Casimir Stanislaus Gzowski, signed as C. S. Gzowski
LIEUT.-COL. CASIMIR STANISLAUS GZOWSKI,
AIDE-DE-CAMP TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA.
In compiling the various sketches which have appeared in the present series, the editor has frequently been compelled to encounter the difficulty of constructing a readable narrative out of very sparse and prosaic materials. A collection of this kind must necessarily include the lives of many professional and scientific men; and eminence in literature, in science, and in the learned professions, is commonly attained by means which—however interesting to those most immediately concerned—seem wonderfully commonplace to the general public, when reduced to plain, matter-of-fact narration. As a rule, stirring and romantic incidents are incompatible with a successful professional career, and in recounting the life of a learned divine, Chief Justice, or man of science, it is rarely necessary to deal with thrilling incidents or dramatic situations. The lives of such men are usually passed within a narrow and restricted groove, and the salient points may easily be comprised within a few lines. In the life of Colonel Gzowski, on the other hand, we have an instance of a remarkably successful professional career, combined with a chapter of vicissitude and adventure which, in the hands of a writer familiar with all the details, might very well form the groundwork of a sensation novel. His elasticity of spirits, strength of will, and vigour of constitution have supported him through an amount of labour, fatigue and suffering to which a more feeble mind and a more delicately-constructed frame must inevitably have succumbed long ago. Such a life as his commonly leaves very perceptible traces behind it. In his case no such traces are discernible. Neither in his visage, his gait, nor his manner, can the most observant eye detect any sign that his pathway has not always been strewn with roses. No one remarking his erect and firmly-knit figure, his jauntiness of step, and his keenness of glance, as he perambulates our streets, would readily believe that he is rapidly approaching his sixty-eighth birthday. Still less would it be supposed that he has passed through adventures enough for a knight-errant; that he has fought and bled in the fierce struggle for a nation's existence; that he has had his full share of the horrors of war; that he has languished in a patriot's prison; and that some of the best years of his life were passed in a hard struggle for existence in a foreign land. As we pass in review the alternating phases of his chequered career we seem to be contemplating a shifting panorama of the novelist's fancy, rather than a veracious chronicle of facts. The story of his life can be adequately narrated by no other pen than his own, and for many years past he has found more profitable employment for his talents than the inditing of autobiographical memoirs. In the absence of any such memoirs, be it ours to place on record such of the more salient points of his life as are readily ascertainable.
He is descended from an ancient Polish family which was ennobled in the sixteenth century, and which for more than two hundred years thereafter continued to exercise an influence upon the national affairs. His father, Stanislaus, Count (Hrabia) Gzowski, was an officer of the Imperial Guard. He himself was born on the 5th of March, 1813, at St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, where his parents were then temporarily sojourning. His childhood was spent as the childhood of most Polish children of his station in life was passed in those days—viz., in preparation for a military career. At nine years of age he entered a military engineering college at Kremenetz, in the Province of Volhynia, where he remained until 1830, when he graduated as an engineer, received a commission, and entered the army of Russia.
The Russian Empire was at this time on the verge of one of those periodical insurrections to which she had long been subject, more especially since the final partition and absorption of Poland, and the annihilation of the Polish monarchy. In 1825, Nicholas I. succeeded his elder brother Alexander on the throne of Russia. He had not long been installed there before he gave evidence of that aggressive policy which he pursued through life, and which nearly thirty years later involved him in the Crimean War. Some years before his accession, his elder brother Constantine, the heir-apparent to the throne, had been entrusted with the military government of Poland, and in 1822 had resigned his right to the Russian throne in Nicholas's favour. Upon the latter's accession he continued his elder brother in his sovereignty of Poland. Constantine's administration of affairs in that unhappy country was arbitrary and despotic in the extreme, and little calculated to mollify the heartburnings of the inhabitants. His oppressions were not confined to the serfs, but extended to the nobility. The result of his tyranny was the formation of secret societies with a view to striking one more blow for Polish liberty. A widespread insurrection, wherein most of the Polish officers in the Imperial army were involved, finally broke out in 1830—the year in which the subject of this sketch received his commission. The success of the concurrent revolution in France, and the forced abdication of Charles X., inspired the insurgents with high hopes. In November of the year last mentioned the Grand Duke Constantine and his Russian adherents were driven out of Warsaw, the Polish capital. If the insurrectionary forces had been thoroughly organized, and if they had not been subjected to extraneous interference, there is reason for believing that their country might have been freed from the hateful domination of the Czar. Notwithstanding all the manifold disabilities under which they carried on the contest, they achieved a temporary success. After the expulsion of Constantine, a provisional government was formed under the presidency of Prince Czartoryski, and a series of desperate engagements was fought in which the patriots had in almost every instance a decided advantage. Their desperate courage and self-devotion, however, were of no permanent avail, for Prussia and Austria both lent their assistance to crush them, and towards the close of 1831 Warsaw was recaptured by the allied forces under Count Paskevitch, who was forthwith installed as viceroy of Poland. The crushing of the insurrection was of course marked by merciless severity and cruelty. In 1832 Poland was declared to be an integral part of the Russian Empire, and all the important prisoners were either put to death, banished to Siberia, or compelled to endure the horrors of a Russian prison.
Throughout the whole of this fruitless insurrection Casimir Stanislaus Gzowski played a conspicuous part. He cast in his lot with his compatriots from the beginning; was present at the expulsion of Constantine from Warsaw, in November, 1830, and was actively engaged in numerous important conflicts that ensued. He was wounded, and several times narrowly escaped capture. We have no means of closely following him through the hazardous exploits of that dark and sanguinary period. Persons who are familiar with the history of Polish insurrections will be at no loss to conjecture the "hair-breadth 'scapes, and moving accidents by flood and field," which he encountered in that desperate struggle for a nation's freedom. After the battle of Boremel, General Dwernicki's division, to which he was attached, retreated into Austrian territory, where the troops laid down their arms and became prisoners. The rank and file were permitted to depart whithersoever they would, but the officers, to the number of about six hundred, were placed in durance, and quartered in several fortified stations. There they languished for several months, when, by an arrangement entered into between the governments of Russia and Austria, they were shipped off as exiles to the United States.