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Charge at Krojanty
| Battle of Krojanty | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Invasion of Poland | |||||||
 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Germany |
 Poland | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Kazimierz Mastalerz † | |||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| 76th Infantry Regiment |
| ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 250 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
| ||||||
The charge at Krojanty, battle of Krojanty,[1] the riding of Krojanty or skirmish of Krojanty[2] was a Polish cavalry charge on the evening of 1 September 1939, the first day of the Second World War, near the Pomeranian village of Krojanty. It occurred at the start of the invasion of Poland and was part of the larger Battle of Tuchola Forest. Polish soldiers advanced east along the railway to a railroad crossroads 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from the town of Chojnice, where elements of the Polish cavalry charged and dispersed a German infantry battalion. Machine gun fire from German armoured cars that appeared from a nearby forest forced the Poles to retreat. However, the attack delayed the German advance, allowing the Polish 1st Rifle Battalion and Czersk Operational Group to withdraw safely.
The incident prompted false reports of Polish cavalry attacking German tanks, after journalists saw the bodies of horses and cavalrymen. Nazi propaganda[3] took advantage to suggest that the Poles attacked intentionally since they had believed the Germans still had the dummy tanks permitted by the Versailles Treaty's restrictions. The scene of the Polish cavalry charging panzers with lances remains a common myth.[4]
- ^ Translation of Polish term bitwa pod Krojantami as used in Getter, Marek; Tokarz, Adam (1970), Wrzesień 1939 w książce, prasie i filmie : poradnik bibliograficzny [September 1939 in book, press and film: a bibliographic guide] (in Polish), Stowarzyszenie Bibliotekarzy Polskich, pp. 101ff
- ^ Zaloga 1982, p. 8: 'small skirmish near the hamlet of Krojanty'
- ^ "Nationalsozialistische Jungenblätter" [National Socialist Young leaves], Der Pimpf (magazine), Hitler Youth, Cover, October 1939, archived from the original (JPEG) on May 16, 2006
- ^ Zaloga, Steven J (2002), Poland 1939 — The birth of Blitzkrieg, Oxford: Osprey Publishing,
If a single image dominates the popular perception of the Polish campaign of 1939, it is the scene of Polish cavalry bravely charging the Panzers with their lances. Like many other details of the campaign, it is a myth that was created by German wartime propaganda and perpetuated by sloppy scholarship. Yet such myths have also been embraced by the Poles themselves as symbols of their wartime gallantry, achieving a cultural resonance in spite of their variance with the historical record.
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