Operation Wilno

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Operation Wilno
Part of Polish-Soviet War

Polish army enters Wilno, 1919
Date early 1919
Location near Wilno
Result Polish victory
Combatants
Poland Bolshevist Russia
Commanders
Józef Piłsudski
Władysław Belina-Prażmowski
Edward Rydz-Śmigły		 Unknown
Strength
9 cavalry squadrons
3 infantry battalions
artillery support
local population		 Unknown
Casualties
Unknown Unknown
Polish-Soviet War
Target Vistula – Bereza Kartuska – Wilno – Minsk – Daugavpils – Koziatyn – Kiev – Volodarka – Mironówka – Olszanica – Żywotów – Miedwiedówka – Dziunków – Wasylkowce – Bystrzyk – Nowochwastów – Berezno – Spiczyniec – Boryspol – Zazime – Puchówka – Okuniew – Spiczyn – Lwów – Berezina – Nasielsk – Serock – Radzymin – Zadwórze – Warsaw – Komarów – Niemen – Zboiska – 2nd Minsk

Operation Wilno refers to the Polish offensive and capture of Wilno (Vilnius) during the first year of the Polish-Bolshevik War.

Contents

[edit] Prelude

Bolsheviks, while at that time publicly supporting the case of Polish independence, supported communist agitators working against the government of the Second Polish Republic, and considered the eastern borders of any Polish state to be similar to those of the Congress Kingdom; Poles in turn saw their borders lying much further east, as they were during the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[Davies, p.30]

In the first weeks of 1919, following the retreat of the German troops of Ober-Ost under Max Hoffmann, the city of Wilno (now Vilnius) found itself in a power vacuum; it promptly became the place of struggle between various factions and underwent two revolutions. On 1 January a group of Polish officers led by generals Władyslaw Wejtko and Mokrzycki took control of the city, establishing a 'Samoobrona' (Self-Defence) temporary government. Their aim was to defeat another faction active within the city, the communist 'Workers' Council', which was plotting to seize the city.[Davies, p.25] 'Samoobrona' rule did not last long. On 5 January the Polish forces were forced to retreat when the Russian Western Army marched in from Smolensk to support the local communists as part of their westward offensive.[Davies, p.25-26] It became part of the Lithuanian SSR and soon the capital of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was proclaimed in the city on 27 February 1919. Lit-Byel became the eighth government to control the city in two years.[Davies, p.48] The short period during which the Lithuanian SSR and Lit-Byel were in control of the city was very eventful, as the new communist government turned Wilno into a social experiment, testing various solutions on the city's inhabitants.[Davies, p.48-49][1] The Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, a native of Wilno, decided that regaining control over the city - whose population was mostly composed of Poles and Polish Jews[2] - should become one of the priorities of the reborn Polish state.[Davies, p.48, 53-54]

[edit] The battle

Piłsudski arrived at the front near Lida on 15 April, bringing reinforcements from Warsaw. His plan calling for exploitation of the gap in Soviet lines between Wilno and Lida, and advance towards Wilno using the road and railway. Amidsts diversionary attacks, diverting Russian attention from the main Polish thrust towards Wilno, Polish forces attacked on dawn of 16 April.[Davies, p.49]

The forces moving on Wilno included the cavalry group of Colonel Władysław Belina-Prażmowski (nine squadrons supported by a light battery of horse artillery, ~800 soldiers), and infantry under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły (three battalions of the Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division with two batteries of heavy artillery, ~2,500 soldiers).[Davies, p.49]

The diversionary attacks went well, with Soviet forces acting under the impression that Poles had other targets than Wilno. Despite the attacks being planned as diversionary, they succeeded themselves, with generał Józef Adam Lasocki taking Lida in two days, and generał Stefan Mokrzycki taking Nowogrodek in four three and Baranowicze in four days.[Davies, p.49]

On 18 April Col. Belina decided to use the element of surprise and move into Wilno without waiting for the slower infantry units. On 19 April the cavalry charged into the suburbs, spread panic among the confused garrison, seized the train and sent it down the line to collect infantry. By the evening of 19 April half of Wilno was in Polish control. With support of the city's predominantly Polish population, by 21 April the city was in Polish hands. Piłsudski himself reached Wilno that day. [Davies, p.50]

[edit] Aftermath

When Piłsudski entered the city, a victory parade was held in his honor. The Polish citizens of Wilno on the whole were delighted; their politicians envisaged a separate Lithuanian state closely allied with Poland; the Jewish population, the only other sizable community in Wilno, also welcomed the Polish government. Representatives from the city immediately were sent to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, and the University of Wilno; closed after the November Uprising in 1832, was reopened.[Davies, p.53-54]

Acting according to his principles of creating the 'Międzymorze' federation, Piłsduski on April 22 issued a statement of his political intentions, the 'Proclamation to the inhabitants of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania'; promising 'elections [which will] take place on the basis of secret, universal, and direct voting, without distinction between sexes' and to 'create an opportunity for settling your nationality problems and religious affairs in a manner that you yourself will determine, without an sort of force or pressure of Poland'.[Davies, p.51]

The Polish victory angered the Bolsheviks; dozens of people connected with Lit-Byel were arrested, some were executed (Davies cites a death toll of 65 under Polish rule, and 2,000 under the 1920 brief Soviet reoccupation [Davies, p.240]); the former leaders of Lit-Byel began accusing one another of being responsible for the loss of their capital. Lenin considered the city vital to his plans, and ordered its immediate recapture. This set the stage for the further escalation of the Polish conflicts with Soviet Russia and with Lithuania.(p.51-53)

Despite Wilno's population consisting mostly of Poles, the Lithuanian nationalist government in Kaunas, which viewed Wilno - or Vilnius - as the traditional capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, saw the Polish victory as a simple occupation. Relations between the Polish and Lithuanian governments, which would not be able to reach a compromise on Wilno, would continue to worsen, destroying Piłsudski's plan for 'Międzymorze' and leading to open hostilities during the Polish-Lithuanian War.[Daves, p.57]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Davies, Norman, White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.)
  • Adam Przybylski, 1928, Poland in the Fight for its Borders, April – July 1919 - this chapter contains an account of the battle, mostly identical with the one presented by Davies
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