Sunday, August 15, 2021

August 15, we are celebrating the 101st anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw. The battle in which the Poles defeated Bolshevik Russia


The Battle of Warsaw also known as the Miracle on the Vistula River was a series of battles that resulted in a decisive Polish victory in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War. Poland, on the verge of total defeat, repulsed and defeated the Red Army in what Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, called "an enormous defeat" for his forces.

The defeat crippled the Red Army. In the following months, several more Polish follow-up victories secured Poland's independence and led to a peace treaty with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine later that year, securing the Polish state's eastern frontiers until 1939.

The politician and diplomat Edgar Vincent regards this event as one of the most important battles in history on his expanded list of most decisive battles since the Polish victory over the Soviets halted the spread of communism further westwards into Europe. A Soviet victory, which would have led to the creation of a pro-Soviet Communist Poland, would have put the Soviets directly on the eastern border of Germany, where considerable revolutionary ferment was present at the time.