The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-16 00:00:00

THE INSURRECTION IN POLAND.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
Moscow, Jan, 8.
The news received here from Poland gives but
little idea of the exact state of the Polish insurrec-
tion. In Lithuania, now that Mackiewicz's band is
destroyed and Mackiewicz himself hanged, there
can scarcely be much farther resistance to the legiti-
mate Government of the country, which in all the
disturbed districts has exiled or imprisoned the
landed proprietors, taxed the estates more than they
can bear, made roads through the great woods, and
cut down or burnt the smaller ones.

The Lithuanian insurrection appears now to have
been a mistake from beginning to end. Nobody de-
sired it, and it is even difficult to determine who the
insurgents really were. Not the nobility ; for we
read every day of fresh addresses having been pre-
sented in which the nobility of this or that district
in Lithuania condemn the insurrection as a move-
ment got up only by a few misguided and perverse
men. Not the peasants ; for except in the Catholic
districts, where the priests are men of some cultiva-
tion, and, apart from their religious authority, have
a natural influence as teachers which the Russian
" orthodox" priests, knowing nothing themselves,
cannot be expected to exercise; except in the
Catianic districts of the Wilna and Kovno Govern-
ments the peasants have been either completely
passive or have allowed themselves to be armed
against their masters. Almost the only positive
outrages on the part of the peasantry in Lithuania
appear, it is true, to have been those committed at
the very beginning of the insurrection by the Russian
sectarians (raskolnila), whose ancestors, after being
driven out of Russia, had been hospitably received
in Poland. But, as a general rule, the peasantry in
Lithuania, as in all other parts of Poland, except
the Grand Duchy of Posen (where the serf of
former times has long been a landed proprietor)
are too degraded to have any notion of patriotism,
and they can, if necessary, be raised up against the
actual owners of the soil as easily as in Russia
itself. In Russia previous to the Emancipation Act
numbers of proprietors were murdered every year
by their peasants, of course without any incitement
on the part of the Government, which on its own
natural territory cannot desire to see society entirely
disorganised.
But what proves beyond doubt the hatred of the
Lithuanian peasantry for all ideas of Polish nations
ality is the fact that they, like the nobility, disavow
with honest warmth all participation
.in the late
criminal attempt to replace the established Russian
Government by a government of Poles. The pea-
sants' addresses are very explicit on this point.
Besides the peasantry, who cannot be supposed to
care much for anything not immediately connected
with their daily wants, and the country gentry and
small freeholders, who are represented in secret
official reports as detesting'everything Russian, and
in public official addresses as filled with the highest
veneration for the Russian Government, there are
also the Jews, who form a greater part of the trades
ing classes in the towns. 'They also are very fond of
the Russians, but nothingis astonishing on the part
of the Jews of Lithuania, for it appears that they
have a high admiration even for Christianity, espe-
cially of the Russian pattern. A number of poor,
humiliated, persecuted Lithuanian Jews had to pre-
sent an address the other day, in which devotion was
expressed for that Government which, until within
the last few years, made it penal for a Jew wearing
his ancient traditional costume to remain more than
three days in the holy city of Moscow, and abhor-
rence for the nation which gave an asylum to the
Jews when in all other parts of Europe they were
cruelly oppressed. The Jewish deputation having
expressed a wish to make some sort of gift (appa-
rently by way of peace offering) inquired, according
to the Journal de St. Petersbourg, what would be
the most appropriate thing for them to offer. "An
orthodox church," was the reply; and it is stated in
the foreign official or semi-official organ of the Rus-
eian Government that the orthodox church required
is really about to be bui;t with Jewish money.
Does any one imagine that the Jews of Lithuania
do not really desire to increase the number of Chris-
tian places of worship? They desire it quite as
much as the Lithuanians in general do to perpetuate
the Russian Government in their unhappy country;
and the gift of an orthodox church comes as spon-
taneously from the Jaws as the presentation of
loyal addresses does from the Poles, whether in
Lithnania or in the kingdom.

Just about the time that Mackiewicz, already a
fugitive, was discovered in his hiding-piece and
made prisoner, Chmelinski, one of the three prin-
cipal leaders in the kingdom, was taken, and before
now has probably, like Mackiewicz, been executed.
At least it was announced, immediately after his
capture, that having► been conducted to Radom he
would there be "punished for his crimes." Chme-
linsai had commanded for some months past in
what the Poles call "the palatinate of Cracow"—that
is to say, the district adjoining the Cracow territory,
on the other side of the frontier, which before the
partition formed, with the coantry around Cracow,
but one province, Chmelinski's district was said
to be held by as many as 15,000 Russians, and con-
sidering that the Russian army in the kingdom now
numbers 150,000 men, this estimate does not appear
at all exaggerated. Since Langiewicz's time the
Palatinate of Cracow—the scene of that leader's
principal exploits—has always bean occupied by the
Russians in great strength. It is not only an easy
country for an enemy well acquainted with the
ground to defend, being thickly wooded and broken
up by a chain of hills, but the frontier is only four
miles distant from the city of Cracow. It was essen-
tial for the Russians to prevent the Poles from esta-
lishing themselves in a district whence they could
keep up a close and constant communication with
the place from which they have hitherto drawn the
greater part of their supplies, and the bands in the
Palatinate have usually been defeated forthwith
when they have entered from the neighbourhood of
Cracow ready formed, while they have seldom main-
tained themselves for many weeks together oven
when they have been organised in the country itself.

in
Chmelinski had been acting some time the Pa-
latinate when in the month of October " Bossak"
came to the city of Cracow and began to send across
the frontier, in parties of four and five, the detach-
ment with which Chmelinski's afterwards co-ope-
rated. Chmelinski, after the two detachments had
joined, for ultimately they formed but one, appears
to have done duty as chief of the staff, " Bossak"
assuming the general command.
Chmelinski and " Bassak" have done as hard
fighting as any leaders who have appeared in Poland
since the beginning of the insurrection, and have
had to fight against better troops than those who
took the field during the first few months. Both
had been officers in the Russian army, which they
only quitted to join their own countrymen in arms.
Chmelinski was a lieutenant in the artillery.
" Boesak" had the rank of colonel, and had served,
I believe, in the guard and on the general staff.
He had also seen active service in the Caucasus,
where he was twice badly wounded.

The affair in which Chmelinski was taken has
been represented in Polish telegrams as a victory for
the Poles, and in Russian printed reports as a vic-
tory for the Russians. It appears, however, from
P. letter of tolerably veracious aspect in one of the
Russian newspapers that there was no battle at all
on the occasion. The Russians, under Gen. Czengery,
coming up from several points and in great force to
at ta,;k the insurgent band, Bossak led his men across
a river. Chmelinksi, attended by one aide-decamp,
waited behind to see the rear-guard safely over the
bridge, and the last of the cavalry were just cross-
ing, when the Cossacks and dragoons composing the
advanced guard of the Russians made their appeal--
ance. The two Polish officers drew their revolvers
and fired, but the Rassians tiring at the same time,
the aide-de-cam-pia horse was brought down, and
Chmelinski received a wound in the head. The rest
cf the story is not likely to be true. The dregeons,
we are told, having made a rush at the chief of the
staff, and having seized him, he exclaimed, " Do not
kill me, I am Chmelinski.'

It is not at all improbable that the wound
Chmelinski received in the head was from his own
hand. The Russians would haveendeavoured to take
him alive, in order to have the pleasure of hanging
him, and ho knew the fate that inevitably awaited
him if alive he fell into the power of his enemies.

Thus Czachowski shot himself when escape from
the Russians had become impossible, which did not
prevent a Russian officer from claiming the merit
of having administered to him his death-wound.
According to the Russian newspapers Chmelinski
was concerned in the attempt made upon the life of
the grand Duke Constantine immediately after his
arrivaldin Warsaw. The party least guilty in that
shamefuYaffair was the half-witted fanatic who
actually fired the shot, but, according to Polish
accounts, it was not Chmelinski, the chief of in-
surgents, but some relation of his who prompted
the act of which the well calculated political effect
was to render impossible the work of conciliation
undertaken by the Russian Government (at least
a couple of years after the proper time), and to
leave the extreme party—the party bent upon in-
surrection at all hazards—face to face with Russian
repression. Chmelinski, like so many of the Poles
who have served in the Russian army, was among
the extremest of the "extremes ;" and when he first
appeared in the field his harsh and overbearing
conduct to the Polish proprietors of his district was
much complained of,—a fact, by the way, well
worth the consideration of those Russians who
speak of the Polish insurrection as an aristocratic
movement. But when Chmelinski had won a few
fights and had proved himself one of the most
skilful as well as one of the most daring of the
Polish Chiefs, no one said anything more about his
exactions, nor about the roughness and violence of
a man who in common with all the revolutionary
party was convinced that nothing but a general
rising would suffice to drive the Russians out of
Poland; who had no faith in a partial insurrection
kept up in order to give foreign Governments an
opportunity of interfering in a struggle for which
they have no taste ; and who thought no sacrifice
too great to enforce from the landowners who, what-
ever else they gave, did not, like himself and his
comrades, give their blood.

Patriotism is the one cardinal virtue in Poland,
and the man who fights for his country may do or
leave undone whatever he pleases without incurring
the smallest reproach. On the other hand, if a
Pole shows himself devoid of patriotism, it is a sin
against the Spirit, for which there is no atonement.
Neither he nor even his children can be forgiven,
unless, indeed, the latter give some striking, un-
questionable proofs of not having inherited the
paternal stain. Now "Bassak," or Colonel

Hanke (to give him his real name, already well

known to the Russians), inherited from his
father the title of 'Count, but not the reputa-
tion of a Polish patriot. General Hauke was cue
of the five cfficers who, during the outbreak of
the 29th of November, 1830, which was the prelude
to the general rising, endeavoured to prevent the
troops from joining the insurgents, and were, in
consequence, tern from their horses and massacred.
This incident does not by any means prove that the
officers in question did not lave their country.
They perhaps wished to save it from the ruin which
they may have foreseen awaited it if it engaged in
a struggle with the whole force of the Russian Em-
pire. But however that may be, the Emperor
Nicholas settled their reputation for them by erect-
ing a monument to their memory in the principal
square of Warsaw, and inscribing their names upon
it as faithful servants of the Russian Crown. He
erected a similar monument at Tsarskoe Selo to a
horse—the one that carried him safely through the
affair with the Sr. Petersburg insurgents in 1823;
bat the officers whose infidelity to their country, or
at least to their countrymen, is commemorated on
the gigantic tea-urn that stands in the Saxon
Square, are looked upon by th© inhabitants of War-
saw and by all the Poles as something much lower
than the Emperor's horse.

As for the present Count Hauke, the " Bossak"
of the Cracow Palatinate, he seems personally to
have had nothing to complain of from the Russians.
The Emperor Nicholos took charge of his education,
and his path was made pleasant in the Russian army.
It was not, however, the path of peace, and his

friends say that by the wounds he received in the
Caucasus he may be considered to have paid off his
debt to the Russian Imperial family (with which,
by the way, he is also connected by the marriage of

one of his nearest relations to a member of the
Hesse Darmstadt family). He will be accused all
the same of ingratitude, and he certainly cannot be
grateful in the Rockfoucauld sense of the word,

for he has henceforth no favours to expect, and

_ .
already the Russian newspapers are publishing the
most malicious and at the same time stupid calum-
nies against him, and are representing a highly-
educated and accomplished gentleman who has left
fortune, position, and every worldly advantage for

the sake of his country, and perhaps also for the
honour of his own family, as a brigand and cut-throat
of the vilest description.

To " Bossak" and " Kruk" (whose real name is
still not generally known, but who, it may be men-
tioned, was also an officer in the Russian service)
the duty of keeping up the insurrection in the king-
dom during the winter seems chiefly to have been
assigned. " Bosaak," though he is always moving
about, still has his headquarters in the Palatinate
of Cracow. "Kruk'' has the general direction of
several bands in the Lublin country, bat, by the last
reliable accounts that have reached me (not very
recently), had not yet entered himself. "Kruk,"
it may be remembered, gained a few months ago the
best regular battle that the Poles had fought since
Sezioranski's victory at Kobylanka last May, and
one of the very few that have been fought in the
whole course of the insurrection. It was he who
sent some 200 prisoners with a letter expressing a
vain hope that the Russians would profit by the
example set them, and at last behave with some
mercy to the Poles who fell into their hands. This
has, of course, not prevented the Russians from
sending all their Polish captives to Siberia, with
the exception of those who are thought distinguished
enough to be shot or hanged.

After his victory (which would have attracted a
little more attention if the Poles had not been in the
habit of representing all their defeats as victo-
ries) "Kruk" had overpowering forces brought
against him; and ultimately he was obliged to re-
tire to Galicia, where he began to organise new
bands, the proprietors of Lublin having got up a
special subscription of a million Polish florins
(X 25,000) to enablo him to equip them in a suitable
manner.

Of the four leaders who a month ago would have
been named as the main supporters of the Polish in-
surrection, in the kingdom and in Lithuania, two
only remain. Besides " Kruk" there are several
minor chiefs in the province of Lublin, and " Bos-
sak " is said to have good lieutenants in his Cracow
detachment. There are smaller bands, too, in other
parts of the country; bat " Bossak " and " Kruk"
are regarded—or were (for life is remarkably uncer-
tain among the Polish insurgents)—as the chief on
whom fell the special and difficult duty of keeping
up the insurrection during the winter months.
The Russians say once more that the insurrection
is at an end. It might be better for the Poles were
such really the case, for it is difficult to understand
what they can gain—easy to see that they must lose
—by prolonging the unequal struggle. The object
of the Poles is, of course, to keep the Polish sore
open, in the hope that Western doctors will feel
compelled to attend to it should they find it still
unclosed in the spring. That this sore irritates the
whole European body is undeniable ; but it is
equally certain that it has proved terribly enfeebling
to Poland. It is evident that the Russians are now
more anxious than ever to make short work of the
spring as of something not under any circumstances
to be tolerated. Unless, however, they can cut it,
burn it, or feeza it out during the next two months
there will be thousands of volunteers ready to take
up arms again in the spring--supposing always that
the arms are to be had. The losses of Poland in
men have, after all, been nothing compared to its
losses in money and in property of all kinds, and if
material resources were not wanting its personal
resources would be almost inexhaustible.

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