Read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw Online
Authors: Norman Davies
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History
Commentaries on Soviet conduct in the last week of September 1944 do not concentrate on the Vistula front. To the north, Cherniakovsky’s armies had almost overrun the Baltic States and were poised to overrun East Prussia and thereby to invade the Reich. To the south, Tolbukhin was deep into Hungary and approaching Budapest. In Slovakia, the battles were still raging. But on the Vistula, most sectors were eerily quiet. The Soviet bridgehead at Magnushev still held, but had not been enlarged. The pressure on the fortress at Modlin at the junction of the Vistula and Narev had been kept up; but had not been pushed to a conclusion. The line of the mid-Vistula had been fully occupied; but it had stayed static. To observers watching these developments in the West, it was becoming obvious that Stalin had already taken a strategic decision to give priority to occupying Eastern Europe and to postpone the march on Berlin.
Yet the aims of Stalin’s deeply ambiguous intentions with regard to Poland remained obscure. The Soviet armies had occupied a belt of land to the east of Warsaw representing perhaps one quarter of the territory which Moscow was prepared to recognize as Polish. But they had not attempted to go further. The Lublin Committee had been given considerable legal, administrative, and military functions. But it had not been raised to the formal status of a Government-in-waiting. It was all very perplexing. Moscow had made no secret of its view that the future of Poland was vital to Soviet security, indeed that Poland was more important than any of the other countries east of Germany. Yet little progress was being made compared to, say, Romania, where a Soviet-backed multi-party Government had already been installed, or Bulgaria, where similar developments were in hand. One could have been forgiven for wondering what exactly Stalin was waiting for. The answer, almost certainly, since Poland was a Western ally, was Western acquiescence.
The local deadlock in the environs of Warsaw reflected this waiting game. Rokossovsky did not reply to Boor’s final plea either favourably or unfavourably. Stalin did not respond to the Premier’s last letter. Three scenarios are conceivable. One of them suggests that Stalin had decided in mid-August to let the Rising be crushed and that he was now sitting back and watching his plan come to fruition. The second suggests a lesser degree of devilish cunning, where, having permitted a limited measure of aid to the Rising,
he was now perplexed by Berling’s defeat. The third suggests that the Rising had posed Moscow with too many uncertainties for a coherent policy to emerge. Scenario 1 implies a conspiracy. Scenarios 2 and 3 imply a long series of mix-ups. Historians, deprived of documentation, may take their pick. All one can say is that Stalin was no stranger to foul conspiracies, and that the sealed and secretive Soviet system was tailor-made for mix-ups. There could have been a lethal combination of both. The main point remains: Rokossovsky did not move, even when he could have done.
Following the insurgents’ surrender in Jolibord, a small group of about fifty people connected with the People’s Army refused to give up. On the evening of the 30th, having summoned Soviet artillery cover, they made a rush for the river. Almost half of them were felled by German fire. The rest managed to reach the far shore. Among them was Comrade K., who had a prominent career in front of him. [
LOGISTICS
, p. 419]
Capt. Kolos also made ready to recross the Vistula and to report to Rokossovsky. He buried his radio, but took some documents with him. According to his own account, the documents were proof that Boor was in treasonable contact with the German command and was preparing to hand over Warsaw to the Nazis. Kolos had evidently got wind of the unconcluded capitulation talks, and had put the worst possible interpretation on them. In this, he was following normal Soviet practice. On 1 October, with the help of AL guides, he found his way through the sewers to the riverfront, and successfully reached the opposite shore. He was greeted by Rokossovsky with the award of the Red Banner. On the following evening, by a prearranged signal, he informed his comrades in the People’s Army that he had arrived safely. Those flashing lights in the dark were the last sign of human contact from the Soviet side.
Marshal Georgii Zhukov, Stalin’s military deputy, arrived on the Vistula sector ‘at the end of September’. He had spent the previous month in Bulgaria, and had now been sent to weigh up the situation before Warsaw. His arrival was in itself an indication of uncertainties in the Soviet Command at a juncture when the Cherniakov Bridgehead had been abandoned but the insurgents had not capitulated. ‘At the beginning of October’ – persumably on the 1st or 2nd – he visited the Soviet Forty-Seventh Army, which was taking heavy casualties in its attempts to cross the River Narev to the north of Warsaw. And he ordered it to assume defensive positions. He was immediately ordered to fly to Moscow the very next day, and to take Rokossovsky with him.
As later described by Zhukov, the ensuing military conference in the Kremlin, on either 2 or 3 October, revealed ‘a dispute’. The two marshals, hot-foot from the Vistula, were confronted by ‘a restless Stalin’ and by a suspicious Molotov:
LOGISTICS
A professional historian and insurgent examines one of the enduring puzzles of the Rising
One of the things that still evokes the deepest admiration and amazement is the question of how the insurgents managed to arm and supply themselves. Initially Monter had counted on the possibility of waging battle for two or three days, partly because there were insufficient weapons and ammunition. Yet the battle was protracted for sixty-three days.
It is worth citing statistics from a description that emerged in a POW camp, penned by two officers of the Home Army Headquarters Bureau for Information . . . in the face of other details, published by Adam B. Commander Monter, on the day prior to the outbreak of the Uprising, in the city of Warsaw and the surrounding area, had at his command in the region of 45,000 soldiers; perhaps there were even a few more, up to 50,000. Of these armed men, 600 platoons were led to fight on the left bank of the Vistula, including around 41,000 people of whom certainly only 100 platoons were fully armed. The People’s Army (AL) provided him with another 4 battalions of 800 people. The Security Corps (KB) provided the Home Army with a few less – around 600.
. . .
Home Army numbers could undoubtedly be increased many fold by the Rising mobilization, mainly volunteers; however, the problem of arming them arose, a problem with no solution in the political-military conditions of the Home Army. Arms came from four sources. The first was weapons hidden in 1939; in general deceptive, which consisted of a minimal amount of equipment that was still fit to use in war. The second source was supplies dropped for the Home Army by the English from their bases in Italy and England; the drops were valuable as regards quality but even so yielded little. The third source was captured German weapons. Finally the fourth source – the production of the Underground’s own workshops.
The state of armament on 1 August can be reconstructed, but with great difficulty. As a rough figure, I would say that Monter had about 7 heavy machine guns, 60 assault rifles, 20 antitank guns, 1,000 guns, 300 sub-machine guns (30 per cent of them were homemade, Lightning and Sten), around 25,000 grenades, 95 per cent of which were homemade, and – more or less – around 1,750 pistols. Apart from the Warsaw Region Headquarters’ depot, there was a reserve of weapons at the disposal of the Headquarters. On the day before the Rising broke out, it supplied Commander Monter with 100 sub-machine guns and ammunition.
Our homemade flamethrowers also turned out to be quite effective – during the Uprising over 100 were produced . . . Street fighting and fighting against tanks required the mass production of petrol bombs – over 100,000 were produced. The grenade became an equally aggressive defence, especially those produced by the Underground. It had at its disposal a certain reserve of explosive materials, mainly easily transportable English plastic explosives.
The provision of ammunition was the weakest link in the weapons-supply chain. On the second day of the Rising, Monter counted on using it up within the next forty-eight hours if the current intensity of battle raged on. If the Rising were to last, however, another sixty days, the ammunition base would not have been drops (which fell mainly towards the end of the action), but captures from the enemy. The most significant were in the Cedergren building (telephone switchboard), the Post Office building, and among the reserves, of particular divisions and soldiers. These had not been declared to the underground, but were jealously guarded. They were concealed, for the purpose of settling accounts, mainly with the Germans.
During the battle in Warsaw and its surroundings, the insurgents captured a great deal – 4 tanks, 2 armoured vehicles, 1 75mm field gun, 12 mine throwers, 4 light antitank guns, over 200 Panzerfausts [antitank weapons], 16 heavy machine guns, 86 assault rifles, 155 sub-machine guns, 596 repeater rifles and ammunition for particular weapons, but of a limited nature. The insurgents supplemented their weapons with homemade ones and from drops. In the City Centre 36 tonnes were collected, 16 tonnes from an American drop – mostly antitank weapons, sub-machine guns, somewhat heavy weapons.
From 13 September Soviet drops began, every night; they delivered about 150 tonnes. However, there was still not enough. Weapons, whatever their quality, were expensive. Because the riflemen were exceedingly good shots, the Germans suffered twice as many killed as injured, whereas in the normal course of battle it is the other way round. For this reason, the German side thought that there were great reserves of ammunition in the City Centre. The fact is, in addition to all the other factors, the glaring lack of ammunition provided yet another reason for capitulation.
1
Alexander Gieysztor
MOLOTOV
: Comrade Zhukov, you are proposing that the offensive be stopped now when the defeated enemy is unable to stand up to our pressure. Is that sensible?
ZHUKOV
: We are suffeirng unjustifiably heavy losses.
STALIN
, to Rokossovsky: Do you share Zhukov’s opinion?
ROKOSSOVSKY
: Yes.
STALIN
: But what if we support 47 Army with aviation and reinforce it with artillery and armour? Will it be able to reach the Vistula between Modlin and Warsaw?
ROKOSSOVSKY
: It is hard to say, Comrade Stalin . . .
STALIN
, to Zhukov: And what do you think?
ZHUKOV
My opinion is that this offensive will yield us nothing but casualties.
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Thereon, the marshals were abrupty dismissed whilst the decision was made. After twenty minutes, Stalin announced that the offensive would be called off. Next day, he replaced Rokossovsky with Zhukov as commander of the First Byelorussian Front.
If Zhukov’s unverified account is to be believed, no mention was made at this meeting of the Rising, which in all probability was still in progress. One presumes that the Soviet leaders no longer rated it an important factor. But it is impossible to say for sure.
Soviet authors are not strong on the unvarnished truth. Zhukov assigns only a few sentences to ‘an uprising in the city’, whose outcome he blames exclusively on the failings of General Boor. He even suggests (most unfairly) that the withdrawal of Berling’s troops from the Cherniakov Bridgehead (which he calls ‘the Warsaw Embankment’) was due to Boor making ‘no attempt to contact them.’ Most telling is the fact that Zhukov’s
Memoirs
are completely silent about the critical period between the last week of July, when he watched the two crossings of the Vistula south of Warsaw, and the last week of August, when he left for Bulgaria.
Much, therefore, remains obscure. One can see that Stalin held his marshals on a very tight rein. Yet one can’t learn the motives and reasonings behind key moves. A historical note may not be irrelevant. Of course, ‘the Battle for Warsaw’ in 1944 was not a repeat performance of the ‘the Battle of Warsaw’ of 1920. But there were numerous parallels. In late July 1944, Stalin had insisted that Zhukov secure Lvuv before moving on to the Vistula. This was one of the manoeuvres which Stalin himself had failed to attempt twenty-four years before. The repulse of Rokossovsky’s armies at the gates of Warsaw in early August was not unlike the repulse of the two Soviet armies, which had once approached the city from the east in exactly the same sector. And the Forty-Seventh Army’s
offensive to the north of Warsaw in late September, which Stalin and Molotov were obviously keen to pursue once the Rising was out of the way, also had a precedent. It was following exactly the same line that Tukhachevsky took in 1920 immediately prior to his calamitous defeat. The two elements which Stalin might have been looking for in 1944, by analogy to his earlier experience, but which were
not
present, could have been further sources of unease. One was an Interallied Military Mission that would have been pulling strings from behind the scene. The other was a hidden counter-force, like that of Piłsudski’s, which might strike without warning. To Stalin’s suspicious mind, the best policy in such circumstances was one of caution.
On the right bank of the Vistula, Lt.Gen. Telegin was still watching. His report of 3 October summarized the events of the previous week. He assumed that the insurgents were going to capitulate. Prisoners were coming in thick and fast; but he was still at pains to establish the balance in numbers and influence between the AK and the AL. Having talked with several AK officers, he was also trying to examine their claims that their meetings with their Soviet counterparts, and their attempts to agree on cooperation, went back to 14 July. But he sturdily maintained that the Home Army’s political ‘agitation’ had pointed to the intention of fighting the Soviets, not the Germans. Their slogan, he said, was ‘Germany is defeated. The Bolshevik – a stronger foe – remains.’
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