Battle of Lwów

During its long and complicated history, the Ukrainian city of Lviv (Ukrainian: Львів, Polish: Lwów, Russian: Lvov, Latin: Leopolis, or German: Lemberg) was the site of several major battles and sieges. Among the most notable were:

Battle of Lwów (1939)

The Battle of Lwów (sometimes called the Siege of Lwów) was a World War II battle for the control over the Polish city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) between the Polish Army and the invading Wehrmacht and the Red Army. The city was seen as the key to the so-called Romanian Bridgehead and was defended at all cost.

First clashes

Initially, the town of Lwów was not to be defended as it was considered too deep behind the Polish lines and too important to Polish culture to be used in warfare. However, the fast pace of the Nazi invasion and the almost complete disintegration of the Polish reserve Prusy Army after the Battle of Łódź resulted in the city being in danger of a German assault. On September 7, 1939, general Władysław Langner started to organise the defence of the city. Initially the Polish forces were to defend the Bełżec — Rawa Ruska — Magierów line against the advancing German forces. General Rudolf Prich was given command of the Polish forces in the area and on September 11 he prepared a plan of defence of the area. The Polish units were to defend the line of the San river, with nests of resistance along the Żółkiew - Rawa Ruska - Janów (also called Yaniv or Ivano-Frankove) to the west of the river Wereszycą — Gródek Jagielloński line.

Battle of Lemberg (1918)

Battle of Lemberg (Lviv, Lwów) (in Polish historiography called Defense of Lwów) begun on 1 November 1918 and lasted till May 1919 and was a six months long conflict between the attacking forces of the West Ukrainian People's Republic and local Polish civilian population assisted later by regular Polish Army forces for the control over the city of Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg), in what was then eastern part of Galicia and now is western part of Ukraine. The battle sparked the Polish-Ukrainian War, ultimately won by Poland.

Background

The nowadays city of Lviv is called Lviv by the Ukrainians, Lwów by the Poles, and Lemberg by the Austrians and is the largest city in the historical region of eastern Galicia. According to the Austrian census of 1910, which listed religion and language, 51% of the city's population were Roman Catholics, 28% Jews, and 19% belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Linguistically, 86% of the city's population used the Polish language and 11% preferred the Ukrainian language. However, of the 44 administrative divisions of the eastern half of the Austrian province Galicia, Lviv was the only one in which Poles made up a majority of the population. In eastern Galicia, Ukrainians made up approximately 65% of the population, while Poles made up 22% of the population and were numerically superior in the cities. As a part of Austrian partition of Poland, Lviv became center of Polish culture and scholarship, as well as of Polish and Ukrainian political activity.