Read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw Online
Authors: Norman Davies
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History
A major topic of concern turned on varying assessments of Soviet intentions in Poland, and of the Home Army’s stance towards the advancing Soviets. Boor kept the Commanderin-Chief well up to date on these matters. On 17 September, he reported that the Soviets were not tolerating any activity by dependants of the exiled Government, whether east or west of the ‘Curzon Line’. They were ‘liquidating’ the Home Army
wherever possible. They did not seem in any hurry to declare a Provisional Government, and probably would not do so before taking Warsaw. Boor foresaw the possibility that he would have to decree the Home Army’s disbandment. Two days later, he relayed the eyewitness report of an AK soldier who had been arrested by the NKVD and had later escaped from the Berling Army. The witness said that the NKVD put a gun to prisoners’ heads to extract the names of officers and the location of arms, and that they had opened two new detention camps. He also said that of 5,000 men conscripted for the army in one town east of Warsaw, only 1,000 showed up and all ran away on the road to the station. All the staff posts in Berling’s Army, he said, were held by Russians. In a long reply, the Commanderin-Chief advised the authorities in Warsaw on their conduct in the event of the Soviets capturing the city. They should attempt to negotiate with the Soviets on secondary matters, whilst waiting for the pressure which would undoubtedly be exerted by Britain and the USA.
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None of these vital matters was reflected in the British media. Indeed, the longer the Rising persisted, the less was written about it. A lone voice of protest was raised in the House of Commons. ‘The contrast between the publicity given to the activities of the
Maquis
in France, and the silence about our Polish allies in Warsaw,’ Guy Lloyd noted ironically, ‘hits you between the eyes.’ The director of the Polish Section of the BBC agreed. The issue surrounding the absence of Soviet assistance to the Rising, he admitted, was ‘significantly toned down’. ‘Less was said than was known . . . so as not to disturb the need for Allied unity.’
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Beyond that, the prime source of tension was the widening political gulf which was dividing the Polish community in London into rival factions. The dominant faction led by the Premier was intent on staying loyal to the Anglo-American alliance and on doggedly pursuing the recommended course of compromise with the Soviets. The opposite faction led by the Commanderin-Chief held that the Premier had made too many concessions both to the Anglo-Americans and to Moscow. If the truth were known, both factions were losing the means to influence events significantly. The Premier’s ‘moderates’ were unable to persuade Churchill and Roosevelt to force the initiative and to engineer a genuine compromise with Stalin. The ‘hardliners’ were unable to convince the Anglo-Americans of the need for a hard line. Few were conscious of the hidden causes of their impotence. They were trying to play a game without quite knowing what the unwritten rules were or whether they had been changed.
The split was underlined by the visit to London from 17 to 22 September of Gen. Anders. Anders knew Russia like no one else. During the First World War, he had been a cavalry officer in the Tsarist Army. In 1939–41, he had been a prisoner of the NKVD in the Lubyanka; and for two years after that, as commander of the Polish army in the USSR, he had fought his corner daily with the highest officials of Stalin’s regime. His opinions, which were thought to be unacceptably ‘anti-Soviet’ by the British establishment, were based on hard experience. Unlike most British or American officials and advisers, he knew exactly what he was talking about. And as a soldier he didn’t mince words. Before leaving Italy, via Algiers, he held a frank discussion with Britain’s Political Adviser at Allied Headquarters, Harold Macmillan.
In London, Anders talked to all the leading figures in the Polish camp from the President downwards, and in Churchill’s absence to the Deputy PM, to the Foreign Minister, Eden, and to the British Ambassador to Poland, O’Malley. All the British told him that the Commanderin-Chief should be dismissed (as the Soviets had long demanded).
On 22 September, Anders met Premier Mick, who he judged to have little experience of politics and who had ‘adapted his policy to the passing needs of the British and Americans’. He thought that ‘the integrity of our territory and the sovereignty of our state [were] being violated.’ And he said so. Above all, he believed that the quarrel with the Commanderin-Chief was diverting attention from the Warsaw Rising.
At the end of the talk, Anders asked the Premier what was the meaning of his next proposed journey to Moscow. The Premier answered that it was necessary ‘in order to preserve the very life of the nation’:
I then said that in my opinion it would be all right for him to go to Moscow, but not in his capacity of Prime Minister, as, if he did, he might easily find himself in the very cell [which] I had occupied in the Lubyanka. We were well acquainted with Soviet methods, by which he would be eventually compelled to state that all his life he had been nothing but a German agent . . . Our conversation led to no understanding between us . . .
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As soon as Anders left, the Polish Cabinet formally asked the President to remove the Commanderin-Chief from office. The President procrastinated.
Awaiting his fate, the Commanderin-Chief did one of the few things left to him that was not controversial. He ordered that the most senior of
the Polish bomber squadrons under British command be renamed. Henceforth, No. 301 was to be known as No. 301, ‘The Defenders of Warsaw’.
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After weeks of unrelieved frustration over Warsaw, London and Washington could take little satisfaction from the latest developments. Many officials felt sympathy for their Polish allies, and a duty to help. At the same time, they were painfully aware both of their own limitations and of the impunity with which Soviet ambitions were being pursued. Above all, since the defeat of Nazi Germany remained an absolute priority, they knew that an open rift with Stalin could not be risked. So they see-sawed between resignation and rage. [
SAXONS
, p. 373]
Churchill returned from Quebec inevitably impressed by the major world issues that were now being decided, and equally by the requirement to keep all minor issues from intervening. He was probably most impressed by the unequalled power of the Americans and, hence, by his own subordination to them. Given Roosevelt’s coolness on the Polish Question, he was not prepared to stir it up too vigorously. His concern for Britain’s predicament was tinged with alarm:
As the autumn drew on, everything in Eastern Europe became more intense . . . Communism raised its head behind the thundering Russian battlefront . . . The fate of Poland and Greece [in particular] struck us keenly. For Poland we had entered the war . . . Both their Governments had taken refuge in London, and we felt ourselves responsible for their restoration, if that was what their peoples really wished. In the main, these feelings were shared by the United States, but they were very slow in realising the upsurge of Communist influence, which . . . followed the onward march of the armies directed from the Kremlin.
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The British Prime Minister’s sombre mood was confirmed by the extensive correspondence which he pursued in the last two weeks of September with the South African leader, Field Marshal Smuts, who had attended Dumbarton Oaks, and had well understood the Western dilemma about dealing with Stalin:
The crisis arising from the deadlock with Russia in World Organisation talks fills me with deep concern . . . The Soviet attitude struck me at first as absurd. . . . But second thoughts have inclined the other way . . . [the Soviet attitude] is correctly interpreted as one which involves the honour and standing of Russia among her allies. She questions whether she is treated as an equal, or whether she is still a pariah and an outcast. A misunderstanding here, . . . by touching Russian
amour propre
and inducing an inferiority complex may poison European relations with far-reaching results.
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SAXONS
An officer of the 73rd Hanoverian Regiment outlines his service during the Rising
After the defeat of Army Group Centre in the middle of July, my division (the Lower Saxon 19th Panzer Division) was sent by train from southern Holland to a base in the Karvitse region near Elk. Before all units were gathered, we were ordered to march in a south-westerly direction to set up a bridgehead to the east of Praga [around Rembertov and Okuniev]. Yet after the arrival of the last transports from Holland, my regiment was once again despatched by rail . . . to Warsaw’s Danzig Station. This was August 1st. We were supposed to travel on by road to . . . the other side of the Vistula. But just as we were detraining, a motorcycle messenger arrived with the request that ‘an officer from our transport report immediately to headquarters’. I didn’t know Warsaw . . . so together with my driver I followed the motorcyclist . . . It was about 17.00 hours. On the second floor I was connected by telephone with an officer from AOK 9, who ordered me not to take my men east across the Vistula but to make our way south-east towards the Varka River, because the Russians had set up a bridgehead there. During this long conversation I could hear the sounds of rifle fire. A bullet came through the window, at which point I took the phone under the desk and carried on talking there.
Our return to Danzig Station was a dramatic affair conducted in almost empty streets. The detraining had been completed, but we had to search the houses adjoining the station because shots were being fired. We took nine prisoners, of whom two were women. They were in civilian dress with red-and-white armbands. Not knowing what we were supposed to do, we released them before moving off. We suffered no casualties on our journey through the city, which we made with the sole aid of a 1:300,000 scale map.
It was an entirely different story for the remainder of our division, which on 3 August was supposed to reach the Varka from the other side of the Vistula, via Praga . . . They suffered heavy losses. As the armoured column of the third company passed by the main station in Warsaw, it came under such intense fire that it could not continue, and its commander decided to reverse and seize the station instead. He and his soldiers remained there for close on two months. His column only rejoined the [rest of us] on 2 October.
Over the next weeks the battles centred on the region to the north of Warsaw [between the Bug, Narev, and Vistula], and on the Varka, which has gone down in military history as the ‘Magnushev Bridgehead’. They also found us in Praga, from
which on the night of 13/14 September we had to retreat across the Vistula and blow up its bridges. There were immediate attempts by the Polish-Soviet First Army to force a way across the river . . .
On 20 September our regiment was advanced once again to the western bank of the Vistula, facing east. The right flank began at the Citadel. It was an extremely awkward front line, and no one could put their head above the parapet. Either Russian heavy weapons opened up from across the river, or else we would be picked off by Polish insurgent snipers in [Jolibord].
From this position, on the evening of 28 September the 2nd Panzer Battalion of the 73rd Regiment, together with other elements of the division previously located in Mokotov, was finally called upon to suppress the Rising. The attack on [Jolibord] began the next morning. My company, reinforced by a unit of sappers with flamethrowers and three squads of stormtroopers, were to attack some houses up Pototska Street, which is very wide and affords no shelter. For hours we could make no headway and we took thirty-two casualties. In the afternoon we were pulled back. Later, on 30 September, we were engaged to close off a gap in the south-western corner, [and stayed there] right up to the capitulation.
Incidentally, we didn’t know the names of our Polish adversaries, who were well disguised by their aliases. When General [‘Boor’] met my divisional commander, Lieutenant General Källner, after the capitulation, both stood proudly to attention. As cavalrymen, they knew each other from prewar fencing competitions. [Boor] said to Källner, ‘If I’d known, sir, that you were on the other side I’d have surrendered a lot sooner.’ He didn’t know that 19th Panzer had only spent five days fighting in the city.
1
Smuts touched on almost every related subject, except Warsaw.
Churchill was acutely mindful that Stalin had been absent at Quebec, and that an effort must now be made to reassure him of the solidarity of the ‘Big Three’. He accordingly made plans to fly to Moscow in person; and a date was fixed for the second week of October. He certainly intended to use the occasion to hold frank discussions with Stalin about Poland. But in the meantime, he felt that little more could be done. The
British Foreign Office had posted the Polish Premier’s compromise plan to Moscow on 30 August. No reply had been received; and no one in the Foreign Office was making waves to get one.
In this state of suspense, Churchill rose in the House of Commons to make an interim statement on Poland. His speech was a prime example of wishful thinking:
Territorial changes in the frontiers of Poland there will have to be. Russia has a right to our support in this matter . . . All the more do I trust that the Soviet Government will make it possible for us to act unitedly with them in the solution of the Polish problem, and that we shall not witness the unhappy spectacle of rival Governments in Poland, one recognised by the Soviet Union and the other firmly adhered to by the Western powers. I have fervent hopes that [Premier Mick], the worthy successor of Gen. Sikorski, a man firmly desirous of friendly understanding and settlement with Russia, and his colleagues, may shortly resume those important conversations at Moscow which were interrupted some months ago. It is my firm hope, and also my belief, that a good arrangement will be achieved.
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