The Road to Berlin (60 page)

More discussions and more entreaties followed on 8 August. In London, where ‘the British authorities had little information about the position outside Warsaw’ save for German claims about annihilating a Soviet armoured force, the Polish Deputy Prime Minister Mr Kwapinski sought out Eden and showed him messages from the insurgents that the Russians were doing nothing to help Warsaw, and elsewhere were disarming units of the Home Army as soon as fighting died down and arresting or even shooting Polish administrative officials. Kwapinski asked for a British declaration that Polish underground fighters possessed the rights of regular belligerents, to which Eden responded by saying that it was early days to assume a lack of Russian goodwill, that the Russians appeared to have suffered a military reverse near Warsaw, and that a unilateral British statement about belligerent status for the Home Army would be ‘useless’ and could even be misinterpreted by the Russians. From Warsaw itself General Chrusciel, commander of the Warsaw District of the Home Army, sent a signal to Marshal Rokossovskii urgently requesting supplies of ammunition—‘speedy assistance by your forces, Marshal, is therefore an absolute necessity for us’. A Red Army officer, Captain Konstantin Kalugin, who had made contact with the Home Army staff and the underground
HQ
, sent out a signal through London incorporating Kalugin’s own dispatch for his superiors and reporting his ‘personal contact with the commander of the Warsaw garrison’ who was conducting ‘the heroic partisan fight by the nation against the Hitlerite bandits’, and requesting small-arms ammunition, grenades and anti-tank weapons to be air-dropped on designated sectors of the city marked with white and red sheets for identification purposes. Captain Kalugin also requested artillery fire on ‘Vistula bridges in the Warsaw area, on Saski Garden, Aleje Jerozolimski, as these are the main channels of movement for the German Army’, and ended on an almost despairing note: ‘Help me to get in touch with Marshal Rokossovskii.’

That evening (8 August) Mikolajczyk with his small party met Bierut and Osobka-Morawski in Molotov’s room in the Kremlin for one more attempt to break the political deadlock. Both sides took up declaratory positions, Mikolajczyk standing on the 1935 constitution, the Polish Committee on the constitution of 1921, and both sides found wordy arguments to justify their respective stands. Towards the close of this session it was clear that no agreement on the post-war frontiers of Poland or on the setting up of a joint ‘Polish government’ was likely to emerge: Mikolajczyk conveyed his regrets to Molotov, adding that ‘I myself and my colleagues have not lost hope that all will end well.’ Stalin’s message to the British Prime Minister of 8 August reflected this same feeling: ‘I regret to say that the meetings have not yielded the desired results.… Still, [he continued] they were useful because they provided Mikolajczyk and Morawski, as well as Bierut who had just arrived from Warsaw, with the opportunity for an exchange of views and particularly for informing each other that both the Polish National Committee and Mikolajczyk are anxious to co-operate.… Let us hope that things will improve’
(Perepiska
… , vol. 1, p. 298).

On 9 August, the day on which the Germans smashed their way through the Polish barricades and broke out to the Vistula, Mikolajczyk and Stalin met in the evening for a final talk. After explaining the
impasse
, Mikolajczyk intimated that a solution might be found after his return to London, a sentiment that Stalin applauded. At this Mikolajczyk turned at once to the problem of rendering ‘immediate assistance by the Soviet Union to Warsaw’, whereupon Stalin asked, ‘What kind of assistance is in question?’ Arms, Mikolajczyk replied, for a city in which the Germans are trying at all costs to hold the main roads leading through the centre and to the Vistula bridges. On hearing this, Stalin gave Mikolajczyk a short, sharp lecture on the military aspects: for Stalin, the struggles in Warsaw seemed ‘unreal’, perhaps this might not be the case if the Soviet armies were approaching Warsaw, but ‘unfortunately this is not the case. … I reckoned on our army occupying Warsaw on August 6th but we failed to do so’—and now several German’ armoured divisions were attacking the Red Army; the outflanking movement on Warsaw, begun by crossing the Vistula in the river Pilica area, had at first gone well, but on 8 August the Germans blocked this drive with more armour, thus barring the way to Warsaw with five armoured divisions, of which three ‘are still posted round Praga’. ‘What can an air-lift do?’ Stalin asked, and proceeded to answer himself: it was possible to supply ‘a certain quantity of rifles and machine-guns, but we cannot parachute cannon’ and in any event, he asked Mikolajczyk, ‘are you quite sure that arms parachuted from the air will reach the Poles? This might be easy in some outlying areas like Kielce or Radom, but in Warsaw, considering the big concentration of German forces, it would be an extremely difficult thing to do.’ Nevertheless, Stalin continued, ‘we must try’, and he asked Mikolajczyk to be specific about quantities and dropping zones. Mikolajczyk mentioned Captain Kalugin and his pressing request to make contact directly with ‘the Soviet Supreme Command’; in addition, those
areas indicated for parachute drops were secured by barricades, so ‘there is no danger that the arms could be intercepted by the enemy’.

After quizzing Mikolajczyk about the reliability of this information and on being told that Soviet aircraft could not land but that only air-drops were involved, Stalin then delved into the question of establishing contact with the Warsaw command and assured Mikolajczyk: ‘…in so far as we are concerned we shall try to do everything possible to help Warsaw’. At least Stalin knew more than mere generalities about the Warsaw situation; he was aware that Captain Kalugin lacked ‘technical means’ to set up contact (Stalin suggested parachuting a Soviet officer into Warsaw with a code and asked Mikolajczyk to make the necessary arrangements for his reception). His promise to the Polish premier semed quite unequivocal and was even repeated, sufficient to cause the inclusion of Churchill’s thanks in his message of 10 August to Stalin, though these proved to be the last amiable words exchanged over the growing tragedy in Warsaw.

In Washington the Poles tried frantically to pull every lever that might set in motion a massive arms drop on Warsaw and facilitate the transportation of units of the Polish Parachute Brigade to the scene of the fighting. But the only response was a ‘noncommittal promise’ and a bluntly negative reply on 8 August from the Combined Chiefs of Staff. At General Sosnkowski’s urging, Colonel Mitkiewicz again pressed the Combined Chiefs of Staff about using American aircraft flying from bases in Italy or England to drop arms, a submission made on 11 August and honoured with a formal reply only a week later (to the effect that London was handling the whole matter of support—more or less what was said on 9 August). On 12 August President Rackiewicz appealed directly to President Roosevelt to ‘order the American Air Force in the European Theatre of War to give immediate support to the Garrison of Warsaw’ by dropping arms, bombing airfields and ‘transporting Polish airborne units’. More immediately ominous was the
TASS
communiqué of 12 August, relaying Moscow Radio’s denials that ‘they who rose up in Warsaw were allegedly in contact with the Soviet command, [and] that the latter did not render the necessary assistance’.
TASS
was ‘authorized’ to declare that such statements were either a ‘misunderstanding’ or else ‘the manifestation of slander against the Soviet command’.

The secret tug-of-war had now become a public brawl, made the more ugly by the sickening background of destruction and killing in Warsaw itself. The Polish insurgents, surrounded now and bereft of all outside aid save for the arms dropped sporadically by
RAF
planes (manned by British, Dominion and Polish air crew) making the long and hazardous flight from Brindisi, maintained contact between their three ‘sectors’ by using the sewers as communication passages. Above ground, German assault squads and tanks fought to reduce the formidable Polish barricades one by one. German tank-gunners who could not subdue the living took their revenge on the dead by firing incendiary rounds into the corpses strewn about the steets or attempted to bum the populace alive by setting house after house alight.

During the first week in August, in his talks with Mikolajczyk and in his messages to the Prime Minister, Stalin did all he could to play down the scope and significance of the Warsaw rising. He impugned the sources of Mikolajczyk’s information, stressed the unreality of the situation, pointed to the lack of co-ordination with the Red Army and even produced Mr Bierut out of Warsaw to attest to the ‘quiet’ reigning in the city early in August. But the Soviet leader did give a clue to what he had anticipated, that the Red Army would take possession of Warsaw by a
coup de main
and that Stalin ‘reckoned on’ the city falling by 6 August (which makes sense of a Soviet radio appeal to the Polish population on 29 July declaring that ‘the hour for action’ had arrived).
Stavka
orders issued to the Soviet Front commanders on 28 July tend to support this interpretation: Rokossovskii’s orders specified that after the capture of Brest-Litovsk and Siedlce his right-flank armies were to push forward in the direction of Warsaw and ‘not later than 5–8 August capture Praga [the Warsaw suburb]’, then force the Narew and set up bridgeheads on its western bank in the area of Puluck–Seroc, with the left-flank armies forcing the Vistula in the area of Deblin–Zwolen–Solec. But while Rokossovskii’s left flank pushed on, his right and centre had been held up, leaving a 120-mile salient jutting away to the right of those Soviet armoured units that had actually reached Praga. There was no possible solution, as Rokossovskii recognized, other than to move his right-flank armies up to the line running from the Narew, the mouths of the western Bug and on to Praga. Further south, on the Vistula, Chuikov had put his 8th Guards across, and set about expanding the Magnuszew bridgehead after 1 August, leaving three divisions on the eastern bank and committing six to the investment of the bridgehead. The first phase of this operation went on without sufficient air cover or even
AA
defence, since the bulk of the Soviet fighter aircraft were shifted further north and suffering at this time from a fuel shortage. To Chuikov’s surprise and ill-concealed disappointment, just as the fighting began to intensify for the Magnuszew bridgehead, he received orders (on 3 August) from the Front command to detach three divisions, swing them north and deploy them defensively some twenty to twenty-five miles from the Vistula crossings, to help counter a German attack which was expected to roll southwards along the eastern bank of the Vistula. This seemed ludicrous to Chuikov, who scarcely saw any justification for supposing that the German command—having lost ‘all Belorussia, half of Poland’ in one operation—would try this southerly thrust when not only 1st Belorussian but also 1st Ukrainian Front were on the Vistula (at Sandomierz). The Vistula bridgeheads were vitally important, but now Chuikov lay straddled between the western and eastern banks, unable to operate really effectively on either; the mistake committed by Front
HQ
(and the Supreme Command, in Chuikov’s view) was soon exposed, for two German divisions supposed to be south-east of Praga turned up on the western bank of the Vistula and forward of Chuikov’s newly won bridgehead. Heavy attacks developed by 5 August and the next day the three regiments of 47th Guards Rifle Division lived through
some critical hours: at noon a regiment of Stalin heavy tanks went over to the western bank, the Tiger tanks of the
Hermann Göring
Division were halted and the bridgehead held. But only by submitting detailed reports, air reconnaissance evidence and interrogation reports of tanks crews could Chuikov persuade Front command that two German
Panzer
formations (19th and 25th), with the
Hermann Göring
Division, were definitely in action on the west bank of the Vistula.

The Front command finally woke up over its Vistula bridgeheads, and Chuikov was gratified by the speed of the reaction. Kolpakchi’s 69th Army received orders to leap the Vistula to the west of the Deblin–Pulawy sector, Chuikov acquired anti-aircraft divisions and artillery reinforcements to cover his own crossing area, and one corps from 2nd Tank Army was pulled over in to the Magnuszew bridgehead on the western bank, as well as the divisions that 8th Guards had been obliged to turn north. On the morning of 8 August Soviet engineers threw two more bridges over the Vistula for Chuikov’s Guards units and 1st Polish Army units went over to hold the defensive perimeter at Studzianki, the northern bulge of the bridgehead which did not become ‘stabilized’ until mid-August. Though the Magnuszew bridgehead held, the chance to burst into Warsaw ‘off the march’ had long since vanished and Stalin was not exaggerating when he told Mikolajczyk that it would take some time to mount a new operation. It is possible that he thought the rising in Warsaw would be quickly liquidated or else would peter out when only rifles were available against tanks; his minimizing of the rising seems to suggest this. What is clear is that the very fact of a large-scale rising in Warsaw, a general rising, came as a surprise to the Soviet command, and this response to the ‘London Poles’ could only provide distinct embarrassments for Stalin who espoused the ‘Lublin committee’. When the insurgents continued to fight against all odds, it became necessary to insulate Soviet policy and action, which explains the marked shift in attitude that took place after the first fortnight in August; already the
TASS
communiqué of 12 August was a straw in the wind, placing ‘the responsibility for all that is taking place in Warsaw …
exclusively
on the Polish
émigré
circles in London’.

On 12-13 August both the Prime Minister and Mikolajczyk approached Stalin with requests for immediate Soviet help with arms-drops. Mikolajczyk reminded Stalin of his undertaking and specifically sought the bombing of airfields, daytime fighter patrols to check the
Luftwaffe
and arms-drops—‘the most important areas for parachuting are: Krasinski Square and Napoleon Square’. The British reply of 14 August to the Polish request for a declaration of combatant rights for the Home Army and other assistance for Warsaw could scarcely cheer the Poles. The British letter pointed to the unfortunate consequences of ‘the decision to start a general rising in Warsaw without any prior consultation with His Majesty’s Government’, dwelt on the major difficulties of organizing arms-drops from the Italian bases, ruled out the dispatch of parachute troops—scarcely ‘militarily feasible since it would involve flying relatively defenceless troop carriers over great distances’—and finally urged the Poles ‘to promote practical means of co-operation
between the Polish and Soviet forces’, though reminding them that ‘Soviet operations in Poland are governed by their general strategy’ which ‘no doubt prevents the Soviet forces from improvizing immediate operations in the Warsaw neighbourhood’ or co-ordinating with a rising ‘of which neither they nor His Majesty’s Government were informed in advance’. For all its cold comfort, the British suppositions about ‘Soviet operations in Poland’ were not mere idle speculation. Soviet plans, even allowing for that ‘local’ improvization of a dash into Warsaw, turned on possession of the line formed by the major rivers, the Vistula, the Narew and the Bobr, with the Bug–Narew theatre forming a vital objective of its own (which Soviet troops finally invested only in September). Having failed to implant themselves in this area by mid-August, the Soviet armies were hamstrung before Warsaw—a predicament to which Model’s counter-thrusts substantially contributed—and Stalin simply recorded an unpalatable truth when on 22 August he stated somewhat raspingly that ‘from the military point of view the situation which keeps German attention riveted to Warsaw is highly unfavourable both to the Red Army and to the Poles’. But by that time he had also formally and fiercely ‘disassociated’ himself and the Soviet command from ‘the Warsaw adventure’, thus consigning the Polish insurgents to inevitable death and inescapable destruction.