History /
Tuchola in Poland - roots of Katyn? [220]
There was no miracle at vistula, it was a strategic and tactical victory planned and carried out, a miracle implies divine deliverance while Poles kicked the sh*t out of Russians through superior tactics, strategy, intel and higher morale of the common soldier.
Perhaps your countrymen should have been more aware of this fact afterwards. The fact that it's even called "The Miracle at the Vistula" says a lot.
I don't disagree with it, I don't see any "miracle" - I see an overconfident Red Army which got it all wrong - along with a Polish army which got it right exactly when they needed to. A perfect storm, perhaps. Either way, it was a great victory - probably one of the more underappreciated victories in European history, but still one that's worthy of respect.
But - I don't think the devoutly Catholic population of Poland in the 1920's saw it for what it was, instead choosing to believe divine intervention. And that was fatal.
Also i stress how anti-polish you are you little arrogant twat, at which point was Poland overconfident?
It's not hard to see that Poland had a high opinion of her army in the 20's and 30's. The same army was more or less routed within days by the German one - so that says "overconfidence" to me.
And its quite clear that you approve of it and admire it you little bastard.
Approve? On a military level, it was fair game. I don't buy all the nonsense about "humane treatment of prisoners" and so on - war is war, and it should be won by any means necessary. If you need to murder 22,000 of the best to psychologically damage the country, then so be it.
On a personal, ethical level, it was disgusting. There was absolutely no need to murder those people - detention in Siberia would have been enough.
Anyway, in Poland it is not considered a military action.
Fair enough. Either way, it was a hell of a war crime.
delph, what are you trying to prove. What's so exceptionally smart in murdering people so that they can't spend the rest of the war in the POW camp? How ingenuous it is? Nobody ever tried this brilliant idea before?
The smart part was the whole process. Not only was it used to symbolically knock the stuffing out of Poland, but then it was used repeatedly to hurt the Poles even more in the decades to come.
But of course it was tried before - the Americans did quite a bit of it with the Indians, and the Spanish weren't adverse to it either.
Is it? You think murdering Poles by Russians was such a novelty? Never heard of before in Poland? You really seem to think that Katyn was the greatest Soviet crime ever.
It was the crime that Poles obsess about to this day - so as far as I can see, the general population does indeed regard it as the greatest Soviet crime ever. Perhaps historians can argue about it, but in terms of sheer psychological harm - Katyn wins. Smolensk just added to that.
Wrong perspective, delph, totally. What really hurt was the Western Treason. We never expected anything good from the East, and especially after the reds took over.
The whole "Western Betrayal" thing is interesting, because the Communist propoganda was responsible for really hammering it home. Anyway, Poland should have known better than to rely on allies who were located nowhere near them and had no realistic way of getting to them. Their problem, ultimately.
You really consider Poland a backward country. What is the actual result of Poland losing those 20 thousand people, that can be felt until today?
The actual result? Perhaps look at the way that Poland is quite literally obsessed with Katyn. The same obsession isn't there with Bandera, despite him managing to even out-do the Soviets when it came to unrestrained brutality.
You say Poland should just roll over in 1920, to avoid the subsequent humiliation?
No. What Poland should have done was pour what little money there was into ensuring that every man and woman in Poland was capable of fighting a guerilla war against any invader. They should have also formed alliances with Czechoslovakia and Lithuania, and crucially, looked after the Ukrainian minority properly. Poland in this circumstance would have been far more equipped to fight Germany - especially if the doctrine called for the murder of any German in Poland during war.
But - I appreciate that the nationalist 20's/30's would have prevented any sort of sensible process like this. Was hardly unique to Poland, though.
Polish archives are open. The British ones are not.
No surprise there.
