Władysław Anders, the legendary commander of the Polish II Corps, died 55 years ago

On May 12, 1970, General Władysław Anders, the legendary commander of the Polish II Corps, died in London. He was buried among his soldiers.

He was adored by his soldiers and hated by the authorities of post-war Poland.

Władysław Anders was born on August 11, 1892 in Błonie near Kutno into a landed gentry family. He graduated from high school and secondary school in Warsaw, and at the age of 18 he was drafted into the Russian army, where he attended a cavalry school for reserve officers. He later completed six semesters at the Polytechnic in Riga.

During World War I, he fought in the Russian army, where he commanded a squadron. He was wounded three times, for which he was awarded the highest Russian military decoration, the Cross of St. George. In 1917, he attended the course of the General Staff Academy in Petrograd, after which he was appointed chief of staff of one of the infantry divisions.

After the February Revolution, in July 1917, Anders joined the Polish I Corps, which was being formed in Russia, commanded by General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki. He took part in the formation of the 1st Krechowiecki Uhlan Regiment, in which he became a squadron commander. He then served as chief of staff in the 1st Rifle Division of the Polish I Corps in the East. After the Corps was disarmed by the Germans in May 1918, he made his way to Poland and volunteered for the Polish Army.

After the outbreak of the Greater Poland Uprising in 1919, he became the chief of staff of the Greater Poland Army, and a year later, during the Polish-Bolshevik War, he commanded the 15th Poznań Uhlan Regiment. For his bravery, he and his unit received the Knight's Cross of Virtuti Militari from Marshal Piłsudski.

After the war ended, he went to Paris for two years of studies at the Higher Military Academy and a line internship. After returning to Poland in 1924, he became the head of courses for senior officers. After a few months, he took over as the chief of staff at the General Inspectorate of Horse Riding under General Tadeusz Rozwadowski. In 1925, he was the head of the Polish equestrian team, which won the Nations Cup in Nice.

In November 1925, he was appointed commander of the capital's garrison. During the May Coup, he served as chief of staff to the commander of government troops, General Tadeusz Rozwadowski. He evacuated President Stanisław Wojciechowski from Belweder to Wilanów.

After the May Coup, Anders remained in active service. In the same year, Marshal Piłsudski conducted a war game. Col. Władysław Anders, who participated in it, distinguished himself and was soon appointed Chief of Staff of the General Inspectorate of Cavalry. In 1928, he took command of the Independent Cavalry Brigade in Brody. Gen. Gustaw Orlicz-Dreszer wrote about Anders at that time: "He is an officer to whom all positions in the army, even the highest ones, should be open in the future." (Z. Mierzwiński "Generals of the Second Republic")

In 1934, Colonel Władysław Anders was appointed general.

In 1937 he became commander of the Nowogródek Cavalry Brigade, with which he went to war in 1939. During the Polish campaign of 1939, together with the Brigade as part of the Modlin Army, he covered the border with East Prussia. He fought in the area of ​​Płock and Warsaw, and from September 12, as commander of the Cavalry Operational Group, he withdrew with the remaining units towards the Romanian border. He took part in heavy fighting on the Tomaszów - Zamość line.

After the Soviet aggression on 17 September 1939, Anders' units took up the fight against the Red Army, breaking through to the south. Wounded twice, General Anders was taken prisoner on 29 September in the Sambor area near Lviv, where he was taken to a hospital in Lviv and later to the local Brygidki prison. In February 1940, he was transported to Moscow to the central NKVD prison in Lubyanka and Butyrki, where he was tortured. During his nearly two-year imprisonment, he was repeatedly interrogated and encouraged to join the Red Army.

After the attack of the Third Reich on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 and the signing of the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement on 30 July 1941, diplomatic relations between Poland and the USSR, which had been severed after 17 September 1939, were restored.

The military agreement concluded in Moscow on August 14, 1941, provided for the release of thousands of Poles from Soviet camps and prisons and the creation "in the shortest possible time" of a Polish army, part of the armed forces of the sovereign Republic of Poland, which would fight against the Germans together with the Red Army and the armies of other allied countries. During the fight, the Polish Armed Forces were to be operationally subordinate to the Supreme Command of the USSR, with whom the Polish side was to agree on organizational and personnel matters.

General Władysław Anders took care of organizing the army. Despite difficulties with supplies and equipment, and the Soviets making it difficult for Poles to reach recruitment points, soldiers and civilians flocked to Anders' army. The Polish Army in mid-October 1941 numbered over 40,000 people.

However, with the growth in the number of soldiers and the growing number of Polish civilians arriving at the places where the army was being formed, the problems with provisions became more and more serious. In the meantime, the Soviets not only did not increase the food rations for the Polish army, but they reduced them. Polish soldiers lived in tents in 40-degree frosts, walked around in rags, and rags replaced their shoes. Hunger was becoming more and more severe. This led to the decision to evacuate the army to the east.

On March 24, 1942, the first stage of the evacuation of the Polish Army from the Soviet Union began. By November 1942, over 115,000 people had been sent to Iran, including about 78,500 soldiers and 37,000 civilians. Among the evacuees were almost 18,000 children.

The general left in August 1942. In Iran he organized the Polish II Corps. The Poles later moved to Iraq and Palestine, where they received training.

In early 1944, the II Corps was transferred to Italy to fight the Germans as part of the British Eighth Army. Its most spectacular success was the capture of the Monte Cassino fortress in May 1944, which defended access to the central part of the Apennine Peninsula. On May 11, 1944, General Anders wrote in an order to his units: "The task that has fallen to us will make the name of the Polish soldier famous throughout the world." Seven days later, at high noon, on the ruins of the Monte Cassino monastery, Sergeant Emil Czech played the St. Mary's Trumpet Call, announcing the victory of Polish soldiers.

The Polish contribution to the fight against the Germans did not, however, influence the decisions of the Allies taken at the Yalta Conference. Poland was left in the Soviet sphere of influence. In protest, General Anders tried unsuccessfully to withdraw Polish troops from the fight.

After the Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Tadeusz "Bor" Komorowski, was captured by the Germans, Gen. Władysław Anders was appointed acting Commander-in-Chief.

After the war, the general remained in exile. In 1946, the communist authorities stripped him and many other Polish officers of their Polish citizenship. In London, Anders primarily focused on organizing appropriate living conditions for his soldiers and other Poles who remained outside the country.

In 1949 he published in London his memoirs from the years 1939-46 "Bez ostatnia czteru" (Without the Last Chapter), and was also the author of the introduction to the monograph on the Katyn crime written by Józef Mackiewicz "Zbrodnia katynska w świetle dokument" (Katyń Massacre in the Light of Documents). He was actively involved in political activities in exile, from 1949 he held the position of chairman of the National Treasury, and in 1954 he became a member of the Council of Three.

Gen. Władysław Anders died on May 12, 1970; he was buried in Italy, at the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino. A year later, the Council of Ministers of the Polish People's Republic formally repealed the 1946 resolution on stripping him of Polish citizenship, which was done almost secretly, because it was not published in the Journal of Laws.

After the fall of communism in Poland, numerous streets, squares, schools and Polish Army units were named after General Władysław Anders. (PAP)

akn/ jkrz/ drag/