Talks in Opole and the decision on an armed demonstration

The plebiscite of 20 March 1921 did not settle who Upper Silesia should belong to. According to the Institute of National Remembrance, 59.4 per cent of voters declared for Germany and 40.3 per cent for Poland. Wojciech Korfanty already after two days declared victory for the Polish option, citing the provision of the Treaty of Versailles on counting results by municipality. The Allies were divided: the French were inclined to take Korfanty's demands into account, while the British and Italians proposed awarding Poland only the Pszczyna and Rybnik counties and several localities of Katowice county. Negotiations dragged on throughout April.

In this situation the Polish side began to prepare another rising. Korfanty, according to IPN studies, did not believe in its military success and agreed to the uprising only after news of an Allied decision unfavourable to Poland. He planned it as an armed demonstration: the seizure of part of Upper Silesia up to the so-called Korfanty Line, that is the line of the Oder. For 3 May the Inter-Allied Commission was expected to announce its decision on the fate of the region, which sped up preparations. Final orders were issued at a meeting of leaders on 30 April, and the start was set for the night of 2 to 3 May 1921.

The uprising was diplomatically awkward for the government in Warsaw. Prime Minister Wincenty Witos declared Poland's neutrality at the moment of its outbreak, and the IPN assesses this as an element of a diplomatic and propaganda game, since it is hard to suppose that the undertaking went ahead without the government's approval. An important role in the preparations was played by the intelligence of the Polish Army, which supplied the officer cadre, weapons and organised training.

Operation Bridges: before the first shot

Before the regular fighting, special units went into action. Konrad Wawelberg's Destruction Group was formed at the turn of 1920 and 1921, and its task was to block German transport arteries: blowing up bridges with railway tracks that connected the area of operations with the rest of Germany. The units wore the markings A, G, U, N, an abbreviation of the slogan Akcja Główna Unieruchomienia Niemców (Main Action to Immobilise the Germans). Those whom the IPN calls Wawelberg's commandos hid in the area of the future operations as early as March 1921.

The sabotage began on the night of 2 May at about 23.00. The first to be blown up was the bridge in Szczepanowice, today a district of Opole, and later, among others, railway bridges and viaducts near Kędzierzyn, Krapkowice, Koźle and Racibórz. In addition, tracks were damaged and telecommunications links were cut for many days. Most of these places lie today outside the Silesian Voivodeship, but the operation affected the whole front: broken railway lines made it harder for the Germans to bring in reinforcements. The sources differ in how they spell the name of the group's commander: the IPN gives Captain Tadeusz Pruszczyński, other sources Tadeusz Puszczyński.

The insurgents surprised the Germans and in the first days achieved numerous successes. This was helped by earlier searches by French troops of German Combat Organisation weapons depots revealed by Polish intelligence, as a result of which considerable quantities of arms were seized. About a hundred insurgents were killed in the first phase of the uprising, and four hundred were wounded.

Civilian jackets and armoured trains

In terms of equipment the Third Uprising was the best prepared of the three, but still improvised. The IPN writes that before its outbreak about 25-30 thousand rifles were gathered, and the Polish side used artillery, in the form of about 60 light field guns of various models, only in this uprising. The equipment included 16 armoured trains armed with artillery and machine guns and six armoured cars, some of which were made in Upper Silesian steelworks on the basis of civilian vehicles. Several of them were crewed by sailors from the unit of Lieutenant Robert Oszek. In the list for June 1921 the armoured trains are numbered up to sixteen, and among them are names such as Korfanty, Nowina-Doliwa, Piorun, Górnik or Ślązak.

The insurgents' dress is remembered as well as their weapons. According to the IPN they most often wore civilian clothes: jackets, white shirts with ties, hats and cyclist caps. These were often the best items from the wardrobe, because the rule was that one goes into battle as to a holiday. Rogatywka caps were rarely worn, and steel helmets, unlike the Germans, were hardly used. Uniforms from other Polish lands, especially those of the Greater Poland troops, also reached Upper Silesia, and the sailor uniforms of Oszek's unit stood out.

Attempts were made to standardise the armbands worn on the left arm: white for privates, white-and-blue with a white eagle for group commanders, blue for chiefs of staff and red with a white eagle for the commander-in-chief. The order worked among officers, but for privates white was associated with surrender, so variety of dress remained until the end of the fighting.

Who the insurgents were and how many

The backbone of the uprising was the underground network run after the Second Uprising. The Polish Military Organisation was formally dissolved, but its structures continued to work, from spring 1921 as the Plebiscite Defence Command. The IPN states that in April 1921 it numbered about 40 thousand people. At the moment the uprising broke out the name was changed to the Supreme Command of the Insurgent Forces. The commander became Lieutenant Colonel Maciej Mielżyński, and after his dismissal the post was taken by Lieutenant Colonel Kazimierz Zentkeller.

The forces were divided into three operational groups: North, East and South. According to the IPN the North group numbered about 9.5 thousand men, formed in counties from Strzelce to Lubliniec and Tarnowskie Góry, the East group about 15 thousand, including the Katowice, Zabrze, Pszczyna, Königshütte, Bytom and Gliwice regiments, and the South group about 10 thousand from the Pszczyna, Rybnik and Racibórz counties. Of these forces, as the IPN states, in May 1921 there were about 35 thousand soldiers, later about 60 thousand.

The figures in the sources do not agree. Cited are Mielżyński's report from the eve of the uprising of 40,470 men, an average strength of 63 thousand in May and 62 thousand in June based on quartermaster reports, and the figure of 65 thousand from the 1982 Encyclopedia of the Silesian Uprisings. The differences probably result from volunteers constantly joining the units, but the exact strength cannot be established.

The majority were native Upper Silesians: workers, farmers and craftsmen, who also formed most of the middle cadre. Alongside them fought volunteers from other Polish lands, especially from Greater Poland. The uprising's military commanders Mielżyński and Zentkeller were from Greater Poland. The IPN estimates that there were about 9 thousand people from outside Silesia in the insurgent ranks. The Encyclopedia of the Silesian Uprisings gives a different figure: volunteers from outside the region did not exceed 10 per cent of the insurgents.

The officers' revolt and the end of the fighting

After the initial successes Korfanty aimed to end the fighting, believing that the insurgents would not withstand a German counterattack. As a result of Allied intervention the insurgents had to leave the larger towns, including Katowice, held by Allied garrisons, and limited themselves to blockading them, known as cernowanie. The Germans went on the counteroffensive on 21 May and took Góra Świętej Anny (St Anne's Mountain), which lies in the Opole voivodeship, but its fate decided the whole front.

In June some of the staff officers of the East group opposed Korfanty's conciliatory policy. Karol Grzesik and Michał Grażyński, among others, stood against him. According to the IPN the revolt broke out on 1-4 June, and on 2 June an attempt was made to force Korfanty to appoint Grzesik as commander. According to other sources Grzesik proclaimed himself commander-in-chief on 3 June. The revolt ended with the arrest of the rebels.

A truce was concluded on 5 July 1921. The IPN assesses the Third Uprising as a success for the Polish side: the Allies awarded Poland a larger part of the region than they had intended immediately after the plebiscite. Poland received about a third of the disputed territory, which contained most of the Upper Silesian mines and steelworks, and the final division took place in June 1922. The memory of these events is kept in Świętochłowice by the Museum of the Silesian Uprisings, and in Katowice stands the Monument to the Silesian Insurgents with its three bronze wings.