15 August in military history: the Battle of Warsaw, 1920

On 4 July 1920, writes Mirosław Szumiło of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Mikhail Tukhachevsky's Western Front opened its decisive offensive in Belarus and forced the Polish army to retreat; his order of two days earlier, as Szumiło quotes it in Polish, declared that "over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to world conflagration" (our translation).¹

A gap of 140 km, Szumiło writes, opened between the Soviet armies attacking Warsaw and those marching on Lwów, and Piłsudski resolved to strike from the south into the rear of Tukhachevsky's forces; the plan depended on holding the bridgehead east of the Vistula until his group was ready. Prof. Andrzej Nowak, interviewed for the Polish History Museum, says the chief of staff, Gen. Tadeusz Rozwadowski, drew up the plan of the battle, that the manoeuvre was prepared by Piłsudski and Rozwadowski together, and that the laurels for command belong to Piłsudski.²

The Polish Army Museum dates the opening Soviet attack on the Warsaw bridgehead to 12 August. Piłsudski writes that he left Warsaw on the evening of 12 August, having said he did not think he could begin his operation before 15 August; Sikorski places him in Puławy on 13 August.³

Radzymin and Ossów

Radzymin lay 23 km from Warsaw by Sikorski's reckoning, and 25 km from the city center by Szumiło's. On 14 August, Piłsudski writes, alarmed telegrams reached him: "In the first Soviet attack our resistance was broken and Radzymin with its surroundings was taken by storm" (our translation). The General Staff reported on 15 August that Radzymin had changed hands several times; Szumiło writes that it did so for three days.⁴

At Ossów, on 13 and 14 August by the Polish Army Museum's dating, volunteers, among them schoolboys, students and scouts, stopped the Soviet attack. Szumiło places the fight on 14 August and writes that their chaplain, Father Ignacy Skorupka, was killed among them with a cross in his hand. The General Staff's communiqué of 16 August singled out his "heroic death": he had led the attacking units "in his stole and with a cross in his hand" (our translation).⁵

According to the IPN branch in Łódź, the turn came at dawn on 15 August, when the I Battalion of the 28th Kaniów Rifle Regiment attacked at Wólka Radzymińska; its commander, Lt. Stefan Pogonowski, chose to strike before the main forces arrived and was mortally wounded as he set out. The communiqué of 15 August announced: "At noon on the 15th, after sharp fighting, Radzymin was finally taken by us" (our translation). The IPN leaflet and the Polish Army Museum also date the recapture to 15 August, and the museum writes that around Radzymin, Ossów and Wołomin Polish units threw the Soviets back eastward that day. Piłsudski found that day's news from Warsaw "somewhat more reassuring", though the enemy's pressure was rising around Radzymin and near Modlin (our translation).⁶

Sikorski on the Wkra

In his 1928 study of the battle, Sikorski dates the counteroffensive of his 5th Army, north of Warsaw, to about noon on 14 August. At dawn on 15 August, he writes, the Soviets struck along almost the whole Wkra sector and were repulsed; by evening his 18th Infantry Division had reached the Ciechanów-Modlin railway, and "the river Wkra thus fell into our hands that day along the whole relevant stretch" (our translation). The General Staff reported on 15 August that the counteraction of the northern army was going well, and on 16 August credited it to Sikorski. Szumiło notes heavy fighting north of Warsaw and in the defense of the Vistula crossing at Płock.⁷

Sikorski closed his situation report that day with the words "the spirit of victory has entered the soldiers" (our translation). He also quotes an order in which Gen. Józef Haller, commanding the Northern Front, credited the 5th Army's "energetic command" and its units' "heroic conduct" with drawing considerable enemy forces away from the gates of Warsaw (our translation).⁸

From the Wieprz

Piłsudski writes that on 13 August he decided to begin no earlier than the morning of the 17th, and that after the alarming news of the 14th he moved the advance forward by one day and told Warsaw he would attack at dawn on the 16th. Sikorski writes that Piłsudski was pressed to bring the offensive forward to 15 August and kept the date he had set, 16 August. The IPN branch in Białystok places the start in the night of 15 to 16 August.⁹

"On the 16th I began the attack, if it can be called an attack at all," Piłsudski wrote (our translation). At the outset, he writes, only the 21st Division fought, in a light and very easy action, fording the Wieprz to retake Kock, while the other divisions advanced almost without contact. The General Staff reported that after a march of over 40 km from the Wieprz, units of the 14th Division had reached Garwolin by noon. Szumiło writes that the Poles advanced 45 km northward on the first day.¹⁰

Pursuit and the cost

Szumiło writes that the offensive forced Tukhachevsky's armies into a panicked retreat and that after ten days the enemy was broken. By his count the Red Army lost 25,000 killed in action and 66,000 prisoners in the battle, while almost 50,000 Soviet soldiers, cut off from retreat, took refuge in German East Prussia. The IPN leaflet from Łódź dates the battle 13 to 25 August 1920, as does the State Fire Service page.¹¹

In September, Szumiło writes, the Soviets were beaten again on the Niemen, and an armistice took effect on 18 October 1920; Poland had defended its independence. Piłsudski, who commanded half the Polish forces there in person, wrote that on the Niemen "I ended a victorious war victoriously" (our translation). See the Battle of Warsaw and the Battle of the Niemen.¹²

A soldiers' holiday

Nowak says the press spread the phrase "miracle on the Vistula" in mid-August 1920, partly to belittle Piłsudski, while the Church rallied the nation with the feast of Our Lady on 15 August. The Polish Army Museum also links the fighting's symbolism to the Assumption, and writes that 15 August is kept as Polish Armed Forces Day in memory of the victory. The State Fire Service page says the date recalls the victorious counteroffensive in the Battle of Warsaw.¹³

The IPN branch in Białystok writes that the holiday was formally established on 4 August 1923 by an order of the Minister of Military Affairs, Gen. Stanisław Szeptycki, and that because 15 August is the feast of the Assumption, religious and patriotic observances were combined. The State Fire Service page also dates Szeptycki's order to 1923. According to that page, soldiers had earlier marked 6 August, the anniversary of the march of the First Cadre Company.¹⁴

Under communist rule, the Białystok branch writes, the holiday was banned, and the army's day was kept on 12 October, the anniversary of the Battle of Lenino. The State Fire Service page dates that change to 1947. A decree of 7 October 1950 made 12 October the Day of the Polish Army to commemorate the Battle of Lenino of 12 October 1943. The act of 30 July 1992 established 15 August as Polish Armed Forces Day (Święto Wojska Polskiego) and repealed the 1950 decree. The Homeland Defense Act of 11 March 2022 repealed the 1992 act and in its article 13 again establishes 15 August as the holiday.¹⁵