The Rise Of Australasia-Chapter 1132 - 850: Blitzkrieg Poland, Russia Enters the War

Chapter 1132: Chapter 850: Blitzkrieg Poland, Russia Enters the War

The situation was exactly as the commander of the Polish Second Army Group had anticipated; after several days of meticulous preparation, once they had confirmed that the main Polish forces were tied down on the western front, the German First Army Group immediately launched their blitzkrieg plan against Poland.

To accomplish this lightning strike, Germany committed all of their armored troops and motorized units.

This included 3 tank divisions, 3 motorized infantry divisions, 5 light armored divisions, and 2 cavalry divisions. To supplement and support their firepower, the East Prussia region, where the First Army Group was stationed, also had more than 1,200 airplanes and 2,400 firearms at their disposal.

In contrast, the Polish Second Army Group had 4 infantry divisions, 4 cavalry divisions, 1 tank division, and 3 artillery divisions.

Just from the composition of both armies, it was clear there was a difference; the German First Army Group’s primary units were all motorized, with a focus on tanks and armored divisions.

Meanwhile, the primary units of the Polish Second Army Group were infantry and cavalry divisions, which was a common composition of forces during World War I.

This represented a vast difference, where in head-on combat, neither the infantry nor the cavalry posed a significant threat to armored units, and in fact, might as well have been negligible.

The only real threats to armored units were artillery divisions and airplanes. However, with Germany holding complete air superiority, it was uncertain how much of a threat Polish artillery could pose to German tanks.

On the afternoon of October 19th, 1935, Germany’s blitzkrieg from the East Prussia region towards Warsaw in Poland officially commenced.

The first wave was a large number of airplanes tasked with destroying Poland’s major airfields and communications-transportation hubs.

The Germans no longer held back; they exhausted all means with the goal of destroying Poland’s various vital facilities, severely disrupting communication between the Polish government and the front-line troops.

Once contact between the front and rear was lost, Poland was bound to descend into chaos, which was Germany’s optimal opportunity for a blitzkrieg.

The German First Army Group, commanded by General von Bock, gathered Germany’s most elite motorized troops with the objective of swiftly defeating Poland.

From the onset of the blitzkrieg plan, the Polish Second Army Group quickly fell into a state of collapse.

It wasn’t so much that the Polish Second Army Group was too weak, but rather that the German forces, which had amassed a large number of armored units and airplanes, were overwhelmingly strong.

Under the heavy bombing from numerous airplanes, Polish forces simply could not organize an effective counterattack and were defeated by Germany’s tank troops.

In just 24 hours, the Polish northern defenses collapsed instantly, and German tank units tore through the Second Army Group’s lines, heading towards Warsaw with unstoppable momentum and only a hundred kilometers away.

This was the most critical moment for Poland, as Warsaw was located too close to the East Prussia region of Germany.

Especially after the ceding of the Polish Corridor, German control over the East Prussia region was reinforced.

Any forces deployed in the East Prussia region posed a huge threat to Poland to the south.

As Warsaw was Poland’s most important city, if Warsaw faced a crisis, the blow to the entirety of Poland’s confidence would be incomparable.

Having crushed Poland’s northern Second Army Group, a large number of German motorized units proceeded south along the highways towards Warsaw.

Due to the motorized units’ rapid speed of movement, in barely 48 hours, the frontline had been pushed forward over 50 kilometers, with Warsaw now almost within reach.

Blocking Warsaw’s path to the north was the military stronghold of Płońsk.

The Polish Second Army Group had already rallied its remnants, and the Polish government was urgently transporting troops from the eastern front to the northern front.

This blitzkrieg caught the Polish military off guard, and even the British and French, who were closely watching the war, were taken aback.

While Poland was able to fight back against the German army on the western front, on the northern front they were almost entirely collapsing.

Polish cavalry was no match for German tanks, and even though they organized numerous valiant charges, at best they could only leave some shallow or deep scratches on the tanks.

The armor of these tanks could withstand the spray of a heavy machine gun, let alone the meager attacks from the cavalry.

It was the collisions of cavalry and tanks on both the western and eastern fronts that made Poland and other countries realize the drastically diminished role of cavalry on the battlefield.

In the face of armored forces, the mobility advantage of the cavalry was utterly gone. Purely in terms of combat effectiveness, the cavalry had no advantages over armored forces.

Apart from the ability to move quickly over mountains and hills, cavalry had no other advantages. This could be compensated for by a large number of air forces, which meant that in this German-Polish war, the Polish cavalry, which they took pride in, was actually ineffective.

Only at this point did the Polish truly begin to panic.

With the northern front already collapsed, whether the west could hold out was no longer important. Once Warsaw entered a state of crisis, the Polish government would only have two choices: retreat or surrender.

Perceiving the severe crisis, the Polish government immediately contacted Britain and France, who were still observing, and asked the French to fulfill their promise and join or intervene in the war.

The Germans also understood they needed to reach a quick resolution, otherwise if the British and French were to join, the war could very well escalate into a major European conflict.

On October 21st, 1935, the German government deployed the air force to drop a large number of leaflets over Warsaw, urging the Polish people to surrender, assuring them that the German military would not mistreat the prisoners.

At the same time, the German military was less than 30 kilometers from Warsaw, which was in grave danger.

To delay the inevitability as much as possible, the Polish government urged Britain and France to make a decision quickly, while also making the most potentially impactful decision since Poland’s independence: to relocate the capital.

Where to move the capital? Poland was a Central European nation, and aside from the Kingdom of Lithuania, an affiliated state, it had no overseas territories.

Furthermore, given Poland’s limited size, the final destination chosen by the Polish government for relocation was just 160 kilometers southeast of Warsaw, in Lublin.

It is worth mentioning that Lublin is just a few dozen kilometers away from the Polish and Russian borders.

This also means that the current Polish government considers Germany to be its greatest enemy, with a level of threat far exceeding that of Russia.

The relocation of Poland’s capital was anything but smooth.

The Germans naturally would not allow Poland to relocate its capital without interference. As Poland was quietly deciding on the relocation, Germany dispatched a large number of airplanes to bomb and destroy the highways between Warsaw and Lublin.

This brings us again to the issue of Poland’s strategic depth. As a country with a not-so-large native land, German airplanes could easily fly across the entire territory of Poland without worrying about the return trip.

This also means that the German Air Force could bomb and attack any location within Poland at will, and any highway or important facility within Poland could be under attack from Germany at any moment.

After the highways were destroyed, the plan to relocate Poland’s capital indeed slowed down significantly.

At least the Polish government’s original plan to evacuate the people completely fell through.

Although the distance between the two places is only 160 kilometers, the relocation of the government alone had become very difficult due to the damaged highways, let alone moving the vast population of Warsaw.

Eventually, the Polish government had no choice but to abandon the people, leading important government departments and officials to quietly travel to Lublin by truck.

Little did they know that such a choice by the Polish government directly crushed the confidence of the Polish people.

Leaving aside other considerations, if the government had already fled, how could they still expect the remaining Warsaw garrison and civilians to resist resolutely?

Even if the Polish people were filled with patriotic fervor, facing such a government that fled alone, they inevitably felt as if doused with cold water, their hearts chilled.

Two days later, the German First Army Group successfully encircled Warsaw.

In an attempt to delay the German advance, the Polish government left behind a full 180,000 troops in Warsaw for defense.

Although less than 80,000 of them were veterans and the remaining 100,000 troops had been recruited in the past month, they were nonetheless a real force of 180,000.

Logically, if the Polish military and civilians resisted firmly, the 180,000 troops along with all the people of Warsaw could hold off the German military for at least one week’s time.

But the problem was that the Polish military had already lost its morale by then; could they really be expected to resist to the death and defend Poland with their lives?

With the arrival of a large force of the German Air Force and a barrage of leaflets urging surrender, the fall of Warsaw had become inevitable.

On October 23rd, 1935, the German military officially began the siege of Warsaw.

On October 25th, three days after leaflets urging surrender had been extensively dropped, the German military launched an all-out attack.

On October 29th, the commander of Warsaw’s defense forces, Oka Ivanovich Gorodovikov, along with more than a hundred thousand Warsaw defenders announced their surrender, and Warsaw officially fell.

And by this time, it had been only 11 days since the German First Army Group began its assault.

Even counting from the start of the war, only half a month had passed. It took the German military just half a month to capture the Polish capital, something the British and French had not imagined before the war broke out.

Furthermore, through this war, the German military had already rapidly expanded to a million-strong force. Poland, with a similarly sized military, was no match for Germany, indicating that the German military still maintained a high fighting strength, which was bad news for both the United Kingdom and France.

It was at this moment that the British and French finally decided not to remain bystanders and planned to join the war to help stabilize the situation in Poland.

But another unexpected event occurred, beyond the expectations of the British and French.

On November 1st, 1935, as the Polish government reached Lublin and was moving the Eastern Front defenders to Lublin to set up defensive lines, the Russian army fully mobilized.

More than 300,000 Russians headed for the front line in a formidable force, and swiftly launched a large-scale attack on the unprepared Polish defenders.

What was fatal was that not only were the Poles unprepared, the Polish government had even withdrawn a large number of troops from the Eastern Front.

Originally, Poland had more than 400,000 defenders along its border with Russia, which was also why Russia had not taken action until then.

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But due to the fall of Warsaw, the Polish government was forced to redeploy the Eastern Front defenders to secure Lublin, finally giving Russia the opportunity it had been waiting for.

After the redeployments, there were now less than 200,000 Polish defenders on the Eastern border. They were facing an assault by over 300,000 Russian troops.

Even more concerning was that the Polish government had moved most of the heavy artillery and weapons from the Eastern border to Lublin, deploying them in the city’s defensive positions.

This meant that in facing the Russian military’s onslaught, the Eastern border forces could only rely on their rifles and a few machine guns and artillery pieces.

On the other hand, the Russian military was no longer the simplistic force of World War I.

After the nation reunited, the Russian economy and industry had seen rapid growth.

Though the Russian economy was still in poor shape, the long-standing famine had been completely resolved by that point.

Industry naturally saw significant progress. With the efforts of the Russian government, Russia had built great power level industries, and its military industry had also greatly recovered.

The Russian military was almost entirely equipped with domestically produced weapons, and facing the Polish army that was lacking in heavy weapons, Russia undoubtedly had the upper hand.