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The Soviet advance
The plan was intended both as a political manifestation of the influence of Polish Government in Exile and as a direct operation against German occupiers. The fear was that in the aftermath of the war the allies would ignore the legal London-based government. It was clear that Poland would be 'liberated' by the Red Army, and that the Soviet Union did not recognise the Government-in-Exile.
Initially, after the Red Army forces crossed the pre-war Polish borders, the local Home Army units were engaged in successful cooperation with the Soviets in liberating several towns and cities. However, in most cases after the struggle ended the Polish officers and members of local administration were caught by the NKVD and either shot or sent to Gulags and prisons in Russia. At the same time most of the Polish soldiers caught by the Soviets were given the choice of either joining the Soviet-backed Polish People's Army or sharing the fate of their officers.
Nevertheless, the Soviet advance was fast, and the Polish authorities saw no other choice but to continue the struggle against the German forces and aid the Soviets. At the same time the government in London asked the SOE and the Foreign Office several times for an allied mission to Poland to be sent; such missions had already been dispatched to all resistance movements in Europe, including Albania, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Yugoslavia. However, the pleas were not fulfilled until December 1944.
The official line of Soviet propaganda was that the Polish underground was "waiting with their arms at ease" and was not fighting the common enemy. As the Soviet forces were nearing Warsaw in June and July 1944, the Soviet radio stations demanded a full national uprising in Warsaw to cut the communication lines of the German units still on the right bank of the Vistula. On July 29, 1944 the first Soviet armoured units reached the outskirts of Warsaw.
With the recent flood of reports from the eastern territories about forced demilitarisation, trials and execution of Home Army soldiers by the Soviets, on 21 July 1944 the High Command of the Home Army decided to expand the scope of the Operation Tempest to include Warsaw itself. The date for the Warsaw Uprising was set to 1 August.
German defensive preparations By the end of July the town had been declared "Festung Warschau" (Fortress Warsaw) by the Germans. It was to be defended at all cost against the Soviet offensive. However, the July 20 Plot and the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler made many German units withdraw westward through Warsaw. The Home Army saw it as a sign of defeat of the Germans. The number of German soldiers in the area was lowered significantly.
On July 27, the governor of the General Government, Hans Frank called for 100,000 Polish men between the ages of 17–65 to arrive at several concentration places in Warsaw the following day. They were to be employed at construction of fortifications for the Wehrmacht in and around the city. This move was viewed by the Home Army as an attempt to neutralise the underground forces and the underground urged Warsaw inhabitants to ignore it. Fearing German reprisal actions, general Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski ordered full mobilisation of Home Army forces in Warsaw area.
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