Pilsudski, the Polish head of state and commander-in-chief, though in his early fifties, was no expert in military strategy. He was racked by self-doubt, yet proved himself a master of circumstances. His counterpart, Tukhachevsky, was only 27, a nobleman who imagined himself a Napoleon in the making, and a nihilist who hated Jews, Christians, capitalists and socialists. He was later shot in Stalin's purges, as were all the senior Red Army commanders who failed to take Warsaw in 1920 (apart from Stalin's cronies in the South).