Evan McGilvray, *Marshal Pilsudski and his Wars for Polish Freedom: Poland's Conflicts with Ukraine, Lithuania and Soviet Russia*. Yorkshire, UK: Pen & Sword Books, 2025.

This study is both captivating and long overdue, focusing on a pivotal figure in modern European history. Josef Pilsudski emerged as the foremost advocate for armed Polish resistance against Tsarist Russian domination in the early twentieth century. During the Russo-Japanese War, he traveled to Japan to secure arms and funding for a Polish uprising. In World War I, he adeptly navigated a dangerous path. He formed the Polish Legion to ally with the Central Powers in their fight against the Russians. As the war neared its conclusion, he distanced himself from the Central Powers and achieved independence for Poland. After realizing his ambition of a free Poland, he engaged in a series of lesser-known conflicts with Ukraine and Lithuania, which are brought to light by Evan McGilvray. When it became evident that Bolshevik Russia was gearing up to invade Poland, Pilsudski initiated a pre-emptive strike in 1920. Although he initially found success, the Russians managed to gain the upper hand and were nearly at the gates of Warsaw before Pilsudski's brilliant counteroffensive resulted in 'the miracle of the Vistula,' reversing the situation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello, welcome to the Dialogues in Holocaust Studies and the Second World War podcast. I'm your host, Ari Barbalant. Today I'm honored to engage in a dialogue with Evan Mikilvere. We will discuss his newly published book Marshall Pisudski and his wars for Polish Freedom Poland's Conflicts with Ukraine, Lithuania, and Soviet Russia published in Yorkshire, United Kingdom by Pen and Sword Books 2025. Evan McGilveray was born in Winchester, Hampshire in 1961. He mainly focuses on writing about warfare from the twentieth century. He graduated from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. His published works with Pen and Sword Publishing cover a wide range of subjects, including Anders Army, the First Polish Armored Division, Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, General Sir Ian Hamilton, and the connection between Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Currently he resides in West Yorkshire in Pudsey, where he writes and helps care for his grandchildren. Besides writing about military history, McGiffrey also creates plays and enjoys walking in the local countryside. Josef Pisudski was a prominent advocate for Polish armed resistance against Tsarist Russian domination in the early twentieth century. During the Russo Japanese War, he traveled to Japan to secure arms and funding for the Polish uprising. In World War I, he adeptly navigated a dangerous path. He formed the Polish Legion to support the Central Powers in their fight against the Russians. As the war neared its conclusion, he distanced himself from the Central Powers and achieved independence for Poland. After reaching his significant objective of a free Poland, he engaged in a series of wars. These lesser known conflicts with Ukraine and Lithuania are explored in this book. When it became evident that Bolshevik Russia was gearing up to invade Poland, Busudski initiated a preemptive strike in 1920. Although he experienced initial victories, the Russians managed to gain the upper hand and were nearly at the gates of Warsaw before Besudski's brilliant counter offensive resulted in what is known as the miracle of the Vistula reversing the situation. Evan, it's an honor to be in dialogue with you today.

unknown 3:17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

To begin, can you kindly tell us a bit about yourself? Can you comment on your personal relationship to this book and research project?

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I began my interest in Poland around the time of the Solidarity era in the early 80s. And then in the mid-80s, I went out to Poland, and I actually thought what a bloody awful country it was, because it was under communism, it was not very nice. And on the last evening, I met my wife to be, and two years later we got married. Then my interest in Poland grew, and in the early 90s, I went out and lived in Poland between 91 and 94. We lived out there. And I grew fascinated with the military history there and with Marshal Pozudzki, which we say, despite all the rhetoric put in various authors, very few Poles seem to know anything about him. So that also intrigued me. And then in 1994, I went to university and studied Polish history and politics and so on. Regarding military history, my background would be of the generation where our grandfathers all fought in the Second World War and had fantastic stories to tell us. So I got interested in that. And when I moved to Pudsey, one of my neighbours actually was a Polish officer in exile who told me all about the First Armored Division and General Macik, which you've mentioned are written upon. And he wrote a book on Marshal Posudski, which was how can we say, not as well sourced as perhaps mind loss. And then to write on Posudsky properly to produce this book, I was given Radio Free Europe's Journalists Library. And I had so much on Pasudsky, I thought, well, I've got to write on him. And I also reviewed a book by Joshua Zinneman, which came out shortly before this book, which I thought he's missed the Battle of Warsaw, and I thought, I've got to write about it. I've got to tell the world about Pazudski and how the Poles beat the Soviet Russians and how it all links to today. That's a brief background of what's going on. So any help to you?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Thank you. What does this book offer to beginners?

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Oh, a whole new perspective on European history. Not many yet. A little casual work reader. They're probably very surprised that Poland ever defeated Soviet Russia or Russia. Even for the specialists, I've found academics who don't know that much about the subject. I've even found that people who are even know about Poland haven't read one of the most interesting works, which is Shikorski, which I used heavily for translating his work on the Battle of Warsaw. It also shows the links. Today we have the EU. We have NATO. Back then, Marshal Posudski, a hundred years ago, was advocating something similar. He didn't have these terms. He wanted a federal Europe. Well, we have that in many respects in the EU and a collective security group, NATO. All the time we're facing Russia. He's faced Russia then. We've had the Cold War, and now we're back to facing Russia again. And his work, his work from when he was in his teens to his death was defying Russia, keeping Russia in check. And this is what we need today is countries, European countries, to stand up to Russia. And Marshal Kazutsky set the template for this. And that's what I want to show to people that it is possible, it's been done. We don't need to be overruled by Russia. We need to work together as Europeans. And we have this very unknown man who did it a hundred years ago. And there we are again. We've got Zelensky now defying Russia. Zelensky's not a soldier. Well, you could argue Basutsky wasn't a soldier because he never trained. But they were both leaders. And that's what we need today and what we had then. That is what I've tried to offer to people, at least. A new perspective, perhaps, from an old time.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

If you don't remember me asking what we think about the history of standing up to Russia. Can you elaborate on where the Japanese war with Russia fits in in the context of Joseph Pilsudsky?

SPEAKER_03 8:28

That fits in because he's finding or looking for allies who could help him expand his work. Because I say that Roman Domovsky goes out who was Pasudsky's national, well, National Democrat. What's it? Can't think of the word now. Well, not enemy, but he's um they're not working together. And um basically it's a case of um my friend's enemy is my friend, sort of thing. And he's looking for money, but he's also looking for a chance that the Japanese might allow him to raise a Polish legion to go and fight in the um Russian Far East. He's just looking for an opportunity to do something, to raise arms, raise money, perhaps uh raise an army. That rival, yeah, Domoscow is his rival, that's the word I was struggling for. And Domovsky went out there and they didn't know that they were unaware of one another, and they met in Tokyo. And basically uh it's looking for allies. Money and allies and an opportunity to form a legion.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Polish politics and social history. How can we put it? He's a major influence in Poland.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

The first half of Polish history, he was looked to as a national leader all the time. He showed the underground, he was the inspiration behind the underground underground within the second world war, for example, Polish nationalists who allied themselves to Posudski in the past out with the underground. Um Pasudski that he raised the image of the Polish army, even today. I checked. Polish army is the most trusted institution in Polish society. And a lot of people outside of Poland, say it was the church, perhaps. Well, the church has declined somewhat in Polish. So contribution was that with the Polish army and the legions they were originally, it was the only corporate institution which could raise Polish and bring about independence through his ability as being the commander. That is but there is a negative side to Pasudski that in 1926 he don't have a coup and he brings the Polish army who brings the military rule basically, and that has its problems, obviously. And it probably allowed in 1981 for another coup when the Polish People's Army declared martial law, using the Polish People's Army as its instrument to restore so-called order in province, Poland, which probably stopped a Soviet invasion. So Pesutsky's image is large Polish history, up to a point, but it's not as popular as people would say. Polos fascism comes after his death. If you go back to especially his liberation of Lithuania, more the parts of Lithuania he liberated, one of the things he does is he has equality of religion. Catholic and Jews in his Poland were treated the same. When certain amounts so many thousand Polish Jews or granted it to the dismay of some of his uh supporters. So he was not a fascist, he was a nationalist, but not a fascist. It was after his death that the fascist regime, the so-called Sanatia, the cleansing, as they referred to, Oson, the never name. That's when the fascism sets in, is his successors. But Boswski himself actually is not a fascist. He he is he did squash democracy, as you and I would understand it, but he wasn't a fascist, no. Um it was his successor to uh fascism in the 35 to the German invasion of Poland in 39.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

How does your research advance our understanding of political violence?

SPEAKER_03 14:13

That was a question which yes it's a difficult one political violence. I'm I'm cautious with this one, but political violence obviously there are two ways to in Britain we had two articles we've had two um MPs converted, Joe Cox and David Amos. Joe Cox was Labour, David Amos was uh conservative. That's a bad thing. But also the attempted assassination of Donald Trump was equally a bad thing because likely not these people are elected. I was quite shocked, to be quite frank, with with his use of terrorism, even though later he went against it, he didn't think he thought terror was weak. But 1904, when they shoot up that square, I was absolutely stunned. And in one single year, over 300 Russian officials being murdered by Krasunski's people. That was a big shock to me. And but then I can see that political violence does have its place in society. I have Irish heritage. Michael Collins, who the English British really resent, I look at him differently. He was a freedom fighter, he used terror against terror. The British did not behave well in Ireland. Tsarist authorities were exactly the same against Poles until they fought back in 1904. So with terrorism with political violence, uh yes, Pozurski did help advance some of the like I was very surprised at the sport of the Japanese, where they were supplying money, weapons, explosives, schools, which school for terrorism, perhaps. So, yeah, he's a perfect example of how he uses violence, but you could argue it's justified violence. Because saying I think include my own country, they will quite happily let you vote and march and that and do nothing about it, as is the case in Ireland. So and of course, an occupied Europe's another one where violence is used against an enemy. So I'm very surprised, though, and um today Pazurski would have been considered a terrorist and probably hunted down as such, because if you have 300 deaths in one year and a group, a single group, that it's it would not be accepted today. Probably wasn't accepted then, but certainly not today.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

In light of what you've just said, can you elaborate on Pivasutsky's coups and coup attempts?

SPEAKER_03 17:20

He had the one coup 1926, May 1926, May the 12th. Basically, in nine after the Polish-Soviet war, the polls came up with their 1921 constitution, which we voted for the same the Polish parliament. And one thing it did do was weaken the presidency, which meant that the president was still subject to parliament, and it was expected that Pasudski would stand for the presidency, and then he'd probably have won it. But because he didn't like that weakened office, he didn't stand. He removed himself from politics, and then he spent what's been considered five years of sulking in it just outside of Warsaw. He didn't like the political situation in Poland, he didn't really understand democracy. Perhaps he thought it was messy. Governments came and went and collapsed, and they had so many prime ministers, and yeah, it just went on. So he collected his supporters, which famously were the so-called legionnaires, the first legion, especially, and they marched into Warsaw and they basically take over the presidency, and they were very surprised to find that some led opposition. And one of them, famously, was Colonel Anders, who later becomes General Anders of the Anders Army, which I've written about. And the meeting on the Tinofsky Bridge, which crosses the Vystula in Warsaw, President Vojahowski tells Anderski to turn back that way. Pasudsky refuses, and fighting breaks out. And Pasudsky wins, you know, for sheer probably had better support militarily, and it takes over. And then in 1935, there's another written out, which was very much in favour of Pasudsky, which gave him quite a lot of power. But he dies within about a week of signing it up because he was a very ill man by um mid-30s here. But he basically he all he wanted to do was be controlled the army. That's what he wanted, really. That's what they say, many people say. But um he just didn't understand democracy, he just thought do something, say something, and that happens, and he didn't like the debate and art. And he also felt, like a lot of soldiers, the army with owed that the Polish army won the Polish-Soviet War plus the other wars around, and which for the for the frontiers, the post-1918 to about 1921, there's a lot of small wars going on in East Central Europe, the border disputes basically, as each of its new states coming out of the wreckage of the German, Austrian, and Russian empires, fight for statehood, fight for their borders, and the Polish army and Pacific conciliar they were owed, they established the borders at gunpoint, perhaps, and they were killed, obviously. And they thought, why are we secondary in this new Poland? Why are the civilians, politics, civilians, or well as politicians fighting the scene, which is possibly a problem we even have today in Poland, that there are elements that say, why are the civilians telling us what to do? You know, especially um maybe somebody a bit firmer, a bit stronger could do this sort of things better. And the other coup perhaps you alluded to was 1981, which was General Yarzowski or which is a coup with a communist coup within a communist state, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

What difficulties did you encounter in your research and writing process?

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Too many words initially. I had a hundred thousand words to do, and one point I had well, I had to get rid of a third, I had far too much, I hadn't finished the book. So I'd appraise it. That was I'll give a dedication to Mike Kirby, who taught me English back in the 70s and but the other thing is obviously translation. And obviously, if you take from foreign sources, you're like writing everything twice over, and then you get a whole load of information, then you've got to reduce that, you've got to sort. Week from the chaff, what's important, make it run, and obviously, my editor helped obviously make it run well. Um, and I was uh for getting sources themselves once I was actually quite lucky. Um, I had loads on my shelf. I've got Brodski's works from the 20s and 30s, it's Chikorski's work from the 20s and so on. So raw material I was okay for. It was just getting it translated. You know, I I did the translation, I'm speaking really Polish, but it's just time consuming. And as I get older, I find it hard to concentrate for as long as when I was a younger person.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

What misconceptions of early 20th century Poland does your research attempt to address? Why do these misconceptions exist and persist?

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Biggest misperception is this legend of Pozecki. And a lot of it's put around by um Western writers. They say this thing of Marshal Pazudski is like iconic in Poland. You go into a Polish home and it's up on the wall, his picture. It's not, never seen it. And when I've talked in Poland, I talked from all higher classes to lower classes, people at different homes everywhere, never saw it once. You touched on it about Poland, for example. I said it was eight the last four years of the uh 1905 to 39 was the um fascist time. Go back to Zyrus times. The lack of unity, I think, is when Zudsky starts at the beginning of the century, 1904, he had well 1890s absolutely disgusted that Polish society in many ways is before the South Star did not need to have a bodyguard when he went to Warsaw. Um people had vested interest in Russia. So nowadays you get this idea, oh, Poles were all receiving with discontent. They were not. And basically, it was not this revolutionary state until Pozudski stirred them up, put the f the sabre into their hands, the guns into the hands, and and obviously the first world war led to Polish freedom. And again, if it hadn't been for the First World War, perhaps it would it would have been taking longer for Poland to get freedom. The collapse of the pre-European empires allowed them to get freedom, not just Basudski fighting for it.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Where does the Soviet-Polish war fit in the context of your research?

SPEAKER_03 25:07

It has to be central, I'm guessing. For this particular work, or in general, do you mean this particular work? Particular work, yeah. Well, it's obviously it's central because it's this major war which fixes Europe for a generation. There's a PhD student in Glasgow who points out that if the Soviets have been successful, the Treaty of Versailles would have been overturned. Europe would have somewhat different because they would have Soviets would have got into Berlin and perhaps to Paris, we'd have a different Europe. Brzeinski, by winning this war, holds that Europe is spared communism for a generation. The European borders are fixed for a generation. So it's absolutely key and central at this point, this particular war. It was so major, and and it led to even the Soviet Russia being different, they turned in on their cells. That was Stalin and the Purges of the 30s. And yeah, it's key to well, the whole book is about the Polish-Soviet war, it's the key to the book. It's um bit at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

In your scholarly opinion, do you feel that democracy and democratization progressed or regressed in Poland under Piwsutski?

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Well, it would have regressed. It regressed, didn't it? Because he had a coup in 1926, and there were not genuine democratic elections until 1989, 1990, sorry. Because so he had political prisoners. Certain parties were suppressed. I mean, at one point he was quite happy to allow the communists to be to compete in the 20s. But yeah, it certainly went on backwards. He had his own party, which was um called the non-party block for the government or something, you know. And the elections 1928 was notorious for um intimidation and so on. And then of course by 35 Pasudski's died, and it goes to the fascist.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

What does your book's title mean? Can you explain it?

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Well, basically, as it says Marshal Posudski means wars for Polish freedom, conflicts with Ukraine, Lithuania, and Soviet Russia. That's it. It's just that he he fought his army fought these free people, because Ukraine does not become a nation at this point. He had to win these wars against the people in order to fix his eastern frontiers. I think he would like to have a bit more of Lithuania than he managed. He managed to get Vilnius, the Vilno capital of Lithuania today, bore by stealth rather than an outright conflict. Of the Ukraine, well, he annexed Western Ukraine, East Galicia as it was called then. And basically it's just these wars for freedom. Freedom was these conflicts. Of course, there were some in the West against the Czechs, the Germans, in the West. It's just called the wars of freedom. Not necessarily freedom for the Ukrainians, because they got annexed in many ways, because even though I know they were given away, Ukrainian leader Pitlura, but Ukrainians were not happy under Polit's rule. In fact, it is said in the 1930s in Galicia, Eastern Galicia, that the Ukrainians were in permanent revolt against Polish rule as they established military colonies going out there. Own was the the cult that was truly Polish. It was a Polish island in the Ukrainian Sea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Can you describe Pivstutsky's personality? What were his virtues and vices?

SPEAKER_03 29:33

Well, he was a very stubborn man, very intelligent.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

What can we say? Um very intelligent, obviously driven.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

He knew what he wanted and how to get it, but he was not very good at taking advice at times, and persistent because he went to Siberia, it didn't put him off China's freedom. His endeavours in Japan are also, you know, but how far he travelled, halfway around the world to do that, and he's got some of what he wanted, but not quite what he wanted. And as for his vices, well, when he had the ability to do something legal, he preferred to do it illegally because he loved his conspiracies. His use of violence with a touch of political violence, well, that can that's questionable, but probably in the context not so bad. And his private life, I found, was with women. His first marriage was not that brilliant. He sort of discarded his wife to live with another woman. And when his first wife died, then he could marry the other woman. But I feel that at least two women committed suicide over there in relationships with him as well. Lady who he met in Siberia, who he sort of discarded later for his second wife. And then there was a young woman in the 20s who committed suicide later. Um there's rumour about whether he was close to her or not. It's well, that one is subject to rumour yesterday. So I say he was quite selfish, but then a lot of people like him I can be selfish because they're so well driven, you know. He was a great leader. I say that he's he was a good commander, but not a great commander. He needed people like Shikorski to help him and General Wagard, the French leader. The British, French mission military missions didn't think much of him, but they just helped him. But without him, I don't think Poland would achieve what they did in the f between the wars, at least, with independence.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

To the extent of your knowledge, what was Pivstudski's reputation abroad? How was he perceived outside of Poland?

SPEAKER_03 32:06

I think that he was respected. People did listen to what he said. People would call in on him, even in his dotage. I mean, uh, Anthony Eaton, who was the foreign secretary, the pre-war foreign secretary for a bit, he met Baski while travelling around East Central Europe. People did listen to him. Um also were very aware about Poland's position keeping the Soviets pending. But when he was the political leader of Poland, he was also a very sick man by then. He had cancer. Yeah, he was perceived at the time of his death, he was also considered to be a great man and a great loss for Europe. So it was great respect. It was sort of unusual for Poland, so he tended to look down on them. You remember he was seeing his perceptive because he did suggest having a um preemptive war against Germany once Hitler became Chancellor? I mean it meant to the French maybe we should disrupt this. And the French ignored him.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

So he just let them get on with it.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

What was his relationship like with Polish Jews?

SPEAKER_03 33:30

My understanding is that he saw them as equals. He had no problem with Polish Jews. That flew in the face of Poland. I mean, I'm very aware of Polish attitudes towards Jews, but Pazutsky flew in the face of that. He had time for Jews, he had respect for Jews, he considered them to be equal with Polish citizens. There was no, oh, he's a Polish Jew, so therefore this. No. He saw them as equals and he had respect for them.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Can you discuss the Latvian campaign?

SPEAKER_03 34:10

There's not much to the Latvian campaign. It's um Latvian Wars of Independence. Again, Latvia declares its independence on the 18th of November 1918. Promptly, Soviet Russia moves in because uh and Latvians fight obviously not an army as perhaps you and I know it, it's a cobbled-together army, very much like Pazudsky's legions were at one point. And so they've got a mixture of Estonians, Baltic Germans, Latvians all fighting Soviet Russians. There are different campaigns in different counties of Latvia. Basically, the Soviets are pushed out, pushed out, pushed out. And the final one is the one I described on the river Vina, which where post-Cavalry launch an attack against Soviet Russians, push them out of the um Plis city, yeah, and liberate the province of Legali, which is even today it's predominantly Polish heritage. And the Latvians thought that they were possibly going to lose that Legali to Poland, but Poles handed it over and intact, which ended the Latvian Wars of Independence. What is curious about the Latvian case is even though they fought the Soviet Russians, I found out in my next work about the Latvian SS is that the Latvians preferred the Russians to the Germans. And it's interesting the Baltic Germans fought for Latvian independence against the Russians, and then the Dakers remote as well. It's a curious little campaign, not very well known, and it only lasts for about 18 months, extend from 1918 to the 1920s. Um right. Warsaw was a very similar situation in 1920s of July, August 1920. Virtually the whole world considered that Odin was doomed. Last week thought Ukraine was doomed in four years ago. And the Polk counter-attacked, they had this massive retreat, made stand at Warsaw, defeated the Russians and pushed them out of the country. And it's a very similar situation in Ukraine that they've lost nowhere near as much territory as the Poles did. I must say that Ukraine is much faster than Poland. But these people making a stand had an army, probably more so than Pasodski did at the time. But they've united. They've stood together at the well, I must say this book would not have seen the light of day and to compare the two. And it's a stubbornness of a single man of Pazudski or Zelensky in this case, who got their people together to make it stand and to attempt to drive Russians from their country. And look, remember that I don't think people considered that Poland had an identity in 1919, 1920. I mean, outside of Poland, it was just Russia, as many people were considered, as much as considered to be the Russia people until very recent.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

How does your research shed new light on the aftermath of World War One?

SPEAKER_03 38:27

Well, aftermath of the first World War I, the first World War I is um it didn't end. When I was a child, I used to look at the my hometown war memorial, and it says 1914-1919. I thought that's curious, it finished in 1918. So that would include the British intervention in 1919 and other allies intervening into the Allied interventions that affects that. The polar sample shows its continuation of this war right into 1920. Things the treaties had not been established, fighting was still going on in the east. It may have been defeated on the Western Front, it was still standing with holding territory in the east until 1919-1920. The the German army trenches still being used by the German army in Ukraine. What it does show is within the confines of this book that World War One did not finish in 1918. It continued until about 1920, just on a different front, which meant people didn't care about. Churchill referred to it as the War of the Pygmies.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Yeah, shows that the war did not finish just like that. What new perspectives are presented here regarding the evolution and development of the Red Army?

SPEAKER_03 40:21

I'm actually not too excited that much, to be honest with you. Yeah, I I'll take that. And that had no leadership, they were elected officers, such like, which had um well, hopeless. Then they went back to having the czarist officers calling them up, which meant they had the political officers, which then became a bane for the Polish uh for the Red Army that they couldn't develop for a lot because military scholarship was hampered all the time by political relevance, so they see it. And then the 1930s, obviously, there was the urge of the Red Army, which again restricted it and Parthix because of um Stalin as a political officer outside Lavouf and orders to allow Soviet armies to march to Warsaw, which won the post-ovid war. And um then when he was criticised by the officers later, he had quite frankly shot.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

So yeah, the main thing is that the Red Army was hampered by uh this war for a generation at least.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Can you tell us about Stanislav Machek?

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Stanislav Machek is probably one of the officers which nobody's heard of. He was born in the Austrian division of um Poland in 1892, and he had been in Pursuitski's legions as a young soldier training in the Wov area at the University of Livouf. And he was conscripted into the Austrian army in 1915, fought on the Italian front, which he totally hated for not because it's just war, it was a static front. And then when Poland became independent, Western Europe, he made his way to Krakrov, where he joined the Polish army. And his first action on the Eastern Front was in Ukraine. And he established what we'd call commandos nowadays. They do fight in the Ukrainians. The area that came from, he trained his men to fight on skis. They wore winter smocks, white winter smocks. They used automatic weapons, grenades. They would fight through a blizzard and attack their enemy. They came from behind, they came from all different directions, unorthodox directions, and took the war to the Ukrainians at that time. It's the polo Ukrainian war of 1919. And then later he is involved in fighting, yeah, fighting against the Ukrainians still, and he reports, he's called halfway through a battle to make a report to Marshal Pozudsky, who's just arrived at the front. And Magic gets a promotion to captain, which actually removes him from the post-Soviet war for staff work in Warsaw. After the war, he just carried a career soldier. Next, we really hear from 1938 when Poland invades part of Czechoslovakia, and Magic, as a colonel, is tasked to head the troops going into Teshin. October 1938. And then Second World War breaks out. Magic is his regiment. The Germans coming out of the Carpathian Mountains down to a sales pace advanced attacking. They're marching through the night and attacking, attacking, attacking. And then finally they are they get to eastern Poland and the Soviets attack them from behind. So Magic takes its men into Hungary, complete with very regimental with flags, their weapons, and everything. And they get into Hungary where they slowly escape because the Hungarians do not keep close enough guard on them. And he gets his way to Paris, where he joins Shikorsky, the General Shikorsky, who was at the Battle of Warsaw, probably responsible for the Pitsaul, who by 1939, September, October 39, he is the Polish Prime Minister in exile, the exiled government and the Supreme Command of the Forces. Magic certainly gets out with his wife. And they make the way to England, and Magic is sent out to Scotland. In Scotland, Magic finds very disheartened troops. And he turned out to be the first Polish Armoured Division. And in the end of July 1944, they returned to Europe to take part in fighting at the second wave of Norman invasion. And they fight from Normandy, where they make this heroic stand and destroy the German oil towards the Seine. And eventually they make their way to Wilhelmshaven over the next year or so, and they're the only Polish troops to occupy German territory until 1947. After 1947, magic discharge, the only work he can find is of a barber in a hotel in Edinburgh. But he's no staff jobs found for him, no military lectureship, nothing. He does get recognised in time. And he dies at the grand old age of 102, and he's buried in the Dutch town of Bredham, which is one of his greatest victories. And that's general magic in a nutshell. Very well loved by his men. They called him Bassur, Head Shepherd. When they used to go into his bar in Edinburgh, they would salute him and then make their order for a drink. That's his veterans.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Who was Adrian Carton de Wyart?

SPEAKER_03 47:05

A lunatic, in short.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

I made some notes about him. I can't believe him. Right. He was half Irish and half Belgian.

SPEAKER_03 47:19

He fought in the Boer War, World War II and World War I. He was took part unofficially in the Polish-Soviet war. In his career, he was shot in the face, the head, stomach, groin, ankle, leg, and ear, blinded to one eye, survived two plane crashes, tunneled out of a prisoner of war camp when he was in his 60s. He cut off four several of his fingers, which have been mangled and the military doctor refused to take off. He was in nearly every battle of the First World War on the Western Front. Yes. He was what else did he use? In the Second World War, he was captured in Italy and a prisoner of war. He was this incredible man who seemed indestructible. They called it the indestructible unkillable soldier. They made it in 2022. He was a very well connected man, really old-fashioned aristocrat, even Irish in Belgium, as I said, knew everyone. I don't know how anybody could be shot that many times and survive. And he got to know one of the Polish aristocracy who owned an estate which was about as big as Ireland, which is just takes some believing. He took part um some of the fighting. There's one revelation, well, story that he was fighting Cossacks off the back of a train and he fell off into the track, and the train had to be halted to get him back on because he was just so involved in everything. Well, I say limited, quite frankly. Yeah, I can't say to him. He wrote this book in 1950 called Happy Odyssey, an account of his life. But I was told by the keeper of the Polish Archives in London to treat it with a large dose of salt.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

It was I think he adds bits in.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Can you comment on Pipsowski's wife and widow Alexandra?

SPEAKER_03 50:06

Really don't know much about her. She was a full-time revolutionary at one point. She was involved in the big bank hoist where they well, it was a train robbery rather, not bank hoist. It was he was one of the most involved in helping bring the train to a halt, and they robbed it, provided something like two years worth of taking the revolutionary movement. Second wife, he lived with him about 10-15 years before his first wife died. His first wife was a devout Catholic and would not give him a divorce. She went into exile in the UK after um after the fall of Poland, but I really don't know much about her. She has written a book in memory of him. She was a great supporter of him, obviously. And I think she had two children with him. I don't know a great deal about her, uh, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

What does your research teach us about the origins of the Second World War? No, I really can't think.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Can you describe the Battle of Warsaw? What specifically happened? How did it unfold? What were the ramifications?

SPEAKER_03 51:57

Well, the Battle of Warsaw was a very complicated battle, as I you probably realize from the narrative. But basically it's which stand they make because you the Polish Army advanced. Yes. It were admitted to Kiev rather than invading Ukraine. And then from there, from the Polish Soviet counter-attack, they withdrew over so many hundred miles. But doing that, they shortened their own communications line, their supply line. Allowed to make a stand say, while the Soviets were drawn into Poland, and their communication lines were longer and longer and longer, so they couldn't supply it, and then there's things could be their flanks could be attacked much easier by Polish troops and so on. Warsaw was a well-chosen point, not only because it's the capital, where if we're going to make a stand anywhere, make it. But the Soviets were forced to cross river after river after river, marsh after marsh after marsh. They were funnelled toward Warsaw, where the Polish army could attack them on the flank so it could go round them. They grew, they allowed Soviets to take positions which perhaps they should have just left alone. The admiractions of this is obviously this destruction of the Soviet army. The Soviet army actually, Kosky points out, is big, vast. But some of the designations, like brigades or battalions, are actually exaggerated. Some armies only had a thousand men in it, so it had this. But but the main thing is that they just halted communism for a generation. Battles. One roundation I was just thinking is um both sides believed that armour had no place in the future of warfare because so much was fought on the back of horses. Um there were cavalry charges, lances being used, swords, and so on. And both sides, for a section of Pazudsky, concluded that there was no future in armour in wartime. And when you consider at the outbreak of war, only the French and the British armies were fully mechanised, even the Germans used hundreds of thousands of horses to advance into Russia. Um, I think up to a point, the success of horse cavalry held back military technology for a generation as well. And that was one thing. Poles certainly they only had one armoured brigade by the outbreak of war, and even though the Germans had lots of horses, they also had lots of tanks, and they just totally had swept away um Polish army, you respect.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Can you elaborate on Polish Ukrainian relations during Lutzutsky's time?

SPEAKER_03 55:22

I think they were very poor, to be honest with you, because as I mentioned or alluded to, there wasn't something in Northern Ireland situation in Balicia, where Ukrainian nationalists wanted reunification with Ukraine or Ukrainian independence, although Ukraine was not independent. But the idea of the Polish landlord was absolutely hated. The Poles were seen as landlords, and the Polish nationalists at the AOUN were in open revolt against the Poles. Polish army went into um pacifies, pacifikacja, but which was basically was burning down Ukrainian villages and imprisoning Ukrainians, killing them, which led to a bit of later in the Second World War. Ukraine massacred about mid-40s about 100,000 Poles. So the relationship between Poles and Ukrainians actually is dire. The Poles did have the upper hand, but it were very colonial. They had one Polish proper city, but the rest of them seemed to be more um sometimes described as military colonies, those little feelers being put out. It was a very poor relationship between the two.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

What are some unanswered questions about Yevsef Besutsky that you would like to see new scholarly research ask and uncover?

SPEAKER_03 57:19

I'd really like to know more about his early life, to be honest with you. You know, um his student years, what drove him to be how he is. So it's sort of glossed, not glossy, but it's just superficially looked at. And I would love a definitive answer to who really commanded at Warsaw because it's said that Bazudsky did something, Shikorski did the British military mission. It's also supposed to be a miracle when the Alady appeared and put the Soviets to flight. I'd love to get a definitive who really commanded at Warsaw. And but there is a lot out there about um Pasuski. I've got all his speeches, for example, his interviews. Um Paswski, the journalist, I think, would be a good area to cover as well, because he was a very good journalist, often in underground conditions. Journalism should be looked at as well. So I think that's the key to him as a later man. Some people say that he was close to Lenin. I don't know about that. But what I do find fascinating is the Stalinist von Vasileska, yeah, Basudski worked with her father. Her father was a social democrat, very much like Posudski. But in 1940, Von Daseleska got Posudsky's widow and daughters out of Poland, out of occupied Poland. And I find that fascinating. A woman of her stamp, a dedicated Stalinist, very close to Stalin, got Posudsky's family out of occupied Poland to the UK. And I find that very interesting. What was his underground? You know, his what what what were his links? This goes on.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

If you don't mind me asking, are there any counterfactual scenarios that are interesting to speculate about whereby if A occurred rather than B, the life of Pivtsudsky would have turned out differently than it actually did? Are there any hypothetical scenarios worth thinking about whereby if X did not occur, but Y it did, the leadership and legacy of Pivtsudsky could have taken a different course?

SPEAKER_03 59:55

Well, there is this story that he was due to hand over Warsaw to the um Bolsheviks. And that would have been interesting what would have happened there. Um that's probably the big one was how left-wing was he. But if he'd been born differently, you know, he remembered he's an aristocrat, uh background. And if he had the interesting one, is the the chap who started up the checker, Soviet secret police, lived next door to Pasudsky. If they had been separate people, different people are different. There's all sorts of things, but mainly it's this for me is where was Posudsky really, where was his head really at all? Was he willing to give it up or not? Um it would be certainly very different. I don't know where it would have led him. Or if he'd just been killed uh earlier fighting something, because and also the big one is also perhaps if Austria hadn't been so lenient, if the free partitioning uh powers of Poland had all been part of Russia, Powsutki would then never got started because Austria was very lenient and allowed to start up these forces, so things like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

How has Pewzutki been remembered in Polish collective memory and Polish historiography at different points of time? How has he been remembered variously by different groups within Poland?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

Well, within Poland I'd say he's been pretty much forgotten, I feel. I've never really come across people referring to him. It had been there with the nationalists, which I've never really met. You say inside Poland, what I refer to is outside of Poland in the emigrate groups. I don't know where you are, but here there were, especially in northern England where I live, still are very many Polish clubs which came from the emigrates from the Second World War. They revered Peter. He was their man. So I think the legacy of Basudzki in the immigration, seen through rose-tinted glasses, that he was this great leader, which he was, but perhaps his country wasn't quite as good as they think it was. And in Poland, I mean I it really wasn't a thing. I mean, I remember teaching in 1993 a lawyer, and I mentioned Kazudski, and he was absolutely stunned that I knew who he was, because he said not many Poles know who he is nowadays. So I imagine it might be taught in Polish schools now, but remember they had 50 years of communism, the communists were not teaching in top. Battle of Warsaw, not discussed. There's other inconveniences happened, you know, like um Cassine, the massacre of the Polish Officer Corps. So the entire communist period, his legacy would not have been ill-regarded.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Not at an official level anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

If you don't want to be asking, were there any scholarly works on Basutsky that significantly impacted your own thinking?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

Quite frankly, no.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:50

I reviewed Zimmerman's book of only a couple of years ago. He did quite interesting work because nobody had written on Pasitsky in English in the early 80s. So he was going over um Scotland. It was an interesting read, but um I don't think it was anything particularly. I mean, when he touched on the terrorism stuff for Pasitsky, I thought that was actually quite interesting. I didn't read that before there about that. But there's not a great deal out there, to be honest with you. I mean, like I said uh writing three years ago, nothing's been done since the early 80s, I think. Norman Davis wrote in 72 Curtis Clovis at war. You know, it's it's dated now, I think. I mean, Professor Davis taught me uh Polish history a long time ago. Nothing's impactful. I mean, when I read Shikorski's book, which is a blow by blow account of the Battle of Warsaw and the campaign, that was much more clearer. There's nothing particularly fantastic, I don't think.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:06

Well for me anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:22

As we bring our dialogue today to a close, can you tell us about what you've been doing since completing this project?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:29

Well, since this project, I've been writing on the 19th Latvian SS division and the Corland Pocket. That basically is an account of said division and their activities from late 1944 to the German capitulation in May 1945. This project came about the back of art pursuing a Polish uh project. Subject about a turn camp in Saguda in Latia. And I was with my son-in-law's father over to try to drive around. And I said, Oh, it's good. I said, look, I found this camp never existed. But I found out about this battle called the Battle of Mora. Looked like more in English when you see it now. And then I started to find out about the SS um Latvian S, 19th division. What interest did uh I um got in contact with Vince Hill, who's uh Vince Hunt, sorry, who is BBC reporter, ex-reporter, who's written on Latvia and Latvian SS. He gave me a few pointers, and then I went to Latvian War Museum in Riga and spoke to Janis Tomashewski's and he was really good. He gave me an online war diary of the division from 1944 to 45. Took a lot of work translating it, AI worked quite well. My Latvian son-in-law got told, yeah, can you do this to Chris? Can you do that, Chris? So that was quite handy. And I was very born in doing this one because Latvian S they're not quite do you know them. These are kids who have been uh conscripted towards the end of the war, they're not the Jew hunters and things like that. That was predecessors, these were the police battalions. These guys are just kids of 16 to 19, they should be in school, they should be with their mothers and fighting for Red Army. I am staggered how they fought like hell in Korlac, which is central Latvia. The casualties inflicted by Latina. But sometimes you feel, oh, the Latvians are winning in this page. No, no, no, no, no, they're the SS and the Russians are on our side, but they're dreadful. You know, it was it was I was very conflicting writing this book, but I got there in the end and a few shouts out, especially to the Latvian War Museum, who let me have um images for a good price. And it it was it was a difficult work because it's a language I'm not familiar with, it's Latvian, obviously, and uh a front I'm not overly familiar with, and a whole different concept of the Second World War. That's with the publisher now be edited. And I'll start to look now at um the Falklands War, which is my generation's war. I know people who fought in it and I've found that Margaret Thatcher's papers are on online now, so I can look up what's going on there, what went on there at the time. We're busy, slowly heading towards retirement. Grandchildren are getting bigger and annoying the hell out of me, but we are. We can do this on a Monday. There's no grandchildren today. That's why we did it today.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:01

Thank you so much for sharing, and thank you so much for the generosity, erudition, eloquence, and conscientiousness that imbued everything you shared throughout the course of our conversation. I can hardly thank you enough, and I feel deeply thankful and deeply appreciative that you've trusted me with your work and for the time you devoted to this conversation.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:30

Pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:33

As we end today, I'm signing off as Ari Barbola, your host on the dialogues in Holocaust Studies and the Second World War podcast. Today I've been grateful to engage in a dialogue with Evan McGilvere. We have been discussing his newly published book Marshall Bilsudski and his wars for Polish Freedom Poland's Conflicts with Ukraine, Lithuania and Soviet Russia published in Yorkshire, United Kingdom by Pen and Sword Books twenty twenty five. Evan McGilvere was born in Winchester, Hampshire in nineteen sixty one. He mainly focuses on writing about warfare from the twentieth century. He graduated from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. His published works with pen and sword publishing cover a wide range of topics, including Andrew's Army, the Polish First Armored Division, Field Marshal Claud Auchinleck, General Sir Ian Hamilton, and the connection between Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Currently he lives in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, where he writes and helps care for his grandchildren. Besides writing about military history, McGilleray also creates plays and enjoys walking in the local countryside. Josef Pasudski was a prominent advocate for armed Polish resistance against Tsarist Russian domination in the early twentieth century. During the Russo-Japanese War, he traveled to Japan to secure arms and funding for a Polish uprising. In World War I he adeptly navigated a dangerous path. He formed the Polish Legion to support the Central Powers in their fight against the Russians. As the war neared its conclusion, he distanced himself from the Central Powers and achieved independence for Poland. After reaching his significant objective of a free Poland, he engaged in a series of wars. These lesser known conflicts with Ukraine and Lithuania are explored in this book. When it became evident that Bolshevik Russia was gearing up to invade Poland, Pesudski initiated a preemptive strike in 1920. Although he experienced initial victories, the Russians managed to gain the upper hand and were nearly at the gates of Warsaw before Pesudsky's brilliant counteroffensive resulted in the miracle of the Vistula reversing the situation. Thank you wholeheartedly.