The work of art that you see below is a painting by Robert Wilhelm Ekman, a pioneer of early national romantic art in Finland. Ekman is perhaps best remembered for his early attempts at the illustration of Kalevala, but this work, finished in 1848, invokes the memory of the Finnish soldiers who had fought and died in Poland seventeen years before. You won’t find this work on display in any museum; it is part of a private collection, and the owner prefers to keep it that way.
The painting depicts the young lieutenant Adolf Aminoff wounded on the ramparts of Tykocin on May 21st 1831. As you can see, the painting captures two ideals. First, an officer who leads his men from the front, even at the risk of his own personal safety. Second, his soldiers, equally ready to risk their lives by rushing to the aid of their wounded comrade. During the following decades, national romanticism claimed these universal ideals as quintessentially Finnish military virtues. Emphasizing the importance of solidarity and camaraderie is always a natural choice. After all, it doesn’t really matter what you’re theoretically fighting for, because putting your life on the line for your comrade is always a virtue.
The fortress of Tykocin, located on the Upper Narew, was where the Russian Life-Guard finally managed to halt General Skrzynecki’s offensive. Field-Marshal Diebitsch and the Russian main army marched south to support Grand-Duke Mikhail’s troops and forced Skrzynecki to withdraw and regroup. On May 26th, the combined Russian forces defeated Skrzynecki’s army at the battle of Ostrołęka. The Polish side, interestingly, used rockets against the Russians: one of the Polish commanders, Colonel Józef Bem, had been in the receiving end of British Congreves during the1813 siege of Danzig. Bem hadn’t liked the experience, but saw its worth, and he had established a special rocket corps, the Korpus Rakietników, in the army of the Congress Poland. Unfortunately, the new rockets were far from sufficient to overcome Russian artillery superiority. At the end of the day, the Russians destroyed the bulk of Skrzynecki’s infantry, and the surviving Poles scrambled back towards Warsaw in disorder, abandoning the bridges of the Narew to the victorious Russians.
The Finnish Guard served in reserve, on the rear flank of the main Russian force on the Narew, still incapacitated from the clashes at Przetycz and Długosiodło and the retreat to Tykocin. The Finnish soldiers were spared from direct participation in the bloodiest encounter of the war. Of course, this did not mean that the Battalion was spared from casualties, as the early summer aggravated the effects of cholera. When cholera-stricken Colonel Ramsay finally returned to duty a month after the battle of Ostrołęka, he found that all four companies of the Finnish Battalion had shrunk to platoon strength.
On the same day, coincidently, the Russian army received a new commander when Diebitsch died of cholera. The new commander-in-chief, the ruthless Field-Marshal Ivan Paskevich, led the Russian army across the lower Vistula. He began the final onslaught towards the Polish capital by a large flanking manoeuvre from the west. By the first week of September, Paskevich’s offensive reached the outskirts of Warsaw.
This time, the Finnish Battalion was thrown to the fray. The surviving Finnish sharp-shooters were attached to the forces of Lieutenant-General Nikolai Muraviev, a former Decembrist. They helped storn the redoubts of Rakowiec on the southwestern side of Warsaw. On the morning of September 6th, Finnish soldiers stormed over the entrenchments and reached the redoubt of Szczęśliwice, where they held fast under heavy crossfire from three Polish artillery batteries. One Finnish officer, Lieutenant Johan Fredrik Schybergson, died from a ricochet and was subsequently buried in the vicinity.
At dusk, Muraviev ordered the Finns to defend one of the captured enemy redoubts. Finally, at 7 o’clock the following morning, the Finnish Battalion was relieved. Itjoined the other Russian Guard’s Regiments at Jerusalem’s Avenue. The following midnight, Polish forces evacuated the capital and abandoned it to the Russian army. Shortly afterwards, the last strongholds of Polish resistance, the fortresses of Modlin and Zamość, surrendered to Paskevich.
Having started with absolutely no combat experience, the Finnish Guard suffered disproportionate losses during the nine months’ campaign. Finnish casualties amounted to 289 dead and 110 missing in action, out 756 men at the start. In the event, the Finnish soldiers had had no option but to learn their trade the hard way, on the battlefield. But they had won.
The Finnish soldiers returned back to the home front in patriotic triumph in August 1832, and the grateful Emperor commended the loyalty of the Grand-Duchy and its soldiers by rewarding the Battalion with the Banner of St. George. The banner’s incription read, “За Отличiе Приусмиренiи Польши.”
“For the Pacification of Poland.”
The dead of the Battalion were remembered as heroes, and Lt. Schybergson’s name was inscribed on black marble plate at the Finnish Cadet School. Colonel Ramsay himself made an appeal to future generations: “May our banner call the sons of Finland to perform the highest civic virtues still in the future, to fulfill their obligations and loyalty towards their sovereign.”
A question remains, however: what was the campaign’s effect on the Finnish home front?
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