Polish-Soviet War: Difference between revisions
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This was a war in from 1919-1921 that was caused by the collision between various parties trying to fill the power vacuum left after [[World War I]]. Taking the opportunity given by the collapse of the German and Austrian Empires and the chaos of the [[Red October|Russian Civil War]] Poland declared itself independent. However the borders between the new state of Poland and the Soviet Union were unclear, as was the international status of each. Skirmishes started in disputed territory which escalated until the newly formed Polish army commenced an invasion/intervention/consolidation of Poland's territory (depending on how you look at it) into [[
When the Polish army outran its supplies it retreated home. There it was in turn invaded by the Russians. The Russians penetrated into Poland spreading fear before them until they reached the gates of Warsaw. There General and Chief of State Józef Piłsudski in the Battle of Warsaw led the Polish Army in a massive [[Deadly Dodging|flank attack]] and destroyed and scattered the Soviet army. This is one of Poland's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|finest victories]] and was to become known as the "Miracle on the Vistula" after a nearby river.
The Battle of Warsaw has been credited with saving Europe from the Bolsheviks, who've been stating their intention to carry the Revolution to the West, [[Weimar Republic|especially Germany]]. This is somewhat debatable, though; it may have prevented some smaller countries from being opportunistically overrun later by the Red Army, and it certainly saved Poland from this fate at that time and allowed it about twenty years of peace, but the French and Brits and even the defeated Germans might have been pretty able to take care of themselves.
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* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]]: What the Soviet Russians said about Poles. Conversely, Poles didn't support [[Enemy Mine|remaining Russian tsarist loyalists]] because the latter [[What an Idiot!|were overt]] that they were planning to recreate [[
* [[Badass Moustache]]: Semyon Budionny, who came to prominence during the war, sported an extremely flamboyant version of those.
* [[Bling of War]]: Soviet propaganda tried to make out that practically every Polish officer had blood bluer then sapphire and probably personally flogged oppressed serfs when he was bored. In fact that was considerably exagerrated(to say the least). Their get up however fit the role pretty good and was in the spirit of [[Siege of Vienna|Jon Sobieski]] if less flamboyant.
* [[Born in the Wrong Century]]: Semyon Budionny, who was described as being closer in spirit to a leader of a Cossack warband than modern military commander. Optionally de Viart, but he fit in well.
* [[The Cavalry]]: The "miracle of the Vistula", which as it happens was done with actual cavalry.
* [[The Chessmaster]]: Lenin, Trotsky, and Pilsudski.
* [[Church Militant]]: The Polish Catholic Church. Poles were very devout Catholics as well as being very [[Patriotic Fervor|nationalistic]] and sometimes you get the impression that it is really ''Poland'' that is a [[Church Militant]].
** Slightly averted as [[wikipedia:Jozef Pilsudski|Pilsudski]], the [[wikipedia:Naczelnik Panstwa|head of state/dictator/commander-in-chief]] at this time, was Protestant (he converted from Catholicism in 1899). He proposed an federation of independent states on the Soviet border - unfortunately it didn't succeed. While it is true that he had opposition and Poland was Catholic, it is less black and white.
*[[Cool Train]]: Armored trains were the shock arm.
**They could mount one or two big(sometimes really big as if you have a whole train you might as well use it)artillery pieces, several machine guns, an engineer crew to repair tracks or lay new ones and an infantry detachment between company and battalion strength. Their chief disadvantage was they needed tracks which meant they could not exploit after making a breech even though their mobility within friendly ranks made them a great strategic reserve. They were effectively mobile fortresses.
* [[Crazy Awesome]]: Adrian Carton de Viart, a Belgian officer of the British Army who came to Poland as a military advisor and stayed for random saber combats with the Cossacks, big game hunting and wars with half of the neighbors.
* [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]: Battle of Warsaw. As a state-level example of [[Heroic Resolve]], it was dubbed "The Miracle of the Vistula". Ironically, it was also intended as an [[Embarrassing Nickname]] for the Polish victory by Piłsudski's enemies.
** Also of note: [[wikipedia:Battle of Komarów|Battle of Komarów]], "the last great cavalry battle of the world", and the fact that Polish radio
** To the other side, this could be the battle of Kiev, where the Russians swiftly defeated the invading Polish army.
* [[Dirty Communists]]: What Poles said about Russians.
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* [[Glorious Leader]]: Piłsudski was a less nasty version of this then some.
* [[The Horde]]: How the Red Army was depicted by the Poles. Aside from obvious propaganda, Budionny's Horse Army ''had'' at least ''some'' features of a Cossack host.
* [[I Like Swords]]: And Russians and Poles liked sabres. [[National Weapon|Of course they did.]] In this case it was Justified as modern small arms like everything were in short supply.
**The Poles actually still went in for the lance as well.
* [[Improvised Weapon]] : As [[Schizo-Tech|odd as it sounds]], scythes and pitchforks were often used en masse as makeshift polearms against Russian cavalry (mainly by the countryside militias).
**Actually both armies were improvised armies using weapons left over from WWI and recently raised(the Red Army)within the last few years, or clumped together from a crazy quilt of detachments(the Poles). Some however did at least have real weapons.
* [[Modern Major-General]]: Stalin's interference seriously undermined the Soviet war effort and presaged his later bungling against [[Nazi Germany]] in [[World War II]], which nearly led to the USSR's destruction.
* [[My Country, Right or Wrong]]: The Bolshevik leadership hoped that Polish workers and peasants would rebel against the ruling class and turn to their side in the war. However, Polish propaganda successfully invoked this trope, managing to quell class struggle and unite the country's society under the banner of nationalism.
* [[
** From the other side of the barricade, this could be said of the war's beginning period, when the Polish army pulled a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] on the fledgling and still rather rag-tag Red Army and advanced as far as Kiev.
* [[People's Republic of Tyranny]]: What Poles said about Russians.
* [[Poles With Poleaxes]]: Nearly literally, if you count the [[Improvised Weapon]] entry above.
* [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]]
* [[Reds with Rockets]]: One of the first wars of the Communist Russia's army, besides the ongoing Russian Civil War.
* [[Rebel Leader]]: many on both sides were, once were, or claimed to be this. Notably, Symon Petliura and Semyon Budyonny, two former rebel leaders in the Ukraine, joined separate sides in the war.
* [[Schizo-Tech]]: radio jamming, machine guns mounted on peasant carts, war scythes, tanks, cavalry sabres and lances, airplanes. Military theorists drew literally contradictory conclusions from this war's experiences.
* [[Spin-Off]]: This can be considered a spinoff of the [[Red October|Russian Civil War]], which itself was a spinoff of [[World War
* [[We ARE Struggling Together!]]
* [[Won the War, Lost the Peace]]: The Polish government was dominated by the Nationalists, who wanted only as much territory as it could be [[You Will Be Assimilated|assimilated]] into Poland, as opposed to Piłsudski, who wanted as much ground as he could to make it into allied buffer states. So, the Poles took less than the Reds were willing to offer, screwing their Ukrainian allies in the process.
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* Perhaps the most well-known work of fiction set in this era is the ''Red Cavalry'' cycle by Russian author [[Isaac Babel]].
* The war has unsurprisingly been also covered by several Polish works, among them the recent 3D film.
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