Wacław Przeździecki Wacław Przeździecki ( 1883 - 1964 ) was a Polish military commander and Brigadier General of the Polish Army . During the Invasion of Poland in 1939 , he was the commanding officer of the reserve Wołkowysk Cavalry Brigade that fought in the battle of Grodno . Wacław Jan Przeździecki was born July 15 , 1883 in Leśmierz near Łęczyca , to a family of old Polish gentry of Pierzchała Coat of Arms , deprived of all their property by the Russian authorities after the January Uprising . In 1903 he graduated from the Higher Trade School in Łódź , after which he joined the Technological Institute in Kharkov ( modern Kharkiv , Ukraine ) . In 1904 he was relegated from the institute for being a member of a secret Polish resistance organisation . The only school to accept him was a military college in Kazan , from which he graduated in 1906 . Przeździecki then joined the Imperial Russian Army and served as an adjutant in the officers school and the 260th Infantry Regiment stationed in Batum . In 1913 he was promoted to the rank of Captain . During the Great War he served with distinction in the first line as the company and then battalion commander . After receiving a heavy wound in Prussia , he was declared ineligible for service and dismissed . After the February Revolution he joined various Polish organisations in Russia , including the Central Polish Military Committee ( NPKW ) , and fought in the ranks of the 1st Polish Corps during the Russian Civil War . In 1918 he returned to Poland and joined the renascent Polish Army . As the commanding officer of the Polish 12th Infantry Division he fought in the Polish - Bolshevik War . After the Peace of Riga he remained in service at various staff posts . In 1926 he became the commanding officer of the Polish 21st Mountain Infantry Division and the following year he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General . Retired in 1936 , he settled in a small villa in Natolin , several kilometres to the south of Warsaw . During the Invasion of Poland in 1939 , he returned to active service and took part in formation of various reserve and improvised units for the German and then Soviet fronts . As the commanding officer of the Wołkowysk Cavalry Brigade he took part in the battle of Grodno , one of the most important Polish - Soviet battles of the war . After the battle he crossed the border with Lithuania , where he was interned with his soldiers . In 1940 however , after the Baltic States were annexed by the Soviet Union he was arrested by the NKVD and sent to the Kozielsk camp . Soon afterwards he was transferred to Lubyanka prison , where he was offered to lead a Polish army created as an ally of the Soviet Union . When he refused and relied his reaction on the decision of the Polish Government in Exile , he was transferred to a special NKVD detention centre in Gryazovets . After the Sikorski - Mayski Agreement he was released from the prison and allowed to join the Polish II Corps , with which he moved to Persia , Iraq and finally to the Palestine . There he was found too closely related to the pre - war Sanacja regime to be eligible for further service in the army and dismissed from active service . After the war he remained in exile and in 1947 moved to Great Britain , where he settled in Penley . Wacław Przeździecki died there June 29 , 1964 , aged 80 . Among the most notable of his military decorations were the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari , Commander ' s Cross of the Polonia Restituta , Cross of Independence ( " Krzyż Niepodległości " ) , and the Cross of Valour ( " Krzyż Walecznych " ) , three times .