The history of the use of uhlan units in the Polish army dates back to the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) and the times of the Congress Kingdom (1815-1831). At that time, the lancers were perceived as a theoretically light cavalry unit, which, however, due to its excellent training and having a lance equipped with it, could also successfully carry out the charge on the battlefield. Along with the birth of the independent, the Second Polish Republic, lancers were established in the Polish army, referring indirectly to the 19th-century traditions. Units of this type played a significant role during the war with the Bolshevik onslaught of 1919-1921, especially in the Battle of Komarów in 1920. In the period 1921-1939, the Uhlan regiments were perceived as one of the best in the Polish Army - sometimes you can even come across the term "elite". Shortly before the outbreak of World War II (in 1937), the Polish cavalry was reorganized, including the Uhlan regiments, as part of which cavalry brigades consisting of 3 or 4 regiments were created, and in this structure they joined the 1939 war. Before the outbreak of the war, there were 27 regiments of lancers in Poland, which most often performed very well during the September campaign. It is worth adding that these were well-trained units, often with high or very high morale, which in 1939 used horses primarily for marches, and led the fight as rushed units, with the use of small arms or anti-tank weapons. Among the fairy tales, one can argue that the Polish uhlans charged with their sabers on the tanks - this is nothing more than a figment of German and Italian propaganda. One of the best examples of the effective use of lancers in the September campaign is the battle of Krojanty. Two lancer regiments were also part of the Volyn Cavalry Brigade, which fought at Mokra.
Despite their defeat in World War I, the German officer corps in the interwar period still saw the main means of victory in a future war in an offensive operation. Thus, he drew a different experience from the Great War than his French counterpart. Based on the experience of 1914-1918, including the infiltration tactics used by the Stosstruppen troops, but also noticing the intense development of aviation and armored weapons, part of the German officer corps (e.g. Gen. Heinz Guderian) developed theoretical assumptions of the so-called lightning war (German: Blitzkrieg), that is, striving to knock down the enemy with one decisive offensive operation carried out in the shortest possible time and with the maximum intensity of forces and resources. The German officer corps was also trained according to this offensive doctrine of war in the 1930s and during the world war. It is also worth adding that German officers of almost all levels in the course of World War II used the principle of the so-called command by task (Ger. Auftragstaktik), that is, they outlined to their subordinates the task to be achieved and the forces at their disposal, while the execution of the task was entirely up to them. Such a model of command, based on very well and uniformly trained officers, led to the fact that the German army was highly flexible in action and was able to react faster to various levels than its opponents (e.g. the French army during the campaign of 1940 or Soviet army of 1941). This system proved successful (especially at lower levels) throughout World War II. It is also worth adding that many outstanding commanders served in the German officer corps from the Second World War, including: Erich von Manstein, Heinz Guderian, Erwin Rommel and Walter Model.