8. The Poles were forced to evacuate their positions along the river in late September
In the absence of effective Soviet support and with casualties mounting daily the Home Army and 1st Polish Army units along the Vistula were force to abandon their positions by September 19. The 1st Polish army withdrew back across the river, having suffered casualties of more than 5,600 men. Only a small handful of the 900 men who had established contact with the Home Army made it back across the river. The Home Army survivors withdrew to pockets of resistance still held by their comrades, which by then had been reduced to three areas of the city. All three were surrounded by German troops, and the uprising was by then clearly destined to be a failure in the absence of timely intervention from the Allies.
During the month of August, and through most of September, the Germans continued their policy of harsh reprisals against captured resistance fighters and civilians. Rather than cowing the Poles into surrender, the German policy increased their spirit of resistance, since surrender meant death at the hands of the German Army, the SS, or in the death camps. By the time of the abandonment of the defenses along the river the means of resistance were dwindling as men, ammunition, and other supplies were running out, and the ability to obtain more was being choked off by the German units surrounding the Home Army enclaves in Warsaw. Meanwhile the Germans continued to bomb, strafe, and bombard the city with near impunity.