On the anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Vistula, when Polish forces pushed back the Red Army’s western advance in 1920, an historian has said that General Pilsudski might have been a brilliant tactician but he was no long term strategist.
“Pilsudski was a great tactician but rather average as an operational commander,” Prof. Zygmunt Matuszak has told the Tygodnik Powszechny weekly.
General Pilsudski has national hero status in Poland in a similar way to Ataturk has in Turkey. His reputation grew to legendary status after he beat Trotsky’s Red Army in what is sometimes known as the Miracle of the Vistula, a battle which began on August 12, 1920. The defeat of the Soviet army ended Lenin’s dreams of exporting the Bolshevik revolution into western Europe.
Prof. Matuszak, however, claims that Pilsudski, highly competent in the heat of battle, neglected the Polish army in the long term. By 1930, the armed forces had already lagged well behind other European nations in their haste to re-arm, and crucially, behind the German army, constricted as it was by the Treaty of Versailles.
“[Pilsudski] lacked the operational knowledge to manage large units. Pilsudski was not a strategic planner, but made decisions in response to situations arising at the front,” says Matuszak, the author of many works on military history.
The historian added that remained faithful to a conception of war maneuver carried out by infantry and cavalry with artillery support . But he underestimated changes in war planning, particularly the need for aviation support.
A special multimedia exhibition of photos of General Pilsudski has been put on line with at the Central Military Archive. (pg)
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