Poland, the little nation that could… do what exactly? Get occupied? Get half it’s population killed?Have the country literally migrate west? While the average Polish soldier was certainly brave, WWII is unlikely to be remembered as Polands greatest hour.
Better yet, Britain and France should have resisted Hitler before 1939. Stalin asked for a Triple Alliance with the West, was rebuffed, and finally agreed to a pact with Hitler only in late August 1939.
Of course Poland still gets screwed in scenarios where a triple alliance invades Germany early – but screwed by Soviet armies occupying Poland en route to Germany.
There was a thread about this in GQ a while back, Bartman’s post there was particularly informative on the problem Poland faced:
[Quote=greenslime1951]
Blitzkrieg was much more effective from a psychological than a military standpoint. In Poland, the leading edge of tanks was very thin; the Wehrmacht was primarily a horse-drawn and footsoldier army at that point. The reason blitzkrieg succeeded in Poland relates to the proper tactics against it. What an army should do against a blitzkrieging foe is prepare “defenses in depth.” The inital, counterintuitive reaction to a blitzkrieg attack should be not to oppose it head-on, but to step aside, to delay it, much as a jiu-jitsu fighter deals with a direct blow. The Poles, however, insisted on setting up a forward defense and because their tactical doctrine was drawn from nineteenth-century cavalry practices, they didn’t voluntarily yield ground or retreat, even when it would have been prudent to do so.
[/quote]
Falling back to establish a defended line based on the confluence of the Wisla, Bzura and Wurta Rivers (this map clearly shows how Poland was surrounded on three sides by Germany) was probably their best bet for prolonging the fight, but as **Bartman **noted this would have meant abandoning the most populated, industrialized, and resource rich regions to the Germans from the start, something that was politically unacceptable.
Just missed the edit, but:
ETA: Oh, and to note there was nothing 19th century about Polish cavalry doctrine. The Polish cavalry brigades were slowly in the process of upgrading to mechanized brigades, they trained in mobile operations and tactical retreats, had a greater allotment of anti-tank guns than infantry formations of similiar size, and when foot bound infantry divisions were frequently overrun by the Germans the cavalry brigades were able to break contact and avoid being overrun due to thier superior mobility.
The Polish Army Signals Dept. was the first Western intelligence agency to crack the German “Enigma” coding scheme-were they able to read Wehrmacht communications in 1939? Had they had better intelligence, they (the Poles) might have deployed their forces more effectively. And the Polish Airforce-while overwhelmed, they did have modern “Elk” high speed (for 1939) bombers-why weren’t they employed to greater effect?
The little nation that stood. The nation that didn’t surrender, no matter what the odds. The nation that fought two massive powers surrounded on opposite fronts because they were invaded and didn’t quit even facing insurmountable odds even after they were over ran. The nation that sponsored some of the best fighting men in the war even though through most of it they were subordinated to foreign command and foreign interest.
As a nation they have more to hang their hat on than many in that war.
Because I am a gentleman, I will only declare you are uninformed. Sir.
They were once a great empire on their own and they escaped the plague. That should be enough.
The Poles were also the first to crack the Enigma (and shared their progress with the British and French in 1932); unfortunately in 1938 and 1939 the Germans improved the Enigma by adding more rotors and plugboard connections. Despite this, [
](Cipher Bureau (Poland) - Wikipedia)
Unfortunately for the Poles their strategy largely relied on the British and French not only honouring their commitment to declare war, which to Adolf’s surprise they did, but also actually lifting a finger to help out their nominal allies…not so much. They also failed to anticipate the Soviet invasion, which really shafted them since they would eventually get stuck with Soviet control anyway.
I remember one of the jokesI had heard in my youth that struck me as extremely funny: “What is the shortest book in the world? ‘Polish War Heroes.’”
I was easily entertained in my youth.
A lot of people in France and the U.K. would have begged to differ. The contributions of Polish airmen to the Battle of Britain were highly appreciated:
“Polish flying skills were well-developed from the Invasion of Poland and the pilots were regarded as fearless and sometimes bordering on reckless. Their success rates were very high in comparison to the less-experienced British Commonwealth pilots. The 303 squadron became the most efficient RAF fighter unit at that time.”
Why does the new Italian navy have glass-bottom boats?
The Poles(and Hungary and Romania) joined with Germany to dismember Czechoslovakia in 1938.
I bet that was awkward after the war.
The book would begin with this guy.