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Military History Now†@MilHistNowOn this day in 1920, Poland's beleaguered army makes a desperate final stand against the invading Bolsheviks at the gates of Warsaw. Their astounding victory, which ends the Soviet conquest of Europe, will become known as the Miracle on the Vistula.
Miracle on the VistulaBy Thomas FlemingAutumn 2017 • MHQ MagazineJózef Piłsudski saved Poland by handing the Red Army one of its greatest defeats ever. IN EARLY 1920, IN THE WAKE OF WORLD WAR I, Europe was desolate and bankrupt. President Woodrow Wilson’s attempt to insert the United States into international affairs as a leader and defender of democracy had ended in disaster for him and his party. Unable to persuade a Republican-controlled Congress to sign the Versailles peace treaty, he had been felled by a stroke that left him semiparalyzed and bewildered. His country was in much the same condition. Later in the year, American voters would put Republican Warren G. Harding, who had promised a “return to normalcy,†in the White House.While humdrum prevailed in America, in Eastern Europe and Russia a drama was unfolding that made leaders on both sides of the recent war increasingly anxious. In 1917, with Tsar Nicholas II overthrown in a revolution, liberals and conservatives had struggled for control of Russia. Out of the chaos came a new movement, Soviet Communism, led by an electrifying visionary, Vladimir Ilich Lenin. Western nations, notably Britain and France, were so terrified that they shipped conservative Russians millions of dollars’ worth of guns and supplies. A year of savage civil war ensued, with the Communists emerging as the victors.The experience convinced Lenin and his chief adviser, Leon Trotsky, that Russia would never be safe with such enemies arrayed against it. Their answer: export the revolution, turn Western Europe into Communist states, and make Russia’s cause a movement that would transform the world. Where better to launch this transformation, Lenin and Trotsky reasoned, than Germany, filled as it was with disillusioned ex-soldiers and unemployed civilians. The sight of a Communist army preaching the rebirth of hope and pride, as they saw it, would galvanize Germans—and intimidate the rest of war-weary Western Europe. Continued at: http://www.historynet.com/miracle-on-the-vistula.htm
