Tell me something about Poland during WW2.
Were they really brave and strong despite getting rekt in the same time span as France?
Westerplatte defence looks fucking amazing, pic related.
Pretty cool, hadnt heard of that till now
Battle of Hel is neato, the last pocket of Polish resistance outlasted the rest of the army by several weeks by turning the peninsulla they were on into an island
Ill be posting some more last-stand type battles
>>1092087
no one?
>>1092368
Forgot pic and link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hel
No, they fought like shit and were conquered in a month.
>>1092376
French fries detected
Battle of Vukovar
Less than 2000 Croats, many of whom were simply militia/ national guard held out for 2 months against 36,000 Serbs with armor and actual military equipment.
The town was more completely destroyed than any in Europe since World War II
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vukovar
>>1092087
>Were they really brave and strong despite getting rekt in the same time span as France?
Seems to be revisionism by Polish nationalists from what I've gathered.
Poles are so ratlike. They have a huge victim complex but want to think they're tough at the same time.
>>1092397
Battle of Crete
This one isn't very impressive in terms of statistics but apparently the civilians played a big role in the island's defense. Mostly greek island-niggers plus some allied forces against German paratroopers
"Cretan civilians joined the battle with whatever weapons were at hand.[81] Civilians went into action armed only with what they could gather from their kitchens or barns and several German parachutists were knifed or clubbed to death in olive groves. An elderly Cretan man clubbed a parachutist to death with his walking cane, before the German could disentangle himself from his parachute.[82] A priest and his son broke into a village museum and took two rifles from the era of the Balkan Wars and sniped at German paratroops at landing zones"
>>1092404
Seems like you have some personal beef with them.
Also, nice of you to post inferior being that almost lost his country before it even started existing. The reason he gained Polish land is because he begged Catherine like a manwhore he was.
>>1092404
>>1092404
>Seems to be revisionism by Polish nationalists from what I've gathered.
t. prussiapro faggot
Why do you shit up a thread that doesn't fucking apply to your dead failure of a state?
Warsaw Uprising>anything that the French "resistance" mustered in all the years of Vichy France.
They were so fucking mad at the Russians that the underground army fought the USSR till '62.
>Russians so booty blasted that they got BTFO in a village they return a month later and raze the entire thing, 700 buildings and all, to the ground.
>>1092618
I believe german metal band made a song about that one.
Heaven Shall Burn 'Armia'
>Red vultures awaiting our end
Seems that verse is about Soviet army waiting at other side of Vistula as Poland bleeds out.
>>1092434
Wow, it even fits in a fresque
Polish pilots made up the 303 Fighter Squadron, the highest scoring fighter squadron in the battle of Britain. They were one of sixteen Polish fighter squadrons fighting for Britain during that time.
Polish cryptographers played an integral role in breaking the Enigma code.
There's the battle of Wizna, "the Polish Thermopylae". Like the battle of Thermopylae, it was just a delaying tactic, but it prevented the encirclement of a larger Polish battle group that would have resulted in much greater losses. For three days, approximately 500-1000 Polish soldiers held off 42,000 German soldiers + 350 German tanks + 650 artillery pieces.
The Warsaw Uprising was an instance of heroic resistance by the Poles against a much better equipped, trained, and supplied German garrison. Despite relying almost entirely on homemade and captured weapons, the Poles were able to inflict casualties on the Germans are about a 1:1 ratio. Men, women, and children alike volunteered to liberate their city. The uprising was timed to coincide with the arrival of Russian forces on the Vistula, in order to rely on their support as well as politicize Russian involvement as allies instead of liberators or conquerors. The Russians realized this and sat on their hands on the opposite side of the Vistula watching Warsaw burn, biding their time. Allied support in the form of airdrops was negligible.
Poles do have a martyrdom complex. That's the thesis of many scholars of Poland, and I tend to agree with them. Sandwiched between two of the great powers of Europe, Germany and Russia, and blocked by the sea to the north and the Tatra mountains to the south, Poland is essentially a highway for armies crossing east-west. I would also say Poland is where eastern Europe meets western Europe (without the muddy definition of central Europe, that is).
As such, Poland is almost like ground zero for east-west conflict in Europe, and the martyrdom complex comes from being assailed on all sides (to be continued)
>>1096632
by foreign neighbors (Germany, Russia, Sweden). Many countries in Europe have bloody histories, but it's often rather different. England and France fought each other, but they're practically neighbors and there were few full blown attempts at full blown occupation and colonization. France and Germany fought each other, that's true, but the French and Germans are practically brothers via the Frankish Empire, and France has the ocean to its back protecting it. Germans fought Germans during the 30 Years' War, but that's rather silly.
Poles have notably fought Germans, Russians, Swedes, the Turks, the Mongols, Austria, and Prussia, predominantly in defensive wars. If your people and culture was consistently attacked on all sides for nearly 1000 years, you might feel inklings of martyrdom too.
The great source of Polish pride is that despite all of this, Poland has always survived. Poland has successfully shrug off the yoke of many, many foreign occupations, partitions, and attempts at annexation/colonization. Poland has retained its culture despite all of this aggressive influence. Polish is the 2nd largest Slavic language, whereas most of Slavic lands speak Russian or languages very similar to Russian (Belorussian, Ukrainian, Moldovan, etc). Poland occupies territory that has been its historic purview. Poland retains its Catholic identity, despite being sandwiched between Protestant and Orthodox lands.
First four lines of the Polish national anthem, "Poland is Not Yet Lost":
>Poland has not yet died,
>So long as we still live.
>What the alien power has seized from us,
>We shall recapture with a sabre.
Basically, "you can pry my country from my cold, dead hands"
