The insurrections of Lithuania and Samogitia, which had begun so successfully and promised to extend even to the borders of the Dnieper and the Black Sea, could not but threaten the utmost danger to the Russian forces which had entered the kingdom, and it was from this moment that the situation of the enemy became in a high degree critical, as every military judge will perceive. The danger of their position was still more to be augmented by our success in the battle of Iganie, on the 9th of April.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] The young Lithuanian, whose name was Szymanski, had passed, on foot, two hundred and eighty miles in eight days, in the vilest habit of a beggar, and even without shoes, through forests, marshes, and fords, to avoid interception, exposed in fact to every kind of privation. He arrived on the 4th of April, at the camp of the generalissimo, at Jendrzeiow, where he was received with great enthusiasm. He was immediately sent to Warsaw, to announce the happy intelligence to the people.
Plan of operation against the two corps of Rosen and Kreutz.—Battle of Iganie.—Reflections on the state of the Polish cause after the victory of Iganie.—Review of the course of the campaign.—Condition of the Russian army.—Discontents in Russia.—Representations of the Senate at St Petersburgh to the Emperor.—Comparative view of the forces of the two armies at the present stage of the conflict.
Marshal Diebitsch, as is known to the reader, was forced, by our victories of the 31st of March and the 1st of April, to abandon his plan of passing the Vistula opposite to Kozienice, and to think of nothing farther at present, than of saving the two corps of Rosen and Giesmar, and the guard. He was so far separated from them while between Kock and Ryk, where he then was, that by a prompt diversion on our part, by Lukow, he might have lost those corps, and it was in fear of this, that he hastened to arrive as soon as possible to their succor at Siedlce. Our general in chief thought to anticipate this movement, and to throw himself upon the combined corps of Giesmar and Rosen, before Diebitsch should reach them.[52]
XX.