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The Polish campaign of 1939 is one of the less familiar campaigns of the Second World War. Most general histories of the war cover the overall outlines of the campaign, counter some of the most famous myths about the campaign (tanks against cavalry, Polish aircraft being destroyed on the ground etc), but don’t go into much detail, before moving onto the Phoney War period. This book provides a very useful examination of the first campaign of the Second World War, starting with the re-birth of Poland at the end of the First World War, looking at the various Polish governments, their efforts to built an industrial economy and a powerful military, relations with their neighbours, the build-up of tension with Nazi Germany and the eventual war itself.
Britain and France don’t emerge well from this story. Their unwillingness to act in the west while the fighting in Poland was going on is well known, and is one of the most appalling missed opportunies of the entire war. However their performance between the moment they offered to protect Poland and the outbreak of war is equally poor, with both powers unwilling to offer much practical assistance. The detailed pre-war history does give some answers to that – Poland had been a dictatorship from 1926, and had taken part in the scramble to dismantle Czechoslovakia in 1938, so wasn’t a natural ally. However having promised to fight for Poland if she was attacked, it was in the British and French interest to support their new ally, and the failure to do so sent the wrong message to Hitler.
When we reach the campaign itself the author examines each phase of the fighting in detail, giving a rather different picture of the German offensive. Some areas of the German campaign that appear to have gone smoothly if you look at them in less detail prove to be less impressive when examined in detail. Smooth looking pincer movements turn out to be rather more haphazard, the supply system didn’t work smoothly, the slower moving infantry divisions fell well behind the Panzers. Unfortunately the Polish defensive plan wasn’t terribly good, with armies left in indefensible positions in the Polish corridor in the north and attempting to protect industrial areas that were dangerously close to the German border. Some parts of the Polish army performed well, others collapsed very quickly. The political leadership performed poorly.
The author demolishes myths on both sides. German propaganda claimed that most Polish aircraft were destroyed on the ground on the first day of the campaign, when in reality most front line aircraft had been moved to hidden airfields, and weren’t even attacked on the ground. The Polish airforce continued to fight well into the campaign, although with ever smaller numbers of aircraft available its impact soon began to fade. Perhaps the most famous myth is of Polish cavalry attacking German tanks. In reality Polish cavalry had used their mobility to attack isolated German infantry, and the fighting was long over when the German tanks arrived. On the Polish side it is sometimes claimed that it was the Soviet invasion that finally defeated the Poles, but the author makes it quite clear that the war was lost before the Soviets intervened – indeed Stalin delayed his intervention until that point in an attempt to make his invasion look like an benevolent intervention to protect the inhabitants of eastern Poland. On a wider scale it is often claimed that Polish weapons designers and industry weren’t capable of competing with their German opponents. Here we see that until only a few years before the war the Poles had equipment that was at least the equal of anything on the German side. It was only in the last couple of years before 1938, when aircraft like the Bf 109, and the Panzer III and Panzer IV began to enter service, that the Germans gained an advantage. Even in 1939 the Poles had many weapons that were the equal of their German equivalents including good anti-tank guns.
The picture that emerges is of a campaign that was nowhere near as one sided as some accounts make it sound, but one that the Poles had very little chance of winning without external support. As later events would show, the best chance the Western allies had for victory in 1939-40 would have been to invade Germany while most of the army and Luftwaffe was engaged in Poland, so this was one of the great missed chances of the Second World War.
Chapters
1 – Poland is Not Lost
2 – Poland Prepares for the Next Round
3 – The Threat Emerges
4 – Countdown to War
5 – Opening Moves
6 – Total War
7 – Apotheosis
8 - Occupation
Author: Robert Forczyk
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 416
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2020