HOW THE LAST POLISH REVOLT WAS STAMPED OUT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 196, 5 January 1877, Page 12

HOW THE LAST POLISH REVOLT WAS STAMPED OUT.

-H, Hear Avhat the ' Dziennik Polski, a highly respectable Sarmatian paper, has to say with respect to the demeanor of the Russian officers and soldiers who were charged by the Czar Alexander Nicolaievich with the suppression of the Polish insurrection in 1863. Mar.y of the facts it recounts have never reached beyond the limits of Poland ; others have been known and forgotten. The moment is, perhaps, not inopportune for once more bringing these tragedies tinder the strong light of publicity :—: — " A name is sill pronounced with trembling lips in Po^nd, when the insurrection of 1863 is spoken of ; it is that of General de Bellegarde. His headquarters were established in Radom. He was a lean man of lofty staturo, with the profile of a bird of prey. Whenever a few fugitive insurgents were brought before him, and their mothers, betrothed, or sisters plead for mercy to them, he used to exclaim, in his loud, harsh voice, ' They shall hang; basfa. 1 ' or, 'They shall be slaughtered, and you with them!' Close to Radom, to the left of the high rood to Warsaw, there is a little meadow. Upon this spot Bellegardo had a permanent gallows erected, upon which hundreds of insurgent prisoners were strangled in cold blood. Their bodies were thrust into a large trench hard by. Some women of Radom crept out of the town during the night and strewed flowers upon the corpses

lying in the open trench. Bellegarde heard of this, and forthwith had the pit filled up, ordered a number of Cossacks to compel their horses to trample upon it until it was level with the surrounding ground, and then had the whole meadow covered with dung, so that the place of burial might be totally effaced. The murdered insurgents were Christians, nevertheless ; but. then, so was their murderer ! "General Siemiatyez-Manjukin had' his headquarters at Siedlin. He alone caused 700 human beings, some insurgents, others only suspected of having taken part in the revolt, to be hanged opposite his house. Every time an execution came off he stood smiling and watching it at his window, and always appeared highly diverted when the women standing round tho foot of the gallows shr-eked louder than usual in their agony. When women came to him to implore his mercy he was wont to beat them furiously with his fists, throw them on the ground and stamp upon them with his spurred heels. The priest Stanislaus Brzozka held out with a few resolute adherents in the neighborhood of Lublin, when the revolt was already nearly quelled. He was taken at last, an<* when he was brought before the General, the latter shouted, • Give me the scoundrel here ! ' A fearful scene was enacted. Manjukin seized the priest, struck him with clenched fist in the eyes, knocked his teeth out, flung him down on the floor, throttled him, and trampled upon him. When the poor victim was senseless, he was carried out to the gallows and hanged. " Another instructive example of Muscovite philanthropy was afforded by a colonel who commanded the Russian forces in the engagement at Fajslawice. At the close of the struggle, which ended disastrously for the Poles, there was found amongst the wounded a non-commissioned officer who had been an orderly of Kruk. The Colonel, when he heard this, had the wounded man brought to him, and said to him. 'Kruk has always let his Russian prisoners go, and even gave them half a ruble apiece to keep them from starving on their road ; so I will also let you go free !' But before the man was set at liberty this monster caused him to be mutilated in a manner indescribable — so that the unfortunate wretch died next day. He caused another wounded prisoner belonging to Kruk's detachment to be twisted up in a number of straw ropes, and then burnt alive. " A long list of names could be made out of such unnatural monsters from amongst the Russian generals who took an active part in putting down the insurrection. Zarkisoff, Assiejeff > Mednikoff, and Wahl, Count Berg's nephew, figure in the foremost rank of these butchers and mutilators of humanity. How many peaceful chateaux of noblemen and peasant colonies were, without the least pretext, pounced upon, pillaged, and burnt to the ground by these Christian officers ! The men were held down on the ground and knouted till they lay mangled and lifeless ; the women were mercilessly violated by the Cossacks. General Assiojeff, a Circassian by birth, spread terror wherever he went by the following method of proceeding : When he encountered a carriage or cart on the public roads, he made the occupants get out, and had them knouted till their bodies streamed with blood. If they asked why they were treated in so barbarous a manner, he invariably replied -• •It is only the prologue to my question of " Where are the Insurgents ? " Now you will be well disposed to give an answer ! ' "At Wilkomicecz, on November 20, 1863, the insurgent Stanislaus Kossakowski, who had formerly been an artillery officer in the Russian service, was condemned to be shot. The soldiers told off to execute him, however, aimed so badly, that after several volleys he was not dead — only horribly mangled. They got tired of firing at him, and flung him, still alive, into a deep ditch full of water, where he drowned, A peasant woman who had witnessed the whole proceeding was so appalled and outraged by the cruelty of this final act, that she broke out into loud execrations against its perpetrators; whereupon they seized her, flung her into the water, and drowned her by force. "The two brothers Koncewicz, in Mohilew, despite their entreaties to be shot, were buried alive. " Numerous townships — as, for instance, Wengrow, Miechow, Ciemiatycza — were totally destroyed. Old men, women, and children were slaughtered in them by hundreds." The ' Dziennik Polski ' solemnly affirms that every atrocity above quoted was committed in the manner related, and by the persons named. It declares itself ready and able to prove every assertion contained in its statements, and lays particular stress upon the fact tbat these ghastly crimes were not committed by irregulars, such as are the Bashi-Bazouks and Circassians in Bulgaria, but by soldiers of the regular Russian army. " And," concludes the • Dziennik Polski, " not only common soldiers, but officei % s of high rank, generals, and colonels, erected this monument for themselves in Poland. How. with such a reckoning as this upon their consciences, the Russians can dare to pronounce lamentations over foreign deeds of darkness, is indeed a psychological novelty which the present age owes exclusively to — the Russians !"