Prelude
In the aftermath of World War I, Poland fought to preserve their newly regained independence, lost in the 1795 partitions of Poland, and to carve out the borders of a new multinational federation (Intermarium) from the territories of their former partitioners, Russia, Germany, and Austria–Hungary.
At the same time in 1919, the Bolsheviks had gained the upper hand in the Russian Civil War, having dealt crippling blows to the Russian White Movement. Vladimir Lenin viewed Poland as a bridge to bring communism to Central and Western Europe, and the Polish–Soviet War seemed the perfect way to test Red Army strength. Bolshevik speeches asserted that the revolution was to be carried to western Europe on the bayonets of Russian soldats and that the shortest route to Berlin and Paris lay through Warsaw.
The two sides were embroiled in the Polish–Ukrainian War, amidst competing territorial claims. After early setbacks against Poland in 1919, the Red Army was overwhelmingly successful in a counter-offensive in early 1920 that nullified the Polish Kiev Operation, forcing a Polish retreat. By mid-1920, Poland's very survival was at stake and foreign observers expected it to collapse at any moment. The Russian strategy called for a mass push toward the Polish capital, Warsaw. Its capture would have had a major propaganda effect for the Russian Bolsheviks, who expected the fall of the Polish capital not only to undermine the morale of the Poles, but to spark an international series of communist uprisings and clear the way for the Red Army to join the German Revolution.
The Russian 1st Cavalry Army under Semyon Budyonny broke through Polish lines in early June 1920. The effects of that were dramatic; Budyonny's success resulted in a collapse of all Polish fronts. On July 4, 1920, Mikhail Tukhachevsky's Western Front began an all-out assault in Belarus from the Berezina River, forcing Polish forces to retreat. On July 19 the Red Army seized Grodno and on July 28, it reached Białystok. On July 22, the Brześć Fortress was captured.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Warsaw (1920)
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