Battle of Zadwórze (sometimes referred to as the "Polish

Thermopylae Thermopylae (; Ancient Greek and Katharevousa: (''Thermopylai'') , Demotic Greek (Greek): , (''Thermopyles'') ; "hot gates") is a place in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity. It derives its name from its hot sulphur ...

") was a battle of the Polish-Soviet War. It was fought on 17 August 1920, near the railway station of , a small village located 33 kilometres from the city centre of

Lwów Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

(now Lviv). The battle, lasting roughly 24 hours, resulted in the complete destruction of the Polish forces but at the same time halted the Soviet advance, preventing the forces of Siemion Budionnyi from seizing Lwów and so contributing to the successful defence of Warsaw. The battle has been called a

Polish Thermopylae The Polish Thermopylae is a name used to refer to several battles in Polish history. The Polish Thermopylae is a reference to the Battle of Thermopylae, where a Spartan force chose to fight to the death while vastly outnumbered. Famous last sta ...

History

Eve of the battle

By mid-August 1920, the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

broke all Polish lines of defense and was marching towards

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. The Polish headquarters prepared a plan to counter-attack the Red Army on its left flank from the Wieprz River area, in what became known as the Battle of Warsaw. To gather enough forces for the offensive, Gen.

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Naczelnik państwa, Chief of State (1918–1922) and Marshal of Poland, First Marshal of Second Polish Republic, Poland (from 1920). He was ...

, Polish Commander in Chief, ordered all available units to move to the Wieprz area and withdrew a number of formations from the Polish Southern Front, leaving only two-and-a-half infantry divisions to oppose the 12th Red Army and Budyonny's cavalry. The city of

was left with merely token forces defending the Upper

Bug River uk, Західний Буг be, Захо́дні Буг , name_etymology = , image = Wyszkow_Bug.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = Bug River in the vicinity of Wyszków, Poland , map = Vi ...

line against three Russian armies ( 9th,

13th In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The interval can be also described as a compound sixth, spanning an octave pl ...

and 14th). After several days of heavy fighting, the

1st Cavalry Army __NOTOC__ The 1st Cavalry Army (russian: Первая конная армия, Pervaya konnaya armiya) was a prominent Red Army military formation. It was also known as "Budyonny's Cavalry Army" or simply as ''Konarmia'' (Кона́рмия, "Horse ...

under Siemion Budionnyi broke through Polish lines of defense and started its march towards Lwów. The civilian inhabitants of the city started to organize resistance and build field fortifications, anticipating a long siege. Several thousand civilians, mostly students and veterans of the 1918 Battle of Lwów, volunteered for the self-defense units. Ill-equipped detachments were sent towards the front line and fought in several battles (among them battles of Kamionka Strumiłłowa, Ruda Siedlecka, Chodaczków, Krasne, Busko, Biłka Szlachecka, Kurowice, Streptów, Zuchorzyce and Laszki Królewskie), but were unable to stop numerically and technologically superior forces of the

Battle

Among the volunteer units organized in Lwów was a group of soldiers of Major (later a general) Roman Abraham. On the morning of 16 August the 1st battalion of the was sent from Lwów towards the village of Nowosiółki (east of the town of Krasne) in order to help the endangered units formed by Roman Abraham. Upon its arrival, the battalion found the town occupied by the

and recaptured it. However, the following day it was endangered by encirclement and was ordered to withdraw towards Lwów. In the morning of 17 August it was taken by surprise near a train station in the village of Zadwórze and was completely destroyed by forces of the Red 6th Cavalry Division of the

. All Polish soldiers, approximately 200, were killed or missing. At the same time, a battalion of approximately 500 volunteers organized by Roman Abraham under command of Captain Bolesław Zajączkowski was marching from Krasne along the

Tarnopol Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Ternopi ...

railroad. On 17 August, shortly before noon, when the group reached the village of Kutkorz it was attacked with

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

fire from the nearby village of Zadwórze. Capt. Zajączkowski ordered his men to form a line and started an assault towards the village. After a short fight, 330 Poles captured the train station. However, the village was not taken and soon the Polish forces were counter-attacked by units of the 6th Cavalry Division. By dusk, the Poles' ammunition was almost completely depleted, yet the Polish unit managed to repel six consecutive cavalry charges. Captain Zajączkowski decided that further defense of the station was impossible and ordered his units to retreat towards Lwów. However, the retreat was halted by three Bolshevik airplanes strafing the Polish defenders. After suffering heavy casualties, Zajączkowski ordered his men to organize a last pocket of resistance near the lineman's hut. After hand-to-hand combat with sabers and bayonets, the Polish resistance was broken. Out of 330 Polish soldiers who seized the train station earlier that day, 318 were dead. Several dozen wounded Poles were captured by the Red Army and are assumed murdered. Captain Zajączkowski himself committed suicide in order not to be captured by the enemy. Only twelve Polish soldiers returned to the Polish lines to recount what had happened during the battle.

Aftermath

The battle was a disaster for the Polish forces defending Zadwórze, in effect they were almost annihilated. However, the 11-hour-long fight halted the advance of the whole 6th Cavalry Division for almost 24 hours. This allowed for the strengthening of the defences of Lwów. In addition, because of the defense of Zadwórze, the

of Siemion Budionnyi could not reach the forces fighting in the Battle of Warsaw and attack the undefended right flank of the forces of

advancing towards the rear of the Red Army forces around

. When the forces of Budionnyi finally regrouped and restarted their march northwards, it was already too late and the Battle of Warsaw ended with a complete defeat of the

. The 1st Cavalry Army was later defeated in a Battle of Komarów, which became known as "the biggest cavalry battle since the 18th century."

Remembrance

Because of the heroic defense and high casualties, the battle of Zadwórze was nicknamed the "Polish Battle of Thermopylae". Among the Polish soldiers killed in the battle was 19-year-old , a student of the 7th course of primary school and a veteran of the 1918 defence of Lwów, for which he was awarded with

Virtuti Militari The War Order of Virtuti Militari (Latin: ''"For Military Virtue"'', pl, Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari) is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war. It was created in 1792 by Polish King St ...

and

Krzyż Walecznych The Cross of Valour ( pl, Krzyż Walecznych) is a Polish military decoration. It was first introduced by the Council of National Defense on 11 August 1920. It is awarded to an individual who "has demonstrated deeds of valour and courage on the fi ...

. His body was never found. He was depicted on a 20-zlytoch coin released by Poland to commemorate the battle. In 1925 when the authorities of

and the commanders of the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stre ...

decided to build a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, his mother Jadwiga Zarugiewiczowa was chosen as the person to select the coffin to be transported to Warsaw and buried in the grave.

History

Eve of the battle

Battle

Aftermath

Remembrance

See also

Related reading