466 Rising in Warsaw and throughout Poland [1830

war upon Prussia, again reached the confederates in Warsaw, and decided them to hurry on the insurrection. Thus the efforts and intentions of Nicholas were suddenly paralysed; France was saved from danger; and Prussia was delivered from an awkward dilemma. After a meeting held in Warsaw in November at the lodgings of the popular professor and historian Lelevel, the outbreak of the insurrection was fixed for November 29, 1830.

On the evening of November 29 two separate attacks were made: one on the Belvedere Palace, where Constantine resided, and the other on the barracks of the Russian cavalry. Both attacks, however, proved unsuccessful. The assault on the Belvedere Palace was made by eighteen of the confederates (six ensigns and twelve University students), who, bursting in, killed the General on duty, and wounded two other persons, but failed to capture Constantine, who managed to hide himself. The assault on the Russian barracks was made by a hundred and sixty ensigns, under the leadership of Vysocki; but, overwhelmed by numbers, they abandoned the attempt, and ran through the city, calling upon the people to rise, but meeting with little response. In their excitement they killed several Polish generals whom they encountered in the street, and who either had a bad reputation in the service, or, although good patriots, had urged the confederates to desist from their schemes. At this stage, Constantine could easily have stifled the movement, for which neither the city nor the army was prepared. Constantine had at his disposal Lithuanian and Russian troops to the number of about 7000 men with 28 guns. His presence of mind deserted him, however; and he failed to take any decided action. His situation was difficult and his demeanour ambiguous. During the night of November 29-30 the Administrative Council met; and Czartoryski took part in the proceedings, having been aware of the preparations of the insurgents. Czartoryski and Lubecki were sent to Constantine, who was camping with the Russian troops outside the town gates. The Grand Duke, in answer to their enquiries, declared that he was maintaining a passive attitude, and that he left the pacification of the capital to the Poles themselves.

The Administrative Council endeavoured at first to keep within constitutional bounds. It issued (November 30) an address, in the name of Nicholas I, calling upon the people to remain quiet, and it entrusted the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army to General Chlopicki. The latter, however, on hearing of the outbreak, remained in concealment, not wishing to take the lead. Meanwhile, the revolutionaries had a free hand, and seized the whole of Warsaw. Like a flash of lightning the movement spread over the whole country. On the following day (December 1) the Council, under the pressure of public opinion, was obliged to exceed the formal limits of legality, by removing from its midst certain unpopular members, and to strengthen its position, by appointing in their stead popular Deputies of the Diet. On December 2,

1830] Constantine retires. — Chlopicki Dictator 467

Czartoryski and Lubecki, with two Deputies of the Diet, Lelevel and Ostro vski, were again sent to Constantine. The two first-named expressed the wish that the Grand Duke should return to Warsaw; but the others, being more extreme in their views, declared themselves in favour of his withdrawal from the kingdom, together with the troops that were with him. The latter course was adopted; Constantine undertook to urge Nicholas to grant an amnesty to the insurgents, and promised not to take any military action without giving forty-eight hours' notice, nor to give orders to the Lithuanian corps to enter the kingdom. He refused, on the other hand, to intercede with the Emperor respecting the annexation of Lithuania. On the following day (December 3) he issued a proclamation, as Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army, authorising the troops to meet their compatriots. On the same day he departed, and, on December 12, crossed the frontier of the kingdom. In permitting this the revolutionaries had committed a grave blunder; they lost, in the person of the Grand Duke, a valuable hostage ; they lost, moreover, troops among whom at least a large proportion of the Lithuanian rank and file and non-commissioned officers might easily have been persuaded to join the Polish army. These, having been allowed to depart, were destined to become the vanguard of the Russian army; and Russia retained the Lithuanian corps intact.

After the removal of the capable but unpopular Lubecki (who had at first thought of quelling the rebellion, but afterwards, upon seeing how it spread, took active steps to turn it to account), an Interim Government of the kingdom of Poland was formed (December 4) of seven persons, viz. Czartoryski, Kochanovski, Pac, Niemczevicz, Lelevel, Ostrovski, and Dembovski, while the entire control of the armed forces was bestowed upon Chlopicki.

Chlopicki, who had at last emerged from his concealment, declared himself Dictator (December 5) until the meeting of the Extraordinary Diet. Heads were assigned to the various Government Departments. The Dictator sent Colonel Vylezynski to St Petersburg with a report to Nicholas, while the superseded Government sent Lubecki and the deputy, Jezierski, on a similar mission (December 10). These missions should have enabled the Poles to gain time for arming and taking the offensive ; but, on the contrary, as they were based on a delusive hope of an amicable agreement, they had the effect only of checking the Polish preparations, and giving time to the Russians. Chlopicki was an able soldier, but lacked the political talent requisite for a revolutionary leader. He was already sixty years of age, and having served under Napoleon, was accustomed only to regular warfare. He did not believe in the success of the insurrection, and considered it madness on the part of the Poles to hurl themselves against a Power to which even Napoleon himself had yielded. He placed his sole hope in negotiations, and never understood that Poland was at war with Russia.

468 Military position of Russia [1830-1

The Polish forces were in all 29 battalions of infantry, 28,000 strong, 38 squadrons of cavalry, 7000 strong, and 106 guns. Further, with the ten years' period of service in force, the military authorities had at their immediate disposal effective reservists to the number of 20,000 (35,000 nominal). Considering the perfect organisation of the Polish army, it would have been possible, by taking energetic steps, to have raised almost at once an army of 80,000 men, without resorting to a general levy. In the Treasury there was, in ready money, a sum of 67 million florins. The budget for 1831, calculated for an army of 120,000 and amounting to 133 millions, was provided for without great difficulty. The weak point was the lack of field artillery; and there were no ordnance-works in the kingdom.

The Russians, on the other hand, notwithstanding the immense forces they nominally possessed, had but an insignificant fraction available, and that, too, quite unprepared. The Lithuanian corps of General Rosen amounted to 38,000 men; but these were scattered, and could not be assembled on the Brest-Bialystok line before the middle of December. Moreover, a part of their officers, especially of the lower grades, were Poles (about one-third of whom belonged to the patriotic societies) while the common soldiers were Lithuanians and White Russians. Corps I, composed of 33,000 men, was spread out between Mitau and Vilna, and could only be concentrated on Brest towards the middle of January; while the corps of Grenadiers, of 38,000 men, from Pskoff and Novgorod, could only be so concentrated by the beginning of February. Thus up to February, 1831, Nicholas could not command more than 110,000 men for the invasion of Poland. Corps II, composed of 24,000 men from the district of Orel and Chernigoff, as well as the Guards, numbering 24,000, from St Petersburg, could not be brought up before the middle of March. Chrzanovski, LieutenantColonel of the Staff of the Polish army, who, in 1829,had beensent by Constantine to assist Diebitsch in the Turkish campaign, was well acquainted with the facts, and submitted to Chlopicki (December 7) a bold but the only practicable scheme of offensive action. He advised marching at once on Lithuania in full strength, and there breaking up and incorporating the Lithuanian corps, occupying Vilna and annihilating one by one the advancing corps of the Russians. This plan was, however, rejected by Chlopicki, as also was another one more modest in its scope, framed by the able Lieutenant-Colonel Prondzynski — that of offering a resistance, at once defensive and offensive, in accordance with Napoleon's tactics, on the fortified triangle formed by the fortresses of Warsaw (Praga), Modlin, and Sierock. In the end it was decided to act purely on the defensive, i.e. to await the enemy outside Warsaw itself, and then engage in a decisive battle, not so much with the hope of victory as of saving the military honour of the Polish army. This was the only plan to which Chlopicki's military genius could rise.

Meanwhile (December 18) the Extraordinary Diet met under the presidency of Ostrovski. It confirmed (December 20) the dictatorship of Chlopicki; but after the return of the envoys from St Petersburg (January 6) Chlopicki, in view of their report and Nicholas' obdurate attitude, resigned the dictatorship (January 17). The Diet assembled (January 19) and appointed Radzivil Commander-in-Chief; and, after hearing the report of Jezierski, solemnly announced the dethronement of Nicholas and the exclusion of the Romanoffs from the sovereignty of Poland (January 26). The act of dethronement was a double blunder; it tended to hasten the warlike action of Russia, and it rendered diplomatic intervention by the Powers more difficult, while it afforded no solution of the question of armed defence. A new executive body called the National Government was formed. Titles I and II, as well as Article 108 of the Constitution, were altered; and a new form of government, a kind of constitutional monarchy, was adopted, leaving the selection of a King to be made at a later date. During these deliberations, the Russians entered the kingdom, and the first battles were fought, for which indeed no sufficient preparations had yet been made. At the beginning of February there were ready on the Polish side four divisions of infantry, three divisions of cavalry, making altogether 45 battalions and 80 squadrons, or about 48,000 men and 136 guns, besides the division of General Dvernicki between the Vistula and the Pilica, 4000 National Guards in Warsaw, and various small bands of volunteers.

Nicholas I, on the evening of December 7, received in St Petersburg news of the Warsaw rising. He at once dispatched in all directions orders to mobilise and signed two decrees (December 13), one appointing Diebitsch Commander-in-Chief of the Army which was to take the field against Poland, and the other declaring the provinces of Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk, Volhynia, Podolia, and the district of Bialystok to be under martial law. He also issued a proclamation to the Poles (December 17) summoning them to submit, while he ordered the Polish army to leave Warsaw and assemble in Plock. He took advantage of the mission of Vylezynski, Lubecki, and Jezierski, to gain time ; and, though taken by surprise, he acted with as much energy and resolution as in Warsaw they showed weakness and vacillation. Making every effort to hasten the military preparations, he managed by the beginning of February to collect on the Polish frontier all the available forces of the three nearest Russian corps.

On February 5 and 6, 1831, Diebitsch entered the kingdom at the head of 114,000 men and with 336 guns, and marched straight on Warsaw. After the first serious engagements, at Stoczek and Dobre (February 14), which proved favourable to the Poles, the final struggle commenced on the fields of Grochov near Warsaw (February 19), the first encounters gradually leading on to a pitched battle (February 25). A furious fight concentrated around the henceforth historic wood

470 Military operations [1831

(Olszynka), three times lost and retaken at the point of the bayonet by the Poles, in which the 4th regiment of infantry (Lukasinski's) greatly distinguished itself. Radzivil was nominally in command, but Chlopicki actually directed operations. The Poles finally gave way before the overwhelming numbers opposed to them; but the success of Diebitsch was only tactical, not strategical, and was, moreover, only gained by a great sacrifice of men (fifteen thousand men on the Russian side and rather less on the Polish side being killed or wounded). This battle shook the belief in the military superiority of Russia, weakened Diebitsch's hopes of an easy victory, and considerably strengthened the feeling of the Polish troops as regards their own fighting capacity.

The result of the battle was not at first understood in Warsaw. There were fears of losing the capital; the Diet, in alarm, passed the proposal (February 19-26) to form a Permanent Diet, authorised to meet, with a restricted number of members, at some place outside Warsaw, or else abroad. The day after the battle Skrzynecki was appointed Commander-in-Chief. This officer had distinguished himself at Grochov; he had served formerly in the campaigns of Napoleon (1807, 1812-3) and was of great personal courage, but had no military talent; he was, in fact, vacillating, lazy, and more inclined for the finesse of diplomacy than for warlike action. Attached to him, however, were two very competent men — viz. the precise and methodical Chrzanovski, as Chief of the Staff, and the clever and ambitious Prondzynski, as Quartermaster-General. Soon the favourable situation created for Poland by the battle of Grochov became apparent. Diebitsch found himself compelled under most unfavourable conditions to enter into winter quarters on the right bank of the Vistula; and thus the Polish Staff had the opportunity of quietly setting about the reorganisation of the Polish army.

Rapidly and skilfully four divisions of infantry and two corps of cavalry were made available for service, with a division of cavalry reserves, altogether 51,000 men. In addition there were three corps of reserves more than 20,000 strong; the garrisons and depots in Warsaw, Modlin, and Zamosc, numbering about 20,000 men, the National Guards of Warsaw 6000, and the volunteer bands in Plock and Augustov 3000 — a total of about 100,000 men. This remarkable result afforded a clear proof of the mistakes made by Chlopicki, in neglecting the work of organisation, which would have been far easier three months sooner, when a large part of the country was still unoccupied by the enemy. Prondzynski now proposed to throw the whole effective army of 50v000 men on the Lithuanian corps, which was then scattered along the Brest road. This excellent idea after some delay was partially accepted by Skrzynecki (March 31), who took the field with 36,000 men and actually cut to pieces the Russian corps of General Rosen at Dembe Wielkie and Iganie; but it was then too late. But for his defective arrangements, Skrzynecki