Romanian Bridgehead

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Poland (1920-1939). Romania (dark brown) is to the south-east of Poland.

The Romanian Bridgehead (Polish: Przedmoście rumuńskie) was an area in southeastern Poland, now located in Ukraine. During the Polish Defensive War of 1939 (at the start of World War II), on September 14 the Polish Commander in Chief Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły ordered all Polish troops fighting east of Vistula (approximately 20 divisions still retaining cohesion) to withdraw towards Lwów and then to the hills along the borders with Romania and the Soviet Union.

The plan was a fall back plan in case it was impossible to defend Polish borders and assumed that the Polish forces would be able to retreat to the area, organise a successful defence until the winter, and hold out until the promised French offensive on the Western Front started. Rydz-Śmigły predicted that the rough terrain, valleys, Stryj and Dniestr rivers, hills and swamps would provide natural lines of defences against the German advance. The area was also home to many munitions depots (that were prepared for the third wave of Polish troops) and was strongly linked to ports in Romania (Constanţa), which could be used to resupply the Polish troops.

This plan is one of the reasons the Polish-Romanian Alliance was not activated by Poland. Poland and Romania had been allied since 1921 and the defensive pact was still valid in 1939. However, the Polish government decided that it would be much more helpful to have a safe haven in Romania and a safe port of Constanţa that could accept as many Allied merchant ships as required to keep Poland fighting. The Polish Navy and merchant marine were mostly evacuated prior to September 1st; they were to operate from French and British ports and deliver the supplies through Romania.

However, the entry of the Soviets into the war on the German side on September 17 made all those plans obsolete and Polish units were ordered to evacuate Poland and reorganise in France.

Up to 120,000 Polish troops withdrew through the Romanian Bridgehead area to neutral Romania and Hungary. The majority of those troops joined new Polish units in France and the United Kingdom that year and the next. Until the United States entered the war and the attack of Germany on the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), the Polish army was one of the biggest forces of the Allies.^{[citation needed]}

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[edit] References

(Polish) Dariusz Baliszewski, "Most honoru", Tygodnik Wprost, Nr. 1138 (19 September 2004), Polish, retrieved on 24 March 2005
Michael Alfred Peszke, The Polish Underground Army, The Western Allies, And The Failure Of Strategic Unity in World War II, McFarland & Company, 2004, ISBN 0-7864-2009-X, Google Print, pp. 27–32
Wojciech Włodarkiewicz, Przedmoście rumuńskie 1939; Bellona, Warsaw, 2001. ISBN 83-11-09255-9