A German and Soviet Visit to Poland - 1939

Forczyk, Robert.  Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939.  Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing,
         2019.  ISBN: 9781472834959

 How much of a buff are you on World War II?  Can you quote the minutia of tank, ship and plane statistics?  Do you know which country had the 4th largest army in Europe in 1939?  Can you describe the opening battles of World War II?  Evening if you can do all that, you still can learn a lot from Robert Forczyk's Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939.

Robert Forczyk provides a revisionist history of the standard story of the Polish invasion by diving into Polish history and telling the story from the Polish viewpoint as much as possible.  He spends the first four chapters on laying the groundwork of the formation of the 2nd Polish Republic, its enemies, its preparation for survival, its arms race with its neighbors, and the bad hand it was dealt by the Western Allies.  Then comes the war.  And this is not the brief tale of German victories over hapless Poles.  Rather this is a tale of inept leadership, bad planning, lack of support, and that was just on the German side!  The Poles fought hard, but also suffered from inept leadership, lack of resources, lack of support from the West, and the dagger stuck in their back by the Soviet Union.

So if you are looking for a scholarly, readable study of the 1939 Polish Campaign replete with notes, maps, and bibliography that has a strong viewpoint, Case White could be that book!