Battle of Lemberg (1918)

Coordinates: 49°49′48″N 24°00′51″E / 49.8300°N 24.0142°E / 49.8300; 24.0142
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Battle of Lwów (1918)
)
For other battles fought for the city of Lemberg, see Battle of Lwów (disambiguation).
Battle of Lemberg (Lviv, Lwów)
Part of
Lemberg
(Lviv, Lwów)
Result Polish victory[1]
Belligerents West Ukrainian People's Republic West Ukraine Second Polish Republic PolandCommanders and leaders Dmytro Vitovsky
Hnat Stefaniv Czesław Mączyński

The Battle of Lemberg (Lviv, Lwów) (in Polish historiography called obrona Lwowa, the Defense of Lwów

Polish-Ukrainian War, ultimately won by Poland as both nations fought the Ukrainian-Soviet War and Polish-Soviet Wars
concurrently.

Background

The modern city of

Roman Catholics, 31% Jews, and 15% were Greek Catholics. Linguistically, 86% of the city's population used the Polish language and 11% preferred the Ukrainian language, so most of the inhabitants of Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv) were Poles.[3][4] In eastern Galicia, Ukrainians made up approximately 58% of the population, while Poles made up 30%, and Jews about 11% of the population[5] and were numerically superior in the cities.[6]
As a part of the Austrian partition of Poland,[7] Lemberg became center of Polish culture and scholarship,[8] as well as Polish and Ukrainian political activity.

Due to the intervention of Archduke Wilhelm of Austria, a Habsburg who adopted a Ukrainian identity and who considered himself a Ukrainian patriot, in October 1918 two regiments consisting of mostly Ukrainian troops were brought into the city, so that most of the Austrian troops stationed in Lviv were ethnic Ukrainians.[9] At the same time, most of Polish units in Austro-Hungarian service were sent to other fronts in order to avoid conflict between the two groups. In addition, the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen were stationed in Bukovina and were supposed to join the Ukrainian troops in the city. The Ukrainian National Rada (a council consisting of all Ukrainian representatives from both houses of the Austrian parliament and from the provincial diets in Galicia and Bukovina) had planned to declare the West Ukrainian People's Republic on November 3, 1918 but moved the date forward to November 1 due to reports that the Polish liquidation committee was to transfer from Kraków to Lviv.[10]

Ukrainian takeover

Main article:
November Uprising (Lemberg, 1918)
Dmytro Vitovsky (in the middle) accompanied by two officers, 1918

Between 3:30 and 4:00 A.M. on November 1, 1918 Ukrainian soldiers occupied Lviv's public utilities and military objectives, raised

Komancza Republic), Carpathian Ruthenia and northern Bukovina. However, a large part of the claimed territory, including the city of Lviv, was also considered Polish by many of the local residents. While the Ukrainian residents enthusiastically supported the proclamation and the city's significant Jewish minority remained mostly neutral towards the Ukrainian proclamation, the Polish residents, constituting the majority of Lviv's inhabitants, were shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state.[11]

Polish resistance

The Polish forces, initially numbering only about 200 people under

Scouts
, students and youngsters. More than 1000 people joined the Polish ranks on the first day of the war. This enabled the Poles to retake some of the western parts of the city, while most of the city centre remained in Ukrainian hands.

Polish Supreme Command defending Lwów, 1918

Although numerically superior, well-equipped and battle-hardened, Vitovskyi's soldiers were mostly villagers and were unaccustomed to

Main Train Station
succeeded and the Poles managed to capture two Ukrainian supply trains, largely negating the Ukrainian superiority in arms and munitions. By November 5 the Ukrainians were pushed out of the western part of the town, yet the Polish assault on the city centre was repulsed and both sides reached a stalemate. With insufficient personnel to man a regular front line, the front was stable only in the centre, while in other areas only the most important buildings were defended.

On November 11, 1918, Poland declared her independence and the following day the first units of the regular forces of the Polish Army under Maj. Wacław Stachiewicz entered Przemyśl, only some 70 kilometres away from Lviv. Believing this move to be part of the preparations to break through the Ukrainian siege, Col. Stefaniv prepared a general offensive on the Polish-held western parts of the city. However, despite the heavy fighting that raged between November 13 and November 15, the Polish defence held out and the Ukrainians were repelled. An armistice was signed on November 18.[10]

Ukrainian withdrawal

After two weeks of heavy fighting within the city, a Polish detachment consisting of 140 officers, 1,228 soldiers, and 8 artillery guns

Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski of the renascent Polish Army, broke through the Ukrainian siege and arrived at the city. On November 21 the siege was broken and the Ukrainians were repelled from the Lychakiv Cemetery, one of the most important areas of the city. The remaining Ukrainian forces withdrew during the following night, although they continued to surround Lviv from three sides.[10]

Lwów pogrom

Main article: Lwów pogrom (1918)

Chaos during the Polish take-over of the city culminated in a two-day-long riot, in which mostly Polish criminals and soldiers started pillaging the city; over the course of the riots, approximately 340 civilians, 2/3 of them Ukrainians and the rest Jews, were murdered.

Morgenthau commission reported only 64 Jewish deaths.[citation needed] Historian Andrzej Kapiszewski noted: "the anti-Semitism of the local populations led to many anti-Jewish outbreaks, especially in the Eastern territories, where the Jewish population was particularly large".[15]
After establishing order within the city, Polish authorities punished a number of people accused of participation in riots.

Ukrainian siege and Polish victory

Fighting for the Lychakiv Cemetery on a painting by Wojciech Kossak

However, heavy fighting for other cities claimed by both Poles and Ukrainians continued, and the battle for

armored trains
.

In Lviv itself, Ukrainians started an artillery bombardment of the city on December 22, preceding the first general offensive, commenced December 27. This assault, and the following one from February 1919, were unsuccessful and Polish forces continued to hold the city. On February 24, 1919, a short-lived armistice was signed, based on the strong demand of the Entente's representatives, who arrived in February, in a futile attempt to reconcile the belligerents and bring them to an agreement.

Fighting began again on March 1, 1919. Positional skirmishes between entrenched sides lasted until May 1919, when a general Polish offensive on the Eastern-Galician front forced the Ukrainians, endangered with the risk of encirclement, to pull back from their positions around the city and thus ended the six-month-long battle for the control over Lviv.

Aftermath

The Polish-Ukrainian fight for Lviv is sometimes referred to as "the last civilized conflict" by Polish historians. Because both sides were too weak to create regular front lines and lacked heavy weapons, the civilian casualties were low and did not exceed 400. Also, both sides tried to avoid destroying the city's facilities and the most important buildings were declared de-militarized zones. Among them were the hospitals, the water works, gas plant and the energy plant. Local ceasefire agreements were signed on a daily basis and there were even numerous situations where both Polish and Ukrainian soldiers played football or partied during cease fires. In his memoirs, Polish Lieutenant (later Colonel) Bolesław Szwarcenberg-Czerny noted that during one of the ceasefires Lieutenant Levsky, the Ukrainian commander of an outpost fighting with his unit, got so drunk with the Poles that he overslept and woke up late after the latest ceasefire had ended. Immediately another ceasefire was signed to allow the Ukrainian officer to return to his unit.

Because of that, the losses on both sides were small. The Poles lost 439 men and women, 120 of them gymnasium pupils, such as

Lviv University students. Most of them were interred in the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów
.

References

  1. ^ Naleźniak, Paweł (2019). "Obrona Lwowa w 1918 roku". Przystanek Historia (in Polish).
  2. ISBN 83-60117-06-3
  3. ^ New International Encyclopedia, Volume 13. 1915. Lemberg'.' pg. 760
  4. ^ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 134
  5. ^ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 123
  6. ^ Norman Davies, God's playground: a history of Poland in two volumes, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 379
  7. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, Partitions of Poland
  8. ^ Paul R. Magocsi, Encyclopedia of Canada's peoples, University of Toronto Press, 1999 p. 1057,
  9. ^ Timothy Snyder (2008). Red Prince: the Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke. New York: Basic Books, pg. 117
  10. ^ a b c d e f Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5, 1993 entry written by Andrzej Chojnowski
  11. ISBN 0-8020-8390-0
  12. ^ Alexander Victor Prusin. (2005). Nationalizing a Borderland: War, ethnicity and Anti-Jewish violence in east Galicia, 1914-1920. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, pg. 80
  13. ^ Norman Davies. "Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland." In: Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993.
  14. ^ Hagen, p.9
  15. ^ Andrzej Kapiszewski (2004). Controversial Reports on the situation of Jews in Poland in the aftermath of World War I, Studia Judaica, pp.257-304 Archived 2007-10-06 at the Wayback Machine

Further reading

49°49′48″N 24°00′51″E / 49.8300°N 24.0142°E / 49.8300; 24.0142

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