Distributed by the Polonia Media Network

PART 3 - ERRORS AND COUNTERMEASURES

The first day’s fighting ended in a complete fiasco for the AK, the reason being that a rebellion against a militarily superior adversary must, to succeed, take the enemy completely by surprise. This is just what the AK failed to do, even though the Émigré Government and even General Bor himself in his memoirs maintain that the revolt at 5:00 p.m. hours on August 1 did, on the whole, surprise the Germans. However, Bor does admit that he saw so many young Polish enthusiasts quite openly rushing to their battle stations, `that I feared the zero-hour could not be kept secret." An exact investigation shows that the moment for a surprise attack, both in the general and specific sense of the term, had long passed.

Since the 1939 Polish campaign, the Germans had been reckoning on an open Polish revolt at some time. From at least 1942 onwards, the AK’s many activities had themselves made the Germans fully conversant with Polish tactics. Finally, the many different phases of Operation Burza throughout 1944 had warned the Occupying Power exactly what Polish action would have to be dealt with, should Russian units approach the Capital. In practice, therefore, the possibility of complete surprise was eliminated.

Nevertheless, if the exact timing of an attack could be kept secret a degree of surprise would still operate. Of all the German authorities, the Police and Security Police were, of course, best informed about what the Poles intended. For years treacherous informers had been circulating in the AK and had already spied out several Polish operations. They so faithfully reported the usual hesitation and indecision of the AK command to the German authorities, that many German posts became bored and indifferent, taking no notice of the latest "decision" relayed to them. Added to which, some of the leading German dignitaries simply did not want to believe an uprising was imminent. For example, a few days before the rising, the German Governor, Dr. Fischer, declared arrogantly, "My Poles will not revolt!" But, the Security Police and the German Military HQ kept their eyes and ears open, and acted more cautiously. Dr. Ludwig Hahn, Chief of the Security Police, stated, "The German authorities were only partly taken by surprise. We in the HQ of the Security Police were not at all surprised." Months before the uprising, Intelligence agents had got hold of the [Polish] General Staff’s plan. When put before the military command it was declared to be "madness, complete and utter nonsense."

Hahn again stated, "So the revolt broke out at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, August 1. I received final confirmation of this between 11:30 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. We immediately began arranging our defense. Everybody, leaders and men alike, seized their weapons. We set up a heavy machine gun in the doorway. Of course, we did not know where the revolt would break out. We felt as if the millions in the city were just spoiling for a fight with us. Throughout the city things had been far from peaceful for a long time beforehand. Shots could be heard all over the city. Of course, plainclothes sections of the Security Police were circulating for more exact information."

After midday, all Police unit commanders assembled in the headquarters of the Ordnungspolizei [a special force recruited to keep order in the city]. They were just counting the minutes until the uprising broke out. In Warsaw itself, the shattered remnants of Ninth Army were reforming; they too were kept up to date about the Poles’ preparations and in an emergency could have provided quite large units for battle in the capital. Their information was usually accurate. For instance, Bor had given the following command in the name of the AK's combined leadership on July 22: "[We] order an alert for 1:00 a.m. hours on July 25 in preparation for the uprising. This order must be carried out in the greatest secrecy to avoid causing German counter-operations." The next day Ninth Army included in its War Diary, "The Polish resistance movement has ordered an alert. On the strength of this increased activity guards should be allotted for the protection of property." By July 29 the Ninth Army was so convinced of the uprising’s imminence that the Staff deliberated issuing a general alarm for all troops in Warsaw. They abandoned this measure because they feared that it would merely provoke the rising into taking place earlier.

On July 29 Wehrmacht agents reported that the rebellion was planned for one hour before midnight. On August 1 the War Diary stated in an almost relieved tone that "As expected the Polish uprising has begun."

It is quite clear from this evidence that as already pointed out, the rebels were acting without the advantage of surprise; and even tactical surprise failed too. The final decision to rebel was made at about 5:45 p.m. July 31; orders were written that same evening. Because of the curfew, which forbade any traffic whatsoever on the streets after 8:00 p.m., the orders could only be delivered to individual units of the AK from l:00 a.m. onwards, on the very day of the uprising. Some did not filter through until 4:00 p.m., a mere hour before the revolt began. On the night of July 31 the exact timing of the uprising was betrayed at least twice: a Polish girl told a Luftwaffe officer and a collaborator told the Security Police. The bulk of the German troops were ready and waiting for the rising to begin.

An account by the young AK combatant Janusz Piekalkiewicz illustrates the inefficiency of the Home Army’s communication arrangements on August 1. He vividly describes one incident in his parents’ house:

"I can remember as if it were only yesterday that on August 1 Colonel Jan Klepacz came to our house for lunch. He had been an officer of the famous 7th Uhlan Regiment, to which my father also belonged. He and other officers stayed until about 2:00 p.m. At table we discussed the general military situation. We could even faintly hear noise of gunfire drifting over from the Russian front to the east. The Colonel wanted to return home because he did not know the exact timing of the uprising yet. He didn’t even manage to reach his apartment in time …" Klepacz was Chief Quarter Master and one of Bor-Komorowski’s most senior staff officers throughout the uprising.

Thus, while important AK officers were still groping in the dark about the exact deadline, the Germans had already raised the alarm; indeed, this was done by 1:00 p.m. on the afternoon before the uprising. Despite this apparent efficiency, however, quite a number of German bases and soldiers were not alerted, partly because they too suffered from technical difficulties in communication, similar to those afflicting their opponents. In addition the German authorities had no exact information on August 1 regarding the presence of the many German troops --scattered and demoralized remnants of a defeated German army and numerous other units fleeing from the front--who had all been moving into the huge city for days beforehand. Clearly these men would not be in a position to receive orders. This also applied to the German military hospitals, nearly all caught completely unawares by the revolt.

But these were exceptions. All the vulnerable points in the city, the bridges, stations and offices, were well protected. Tanks stood at the ready on the two airfields, Bilany and Okesie, their engines ticking over, the crews smoking in the dark, waiting for the order to attack.

It may, perhaps, be necessary to summarize once more the chief reasons for the failure of a revolt which, on the face of it, could have succeeded. It lacked those two classic elements practically essential for any successful insurrection: surprise and an (at least temporarily) crippled enemy. The differences in fighting strength between the two sides, too, hindered the Poles chances of success. AK units engaged in Warsaw during the struggles had an estimated strength of about 38,000, including 4,000 women. Few of them were in actual battle groups, the majority served in emergency and auxiliary services. Only 10,000 of the soldiers belonged to the Warsaw division of the AK, responsible for the whole district and the surrounding area. According to Polish sources, on August 1 itself the AK could call upon about 25,000 men, of whom no more than one tenth were well equipped and ready for combat. The remaining units had an almost incredible selection of arms, a collection of hunting and sporting guns without reliable military caliber ammunition, Molotov cocktails, swords and daggers. Such was the scarcity of arms of any kind that some even had nothing more than stones and clubs. The Germans estimated that only about 2,500 effective fighting troops materialized on August 1. This could well be correct.

In the city itself the Germans were supposed to have had a total garrison of at least 40,000 ready for any emergency. In fact, numerous units had been siphoned off during July and barely 13,000 German personnel remained. These were a mixed assortment, of every conceivable rank and regiment: an SA battalion, Territorials, Pioneer Corps, at maximum 5,000 experienced and well equipped troops. The latter included parts of the elite "Hermann Goring" Parachute-Tank Division, the 4th East Prussian Grenadier Regiment of the 39th Tank Corps, which had seen long service on the Eastern Front, plus both companies of the 654^th Engineer Battalion. These very engineers had, on the morning of August 1, just finished installing explosive charges on the Vistula bridges. These two companies illustrate, on the one hand, how few men in fact the Germans had to rely on, and on the other hand how the complete commitment of a few individual soldiers can decide the fate of a whole battle. When the uprising broke out, the engineers on Kierbedzia Bridge had one officer, six NCOs and twenty men. On Poniatowski Bridge there was one officer, with three NCOs and twenty-five men. The remaining troops of the two companies, about one hundred in all, were split up between the three other bridges and the battalion’s rear echelon. This small selection of troops practically decided the fate of the whole uprising on the first day, because with the aid of the antiaircraft guns on the bridges they were able to retain possession of them against every attack.

Apart from the failure of tactical surprise and their unequal strength, the Poles suffered a third crippling handicap which decided the ultimate fate of the uprising on the very first day. The Poles persistently ignored the basic tactical principle of "massed concentration," i.e., to attack a stronger enemy successfully one must concentrate all available men at a few selected points. General Heinz Guderian, "Panzer Heinz," summed it up as "Concentrated effort, no messing about!" Applied to the situation at the Vistula bridges, it means that the Poles should have concentrated all possible strength on one alone, giving localized superiority sufficient to ensure the capture of at least that bridge. Instead they split up their meager power between all the bridges and even further diluted their available force by including for attack some "symbolically" important historical buildings in the town center.

The blame for this catastrophe lies not on the shoulders of the fighters of the AK; the men themselves showed enormous courage and tenacity; but fairly and squarely on the shoulders of their leaders, General Bor’s Staff. The Command of the AK was composed entirely of skilled and professional military men; the general’s staff included none of those "volatile and impetuous political adventurers so characteristic of irregular struggles." It is, therefore, all the more incredible that the AK, with its commanders to the fore, entered on so many futile and unnecessary adventures at every possible stage of the operation adventures such as will shortly be described. General Bor’s Staff consisted of eight leading officers mostly brigadiers or colonels, with Brigadier Tadeusz Pelcynski as Chief of Staff. His first deputy, Brigadier Leopold Okulicki had been flown into Poland from London, and his special duty was to form a "shadow" Staff, should the existing one be arrested or liquidated by the Germans. (After the capitulation of the AK on October 2, he had to go into action, too.) Pelcynski’s Second Deputy was Colonel Bokszczanin, and Colonel Sanojca headed the Organization Department, while Colonel Iranek-Osmecki (codename "Heller") commanded the Reconnaissance Department. Colonel Szostak ("Filip") took charge of Operations and Colonel Pluta-Cachowski of Signals. Finally there was the bureau for Information, Propaganda and Press under Colonel Rzepecki ("Wolski," "Prezes".) These, not forgetting the rest of the officers, signals assistants, couriers, and secretaries, formed a staff of quite considerable proportions, divided into three levels, corresponding to the "minimal" needs of an underground army. One of these sections was reserved for the real leadership.

Their headquarters was installed in a factory on the western outskirts of the city. Even before the uprising began, the Staff were involved in frequent skirmishes. At midday on August 1 the building came under heavy fire from German Police sections; they escaped by the skin of their teeth because the outbreak of the rising caused the police to return to their stations at once.

They had bad luck with the choice of a headquarters a second time. The building which housed the headquarters throughout the preparations for the Rising had been under constant observation by German spies since May 1944. It was a good choice basically, being a summer house located on a piece of high ground stretching between Mesowiecka Street and Bracka Street, and it offered many possible escape routes. All the same, the nearby café "Fregatte" offered a perfect spot for inconspicuous observation by the enemy, and when, in mid-July, the Security Police appeared to be taking an increased interest in this AK Staff haunt the Poles decided to move.

The events of August 1 proved the choice of the Kammler Factory as the carelessness with which heroic young blood was shed and of the blunder in calculation, with its tragic consequences. In view of the obvious waste of human life and futile effort which characterized the first day of the uprising, it is not surprising that numerous AK units left the city on the nest of August 1-2 and took refuge in the forests outside Warsaw. Authorities estimate that 5,000 men left that night. Not counting the grim total of dead and wounded, a mere fraction of the AK’s original strength remained in the city. The rebellion could not have continued, if they had not been able to obtain constant reinforcements from the surrounding area and additional complete battle units from the plain. To retreat immediately from an objective once an attack had failed was a traditional technique used by the Partisans. They could do nothing else but fight according to the principle of hit and run, according to which they did not stick doggedly to their objective if continuing was obviously going to be costly, but pulled back into the woods and disappeared. The fairly recent concept of urban guerrilla warfare in such large cities has evolved in part from the experiences of the two month long Battle of Warsaw, which now developed.

The AK leaders still had rosy visions of quick success, of help from England, of help from the Russians. They tried feverishly to establish a radio link with London. When they finally succeeded, Bor transmitted: "We began the fight for Warsaw on August 1 at 5:00 p.m.; arrange immediately for ammunition and arms to be dropped at the lights [specified] and also in the squares giving onto the city center: Filtrowa, Kerceli Square, Saxon Gardens, Avenue of the Polish soldiers, Pulawska, Belwederska Streets.

"In view of the fact that the fight to capture Warsaw has begun, we ask for Soviet help to be supplied in the shape of an immediate attack from outside …"

Then on August 2 at 10:00 a.m. another message followed:

"We are engaged in hard struggle with the Germans in the Warsaw area. We have already conquered part with the aid of weapons captured with difficulty from they Germans, but we have no chance of capturing ammunition. Drop ammunition and antitank equipment for Warsaw in the Jewish cemetery and Napoleon Square. Drop the parachute brigade in the Wola district."

As they were transmitting this cry for help to London, the rebels were capturing the city’s electricity works. This proved one of their most important successes as these works supplied electricity not only to the whole of the civilian populace, but also to the arms factories where work continued day and night.

That day they also captured the main post office and the multi-story Prudential Building on Napoleon Square, which soon became one of the rebel command’s main strong points in the struggle. That evening the rebels erected a network of barricades throughout the city, with anti-tank "obstacles" composed of overturned tramcars and other vehicles, pieces of furniture, paving stones and dustbins. These were meant more or less seriously. A front soon emerged. It separated districts of the city, and even individual houses or floors within buildings from one another. As it transpired. London could not begin to fly in air supplies to the rebels "immediately." Warsaw was too far from any Allied air base and such airdrops had to be carefully planned first. Therefore, the rebels would have to hold out for some time with only their existing supplies.

Behind the front the position "normalized": field dressing stations were set up to tend the wounded, hospitals continued working, in soup kitchens, movie theaters and printing presses business was as usual. At this time the Polish postal system even printed some stamps, bearing a picture of fighting soldiers and the letters, "AK." But, no letter bearing these stamps would ever leave Warsaw. Polish newspapers began appearing and, because the Germans did not start any major offensive for the next few days, hope must have begun to grow in the hearts of those in AK occupied areas. But the big question, "Would help come?," remained.