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This article is about the 1919 battle. For the 1944 battle, see Operation Ostra Brama.

Vilna Offensive

Part of Polish-Soviet War

Polish Army enters Vilna, 1919.

Date	early 1919
Location	near Vilna
Result	Polish victory

Belligerents

Second Polish Republic

Bolshevist Russia

Commanders and leaders

Józef Piłsudski
Władysław Belina-Prażmowski
Edward Rydz-Śmigły

Unknown

Strength

For the offensive:
10,000 infantry
1,000 cavalry
16 guns
For Vilna:
9 cavalry squadrons
3 infantry battalions
artillery support
local population
Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division had 2,500 soldiers
Polish cavarly of col. Belina had 800 soldiers

For the offensive: Western Rifle Division and other units of Western Army.
12,000 infantry
3,000 cavalry
44 artillery pieces.
For Vilna:
2,000 soldiers

Casualties and losses

Unknown. Polish military communiques note "more than 1,000 prisoners" taken.

Polish–Soviet War

1919
List of battles
Soviet westward offensive 1st Vilnius Bereza Kartuska Lida Pińsk 2nd Vilnius Minsk Sieliszcze Berezina Byteń
1920
Daugavpils Latyczów Koziatyn Kiev offensive Berezina Wołodarka Bystrzyk Grodno Boryspol Głębokie Dęblin and Mińsk Mazowiecki Nasielsk Radzymin Ossów Warsaw Cyców Lwów Zadwórze Białystok Komarów Kobryń Dytiatyn Niemen River

The Polish army launched an offensive, on April 16, 1919, to take Vilna (known to Poles as Wilno, to Lithuanians as Vilnius) from the Red Army. After three days' street fighting (April 19-21), the town was captured by Polish forces, and the Red Army retreated. The Poles also succeeded in securing the nearby cities of Lida, Navahrudak and Baranovichi; they had earlier taken Pinsk.

The Red Army launched a series of counterattacks in late April but failed. The Soviets would recapture the city only the following spring, as the Poles retreated along the entire front.

The Polish offensive launched at Vilna would cause much turmoil on the political scene in Poland and abroad.

Prelude

The Soviets, while at that time publicly supporting Polish and Lithuanian independence, sponsored communist agitators working against the government of the Second Polish Republic, and considered that the eastern borders of any former Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth state should approximate those of the defunct Congress Kingdom. Poles and Lithuanians, on the other hand, inspired by memories of the greatness of the erstwhile Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, saw their their borders as lying much farther east, and their leader, Józef Piłsudski, discerned an opportunity for military expansion, exploiting the turmoil and disarray in the territories of the former Russian Empire, shaken by the 1917 Revolution and the ongoing Russian Civil War.

In the first weeks of 1919, following the retreat of German Ober-Ost forces under Max Hoffmann, Vilna found itself in a power vacuum. It promptly became the scene of struggles among competing political groups, and experienced two revolutions.

On January 1 Polish officers led by Generals Władysław Wejtko and Stefan Mokrzecki took control of the city, establishing a "Samoobrona" ("Self-Defense") provisional government. Their aim was to defeat another faction active within the city, the communist "Workers' Council," which was plotting to seize the city. Samoobrona rule did not last long. Four days later January 5, 1919, the Polish forces were forced to make a hasty retreat when the Russian Western Army marched in from Smolensk to support local communists as part of the Russian westward offensive.

Vilna, the historical capital of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, became part of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and soon named the capital of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was proclaimed in the city on February 27, 1919. "Lit-Byel" became the eighth government to control the city in two years. The short period during which the Lithuanian SSR and Lit-Byel controlled the city was eventful, as the new communist government turned Vilna into a social experiment, testing various solutions on the city's inhabitants.

Józef Piłsudski, Polish revolutionary, military leader and statesman, himself a Lithuanian of Polish culture, a descendant of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth nobility (szlachta) polonized to an extent that most sources call his family Polish a native of the Vilna region and Polish commander-in-chief, decided that regaining control of the city — whose population comprised mostly Poles and Jews, with some Belarusians and about 2% Lithuanians — should become a priority of the renascent Polish state. He had been working on plans to take control of Vilna since at least March; he gave preliminary orders to prepare a push in that direction - and counter an expected Soviet westward push - on 26 March. One of Piłsudski's objectives was to take control of Vilna before Western diplomats at Paris Peace Conference could rule on whom the city, demanded by various factions, should be given to. The action was not discussed with Polish politicians and government, who at that time were more concerned with the situation on the southern Polish Ukrainian front. By the time of early April when members of Kresy Defence Committee (Komitet Obrony Kresów) - Michał Pius Römer, Aleksander Prystor, Witold Abramowicz and Kazimierz Świtalski met with Pilsudski, stressing the plight of occupied Vilna, and the need for the creation of self-government of city's inhabitants, Piłsudski is ready to move.

The offensive

Diversionary attacks

Piłsudski arrived at the front near Lida on 15 April, bringing reinforcements from Warsaw. His plan calling for exploitation of the gap in Soviet lines between Vilna and Lida, and advance towards Vilna using the road and railway. Amidst diversionary attacks, diverting Russian attention from the main Polish thrust towards Vilna, Polish forces attacked on dawn of 16 April.

The forces moving on Vilna included the cavalry group of Colonel Władysław Belina-Prażmowski (nine squadrons supported by a light battery of horse artillery, ~800 soldiers), and infantry under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły (three battalions of the Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division with two batteries of heavy artillery, ~2,500 soldiers).

Soviet forces in the area were composed Western Rifle Division (a unit which had many pro-communist Polish volunteers) and other units of Western Army; Soviet garrison of Vilna was about 2,000, but the troops were newly trained and mostly green. Remaining Soviet forces in the area estimated at 7,000 infantry, few hundreds of cavalry, and 10 artillery pieces. Those forces were to be engaged by other Polish forces and thus prevented from coming to aid the Vilna garrison.

The diversionary attacks went well, with Soviet forces acting under the impression that Poles had other targets than Vilna. Despite the attacks being planned as diversionary, they succeeded themselves, with generał Józef Adam Lasocki taking Lida in two days (despite unexpectedly strong resistance), and generał Stefan Mokrzecki taking Nowogrodek in three and Baranowicze in four days.

Assault on Vilna

On 18 April Col. Belina decided to use the element of surprise and move into Vilna without waiting for the slower infantry units. Polish forces left the village of Myto in early morning. At 0330 on 19 mjr Zaruski took Lipówka near Vilna. Belina's cavalry bypassed the city and attacked from behind, taking train station on the night of 18 to 19 April. On 19 April the cavalry uner lt. Gustaw Orlicz-Dreszer - future Polish general - charged into the suburbs, spread panic among the confused garrison, seized the train station and sent a train down the line to collect infantry. In this suprise raid about 400 prisoners, 13 trains, and various military supplies were captured. Piłsudski would declare Belina's cavalry action a most excuisite military action carried out by Polish cavalry in this war.

Cavalryman fought for control of the center of Vilna and took the Cathedral's square, Castle Complex on the hillside and quarters at the southern riverbank; they also captured hundreds of Bolshevik soldiers and officials; but their numbers were too small compared to the enemy forces which had begun to reorganize, particularly in the north and west of the town, and prepare a counterattack. Belina sent a message reporting that "enemy is resisting with extreme strenght" and asking for immediate reinforcements; around 8 in the evening the train sent in the morning returned with first infantry reinforcements; the Polish troops were also supported by city's predominantly Polish population which formed militia to aid them. By the evening of 19 April half of Vilna was in Polish control; however the Red Army troops and supporters put up a stubborn and coordinated defence. Only upon the arrival of the main force of Polish infantry under Generał Śmigły on April 21, did the the Poles gain the upper hand attacking decisively those parts of the town still held by the Red Army. The Polish infantry was able to reinforce the cavalry in the city center; during the night with help of local guides Polish forces crossed the river and took one of the bridges. On April 20 bridges were under the control of the Poles, and more of the city fell within their control. During the afternoon of that day, after a three-days long city fight the city was in Polish hands. Piłsudski arrived in Vilna on the same day. The last Soviet forces were pushed out of Surpiszki on 21 April.

Atrocities

The final phases of the assault on Vilna, as well as in some other cities, like Lida and Pinsk was carried with routine excesses against the local population. Therefore, the uprisings of local population took place immediately upon the Polish advances. Aggravation of the adversity forced Piłsudski to abandon the idea of supporting the Belarusian nationalist idea. While in March of the same year some Polish newspapers expressed their outrage about the atrocities carried by the military in the east, the violence continued. The occupation of Vilna was accompanied by several weeks long retaliatory campaign of violence against the city defenders and Soviet sympathizers with arrests, deportations to the concentration camps, tortures in prisons and wide-scale looting. Among executed without trial were elderly, women and children.

Jewish populations particularly suffered with from pogroms that took place upon Poles entering the cities. Over a hundred Jews fell victims in Vilna alone. Polish army stated that any Jews it killed were militants and collaborators engaged in actions against the Polish army;. However Morgenthau commission dismissed these allegations and reported that:

On April 19, Polish detachments entered the City of Wilna. The city was definitely taken by the Poles after three days of street fighting, during which time they lost thirty-three men killed. During the same period some sixty-five Jews lost their lives. From the evidence submitted, it appears that none of these people, among whom were four women and eight men over 50 years of age, had served with the Bolsheviki. Eight Jews were marched three kilometers to the outskirts of the City of Wilna, and deliberately shot without the semblance of a trial or investigation. Others were shot by soldiers who were robbing Jewish houses, No list has been furnished the mission of any Polish civilians killed during the occupation. It is, however, stated on behalf of the Government that the civilian inhabitants of Wilna took part on both sides of the fighting, and that some civilians fired upon the soldiers. Over two thousand Jewish houses and stores in the city were entered by Polish soldiers and civilians during these three days, and the inhabitants robbed and beaten. It is claimed by the Jewish community that the consequent losses amounted to over 10,000,000 roubles. Many of the poorest families were robbed of their shoes and blankets. Hundreds of Jews were arrested and deported from the city. Some of them were herded into box cars and kept without food or water for four days. Old men and women were carried away without trial or investigation. Two of these prisoners have since died from the treatment they received. Included in this list were some of the most prominent Jews of Wilna, such as the prominent Jewish writers Jaffe and Niger. For days the families of these prisoners were without news from them and feared that they had been killed. The soldiers also broke into the synagogue and mutilated the sacred scrolls of the law. Up to August 3, 1919, when the Mission was in Wilna, none of the soldiers or civilians responsible for these excesses had been punished.

According to the accounts of Michel Kossakowski, then the representative of the Civil Department of the Eastern Territories, to kill "a Bolshevik" or torture him to death was "not considered a sin". "In the presense of General Listowki the boy was shot only because he was showing an unfriendly smile". One officer "shot people in dozens because they were poorly dressed and looked like Bolsheviks... about 20 refugees that arrived from the enemies side were shot... this people were robbed, birched with barbed wire, burned with red-hot iron to obtain the false confessions."

Soviet counteroffensive

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The Polish victory angered the Soviets; dozens of people connected with Litbel were arrested, and some were executed ; the former Litbel leaders began accusing one another of culpability for the loss of their capital. Lenin considered the city vital to his plans, and ordered its immediate recapture (the Red Army in late April 1919 attempted a counteroffensive).

Near the end of April about 12,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, 210 HMGs and 44 guns were gathered by the Soviets in the area of Szyrwiany, Podbrodzie, Soły - Oszmiana. Polish forces in the area under general Stanisław Szeptycki numbered 11,000; in Vilna Rydz-Śmigly had 8 infantry battalions, 18 cavalry squadrons and 18 guns. Rydz-Śmigły decided to engage enemy forces before they combined their strengths. On the night of 28 to 29 general Stefan Dąb-Biernacki took Podbrodzie, taking one of the Soviet formations. Soviets attacked in Deliny-Ogrodniki direction, south of Vilna. Polish counterattack stopped that thrust and pushed Soviets back towards Szkodziszki-Grygajce. In reply Soviets launched another counterattack from the north of Vilna; this one is more successful and broke through the Polish defences in that area and stopped several kilometers from Vilna when Soviets delayed the attack not wanting to storm a hostile city in the night; during that time Poles strengthened their defence and counterattacked, forcing the Soviet's retreat toward Mejszagoła and Podberezie; Poles pursued and took those two settlements as well as Giedrojsc and Smorgoń. By mid-May Poles reached the line of Narocz lake - Hoduciszki - Ignalino - Lyngniany, leaving Vilnius behind the frontline.

Aftermath

Because of the successful surprise attack, the Polish army in Vilna managed to appropriate sizeable stocks of supplies, and hundreds of prisoners. When Piłsudski entered the city, a victory parade was held in his honour. The city's Polish citizens on the whole were delighted; their politicians envisaged a separate Lithuanian state closely allied with Poland; majority of the Jewish population, the only other sizeable community in Vilna, also welcomed the Polish government although a significant pro-communist minority activly cooperated with the Bolsheviks. Representatives from the city were immediately sent to the Paris Peace Conference, and the Stefan Batory University in Vilna, which had been closed in 1832 following the November 1830 Uprising, was reopened.

Acting in accordance with his vision of a Polish-led "Międzymorze" federation of East-Central European states, Piłsduski on April 22, 1919, issued a bilingual statement, in Polish and Lithuanian, of his political intentions — the "Proclamation to the Inhabitants of the Former Grand Duchy of Lithuania," pledging to provide "elections take place on the basis of secret, universal and direct voting, without distinction between the sexes" and to "create an opportunity for settling your nationality problems and religious affairs in a manner that you yourself will determine, without any kind of force or pressure from Poland." Piłdudski's proclamation was aimed at showing good will both to Lithuanians and international diplomats; the latter succeeded as the proclamation dealt a blow to the image of 'Polish conquest' and replaced it with the image of 'Poland fighting with Bolsheviks dictatorship and liberating other nations'; however the Lithuanians who demanded exclusive control over the city were much less convinced. Piłsudski's words caused much controversy also on Polish political scene; they were not discussed with Sejm, and caused much anger among Piłsudski's opponents from endecja faction; deputies from PSL Piast demanded incorporation of the Vilna Region into Poland and even accused Piłsudski of treason; however Piłsudski's supporters in the PPS managed to deflect those attacks.

Notwithstanding the fact that Vilna' population consisted mostly of Poles, the Lithuanian government in Kaunas, which viewed the city as the historic capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, saw the Polish incursion as an occupation. Relations between the Polish and Lithuanian governments, unable to reach a compromise over Vilna, continued to worsen, destroying the prospects for Piłsudski's plan of a Międzymorze federation and leading to open hostilities in the ensuing Polish-Lithuanian War (1920). In 1920, also, the Soviets recaptured Vilna, followed by the Poles' establishment of short lived puppet state the Republic of Central Lithuania.

Polish capture of Vilna set the stage for further escalation of Polish conflicts with Soviet Russia and Lithuania. In the coming months, the Polish forces would be pushing steadily to the east, launching the Operation Minsk in mid-August.

References

For controversies about the naming and dating of this conflict, refer to the section devoted to this subject in the Polish-Soviet War article.
^ Janusz Odziemkowski, Leksykon Wojny Polsko-Rosyjskiej 1919-1920' (Lexicon of Polish-Russian War of 1919-1920), Oficyna Wydawnica RYTM, 2004, ISBN 8373990968
^ Davies, p.49
Mission of The United States to Poland, Henry Morgenthau, Sr. Report
^ Collection of Polish military comminiques, 1919-1921, "O niepodległą i granice", Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna, Pułtusk, 1999. Pages - 168-172.Part available online in this letter to Rzeczpospolita.
Davies, p.30
Speaking of Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the Entente — on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany," while in the east "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far."
MacMillan, Margaret, Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003, ISBN 0-375-76052-0, p.212"
^ Davies, p.25-26
Davies, p.25
Davies, p.48
Davies, p.48-49
^ THE REBIRTH OF POLAND. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006.
^ Norman Davies, God's Playground. Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present. Columbia University Press. 1982. ISBN 0231053525. Page 40
^ Davies, p.62
^ "Josef Pilsudski was born in 1867 in Zulovo of the Vilna region in the family of the impoverished landowner from a very old and distinguished in the Rzeczpospolita line... The first of many paradoxes that surrounded Josef Pilsudski all his life and even after his death is that the future restorer of the Polish statehood essentially was not... a Pole. Similarly to Adam Mickiewicz he was a Litvin. Litvin is not exactly the same as the Lithuanian in a modern sense of this term. This is a szlachcic of the Lithuanian or Belarusian origin from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, originally independent, and later united with the Polish kingdom into the Rzeczpospolita. By the 18th century, the overwhelming majority of them became Catholic and Polonized to degree that they did not even understand the Lithuanian, which preserved among the peasantry. Litvins spoke Polish exclusively (well, some spoke Latin as well) and did not see the future of their beloved Lithiania other than the common with Poland, but still they were not Poles to a full degree."
Oleksa Pidlutskyi, Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century), Kiev, 2004, ISBN 9668290011, LCCN 20-0. Chapter "Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3-9 February, 2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian.
MacMillan, Margaret, Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003, ISBN 0375760520, p. 213-214.
Jews of Vilna had their own complex identity, and labels of Polish Jews, Lithuanian Jews or Russian Jews are all applicable only in part. See also: Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0195083199, Google Print, p.8 and Mark Abley, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, Houghton Mifflin Books, 2003, ISBN 061823649X, Google Print, p.205
Davies, pp.48, 53-54
^ Antoni Czubiński, Walka o granice wschodnie polski w latach 1918-1921 Instytut Slaski w Opolu, 1993 p.83
^ Adam Przybylski, 1928, Poland in the Fight for its Borders, April – July 1919 - this chapter contains an account of the battle, mostly identical with the one presented by Davies
Grzegorz Lukowski, Rafal E. Stolarski, Walka o Wilno, Oficyna Wydawnicza Audiutor, 1994, ISBN 8390008505
Template:Pl icon Zachodnia Dywizja Strzelców. WIEM Encyklopedia. Last accessed on 9 April 2007
^ Davies, p.50
^ Template:Pl icon Bohdan Urbankowski, Józef Piłsudski: marzyciel i strateg (Józef Piłsudski: Dreamer and Strategist), Wydawnictwo ALFA, Warsaw, 1997, ISBN 8370019145, p. 296
Joanna Beata Michlic, Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, ISBN 0803232403Google Print, p.118
^ Meltyukhov, p. 24
Ратьковский И. С., Ходяков М. В. История Советской России (History of Soviet Russia) - СПб.: "Лань", 2001. - 416 с. ISBN 5-8114-0373-9 Chapter V. Apogee of the Civil War. Section: Soviet-Polish War and falling of the White Crimea
Cite error: The named reference Bendersky was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland, Columbia University Press, 2005, ISBN ISBN 0231128193, Google Print, p.192
Davies (p. 240) cites a death toll of 65 under Polish rule, and 2,000 under the brief 1920 Soviet reoccupation)
Gintautas Ereminas, Ochrona toru Wilno - Lida
^ Davies, p.53-54
Template:En icon Tadeusz Piotrowski (1997). Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide... McFarland & Company. pp. p. 41-42. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
Davies, p.51
^ Czubiński, p.92
Davies, p.57
Template:En icon George J. Lerski. Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945. 1996, p.309
Davies, p.51-53