CHAP. LVII.]

FRESH INSURRECTION.

495

tained 1,061 square miles of territory, peopled by more than three and a half million souls.

The Confederation of Targowitz having fulfilled its purpose, Catharine caused it to be annulled, and the old Constitution was nominally restored, September 15th. The Prussian treaty was almost immediately followed by a treaty of alliance between the Polish Republic and the Empress Catharine, October 16th.1 This convention, under the names of an indissoluble union and defensive alliance, virtually rendered the Poles subject to Russia. The King and Republic of Poland engaged to leave the direction of military and political matters to the Empress and her successors; her troops were to have free entry into Poland; and the Republic were to conclude no treaties with foreign Powers, nor even to negotiate with them, except in concert with Russia.

Among the last acts of the Diet of Grodno were a revision of the Constitution, the restoration of the King to the prerogatives of which he had been deprived by the Confederation of Targowitz, and the readjustment of what remained of Poland into eleven Palatinates, eight in Poland and three in Lithuania. It separated November 24th, after annulling all the acts of the Confederation of Targowitz, and thus, among other things, re-establishing a military order for those who should distinguish themselves in a war against Russia! For suffering these decrees to pass, through inadvertence, Sievers was superseded in the Russian embassy by General Igelström, a man of still more violent character. Igelström compelled the King and Permanent Council to cancel the Decrees by what was called a Universal, January 10th, 1794.

After the disastrous campaign of 1792 several of the Polish patriots, as Kollentay, Ignatius Potocki, Kosciuszko, and others, had retired into Saxony. But they were still animated with the hope of rescuing their country from oppression; and it was not long before an arbitrary act of the Russian ambassador seemed to offer an opportunity for accomplishing their purpose. Igelström had directed the Permanent Council to reduce the Polish army to 15,000 men. This measure, besides wounding the national feelings, was unjust in a pecuniary point of view. Many officers had purchased their posts, and depended on them for subsistence; some were in advance for the pay of the soldiers, others had enlisted them at their own expense. This offence was given at a moment when the national feeling was already in a state of ferMartens, ibid. p. 536.

1

496

KOSCIUSZKO GENERALISSIMO.

[CHAP. LVII. mentation. Much excitement and turbulence had been displayed in the Dietines assembled in February, 1794, för the elections under the new Constitution. The symptoms were so alarming that Igelström deemed it necessary to form a Russian camp near Warsaw, to retain that city in obedience. The insurrection of 1794 was commenced by Madalinski, a general of brigade, stationed at Pultusk, about eight leagues from Warsaw. Madalinski, having been ordered to reform his corps according to the new regulations, refused to do so till they had received their pay, which was two months in arrear; and he marched towards Cracow, skirting the provinces recently annexed to Prussia. Kosciuszko, who was at Dresden, hearing of this movement, hastened to Cracow, where he was proclaimed generalissimo, March 24th, 1794. The Russian garrison of that place had marched against Madalinski. Kosciuszko, having assembled the citizens, proclaimed the Constitution of May 3rd, 1791, amidst the greatest enthusiasm. He also issued a proclamation, calling on the whole nation to assert their independence, and employed himself in organizing his little army, to which he added a number of peasants armed with scythes. With these tumultuary forces he attacked and defeated a body of 7,000 Russians at Raslawice, April 4th; an affair, indeed, of no great importance, but which encouraged the troops with hopes of further victories.

The King and Permanent Council, in a Universal published April 11th, declared the leaders of the insurrection rebels and traitors, ordered them to be brought to trial, exhorted the Poles to obedience, warned them by the example of France of the dangers of rebellion. To this, however, little heed was given. The forces of Kosciuszko increased daily, and Igelström, distrusting the garrison of Warsaw, first occupied the castle and other posts with Russian soldiers; subsequently, being compelled to weaken his troops there by detaching some of them against the insurgents, he resolved to disarm the Polish garrison. But this scheme got wind, and the insurrectionary leaders resolved to anticipate it. On the night of April 16th, the Polish garrison and the citizens of Warsaw flew to arms and massacred the Russians wherever they were found in small numbers. A bloody fight ensued in the streets, the Russians retreating from one quarter to another, till at last, after a resistance of thirty-six hours, which cost the Russians more than 4,000 men, killed, wounded, or made prisoners, Igelström, with the remainder of his troops, succeeded in escaping from the town, and took refuge in the Prussian camp in the

CHAP. LVII.]

SIEGE OF WARSAW.

497 vicinity.' The citizens of Warsaw now signed the new Confederation, and recognized Kosciuszko as their commander-in-chief; King Stanislaus was deprived of his authority, but treated with the respect due to his rank.

The news of this insurrection was the signal for a rising in Lithuania. The citizens of Vilna flew to arms on the night of April 23rd, and massacred or made prisoners nearly all the Russian garrison. A similar scene took place at Grodno. A criminal tribunal erected at Vilna condemned to death the Bishop Kossakowski, a partisan of Russia. The insurrection now spread rapidly through all the Palatinates. The entire Polish army declared for Kosciuszko; the regiments which had entered the Russian service. deserted en masse, and ranged themselves under his colours. An ordinance, published at the camp of Polanice, May 10th, 1794, established a National or Supreme Council of eight members for the government of the Republic. The King was entirely set aside, though suffered to retain his title. Kosciuszko himself had been invested with dictatorial power, which he employed only for the good of his country.

Colonel Manstein now persuaded Frederick William II. to enter Poland with his army, neglecting the campaign on the Rhine; and, though Count Haugwitz and Marshal Möllendorf protested against so open a breach of the treaty recently concluded with England and Holland at the Hague, it was decided that, in the French war,2 Prussia should do only what was absolutely unavoidable. The Prussian troops invaded Poland in various quarters, and on June 3rd, the King himself entered the territory of Cracow with reinforcements, intending to form a junction with a Russian corps under General Denisoff. Kosciuszko, to prevent this, attacked Denisoff at Szczekociny, June 6th. He was not aware that the Prussians were so near at hand till they fell upon his left wing, and by their superior numbers compelled him to retreat with considerable loss. He now withdrew to Gora, a town about ten leagues from Warsaw, where he entrenched himself. In order to animate the Poles, the Supreme Council published a declaration of war against Prussia, June 12th, signed by Ignatius Potocki. On the 15th Cracow surrendered to a Prussian corps; an event which induced the Emperor Francis II. to declare himself. A change had taken place in the counsels of the Court of Vienna, now directed by Thugut. Early in June, Francis re

The Poles lost only 356 men killed and wounded. Von Sybel, vol. iii. p. 391 (Eng. Tr.). 2 Von Sybel, iii. 399 sq. (Eng. Tr.).

498

PRUSSIAN TYRANNY IN POLAND.

CHAP. LVII

solved to abandon his Belgian provinces, and to seek compensation in Bavaria and Poland. Catharine had invited him to intervene in the affairs of Poland by way of counterpoise to Prussia, whose ambitious designs she was desirous of limiting. Having quitted his army, and returned to Vienna, he directed General D'Arnoncourt to announce by a proclamation, June 30th, that to avert the danger arising to the Province of Galicia from the disturbances in Poland, he had been ordered to enter that country with his forces. A corps d'armée of 17,000 Austrians accordingly marched on Brzesc and Dubnow.

Kosciuszko had retired from Gora to Warsaw. That city was unfortified, and Kosciuszko covered it on its western side by an entrenched camp. He had been followed by Frederick William, who took up a position at Vola, about a league from Warsaw. From his camp at this place he addressed a letter to King Stanislaus, August 2nd, demanding the surrender of Warsaw, threatening it with military execution if taken by assault. Stanislaus, who had, in fact, no authority in the matter, replied, that as Kosciuszko's army lay between the town and the Prussians, he had no power to order its surrender; and he deprecated Frederick William's threats of cruelty and vengeance, as contrary to the example which kings owed to their people, and, as he sincerely thought, at variance with the King of Prussia's personal character.*

Many assaults had been delivered, Kosciuszko's entrenchments were falling gradually into the hands of the Prussians, and the capture of Warsaw appeared imminent, when Frederick William, to the surprise of the Poles, suddenly departed with precipitation, leaving behind his sick and wounded, and a large part of his baggage (September 6th). The reason for Frederick William's retreat was the breaking out of an insurrection in the provinces recently annexed to Prussia. The Prussian yoke was much more intolerable to the Poles than the Russian. All civil employments in the subjugated provinces were filled by Germans; the inhabitants were subject to a civil and criminal code, published in German, and were constrained to learn that tongue. The withdrawal of the Prussian troops for the siege of Warsaw affording an opportunity, an insurrection broke out in Siradia, August 23rd, and soon spread to the other provinces of Great Poland. The towns of

1794.

See the next chapter, campaign of

2 Homme d'état, t. iii. p. 13.

3 Oginski, Mém. t. i. p. 410. Ibid. t. ii. p. 3 sqq. Homme d'état, t. iii. p. 56.

CHAP. LVII.]

FINIS POLONIÆ.

499 Posen, Petrikau, and one or two others, having Prussian garrisons, were alone retained in obedience. Kosciuszko took advantage of the rebellion to despatch Dembrowski with a considerable corps into West Prussia. Dembrowski seized the town of Bromberg and the magazines collected there, and compelled the inhabitants to take an oath of fealty to the Polish Republic; an exploit which occasioned such alarm at Berlin that Prince Hohenlohe with his corps was recalled from the Rhine.

But this success was only partial and temporary. On other sides the prospects of the Poles began to lower. A Russian army under Knoring and Souboff had assembled in Lithuania, and as it advanced, that of the Poles melted away. The Lithuanians under General Chléwinski were entirely defeated August 12th, Vilna was compelled to open its gates, and the whole province was speedily recovered by the Russians. Early in September, Suvaroff, recalled from the Turkish frontiers, entered Volhynia with 20,000 men, and directed his march upon Warsaw. On the 18th he dislodged the Polish general Sierakowski, posted with 15,000 men at Krupczyce, near Brzesc, and defeated him next day on the banks of the Bug. The Poles lost 6,000 men and thirty guns on this bloody day. Suvaroff having formed a junction with Prince Repnin, who was marching on Warsaw from Grodno, Kosciuszko hastened to oppose them. At Maciejowice he met the corps of General Fersen, who was waiting for Repnin and Suvaroff, and immediately attacked him, October 10th. But the reinforcements which Kosciuszko expected did not arrive; the Russians, irritated by the carnage at Warsaw, fell with inexpressible fury upon the Poles, and made a terrible slaughter. As the fate of the day hung doubtful, Kosciuszko, with his principal officers and the élite of his cavalry, dashed into the thickest of the fight, when his horse having fallen with him, he was made prisoner.' He had received some severe wounds in the head and other parts, and was long insensible. On recovering his consciousness he is said to have uttered the words, Finis Poloniæ! On this fatal day, 3,000 more prisoners, including many distinguished officers, and all the artillery and baggage, fell into the hands of the Russians; the field of battle was strewed with the bodies of 6,000 Poles. The news of the disaster struck Warsaw with consternation. Nevertheless the revolutionary leaders resolved not to abandon

1 Kosciuszko was liberated on the accession of the Emperor Paul. After passing some time in America and

England, he established himself at Fontainebleau, and subsequently in Switzerland, where he died in 1817.