Kościuszko: A BiographyGardner, Monica M. (Monica Mary)
History
Kościuszko: A Biography
Gardner, Monica M. (Monica Mary)
Kościuszko, Tadeusz, 1746-1817
But Kościuszko's steadiness of outlook was not for an instant relaxed by
the signal success he had won. Untiring vigilance and redoubled activity
were his order of the day, both for himself and his fellow-Poles. The
short breathing-space that followed the retirement of the enemy was
devoted by him to the pressing internal concerns of the nation, taxation
and so forth. He was determined on perfect freedom for all classes and
all religions in Poland. He ordered the erection of new Orthodox places
of worship for the members of the Eastern Church. He enrolled a Jewish
legion to fight in Poland's army, and commanded that this regiment
should be equipped and treated on equal terms with the Polish soldiers
of the Republic. In a transport of gratitude the Jewish leaders called
upon their fellow-believers to rise for Poland in confidence of victory
under "our protector, Tadeusz Kościuszko," who "is without doubt the
emissary of the eternal and Most High God."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Letters of Kościuszko_.]
[Footnote 2: K. Falkenstein, _Tadeusz Kościuszko_. Wrocław, 1831
(Polish).]
Kościuszko was a generous enemy. His Russian captives he treated with a
courtesy and kindness that were ill repaid during his own march into
Russia as a prisoner in Russian hands. He directed that services in
their own language and faith should be held for the Prussian prisoners.
A letter of his remains that he wrote to the Lutheran minister of the
evangelical church in Warsaw, expressing his gratitude that this
clergyman's pulpit had been a centre of patriotism, at a time "when
nations who love freedom must win the right to their existence by
streams of blood," and telling the pastor that he has issued orders for
the Prussian prisoners to be taken to church in the "conviction that you
will not refuse them your fatherly teaching."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Tygodnik Illustrowany_. Warsaw, 1881 (Polish).]
This letter and the snuff-box that accompanied it were preserved as
relics in the pastor's family.
The Bohemian and Hungarian prisoners were by Kościuszko's command
released, "in memory of the bond that united the Hungarians and Czechs,
when free countries, with the Polish nation." We have lived to see the
descendants of that Hungarian generation spreading untold atrocities
through Polish towns and villages as the tool of Prussia in the recent
war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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