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#Polish soviet war axis history forum full version
My full version of the battle, which takes eyewitness French and (brief) Russian versions of the battle into account, can be found here: Sorry to labour the point, but this battle seems to have reached mythic status in Polish eyes because it "proves" that the Polish cavalry was better than the Russian cavalry. Being able to take ground off a retreating enemy is not a victory. (Failure to achieve your goals while your opponent achieves his is pretty much the definition of defeat.) That the Polish cavalry remained on the battlefield at the end of the day is hardly surprising as the Soviets were already in retreat at the start of it. So the Soviets achieved their aim 100% and the Poles failed at theirs. In the result, every unit of Soviet cavalry made it out of the trap. The Poles aimed to cut off the Red cavalry in a "pocket" so that it could be wiped out. Never did they take on anything like the full Army.Īnd Komarow was not a Polish victory. Secondly, the Polish 1st CD fought sections of the 1st Horse Army at various times in the day. Our cavalry traditions were always greater than infantry traditions, even at that time and it was my point.ĭuring the battle of Komarów (the greatest cavalry battle since 1813) six Polish cavalry regiments with infantry support defeated entire Soviet 1st Cavalry Army (20 cavalry regiments).įirstly, it was not the greatest cavalry battle since 1813. Besides some French regiments were also trapped. The French blew up a bridge on the Elster River and Poles could not escape, but it is other matter. Napoleon named prince Józef Poniatowski Marshall of France during that battle. While the Napoleonic Army as a whole (including Poles) suffered 22% losses during that battle, the Poles suffered 75%. It played a role of vanguard and then rearguard covering retreat of the Napoleonic Army. For example during the battle of Leipzig in 1813 Polish infantry did an outstanding job fighting to the bitter end. The great Polish infantry traditions began probably from the times of Napoleonic Wars. Is it a surprise for you, if we have much bigger cavalry traditions than infantry traditions? If you were a Pole, you would be cavalry-obsessed, either. That is because the Wikipedia articles are written by Poles, who are cavalry obsessed. Panzerkrieg wrote:In most battles the emphasis seems to be on cavalry and to a lesser extent infantry Polish airplanes created havoc in the Red rear areas and on their marching forces, but the lack of stable front lines meant that they could not intervene during the actual fighting. Tanks were near useless, due to the speed at which the fronts moved. MGs were extremely powerful in such open terrain. (In fact the Polish 1st Cavalry Division was withdrawn from the front during the crucial period and only returned when the campaign had already been won.) In the southern front the Reds' main thrust was the 1st Horse Army (mostly cavalry), but that was largely countered by Polish infantry. The battles around Warsaw saw almost no Red horse (it had been sent off in a flanking move, largely unopposed) and there wasn't a great amount of Polish cavalry. The war was largely fought and won by infantry. During the war there were very few cavalry vs cavalry engagements, which suggests that the cavalry weren't the predominant fighting forces. In most battles the emphasis seems to be on cavalry and to a lesser extent infantry