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Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz (22 February [O.S. 10 February] 1883 – 10 May 1940) was a Polish-Belarusian general and veteran of World War I, the Russian Civil War, Estonian War of Independence, Polish-Soviet War, and the Invasion of Poland at the start of World War II.
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz a adăugat o fotografie
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Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz (22 February [O.S. 10 February] 1883 – 10 May 1940) was a Polish-Belarusian general and veteran of World War I, the Russian Civil War, Estonian War of Independence, Polish-Soviet War, and the Invasion of Poland at the start of World War II.
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz a adăugat o fotografie
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Early life Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz was born 22 February [O.S. 10 February] 1883 in Meikštai, a small village in the Zarasai County of the Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire (now Ignalina District Municipality in Lithuania). Stanisław had two brothers and six sisters. His parents were servants to a local landlord Following Stanisław's birth, his father left the landlord's service and acquired a small estate in Stakavievo near Vilnius. After attending an agricultural school for four years in Belmontas, Bułak-Bałachowicz worked as an accountant, and in 1904 became a manager at the Count Plater's estates in Horodziec and Łużki. At the time, he had a reputation as a defender of the less fortunate and was often an arbitrator in disputes between the farmers and their landlords. As a result of these activities, he acquired the nickname "Daddy" (Bat'ka). His other nickname —"Bułak"— became part of his surname. It means 'cloud' (another source offering the translation 'a man who is driven by the wind') in the Belarusian language.
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz a adăugat o fotografie
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World War I After the outbreak of World War I and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich's address to the Polish people, Bułak-Bałachowicz joined the Russian Imperial army. As a person of noble roots, he was drafted as an ensign to the 2nd Leyb-Courland Infantry Regiment. However, unlike many of his colleagues who were awarded the basic NCO grades for their noble ancestry only, Bułak-Bałachowicz proved himself as a skilled field commander and was quickly promoted. By December 1914, only four months after he entered the army, he was given command over a group of Cossack volunteers, of whom he formed a cavalry squadron. Together with the 2nd Cavalry Division, he fought on the western front, most notably in the area of Sochaczew near Warsaw. During the German summer offensive of 1915, Warsaw was taken by the Central Powers and Bułak-Bałachowicz's unit was forced to retreat towards Latvia. In November 1915, Bułak-Bałachowicz was assigned to the special partisan regiment in the Northern front headquarters as a squadron commander. His regiment under the command of colonel Punin L. took action in the Riga area. For their audacious actions, partisans were nicknamed "Knights of Death". His unit was formed of four cavalry platoons: one…
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz a adăugat o fotografie
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Russian Civil War On 5 March 1918, unaware of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed only two days before, Bułak-Bałachowicz's unit skirmished with a German unit near the village of Smolova. Although the enemy unit was severely defeated, forced to retreat and abandon its staff behind, Bułak-Bałachowicz was seriously wounded after being shot in the left lung. Transported to Saint Petersburg, he quickly recovered and rejoined with his brother Józef Bułak-Bałachowicz. The latter got involved in the creation of a Polish cavalry detachment commanded by ensign Przysiecki. The Bolsheviks disbanded the unit soon after its formation, executed its commander and started to persecute its members. However, with the help of the French military mission, a Polish cavalry detachment was finally created and Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz became its commander. The new unit received Leon Trotsky's recognition and was soon reinforced with non-Polish volunteers from all over Russia and was planned as a cavalry division of the Red Army. Soon after its creation, Bułak-Bałachowicz was ordered to quell the "Baron Korff Revolt" in the area of Luga near Petrograd (Saint Petersburg). With his incompletely-formed regiment, he reached the area and pacified the peasant unrest without the use of force. He was immediately called into…
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Polish-Bolshevik War In February 1920 Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz contacted Józef Piłsudski through the Polish envoy to Riga and proposed to ally his unit with the Polish Army against the Bolshevist Russia. As the fame of the general preceded him, Piłsudski agreed and soon afterwards Bułak-Bałachowicz with some 800 cavalrymen set off for yet another of his great odysseys. After leaving Estonia, they outflanked the Red Russian lines and rode several hundred kilometres behind the enemy lines to Latvia, where they were allowed to pass through Latvian territory. Finally, by mid-March, they reached Dyneburg (now Daugavpils, then under Polish military administration), where they were greeted as heroes by Józef Piłsudski himself. Transferred to Brześć Litewski, the Bułak-Bałachowicz's unit was reformed into a Bułak-Bałachowicz Operational Group, sometimes incorrectly referred to as Belarusian-Lithuanian Division. It was composed mostly of Belarusian volunteers, as well as veterans of the Green Army and former Red Army soldiers, and received the status of an allied army. Because of the composition of his troops, Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz is sometimes referred to as a Belarusian. Formally independent, the division was one of the most successful units fighting in the ranks of the Polish Army during the Polish-Bolshevik War. The unit entered…
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz a lăsat un gând
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Failed uprising in Belarus In October Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz was stationed with his forces in Pinsk, where they received supplies and a large number of former Red Army soldiers who were taken prisoner of war after the Battle of Warsaw and volunteered for the service in anti-Bolshevik units. The unit was to re-enter combat in November, but on 12 October a cease fire was signed. On the insistence of both the Entente and Bolshevik Russia, the allied units were to leave Poland before 2 November. General Bułak-Bałachowicz was given the choice of either being interned in Poland with his units and then sent home or continuing the fight against the Reds on his own. He chose the latter option, just like most other White Russian and Ukrainian units fighting on the Polish side in the Polish-Bolshevik War. On 2 November 1920, his units were renamed the Russian People's Volunteer Army and transferred to the areas that were to be abandoned by the Polish Army and become a no-man's-land until the final Russo-Polish peace treaty was signed. Three days later his forces crossed into Russian-held Belarus and started an offensive towards Homel. General Bułak-Bałachowicz was hoping for a Belarusian all-national uprising against…
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz a lăsat un gând
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Interbellum Shortly after the Riga Peace Treaty had been signed, Bułak-Bałachowicz and his men were set free from the internment camps. The general retired from the army and settled in Warsaw. There he became an active member of various veteran societies. Among other functions, he held the post of the head of Society of Former Fighters of the National Uprisings. He was also a political essayist and writer of two books on the possibilities of a future war with Germany: "Wojna będzie czy nie będzie" (Will There Be War or Will There Be None; 1931) and "Precz z Hitlerem czy niech żyje Hitler" (Down With Hitler or Long live Hitler?, 1933). According to non-scientific accounts, between 1936 and 1939 he served as an advisor to Franco's nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, yet historians claim this is merely a legend. In 1923, there were false reports of his death in the local Polish press; supposedly, he had been murdered by White Russians in the Bialowieża Woods. The Jewish Telegraph Agency remarked on his reported passing: "The murder of this ruthless insurrectionary and counter-revolutionary leader brings an end to the career of a bloodthirsty pogromist," referring to a February 1921 report…
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz a lăsat un gând
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World War II During the Invasion of Poland of 1939, Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz volunteered for the Polish army. He created a Volunteer Group that fought in the defence of Warsaw. The unit consisted of approximately 1750 ill-equipped infantrymen and 250 cavalrymen. It was used on the southern flank of the Polish forces defending the Polish capital and adopted the tactics its commander knew perfectly well: fast attacks on the rear of the enemy forces. On 12 September 1939, the unit entered combat for the first time. It took the German defenders by surprise and retook the southernmost borough of Służew and the Służewiec horse track. Soon afterwards the cavalry organised a disrupting attack on the German infantry stationed in Natolin. On 23 September the unit was transferred to northern Warsaw, where it was to organise an assault on the German positions in the Bielany forest. The assault had been prepared but was thwarted by the cease-fire signed on 27 September. After the capitulation of Warsaw, general Bułak-Bałachowicz (formally retired) evaded being captured by the Germans and returned to civilian life. At the same time, he was the main organiser of Konfederacja Wojskowa (Military Confederation), one of the first underground resistance groups…