On 31 August 1920, near Komarów, south-east of Zamość, the Polish 1st Cavalry Division of Colonel Juliusz Rómmel fought Semyon Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army, the Konarmia, as it fell back after the Polish victory at Warsaw. The battle was a long series of charges and countercharges by Polish uhlans and Soviet Cossack cavalry, supported by artillery and machine guns. By evening the Konarmia was beaten and retreating east toward the Bug. It is counted among the greatest battles of Polish cavalry, and historians often call it the last great cavalry battle in the history of war.
Budyonny turns back
Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army had been the Red Army's main striking force in Ukraine since it entered the war in May 1920. In August it was fighting toward Lwów, where the volunteers of Zadwórze died in its path. After the Polish counteroffensive at Warsaw from 16 August, the Soviet South-Western Front began to fall back, and at the end of the month the Konarmia moved north on Zamość, whose defense began on 29 August.1
As the Konarmia withdrew from Zamość, it ran into Rómmel's 1st Cavalry Division near Komarów. The figures given at the Komarów commemorations by the Polish Press Agency, and published by the Museum of Polish History's portal dzieje.pl, put Rómmel's division at about 1,500 men with about 70 heavy machine guns and 12 to 16 guns, against more than 6,000 men, about 350 heavy machine guns and about 50 guns in Budyonny's army at Komarów. Other accounts count the forces on both sides very differently.2
A day of charges
The fighting was fought out mainly by mounted troops: Polish uhlan regiments and Soviet Cossack cavalry charged and countercharged across the open fields, supported by artillery and machine-gun fire. On the hilltop where the fighting took place now stands an eighteen-meter monument to the glory of the Polish cavalry and horse artillery.3
By the end of the day the Konarmia had been defeated and was retreating east toward the Bug. Riding across the field afterward, Rómmel wrote in his memoirs, published in Lwów in 1932, that it was literally strewn with the bodies of men and horses.4
The end of the Konarmia
According to the Polish Press Agency summary, Budyonny's army lost most of its men at Komarów; its remnants were beaten again in Polesie a few weeks later, after which the Konarmia was withdrawn from the front and did not return before the end of the Polish-Soviet War. The Red Army's offensive in the south was over.5
Komarów is commemorated every year at the end of August with cavalry maneuvers and a reenactment on the battlefield, and the Feast of Polish Cavalry is held there. The full story of the battle, the charges and its commander is told in our article on the Battle of Komarów, and the decisive campaign in our article on the Battle of Warsaw.6
Also on this day
- 1939: Gleiwitz incident. On the eve of war, Germans posing as Poles staged a fake raid on the radio station in Gleiwitz, then a German town and today Gliwice in Poland.
