Why did Anders army leave?
History Anders Army (or 2 of the Polish Corps) in Russia is not that generally unknown, but is somewhere on the sidelines of the memory of the Great Patriotic War. This formation was created by General Vladislav Anders in 1941 — 1942 on the territory of the Soviet Union. The army subordinated to the emigre Polish “London government” and then went to Persia, began to fight for Britain (1943-1945 years).It should be noted that the first attempt to create Polish military units on the territory of the USSR was made in the autumn of 1940. In early November, Lavrenty Beria, following the instructions of Joseph Stalin, made an offer to form a Polish division from the prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (Polish prisoners appeared in the USSR after the liberation campaign of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine in September 1939). The division was planned to be used in a possible war against the Third Reich, and it could become a base for the formation of the Polish armed forces controlled by Moscow.
The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) singled out the 24 of a former Polish officer, who expressed a desire to participate in the impending war between the USSR and the Third Reich. At the same time, part of the Polish officers (Zygmunt Berling's group, General Marian Januszaitis) said that they were free from any obligations regarding the Polish government in exile (the government of Władysław Sikorski). And another group (generals Mechislav Boruta-Spekhovich and Vaclav Pshezdetsky) reported that they were ready to fight on the side of the USSR only by order of the “London Government”. Therefore, the formation of the division was assigned to the Berling group.
But due to the fact that Moscow did not want to provoke a possible conflict with Berlin, which would hardly have approved such an idea, the decision to establish the Polish division was postponed. Only 4 June 1941, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) made this decision. They planned to create an 1 Infantry Division of the Red Army from Poles and people who know Polish well (residents of the western regions of Belarus and Ukraine) by 1941 July 238. But before the start of World War II they did not have time to form a Polish division.
The agreement on the formation of the Polish army in the USSR with the government of Sikorsky
Relations between the Sikorsky government and Moscow were strained (Moscow from 17 September 1939 of the year believed that Poland and the Polish “government actually ceased to exist”), only the German attack on the USSR and the offer of assistance to the Soviet Union from the United States and Britain changed the situation. With the mediation of the British, negotiations began between Moscow and the Sikorsky government.
3 July, the Soviet People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NCID) sent a telegram to the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Soviet Union to England, Ivan May, in which the Soviet government expressed its readiness to begin negotiations on a mutual assistance agreement with the Polish government. The telegram noted that the USSR was in favor of creating an independent Polish state within the borders of a national Poland, which could include some cities and regions that had ceded to the USSR in September 1939 of the year. Moreover, Moscow considered the question of the nature of the state regime of the Polish state to be the internal affair of the Poles themselves.
The talks went from 5 to 30 in July 1941, in the capital of England, mediated by the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden. In Moscow, consultations were held between the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Molotov and the British ambassador Stafford Cripps. The Polish side was primarily interested in the problem of the Soviet-Polish borders, which, in the opinion of the Sikorsky government, should have corresponded to the borders on August 31 of 1939. The Soviet side proposed to postpone consideration of this problem until the end of the war, but for now concentrate on the creation of Polish armed units on the territory of the Soviet Union for war with the Germans. The British government put pressure on the Poles, because it did not hide the desire to establish, at least during the war, cooperation with the USSR. There was even a dispute in the Polish government about this - three ministers resigned (including foreign minister Augusta Zaleski), was against an agreement with the Soviet Union and Polish president in exile Rachkevich. But in the end the contract was signed.
It was signed on 30 on July 1941, by the Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, General Vladislav Sikorski, and the USSR Ambassador to the UK, I.M. May. The agreement was signed at the British Foreign Office in the presence of Foreign Minister Eden and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. This treaty declared the agreements of the USSR and Germany 1939 of the year concerning territorial changes in Poland invalid. He spoke about the restoration of diplomatic relations between the Soviet and Polish governments; mutual aid in the war with the Third Reich; on the establishment on the Soviet territory of the Polish army under the Polish command appointed by the London government. The Polish army was to be operatively subordinate to Moscow. In addition, the Polish government declared that Poland was not bound by any agreement with any third party directed against the USSR. And Moscow granted an amnesty to all Polish citizens who were detained on Soviet territory as prisoners of war or on other important grounds.
Signing the agreement, London 30 July 1941 of the year. From left to right: Sikorsky, Eden, Churchill and Maisky.
Formation and care of the Polish army
The NKVD of the USSR provided the Soviet government with material on the number of settled former prisoners of war, special settlers, prisoners, convicts and investigators, refugees and families of the repressed (deported from the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and Belarus SSR) as of 1 August 1941 of the year. Polish settlers were called “besiegers”; these were retired officers, soldiers of the Polish army, their families, as well as civilian Poles who received 1919-1921 after the end of the Polish-Polish war and later land in the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus for the purpose of active polonization of these territories. Most of them were deported to Siberia and other areas of the USSR after September 1939. Total Poles counted, from different categories, more than 380 thousand people.
12 August 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issued a decree on amnesty. On August 14, a military agreement was concluded, supplementing the July 30 agreement. The agreement provided for the creation in the shortest possible time on the Soviet territory of the Polish army, which legally was part of the armed forces of sovereign Poland. The Polish army was to conduct combat operations against Germany together with the troops of the USSR and other allied powers. And at the end of the war was to return to the Polish state, becoming the basis for the Polish armed forces. It was clarified that the Polish units would be transferred to the front only when they reached full combat readiness. On August 6, General Vladislav Anders was appointed its commander.
Reference. Vladislav Anders (1892 - 1970). From the family of small gentry, which had German roots. Anders wanted to become an engineer, graduated from a real school in Warsaw, then a polytechnic institute in Riga. In 1913, he was drafted into the army of the Russian Empire, graduated from an officer's cavalry school. He took part in the First World War: he began his service as a lieutenant in a dragoon regiment, in battles he was distinguished by good abilities, courage, and commanded a squadron. During the war he was wounded three times, had several awards (including the Order of St. George IV degree). As an honorary officer, he was sent to study at the Petrograd Academy of the General Staff, where he underwent an accelerated course of study. In mid-February, 1917, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire, received the rank of captain of the General Staff and a diploma from the hands of Emperor Nicholas II. After the February Revolution, he took part in the formation of the national Polish corps, Major General Józef Dovbor-Musnitsky (he was formed by the Provisional Government). He was chief of staff of the rifle division. After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Polish units were disbanded, and Anders, together with Dovbor-Musnitsky, returned to Poland. When a revolution occurred in Germany and the empire collapsed, Anders was involved in the creation of the Wielkopolska army, fighting for the Red Army as the regiment commander during the 1919-1921 war. He continued to study - received a higher military education in Paris ("Higher Military School") and Warsaw, with 1925 military commander of Warsaw, with the rank of colonel. For a number of reasons: firstly, he was an opponent of General Pilsudski during the May insurrection of 1926, and secondly, according to his adjutant E. Klimkovsky, distinguished by monetary impropriety, which caused a number of scandals, - Anders stopped in his career. And remained until the Second World War commander of the cavalry brigade. 1 September 1939, when the Wehrmacht attacked Poland, Anders commanded the Novogrudov cavalry brigade. His brigade was part of the Polish Northern Front. Anders received the rank of general, his brigade and parts of several other cavalry brigades (Mazovian, Volyn, Border) were combined into the Operational Cavalry Group. The remnants of the group after the defeat near Warsaw retreated to Lviv, Anders planned to break through to Hungary, from there to get to France and continue the fight with the Germans there. 27 — 28 September, his group was defeated by Soviet troops, and Anders himself was wounded and captured the next day. Vladislav Anders underwent a course of treatment in the Polish military hospital in Lviv, then until August 1941 was kept in the internal prison of the NKVD in Lubyanka. 4 August 1941, Beria personally informed Anders that the Polish government in London appointed him commander of the Polish army in the USSR (he received the rank of divisional general). He was appointed to this post for several reasons: firstly, he had experience in command of a group of forces; secondly, his political past is not belonging to Pilsudski’s entourage; thirdly, he knew Russian well and had a reputation as a specialist in Russia, which should help in interacting with Moscow. It should be noted that Anders was extremely negative about the Stalin regime, considered him an executioner and jailer of the Polish people, categorically did not want to fight under the banners of the USSR. 16 August 1941, Anders and Z. Szyszko-Bogush (head of the Polish military mission in the Union) in an interview with the authorized General Staff of the Red Army on the formation of the Polish army on Soviet territory, Major General A.P. Panfilov was informed that the Polish army should be formed both by compulsory conscription and on a voluntary basis. First of all, it is necessary to form 2 infantry divisions of light type (7-8 thousand people each) and a reserve unit in a “short time”. These units need to be brought into action in a “short time”. And the time of their readiness depends on the speed of receipt weapons, uniforms and other logistics supplies. According to the Poles, they expected to receive weapons and ammunition from the Soviet side, and uniforms and other equipment from the British and Americans.
A.P. Panfilov was from 1939 the assistant to the head of the Armored Directorate of the Red Army, in 1940-1941 (until August 1941) Major General tank Troops was deputy chief of the GRU, and from October 1941 he was chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. At the same time he was authorized to form the Polish army. During the conversation, an agreement was reached on the creation of draft commissions in a number of prisoner-of-war camps, which included representatives of the Polish command, the Red Army and the NKVD of the USSR. On August 19, at the 2nd meeting of the mixed Soviet-Polish commission, the Poles were informed that their requests had been granted. 2 rifle divisions of 10 thousand people each and a spare part of 5 thousand people will be formed. The units began to be created in the Totsk and Tatishchevsk camps (in the Chkalovsk, and now the Orenburg, and Saratov regions), and the headquarters was in Buzuluk (the Chkalovsk region). By October 1, two divisions and a reserve regiment were formed.
Already with 12 September 1941, Anders began to ask Moscow to create several new divisions in Uzbekistan. The Soviet side at first prevented the increase in the number of the Polish army, limiting it to the number of 30 thousand people. In September, Polish Prime Minister Sikorsky asked the British Prime Minister for new arms divisions, the absence of which was, in his opinion, the main obstacle to the creation of the 100 thousand Polish army. It should be noted that at the conference in Moscow in the special supplies for the Polish army, the United States and Britain refused.
In early October, 1941, V. Anders again asked the Soviet Government to form new divisions, including in Uzbekistan. At the end of November, Polish Prime Minister Sikorsky arrived in Moscow, December 3 1941, he met with Stalin. It was devoted to two issues - the Polish army in the Union and the status of the Polish population. As a result of bilateral negotiations, an agreement was reached on the formation of 7 Polish divisions in the Soviet Union and on the possibility of bringing Poles to Persia who are not involved in these military units. The location of the new Polish divisions was identified Turkestan. 25 December 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) adopted a special decree "On the Polish Army in the USSR", according to which the number of the Polish army was determined in 96 thousand, with deployment in the Kirghiz, Uzbek and Kazakh SSR.
Since the beginning of 1942, Moscow has raised the question of the timing of sending Polish troops to the Soviet-German front. Sikorski, during a visit to the locations of the Polish units, announced that the army would be ready to fight against the German troops by June 15. Anders, after him, named the date 1 of June 1942 of the year, and also rejected the possibility of entering into the battle of one separate Polish division.
Anders and Sikorski, Churchill supported them, suggested that Moscow withdraw the Polish army to Persia. As a result, Moscow realized that it was necessary just to get rid of recalcitrant Poles, and agreed. By the beginning of September 1942, the Anders Army evacuation to Persia was completed. In total, about 70 thousand people arrived in Pahlavi, of which more than 40 thousand military men. In total, about 80 thousand military men and more than 37 thousand thousand members of their families left the Soviet Union. The Polish army, which by that time received a new name - “Polish Army in the East” (from August 12), consisted of: 3, 5, 6 and 7 infantry divisions, tank brigade and Uhlan regiment. The national composition of this army was not uniform, except for the Poles there were Jews, a significant number of inhabitants of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine (up to one third).
Not all Poles went to Persia. Among them was Zygmunt Henrik Berling, commander of the headquarters of the 5 Infantry Division. With the participation of the Union of Polish Patriots, new Polish armed forces were created, which were subordinated to the Soviet command, and they were strengthened by dozens of Soviet commanders. Burling became commander of the 1 Polish Infantry Division. Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and then the Polish corps and the Polish army. Under the Soviet command, the Poles took part in the liberation of their homeland from the Nazis, in the battle for Germany and the storming of Berlin. By June 1945, the Polish Army numbered approximately 400 thousand people. The Polish army was the most powerful regular military force that fought along with the Soviet troops.
Why did Anders army leave?
The main problem for Moscow was the question of the time of the entry of Anders army units into battle. The Soviet side made many concessions: recognized the Polish government in London, carried out an amnesty, tens of thousands of people received freedom, residents of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine received the right to join the Polish army, the Soviet government agreed to return part of the cities and districts of the former Poland after the war. Interest-free loans were allocated to the Sikorsky government. Anders' army was provided with barracks, allowances, weapons, ammunition. And this is during the hardest battle for Moscow, when every military unit was literally worth its weight in gold. The Soviet government asked to send at least one division to the front, but the Poles refused. Although their premier Sikorsky agreed with this. Of course, there were objective reasons, some Poles were sick, exhausted, not only servicemen arrived at the places of deployment, but their families, children, women, they needed shelter and food.
And then the requirements of the Polish command began to go beyond the reasonable. They began to ask to create more 4 new divisions, as well as separate cavalry and tank units, to give more weapons and time to train, to build winter camps. In general, it is better to transfer parts to the south, to Turkestan, and so on. It is clear that against the background of what the USSR and the Soviet people were experiencing, it looked very obscene. When there was a battle for Moscow and then a counterattack, even one division was of great importance for the country. So, having received weapons per division, General Anders "smeared" the received party throughout his army, naturally, everything was poorly armed so that it was impossible to demand to send an armed division to the front.
In addition, the Soviet military-political leadership had information that a significant part of the Poles, including their commander, was opposed to the USSR and unreliable. Thus, in the reports of the NKVD, published in the collection of documents in the magazine “New and Newest History” (No. 2 from 1993 of the Year), anti-Soviet sentiments were reported in the Anders army: “In this war, the Poles will perform the role of the Czechoslovak army during the civil war.” "Let's send weapons against the Red Army." "Do not rush to shed Polish blood until the front line runs across Polish soil." Etc. The Polish officer corps, and given the history of its formation, this is not surprising (almost all were kept in camps, were exiled for anti-Soviet activities, many were involved in wars with the USSR 1919-1921, 1939), was hostile to Moscow. Polish officers were “distinguished” by constant intrigues, drunkenness, strong anti-Jewish sentiments, although there were quite a few Jews among ordinary soldiers.
The Polish officers were split into groups - the pro-Soviet group led by Colonel Berling rushed to the front, were ready to beat the Nazis under any circumstances, even "in a cap with a star." Anti-Soviet groups were led by General Tokazhevsky, Colonel Krogulsky, and others. There was even a “pro-German” group of Colonel Kremchinsky, its members believed that the revival of “Great Poland” was possible only with the help of the Third Reich. It cannot be said that the Poles did not want to fight at all. Most of the officers categorically did not want to fight on the side of the Soviet Union, for them Russia-USSR was a historical enemy, no better (and for some worse) than the Hitler Reich.
And precious time went by. Already the battle near Moscow was over, the capital was saved at the cost of thousands of lives, and the Polish army was formed and trained. And Joseph Stalin's phrases at meetings with Anders, with Sikorsky, when he flew to the capital of the USSR, became more sarcastic with Churchill. "We cannot force the Poles to fight." “We are not in a hurry. Poles can come forward when the Red Army approaches the borders of Poland. ” "We can handle without you." Stalin was generally distinguished by a peculiar sense of humor.
Anders' army has already become a serious force, 60 thousand bayonets - five infantry divisions, several more units were at the stage of formation. And it came out very strange, unhealthy picture. In the Soviet Union, an entire army was created at the expense of the Soviet people. And she is not torn into battle. And it is impossible to order her to go to war - foreign citizens. You will not send them to the factories, to the village either, for the same reason. And it is necessary to maintain them, to spend during the war and a very difficult situation on the front precious food, fuel, vehicles, etc. The question is, why the USSR needs these parasites ?! In addition, former enemies, some of whom are ready, under certain conditions, to plunge the “knife in the back,” using the experience of the Czechoslovak corps during the Civil War.
Meanwhile, in North Africa, the British fought with the Italians and the German corps of Rommel. There was a risk that the Wehrmacht would seize Egypt and then break through to the oil-bearing regions of the Middle East. Therefore, the British there were required additional units for the protection of communications and their possessions. Winston Churchill was ready to accept Anders' army, and the Polish general himself (through the head of the Polish government of Sikorsky) had long asked the British for this. As a result, Stalin waved his hand to the army of Anders. In the spring of 1942, the Polish army was allowed to go to Persia. From the Middle East, after the opening of the "second front" in Italy, she fought there, as part of the British troops.
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