Missed chances SEPTEMBER'39. Author's controversy

In the September-October issue of the journal “Wojsko i Technika – Historia” a “review” by Dr. Edward Malak “Missed Opportunities SEPTEMBER'39” was published. Because of its content and nature, I was somehow forced to respond.

Let's face it: if my book were, for example, about love for dogs, the reader would conclude based on this "review" that this is a book about love for cats.

You may ask why I wrote this book in the first place. Over the past year, I have asked myself this question many times and I think that I simply could not stand it after reading the “Ribbentrop-Beck Pact” by Pyotr Zykhovich. I was also a little provoked by the publication of Zemovit Shcherek "The Victorious Commonwealth". I became interested in the September theme in the mid-1939s and, being a passionate admirer, began to collect different books, comparing separate pieces of the same puzzle. Very quickly I noticed some discrepancy, some kind of dissonance between these works. In XNUMX, we had fantastic Losi bombers for those times, but we could not use them at all. We had excellent anti-tank rifles, but reports of their effective use in September are closely related to large military units: some effectively used them until the end of the fighting, others abandoned them after the first clashes. Why? The image of the Second Polish Republic, portrayed by communist propaganda as a backward, poor and archaic state, but with a large army, was not without significance. She was one of the strongest in Europe, but in September the German Wehrmacht quickly coped with the Polish defense at a strategic level. Following this example: they beat us at the strategic level, while having enormous problems with overcoming the resistance of a significant part of the Polish Army. Why did it happen? All these pieces of the puzzle contradicted each other, so I started looking for an explanation. And I included them in my book.

Another factor that pushed me to write it was my pride in that Poland, for the colossal achievements of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which, unfortunately, were wasted at its end, and which were covered with a veil of silence or distorted in the communist era. . It's delayed today. I will add that the assessment of “all of us” of that period does not have to coincide with the assessment of individual historical figures. And I express this many times in the book. However, I regret to state my opinion, such as: “Well, the Second Republic was a country in its achievements, a country of people hungry for success, dreaming of taking the position that we had in the time of Jagiellon. And hunger, opportunity, and skill go hand in hand with increasing chances of success. The Second Polish Republic was the "Asian tiger" of that time. Then we were like Singapore or Taiwan today. At first they were deprived of any chance, but as time went on, and we performed better and better in this race. During the Polish People's Republic, attempts were made to erase the achievements of the Second Polish Republic, to create a false picture of progress that took place in Poland only after the Second World War and did not take place before it. ..”* – other hub. E. Malak, which led to the fact that he brought against me a discrediting accusation that I did not appreciate the achievements of the Second Polish Republic and was even ashamed of them (sic!). Meanwhile, I am proud of these achievements. As an aside, I'll add that this same paragraph was noticed by other historians, who kindly (and rightly) reminded me that this economic growth was due to compensation for losses after the Great Depression. As you can see, it's impossible to please everyone...

Inevitably, due to the nature of the book, I had to discard some of the material, which, in my opinion, was not so much "bearing", that is, simply interesting for the general public. That is why I do not include any serious considerations, such as logistics, which is the basis of any military operation. Therefore, communication issues, also necessary for the conduct of hostilities, faded into the background. Similarly, I considered the issue of prepared mobilization reserves of the Polish Army, or detailed calculations of the costs of maintaining a conscript soldier. The absence of any material in a publication does not necessarily mean a lack of knowledge on a given topic. Sometimes this means editorial intervention. Some of these elements are consistently presented in the supplements to the book, published on the Internet.