What happened at the Battle of Stoczek?

On 14 February 1831 Dwernicki's cavalry attacked General Geismar's Russian division near Stoczek from the front and both flanks. The Russians broke and fled, leaving their guns behind. It was the uprising's first victory.

Why was Dwernicki called the supplier of guns?

Because he captured Russian artillery in his early battles and sent it to Warsaw. According to Maciej Trąbski, five of the eleven guns taken at Stoczek went to the capital, and the feat earned him that name in Europe.

What was the Volhynia expedition?

In April 1831 Dwernicki led a corps of some 4,500 to 6,000 men across the Bug into Volhynia to raise the region against Russia. The rising did not come, and after fighting at Boremel his corps was pinned against the Austrian border.

Why did Dwernicki's corps cross into Austria?

With Rüdiger's corps in front and on his flank, more Russian troops on the road to Podolia and the border behind him, Dwernicki led his corps into Austrian Galicia on 27 April 1831. The Austrians disarmed and interned it.

Was Dwernicki a good commander?

He was a superb leader and trainer of cavalry, brave and loved by his men. Historians such as Bronisław Pawłowski judge that he was less able as the commander of an independent corps of all arms, relying almost wholly on his horsemen.

Where did Dwernicki die?

He died in 1857 at Łopatyn near Brody in Eastern Galicia, then under Austrian rule, after years of exile.

Józef Dwernicki: The General Who Won at Stoczek in 1831

Q: Who was Józef Dwernicki?

He was a Polish cavalry general (1779 to 1857), a veteran of Napoleon's wars and commander of the 2nd Uhlan Regiment, who won the first victory of the November Uprising at Stoczek in February 1831 and then led an expedition into Volhynia.

Quick answer

Who was Józef Dwernicki?

Józef Dwernicki (1779 to 1857) was a Polish cavalry general. A Podolian nobleman who first fought in 1809 and rode with Napoleon's army in 1812 to 1814, he commanded the 2nd Uhlan Regiment of the Kingdom of Poland for fourteen years. In the November Uprising he won its first victory, routing General Geismar's Russian cavalry at Stoczek on 14 February 1831, and took more guns at Nowa Wieś and Kurów. His expedition into Volhynia ended on 27 April 1831, when his corps crossed into Austrian Galicia and was disarmed. He died at Łopatyn, in Austrian Galicia, in 1857.

When the November Uprising went to war with Russia in 1831, its first victory came from a fifty-one-year-old cavalryman who had learned his trade under Napoleon. Józef Dwernicki routed a Russian cavalry division at Stoczek, struck again on the Vistula and at Kurów, and sent captured Russian guns back to Warsaw. Then he led a bold and ill-fated expedition into Volhynia that ended with his corps laying down its arms on the Austrian border.¹

Early life

Dwernicki was born in Warsaw on 19 March 1779, into a noble family of the Sas coat of arms with estates in Podolia. In August 1791, as a boy of twelve, he volunteered for the artillery of the Polish Crown, but he left the service at his own request at the beginning of 1792. After the partitions he settled on the family estates in Podolia, now under Russian rule, and farmed them.²

The war of 1809 brought him back to arms. When Prince Józef Poniatowski's army invaded Austrian Galicia, Dwernicki raised a troop of about a hundred horsemen on his own estates and crossed the border to join the Polish partisan commander Piotr Strzyżewski. He fought the Austrians as a captain and was decorated with the gold cross of the Virtuti Militari.³

A Napoleonic uhlan, 1810 to 1814

In 1810 he became a squadron commander in the 15th Uhlan Regiment of the army of the Duchy of Warsaw, and with it he went through the Russian campaign of 1812 and the retreat. In 1813 he was promoted to major and received the Legion of Honor. In January 1814 he was made a colonel and given command of a regiment of krakus light horse.⁴ › Napoleon Bonaparte

The army of the Kingdom of Poland, 1815 to 1830

In January 1815 Dwernicki was given command of the 2nd Uhlan Regiment of the army of the new Kingdom of Poland, which he led until 1829. Promotion was slow, and Pawłowski believes he was not in favor with Grand Duke Constantine, the army's commander; only in 1829 did he become a brigadier general. He was past fifty when the November Uprising broke out at the end of 1830.⁵

Painting of a general on horseback leading a column of lancers — Dwernicki at the head of the 2nd Uhlan Regiment, which he commanded from 1815 to 1829, a painting by Piotr Michałowski (National Museum in Kraków). Public domain

Stoczek, 14 February 1831

In February 1831 Field Marshal Diebitsch's army invaded the Kingdom. On 14 February Dwernicki's cavalry attacked the Russian division of General Fyodor Geismar near Stoczek. The Russian regiments broke and fled, leaving their guns behind. Pawłowski counts six guns taken in the final charge; Trąbski writes that eleven guns were captured at Stoczek in all, five of which Dwernicki sent to Warsaw, earning him a name in Europe as the "supplier of guns," a nickname that historians Sebastian Bartos and John P. Dunn put in the title of their study of the battle.⁶ › The Battle of Stoczek, 1831

Painting of horsemen charging artillery at the edge of a snowy pine forest — Polish cavalry charging the Russian guns at Stoczek on 14 February 1831, painted by Jan Rosen in 1890 (Polish Army Museum). Public domain

Dark locator map with a gold star marking Stoczek, southeast of Warsaw — Stoczek, southeast of Warsaw, where Dwernicki won the first victory of the November Uprising. The star marks the approximate site. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

Etching of a cavalry clash with overturned guns and fallen horses — General Geismar's horsemen near Stoczek in a German etching from the series Russisch-Polnische Kriegsscenen 1831, published in Nuremberg; the text beneath gives the wrong date for the battle. Public domain

Nowa Wieś and Kurów

Five days later, on 19 February 1831, Dwernicki struck the vanguard of General Cyprian Kreutz's corps, which had crossed to the left bank of the Vistula, at Nowa Wieś near Kozienice. Historians judge the result differently: Bronisław Pawłowski describes a Polish success, while Tomasz Strzeżek calls the battle inconclusive, since both sides suffered losses and Dwernicki, fearing for Warsaw, withdrew north.⁷

At the beginning of March Dwernicki crossed the Vistula at Puławy. On 3 March he beat detachments of Kreutz's corps at Kurów, taking four guns, then entered Lublin before falling back under the walls of the fortress of Zamość, where he rested and rebuilt his corps until early April.⁸

The Volhynia expedition, April 1831

Dwernicki had long argued for carrying the war across the Bug into Volhynia and Podolia, the lands of the old Commonwealth now under Russia, to raise them in revolt. On 3 April 1831 his corps marched east. Trąbski puts its strength at about 4,500 men, while Pawłowski and other authors give some 6,000. Against him stood a far larger Russian corps under General Fyodor Rüdiger.⁹

The rising he hoped for did not come. His appeals to the people of Volhynia and Podolia found little response, and Rüdiger barred the road inland, so Dwernicki marched along the Austrian border toward Podolia. At Boremel on the Styr, on 18 and 19 April, he beat off Rüdiger's attacks, and his guns, firing from the terrace of the Boremel palace, wrecked part of the Russian artillery.¹⁰

Watercolor of a general on a white horse waving his hat in front of mounted lancers with pennons — General Józef Dwernicki at the head of a squadron of krakus light cavalry, a watercolor by Roman Rupniewski. Public domain

Then he crossed the Styr at Beresteczko and continued along the frontier, until he found Rüdiger before him and on his flank, the Austrian border at his back and more Russian troops barring the way to Podolia. On 27 April 1831 his corps crossed into Austrian Galicia, where the Austrians disarmed and interned it.¹¹

Colored print of Polish soldiers and scythemen gathered at a border post with an imperial eagle — Dwernicki's corps crosses the Austrian border in 1831, a nineteenth-century colored print by Georg Benedikt Wunder. Public domain

Command style

Dwernicki was a cavalryman through and through. Pawłowski describes a commander of dash and personal courage who led his squadrons into the attack himself, shared his soldiers' hardships and was loved by them, and who had mastered the charge, especially in combination with horse artillery. Trąbski calls him an excellent trainer and organizer of cavalry, known also for extravagance and cavalry flamboyance.¹²

The same authors find his limits as a corps commander. Pawłowski writes that he knew little of strategy or of handling infantry, which he used mostly to guard key points and his guns, and that he put the whole weight of the fight on his horsemen. Trąbski quotes an officer of the corps who judged Dwernicki brave but not a good corps commander.¹³

The general who sent Russian guns to Warsaw ended his campaign laying down his own on the Austrian border.

Later life and death

After a short internment Dwernicki went into exile in France. In Paris the painter Jean Gigoux portrayed him in the uniform of a lieutenant general, a portrait shown at the Salon of 1833 and now in the Louvre.¹⁴

He later returned to Galicia, under Austrian rule, and he wrote memoirs, published after his death. He died in 1857 at Łopatyn, near Brody in Eastern Galicia; dzieje.pl gives the date as 23 November.¹⁵

Legacy and memory

Dwernicki's image was copied and recopied: Gigoux's portrait of 1833 was the model for a painting by Aleksander Raczyński in 1856 and for a smaller copy by Jan Tabiński in 1859, now in the Lviv National Art Gallery, and Piotr Michałowski painted him at the head of his uhlans.¹⁶

Read the full story of the Battle of Stoczek, follow the uprising's greatest battle at Olszynka Grochowska and its later fight at Ostrołęka, or see the day of his victory in 14 February in military history.