Hello and welcome to a history of Europe the interwar years.

This is the Polish-Soviet War of 1919 to 1921, part two.

In the last episode, I gave the background to the Polish-Servate War,

detailing some of the turbulence in Eastern Europe that came as a result of the end of the First World War

and the subsequent collapse of the Habsburg and Russian empires. I also spoke of particular

circumstances in other affected nations, especially in Lithuania and Ukraine. Today I focus on the

conflict between Poland and Soviet Russia. The battlefront of the conflict where these two countries faced each other at the beginning

of 1920 was over a thousand kilometres long, from north to south, but because of local geography,

only about half of this could be used for military operations.

The northern reaches form part of the glacial lakeland, stretching from the province of

Mercerca near Warsaw in the west, to the borders of Lithuania and Latvia in the east. The terrain here

comprises a myriad of small lakes in between great pine forests.

Subsequently, any large army marching through would be forced to split up,

presenting challenges of communication between the different units.

In the centre of the region lie the Pripet Marshes.

These are extensive riverlands where innumerable

streams, ponds and canals intersect in a countryside of lush meadow, birch groves and willow glades.

These are interspersed with sandy heaths, oak forests, salt flats and peat bogs, making for great variety of terrain.

Motor settlements or good roads were few and far between. On the southern side are the Carpathian

mountains and the River Dinista, which defined the Czech-Slovak and Romanian borders.

The whole area of conflict, as defined by the prepet marches, was triangular in shape,

with one point at the western edge and its broadside in the east.

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