Poles in Kaisers Army On the Front of the First World War. Ryszard Kaczmarek

the Prussian troops from April 30 to May 1, 1848, that ended in the biggest battle of the Uprising: the Battle of Miłosław. The Prussians defended the key road from Nowe Miasto to Miłosław, as they used it to transfer a column of troops against Ludwik Mierosławski. Later, the Upper Silesians cut off the insurgents by the Warta River, from the Russian border. The regiment remained there until May 12, when it received information about the Jarosławiec compromise and disbandment of the insurgent troops. However, the 22nd Infantry Regiment remained in Greater Poland until October, when it received orders to suppress the Lower Silesia riots.⁵⁹ The Greater Poland operations of the Regiment show no mentions of problems due to the Polish origin of soldiers. It was of no importance for the Prussian officers, who trusted their soldiers and took no special precautions to prevent desertion or refusal to participate in combat.

The events of 1863 definitely are the most interesting in the history of Polish Upper Silesian soldiers in the Prussian Army. The January Uprising (1863–1864) caused the entire troops, whose number significantly increased in the meantime, to move to the “Russian-Polish” border. It was a way to prevent “the spread of disturbances on the Prussian side of the border; even though it turned out unnecessary as the disturbances weakened already in the second year of the fight.”⁶⁰ Nevertheless, this was the first occurrence of close low-level cooperation between the Prussian and Russian troops. Joint border operations lasted for more than a year and reverberated in all the war diaries of the Upper Silesian regiments, both the oldest ones (the 22nd and the 23rd)⁶¹ and the newly formed (the 62nd⁶² and the 63rd).⁶³

      Upon news of the outbreak of an anti-Russian uprising in the Kingdom of Poland, the cabinet order of February 9, 1863, put the Wrocław corps in combat readiness while about a thousand soldiers of the closest 22nd Infantry Regiment blocked the Prussian-Russian border. By August 1863, the forces of the 11th and 12th Infantry Divisions gradually joined the 22nd and formed two lines. The Prussian-Russian cooperation was no longer limited to the protection of the ←29 | 30→border, as thirty-three years earlier, but it was more direct this time. The officers of both sides regularly contacted each other and exchanged information. On this occasion, they also maintained friendly relations at the level of regiments’ commands, in compliance with the contemporary tradition of a common ethos of professional officers. This rapprochement reached its peak in the 22nd Infantry Regiment after the acceptance of an invitation to a celebration dedicated to the patron of one of the Russian regiments that occurred on the other side of the border, in Częstochowa. What may sound particularly sinister is the description of signing death sentences for Polish insurgents in the background of the party:

All off-duty officers eagerly responded to a friendly invitation from the Russians. Soon, the quartermasters ordered crude wagons for transportation. At the agreed time, they arrived at the designated place for a meeting at the Prussian-Russian border, not far from the customs service near Lubliniec. They were happy to see that many Russian officers already awaited them next to the black-orange-white boundary poles, they offered a warm welcome and comfortable vehicles. The vehicles were low and not too big, drawn by three horses in a Russian way. Colonel Alexander von Stückradt from East Prussia headed this whole long parade while the Cossack regiment watched over its safety. After a two-hour journey through magnificent forests, we arrived at a town located about three miles away. Surrounded by his officers, Colonel von Ehrenroth from Częstochowa cordially greeted us in German as the German brothers in arms. He also belonged to an old-established noble family who resided in the Baltic Sea Provinces since the 1830s. The hosts served us warm food and drinks so that we could warm ourselves after the long journey and, then, we set off to sightsee Częstochowa, with its very interesting splendid monastery. A military orchestra headed this parade to celebrate the regiment’s festive day and our visit. We looked with great acclaim at the sprightly and elegant look of the soldiers and the orchestra with its excellent performance. Only some Russian officers attended the closing dinner. The absent were those who received new ranks for their duty as non-commissioned officers. We became light-headed in the obvious consequence of drinking champagne from glasses. The mood was very lively during conversations in French which did not really resemble any “Parisian” exchanges. After many toasts that particularly emphasized our cordial relations, there was only one moment that cast a gloomy shadow of war on our joy. However, it made an unforgettable impression on the officers of our regiment. I mean the moment when the Russian commandant signed death sentences on the insurgents while holding a glass of champagne in his left hand.⁶⁴

      This picture of a drunk Russian officer who signs the death sentences of Polish insurgents of the January Uprising is horrifying for every Polish reader. Yet, it is only a small part of the events of 1863, viewed from the perspective of the ←30 | 31→soldiers of the Prussian regiment. We may rightly attribute this account to the supranational sense of community of professional officers of noble birth, in this case even strengthened by the fact that some of them shared the same origin from the East Prussian German nobility. However, these were Polish Upper Silesians who held guard duty at the border, for whom those events had to be more than dramatic and certainly exceeded a short reflection about the “shadow of war” cast over the otherwise good party. The prospects of possible desertions in the Prussian regiments was not as distant and hard to imagine as in the previous years. Suffice to consider the case of musketeer Grzibiel, described in the annals of the 63rd Infantry Regiment’s history:

Musketeer Grzibiel from the 7th company, born in Wójtowa Wieś in the Gliwice district, served since February 1863 and performed guard duty near the mill (Kunermühle) by the Brynica River on the night of October 12 and 13. Suddenly, a non-commissioned officer from his company appeared; he was fully armed and tried to cross the bridge with Grzibiel on the watch. The non-commissioned officer halted only when he heard a call: “Stop! Who is there?” Then, the officer introduced himself. The Musketeer Grzibiel, who only spoke Polish, asked further questions to check whether the non-commissioned officer acted under an official order. The officer said that he was going to patrol. However, Musketeer Grzibiel did not believe him. He arrested the officer who already started to load his rifle. Later, it turned out that the officer wanted to desert to Russia due to the bad performance of his function. For his foresight and unhesitant actions, Musketeer Grzibiel was promoted to the rank of Private First Class [Gefreiter].⁶⁵

This peculiar story of an exclusively Polish-speaking Upper Silesian – promoted, Grzibiel stayed in the regiment for good until his death during the war with Austria in 1866 – who arrests another Upper Silesian for desertion shows the complexity of national attitudes in this region, where not only language determined the local inhabitants. However, it also proves the processes of socialization and denationalization that occurred during military duty in the Prussian regiments. During the January Uprising and despite incidental cases of such insubordination, the Upper Silesian regiments remained at the border until the very end. It was only in January 1864, when the situation in the Kingdom of Poland was under control insofar that it allowed for the reduction of security measures, and the 22nd Infantry Regiment could return to the garrison and partly demobilize. Only the 2nd Battalion of this regiment temporarily remained in the Lubliniec sector as an outpost until the end of April 1864. Zeissing, the regiment’s doctor in the garrison hospital in Katowice, took care of the five Russian soldiers ←31 | 32→heavily injured during the fights with the Polish insurgents and nursed them back to health wherefore he received the Order of Saint Stanislaus of the third class in September 1864.⁶⁶

It seems that loyalism (to the state) spread both in the Upper Silesian regiments and the Katschmarek Regiments of Pomerania and Greater Poland. We may explain the loyalism by the tendency to adapt prevalent throughout Central and Eastern Europe even among