Inferno - Max Hastings [8]
The Western Allies, heartened by knowledge that Poland boasted the fourth largest army in Europe, anticipated a struggle lasting some months. The defenders deployed 1.3 million men against 1.5 million Germans, with thirty-seven divisions on each side. But the Wehrmacht was far better equipped, having 3,600 armoured vehicles against 750 Polish, 1,929 modern planes against 900 obsolete ones. The Polish army had been progressively deploying since March, but had held back from full mobilisation in response to Anglo-French pleas to avoid provoking Hitler. Thus, on 1 September, the defenders were surprised. A Polish diplomat wrote of his people’s attitude: “They were united in the will to resist, but without any clear idea about the kind of resistance to be offered, apart from a lot of loose talk about volunteering as ‘human torpedoes.’ ”
Ephrahim Blaichman, a sixteen-year-old Jew living in Kamionka, was among thousands of local inhabitants summoned into the town square to be addressed by the mayor: “We sang a Polish hymn declaring that Poland was not yet lost, and another promising that no German would spit in our faces.” Piotr Tarczynkski, a twenty-six-year-old factory clerk, had been ill for some weeks before he was mobilised. But when he informed the commanding officer of his artillery battery that he was ailing, the colonel responded with a brisk patriotic speech, “and told me he was sure that once I found myself in the saddle I would feel much better.” Equipment was so short that the regiment could not issue Tarczynkski with a personal weapon; he did, however, receive a regulation charger, a big horse named Wojak—“Warrior.”
An air force instructor, Witold Urbanowitz, was conducting a mock dogfight with a pupil in the sky over Dęblin when he was bewildered to see holes appearing in his plane’s wings. Landing hastily, he was met by a fellow officer who ran across the field to meet him, exclaiming, “You’re alive, Witold? You’re not hit?” Urbanowitz demanded, “What the hell’s going on?” His comrade said, “You should go to church and light a candle. You were just attacked by a Messerschmitt!” The nakedness of Poland’s defences was everywhere apparent. Fighter pilot Franciszek Kornicki was scrambled twice on 1 and 2 September. On the first occasion he pursued a German plane which easily outpaced him. On the second, when his guns jammed he tried to clear them, roll and renew his attack. As the plane banked steeply, the harness buckles holding him in his open cockpit came undone; he fell into the sky, and found himself making an embarrassed parachute descent.
At 5:00 p.m. near the village of Krojanty, Polish Uhlan cavalrymen received an order to counterattack, to cover the retreat of neighbouring infantry. As they formed line and drew sabres, the adjutant, Captain Godlewski, suggested that they should advance on foot. “Young man,” the regimental commander, Colonel Mastalerz, responded testily, “I’m quite aware what it is like to carry out an impossible order.” Bent low over the necks of their horses, 250 men charged across an open field. German infantrymen fled from their path, but beyond them stood armoured cars, whose machine guns ravaged the Uhlans. Scores of horses crashed to the earth, while others raced away riderless. Within minutes half the attackers were dead, including Colonel Mastalerz. The survivors fell back in confusion, flotsam of an earlier age.
France’s high command had urged the Poles to concentrate their forces behind the three big rivers in the centre of their country, but the Warsaw government deemed it essential instead to defend its entire 900-mile frontier with Germany, not least because