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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2010
Did Poland, whose territory was divided up between Prussia, Russia and Austria at the end of the 18th century and which did not regain its independence until 1918, contribute in the 19th century to the ideas underlying humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts?
The political conditions under which the Polish people were then living, while they devoted all their energies to the fight for independence, encouraged them to study and consider various aspects of wars of national liberation. Their thinking was marked by much originality, with some special characteristics that are worth recalling.
page 129 note 1 General Chrzanowski, The War of the Partisans (in Polish), Paris, 1835 Google Scholar. German translation: Über den Partheigänger-Krieg, Berlin, 1846 Google Scholar.
Stolzman, K. B., The War of the Partisans, or the Most Effective War for Peoples in Revolt (in Polish), Paris and Leipzig, 1844 Google Scholar. Part of this work was published in French by the French underground in 1943 under the title, L'Insurrection est un art.
Jelowcki, A., Concerning the Insurrection (in Polish), Paris, 1835 Google Scholar.
XYZ (pseudonym for H. Kamienski), The People's War (in Polish), Bendlikon 1866 Google Scholar.
page 129 note 2 From the magazine Poland, Paris, 1835, No. 1, p. 27 et seq. Google Scholar
page 129 note 3 XYZ, The People's War, op. cit., p. 79.Google Scholar
page 130 note 1 See article, Concerning Revolutionary Power under Revolutionary Conditions and under Normal Conditions in the magazine The Polish Democrat (in Polish), vol. VI, 1843–1844, p. 14 et seq. Google Scholar
page 130 note 2 Stolzman, K. B., The War of the Partisans, op. cit., p. 47.Google Scholar
page 131 note 1 XYZ, The People's War, op. cit., p. 41 et seq. Google Scholar
page 131 note 2 Numerous requests by the Provisional National Government for recognition by western powers of a belligerent status for the insurgents were fruitless. The French Government refused to recognize the insurgents after the Senate noted that they did not control a clearly defined territory. In a statement to the French press on 29 October 1863, the Provisional National Government declared: “For eight months we have been unable to obtain from the civilized world satisfaction of the single request we have made, the request for recognition of our right to defend ourselves against oppression.”
page 131 note 3 Following exactions by the Russian troops, the Central Committee, acting as the Provisional National Government, in a decree on 18 February 1863, acknowledged the practice of reprisals “against all those who committed atrocities… since the Moscow invaders, despite the humanitarian treatment accorded them by the insurgents, have shown no improvement in their conduct”. The text of this decree is in The January Insurrection, Documents of the Central Committee and the National Government (in Polish), “Wioclaw”, 1968, p. 54.Google Scholar
page 131 note 4 The text of the Instructions is in The January Insurrections, Documents of the War Division (in Polish), “Wroclaw” 1973, pp. 23–26.Google Scholar