en

Wacław Jan Przeździecki

Please add an image!
Birth Date:
15.07.1883
Death date:
29.06.1964
Extra names:
Wacław Jan Przeździecki
Categories:
General, Nobleman, landlord, Victim of repression (genocide) of the Soviet regime, WWI participant, WWII participant
Nationality:
 pole
Cemetery:
Set cemetery

Wacław Jan Przeździecki (/vatswaf pʂɛʑdʑɛtskʲi/, 1883-1964) was a Polish military commander and Brigadier General of the Polish Army. During the Invasion of Poland in 1939, he was the commanding officer of the reserve Wołkowysk Cavalry Brigade that fought in the battle of Grodno.

Wacław Jan Przeździecki was born July 15, 1883 in Leśmierz near Łęczyca, to a family of old Polish gentry of Pierzchała Coat of Arms, deprived of all their property by the Russian authorities after the January Uprising. In 1903 he graduated from the Higher Trade School in Łódź, after which he joined the Technological Institute in Kharkov (modern Kharkiv, Ukraine). In 1904 he was relegated from the institute for being a member of a secret Polish resistance organisation. The only school to accept him was a military college in Kazan, from which he graduated in 1906. Przeździecki then joined the Imperial Russian Army and served as an adjutant in the officers school and the 260th Infantry Regiment stationed in Batum.

In 1913 he was promoted to the rank of Captain. During the Great War he served with distinction in the first line as the company and then battalion commander. After receiving a heavy wound in Prussia, he was declared ineligible for service and dismissed. After the February Revolution he joined various Polish organisations in Russia, including the Central Polish Military Committee (NPKW), and fought in the ranks of the 1st Polish Corps during the Russian Civil War. In 1918 he returned to Poland and joined the renascent Polish Army. As the commanding officer of the Polish 12th Infantry Division he fought in the Polish-Bolshevik War. After the Peace of Riga he remained in service at various staff posts. In 1926 he became the commanding officer of the Polish 21st Mountain Infantry Division and the following year he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. Retired in 1936, he settled in a small villa in Natolin, several kilometres to the south of Warsaw.

During the Invasion of Poland in 1939, he returned to active service and took part in formation of various reserve and improvised units for the German and then Soviet fronts. As the commanding officer of the Wołkowysk Cavalry Brigade he took part in the battle of Grodno, one of the most important Polish-Soviet battles of the war. After the battle he crossed the border with Lithuania, where he was interned with his soldiers. In 1940 however, after the Baltic States were annexed by the Soviet Union he was arrested by the NKVD and sent to the Kozielsk camp. Soon afterwards he was transferred to Lubyanka prison, where he was offered to lead a Polish Division created as an ally of the Soviet Union. When he refused and relied his reaction on the decision of the Polish Government in Exile, he was transferred to a special NKVD detention centre in Gryazovets.

After the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement he was released from the prison and allowed to join the Polish II Corps, with which he moved to Persia, Iraq and finally to Palestine. There he was judged to be too elderly for active service. After the war he remained in Palestine, and in 1947 moved to Great Britain, where he was given a role at the Polish Hospital in Penley, Wales. Wacław Przeździecki died there June 29, 1964, aged 80.

Among the most notable of his military decorations were the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari, Commander's Cross of the Polonia Restituta, Cross of Independence (Krzyż Niepodległości), and the Cross of Valour (Krzyż Walecznych), three times.

 

Source: wikipedia.org

No places

    loading...

        01.09.1939 | Invasion of Poland

        The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War (Polish: Kampania wrześniowa or Wojna obronna 1939 roku) in Poland and the Poland Campaign (German: Polenfeldzug) or Fall Weiß (Case White) in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, while the Soviet invasion commenced on 17 September following the Molotov-Tōgō agreement which terminated the Russian and Japanese hostilities (Nomonhan incident) in the east on 16 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland.

        Submit memories

        20.09.1939 | Battle of Grodno

        The Battle of Grodno took place between 21 September and 24 September 1939, during the Soviet invasion of Poland. It was fought between improvised Polish units under Gen. Wacław Jan Przeździecki and the Red Army of the Soviet Union, at the time in a non-aggression agreement with Nazi Germany under the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.

        Submit memories

        Tags