Product Description

This is a narrative account of one of the most dramatic episodes in 20th-century history. In August 1944, Warsaw offered the Wehrmacht the last line of defence against the Red Army's march from Moscow to Berlin. When the Red Army reached the river Vistula, the people of Warsaw believed that liberation had come. The Resistance took to the streets in celebration but the Soviets remained where they were, allowing the Wehrmacht time to regroup and Hitler to order that the city of Warsaw be razed to the ground. For 63 days the Resistance fought on in the cellars and the sewers. Defenceless citizens were slaughtered in their tens of thousands. One by one the city's monuments were reduced to rubble, watched by Soviet troops on the other bank of the river. The Allies expressed regret but decided that there was nothing to be done; Poland would not be allowed to be governed by the Poles. The sacrifice was in vain and the Soviet tanks rolled in to the flattened city.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96697 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 776 pages

Review
A thorough recounting of what the author considers to be "one of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century"-and surely one of the most shameful betrayals in the world annals. By Davies's (History/London Univ.; The Isles, 2000, etc.) account, the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 has been all but buried in Western and Russian history books as a source of deep embarrassment. It is not to be confused, he hastens to add, with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of the previous year, an attempt by Jewish partisans to break the Nazi stranglehold on the city. This uprising, equally heroic, involved elements of the underground Polish Home Army, working in collaboration with resistance units and commandos. They aimed to open a great battle within the Polish capital of Warsaw in support of the advancing Red Army, which by August of 1944 was nearing the banks of the Vistula River. They did so: 40,000 Polish fighters went up against a vastly larger German force. The occupiers were not exactly prepared for the uprising, though, as Davies notes, "Capital cities awaiting liberation were dangerous places. Everyone knew that something could erupt at any moment." Astonishingly, the Red Army halted its advance, allowing the Germans to regroup and stop the uprising. Davies charts the course of that great betrayal, which he considers a deliberate effort on the part of the Soviets to crush the non-Communist Polish resistance-which had been highly effective against the Nazi enemy, responsible for the assassination of "a whole grisly gallery of SS and Gestapo men" as well as the deaths of hundreds of ordinary German soldiers. But he also implicates the other Allies; even though Churchill had proposed sending Stalin a message saying, "Our sympathies are aroused for these almost unarmed people whose special faith has led them to attack German tanks, guns, and planes," in the end the West did nothing to save the Home Army. "Every single member of the Allied community [holds] a share of the responsibility" for the betrayal, Davies insists. And here he issues a resounding indictment. (Kirkus Reviews)

John Crossland, Sunday Times, 2 November 2003
'Passionate and impressive'

Daniel Johnson in Daily Telegraph, November 2003
This is a splendid book, long overdue and a worthy memorial to its noble subject.