GREAT POLISH GENERALS OF WW2: Wladyslaw Anders

Polish Prometheus - painting by Horace Vernet

Prologue

Poland had ceased to exist as a nation in 1795 when its territory was invaded and partitioned for the third time among the empires of Austria, Prussia and Russia.  A total of 215,000 square kilometers (83,000 square miles) was split among them, the lions share kept by Russia. The King of Poland Stanislaw August Poniatowski abdicated in November 1795 and spent the remainder of his life in Grodno, Russia.

Poland would not emerge again as a nation for another 123 years.
 

Painting depicting Polish Legions
fighting with Napoleons army 1799

Though Poland was invaded and occupied she was never conquered. The Polish Legion was formed
(1790-1810) - an army-in-exile allied with the French to fight against their common mortal enemies. (Among the Polish commanders was Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, the Polish hero after whom the Polish national anthem was written.) The Poles fought with Napoleons armies, believing that in so doing, France would come to Poland's aid. In 1807 Napoleon Bonaparte set up the Duchy of Warsaw on land that had been ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia.


The Duchy, covering an area of 155,000 square kilometers (59,846 sq.miles) was held in personal union by King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, one of Napoleon's allies.



But when Napoleon failed in his plan to conquer Russia, the Duchy fell again under Russian control and was replaced in 1815 by the Congress of Poland (officially known as the Kingdom of Poland). However it was nothing more than a puppet state under the iron control of Russian powers.

Waves of Polish gentry, artists, poets, intelligentsia, and politicians emigrated from the former Polish state, from 1831 to 1870, seeking not only freedom and liberty, but the chance to plan and instigate revolutionary uprisings against the empires. The Polish Uprisings of 1831 and 1863 were brutally crushed by imperialist forces, and the Soviets inflicted draconian measures upon the Polish people, including that of Russification. Polish property was confiscated, people deported, forced into military service, Polish universities and schools were closed, resulting in a dramatic decrease in literacy. The Austrian sector fared only slightly better, but the Poles were instead subjected to Germanization.

General Wladyslaw Anders

From this crucible arose future generations of great Polish leaders who would fight for Polish freedom and independence. One of them was Wladyslaw Anders. He was born on August 11, 1892 in Krosniewice-Blonie (near Kutno) about a hundred miles west of Warsaw, in what was then part of the Russian Empire.


Anders had been brought up in the Protestant-Evangelical Church, but many years later would convert to Roman Catholicism. He was an undergraduate at Riga Technical University, and joined the Polish fraternity, Arkonia. Wladyslaw's father, Albert, was of Germanic origin, and worked as an agronomist and administrator of estates. His mother was Elizabeth Tauchert. Wladyslaw was one of four brothers, Charles, George Edward and Tadeusz, all of whom were officers in the Polish army at the start of WWII.

Badge of Krechowiecki Lancers Regiment

During WWI, Wladyslaw Anders served in the Tsar's Imperial Army and led the 1st squadron of the 1st Krechowiecki Lancer's Regiment. By the mid-1930s he had been promoted through the ranks to become General.  After WWI he joined the newly formed Polish Army and was appointed commander of the 15th Poznan Lancers Regiment and led them in battle against the Red Army in the Polish-soviet war of 1919.


In September 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland, Wladyslaw Anders assumed command of the Nowogrodek Calvary Brigade, which fought at Lidzbark. He was shot twice during battle, but despite his wounds, he led his men to safety. After the Soviets invaded, Anders was captured by the Red Army and deported to the infamous Lubyanka prison in Moscow where he was interrogated and tortured. He was imprisoned for two years and vowed that if he were to survive the horrors he would convert to Catholicism. He kept his promise. He might have been doomed to a tragic end, had it not been for an unexpected event - on June 22, 1941 the Nazi's invaded Russia.

Lubyanka Prison, Moscow (recent photo)

Stalin might have been aware of the impending German invasion but was ill-prepared to counter the German blitzkrieg. Russian losses were initially very heavy, and though the Soviets had substantial war materiel they were hopelessly obsolete. It was a key turning point for Britain in the war. Though Churchill vehemently detested the communist regime, he wasted no time in establishing a military alliance with Stalin. Churchill stated emphatically, that "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." Henceforth under the Lend-Lease program, Britain, as well as the United States and Canada began shipping massive quantities of supplies and war materiel to Russia. (By 1945 a total of 1,400 ships had made the perilous trans-Atlantic crossings.)


Shortly after Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin ordered the release of Wladyslaw Anders from prison, with the intention of forming a Polish army on Soviet soil. By August 4, 1941 General Sikorski named Wladyslaw Anders as commander of the new Polish army and on the 17th of August, the Sikorski-Maisky agreement was signed. The agreement called for the release of tens of thousands of Polish POWs from Russian gulags who would form the new Polish Army. Generals Sikorski and Anders had met with Stalin to discuss the details of Polish armament, which was conditional upon the release of all Polish POWs from Soviet camps. The new recruits came to be known as "Ander's Army" - officially the 2nd Polish Corps.

Polish POWs ex-gulag prisoners lined up at recruitment centre to enlist in Anders Army - 1941

Polish ex-PoWs in Anders Army

Poles who had been arrested by the Red Army during the invasion in 1939, and who were interned in gulags throughout Siberia, were being released - but only a small fraction of them. Despite pressure from Sikorski and Anders, Stalin was unwilling to release all Polish POWs. They were being used as slave labor for Soviet production quotas, and later, forced to enlist in the Soviet armies.

Recruitment for the new Polish army initially took place in the NKVD camps, beginning in the Buzuluk area. By the end of 1941 over 25,000 soldiers had been recruited and several infantry divisions had been formed. (Among these recruits was Menachem Begin, future Prime Minister of Israel.)

Thousands of Polish refugees who tried to make the perilous journey never reached the checkpoints, having died along the way from starvation, illness and extreme cold. Others had travelled thousands of miles from the remote camps in Siberia to Tashkent, Kermine, Samarkand (in Uzbekistan), and Ashkhabad (in Turkmenistan) to enlist in the new Polish army. The notorious NKVD agents raised numerous obstacles in an effort to prevent the refugees from reaching their destinations. In one of the incidences, they were ordered to disembark from a train and were left stranded in the wasteland of the Russian Steppes as the train sped off without them.

The ranks of Polish recruits were steadily expanding.  Attempting to take advantage of the Polish-Soviet agreement, Stalin wanted to send the new recruits to the front immediately - without reinforcements, but General Anders refused to permit it. The gulag had rendered the men were too weak and ill for military duty. In retaliation, Stalin reduced the food supply from 70,000 to 26,000 soldiers. It was not enough food to sustain them all, considering that the total number of Polish refugees was 115,000 (military and civilian). To meet the urgency, General Anders ordered his soldiers to share whatever food was available with the civilians. 

Starving Polish Children rescued by Iran

Sikorski, Anders and Churchill had met to discuss the formation of the Polish army under British command, and plans for an evacuation of Polish military and civilians from the USSR.  After several
postponements, Stalin finally relented, and on March 18, 1942, he agreed to the evacuation of the Polish army to Iran. A mass exodus of biblical proportions began in March until the end of August of that year.  Masses of Polish soldiers and civilians traveled by ship and overland to reach Palestine, through Iran and Iraq.  When news leaked out among the Soviet camps that an evacuation was taking place there erupted a violent surge of refugees trying to reach Soviet borders. Not all made it out in time. The remainder were trapped in Russia, not having received official permission to leave. Despite vigorous efforts by General Sikorski and General Anders to negotiate for their release, Stalin adamantly refused to concede.

Transport carrying Polish refugees from USSR arrive at Persian port 1941

Out of the one and a half million Poles who were deported to Russia, over half of them perished from starvation, cold, and disease.  Approximately 41,000 soldiers and 74,000 civilians - women, children, and the elderly, all Polish nationals, left Russia and made their way through Iran eventually reaching British Command bases in the Middle East.

When General Anders reviewed his new recruits for the first time, they were severely emaciated, ill, and dressed in rags. It was a startling sight to behold, made all the more astounding when these same men lined up, stood at attention and saluted Anders. Polish boys voluntarily joined the cadets, and about 1,500 Polish women joined the Auxiliary services. By 1943, the men of the 2nd Polish Corps were fit, healthy, well-trained and ready for battle. (Incidentally, there were many other Polish Divisions stationed in Palestine, including the 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division, Carpathian Lancers, 12th Podbole Lancers, etc.)

General Wladyslaw Anders reviewing troops of 2nd Polish Corps

Upon reaching Palestine, 4,000 Jewish soldiers from Ander's Army had deserted, although a few of them like Menachem Begin requested permission to do so. The news of such desertion came as a terrible blow to an army that was on the verge of going into battle. Despite British pressure to charge them with desertion, General Anders was not willing to pursue a court martial, but chose instead to grant them all amnesty. Despite this betrayal, there were many other Polish-Jews who chose to remain with the Corps and fought together with them in the battles at Monte Cassino. (Many of them also died in battle and their graves, marked with the Star of David, rest alongside those of other Polish heroes at the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino.)


General Anders had been anticipating the arrival of some 15,000 Polish officers, none of whom ever showed up, and whose whereabouts could not be determined.  After an extensive search turned up nothing, Anders approached Stalin on several occasions asking for an explanation but his inquiries were always met with evasion and lies. (It wasn't until 1943 that the shocking truth was discovered. The Nazis discovered the mass graves of the missing Polish Officers, at Katyn, near Smolensk Russia. Each Officer had been executed by the Soviet NKVD by a single bullet to the back of the head and their corpses piled layer upon layer into huge mass graves.) 

Polish Officers massacred at Katyn Forest (Smolensk Russia) April 1940

Polish Soldiers Charging Up Phantom Hill

The 2nd Polish Corps became known as one of the best trained military units of WW2, and the Polish soldiers were praised for their fierce fighting ability and bravery. Their greatest victory was the capture of Monte Cassino on May 17-18, 1944. Polish troops were able to succeed when
other allied troops failed at every attempt. But it was a victory that was hard-won and cost the lives of many thousands of Polish soldiers.

The 2nd Polish Corps waged other battles along the Adriatic Coast, liberating the cities of Bologna and Ancona.

General Wladyslaw Anders chatting with General Alexander

The Battle of Monte Cassino was a major victory for the Allies and a stepping stone to the next great victory in the greatest battle of all time - the Battle of Normandy. Yet despite these victories, Poland had been betrayed and abandoned by her allies. The men of the 2nd Polish Corps had fought and died for the freedom of Italy, and of Europe, not knowing that they had already lost their beloved homeland - Poland.


Though the West has always proclaimed to be the victors of World War II, the reality was quite different.  It was not democracy that won, but rather totalitarianism. General Anders cautioned Western Allies to be wary of the Soviets, knowing full well the Russian reputation for deceit.  But his forewarning fell on deaf ears.  Anders stated, 

“It is impossible to imagine
that humanity has suddenly become blind
 and has really lost the consciousness of a mortal danger."

By the end of WW2, the Soviets had installed a communist puppet regime in Poland and began hunting  Polish soldiers and officers who were deemed "enemies of the state".  Many Poles never returned to Poland after the war. Those who did were imprisoned, tortured, and executed. For these reasons, Wladyslaw Anders and many others chose to remain in exile.  For the interim Anders maintained a prominent role in the Polish government-in-exile, and as inspector-general of the Polish forces-in-exile.
General Wladyslaw Anders passed away in London on May 12, 1970.  He never applied for British citizenship.  According to his last wishes, he was buried at the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino, Italy - among the fallen heroes of the 2nd Polish Corps.   

Insignia of 2nd Polish Corps

Polish War Cemetary, Monte Cassino, Italy

NEXT:

GENERAL STANISLAW MACZEK
(click on name)

The Battle of Monte Cassino: Message from Pope John Paul II on the 50th Anniversary of Battle of Monte Cassino

The following speech was given by Pope John Paul II for the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino.  No other words are adequate to describe what the Battle of Monte Cassino meant to the Polish veterans and to the Polish nation.  But there is one thing that must be acknowledged -  that the Poles fought for Your freedom, all the while hoping that they too would also be free again.

MESSAGE OF POPE JOHN PAUL II ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MONTE CASSINO

1. Monte Cassino... What does this word say to all of you, present here today in this cemetery? It says a great deal: it speaks of the victory won there; it also speaks of the price Poles paid for it, fighting as the allies of other nations. This alliance was the consequence of events that began on September 1939. The Polish Republic was then seeking allies in the West, aware that it would be unable to face the invasion of Hitler's Germany alone. But perhaps this was not the only reason. Poles were aware of the fact that the conflict they were forced to face was not only demanded by patriotism, to defend the independence of the State they had so recently regained, but also had broader implications for the whole of Europe. Europe had to defend itself from the same threat as Poland. The national socialist system was opposed - if this can be said - to the "European spirit". And this problem could not be dealt with by endless attempts at apparent solutions. These attempts resulted in further victims with the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was clear that other similar consequences would have occurred had Europe not decided to take a firm stand in the military sense as well. The decision taken by the Polish Republic in 1939 was therefore right. Indeed, it clearly appeared that Europe could not be defended without deciding on a defensive war, whose first phase was precisely Poland in 1939.

Poles fought for their country's independence

2. The victory of Monte Cassino took place five years later on 18 May 1944. The end of the terrible World War was now not far off. Not only had it raged through almost all of Europe, but it had also drawn non-European States into its vortex, the United States first, into the ranks of the Allies, and then Japan, into those of the so-called Axis. To understand what happened in Monte Cassino, it is necessary again to reflect on another date of the past: 17 September 1939, when Poland, desperately defending herself against invasion from the West, was attacked from the East. And this jeopardized the course of events in that Polish September, leading to a double occupation, with Hitler's concentration camps in the West and those of the Soviets in the East. The tragedy of Katyn, still today a unique testimony of the struggle undertaken at the time, took place in the East.

In order to understand the events that occurred at Monte Cassino, we also need to have this Eastern chapter of our history before our eyes, because the army commanded by General Wladyslaw Anders, which played such an important role in the battle of Monte Cassino, consisted largely of Poles deported to the Soviet Union. In addition, there were soldiers and officers who, from occupied Poland, had secretly reached the West through Hungary, with the intention of continuing the fight there for the independence of their homeland. Monte Cassino was an important milestone in this struggle. The soldiers involved in that battle were convinced that by helping to solve the problems concerning the whole of Europe, they were on the way to an independent Poland.

3. Those of you who fought here treasure in your hearts the memory of all your fellow soldiers. You have come here to visit the Polish military cemetery at Monte Cassino, where General Wladyslaw Anders and Archbishop Józef Gawlina, the faithful chaplain to the Polish army on the battlefield, also repose. Many of your companions rest here: soldiers and officers with names that are not only Polish but also Ukrainian, Belarusian and Jewish. They all fought in the battle for the same great cause, as the cemeteries attest: those of Monte Cassino, Loreto, Bologna and Casamassima. Our thoughts and prayers are addressed to those who fell, who, departing life, were thinking of their loved ones in Poland. Their death was a witness to the readiness that marked all society at the time: to give one's life for the holy cause of one's homeland.

Pope John Paul II laying flowers near the Eternal Flame of Polish Cemetery, Monte Cassino

We cannot forget that a few months later, in that same year of 1944, the Warsaw Uprising took place, an episode which corresponded to the battle of Monte Cassino. The Poles in their homeland felt that they had to fight this battle, in order to stress the fact that Poland had been fighting from the first day to the last, not only to defend her own freedom, but for the future of Europe and the world. They were convinced that the Soviet army, already close to Warsaw, together with the Polish battalions from the territory of the Soviet Union, would contribute decisively to the success of the Warsaw Uprising. But unfortunately this was not the case. We know that Poland paid very dearly for the Warsaw Uprising: not only with the death of so many thousands of Polish men and women of my contemporaries' generation, but even with the almost total destruction of the capital.

New life has risen from the ruins

4. While we have the image of 50 years ago before our eyes, we must once more repeat the word Monte Cassino, a name that has a far older meaning than the one attributed to it in 1944. We must go back 15 centuries to the time of St Benedict. Precisely at Monte Cassino one of those Benedictine abbeys that was to initiate the formation of Europe arose. Historians show that on the basis of the Benedictine principle "ora et labora", after the decline of the Roman Empire of the West and after the migrations of peoples, this Europe began to emerge, whose civil and cultural foundations have been preserved to this day. This is Christian Europe. It was St Benedict in the West, like Saints Cyril and Methodius in the East, who contributed to the Christianization of Europe in the first millennium. Moreover, the European nations are indebted to them for the very beginnings of their own culture and of this Western civilization, which has continued to develop over the centuries and has also spread to other continents.

From this standpoint, what does the battle of Monte Cassino represent? It was the clashing of two "projects": one, both in the East and in the West, aiming at uprooting Europe from its Christian past linked to her Patrons, and in particular to St Benedict, and the other, striving to defend the Christian tradition of Europe and the "European spirit". The fact that the Abbey of Monte Cassino was destroyed has a symbolic value. Christ said: "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit" (Jn 12:24). Evidently, the ancient Abbey of Monte Cassino had to be destroyed so that a new life for all of Europe could rise from its ruins. And in a certain sense, this is what happened. On the ruins of the Second World War, a united Europe began to be built, and those who were its first builders staunchly clung to the Christian roots of European culture.

5. We Poles were unable to participate directly in the rebuilding of Christian Europe undertaken in the West. We were left with the ruins of our capital. Although we had been allies in the victorious coalition, we found ourselves in the situation of the defeated, upon whom the domination of the East, within the Soviet Bloc, was imposed for more than 40 years. Hence for us the struggle did not end in 1945; we were forced to take it up all over again. Furthermore, the same thing happened for our neighbours. Commemorating the Monte Cassino victory, it is therefore essential today to add the truth about all Polish men and women, who in an apparently independent State, became the victims of a totalitarian system. In their homeland, they gave their lives for the very cause for which Poles had died in 1939, then throughout the occupation and finally at Monte Cassino and in the Warsaw Uprising. We must also remember how many were killed at the hand of the Polish institutions and security services that served the system imposed by the East. They must at least be remembered before God and before history, in order not to veil the truth about our past at this decisive moment in history. The Church commemorates her martyrs in martyrologies. We cannot allow that in Poland, especially Poland today, the martyrology of the Polish nation should not be recomposed.

We pray for a good use of freedom

6. This is the price we paid for our current independence. If after the First World War it was necessary to fight to put Poland back on the map of Europe, after the Second World War no one could harbour any doubts on this score. The Polish nation had paid such a high price, had claimed its right to exist as a State with such tremendous efforts and suffering, that even our enemies - let us say, the dubious "friends" of the East and the West - could not question this right. This too must be said today, on the occasion of the great anniversary of the battle of Monte Cassino, because it has fundamental significance for our Polish and European present. If it is impossible to detach the "today" from the past, from all our history and especially from the past 50 years, it is impossible to forget that every human "today" is the introduction to a human future. What will the future of Poland and Europe be like? There are many promising elements for this future. Apparently Europe has detached herself from the dangerous systems that have prevailed in the 20th century, and the desire for peaceful co-existence among nations is rather general. Is this also the desire to build our own future in the spirit of Monte Cassino? Monte Cassino represents a symbol proven by the experience of history. But should we not fear that we might be unable to draw the right conclusions from this experience, letting ourselves be misled by other "spirits" that have little in common with Monte Cassino, or are even opposed to it, perhaps to the point of being responsible for its systematic destruction?

Thus we cannot conclude our meditation on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the victory of Monte Cassino without adding a similar warning for the future and together beseeching God to remain with us and we with him. We must pray that we may be able to make good use of the freedom purchased at such a high price: because we are returning to the heritage of St Benedict and of Sts Cyril and Methodius, co-patrons of Europe in the West and in the East.

At the end of the second millennium and on the eve of the third, I recommend all those present and the whole of our country to them, as well as to all the patrons of our nation, especially to the one who is the symbol of our century, the martyr saint of Auschwitz, Maximilian Maria Kolbe, as well as to Our Lady of Jasna Góra, Queen of Poland.

May almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, bless you.

"They must be remembered

before God and before history."

This concludes the Special series on the Battle of Monte Cassino.  I have provided the following links for your convenience so that you may review specific sections as you wish.

Battle of Monte Cassino Introduction
Phase One (January 17 -  February 11, 1944)
Phase Two (February 12 - February 19, 1944)
Phase Three (February 20 - March 25, 1944)
Phase Four - Polish Army (A race against death) (March 26 - May 18, 1944)
Aftermath (May 23, 1944 - April 20, 1945)