Greatest Battles
Poland attempts to withstand the Siege of Warsaw
In the early hours of 1 September 1939, the German battleship Schleswig-holstein fired the first shot of World War II. The German campaign plan, Fall Weiss (Case White) swung into action and the world was introduced to a ruthless new form of warfare that would later be recalled as ‘blitzkrieg’ (lightning war).
On the seventh day of the campaign, German tanks approached the outskirts of Warsaw and the stage was set for a brief yet brutal siege.
THE INVASION FORCE
In 1939 the German Army was not quite the smooth-running machine it’s usually characterised as. As war approached only a fraction of the army had been mechanised and the bulk of it still relied on horses, bicycles and its own feet.
By concentrating all of its mechanised and motorised divisions on Poland, however, the German military was able to create massive local superiority. An advantage in tanks of 2,511 to
615 would no doubt have proved decisive enough, but the German campaign plan allowed them to enjoy a better than eight-to-one advantage at the points of attack.
The tanks involved were not the powerful behemoths of the later war years. Tanks were utilised in an anti-infantry role and the majority were Panzerkampfwagen Types I and II, armed with machine guns or 20mm cannon respectively. There were less than 100 of the more powerful Panzerkampfwagen III, armed with a 37mm gun, while the 75mm-equipped Type IV was used as a fire support platform. The Germans also enjoyed a significant advantage in artillery, with 5,805 guns to 2,065 for the Poles.
What differentiated the German use of armour was its massing in panzer divisions (combined arms units with tanks as well as motorised artillery and infantry). The use of high-quality radios was also of critical importance, as it allowed for a great flexibility in movement and rapid responses to events on the battlefield.
The Germans also enjoyed an advantage in manpower of at least 1.5:1, although in reality it was greater as Polish mobilisation was never really completed.
THE BIRTH OF BLITZKRIEG?
Germany wanted, and needed, a quick victory. With Britain and France declaring their support for Poland, the campaign would need to be fought and won before the western powers could react.
Believing they needed only to buy enough time for the French to mobilise and launch a massive offensive against Germany, Poland’s entire strategy was flawed from the start. Compounding this flaw was the fact that France believed Poland would be able to hold out against the Nazi invasion for at least three months.
The Poles therefore called for an initial defence of their western territory, followed by a planned withdrawal to defensive positions along the River Vistula. Such a defence would not only signal that Poland was willing to fight (and therefore worthy of its promised support from France and Britain), but also give enough time for the mobilisation of its forces to be completed.
INVASION
Warsaw was a target from day one. The Luftwaffe was tasked with bombing the city, but weather conditions on 1 September were far from ideal and the spirited defence of the Brygada Poscigowa, the ‘Pursuit Brigade’, took the German airmen by surprise. The majority of Poland’s squadrons had been allocated to support its various field armies, but the 54 planes of the Pursuit Brigade, mostly obsolete PZL P.11 fighters, downed 16 Luftwaffe aircraft on the first day of the invasion. Losses in the Polish Air Force (PAF) were catastrophic, however, and against the Germans’ vastly superior Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the newly introduced Bf 110, as well as defensive fire from bombers, the PAF was to lose around 85 per cent of its aircraft during the short war.
Relatively slow, the 340 Stukas of the Luftwaffe revelled in the open skies above Poland, attacking lines of communication, trains, railway lines and other key tactical targets at will and becoming in many ways the symbol of blitzkrieg. However, coordination between the panzer and infantry divisions was patchy and the Poles were enjoying success with their 37mm anti-tank weapons, even employing obsolescent armoured trains effectively.
WARSAW UNDER ATTACK
Following the confusion of the early days of the war, the Germans began to make serious advances. Most worrying for the defending Poles was that they were unable to retreat as quickly as the Germans were advancing. Pressure on two Polish armies, Army Lodz and Army Prusy, resulted in a gap developing between them wide enough for the Germans to race through. By the afternoon of 7 September, elements of 1st and 4th Panzer Divisions had reached Warsaw.
By now, Luftwaffe raids were having more of an effect, and the rubble of destroyed buildings dotted the landscape. Distressing though this was for the civilian population, it actually helped with the preparation of defences – the bombed-out buildings provided excellent cover for the placement of antitank guns and artillery. In addition, ditches were dug, rail lines ripped up and planted into the ground to form rudimentary tank traps, and barricades built. Trams were toppled over to block roads.
On 8 September the ominous rumbling of advancing tanks began to build as the first units of 4th Panzer Division advanced cautiously into a hostile and unfamiliar environment. The tanks, mostly Type I and II panzers, were thinly armoured and unable to withstand anything more substantial than machine-gun fire. Many of 4th Panzer Division’s tanks were destroyed before the attack was called off.
The evening before, the Polish commander, Edward Rydz-śmigły (who had defended Warsaw from the Bolsheviks in 1920), had taken a fateful decision. Convinced that Warsaw was about to be surrounded by the rapidly advancing Germans, he ordered the bulk of the army command apparatus to relocate to Brzesc-nad-bugiem (Brest-litovsk). At the worst possible moment, with its armies reeling under the German onslaught, the Polish command structure disintegrated.
The tanks of 4th Panzer Division attacked again on 9 September, but were again repulsed. Polish defences had been strengthened overnight and the ‘Children of Warsaw Brigade’ had been recalled to the city, launching a series of small night-time raids to keep the Germans off balance.
THE POLISH COUNTERATTACK
One area in which blitzkrieg left the Germans vulnerable was in their susceptibility to counterattacks on their exposed flanks. As their divisions raced along as fast as they could, it was inevitable that some would become strung out. And just such a situation had arisen…
The German Eighth Army was the target, blissfully unaware of the danger as intelligence had mistakenly reported Army Poznań retreating to Warsaw. As evening approached on 9 September, three Polish infantry divisions, flanked by two
cavalry brigades, attacked two German infantry divisions along the River Bzura. After 24 hours of fighting, the Germans were forced to withdraw and around 1,500 men were taken prisoner.
It was a small victory, but it achieved its primary goal – that of buying time for the defences of Warsaw to be strengthened and for more units to make it safely back to the city. The good news for Warsaw was, of course, bad news for Army Poznań, which was quickly surrounded.
On 16 September the Luftwaffe sent 820 planes against the trapped Poles in the ‘Bzura pocket’, who were also being pummelled by artillery fire while panzer forces closed in. The end was inevitable, and although some units did manage to break through a weak spot in the German cordon, Army Poznań was virtually annihilated. Around 120,000 men were taken prisoner.
THE SIEGE OF WARSAW
Warsaw was a city of 1.3 million inhabitants, including the largest Jewish population outside
New York – 350,000 Jews called Warsaw home, and most were to suffer a horrendous fate in the years that followed the German capture of the city.
The belief that France would quickly launch an offensive on the opening of the war had not only misled the Poles, it had also hampered German planning. Unwilling to have its forces committed too far to the east in case they needed to respond quickly to a French attack, German commanders had been tentative about crossing the River Vistula. By the middle of September, reality was dawning – the French were not about to move quickly and the armies engaged in Poland were free to roam at will. Army Group North, commanded by Fedor von Bock, was therefore able to move southwards on both sides of the Vistula, posing a much more serious threat to the Polish defensive positions. Third Army was in the vanguard as German units again pushed down towards Warsaw.
The Polish plan was still to hang on until help arrived from France, so keeping field armies intact was of paramount importance. On the same day that Rydz-śmigły had shifted the Polish command centre from Warsaw, he had issued an ominous order – men within a certain age range were also to leave the city. The inevitable conclusion was that Warsaw was being left to its fate. The order was so frightening, in fact, that it was ignored, with the general in charge of the defence of Warsaw, Walerian Czuma, agreeing with the city’s mayor, Stefan Starzyński, that the men were needed to defend the city.
Posters appeared throughout the city, urging the citizens to arms (“Do Broni!”) and declaring that Warsaw would be defended to the last man. Retreating units were finding their way into the city and there was little doubt that events were reaching their critical point.
The city was not yet surrounded, however. German forces were closing in from the north, but to the west, the Bzura counter-attack was still tying
up German forces. To the south, there was hope in the form of four fortifications: Forts Szczesliwicki, Mokotowski, Dabrowski and Czerniakowski.
The forts were old, though, and Mokotowski had been partially dismantled in preparation for being converted to a storage facility. They were a comforting presence for the civilian population, but they could not hope to hold back German tanks, artillery and infantry for long.
THE FALL
The end for Warsaw came quickly. As the Bzura counter-attack fizzled out, German forces completed the encirclement of the city by 21 September, committing 12 divisions to the task. The short, sharp lessons learned by the panzer forces in the earlier street fighting had helped persuade the German command that the capture of the city would be best left in the hands of the artillery and Luftwaffe. A thousand guns were amassed around Warsaw to pummel the city into submission, while the air force continued its bombing raids.
On 23 September, a major assault was beaten back by the desperate Polish defenders, but two days later resistance appeared futile in the face of a huge artillery bombardment, accompanied by bombing raids involving 1,200 planes. Warsaw disappeared under a pall of smoke, which actually made it difficult for Luftwaffe planes to spot their targets, resulting in numerous ‘friendly fire’ casualties among German ground units.
The forts to the south of the city fell the next day, after determined infantry assaults. Fort Mokotowski, home to the Polish Broadcasting Station, had kept transmitting up to the 25th despite being repeatedly targeted from above by German bombers.
Resistance was still an option, as fresh reserves of ammunition had been transported into the city via locomotive, but the cost of defending the city was becoming too high.
THE AFTERMATH
As many as 40,000 civilians died during the savage siege of Warsaw. Following its capture, the Jewish population was to suffer most at the hands of the German occupiers, first forced to live in a cramped ghetto (where an estimated 83,000 would die of disease and starvation) and later transported to death camps for more organised extermination.
The Molotov-ribbentrop pact, signed just before the opening of the war, on 23 August, had called for the partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviet army was badly led and organised, but it did not need to do much more than occupy the territory allotted to it under the secret terms of the pact – Poland had shifted almost all its forces to the west to face the Germans. The two enormous armies, unaware that they would shortly be pitted against each other, calmly divided Poland between themselves.
The cost of defeat for Warsaw was immense. At the end of World War II, when Soviet forces ‘liberated’ the city, they would find a population of just 174,000.