Stanisław Mielżyński (1778-1826)
Command Ratings
Stanisław Kostka Mielżyński was a Polish nobleman and officer of the Duchy of Warsaw’s forces in the Napoleonic era, later holding the Polish rank of brigadier general. His extended formal name appears in Polish biographical and genealogical references as Stanisław Kostka Andrzej Jakub Mielżyński (herbu Nowina). He was born on 14 November 1778 at Rąbiń and died on 29 June 1826 at Pawłowice.
He entered military life in the Polish lands under Prussian rule and, after the collapse of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, belonged to the generation of Greater Poland nobles who sought renewed Polish military structures during the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s reordering of Central Europe. In 1806, as the Prussian position in Poland collapsed following Napoleon’s campaign, Mielżyński served in Poznań in the formation associated with the re-emerging Polish forces, and he was appointed Colonel in the 3rd infantry regiment raised there (commonly referenced as the 3rd infantry regiment in Poznań). This appointment placed him among the cadre of officers building an army that would soon be reorganized as the army of the Duchy of Warsaw.
In 1807 he campaigned in the theatre around the lower Vistula and Gdańsk. With his regiment he fought near Tczew, and he entered Gdańsk after its capture by French forces in the operations culminating in the fall of the city during the War of the Fourth Coalition. In 1808 his regiment was assigned to garrison duty connected with the Free City of Gdańsk, a strategically important enclave on the Baltic whose security and administration required a substantial military presence after the 1807 settlement.
During the 1809 war with Austria (the War of the Fifth Coalition), Mielżyński was noted for his role in the defense of Toruń against Austrian forces. For his conduct in that defensive fighting he received the Order of Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military decoration, indicating that his wartime record had gained recognition beyond routine service and garrison duties. The Toruń episode is the most specifically attested combat-linked distinction in his Napoleonic service record and became a central reference point in later summaries of his career.
On 20 March 1810 he was promoted to brigadier general. This promotion placed him among the senior officers of the Duchy of Warsaw’s forces at a time when the Duchy’s army was being expanded and more tightly integrated into Napoleon’s wider military system. The promotion date is consistently given in biographical notices summarizing his Napoleonic service.
In 1812 he accompanied General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski’s division in Napoleon’s campaign in Russia. The record of this assignment situates him within the Polish contingent operating in the Grande Armée’s eastern operations, in which Polish formations were employed on Major lines of advance and in the complex movements associated with the invasion, occupation, and subsequent retreat. The sources that summarize this period for Mielżyński identify his participation through the linkage to Dąbrowski’s division rather than by naming a single personal battlefield command, but they treat his presence in the Russian campaign as a significant component of his wartime service.
In 1813 he fought in the defense of Gdańsk during the prolonged siege that followed Napoleon’s reverses in Germany and the subsequent Allied pressure on the Duchy of Warsaw’s northern approaches. The defense of Gdańsk, contested by forces that included Prussians and Swedes under the wider Allied coalition effort, was one of the Major episodes involving Polish troops after the retreat from Russia; Mielżyński is specifically placed among those engaged in that defensive fighting.
After Napoleon’s final defeat and the post-1815 settlement, Mielżyński did not enter the forces of Congress Poland. Instead he returned to his estates in Greater Poland, which were again under Prussian rule, and lived as a landowner. Later notices also describe him as active in Freemasonry and as engaged in patriotic circles, but his documented Napoleonic-period military career is chiefly captured by the sequence of his Poznań colonelcy, the 1807 operations around Tczew and Gdańsk, the 1809 defense of Toruń and award of Virtuti Militari, his promotion to brigadier general on 20 March 1810, his participation in the 1812 Russian campaign with Dąbrowski’s division, and his role in the 1813 defense of Gdańsk. He died in 1826, closing the career of an officer whose service aligned closely with the Greater Poland contribution to the Duchy of Warsaw’s military effort during Napoleon’s wars.
Sources
X (Col.) 09 Poland