Campaign to restore
General Maczek’s
GREAT POLISH MAP OF
This special exhibition was
shown at Penicuik Community Development Trust’s weekly Open House in the Cowan
Institute, Penicuik Town Hall on Saturday 19 July 2008, repeated there on
Saturday 9 August 2008, and shown at the location of the Great Map in Eddleston at the Barony Castle Open Day on Sunday 7
September 2008. .
Campaign to restore
General Maczek’s
GREAT POLISH MAP OF
TOWN HALL
TODAY
Find out about this local treasure –and the man behind it
click here for
a shorter description of the campaign
click here for
Szkocja w Szkocji –a Polish
description of the map construction
From
the colours shared by
The displays:
(March 31, 1892 – December 11, 1994)
was the most accomplished Polish
tank commander of the Second World War.
A veteran of the First World War. the Polish-Ukrainian
and Polish-Bolshevik Wars,
he commanded Poland's only major armoured formation during the September 1939
campaign, led a Polish armoured formation in France in 1940, and was commander
of the famous First Polish
Armoured Division, and later of the First Polish Army
Corps under Allied Command in 1942–1945.
Of Croatian extraction, Stanisław Władysław Maczek was born
in Lwów in 1892 in Austro-Hungarian
Galicia. Graduating from grammar school
at Drohobycz he attended the philosophy faculty of Lwów University where he
studied Polish literature and language.
After the outbreak of the Great War, Maczek interrupted his studies
hoping to join Piłsudski's Polish Legions, but instead was drafted into
the Austro-Hungarian Army. Assigned to the Italian front, he rose to become the
only Polish battalion commander in Austria-Hungary's Alpine regiments. At the
war’s end he joined the Polish Army and took part in its later Ukranian and
Bolshevik campaigns. His experience in
speedy movement and rapid response led -after military college, colonelship and
a series of infantry commands- to his taking charge of Poland’s first fully
motorised formation during the 1938 Munich crisis.
When Poland was attacked in force in 1939 Maczek led the only Polish units
not to lose a single battle. His forces made a dogged defence under Blitzkreig
attack but these efforts became eclipsed when Russia invaded from the
rear.
RENDEZVOUS IN
Generals Guderian and Krivoshein
join as the two armies celebrate
Appreciated by his superiors and respected by enemy commanders, Maczek was
loved by his soldiers, who called him “Baca”, a Galician name for a shepherd
like the Scots gaelic “Buachaille”.
Ordered to take his brigade over the Hungarian border, he made his way
to lead some of the Polish forces in France at the end of 1939, but senior
French commanders didn’t even open Maczek’s detailed reports describing the
Blitzkreig tactics they should prepare for.
After the fall of France Maczek and many of his men made their way through
Africa and Portugal to London, and formed the nucleus of a Polish armoured unit
based in Scotland for four years. Trained
at Blairgowrie and equipped with the latest Churchill and Sherman tanks, the
Poles took up the defence of the Scottish shoreline between Montrose and
Dundee.
In July 1944, after more tank training in East Anglia, the division transferred
to Normandy, attached to the First Canadian Army, and contributed decisively to
resolving Allied difficulties in the Battle of Falaise.
Temporary “
MACZEK AND
MONTGOMERY
MACZEK AND
EISENHOWER
General Maczek's Division continued to spearhead the Allied drive across
the battlefields of France, liberating Amiens and St Omer, then in Belgium
securing Ypres, Roulers and Terneuzen. Into the Netherlands, in Brabant,
Maczek’s forces carefully flanked Breda and entered without damage. Here the Polish forces were to be hailed as
heroes and here many of them were subsequently buried.
Liberation of
The Division pushed on to Germany, capturing the port of Wilhelmshaven and
accepting surrender of the garrison and 200 navy ships. After Germany capitulated, General Maczek
went on to become commanding officer of all Polish forces in the United Kingdom
until demobilization in 1947.
General Maczek and Mayor Van Slobbe watch
a march-past of Polish troops in the grounds of Chassé
Barracks,
Twenty years after the liberation of Breda General Maczek stands
among the graves of his fellow-countrymen in
Campaign to restore
General Maczek’s
GREAT POLISH MAP OF
Once the Black Barony Hotel and former home of
the Murrays of Elibank
- the dormer
windows are decorated with Murray and Polish insignia
General Maczek’s
Great Polish Map of Scotland stands in the grounds of
General Maczek
had been shown an impressive outdoor map of land and water in the
Plaque at the
door of General Maczek’s house In Arden Street,
Edinburgh
Set in the open air in the
Peeblesshire landscape at Eddleston, General Maczek and his companions conceived The Great Polish Map of
Scotland as a permanent three-dimensional reminder of Scotland’s hospitality to
his compatriots. The coastline and
relief of
Stanisław Maczek
lived long, taking his duty of care for his people as seriously as he had
always done. He died in 1994 in
Over the years, the great
outdoor map became stagnant and decayed. Now, after these long years of
dereliction, and as a first step towards what we hope can become a broadly
based effort for restoration, it has been drained and cleared of undergrowth by
BEN
ON
LISMORE –lost above the waterline
MORVERN –underwater erosion
Moss, erosion,
exposed underlying bricks
LEWIS AND SKYE
LOOKING FOR A
RIVER SOURCE
Roger Kelly, David Cameron and Elizabeth
Laudenslager acknowledge the help of Steven Sweeny,
Deputy General Manager, Barony Castle following their visit to the Great Map on
21 May 2008.
The project was the subject
of this special exhibition at Penicuik Community Development Trust’s weekly
Open House in the Cowan Institute, Penicuik Town Hall on Saturday 19 July 2008,
repeated on Saturday 9 August 2008, and shown at the Barony Castle Open Day on
Sunday 7 September 2008.
The Campaign to restore the Great
Map is advised by a small group led by
Roger Kelly (convener of the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland and member of the Saltire Society Council); David Cameron (former convener of
the Saltire Society and Edinburgh’s former Deputy
City Planner, who worked with the late Kazimierz Trafas on restoration in Cracow);
Krystyna Szumelukowa,
Edinburgh’s former Director of Economic Development; Keith Burns (Hydraulic
engineer with a long-term interest in the Map); and Alastair
Nimmo (Civil engineer and concrete specialist)
The Murrays
of Elibank who once lived at
The Great Map has
been mentioned in the Scottish Planner of June 2008 and will feature in
the forthcoming edition of Cairt –newsletter
of the Scottish Maps Forum.
The Polish
Chamber Singers Affabre Concinui visited the
Great Map during their series of performances in Edinburgh and Peebles 8-12
August 2008 Ż
COWAN INSTITUTE :
Szkocja
w Szkocji –a Polish description of the map construction
ALSO SHOWN FOR THE
FIRST TIME AT THE OPEN HOUSE ON
THE COWAN ADVERTISEMENTS OF 1944
OTHER
PENICUIK OPEN HOUSE DISPLAYS
NUMBER 77 of the 15
most
visited KOSMOID& MAKERS
webpages