Polish-Soviet War

[CoffeeCake]

Does anyone know the exact losses on both sides of the Polish-Soviet wars?

[Benoit Douville]

I know on the Soviet side:

-25 000 Soviet soldiers were dead or wounded
-66 000 Soviet soldiers POW

I am also interested about the losses on the Polish side.

Regards

[Liluh]

I searched a little bit and... nothing. Obviously, it`s hard to find the exact number of looses on both sides.

But I`ll mention that even recently, some soviet (Russian of course, but becouse of their opinions I`ll say soviet) historicians claim that Poles murdered over 150.000 POWS. That`s rather impossible. More over, soviet soldiers had better life in POW camps than in their own army, they didn`t starve, had medical care and even got clothes from Red Cross.

[Musashi]

I searched a little bit and... nothing. Obviously, it`s hard to find the exact number of looses on both sides.

But I`ll mention that even recently, some soviet (Russian of course, but becouse of their opinions I`ll say soviet) historicians claim that Poles murdered over 150.000 POWS. That`s rather impossible. More over, soviet soldiers had better life in POW camps than in their own army, they didn`t starve, had medical care and even got clothes from Red Cross.

Some Polish historicians say the Soviet POWs starved. An economic situation of Poland was tragic in those days and Poland have not enough food to feed her inhabitants, so its not unusual it was not enough food for the POWs...

[Peter H]

This might help:

Russo-Polish War (1918-1920)
S&S
USSR: 60,000
Poland: 40,000
TOTAL: 100,000
Eckhardt: 100,000
Urlanis calculates 37,000 Poles KIA, and cites...
Polish official commission:
killed: 17,278 (Urlanis: "underestimation")
dead: 30,337
missing: 51,374

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat ... sso-Polish

[Reigo]

The Polish losses (no idea if only for the POlish-Soviet war, or for all the Polish wars in 1918-1920)

killed in battles (officers, soldiers, alltogether) 1081 16197 17278
died 1096 29241 30337
wounded 3180 110330 113510
missing 669 50705 51374
other losses 569 38261 38830
alltogether6595 244734 251329

source: http://sergeant.genstab.ru/pol_kia.htm

There is no complete numbers for Soviets. The Poles took obviously a lot of prisoners. The Russian claims about 60 000 (I have never seen 150 000) or more dead in Polish captivity seem to be founded in my opinion.

[Musashi]

I see the authors of this site claim, the Polish losses were bigger. Of course its not true

[Reigo]

I see the authors of this site claim, the Polish losses were bigger. Of course its not true

Actually they say that there is no complete number for Soviet losses. The numbers they brought are incomplete, which they admit, and because of that I didn't bring the numbers here.

[Werewolf10]

I have a book, "Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in The Twentieth Century" of Colonel-General G.F. Krivosheev.

Krivosheev not take note of the war, only see the conflict as a part of the Russian Civil War. But he had information on losses on the armies towards Poland. But the data tell not who losses was caused of so the data is not reliable for only the Soviet-Polish War.

In the year 1920 was two fronts in the contact with poles, "Western Front" and "South-Western Front".

Western Front`s losses:
6.989 dead in combat.
53.805 missing in action/POW.
11.597 "non-combat losses".
72.391 "irrecoverable losses" ( total )

38.861 wounded, burns and concussion cases.
33.171 sick.
72.032 sick and wounded ( total )

Total loss on 144.423. But the data is controversial, can be a failure.

South-West Front`s losses:
10.653 dead in combat.
41.075 missing in action/POW.
5.949 "non-combat losses".
57.677 "irrecoverable losses" ( total )

6.653 wounded, burns and concussion cases.
23.234 sick.
29.887 sick and wounded ( total )

Total loss on 87.564. But the SW-Front had be in hard combat with the whites in southern Russia and Ukraina. SW-Front was not in so more combat as West Front ( "North-West Front" in other sources. ).

A note in the book from Mobilisation Directorate in Red Army Staff tell the losses in POW and internees:

75.699 POW returned from Poland in 1921 and 40.986 internees in Germany was returned in 1920-1921. Total number on 116.685 servicemen, many from the West Front, 4th. Army, 3rd. Cavalry Corps ( something an "army" of cavalry ) and two divisions from 15th. Army.

The note only tell us the data of Krivosheev not can be reliable- but the soviet losses can not be greater, the polish losses and the soviet losses must be equal. The failure of the soviet sources is soviet historians`s reluctance to the war, only will see that as a part of the Civil War and "the black numbers" something was hidden from the history. We can not know reliable numbers on the losses of the Soviet Union.

A book from 1972 in shops now in a new format from 2003, "White Eagle and Red Star" of Norman Davies with great details, but not much on military casualties of the parts. The polish losses was on "a quarter of a million; the number of dead stood at nearly 48.000." A half million men was dead, wounded, sick, missing and POW.

[Liluh]

Although I`ve placed this post in another thread about this war, I think it`ll be more appropriate if you`ll have a look here.

--

I`ve been searching through my grandparents basement archives and stuff and I found some really interesting items. Besides some documents (of various kinds), news papers (in good shape) from around 1925-1957 (although most of it is from prewar era or durinng the occupation) I found some really preciouse books, among which is there two big, illustrated books "Polska na Morzu" from 30`s and "Ksiega Chwaly Piechoty" from 1938 ("Poland on Sea" and "Book of Infarty Glory").

The last one gives precise, deep info on the development of polish infarty starting from 960. It has deep review of tactics, units etc. from WWI (although book itself refers to it as "the war") and "War with Russia".

I`ll give you figures on polish looses in the Polish-Soviet war. We may expect that it`s quite exact, as the conflict itself has a deep look into.

Take a look.




Sorry for the bad quality, I had to use my camera to bring you the book table. Anyway, as description, black color are dead and kia, the filling with lines are wounded. The numbers in brackets are reffering to the number of officers (although it`s already included in the total number).

Note that the table reffers to years 1918-1920 and gives the total looses in infarty during that time.


On another pages figures of the looses in whole army are :

1918-1920
Inf: KIA Dead Uknown MIA WIA Sick Total
OFficers 906 372 449 527 2585 4175 9014
Soldiers 15499 15734 28033 47198 98013 284283 488760

The rest of army:
Officers 314 440 134 202 768 3582 5440
Soldiers 3122 10668 10306 6142 14430 115842 160510

In Total: 19841 27214 38922 54069 115796 407882 663724

I`m unable to say wheter "dead" are those who died of wounds or femine, or maybe accidents, most likely all of it, but does the numbers include wounded and KIA already? No idea. For sure, numbers include Wielkopolskie Uprising, Cieszyn, Lvov, fights with Ukrainians and Silesian Uprising, I`d say that 70-80% of these numbers are Polish-Soviet war "only".

[Marcus Wendel]

A nonsense post from Aleksei22 was removed.

/Marcus

[Musashi]

A nonsense post from Aleksei22 was removed.

/Marcus

That's pitty I haven't seen it.