WARSAW 1920

Adam Zamoyski (Harper Press, £14.99)

Ruthless with restless energy, Lenin was not content to be just the ruler of the new Russia. He determined to export his liberation theories to the heart of Europe.

Poland, whose young blood patriotism was to shine in rebellion in the Second World War, had a history of outstanding defence of its nation. And it was Poland that stood in the way of Lenin's ambition to capture the emotions of the peasant masses in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and even Italy.

The result was the battle of Warsaw in 1920, when Jozef Pilsudski led his Catholics against a raping and rampaging Red Army.

Zamoyski, who gave us the most lively account for decades on Napoleon's winter retreat from Moscow, offers lightning strikes of prose in his description of Poland's brilliant resistance to the massive assaults by the Russians. It came to be known as the "Miracle of the Vistula", most importantly preserving the Versailles peace settlement that followed the Great War.

Lenin was forced back into his Kremlin fortress, his dream of the spread of Bolshevism shattered as much as the Tsardom he had himself destroyed three years earlier. The consequences for Europe, centred on the great prize of Germany, would have been unimaginable if he had succeeded in this revolution. As in 1945 in the rising against Nazi Germany, the West could offer little help to the Poles. The French offered sympathy, but Britain was already involved in affairs in Ireland and Palestine.

Zamoyski's modest book on this 1920 battlefield is a Tolstoyish poem to Polish heroism, a little-known war vividly illuminated by the old dash of cavalry and the deadly new machine gun.

Adam Zamoyski will be speaking about his previous book, Rites Of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, at the Oxford Literary Festival on Wednesday.