Poles in Exile, 1940
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2007

Poland’s defeat in October 1939 was only the beginning of the Polish soldier’s struggle against fascism. As soon as the war began, Polish citizens living in France (chiefly coal miners) began signing up for Polish units formed on French soil. Two Polish infantry divisions had formed by the time the Germans attacked, with one of them seeing considerable action, and two more had begun organization.

In September 1939 the French army assigned the Great War-era camp at Coëtquidan to the Polish military mission, which took charge of recruiting and training volunteers. The camp had been built by the U.S. Army and not used since; the new Polish soldiers were issued leftover uniforms, also of World War One vintage, from a French Navy depot.

Recruiting went slowly at first, as the most determined Poles resident in France tried to make their way to Poland to join the fight. But the collapse of Poland brought a fresh wave of recruits, as tens of thousands of Polish soldiers made their way to Hungary and Romania and then on to France. In November, Polish army commander Gen. Wladislaw Sikorski ordered his force reconstituted in France, and his generals quickly fleshed out two infantry divisions, an armored brigade and a mountain brigade.

Rifle training at Coëtquidan.

Maczek's Moutaineers

The French had wanted only infantry divisions, a policy to which Sikorski agreed as the best means to get his men back into action as quickly as possible; but the commandant of the Coëtquidan camp, Col. Stanislaw Maczek, had other ideas. Maczek had commanded the 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade during the fall campaign, the Polish army’s best mechanized unit. When he crossed the border into Hungary on 19 September his brigade had seen repeated defensive success and had not been defeated despite facing two German panzer divisions. Most of his surviving soldiers had followed him to France.

Maczek did not want to see his highly trained tankers and other specialists toting rifles in the trenches, and simply ignored his instructions. He re-created his beloved 10th, though the French refused to provide anything other than a dozen World War One vintage FT-17 light tanks. A former Kaiserjäger officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, Maczek was also considered the Polish Army’s leading expert on mountain warfare and he lent his energy to assembling a mountain brigade as well, giving it the traditional Polish title “Podhale Rifles.”

The Rifles were the first exile unit declared combat-ready, not least because Maczek had siphoned off many of the best officers and men from the infantry divisions. Allotted to the Allied force to be sent to Finland to intervene against the Soviets, it went instead to Narvik in Norway in April, fighting very well in the high mountains. Rushed back to France, it fought in Brittany in June and was disbanded as French resistance collapsed. Most of its soldiers made it to England, where they joined the new Polish army in exile.

Polish tankers advance against the Germans, June 1940.

Maczek’s own 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade (the name having been revived) waited without heavy equipment until well after the German attack began. Finally supplied with new tanks, they hurried into action in early June with the French 4th Army, fighting to cover its retreat until they ran out of fuel. On the 18th Maczek ordered his men to destroy their vehicles and artillery and make their way out of France in small groups. Most of them ended up in England, where they formed a new armored brigade that eventually grew into the famed Polish 1st Armoured Division.

Holding the Line

Maczek had been slated to command the 1st Grenadier Division, which he handed over to Col. Bronislaw Duch in January 1940. The 1st Grenadiers, organized and equipped like a standard French infantry division, were declared combat-ready in May and assigned to the Maginot Line fortifications, under command of the French XX Corps. They resisted German attacks but fell back as the French divisions on either side of them retreated.

On 16 June, two days after the initial attack, they took up positions along the Marne-Rhine Canal near Lagarde and fought a fierce two-day battle with German troops trying to force a crossing. Despite heavy casualties they held the canal line, but French units collapsed and the Poles once again fell back. Surrounded on the 19th, Duch led a breakout and re-formed his badly damaged division at Baccarat. There he received word of a pending armistice, and ordered his men to scatter and make their way to England or Switzerland as best they could.

Troops of 2nd Fusilier Division near the Swiss border.

Brig. Gen. Bronislaw Prugar-Ketling’s 2nd Fusilier Division was declared ready at the same time as the 1st Grenadiers, and assigned to defend the French city of Belfort near the Swiss border. They fought a fierce two-day battle with advancing Germans at Clos-du-Doubs, and as French resistance collapsed Prugar-Ketling followed Sikorski’s orders to take his division over the Swiss border. They crossed on the night of the 20th-21st, with the general the last man to step over the frontier at 5:30 a.m., handing his sidearm to a Swiss gendarme as a German tank rolled up behind him.

Two more infantry divisions, numbered 3rd and 4th, did not complete their formation in time to participate and were disbanded with the fall of France. They did not receive the same orders to escape as did the units at the front, and many of their soldiers felt themselves abandoned by the exile movement. A number would later join Polish resistance cells within France, but others refused to have anything more to do with the Allied cause.

Roughly 50,000 Polish soldiers fought for the Allies in 1940; of these, fewer than 20,000 would be rescued to re-join the effort. Over 1,400 Poles were killed in action and 4,500 wounded.

Strange Defeat

Polish participation in the defense of France is probably undervalued in our Strange Defeat game. There is one 1-3 Polish infantry division that can begin play just about anywhere in northern France. Replace it with the following units.

The 1st Grenadier Division (2-4) and 2nd Fusilier Division (2-4): Turn 3 reinforcements, these are available at any Allied-controlled French city not adjacent to a German unit. Each may move its full movement allowance on the turn it enters play.

The 10th Tank Brigade (1-5): A Turn 6 reinforcement, along with its leader Maczek, the 10th is available at any Allied-controlled French city not adjacent to a German unit, and it may move its full movement allowance on the turn it enters play. Maczek may influence only the 10th Brigade.

SK Mountain Brigade (1-4): Also a Turn 6 reinforcement, available at any Allied-controlled French coastal city. It may move half its movement allowance on the turn it enters play.

You can download the brave new Poles here.

And click here to buy Strange Defeat: The Fall of France, 1940.