defensive line. In the end, he had failed to seize the opportunity for glory that had been handed to him on a silver platter.
“Your Excellency Marshal. A telegram from Moscow. It says to execute prisoners on the spot.”
“Even the general?”
“The telegram says so.”
Voroshilov took the telegram and frowned slightly.
For the old marshal, who still held onto the old-world sense of honor, the order to execute a captured general who had held his post to the last for his country in an overwhelmingly disadvantageous situation, without question, was distasteful.
“…There’s no choice.”
But he could vividly imagine how enraged the General Secretary who issued such an order must be, and he didn’t want to risk his own survival by defying him.
Marshal Voroshilov, who had come personally to deliver the news at least to honor the defeated general’s dignity, watched as the captured enemy commander, Brigadier General Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński, asked the interpreter a question after being informed of his execution by firing squad.
The interpreter glanced at the marshal for a moment, then spoke.
“He is asking if the Polish army succeeded in establishing its defensive line, Your Excellency Marshal.”
The old marshal glanced at the brigadier general’s face, let out a small sigh, and replied.
“Tell him their army has succeeded in establishing its defensive line.”
Hearing the interpreter’s careful translation, the brigadier general’s eyes welled up with tears, but he smiled brightly and said something.
Even without the interpreter’s translation, Voroshilov could guess what he was saying from his smile. He turned his gaze away with a heavy heart.
A moment later, a gunshot rang out.
The Soviet vanguard had defeated the Polish Border Protection Corps, but their losses were greater than the entire strength of the Polish corps.
The main body of the Polish army, having bought time with the blood of the Border Protection Corps, managed to arrive just in time. They began to fortify their defensive line in preparation for the main Soviet force.