Oficerowie – Polacy w Pułku Irlandzkim armii napoleońskiej w latach 1806–1815
Polish Officers in the Irish Regiment of the Napoleonic Army in 1806–1815

Summary/Abstract: Several scientific and popular publications have been devoted to the Polish military effort in the Napoleonic era. However, there is too little information about Poles who participated in Napoleonic wars under non-national banners, but also fought alongside Napoleon. Large units composed of Poles have their monographs, but there are no similar studies on the service in the French army of at least hundreds of Poles, scattered over many regiments. Indirectly, Poles from other than Polish formations of the Napoleonic army were mentioned by Stanisław Kirkor in his study of the fates of Poles in British captivity, but these are very short extracts from English sources. Thanks to a preliminary query in French materials, it was possible to determine that many citizens from the pre-partition Polish territory joined the ranks of the French army without serving in the army of the Duchy of Warsaw or in units composed primarily of Poles. Among them were volunteers, deserters from the armies of the partitioning powers, prisoners of war, and seemingly also conscripts. One of the most interesting units among the many different regiments of the Napoleonic army was the Irish Regiment, also known as the Irish Legion. It was in this regiment that many Poles served. They were mainly privates and non-commissioned officers, but there were also cases of Polish officers serving in this formation. During the investigation, at least 11 officers of Polish origin or from the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were identified and their service in the Irish Regiment was described. There were also individual cases of formal assignment of Polish officers to the Irish formation, but in practice these officers often did not take up service and were transferred to Polish units. This paper is an attempt to draw attention to the problem of the service of Poles in the units of the Great Army.

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