Warsaw Uprising 1944 of the Year: Causes of Defeat
The Warsaw Uprising is an anti-fascist military uprising that took place in August-September 1944.
In July of this year, the troops of the Soviet Army crossed the Polish frontier and, under its pressure, German troops at the end of the month were forced to rush out of the city. But very soon the situation changed radically. Giler decided to keep the Polish capital at all costs. The German defense began to strengthen its position on the outskirts of the city, and the head of the Home Army, K. Iranek-Osmetsky, proposed to postpone the uprising, since it was doomed to failure. The commander of the Polish army Komorowski could not make a decision, but under pressure, he nevertheless agreed to start a performance.
According to the plan of the operation developed by the Soviet command, the city was supposed to be bypassed from the northern and southern sides in order to preserve it as the cultural Slavic capital and defeat the German grouping. All the details of the operation were repeatedly discussed by the command and it was assumed that it should not begin even on August 25 even under the most favorable circumstances.
In the Polish army at the beginning of the uprising, there were about 30 thousands of soldiers, which exceeded the number of German soldiers by half, but they were extremely badly armed. German troops used their advantage to localize the battles.
As part of the Soviet Army, there were not only separate units of the Polish Army, but also mixed partisan detachments, led by Soviet officers who turned out to be on enemy territory for some reason. All these detachments were staffed with people of different political views and aspirations, but the desire for all to drive the invaders out of their native land. The uprising rose 1 August. He was commanded by General Tadeusz Komorowski. The signal for his start was the bells of one of the churches. It should be noted that the fascist intelligence was unable to find out the details of the preparation and the date of the beginning of the uprising, therefore the German army was not ready for it.
The rebels managed to seize several German facilities and capture most of the city, but they failed to take control of any government building. The main transport routes and bridges over the Vistula were still in the hands of the Germans. Insufficient armament initially limited the ability of the rebels.
In the first days of the operation, Polish troops, consisting mainly of intellectuals, suffered significant losses - about 2 thousand people, while German units lost 4 times less than people. But the rebels managed to keep the initiative, since the German command had not yet managed to bring additional equipment and tools to Warsaw.
In addition, the Polish troops were left without air cover, as the sixteenth air army did not redeploy to the nearest airfields at the beginning of the uprising, and the troops of the First Belorussian Front were extremely exhausted by the battles with which 600 km went, leaving the carts and ammunition far behind.
The German command was well informed about all this, which decided to launch a counterattack on the bridgehead of the Soviet Army on the Vistula. They practically destroyed tank corps of the Second Army and managed to push part of the Belarusian Front from the Polish capital. German troops were in a better position because they used fortified positions in the city. During this fascist attack, Soviet troops lost 280 tanks and were forced to switch from attack to defense.
On the fourth day of the uprising, the German command began its suppression. Security forces of the SS, the Kaminsky brigade, Ukrainian nationalists and the police were thrown against the Polish troops. The fascist troops methodically destroyed the centers of the uprising.
On August 8, with the participation of Marshal G.Zhukov, a new plan was developed for the liberation of the Polish capital. It was assumed that the operation should be carried out by all forces of the front to reach Vyshgorod, Ciechanow, Sochaczew, Plonsk, Tomaszow, Skierniewice and, as a result, the occupation of Warsaw.
But the position of the Soviet-Polish troops was complicated by the strengthening of the German pressure on the south from the capital of the bridgehead. For their retention required additional forces. By this time, the uprising had acquired the features of a nationwide struggle against the invaders. However, after a few days, there was a shortage of ammunition. From September 13, Soviet aircraft began to drop mortars, anti-tank guns, machine guns, rifles, grenades, foodstuffs and medicines. Unlike American and British aircraft, which dropped ammunition from a great height and therefore such assistance was ineffective (most of these cargoes were captured by the Germans), Soviet aircraft operated at extremely low altitudes.
Despite such assistance, the situation of the rebels was complicated. September 14 Soviet Army troops approached the Vistula, but the Germans managed to destroy all the bridges. During this offensive, about 8,5 thousands of fascists died. Two days later, the First Army of the Polish Army began to force the Vistula. The infantry units were transported, but the equipment could not be transported because of the heavy fire of the German troops.
These failures, as well as enormous human casualties, lack of ammunition and food, forced Komorowski on October 2 on October 1944 to sign an act of surrender, resulting in almost the entire population of Warsaw being sent to forced labor in Germany.
As for the attitude of the Soviet leadership headed by Stalin towards the uprising, one thing is clear - it was quite ambivalent. On the one hand, Stalin declared his consent to assist the Polish troops, but on the other hand, the Soviet government rather sharply opposed the provision of Soviet airfields for landing allied aircraft. Stalin obviously did not want the Polish army to achieve its goals, because in this case, the Polish expelled government headed by Stanislav Mikolajczyk got a real chance for a post-war settlement of the state. And in the eyes of the Soviet leadership, the creation of an independent Poland instantly transferred it to the rank of political figures dangerous for the USSR. Many foreign historians call such an ambivalent attitude of the Soviet government as one of the reasons for the defeat, forgetting that the Western allies were able to do even less.
The Warsaw Uprising ended with the defeat of the Polish troops. In the course of it, about 10 of thousands of soldiers were killed, 150 of thousands of civilians, 17 of thousands were captured, and 7 of thousands were missing. Most of the city was in ruins, and what survived was systematically destroyed by special SS brigades. It was only during the Vistula-Oder operation carried out on 17 in January of 1945, that Warsaw was liberated.
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