The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II (review)

The reader looking for insight into the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) will be disappointed in this contribution by Michael Alfred Peszke. Despite the book's title, it has little to say about the Home Army, except as an object of the London-based Government-in-Exile's schemes and undertakings. It is not a detailed or, for that matter, fair analysis of the interests and policies of the Western Allies, nor does it explore the manner in which the Polish Question complicated Allied unity. Principally, the work surveys the exiles' efforts to lend assistance via air to forces at home and to integrate the underground army into the coalition's military plans. These the author presents as the most important keys to Polish strategy. At the same time the text is larded with asides dealing with issues such as training in Scotland in 1940, Operation Neptune, and women in military service. The book deals with the larger problems of diplomacy and great power relations mainly by pairing the above discussion with a critique of Anglo-American indifference. Diplomatic matters, such as representations on behalf of the Home Army, are regarded as outside the study's scope. The result is an idiosyncratic narrative overview of the military effort abroad, which elevates the modest strength of the Independent Parachute Brigade and Special Duties Flight to the leading role, while reducing the rest of the armed forces to background and asides. In the prism of this book the ordeal of the Parachute Brigade at Arnhem seems to crowd out the Warsaw Uprising. More problematic is the fact that this book by Peszke closely reproduces his 1995 Battle for Warsaw, 1939–1945. The recent book copies the earlier work's narrow concern for select air and parachute formations, its simple chronological framework, its chapter organization and structure, as well as its digressions and asides. Indeed, the new book incorporates almost the entire earlier work, with prodigious portions reproduced word for word.

The text is marred by errors. The appellation "Tempest" (Burza) did not designate the General Staff's concept for a national uprising (p. 56). Tempest was the codename given to Gen. Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski's controversial plan of November 1943. This operation called for a series of local actions, rolling ahead of Red forces as they marched across the Polish borderlands. Most errors are minor. For instance, Thomas "Tom" not "Mrs. Driberg" (p. 122) was the M.P. for Maldon in Essex. Several note references appear to be linked to the incorrect text. Elsewhere references are so broad as to be next to useless for retrieving data, while some startling claims go unsupported. Such gaffes are probably the result of careless preparation of the manuscript. The editors at McFarland should have caught them, but ultimate responsibility lies with the author. The utility of this work is limited. It will be of interest only to the enthusiast, who is daunted by the specialized tomes of military and diplomatic history and is not interested in the main currents of historical debate. Even so the hefty price tag will place it out of the reach of most. Scholars will be better served by the recent contributions of Norman Davies, Anita Prazmowska, among others, as well as the reissue of older studies on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.