Poland 1831 Uprising

This series has two easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: Czar Decides on Hardline Policy Against Poland.

Introduction
At the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, a new kingdom of Poland was created and placed under the government of Alexander I, Emperor of Russia. It was not to be incorporated with the Russian Empire, but to be governed separately, having its own constitution and administrative organization. The Czar appointed as commander-in-chief of the new kingdom his brother, the Grand Duke Constantine, who inaugurated a strict military rule, and by his errors and want of tact offended the Polish people, and at length provoked them to revolt.

Alexander, who during most of his reign was a sovereign of enlightened and liberal purposes, died in 1825, and was succeeded by his brother, Nicholas I, a man of quite opposite views. He supported Constantine in his misgovernment of Poland, and the insurrection against it was a manifestation of the old-time Polish passion for liberty, but also of the old incapacity of the people to unite effectively for its achievement. As on other matters of Russian history, Rambaud, the French Academician, here speaks with highest authority.

This selection is from History of Russia by Alfred Rambaud published in 1878. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Alfred Rambaud (1842-1905) was a French historian who spent his early research on Byzantium but later moved to Russia to focus on Russian history.

Time: 1831

Toward 1830 Russia found herself in a singular state of un easiness. The cholera had just made its appearance; fierce revolts had broken out at Sebastopol, Novgorod, and Staraia-Roussa. The Emperor seemed agitated by gloomy presentiments. He had been shocked by the news of the July revolution which had expelled his ally, Charles X, from France; the Belgian and Italian revolutions followed close on each other. The tricolored flag, the flag of 1799 and 1812, floating over the French consulate at Warsaw, hastened the explosion of the Polish Revolution.

The time was already far behind when Alexander, while opening the Diet of 1818, boasted of “those liberal institutions which had never ceased to be the object of his solicitude,” and which allowed him to show to Russia herself “what he had for so long prepared for her.” The time was far away when he congratulated the Polish Deputies on having rejected the proposed law of divorce, and proclaimed that, “freely elected, they must freely vote.”

No doubt the prosperity of the kingdom was increasing. Commerce and industry had developed, the finances were in a satisfactory state, and from the remnant of the Napoleonic legions the Grand Duke Constantine had formed an excellent army of sixty thousand men. Unhappily it was very difficult for Alexander, who had become more and more autocratic in Russia, to accommodate himself in Poland to the liberty of a representative government. The Diet of 1820 had irritated him profoundly by its attack on the ministers and its rejection of certain projects of law. He looked on these ordinary incidents of parliamentary life as an attempt to undermine his authority. He lent an ear to the counsels of Karamzin and Araktcheyeff. He put forth an “additional act of the constitution” which sup pressed the public sittings of the Diet. After the session of 1822 the convocation of the Estates was adjourned indefinitely. The liberty of the press was restrained, and the police became more vexatious. The soldiers complained of the severity and some times of the brutality of the Grand Duke Constantine, who was full of good intentions, who loved Poland, and had given proof of it by sacrificing the crown of Russia for a Polish lady, but who could never control his impetuous and eccentric character. The officers who had served under Dombrowski, Poniatowski, and Napoleon could scarcely reconcile themselves to the Muscovite discipline. Ancient jealousies and national hate were on the point of breaking out between the two peoples. Besides the Polish malcontents who grumbled at the violations of the Constitution in 1815, there was the party which dreamed of the Constitution of May 3, 1 791, or of a republic, and which desired to reestablish Poland in her ancient independence and within her ancient limits. The secret associations of the Templars and the Patriotic Society were formed. The trial of the Russian Decembristes had revealed an understanding between the conspirators of the two nations.

Constantine had made another mistake, that of persuading the Emperor Nicholas that the Polish army should not be employed against the Turks. He loved this army after his own fashion, and his saying has been quoted: “I detest war; it spoils an army.” Victories gained in common over the ancient enemy of the two peoples might have created a bond of military fraternity between the Russian and Polish armies, given an opening to the warlike ardor of the Polish youth, and crowned with glory the union of the two crowns. Constantine’s unpopularity increased in consequence of this error. Nothing, however, was as yet imperiled. When the Emperor Nicholas came to open the Diet of May, 1830, in person, his presence in Warsaw excited some hopes. In spite of the reserve which the deputies had imposed on themselves, they could not refrain from rejecting the unhappy scheme of the law of divorce, from lodging complaints against the ministers, and uttering a wish for the reunion with the Lithuanian provinces. This wish could not, of course, be granted by Nicholas without deeply wounding the patriotism and the rights of Russia. The “King of Poland” and his sub jects separated with discontent on both sides; the secret societies were more active in their conspiracies, and the news from Paris found all the elements of a revolution already prepared.

On the evening of November 17th (29th) the youths belonging to the School of the Standard-bearers revolted at the command of the Sublieutenant Wysoki. They demanded cartridges: “Cartridges,” cried Wysoki, “you will find them in the boxes of the Russians! Forward!” While one hundred thirty of them surprised the barracks of the Russian cavalry, a handful rushed to the palace of the Belvedere, where the Czarevitch resided. Constantine had just time to escape; the director of po lice and other officials fell beneath the blows of the conspirators. In a few moments all the Polish troops, the infantry, a battalion of sappers, the horse artillery, and a regiment of grenadiers, hastened to the arsenal, seized forty thousand muskets, and distributed arms among the insurgent people. Five Polish generals, accused of treason to the national cause, were put to death. The brave General Noviki, victim of a mistaken identity, suffered the same fate. The Grand Duke, seeing the insurrection spread, decided to evacuate the town and retire to the village of Wirzba; he even sent back to Warsaw the Polish regiment of mounted sharpshooters who had alone remained loyal.

Prince Lubek hastened to convoke the council of administration, to which was added a certain number of influential citizens. The majority of this council considered the struggle with Russia an act of madness, and entreated the people to ” end all their agitations with the night, which had covered them with her mantle.” This advice was not listened to: the crowd sum moned other men to the head of affairs — the Princes Czartoryski and Ostrovski, Malakhowski, and the celebrated professor and historian Lelewel. The students were organized into a crack regiment; Lelewel opened a patriotic club and published a daily paper; the patriot Chlopicki, a brave officer who had served with distinction under Napoleon, was appointed generalissimo, but Chlopicki saw no hope for Poland save in a prompt reconciliation with the Emperor. He dispatched envoys to St. Peters burg, to the Grand Duke’s headquarters, and even to London and Paris, to obtain the mediation of the Western powers.

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