Jan Kozietulski

Cavalryman. Chief of the 3rd squadron of the 1st Light Horse Regiment of the Polish Imperial Guard. First commander of the famous charge of Somosierra in 1808.

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Born on July 4, 1778 in Skierniewice.

"A knight of Somosierra and Wagram's battles, Smolensk, Jarosławiec, the toils of the Delbian region, an inseparable companion of the Processor of Europe... that is, Jan Kozietulski, one of the most famous Polish napoleonids, was not very lucky with historians, and his name was praised above all by poets and writers. It is to them that he owes the greatest publicity, and meanwhile even the date of his birth is controversial...

(...)

The young graduate of the Knights' School, as a favorite of the Czartoryskis, had excellent prospects for a career in the army, but after the third partition he became a subject of Frederick William III and the army had to wait.

Greedy for military merit, the young man's mind was eager for the legions gathering in Italy ... but these urges were stopped by his father and so Jan spent his time at banquets and drunken parties, being a typical representative of the then golden youth from the Walicki, Łubieński and Krasiński circles. These contacts resulted in Kozietulski's joining the Society of Friends of the Homeland, chaired by Wincenty Krasiński.

(...)

It was only in the late autumn of 1806 that the friends of the homeland, and with them Kozietulski, got a chance to show real patriotism. At that time, at the call of Dąbrowski and Wybicki, they set out as the Honor Guard to meet Napoleon from Warsaw to Poznań to ... block his way on the borders of our land, greet him as a savior and ask for the restoration of the nation ... These plans failed then, because they were forestalled by Jan's Poznań guard Nepomucen Umiński.

The only benefit of this escapade was that Dąbrowski enlisted the Warsaw youth who had arrived in Poznań to join the Polish army, and Krasiński obtained the privilege of creating an Honor Guard in the capital.

Patents for its subcommandants were obtained by Kozietulski and Tomasz Łubieński.

Only after Napoleon's arrival in Warsaw, the local youth could prove themselves as the emperor's escort in his daily rides around the capital.

From then on, Kozietulski was constantly with the emperor, also accompanying him when he went to the front line to watch the fighting culminating in the battles of Gołymin and Pułtusk. (…)”

The entire article and other sources can be found in the Polish Digital Equestrian Library (click)

Author: Wlodzimierz Buyer / Napoleon.org.pl