Previously: “Hey, butter biscuit, Russia fought a war with the Ottomans so now we’re
taking parts of Poland, you want some?”
And that’s how George Washington survived the American Revolution
Intro
Happy Casimir Pułaski Day!
Those of you not living in Illinois, Wisconsin, Buffalo New York, or Grand Rapids might be
wondering: who is Casimir Pułaski, and hold on, this is an American holiday?
And to that I say “Buckle your seat belts, you’re in for a wild ride”
Back in its heyday, Poland used to be a big name in the European cool kids’ club, everyone
wanted to be like them what with their unique political system and winged hussars and heliocentrism
and whatnot.
But oceans rise, empires fall, and Poland starts to drop the ball.
See the king of the commonwealth was elected, but much like how a certain Austrian family
happened to control the HRE for a few centuries, the process wasn’t wholly democratic.
Only in this case it wasn’t just a particular family within the empire calling the shots,
but also the royal family of Russia.
Come 1764, it’s time to pick a new monarch.
Naturally, Russia sinks a few million rubles and stations its army a few miles away from
the Polish Parliament during the election, not that anyone besides their favorite had
much hope, but just in case.
To the new king’s credit, he did his best to introduce reform, but the deck was stacked
against him from the get-go.
He had a falling out with his biggest domestic supporters and had to fall back extra hard
on his helpers abroad.
A number of Poles weren’t terribly happy about this situation, Casimir included, so
they took to arms before things could deteriorate, I mean heaven forbid Russia should take full
sovereignty.
He and his mates in the Bar Confederation actually met with moderate success for a while.
I mean Casimir got captured, but was released on the condition he pinky swear not to fight
anymore and convince his friends to cut it out, and then he immediately returned to fighting
and met with moderate success for a while.
France l lent them a hand, I can only imagine as a means of getting a finger in the Polish
pot, and a simultaneous war with the Ottomans and an uprising in Ukraine kept Russia pre-occupied.
For a while it looked like it could escalate into a full-on continental grudge match when
the Confederation started talking about forming a coalition with France, Austria, and the
Ottomans to stage a coordinated attack on Russia, but unfortunately they’d just finished
their regularly scheduled war for supremacy and everyone knows you have to respect the
balance of power for at least twenty five years before lighting the keg again.
So as it happened, Russia beat the Ottomans and the haidamakas in Ukraine, and Austria
had joined Prussia in nibbling on the border.
And so, when Austria, Prussia, and Russia get to talking, they agree that now would
be the best time for all of them to take a whole chunk of Poland.
And when it came time to justify themselves, all they had to do was point to the Bar Confederation
and go “Look, anarchy.
If they can’t govern themselves then we’re governing for them”.
Casimir’s forced to leave the country, so he takes refuge in France.
He wants to use his military experience to sign up for the French army, but alas, they
won’t have him.
If only there were a country the late 18th century in dire need of seasoned generals,
somewhere he could really stick it to those rotten European powers, someplace that claims
to fight for liberty and justice for all.
Enter Ben Franklin.
He tells Pulaski “There was an idea, Lafayette knows this, called the continental army.
The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become
something more.
See if they could work together -”
Casimir: “I’m in.”
And without any connection to America whatsoever, he packs his things and sets sail.
You could argue he just needed a job, of course, but as you’ll see his economic benefit from
all this was pretty minimal, plus he wrote a very sweet letter to Washington about defending
liberty, just an upstanding guy overall.
When he gets to America, he makes it his duty to convince everyone how much cooler and better
cavalry is than walking by showing off some stunts outside Philly.
And in his very first battle, he gets to show off some more.
The British are closing in, Washington and his bodyguards are making a retreat but are
almost cut off when [trumpets] Casimir Pulaski pulls together enough stragglers to save the
day!
Washington, suitably impressed with his life being saved, sets him up as brigadier general
of the American cavalry and he begins whipping them into shape.
The rest of the war would obviously turn out in favor of the U.S. but for Casimir, he had
nowhere to go but down.
Morale among his soldiers wasn’t the best - they weren’t thrilled about taking orders
in broken English from some European aristocrat with no real ties to the land, and it certainly
didn’t help that he wasn’t getting the money he needed to pay them properly, much
less create that lancer unit he wanted.
At one point it got so bad that one of his malcontents defected and helped the British
get the jump on them while they were sleeping.
Following that mishap, Casimir was then sent away from the fight against the British to
go smash the Iroquois Confederation.
At first he thought about packing up and going back to Europe, but decided instead that he’d
rather fight on the Southern front.
There he decides to help clear out the fortress at Savannah.
Once again, the British start closing in, and once again Casimir Pulaski rallies his
fleeing allies, and - - oh yeah this time he gets shot and killed.
The weird thing is somehow no one quite knows where he ended up getting buried, not sure
how that happened.
Anywho, like, subscribe, all that jazz, if ya want to.
See you next time.