Kosciusko

Kosciusko (KOSCIUSZKO), TADEUSZ, a Polish general and patriot, was born on 12th February 1746 in Lithuania. He chose the career of arms, and was trained in France. In 1777 an unhappy love affair drove him to the United States, where he fought for the colonists and advanced to the rank of brigadier-general. He returned to Poland in 1786. When Russia attacked his country in 1792, Kosciusko held a position at Dubienka for five days with only 4000 men against 18,000 Russians. In spite of this the pusillanimous King Stanislaus submitted to the Empress Catharine, whereupon Kosciusko resigned his command and retired to Leipzig. After the second partition of Poland he put himself at the head of the national movement in Cracow, and was appointed dictator and commander-in-chief (1794). His defeat of a greatly superior force of Russians at Raelawice was followed by a rising of the Poles in Warsaw. He established a provisional government, and took the field against the Prussians, but, defeated, fell back upon Warsaw and maintained himself there valiantly, until the approach of two new Russian armies induced him to march to meet them. He was overpowered by superior numbers in the battle of Maciejowice, 10th October 1794; and, covered with wounds, he himself fell into the hands of his enemies—it is then that De Ségur falsely makes him exclaim, 'Finis Poloniae!' Two years later the Emperor Paul restored him to liberty. He spent the remainder of his life chiefly in France, prosecuting agricultural pursuits. When Napoleon, in 1806, formed a plan for the restoration of Poland, Kosciusko refused to lend himself to the French monarch's designs. The address to the Poles, which Napoleon published in Kosciusko's name in the Moniteur, was a fabrication. In 1814 he besought the Emperor Alexander to grant an amnesty to the Poles in foreign countries, and to make himself constitutional king of Poland. He settled at Solothurn in Switzerland in 1816, and died on 15th October 1817, by the fall of his horse over a precipice. His remains were removed to Cracow (q.v.) by the Emperor Alexander, and were laid side by side with those of John Solieski. See the biographies by Falkenstein (2d ed. 1834), Chodzko (1837), and Michelet (in La Pologne Martyr, 1863).