Polish Cavalry charged at German tanks with lances and sabres in 1939. The Polish Cavalry was a very high-prestige part of Polish armed forces, and had a lot of history behind them - Napoleon's lancers, Winged Hussars and so on. By 1939, the Polish cavalry were highly mobile infantry units really, but were used in the same way as NATO planned to use jeep squads in the event of a Soviet invasion - set up an ambush with anti-tank weapons, knock out a couple of tanks, retire to the next position quickly and set up another ambush etc.There were even examples of the Polish cavalry divisions bringing the Panzers to a dead stop, for example the Battle of Mokra.The "charging tanks with cavalry" myth seems to have originated in a specific incident on the first day of the invasion, the Skirmish at Krojanty.Although trained as mobile anti-tank/dragoon units, Polish cavalry retained the sabre, just in case. On 1 September, the 18th Pomeranian Uhlans were covering a retreat when they spotted a unit of German infantry resting in a clearing. Colonel Mastelarz decided to take them by surprise and ordered a sabre charge of about 250 cavalry. The charge was successful and the German infantry - who can't have been expecting cavalry with sabres charging them - dispersed into the trees with heavy casualties.At that point, some German armoured cars appeared and laid into the cavalry, causing some casualties (including Col. Mastelarz) and driving the rest off.In the aftermath, the German casualties were cleared away and the Poles left, and some neutral war correspondents were invited to come and see, and told that the cavalrymen had been killed while charging at tanks with sabres.The story circulated rapidly, not only among the German and sympathetic presses (to whom the moral of the story was supposed to be "Look how stupid and backward the Poles are - we're doing them a favour by bringing German civilisation"), but also in the British and French presses, who swallowed the story whole, but there the moral was "Look how suicidally brave the romantic Poles are - isn't this just the sort of people we should be supporting?"Then, after the war, the Communist Polish government, eager to seize on anything that would make the pre-war government look bad, perpetuated the myth, with the moral now being "Look what the old capitalist government did for you - forcing soldiers to face Panzers with sword and lance!"In other words the same, fake, story has been repeated by f*****t, democratic and communist sources each to serve their own narrative of the invasion if 1939.