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One hundred years ago, on the outskirts of Warsaw, Soviet and Polish armies fought the decisive battle of what had been an undeclared war. In the balance were either the continued independence of Poland, newly created after 1918, or the union of Russian Bolshevism and German Spartacism leading to the Bolshevization of Europe as far as the English Channel. A Bolshevik victory would have spelled the return of a communist Soviet republic for Hungary and further terror and suffering. Successive Hungarian governments – that of Sándor Simonyi-Semadam (March–July 1920) first and Pál Teleki (July 1920–April 1921) later – had already anticipated this possibility by the spring of 1920 and thus took active measures to prevent it as far as the country was able. The 20-22 million rounds of ammunition sent to Poland in the summer of 1920 were an important contribution to the Polish defeat of Soviet general Tukhachevsky’s overconfident army.
Since reacquiring independence, the Polish state had been forced to defend its borders by force of arms. While the Polish forces boasted battle-hardened officers and soldiers and varied armaments from the armies of the three former occupying powers – Russia, Germany, and Austro-Hungary − its munitions requirements were such that its newly established ammunition factories were unable to meet the needs of the Polish army. For this reason, Hungary contributed equipment and semi-finished material, including cartridge cases, projectiles, breech-loading guns, steam boilers, and other necessities.
Hungarian assistance prior to March 1919
In December 1918, Albert Nyáry, president of the Hungarian-Polish Club in Budapest, and Ferdinand Leó Miklósi Ferdinánd, the organization’s secretary, proposed helping the Poles with Hungarian ammunition. They even approached Prime Minister Mihály Károlyi, who agreed with the initiative. Contacting former Polish officers who had served in the Austro-Hungarian army, they set the plan into motion, and in the final days of December, the shipment of an unknown quantity of ammunition was made from the munitions depot in Kassa (Košice).
In January 1919, a Polish government commission led by artillery colonel Ludwik Monné arrived in Budapest and, based on the decision of the Polish Council of Ministers, was commissioned to purchase 10,000 Hungarian-made rifles and ammunition. Moreover, the Weiss Manfréd Works in Csepel had manufactured and delivered 20 million rounds of infantry ammunition and 20,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, in addition to camp kitchens and ovens, by March 19, 1919. The Poles paid in cash as well as oil and Silesian black coal. A wagon of ammunition was equivalent to nine wagons of coal, of which a total of 3,000 wagons were imported into Hungary in exchange for 333 wagons of war material in 1919.
The first consignment, accompanied by a French escort, reached Nowy Sącz by way of the Budapest-Miskolc-Kassa-Eperjes-Muszyna-Tarnów route. On the way back, in accordance with the bilateral agreement signed on March 4, the wagons carried high-quality black coal from Sosnowiec. However, once the Czechs had taken possession of the Kassa-Oderberg railway line and what is now Eastern Slovakia, no Hungarian or foreign military supplies were permitted to pass through to the Poles on this line.
Budapest found yet other way by which to provide significant support to the Poles at that time. German Field Marshal August von Mackensen’s army of some 200,000 men was returning home from Romania via Hungary. Under the terms of the armistice agreement signed in Belgrade on November 13, 1918, the Hungarian government was obliged to disarm this army and intern the soldiers. This would have had catastrophic consequences for the country’s internal situation at the time. Thus, Albert Bartha, the Minister of Defense, facilitated the secret and mostly successful departure of the German units. The Poles, meanwhile, received more than 25,000 Mannlicher carbine firearms along with several million rounds of infantry ammunition confiscated from Mackenson’s army, in addition to bayonets, steel helmets, telephones and wiring, and field guns with shells.
All Hungarian governments in office from 1918 onwards – with the exception of the Hungarian Soviet Republic – came to Poland’s assistance. After the communist dictatorship fell in August 1919, Romanian troops entered Budapest and plundered and pillaged the city. When they left in mid-November, they took with them nearly all the equipment from the Weiss Manfréd factory (among which were hundreds of lathes) and all the raw materials they could find. For this reason, it was only in March 1920, that they could restart the factory and shortly thereafter begin production for Poland, for which Poland provided the coal. The Italian and Austrian railways likewise used Polish coal for transporting military equipment – for example, 42 million rounds of Austrian infantry ammunition – to Warsaw by way of Hungary.
Hungary’s entire ammunition stock
When Polish troops occupied Kiev in May 1920, the Budapest government drafted a secret Hungarian-Polish political and military alliance, according to which the two forces would cooperate in the fight against Bolshevism and, if necessary, Hungarian troops would provide military assistance to the Poles. The draft was sent to the Polish head of state, Józef Piłsudski; the foreign minister, Eustachy Sapieha; the deputy war minister, Kazimierz Sosnkowski (later war minister); and Lieutenant General Tadeusz Rozwadowski, chief of the Polish general staff, who had married in the Hungarian capital at the turn of the century. Ultimately, the treaty was never signed, but this did not affect Budapest’s willingness to help. The government hoped that this active anti-Soviet action would contribute to changing the freshly drawn borders of Trianon. In the end, this proved to be an illusion.
During the withdrawal from Kiev in July 1920, the Polish army suffered significant losses in both arms and ammunition. Almost simultaneously, under pressure from Bolshevik propaganda and European left-wing parties, Austria, Italy, Germany, and Czechoslovakia closed their borders to the shipment of munitions, while the Socialist International declared a total transport boycott against Poland, and the Amsterdam-based International Trade Union Confederation did the same against Hungary.
As a result, for the next two and a half months – between July 10 and August 25 – the Polish leadership relied on Hungary the most. Hungary acted without delay, and on June 28, Budapest had already begun forwarding French munitions to Poland via Romania. Polish military guards were even allowed to accompany the transports on Hungarian territory. MÁV, the Hungarian state railway, even gave the trains priority at the border. Customs clearance had been completed well in advance, so that only the locomotive had to be changed at the Hungarian-Romanian border, allowing the train to continue its journey almost without any loss of time. At the same time, the Poles supplied coal for the production of ammunition in Csepel and for running the Hungarian locomotives that were used to reach the border. The ammunition was initially delivered in lockable freight wagons, 300 of which were urgently manufactured for Warsaw by Ganz-MÁVAG.
In fulfilling the Polish request, Károly Soós, the Hungarian Minister of Defense, offered on June 13, 1920, not only the entire ammunition stock of the Hungarian Defence Forces at that time – 890,000 rounds – but also simultaneously ordered the Weiss factory to produce exclusively for Poland for the next two weeks, thus providing the Poles with an additional 3 million rounds. According to the remaining production records, some 250,000 rounds of ammunition were produced every day for the 48-day period from May 31 to July 27 following the restart of the factory, a total of 12 million rounds. The factory’s first consignment was dispatched on July 17.
International Boycott
Through the summer of 1920, the Polish army remained unable to stop the Soviet-Russian counterattack. On July 10, the Polish leadership appealed to the Hungarian government to dispatch a force of 20-30,000 cavalry. Hungary did not have that many available horses, so this plan fell through. Due to the strict restrictions of the Versailles peace treaty, Budapest could have sent a much smaller armed force, but only if the Entente Powers agreed. The Hungarian government asked Polish diplomats to intervene in this matter. The Entente eventually agreed that the Hungarian army could assist Warsaw, but only if Czechoslovakia were to allow the Hungarian troops to pass through its territory. (The 80,000– strong Hungarian army, which had been raised and equipped in complete secrecy, was ordered ready to march on August 1, 1920.) Prague, however, refused to give its consent on August 9 (as stated in the newspapers the following day) and declared its neutrality in the Polish-Soviet War.
Knowing this, the Red Army command set out to capture Warsaw on August 15. Between mid-June and August 26, 1920, Hungary was the only country to supply ammunition to Poland. Germany did not allow French munitions to pass through its territory; British dockers did not load supplies; the Danzig dock workers would not unload supplies that had arrived earlier from England; the Austrian workers' councils forbade the dispatch of munitions from Austria despite the Poles having previously sent coal and food to Austria in exchange; the Czechoslovak government refused to allow Polish supplies to pass through its territory by rail; and the Belgian government - under the influence of Bolshevik propaganda - even forbade the delivery of foodstuffs to Warsaw.
Warsaw Could Only Depend on Budapest
According to the available archival sources, two trains comprising some 80 wagons left Csepel on July 17, 1920, containing approximately 21 or 22 million rounds of carbine ammunition. This shipment – Hungary’s contribution to the Polish military victory – arrived via Romania to the small town of Skierniewice near Warsaw on August 12 and was immediately sent to the front. According to the records of the Polish National Defence Council, without these supplies the Polish army would have run out of ammunition by August 14 at the latest.
Several Hungarian volunteer soldiers fought the Bolsheviks under the Polish flag. They included Emánuel Korompay, who was one of two Hungarian victims among the thousands of Polish officers executed by the Soviets at the Katyn massacre in 1940. Another was Count Antal Somssich, who was a lieutenant colonel in the Polish army from 1919 to 1923. His grave in Zalakomár, in southwestern Hungary, was recently restored by the Government of the Republic of Poland.
After the victory at Warsaw, General Piłsudski wrote a letter to Miklós Horthy thanking him for his help, while Prime Minister Witos commemorated the occasion in the Polish Sejm. Lieutenant General Tadeusz Rowadowski, Chief of Polish General Staff, declared that everyone had abandoned Poland except for the Hungarians, a fact they would never forget and would reciprocate when the opportunity arose.
The Hungarian government arranged for the delivery of a further 200 wagons of ammunition and undertook to forward an additional 400 wagons of French munitions to Poland following the Battle of Warsaw. János Csernoch, Archbishop of Esztergom, appealed for wheat aid, which the Hungarian Red Cross volunteered to deliver. The Polish army was supplied with incandescent lamps, machinery, and boilers for the production of ammunition while negotiations began on the production of medicines and military motorboats.
Hungarian assistance continued until the end of the Polish-Bolshevik War in March 1921. Between 1918 and 1921, Hungary supplied the Polish army with nearly 100 million rounds of infantry ammunition, 200 thousand rounds of artillery ammunition, 40 million percussion caps, 10 thousand Hungarian-made Mannlicher carbine firearms, 440 mobile kitchens, 80 camp baking ovens, 600 thousand ammunition magazines, and millions of weapon parts and light bulbs – all either from its own stocks or from freshly manufactured items, including semi-finished goods.
(Translated by John Puckett and Andrea Thürmer)
