THE THAW AND THE JANUARY RISING 263were scattered among hundreds of partisan bands operating in all the woods
and wildernesses of the land. In the sixteen months that the Rising lasted, 1,229
engagements were fought - 956 in the Kingdom, 237 in Lithuania, the rest in
Byelorussia and the Ukraine. Typically they took the form of hit-and-run raids
on isolated Russian garrisons, or of fleeting skirmishes on the flanks of army
concentrations. The largest number of actions were fought in the Holy Cross
Mountains south of Kielce, in the Lublin Gubernia, and in regions bordering on
the Galician and Prussian frontiers. The typical partisan band or 'partia' would
coalesce round a man with army experience who tried to knock his student or
peasant volunteers into shape. In general, they sought to avoid direct con-
frontations with the superior forces of the enemy. The only action which
assumed the scale of a pitched battle occurred at Matogoszcz near Kielce on 24
February 1863 when Langiewicz led three thousand peasant scythemen and
noble swordsmen against the Russian guns. The only commander to enjoy a
position resembling that of a regular GOC was col. Jozef Hauke, alias 'Bosak'
(1834-71), who emerged in September 1863 and later served under Traugutt.
The 'Battle' at Zyrzyn in the Holy Cross Mountains on 8 August 1863, was
representative of countless others. A guerrilla band commanded by one
Heidenreich, 'the Crow', and by an Irish volunteer named O'Brien de Lacey laid
ambush to a Russian column on a lonely stretch of the road to Dublin. They had
seven hundred men with which to overpower two companies of Russian
infantry and a squadron of Cossacks. After five hours of firing, almost all the
Russians were left for dead whilst 'the Crow' retreated with the treasure chest
of 200,000 roubles which they had been guarding. In a war in which no major
fortress or city was ever obliged to surrender, the rebels counted Zyrzyn a great
victory.^5
The diplomacy of the Rising was equally desultory. In February 1863, the
Western Powers took fright when Bismarck sent General Alvensleben to St.
Petersburg to sign a Military Convention providing for common action. But
Bismarck was prudent enough to let the Tsar suppress the Rising himself, and
the Powers were never faced by the reality of an active Prusso-Russian combi-
nation. One Tripartite Note from Britain, France, and Austria on 17 April,
which protested against violations of the Treaty of Vienna, and another on 17
June, which called on the Tsar to make concessions, represent the sum total of
the diplomats' achievement. The first Note gave rise to an Amnesty whose con-
ditions were certain to prove unacceptable. The second was rejected outright,
on the grounds that too many concessions had already been made without
response. In a century where the Polish Question never inspired the Powers to
actual intervention, diplomatic historians are tempted to record these gestures
as major incidents.
The Rising had a greater impact on public opinion than on governments. In
the western democracies, the Russophobia of the 1830s, and of the Crimean
War was given a further stimulus. The Times puffed and wheezed against the
iniquities of Russian autocracy. Foreign correspondents wrote moving accounts