The forgotten Pilsudski?

For many, Pilsudski’s real significance lay in the role he played in halting a Bolshevik conquest of Europe in 1920. The British statesman Lord D’Abernon most dramatically expressed this idea when he referred to the 1920 Polish-Soviet War as one of the eighteen decisive battles of world civilization.  “The history of contemporary civilization knows no event of greater importance than the Battle of Warsaw, 1920″…

In his evaluation of the Polish victory in 1920, historian Norman Davies noted: “Had Pilsudski and Weygand failed to arrest the triumphant advance of the Soviet Army at the Battle of Warsaw, not only would Christianity have experienced a dangerous reverse, but the very existence of Western civilization would have been imperiled.”  And in the field of military history, the plan that Pilsudski and Rozwadowski devised for the Battle of Warsaw is counted among the twenty-five wars in world history revealing “tactical genius in battle.”

That is from the new and very useful book Jozef Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland, by Joshua D. Zimmerman.  Here is Wikipedia on the Polish-Soviet War.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed