page_title: Battle of Warsaw (1831)
section_title: Training, equipment and morale
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Warsaw (1831) / Prelude / Opposing forces / Training, equipment and morale
caption_attribution_description: Anonymous postcard reproduction (published ca. 1909) of Generał Skrzynecki ze sztabem ("Gen. Skrzynecki with his staff"), an 1886 watercolour by Juliusz Kossak
context_page_description: The Battle of Warsaw was fought in September 1831 between Imperial Russia and Poland. After a two-day assault on the city's western fortifications, the Polish defences collapsed and the city was evacuated. It was the largest battle and the final episode of the Polish–Russian War of 1830–31, a conflict that became better known as the November Uprising.
  After almost a year of heavy fighting, a large Russian force crossed the Vistula and besieged the capital of Poland on 20 August. Although the siege was partially lifted soon afterwards and a successful sortie allowed a communication route between the city and the rest of Poland, a large Russian force remained on the left bank of the Vistula and continued to threaten the city. Russian commander Ivan Paskevich counted on Polish surrender as his Polish counterpart, Jan Krukowiecki, was known to be a member of the moderate political forces, willing to negotiate with Russian tsar Nicholas I, who had been deposed from the Polish throne in January 1831 by the Sejm.
context_section_description: Both sides were trained in a similar manner and used similar equipment. The standard rifle for both sides was the Model 1808 flintlock musket (a copy of the Charleville musket) and its modification, the Model 1826 Musket, with effective range not exceeding 250 metres (820 ft). Some units of the Polish infantry were still armed with hunting rifles or war scythes, but contrary to common misconception the scythe-wielding kosynierzy were but a small minority of Polish forces. The artillery used by both sides was mostly six-pounder and twelve-pounder licornes; heavier artillery included twenty-pounders ("half-pood") and 10-pounders ("quarter-pood") cannons. Apart from Russian-made artillery, both sides also used to a lesser extent foreign guns. The forces of both sides were a mixture of old, battle-hardened soldiers trained in regular units before the war, and new, unproven recruits.
  The Polish Army was made up primarily of volunteers and organised along the lines of Napoleon Bonaparte's army, which meant that there was no corporal punishment in the military handbooks and the soldiers were highly motivated. The good morale of the first months of the uprising was long gone by the early days of September. A long string of defeats, partial victories, and retreats coupled with high command's indecisiveness and frequent changes in command structure (between 12 and 20 August the post of Commander-in-Chief changed hands four times) meant that the soldiers' morale was low. Also, most of the generals in Warsaw lacked faith in the aims of the uprising set by the more liberal-minded members of Sejm and instead were "only doing their job", hoping the status quo would return as soon as the tsar was forced to stand by his promises. The generals supporting continued fighting (Jan Nepomucen Umiński, Henryk Dembiński, Józef Bem, and Kazimierz Małachowski) were in charge in early September, but they were outnumbered by generals who were willing to sign an armistice with the Russians, even against the will of the Sejm.
  By contrast the Russian forces' morale was extremely high. The Russian commanders had ample experience in siege operations; Paskevich himself had captured at least six fortified cities in his career, including the capture of Erevan and Abbas-Abbad Fortress in the Russo-Persian War of 1826 and the battle of Akhalzic and siege of Kars during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828.
caption: Polish General Staff wore navy blue uniforms reminiscent of Napoleonic-era attire. Soldiers of each regiment wore uniforms in colours of their land.
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