Lieutenant Colonel Farman’s War: Attaché Intelligence and the Polish-Soviet Conflict, 1919–1921

Lieutenant Colonel (acting) Elbert E. Farman Jr., the first U.S. military attaché to Poland, arrived at his new post as the war with the Russian Soviet Republic got underway. His reports and dispatches to the Military Intelligence Division (MID) offered the War Department and other agencies essential data and analysis on not only Poland’s war effort but also Soviet capabilities and operations. This accounting later became the basis of the first English-language monograph treating the 1920 campaign. Farman’s contributions, taken together, offer a picture of uncertain governments, rude conditions, and ragged armies. Despite the conditions, in this fight over lands and peoples, the two sides waged guerre à outrance. Political violence was a feature, and noncombatants paid a heavy price. The contest presented operational changes from the Great War, and Farman analyzed mobile warfare in the region. Farman’s reports illuminate a critical episode in miliary and diplomatic history—the reconstruction of East Central Europe. Analysis offers insight into the attaché, his role, and the problem of attaché intelligence.