Jan Henryk Wołodkowicz

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Prince Jan Henryk Wołodkowicz
General de division
Battles/warsKościuszko Uprising
French Revolutionary Wars
Napoleonic Wars

Jan Chrzciciel Henryk Witold Wołodkowicz (

Grand Ducal Lithuanian Army from 1789 to 1794. Joining the French Revolutionary Army in 1796, he rose to the rank of general, which he kept in the Grande Armée. He was also one of Napoleon's Aide-de-camp
.

Early life

Jan Wołodkowicz was born in

Stalininkas Józef Wołodkowicz [pl] (born in 1730) and Regina née Broniec.[1] Following the family's tradition, Jan assumed the land judge's office in Minsk in February 1789 or around 1790 as the Lithuanian chamberlain.[1]

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

During the

War of 1792, he was again among the brigade's captains.[1] However, it is unknown and doubtful if he partook in the Battle of Mir.[1]

Thanks to this marriage with Anna Małgorzata Fergusson-Tepper, a wealthy Warsaw banker's daughter, on 29 June 1792, he increased his fortune to 150,000 Polish złoty.[1] On 21 November 1793, he was awarded the Order of Saint Stanislaus by Stanisław August Poniatowski, but as the king had by then had joined the Targowica Confederation, this award was a dubious honor at that time.[1]

Regardless, Wołodkowicz joined the ranks of the rebels in the

Ašmena.[1] He led a regular cavalry unit of about 100 cavalrymen, at the head of which (or a patrol separated from it) he skirmished with a Cossack unit from General Bennigsen's group.[1] The clash ended with a small success for the Russians, with minimal Lithuanian losses.[1]

French Revolutionary Wars

In 1796, Jan Henryk Wołodkowicz joined the

Général de brigade, serving as commander of the Army of Italy's cavalry's left wing.[2] On 9 August 1801, at 36 years of age, he was made a reformed officer.[2] He was a radical republican and distrustful of Napoleon.[4]

Napoleonic Wars

On 23 September 1806, as Général de brigade, he began organizing the 2nd Legion of the North at Nuremberg.[2] Jan Henryk Wołodkowicz fought in the Prussian and Polish campaigns of the War of the Fourth Coalition.[2] On 27 September 1807, he was transferred to serve the Grand Duchy of Warsaw by order of the Emperor, but after Wołodkowicz's complaints, the order was rescinded.[2]

In 1809, during the War of the Fifth Coalition, he was a general of the French Army.[4]

On the 1st of July 1812, he was made Governor of Minsk with the rank of Maréchal granted by Napoléon. Member of Grande Armée during

Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, he was taken prisoner and deported to Siberia by the Russians during the battle of Smolensk in 1812, in which his eldest son Joseph got killed.[5] He spent the years from 1812 to 1814 or 1815 in Russian captivity.[4] He was the last Général of the Grande Armée
to be released.

After 1815

After being released in 1815 he spent the rest of his life fighting legal battles in St. Petersburg, to regain his confiscated and usurped estates in Poland and Belarus.

Arc de Triomphe

According to some, his name is carved on the west pillar of the Arc de Triomphe as "Henry", his surname given by Napoleon. The Wolodkowicz family tried three times to correct the name to Wolodkowicz, in 1840, in 1928 with the backing of the Polish embassy and 1980. The French government always replied that they can not alter a historic monument. Others argue it is the name of a French colonel Claude François Henry who died in 1812 in Spain during the siege of Valencia.

West Pillar of the Arc de Triomphe

Private life

He first married Anna Isabel Tepper de Ferguson, daughter of the banker

Légion d'honneur
).

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Malejka, Arkadiusz. "Wołodkowicz Jan Chrzciciel Henryk (1765-1825)". napoleon.org.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Generałowie Armii Francuskiej 1792-1815". napoleon.org.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 4 March 2010.
  3. ^ Broughton, Tony (April 2004). "Regiments d'Infanterie Etrangers and the Colonels who led them during the period 1804-1815: The Polish Regiments". www.napoleon-series.org. Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d Judycki & Judycki 2021, p. 67.
  5. ^ Andrzej Malejka, Wołodkowicz Jan Chrzciciel Henryk (1765-1825) (pol.)

Sources

External links