What happened at the Battle of Rajgród?
On 29 May 1831, during the November Uprising, the Polish corps of General Antoni Giełgud, marching north to carry the uprising into Lithuania, met the Russian corps of General Osten-Sacken near Rajgród in the narrow neck of land between the lakes of the Augustów region. The Russians, caught on the march, were thrown back on the town and driven out of it, and Osten-Sacken retreated toward Augustów. The victory came three days after the defeat at Ostrołęka and opened Giełgud's road to Lithuania.1
For a few hours on a late May morning, the Polish army that had just lost the greatest battle of the uprising found itself winning. Rajgród was a small fight in a corner of the map, between the lakes of the Augustów region, but it restored a beaten corps' confidence and sent it into Lithuania with the aura of victory. What followed showed how much a single success could hide.2
Background: after Ostrołęka
The uprising had begun on the night of 29 to 30 November 1830, when a conspiracy of officer cadets in Warsaw rose against Russian rule. On 25 January 1831 the Sejm dethroned Tsar Nicholas I as king of Poland, and in February a Russian army invaded: Britannica gives it 115,000 men against a Polish army of 40,000, the Polish Ministry of Education's history portal more than 100,000 under Field Marshal Ivan Diebitsch against 53,000. The Poles stopped it on 25 February at Grochów, outside Warsaw.3
In the spring risings against Russian rule broke out in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. But on 26 May the Polish army lost the hard-fought battle of Ostrołęka on the Narew, and after the battle the command decided to send a corps north to support the Lithuanian insurgents.4 › Battle of Ostrołęka, 1831
The commander in chief, General Jan Skrzynecki, gave the task to General Antoni Giełgud: his orders were to march into Lithuania and help the insurgents there. The orders were vague, and the corps would have to find its own way north, through country held by the Russians.5
Armies and commanders
Antoni Giełgud came from Samogitia, in Lithuania. He had fought in Napoleon's wars, raised an infantry regiment at his own expense in 1812 and was made a brigadier general in 1818. In the uprising he distinguished himself at Wawer, Białołęka and Olszynka Grochowska and commanded the 2nd Infantry Division.6 › Battle of Olszynka Grochowska, 1831
His corps was a strong one. Gąsowski gives it 14 battalions of infantry, 7 squadrons of cavalry and 26 guns; Tokarz counts 14 and a half battalions, 7 squadrons and 26 guns, up to 12,000 bayonets and sabers with the partisan detachment of Józef Zaliwski, and the Polish education portal also speaks of a corps of 12,000. With Giełgud went General Henryk Dembiński.7
The partnership was an uneasy one. Both Tokarz and the historian Andrzej Małysa, in his 2016 biography of Giełgud, trace the idea of the expedition to Dembiński rather than to Giełgud, and both describe Dembiński as ambitious and hot-tempered, a difficult subordinate whose rivalry with his commander lasted the whole campaign.8
The Russian corps of General Dmitry Osten-Sacken held the narrows at Rajgród. Gąsowski counts 8 battalions, 4 squadrons, 3 sotnias of Cossacks and 14 guns; Tokarz, 7 and a half battalions, 4 squadrons, 3 sotnias and 14 guns, about 5,800 men. Osten-Sacken held a fortified position at Rajgród, with infantry in the town itself.9
The battle in phases
The march. Giełgud left Łomża on 25 May and headed for Stawiska, Szczuczyn and Grajewo, where he was joined by the detachment of Colonel Wacław Sierakowski. Osten-Sacken, meanwhile, had orders to retake Łomża, and at dawn on 29 May he left his position at Rajgród to strike south.10
The encounter. Near the village of Miecze the Russians ran into the cavalry of Giełgud's vanguard. By Lake Czarne a fight developed; Giełgud strengthened his left wing and threw the enemy back, and the Russians began to fall back toward Rajgród.11
The charge. As the beaten Russians streamed back toward the town, Dembiński sent the Poznań cavalry after them. Led by Major Franciszek Mycielski, the charge broke down under the fire of the Russian infantry in the town. The Polish infantry pressed on and Rajgród was taken.12
Turning point: the Russian retreat
The accounts differ on how long the fighting lasted. The editors of the generals' reports have Rajgród taken after four hours of fighting; Tokarz has Osten-Sacken holding on behind the Jegrznia for some four hours more, to send his baggage away, until the Poles forced a ford on his left flank and threw a bridge across it. Either way, he then ordered a retreat toward Augustów and left the road to Lithuania open.13
Three days after Ostrołęka, a beaten army had won again, and it marched into Lithuania believing it could win there too.
Aftermath: a complete victory?
Giełgud reported to the National Government from near Suwałki that his men had fought with the greatest zeal and won a complete victory, with 1,200 Russians taken prisoner. Gąsowski gives the Russian losses as 800 killed and 1,200 captured; Tokarz writes that 1,200 Russian infantry laid down their arms and up to 800 fell.14
In the judgment of both the editors and Tokarz, the victory eased the blow of Ostrołęka and let Giełgud enter Lithuania as a victor. But the pursuit was weak, and the Russians got away.15
Legacy: the road to Paneriai
In Lithuania Giełgud joined Dembiński and the small corps of General Dezydery Chłapowski, and was made commander in chief of the insurgents there. The Lithuanian encyclopedia records that he set up a provisional Polish central government for Lithuania at his headquarters and restored insurgent authority in the counties. On 11 June he ordered Chłapowski and Dembiński to move on Vilnius, hoping the Russians would abandon the city without a fight; instead the attack was beaten back at Paneriai on 19 June.16 › Battle of Paneriai, 1831
The campaign ended in disaster. In July the last Polish forces in Lithuania were beaten, and Giełgud decided to cross the Prussian border with most of his army. On 13 July 1831, during the crossing, he was shot dead by one of his own officers, Captain Stefan Skulski of the 7th Infantry Regiment.17
Not everyone followed him. Dembiński broke away with his own detachment, marched back through Lithuania and Belarus and reached Warsaw on 3 August, where he briefly became commander in chief. It did not save the uprising: Warsaw fell to the Russian assault in early September, and on 5 October the last Polish army crossed into Prussia and laid down its arms.18
Dembiński's own career went on. A veteran of Napoleon's wars who had won the Legion of Honor at Leipzig, he went into exile in Paris after the uprising, and in 1849 the Hungarian revolutionary government gave him command of its armies; after the defeat at Kápolna in February he had to give up the post. He died in Paris on 13 June 1864.19
Historians have judged Giełgud differently. Tokarz, writing in 1930, saw a brave and honorable man who was the general least suited to lead such an expedition, unable to make up his mind and yielding to the last adviser. Małysa, as his reviewer Virgilijus Pugačiauskas sums him up, also finds him short of energy and too cautious when he had to decide alone, but treats the victory at Rajgród as real evidence that he could command a large force on his own, and notes that in Lithuania many decisions were taken collectively at councils of war.20
