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 POLAND 649 Rybinski laid down its arms on Prussian terri- tory, Ramorino in Galicia, a corps under Ro- zycki at Cracow, and Zainosc and Modlin sur- rendered. Depopulated at once by the sword and by the cholera, the country lay bleeding and exhausted at the feet of the czar, and mercy was neither expected nor exercised. Numberless patriots were sent to Siberia, the private sol- diers compelled to serve in the Russian army, the estates of refugees confiscated, the consti- tution and the laws of the country abrogated, the university of Warsaw and other principal schools abolished, rigorous censorship of the press and a terrible police system introduced, and a citadel at Warsaw and other new for- tifications erected. This system was continued throughout the reign of Nicholas, though at times moderated by the milder disposition of the governor, Paskevitch. A similar though less rigorous policy was pursued in all other Polish provinces, the republic of Cracow alone preserving its national character. In the mean while the Polish emigrants, residing mostly in France, though split into violently opposing factions, were unremitting in endeavors for the restoration of their country. The more ardent or adventurous took part in various revolu- tionary movements in western Europe, and fomented conspiracies in Poland. The most extensive of the latter led to simultaneous outbreaks in Russian Poland, Galicia, Cracow, and Posen in February and March, 1846. All of them ended disastrously. The leaders in Poland were hanged, those in Posen, Mie- roslawski and others, imprisoned, and the pa- triotic nobles of Galicia butchered by the pea- sants ; the republic of Cracow, where alone the insurrection was for a short time suc- cessful, was abolished and annexed to Gali- cia. Mieroslawski and his associates, being saved from death by the revolution of Berlin in March, 1848, fought soon after, with hastily collected Polish bands, bravely but unsuccess- fully, against overwhelming Prussian forces in Posen ; Bern, Dembinski, and Joseph Wy- socki commanded Hungarian armies and Po- lish volunteers against Austrians and Russians in 1848-'9; Czajkowski and others fought against the latter in the eastern war of 1853 -'6 ; but all these efforts directly or indirectly to benefit Poland from abroad remained fruit- less. Considerable ameliorations took place in the Russian Polish provinces after the acces- sion of Alexander II. (1855), numerous refu- gees returned, and new reforms were hoped for, when increasing agitation and popular de- monstrations at Warsaw in February and April, 1861, induced the new governor, Gortchakoff, to employ the military force, and many lives were sacrificed. Similar collisions took place in other parts of the country. Simultaneously a Polish diet was convened at Lemberg (April 15), Austria having been compelled by its re- verses in Italy (1859) to inaugurate a liberal policy. (See AUSTRIA, and GALICIA.) In the kingdom of Poland the moderate lead as- sumed by the agronomical society, under Count Zamojski, came to a speedy end. Several gen- erals succeeded Gortchakoff, among them Lii- ders, and force was rigorously employed. A great national gathering on the Bug was pre- vented by bayonets, and demonstrations in the churches of Warsaw led to wholesale impris- onments and transportations to Siberia (Octo- ber, 1861). Lenient views, however, still pre- vailed in the councils of Alexander II., and in June his brother Constantine was appointed viceroy of Poland, and the marquis Wielopol- ski, a Pole of liberal Panslavic tendencies, at- tached to him as chief of the civil adminis- tration. Reforms in favor of the peasantry and the Jews were initiated. But the national spirit could no longer be satisfied with mod- erate grants. A wild revolutionary enthusi- asm had taken hold of a portion of the youth. Attempts at assassination were made against Luders, Constantine, and Wielopolski. Secret committees organized a baneful terrorism. To crush this revolutionary movement by one blow, the government determined upon a con- scription on a grand scale, of which, according to secret instructions, the mass of the patriotic youth were to be the victims. It was partially executed in the middle of January, 1863, by surprise in the night time. This precipitated an insurrection. Thousands of young men fled to the forests, and the secret central com- mittee at Warsaw on Jan. 22 called the nation to arms, and proclaimed a series of democratic reforms. The nobility and clergy eagerly joined in the movement, but the peasantry, though enfranchised by the revolutionary de- crees and made exclusive proprietors of the soil which they held, showed little patriotic zeal. Poland and Lithuania were flooded with Rus- sian troops, and the insurgents were unable to organize armies. A furious guerilla warfare was waged in all parts of Russian Poland, and Posen and Galicia sent aid in men, arms, and money. The attempts of Mieroslawski and Langiewicz, in February and March, to estab- lish a military dictatorship, were baffled by reverses, and the Warsaw central committee henceforward secretly directed the operations, organizing a net of sub-committees, which col- lected taxes, enforced obedience, and punished traitors to the cause, often by assassination, under the very eyes of the Russian authorities. But the insurgent forces remained scattered, no town of importance was occupied, and the friendly powers, France, Austria, and England, though protesting in diplomatic notes against I the failure of Russia to fulfil its promises of 1815, stopped short of active interference, while Prussia proved hostile. Wielopolski retired in July, and Constantine was succeeded in August by Gen. Berg, whose military rigor was sur- passed only by that of Gen. Muravieff in Wilna. In Lithuania the insurrection was crushed in autumn, and in Poland in the following winter and spring, the secret Polish government, con- sisting of bold and reckless persons of little