Thus wrote Kościuszko in the day when a peasant soldiery was unknown in Poland; and a few months later he was leading his regiments of reapers and boatmen to the national Rising.
There was nothing more for him to do in Paris. His intended attempt in England was given up, for Kołłontaj received a broad hint from the British representative in Saxony that Kościuszko's presence would be both unwelcome to George III and profitless to the Polish cause. Kościuszko may then have gone on from France to Brussels, but in the summer of 1793 he was back in Leipzig in close consultation with Ignacy Potocki.
The condition of Poland was by now lamentable. Her position was that of a nation at the mercy of a foreign army, ravaged by war, although she was not at war. Russians garrisoned every town. Russian soldiers were systematically pillaging and devastating the country districts, terrorizing village and town alike. Poles were arrested in their own houses at the will of their Russian conquerors, and despatched to Siberia. Hidden confederations, especially among the Polish youth, were being carried on all over Poland, preparing to rise in defence of the national freedom. In the teeth of the Russian garrison and of Catherine II's plenipotentiary, Igelstrom, Warsaw sent secret emissaries to the scattered remnants of the Polish army; and in the conferences that were held at dead of night the choice of the nation fell upon Kościuszko as the leader above all others who should avenge the national dishonour and wrest back at the point of the sword the independence of Poland. In the beginning of September 1793 two Polish delegates carried the proposal to him where he still remained in Leipzig.
The great moment in the life of Tadeusz Kościuszko had now arrived. His fiery and enthusiastic soul leapt to its call; but with none of the headlong precipitance that would have been its ruin. Kościuszko was too great a patriot to disdain wariness and cool calculation. He never stirred without seeing each step clearly mapped out before him. He took his counsels with Potocki and his other Polish intimates in Saxony; then formulated his plan of the Rising. Each district of Poland and Lithuania was to be under the command of some citizen who would undertake secretly to beat up the inhabitants to arms. The people could choose their own officers according to the general wish. Special insistence was laid on the duties of calling the peasants to fight side by side with the landowners. The Polish peasant had hitherto been counted incapable of bearing arms: Kościuszko overrode this ancient prejudice with results that have given one of the finest pages to the history of Poland.
He then went alone with his confidant, Zajonczek, to the Polish frontiers to collect information. He sent round messengers to the different provinces of Poland and Lithuania carrying his letters and full instructions, while Zajonczek, under a false name, was despatched to Warsaw. The report the latter gave to Kościuszko on his return was not satisfactory. Matters were not as yet ripe for the undertaking. Financial means in the widespread ruin that had come upon Poland through the overrunning of her territories by a hostile soldiery were lacking, in spite of the private generosity of such a donor as the Warsaw banker, Kapostas. The difficulties of getting together a fighting force when Russian soldiers, closely supervising every movement of the Poles, occupied the country and the Polish divisions had been purposely drafted to great distances from each other by the Empress, were almost insuperable. The peasant rising upon which Kościuszko had built his best hopes was unprepared. But two elements remained that should, as pointed out by Zajonczek, consolidate and ensure a great national Rising: universal detestation of the Russian and limitless confidence in the chosen national leader. Kościuszko deemed it advisable to wait. "It is impossible," he said after receiving Zajonczek's report, "to build on such frail foundations; for it would be a sad thing to begin lightly and without consideration, only to fall." He himself, recognizable as he was through all Poland, was too well known to act as a secret propagandist in his own country; so in order to throw dust in the eyes of Russia and Prussia he retired to Italy for some months. In Florence he found Niemcewicz. Niemcewicz tells how one night as he sat reading by his lamp the door burst open, the Polish greeting, "Praised be Jesus Christ," rang on the exile's ear, and a former colleague of the poet's hurried in with the simple words: "I have come for Kościuszko."[1] But the last act was played out in Dresden, that for long after Kościuszko's day remained a stronghold of Polish emigration. While Kościuszko was taking final deliberation there with Kołłontaj and Ignacy Potocki, two Poles came straight from Poland, and on their knees besought Kościuszko to give the word. The moment was now or never. Placards were being fastened mysteriously on the walls of Warsaw, calling to the Poles to rise. Patriotic writings were scattered broadcast, patriotic articles printed, in spite of the rigorous Russian censorship, in the Polish papers. Plays were acted in the theatre whose double meaning, uncomprehended by the Russians who sat in crowds in the audience, were fiery appeals to Polish patriotism. The streets of Warsaw, all Poland and Lithuania, were seething with agitation and secret hope. The suspicions of Igelstrom were aroused. He resolved to take over the arsenal in Warsaw and to disarm and demobilize the Polish army. In this dilemma Kościuszko was compelled to throw his all on one card or to fail. He therefore decided on the war; and in March 1794 he re-entered Poland as the champion of her freedom.
[1] J. Niemcewicz, Recollections of My Times, Paris, 1848 (Polish).