When Berling made his move, the Soviet response was quick. The Polish gamble was poorly thought-out, as many of these bases were on high alert and had active communications stations around the clock. The NKVD barracks near Warsaw had its staff apprehended, but not before a small skirmish which caused quite a commotion, delaying the occupation of the building. It was to be expected that a radio operator of these barracks sent out what was happening to them to other bases around Poland, and that was what happened. Before being apprehended the radio operator sent an emergency broadcast to all Soviet forces in Poland, indicating they were going to arrest them and armed Polish soldiers approaching the bases should be shot on sight as traitors to the revolution.

It took only seven minutes for that order to be applied first. The base of a tank regiment was approached by five dozen Poles with rifles ready. Confident of their success, they marched over the open road and, in an action replicated across Poland, were promptly torn apart by fire from a heavy machine gun, which served as a wake-up call for the base. Group Forces North rushed to alert and rolled out. The Polish army, small, ill-trained, ill-organised and ill-equipped broke in the face of Soviet resistance. The Soviet army rolled out into the Polish countryside, quickly occupying the south of the country and the northern coastal areas, blocking Poland off from the world. With Czech and East German forces helping the bear tear Poland to shreds and the Polish Army being stuck in their barracks, most of the country found itself under Soviet military control once again within two weeks as Soviet forces poured in from the east.

[b][u]January 15th, 1950[/b][/u]
To: The Berling government
From: Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky

[quote]The Red Army hereby offers the Berling cliqe the chance to resign and turn themselves in to the Soviet army without fighting over the city. You stand no chance. Do not take your city, Warsaw, down with you in your failed pursuit of wealth and power. If you refuse to surrender and save your city, we will push on into Warsaw until we have found you. Let us avoid bloodshed and ruination of Warsaw once again.[/quote]

A few minutes later the message from Marshal Vasilevsky reached the Presidential Palace. The ball was now firmly in Berling's court. Would he surrender himself, or would he take his capital city down with him? The Marshal prepared his armies and sealed Warsaw off. Radio communications were jammed, phone lines cut, all traffic lanes and the Vistula river were blocked, and planes coming in or out of the airport were shot down by the Soviet Air Force. Nobody or nothing could go past the Red Army blockade, as Berling's government was faced with the choice of surrendering or defending Warsaw until the last man.