Poland, once a fairly powerful state and eventually turned into a third-rate, but still a member of the European Union, today causes at best a bitter smile, and at worst - full of bile comments. To rush on a horse towards tanks-well, how can you think of such a thing in your right mind and solid memory?
Indeed, even the most desperate guys will not rush into battle headlong. On September 1, 1939, a Pomeranian cavalry brigade attacked the Germans in the area of tukhol, and a day later the battle of Kroyants took place. The first battle in his diaries described in detail the German tank General Heinz Guderian, noting that apparently the enemy is very familiar with the tactical and technical characteristics of German tanks, once swung at the armor with cold weapons. The poles, by the way, made a national legend out of this fact.
"As the enemy, we are still opposed by the reinforced cavalry, which, skillfully and quickly using natural barriers (streams and forests), leads a protracted battle."
Entry in the army magazine of the 4th German Panzer division about the battle of Tukhol
It doesn't look like stupid poles anymore, does it? Moreover, they did not fight with their bare hands. In the corridor between Pomerania and East Prussia, the cavalry provoked the Germans with anti-tank guns. In the battle of Tukhol, the Germans seriously panicked: Guderian, having heard about the plans to use an anti-tank gun against horses, called the situation "unheard of stupidity" and ordered the panic to be put aside.
One is real, the others are fake
In the tukholsky forests, the poles delayed the advance of German troops for a day. The situation was heated by skillful agitation and propaganda: some Newspapers wrote that the German tanks do not have armor. Others claimed that these tanks are made... in General, from cardboard and plywood. "Everyone knows that you have only one real tank, while the rest are fake," a prisoner of war who was taken near the Lithuanian border calmly told the Germans.
The operation itself looks, of course, stupid. The grouping of German troops in the East was not much superior to the Polish contingent (1.5 million people against 1.3 million people, respectively), but heavy weapons for defense against the Reich was really not enough. The Germans had almost six times more armored vehicles (3,6 thousand against 750) and nine times more aircraft (3,6 thousand against 400). And during the fighting, the poles relied on the tactics of the First world war, building the defense linearly, while the Germans focused on local battles: the elimination of troops in Pomerania and Silesia.