passed on to Churchill Piłsudski's prediction that the White Russian offensive under General Anton Denikin directed at Moscow would fail. It did shortly thereafter. Churchill was more sympathetic to Polish needs than Lloyd George and succeeded, over Lloyd George's objections, in sending some materiel to Poland. On 27 July 1920, Carton de Wiart was appointed an aide-de-camp to the king, and brevetted to colonel. He was active in August 1920, when the Red Army were at the gates of Warsaw. While out on his observation train, he was attacked by a group of Red cavalry, and fought them off with his revolver from the footplate of his train, at one point falling on the track and re-boarding quickly. When the Poles won the war, the British Military Mission was wound up. Carton de Wiart was promoted to temporary brigadier general and also appointed to the local rank of major general on 1 January. He was promoted to the substantive rank of colonel on 21 June 1922, with seniority from 27 July 1920 and relinquished his local rank of major general on 1 April 1923, going on half-pay as a colonel at the same time. Carton de Wiart officially retired from the army on 19 December, with the honorary rank of major general. Polish gentleman (1924–1939) His last Polish aide de camp was Prince Karol Mikołaj Radziwiłł, member of the Radziwiłł family who inherited a large estate in eastern Poland when the communists killed his uncle. They became friends and Carton de Wiart was given the use of a large estate called Prostyń, in the Pripet Marshes, a wetland area larger than Ireland and surrounded by water and forests. In this location Carton de Wiart spent the rest of the interwar years. In his memoirs he said "In my fifteen years in the marshes I did not waste one day without hunting". After 15 years, Carton de Wiart's peaceful Polish life was interrupted by the looming war, when he was recalled in July 1939 and appointed to his old job, as head of the British Military Mission to Poland. Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany on 1 September and on 17 September the Soviets allied with Germany attacked Poland from the east. Soon Soviet forces overran Prostyń and Carton de Wiart lost all his guns, fishing rods, clothing, and furniture. They were packed up by the Soviets and stored in the