Here's the first two-and-a-half pages of a novella-length timeline I' planning on finishing over the summer once school's out. This is more or less a total rewrite of an older, dead timeline bearing the same name. The present section is probably going to be greatly expanded once I get my hands on a specific book.
Thus far, I've used Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War and The Russian Civil War as sources from my university's library.
Read, enjoy, and comment!
BTW, section one isn't completed and may contain errors. Feel free to point them out to me or to suggest additions to what I have written so far.
Otherwise, that being said, updates might be irregular so be patient. Right now, I've got to finish over twenty pages of academic-level essays.
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Beneath the Crimson Banner: An Alternate History Timeline
The Capitulation of White Poland
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At the Second Comintern Congress held from July-August 1920, delegates looked on in awe at a large map placed on the wall of the assembly hall as miniature red flags marking the progress of the Red Army moved day-by-day westwards deep into Poland. The Bolsheviks were scoring a rapid flurry of victories there. It was hoped that its conquest would serve as a bridge into Germany, eagerly coveted by Lenin as the October Revolution’s saving grace, which hinged on the success of a European-wide revolution. Over the corpse of White Poland would come the long-awaited world revolution, or so he and the gathered Comintern delegates eagerly believed. Just by looking at the map, red flags constantly shifting, the delegates realized just how far their Russian comrades had come in the war overall.
The Soviet-Polish War began with several intermittent skirmishes between the Polish and Soviet armies, starting with the taking of eighty Red Army prisoners by the Polish Wilno Detachment at Bereza Kartuska in February 1919. These early clashes that took place along the disputed borderlands were hectic and chaotic, occurring at crossroads, forest trails, and in hedgerows throughout. As the Allied Powers made peace with an exhausted Germany, Soviet troops had initially ventured into the borderlands hoping that the fragile Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania-Belorussia (LBSSR) would remain intact in the heady year of 1918, when the global revolutionary conflagration seemed just within reach. The Polish Army meanwhile, possessing a varied assortment of weapons gathered up from foreign fronts, attacked the LBSSR’s capital at Wilno with the aim of establishing Greater Poland. Pilsudski personally led the campaign for its control, the city falling quickly despite fierce fighting after workers unexpectedly switched sides. The erstwhile capital of the LBSSR moved to Minsk, the short-lived state having been effectively liquidated after the Polish seizure of the major Belorussian city.
As consequent peace talks between the Bolsheviks and Poland faltered at Mikaszewicze, the Poles eventually received much sought after Allied aid in the form of rifles, ammunition, uniforms, and aircraft which arrived in force despite the onset of winter. In the spring of 1920 the Reds, having more or less won in the Baltic, Siberia, and South Russia militarily, soon amassed tens of thousands of soldiers on their Western Front in anticipation of finally settling accounts with Poland.
At once yearning for a restored Polish-Lithuanian federation, Lithuania’s refusal to form one prompted Pilsudski to set his sights on the defunct Ukrainian nationalist government of Simon Petliura, recognized as the head of state of the Ukrainian People’s Republic whose army was effectively put under the total control of the Polish high command. Heading into northwestern Ukraine, the Fourteenth and Twelfth Red Armies were easily pushed aside as the Poles entered Kiev unchallenged.
General Tukhachevsky was given command of the Western Front to meet this grave threat, Pilsudski’s forces having crossed the Dnepr River and formed a bridgehead along the eastern bank. The Poles could look towards Moscow, victory seemingly in sight. If there was a time when the war seemed irretrievably lost for the Reds, it was then, however temporary this fact proved to be.
A young nobleman who had turned his expert military services over to the Bolsheviks, Tukhachevsky possessed military cunning and a knack for the daring offensive, planning to strike north against the invading Poles from his headquarters in Smolensk. He was to win everlasting glory for implanting Bolshevism into Poland, likening himself to the conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, his idol. The class war, or the national war according to some, would be waged against Poland with the full might of the Red Army behind the youthful general.
Elsewhere on the Western Front, the First Red Calvary Army, formed from a smattering of Cossacks and formerly lawless bandits, prepared to hit back against Pilsudski after having recently annihilated the Army of South Russia under Denikin. Armed to the teeth and grouped together around four divisions, backed by three air squadrons along with an armored train set aside for each division, the so-called Calvary Army under Budennyi had managed to cross the Zbruch River and position themselves towards Lvov after sweeping aside Polish resistance in the area and taking Pilsudski’s headquarters at Rowno.
With the Western Army Group based in Belorussia unde Tukhachevsky, and the Southwestern Army Group in the Ukraine under Commander-in-Chief Kamenev, the over five million strong Red Army launched a massive counteroffensive. Tukhachevsky pushed forwards, crossing the Berezina and Gaina Rivers before rolling up his opponents’ left-wing and taking back Minsk. Commanding the Sixteenth, Third, Fifteenth, and Fourth Armies along with the Third Calvary Corps under the Armenian Bolshevik Gaia Gai, Tukhachevsky continued his ambitious assault. The Eighth, Tenth, and Fifth divisions belonging to the Fourth Red Army managed to encircle the Poles and take Grodno. At once having driven the Polish forces out of the eastern borderlands completely, Tukhachevsky and his armies crossed the river Bug after meeting a determined Polish counterattack which was effortlessly defeated. The Red Army had now positioned itself a few miles from Warsaw, expecting not only Warsaw but all major European cities to turn red.
Colonel Kamenev had sent his forces northwards towards Brest to support Tukhachevsky, the columns of Budennyi and Egorov moving in the direction of Warsaw, while Gai’s Third Calvary Corps stopped short of its westward advance to close with Tukhachevsky’s right in preparation for the takeover of Warsaw. Backed by the additional Twelfth and Fourteenth Red Armies attached to the Southwestern Army Group, Tukhachevsky overwhelmed the stubborn Polish commanders defending Warsaw through sheer force of numbers and his own tactical genius. Despite the best efforts of the generals Sikorski, Haller, Latinik, Raszewski, and Zielinski, who were put in charge of the defense of the northern Wkra River front and the northeastern Vistula bridgehead, they squared off against Tukhachevsky armed with Napoleonic era artillery at worst and the occasional machine gun or tank at best.
The Sixteenth, Third, and Fifteenth Red Armies entered the battle from the east, strengthening the position of the Mozyr Group which had been tasked with holding a fifty mile front spread out between the Twelfth and Sixteenth Armies. Pilsudski’s counterattack against the Mozyr Group did not succeed, his striking force beat back by Tukhachevsky’s armies. As the Red Army’s heavy artillery was brought to bear against Warsaw, the Polish Army launched one last ditch maneuver in a desperate bid to cut off the Fourth Red Army and Gai’s Third Calvary Corps. In this, they failed. For all intents and purposes, the Polish Army had been resoundingly defeated. Warsaw fell swiftly. A coup occurring not long after Warsaw’s fall allowed the Bolsheviks to bring Lithuania back into the fold as a Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).
The delegates to the Second Comintern Congress had adjourned prior to the seizure of Warsaw, although the best representatives of the international proletariat nonetheless traveled back to their respective countries no doubt hearing shortly thereafter of White Poland’s capitulation. The anticipated European-wide revolution did not occur immediately, however. Instead, the resulting Peace of Minsk carved up Poland in a shrewd show of realpolitik. The Belorussian and Ukrainian SSRs were significantly enlarged, the Ukrainian SSR having been given control over Lvov and the surrounding territory encompassing the industrial city. Upper Silesia and the Polish Corridor were ceded to Weimar Germany, the triumphant Red Army linking up with the Reichswehr to aid the Germans in their revanchist endeavors. The remaining central-most portion of Poland was reorganized into the Polish SSR under the leadership of the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee, which at once set to work redistributing land and nationalizing factories to gain the support of Polish workers and peasants, the capital of the embryonic Polish SSR based in newly-conquered Warsaw. An independent Poland was no more.
Thus far, I've used Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War and The Russian Civil War as sources from my university's library.
Read, enjoy, and comment!
BTW, section one isn't completed and may contain errors. Feel free to point them out to me or to suggest additions to what I have written so far.
Otherwise, that being said, updates might be irregular so be patient. Right now, I've got to finish over twenty pages of academic-level essays.
---
Beneath the Crimson Banner: An Alternate History Timeline
The Capitulation of White Poland
---
At the Second Comintern Congress held from July-August 1920, delegates looked on in awe at a large map placed on the wall of the assembly hall as miniature red flags marking the progress of the Red Army moved day-by-day westwards deep into Poland. The Bolsheviks were scoring a rapid flurry of victories there. It was hoped that its conquest would serve as a bridge into Germany, eagerly coveted by Lenin as the October Revolution’s saving grace, which hinged on the success of a European-wide revolution. Over the corpse of White Poland would come the long-awaited world revolution, or so he and the gathered Comintern delegates eagerly believed. Just by looking at the map, red flags constantly shifting, the delegates realized just how far their Russian comrades had come in the war overall.
The Soviet-Polish War began with several intermittent skirmishes between the Polish and Soviet armies, starting with the taking of eighty Red Army prisoners by the Polish Wilno Detachment at Bereza Kartuska in February 1919. These early clashes that took place along the disputed borderlands were hectic and chaotic, occurring at crossroads, forest trails, and in hedgerows throughout. As the Allied Powers made peace with an exhausted Germany, Soviet troops had initially ventured into the borderlands hoping that the fragile Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania-Belorussia (LBSSR) would remain intact in the heady year of 1918, when the global revolutionary conflagration seemed just within reach. The Polish Army meanwhile, possessing a varied assortment of weapons gathered up from foreign fronts, attacked the LBSSR’s capital at Wilno with the aim of establishing Greater Poland. Pilsudski personally led the campaign for its control, the city falling quickly despite fierce fighting after workers unexpectedly switched sides. The erstwhile capital of the LBSSR moved to Minsk, the short-lived state having been effectively liquidated after the Polish seizure of the major Belorussian city.
As consequent peace talks between the Bolsheviks and Poland faltered at Mikaszewicze, the Poles eventually received much sought after Allied aid in the form of rifles, ammunition, uniforms, and aircraft which arrived in force despite the onset of winter. In the spring of 1920 the Reds, having more or less won in the Baltic, Siberia, and South Russia militarily, soon amassed tens of thousands of soldiers on their Western Front in anticipation of finally settling accounts with Poland.
At once yearning for a restored Polish-Lithuanian federation, Lithuania’s refusal to form one prompted Pilsudski to set his sights on the defunct Ukrainian nationalist government of Simon Petliura, recognized as the head of state of the Ukrainian People’s Republic whose army was effectively put under the total control of the Polish high command. Heading into northwestern Ukraine, the Fourteenth and Twelfth Red Armies were easily pushed aside as the Poles entered Kiev unchallenged.
General Tukhachevsky was given command of the Western Front to meet this grave threat, Pilsudski’s forces having crossed the Dnepr River and formed a bridgehead along the eastern bank. The Poles could look towards Moscow, victory seemingly in sight. If there was a time when the war seemed irretrievably lost for the Reds, it was then, however temporary this fact proved to be.
A young nobleman who had turned his expert military services over to the Bolsheviks, Tukhachevsky possessed military cunning and a knack for the daring offensive, planning to strike north against the invading Poles from his headquarters in Smolensk. He was to win everlasting glory for implanting Bolshevism into Poland, likening himself to the conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, his idol. The class war, or the national war according to some, would be waged against Poland with the full might of the Red Army behind the youthful general.
Elsewhere on the Western Front, the First Red Calvary Army, formed from a smattering of Cossacks and formerly lawless bandits, prepared to hit back against Pilsudski after having recently annihilated the Army of South Russia under Denikin. Armed to the teeth and grouped together around four divisions, backed by three air squadrons along with an armored train set aside for each division, the so-called Calvary Army under Budennyi had managed to cross the Zbruch River and position themselves towards Lvov after sweeping aside Polish resistance in the area and taking Pilsudski’s headquarters at Rowno.
With the Western Army Group based in Belorussia unde Tukhachevsky, and the Southwestern Army Group in the Ukraine under Commander-in-Chief Kamenev, the over five million strong Red Army launched a massive counteroffensive. Tukhachevsky pushed forwards, crossing the Berezina and Gaina Rivers before rolling up his opponents’ left-wing and taking back Minsk. Commanding the Sixteenth, Third, Fifteenth, and Fourth Armies along with the Third Calvary Corps under the Armenian Bolshevik Gaia Gai, Tukhachevsky continued his ambitious assault. The Eighth, Tenth, and Fifth divisions belonging to the Fourth Red Army managed to encircle the Poles and take Grodno. At once having driven the Polish forces out of the eastern borderlands completely, Tukhachevsky and his armies crossed the river Bug after meeting a determined Polish counterattack which was effortlessly defeated. The Red Army had now positioned itself a few miles from Warsaw, expecting not only Warsaw but all major European cities to turn red.
Colonel Kamenev had sent his forces northwards towards Brest to support Tukhachevsky, the columns of Budennyi and Egorov moving in the direction of Warsaw, while Gai’s Third Calvary Corps stopped short of its westward advance to close with Tukhachevsky’s right in preparation for the takeover of Warsaw. Backed by the additional Twelfth and Fourteenth Red Armies attached to the Southwestern Army Group, Tukhachevsky overwhelmed the stubborn Polish commanders defending Warsaw through sheer force of numbers and his own tactical genius. Despite the best efforts of the generals Sikorski, Haller, Latinik, Raszewski, and Zielinski, who were put in charge of the defense of the northern Wkra River front and the northeastern Vistula bridgehead, they squared off against Tukhachevsky armed with Napoleonic era artillery at worst and the occasional machine gun or tank at best.
The Sixteenth, Third, and Fifteenth Red Armies entered the battle from the east, strengthening the position of the Mozyr Group which had been tasked with holding a fifty mile front spread out between the Twelfth and Sixteenth Armies. Pilsudski’s counterattack against the Mozyr Group did not succeed, his striking force beat back by Tukhachevsky’s armies. As the Red Army’s heavy artillery was brought to bear against Warsaw, the Polish Army launched one last ditch maneuver in a desperate bid to cut off the Fourth Red Army and Gai’s Third Calvary Corps. In this, they failed. For all intents and purposes, the Polish Army had been resoundingly defeated. Warsaw fell swiftly. A coup occurring not long after Warsaw’s fall allowed the Bolsheviks to bring Lithuania back into the fold as a Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).
The delegates to the Second Comintern Congress had adjourned prior to the seizure of Warsaw, although the best representatives of the international proletariat nonetheless traveled back to their respective countries no doubt hearing shortly thereafter of White Poland’s capitulation. The anticipated European-wide revolution did not occur immediately, however. Instead, the resulting Peace of Minsk carved up Poland in a shrewd show of realpolitik. The Belorussian and Ukrainian SSRs were significantly enlarged, the Ukrainian SSR having been given control over Lvov and the surrounding territory encompassing the industrial city. Upper Silesia and the Polish Corridor were ceded to Weimar Germany, the triumphant Red Army linking up with the Reichswehr to aid the Germans in their revanchist endeavors. The remaining central-most portion of Poland was reorganized into the Polish SSR under the leadership of the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee, which at once set to work redistributing land and nationalizing factories to gain the support of Polish workers and peasants, the capital of the embryonic Polish SSR based in newly-conquered Warsaw. An independent Poland was no more.
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