The Vilna offensive was a campaign of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921. The Polish army launched an offensive on April 16, 1919, to take Vilnius (Polish: Wilno) from the Red Army. After three days of street fighting from April 19–21, the city was captured by Polish forces, causing the Red Army to retreat. The Poles also succeeded in securing the nearby cities of Lida, Pinsk, Navahrudak, and Baranovichi during the offensive.
The Red Army launche...
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The Vilna offensive was a campaign of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921. The Polish army launched an offensive on April 16, 1919, to take Vilnius (Polish: Wilno) from the Red Army. After three days of street fighting from April 19–21, the city was captured by Polish forces, causing the Red Army to retreat. The Poles also succeeded in securing the nearby cities of Lida, Pinsk, Navahrudak, and Baranovichi during the offensive.
The Red Army launched a series of counterattacks in late April, all of which ended in failure. The Soviets briefly recaptured the city the following spring of 1920, at a time when the Polish army was retreating along the entire front. In the aftermath, the Vilna offensive would cause much turmoil on the political scene in Poland and abroad.
Soviet Russia, while at the time publicly supporting Polish and Lithuanian independence, sponsored communist agitators working against the government of the Second Polish Republic, and considered that its eastern borders...
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