slight--a bogus trial on a popular officer for an imaginary offence.
A verdict contrary to the weight of evidence, a street row among
the military students, a dozen of whom were promptly flogged with
the knout, while others were imprisoned, and the mischief was done.
The young Poles rose in November, and without ceremony broke into
the prison and freed their comrades. The gates of the palace were
forced, and the governor sought; but without success, he having
escaped. But while Constantine evaded the vengeance of his victims,
his lieutenants fared otherwise, and many of them fell into the hands
of their relentless enemies. For the moment the Polish capital was in
the hands of the Poles. The Russian aristocracy disappeared, and at
every street-corner meetings were held at which the proceedings were
constantly interrupted by cries of “Niech zyie Polska”--Poland for ever!
This state of things continued throughout the winter of 1830. The
icebound steppes forbade the Russians taking action. But the Czar vowed
vengeance, and he kept his vow. In the first days of spring a large
army was despatched against the rebel Poles under General Chlopicki,
who, while in command of the thirteenth and fourteenth Army Corps,
had earned for his troops the nickname of the Lions of Varna. The war
was waged to the death. The Russian troops, well drilled and ably
commanded, elated with the successes of the past, met the untutored
Polish soldiers with a confidence bred of conceit. The Poles, imbued
with a sense of patriotism, and recognising that it was to do or to
die, fought each man for his own hand, neither giving nor expecting
quarter, and the slaughter was frightful. Even at Ostralenka, where
the Poles left seven thousand dead on the field, the Russian loss was
over fifteen thousand; and at Waror the Poles took ten thousand Russian
prisoners, besides a number of cannon, which were exhibited in the
streets of Warsaw, amid the enthusiastic applause of the inhabitants.
After being beaten all along the line the Russian army withdrew,
leaving the flower of its surviving officers imprisoned in Warsaw, and
for a while the Poles had rest. But only for a while. In the early
summer another army marched on the capital, and at the end of June
General Paskewitsch, who had been specially chosen by the Czar, took
the command. This officer enjoyed the personal friendship of the ruler
of Russia, and he took the field with the express instruction from
his master to teach the rebels a lesson which they would not forget.
He lost no time in resuming operations, but changed his predecessor’s
plans. Hitherto, all attempts on Warsaw had been made from the right
bank of the Vistula. With the exception of the Praga suburb the city
lies on the left or south bank, so that to capture it from the north
the Russians would have to fight their way across the Vistula either
through the streets and across the bridges of Praga, or under the
fire of the guns in the Polish works. Paskewitsch decided upon making
a flank march down the right bank of the river, crossing it near the
Prussian frontier, where he had secretly arranged to obtain supplies
and bridging material from the Prussian fortress of Thorn, and then
marching up the south bank of the Vistula he could attack Warsaw on
the side on which it was not protected by the broad river which had
hitherto barred the Russian advance.
[Illustration: OLD TOWN, WARSAW.]
The Polish Government was at this period presided over by General
Skryznecki, a patriot of good family and education, and a man of the
highest principle. Skryznecki recognised the danger too late. He
hurriedly occupied a strong position on the line of the Bzura river
with 30,000 men, in the hope of barring the Russian advance; but on
August 15th the Russians, in overwhelming force, drove the Poles from
the river bank and forced them back upon Warsaw. Their city was now
threatened by 60,000 troops, who cut them off from the country to the
south of the Vistula, from which they had hitherto drawn supplies
and reinforcements. While Paskewitsch thus hemmed in the Poles on
the south, another Russian army watched Praga; and thus by the end
of August, while the roads for miles round were guarded by Russian
legions, the Poles found themselves shut in like rats in a trap.
And now for the first time the Poles realised their position.
Surrounded by a relentless horde, their supplies cut off, they realised
the futility of the claims of a just cause against the exigences of
necessity. The whole of the resources of Russia were against them;
and while the sympathies of France and England went far to cheer the
desperate band of patriots who yet fought for freedom, the fact that
Prussia, though nominally a neutral state, was aiding the common enemy,
was not reassuring. So far back as June this fact had been known, and
General Skryznecki had written to the King of Prussia enumerating the
various acts indulged in by his ministers, and demanding that they
should cease. In this historic document the General proved that the
Prussians were supplying the Russians with food from the storehouses at
Thorn, that they had lent their skilled artillery to the Russians, that
they had supplied ammunition and uniforms made in Prussia, and that
most of the engineering works required by the Russians--including the
bridge over the Vistula--had been executed by German engineers.
This letter was never answered, and Prussia continued in her breach of
the laws of war, while the outlook in Warsaw became blacker every day.
Nor were the dangers only from without. The Polish mob began to become
turbulent, and necessitated the watching of soldiers who would have
been better employed negotiating the enemy. But even these measures
were insufficient to keep the rough element down. The irresistible
descent of the Russian army was the excuse for an outcry against the
noble Skryznecki; and in the hope of uniting the besieged he resigned
his command of the Polish army, General Dembinski being appointed in
his place.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN OPERATIONS AGAINST WARSAW. 1831.]
But even this step did not succeed in quieting the rabble. On the
night of the 15th August the mob rose and marched to the State prison,
where Russian officers who had been taken prisoners in the war had
been incarcerated. The excitement of the mob was intense. Their blood
was up, and this is the only excuse that can be urged for the foulest
deed that blemishes the history of Poland. The gates of the prison
were forced, and the prisoners led out and shamefully ill-treated. The
crowd behaved like wild beasts, chasing and attacking the unfortunate
Russians; and after being tortured in every way that occurred to the
imagination of their captors, the miserable beings were butchered in
the streets, the gutters literally running in blood. Among the victims
of this tragedy were four Russian generals and several ladies of high
birth, who had been suspected of sympathising with the enemy. All were
brutally murdered, the atrocities being continued for two days. At
length order was restored by the military, who were withdrawn from the
defence of the city for this purpose.
While these events were taking place within the city General
Paskewitsch was pressing on in pursuit of the Polish army, which he had
compelled to retreat from the Bzura. But even here the defenders were
unable to hold their ground, and on the 1st of September they retired
behind the entrenchments which had been thrown up immediately before
Warsaw. Here the final stand had to be made. The headquarters of the
Russians was only three miles away from the city walls, and the capital
was threatened on every side. The position was, in short, so acute that
it is a matter of some surprise that the Poles did not retire within
the city and stand a siege. This question has been ably discussed by a
trustworthy historian, who writes as follows:--
“It would have been very easy,” says M. Brozozowski, “for the
army to defend itself within the walls and from house to house.
It had already performed more difficult feats, and Europe
doubtless would have rung with its heroism if, after the example
of Saragossa, it had buried itself under the ruins of Warsaw.
But the Poles could not, for the sake of a mere empty renown,
consent to the destruction of a city which is the hearth-stone
of their patriotism and the centre of their nationality--a city
which in future struggles is yet destined to play an important
part, for the Poles are far from succumbing under their present
misfortunes--very far from abandoning the hope of again becoming
a nation.”[6]
But still, the attacking army waited before striking the final blow.
Reinforcements from the south were expected. Several days were wasted
pending their arrival, and when they arrived their pontoons stuck in
the mud. But Paskewitsch did not mind the delay. He is reported to have
said to one of his staff, “I await the aid of two armies--the army of
the south and the army of famine.” Nor were these expectations vain.
While beleaguered from without, the doomed city was ravaged within.
Gaunt famine marched unchecked through the fine streets, and starvation
claimed more victims than did shot or shell.
[Illustration: EMPEROR NICHOLAS.]
Then it was that, recognising all resistance as futile, the Poles
attempted to open negotiations with the enemy; but the mob would not
have it, and the overtures made were cancelled in order to prevent a
revolution, while an offer of terms made by Paskewitsch was rejected
for a similar reason.
These preliminaries over, the attack upon Warsaw began in earnest on
the morning of the 6th September. The fighting on this day was mostly
at long range, but the Russian attack was so strong and the firing so
fierce that the Poles had to abandon their first line of entrenchment.
The assault then ceased, and both sides rested during the night; but
at daybreak on the 7th the attack was renewed, and the slaughter was
terrible. The Poles--especially the battalions occupying the redoubt on
the Wola side of the Vistula--made an heroic resistance. The Russians
had on this day no fewer than 386 guns in position, and the fire from
them was so fierce and so continuous that nothing could stand before
it. The Poles were ploughed down by the hail of projectiles, and those
spared by the shells were despatched by small arms. After some hours of
bombardment, when a mere handful of the garrison of the Wola redoubt
remained, the Russians closed up in their strength and charged with
their bayonets. The result was disastrous in the extreme. General
Sowinski, who commanded the outpost, fell pierced through and through;
and when the Russians finally occupied the redoubt only eleven men
remained alive out of three thousand.
While this scene of carnage was being enacted outside, the city was
itself the scene of intense excitement. The majority of the inhabitants
foresaw that their fate was sealed. Their only chance of salvation--the
interposition of England or France--had failed them. Were even that
to come now it would be too late. The cannonade of the besiegers was
continuous, and every now and again a stray shell would fall in the
streets, scattering death and devastation around. And all that could be
done in response was to fire occasional charges from the few guns left
to the garrison. Men there were in plenty in Warsaw, and women, too,
willing to play the man’s part in fighting for their country; but the
guns were few, and it was no uncommon sight to see eager, able men tear
the rifles from the hands of the wounded as they fell, in order that
the most might be made of the slender sources at their disposal.
Amid all this scene of horror there was one item of news which caused
rejoicing. Marshal Paskewitsch had been wounded. It was said that
he was, indeed, disabled. This was the one cheering event of the 7th
September.
[Illustration: “THE RUSSIANS CLOSED UP IN THEIR STRENGTH
AND CHARGED WITH THEIR BAYONETS” (_p._ 287).]
The 8th opened still and fine, but it was destined to be a bitter day
in the story of Poland. The Russians had moved up to the very gates
of the town in the night, and only the innermost line of trenches and
the shaky walls stood between them and the inhabitants. The cannonade
recommenced soon after daybreak, and the attack was even more furious
than on the previous day. At least, it seemed so to those within the
doomed city. The men in the trenches were ploughed down like flies,
but their bravery was indomitable, and as each man fell, another took
his place, to be ploughed down in turn. The men finally stood upon the
brink of their trenches, and used the dead bodies of their comrades as
cover; but it was futile. On and on came the Russian host, back and
back went the Poles, until only the gaunt walls of Warsaw stood between
them and those they sought to save. The enemy fought with irresistible
fury, carrying everything before them, inch by inch, at the point of
the bayonet, while their guns were busied in sending missiles within
the city, which spread fire and rapine in their train. The day was
still undone when the walls were gained. The inmost line of defence
was captured, its last defender slain. The plain for a mile around was
strewn with the mutilated remains of what had once been brave men, and
the tyrants of the North held Warsaw in their hands.
The city capitulated as the sun sunk in the west, and its inhabitants
realised too late that their doom was sealed. What that doom was to be
even the most imaginative failed to realise.
Having taken Warsaw, Paskewitsch spoke fair. He would, he declared,
not enter the city till the following day, and meanwhile the Polish
army, what was left of it, might retire to Plosk. The Marshal admitted
to having 3,000 men and 63 officers killed, and 7,500 and 445 officers
wounded, while the Polish loss was found to amount to 9,000 slain.
Defeated though they were, reduced in numbers, without the hope of
succour, and exhausted by the events of the past few days, the Poles
retained their heroism. The army, what was left of the 30,000 men of
which the garrison had consisted, formed in order in the great place in
the centre of the city, and marched towards the gate. But it did not
march to Plosk. It went instead to the fortress of Modlin, and made
preparations for a final stand--a forlorn hope--trusting to fortune
to turn the Russians yet. But the scheme was foredoomed. Paskewitsch,
whose wound was slighter than was supposed, heard of the move, and
promptly despatched a brigade against the Polish remnant. The garrison
of Modlin was promptly surrounded, all retreat cut off. Entrapped,
defenceless, without guns or food, the band of heroes lay down their
arms and sought refuge on neutral territory across the Prussian
frontier.
It does not come within the province of this history to detail the
events which followed the capture of Warsaw. So far as the military
history of this, the last great struggle for Polish independence,
is concerned, the battle of Warsaw brings the story to a close. The
horrors that followed still linger in the memories of the very old. The
fearful outbreak of Asiatic cholera which devastated Central Europe,
the tragic fate of the thousands of Poles who, trusting in the charity
of the King of Prussia, were hounded across the frontier into the hands
of the Russians; the equally tragic fortunes of those who took the word
of the Czar and gave themselves up to the authorities; and the bitter
savageries committed by the Russians in compulsorily emigrating the
bulk of the people of Warsaw, sending children away from parents and
husbands from wives, even to the furthest parts of Eastern Russia, are
all part of history. Of the civilising efforts of the Russians while in
occupation of Warsaw, we have a sample in the fact that the conquerors
took nearly a million volumes of books from the city--400,000 from the
Zuluski Library alone.
[Illustration: THE JEWS’ MARKET, WARSAW.]
[Illustration:
THE STORMING OF THE NILT FORTS.
BY E.F. KNIGHT.]
Of our recent wars on the frontiers of India, the Hunza campaign was
in many respects the most remarkable, and the storming of the enemy’s
defences at Nilt afforded an ample proof of what excellent material our
Indian army is composed. At the extreme north corner of British India,
or rather of the territories of our feudatory the Maharajah of Kashmir,
buried amid the loftiest and wildest mountains of the Hindoo Koosh,
hemmed in by glaciers which are the vastest in the world outside the
arctic regions, and by hundreds of barren leagues of rock and snow, are
two little States of hereditary robbers, the Hunzas and the Nagars, the
first occupying the right bank, the second the left bank of the Hunza
or Kanjut torrent. These people belong to what is known as the Dard
race, and are supposed to be of the purest Aryan stock: many of them
have the features and the fair complexions of Europeans.
This inhospitable region is the very cradle, some say, of the Aryan
race; and the Hunza-Nagars present one of the most interesting
ethnological problems in the world--a problem, however, which up till
now could only be studied from a safe distance, for the half-dozen or
so of Europeans who had penetrated the Hunza valley previous to the
campaign I am about to describe had done so at considerable risk to
their lives. From the earliest times the Hunza-Nagars have engaged in
organised brigandage and slave-hunting; they were the most redoubtable
warriors of the Hindoo Koosh. The head waters of the Hunza and its
tributaries are on the slopes of the Pamirs, and the tribesmen,
ascending the passes that lead from their valleys on to the “roof of
the world,” were wont to raid into Turkistan and fall on the caravans
that carry on the trade between India and Yarkand. For hundreds
of years they have thus amassed rich booty, and they sold all the
prisoners they captured to the Kirghiz nomads. When the Kashmir State
conquered the Gilgit district it did its utmost to quell these two
lawless tribes, but all in vain: secure in their mountain strongholds,
they successfully resisted the largest forces that were sent against
them, and carried their forays both into Kashmir territory and into
Central Asia, though a Kashmir garrison of 6,000 men was always
stationed at Gilgit. It was estimated that the “thums,” or kings, of
these two valley States could muster 5,000 fighting men, fairly well
armed with native matchlocks, Martini-Henrys, Berdans (supplied by the
Russians), Sniders, and other rifles. They also had some smooth-bore
six or seven pound guns of their own manufacture.
When the Indian Government undertook to exercise a more direct control
over the affairs of the grossly mismanaged State of Kashmir, an agency
was established at Gilgit which then became the northernmost outpost
of our Empire in Asia. The Hunza river flows into the Gilgit river
two miles below Gilgit fort, and the frontier of the robber States is
some thirty miles up the Hunza valley. The thums, though jealous of
the establishment of British influence in their close vicinity, were
persuaded by Colonel Durand, our agent at Gilgit, to enter into a
treaty by which they recognised Great Britain as the suzerain power,
and agreed to desist from raiding and slave-hunting, while the Indian
Government was to pay the thums an annual subsidy each. But the thums,
stirred up by Captain Gromchevtsky--who had visited the Hunza valley
with a party of Cossacks, and had done his utmost to damage British
prestige in these regions--soon broke their faith with Colonel Durand;
they recommenced their evil practices, and in the spring of 1891,
having first greatly strengthened their defences in the gorges near
Nilt, they defied the Maharajah and the British agent, declared that
they would renew their raids, threatened the Kashmir fortress of Chalt
with a considerable force, and so endangered our position at Gilgit
that the long-suffering Government of India found it necessary to send
a punitive expedition into the Hunza valley.
At this time the Agent’s bodyguard consisted only of a score or so
of Pathans of the 20th Punjab Infantry, while the Kashmir troops who
garrisoned the forts were scarcely to be relied on, for these were the
same men who had been repeatedly defeated by the Hunzas. They belonged,
it is true, to regiments of the recently organised Imperial Service
troops which the Maharajah had set aside for purposes of Imperial
defence, and which had been trained for some months by specially
selected British officers; but they had never been tried in actual
warfare since the new system had been inaugurated, and it was therefore
considered advisable to despatch from Abbotabad 200 men of our 5th
Gurkha regiment, and two seven-pound guns of the Hazara mountain
battery.
The present road from Kashmir to Gilgit had not then been completed,
and great difficulties had to be overcome in sending even this small
force to the North. The distance from Srinagur to Gilgit is 240 miles,
or twenty-two marches. The track winds among the mountains, and crosses
two high passes, one being over the main chain of the Himalayas, which
divides Kashmir proper from the northern possessions of the Maharajah.
These passes are only open for about four months; for the rest of the
year they are closed by deep snow and are exposed to violent gales of
extreme coldness, which prove fatal to travellers overtaken by them.
One of these storms sprang up while the 5th Gurkhas and a number of
transport coolies were on the march, and nearly 100 men perished of
frostbite. Captain Barrett himself, who was in command, lost several
toes on this occasion, and was incapacitated from taking part in the
campaign. This dreary road traversed for many marches a rainless and
almost desert region. Of wild vegetation there is scarcely any: it is
only by means of artificial irrigation from the glacier streams above
that the sparse population succeeds in raising scanty crops here and
there. There are signs of a more extensive cultivation in the past, but
the forays of the Shinakas--raiding tribes who occupy a little-explored
region beyond the mountains that border the Gilgit road on the
west--have long since made these valleys desolate. The road, where not
winding over the barren mountain ridges, follows the bottoms of the
gloomy ravines where the discoloured torrents rush between cliffs and
huge slopes of fallen boulders. The country affords no supplies to an
invading force, and even the forage for our horses had to be imported
from a distance.
During the four summer months of 1891 thousands of coolies were
employed in carrying up to Gilgit the supplies required for the
expedition; but despite all the efforts of our transport officers, a
large quantity of necessaries never crossed the Himalayas: an early
winter and heavy snowstorms suddenly closed the passes, and our little
force was cut off from all chance of reinforcement or communication
with the outer world for several months. Isolated by impassable
mountains, we were now left to fight it out, not only with the 5,000
Hunzas, but probably also with the Shinakas, who could put 15,000 men
in the field, for they were known to have a defensive alliance with
the Hunzas, and our line of communication was open to their attack at
several points.
The force at Colonel Durand’s disposal consisted of three regiments of
Kashmir Imperial Service troops, 188 men of the 5th Gurkha regiment,
about thirty men of the Agency bodyguard, two guns of the Hazara
mountain battery, and 160 irregulars from the mountains of Puneal--in
all about 2,000 men. Of these 1,000 men were left to garrison the
forts and to guard our long line of communication. The field force,
therefore, numbered roughly 1,000 men, of whom more than 700 were
untried sepoys of the Kashmir regiments (Dogras and Gurkhas), and quite
untrained irregulars. Only thirteen British officers were with the
field force. To Mr. Spedding, C.E., and his staff of six civilians,
was entrusted the duty of opening out a road for the column: these
civilians were on the roster, and had under them 200 Pathan navvies,
who were armed with Snider carbines, and took part in the fighting.