The Poles attacked on April 25, 1920. The Soviet Twelfth Army was destroyed. Kiev was captured on May 8th. The Poles had only 450 casualties. Tukhachevsky attacked far north for the Reds and was defeated. Budenny and his 1st Cavalry Army were mopping up the Whites of General Denikin. He was ordered to concentrate at Kirovograd one thousand miles away. His attack with 17,000 troopers liberated Kiev from the Poles and Green Petlyvra men. Tukhachevsky attacked again the north and drove the Poles back. Lenin ordered the Red Army to capture Warsaw. They advanced from the North and South but failed to make a pincer movement. Marshall Pilsudski of Poland spotted the gap. The Reds were in the suburbs of Warsaw when the Polish attack between the two armies began. The Poles were behind the Reds in their supply lines and they routed. The Red Army had 70,000 prisoners taken with 70,000 fleeing into German land and interned. In the South, the 1st Cavalry was also routed. The Poles had defeated eight of the sixteen armies the Reds had in their entire army. The treaty of Riga ended the war. Uniforms and Equipment The Reds wore WWI garb and some had Buclionorka hats. Some of the Reds wore fur hats and a few had Adrian helmets. Some would wear civilian clothes. They had 76mm cannon and a few WWI planes. The Poles had French '75's". Uniforms were French blue for Western Front veterans; Legionnaire Division wore the Austrian blue gray. Some troops wore castoff German uniforms as the Poles had volunteered for this army a lot to fight the Russians. A few of the Poles would have official green khaki Polish uniforms. The Poles had a few captured German albatross fighters. There were French Officer advisers. Toys Minifigs makes nice 15mm Russians. Irregular Miniatures has these and also lads in Buclionov hats. Peter Pig has a nice assortment including the Chelchists. Poles are easy. Minifig Austrians, Germans and French. Minifigs and Irregular Miniatures make guns. Mark Base has beautiful WWI planes and It Figures has pilots. (Editor's Note: B&B Miniatures, carried by Brookhurst Hobbies has an excellent line of 20mm figures specifically for the Russo-Polish War. You could also use any of the excellent 20mm WWI lines from Britannia, It Figures, and Tumbling Dice. This is a very interesting conflict which I have seen almost nothing about. Thanks for the overview, George!) Back to MWAN #98 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com