CHAPTER XXII

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Operations of the main army.--Expedition under Jankowski.--General Chrzanowski having driven Rudiger from his position, crosses the Vistula, but returns to act in concert with general Jankowski against the enemy near Kock.--Details of general Jankowski's movement.--He remains inactive within sight of the fire of the corps with which he was to co-operate.--Other evidences of treason.--Generals Jankowski and Bukowski are arrested and ordered for trial.--View of the advantages that were sacrificed by this misconduct.--Discovery of a plot to liberate and arm the Russian prisoners at Warsaw, and to deliver the city to the enemy.--State of the public mind induced by these events.

From these melancholy occurrences in Lithuania, let us turn to follow the operations of the grand army.

On the 13th and 14th of June, a division of infantry, under the command of general Muhlberg, left Praga, and took the direction of the environs of Stanislawow and Jadow. In the latter place this division surprised a strong detachment of the enemy in camp, and took many prisoners. Thence they were instructed to follow the left bank of the Liwiec as far as the environs of Kaluszyn, and even to Zelechow, clearing each bank of the presence of the enemy. This division was then to join itself with the division of cavalry of general Jankowski, which on that day left for Kock. Those two divisions combined, were to endeavor to act upon the different corps of the enemy which were pressed by the corps of general Chrzanowski.

The latter general had commenced the offensive on the 16th, and had driven the corps of general Rudiger from its position at Krasny-taw, and compelled it to retreat to Lublin, continually pursued by him. On the 23d, he took that town by storm. The enemy was obliged to evacuate it in disorder, leaving a great number killed, wounded, and prisoners, and to take the direction of Kock. The corps of Rudiger would have been inevitably destroyed, if another Russian corps of 15,000 strong had not marched to its aid.

General Chrzanowski, apprized of the arrival of this reinforcement, quitted the pursuit, for a more favorable moment; and, to avoid an engagement with this combined force of the enemy, as well as to escort the prisoners, which he had taken at Lublin, to a place of safety, he repassed the Vistula, at Pulawy. He had scarce reached the opposite side of the river, when he received the intelligence that the division of general Jankowski, reinforced by a brigade of infantry, was approaching Kock, where was already the corps of general Rudiger, and whither the corps of general Keisarow, above mentioned, was hastening to join him. In order, therefore, to take between the two fires all the forces which might be collected at Kock, general Chrzanowski promptly repassed the river, reached the environs of Kock, and waited impatiently for the attack of general Jankowski, in the opposite direction; but Jankowski delayed his movement, and allowed the corps of Kiesarow to join Rudiger.

The following are the details of this expedition, as they were related by an officer of the division of Muhlberg, and which exhibit satisfactory evidence of treason on the part of general Jankowski.

'The issue of this expedition, which could have had the most brilliant results, has filled us with grief and indignation. We were marching in the utmost haste upon Kock, with the hope of beating Rudiger. On our route, at Stoczek, for our misfortune, we were joined by the division of cavalry under general Jankowski, who then took the command. We ought to have passed the Wieprz, to meet Rudiger, and cut him off. Suddenly news was brought to us that the enemy had passed the Wieprz, at Lysobyki, with 6,000 infantry, sixteen squadrons of cavalry, and ten pieces of cannon. General Jankowski then called a council of war, at which the following plans were adopted. General Turno was to attack the enemy, in the direction of Sorokomla, and general Jankowski was to come to his support at the first sound of his cannon. The brigade of general Romarino (detached from the corps of general Chrzanowski, and destined to act as an independent corps) was to act upon the left wing, and general Bukowski, with a brigade of cavalry, upon the right wing of the enemy by Bialobrzegi. This plan, which in the conviction of all our officers would have exterminated the corps of general Rudiger, and the execution of which was reserved to general Jankowski, came to nothing.

'General Turno, trusting in the faithful execution of the plan, attacked the enemy with courage and vigor. He was sure of receiving support on three sides. He made head against the enemy for six hours, while generals Jankowski and Bukowski, at the distance of about three miles from him, hearing and even seeing the fire of the

## action, remained in a state of complete inaction. Nay more, a Russian

detachment took possession, almost before their eyes, of the ammunition and baggage of a whole regiment, and they did not stir to prevent it. General Turno fought with bravery and sangfroid, notwithstanding that none came to his support, and did not retire till he received orders to do so. The whole corps was indignant at the conduct of Jankowski, and his brother-in-law, Bukowski, who had evidently acted the part of traitors.'

General Skrzynecki was deeply afflicted with the sad result of an expedition, which, based upon infallible calculations, had promised the very surest success. The event was of the most disastrous consequence to us. If the corps of general Rudiger had been crushed, as it certainly could have been, the combined corps of Chrzanowski, Muhlberg, and Jankowski, could have acted upon all the corps of the enemy, which might be found between the Wieprz, the Swider, and the Liwiec. As those corps were quite distant from their main army, which was now upon the right of the Narew, and as they were even without a free communication with each other, they could have each been beaten in detail, by a prompt action on our part. I leave to the reader to decide, whether, after we should have obtained such successes over these detached corps, we could not have acted with certain success against the Russian main army.

The corps of general Rudiger, which thus escaped its fate, left for the environs of Lukow, whither it was followed by general Chrzanowski. The corps of general Jankowski returned in the direction of Macieiowiec and Laskarzew, and the division of general Muhlberg returned to Minsk. The general in chief deprived generals Jankowski and Bukowski of their command, and ordered them to be tried by a court-martial.

But other and even more affecting disasters were awaiting us. Poland, which had been so often made a sacrifice of, through her own generosity and confidence, now nourished upon her bosom the monsters who were plotting her destruction.

On the 28th of June, general Skrzynecki received information of a conspiracy which had for its object the delivering up of Warsaw into the hands of the enemy, by liberating and arming the Russian prisoners. Several generals, of whom distrust had been felt, and who had been deprived of their commands when the revolution broke out, having been known as the vile instruments of the former government, were at the bottom of this plot. Of this painful intelligence, general Skrzynecki immediately apprized the National Government, who, relying on his report, caused to be arrested general Hurtig, former commander of the fortress of Zamosc, and a base instrument of Constantine, general Salacki, colonel Slupecki, the Russian chamberlain Fenshawe, a Mr Lessel, and a Russian lady, named Bazanow. Generals Jankowski and Bukowski were also implicated in the conspiracy. This band of traitors intended to get possession of the arsenal, to arm the Russian prisoners, and to destroy the bridges; (in order to cut off all communication with the army, which was then on the right bank of the Vistula;) and the Russian army, advertised of this movement, was then to pass to the left bank of the Vistula, at Plock or Dobzyn, and take possession of Warsaw. Those traitors succeeded in setting at large a great number of Russian prisoners at Czenstochowa.

What a terror must poor Poland have been to the Russian cabinet, which did not find it enough to have deluged her with their immense forces, and to have engaged all the neighboring cabinets to aid them against her, but must go farther, and, by the employment of such vile means, attempt to kindle hostilities in her interior, and to subject her at the same time to a civil and an external war! They had good cause for these desperate attempts. From the earliest stage of the conflict, they had seen that the Poles, nerved by the consciousness of the justice of their cause, were capable of crushing the force which they had sent to execute the will of the despot. Unable to meet us in the open field, they must invent some new method, no matter how base, to accomplish their end. It was through the instrumentality of their intrigues that the dictatorship was prolonged. It was by such intrigues, that the apple of discord was thrown into our national congress, and even into the ranks of that handful of brave men who had sworn to sacrifice themselves in the cause of their country. They employed their vile accomplices to betray us, and they succeeded.

The discovery of this extensive treason struck the people with consternation and dismay. It drove them to a state bordering on desperation. When Poland had sent and was sending her sons, and even her daughters, to the field of death;--when she was sacrificing every thing to achieve her deliverance, and was awaiting the fruits of such sacrifices, sure, if not to conquer, at least to fall with honor,--she sees that all is in vain--that her holy purposes are mocked at, and that all her noble efforts are thwarted! Can we be surprised, then, at the state of the popular mind which ensued?

The state of feeling which these events caused was aggravated by the reflection, that the surveillance of certain individuals, of whom distrust had been already entertained, had been more than once demanded; and that from an early period it was urged upon the government, that the Russian prisoners, particularly those of distinction, should be carefully watched, and prevented from holding free communication together, or with others. So far, however, from such care having been taken, the very Jews were permitted to communicate with them constantly, and to bring them intelligence of the events of the war. Can it be wondered then, that the neglect of these repeated warnings, and the tremendous consequences which had well nigh followed this neglect, should have weighed upon the minds of the people, and have even brought the National Government itself into suspicion? It was, in fact, from this moment, that the nation began first to look with dissatisfaction and distrust upon that government, upon prince Czartoriski its head, and even upon the general in chief himself. The melancholy news of the treason of Jankowski filled the minds of the patriots with bitter anticipations; they naturally foreboded, that if such treasons could be perpetrated in the grand army, under the very eyes of the general in chief, the danger might be still greater in the more distant corps. Their forebodings were but too well justified by the events which took place in Lithuania, the intelligence of which was soon received at Warsaw.

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