September 1 1939-2024

 Salvete Omnes,

Sunday, end of the summer really, and again, as  every year from 1939,  our Polish people around the world remember the German armies invasion of II Polish Republic - with about 50,000 Slovak troops invading along the Wehrmacht in the Carpathians valleys and mountains.

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betrayed by UK and France

Jewish Polish citizens were not yet facing genocide,and Polish state was hopeful that allies will come to aid   

Polish army had very few armored units, very weak air force, some small navy, but very motivated officers and NCOs.

city of Lwow, besieged by the Germans, surrendered to the Soviet Red Army - semper fidelis. Given by Stalin to Soviet Ukraine in 1945, now in Ukraine, devoid of Poles, It is where the center for the neoBanderite movement has been centered.

The most cultured nation in Europe eg the Germans, started the invasion by bombing undefended and free of military targets Polish cities:

on Sept 1,1939 they bombed Wielun.

bombed Frampol

Westerplatte - Polish military strongpoint in Free City of Gdansk, with a Polish army  skeleton crew defended themselves for 7 days - under the actual command of captain Franciszek Dabrowski. Polish writer Jacek Komuda wrote a fine historical fiction account of this heroic defense.

Also Warsaw, attacked since Sept 8 1939 by the ground German forces, was bombed from Sept 1 multiple time, causing the capital to suffer thousands of dead, wounded and destruction of buildings and infrastructure.. 

This day marks the beginning of the most terrible period of calamity & mayhem for Polish Nation during the XX century, terminated with the Burza Plan 'uprisings' and destruction of Warszawa during the 1944 uprising. The Polish ruling elites, of the Pilsudski's junta in power since 1926,  failed in their duty to protect the Nation. I guess nothing new then, like nothing new nowadays. 

Germans and Slovaks started the war by murdering Polish prisoners of war, executing Polish civilians, like in Bydgoszcz,  Upper Silesia eg Katowice, and destroying Polish property. Germany deployed special  8 mobile killing units -  Einsatzkommandos -  that begun murder and rapine from day one.

In Ciepielow they murdered 300 Polish soldiers - prisoners of war

Piasnica or Piasnica Forests were to became graveyard to thousands of Polish citizens from northern and western Poland, and Poles of Polish minority from Nazi Germany, equaling or surpassing the Katyn Forest Massacre carried by the Soviets Union in 1940.

Majority of the German minority in Poland aided and abetted the invaders - attacking Polish troops and provided intelligence to the German invaders.

Ukrainian nationalists of OUN attacked Polish army units and Polish population in southern and south-eastern Poland from Sept 1, and caused countless deaths, loss of military personnel and equipment, burned villages and towns, causing diversion in favor of the invading Germans .

And on Sept 17, 1939 the final coup was to come - the Soviet invasion of Poland, based on the treaty Hitler and Stalin made (known as Ribbentrop-Molotov) -  the Polish central command folded (they had no bloody plan to defend the country to speak of), the commander-en-chief marshal Smigly-Rydz abandoned his troops and crossed the border with his staff officers and families into Romania on Sept 17, 1939 - and some 30 thousand Polish troops. Along with him the president of Poland, Moscicki - really a figurehead as the country was ruled by the colonels' 'junta,' crossed the same border (known as Zaleszczyki crossing, but actually in Kuty). Famous Polish writer Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz, NCO of the Polish army, was killed by the Red Army near Kuty on Sept 20, 1939, being part of the Romanian corridor defense organized by the Polish army elements.

Pacem Aeternam to all fallen - 

valete

Polish Army Day - a millennium of defending the realm

 Salvete Omnes,

so  this day, August 15 is the Polish Army Day (Feast of the Soldiers) - the date is also the Feast of Assumption of Mary. 
So for more than millennium Polish warriors, knights and soldiers, mostly peasants led by their noble lords and officers defended the Polish lands.
This particular August date  commemorates the battle of Warsaw, AD 1920, when the Red Army Juggernaut of an  offensive was broken and eventually rolled back into the Red Russian lands (although there are many disagreements and disputes on why the leadership did not help White Russians finish off the Bolshevik rule and restore Russia from the communist monstrosity), thus preserving the newly restituted Polish state. 
The battle is important to the XX i XXI century modern Polish state ideology and politics, but we have had many battles equally important and momentous in our millennium long history. But be what it may, at least the holiday falls in the summer month, when the weather is warm and sunny. 

Hail to the defenders - and may war never return to the Polish lands

and along with the text I am including some photos of the Polish cavalry drummers of the mounted musicians platoon from the 1 pulk szwolezerow (1st chevau-leger regiment) of the 2nd Republic -  Polish names for these musician-soldiers were 'kotlista'(modern) and old 'pauker, paukier, pałkier, & pałkierz,  '

during the pre-partition Poland - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Crown of Poland - the mounted drummers were part of the cavalry units and were very colorful, while playing an important role of signaling and providing psychological support to the fighting troops.

and although the Napoleonic 1st Polish chevau-legers of the Guard were not part of the Polish army, their splendid uniforms and short but illustrious history merits to have them included here - painted by Bronislaw Gembarzewskie (great historian and illustrator, another victim of the Nazi German genocidal policies in occupied Poland)

Valete

Polish Cavalry Trumpeters - interwar period I

 Salvete Omnes,

a short summer entry - Polish cavalry trumpeters from 1930 in the lenses of Narcyz Witczak-Witaczynski, nota bene tortured by German gestapo at Pawiak German prison and eventually murdered by the Germans at the KL Majdanek  (concentration camp) in March 1943.

Today the cavalry trumpeters of the 1st szwolezer (chevau-leger ) regiment - famous for the 1918-20 wars for independence, and for bravery and heroism during the 1939 campaign.

note that the Polish cavalry arm of the Polish army, organized from nothing in 1918, developed training, uniforms, weapons, and especially for this blog theme their own saddles for soldiers and officers and horse tack during the 1920s and 1930s, encouraged  horse breeding and remount service(my great grandfathers bred horses for Polish cavalry)  and training centers (Grudziadz) for the cavalry regiments and horse artillery etc - it was all short of miraculous, I think.
The invasion of Nazi Germany with allies along along the Soviet Union occupation after 17th September 1939, and the partition of occupied Poland between Germany and Soviet Union 1939-41, and the later war in the east 1941-45 ended Polish equestrian & cavalry traditions in Polish lands. And the Communist goverment extinguished any cavalry regiments and traditions within the Polish Army 1949-89, in the late 1940s, after the end of World War II.  

Valete.