Wojciech Dzieduszycki

On the Crimean War

Stanisław Koźmian is the only one who mentions the Crimean War.i He tells us how young Ludwik Wodzicki,ii while staying in Paris with a group of his friends and companions, could not comprehend that there was a war with Russia, and that there was no mention of Poland on that occasion, and how Klaczko, who was older and more experienced, consoled the young patriots, urging them to be patient and prophesying that the Polish cause would eventually arise from the Crimean War. And not only the youth expected that the Crimean War would result in Poland’s reconstruction within her old borders. Many elders in our nation expected the same.

I was a child at that time, and yet the words: Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, Malaków, and Sevastopol, sounded loudly in my ears and I would remember the Crimean War even if I had never read about it later. All conversations revolved around the war. It was still before the birth of that special hatred of Russia among Poles. People feared Nicholas, thinking him an invincible ruler, and the memory of the destruction of the great army by the fire of Moscowiii and by the Moscow frost was still fresh, portending doom to the troops that would cross the borders of the boundless tsarist empire. Hence, people did not believe in the victory of the allies and were somewhat surprised to learn about yet another defeat of the Russian troops. After each of them, people cried out: “This is only temporary. Now some invincible troops, some fabulous regiments shall arrive and push the French and English all the way to the sea.” But those famed regiments came and perished on the commons of Crimea. The expeditionary corps of the Western powers was gradually encircling the Moscow fortress, but until it fell into their hands, no one believed that the colossus of the North could be defeated. People knew that Nicholas I’s rule was as strong and implacable as the frost of Siberia, from where no one returned. People believed that spies would overhear their every word and they shuddered at the memory of Moscow prisons and Siberian mines. The tsar’s despotism was such a heavy burden on Poland that nothing dared move an inch within the borders of the Russian state. Alongside the clinking of the shackles and the whistling of the knouts, one could hear tales of the capture of Warsaw and the suppression of the Hungarian uprising at Világos.iv Nursemaids told Polish children about the three sons of the assassinated Paulv painting them as hostile superhuman giants, who were admired in the fright of the defeated. In manor houses people said that life was better in the Russian partition than in the Austrian one. Why, in the former there had been no Galician Slaughter,vi public servants did not incite social discord or act toward the citizens with the obtrusive arrogance of the civilizer. One could not see the local chief of police all year long if one did not wish to see him. There were some autonomous institutions, of which back then there was no trace in Galicia, and the county and provincial marshals elected by the nobility were not just painted figures. And most importantly, the prosperity of the landowners under the Russian rule, the great lords’ princely manor houses, the minor noblemen’s sophisticated luxuries, the dissolute freedom that the nobleman could enjoy as long as he avoided politics as the devil avoids holy water — all that was juxtaposed with Galician poverty and the Germanization pressure which was already evident in the Poznań region. Hence, during the Crimean War, nothing moved in [the part of] Poland remaining under the scepter of Nicholas I.

And yet, dirty, torn, barely legible pamphlets, containing Wernyhora’s propheciesvii were secretly passed from hand to hand throughout Poland, from the manor house to the forester’s lodge, and from the forester’s lodge to the rectory; prophesies about how the Turk would float his horses down the Vistula, how the Frenchman and Englishman would cross the former borders of the Republic as liberators, about the great battles which would be fought at Perepiatycha, in the steppe of Panchalikh, at the seven graves, and between Rzeszów and Orsha, and about Poland’s rebirth in her former glory after those victorious battles. Many believed that those prophecies, deliberately written and printed by Sadyk Pasha Czajkowski,viii would certainly come true because of the Crimean War, and who knows if similar prophecies spread orally among the Ukrainian people were the reason why the local peasants came to manor houses, asking if it was not high time that they had taken the scythe and regained the old Cossack freedom. Spread by Towiańskiix and great émigré poets, a different mystical faith, the Napoleonic cult, had more influence on the Poles. Already at that time, many Poles saw a political messiah in Napoleon III. Mickiewiczx was kindling hopes. He wrote his Latin poem “ad captum Bomarsundum”xi and then went to Constantinople to the Polish legion which was being formed there, and he gave those mystical hopes an ultimate blessing by dying in the Turkish capital. So even though it was quiet in Poland, the émigrés were seething about raising of the Polish issue. The whole nation’s expectations were heightened and everyone’s eyes were turned to the West, to the grand capitals of the allied powers.

Our émigrés had their king in those olden days. He was the king of the émigré minority, whom the majority sometimes ignobly cursed and who back at home was accused of being self-proclaimed. But he was Prince Adam Czartoryski,xii whom not only his family name, but also his extraordinary personal merits gave a superior position.

One could say that European public opinion took his kingship seriously. It was not ridiculous at all but indeed serious, when once a year the old prince spoke to his people and the world “from the throne,”xiii and when diplomats wished to speak with Poland, they went to the Hotel Lambert. The French then semi-officially suggested to Prince Adam that his son Władysławxiv lead the Polish legions in Crimea, to which the young would rush as they had to get under Dąbrowski’s banners.xv The émigrés then invited the most eminent citizens of Galicia and the Poznań region to Ostend for a council. The participants engaged in a debate. Various opinions clashed. In the end, a decision was reached to accept the French proposal but on condition that the powers pledge to rebuild Poland. When Lord Palmerston was asked about that, he gave a clearly negative answer. Therefore, Prince Władysław did not go to Crimea, the legions were not formed, and all those efforts resulted in was the establishment of a Polish settlement on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, named Adamki after Prince Czartoryski. That time the Poles acted prudently. They did not voluntarily shed their blood for someone else’s cause.

Poland continued to expect something extraordinary. It finally became apparent that Nicolas’ Russia would not defeat the Western powers. Polish public opinion forgot about the English and the Turks, and saw in Crimea only the victorious troops of the new Napoleon. Public opinion transferred onto the nephew the cult of the legend of his late uncle. People were saying that whoever defeated Nicholas had to be invincible, that the new Napoleon would take revenge on all three partitioners for the first Napoleon’s defeat, that he would not repeat his mistakes, and that he would certainly rebuild the old Poland on the ruins of the three powers of the North. When Nicholas I, a witness to the great march on Moscow, died almost suddenly, people were saying and were certain that he had taken his own life, that he had poisoned himself, refusing to experience humiliation and defeat. They welcomed the first corpse that fell at the foot of the new Napoleon’s throne. But the Treaty of Paris interrupted those dreams. Something about Poland was said at the Congress and representatives of Russia promised that Europe would be surprised at what Russia would do for Poland. But that did not satisfy the Poles in the slightest — for they expected the fulfilment of prophecies of Wernyhora and Father Mark,xvi not some concessions. And not only the future Stańczyks, but all young Polish patriots could not imagine patriotism differently than as an uhlan from the Duchy of Warsaw or from the November Uprising.

This is how the Crimean War looked seen through the Poles’ eyes. But it is more interesting and much more instructive to know what it really was in the history of Europe. We should recall this, even if only very briefly for this is bound to prove useful!

The European order which had existed since the Congress of Vienna was firmly founded on the partitions of Poland and the natural, almost necessary alliance of the three partners in the partitions. Austria and Russia came to the fore, decorated with the imperial crown, like heirs to the medieval empires of the West and the East, while Prussia played a more modest role of a satellite. That triple power, strengthened by the forces of the German Reich and the Austrian advantage in Italy, was so great that no one in Europe could compete with it. The fantastic plans of those Polish democrats who expected the restoration of Poland after a popular revolution and the overthrowing of all three monarchs seemed more reasonable than the diplomatic calculations of more conservative patriots who supposed that France, and even England, who belonged to the creators and guardians of the new order in Europe, would declare war on the three powers of the North and face their allied force, only in order to rebuild Poland. And when people in Poland told themselves that there would be no peace in Europe until somebody resurrected Poland, they refused to see the obvious, because, first of all, there had never been such a long peace in Europe as the peace that came after the fall of Napoleon the Great, and, secondly, that peace was based on nothing other than the three powers’ partnership in the partitions and their shared interest in maintaining the territorial status quo in Poland.

From time to time, European revolutions tried to shake the foundations of the European order, and Polish patriots, though most of them were noblemen and defenders of the cause referring to the old rightful order that existed before the French Revolution, did favor the revolutionaries who ignored history and cursed the past, for the sake of their covenant with the opponents of their common enemy — the holy alliance, they sometimes denounced their nobility, repeated the slogans of extreme democracy, and even cursed the papacy, even though they considered themselves Catholics and knew that the Catholic faith offered powerful protection to our nation under the infidel rule. But all hopes of rebuilding Poland through a European revolution failed and had to fail. The power of the three partitioners, supported by England, who wanted no territorial changes that could benefit France, prevailed over all the revolutionary storms. It prevailed in 1830 and 1831, crushing our November Uprising, which Louis Philippe did not dare aid. It also prevailed over the much more terrible storm of 1848‒1849, during which Poles fought in the ranks of not only Hungarian, but also Italian and German revolutionaries. The revolution managed to overthrow the dynasty only in France, but France’s position in Europe was conditional on her ever establishing new monarchies, and Napoleon III’s monarchy was even an absolute monarchy, while constitutionalism, seemingly introduced in various other states on the mainland, was sincere perhaps only in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Our flirting with the revolution resulted only in the nobles and legitimies across the world regarding us as dangerous people worthy of condemnation; in the slogan “Long live Poland!” being shouted in popular assemblies and on almost every barricade; in the progressive and revolutionary writers and poets praising Poland, whom they neither knew nor understood; in our deluding ourselves that only the governments were opposing the restoration of Poland in her old borders and that all nations, including the Germans and the Russians, had no other more urgent wish; in our thinking that once, for example, the Germans won their national unity and a share in the government of the great homeland, they would have nothing more urgent to do than atone for that great sin, repair that great harm, and rebuild the old Poland.

Nicholas was the hero of the last crushing defeat of the European revolution. By his intervention in Hungary he resolved the issue in favor of monarchical rule, and at the same time suppressed the revolution in the Danubian Principalities and occupied those lands, which by the way had long been under Russia’s authority. At Világos he did Austria a great favor. Many thought that he saved the Habsburg monarchy from destruction. Soon, he gave another great service to Austria by humiliating Prussia, who was already dreaming of leading Germany, and when he forced his noble but weak brother-in-law, Frederick William IV,xvii to conclude an unfavorable treaty in Olomouc,xviii he was counting on Austria’s gratitude and believed that she would not stand in the way of Russia’s capture of Constantinople, especially since the Turks had sheltered Hungarian and Polish revolutionaries, which resulted in their falling into disgrace with the partition courts. The all-powerful Tsar proved naive, hoping that gratitude would influence the cabinets’ policy. Nations are sometimes albeit not always guided by gratitude or attachment toward a monarch, a dynasty, or a hero. Albeit here too he who counts on political gratitude at the dark hour is up for disappointment. All that cabinets take into consideration is the well understood or misunderstood interest, and if they are motivated by any sentiments then only by the less noble ones like fear or envy, pride and dizziness caused by success, and, above all, hatred and desire for revenge or retaliation. These sentiments are said to be worst advisors, which the courts and nations sometimes listen to regardless, bringing doom upon themselves, or at least severe failures and disappointments. Therefore, it is no wonder that when Nicholas was counting on gratitude, the Viennese statesman declared with a certain sense of intellectual superiority that Austria would surprise the world with her ingratitude.

But Nicholas was not counting on gratitude alone — he was not so naive as not to add a bait of new benefits for Austria, and that time in the form of territorial acquisitions. He offered that at the partition of Turkey, Austria could acquire Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Albania, which she had long craved. The Germanization efforts at that time were relentless. Southern Slavs, namely Croats, were shown gratitude for their help in the recent struggle against Hungary by being thoroughly Germanized and deprived of their former rights and freedoms as if they had actually taken part in the revolution. For it was known that all Slavs in Austria were seething hatred for the government, that their loyalty to the state was probably highly doubtful, that everyone except Poles was burning with great love for Russia the “liberator.” It was inconvenient that Russia, while in possession of Moldavia and Wallachia, was touching Serbia and embracing Austria from both sides in an all too friendly way. And what if that powerful friend conquered Bulgaria and Rumelia, the Bosphorus, and the Dardanelles, and her fleets had free passage to the Mediterranean and, of course, the Adriatic? Imagine the influence she could then exert on Austria with the Slavs’ help. Would Austria remain a truly independent country in that scenario? Vienna had to ask herself that. Although she wanted to obtain the promised lands, their price seemed too dear, and she knew that seizing those lands would not be easy, that Albania could defend herself against the invader for years and become for Austria what the Caucasus was to Russia. The matter had to be thoroughly thought through. It was advisable to wait for a while. It was not right to actively assist Russia in the deliberate capture of Constantinople. After the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, a European congress would finally have to decide the fate of the Balkan Peninsula. At the congress, Austria could obtain her acquisitions for a smaller price and Russia would be trimmed a little, to which England and France would see. Hence, for the time being, they did not want to make any commitments.

Tsar Nicholas did not forget about England and France, but he acted very naively again. He tried to lure them both with one bait. Fearing that one of the two maidens would reject him, he proposed to both of them at the same time, forgetting that in such situations maidens are prone to confessions. He made precisely the same offer to France and England separately and secretly, namely offered them Egypt and Syria — countries for the possession of which they would have had to fight a mortal combat. It is remains unknown what would have happened if the two maidens had accepted the proposal. Before they had made up their mind, they had confided in each other, and for now the two maidens had rejected the careless suitor — as it sometimes happens in such situations, they swore everlasting friendship to each other, which lasted only a few years. For the time being they decided to just continue confiding in each other and wait to see what the suitor would do.

It remains unknown what would have happened if the Cossack had carried the Orthodox cross to the dome of Hagia Sophia. Austria would surely have gone to Bosnia, or perhaps Albania. Who knows if England and France would not, despite their newly promised friendship, fight each other fiercely over Egypt and Syria. But what happened came as a surprise. With his obscenely provocative speech Russian legate Menshikov forced the Sultan to have him escorted out the door. The Russian fleet, same as the Japanese one that year,xix attacked Turkish ships at Sinope without a prior declaration of war. The army of the invincible Tsar of the North, led by the conqueror of Poland and Hungary, Paskevich, cockily charged at the sick man and crossed the Danube. The earth shook, the world was about to collapse before the power of Nicholas I. But it is hard to imagine what such an indecent infidel is capable of! Led by Omer Pasha,xx the Croatian renegade — for in those ancient times there were still renegades and they meant something — the Turks stopped the Russians in their tracks, right on the banks of the Danube, at the walls of Silistra. They did not give up. They repelled all the attacks and pushed Paskevich’s troops beyond the Danube and even beyond the Prut, and captured the Danubian Principalities themselves. It occurred that the world was wrong about Russia’s power and Turkey’s weakness and that even though the tsar had at least three times as many subjects, he was unable to immediately bring the Sultan to his knees.

In the winter of 1854‒1855, the state of affairs in the diplomatic world changed. The partition of Turkey was off the table as it would have triggered war between France and England, and who knows if Prussia would not have declared war against Austria. And Turkey would have weighted heavily on the side that would defend her intactness. Frightened Europe faced another specter. She feared that the Turkish victories could fuel Muslim fanaticism, which would have echoed loudly as far as Algeria and India, if the Sultan had fancied to play a kalif and pull out the Prophet’s banner from an old seray and fly it over the Bosphorus. And the Turks could have done even more harm. In their ranks there were some Polish and Hungarian émigrés, who were ready to cross the Prut and the Dniester and start a Polish uprising, ignite a revolutionary fire in Hungary, obtain support from all revolutionaries of Europe, couple the pan-Islamic cause with the revolutionary cause and shake the world, which would have been all the more dangerous as the great advantages could have drawn to their side many a crowned head and that no one in the old courts could trust that revolutionary dreamer ruling the French capital. No! If it was too dangerous to think about the partition of Turkey, then it was impossible to let Turkey continue to struggle with Russia on her own. Even if Turkey managed to resist Russia on her own, Turkey would then become stronger, while the dogma of European policy was Turkey’s weakness. It was necessary to act as a conciliator and pretend to save Turkey, while in fact saving Russia’s honor and prestige, without which the monarchical courts did not fare well. One had to separate the wrestlers and prevent a serious discussion of the Polish cause. That was momentarily understood in Vienna and London as well as in Berlin. Hence, a European conference in Vienna was held to end the war and maintain the status quo in the East.

Napoleon’s France also had to attend that conference. It immediately became clear that the courts had rightly distrusted that crowned idealist who was constantly talking about the idea of nationality in his proclamations to the French nation. France came to the conference with an intention to alter the map of Europe. She urged Austria to join her, in the name of the European order, and do what barbaric Turkey could not be allowed to do, namely push Russia beyond the Dnieper and the Dvina as well as rebuild the former Polish state. And it is a fact that that idea was not abandoned in Vienna, that the powers were wondering whether they could take a tastier bite than Bosnia and Albania, and whether they could round off the monarchy’s borders with the Kingdom and Podolia. Old Metternichxxi even recommended the creation of a strong Polish state between Austria and Russia, but he emphasized that for it to be useful it would have to be powerful, for weak Poland would become a helpless nest of revolutionary propaganda. Prince Schwarzenberg,xxii the then Austrian Foreign Minister, spoke out against Russia with great ferocity. Nonetheless, he went to Russian ambassador Prince Gorchakovxxiii for tea and died on the same night. Legend has it that Gorchakov owed his later great career to that incident, and political poets add that if Schwarzenberg had lived longer, Austria would have rebuilt Poland from the Carpathians to the Baltic Sea and the Caucasians steppes. But realist prosaists think differently.

The French proposal was actually aimed at rebuilding independent Poland, not at enlarging Austria. It contained the prospect of war with Russia and Prussia as well as the loss of Galicia. To successfully carry out that war, it was necessary to discontinue the internal policy of Germanization, at least with respect to Hungary, break with the old traditions of the Austrian court and government, and fraternize with the revolution. And that was possible only at the cost of relinquishing Lombardy and Venice, namely the loss of yet another province. In order to act on Napoleon’s proposal or suggestion, it was necessary to light a roof over one’s head and spread the fire across Europe, with the prospect that the alliance with the moderate monarchical revolution would also occasion internal outbreaks of a radical revolution, and that the Czechs and Croats would ally with Russia, and many Germans with Prussia. It was necessary to go on a crazy adventure to ultimately lose two beautiful and large provinces or, in the best case scenario, replace them with Romania and Silesia. The Austrian statesman probably could not do that. The annexation of the Kingdom and Podolia was already a more rational project, but France did not consent to that idea willingly — she could have agreed to it perhaps also at the price of withdrawing from Italy. And again, Prussia could not allow that. Prussia could have consented only to a return to the borders of the third partition, but Prussia would have gained more than Austria, and nothing was more feared in Vienna and more rightly so than an increase in Prussia’s power. Carrying out the plans against Prussia, Austria had to resort again to an alliance with the revolution, which was completely at odds with the traditions and nature of the Austrian monarchy. It was a terrible and very dubious adventure, fundamentally changing the foundations of the European order, which was beneficial to Austria. England had to be asked for her opinion in every possible way, and her answer had to be clear. England declared that she did not want the European order destroyed and that if she was ready to take up arms, then only for the purpose of maintaining the current state of affairs. So the Napoleonic thought had to be abandoned and nobody thought anymore about changing the borders in Poland.

Now the only aim was for the war, unfortunately started by Russia, to end in the maintenance of the existing state of affairs in Europe. Turkey was willing to accept that. Tsar Nicholas knew that he had to eventually accept that but he could not do it at once, because he would have considered himself defeated by Turkey. He was in a deadlock, and the only thing that could have broken it was war with the European powers. Hence, a decision was made to start the Crimean War as a bloody comedy, a farce that was to cost thousands of lives, undertaken to stop Turkey’s aspirations, save Russia’s honor, protect Europe from a larger fire started either by Muslim fanaticism or by putting the Polish question on the agenda of universal history. England, France, and, to the world’s astonishment, little Piedmont allied with the Turk and declared war on Russia, signing and ordering Turkey to sign a “protocol of disinterestedness,” guaranteeing that the war would be waged in vain and that afterward everything would remain as it had been. In order to eliminate all danger of the Turks invading Podolia and Ukraine, Austria occupied Moldavia and Wallachia, separating the wrestlers with her neutrality in the location where they could actually clash, thus guaranteeing the preservation of the partitions of Poland — the foundation of the European system.

The war was conducted according to the plan in such a way that people really suffered and died, but without anything serious resulting from all that human suffering. Nothing serious was undertaken in the Baltic Sea. Not even Odessa was attacked to avoid hurting Russia in any way. The Turks were left in Asia Minor without help. The bull was taken by the horns. There was a landing in Crimea and Sevastopol was besieged for an entire year. Tsar Nicholas was waging the war, perfectly aware that he would gain nothing from it, that even if he achieved any military victories in Crimea, he would have to renounce all territorial acquisitions — even if only under the pressure of Austria, who put her troops not only along the Prut, but also along the entire Galician border. He also knew that in that war he would lose nothing but men and money, and that he would lose a lot of both in all kinds of ways, but he fought on persistently because he wished to save the army’s honor, he wanted some military success which he could boast of before both his own people and aliens. Meanwhile, news of the victory somehow could not reach St. Petersburg in any way, and to the loss of men and money added was a more severe loss — the awe inspired by Nicholas’ name could no longer prevail. It used to be said that when Tsar Nicholas sneezed at the Winter Station, chickens in Portugal went to sleep half an hour earlier, whereas now Tsar Nicholas was defeated and humiliated for the whole world to see. The goal of Napoleon the Great’s nephew was war glory, which was as dear to him as his life, so the French commanders fought skillfully. The English were after their prestige in Asia. The war was waged for comedy, but during that comedy both sides wanted to win battles, while Nicholas was constantly losing. He could not bear the humiliation. His son Alexander II could at least boast that where the Muscovites had fought the Turks alone, they emerged victorious and that they had captured Kars in Asia Minor.xxiv So he sent deputies to the peace conference in Paris, and as Henryk Rzewuskixxv wittily put it: “Europe got a painted room and Russia got an upholstered one.”

The Poles wisely resisted the temptation to act impulsively. However, the result of the farcical war brought immediate benefits to Poland. It could have brought greater, lasting benefits — if — if not — but “if” means nothing in history.

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The presented excerpt comes from the text “Pisma polityczne Stanisława Koźmiana 1904,” Przegląd Polski vol. 153 (July) (1904).