4. To prevent such evils, I invite all the authorities, civil as well as military, who may be in the towns and cities, to send deputies to the commanders of the Russian forces, when these forces shall arrive. Such deputations will bring with them as a sign of submission to their legitimate sovereign, a white flag. They will be expected to announce that the inhabitants submit themselves to the benevolence of his majesty the Emperor and King, and that their arms have been deposited in some place which shall be designated. The Russian commanders will then take the necessary measures of security. They will maintain the civil authorities, which existed before the revolt, as well as those which shall have been instituted afterwards, if they have taken no active part in the rebellion. The sedentary guard of veterans will be continued, if they have not engaged in the resistance, or given manifest proofs of treason towards their legitimate sovereign. All those authorities, civil as well as military, will be required to renew their oaths of fidelity. Conformably to the orders of his majesty the Emperor and King, an amnesty and pardon for the past will be given to all of those who shall submit without delay, and shall comply with the conditions which have been above mentioned.
5. The Russian commanders shall organize, as circumstances may require, in the places where no Russian garrisons may remain, a civil and municipal guard, who shall be chosen from among the most faithful of the veterans, and the inhabitants shall be entrusted with the interior police, as far as may be necessary to secure order and tranquillity.
6. The organization of the administration of the palatinates, arrondissements, and communes, will remain upon the footing on which it was before the insurrection. It will be the same with all the direct and indirect taxes. The authorities will remain in their places after they shall have complied with the above conditions. In other cases, new authorities will be established by the choice of the commanders of the Russian forces. That choice will fall principally upon the individuals who may unite, with the necessary capacity, an established moral character, and who shall have given proofs of their fidelity to their legitimate sovereign. All those will be excluded who shall have taken any part whatever in the rebellion, as well as those who after the entrance of the Russian troops into the kingdom shall persist in an organized opposition against legal order. The proprietors of land and houses who may remain tranquil in their habitations, and shall submit to the conditions above announced, will be protected in their rights, as well by the local authorities as by the Russian troops. In other cases, the property of all those who shall remain in the revolutionary ranks will be sequestered, as well as that of those who shall have continued to exercise the functions entrusted to them by the illegal government, or in some who shall have openly taken part in the revolt. Such are, Poles, the principles which will direct the army which his Majesty has deigned to confide to my command. You have to choose between the benefits which an unqualified submission to the will of our magnanimous sovereign assures to you, and the evils which will be brought upon you by a state of things without object as well as without hope. I hold it an honor to have been called upon to make known to you these resolutions, emanating from the generous intentions of the Emperor and King. I shall execute them scrupulously, but I shall not fail to punish criminal obstinacy with inflexible severity.
(Signed) The Marshal Count Diebitsch Zabalkansky.
Proclamation of the Count Diebitsch Zabalkansky to the Polish troops.
Generous Poles! Twenty-five years since, your country was implicated in the wars which the gigantic plans of a celebrated conqueror had kindled. The hope, often awakened, and always disappointed, of an illusory regeneration, had connected you with his fortunes. Faithful, although unfortunate, you answered those deceptive promises by the sacrifice of your blood. There is scarce a country, however distant it may have been, that has not been wet with that blood which you have prodigally shed for interests altogether foreign to the destiny of your country. Great events brought at last, at a remarkable epoch, an end to your misfortunes. After a contest, forever memorable, in which Russia saw you among the number of her enemies, the Emperor Alexander, of immortal memory, obeying only the impulse of his magnanimous heart, wished to add to all his other titles to glory, that of being the restorer of your country. Poland recovered her name, and the Polish army a new life. All the elements of national welfare, of tranquillity, and of prosperity, were miraculously united, and fifteen years of uninterrupted progress prove, to this day, the greatness of the benefits for which your country is indebted to the paternal solicitude of the sovereign who was its restorer, and to the no less earnest concern of him who has so nobly continued the work of his predecessor.
Polish Warriors! His Majesty the Emperor and King has trusted to your gratitude and your fidelity. A short time since he gladly did justice to your devotedness and your good will. The exemplary conduct of all the Polish officers, without exception, who partook with our armies the fatigues and the glory of the Turkish war, had given a high satisfaction to his Majesty. We accepted with pleasure this fraternity of arms which became a new bond between the Russian and Polish troops. The best hope of reciprocal advantages should connect with that union, which was founded upon all that is sacred in military honor. Those hopes have been cruelly deceived. A handful of young men, who have never known the dangers of battle, of young officers who had never passed through a campaign or even a march, have shaken the fidelity of the brave. The latter have seen committed in their ranks the greatest of crimes, the murder of their commanders; they have not arrested the revolt against their legitimate sovereign. What unhappy blindness, what criminal condescension has been able to induce these veterans to permit the consummation of the greatest of offences, and to join themselves with those whose hands were stained with blood! Can it be possible that the design of rendering a service to their country has been made for a moment a pretext for such conduct? That country can answer that for a long period she had never enjoyed so much happiness. She had attained much, and she could still hope much from her fidelity, and the support of public order. She exposes herself to the loss of all these advantages by engaging in an unequal struggle, in revolting against a sovereign whose firm and energetic character is well known, and in braving a power which has never been defied with impunity.
Polish Warriors! Rebellion would stamp upon your front the stain of dishonor. Put away from you such an ignominy. History will one day relate, that, in the hope of serving your country, you have been faithful and devoted to the man who promised you every thing, and kept his promise in nothing. Shall it also say that, paying with ingratitude and perjury, the sovereign who has generously granted you every thing which you had any right to hope for, you have drawn down upon your country new misfortunes, and upon yourselves an indelible disgrace? If some grievances existed, you should have had confidence enough in the character of our august sovereign to have laid before him your complaints, in a legal manner, and with that frankness which characterizes the true soldier. And I too, Poles, I speak the sincere language of a soldier; I have never known any other. Obedient to the orders of my sovereign, I reiterate, by his wishes, all the propositions which, in his clemency, he has already made to you by his proclamation of the 17th of December. Our august sovereign has witnessed, with marked satisfaction, the fidelity of the brave light-cavalry of the guard, of the greater part of the grenadiers of the guard, and of the sub-officers of the cavalry. He does not doubt that the greater part of the troops cherished the desire to remain faithful to their oaths, and that many others were hurried away only by the impulse of the moment. Let each one hasten to execute the orders which are contained in the proclamation of his majesty. But if unforeseen circumstances do not permit you to follow the course which has been pointed out to you; at least, on the approach of the faithful armies of our common sovereign, remember your duties and your oaths. It is not as enemies that the troops placed under my command enter the kingdom of Poland. It is on the contrary with the noble object of re-establishing public order and the laws. They will receive as brothers all persons, either in civil or military life, who shall return to their duties; but they will know how to subdue, with the constancy and courage which they have ever manifested, the resistance which evil-minded men may attempt to oppose to them,—men who, trampling under foot the sacredness of their oaths and the laws of honor, sacrifice to their ambitious and even criminal projects the dearest interests of their country. It is to you especially, generals and colonels of the Polish army, that I address myself with confidence; to you, whom I have been accustomed to regard as my worthy brothers in arms. Return from the momentary error to which you have been capable of surrendering yourselves, that you may, in joining the rebellious, bring them back to their duties, and serve your country without violating your oaths. Experience will have disabused you of your error: return to the path of fidelity, and you will by that restore the happiness of your country. You know the clemency of our august sovereign: return to him. Weigh well the immense responsibility which you will take upon your heads by a criminal obstinacy. Join yourselves to your brothers in arms. Show that you are still worthy to be the commanders of the troops which your sovereign has entrusted to you. You will be received as brothers. An amnesty of the past is assured to you. The troops which I command will fulfil with loyalty the intentions of our sovereign, and the gratitude of your country, restored to tranquillity, will be a delightful reward for your return to your duty. But if there are found among you men hardened in crime, who cannot be persuaded to trust in magnanimity, because they know not the elevated sentiments in which it has its origin, let all the bonds of military fraternity between you and them be broken; the all-powerful hand of God, the protector of the good cause, will bring down upon their heads the punishment due to their crimes.
(Signed) The Marshal Diebitsch Zabalkansky.
[33] To the proclamations of general Diebitsch, one of our countrymen made a reply, in the form of a letter, which was published in the gazettes, and which, as far as my memory serves me, was in nearly the following terms: 'General, your proclamations, which breathe the spirit of injustice, arrogance, and cruelty—the menacing tone of which is backed by the colossal force you have led to the invasion of our territory, and which you are to wield as an instrument for establishing a new tyranny and inflicting new sufferings upon a country of freemen,—these proclamations, general, prove that the favorable opinion which Europe entertained of you was ill-grounded, and that you too, like the rest, are willing to lend yourself an easy and vile instrument in the hands of the oppressor. Diebitsch! Can it be you who so recently passed the Balkan, to deliver a nation from the yoke of barbarism,—an action which gained for you so great a name in history?