The sixteen pages’ brochure, Battle of Warsaw 1920, well merits a wide readership. The Polish American Congress National Office in Washington, DC would like to give this brochure to all 535 members of Congress to commemorate the centennial of the Polish victory at Warsaw. In the turbulent aftermath of World War I, Poland and the Poles stopped the Bolsheviks from imposing at bayonet point their murderous tyranny upon Europe.
Mr. Frank J. Dmuchowski is the author of this first-rate brochure published by the Polish American Congress Michigan Division with the following sponsors: Polish American Congress Michigan Division Charitable Foundation, Polish American Federal Credit Union, Polish American Central Citizens Committee, Polish Army Veterans Association District Vl, Polish Mission of Orchard Lake Schools, Polish National Alliance Council 122, Friends of Polish Art, Frank J. Dmuchowski and Zofia Duniec-Dmuchowski, Carl F. Dmuchowskii, Ray Okonski, Richard Walawender, Honorary Consul of Poland, and Brenda Walawender.
The high merit of this brochure is succinctly to explain the terse judgment which General Maxim Weygand wrote in his Memoires: ” the victory was Polish, the plan Polish, the army Polish.” General Weygand was commander of the French Military Mission in Warsaw, which included Commandant Charles de Gaulle who commanded the French heavy horse cavalry, cuirassiers, and who was wounded in the battle.
Poland’s National Assembly voted-up a resolution naming 2020 The Year of Lieutenant Colonel Jan Kowalewski. In the brochure, author Dmuchowski explains that then Lieutenant Kowalewski and the Polish Cypher group broke the Soviet military code in July 1919, and learned how to monitor and jam Soviet military radio communications. This made it possible for Lieutenant Kowalewski to let Marshal Piłsudski know that there was no way for the Red Army Group South, the Mozyr Group, to arrive near Warsaw in time to support the southern flank of the attacking Bolshevik armies approaching Warsaw from the north and east.
This important information led Marshal Piłsudski to disagree with General Weygand’s advice to continue on the defensive. On August 16, Marshal Piłsudski ordered a counterattack from Puławy to roll-up the unprotected southern flank of the Bolshevik troops attacking from the north and east. The counterattack was a complete success. It could not have been launched without cracking the Soviet military code.
Readers of the brochure will also learn the names of four future world leaders who were in Poland at the time of the Polish-Bolshevik War. Moreover, the brochure includes the story of how Jan Ignacy Paderewski helped the young Herbert Hoover when he was a student at Stanford University in California.
The Battle of Warsaw brochure deserves a wide readership. In sixteen short pages, Mr. Frank J. Dmuchowski places the Battle of Warsaw into its historical context and reports important, but often overlooked facts, like future Hollywood film director, Merian C. Cooper, best known for King Kong, who served in the Kościuszko Squadron of American gentleman combat aviators and was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari and Poland’s Cross of Valour by Marshal Piłsudski for his service in the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1919-1920.
by PAC Director of Policy Planning John Czop