"Polish Cavalry: A Military Myth Dispelled " Topic

"At 2:00 P.M. on September 1st, 1939, Colonel Kazimierz Mastelarz, commander of the 18th Regiment of the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade, spotted a badly exposed battalion of German infantry in the woods near the Polish village of Krojanty. He hurriedly assembled his troopers for a sabre charge and fell upon on the unsuspecting enemy, easily overrunning them. For the Colonel, the short but brief action must have seemed a fortuitous start to the war for he and his men. Their first encounter with Hitler's vaunted Wehrmacht had proven a tactical success at negligible cost. However, his victory would prove short lived. Before the Poles could reorganize, a column of German tanks and motorized troops appeared from around a bend and unleashed a devastating hail of fire. Some twenty troopers, including the Colonel himself were killed before the Poles could turn their horses and retreat, abandoning the recently won field to the advancing Germans. The next day, Italian war correspondents were brought to the scene and told that the Polish cavalrymen had charged the German tanks.

It was in this way that one of the most enduring myths of the Second World War, and the defining image of the September Campaign, was born. The German General Heinz Guderian wrote in his memoirs that "The Polish Pomorska Cavalry Brigade, in ignorance of the nature of our tanks, had charged them with swords and lances and suffered tremendous losses."[1] Winston Churchill wrote that the Poles "charged valiantly against the swarming tanks and armoured cars, but could not harm them with their swords and lances."[2] Even today, some seventy years later, the myth remains widely believed even in military circles. A 2005 submission to the Canadian Army Journal, written by a Major in the Canadian Army recounts how Polish troopers "with little more than courage and lances" were "slaughtered" when they charged German armoured cars and tanks.[3] How is it that such a blatant historical inaccuracy can perpetuate to this day? The answer lies in the various contexts through which the myth has been interpreted and disseminated. That is to say, that while the image of a Polish cavalryman charging a tank has been used to denigrate the Poles and the interwar Polish state, so too has it served as an important national symbol of self-sacrifice and romantic tradition. However, before delving into the myth's different interpretations, it is important to clarify the role of cavalry in the pre-war Polish Army and its use in the September Campaign…#
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Amicalement
Armand

Geez, that has been dispelled so long ago, that's really old news, Armand.

I found it still interesting to read my friend… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Still pops up from time to time though,so worth repeating,even if not really necessary on this forum.

I learned something.

Still perpetuated on the history channel, i should get my lawyer to look into it

I thought those were aliens.

I remember taking a book out of the local library as a kid in the 60s that had an account of this action. It was the version of the cavalry attacking tanks with swords and lances.

R9 & Hafen v S-
I too was wondering if the Hysterical Channel version involved ancient alien tanks.

A big "WW2 day by day" book I have has a photo of Polish cavalry "preparing to charge German armour" (despite obviously being on an exercise and quite at ease)

I looked at the date and the book was made in like 1960 or something.