On Behalf of the Emperor: the Finnish Guard's Campaign to Poland, 1831 Author(S): JUSSI JALONEN Source: the Slavonic and East European Review, Vol
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
On Behalf of the Emperor: The Finnish Guard's Campaign to Poland, 1831 Author(s): JUSSI JALONEN Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (July 2010), pp. 468-494 Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20780432 Accessed: 03-08-2015 11:22 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic and East European Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.3.35.82 on Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:22:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SEER, Vol. 88, No. 3, July 2010 On Behalf of the Emperor: The Finnish Guard's Campaign to Poland, 1831 JUSSI JALONEN Preface The conflict that broke out between Poland and Russia in November an 1830 had immediate and direct impact on Finland. For the first time since the Seven Years War of 1756-63 and Gustav IV Adolfs ill-fated Pomeranian expedition of 1805-07, Finnish soldiers were dispatched to overseas on a fight the battlefields of Central Europe. As result, Finland became involved in the international crisis generated by the Polish Russian conflict, while the willing participation of the Imperial Life-Guard's Finnish battalion in the campaign testified to the peculiar contrast between rebellious Poland and loyal Finland. The soldiers of the Finnish Guard who followed the banner of the double-headed eagle and the golden lion in the fight against the Polish a insurrectionists have remained curious note in Finnish historiogra phy. Although the various political consequences for Finnish autonomy following the November Rising have been discussed in scholarly litera ture from time to time, no independent study has been made of the Finnish Guard's participation in the 1831 campaign against Poland. Even military histories of the Guard have tended to ignore the battles in Poland and instead chosen to focus on the service of the Finnish Guard in the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish war in the Balkans.1 What, then, was the role of the Finnish Guard in the context of the 1831 campaign? was as What the role of the Finnish soldiers tools of the Imperial war Russian machine in the suppression of the Polish struggle for a Jussi Jalonen is researcher in the Department of History and Philosophy at the Univer sity of Tampere. 1 Teuvo Laitila, TTie Finnish Guard in theBalkans: Heroism, Imperial^alty and Finnishness as in theRusso-Turkuh War of i8jj-i8j8, recollected in theMemoirs ofFinnish Guardsmen, Helsinki, A 2003, p. 83. beautifully illustrated narrative description of the participation of the Finnish was Guard in the 1831 campaign in Poland included in Torsten Ekman's recent popular on history, Suomen kaarti 1812-igoj, Helsinki, 2006, pp. 81-127. Ekman has relied mostly G. A. Gripenberg's Lifgardets 3 finsh sfarpskyttebataljon 1812-igoj: ettminnesblad, Helsingfors, account 1905, pp. 38-106, the earliest of the Finnish involvement in the campaign. This content downloaded from 185.3.35.82 on Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:22:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JUSSI JALONEN 469 independence? And what kind of trace did the campaign and its events leave on the Finnish historical memory at the time? Finland and Poland in theRussian Empire: The Decembrist Rising of 1825 an<^ its Consequences The degree of self-government enjoyed by Poland and Finland within the Russian Empire during the early nineteenth century has been sub jected to occasional comparative analysis.2 The autonomous status that on the 1815 Treaty of Vienna bestowed the Kongres?wka, the Congress was more Kingdom of Poland, inmany ways extensive than that given an to the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809. As impoverished border no land with history of independent statehood, the administration of Finland was still based on the old Gustavian constitutions inherited no from Swedish rule. Having currency of its own, Finland used the as Swedish riksdaler and the Russian ruble mediums of exchange. Meanwhile, the four-estate Finnish Diet that had assembled at Porvoo in 1809 was not convened again until 1863. The Kingdom of was as a Poland, by contrast, designed model example of progressive government with its own constitution drafted by Prince Adam Jerzy a Czartoryski, close confident of Emperor Alexander. The gold-based zloty remained as the Polish national currency and the bicameral one Polish legislature, the Sejm, convened in 1818 and 1820. Only in respect did Finland gain more than Poland. In 1812, Emperor Alexan der returned the Karelian lands conquered by Russia in 1720 and 1743 ? to the Grand Duchy, but the Kresy the historic eastern territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth annexed by Russia in ? were the partitions of 1772, 1793, 1795 and the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit never reunited with the Congress Kingdom.3 Both the Grand Duchy of Finland and Congress Poland possessed their own military establishments. First reassembled at the outbreak of new war between France and Russia in 1812, the Finnish military units included five enlisted J?ger battalions and one training battalion, sub ordinated to the governor-general in Helsinki and the general staff in St Petersburg. After 1819, these Finnish military units were rearranged into two line infantry and one J?ger regiments, each with two battal as a ions, with the training battalion in Helsinki remaining separate on detachment. The Cadet School of Hamina, based the old Topo graphic School of Haapaniemi, remained the cradle of the Finnish 2 Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History ofPoland. Volume II: iygj to thePresent, revised edn, Oxford, 2005, pp. 270-71; Finland and Pohnd in theRussian Empire: A Comparative Study, ed. Michael Branch, M. and Antoni Maczak, London, 1995. 3 Janet Hartley Kalervo Hovi, 'Miksi Aleksanteri I ei palauttanut Puolan it?alueita Puolan kuningas kuntaan?', Faravid, 8, 1984, pp. 161-74. This content downloaded from 185.3.35.82 on Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:22:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 470 ON BEHALF OF THE EMPEROR military class, providing education for native-born officers in their was more homeland.4 The Polish military, by contrast, considerably sizeable and independent, and the Kongres?wka spent one-third, and occasionally two-fifths of its national income to maintain its ? profes sional army of 30,000 the national pride of Poland. Commanded by the Emperor's brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, the army wore of the Congress Kingdom Polish uniforms, followed the Polish as flag and used Polish its language of command. At the same time, the army continued the French traditions adopted during the 1807-13 Duchy ofWarsaw. A majority of high-ranking Polish officers, such as General J?zef Zaj^czek, consisted of veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, soldiers who had earned their ranks fighting against Russia in the grande arm?e and later opted for reconciliation with the tsarist regime. The paths of Poland and Finland quickly diverged. In the context of the 'political night' that reigned supreme under the Congress System soon and the Holy Alliance, the Finnish ruling elites acknowledged that they could expect no further concessions from Russia. The Emperor's convene decision not to the Finnish legislature again after 1809 was a quietly accepted as fait accompli, and the authorities of the Grand on Duchy concentrated safeguarding the extant autonomous adminis as as tration, well courting imperial favour, often by rather egregious demonstrations of loyalty. The reaction of the Poles to Alexander I's angry dissolution of the second Sejm in 1820, on the other hand, was a an completely different, and within few years underground extra as a parliamentary opposition had formed in the Congress Kingdom determined protest against Russian imperial authority, with radical on conspiratorial societies based the continental European model.5 By the time of the Decembrist Uprising of 1825, the lines between were a Poland and Finland already drawn. While politically turbulent Poland was heading towards collision with Russia, the peaceful atmo was sphere of the Grand Duchy of Finland still characterized by 'impe ? an rial silence' unquestioning loyalty to the Russian sovereign. The contrast between the two autonomous borderlands of the Russian Empire was best demonstrated by the obedience of Finnish officers in the imperial service. While disgruntled Polish military officers such as Colonel Seweryn Krzyzanowski had been ready and willing to conspire together with the Russian Decembrist leaders against the Emperor, 4 L. G. Beskrovny, The Russian Army and Fleet in theNineteenth Century:Handbook ofArmaments, Personnel and Policy, ed., trans., Gordon E. Smith, Gulf Breeze, FL, 1996, pp. 87-88; Pertti Luntinen, The Russian and Navy inFinland, Helsinki, 1997, pp. 5 Imperial Army - 56-58.- Arnon Gill, Frdh?tsk?mpfe der Polen im ig. Jahrhundert; Erhebungen Aufst?nde Revolutionen,