Poland won the Battle of Kałuszyn on the night of 11-12 September 1939. The German 44th Infantry Regiment had seized the town east of Warsaw and cut the retreat of the 1st Legions Infantry Division, the "Iron Division". In a night attack the division's 6th Legions Regiment stormed the town, including a bayonet assault on Hill 194.8, while the 11th Uhlans made a famous, contested night charge. By morning the town was Polish again and the division broke through, one of the few clear Polish tactical wins of the September Campaign.
Most of the Polish stories of September 1939 end in defeat. Kałuszyn is one of the exceptions. On a single night, a Polish division that had been all but surrounded east of Warsaw turned and took a German-held town back at bayonet point, and rode into legend on the way. It changed nothing about the outcome of the campaign, and it cost a terrible price, but it remains one of the rare clear Polish victories of that lost autumn.
The trap east of Warsaw
By the second week of the invasion, the Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division under General Wincenty Kowalski was pulling back to the south-east, away from the collapsing front and toward the line of the Bug and the approaches to the capital. The Germans had earned it a nickname: the "Iron Division". On 11 September, troops of the German 44th Infantry Regiment, part of the 11th Division, took the small Mazovian town of Kałuszyn, astride the Warsaw to Siedlce road about 55 km east of Warsaw, and closed the division's line of retreat. Kowalski ordered the town retaken that night.
A night attack
Late on 11 September, Polish patrols confirmed that Kałuszyn was held in strength. Rather than wait for daylight and German air power, Colonel Stanisław Engel's 6th Legions Infantry Regiment went in at once2, in the dark. The first clash came on the edge of town, and quickly turned into a confused, close-quarters fight through streets and gardens lit by burning buildings and signal flares.
The bayonet charge on Hill 194.8
The action that actually broke the defence was an infantry one. The III Battalion of the 6th Legions Regiment, under Jan Kasztelowicz, stormed the German position on Hill 194.8 with the bayonet3. By dawn the hill had fallen and the battalions of the German 44th Regiment inside the town were shattered4, many of their men killed or taken prisoner. It was brutal, short-range fighting, and it is the best documented part of the battle.
The charge of the uhlans
The most famous moment of Kałuszyn is also the most disputed. During the night the 4th Squadron of the 11th Uhlan Regiment, under Lieutenant Andrzej Żyliński, made a mounted dash through the edge of town. By Żyliński's own later account it was not a planned charge at all5: he heard the shout "Cavalry, forward!" from the direction of the regimental staff and took it as an order. His squadron galloped into the dark town, scattering German infantry at first, before it was caught in the open by flares and even by fire from Polish soldiers who could not tell friend from foe. Some historians have questioned whether a true cavalry charge1 took place at all.
What is certain is the cost. Of the roughly 85 horses that set out, only about 33 came back1. That number, 33, is often repeated as if it were the dead, but it counts the horses that returned, not men killed. Whatever its exact character, the ride passed into memory as one of the celebrated Polish cavalry actions of 1939.
A rare victory
By around nine in the morning on 12 September, Kałuszyn was firmly in Polish hands. The surviving Germans pulled back toward Siedlce, and the Iron Division pushed on through the gap it had torn open, continuing its fighting withdrawal. The town itself was left largely in ruins. In the wider story of September 1939 it was a small thing, a successful breakout rather than a turning point, and the campaign was already lost. But as a clear-cut tactical victory won against a German regiment, at close quarters and in the dark, it stood almost alone.
How Kałuszyn is remembered
Kałuszyn is remembered as a point of pride in a month of disasters: proof that the Polish army of 1939 could still win a stand-up fight, and a showcase for the Iron Division. In 2014, for the seventy-fifth anniversary, the town unveiled6 a gilded monument known as the "Golden Uhlan" (Złoty Ułan) to the charge. The battle is also inscribed among the honoured actions on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, as "KAŁUSZYN 11-12 IX 19393". Two cautions for the curious: this is not the Battle of Klushino (Kłuszyn) of 1610, a completely different battle in a different war; and, for all the fame of the uhlans, this was an assault on infantry holding a town, not the myth of Polish horsemen charging tanks.
