Battle of the Niemen

The Battle of the Niemen (PL), fought in the last ten days of September 1920, was the Polish Army’s second great victory in the war with Soviet Russia after the Battle of Warsaw, and the last great battle of that war. Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who had fallen back from Warsaw to the Niemen in August, rebuilt his Western Front there and was preparing a new attack. Józef Piłsudski forestalled him. He pinned down the main Soviet forces at Grodno and Wołkowysk, and with a manoeuvre group marching through land held by the Lithuanians outflanked them from the north. On 25 September Tukhachevsky ordered a retreat, on the night of 25–26 September the Poles entered Grodno, and the Red Army fell back deep into Belarus.

Name and dates

In Polish literature the battle is called the Battle of the Niemen or the Niemen battle. The historian Lech Wyszczelski prefers the name “Niemen operation”, because it consisted of many separate battles and a pursuit. The Polish Wikipedia gives the dates 20–26 September, adding that some sources give 20–28 September. That is how, among others, the chronology of the Museum of Polish History’s dzieje.pl portal dates the battle. This page uses 20–26 September: from the first attack at Grodno to the capture of the city. The fighting at Lida on 28 September already belongs to the pursuit. The battle should not be confused with the fighting on the Niemen of September 1914 or with the July fighting on the same river during Tukhachevsky’s offensive.

Background

After the defeat at Warsaw the remnants of the Western Front occupied the line of the Niemen, the Shchara and the Svislach at the end of August. Within three weeks Tukhachevsky filled up his shattered divisions with reinforcements from the interior of Russia and from the Finnish border. According to Polish accounts he had about 73,000 men in the 3rd, 15th and 16th Armies, and in the south, in Polesie, the 4th Army. The commander-in-chief of the Red Army, Sergei Kamenev, set the start of a new offensive for the end of September. Tukhachevsky reported to Lenin that the defeat at Warsaw had not decided the outcome of the war.

Lithuania complicated matters. On 12 July it had signed a peace treaty with Soviet Russia that gave it Vilna, and after the Red Army’s retreat its troops entered the city, taken by the Poles in 1919, and also occupied parts of the Suwałki and Grodno regions. At the beginning of September there was Polish–Lithuanian fighting near Sejny and Augustów. The Lithuanians declared their neutrality, but in Poland they were regarded as Moscow’s de facto allies. On 20 September the Council of the League of Nations confirmed the so-called Foch Line as a provisional demarcation line. The only routes into Tukhachevsky’s rear from the north led through land controlled by the Lithuanians.

Plan

On 10 September, at his headquarters in Brest-Litovsk, Piłsudski explained his intention to the commanders of the 2nd and 4th Armies. General Leonard Skierski’s (PL) 4th Army was to attack Wołkowysk, to convince the Russians that the main blow would fall in the centre. The main forces of General Edward Rydz-Śmigły’s 2nd Army were to pin the enemy down at Grodno. The decision was to come from the 2nd Army’s manoeuvre group, made up of the 1st Legion Infantry Division, the 1st Lithuanian-Belarusian Division and two cavalry brigades. It was to cross a strip of land held by the Lithuanians, force the Niemen at Druskininkai and come out deep in the Soviet rear around Lida. According to Polish accounts the two Polish armies numbered about 67,000 men. The Commander-in-Chief’s detailed order was issued on 19 September.

Grodno and Brzostowica

On 20 September, before the manoeuvre group set off, the 21st Mountain Division and the 22nd Volunteer Division, supported by heavy artillery, attacked from the Augustów Forest towards Grodno. The surprised Russians fell back to the forts of the fortress. Tukhachevsky took this for the start of the main offensive and threw in his reserves here. Over the following days, from 21 to 24 September, heavy fighting went on at Kuźnica, Odelsk and Nowy Dwór, and many villages changed hands several times. On the right flank the 3rd Legion Division beat off more than a dozen attacks at Brzostowica Wielka. On the night of 22–23 September Major Bernard Mond’s 205th Volunteer Infantry Regiment crossed the swollen Niemen by a damaged bridge at Hoża, north of Grodno, and began to approach the fortress from the other bank.

The blow from the north

On 22 September the manoeuvre group set off. The 1st Legion Division routed two Lithuanian infantry regiments in a fight lasting several hours, took over 1,700 prisoners and captured Sejny. On 23 September the 4th Cavalry Brigade seized the intact bridge over the Niemen at Druskininkai. For a long time the Russians did not know what was happening on their northern flank. When they understood, they sent two reserve divisions against the manoeuvre group, which weakened the defence of the Niemen line at Grodno.

In the south General Władysław Jung’s group of the 4th Army took Wołkowysk (PL), an important railway junction, on 23 September. The next day the crack Soviet 27th Rifle Division recaptured the town, but it became tied down in the fighting, and the 3rd Legion Division was able to advance to the Niemen at Mosty.

On 25 September the Poles took more of Grodno’s forts, and in the evening Tukhachevsky ordered the 3rd Army to retreat. That day Soviet troops left Wołkowysk and the western bank of the Niemen. On the night of 25–26 September the 22nd Volunteer Division entered the abandoned city of Grodno. In places the retreat turned into flight.

Pursuit

Piłsudski sent the manoeuvre group towards Lida, but the order reached the units late. On 26 September the 1st Legion Division surprised retreating Soviet columns at Radun, and on 28 September, after fierce street fighting, it took Lida, capturing about 10,000 prisoners according to Polish figures. The Soviet 3rd Army, however, could not be encircled. In the south the 4th Army took Pinsk and Baranovichi at the end of September. The Western Front was no longer able to stop the Polish advance east.

Casualties

There are no complete figures. In the fighting for Lida alone the Poles lost, according to Polish accounts, 41 killed and 205 wounded, and in the fighting for Wołkowysk 53 killed, 253 wounded and 60 missing. Polish literature states that about 40,000 prisoners and 140 guns were taken in the whole operation. Soviet losses in killed and wounded are not known.

Significance

The Battle of the Niemen dispelled Moscow’s hopes of marching on Poland again. From then on the Red Army on the Polish front was mostly retreating, and in Riga peace talks had been under way since 21 September in which the Soviet delegation had to reckon with the new situation at the front. For Lenin and his associates the priority became ending the war with Poland before winter, in order to deal with General Pyotr Wrangel’s White army in the Crimea.

The battle also had a second, Lithuanian dimension. Marching through Sejny and Druskininkai, Polish troops entered land that Lithuania considered its own and defeated its units. The Lithuanian side saw this as a violation of the demarcation line, the Polish side as a response to the Lithuanians’ cooperation with the Red Army. The dispute over Vilna, set aside during the war with Russia, was soon to return with new force.