Chapter 262: Friends of Poland (K8)

Chapter 261 Friends of Poland (4K8)

Arthur, Alexandre Dumas and Thomas Campbell were sitting around the coffee table, the three of them sipping their tea and talking about what each of them knew about Poland.

Since last year from the Tsarist Russian Embassy intercepted the Polish unrest intelligence, Arthur from time to time from the London newspapers can see some news about the Polish uprising, but that is mostly some generalized generalized news, for which the inside information and specific progress, Arthur even if you want to understand in-depth, under his hands of London Police Intelligence Bureau does not have the manpower and energy.

He could only occasionally learn some sporadic details from Fiona, who was working in the Tsarist Russian Embassy, in short, since the outbreak of the large-scale uprising in Warsaw in November last year, it seems that the Polish insurrectionary army is not too smooth, except for the initial success.

And now from the mouth of Thomas Campbell, the picture in Arthur’s head is finally becoming clear.

Just like the impact on the continent after the French Revolution in 1789, since the July Revolution broke out in France last year, many places in Europe were successively inspired by the victory of the July Revolution, and large-scale armed uprisings broke out one after another.

This is the most important reason why Austrian Prime Minister Metternich, Russian Tsar Nicholas I and Prussian King Frederick William III wanted to prevent the independence of Belgium, as the three most powerful autocratic monarchies in Europe, they were very worried that concessions on the Belgian issue would allow domestic resistance to see the opportunity to take advantage of the situation, and then shake to the foundations of their own rule.

And the facts also proved this, even before the Tsarist Russia on the Belgian issue has not conceded it, under its control in the Kingdom of Poland has already set off a large-scale armed uprising. This also led to the tsarist Russia finally on the independence of Belgium, agreed to the British Crown Prince Victoria’s uncle Prince Leopold as the king of Belgium program.

Defeated diplomatically, the iron-fisted ruler Tsar Nicholas I naturally wanted to get back hard on internal issues. In the peace talks between the Polish Provisional Government and the Tsarist government held in St. Petersburg on December 10 last year, Nicholas I categorically rejected the petition submitted by the Polish delegation, refused to respect the Polish constitution drawn up in 1815, and also refused to return the land expropriated in Poland, and stated that he refused any negotiations or any agreement on the issue of the refused to negotiate or make concessions that would calm Polish public opinion on the issue of the Uprising, the Poles had only two choices – either to lay down their arms and declare unconditional surrender, or Warsaw would wait to be flattened by the Russian army!

When the Tsar’s reply reached Poland, it unsurprisingly aroused the indignation of the Polish public, and the Polish Supreme National Assembly publicly reprimanded Jezierski, the head of the negotiating delegation, who had been holding a concessionary position to Russia, while Ksawary Lubetski, another Polish government leader who had held a concessionary position, was too frightened to stay in Russia and dare not return to his country.

Mass demonstrations broke out in Warsaw on January 25, 1831, when Warsaw’s university students gathered in Warsaw’s landmark Castle Square carrying placards bearing the names of the five revolutionaries of the Russian Decembrist Uprising, and Polish Field Marshal Ostrovsky delivered a war rallying speech under the side-by-side flags of Poland and Russia, and under the slogan, ‘For Your Freedom and Mine’. placards delivered a war mobilization speech.

At the same time, Polish peasants began refusing to serve in the labor force, laying down their hoes and picking up their guns to join the insurgent army.

On the same day, Poland sent a diplomatic circular to the European ambassadors in Poland, informing them that due to the infringement of Polish sovereignty by Tsar Alexander and Nicholas, the Kingdom of Poland had formally declared its independence from the Russian Empire, and that the new government would be led by Prince Czartoryski of Poland, former Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire.

And Nicholas I did not go back on his word in response to Poland’s independence; on January 25th Poland declared its independence, and on February 5th 120,000 Russian counter-insurgent troops under Tsarist Marshal Zabalkansky entered the Kingdom of Poland.

However, the Tsarist army did not complete the reconquest of Poland as swiftly and vigorously as had been expected, and Zabalkansky suffered a blow at the outskirts of Warsaw, where they were defeated by outnumbered Polish insurgents at the Battle of Grauhov and driven all the way to the line of the Bug River by the insurgents, and by April the Russian army had suffered from an outbreak of large-scale cholera and typhoid fever within the army, and was severely impaired in combat effectiveness.

It was not until June that the Tsarist Russian army finally got its strength back, and they achieved their first campaign victory over Poland at Ostrowinka.

But Tsar Nicholas I’s patience with the slow-moving Marshal Zabalkansky had apparently come to its limit, and after yet another stalled attack on Warsaw, the furious Tsar finally couldn’t help but lash out: “No matter how you say it, the strength of the meeting is 120,000 to 60,000, and the advantage is mine. Motherfucker! Zabalkansky is incompetent, and it looks like I’ll have to do it myself!”

However, just when Nicholas I was ready to go to war, there was a loud bang in the sky of St. Petersburg, and the general star shone brightly.

“Your Majesty, please wait, let’s see my little trick, and teach the Poles to surrender!”

The speaker was none other than the famous Tsarist general who had grown up under the fire of the Napoleonic Wars, the man of triumph who had stormed Paris, the Ottoman Turk who had won many victories in the Seventh and Eighth Russo-Turkish wars, the king of the Middle East who had beaten the head of the Qajar dynasty of Persia, the conqueror of the Caucasus region, the oldest brother who had fought side by side with the late Emperor Alexander the First, the best older brother, the one who had gained the trust of Tsar Nicholas the First, Ivan Pasz, the Count of Yerevan, and the one who was the first to be killed in the wars of the Russians and Turks. Field Marshal Fyodorovich Paskevich, Count of Yerevan.

With the strong assurance of Marshal Paskevich, Nicholas I quickly dismissed Marshal Zabalkansky from his post and replaced him as the commander of the counter-insurgency.

And as soon as Paskiewicz took office, he changed Zabalkanski’s rough style of frontal hard fighting, and cunningly ordered the Russian army to cross the Vistula River from a position close to the Prussian border, bypassing the frontal line laid by the Poles and attacking Warsaw directly from the west.

At this time, the Polish Insurgent Army was still splitting the pot over its earlier defeat, and the Polish generals who had been defeated at the Battle of Leszobiecki were all arrested and imprisoned for treason.

After they were acquitted by the courts, agitated citizens of Warsaw rushed into the prison and lynched them, one by one. Krukowitzky, the leader of the uprising, who was fighting at the front, had to return to Warsaw overnight to calm the citizens and ordered the arrest of the leaders of the riots.

After the Poles had finished their work, the Russian army under the leadership of Paskevich had quietly arrived at the city of Warsaw, and after two days of fierce fighting, Paskevich was finally able to send a message to St. Petersburg with the satisfaction that – Your Majesty, I have the honor to inform you that Warsaw is now under your feet again.

Dumas listened to Thomas Campbell’s introduction, this French fat man half-open mouth with tea in his hand, a long time before he could not help shaking his head and said: “outside the fight is lively, inside the fight is even more lively, in just a few months time there have been four governments changed, so how can you make a good revolution?”

Hearing this, Arthur glanced at him and said, “It shouldn’t be the French’s turn to say that, should it? Constitutional monarchists, Girondists, Jacobins, Hot Moon Party governors, and internally there are Ebelites, Fayans, Wrathfuls, Plainsmen, Mountaineers, Pantless Humans mixed with the Royalists, the palette of painters is not as rich as the political factions of the French Revolution, and wasn’t Paris more lively than Warsaw at that time?”

If it had been a year ago, Dumas would surely have been at the throat of Arthur when he heard this, but now the fat man’s mind has long since calmed down considerably.

Dumas held a cup of tea and took a sip: “That’s also better than London, in addition to the Tories is the Whigs, just two plates of radishes, Britons have been eating for hundreds of years, have not tasted tired of it?”

Arthur craned his head to look at Campbell, “So, Mr. Campbell, the members of the Friends of Poland Literary Society, as you call them, are all political figures exiled to London after the failed Polish Uprising?” Campbell smiled and shook his head, “Not all of them, but more or less all of them were linked to the uprising, Poland’s land neighbors were more hostile towards the insurrectionists, so they had no choice but to evacuate by ship from the sea after the uprising failed. You should know that after the uprising, Prussia provided the Russians with engineering and supply help, while at the same time blocking the border to prohibit the entry of Polish aid personnel and weapons into Poland, and Austria, although initially ambivalent, also blocked the border with Poland at Russia’s request after realizing that the Russians were not doing well in the war.”

Dumas, who was always keen on politics, could not help but laugh out loud when he heard this, “Austria’s Metternich probably wanted to bleed Russia through Poland at first, right? But he shouldn’t have expected Russia to be able to fight like this, and if he really let Poland set up a republic, then he would have played it off. But then again, if the Poles can seize the great situation in the early days to defeat the Russians in one fell swoop, it’s not impossible to get out of Russia’s jurisdiction. It’s just a pity that they wanted to talk and fight at the same time, and by the time they realized they had no way back, it was too late.”

Arthur put down his teacup and said, “So, who are all the people in the Friends of Poland Literary Society that you started that need to contribute to The Cockney?”

Campbell spoke up, “I didn’t start this literary society alone, the other initiator of the society was Prince Czartoryski, the former Russian Imperial Minister of Foreign Affairs who became President of the Provisional Government of Poland, and who had a book of Diplomatic Essays that was close to becoming a book that he wanted to publish. Brougham politely declined my publication of the Literary Society in the Edinburgh Review, mostly because of this one manuscript as well.

After all, the Whigs are now the ruling party in Britain, so the views in the Edinburgh Review, the organ of the Whigs, basically represent the official diplomatic position of the British government. Our relations with Russia are still cordial, at least on the surface, and the Whigs are presumably unwilling to offend that powerful Russian Tsar for an exiled former Polish president, right?”

Arthur asked tentatively, “Can you give me a general idea of what the Diplomatic Essay is probably about?”

Campbell did not deliberately hide it from Arthur, and he answered frankly, “Prince Czartoryski was a very far-sighted politician who wanted to find a place for Poland in Europe. He wants to make Western Europe care about the dilemma of this fallen country, a country that no longer exists, but which is still an essential part of the European order.

In addition, he saw Poland’s efforts for independence as closely linked to the independence movements of other fallen states in Europe as far east as the Caucasus. Russia’s area of domination was expanding westward and southward, and with its inexhaustible natural resources from the east and the north, Russia was becoming a permanent source of threat to Europe.

By the way, it is also interesting to note that he felt that Prussia was also becoming an expanding threat to the peaceful order, and that he thought it would be possible, if possible, to have East Prussia annexed to a reconstructed Poland and use it as a means of dismantling it.”

Hearing this, Arthur couldn’t help but lean back on the back of his sofa chair with his teacup in hand, “If His Excellency the Prince isn’t harboring a grudge against Prussia for adopting a blockade of Poland, then this is a truly overly far-sighted view on his part.”

“What? Do you think so too?”

Campbell laughed out loud, “Every time he introduced his knowledge of Prussia with others, the bystanders just smiled politely, but judging from their expressions, those people mostly didn’t believe it. But to my surprise, he managed to find a confidant in The Englishman, and a young lad in his early twenties at that.”

Speaking of which, Campbell even joked, “Although I don’t know why Prince Czartoryski sees Prussia as a great threat, but his reading and experience is there after all, Arthur, you’re so young to share his hero’s opinion, maybe you should go to the Foreign Office later on instead of staying in Scotland Yard.”

Arthur heard this and joked back, “Come on Mr. Campbell, don’t flatter me. I only have enough international perspective to get from Whitehall Street to the slums of London’s East End, up to and including the West India Docks. But I can see now why Lord Brougham asked you to come to the Cockney; his views on Russia would not really fit well in the Edinburgh Review, but they would really fit perfectly in a regular folk magazine, and after all, sometimes the lay of the land from the folk is important. It so happens that we are going to have a supplement in the next issue, called The Economist, and I think this Diplomatic Essay of His Excellency the Prince’s would be perfectly suitable and appropriate to appear there.”

“The Economist?” Campbell froze, “But His Excellency the Prince’s manuscript is not an economic viewpoint, but a political one!”

“Right! Political economics it is!”

Arthur sipped his tea, “What’s the point of doing The Economist without talking about politics? For economics, we already have a piece on Mr. John Mill, so you don’t have to worry about that at all. As for the rest of the pages, they are all reserved for politics. To tell you the truth, for the first issue of The Economist, we’re also planning to run a piece on Napoleonic Thought, which, when combined with Prince Czartoryski’s Diplomatic Essays, will surely rub off on sales. If sales go up, we’ll get a bigger share of the fees, and if we get a bigger share, we’ll get more money for the Friends of Poland Literary Society, and so on, and so on.
By the way, Mr. Campbell, do you have any recommendations for other well-known authors? To tell you the truth, our main magazine, The Englishman, is also very short of articles at the moment. Ever since two of our main writers ran off to sea six months ago to fish with the Royal Navy’s ships, we’ve had two big columns left empty. Although we have found a candidate today who can fill the vacancy, we are still short of another column. If there is a suitable one in the Society, I think it would be perfectly possible to put this column directly at the disposal of the Polish Friends Literary Society. That would save both you and me a lot of trouble.”

Campbell was overjoyed to hear this and said, “This …… Arthur, are you telling the truth?”

“Of course.” Arthur nodded his head and said, “Whether for the sake of the Polish people or for the sake of the friendship of the University of London, I am duty-bound to help where I can within my ability.”

Speaking of this, Arthur also turned his head to look at Dumas, the stagehand of The Englishman, and asked, “Alexander, you agree, don’t you?”

Dumas rested one hand on the sofa chair and nibbled on an apple, “It’s not like you don’t know me, I love republicans, whether they’re French or Polish.”

“Except for Britannia’s?”

Dumas raised an eyebrow, “Even Britannia’s.”

Campbell didn’t blame Dumas when he heard this, the well-known English poet was in a pleasant mood now and didn’t mind a few little jokes, “Speaking of suitable candidates, I do have one here. His history of exile from Tsarist Russia shows him to be a valiant republican, his friendship with the Russian Decembrists shows his firmness, and at the same time he is a close friend of Pushkin and a great fan of Byron. It is fortunate that he did not take a bullet in his return from Rome to take part in the uprising, or the world of poetry would surely have suffered a great loss.”

Hearing this, Dumas couldn’t help but put down his apple and nodded his head, “Sounds like someone who could be a friend, Mr. Campbell, who exactly is the person you are talking about?”

Campbell smiled, “Allow me to introduce you to Poland’s most talented contemporary poet – Mr. Adam Mickiewicz. Believe me, you will not be disappointed in giving him the column.”

Three thousand six left, a little later.

(End of chapter)