Quotulatiousness

August 10, 2021

Franco-Prussian War – First Fighting and Casualties I GLORY & DEFEAT Week 2

Filed under: France, Germany, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

realtimehistory
Published 22 Jul 2021

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With the official declaration of war from France, Prussia mobilizes and calls in the defensive alliances with the other German states within the North German Confederation but also with Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden. And while the bigger armies still assemble, the first skirmishes happen near the French border.

» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.

» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018

Arand, Tobias / Bunnenberg, Christian (Hrsg.): Karl Klein. Fröschweiler Chronik. Kriegs- und Friedensbilder aus dem Krieg 1870. Kommentierte Edition. Hamburg 2021

Bourguinat, Nicolas / Vogt, Gilles: La guerre franco-allemande de 1870. Une histoire globale. Paris 2020

Howard, Michael: The Franco-Prussian War. London 1961

Milza, Pierre: L’année terrible. La guerre franco-prussienne septembre 1870 – mars 1871. Paris 2009

» SOURCES

Becker, Josef (Hrsg.): Bismarcks spanische «Diversion« 1870 und der preußisch-deutsche Reichsgründungskrieg. Bd. III. Paderborn, München, Wien, Zürich 2003

Bebel, August / Bernstein, Eduard (Hrsg.): Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx. Bd. IV. Stuttgart 1921

Fontane, Theodor: Krieg gegen Frankreich, Bd. 1. Berlin 1873

Napoléon III: Proclamation de l’Empereur. Paris, 23. Juillet 1870

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Website: https://realtimehistory.net

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand

Channel Design: Battlefield Design

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021

July 13, 2021

Japanese Armour Doctrine, 1918-1942

Filed under: China, History, Japan, Military, Russia, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The_Chieftain
Published 11 Jul 2021

Sources include:
Japanese tanks and armoured Warfare 1932-45, David McCormack
WW2 Japanese Tank Tactics, Gordon Rottmen, Akira Takizawa
Japanese Tanks, Tactics and anti-tank weapons, Donald McLean
Type 89 and Tankette books, Kazunori Yoshikawa

Continuing on this series of videos supporting the WW2 Channel, I look at what I can find about how the Japanese thought of tanks and their usage, tempered by quite a bit of combat experience.

Improved-Computer-And-Scout Car Fund:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/The_Chieftain
Direct Paypal https://paypal.me/thechieftainshat

May 4, 2021

What was the first professional army in History?

Filed under: History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Epimetheus
Published 3 Aug 2019

The First Professional Army in History, The Ancient Assyrian Army

Sources:
The Ancient Assyrians by Mark Healy
Warfare in the Ancient World by John Hackett
A History of the Ancient Near East by Marc Van Der Mieroop

Video on History of the Assyrian Empire From the Old Empire to the Neo-Assyrian Empire
https://youtu.be/aT57dnlo-Tw​

This video is sponsored by my Patrons over on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/Epimetheus1776

March 30, 2021

Caesar in Britain II: There and Back Again (54 B.C.E.)

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Historia Civilis
Published 21 Mar 2017

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Music is:
“Day Bird,” by Broke For Free
“Drums of the Deep,” by Kevin MacLeod
“Flood,” by Jahzzar

March 4, 2021

How the Roman Army Became the Byzantine Army

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Kings and Generals
Published 2 Mar 2021

Video is Sponsored by Ridge Wallet: https://www.ridge.com/KINGSANDGENERALS​ Use Code “KINGSANDGENERALS” for 10% off your order!

The Kings and Generals animated historical documentary series on the evolution of the Roman Army continues with the first episode of the series on the Army of the Eastern Roman Empire — the Byzantine Empire. In this episode, we’ll mainly focus on how the Roman army was transformed into the Byzantine army and talk about the armies of Justinian and Belisarius described by Procopius.

Support us on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals​ or Paypal: http://paypal.me/kingsandgenerals​.​ We are grateful to our patrons and sponsors, who made this video possible: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o…​

The video was made by our Arb Paninken http://bit.ly/2Ow3oC8​, while the script was developed by Leo Stone. This video was narrated by Officially Devin (https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficiallyDevin​)

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#Documentary​ #Byzantines​ #Romans

March 2, 2021

The Evolution of Shock Cavalry – From Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Filed under: Asia, Europe, Greece, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Invicta
Published 1 Mar 2021

Learn about the evolution of shock cavalry from antiquity before the use of saddles and stirrups! Check out The Great Courses Plus to learn about shock cavalry in the campaigns of Alexander the Great: http://ow.ly/osex30rvhjf​

In this history documentary we explore the topic of ancient cavalry. The basic idea is that these units often get depicted in media as performing glorious massed charges headlong into the enemy ranks as seen in such scenes as the Charge of the Rohirrim from the Battle of Pelenor Fields. In reality this would have been a very dangerous situation for cavalrymen even under the best circumstances. But to make matters worse, riders from antiquity fought without the use of either saddles or stirrups. So how on earth did they manage to dominate the battlefield with these handicaps. Let’s find out.

We begin by covering the history of cavalry with the first domestication of the horse and its introduction to warfare first as member of the baggage train and soon after as a part of chariot crews rather than as actual mounted forces. This was in large part due to the lack of riding experience and technology on behalf of the rider. Soon after the Bronze Age Collapse however cavalry began to rise to prominence across the armies of the Mediterranean. We speak about the various forms of equine practices which ranged from riding bareback into combat as with the Numidian Cavalry to the use of simple bridles and cloth seats as with Greek Cavalry and Persian Cavalry.

We then cover the techniques used by these cavalrymen to mount, ride, and fight. As a part of this discussion, we rely heavily on Xenophon’s Manual on Horsemanship which provides excellent first hand details from the period. We also show how these techniques were successfully used by shock cavalry of antiquity such as the Macedonian Companion Cavalry, the Saka Steppe Lancers, and the Persian Cataphracts to great effect even without the use of saddles and stirrups.

Finally we do pose the question of why they didn’t use the saddle and stirrup given its seemingly obvious advantages. To answer this question we look at the history of its development from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

Bibliography and Suggested Reading
On Horsemanship, by Xenophon
Adrian Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army
Adrian Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare
J.C. Coulston, Cavalry Equipment of the Roman Army in the First Century A.D.
George T. Dennis, Maurice’s Strategikon, p. 38.
Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Civili
Russel H. Beaty, Saddles

#History​
#Documentary​
#ShockCavalry

From the comments:

Invicta
13 hours ago
I was inspired by comments on our latest Units of History episode covering the Companion Cavalry which asked about how shock tactics worked in an age before the stirrup and saddle. I went down the rabbit hole finding answers and present to you my findings in this video! One awesome source we used was the Manual on Horsemanship by Xenophon which you can read for yourself here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1176/1176-h/1176-h.htm

February 26, 2021

Germany’s First Smokeless Carbines: the Kar 88 and Gewehr 91

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 May 2018

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/germa…

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With the development of the smokeless Gewehr 88 “Commission Rifle”, the German Army finally made a serious effort to bring their cavalry units up to a modern standard. There had never been a carbine variant of the Mauser 71/84 produced, and even by the late 1880s many German cavalrymen were still carrying single shot Mauser 71 carbines — or worse, converted captured Chassepots from the Franco-Prussian War. While the Karabiner 88 wasn’t in production quite as quickly as they would have liked, guns were coming off the factory line in quantity by the summer of 1890. The factories tasked with this production were not actually the major state arsenals, but rather two private companies in Suhl — CG Haenel and VC Schilling (although the Erfurt Arsenal would step in in 1891 to make a batch of 25,000 carbines).

The Kar 88 was remarkable light and handy, and designed for use in a cavalry scabbard, meaning that it had a nice slick profile. This became a problem when the Army wanted to issue the carbines for foot artillery crews as well, because it gave them no way to stack the rifles while tending to their artillery pieces. The result was the Gewehr 91, which was identical to the Kar 88 in every way except for the addition of a stacking rod under the muzzle.

Both the Kar 88 and Get 91 were already being slowly taken out of service before World War One, as the new Mauser 98 pattern carbines introduced in 1909 or 1910 were taking their place. This would change with the outbreak of war, of course, and every one of the 88 pattern carbines in German inventory would be issued out during the Great War. Their size and weight made them ideal for the troops who needed a personal weapon but were unlikely to actually have to fight with it (artillery crews, cyclists, supply drivers, balloon crews, etc). After the war, they all disappeared from military service, though. The arms limitations of the Treaty of Versailles gave Germany no reason to keep obsolescent arms, and they were discarded in favor of keeping Mauser 98 pattern rifles and carbines.

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February 22, 2021

The “Infantry Revolution” of the Late Middle Ages

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

SandRhoman History
Published 21 Feb 2021

CuriosityStream link: https://curiositystream.com/sandrhoman​

The “Infantry Revolution” of the late Middle Ages is kind of a hot topic among armchair historians and academics alike. This is how the argument goes: In the late Middle Ages, infantry grew in importance to the detriment of heavy cavalry; by then battles were increasingly won with pikes, longbows and arquebuses instead of mounted knights with lances, the argument continues, and as a result of that, the socio-political make-up and development of European polities changed lastingly. So, this Infantry Revolution supposedly had an incredible impact on European state building processes AND, the argument finally concludes, it laid the foundation to Europe’s conquest and colonization of many parts of the world. However, in public spaces such as YouTube this whole debate is more discussed in regards to tactics and fighting techniques than economics and politics. Consequently, much of the public discussion is about how and if the importance of knights changed after the High Middle Ages. Likewise, topics such as the efficacy of the English longbow or the impact of pikes in the late Middle Ages are frequently the subject of discussions. All of that is controversial to say the least but it gets worse: these changes must be viewed in the broader military changes such as the rise of gunpowder artillery between 1420 and 1530 — called an artillery revolution — the decline of sieges between the 1420s and the 1530s which, among many things, led to the resurgence of heavy cavalry in the later late Middle Ages. Lastly, all of these revolutions belong to a notion called “military revolution”. This video is not intended to argue one side or the other of the “infantry revolution” but to provide a broad overview over both the debate and the military changes during the 14th and 15th centuries. It explains how contemporary historiography quarrels over the infantry revolution.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhis…​

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SandrhomanBibliog…​

Bibliography:
Bane, M., English Longbow Testing against various armor circa 1400, 2006.
Ayton, A., / Price, J. L., (Hrsg.), The Medieval Military Revolution. State, Society and Military Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 199J.
Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society 1550–1800, 1991.
Devries, K., Medieval Military Technology, 1994.
Dierk, W., s.v. “Heeresreform”, in: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit
Ortenburg, G., “Waffe und Waffengebrauch im Zeitalter der Landsknechte” (Heerwesen der Neuzeit, Abt. 1, Bd. 1) Koblenz 1984.
Magier, Mariusz; Nowak, Adrian; et al., “Numerical Analysis of English Bows used in Battle of Crécy”. Problemy Techniki Uzbrojenia. 142 (2), 2017, 69–85.
Meumann, M., s.v. “Military Revolution”, in: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit.
Parker G., “The ‘Military Revolution’, 1560–1660 – a Myth?”, in: Journal of Modern History 48.2, 1976, 196–214
Parker, G., Die militärische Revolution. Die Kriegskunst und der Aufstieg des Westens 1500–1800, 1990 (Engl. 1988)
Roberts, M.: “The military revolution, 1560–1660”. In: Clifford J. Rogers: The military revolution debate. Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe. Westview Press, Boulder, Colo. 1995, S. 13–35.
Rogers, C.J. / Tallet F. (editors), European Warfare, 1350–1750, 2010.
Rogers, C.J., The Efficacy of the English Longbow, 1998.
Schmidtchen, Volker, Kriegswesen im späten Mittelalter. Technik, Taktik, Theorie, Weinheim 1990.
Soar, H., Gibbs, J., Jury, C., Stretton, M., Secrets of the English War Bow. Westholme, 2010, pp. 127–151.

February 9, 2021

History Summarized: Alexander the Great

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History, Humour, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 19 Sep 2017

Linguistically speaking, Alexander means “Defender of Men” from the Greek “alexo“, defend, and “aner/ander“, man. I’ll never be able to not internally think of his name as just meaning “Alex-Man”.

Oh, yeah, also he conquered an empire or something? IDK. I stopped paying attention after his bland name.

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February 8, 2021

Why Everybody Disagrees on the Efficacy of the English Longbow – A Video Essay

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

SandRhoman History
Published 7 Feb 2021

Everybody quarrels over the efficacy of the English longbow. Many historians, reenactors and history enthusiasts alike hold the view that arrows piercing armor is a myth. Some base this view on testing as was done for example by Tod from Tod’s workshop. Together with his team, he provided an invaluable data point for this debate. Others, such as traditionalist historians are often open to the possibility of arrows piercing armor, even though they are aware of actual testing of the longbow. In general, the efficacy of a weapon is much more complicated than its mere armor penetration value. So, in this video we’d like to shed light on the whole debate and explain why it is so hard to find common ground on this issue. This is why everybody disagrees on the efficacy of the English longbow.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhis…​

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sandrhoman​

Tod’s Video: ARROWS vs ARMOUR – Medieval Myth Busting https://youtu.be/DBxdTkddHaE​

Tod’s playlist: MEDIEVAL MYTH BUSTING https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI…​

Bibliography:
Rogers, C.J., The Efficacy of the English Longbow, 1998.
Devries, K., Medieval Military Technology, 1994.
Bane, M., “English Longbow Testing against various armor circa 1400”, 2006.
Soar, H., Gibbs, J., Jury, C., Stretton, M., Secrets of the English War Bow. Westholme, 2010, pp. 127–151.
Magier, Mariusz; Nowak, Adrian; et al., “Numerical Analysis of English Bows used in Battle of Crécy”. Problemy Techniki Uzbrojenia. 142 (2), 2017, 69–85.

January 2, 2021

Lee Metford and Lee Enfield Carbines for the Cavalry

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Sep 2020

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When the Lee magazine rifle was adopted for British military service, it was initially produced as a long rifle for the infantry. To accommodate the cavalry on horseback, a much more compact carbine version was produced. These were initially Lee Metford pattern, but changed to Lee Enfield pattern rifling when the long rifles made the same shift. The carbines were the origin of the cocking-piece-mounted safety, as the Lee Metford rifles in service at the time had no manual safety at all. The cavalry service wanted one, and the safety they came up with was added to later patterns of infantry rifle.

The Lee carbines are designed to be sleek and handy, to easily fit into a cavalry scabbard. The bolt handles are swooped forward slightly and flattened against the receiver. The front sight wings are rounded and the magazine was reduced to 6 rounds, barely extending beyond the receiver. Early examples were fitted with a D-ring on the left side of the receiver socket for use with a single point sling, but this was removed quickly and it is very rare to find carbines with intact sling rings today.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

November 16, 2020

US M1915 Bolo Bayonet – Dual Purpose Gear That Worked!

Filed under: History, Military, Pacific, USA, Weapons, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Nov 2017

The M1915 bolo bayonet was originally the brainchild of US Army Captain Hugh D. Wise, Quartermaster with the 9th Infantry in the Philippines. In 1902, he recommended the implement in a letter to his superior officers, noting that a bolo style of bayonet (ie, one with a widened machete-like blade) would have several advantages over the standard knife bayonet then being issued with the Krag-Jorgenson rifles the US Army was using. Specifically, the wider bayonet would be easier to recover after a thrust (he noted several instances of troopers being killed while trying to extricate their bayonets from enemies) and also (and more significantly) make an excellent and necessary bushwhacking tool in the jungle environment of the Philippines.

Wise’s idea was taken with interest and Springfield produced a series of experimental bolo bayonets, but the project ended there as the 1903 Springfield was adopted with a rod bayonet instead of a blade. Of course, the rod bayonet would be shortlived, and the blade bayonet would come back. The bolo bayonet ideas resurfaced in 1911 when a commission was formed to look into special equipment for the Philippine Scouts. After another series of experimental designs, the M1915 Bolo bayonet was formally adopted on May 22, 1915 and an order was placed for 6,000 of them to be made at Springfield Armory.

Delivery of these bayonets took place in 1915 and 1916, and they proved to be extremely popular tools with the soldiers in the Philippines. They would remain in service on the islands until World War Two, serving at last as a replacement for the M1913 cavalry saber for the 26th Cavalry.

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November 1, 2020

Arcelin Mousqueton: An 1850s Breechloader with a Ludicrous Bayonet

Filed under: France, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Jun 2020

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The Arcelin system was a capping breechloader provisionally adopted by the French military in 1854. It was a bolt action system with a folding bolt handle, firing a paper cartridge. It impressed Emperor Louis Napoleon III in initial trials, and he directed it be used to arm his elite Cent Gardes bodyguard. More extensive testing showed that it suffered from insufficient obturation, and would with extended use, eventually become so difficult to close that bolt handles would break. Its adoption was rescinded, and it was replaced by the Treuille de Beaulieu 9mm pinfire carbine in Cent Gardes use within just a few years.

The most distinctive element of the Arcelin in use was its bayonet — a true full-length sword complete with brass handguard that could be clipped to the muzzle. This was chosen for its impressive length, although it would have been cumbersome if used beyond ceremonial guard duties.

Thanks to the Cody Firearms Museum for allowing me access to film this very rare and very cool musketoon and its bayonet! Check them out here: https://centerofthewest.org/explore/f…

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

August 24, 2020

Why the British Army was so effective in 1914 – Learning lessons from the Boer War

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

History West Midlands
Published 10 Oct 2014

When Britain despatched an Expeditionary Force (the BEF) to the Continent in August 1914, the German Kaiser issued an order of the day to his generals to “walk over General French’s contemptible little army”.

But despite being heavily outnumbered, this small force, including many men from the West Midlands, played a vital role in stopping the seemingly overwhelming German advance across Belgium and into France.

Small in size compared with the much larger armies of France and Germany, the BEF was highly effective. This was in stark contrast to the disasters that the British Army had experienced a few years earlier at the start of the Second Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa.

August 14, 2020

Warsaw, 1920 – “Smash a Bolshevik!”

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Arthur Chrenkoff on the important but little-known Russo-Polish conflict a century ago:

Polish propaganda poster “Smash a Bolshevik”
Image via Daily Chrenk.

The Polish-Russian war of 1919-20 was the last major conflict where massed cavalry played an important role. Unlike the static Western Front a few years earlier (but similarly to the much more mobile Eastern Front) it was a war of maneuver and speed, conducted over vast swathes of territory. While still fought in a pre-armour era, its conduct directly and indirectly inspired the major proponents of the future tank warfare and the doctrine of blitzkrieg, from the young De Gaulle (who was one of the official French Army observers in Poland at the time) through Tukhachevsky in the Soviet Union to Guderian in Germany. Two million troops from both sides took part in the conflict, making it the most significant foreign intervention against the newly installed Bolshevik regime over the course of the Russian Civil War. It might have even succeeded in strangling communism in its cradle; what prevented the cooperation with the counter-revolutionary White forces was their old imperial hostility to independent Poland (coincidentally, the anti-Hitler German opposition of 1944 was likewise unfriendly to the idea).

The basic story of the war is easily enough told. After 123 years of partition between Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary, Poland was recreated (or, really, recreated herself) among the chaos of the late 1918, with the collapse of all three of her occupying empires. The new “Versailles” Poland was smaller than in the past, which led the new government to try to restore by force what has been denied to her at the negotiating table (where Poles had no seat in any case). The Russian Revolution (or rather the Bolshevik coup d’etat) and the following civil war provided a perfect opportunity. Throughout 1919, the reconstituted Polish Army under the command of Marshall Jozef Pilsudski fought against and took over the briefly independent Western Ukraine republic and then marched on Kiev, this time in alliance with the forces of also briefly independent Eastern Ukraine republic (it was Pilsudski’s intention to recreate some form of an independent Ukrainian state – minus the predominantly Polish areas – as part of his larger project to create the Miedzymorze (Intermarum) Confederation of both anti-Russian and anti-German states stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea).

But the Polish Army became overstretched and the Soviet government, now having defeated its major White opponents, found itself willing and able to stand up to and roll back what they saw as the Polish aggression against historically Russian territories. The Red Army, which sporadically skirmished with the Poles over the previous year, now counter-attacked across the whole wide front across what is now Belarus and Ukraine, driving the Polish Army back at an unprecedented pace of 30 kilometres a day. Soviet Marshall Tukhachevsky ordered his troops “To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!” and “onward to Berlin over the corpse of Poland!” Pravda newspaper echoed “Through the corpse of the White Poland lies the way to World Inferno. On bayonets we will carry happiness and peace to working humanity”. British Labour Party and French Socialists vowed not to support “reactionary” Poland; German and Czech unions sabotaged the delivery of crucial military supplies to the beleaguered Poland.

On 10 August, Cossack units of Tukhachevsky’s northern Army crossed the Vistula River north of Warsaw in at attempt to envelop the capital. This was a mistake, as the southern Army, under Budyonny, was still stuck around Lwow, three hundred kilometres to the south-east. For weeks preparing in secret, the last Polish reserves punched through the centre, first cutting off the two Soviet fronts from each other and then in a series of counter-enveloping maneuvers routing three Soviet armies. Now it was the Poles’ turn to advance 30 kilometres per day, as the Red Army collapsed and retreated in chaotic circumstances. The Polish counter-strike subsequently became known as “Cud nad Wisla” (Miracle of the Vistula), but it was less of a supernatural intervention and more a combination of several favourable factors: Soviet missteps, good Polish organisation, the growing hostility between Stalin and Trotsky as well as various military commanders, which hampered the cooperation between the Soviet fronts. Last but not least, and this was only revealed in 2004, Polish cryptographers had managed to break the Red Army codes – just as they would later be instrumental in breaking the German Enigma.

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