The Konarmia in Ukraine and Poland
This section is for the accounts of the various participants in Budenny's First Horse Army's campaign in Ukraine and Poland.
Ostróg – Dubno – Brody
The Polish 18th Infantry Division fighting Budënny, leading up to the Battle of Brody. By that time the Konarmia was losing as much as it was winning, and this account helps explain why.
Arczewski was the Chief of Staff of the 18th ID, so writing from first-hand experience.
It's quite long (110 pages in A4). Those not interested in the details might still enjoy the conclusion, starting page 100, in which Arczewski discusses the tactics used by the Poles when fighting the Soviet cavalry.
Ostróg – Dubno – Brody (2.7 MB)
The text came with twenty sketch maps, that make following it a bit easier.
Sketch maps (8 MB zip file)
To find the smaller places and see the terrain at the time, I used the maps at igrek.amzp.pl.
The Battle of Równe
A fairly short recount of the fighting around Rivne, from the Polish side.
Biernacki was writing from the Polish Army's Historical Office, so had access to many of the original documents.
The text came with two, quite poor quality maps. I suspect the first map was just a wider theatre one.
To find the smaller places, and to see the terrain as it was at the time, I have attached some 1920s maps. The originals, in higher definition, can be found at the awesome igrek.amzp.pl.
Równe, Tuczyn, Deraźne, Ludwipol, Kostopol, Ostróg, Mizosz (each about 10 MB)
The First Horse Army on the Polish Front
This is a full account from the Soviet side of the Konarmia's campaign in the Ukraine from the start to the very end. It is quite detailed about military movements and strategy.
Klyuev was Chief of Staff for the First Horse Army during this period, so was writing from first hand experience and the original records for the Army.
The First Horse Army on the Polish Front (an 8 MB pdf)
The text came with a lot of maps. Numbers 15 and 16 were missing from the copy I located. These are in handwritten Cyrillic, so quite hard to read the towns. Numbers 2 and 3 are outlines of the Polish divisional structures. Those in the first part of this in a slightly better form.
The attached maps (a 17 MB zip file)
Older Material
These are sections of the site which have been on the site for a while.
Some information on the most famous battle of the campaign.
This section includes Moslard's account, "Operations of the Polish 1st Cavalry Division in 1920" and Farman's "The Polish-Bolshevik Cavalry Campaigns of 1920"
Other
Material not on Pygmy Wars.
The First Cavalry Army in the Russian Civil War Stephen Brown, PhD Thesis, University of Woollongong.
This doesn't cover the Ukrainian campaign in any military detail, but provides very good coverage of the various controversies that arose: the decision to march to the Ukraine; the failure of the initial break-through to encircle Kiev, and the fiasco over the turn towards Lublin.