Henryk Dembiński

Henryk Dembiński (16 January 1791 – 13 July 1864) was a Polish engineer, traveler and general.[1]

The General's triumphant entry into Praga (district of Warsaw).
Henryk Dembiński
Born(1791-01-16)16 January 1791
Strzałków, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship
Died13 July 1864(1864-07-13) (aged 73)
Paris
AllegiancePolish army
RankCommander-in-Chief
BattlesBattle of Leipzig (1813)
Battle of Debe Wielkie (1831)
Battle of Ostrołęka (1831)
Battle of Kápolna (1849)
Battle of Szőreg (1849)
Battle of Temesvár (1849)
AwardsLégion d'honneur (1813)

Dembiński was born in Strzałków, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 1809 he entered the Polish army of the Duchy of Warsaw and took part in most of the Napoleonic campaigns in the East. Among others, he took part in the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. After the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte he remained in Poland and became one of the members of the Sejm of the Congress Poland.

In the Polish November Uprising of 1830, he was a successful leader of the Polish forces. In 1831, after his victorious campaign in Lithuania, he was promoted to generał dywizji and for a brief period became the Polish Commander-in-Chief. He took part in the battles of Dębe Wielkie and Ostrołęka.[2]

After the fall of the revolution in 1833 he emigrated to France, where he became one of the prominent politicians of the Hôtel Lambert, a group of supporters of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski.

In the Hungarian revolution of 1848 he was appointed the commanding officer of the Northern Army.[3] After his successes he was soon promoted and Lajos Kossuth appointed him the Hungarian commander-in-chief. He was hampered by the jealousy of Artúr Görgey and after the defeat at the Battle of Kápolna, he resigned. After the Battle of Temesvár (where he was commander until the arrival of Józef Bem) and Kossuth's resignation, he fled to Turkey, where he (together with many other prominent Polish officers) entered the service of sultan Mahmud II. However, in 1850 he returned to Paris, where he died.[4]

Notes and references
  1. The family name is spelt Demhinski in some English sources.
  2. Biographical note contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 9 (International Publishers: New York, 1977) p. 600.
  3. Biographical note contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 9, p. 600.
  4. Biographical note contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 9, p. 600.
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