Even Sierawski was destined for higher things. The brass considered him a genius, a prodigy. They had made him adjutant to a major, no less, and were grooming him, also, for a division. His skills as an engineer were greatly in demand, and highly esteemed. Whilst, on the contrary, we had no shortage of junior cavalrymen with bad disciplinary records.
As for myself, then, I was the odd man out. Stuck in the infantry, and under suspicion after the affray at the church. My old friend Wybicki summoned me to his office.
“The French are furious,” he said darkly, disappointment writ all over his face. “I have promised to investigate for them, to keep the French gendarmes out of this. You’d best take a few days leave, Blumer,” Wybicki said, furious. “Dismissed!”
Of course, he was too polite to say anything, but I had let him down, and the whole Legion, too. I had behaved like a pistolet – a stupid hothead. I had behaved exactly as the rumours said we Poles did – like a fierce, savage barbarian.
Luchina, though, was greatly taken with savagery. She had a cannibal heart and wild lust for blood. Well, any stable in a storm. Disheartened, and chastened, I frequented the Via Faustina. Her house there was as large as a small palace – a palazzo, she called it – and inside it shone as gaudy as a heaven fashioned by magpies. A boudoir of pink, green and gold. Every wall glittered with decadent mosaics. Forests of crystal glass and gilt furniture glowed and sparkled amongst guttering candles. For a few deluded days, lying under cracked ceilings with faded painted angels, I tarried with that wicked little painted devil. There, in the Via Faustina, I discovered that Luchina’s jewel’s were paste.
“Hell’s bells,” I cursed, pulling on my boots, and glancing at the clock, for it was gone midnight, “who calls?”
“It is my husband!” Luchina cried, delighted, letting the bedclothes fall from her uncorseted bosom. Down in the hallway below all was chaos. A carriage arrived. Dogs barked. Servants ran hither and thither. Doors slammed. Boots marched up the stairs.
“You must challenge him!” she demanded, flashing her ivory teeth, thrusting my sabre into my hands. In the moonlight, one could see the pocks and blemishes on her powdered skin. I had no stomach for this painted harlot any longer, and had rather take my chances with the military police.
“Upon my soul!” I laughed, “what, end a man’s life, for the sake of a strumpet! What do you take me for, madam – an assassin?”
“Damn you, treacherous seducer!” Luchina cried, eyes dark as daggers. She screamed, and hurled a stiletto at me. It wedged in a window frame. I bowed, pulled on my kontusz, and strolled out to the balcony. Outside, the moon glowed. Pan Twardowski laughing at me again, the son of a bitch.
After scrambling down the curtain-ropes and vines I met Birnbaum in a nearby inn, where our horses were stabled. As we were leaving, we ran full pelt into a figure with dark curly hair and moustaches, swathed in billowing smoke and cloak, silhouetted against the eerie glow of the fire, like a cameo of Satan. We thought it was the Devil come to collect our souls, so I prayed to the Virgin, and Birnbaum called on Jehovah, but it was worse than that –
“General Zayonczek!” we said, saluting. After a few brief seconds, I recovered my senses.
“What a surprise! That is, a pleasant surprise! We thought you dead, Sir! How the Devil did you escape?” I asked, nonplussed.
“My wife pulled some strings and got me out of that stinking Austrian gaol,” Zayonczek replied. Zayonczek’s wife was of course the beautiful ice-maiden who we had escorted out of Warsaw, before it was taken. She was wealthy and well-connected. She had freed her husband, by hook or by crook.
“So here I am!” Zayonczek said, “and here you are too – in the nick of time! Well, get your horses, and let’s be on our way, comrades!”
We collected our horses and then we lost ourselves in the backstreets. Scant moments later, as we rode out onto the highway, we became sensible of a great commotion, a vast noise of hooves in the darkness, and then a great body of horsemen were upon us. Zayonczek’s men.
“A strong wife,” Zayonczek boasted, gloating about his gorgeous spouse, “is the greatest treasure a man can have.”
“I’ve not had much luck with women recently,” I admitted.
“Well, you must get yourself a wife, lad. We shall get you one when we conquer England!” Zayonczek laughed.
“Indeed, Sir,” I replied, having not the faintest idea what this wild lunatic was raving about. England? I glanced at the stars. We were riding north. North to Civitavecchia. The port. Hills and forests whirled by, dark shapes on the horizon, black trees on a low sky, silhouetted in silver by the light of Twardowski’s moon. Behind me were gendarmes and a vengeful medusa. Ahead of me was the devil-knew-what. By my side, was, well, a madman!
“I’m glad you could make it, Blumer,” said Zayonczek, “I need good Podolian lads, especially those with English blood, and the English tongue.”
“I have Irish blood, Sir,” I averred, “but I speak the language tolerably well.” Still I was in ignorance.
“Better yet, boy!” Zayonczek declared, greatly delighted. “That will be invaluable. The English oppress the Irish as the Russians oppress us Poles. We will find many Irish allies in England! This morning we set sail with General Bonaparte – for the invasion!”
“By the Blessed Virgin!” I whispered, appalled. “I thought Dabrowski had kept us out of this – ahem – splendid plan?” I asked, horrified. Dabrowski had fought like a lion to keep us Poles out of this mad adventure, which would do nothing to free our Motherland.
“Well,” Zayonczek replied, “I had a word with Bonaparte, who is a most splendid fellow. My battalion have been made into honorary Frenchmen, and transferred out of the Legion, for this campaign. Dabrowski can go hang, the miserable cowardly fool!”
God help us! I thought. Birnbaum and I had been taken from Dabrowski’s wise leadership, into the arms of this ambitious and unscrupulous lunatic! But there was nothing to be done. By now we were at the port, surrounded by Zayonczek’s men.
“Damnedest thing,” Zayonczek said as we boarded the ship, “have you heard what happened to Felix Potocki?” And he told me the story. Felix had been cast aside by the Russians, for they had no further use for him. Then he discovered his new young wife taken in adultery with his own brother. Humiliated for all the world to see, Felix eked out his days, alone, in an empty palace in Vienna. Nobody loves a traitor.
As we boarded the ship, I thought of the faithful friends and comrades that we had left behind in Italy. Proud Tanski, wily Sierawski, brave Godebski. I thought of Madame, back in Poland, carrying on the struggle, her life in danger at every moment. For seven long years she had guided us and kept us safe through the disasters that had befallen our sad land. A deluge of fire and sword, the plague of the barbarian Suvarov.
From that glorious day on the Third of May, when the Bullock had signed our great Constitution, we had been through the torments of the damned. Our nation was hurled into a tomb of destruction. Waves of invaders had annihilated our armies, imprisoned our leaders, burned down our homes, and stolen our treasures. We had fought desperate battles and escaped the slaughter of Praga. Betrayed by our King, our nation destroyed, we were forgotten by the world. Our very name was forbidden to be spoken. Yet still Dabrowski and the Legion fought on, against impossible odds.
Poland was not dead, as long as we lived!
Later, as the other men puked at the ship’s rail, I stared up at the moon. I reckoned the direction we were sailing in by my compass, and the moonlight. England was north, but we were sailing south. We were sailing to Egypt.
Twardowski was still up there on the moon, laughing fit to burst. He, and Felix too, had made their bargains, and look how it served them! We of the Legion had made our bargain, too, for good or ill. For seven long dark years we had prayed for a saviour. Bonaparte had answered our call.
But was he sent to us by God – or the Devil?
KONIEC
(THE END)
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HISTORICAL NOTES
GENERAL DABROWSKI’S LEGION
The story of General Dabrowski’s legendary Legion is one of the most tragic and heroic in military history. But although there are hundreds of novels set in the age of Napoleon, there is not a single novel in the English language about Dabrowski’s Legion. If mine is not the definitive work in English, it is at least (as far as I know) the first. In Napoleonic novels, Polish soldiers crop up as stage villains (or staunch French allies), but certainly not as heroes. There was never any portrayal of their desperate fight for freedom, their immense courage, or their capacity for drink, gambling, womanising, and wild adventures.
Historians disagree as to the contribution of Dabrowski’s Legions to the Polish cause. Some argue that they had a propaganda value and nothing more. Yet it is generally accepted that the Legions were as good as the best French army units, at a time when the French were universally agreed to be the best soldiers in the world.
Napoleon recognised the military value and bravery of the Poles, but he used them with great cynicism. The Poles were not unique in that. Napoleon considered all soldiers, including French, to be expendable. The Legion itself was subjected to frequent changes of name and organisation by Napoleon, sometimes for sound military reasons, sometimes for dubious political ones. Even so, it remained recognisably Dabrowski’s Legion.
Ironically, although their enemies referred to Dabrowski’s regiment as ‘The Foreign Legion’, the French themselves did not use the term until after the Bourbon restoration, and Napoleon had been exiled to St Helena. Nevertheless, Dabrowski’s Legion was the direct forerunner of the regiment that still serves France today, called the Hohelohe Legion in 1821, then renamed The Foreign Legion in 1831. Both contained many Polish soldiers who had fought for Dabrowski.
The late Professor Jan Pachonski wrote the seminal Polish textbooks on Dabrowski’s Legion. I am indebted in particular to his masterwork “Prawda I Legendy” (“Truth and Legend”), now sadly out of print. A bibliography of English and Polish reference works is included for those who wish to read further – and whose Polish is up to it!
As far as possible, my descriptions of the Partition of Poland and the formation of Dabrowski’s Legion, are historically accurate. But as I discovered, and as Professor Pachonski himself admitted, there were often gaps in the records, or contradictory accounts. Dabrowski was putting together the Legion from scratch in difficult circumstances after the Polish Republic was destroyed by violent foreign invasions. For a writer, though, this is a gift. It gives me the excuse to put my characters in the thick of the action. Occasionally there is a total gap in history, or an inconsistency. I have therefore sometimes had to invent or alter the facts for dramatic purposes. Out of respect for the Legions, I have included a set of notes at the back of this book showing where I have done this. Often what I have invented was less strange than the real history.
I needed to enlist a hero of Dabrowski’s Legion, and in my research I found a real person more extraordinary than any character I would have ever dared to invent. This is Ignatius Blumer, the half-Irish, half-Polish gentleman soldier. Blumer fought at a score of legendary battles from Zielence to the Berezina, and was awarded both the Virtuti Militari and the Legion D’Honneur, the Polish and French equivalents of the Victoria Cross. He was a controversial man, with many enemies, happy to bend the rules, and involved in a lot of political skulduggery. He would have heartily approved of Pepi’s strong arm tactics on the Third of May.
Blumer is buried in the Powazki Cemetery in Warsaw. His opulent marble tomb, which I visited on the 177th anniversary of his death, in the November snows, is a national monument. He lies in the crypt beside the love of his life, his first wife, the beautiful and vivacious Countess Marianne Cecciopieri. Blumer’s friend, the martyred poet Cyprian Godebski, is buried a few yards away. In this book I have narrated only the first seven years of Blumer’s eventful career, which was full of bizarre adventures, triumph and tragedy. Next year I will follow Blumer to Egypt, and beyond...
MICHAEL LARGE, ESSEX, 2011
HISTORICAL NOTES YEAR BY YEAR
1778
Ignatius Alexander Blumer was born in Oleszyce, in Austrian-occupied Podolia, on 31 July 1773, a year after the First Partition of Poland. His mother was called Angela and his father Peter. His grandfather was an Irish colonel in the British Army who subsequently served as Peter the Great’s artillery instructor before retiring and settling down in Poland. Blumer’s large physical stature and his fiery temper are well-recorded, although exact accounts vary. He was nicknamed ‘Blumerowski’ and later, ‘General Pistolet’. He is known to have had a dry, sardonic sense of humour. Blumer’s home village nowadays stands within the borders of a free and democratic Republic of Poland.
I am not aware that Blumer’s father served Felix Potocki although I have seen unverified comments that he did, or was in Russian service – effectively the same thing. I am also not aware that his mother was an ardent patriot, but Blumer presumably got his patriotism from somewhere. There is a portrait of Blumer (from later life) in ‘Poland’s Caribbean Tragedy’, by Pachonski and Wilson.
Blumer’s childhood ‘initiation’ is invented but based on an account in ‘God’s Playground’ by Norman Davies. The other biographical details of Blumer’s childhood are also invented. However, Blumer did indeed choose to serve the Polish King as I describe, although he did not have to. He could have joined the Austrian, Prussian or Russian armies, as many others sadly did.
All of the details regarding Felix Potocki are accurate.
Jozef Wybicki did indeed write the Song of the Legions, Dabrowski’s Mazurka. He was a lawyer by profession and a leader of the Confederates of Bar, and later became General Dabrowski’s assistant. I have invented his association with Blumer and his mother, although Bar is in Podolia and Wybicki and his comrades did have to hide there.
The original words to The Song of The Legions can be found at (for example) http://en.poland.gov.pl/the,Polish,National,Anthem,7060.html.
The words have undergone a number of revisions and changes over the years. I have used Wybicki’s original as far as possible, with some minor changes in my translation. There is an interesting discussion of this in Norman Davies ‘God’s Playground’. For obvious reasons the changes over the years since 1797 are not dealt with in this novel. Suffice to say that the major change is that some found the original version’s “Poland is not dead (umarBa)” unacceptable, on the basis that Poland might have died of natural causes, rather than being murdered. Over time the modern version was preferred, which begins “Poland has not perished yet (zgineBa)” which is how it stands at the present day.
1791
The irascible Tanski (who later became a Colonel in the Polish Lancers of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard), the crafty engineer Sierawski, and the poet Cyprian Godebski, were all friends or comrades of Blumer’s. I have tried to stay true to their biographical details wherever possible.
The descriptions of The Four Year Sejm, Third of May, King Stanislaus-August, his nephew Prince Jozef ‘Pepi’ Poniatowski, and so on, are all accurate. The description of the King as “poor, foolish Poniatowski... reeking of macassar” is by Thomas Carlyle. The Poniatowski Palace is today the official residence of the Polish President.
On the Third of May the Sejm was only about half to two-thirds full. The signing of the Constitution was carefully timed to take place when hostile delegates were on holiday, and was actually supposed to have been on the Fifth of May. Pepi used drastic measures similar to those described to solve the terrible problem of the ‘Liberum Veto’. Many of those who opposed the Constitution were basically traitors in the pay of foreign powers, and later found guilty of high treason. My sympathies lie with Pepi. Blumer and his comrades were actually present at the Third of May, according to Pachonski, and although I have invented their participation in the ‘political debate’ that went on, it is quite plausible. The encounter with Hetman Rzewuski and Bishop Massa
lski is invented but all of the details about those two rather despicable persons are sadly accurate.
The formidable Madame L is based on the real-life Castellan of Polaniec, Madame Marianne Lanckoronska, although there are elements of other people in her character. She was in charge of a resistance network called ‘Lwow Central’, as described in the book. She arranged for Blumer and the others to escape into exile through Lwow, and she was Godebski’s superior while he was making trouble there. As well as being a military governess, Madame did indeed have a fashionable salon where there were political intrigues, as I have described. Dabrowski was a regular visitor and a picture of the salon appears in Pachonski’s biography of him.
The love affair between Madame and Elias Tremo, and Cyprian Godebski’s unrequited passion, are all invented by me. Nevertheless the dashing Tremo was indeed the son of the King’s cook, Pawel Tremo. Elias Tremo also visited Madame Lanckoronska’s salon regularly, as Dabrowski’s messenger... As for the Thursday Dinners (cooked by Tremo’s father) I am grateful to the excellent ‘Old Polish Traditions’ by Lemnis & Vitry for the details, and for most of the meals and culinary details that appear in this novel, as well as for various customs and practices of the home and dinner table.
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