How The Poles Saved Civilization, Part II

Crisis Magazine ^ | 5/29/12 | M.D. Aeschliman

[marshmallow]

Among the most momentous events of twentieth-century history is the defeat of the Communist Red Army in the Battle of Warsaw in the summer of 1920, “the miracle on the Vistula,” the subject of Adam Zamoyski’s excellent recent book Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe. In the aftermath of the catastrophic First World War, with its 13 million deaths, the old order in much of Europe collapsed, and though the armistice was concluded in the West on 11 November 1918, eastern Europe, Italy, and the Middle East remained on fire for another five years.

This is the background to T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” finished in Lausanne in 1922, and gives it an apocalyptic quality: “Falling towers/ Jerusalem, Athens Alexandria/ Vienna London/ Unreal” (Part V). Four vast empires collapsed—Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, propelling several hundred million people into conditions of intermittent chaos, starvation, and war. Given the discrediting of nearly all continental European political regimes (and the Ottomans) and the demobilizing of vast numbers of soldiers and their subsequent unemployment and bitterness, Europe was a powder-keg, with fiery instruments everywhere. There were Communist and Fascist strikes, riots, and coups d’etat throughout the continent, including Berlin, Budapest, Munich, and Milan. The Bolsheviks had taken power in Russia in 1917 and defeated their “White” Russian opponents in a bloody civil war over the next three years.

Meanwhile, with the advent of the Americans in the West, the Germans, who had driven the Russians to their knees in the east, precipitating the Bolshevik revolution and Russian withdrawal from the war, were themselves forced into an armistice that became a surrender and led to the fall of the Kaiser.Now, in 1920, the victorious, resurgent Red Army, a hungry horde effectively organized by Leon Trotsky and led by a........

[marshmallow]

Previous thread: How the Poles Saved Civilization, Part I

[Jacquerie]

"Adam Zamoyski’s Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe reminds us of how perennially fragile the status and transmission of even a minimally decent civilization is, of how grievous a deficiency it is that most college graduates in our time know so little about their own era (the century in which they were born), and of how little our vast Western university systems—especially their fad-prone humanities and social-science departments, devoted to nominalist scholarship of diminishing circles of significance and intelligibility—have done to remedy that deficiency."

[blueunicorn6]

Thank-you for posting this.

[Hawthorn]

Fascinating stuff.

But the title really should be, “How the Poles TWICE Saved Civilization — 1683 and 1920.”

[kosciusko51]

This was Part 2. Part 1 on how the Poles saved civilization can be found here.

[kosciusko51]

marshmallow - thanks for posting, I missed your comment on the link to Part 1.

[pierrem15]

In the days leading up the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981, there was a lot of speculation about a combined East German and Soviet invasion of Poland.

An American reporter asked a Polish major off the record what the Polish army would do.

"We would attack the Germans first," was the reply.

"Why?", asked the reporter.

"Business before pleasure," said the officer.

[Robert Drobot]

the title really should be, How the Poles TWICE Saved Civilization — 1683 and 1920.”

Make that THREE times. It was the Poles who saved Europe by cracking the Hitler Enigma Code in 1938.

Poland shared that knowledge with both Britain and France, after which they both back-stabbed Poland ( See How Poles broke Enigma Code ), when Germany attacked Poland.

Then there's the torn out page in the history of backstabbing at the Yalta Betrayal,

The American socialist and the bombastic Brit made Poland bleed from 1945 to 1980 giving the people of Poland to Stalin.

Once again it was Poland who broke itself away from the British induced Soviet enslavement ; freeing themselves without help from their British and French 'friends'.

[Robert Drobot]

Post was intended for you, dear FReeper.

[Robert Drobot]

Post # 8 nwas intended for you, dear FReeper.

[Hawthorn]

>> Make that THREE times. It was the Poles who saved Europe by cracking the Hitler Enigma Code in 1938. <<

Good point. I’ll accept the change in title!

>> Poland shared that knowledge with both Britain and France, after which they both back-stabbed Poland ... when Germany attacked Poland. <<

I don’t follow you. Not at all.

To be sure, Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Daladier clearly stabbed the CZECHS in the back at Munich. A more disgraceful performance can scarcely be found in the annals of European history.

(As it so happens, I was just re-reading Shirer’s account of Munich yesterday, and it almost made me sick to my stomach.)

But by the time Hitler invaded Poland, the Brits and the French had finally come to appreciate the Nazi threat — at which point they rallied fully to Poland’s defense. Trouble is, it was too late.

(And by the way, the Poles themselves weren’t entirely blameless in the Munich affair, since they gladly accepted Hitler’s invitation that they sieze the Tesin/Teschen/Cieszyn district from Czechoslovakia.)

[johngrace]

Thanks! I never knew.

[Mrs. Don-o]

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[Mrs. Don-o]

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[Little Ray]

It should be noted that, while Chamberlain was appeasing the Germans, was also building the RAF and equipping with modern fighters (Hurricanes and Spitfire) and building the radar line that defended the UK during the Battle of Britain. He wasn’t all bad.

[Hawthorn]

>> Chamberlain . . . . wasn’t all bad <<

Well, yeah, no doubt he did a ONE OR TWO good things — maybe just like our current PØTUS.

(Moreover, he probably loved his children — and his dog to boot!)

But if should tell me in all honesty that you can read Shirer’s account of Munich and not get almost totally disgusted, then I’d really be surprised.

[kearnyirish2]

I work with Poles who maintain Pilsudski tried to grab part of the Soviet Union (engaged in its own civil war at the time) to create a “Greater Poland”; they were surprised that the Soviets could fight them off.

France & Britain never defended Poland to the point where they would declare war on the country that invaded Poland from the east (and killed all of those officers in Katyn) - the Soviet Union. In fact, Britain was critical to helping Stalin survive the Nazi onslaught - and in the end Poland was given to Stalin anyway.