Who won the Battle of Ostrołęka in 1831?
The Russians are usually credited with the victory. On 26 May 1831, during the November Uprising, Field Marshal Hans Karl von Diebitsch's army caught General Jan Skrzynecki's Polish army while it was still crossing the Narew at Ostrołęka. The Russians took the burning town and forced the bridges, Polish counterattacks broke under artillery fire, and in the evening Lieutenant Colonel Józef Bem's horse battery checked the Russian advance so that the Poles could withdraw toward Warsaw. Losses were heavy on both sides, but the Polish army lost the initiative in the war.3
By the spring of 1831 the Polish uprising against Russia had won battles but not the war. In May its commander-in-chief led the main army north-east against the Russian Guard. On 26 May, at a town on the Narew called Ostrołęka, that army was caught while still crossing the river. It was one of the bloodiest days of the uprising, and the turning point after which, as the Sybir Memorial Museum puts it, the Russian army dealt the cards.4
Background: the November Uprising
The rising began in Warsaw on the night of 29 to 30 November 1830, when a secret society of officer cadets attacked the residence of Grand Duke Constantine, the tsar's brother and commander of the army of the Congress Kingdom. In January 1831 the Polish parliament deposed Nicholas I as king of Poland, and in February a Russian army invaded. On 25 February the Poles stopped its advance on Warsaw in the hard-fought battle of Olszynka Grochowska.5› The Battle of Olszynka Grochowska, 1831
That month, too, Józef Dwernicki had defeated a Russian division marching on Warsaw at Stoczek. In the spring the Poles won again at Wawer, Dębe Wielkie and Iganie, and risings broke out in Lithuania and the other Russian-ruled provinces, where Emilia Plater raised local volunteers. Yet the Polish command hesitated to follow up its successes.6
A campaign against the Guard
After a long lull, and under pressure from public opinion, Skrzynecki agreed to strike at the Russian Guard, about 30,000 men stationed between Łomża and Ostrołęka. The main Polish army marched north-east against it in mid-May and caught up with the Guard on 18 May.7
Then Skrzynecki stopped. He halted the pursuit until 20 May, and the Guard escaped toward Białystok. The Polish movement had alerted Diebitsch, who marched to cut Skrzynecki off from Warsaw, and the Polish commander gave up the chase and turned back toward Ostrołęka to recross the Narew.8
Armies and commanders
Jan Skrzynecki, the Polish commander-in-chief, is blamed by the Sybir Memorial Museum for the mistakes that nearly cost the army everything. Among his generals were Henryk Kamieński and Ludwik Kicki, both of whom would die at Ostrołęka, and among his regiments the celebrated 4th Infantry, the Czwartacy.9
Hans Karl von Diebitsch, the Russian field marshal, commanded the main Russian army. The armies were of comparable size. Gaston Bodart's Kriegs-Lexikon of 1908 gives Diebitsch 38,000 men against 32,000 Poles, the Russians much stronger in artillery; the city of Ostrołęka's account of the battle has 40,000 Russians against the 30,000 men Skrzynecki brought to the river.10
The battle in phases
Caught at the river. On the evening of 25 May the Polish army reached Ostrołęka and began crossing the Narew. The next morning, while part of it was still on the far side, Diebitsch's leading troops attacked without warning.11
The town. The Polish rearguard, the 4th Regiment among them, fought for Ostrołęka itself, and the town burned; the Sybir Memorial Museum writes of fires that blazed all day, and the city's account of townspeople joining the fighting in the streets and yards. After bitter fighting the Russians took the town and their leading troops pushed across to the right bank of the Narew.12
The counterattacks. In the afternoon Diebitsch sent more troops across the river. Skrzynecki answered with counterattacks that threw the Russians back toward the Narew, by the city's account, before heavy Russian artillery fire stopped them and they fell back with severe losses. Two Polish generals were killed, Kamieński and Kicki.13
Turning point: Bem's battery
By evening the exhausted Polish divisions were starting to give way. Then Lieutenant Colonel Józef Bem brought his 4th Horse Artillery Battery forward and opened fire on the Russian columns. The Sybir Memorial Museum writes of grapeshot that stopped the Russians from attacking again; the city's account says the daring charge surprised the Russians and allowed an orderly retreat.14
The Russians did not press on. In the evening the Poles decided to withdraw toward Warsaw, and Diebitsch did not pursue. Both the city of Ostrołęka and the Sybir Memorial Museum credit Bem's charge with saving the army from complete defeat.15
Aftermath
The losses are given differently. The city of Ostrołęka counts some 1,800 Polish soldiers and officers killed, 2,900 wounded and 1,400 taken prisoner, against about 5,800 Russian dead and wounded; the Sybir Memorial Museum gives 6,000 Polish losses, 2,000 of them killed, and about 5,700 Russian; the Museum of Polish History's chronicle 6,500 Polish; and Bodart 9,000 Polish against 5,000 Russian.16
The battle had no clear winner on the field, but its consequences were plain. Britannica calls it a major Russian victory after which the rising lost its impetus; the Sybir Memorial Museum calls it a strategic failure for the Polish army; the city's account notes that it is generally regarded as a Polish defeat, and that it broke the commanders' morale. The risings in the Russian provinces were crushed. On 6 September the Russians stormed Warsaw, which capitulated two days later, and in October the last Polish troops crossed into Prussia.17› Battle of Rajgród, 1831
Legacy and memory
The stand of the 4th Regiment became a legend beyond Poland. Soon after the defeat, the young German writer Julius Mosen wrote the poem Die letzten Zehn vom vierten Regiment, about the last ten soldiers of the regiment crossing into exile in Prussia. Christoph Wurzel, writing on the German songs for Poland, notes that it spread in printed leaflets, sold out within days and passed into many songbooks.18
Remembrance in Ostrołęka had to wait. Marcin Górski and Grzegorz Rytel note that the fallen were buried in anonymous mass graves that the Russians did not allow to be marked, and the city's account says only independence in 1918 made proper tribute possible. A monument to Bem's charge, an eagle rising from a pedestal designed by Romuald Zerych, was unveiled on 26 May, in 1930 by Górski and Rytel's account and on the centenary in 1931 by the city's, and work began on a mausoleum for the fallen. The Germans destroyed the eagle during World War II; it was rebuilt and unveiled again in 1958.19
Visiting today
The mausoleum at the site known as Bem's Forts was completed only in 2012 and now holds the sarcophagus with the insurgents' ashes and exhibitions on the battle; the eagle of Bem's charge stands nearby. In town, a monument to Bem stands in Bem Square, the former market place, and a grave of soldiers of the 4th Regiment lies by the wall of the Bernardine monastery.20
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