| Jan Henryk Dąbrowski | |
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Jan Henryk Dąbrowski |
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| Born | 29 August 1755 Pierzchów, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth |
| Died | 6 July 1818 (aged 62) Winnogóra, Grand Duchy of Posen, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Allegiance | Electorate of Saxony (1770-1791) Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1791-1794) Cisalpine Republic (1796-1803) Italian Republic Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1816) |
| Service/branch | Cavalry |
| Years of service | 1770–1816 |
| Rank | General of Cavalry |
| Battles/wars | Kościuszko Uprising War of the Second Coalition Battle of Trebia Battle of Friedland Russian Campaign Battle of Leipzig |
| Awards | Order of the White Eagle Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour [1] Order of the Iron Crown[1] Order of St. Vladimir[2] Order of St. Anna [2] |
| Other work | Senator of Congress Poland |
Jan Henryk Dąbrowski (Polish pronunciation: [ˈjan ˈxɛnrɨk dɔmˈbrɔfskʲi]; also known as Jean Henri Dombrowski[3] or Johann Heinrich Dombrowski;[4] 29 August 1755[5] – 6 July 1818) was a Polish general and national hero.
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Dąbrowski was born to Jan Michal Dąbrowski and Sophie née von Lettow[6] in Pierzchów, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth[7] He grew up in Hoyerswerda, Electorate of Saxony, where his father served as a Colonel in the Saxon army.[8] He joined the Royal Saxon Horse Guards in 1770[5][9] and served as Adjutant general of King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony from 1788 to 1791.[10]
Following the appeal of the Polish Four-Year Sejm to all Poles serving abroad to join the Polish army, he returned to Poland in 1791. As a cavalryman educated in a Dresden military school he was asked to reform the Polish cavalry. Under Poniatowski, he took part in the campaign of 1792 against the Russians. He was in Poland in 1794 when the Kościuszko Insurrection erupted. He took an active part in the uprising, defending Warsaw and leading an army corps in support of a rising in Greater Poland. His courage was commended by Tadeusz Kościuszko himself, the Supreme Commander of the National Armed Forces, who promoted him to the rank of general. Not only Kościuszko appreciated him; after the collapse of the uprising, he was offered commissions in the Russian and Prussian armies, but chose to fight for Poland.
Dąbrowski is remembered in the history of Poland as the organiser of Polish Legions in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. He began his work in 1796, when he was summoned to Paris by Napoleon Bonaparte, and was authorised by the Cisalpine Republic to create Polish legions, which would be part of the army of the newly created Republic of Lombardy. This was a year after the 3rd Partition of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Poland disappeared from the map of Europe, but Polish military formations gave the country a chance to re-enter international affairs with support of France in the Polish independence efforts. Thus, the creation of a Polish army in Italy, at a time when the Italians refused to fight under the French banner, was beneficial to both the French and the Poles.
The legions were to consist of Polish exiles. Dabrowski managed to preserve the traditional Polish uniforms, national insignia and the Polish officer corps. The only concessions he made with regard to the uniforms were the epaulettes, which bore the colours of Lombardy, and French tri-coloured bows. Dąbrowski's Manifesto addressed to Poles, and published in Italian, French and German periodicals, elicited a great response from the Polish émigré community. Soon Milan, the capital of Lombardy, began to fill up with scores of volunteers in spite of the penalties enforced by the partitioning powers. The volunteers included patriotic émigrés as well as Polish prisoners released from the Austrian army. Within a short time, the Polish general gathered seven thousand potential troops, whom he turned into a disciplined army.
Dąbrowski's Polish soldiers fought at Napoleon's side from May 1797 until the beginning of 1803. As a commander of his legion he played an important part in the war in Italy, entered Rome in May 1798, and distinguished himself greatly at the Battle of Trebia (June 19, 1799) as well as other battles and combats of 1799–1801. However, the legions were never able to reach Poland and did not liberate the country, as Dąbrowski had dreamed. Napoleon did, however, notice the growing dissatisfaction of his brave soldiers and their commanders. They were particularly disappointed by a peace treaty between France and Russia signed in Lunéville, which dashed Polish hopes of Bonaparte freeing Poland. Instead, fearing rebellion, he decided to disperse the Legions. This meant the collapse of the Polish formation. A particularly harmful move was the decision to send six thousand men to Haiti in 1803 to crush a local rebellion. Only three hundred legionnaires returned.
After the Legions were disbanded and the Treaty of Amiens was passed, Dąbrowski became a division general in the service of the Italian republic. He was summoned again by Napoleon in 1806 to create a Polish formation, which Napoleon wanted to use to recapture Greater Poland from Prussia. Polish volunteers again turned up, albeit with much less enthusiasm. Though he distinguished himself at Gdańsk and at Friedland, even Dąbrowski himself became disillusioned when he was prevented from fighting against the partitioning powers in the remaining Polish territories.
In 1807 the Duchy of Warsaw was established in the recaptured territories, essentially as a satellite of Bonaparte's France. Disappointed with the Corsican, Dąbrowski settled near Poznań, where he had received an estate. Soon, however he set out to fight Austria under the command of Prince Józef Poniatowski in 1808. After the Battle of Raszyn, the Polish army entered Galicia and on 15 July captured Kraków. In June 1812 Dąbrowski commanded a Polish division in the Grande Armée, joining Napoleon on his Moscow expedition. However, by October the Franco-Russian war was over and the French forces, decimated by a severe winter, had to retreat. Their defeat was completed by a battle lost during the crossing of the River Berezina, in which Dąbrowski was wounded.
He fought under Marshal Auguste Marmont at the Battle of Leipzig (1813), but in the following year returned to Poland, unable to continue the fight any further. He was one of the generals entrusted by the tsar with the reorganization of the Polish army, and was named in 1815 general of cavalry and senator palatine of the new Congress Kingdom, and awarded the Order of the White Eagle. He retired in the following year to his estates in Winnogóra in the Grand Duchy of Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, where he died in 1818. He wrote several military historical works in Polish.
His name, in the French version "Dombrowsky", is inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
During the formation of the Polish Legions, the present Polish national anthem was created. The "Anthem of the Polish Legions in Italy", written to the tune of a mazurka between 15 and 21 July 1797, was very popular with the legionnaires. It was penned by Józef Wybicki, a close friend of Dąbrowski. Beginning with the words, "Poland has not yet perished...", it was meant to counteract the rumours spread by the Prussians that in 1794, after the defeat at Maciejowice, Tadeusz Kościuszko was to have shouted, "Finis Poloniae!" ("This is the end of Poland").
Dąbrowski was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari in 1807, Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honour in 1804, the Italian Order of the Iron Crown in 1806. In 1815, he was awarded the Order of the White Eagle and the Russian Order of St. Vladimir and Order of St. Anna.
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