216 The Imperial Century, 1725-1825gua:-antee that our Kalmyks and Cossacks did not commit such atrocities in
some places, especially on the flanks. •^70
The Poles also suffered greatly from depredations by the Russian army as it
passed through their territory during this conflict, and it was they who were
the victims of the second major exception. Some Russian leaders developed a
prejudice against the inhabitants of this country for its political and military
weakness, even though this was due in no small measure to their own inter-
ference in its internal affairs. Their attitude (which contrasted with that of the
late Muscovite era) communicated itself to the troops, who soon learned from
experience that they could wreak their will on the all but defenceless civilian
population of the Commonwealth without fear of reprisals and that their
superiors would condone acts of violence, especially where these were
misrepresented as motivated by religious zeal. Ancient animosities against
Catholics and Jews could camouflage crimes whose purpose was simply to fill
the pockets or gratify the lust of those who perpetrated them. After the second
partition of Poland (1793) the men who took up arms under Kosciuszko in
defence of their country's sovereignty were treated as rebels. Several hundred
Russians had been surprised and slaughtered by the insurgents in their initial
assault, and a desire to avenge the loss helped to provoke a number of
outrages. The war took on a guerilla character, and as always this increased
the hatred on both sides. The final storming of Praga, the key to Warsaw, in
October 1794 led to a particularly ugly massacre.^71 Cossack troops seem to
have been mainly to blame, but they had probably been given a green light by
higher authority. Suvorov, after capturing the city, broke with eighteenth-
century convention by allowing his forces to loot it for several hours. The
event entered Russian military folklore: ·Our Suvorov gave us freedom
To take a walk for just three hours.
Let's take a walk, lads,
Our Suvorov has ordered it.
Let's drink his health ...
70 Bolotov, Zhizn' i priklyucheniya, i. 490-2; cf. a report to Empress Elizabeth by General
Sibilski, a Saxon in Russian service, of 14 Nov. 1757. which was leaked and published in Danzig
the following year, and is quoted by Bil'basov in ZhMNP (Jan. 1887), ii. 161-2. The Kalmyks were
accused of cannibalism and Russian officers themselves acknowledged that they 'spread fear and
horror'. The Soviet historian Belikov (Kalmyki, pp. 84-9) puts a favourable gloss on their
behaviour.
11 'They're all dogs, they have fought against us, let them perish', one soldier is said to have
exclaimed as he split open his victims' skulls with a hatchet: de Madariaga, Catherine, p. 447.
Enger gardt (Zapiski, p. 177) saw heaps of mutilated bodies 'of dead and dying soldiers, [civilian)
inhabitants, Jews, monks, women and children'. According to one authority 3,000 Polish soldiers
were drowned in the Vistula and total casualties among the insurgents were over 13,000; of 4,000
civilians who took up arms only 80 survived: Sukhomlin, Suvorovskiy sbornik, pp. 249-50. Bez-
borodko put the number at 20,000 killed and 10,000 wounded (de Madariaga, loc. cit.) but
Kersnovsky, Jstoriya, i. 140, and B&E, xlviii. 934, give lower figures: 10,000 killed and wounded.
The Polish historian Th. Morawski, Dzieje narodupolskiego, Posen (Poznali), 1877, v. 420-1,
states that few were saved from 15 ,000 insurgent:;.