Reply To: Poland 1939 – Preparing for 80th Anniversary of World War II

[yavasaParticipant 4740xp 2]

So, let’s talk some more about the preparation for the inevitable crush.

Polish tactics was heavily influenced by the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. So the Polish high command did assume that the next war will be based on maneuvering and not static defense. Since the Poles were predicted they will have to fight the Soviets and not Germans they put a lot of pressure on fielding cavalry units (the roads network on the eastern borders of Poland at that time was bad) while tanks were to support infantry. The Spanish Civil War also made the Poles convinced that the infantry support role of tanks is the way to go since the use of tanks ans airplanes in 1938 did not speed up the pace of fight. Let’s be fair over here Blitzkrieg at it’s full capacity has been actually tested on Poland. Anyway, only after 1936 did the Polish High Command decide to actually come up with a plan of fight against their western neighbor. In 1936 when Edward Śmigły-Rydz became the General inspector of the Armed Forces he compared the armies of Poland, France and Russia. This comparison did not look good for the Polish army which was obsolete. A modernization plan was undertaken that was about to last 10 years. A little too late. It was not until march 1939 that the Polish High Command begun it’s official work on an operation plan of fight against the III Reich. The plan was code names Plan West.

The Poles had two options:

1. Defend on the Biebrza, Narew, Wisła and San rivers. It would be a sound strategy that would allow the small (30 divisions) Polish forces to concentrate on a smaller part of the country and maximize their defensive capacity. However, the plan was not use due to political reasons. First of all, Poland was afraid of a second Czechoslovakian scenario happening on its own territory. Secondly, for the plan to work Polish forces had to fully mobilized and that could only be achieved if the western highly populated voivodeships were providing recruits. Last but not least, it would give the western allies the impression that Poland does not want to fight for its territories.
2. Defend on the borders in order to provide a defensive bubble for a full mobilization of the forces and only then slowly withdraw toward the east-south to the defense line based on Wisła, Narew and San rivers and if that line cracked the defenders should set up another line near the border with Romania. Poland based this plan on the belief that France and Great Britain will conduct offensive operations against Germany within two weeks from the beginning of hostilities. The first line of defense was to last for two weeks at best to shelter the mobilizing units in order to allow a withdrawal behind the Wisła. Polish High Command wanted to avoid a decisive battle west of this major river. There were many weaknesses of this strategy with two major ones being: Polish division were too stretched out, nobody knew how fast the Germans attacks and maneuverability is going to be.
3. Plan West had also two elements that were concentrating on the Navy. First one of the Plan Worek was concentrating on the use of Polish submarines against the Kriegsmarine and the second one Operation Pekin was the plan to withdraw three Polish destroyers Błyskawica, Grom and Burza to England. The latter one was a success.