Talk:Battle of Radzymin (1920)/Archives/2012/January

Queries from copyeditor

A few queries...

At the start of the August 13 section we have "The first Soviet assault on Warsaw—and Radzymin in particular—came not from the east, as expected, but from the north-east. Warsaw was to be assaulted from the east by the 16th Red Army. At the same time the 14th Red Army (under Ieronim Uborevich) captured Wyszków and started a fast march westwards, towards Toruń. It was then to cross the lower Vistula and assault Warsaw from the north-west. However, its 21st Rifle Division remained on the south side of the Bug River and headed for Warsaw directly"

So, the 16th Army is to attack from the east (but never does?), but the 14th Army bypasses Warsaw to the north, and intends to then attack south-eastwards, thus attacking Warsaw from the north-west; but its 21st Rifle division moves further south (thus attacking Warsaw from the north-east?)... is this roughly what is happening? But if so, we can't really say that the first attack on Warsaw did not come from the east... because we've already said in the lead that Radzymin is to the east of Warsaw. What is really meant here?

Secondly, under Opposing Forces we mention the State Police manning the third line of defences; and then later we say under August 13 that the gendarmes fled. Are gendarmes and state police the same thing? (On a related note, I've boldly replaced "escadrilles" with "squadrons", where it refers to aircraft.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:13, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Take a closer look at the map I made, Radzymin is NE of Warsaw. After their withdrawal from the Bug river line, the Poles expected the Soviets to follow them straight towards Warsaw. Such an attack would indeed come from the east (along a lengthy front from Radzymin to the north to Sulejówek or even Wawer in the south. So, the 16th Army is to attack from the east, but it is not the main Russian force to attack Warsaw. Moreover, it starts by assaulting Radzymin and not, say, Sulejówek, which is directly to the East of the city centre. The rest of what you point out above is right.

As to escadrilles and squadrons, I'd revert that. The term squadron suggests British-like Squadron, that is 18 to 24 planes. Polish eskadra (traditionally referred to by the French term escadrille, even in English works) had somewhere around 8-10 planes. Two escadrilles usually made up a squadron (dywizjon in Polish, escadron in French, and... Squadron in English). This reflects a different evolution of Air Forces in Poland and France on one side and in the UK on the other. Poland followed the French tradition of smaller, independent units.

So no, these were not the same thing. //Halibutt 06:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I started a quick stub on Escadrille to show the difference. It's a tad shady, much like comparing military ranks of various countries, but it should give an uninformed reader some insight. //Halibutt 17:03, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, I also propose changing the lead from "the area around the town of Radzymin, some 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Warsaw" to "north-east of Warsaw". The rest pretty much makes sense if that's the case, though I might tweak it a bit more.

Thanks for turning Escadrille into an article, this is the perfect solution to the problem. It was previously a redirect to Squadron (aviation), which was less than ideal since using the term in the article meant either linking to it, or providing a vague-sounding explanation in the article itself, neither of which would be very satisfactory. The new article should come in useful in a fair few other articles in this period of history too, I'd imagine.

Did you have any thoughts on state police versus gendarmes? I'm tempted to replace both with state police, not wikilinked, since our article Gendarmerie mostly talks about how gendarmes never have any military role at all. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, forgot about that. The State Police is... well, your everyday cops, mobilised if need be. Gendarmerie is Military police, so these are two completely different services, although at times they might have similar roles. In this case the original version of this article is pretty much correct:

• The State Police units of Warsaw and other towns were mobilised and drafted into the army as sort of a stop-gap force. The logic behind that seems pretty obvious. "You know, we have a bunch of guys here trained in using sidearms and rifles, armed and hey, they're already in uniforms, why not use them". That is why and how they were sent behind the main lines of Polish defence to form a second line, if need be.
• The Military Police on the other hand are (and were back then) part of every major military unit and were not an ad-hoc force. Their task was also different. Among other things, the Military Gendarmerie (Polish: Żandarmeria Wojskowa) created several cordons (cf. cordon sanitaire) with the purpose of stabilising the front and catching deserters, stragglers and communist saboteurs. Around Radzymin this cordon failed. The article says pretty much what was in the Polish source: The retreat was made even more serious by the fact that the gendarmes, tasked with stabilising the front and catching deserters, also fled in panic. //Halibutt 17:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Distances and dates

Two more...

Under August 16 we have "Ironically, on that day in Moscow", but the phrase comes shortly after sentences talking about dates in September. Is "that day" referring to August 16, or a different date?

Back to Opposing Forces again, it's mentioned that Polish units "were exhausted after surviving a 600 kilometres (370 mi) retreat from Belarus"... it's then mentioned that two Russian divisions had chased the Poles "for over 500 kilometres (310 mi) from Belarus". Should these figures be identical? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:28, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Yup, August 16. As to distances, various sources mention various distances, it's but an approximation. Some units had a longer route, others had a shorter route. It's 610 kilometres from Warsaw to Mozyr, 560 to Minsk, some 800 to Polotsk. //Halibutt 06:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Great, I'll reword that a bit, probably either using "over 500 kilometres" for both of them, or using that number for just one of them and not using a number at all for the other. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

"Bolshevik" forces for consistency

Being prior to the formation of the Soviet Union, my preference is for "Bolshevik forces," also in keeping with contemporary accounts of the time. I noticed we have a mix of Soviet and Bolshevik. The latter characterization is consistent with other accounts of military conflicts describing hostilities between the Bolshevik forces and those of the Baltic, Polish, and German. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 23:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I also generally prefer the term Bolshevist Russia (or Bolshevik, all the same) when speaking of 1917-1921 Russia. Speaking of Soviet forces when there was no Soviet Union is an anachronism. However, the main article is at Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the term Soviet Russia (also Soviet forces, troops and so on) is used pretty commonly in modern sources. Perhaps we could think of changing all instances of "Soviet forces" and so on to "Bolshevik forces" and add a footnote explaining the problem with names. Any ideas on the wording? //Halibutt 20:21, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Somewhere in the discussion of Bolshevik versus Soviet Russia and elimination of articles into diambiguation pages I had referenced an English language publication issued by the government at the time referring to itself as Bolshevik (or was it Bolshevist?) Russia. I'll have to track that down again. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 01:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Fortifications to the east of Warsaw

Copy-editing yielded (have question regarding the part emphasized): "meanwhile, the only permanent defences in the area of Radzymin were the incomplete Fort Beniaminów and a line of World War I Russian and German trenches located west of Radzymin, neglected since their construction in 1915." Without checking the source, is this only with respect to Radzymin, or is the following wording also correct? "meanwhile, the only permanent defences were in the area of Radzymin: the incomplete Fort Beniaminów and a line of World War I Russian and German trenches located west of Radzymin, neglected since their construction in 1915." Thanks in advance. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 03:29, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Not really. Your wording would suggest that the only permanent defences in the area of Warsaw were those in the vicinity of Radzymin. This wouldn't be true, as there were also the Warsaw Citadel, Modlin Fortress, Różan bridgehead and such. Those did not take part in the battle of Radzymin and were outside of the battlefield (though they played some role in the entire Warsaw Operation). Meanwhile the only solid defences near Radzymin were those listed: the Fort Beniaminów and a line of trenches. //Halibutt 19:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I did look at maps, so instead of "line", I had originally used "arc", that would take care of sweeping the eastern approach from north to directly east. I'll give that a short.

Since I anticipated there would be some impediment to a flanking attack as well, any activity there, even if too little too late, is worth indicating, especially as the Bolshevik forces would be aware to what degree earlier Russian forces had basically dismantled western fortifications. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 22:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, there was no surprise there. In fact both Polish and Russian forces used the very same maps: Russian ones (WWI). It's outside of the scope of this article, but interesting to note nevertheless, that the choice of maps to use was not obvious, as Poland inherited maps from Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Initially front-line units used any maps available, so the very same town could be called with a variety of names, depending on which map was the particular commanding officer using. Eventually someone in the HQ (Piłsudski states in his Year 1920 that it was him personally) decided that the only solution to this mess was to adopt a single map set as a standard and ordered that in all reports names from the Russian maps are to be used. Hence in countless orders, reports and other documents from the era Polish officers mention places with their Russian names (and always in Nominative singular) even if Polish name was available. //Halibutt 13:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)