Battle of Iłża, 1864: Rębajło's ambush in the January Uprising

A year after the January Uprising began, the Russians thought it was finished. Then, in the hills between Radom and Kielce, an insurgent regiment turned on a Russian column, chased it back into a small town and fought it there street by street, in a battle whose name is now carved on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw.²

Who won the Battle of Iłża and why?

The Polish insurgents won. Karol Kalita's regiment let a Russian column attack it in the village of Lubienia, broke it with a counterattack from hidden reserves and chased it into Iłża, where the Russians lost heavily and their commander was mortally wounded. The insurgents could not take the whole town, however, and withdrew that night.³

Background: a guerrilla war

The uprising was set off by a conscription. Aleksander Wielopolski, head of the civil government of the Russian-ruled Kingdom of Poland, ordered a levy into the Russian army aimed at the young men suspected of patriotic activity, and the insurgent leadership answered by calling the nation to arms on the night of 22 to 23 January 1863, as the Ministry of Education's history platform, the Institute of National Remembrance and the Brody commune's local history all explain.⁴ › The Battle of Ostrołęka, 1831

Outnumbered and poorly armed, the insurgents fought a guerrilla war. The Ministry of Education's platform and the Institute of National Remembrance both count about 1,200 battles and skirmishes, most of them clashes between small partisan units and Russian troops, fought until the autumn of 1864. In October 1863 Romuald Traugutt became dictator of the uprising; his plan to turn the scattered partisan units into regular corps, the platform judges, largely failed.⁵

In the south of the Kingdom the insurgents still had a force in the field. In the Kielce region General Józef Hauke-Bosak had managed to form a corps, and Kalita's regiment belonged to his division, as the platform and the Iłża regional museum both record.⁶

By the beginning of 1864, in the account WielkaHistoria draws from Grzegorz Cwyl's study of the battle, the Russians were defeating the dwindling insurgent units again and again and believed they had the situation under control.⁷

Armies and commanders

The insurgents belonged to the Stopnica infantry regiment of Karol Kalita, who fought under the name Rębajło. He was a lieutenant colonel in Cwyl's account and in Interia's, a major in Zieliński's 1913 lexicon of the uprising's battles and in the Bitwy polskie lexicon. Cwyl, a historian of the uprising who wrote his study of the battle for the military publisher Bellona, calls him one of the best commanders of the rising.⁸

The numbers differ from source to source. Zieliński, quoted at length in the Brody commune's local history, gives Kalita 400 riflemen and 40 scythemen, the figure the Iłża museum also uses; Cwyl, in WielkaHistoria's summary of his study, puts the regiment at about 600 men.⁹

The Russian column was led by Sukhonin, a colonel in Cwyl's and Interia's accounts and a major in the Iłża museum's and the Bitwy polskie lexicon's. Zieliński has him coming back from Iłża toward Opatów by way of Brody with two companies of infantry, and the Iłża museum likewise has a Russian force of about 180 men marching from Iłża toward Brody; Cwyl counts about 450 Russians in the fighting.¹⁰

The commanders' decisions

Kalita's regiment spent the night of 16 to 17 January in Brody, south of Iłża, as both Zieliński and the Iłża museum record. In the morning word reached him that the Russian column was on the road from Iłża toward him; the Museum of Polish History, retelling Kalita's memoir, has a local man bring the news.¹¹

Kalita chose to fight, and to let the Russians come to him. He spread his riflemen through the houses of the village of Lubienia and kept his reserves hidden behind the hills, a plan described in the same terms by Zieliński and by Interia; the Museum of Polish History speaks of an ambush set in the village houses.¹²

Sukhonin was not taken by surprise. The Museum of Polish History says the Russians sensed the trap, and the Iłża museum says Cossack scouts warned him. Instead of marching into the ambush, his column turned off the road and attacked the insurgents' positions in the village, as Zieliński, the Iłża museum and Interia all describe.¹³

The battle in phases

The counterattack. As the Russians struck, Kalita sent his reserve companies into the line and ordered an attack along the whole front. Caught in crossfire as another insurgent company worked round their rear, the Russians broke and fled into the forest, past a wayside chapel. Zieliński and Interia describe the crossfire, and the Museum of Polish History and the Iłża museum the flight past the chapel; Kalita later wrote that the rout of the Russians at the first attack was terrible.¹⁴

The hill. The Russians tried to rally on a hill at the edge of the forest. When the insurgents came on without firing a shot, they gave up the position and fell back on Iłża, as Zieliński, Interia and the Iłża museum all relate. Zieliński counts the cost of this first phase at 11 Russians killed or wounded and 1 taken prisoner, against a single insurgent killed; the Iłża museum also gives 11 Russians and one insurgent killed.¹⁵

The call for help. On the way back Sukhonin sent Cossacks to the town of Lipsko to bring up reinforcements, both Zieliński and the Iłża museum note. The Russians reached Iłża ahead of their pursuers and turned to fight.¹⁶

Turning point: the fight in the town

The pursuit carried the battle into Iłża. The insurgents attacked the town and fought on from house to house until late in the evening, first on its edge and then in its streets. Sukhonin himself was wounded twice in the leg, according to both the Iłża museum and Cwyl's account in WielkaHistoria.¹⁷

The insurgents reached the market square, the Museum of Polish History, Zieliński and the Iłża museum agree. Many Russians fell in the streets, and others fled toward Radom, as Zieliński and Interia both say. The wounded Sukhonin and part of his men barricaded themselves in houses on the square, in the mayor's house by Zieliński's and the museum's accounts.¹⁸

A handful of officers led by Captain Jagielski tried to storm Sukhonin's headquarters and were beaten back, as both Zieliński and the Iłża museum relate. The house could not be taken.¹⁹

Then Kalita had to decide whether to stay. He feared Russian reinforcements: the Museum of Polish History names the danger from Radom, Interia speaks of reinforcements in general, and the Bitwy polskie lexicon says the insurgents learned that a relief force was approaching, as Zieliński confirms. That night Kalita led his men out of the town, and they marched away to the forest village of Lipie, where Zieliński, the Iłża museum and Radio Kielce all place them after the battle.²⁰

Counting the losses

The insurgents' losses depend on who is counting. Kalita's memoir, as quoted by the Museum of Polish History, and Cwyl's study, as summarized by WielkaHistoria, both give 9 killed, Cwyl adding 17 wounded and 8 missing. Zieliński lists 5 dead and 4 officers and 15 men wounded; Interia gives 5 killed and 14 wounded, and the Iłża museum 8 killed, 5 wounded and 8 missing.²¹

Russian losses were far heavier, every account agrees, but nobody counted them exactly. Cwyl estimates 150 to 170 killed and wounded, including at least two officers who died of their wounds days later; Interia speaks of as many as 60 soldiers; Zieliński lists Sukhonin and six other officers among the wounded; and Kalita, in the Museum of Polish History's retelling, could not estimate the number.²²

Sukhonin did not survive his wounds, as the Iłża museum, Interia and Cwyl's publisher all state. The Iłża museum and the Brody commune's local history also tell a story about his last days: that on his deathbed he condemned Russian policy toward the Poles, and that for this he was stripped of his rank and honors and buried in an unmarked grave in Iłża.²³

Aftermath

Kalita was promoted to colonel for the battle, according to the Iłża museum, Interia and the Brody commune's history.²⁴

The victory surprised the Russian command, which had thought the revolt all but crushed. In Cwyl's assessment it opened a short period of offensive activity by Hauke-Bosak's corps and showed that insurgents could be trained to the standard of regular soldiers. WielkaHistoria, following Cwyl, adds that it forced the Russians to act more energetically in the region and raised insurgent activity in the Sandomierz and Kraków provinces.²⁵

The success did not last. In February 1864 Hauke-Bosak's corps was beaten in a second battle at Opatów, as both the Ministry of Education's platform and the Iłża museum record.²⁶

Too late to change the outcome

The tide could not be turned. In March 1864 a tsarist decree gave the peasants of the Kingdom of Poland the land they worked; the Ministry of Education's platform counts it among the blows that broke the uprising, and WielkaHistoria, following Cwyl, describes how it drew the peasants away from the insurgents. Cwyl argues that the fear of a long struggle, which battles like Iłża had revived, helped push the tsar to sign the decrees.²⁷

Romuald Traugutt was arrested in Warsaw in April 1864, and on the morning of 5 August he and four other members of the insurgent National Government, Rafał Krajewski, Józef Toczyski, Roman Żuliński and Jan Jeziorański, were hanged on the slopes of the Warsaw Citadel, as both dzieje.pl and Polskie Radio record.²⁸

Kalita escaped the fate of the uprising's leaders. He lived to see Poland independent again and died in Lwów on 25 May 1919: the Iłża museum gives the date, and Radio Kielce has him dying in Lwów in 1919.²⁹

Legacy and memory

Iłża is remembered all the same. After 1990 its name was added to one of the tablets of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, among the battles in which Polish soldiers fell for their country, as the Museum of Polish History, WielkaHistoria, the Bitwy polskie lexicon and the Brody commune's history all note. WielkaHistoria takes the inscription as proof of the weight given to a battle in which only a few hundred men fought on each side.³⁰ › The Greatest Battles in Polish History

The battle is also remembered in the forests where it was fought. After it, Kalita's men rested on a glade near Lipie that now bears his name, and every winter for some twenty years the local Kotyzka society has led a rally there in his memory, joined by schoolchildren from the surrounding towns, as both Radio Kielce and the Brody commune's history describe.³¹