Poland

by James A. Michener

  ‘Cyprjan is one of the finest,’ the ambassador conceded. ‘And I’ve heard good reports of this other magnate, Lubomirski.’

  ‘Yes, yes. If the nation had enough like them, it would have a chance of survival,’ the legate said with an echo of hope in his voice.

  ‘But the good are so few and the weak so many,’ the Frenchman said, at which the legate nodded. ‘In Rome the same.’

  With extraordinary perception the Frenchman had anticipated exactly what happened when the dynamic Swedes struck the lethargic and leaderless Poles, but not even he could have foreseen the speed with which the invaders triumphed, nor the collapse that overcame Poland’s army, her civic will and the leadership of her magnates.

  On 21 July 1655 the Swedish armies, led personally by their energetic king, burst into Poland, and a brief four days later the Polish armies began to cave in. On 18 August the great Lithuanian magnate Radziwill hastened forward to surrender all his part of the Polish kingdom, and by the first of September, Swedish troops had overrun the entire nation. Rarely had a major nation collapsed with such great speed and such little effort to protect itself.

  What the French ambassador had not been able to predict was the ferocity with which the Protestant victors treated the Catholic losers. Cities, towns and villages were destroyed in maniacal fury. Churches, guildhalls, shops and farmhouses were sacked and burned. Priests and nuns, burghers and Jewish traders, housewives and farmers defending their possessions were slain in terrible numbers, whole communities being erased in fire and fury. No invader had ever behaved with more savage contempt than the Swedes who overran Poland.

  During the last days of that dreadful summer the Swedish forces approached the formidable castle of Krzyztopor standing on its slight rise and surrounded by its wide, secure moat. The Ossolinskis, surveying their water and food supplies, satisfied themselves that their mighty fortress could withstand any siege, so when the chancellor suggested that perhaps Barbara might want to flee to Krakow, she refused the offer.

  ‘This is my castle,’ she said, displaying the fortitude which had marked both her father’s and her mother’s families. She was at the height of her beauty that summer, a stately woman of extraordinary charm who had schooled herself in the various subjects necessary to be a good manager: she could read and write; she had traveled to France and Italy; she patronized musicians and artists, so that songs were written to her and portraits painted; and she had a nice feel for politics, assessing accurately the grievous errors made by the magnates with whom her various families associated. She was a voice of the new Poland, the one that might come into being after this Swedish deluge had subsided, and she intended to make Krzyztopor Castle a focal point of that revival.

  The immediate problem was simple: ‘We must resist the Swedes and allow them nothing. Roman, you must ensure that the guards do their duty, and do it well.’

  Such warnings from the chatelaine were not necessary, for everyone within the castle walls was determined to save this castle for the important years that lay ahead.

  Had this been the year 1241 when the Tatars were attacking this area, or the year 1410 when the Teutonic Knights were rampaging, the castle could have withstood a siege of better than a year and repulsed all invaders, but this was 1655, when mighty new cannon were available and when moats however wide afforded little protection.

  The Swedish king marched to Krzyztopor, took one look at the massive walls, and told his generals: ‘Wait till we can haul in the cannon,’ and when those great gray monsters were lined up, all facing the northern wall, the bombardment began, and the Swedes could see that the entire wall would be breached at more than a dozen spots, through which as many Swedes as wished could enter. Krzyztopor was doomed. Almost before its hearthstones were properly heated, it was to be destroyed.

  Inside the castle the Ossolinskis listened with mounting horror as the cannonade broke down their wall, and when it became evident that the fortress must fall, Roman suggested that he approach the Swedes with a white flag, seeking safe passage for Barbara and the other women, but she would not permit this: ‘My fate is linked with that of my castle.’

  Through two horrible days she watched the protecting wall crumble, disintegrate as if it had been built by children, and as night fell on the second day she realized that before noon on the following day her castle would be overrun by northern barbarians, and she began to put her life in order.

  She went to the large church inside the walls and prayed. She then talked with the older of the two priests and asked him to bless her, whereupon she talked with her three children, trying to instill in them the courage which she possessed. After that she visited the castle kitchens, reassuring the women that the Swedes would do them no harm, and then, as if the Swedes were guests who were coming for a few weeks, she went automatically to the linen chests to assure herself that all was properly arranged, and when she saw the neat stacks assembled at such heavy cost of money and her effort she broke into tears, and where no one could see her grief she cried: This was to have been a center of light for a hundred years.’ Looking up at the vaulted ceiling, she lamented: ‘We built you with such care … such love. Oh God! This can’t perish. Surely, they’ll not break down this beautiful thing we built.’

  But even as she uttered this hope, she knew it was vain, for in her despair she had uncovered a profound truth: ‘We built the wrong castle, in the wrong century, to protect ourselves against the wrong enemy, the wrong kind of warfare. Dear God, what fools we were.’

  Then, ashamed of her temporary weakness, she went in search of her husband, determined to lend him what support she could, and he told her: ‘Barbara, we’ll resist as long as possible, then surrender with honor and throw ourselves upon their mercy.’

  There was to be no mercy. As Barbara had anticipated, the Swedes broke through the final defenses at about ten in the morning and began the systematic destruction of the castle and all things within it. Roman Ossolinski and his wife were slain in the first onslaught. Their children were killed and the women in the kitchen and the two priests and all the defenders. No one escaped the terrible fury of the soldiers who had been defied for three days.

  And then the sack of Krzyztopor began. Every item of even the remotest value was carried out into the huge central courtyard: food supplies, the chalices from the chapel, the brocades from the walls, the furniture, the chests, the dresses, the ceremonial robes of the priests. All corners of the castle were stripped and laid bare.

  Carts commandeered from surrounding villages before they were burned were hauled in through the tall gates and loaded with treasures of Krzyztopor and sent on their way to Stockholm. Most precious were the books taken from the castle and the personal records, for these represented the lifeblood of a nation. Most valuable was a golden chain from which were suspended six lovely globelets of flawless amber, ripped from the corpse of the beautiful lady who had once ruled this castle. They were placed within a paper folder, then wrapped in canvas and tucked into a corner of Wagon 307, where they would rest securely until they reached Sweden.

  In the closing days of that fateful year, 1655, Swedish forces reached the Vistula, where they went totally berserk, throwing down the walls of Castle Gorka and killing all the women and children. The village of Bukowo they burned, leveling every cottage and killing more than half the peasants, but they saved their most hideous behavior for the smaller castle, where Danusia, wife of the absent Lukasz, tried to herd together her tame animals and explain to the invaders …

  One soldier lunged at Danusia with his lance and pierced her above the heart, whereupon two others lanced her from the side. The tame bear, seeing her drop to the ground, ambled over to comfort her, but the soldiers intercepted it and speared it numerous times. The otter, of course, tried to protect the bear, and was slain. Then the red fox hurried up to help the otter, and it was speared. Finally the storks flew down, as was their custom when guests came, and they were clubbed to death. Then the castle was set abl
aze, becoming a funeral pyre for all the creatures who had once shared so much love.

  So the three women who had kept their homes such warm refuges were slain by the Swedes: Anulka, who made the spicy kielbasa; Danusia, who baked the best pierogi; and Zofia Mniszech, who kept a huge kitchen bustling—all were murdered. Why had their men proved powerless to defend them?

  When the great debacle began and other craven magnates turned traitor, rushing to the side of the Swedish king, Cyprjan and his liege Lukasz stood firm. With the field hand Jan of the Beech Trees along, they formed the nucleus of a small personal army that retreated from one indefensible position to another, until they came finally to the heavy-walled monastery of Czestochowa in the west.

  Here a devout group of priests and monks manned the shrine that contained Poland’s most precious religious relic, a time-darkened Byzantine painting of the Virgin Mother holding her infant son, the famous Virgin of Czestochowa, adored by the faithful. Here the patriots of Poland would make their final stand against the ruthless invader.

  When Cyprjan of Gorka marched his pitifully small group into the monastery, the prospects of holding it against the cannon that had destroyed Krzyztopor seemed minimal, but all inside the walls were determined to offer as stout a defense as possible, and Cyprjan found himself in charge of the east wall, which was where the Swedes would probably concentrate their attack.

  On 18 November 1655 the invaders began the assault, expecting to gain an easy victory over the unarmed monks, but two surprises awaited them. The clerics defending the monastery proved most resourceful in repelling attacks, and the walls, rebuilt and strengthened many times through the centuries, showed remarkable resistance to the cannonades. And if a hole was hammered through, Cyprjan’s men repaired it quickly. This siege was going to be much different from the easy victory at Krzyztopor.

  On 1 December the Swedes were no closer to winning than they had been two weeks before, but their two heavy cannon were damaging the walls, and if this continued indefinitely, the tide of battle would have to flow their way, so on 5 December, Cyprjan and some other daring spirits began contemplating the possibility of knocking out the cannon: ‘We could sneak sacks of gunpowder to the sites, stack them around the cannon, and blow them up.’

  ‘What do we do with the Swedes guarding them?’ a friar asked.

  ‘Kill them,’ Cyprjan said, and when some of his listeners blanched, he said: ‘I will do this thing, I and my men.’

  He did not ask for volunteers; he told Lukasz, Jan and six of his other peasants: ‘We will creep out tonight,’ and they had to follow.

  They left the monastery at about eleven o’clock on a cold, blustery night when the Swedish guards would be having a difficult time keeping warm. Moving with extreme caution, they crept down a gully that carried rain water away from the walls, came upon a dozing guard, whom Cyprjan himself strangled, and then to the protected embankment on which the two cannon rested.

  For more than fifteen minutes they huddled close to it, speaking no words but surveying the situation, and when each of the nine knew exactly what he must do in the next blazing moments, they swarmed upon the cannon, killed the guards, piled their sacks of powder, and retreated to light the fuse. It required about a minute and forty seconds for the tiny flame to negotiate the length of fuse, and during this awful suspense Swedish soldiers, alerted by the killings, began running toward the embankment, and Cyprjan heard himself praying, ‘Beloved God, delay them!’ They were not delayed, for with loud cries they burst into the emplacement, but the writhing fuse reached there first, and with a tremendous explosion the two cannon and the fifteen running Swedes were shattered and tossed high in the air.

  On Christmas Day the infuriated Swedes mounted a massive attack, which was repulsed by the iron-willed monks, so during the night of 26 December the enemy began to withdraw. Three days later the only sign that the Swedes had ever been there was the extensive damage to the eastern wall and the blackened scar where the two major cannon had been.

  On that day the sacred image of the Virgin, black and radiant and victorious, was paraded through the monastery grounds and across the battlefield outside the gates, for her triumph had been complete. The faltering courage of Poland was revived and men began to see some hope that their homeland, ravaged though it was, might be rescued.

  After their defense of Czestochowa the three widowers—Cyprjan, Lukasz and Jan—from the destroyed village of Bukowo allied themselves with similarly devastated patriots who vowed that Poland must not perish.

  They formed a tatterdemalion army, lacking in food, clothing and arms, but they did occasionally gain some small victory by harassing the Swedes in night forays and daring ambuscades. However, the enemy was powerful and cleverly led, so that the Poles were forced to retreat more than they advanced, and by late March of 1656 this particular band of irregulars had been practically driven out of Poland proper.

  They withdrew from one vantage point to the next, always breathing hard, always short of supplies and, what was worst of all, facing each week some new enemy whose troops were fresh. This week they had to stand off rampaging Cossacks; next week the King of Sweden himself led the charge against them—and always they were defeated, but always they tired the enemy and made him wonder when this dreadful war, which had once seemed so easy, would end.

  Sometimes at night during these fugitive years when there had been little food and no comfort, Cyprjan would awaken with a sense of strangulation at his throat. He would bolt upright, gasping for air, and in the darkness he would wrestle with the specters that haunted him and all of Poland: the devastation of the land, the endless killing of the people, the burning of the villages. But then his images would become more personal, and he would see his lovely daughter slain in her castle, and the hideous death of Zofia Mniszech, and then he would see Lukasz’s tame bear, riddled with lances they said, and he would begin to tremble as he thought of all that lost wonder, and he would cross the boards where they were trying to sleep that night and rouse Lukasz from his sleep: ‘I was thinking of your bear, Lukasz, and the pierogi Danusia used to make.’ The men would remain silent for a while, and then Cyprjan would vow: ‘By God, Lukasz, they’ll be avenged.’ But when he was in his bed again, the choking would return and he could not sleep.

  Once when they were camped near Lwow, the major city of the Ukrainian area in which he held his largest estates, he came upon another man of some importance who also could not sleep. It was the king himself, Jan Kazimir, tortured by the calamities that beset his kingdom, and he wanted to talk, but not with Cyprjan and not even with Lukasz, the petty knight, but with Jan of the Beech Trees.

  ‘What is it like,’ he asked in the spring darkness. ‘As a peasant, how do you live?’

  ‘We get up at dawn,’ Jan began.

  ‘As I do,’ the king said.

  ‘And we work all day, and at sunset we go to bed.’

  ‘What do you eat?’

  ‘Cabbage, beets, we grind our own flour.’

  ‘I mean, what meats?’

  ‘We never eat meat. Well, at Easter, maybe one chicken.’

  ‘And what do you work at, Jan?’

  ‘Whatever the master tells us. Then six weeks each year for the duke. And three weeks for you.’

  ‘What do you work at?’

  ‘We till the fields. We sow the grain. We harvest. And then we go to bed.’

  The king could scarcely believe what he was being told, and all through the night he interrogated Jan, even demanding to know how he got his clothes, who assisted his wife in childbirth, what medicines he used, and this led to a peculiarly meaningful exchange.

  ‘Jan, tell me again, what do you do when you fall sick?’

  ‘We die.’

  Two days later the king informed Cyprjan that he wanted him, Lukasz and especially Jan to be present in the cathedral at Lwow, where in front of a treasured portrait of the Virgin Mary he was going to make an important statement, and when the four tattered magna
tes were assembled, and the seventeen lesser nobles and the hundred peasants and the townsmen and even the Jews, he made this pledge:

  ‘When with grief in my heart I hear of the oppression which our peasants suffer and I see the tears with which they pray for relief, I think, Blessed Mother of God, that it is your Son, a just and merciful judge, who has been punishing my kingdom with pestilences, wars and other failures, and I know in my heart that we, and all of us here, have been guilty.

  ‘Therefore, I promise and vow that after peace has been restored, I will do my best to prevent further misfortunes, and I promise now on bended knee before you that I will free our peasants from all unjust burdens and hardships. Help me, Merciful Lady and Queen, enlist on my behalf the grace of your Son to help me fulfill this vow, which I make willingly before my magnates, my people and my peasants.’

  Lukasz and Jan were impressed by this Vow of Lwow, but Cyprjan and the magnates whispered knowingly: ‘Clever thing for the king to tell his troops when the war is going badly. But when we win we can force him to rescind.’

  In the dark weeks that followed, there was little talk of winning, for a series of new blows struck the poor country, almost destroying the will of men like Cyprjan and Lukasz to continue their fight. From the west the newly powerful state of Brandenburg, scenting a chance to make a kill, came roaring in with many troops and guns to tear off its share of Poland. From the east the Cossacks, seeing their traditional enemy about to be dismembered, launched an attack to seize the Ukraine. In Lithuania the Radziwills, satisfied that the union with Poland could not survive, volunteered to build a new Lithuania under Swedish protection, and most dreadful of all, from the turbulent state of Transylvania in the south a man of terrible power, Gyorgy Rakoczy, marched his troops to pick off his share of the spoils. Like hungry wolves on a stormy wasteland who turn to attack one of their own who has been wounded, the nations gathered to dismember Poland.