Operations of the main army.--Expedition under Jankowski.--General
Chrzanowski having driven Rudiger from his position, crosses the
Vistula, but returns to act in concert with general Jankowski against
the enemy near Kock.--Details of general Jankowski's movement.--He
remains inactive within sight of the fire of the corps with which he
was to co-operate.--Other evidences of treason.--Generals Jankowski
and Bukowski are arrested and ordered for trial.--View of the
advantages that were sacrificed by this misconduct.--Discovery of
a plot to liberate and arm the Russian prisoners at Warsaw, and to
deliver the city to the enemy.--State of the public mind induced by
these events.
From these melancholy occurrences in Lithuania, let us turn to follow
the operations of the grand army.
On the 13th and 14th of June, a division of infantry, under the command
of general Muhlberg, left Praga, and took the direction of the environs
of Stanislawow and Jadow. In the latter place this division surprised a
strong detachment of the enemy in camp, and took many prisoners. Thence
they were instructed to follow the left bank of the Liwiec as far as
the environs of Kaluszyn, and even to Zelechow, clearing each bank of
the presence of the enemy. This division was then to join itself with
the division of cavalry of general Jankowski, which on that day left
for Kock. Those two divisions combined, were to endeavor to act upon
the different corps of the enemy which were pressed by the corps of
general Chrzanowski.
The latter general had commenced the offensive on the 16th, and had
driven the corps of general Rudiger from its position at Krasny-taw,
and compelled it to retreat to Lublin, continually pursued by him. On
the 23d, he took that town by storm. The enemy was obliged to evacuate
it in disorder, leaving a great number killed, wounded, and prisoners,
and to take the direction of Kock. The corps of Rudiger would have been
inevitably destroyed, if another Russian corps of 15,000 strong had not
marched to its aid.
General Chrzanowski, apprized of the arrival of this reinforcement,
quitted the pursuit, for a more favorable moment; and, to avoid an
engagement with this combined force of the enemy, as well as to escort
the prisoners, which he had taken at Lublin, to a place of safety, he
repassed the Vistula, at Pulawy. He had scarce reached the opposite
side of the river, when he received the intelligence that the division
of general Jankowski, reinforced by a brigade of infantry, was
approaching Kock, where was already the corps of general Rudiger, and
whither the corps of general Keisarow, above mentioned, was hastening
to join him. In order, therefore, to take between the two fires all
the forces which might be collected at Kock, general Chrzanowski
promptly repassed the river, reached the environs of Kock, and waited
impatiently for the attack of general Jankowski, in the opposite
direction; but Jankowski delayed his movement, and allowed the corps of
Kiesarow to join Rudiger.
The following are the details of this expedition, as they were
related by an officer of the division of Muhlberg, and which exhibit
satisfactory evidence of treason on the part of general Jankowski.
'The issue of this expedition, which could have had the most brilliant
results, has filled us with grief and indignation. We were marching in
the utmost haste upon Kock, with the hope of beating Rudiger. On our
route, at Stoczek, for our misfortune, we were joined by the division
of cavalry under general Jankowski, who then took the command. We
ought to have passed the Wieprz, to meet Rudiger, and cut him off.
Suddenly news was brought to us that the enemy had passed the Wieprz,
at Lysobyki, with 6,000 infantry, sixteen squadrons of cavalry, and
ten pieces of cannon. General Jankowski then called a council of war,
at which the following plans were adopted. General Turno was to attack
the enemy, in the direction of Sorokomla, and general Jankowski was to
come to his support at the first sound of his cannon. The brigade of
general Romarino (detached from the corps of general Chrzanowski, and
destined to act as an independent corps) was to act upon the left wing,
and general Bukowski, with a brigade of cavalry, upon the right wing of
the enemy by Bialobrzegi. This plan, which in the conviction of all our
officers would have exterminated the corps of general Rudiger, and the
execution of which was reserved to general Jankowski, came to nothing.
'General Turno, trusting in the faithful execution of the plan,
attacked the enemy with courage and vigor. He was sure of receiving
support on three sides. He made head against the enemy for six
hours, while generals Jankowski and Bukowski, at the distance of
about three miles from him, hearing and even seeing the fire of the
action, remained in a state of complete inaction. Nay more, a Russian
detachment took possession, almost before their eyes, of the ammunition
and baggage of a whole regiment, and they did not stir to prevent it.
General Turno fought with bravery and sangfroid, notwithstanding that
none came to his support, and did not retire till he received orders
to do so. The whole corps was indignant at the conduct of Jankowski,
and his brother-in-law, Bukowski, who had evidently acted the part of
traitors.'
General Skrzynecki was deeply afflicted with the sad result of an
expedition, which, based upon infallible calculations, had promised the
very surest success. The event was of the most disastrous consequence
to us. If the corps of general Rudiger had been crushed, as it
certainly could have been, the combined corps of Chrzanowski, Muhlberg,
and Jankowski, could have acted upon all the corps of the enemy, which
might be found between the Wieprz, the Swider, and the Liwiec. As those
corps were quite distant from their main army, which was now upon the
right of the Narew, and as they were even without a free communication
with each other, they could have each been beaten in detail, by a
prompt action on our part. I leave to the reader to decide, whether,
after we should have obtained such successes over these detached corps,
we could not have acted with certain success against the Russian main
army.
The corps of general Rudiger, which thus escaped its fate, left for the
environs of Lukow, whither it was followed by general Chrzanowski. The
corps of general Jankowski returned in the direction of Macieiowiec
and Laskarzew, and the division of general Muhlberg returned to Minsk.
The general in chief deprived generals Jankowski and Bukowski of their
command, and ordered them to be tried by a court-martial.
But other and even more affecting disasters were awaiting us. Poland,
which had been so often made a sacrifice of, through her own generosity
and confidence, now nourished upon her bosom the monsters who were
plotting her destruction.
On the 28th of June, general Skrzynecki received information of a
conspiracy which had for its object the delivering up of Warsaw
into the hands of the enemy, by liberating and arming the Russian
prisoners. Several generals, of whom distrust had been felt, and who
had been deprived of their commands when the revolution broke out,
having been known as the vile instruments of the former government,
were at the bottom of this plot. Of this painful intelligence, general
Skrzynecki immediately apprized the National Government, who, relying
on his report, caused to be arrested general Hurtig, former commander
of the fortress of Zamosc, and a base instrument of Constantine,
general Salacki, colonel Slupecki, the Russian chamberlain Fenshawe,
a Mr Lessel, and a Russian lady, named Bazanow. Generals Jankowski
and Bukowski were also implicated in the conspiracy. This band of
traitors intended to get possession of the arsenal, to arm the Russian
prisoners, and to destroy the bridges; (in order to cut off all
communication with the army, which was then on the right bank of the
Vistula;) and the Russian army, advertised of this movement, was then
to pass to the left bank of the Vistula, at Plock or Dobzyn, and take
possession of Warsaw. Those traitors succeeded in setting at large a
great number of Russian prisoners at Czenstochowa.
What a terror must poor Poland have been to the Russian cabinet, which
did not find it enough to have deluged her with their immense forces,
and to have engaged all the neighboring cabinets to aid them against
her, but must go farther, and, by the employment of such vile means,
attempt to kindle hostilities in her interior, and to subject her at
the same time to a civil and an external war! They had good cause for
these desperate attempts. From the earliest stage of the conflict, they
had seen that the Poles, nerved by the consciousness of the justice of
their cause, were capable of crushing the force which they had sent to
execute the will of the despot. Unable to meet us in the open field,
they must invent some new method, no matter how base, to accomplish
their end. It was through the instrumentality of their intrigues that
the dictatorship was prolonged. It was by such intrigues, that the
apple of discord was thrown into our national congress, and even into
the ranks of that handful of brave men who had sworn to sacrifice
themselves in the cause of their country. They employed their vile
accomplices to betray us, and they succeeded.
The discovery of this extensive treason struck the people with
consternation and dismay. It drove them to a state bordering on
desperation. When Poland had sent and was sending her sons, and even
her daughters, to the field of death;--when she was sacrificing every
thing to achieve her deliverance, and was awaiting the fruits of such
sacrifices, sure, if not to conquer, at least to fall with honor,--she
sees that all is in vain--that her holy purposes are mocked at, and
that all her noble efforts are thwarted! Can we be surprised, then, at
the state of the popular mind which ensued?
The state of feeling which these events caused was aggravated by
the reflection, that the surveillance of certain individuals, of
whom distrust had been already entertained, had been more than
once demanded; and that from an early period it was urged upon
the government, that the Russian prisoners, particularly those of
distinction, should be carefully watched, and prevented from holding
free communication together, or with others. So far, however,
from such care having been taken, the very Jews were permitted to
communicate with them constantly, and to bring them intelligence of
the events of the war. Can it be wondered then, that the neglect of
these repeated warnings, and the tremendous consequences which had
well nigh followed this neglect, should have weighed upon the minds of
the people, and have even brought the National Government itself into
suspicion? It was, in fact, from this moment, that the nation began
first to look with dissatisfaction and distrust upon that government,
upon prince Czartoriski its head, and even upon the general in chief
himself. The melancholy news of the treason of Jankowski filled the
minds of the patriots with bitter anticipations; they naturally
foreboded, that if such treasons could be perpetrated in the grand
army, under the very eyes of the general in chief, the danger might be
still greater in the more distant corps. Their forebodings were but
too well justified by the events which took place in Lithuania, the
intelligence of which was soon received at Warsaw.