Lack of Outside Support During The Warsaw Uprising

Lack Of Outside Support During The Warsaw Uprising

The Warsaw Uprising, in 1944 ended in the capitulation of the city and its near total destruction by the German forces. According to many historians, a major cause of this was the almost complete lack of outside support and the late arrival of the support which did arrive. The only support operation which ran continuously for the duration of the Uprising were night supply drops by long-range planes of the RAF, other Commonwealth air forces, and especially units of the Polish Air Force, which had to use distant airfields in Italy (Brindisi and others) and so had very limited effect.

The Soviets made clear their view on the situation in Warsaw to United States Ambassador, W. Averell Harriman. On 15 August 1944, Harriman received a note from Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Vyshinsky. In this note, Vyshinsky was instructed by Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to inform Harriman that the Soviet Government "could not go along" with US plans to airdrop arms to resistance groups in Warsaw and that the "action in Warsaw into which the Warsaw populations had been drawn was a purely adventuristic affair and the Soviet Government could not lend its hand to it." Vyshinsky's note concluded that Stalin had pointed out to Churchill on 5 August that one could not imagine how a few Polish detachments of the so-called National Army possessing neither tanks, artillery, or aviation could "take" Warsaw at a time that the Nazis had at their disposal for the defense of that city four tank divisions.

Regardless of Stalin's political intentions, there could be alternate logistic reasons why the Soviet forces could not provide aid to Warsaw. One alternate explanation which has been given for the lack of early support is that the uprising began too early and the nearby Soviet forces could not fight their road to the city to support. Before and at the time of uprising, the German army started a massive Panzer force counterattack near Warsaw.

Another alternative explanation is that the Red Army was simply exhausted and hence unable to extend effective support to the Uprising. In support of this thesis, it is often claimed (mostly by Soviet sources) that since the opening of Operation Bagration many of Red Army units had covered several hundred miles in a far-ranging offensive, and their advance elements were at the very end of their logistical tether. This, coupled with the presence of several Panzer divisions from the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht around Warsaw which administered a sharp reverse to the Soviet 2nd Tank Army in the final days of July, was, according to this view, sufficient to stop the Red Army in its tracks on the Warsaw front. However, it must be kept in mind that the units which reached Warsaw in late July 1944 were not part of Bagration, but instead advanced from Western Ukraine as part of the Lublin-Brest Operation, covering a much smaller distance. Those units were in fact able to operate quite effectively against German forces to the south and north of Warsaw during August and September, successfully securing bridgeheads over the Vistula and Narew rivers in those sectors. Given that Soviet success, the apparent inactivity on the most direct route of approach towards Warsaw, through the suburb of Praga, lasting through August and the first half of September, is to say the least puzzling. Furthermore, once the Soviet forces seized Praga in mid-September 1944, only poorly supported units of the inexperienced 1st Polish Army were assigned to attempt the crossing of the river Vistula to aid the insurgents. Those crossings failed to establish a durable foothold on the left bank of the river, and caused considerable casualties among the Polish units involved. It is an open question whether an earlier Soviet effort using more experienced units with adequate support would have been able to reach and cross the Vistula in the Warsaw sector, and provide timely and effective support to the Polish units fighting in the main part of the city. The continued difficulty in accessing the Soviet documents of the time presently located in the Russian archives makes it difficult for historians to answer this question with any degree of certainty.