Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw (112 page)
Read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw Online
Authors: Norman Davies
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History
being the reply of Sir Orme Sargent on 28 July 1944 to questions raised the previous day by Ambassador Raczy
ski in his conversation with Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden about preparations for the battle for Warsaw . . .
1
No C 9937/8/G
My dear Ambassador,
You discussed with me this morning the three proposals you had put briefly before the Secretary of State yesterday:
- that His Majesty’s Government should intervene with the Soviet Government to prevent any victimisation of Polish units who have been cooperating in the struggle against the Germans, and
- that the following measures of assistance might be given to further a rising in Warsaw:
a) despatch of the Polish parachute brigade in the United Kingdom;
b) bombing by the Royal Air Force of airfields around Warsaw, and
c) despatch to Polish airfields of Mustangs and Spitfires now operating with the Royal Air Force.
The Foreign Secretary has instructed me to take up with the Soviet Ambassador the question of the treatment of Polish Underground units by the advancing Soviet forces.
I am afraid that, quite apart from the difficulties of coordinating such action with the Soviet Government, whose forces are operating against the Germans in Polish territory, operational considerations alone preclude us from meeting the three requests you made for assisting the rising in Warsaw. It would not be possible to fly the parachute brigade over German territory as far as Warsaw, without risking excessive losses. The despatch of fighter squadrons to airfields in Poland would also be a lengthy and complicated process which could, in any case, only be carried out in agreement with the Soviet Government. It could certainly not be accomplished in time to influence the present battle. As regards bombarding Warsaw airfields, Warsaw is beyond the normal operational range of Royal Air Force bombers and the bombing of airfields would in any case be carried out much more appropriately by bombers operating from Soviet-controlled bases. Insofar as your authorities may have had in mind shuttle-bombing, about which there has been some publicity lately, this is carried out by the American Army Air Force and not by the Royal Air Force. I am afraid, therefore, there is nothing that His Majesty’s Government can do in this connexion.
You also mentioned the desire of your Government that the British Broadcasting Corporation should broadcast a warning to the Germans to prevent them killing members of the Polish home army captured by them. I find that the Foreign Office were already in communication with the appropriate British and Polish authorities with a view to arranging a broadcast on these lines. For reasons which have already been explained to your Embassy, it will be necessary to make some changes in the text you proposed, but I think the revised text will meet the object you have in mind.
Yours sincerely,
O.G. Sargent
(for Sir Alexander Cadogan)
28.7.1944
Comment:
Taken in isolation, this document appears to be a definitive statement of the British Government’s negative stance towards the Warsaw Rising. Whilst revealing that HMG had been officially informed of the imminence of the Rising on 27 July –
i.e.
four days before the final decision was made – it exudes a degree of detachment and disapproval that is hardly required by the letter’s contents. Penned by a relatively junior official on behalf of Eden’s deputy, it was signally lacking in the least expression of sympathy for Poland’s predicament or of regret for Britain’s apparent inability to help. On the one point which touched on the Foreign Office’s own competence, it did not agree to press the Ambassador’s concerns about the victimization of Home Army units, but merely to raise the question with the Soviet Ambassador – which could have meant anything. Reading this thinly disguised diplomatic brush-off, one would never guess that Ambassador Raczyski’s military colleagues were about to receive a favourable hearing the very next day to more extensive requests that would be forwarded to Prime Minister Churchill. One can only conclude that British policy was not so much hostile, as incoherent.
ND.
For outsiders, the internal organization of the Home Army often appears impenetrable. It is filled with seemingly endless and incomprehensible lists of pseudonyms, usually derived from unit commanders. Equally, because of constant mergers and expansions, it is frequently unclear whether a particular formation should be classed as a ‘group’, a ‘grouping’, a ‘regiment’, a ‘battalion’, or just a ‘company’. This is a subject for experts, not least because in mid-September the AK Command reorganized its structures. On 21 September 1944, the Commander of the Home Army issued an order which introduced a Warsaw Corps made up of three infantry divisions – the 8th, the 10th, and the 28th. The following list, therefore, is unlikely to be complete or completely accurate.
1 August – 20 September 1944
Units under central command
‘Parasol’ (‘Umbrella’)
‘Baszta’ (‘Bastion’)
‘Sokół’ (‘Falcon’)
‘Zoka’ (‘Zoshka’)
‘Krybar’
‘Czata 49’ (‘Watch 49’)
‘Ry
‘Broda 53’ (‘Beard 53’)
‘Topolnicki’
‘Dysk’ (‘Discus’)
‘Miotła’ (‘Broom’)
‘Pi’ (‘Fist’)
