The Polish WWII Cavalry in 1939

Fought Successful Horse mounted battles

Aug 28, 2008 Christopher Eger

Engaged in the War less than a month, 11 brigades of the Polish cavalry made no less than 16 all out charges against the German invaders.

Formed in 1919 out of the hodgepodge of units that made up the new Polish army, cavalry became a sacred arm of the infant country. It was these Polish Cavalry regiments that would defeat the vaunted Red Cavalry in 1920 and saved the country from Soviet invasion. During the interwar period some 40 line regiments all armed with the lance and saber with a tradition that went back almost a thousand years existed. After 1936 some of these were converted to mechanized units while the rest were modernized. The lance was discarded except for ceremonial purposes, there place taken by more modern weapons. These cavalrymen were trained to be largely mounted infantry and were expected to ride from the rear to the battle line, dismount, and fight in foot like normal infantry. At the start of WWII in 1939 the Polish cavalry consisted of 26 uhlan lancer regiments (without lances), 8 mounted rifle regiments and 3 light horse regiments. Each contained four squadrons of about 120 horse soldiers each but were augmented by anti-tank gun and machine gun sections as well as light tanks and infantrymen mounted on bicycles. This force of some 25,000 professional horse soldiers was the largest and best equipped cavalry in the world at the time of the German invasion. They were grouped into 11 brigades assigned throughout the Polish Army. They were intended to serve as 'fire-brigades' that could be rushed from crisis to crisis in a rapidly developing conflict.

The Polish Cavalry engaged in no less than 16 classic cavalry charges in the 36-day campaign from September 1-October 5, 1939. They fought both the German and Russian armies in desperate by typically successful skirmishes. The most notable of these included the night charge of the 11th Polish Legion Uhlan Regiment that liberated the town of Kaluszyn on September 12th. As told by Italian war-correspondent, Mario Appelius, the 14th Jazlowiec Uhlan Regiment charged thrugh german lines during the Battle of Wólka Weglowa on September 14th, allowing trapped Polish forces to withdraw from a German encirclement. The same regiment, charging as a hole with flags flying at the end of the month broke through a Soviet encirclement at Husynne. On September 23rd the 25th Wielkopolska Uhlan Regiment fought what could be the last cavalry on cavalry engagement when it forced a smaller German cavalry unit off of a hill near Krasnobród and then went on to capture a divisonal headquarters. Contrary to popular belief and Nazi myth, Polish Cavalry was able to charge German mechanized units and make a difference. On the first day of the war, September 1, the German 4th Panzer Division met the Polish Wolynska Cavalry Brigade head on about 100 miles south of Warsaw and lost more than 50 tanks in the exchange.

The Polish cavalry was wiped out in the campaign as a force but its remnants fought in both the British and Soviet armies later in the War. Elements of the regular polish cavalry served with the Canadian reorganized 1st Free Polish Armored Division fighting in tanks across Western Europe in 1944, ending up capturing the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven in May 1945. The Soviets, even after invading Poland in 1939 and snuffing out the flower of the Polish officer corps at Katyn, raised Polish units to fight under the red banner once Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. One of these Free Polish units was the 1st Warsaw Cavalry Brigade (Samodzielna Warzawska Brygada Kawalerii). A horse mounted cavalry brigade of some 1,500 men it fought on the Eastern Front in the latter part of the war. Ironically two squadrons of the brigade charged German lines in Western Pomeria on March 1, 1945 while assisting the Red Army in the invasion of Hitler's Germany only six weeks before the end of the war. It was the not only the last Polish cavalry charge but the last cavalry charge period.

The Polish Cavalry truly lived up to the motto of "Honor i Ojczyzna" (Honor and Fatherland)

Sources

Sharp, Charles, Red Death, Soviet Mountain, Naval, NKVD, and Allied Divisions and Brigades 1941-1945, Volume VII in the series Soviet Order of Battle World War II - An Organizational History of the Major Combat Units of the Soviet Army, George F. Nafziger 1995.

Zaloga , Steven J. Poland 1939 - The birth of Blitzkrieg. Oxford : Osprey Publishing, 2002.

Zaloga , Steven J The Polish Army 1939-45 Oxford : Osprey Publishing, 2002.

The copyright of the article The Polish WWII Cavalry in 1939 in Military History is owned by Christopher Eger. Permission to republish The Polish WWII Cavalry in 1939 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.