[WW] Polish Cavalry

[Arne Reuter <reuter@tse-online.de>]

Be it propaganda or not.

Supposedly the Polish Cavalry charged advancing German tanks.
Basically they had been told, they were paper-maché - that Germany
just could not realistically have that many tanks.

You can imagine what would happen in such a situation - from the
(faked? - i'll have to look up my sources - they should be reliable)
accounts i heard it was disbelief first, slaughter second.

The only eyewitness account about cavalry action was from my
grandfather: when surrounding Russian troops in the early stages of
Operation Barbarossa, one night he was awakened by thunder. Manning
the trenches (yes, they had those in WWII ;-)), the thunder was
reveiled as being a cavalry night charge (a breakout out of the
"Kessel") over German trenches.

Now horses may be surefooted, but a night action like that to me
sounds a bit more than daring - tells a lot about the state of mind of
Cossack cavalry, doesn't it? Any riders here to comment on that?

BTW, because of traditional sentiments against the bolchewiki
government, Cossacks sided with the Germans, in order to protect their
homelands. It appears, that those "traitors" were handed over to the
Russian government after the war - against all agreements. You can
imagine that those were never heard of again. The history of the
Cossacks might make some interesting background for any roleplaying
game - even fantasy.

Apart from that IMHO cavalry played no role in WW, except for
anti-partisan, policing and reconnaissance action. Horses are very
expensive to maintain and once they die are hard to replace. Many
ended up drawing artillery or even in the cookpots (especially on the
eastern front).

>>Poland had mounted cavalry and from one account (I can't remember the
>>reference) did quite well against the first german blitz all things
>>considered. Poland did hold out for a number of weeks when all their cavalry
>>was mounted and going up against Panzer divisions

> One of the great myths of WWII. During the fighting the Polish
> cavalry fought dismounted, using their horses as transportation. 
> After the surrender the Germans rounded up some troopers and had them 
> stage attacks for Goebbels propaganda machine. Even today people fall 
> for that little lie.

Regards,

Arne Reuter

--
TSE GmbH Neue Medien, Hovestr.14, 48351 Everswinkel
Tel: +49 2582 66180            FAX: +49 2582 661833
WebDesign & WebMarketing   http://www.tse-online.de
SIMSL       http://www.schlemmen-im-muensterland.de
Muenster Spielt!      http://www.muenster-spielt.de