'General Turno, trusting in the faithful execution of the plan, attacked the enemy with courage and vigor. He was sure of receiving support on three sides. He made head against the enemy for six hours, while generals Jankowski and Bukowski, at the distance of about three miles from him, hearing and even seeing the fire of the action, remained in a state of complete inaction. Nay more, a Russian detachment took possession, almost before their eyes, of the ammunition and baggage of a whole regiment, and they did not stir to prevent it. General Turno fought with bravery and sangfroid, notwithstanding that none came to his support, and did not retire till he received orders to do so. The whole corps was indignant at the conduct of Jankowski, and his brother-in-law, Bukowski, who had evidently acted the part of traitors.'
General Skrzynecki was deeply afflicted with the sad result of an expedition, which, based upon infallible calculations, had promised the very surest success. The event was of the most disastrous consequence to us. If the corps of general Rudiger had been crushed, as it certainly could have been, the combined corps of Chrzanowski, Muhlberg, and Jankowski, could have acted upon all the corps of the enemy, which might be found between the Wieprz, the Swider, and the Liwiec. As those corps were quite distant from their main army, which was now upon the right of the Narew, and as they were even without a free communication with each other, they could have each been beaten in detail, by a prompt action on our part. I leave to the reader to decide, whether, after we should have obtained such successes over these detached corps, we could not have acted with certain success against the Russian main army.
The corps of general Rudiger, which thus escaped its fate, left for the environs of Lukow, whither it was followed by general Chrzanowski. The corps of general Jankowski returned in the direction of Macieiowiec and Laskarzew, and the division of general Muhlberg returned to Minsk. The general in chief deprived generals Jankowski and Bukowski of their command, and ordered them to be tried by a court-martial.
But other and even more affecting disasters were awaiting us. Poland, which had been so often made a sacrifice of, through her own generosity and confidence, now nourished upon her bosom the monsters who were plotting her destruction.
On the 28th of June, general Skrzynecki received information of a conspiracy which had for its object the delivering up of Warsaw into the hands of the enemy, by liberating and arming the Russian prisoners. Several generals, of whom distrust had been felt, and who had been deprived of their commands when the revolution broke out, having been known as the vile instruments of the former government, were at the bottom of this plot. Of this painful intelligence, general Skrzynecki immediately apprized the National Government, who, relying on his report, caused to be arrested general Hurtig, former commander of the fortress of Zamosc, and a base instrument of Constantine, general Salacki, colonel Slupecki, the Russian chamberlain Fenshawe, a Mr Lessel, and a Russian lady, named Bazanow. Generals Jankowski and Bukowski were also implicated in the conspiracy. This band of traitors intended to get possession of the arsenal, to arm the Russian prisoners, and to destroy the bridges; (in order to cut off all communication with the army, which was then on the right bank of the Vistula;) and the Russian army, advertised of this movement, was then to pass to the left bank of the Vistula, at Plock or Dobzyn, and take possession of Warsaw. Those traitors succeeded in setting at large a great number of Russian prisoners at Czenstochowa.
What a terror must poor Poland have been to the Russian cabinet, which did not find it enough to have deluged her with their immense forces, and to have engaged all the neighboring cabinets to aid them against her, but must go farther, and, by the employment of such vile means, attempt to kindle hostilities in her interior, and to subject her at the same time to a civil and an external war! They had good cause for these desperate attempts. From the earliest stage of the conflict, they had seen that the Poles, nerved by the consciousness of the justice of their cause, were capable of crushing the force which they had sent to execute the will of the despot. Unable to meet us in the open field, they must invent some new method, no matter how base, to accomplish their end. It was through the instrumentality of their intrigues that the dictatorship was prolonged. It was by such intrigues, that the apple of discord was thrown into our national congress, and even into the ranks of that handful of brave men who had sworn to sacrifice themselves in the cause of their country. They employed their vile accomplices to betray us, and they succeeded.
The discovery of this extensive treason struck the people with consternation and dismay. It drove them to a state bordering on desperation. When Poland had sent and was sending her sons, and even her daughters, to the field of death;—when she was sacrificing every thing to achieve her deliverance, and was awaiting the fruits of such sacrifices, sure, if not to conquer, at least to fall with honor,—she sees that all is in vain—that her holy purposes are mocked at, and that all her noble efforts are thwarted! Can we be surprised, then, at the state of the popular mind which ensued?
The state of feeling which these events caused was aggravated by the reflection, that the surveillance of certain individuals, of whom distrust had been already entertained, had been more than once demanded; and that from an early period it was urged upon the government, that the Russian prisoners, particularly those of distinction, should be carefully watched, and prevented from holding free communication together, or with others. So far, however, from such care having been taken, the very Jews were permitted to communicate with them constantly, and to bring them intelligence of the events of the war. Can it be wondered then, that the neglect of these repeated warnings, and the tremendous consequences which had well nigh followed this neglect, should have weighed upon the minds of the people, and have even brought the National Government itself into suspicion? It was, in fact, from this moment, that the nation began first to look with dissatisfaction and distrust upon that government, upon prince Czartoriski its head, and even upon the general in chief himself. The melancholy news of the treason of Jankowski filled the minds of the patriots with bitter anticipations; they naturally foreboded, that if such treasons could be perpetrated in the grand army, under the very eyes of the general in chief, the danger might be still greater in the more distant corps. Their forebodings were but too well justified by the events which took place in Lithuania, the intelligence of which was soon received at Warsaw.