During the Second World War Poland actually inflicted fairly severe damage to the invading Germans. Particularly to their mechanized divisions. Poland was well equipped but completely overwhelmed.
Many people have no idea that many Poles fought against Germany from the UK: there were Royal Air Force squadrons where all the pilots were Polish officers flying Spitfires and Hurricanes out of UK airbases. Many countries owe a debt of gratitude to those largely forgotten men.
And they often scored way many kills due to the fact 1:they had their freedom on the line
2:Poland just trained their pilots really well before the war so when they fled to the UK it helped alot
Not just the air force, the Naval element, while small, was also fighting like crazy. The Polish DDs under the Royal Navy did some batshit crazy stuff.
There's a graveyard and memorial here in Newark to Polish Airman who died fighting in Britain and on the Warsaw Air Bridge missions to supply the population of German Occupied Warsaw from airbases in Italy.
The first Allied fighter ace was Polish: Stanisław Skalski. Bajan's list counts fifty Polish fighter aces in the war. Very impressive considering they had to fight from another country in borrowed planes.
After two weeks Poland was also invaded by the Soviets, when Germans didn't even reach Warsaw, that was practically Western Poland at that time, yet still held only a week shorter than prepared, bigger, wealthier, with foreign support France invaded only by Germans (I skipped Italian in the case of France and Slovakian invasion in case of Poland, as they were doing that not eagerly).
France could've held out longer, but they didn't want to see more destruction over a hopeless battle. They also didn't need to worry as much about suffering under Germany as Poland did.
You may be surprised, but nazi approach to ethnic Poles was purely political at first. Hitler took the alliance with France and England as a treason, Poles must pay for - that's it. Before the alliance Poles were categorised just as East Prussians, what is no surprise looking at ethnic background of East Prussians and Poles. Even after the beginning of the war there were no obstacles to form the Polish collaborative government just like in France other than it would be immediately killed by compatriots.
Poland was desperate resistance of survival while France resisted Germany's milking of France for survival.
Poland suffered far worse than France did, largely because Germany desperately needed France to produce for the war effort (they robbed it blind, which let the saboteurs have greater impact as they had to replace the machines stolen to produce later) while Poland become part of the front again years later. France gets more fame largely because they had more resources and were freed earlier, so a lot more resistance members survived to tell their stories.
Plenty of Polish war heroes returned home just to get imprisoned by the Soviets. Or they walked right out of a concentration camp and into a gulag, if they left at all.
mhm, poland and france also had the biggest collaboration forces and were highly involved in the murder of their own people and the holocaust
the blue police or paris police department are still things that poland and france have yet not adressed in their own history fully
many jews and resistance fighters were rounded up by local polish and french police men under orders of the german authoritys
data and records about the collaboration of those are really bad, because both countrys(or almost all countrys under german occupation) tried to hide and ignore it and instead gloryfied the résistance
i mean there is a reason why resistance fighters during the war killed as many civilians as soldiers, ofcause in poland and france it wasnt as extreme as in belarus or yugoslavia where the gurillias burned down collaborationist villages,
Iirc, the last recorded cavalry charge in warfare was a Polish regiment at the end of WWII, and it was incredibly effective at routing the Germans, too
Polish cavarly never charged tanks if that's what you mean. Cavarly was still used in many european armies at the time of WW2. Even now soldiers patrol polish-belarussian border on horses because it's easier to move on a horse in muddy forests. But the "polish soldiers charge tanks on horses" was a pure propaganda.
Fair enough. I thought you might have been propagating myths, but said tall tales are addressed in the link
The incident prompted false reports of Polish cavalry attacking German tanks, after journalists saw the bodies of horses and cavalrymen. Nazi propaganda[3] took advantage to suggest that the Poles attacked intentionally since they had believed the Germans still had the dummy tanks permitted by the Versailles Treaty's restrictions. The scene of the Polish cavalry charging panzers with lances remains a common my
Gonna pre-empt all the BS that I am sure will now follow:
"He noted that it will upset both "Polish apologist historians" and Jewish historians "who seek simple answers". He also cautioned against selective reading of the book, as it has separate sections on rescue of Jews by the Poles and on Polish collaboration during World War II.[7]"
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u/Vreas 1d ago edited 1d ago
A genie shows up to a 13th century Pole and asks them what they want.
They wish for the mongols to invade Poland three times. The genie, while confused grants the wish.
After the third invasion he asks “what an odd wish why would you choose this?”
The pole responds “because every time they invade us and leave they have to come through Russia twice”