My Great Grand father took part in the Battle of Warsaw!

No,Im being reasonable,give the city and its imediate environs back to the Germans,the place needs a good clean up,the rest of it the countries that actualy border the "oblast" can share it,sorry Russia,no bits for you then.

And lol to Poland not having a history of using terror tactics against occupiers...tell that to the various underground groups in ww2(and just after for that matter),tell it to the dead germans in the various bars and cinemas blown up,or the germans or Polish colaberators shot in the street or their homes.....but wait,the afgans often use kids and fight while positioned amongst local civilians,that could never happen in Poland....Warsaw 44 grey ranks etc etc.

If the chips are down any nationality can get down and nasty if thats whats felt to be needed.

I think you're wrong, and anyone who plans to invade Poland, hoping that "Polish spirit
is broken", has a very unpleasant surprise in store for him.

Where did you even get this idea? Polish armies may be broken, our country may be under
occupation, but the spirit and will to fight back were always here, and still are.


Different times, different situation. Today, with the technology available, possibilities
of conducting terroristic warfare are almost endless.


That's another matter. Strong, numerous territorial defence is vital for Poland's safety.

My word ladies and gentlemen, it seems that we have a poet in our midst(:

Do you mean Germans? Is it not the same what Poles did with all there newly granted western part of modern state? And by the way they did it in much large scale. So, most part of present Polis state should be handed over to Germany, if you want to be so fair.


My knowledge in this area is much better than you imagine, or do you still think that Belorussia is independent state? Joking?

But where's the evidence of that? The Polish army doesn't have much experience, the Air Force is a mess, there's no (pardon the phrase) citizen's militia - what hope would Poland have these days? It's no surprise that the politicians are so keen on America - it's Poland's only hope come another invasion.


Oh, the last 200 years of history or so shows that Poland, when occupied, doesn't do well when it comes to kicking the enemy out. One successful uprising in 200 years isn't exactly great statistics, is it?


Sure, but what hope would that be if the enemy decided to wipe out Poles instead of fighting fair?


Indeed. The experience of the Finnish paramilitaries during WWII shows what can be done.

But what was the result of this experience? Do you remember? They were forced to hand over almost entire Karelia and from historical point of view were compelled to accept Russian military base on the islands just across the strait from their capital after WWII

Ah,the fraternity of heroic workers shines once more....mind you,to be fair the Finns had sided with Satan to fight Lucifer...

That is because the occupier just happened to be German and Russian, can you think of a country that would have done a better job under the same circumstances?

Nope. I don't even blame Poland.

What finnish paramilitaries you liar? Learn history, Finnland had a powerfull army with even more powerfull fortifications.

So I guess you discount all the Police and civilian hunters that helped fight the soviets then.
Why so hatefull all the time,relax man,take a few deep breaths,you'll live longer.

Of course i do given that there were no police or civilian hunters that "helped" all the police and civilians who could fight got drafted into the military, they were organised, armed and commanded as soldiers of the finnish army not paramilitary.


I'm relaxed, however when i see an obnoxious anti-polish lying b*tch like Delphia i just feel better dropping a few dung bombs here and there.

As for Poland? Quite a few times it did fantastic, lets not forget that Poland regained its independence in 1918-19 not by international agreement but by its very own show of force/uprising/war effort.

In 1830 Poland challenged Russia in a manner that half way through the war had France and UK completely certain that Poles will defeat Russia and roll over Prussia, the leadership failed true but if Poland showed anything its that it was a dangerous place to occupy and a difficult place to hold, ultimately impossible to keep too.

We could split hairs here for ages,I say there were,you say there were not,ok,fine,but Im with you I think in your main point,the orrganised army did the bulk of the fighting.

And again,no underground force in history has ever overthrown anything without the outside help of a third party nation and its armed forces.

More or less.


Poland did, though to be honest it did so by re-organising its underground forces into an army.

Lets recount what it did.

It defeated Prussian and Ukrainian armies simoultanously, then it defeated Soviet Russia.

Also lets be honest, in 1830 Poland had every chance of stomping Russia face down into the mud, the leadership failed though.

Also South America has multiple examples of rebels overthrowing govts though i'm not sure if these monkeys count, their goverments last as long as a smell of a fart.

Defeated? Nonsense. You hardly managed to save your capital and only because Tukhachevskiy had stretched his lines during rush attack. But anyway by this time you had lost Ukraine and Kiev as immediate result of Soviet actions. It is in Polish tradition to name Warshava battle as miracle, and you know, it was real miracle for Poles.

Well,there again are perfect examples of the need for outside support, apart from military coups(and even those re Chile etc) where the standing army takes over the rest were definatly all backed and supported by external sources.

Not to take anything from Poland in 1919/20 but as you say,this was a force organised into an army and not under occupation conditions,even so this heroic force could have done very little without the outside support it recieved from the "western" powers to fight in proxy the soviets on that front. Remember most of the weapons and even a lot of the uniforms came from Britain,France etc as these nations were fighting the "Reds" on different fronts at the time.

It was organised exactly under occupation conditions, it was organised at the same time everywhere which means that the occupiers found themselves outnumbered and outgunned virtually overnight.

I see where you're going though.


Thats another western myth, apart from the "Blue Army" the West did nothing, Poland won its independence using only domestic resources.

One could of course argue that the Blue Army helped and it did but it was 72.000 men in a force of more than 730.000 so no, not only did Poland regain its independence without western support but it held its shape and form despite western opposition.


No, the correct sentence would be "some weapons" more than 80% of polish arms were those captured from Germans, Russians and Austrians, the only significant injection of western equipment was with the Blue Army which while ceirtanly of some help was neither neccesary nor critical.


Are you talking about the tiny intervention force? Thats hardly helpful and it was not meant to help Poland either, it was meant to help the whites who were enemies of Poland by the way.

How the feck is this a western myth,are you seriously trying to tell me only Poles fought against the Red Army? OMG,say it aint so.....just google russian civil war mate before you spout more selfpitying/gloryfying nonsense.


Thats "capturing" off already surrendered germans,the war was over for them,you know,the REAL war WW1,not one of europes little sideshow conflicts.


quite honestly I dont believe it is a western myth at all,a defination of such would be one that is well known and widely diseminated,frankly,the only book Ive come across in English about the subject is White eagle Red Star ,like it or not,to "the west" the Polish campaigns after WW1 were nothing more than little sideshows in another conflict ,the russian civil war,that not many people know or care to know anything about. We had our own worries back then and some little local conflict somewhere the other side of germany wasnt an issue.

No, i'm trying to tell you that the West did not help Poland in any critical way and that polish independence was achieved without outside help.


Lets rephrase that shall we? Poles took advantage of the russian civil war to establish their armed forces after which they were faced with the bulk of the Red Army and won, no one helped them in any serious way, they helped themselves by picking the right moment and taking full advantage of it.


I do, in every western book about the subject you can read nonsence about how France and UK massively helped Poland, the fact is Poland took its independence by force of arms and the West just "approved" of what was already done by the Poles.


Well the West has repeatedly proven to be a bunch of idiots when thinking in macroscale but i agree to them 1920 war was Polands issue even if Polands loss meant they'd have to start learning russian in Paris, London and Berlin.


By 1920 the Whites were over, Poland had to take on the bulk of the Red Army.

I cant give you that like I can concede some of your other points,maybe we are saying the same thing just from different POV.

I doubt that Russian would have spread as far at that time. Granted germany had a huge communist population but those uprisings had already been put down by 1920,they may have "lost" the first world war(that name really should have been a clue to people back then ;) ) but It can be said pretty certainlly that the germans would have united against the Reds and frankly the occupying powers (british,french US) wouldnt have stood about with their hands in their pockets either. As for getting as far as London,come on,be serious for a minute,communisim was never a serious possibility in the UK,not even during the general strike of '26.

What Poland did was save herself ,no worries there,but Poland saved its self for a 20 year breathing space,it did not save europe from communisim. Did nothing to stop its spread in germany,france,spain....ww2 and creating the iron curtain "saved" some of europe from communisim,thats all.

With communism rife in Germany and France depopulated and exhausted? And with their resources and German/French industries they'd have a fleet within four years, the kind of fleet that'd make Royal Navy surrender by just looking at it.


And do what? They could count on about the same amount of men as Poles did but unlike Poles they'd have milions of communists within their own national ranks, any confrontation in 1920-21 meant instant game over for Germany.


Yes they probably wouldnt, except that by that time they'd be looking at what? Five milion Red Army troops? Neither Germany nor France/UK had juice to continue and US was far away and isolationist as hell.


In case of victory Russia would have a fleet that'd put RN to shame by 1926, the fact is no one could stand up to Russia in a war of attrition and the only reason there was no such war was because Poland laid down the pain so quickly and decisively that any and all motivation for further european conquest vanished for two decades.


Erm yes it did, it stopped the Red Army from spreading it on the tips of their bayonets?

Its all,what ifs,this could go on forever,my point being though that at any time after 1920 western Europe could have turned Red despite anything Poland did,but it didnt,there was always enough nationalism to counter communism.

No, not on account of goverments having enough machineguns to stop it.


Not really, in Germany and France it was just that most of the army remained intact.

Your lost 2 points,forgive me if Im wrong actually run counter to your arguments and back up mine in a lot of ways.
So these intact,more or less armies,of France and germany(forgetting the US occupying force,what remained of the british army and a completly intact Royal navy) would have fallen to the soviet rabble would they? Maybe with a little help from all those machine guns.

Neither was intact in any way whatsoever, France had to resolve most of its troops risking nation wide revolution and Germany had plenty of fight in it except that half of it sided with communists and the economy was gone.

Russia did not need economy to wage war because Russia is Russia, Poland had the only intact army capable of repelling Russia in 1920 which is the whole point.


What US occupying force? America recalled most of its troops except for three cavalry divisions, UK simply dissolved its troops outright to avoid economic collapse.


You mean that rabble that had years and years of experience fighting Germans and each other? That rabble that b*tchslapped the tsarist armies, the expeditionary force, the ukrainian army (which was elite by any standards)?

Sorry but thats again the voice of western bullcrap historiography, the Red Army at that time was an extremely efficient fighting force, thats not the same as being shiny, civilised or simply cool looking but they were efficient.

At the same time the West had no desire or capacity to wage war, not the kind of war the Soviets were waging.


Shooting up your own civilians is easier than shooting up an enemy who fires back.

AAAnnyyhhoooo.
Anyone know where this is in Warsaw,looks familiar but not sure;

My great-Grandfather was Konstanty Dowbor-Musnicki who was older brother of General Jozef Dowbor-Musnicki who fought against the Soviet army in 1918, I was wondering if anybody has any information on Jozef or his daughter, Janina Lewandowska (previously Dowbor-Musnicka) for my dissertation project.

Someone should learn Polish language !

Costi you have made one observation that is so true, that in unity lays strength.

I have to apologies to you all, from short replay I have written rather long post for you and anyone else to chew on.

But it may give some perspective on ‘Polish’ people and explain in humble few words why after 123 years of oppression and forced russification, germanization by peoples akin to yourself we prevail.

What is termed Poland is nothing more then an idea shared by peoples of probably the most diverse ethnic grouping in the Europe that found its expression thorough out history in one or the other form on the map with a tag name of ‘Poland’ attached to it, always has been that way and although to lesser degree it still persist in the minds of the good portion of Polish culture and society.

In ’45 piece of territory oscillating in around traditional lands of Polonia Major and Minor plus anything else that was salvaged from the ruins it had been artificially nationalized by ‘Polish’ and named Poland of Polska Republika Ludowa, PRL, and settled with millions of peoples who considered or simply declared themselves Polish.

Polish are not homogeneous ethnic group rather the opposite, nor are they Slavic after ‘Russian’ fashion.

When Russians occupied eastern territories of Poland in ’39, everyone regardless of background was made “Russian”. (btw – What was or is called Russian today has got nothing to do with the Ruthenians or the inhabitants of Red and White Russia, instead it is an convenient invention by czars to unite bunch of peoples giving them identity national idea under their absolute rule as well as attempting to legitimize their expansion westwards by usurping white and red Russian relation ship and nothing more)

And yet millions of those “liberated” peoples decided to leave your “communist paradise” and the unity and live in the place where this burning Idea was still alive.

For this Idea is at the root of all and everything what man can have, that cannot be ever taken away from him or her even in death and destruction.

You have no conscious knowledge of it or comprehension, it was suppressed and bread out of you for centuries and yet you feel it, long for it, even believe that you are in possession of it, only sometimes it briefly it burns inside that pain you do not understand when you suppress it.

In Poland it is the essence of our consciousness, a cultural rather then ethnical mark that signifies the moment in the our history where mostly different and unrelated tribes (circa 13 judging on the heraldry and historical accounts) living in and about the region of today’s Poland gathered together and united under certain principles that permeate our culture to this day.

It made us very strong, indomitable people who when working together, we can survive everybody and anything that can be dished out at us, today, yesterday or tomorrow even for thousand years if needs be.

And yes as you have implied earlier: It also puts us in disadvantage; sometimes we are quarrelsome with each other, independent and opinionated, arguing about bullshit and hating it, making decisions by debating them, making wrong decision by majority voting, arguing about everything and nothing and barely reaching compromise that no body is satisfied with, most of all complaining about people who complain LoL.

All that fuzz, and the way we go about our business is due to this burning and alive idea in our spirit that is the source of both our weakness and strength, it is the price we pay surrounded peoples like yourself

It made us independent individual human beings (at least some of us), and not merely an automatons and for as long as even just one ‘Pole’ will walk this earth we shell prevail.

The power of this idea is such that it transcendent ethnicity and unites peoples beyond national borders, albeit those who comprehend it and value it are fewer in numbers.

Are we extremely special? Yes and No, it happen before and it happens all over the world, we just had been unfortunate to be surrounded by absolute monarchies that perceived us as a threat (remember it took all three “superpowers” of that time, Civil Wars and massed armies to finally feast on our flesh and become actual superpowers)

I tell you Costi, to truly know something learn different perspectives with open mind.

Btw

My Grandfather as an officer in the rank of Captain in the cavalry fought Bolsheviks since the day one, then in 1920 in Poland after that conspired against the ‘communist’ gangs running the country until 1974 when he died in suspicious circumstances.

Although conservative, he was liberal social democrat :>

So, Nothing is truly black and white, is it not Costi?

I refer to Costi's type narrow mindedness that haunts like disease this world.

You are an intelligent man Costi, use your intelligence, do not let yourself be blinded by stereotyping and demagoguery, dude.