THE RISING OF KOSCIUSZKO
II
We have reached the month of May, 1794. Kosciuszko and the Russian army
under Denisov were now at close grips, Denisov repeatedly attacking,
Kosciuszko beating him off. Communications with Warsaw and all the
country were impeded. Provisions were almost impossible to procure.
Kosciuszko's men went half starved. Burning villages, set on fire by
Denisov's soldiers, a countryside laid waste, were the sight the Poles
beheld each day, while the homeless peasants crowded into Kosciuszko's
camp to tell him their piteous stories. Then Denisov retreated so
swiftly towards the Prussian frontier that Kosciuszko, either through
the enemy's rapidity, or because he was detained by the civil affairs of
the government with which his hands were just then full, and by the no
less arduous task of organizing the war in the provinces, was not able
to overtake him. At this moment the Rising promised well. The Polish
regiments, escaping from Russian garrisons, augmented the number of the
army that, against unheard-of difficulties--short of money, short of all
military requisites--Kosciuszko had by the end of May gathered together.
From Kiev, under the very eyes of the Russian troops in the town.
Kopec--who for his share in the national war later underwent exile in
the penal settlements of Kamchatka--led a band of Polish soldiers to
Kosciuszko's Rising. They had already been in communication with the
Poles who were preparing the Rising in Warsaw, when the news of the
outbreak of the insurrection reached them. Catherine II at once resolved
to disarm them and send them to the Crimea. Kopec was despatched by the
Russian authorities to convey to the Polish soldiers flattering promises
from the Empress of pay and rewards. He seized the opportunity for a
different purpose, took the oath of the Rising from his compatriots and
succeeded in leading them out of Kiev. Halting on the way at Uszomierz,
he repaired in the middle of the night to the Carmelite convent, to beg
the blessing of the old monk, Marek, who had preached with the fire of a
Bernard the Bar war, and around whose white-robed figure among the
patriots fighting for freedom tales of miracle had gathered. Rising from
his bed of sickness, the old man went out with Kopec, crucifix in hand,
to the Polish soldiers, and gave them his blessing, adding the words:
"Go in the name of God and you shall pass through." Eluding the strong
Russian forces that were on all sides, they effected their escape, and,
singing the ancient battle hymn of Poland, marched to the banners of
Kosciuszko.
We have seen that Kosciuszko held the war as a sacred crusade. He
enforced rigid discipline. Licence was unknown in his camp, where the
atmosphere, so eyewitnesses have recorded, was that of gaiety and ardour
tempered by a grave enthusiasm.
"There is here," writes the envoy whom Kosciuszko was sending to Vienna
and whom he had summoned to the camp to receive his instructions,
"neither braggadocio nor excess. A deep silence reigns, great order,
great subordination and discipline. The enthusiasm for Kosciuszko's
person in the camp and in the nation is beyond credence. He is a simple
man, and is one most modest in conversation, manners, dress. He unites
with the greatest resolution and enthusiasm for the undertaken cause
much sang-froid and judgment. It seems as though in all that he is doing
there is nothing temerarious except the enterprise itself. In practical
details he leaves nothing to chance: everything is thought out and
combined. His may not be a transcendental mind, or one sufficiently
elastic for politics. His native good sense is enough for him to
estimate affairs correctly and to make the best choice at the first
glance. Only love of his country animates him. No other passion has
dominion over him."[1]
[Page 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]
The name of Kosciuszko is linked, not with victory but with a defeat
more noble than material triumph. The watchword he had chosen for the
Rising, "Death or Victory," was no empty rhetoric; it was stern reality.
The spring of 1794 saw the insurrection opening in its brilliant
promise. From May the success of an enterprise that could have won
through with foreign help, and not without it, declined Kosciuszko had
now to reckon not only with Russia Prussia was about to send in her
regiments of iron against the little Polish army, of which more than
half were raw peasants bearing scythes and pikes, and which was thus
hemmed in by the armed legions of two of the most powerful states in
Europe.
On the 6th of June Kosciuszko reached Szczekociny. It was among the
marshes there that the Polish army met the fiercest shock of arms it had
yet experienced in the course of the Rising. "The enemy," wrote
Kosciuszko in his report, "stood all night under arms. We awaited the
dawn with the sweetest hope of victory." These hopes were founded on the
precedent of Raclawice and on the battles in which Kosciuszko had fought
in the United States, where he had seen British regulars routed by the
American farmers. But as hostilities were about to begin with the
morning, Wodzicki, examining the proceedings through his field-glasses,
expressed his amazement at the masses moving against the Polish army.
"Surely my eyes deceive me, for I recognize the Prussians," he said to a
Polish officer at his side. It was too true. In the night the Prussian
army had come up under Frederick William II. "We saw," says Kosciuszko
"that it was not only with the Russians we had to deal, for the right
wing of the enemy was composed of the Prussian army." The Poles fought
with desperate valour. Kosciuszko himself records the name of a Polish
sergeant who, "when both of his legs were carried off by a cannon-ball,
still cried out to his men, "Brothers, defend your country! Defend her
boldly. You will conquer!"[1] The charges of the Polish reapers went far
to turn the tide of victory; but the overwhelming numbers of Prussian
soldiers, and of scientific machines of war in a ratio of three to
Kosciuszko's one, carried the day against the Poles. Kosciuszko's horse
was shot under him, and himself slightly wounded. Only two of his
generals emerged from the battle unscathed. The rest were either killed,
including the gallant Wodzicki and another who, like him, had been one
of the earliest promoters of the Rising, and the others wounded,
Poninski redeeming by his blood a father's infamy.
[Footnote 1: _Kosciuszko_. Periodical Publication.]
There was no choice left open to Kosciuszko, if he would save an army
composed for the most part of inexperienced volunteers, but to order a
retreat. This retreat was carried out in perfect order. The field was
strewn with Polish dead, whom, after the withdrawal of the Prussians,
the villagers piously buried in their parish church. There, too, on the
battlefield, lay so many corpses of Prussian soldiers that Frederick
William expressed the hope that he would gain few more such costly
victories. It was at the close of this disastrous defeat that Kosciuszko
for a moment gave way to despair. An officer of his--Sanguszko--met him
wandering stupefied over the battlefield when the day was lost. "I wish
to be killed," was all Sanguszko heard him say. Sanguszko only saved his
general's life by gripping him by the arm and forcing him within the
turnpike of a village hard by, where the shattered Polish ranks had
taken refuge. This was, however, but a momentary faltering of
Kosciuszko's soul. On the morrow of the battle he was once more sending
his country summonses to a renewed courage and calling up a fresh
general levy.
The proivisional government of Poland was the while negotiating with
France and Austria. It was hoped that France would support the Rising
financially, and persuade Turkey with French encouragement to declare
war on Russia. France, preoccupied with internal revolution, had no
thought to spare for Polish affairs, and her assistance was never
gained. Nor had the Poles' overtures to Austria any happy result. The
Austrian Government gave secret orders to arrest Kosciuszko and
Madalinski if they crossed the frontier, and the Austrian regiments
received instructions to attack any Polish insurgents who should pass
over into Galicia, providing that the Austrians were superior in number.
The favourable answer obtained through a French intermediary from the
Porte arrived after Kosciuszko was in a Russian prison. By the irony of
fate he never heard it, and it was only divulged thirty years after his
death. Thus every diplomatic means failed the patriot, who was no match
for the machinations of the European statecraft which has borne its
lamentable fruits in the recent cataclysm we have all witnessed. He was
thrown on the resources with which he was more familiar: those of an
ennobling idea and of the exactions of self-devotion in its cause.
Immediately after his eyes had been opened at Szczekociny to the new
peril that had burst upon his country he sent out another order, bidding
his commanders to "go over the Prussian and Russian boundaries" into the
provinces that were lawfully Poland's but which had been filched from
her at the partitions, "and proclaiming there the freedom and the rising
of the Poles, summon the peasants oppressed and ground down with slavery
to join us and universally arm against the usurpers and their
oppression:" to do the same in Russia proper and Prussia, to all "who
are desirous of returning to the sweet liberties of their own country or
desirous to obtain a free country."[1]
[Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]
A peasant war could at the moment be only a chimera, impossible of
realization. Does this manifesto prove that Kosciuszko, in a most
perilous situation, abandoned by Europe, was pushed to a measure that he
himself knew was a desperate hope? Or was it the generous prompting of a
great dream that beats down, that refuses to be disconcerted by the
obstacles that stand before it--that in its failure we call visionary,
but in its success the reform for which the world has waited? Be that as
it may, the proclamation was not without its response. The Supreme
Council modified its wording, and sent it into Great Poland--the
so-called "Prussian" Poland--with the result that the Poles there took
up arms.
A lion striving in the toils:--such is the simile by which a Polish
historian describes the position of Kosciuszko. Not one word or sign of
sympathy for his nation in her gallant struggle for life reached him
from any quarter outside his country. Nor was he beset only by external
obstacles. Difficulties inside the state added to his cares. In answer
to the complaint of a deputation from Warsaw, dissatisfied with the
composition of the Supreme Council, he wrote from his tent, begging the
people of the city, his "brothers and fellow-citizens," to remember that
he, whom their delegates "saw," as he expresses it, "serving you and the
country in the sweat of my brow," had only the happiness of the sons of
Poland at heart. May, says he, his "vow made before God and the world
calm all the anxieties of each citizen and defend them from irregular
steps against the established Council. ... My answer is short: let us
first drive out the enemy, and then we will lay down the unchangeable
foundations of our happiness."[1]
Sincerity was the groundwork of Kosciuszko's dealings with his people.
The greater the reverses which the cause of Poland encountered, the
greater must be the courage with which to conquer them. Defeat must be
regarded merely as the incentive to victory. Thus, a few days after the
battle of Szczekociny, giving the nation a full report of the battle, in
which he mitigated none of his losses, he ended with these words:
"Nation! This is the first test of the stability of thy spirit, the
first day of thy Rising in which it is free to thee to be sad, but not
to be dismayed. Those guilty of thy defeat will amend it at the first
opportunity, and they who have never deceived thee as to their courage
thirst to avenge thy misfortune of a moment. Wouldest thou be worthy of
liberty and self-government if thou knowest not how to endure the
vicissitudes of fate? Nation! Thy soil shall be free. Only let thy
spirit be high above all."[2]
[Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]
[Footnote 2: K. Bartoszewicz, _History of Kosciuszko's Insurrection_.]
He then marched in haste towards Warsaw, whose safety was threatened. On
the way tidings of a great disaster were brought to him--that of the
capitulation of Cracow to the Prussians by its Polish commander, the
national honour only redeemed by the gallant attempt of the Cracow
burghers led by a book-keeper to defend the castle, to whom the Prussian
general gave the honours of war as they marched out. The knowledge that
the Prussians were in possession of the ancient capital of Poland, the
most beloved of Polish cities, which had rung with the first vows of the
national uprising, must have been bitter beyond expression to Kosciuszko
and to all Poland; but again he would permit neither himself nor his
nation to meet this blow with anything but unshaken fortitude.
"We have sustained a loss "--thus his manifesto: "but I ask of
courageous and stable souls, ought this to make us fear? Can the loss of
one town bid us despair of the fate of the whole commonwealth? The first
virtue of a free man is not to despair of the fate of his country." He
speaks of Athens and the Persians, Rome after Cannae, France driving the
English out of their country, and the heroes of his own nation who had
repulsed Sweden, Turkey, Russia, and the Tartars. "Other men of courage
and of virtue have not doubted. Instead of breaking into profitless
lamentations they flew to arms, and delivered the country from the
invasions of their enemies. ... I have told you, citizens, what my duty
bade me tell you in the conditions of to-day: beware of indirect and
alarmist impressions, beware of those who spread them. Trust in the
valour of our armies and the fidelity of their leaders. ... Let not
Europe say: 'The Pole is swift to enthusiasm, swifter to
discouragement.' Rather let the nations say: 'The Poles are valiant in
resolution, unterrified in disaster, constant in fulfilment.'"[1]
[Footnote 1: _op. cit_.]
As if to prove the truth of his words, good news poured in from
Lithuania, Samogitia, Courland. Bands of peasants were fighting in
Lithuania. The Rising was general in Samogitia. Courland remembered that
in the past she had been a member of the Polish Commonwealth, and her
citizens gave in their act of adhesion to the Polish Rising.
Taking advantage of Frederick William's incapacity of profiting by his
victory at Szczekociny, Kosciuszko pushed rapidly on to Warsaw. By a
series of skilful manoeuvres, in the last days of June he arrived outside
the city, and prepared to defend her at all costs.
Events then occurred in Warsaw of a nature to arouse his strong
condemnation. Hearing of the loss of Cracow at the hand of a traitor,
the Warsaw populace, with the memory of Targowica, many of whose
confederates were still in their midst, staring them in the face,
dragged out from the prisons certain Poles who had either been guilty or
who were suspected of treason, and executed them then and there.
Kosciuszko was in camp in the neighbourhood of Warsaw. Any form of
terrorism was abhorrent both to his private and national conscience. So
deeply did he take to heart this outbreak of popular fury that one of
his Lithuanian commanders, Prince Michal Oginski, who visited him at
that time, heard him declare that he would have preferred the loss of
two battles as being less prejudicial to the Polish cause. As the head
of the national government, he at once addressed the following letter to
the city of Warsaw:--
"While all my labours and efforts are strained to the expulsion of the
enemy, the news has reached me that an enemy more terrible than a
foreign army is threatening us and tearing our vitals asunder. What
happened in Warsaw yesterday has filled my heart with bitterness and
sadness. The wish to punish delinquents was well, but why were they
punished without the sentence of a tribunal? Why have you outraged the
authority and sanctity of the laws? Is that the act of a people which
has raised its sword and conquered foreign invaders in order to restore
a well-ordered liberty and the rule of law, and the tranquil happiness
that flow therefrom?"
Warning them in impassioned accents that such conduct was the surest
means of playing into the hands of the enemy whose desire was to promote
public confusion and thus impede the national work:
"As soon as the turn of war permits me to absent myself for a moment
from the duties entrusted to me, I shall be among you. Perhaps the sight
of a soldier who daily risks his life for you will be agreeable to you;
but I would that no sadness imprinted on my countenance shall mar that
moment. I would that our joy shall then be full, both yours and mine. I
would that the sight of me shall remind you that the defence of freedom
and of our country should only knit and unite us together, that only in
unity can we be strong, that by justice, not by violence, shall we be
safe at home and respected in the world. Citizens! I conjure you for the
sake of the nation and of yourselves wipe out a moment of madness by
unison, by courage against the common enemies and by a henceforth
constant respect of the laws and of those who are appointed in the name
of the law. Know this, that he who refuses to be submissive to the law
is not worthy of freedom."
He blames the Council of State for not having brought the prisoners to
trial before, and bids this be done immediately.
"And thus fulfilling what public justice exacts, I from henceforth most
severely forbid the people, for their welfare and salvation, all lawless
riots, violence against the prisoners, laying hands on individuals, and
punishing them by death. Whoso does not betake himself to the government
by the proper way is a rebel, a disturber of the public peace, and as
such must be punished. You whose ardent courage is fain to take action
for the country, employ it against the enemies, come to my camp; we will
receive you here as brothers."[1]
Many responded to this call, Kilinski, the shoemaker, with the cap of
liberty planted rakishly on his head, as we may see him in his
portraits, went to Kosciuszko with the proposal that he should "catch"
the lower classes of the town. Kosciuszko gave his hearty consent, and a
regiment of these was formed with Kilinski as their colonel. Kosciuszko
was always singularly happy in his dealings with men and with the
extraordinarily involved and delicate situations in which the domestic
affairs of his country at this difficult period of her history placed
him. His tact and common sense saved the situation. The guilty were
punished. Order was restored.
The Russian and Prussian armies were advancing to invest Warsaw. At
Kosciuszko's bidding the President of the town, Zakrzewski, whom
Kosciuszko addresses as his "beloved" Zakrzewski, had already in
stirring language summoned the citizens to take their share in Warsaw's
defence.
[Footnote 1: K. Bartoszewicz, _History of Kosciuszko's Insurrection_.]
"Old men and young men, mothers and children, masters and servants,
convents and confraternities, and all, in whatsoever you have of
strength and health, present yourselves on the ramparts of the city with
spades, shovels, barrows, baskets. You who are rich forget your
comforts. You who are highborn forget your rank. Stand with the poor and
hard-working citizens so that you who have drawn life from one soil
shall on one soil taste the fruits of your safety, liberties, and
possessions."[1]
[Footnote 1: A. Choloniewski, _Tadeusz Kosciuszko_.]
Crowds toiled on the ramparts, singing over their spades the song then
sung throughout Poland, calling the Pole to the labour without which he
would be torn from his brothers, "a prisoner on his own soil." The sons
of noble families enrolled themselves in Kilinski's burgher regiment,
eager to serve under his command. On the 13th of July the Russian and
Prussian armies, the King of Prussia being present with the latter, were
seen from the walls of Warsaw. The alarm was given and the cannon fired
from the castle. The citizens took up their places in the entrenchments
with an order and a precision that won high praise from Kosciuszko as he
went his round of inspection. With undisturbed equanimity Kosciuszko
prepared with his body of 26,000 men, of whom 16,000 were regulars, the
rest peasants armed with scythes, to defend Warsaw against 41,000
Russians and Prussians and 235 cannon. Despite the labour of the
townsfolk, the defences of the city were weak and incomplete when the
enemy first appeared; but during the fortnight while the hostile armies
lay encamped before Warsaw, waiting for their heavy cannon, Kosciuszko,
by dint of his great gift of organization, put the fortifications into
strong working order.
"His creative power," said of him one of his adversaries, a Prussian
officer, who took part in the siege, "is worthy of admiration, since he
alone, in the midst of creating an army, fought with it against the two
best armies of Europe, having neither their stores nor their discipline.
What would he not have shown himself at the head of a good army, since
he did so much with peasants who knew nothing? Equally great in
character, in devotion, in love of his country, he lived exclusively for
her freedom and independence."[1]
[Footnote 1: A. Choloniewski, _Tadeusz Kosciuszko_.]
The story would be long to tell, of how the Poles, peasants, burghers
and soldiers alike, with the inheritance of the fighting blood that runs
in the veins of every son of Poland, with the fire of patriotism and of
measureless devotion to the chief who led them, fought day after day the
besieging army till it was beaten. The diary of the siege is the daily
record of deeds of gallantry, of steadfastness, of a few carrying off
the honours against many. Nor is there wanting a touch of that wild and
romantic spirit of knightly adventure which runs all through the history
of a country that for centuries defended Christendom against Turk and
Tartar. Thus we find a Polish officer, Kamienski, who had already
crowned himself with glory at Szczekociny, choosing to celebrate his
name-day by inviting his friends to come with him and stir up the
Russians, hitherto entirely passive in the operations of the siege.
This, so to speak, birthday party was swelled by a band of eager Polish
youths and by General Madalinski, who hastened to offer himself as a
volunteer. They attacked a Russian battery, spiked the cannon and cut
the gunners to pieces. Again and again Dombrowski, who was later to lead
the Polish Napoleonic legions, and whose name stands at the head of the
famous patriotic song so beloved of Poland, would at Kosciuszko's
laconic order, "Harass the enemy," sally forth on some daring
expedition. Or we hear of a sixteen hours' battle, the Poles, under a
terrific fire, successfully driving the Prussians from height to height,
Kosciuszko himself commanding Kilinski's burgher regiment. No shirkers
were to be found in Warsaw. Under the fearful Prussian bombardment the
citizens coolly put out the fires, and the children ran into the streets
to pick up the spent balls and take them to the arsenal, receiving a few
pence for each one that they brought in. Once as Kosciuszko and
Niemcewicz stood on the ramparts with cannon-balls pattering about them,
Niemcewicz heard a voice shouting into his ear through the din: "You are
coming to supper with me, aren't you?"[1] The host who had the presence
of mind to arrange a party under these circumstances was the President
of Warsaw.
[Footnote 1: J. Niemcewicz, _Recollections of My Times_.]
Even those who will not allow that Kosciuszko was a military commander of
the first capacity acknowledge that the defence of Warsaw was a
magnificent feat. He was its life and soul. Organizing, encouraging,
seeing into the closest details, the somewhat small but strongly built
figure of the commander, clad in the peasant _sukman_ worn, after his
example, by all his staff, including the "citizen General Poniatowski,"
was to be met with at every turn, his face lit up by that fire of
enthusiasm and consecration to a great cause that confers upon its rough
lineaments their strange nobility. From the 13th of July till the 6th of
September, when the enemy abandoned the siege, Kosciuszko never once
took off his clothes, merely flinging himself on a little heap of straw
in his tent on his return from his rounds to catch what sleep he could.
His very presence inspired soldiers and civilians alike to redoubled
ardour. The sweetness of his smile, the gentle and kindly word of the
leader who yet knew how to be obeyed and who was famed for his courage
in the field, left a memory for life with all who saw him. Passionate
admiration, the undying love of men's hearts, were his. "Death or
Victory is Kosciuszko's watchword, therefore it is ours," said a Polish
officer who served under him. "Father Tadeusz" was the name by which his
soldiers called him. Invariably he spent some part of his day among his
beloved peasants, and daily he recited with them public prayers. Often
at night he and they together went up to the teeth of the Russian
batteries on expeditions to spike the cannon. His inseparable companion,
Niemcewicz, who slept with him in his tent till the-end came, describes
how the silence of these nights was broken hideously by the wild, shrill
cry of the reapers, by the sudden roar of the cannon and crack of
gunfire, by the groans of the wounded.
The defence of Warsaw was but half of the task that fell to Kosciuszko.
The minutest particulars were dealt with by him personally. He wrote
letter after letter, commandeering everything in the country for the
national cause: requisitioning linen from the churches to clothe his
soldiers, who in the beginning of the siege were half naked, sending out
his directions to the leaders of the Rising in the provinces, issuing
proclamations, maintaining an enormous correspondence on affairs--it is
said that the number of letters from his pen or signed by him at this
time is almost incredible--giving audiences, and conducting the civil
government of Poland.
Early in August the Prussian general, in a letter to Orlowski,
Kosciuszko's old friend, whom he had made commandant of Warsaw, summoned
the city to surrender, while the King of Prussia addressed himself in
similar language to Stanislas Augustus, whose part in the historical
drama of the siege was that of an inert spectator. Kosciuszko drily
replied, "Warsaw is not in the necessity to be compelled to surrender."
The Polish King replied, not drily, to the same effect. The fortunes of
the Rising in the rest of the country were fluctuating, and in
Lithuania, where Wilno fell, hopeless. In the beginning of September
exultation ran through Warsaw at the news that every province of Great
Poland had risen against their Prussian conquerors. Kosciuszko
characteristically took up the general joy as the text of a manifesto to
the citizens of Warsaw, warning them that Prussia would, in the strength
of desperation, redouble her efforts against them, and urging them to a
dogged resistance. On the 4th of September, shortly after the Poles had
by a most gallant attack carried off a signal triumph, when Warsaw was
preparing for a fresh and violent bombardment, Kosciuszko wrote in haste
to the President: "Beloved Zakrzewski, to-day, before daybreak, we shall
certainly be attacked, and therefore I beg and conjure you for the love
of our country that half of the citizens shall go to-day into the line,
and that if they attack all shall go out."[1]
The attack did not take place; and on the 6th of September the Prussians
retired from Warsaw. During the whole course of the siege, with the
exception of one post they had taken in its earliest stage, they had
gained not one inch against the Poles defending their city with smaller
numbers and inferior ammunition. The Russians retreated with the
Prussians. They had remained almost immovable during the siege. Neither
of these two collaborators in the destruction of Poland were on the best
terms with each other, and Catherine II had no mind to share with
Prussia the distinction, and still less the profits, of bringing Warsaw
to its knees. Austria, although she was by way of being at war with
Kosciuszko, had held aloof from the siege, unwilling to commit herself,
but determined on coming in for the spoils when the Rising should be
crushed out.
Kosciuszko then tasted one of the greatest triumphs of his life: the
armies of the enemy were no more seen round the city he had saved.
"By your assiduity, your valour," the National Council wrote to him,
"you have curbed the pride and power of that foe who, after pressing
upon us so threateningly, has been forced to retreat with shame upon his
covetous intentions. The Council knows only too well the magnitude of
the labours which you brought to the defence of this city, and therefore
cannot but make known to you that most lively gratitude and esteem with
which all this city is penetrated. "[2]
[Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]
[Footnote 2: _Op. cit_.]
Further, it expressed the wish that Kosciuszko should show himself to a
grateful people in some solemn function.
To this Kosciuszko politely replied, declining to take any share in a
public honour which it was against every dictate of his nature to
accept.
"I have read with the greatest gratitude and emotion the flattering
expressions of the Supreme National Council. I rejoice equally with
every good citizen at the liberation of the city from the enemy armies.
I ascribe this to nothing else but to Providence, to the valour of the
Polish soldiers, to the zeal and courage of the citizens of Warsaw, to
the diligence of the government. I place myself entirely at the
disposition of the Supreme National Council: in what manner and when do
you wish the celebration to take place? My occupations will not permit
me the pleasure of being with you. I venture to trust that the God who
has delivered the capital will deliver our country likewise. Then, as a
citizen, not as a bearer of office, will I offer my thanks to God and
share with every one the universal joy."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Op. cit_.]
He stayed in his camp and, in order to avoid an ovation, did not enter
Warsaw. No public triumph was celebrated, but Masses of thanksgiving
were sung in every church of the city.
Although he was the ruler of the state, Kosciuszko lived in the utmost
simplicity. He had refused the palace that was offered to him, and took
up his quarters in a tent. When receiving guests his modest meal was
spread under a tree. Asked by Oginski why he drank no Burgundy, his
reply was that Oginski, being a great magnate, might permit himself such
luxuries, "but not the commander who is now living at the expense of an
oppressed commonwealth." When taken unawares by a royal chamberlain he
was discovered blowing up his own fire, preparing some frugal dish.
In the first flush of joy at the liberation of Warsaw, he wrote to
Mokronowski:
"Warsaw is delivered. There are no longer either Muscovites or Prussians
here: we will go and seek them out. Go, my friend, and seek them out,
and deliver Lithuania from the invaders."[1]
But Kosciuszko's steadiness of outlook was not for an instant relaxed by
the signal success he had won. Untiring vigilance and redoubled activity
were his order of the day, both for himself and his fellow-Poles. The
short breathing-space that followed the retirement of the enemy was
devoted by him to the pressing internal concerns of the nation, taxation
and so forth. He was determined on perfect freedom for all classes and
all religions in Poland. He ordered the erection of new Orthodox places
of worship for the members of the Eastern Church. He enrolled a Jewish
legion to fight in Poland's army, and commanded that this regiment
should be equipped and treated on equal terms with the Polish soldiers
of the Republic. In a transport of gratitude the Jewish leaders called
upon their fellow-believers to rise for Poland in confidence of victory
under "our protector, Tadeusz Kosciuszko," who "is without doubt the
emissary of the eternal and Most High God."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Letters of Kosciuszko_.]
[Footnote 2: K. Falkenstein, _Tadeusz Kosciuszko_. Wroclaw, 1831
(Polish).]
Kosciuszko was a generous enemy. His Russian captives he treated with a
courtesy and kindness that were ill repaid during his own march into
Russia as a prisoner in Russian hands. He directed that services in
their own language and faith should be held for the Prussian prisoners.
A letter of his remains that he wrote to the Lutheran minister of the
evangelical church in Warsaw, expressing his gratitude that this
clergyman's pulpit had been a centre of patriotism, at a time "when
nations who love freedom must win the right to their existence by
streams of blood," and telling the pastor that he has issued orders for
the Prussian prisoners to be taken to church in the "conviction that you
will not refuse them your fatherly teaching."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Tygodnik Illustrowany_. Warsaw, 1881 (Polish).]
This letter and the snuff-box that accompanied it were preserved as
relics in the pastor's family.
The Bohemian and Hungarian prisoners were by Kosciuszko's command
released, "in memory of the bond that united the Hungarians and Czechs,
when free countries, with the Polish nation." We have lived to see the
descendants of that Hungarian generation spreading untold atrocities
through Polish towns and villages as the tool of Prussia in the recent
war.
The triumph over the Prussians was but a temporary respite. The Prussian
army returned to the investment of Warsaw, at some distance from the
town itself. The ambassador of the King of Prussia was treating in
Petersburg with Catherine II for the third partition of Poland. She on
her side sent Suvorov with a new and powerful army against the Poles.
The Austrians were already in the country. Kosciuszko, fighting for life
against Russia and Prussia, had no army to send against the third of his
foes. His generals were engaging the enemy in different parts of Poland,
at times with success, as notably Dombrowski in Great Poland, where
events continued to be the one gleam of hope in these last days of the
Rising, but again with terrible defeats, such as Sierakowski experienced
by the army of Suvorov, near Kosciuszko's old home. Kosciuszko deceived
himself with no illusions: but neither fear nor despair found an entry
into his soul. "He did not lose heart," writes one who never left him.
"He turned and defended himself on all sides."[1] Wherever his presence
was most urgently needed, thither he repaired. Accompanied only by
Niemcewicz he rode at full speed into Lithuania to rally the spirits of
Mokronowski's corps, depressed by defeat. He returned at the same
breakneck pace, miraculously, says his companion, escaping capture by
the Cossacks who were swarming over the country. On this occasion,
Princess Oginska, at whose house the travellers took a hasty dinner,
pushing on immediately afterwards, gave Kosciuszko a beautiful
turquoise, set with diamonds. It was to be among the Russian spoils at
Maciejowice.
[Footnote 1: J. Niemcewicz, _Op. cit_.]
The proclamation that Kosciuszko addressed to the Lithuanian soldiers,
found later in his handwriting among his letters, bears its own
testimony to the soul of the leader who, in the face of strong armies
marching upon his doomed nation, would give no entrance to despair or
discouragement. Expressing the joy he experienced at being among the
soldiers of Lithuania, on whose soil he was born:
"My brothers and comrades! If till now the results of your toil and
struggles have not entirely corresponded to the courage and intrepidity
of a free nation, I ascribe this, not to the superior valour of our
enemies (for what could there be more valiant than a Polish army?); but
I ascribe it to a want of confidence in our own strength and courage, to
that false and unfortunate idea of the enemy's power which some fatality
has sown among your troops. Soldiers valiant and free! Beware of those
erroneous conceptions that wrong you; thrust them from your hearts; they
are unworthy of Poles. ... A few thousand of your ancestors were able to
subdue the whole Muscovite state, to carry into bondage her Tsars and
dictate to her rulers, and you, the descendants of those same Poles,
can, wrestling for freedom and country, fighting for your homes,
families and friends, doubt ... if you will conquer. ... Remember, I
repeat, that on our united courage and steadfastness the country must
depend for her safety, you for your freedom and happiness."
He threatens with the utmost rigour of martial law any who shall attempt
to undermine the spirit of the army by representing the difficulty of
opposing the enemy, or similar offences.
"It were a disgrace to any man to run away, but for the free man it were
a disgrace even to think of flight."
"I have spoken to the cowards who, God grant, will never be found among
you. Now do I speak to you, valiant soldiers, who have fulfilled the
duties of courageous soldiers and virtuous citizens, who have driven the
enemies even to the shores of the sea. ... I speak to those who have in
so many different battles spread wide the glory of the Polish name.
Accept through me the most ardent gratitude of the nation."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Letters of Kosciuszko_.]
In the same month, towards the end of September, he sent his country
what proved to be his last message, still from his tent outside Warsaw.
"Freedom, that gift beyond estimate for man on earth, is given by God
only to those nations which by their perseverance, courage, and
constancy in all untoward events, are worthy of its possession. This
truth is taught us by free nations which after long struggle full of
labours, after protracted sufferings manfully borne, now enjoy the happy
fruits of their courage and perseverance.
"Poles! You who love your country and liberty equally with the valorous
nations of the south, you who have been compelled to suffer far more
than others oppression and disdain; Poles, who, penetrated with the love
of honour and of virtue, can endure no longer the contempt and
destruction of the Polish name, who have so courageously risen against
despotism and oppression, I conjure you grow not cold; do not cease in
your ardour and in your constancy."
He tells them he knows only too well that in a war with the invaders
their possessions are exposed to the danger of loss; "but in this
perilous moment for the nation we must sacrifice all for her and,
desirous to taste of lasting happiness, we must not shrink from
measures, however bitter, to ensure it to ourselves. Never forget that
these sufferings (if we may call such sacrifices for our country by that
name!) are only passing, and that contrariwise the freedom and
independence of our land prepare for you uninterrupted days of
happiness."[1]
[Footnote 1: K. Falkenstein, _Tadeusz Kosciuszko_.]
These were the numbered days of Kosciuszko's Rising. A Russian army of
highly trained troops under the able command of Suvorov was marching on
Warsaw. To prevent Suvorov's juncture with the forces of the Russian
general, Fersen, Kosciuszko prepared to leave Warsaw and give Fersen
battle. Beset from every quarter, he had been compelled to divide his
army in order to grapple with the powerful armies against him.
Sierakowski had, as we have seen, been defeated. There was not a moment
to be lost. On the 5th of October Kosciuszko confided to Niemcewicz that
by daybreak on the following morning he intended to set out to take
command of Sierakowski's detachment. He spent the evening in the house
of Zakrzewski, for the last time among his dearest and most faithful
collaborators, Ignacy Potocki, Kollontaj, and others. The next morning
by dawn he was off with Niemcewicz. They galloped over the bridge at
Praga. A month later that bridge was to run red with the blood of Polish
women and children; its broken pillars were to ring with the agonizing
cries of helpless fugitives as they fled from Suvorov's soldiers only to
find death in the river below. The life of Poland depending on his
speed, for Fersen at the head of twenty thousand men was nearing both
Warsaw and Suvorov, Kosciuszko, with his companion, rode at hot haste.
They only paused to change horses, remounting the miserable steeds of
the peasants, sorry beasts with string for bridle and bit, and saddles
without girths; but none others were to be found in a land laid waste by
the Cossacks and by the marches of armed men. At four in the afternoon
Kosciuszko rode into Sierakowski's camp, where he at once held a council
of war. The army under his command moved on October 7th, The day was
fair, glowing with the lights of the Polish autumn. The soldiers were
gay of heart, and sang as they marched through villages ruined by the
Cossacks--to defeat. They halted at one of these villages where the
Russians had been before them. The staff spent the night in the house of
the squire. The furniture had been hacked to pieces by the Cossacks,
books, utensils, all destroyed. That evening a courier rode in to convey
to Kosciuszko the intelligence that Dombrowski had won a victory over
the Prussians at Bydgoszcz--rechristened by Prussia, Bromberg--and had
taken the town. It was Kosciuszko's last hour of joy. He published the
news through the camp, amidst the soldiers' acclamations, bidding them
equal Dombrowski's prowess with their own. With an old friend of his
Niemcewicz walked in the courtyard of the house where the staff was
quartered. A flock of ravens wheeled above them. "Do you remember your
Titus Livy?" asked Niemcewicz's companion. "Those ravens are on our
right. It is a bad sign." "It might be so for the Romans," replied the
poet, "but not for us. You will see that though it seems difficult we
shall smash the Muscovites." "I think so too," answered the other.[1] In
this spirit the Polish soldiers advanced to the fatal field of
Maciejowice. Tents they had none. Fires were lit, around which they
stood or sat, arms in hand.
[Footnote 1: J. Niemcewicz, _Notes sur ma Captivité à
Saint-Pétersbourg_.]
On the 8th of October rain poured, and the wearied soldiers rested. On
the 9th the army went forward. Again over that last march the strange
beauty of a Polish autumn shed a parting melancholy glory. The way led
through forests flaming with the red, gold, and amber with which the
fall of the year paints the woods of Poland. At four o'clock the forest
was left behind, and the army emerged near the village of Maciejowice.
Kosciuszko, taking Niemcewicz and a few lancers, pushed on to
reconnoitre the position. A scene of terrible splendour met the gaze of
the doomed leader. The Vistula stretched before him, reddening in the
sunset, and as far as the eye could reach lay on its shores the Russian
army, their weapons flashing to the sinking sun. The hum of multitudes
of men, the neighing of horses, the discordant clamours of a camp,
filled the air. Advancing, Kosciuszko with his little troop had a
skirmish with the Cossacks. The general and Niemcewicz were twice
surrounded, and narrowly escaped with their lives. Then with the evening
the Polish army came up, and hostilities ceased.
The village of Maciejowice stood in a hollow outside a wood among
marshes. The night quarters of the staff were in the manor-house
belonging to the Zamojski family. It, too, had been ravaged by Russian
soldiers, the family portraits in a great hall on the first floor
slashed by Cossack sabres, the contents of the library wantonly
destroyed. No foreboding seemed to have hung over the Polish officers as
they sat at supper. They were in high spirits, and peals of laughter
greeted the quaint scraps that Niemcewicz read out from a handful of old
Polish newspapers he had hit upon intact in a chest. Shortly after
supper Kosciuszko lay down for a few hours' sleep; at midnight he rose
and dictated to Niemcewicz his instructions for the day. Before sunrise
the Russians were moving to the attack, and Kosciuszko was on his horse.
Impelled by necessity, he gave orders to fire a village that lay in the
line of the Russian advance. The lamentations of the women and children
as they fled into the woods from the flames that were destroying their
all, the wild cries of frightened birds and beasts, the volumes of smoke
rising over ruined homes, combined to make up a scene of horror,
unforgettable by those who witnessed it, and that must have wrung a
heart such as Kosciuszko's. Under a steady Polish fire the Russian
soldiers and cannon, advancing through mud and marsh, sank at every
step. For three hours the Poles kept the enemy at bay, standing steadily
against his terrific fire with artillery that was no match for his. The
Polish staff were covered with branches that the Russian balls sent
crashing from the trees. Kosciuszko himself fired the cannon with an
accuracy of aim under which the Russians wavered. It appeared as though
they were about to retreat. But the enemy's superiority of numbers, the
strength of his artillery, began to tell, and his heavy fire sowed death
among the Polish ranks. A shell burst between Kosciuszko, his
aide-de-camp, Fiszer, and Niemcewicz, but left them unharmed. What
Niemcewicz, who lived through it, describes as a hailstorm of bullets,
grapeshot and shells, poured down upon the Polish lines. How any came
out alive to tell the tale was to him a marvel. The dead lay in heaps.
Not a Pole stirred from his post under this rain of fire. Each fell
where he stood. Every artillery horse was by now killed or mutilated.
Then at that moment--it was past midday--the Polish cannon were silent:
the ammunition had run out. Riding madly through the Polish ranks,
Kosciuszko shouted to his soldiers to fight on, to keep up heart,
Poninski with fresh supplies was coming up. He did not come, and the
rumour of treachery, never, however, proved, gathered about a name that
was already of ill repute to a Polish ear. Galled by standing motionless
without ammunition, a Polish battalion rashly charged, and the Russians
broke through the Polish line. Niemcewicz, rushing up to repulse them at
the head of a Lithuanian squadron, was wounded, captured by the
Russians, and his men dispersed. Another faithful friend of Kosciuszko,
Kopec, struggling to cut a way through for his general, and thrice
wounded, was in his turn taken prisoner. The little Polish army was now
encircled on all sides by the Russians, attacking in their whole
strength. Then ensued a fearful bayonet charge in which the Poles were
mowed down like corn before the sickles, each soldier falling at his
post, yielding not to the enemy of their country, but only to death. The
battalion of Dzialynski--he who had been among the most ardent
propagators of the Rising in its beginning--died to the last man. One
who passed over the battlefield before the close of day shuddered at the
sight of those serried rows of the dead, testifying by the order in
which they lay to the unbroken discipline in which they had died. Of
that battlefield, such is the phrase, "the enemy only remained master by
treading over the ranks of the corpses of our soldiers, still occupying
after death the same place they had occupied in the battle."[1] Without
hope of victory the Polish riflemen fired till their last cartridge was
spent. With the Russians on all sides of them the gunners, standing at
the cannons, had worked till the end. A final desperate effort was made
by Kosciuszko to form up a front with a small band of his soldiers. His
third horse was killed beneath him. He mounted another, when a wave of
Russian cavalry swept in upon the broken remains of the Polish army, and
all was over. Fighting in a hand-to-hand struggle in a marsh, Kosciuszko
fell, covered with wounds, unconscious, and was taken prisoner by three
young Russian ensigns. Only two thousand of the Poles who had fought at
Maciejowice returned to Warsaw from that tragic and heroic field.
Conducted to the manor where a few hours before he had slept by the side
of Kosciuszko, Niemcewicz found there Kosciuszko's devoted officers,
Sierakowski, Kniaziewicz, who had commanded the left wing at the battle.
Kopec and Fiszer--all prisoners of war. The last drop was added to their
cup of bitterness when they heard that nothing was known of the fate of
their beloved leader, save the report that he was slain.
[Footnote 1: J. Niemcewicz, _Notes sur ma Captivité à Saint-Pétersbourg_.]