Russo-Polish War 1919-20

German troops withdrew from Polish lands and other occupied territory in accordance with the armistice terms of November 11, 1918 and a Polish government took form in Warsaw under the leadership of Jozef Pilsudski during the month; a Polish army, drawing on Poles previously serving in the armies of Austria-Hungary, Germany and particularly Russia, was quickly raised and numbered 100,000 troops by the end of 1918. To the east, the Red Army, seeking to carry the Bolshevik revolution westward and also recover the territories surrendered under the now repudiated Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, advanced on Poland in the wake of the German retreat, reaching the Bug River by February 1919.

The first clashes between Polish and Bolshevik forces took place about February 14, 1919. Polish forces counterattacked and managed to push the Soviet-Russian army back in Belarus and the Ukraine. By December 1919, the Poles had occupied Minsk and were nearing Kiev. An Entente proposal for a temporary border between Soviet-Russia and Poland (called the Curzon Line) was unacceptable to either side. Meanwhile, Pilsudski had ambitions of seizing the Ukraine and incorporating it into a Polish-led federation; he made an alliance with Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlyura on April 21, 1920 – whose bid for independence had been thwarted by the Red Army – and the combined Polish-Ukrainian then took the offensive on April 25th, occupying Kiev on May 7th. A Bolshevik counter-offensive launched on May 15th drove the Polish-Ukrainian army out of the Ukraine and back to the outskirts of Warsaw by July 25th. The Entente now sent a military mission, led by a French general, to advise the Poles for the Battle of Warsaw in August 1920. The Polish victory in the 10-day battle pushed the Red Army back and on October 12, 1920, the Bolsheviks agreed to an armistice.

In the compromise Peace of Riga signed on March 18, 1921, the Bolsheviks abandoned their plans to spread the revolution to Poland and cede substantial portions of Belorussia (Belarus) and Ukraine (though the bulk of Ukraine would remain a Soviet republic) while the Poles had to abandon their designs for a larger federated state. The new border, which corresponded roughly to the 1793 frontier (prior to the partition of Poland), cut across mixed Ukrainian and Belarusian territories. In the north it included Vilnus (Wilno), a move that created a territorial conflict between Lithuania and Poland. The treaty resulted in the establishment of a stable Soviet-Polish border that would remain unchanged until 1939.

References

Clodfelter, 620-1; COW109; EB- Russo-Polish War; Kohn, 418.

Region

Eastern Europe

Belligerents

Bolsheviks, Ukrainians, Poland

Dispute

Territory, Governance

Initiation Date

February 14, 1919

Termination Date

October 12, 1920

Duration

1 year, 7 months, 29 days
(607 days)

Outcome

Negotiated Settlement
(Polish victory)

Fatalities

Total: 100,000
Bolshevik: 60,000
Poland: 40,000

Magnitude

5.0

Armed Conflict Events Data