Jan Dobraczynski Dwudziesta brygada Warsaw 1956 PAX 336s. o. booklet - Tadeusz Niemirski p. bdb- cover scuffs For. A5 "Napoleon [...] sent to San Domingo in 1802 a 27,000-strong expedition composed of the select, and most republican and opposing troops of the former army of his rival Moreau, under the command of his brother-in-law Leclerk. The expedition's task was to break Negro autonomy, abolish the former generals headed by Toussaint, and restore the island's wealth by restoring slavery there. [...] What was the Polish participation in the fighting in San Domingo? [...] The first official representative of the Polish troops there was General Wladyslaw Jablonowski. He died of fever in Jeremie on September 29, 1802. At the same time the one hundred and thirteenth half-brigade, the former third Polish half-brigade, arrived on the island, and even earlier the second Polish legion, which under Kniaziewicz's command took part in the Danube campaign. In March 1803, the one hundred and fourteenth half brigade, the former second Polish half brigade, and even earlier part of the first Polish legion, arrived on the island. [...] All the sympathy of the Poles was on the side of the freedom-fighting Negroes and vice versa. The Negroes showed at every step that they treated the Polish soldiers who were forced to fight with them quite differently. A Pole who got into the hands of the Negroes was never killed." |