Landships II

Part of the ‘unfinished business’ remaining after 1918 was the fate of the German province of Upper Silesia. A League of Nations plebiscite (referendum) to decide on German, Polish and Czech claims was to be held in 1921. In the mean time a British peacekeeping force of more than 12 battalions was stationed in Silesia. This included a heavy tank company. At this time the newly reconstituted state of Poland was adopting an “annex first negotiate later” policy with regard to some of its territorial claims (and had applied this approach in Lithuania with the occupation of Vilnius). The result was German and Polish forces deployed for battle in the border area. The British force had to act robustly to separate the opposing factions. It appears that in 1921 there was considerable use of tanks and railways in these operations. Tanks would be entrained and rushed to trouble spots where they would detrain and deploy, then repeating the process to the next flash point and so on. It seems that all went quiet in the winter but new flare ups occurred in 1922 and tanks were again deployed in June of that year. I assume that the tanks in question would be Mk Vs but have no information of this.

Does any one have any further information on these operations?