Song of the Legions Read Free Page B

honoured and beloved kinsmen of which army I had decided to join.
     
    Naturally, they assumed that I would join the army of the House of Hapsburg. Podolia was after all a part of the Austrian empire. In those days Austria had the largest army in the whole world, greater even than the army of Russia. Austria’s hussars were the finest to be had anywhere, not least because of the number of Polish mercenaries and conscripts in their ranks.
     
    “Fine prospects, and a great deal of money, await an officer of the Imperial Army,” my father pronounced, and I swear there were tears of joy springing from his money-purse.
     
    “I have no doubt that what you say is true, father,” I replied to the old man. I had not spoken a word of a lie.
     
    “Serve your lawful sovereign, boy,” my father snivelled, “make us proud.”
     
    “Have no fear, I will faithfully serve my lawful sovereign, sir,” I replied, as I swung myself unsteadily onto my horse.
     
    My kin waved me a fond farewell from the farm, on a warm sunny day, and I rode westward, for Krakow. At Krakow, the road turns south for Vienna.
     
    Podolia is a naked ocean of wilderness, half-tame, half-wild, under an endless sky. Painted cornfields spread out like a jewelled tapestry – golden fields of wheat, and silver fields of rye. Over the years, our people had slowly begun to tame this wilderness, to make it a garden of man. We bred fine horses, cattle and sheep. We grew tobacco, potatoes, hemp and flax. The forests sang with bee hives. Here were a million Poles, slaves under a Hapsburg flag, serfs of a lackey of Moscow.
     
    At Krakow, I rode north – for Warsaw .
     

CHAPTER THREE
THE THIRD OF MAY, 1791
     
     
    Such a day! It was dawn, on The Third of May, the Feast of Our Lady, in the Year of Our Lord, Seventeen Ninety-One. Old Poland was on her last legs – again. Surrounded by enemies without, and honeycombed with traitors within. We few boys had rallied to her tattered flag. We were the King’s cavalry, waiting for orders.
     
    We were in the courtyard of the Poniatowski Palace in Warsaw. It reeked of horses and leather. The air sang with hoof beats ringing on flagstones. Sunlight shone on the red walls and roofs of the city, picking out the white spires and domes on the horizon. Our grand old city was red and white, just as Canaletto painted it, the same colours as our flag.
     
    The front rank of riders lowered their lances. Red and white swallow-tailed pennants fluttered in the breeze, and lines of steel spearpoints glittered in the morning sun. We cut a great dash. I sat on my old brown stallion, wearing my crisp new cavalry uniform of blue jacket and red trousers, with shiny silver epaulettes and buttons, and a red fur-lined czapka, our square sided cavalry cap, on my head. My comrades and I were newly enlisted that very day, having graduated as officer cadets together, and we were as happy as priests in a nunnery. As much as we loved the cavalry, we had less respect for its commander-in-chief, His Majesty the King. A herald announced His arrival.
     
    “Stanislaus-August Poniatowski, by the Grace of God and the Will of the People, Elected King of the Republic of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Mazowia, Samogita, Kiev, Wolyn, Podolia, Podlasie, Livonia, Smolensk, Sever and Czernihov...” Et cetera!
     
    This was Stanislaus-August, not a Pole but a Saxon – that is, almost as bad as a German, if anything can be. Amongst his subjects he was called ‘the Bullock,’ so named for his emblem, a red calf, on his coat of arms. Lamentably, he is known to history as the Last King of Poland. Poor, foolish Poniatowski! An empty, windy creature, redolent of macassar, with a soft stomach and a head full of French books and nonsense.
     
    The Bullock was the cast-off lover of Catherine, Tsarina of Russia, Satan’s illegitimate daughter, herself. She had forced us to elect him as our king – at gunpoint – as a payment for services