222 VARSOVIE
Russia and serve in the Duchy's army. Poles from the Prussian and Austrian
Partitions came over to swell the ranks; and all were offered citizenship in the
Duchy's service. For a brief moment, it looked as if the Polish nation might
regain control of its destiny.
The year 1812 saw the climacteric of the Napoleonic adventure. For the French,
the Russian Campaign was just another act of revolutionary imperialism. For the
Russians, it presented the supreme test for the integrity and durability of their
Empire. For the Poles alone, it was a war of liberation. When the Grande Armee
crossed the Niemen on 24 June, most of its soldiers were aware only that they
were crossing the frontier of the Russian Empire. But the thousands of Poles
among them were more conscious that they were crossing the historic frontier of
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. As they tramped towards Wilno, they knew that
they were destroying the barrier which had kept the two parts of the old Republic
apart for the last twenty years. It is true that Napoleon had made no specific
promises. Although he chose to refer to the campaign as 'the Second Polish War',
his spokesman, the Due de Bassano, was only prepared to say that 'a complete
restoration of Poland was one possible way of terminating the conflict'. On the'
Lithuanian side, expectations rose feverishly. A number of magnates, fearful of
social disorder, continued to support the Tsar. But the mass of the population fer-
vently awaited their hour of deliverance. Adam Mickiewicz, who witnessed the
events as a boy of fourteen, re-created the atmosphere in ringing tones:
O memorable year! Happy is he who beheld it in our land! The common people still call
it 'the year of harvest'. But soldiers call it the 'year of War'...
Already the stork had returned to its native pine, and had spread its white wings, the
early standard of Spring. And after it, the swallows gathered above the waters in noisy
regiments ... In the evening one could hear the call of the woodcocks as they rose from
the thickets. Flocks of wild geese honked over the forest before alighting wearily to feed.
In the depths of the sky, the cranes kept up a constant clamour. Hearing this, the watch-
men asked each other what storm had driven the birds forth so early, and what was the
cause of such disorder in the winged kingdom.
For now new swarms of plumes and pennons shone bright on the hills, like flocks of
finches, plover, and starlings, and came down into the meadows. They were cavalrymen.
In strange array, with arms never seen before, regiment followed regiment. The iron-
shod ranks flowed along the roads, straight across the country, like melted snow. Black
shakoes projected from the wood; bayonets glittered, row after row; and the infantry
swarmed forth, countless as ants... Horses, men, cannon, eagles flowed on, day and
night. Fires glowed in the sky. The earth trembled. Thunder rolled in the distance...
War! War! Its roar reached into every corner of the Lithuanian land. The strange glare
in the sky was seen even in the darkest forest, by peasants whose ancestors had died with-
out seeing beyond the boundary of the wood, who knew no other sounds in the sky than
those of the wind, and who had met no other guests than their fellow woodsmen... The
bison, hoary and bearded, shook in his mossy lair, and ruffling his mane ... fled to deeper
refuge...
O memorable Spring of war and harvest! Happy is he who watched as you blossomed
with corn and grass, and glittered with men: How rich you were in history; how big with