(Fot. https://www.google.com/search?q=czechos%C5%82owacja+1939&client=firefox-b-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwja64G_r__rAhXUT8AKHTX7ARwQ_AUoAXoECAsQAw&biw=1408&bih=637#imgrc=CH7KrHGiJZ2X7M&imgdii=4tljUQytIIesoM)
The actions of Russia, whose hand has been reaching even further in recent years: Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Donbass, Armenia, the Black Sea, Syria, Libya, begins to concern our immediate security area – between Brest and the Smolensk Gate.
About 200 km in a flat and quite well-connected area is shockingly close compared to traveling by car to Wrocław, Kraków, Gdańsk or Warmia, where I often drive.
To put it bluntly: there is a fundamental difference if Russian combat units, including in particular the 1st Guards Tank Army, were stationed in Belarus, the territory of which would fall under Moscow’s rule. The last weeks of the debate in Poland were as shocking as my impression of the pace of getting to Warsaw from Brest. But for another reason: misunderstanding the difference between whether the Russian troops are stationed with all the necessary heavy logistics unit in Belarus (which is what I am afraid of and which is why I am writing this text), or whether they would only “rotate into” allied maneuvers and be “stuck” in air defence system or long-range reconnaissance, as was the case so far, or elements of command.
Regardless of the scale of the threat of long-range missile strikes, which dominated the Polish public debate by relativising the significance of Belarusian territory in the event of a land war on NATO’s eastern flank, Belarus is a deadly threat to Poland under Russian military control. It will force us to change the posture of our force and change the contingency planning, not to mention that it should also change the force modernisation plans.
In the interwar period, until the fall of Czechoslovakia, the Germans could seriously attack Poland only from West Pomerania. Only this area offered strategic depth and a sufficient operational basis, which supported large German units and logistics lines to launch an attack against Poland. East Prussia did not provide such a basis and allowed only an auxiliary strike. Due to the Warta swamps, Brandenburg had a very bad connection with Greater Poland. German Silesia, on the other hand, was flanked by Greater Poland and, above all, by Czechoslovakia, allied with France at the time. Thus, the Germans could not plan to launch a strike for Poland from there, fearing a Czechoslovak intervention or the preventive action of the Polish Army on its rear or wing and being cut off from the German core.
The collapse of Czechoslovakia dramatically changed this state of affairs. Therefore, the Germans could now launch the main attack from both Western Pomerania and Silesia. And they did it, especially the attacks from Silesia on the Łódź Army and then the Prusy Reserve Army opened their way to Warsaw. In addition, they launched an auxiliary strike from East Prussia (from where it was the closest to Warsaw), crossing our defense lines near Mława.
Incidentally, it should be added that the Germans demanded access to Subcarpathia also from Hungary, which after the partition of Czechoslovakia began to neighbour Poland, but Hungary refused to do so, risking Hitler’s anger.
In addition, geopolitical conditions on the eve of the war created a hopeless situation for Poland. Leaving aside the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which made our country only the object of the balance of power game (and not an actor, as we wrongly thought in Warsaw), by analysing the situation of the deadly international game that was beginning with Poland, our leadership concluded that the Polish Army had two military tasks to fulfill, which would translate into the political goals of our government: not to be destroyed west of the Vistula; and thus to continue the fight escalating the situation until the outbreak of a European war with the participation of allied France and Great Britain. In the opinion of our leaders, such an escalation had to end in the defeat of Germany, which was, after all, much weaker in general than the Western powers. In this way, it was calculated to call (as it was believed) Hitler’s bluff, who gave Poland another ultimatum with the aim of subordinating Polish policy to his own.
Paradoxically, the Polish Army performed both tasks. Thus, as a Clausewitzan instrument of policy, it fulfilled the hopes placed in it. It was not routed west of the Vistula, the retreat went smoothly (remember that the officer cadre remembered the great retreats and then great victories of 1920), most of the forces were rebuilding behind the Vistula and San, and at the great Battle of the Bzura, the Armies of Poznań and Pomerania and the persistent defence Warsaw tied up the bulk of German forces.
Of course, only the intervention of our allies was missing, which was rather impossible after the German-Soviet pact, which changed the balance of power in our part of Europe by objectifying Poland (without our noticing it). This is where Beck’s geopolitical calculation failed. September 17 and the entry of Soviet troops into the war finally undermined the hopes and efforts of our army.
It could attack the Baltic states from the vicinity of Pskov and St. Petersburg, but not Poland. It could have threatened to cut our communication line to the Baltic states, but not a full and serious attack on Poland, unless we sent most of our forces across the Niemen and the Daugava Rivers. The Kaliningrad Oblast was even less convenient as an operational base than German East Prussia, and the Russians were rather concerned that we would not have a whim to occupy the Oblast ourselves.
Hence, contrary to popular belief, they did not hold any important forces in Kaliningrad, which was “besieged” from the point of view of the art of war.
In addition, they will be able (and they have done it several times in history) to move between Włodawa and Chełm in the direction of Lublin to Dęblin in the direction of the crossings to the Vistula between Radomka and Pilica. Circumventing Warsaw from the south, as in 1944 and 1945. In violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, they could create another operational line through Chełm, Lublin and Puławy, dispersing our defence effort towards Warsaw.
An auxiliary Russian strike could then emerge from the Kaliningrad Oblast along the Vistula valley, further dispersing our defence efforts on the vast eastern part of the country cut by river barriers of the main Polish rivers: the Vistula, the Bug and the Narew.
Poland’s defence plans will have to be verified. It is too early to say whether a real line of defence could be based only on the Vistula and the suburbs of Warsaw, but historical evidence shows that. The modernisation and Polish war planning would have to be different. In any case, the security status of eastern Poland would be debatable.
Moreover, the evident lack of the ability of Western European states to put themselves in a military position in the event of the Americans leaving for the Atlantic or the Pacific may lead, after Belarus is absorbed by Russia, to a situation where the security status of states in Russia’s neighbourhood and Russian capability and will to project power will be different from that of France, Germany or Spain. In the new game for the balance of power, Western Europeans may behave in such a way that it will not be difficult to believe that they either cannot or do not want to guarantee the unchanged status of Poland, let alone the Baltics.
It’s time to wake up from sleep, so as not to become the object of an increasingly forceful game.
Autor
Jacek Bartosiak
CEO and Founder of Strategy&Future, author of bestselling books.
Strategy&Future
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