Chapter 28 Volume 1, Chapter 24, The Fall of Poland

Germany's invasion plan Poland's incomplete deployment of artillery and tanks The destruction of the Polish air force First week The heroic counter-offensive of Poland in the second week Annihilation battle The Soviet Union's dispatch Warsaw radio silenced the modern blitzkrieg I put it on September 21st Memorandum on Our Present Danger I gave a radio address on October 1st. At this time, we sat around the cabinet table and saw a weak country being destroyed almost mechanically, according to Hitler's methods and long-planned plans.Poland was attacked by Germany on three sides.The invading army totaled fifty-six divisions, including all nine of its armored and motorized divisions.The Third Army (eight divisions) attacked Warsaw and Bialystok south from East Prussia.The Fourth Army (twelve divisions) was ordered to start from Pomerania to wipe out the Polish army in the Danzig corridor, and then move southeast along the banks of the Vistula River to attack Warsaw.The frontier facing the Posen salient was defended by German reserves, but on their right flank all the way south was the Eighth Army (seven divisions), tasked with covering the left flank of the main attacking force.The main offensive was the Tenth Army (seventeen divisions), which was ordered to attack Warsaw directly.A little further south is the Fourteenth Army (fourteen divisions), which has the dual task of occupying the important industrial area west of Krakow; Directly attack Lemberg (ie Lviv) in southeastern Poland.

Therefore, the German army prepared to break through the Polish army on the border first, and then used two pincer offensives to subdue and surround them; the first pincer offensive was to attack Warsaw from the north and southwest; the second pincer offensive was also to attack Warsaw. It is a larger one, which is composed of the Third Army advancing from Brest Litovsk and the Fourteenth Army after the capture of Lemberg.In this way, the Polish army escaping from the pincer siege of Warsaw was cut off from retreating into Romania.Germany dispatched more than 1,500 new planes to bombard Poland indiscriminately.Their first task was to overwhelm the Polish Air Force, the second step was to assist the Army in the field, and, in addition, to attack military installations and all road and rail traffic.At the same time, they want to spread the horror of war in all directions.

The Polish army was far from being a match for the invading force in numbers and equipment, and their deployment was ill-advised.They spread all their troops along the frontiers of their own countries.They also have no centralized reserves.They resisted German ambitions with arrogance and arrogance, but feared that they would be accused of provocation, and dared not mobilize at the right time to meet the mass concentration of enemy forces around them.The Polish army at that time was ready or would be ready to deal with the initial surprise attack, a total of thirty divisions, accounting for only two-thirds of the active army.The rapidity of the situation, and the violent obstruction of the Luftwaffe, prevented the rest of the Polish army from reaching reinforcements before the entire front line had been breached, and were only involved in the final collapse.Thus the Polish divisions of the Thirty were faced with a semicircular encirclement almost twice their number, without any support behind themselves.Moreover, they are not only inferior in numbers, their artillery is far inferior to the enemy.They had only one armored brigade against what was then called the German Armored Corps of nine divisions.There were twelve cavalry brigades in all, and they fought heroically against the hordes of tanks and armored vehicles, but their swords and spears could not damage these tanks and armored vehicles.All nine hundred of their first-line aircraft, perhaps half of them new, were caught by surprise by the enemy, and most were destroyed before they even took to the air.

According to Hitler's plan, the German army was dispatched on September 1. Its air force was the first to attack the Polish air squadron on the Polish airfield.Within two days, Poland's air force was virtually wiped out.Within a week, German troops had penetrated deep into Poland.Polish troops put up heroic resistance everywhere, but to no avail.All Polish troops on the frontier, with the exception of the corps on Posen's flanks, which were already deeply encircled, were driven back.The corps at Lodz was cut in two by the main force of the German Tenth Army, one retreated east to Radom, and the other was forced to retreat northwest; the two German armored divisions passed through this breach, Straight to Warsaw.

A little farther north, the German Fourth Army reached and crossed the Vistula, and swung down the river towards Warsaw.Only the corps in northern Poland were able to stop the attack of the German Third Army.But soon they were outflanked and had to retreat to the Narew River, defending the only reasonably strong line of defense prepared in advance on the river bank.This is how the first week of the Blitz turned out. The second week was marked by intense fighting, with the result that the Polish army, nominally about two million strong, was routed and ceased to be an organized armed force. In the south the German Fourteenth Army continued to advance to the San River.The four Polish divisions that had retreated to Radom were surrounded and annihilated just to the north of this army.The two armored divisions of the Tenth Army rushed to the outskirts of Warsaw, but because there were no infantry to follow, they were unable to make any progress due to the desperate resistance organized by the citizens of Warsaw.To the northeast of Warsaw was the German Third Army, which surrounded Warsaw from the east, and its left column reached Brest-Litovsk, a hundred miles from the front line of the war.

The Polish army died fighting under the encirclement of the pincer offensive on Warsaw.The Polish corps at Posen joined the divisions that had retreated from Thorne and Lodz due to the German onslaught, now totaling twelve divisions.The German Tenth Army, covered by the weaker Eighth Army, broke through the southern flank of the Polish force and rushed towards Warsaw.Although actually surrounded, General Kutelzia, commander of the Posen Corps in Poland, decided to attack the flank of the main German army to the south.This heroic Polish counter-offensive, the so-called Battle of the Bzura, created a serious situation which not only attracted the German Eighth Army, but also part of the Tenth Army, and forced them to abandon their Warsaw objectives, even from the north. Attract a corps from the Fourth Army.Posen's Corps, under the attack of all these mighty armies, and under the mighty pressure of unresisting aerial bombardment, maintained their immortal glory for ten days; The army was wiped out.

At the same time, the troops besieged in a pincer shape on the outer ring have joined forces to encircle them.The Fourteenth Army reached the outskirts of Lemberg on September 12, marched north, and on the seventeenth joined forces with the Third Army which had crossed Brest-Litovsk.The siege is now encircled, and there is no way for the scattered and adventurous to escape.On the 20th, the Germans announced that the Battle of the Vistula River was one of the greatest battles of annihilation since ancient times. Now it was the Soviet Union's turn to act.What they call democracy now is about to be manifested concretely.On September 17, Russian troops swarmed across the almost undefended eastern border of Poland, advancing westward in overwhelming momentum across a vast frontier.On the 18th they occupied Vilna (Vilnius) and met their collaborators, the German troops, at Brest-Litovsk.In the last war, the Bolsheviks, violating their solemn agreement with the Western Entente, made peace here alone with Germany in the Kaiser's time, and humiliatedly accepted Germany's harsh peace terms.And now the Russian Communists are actually shaking hands with Hitler's Germany in this place of Brest-Litovsk.The overthrow of Poland, and the conquest of it in its entirety, proceeded rapidly.

But Warsaw and Modlin had not yet been conquered.Warsaw's resistance, chiefly due to the patriotism of the populace, was great and tragic, but hopeless.After many days of heavy aerial bombardment, and many frenzied bombardments by heavy artillery teams quickly brought in from the tranquil Western Front, via the main east-west highways, Warsaw radio finally stopped broadcasting the Polish national anthem, and Hitler entered the area. City in ruins.Modlin, a fortress twenty miles down the Vistula, had received the remnants of Thorne's regiment, and fought hard until the twenty-eighth.And so, within a month, it all came to an end.A country of thirty-five million people is thus held in cruel yoke by those who impose it not only to subdue, but to enslave, and even exterminate the vast majority of its population.

We have seen a complete specimen of modern blitzkrieg; the close co-ordination of armies and air forces in the field; the heavy bombing of every line of communication and any town which could be targeted; the active fifth column skill; saw the arbitrary use of spies and paratroopers.Above all, saw the inexorable charge of armored hordes, yet the Poles were not the last people to endure such ordeals. The Soviet armies continued to advance until they reached the line negotiated with Hitler. On the 29th, the peace treaty for the partition of Poland between the Soviets and Germany was officially signed.I am still convinced that there is a deep hatred between the Soviet Union and Germany, and I believe that this hatred will never be eliminated, and I always hope that the Soviet Union will definitely fall to our side due to the persecution of the situation.

Therefore, although I felt very indignant at this ruthless and brutal policy of the Soviet Union, and the people around me in the cabinet were emotional, but I remained calm.I never had any illusions about the Soviet Union.I know they don't recognize any moral code and only have their own interests in mind.But at least they have no obligation to us.Moreover, in a war of life and death, our anger must be subordinated to the goal of defeating the arch enemy of the day.I resolved to give the best explanation for their heinous conduct.Therefore, in my letter to the War Cabinet on September 25, I said in a calm tone:

While the Russians are to be blamed for displaying the worst perfidy in recent negotiations, Marshal Voroshilov once proposed that Russian troops should occupy Vilna (Vilnius) if Russia was an ally of Poland And Lemberg, this request, is a perfectly legitimate military request.But it was rejected by Poland. Although the reasons for the rejection were natural, it now appears that they are not sufficient.As a result, Russia, as an enemy of Poland, occupied the very frontiers and positions which she, as a most unreliable and suspected friend, might have occupied in the first place.In fact, the difference is not as big as people imagine.The Russians mobilized enormous forces, and had shown themselves capable of advancing swiftly in numerous directions from their pre-battle positions.They are now confronting Germany on the border, and it is absolutely impossible for Germany not to defend the Eastern Front.It had to be defended by a large German army.As far as I understand, General Gamelin estimates that this army must have at least twenty divisions, but it is likely that it has twenty-five or more, so that an Eastern Front is possible. However, it is likely that a southeastern front with common interests for Russia, Britain and France will also be established.The left paw of this polar bear has blocked the passage from Poland to Romania.Russia has traditional interests in the Slavic nations of the Balkan countries.The arrival of the Germans in the Black Sea region would be a great threat to Russia, and the same would be true for Turkey. The two countries must of course work together to prevent this from happening.This satisfies our wishes directly and in no way contradicts our policy towards Turkey.Russia is likely to occupy Romania's Bessarabia region; But this does not necessarily conflict with our main interest, because our main interest is to prevent Germany from developing into southeastern Europe.Romania gained a great advantage during the last war, because the victory of the Allies saved her from total defeat; Just lucky, because in the interests of the Balkan bloc, it should be happy to cede Dobruga to Bulgaria.As far as can be judged now, the reaction of Russia's actions has been favorable throughout the Balkans, and especially in Yugoslavia.Thus, in addition to a possible Eastern Front, a possible Southeastern Front would also be established.It would form a crescent from the Gulf of Riga to the shore of the Adriatic (and perhaps continue from there across the Brenner to the Alps). Of course we would very much like all these countries to attack this single common enemy, Nazi Germany; as time goes on, this possibility should not be ruled out.Should Germany attack Romania via Hungary, or, to a lesser extent, Yugoslavia, this possibility would soon be realized.Our present policy is to encourage the establishment of this front, to strengthen it, and to try to bring it into action when any part of that front is attacked.It appears that this policy is absolutely correct.This policy meant the re-establishment of relations with Russia, as the Foreign Secretary had quickly foreseen.At the same time, this policy also requires that we must follow the following policy announced by the Prime Minister; we will not commit ourselves to the solution of any particular territorial problem, but concentrate all British and French efforts to smash Hitlerism, and at the same time ensure that German terror will continue in the future. In the long run, it will not fall on the Western democracies again.This last point, which has great appeal to the French, is expressed very precisely in the words of the Prime Minister: Our general aim is to free Europe from its permanent and recurring fear of German aggression to be delivered from it, and to enable the peoples of Europe to preserve their liberty and independence.Such claims should be propagated frequently and universally. Based on these general estimates, it is easier to consider how we will handle the negotiations with Turkey.I don't think there is as much urgency to deal with this issue as there was when it was rumored that Hitler was going to invade Romania with twenty-eight divisions and so on.It now appears that the fellow has been warned off his career on the Eastern Front; however, he will of course revert to his threat at any time, and we still have a major stake in making all the Balkan countries and The Eastern Front was hostile to Germany, so the conclusion of the Turkish Treaty seemed to be of the utmost importance. If the final change in the situation is that Hitler is hindered on the Eastern Front (of course, this is not yet certain), there are three options before him: (1) Launch a main attack on the Western Front, which may pass through Belgium and occupy the Netherlands along the way; (2) Vigorous air raids on British factories, naval ports, etc., and perhaps on French aircraft factories. (3) The kind of peaceful offensive that the Prime Minister said. In my personal opinion, I believe that point (1) above can only happen if Germany concentrates at least thirty divisions across the border between Belgium and Luxembourg. As for point (2), that seems likely to be the guy's approach; however, he may not, or perhaps his generals, who now seem to be more authoritative, won't allow him to, for fear of an air strike being inevitable The world will cause massacres, so it has a blood feud with Britain, and may also involve the United States in the whirlpool.As for point (3), if he does not try point (2), then it seems that our duty and policy should be: reject all solutions that can get him out of trouble and let him suffer in winter.At the same time, we havetened to arm ourselves and form our allies.The general outlook therefore seemed far more favorable than in the autumn of 1914, when most of France had been taken and Russia had suffered another crushing defeat at Tannenburg. But point (2) above has not been ruled out.This is what is troubling right now. On October 1 I said again on the radio: Once again Poland was invaded by two great powers.Together with other great powers, these two great powers had enslaved Poland for one hundred and fifty years, but they could not destroy the spirit of the Polish nation.Warsaw's heroic resistance shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible, that it is just like a rock, which can be submerged by waves for a while, but will eventually be revealed, and it is still a rock. Russia has pursued a policy of ruthless self-interest.We could have hoped that the Russian troops would be stationed on their present front as Poland's friends and allies, rather than as aggressors, but the reason why the Russian troops stationed on this front is obviously for the needs of their own security and to defend the country. Nazi threat.In any case, there is a line of defense here, and an eastern line of defense that Nazi Germany dared not attack rashly has been established I cannot predict to you the actions of Russia.This is a very mysterious mystery within a mystery, but there may be a secret that can reveal the answer, and this secret is Russia's national interests.It is incompatible with Russia's interests and security for Germany to establish itself on the Black Sea coast, or to ravage the Balkan states and subjugate the Slavic peoples of Southeastern Europe.To do so would be contrary to Russia's historic survival interests. The Prime Minister fully agrees with my remarks.In a letter to his sister he said: We have just heard a very good radio speech by Winston.My opinion is exactly the same as his.We believe that Russia will always act in accordance with what it believes its own interests require.It must not be believed that it would consider the German victory, and the ensuing German domination of Europe, to be to its advantage.