by George Bruce
We cannot exclude the possibility, however remote it may seem, that in the Soviet-German war the successes will be on the Bolshevik side, and that they will manage to push the Germans out of Poland. Obviously, it would be madness to attempt any action against such an army marching into Poland, strengthened by its victory over the German army. Our role would then be to keep the apparatus in hiding, carrying on the conspiracy, waiting for the moment when the Soviet side and system begin to crack.[21]
For this eventuality he prepared a scheme for a general uprising in Poland timed for the moment of collapse of a beaten German army, together with ‘defensive action’ against the Red Army, both, he assumed, with the full support of General Sikorski’s Polish forces abroad.
If the Red Army entered Poland in pursuit of a retreating German army without consent Rowecki proposed counter-attacking along the line of the Bug river, with a final defence line along the Vistula river. This move was based both on an uprising which, through the element of surprise, would capture the necessary additional arms from the Germans; the arming of several more divisions by the Western Powers; and reinforcement by the Sikorski forces in time for a line to be held against the advancing Russians if necessary on the line of the Vistula.
General Rowecki’s plan arrived in London by radio on 25 June 1941, three days after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa against his former ally, the Soviet Union. Rowecki’s forecast of ‘several heavy military defeats to the Soviets’ proved correct. However, the plan, which went far beyond the military strength of the underground army, conflicted in any case with General Sikorski’s own views on the Soviets.
Rowecki was an outstanding leader, but while he prided himself on his non-political approach he yet was strongly anti-Russian. The higher levels of strategy demand a clear awareness of international relations. Here Rowecki was far inferior to Sikorski, who was at once a military realist, a highly accomplished politician and a diplomat whose approach to the problem of Polish-Russian relations rose well above rigid anti-Sovietism.
Germany, in Sikorski’s view, was Poland’s first and main enemy, with whom no compromise was possible. The Soviet Union was its second enemy, towards whom its policy was also war, imposed by the Soviets. But cooperation with them against Germany would be possible when they again recognized Polish sovereignty within her pre-war frontiers. A year ago, in 1940, Sikorski had foreseen the likelihood of a Nazi-Soviet war which probably would bring about some kind of a Polish-Russian rapprochement.
He had suggested to the British Government on 19 June 1940[22] the formation of a Polish army on Russian soil from among the thousands of Polish prisoners-of-war there, a seemingly remote project which actually materialized. In July 1941, not long after Hitler’s attack on Russia, he and an eager Soviet Ambassador Maisky were already arguing, with the good offices of Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary, the terms of a resumption of Polish-Soviet relations.
After the signing of the Polish-Soviet Agreement in July 1941, relations between the two countries turned sour over the thousands of Polish prisoners-of-war still in Russia, and the Polish children who disappeared after Russia invaded Poland. But Sikorski still exercised a restraining influence. In a special instruction to Rowecki[23] he confessed that the subject of the underground army’s attitude to the Soviet Union ‘is a subject of constant worry to me’. Referring to Rowecki’s proposals should the Red Army enter Polish territory without consent in pursuit of the enemy, he warned:
To wage an armed struggle by the Underground Army against Soviet troops entering Poland would be sheer madness. To keep secret the military organization of whose existence the Soviet Government is well informed, would lead to an open fight of the Soviet troops against the Underground Army, a fight on which Communist propaganda would spread distorted views in the camp of the Allied Nations.
And later when relations with Russia were nearing breaking-point he was telling Rowecki that ‘an understanding with Russia is essential’.
The advent of the Russo-German War changed Poland’s situation greatly, seeming to point the way to a profitable alliance with Russia. Germany advanced into eastern Poland, eliminating the Russian zone there, and General Rowecki took command over the UFAS throughout Poland. On 30 July 1941 Sikorski signed the Polish-Russian Agreement. This annulled the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 relating to Poland; restored mutual diplomatic relations; undertook mutual aid and support during the war and the formation of the Polish Army in Russia under General Anders, as well as granting an amnesty to Poles imprisoned there.
Unfortunately, at this time favourable for Poland, the issue of ownership of the eastern territories seized by Russia was not solved. Nevertheless Sikorski justified the agreement on the grounds that if Russia were defeated Hitler’s plan was to drive the Poles into Siberia — ‘the Poles will disappear as a nation’.
For Sosnkowski the agreement was an outrage. He resigned his Government post in protest, at which Sikorski dismissed him as C-in-C of the UFAS. It meant the end of Sosnkowski’s small, elitist movement. ‘I do not share the view that this organization should be completely inactive during the war,’ General Sikorski declared in a letter to General Anders, Commander of the Polish Army in Russia on 1 September 1941.
I think that the home country must continue to play an active part in the struggle. Such action must be, however, carried out so as not to expose the organization and home country to enemy reprisals. Enough Polish blood has been shed already, and there is no need to lavish it in order to mark Poland’s active part in the camp of fighting democracies. We must preserve forces as big as possible for the time of the outbreak of an armed rising, and this moment is still far ahead.[24]
The new policy led to fresh hope and the influx of volunteers into the ranks of the Secret Army could not be stemmed. The number of platoons, which were the basic operational units of the Secret Army, rose from 1,515 in the summer of 1941 to 2,469 in the winter of 1941-2, platoons varying in strength from thirty to fifty. During the same period the number of officers rose from 4,012 to 6,316, and the number of NCOs from 15,975 to 26,370. In order to make clear beyond doubt the overall national status of the UFAS, Sikorski in February 1942 changed its name to Home Army, although it was still widely called the Secret Army.
Three categories of men and women composed it. First, the professionals like Rowecki, Komorowski and about 200 others who worked full time in one or other of its different branches, such as military operations, intelligence, financial control. Underground work was their entire life. They were paid, but only enough for subsistence.
Ordinary men and women workers in factories, railways, offices and farms were the next, and largest group. All of them, officers, NCOs and rankers, had taken the oath and were ready on call for assignments such as espionage and sabotage — placing a time-bomb in an important wagon load going to the Reich, the assassination of a traitor, or of a Nazi official prominent in ordering the execution of Poles. After achieving their tasks, which might take anything from an hour or two to a week or more, the members concerned went back to their day-to-day work.
The third group was made up of young men and former soldiers, who after 1942 were forming themselves into units under the command of Secret Army officers and living mainly in the forests, in Polish Army uniforms as partisans, ready to attack the Germans on General Rowecki’s orders. But so severe were German reprisals — at least one hundred Poles shot for the death of one German — that for some time Rowecki held his men in check.
Between the Secret Army and the pre-war Polish Army the gulf was wide. The regular officers and NCOs who were the nucleus of the pre-war army formed a military caste within the nation nurtured on the antidemocratic, romantic nationalism of Marshal Pilsudski, and many regular officers still clung to these beliefs. But the Secret Army had called into its ranks men and women from all walks of life with every kind of political belief, some of them military reservists who had undergone routine training; others who had never used a gun, a gre
nade or an explosive device in their lives.
Rowecki realized that the standard military training of the pre-war years would be of little use in the task ahead, which would involve partisan and street fighting with many different makes and kinds of arms. But some training was needed quickly. He worked out a military doctrine adapted to the new conditions, with new tactical regulations and instructions, as well as special reorientation training for regular soldiers, some of whom were finding it hard to adapt to the new conditions.
Two forms of training were launched, one general and preparatory, covering drill, words of command, weapons and elementary tactics; the second dealing with specific insurrectionary problems only. Teachers in the first course taught recruits how to adapt normal infantry tactics to guerrilla action, as well as the theory and use of British, Russian, German and Polish infantry weapons, including stripping down, the elimination of jamming in automatic weapons and maintenance.
Shooting practice at first did not exist due to the shortage of instructors and ammunition and to the danger of attracting the attention of the Nazis. The Secret Army men made up for their lack of firing practice by their determination to kill their oppressors.
Training in the second course was based on the actual role the soldiers would fulfil in the operational plan of the uprising, which then was still thought of as a nationwide affair. It consisted of alarm, which meant immediate mobilization; assembly of units at their specific rendezvous; distribution of weapons; reconnaissance; security; attack on the enemy-held objective; defence of the captured objective against counter-attack.
Rowecki set out his military doctrine for the guidance of his officers in a pamphlet called The Bases of Our Insurgent Battle[25] which read in part:
The rising as a type of action falls into a category halfway between the action of regular troops and a military revolution. We must base our operations on both of these aspects, particularly in view of our lack of insurrectionary experience… Thus the uprising must be preceded by a long period of preparation, precise and detailed, followed by a violent, universal, synchronized blow, which, by staking all on one card by acting extraordinarily boldly should bring about a decisive solution after a few hours on the night of the rising.
In this desperate and optimistic plan, Rowecki stressed particularly how violent and well directed the first attack would have to be to be successful. Once embarked upon the plan could not be changed because senior commanders would be incapable of influencing these rigidly conceived operations at the decisive moment. Therefore he made it clear that units attacking a specific objective were on their own, could not depend on any directions from higher echelons and could not expect to be reinforced, because all Secret Army personnel would be fully involved simultaneously.
Guerrilla theory demands that units operating on their own but according to plan seize first districts from the enemy, then whole areas and finally regions until they occupy most of the territory; the enemy is defeated piecemeal, not according to a rigid timetable, but by the guerrillas’ growing strength, military organization and capabilities.
Rowecki’s plan arose out of a contrasting military doctrine based on ‘strictly understood principles of hierarchy, obedience and discipline’, as laid down by General Sosnkowski in the UFAS Statute. Unlike guerrilla strategy and tactics, where operations arise out of the tactical situation, growing gradually stronger and more effective, Rowecki called for a sudden universal blow rigidly planned and precisely carried out with the utmost speed by troops disciplined and trained for their own specific tasks. It was to be launched when Germany was at its weakest, and the Soviets too weak or disorganized to clamp their iron hand on the country.
The operations section of Rowecki’s headquarters drew up maps marked specially with vital objectives — airports, railway stations, telephone exchanges, broadcasting stations, bridges, barracks, ordnance stores. In addition they compiled a so-called ‘atlas of destruction’ upon which enemy strong-points, fuel, ammunition, petrol and supplies dumps, and vehicle parts were marked for attack. The Polish Army manual on defence against enemy armour, together with a series of new military publications for artillery and engineer officers, were secretly printed and circulated.
Throughout Poland, officer training schools were launched with primary courses lasting five months, each class consisting of between three and five officer-cadets. Courses were also set up for propaganda and information, communications, sabotage and motor engineering. Specialized training courses for women covered first aid, liaison, communications, weapons training and sabotage.
How was this ambitious scheme accomplished under the eyes of the Germans? With their highly developed conspiratorial sense, the Poles devised many ingenious stratagems — lessons held in the waiting-rooms of doctors’ surgeries, on farms, in factories, in railway compartments. From 1941 to July 1944, just before the Uprising, more than 8,500 men and women had attended the officer-training courses.
But General Rowecki’s 1941 plans for a universal and simultaneous uprising in Poland were not final. In a series of letters to Sikorski they were much elaborated during the next two years, as a result of the changing pattern of war in the west and east, and the unexpected likelihood that the Soviets, not the British and Americans, would liberate Poland.
From December 1941 onwards the war had changed greatly in character. Pearl Harbor, 7 December, brought in the United States. In May 1942, the RAF, starting their major air offensive against Germany, hit Ruhr industrial targets with massive blows. From August onwards the US 8th Air Force struck at airfields, aircraft factories and fuel plants in Germany. The Wehrmacht was tied down in Russia, and in the second half of the year lost the decisive battle of Stalingrad, while Anglo-American armies invaded North Africa.
In Poland the former slender hopes of an uprising grew real. General Sikorski in London and General Rowecki in Warsaw began to plan their strategy more precisely. Sikorski forecast that owing to climatic conditions and their stretched lines of communication the Germans would be fought to a standstill in the depths of Russia. When Germany was clearly exhausted by war with Russia and the Anglo-American bombardments, the Allies would land in France. As the Allied armies neared the Rhine, Hitler would begin to transfer reserves from east to west and at that moment the Polish and all other resistance movements in Europe should rise.
Sikorski’s vision of the future development of the war in Russia became the foundation for all subsequent Home Army rising plans. The zero-hour decision for it was left to General Rowecki, who would presumably know the best moment. The Uprising would begin by the complete destruction of all road and rail links along which the Germans would be starting to travel from east to west across Poland, so as to stop all but small numbers from reaching Germany. Thus the Allies, Sikorski argued, would more easily be able to take control, and the Soviets, heavily involved in fighting the Germans in the east, would, it was hoped, be excluded. Simultaneously, the Home Army would rise and take Central Poland, then liberate first the eastern and then the western regions, forming for the purpose larger infantry or cavalry units. But aid from Polish airborne units stationed in England could not be relied upon, Sikorski warned.
Rowecki worked out in 1942 two preparatory stages: readiness and alarm, which were part of the general plan. He wrote:[26]
Expecting the impending outbreak, I shall order a state of readiness. This period can last from four days after the rising to two weeks, and it can be cancelled. In this state of readiness all soldiers must remain in the locality of their unit, being ready to move towards their objective four hours after the issuing of the alarm. During this period all commanders must set in motion their communications network and review the readiness and organization of all units under their command.
The state of alarm I shall order by radio over the whole area in a special code. It will last 48 hours and will end automatically with the outbreak of hostilities.
This period is ordered for the uncovering and distribution of
arms, and the movement of units to take up their battle order. All this must be completed within 48 hours, so that commanders are ready to begin operations within the six hours immediately following. The exact hour of the outbreak will be given in the orders. All activities carried out during these two periods must be kept strictly hidden from the enemy, so that the maximum of surprise can be obtained.
Despite the ‘two enemies doctrine’, and the growing friction with Russia over Stalin’s demand for vast areas of eastern Poland, Sikorski still insisted on planning military action against the Germans only. In a message to Rowecki on 28 November 1942[27] he ordered: ‘The Home Army Commander will treat the Red Army as an ally and will not allow any operation against it. He will demonstrate the Polish claim to its pre-war territories by fighting the Germans there, by mobilizing all the armed forces there and by setting up the administrative network.’
Sikorski knew that the Soviets would resist the setting up of a Polish administration in the disputed areas between Poland and Russia, but he hoped to convince them before that of the rights of the Polish case. ‘Maybe the Polish Government, with British and American support, will eventually induce the Soviet Government to recognize our rights in the East…’ he told Rowecki in his message of 28 November[28], adding that in the event of the Red Army entering Poland in pursuit of the Germans the Home Army should mobilize and come into the open.
Its strength should be as big as possible, and it should emphasize its sovereign status and its positive attitude to Soviet Russia. I pave the way for such an action of the Army and of the Home country in the international field; for that is where a decision of a political nature will settle our frontiers. It is also imperative that… the military organizations in particular present their totally united front, and that Communist influence does not prevail among them. Whether or not Stalin and the Soviets knew it, Sikorski was their number one enemy, a wolf in sheep’s clothing who endlessly tried to alert Roosevelt and Churchill to the dangers of the spread of Communism to the West. But the last thing he wanted on the threshold of Poland’s freedom was to involve her in a fruitless conflict with Russia. Sikorski had learned the lessons of Polish history.