Page "Polish–Soviet War in 1920" Paragraph 37

On August 10, 1920, Russian Cossack units under the command of Gay Dimitrievich Gay ( sometimes called by Poles Gaj-Chan ( pronounced " Guy Khan ")) crossed the Vistula River, planning to take Warsaw from the west, that is from the direction opposite to that of the attacking main Soviet forces.

On August 13, an initial Russian attack under General Mikhail Tukhachevski was repulsed.

The Polish 1st Army under Gen. Franciszek Latinik resisted a Red Army direct assault on Warsaw stopping the Soviet assault at Radzymin.

Tukhachevsky, certain that all was going according to plan, was actually falling into Piłsudski's trap.

There were only token Polish troops in the path of the main Russian advance north and across the Vistula, on the right flank of the battle ( from the perspective of the Soviet's advance.

At the same time, south of Warsaw, on the battle's left front, the vital link between the North-Western and South-Western Fronts was much more vulnerable, protected only by a small Soviet force, the Mazyr Group.

Further, Semyon Budyonny, commanding the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny, a unit much feared by Piłsudski and other Polish commanders, disobeyed orders by the Soviet High Command, which at Tukhachevsky's insistence, ordered him to advance at Warsaw from the south.

Budyonny resented this order, influenced by a grudge between commanding South-Western Front generals Alexander Ilyich Yegorov and Tukhachevsky.

In addition, the political games of Joseph Stalin, at the time the chief political commissar of the South-Western Front, further contributed to Yegorov's and Budyonny's disobedience.

Stalin, looking for personal glory, aimed to capture the besieged Lwów ( Lviv ), an important industrial center.

Ultimately, Budyonny's forces marched on Lwow instead of Warsaw and thus missed the battle.