The 18th century was marked by famous revolutions French and American and the rise of professional revolutionaries. One became the hero of two nations and his name was Tadeusz Kosciuszko. The monument representing this great man adorns the entrance to the Wawel Hill in Krakow and there is also a famous mound constructed by the Polish people on one of the Krakow hills commemorating his battles. Who was Tadeusz Kosciuszko and how these revolutions - French and American - came about ?
BIRTH OF GREAT BRITAIN
A century after cutting ties with Rome, the English merchant class made significant progress. In London, Oliver Cromwell, whose monument stands in front of the British parliament, became the leader of the parliamentary forces carrying out the re-modeling of the English state. Under his power, Catholic King Charles I was executed monarchy made subservient to the parliament and the Catholic Irish suppressed. Furthermore, Cromwell, seeing how the Dutch Empire prospers with the support of the Jewish merchant community, re-admitted Jews to England hoping they would assist in the colonization process.
The English borrowed the financial pattern of the Dutch establishing Bank of England and Royal Stock Exchange and there were many private companies and banks operating in the City usually involved in transatlantic trade slavery and colonization. One of the most powerful companies was East India company that traded in India but there were many others that steadily give foundation for the established political class. Next, the City merchants forced the Scots into a union and in 1707 formed a new entity called Great Britain.
FREEMASONRY
At the same time, various secret societies started to spring up, some taking the heritage of the Knights Templar, aspiring to abolish the old feudal order. In 1717, four masonic lodges amalgamated into the Grand Lodge in the City of London marking the switch from operative freemasonry to philosophical freemasonry. The masonic lodges which thus far accepted mainly masons started to admit scientists philosophers royals artists and lawyers who aimed to illuminate humanity in the knowledge of science and cosmopolitan equality. But they were also much more than that. They were a laboratory for social experiments with representative form of government.
The masonic lodges were established in North America with the arrival of the first English colonists. By the second part of 18th century the English managed defeat other colonial powers like France and Spain taking over French Canada and opening the Mississippi Valley to westward expansion. Thus Great Britain became first in the world colonial and trading power reinforcing its alliance with Prussia which also grew in power on the European Continent.
AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR
Immediately after the British conquests the British decided to burden the American colonists with taxes in order to pay off the public debt. The first to react was the Boston Masonic lodge in Massachusetts which organized in 1773 Boson Tea Party a boycott of the British goods destroying the entire shipment of tea sent by British East India Company. To keep the rebelling colonists under control the British government purchased about 30,000 troops from various German princes including landgrave of Hesse. Few acts by the British Crown roused so much antagonism in America as the use of foreign mercenaries. In order to devise cohesive strategy, the representatives of 12 colonies met in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, the seat of the first masonic lodge, to launch the first Continental Congress. The delegates included the largest plantation owner in Virginia George Washington and a lawyer from Massachusetts John Adams. This first Continental Congress elected a Middle Templar Payton Randolf of Virginia as first president.
Meanwhile, the British troops arrived to America so the Congress re-convened this time with a new notable delegate from the City of London, a scientist writer and printer from Pennsylvania Benjamin Franklin. He was the first person in North America to print in 1743 The Constitutions of the Free-Masons. A fellow member of a Royal Society, Philosopher's Dining Club and Lunar Society in Birmingham he appeared as the agent of the City exporting revolutionary and republican ideas onto the American continent.
For the first months of the American Revolutionary War, the Americans rebels carried their struggle against the better trained and equipped British troops in an uncoordinated manner thus the Congress voted to create Continental Army under leadership of George Washington. In the last attempt of reconciliation the Philadelphia lawyer and Middle Templar John Dickinson requested autonomy within British Empire. This desire to salvage the alliance with the British Crown was embodied in the first U.S. national flag - the Grand Union Flag. It consisted of 13 alternating red and white stripes with upper corner being the British Union Flag of that time, a design nearly identical to the flag of the British East India Company.
As the petition for autonomy was rejected the loyalists mood swung in favor of complete separation. Subsequently, Middle Templar John Dickinson made first draft of the Declaration of Independence under instructions of lawyer and mason Tomas Jefferson from Virginia. The first and most famous signature on the engrossed copy was that of John Hancock, merchant from Massachusetts and Freemason. His name also appears on 1775 letter exhibited in Guildhall, a seat of City of London corporation, whereby John Hancock is asking the City of London for its continued support. Eventually, when the 55 delegates of the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, five were Middle Templars. Accordingly, on June 14, 1777, the 13 stars replaced British Union Flag in the left corner of the new US flag - which is now the flag day in United States.
LEADING ROLE OF TADEUSZ KOSCIUSZKO AND SUPPORT OF FRANCE
Meanwhile the Continental Army was loosing its battles and was in desperate need of support. Liverpool-born merchant Robert Morris procured 'munitions for the militia' but also purchased ships and cannons from France to equip both the Continental Army and Navy.
Various European revolutionaries also joined the colonists' effort. Among them was a Polish army officer Tadeusz Kosciuszko. He came from a modest Polish noble family but had excellent education. A graduate of the Knights' Academy in Warsaw, before his arrival to America he studied the science of fortifications in France absorbing republican ideas that were becoming increasingly popular. On his return to Poland, he found his fatherland torn between many political factions. He fell in love with a girl but after father's rejection he left Poland and sailed to America to support the colonists. In Philadelphia he met Benjamin Franklin and soon thereafter received assignments to assist Continental Army in raising military fortifications.
Whilst the British were marching alongside Hudson River American general Horatio Gates placed his army along the Bemis Heights south of Saratoga overlooking Hudson River whilst Tadeusz Kosciuszko chose the most defensible position laying out a robust array of defenses nearly impregnable. Kosciuszko's righteous judgement and meticulous attention to detail combined with guerrilla tactics of Virginia rifleman frustrated British attacks. The battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the American Revolutionary War. Having received news on the American victory Benjamin Franklin who was in Paris approached the French who finally agreed to support the Americans. The French provided supplies arms munitions and most importantly troops and naval support to the Continental Army. Spain captured British ships on the seas whilst the Dutch were selling war material, both countries hoping to weaken the power of Britain.
Thus, with the help of France Spain and the Netherlands and the educated Europeans like Tadeusz Kosciuszko the colonists started to win over the British formations. Kosciuszko was then moved to West Point constructing fortifications considered innovative at the time whilst his countryman Kazimierz Pulaski was laying foundation for the American cavalry.
Meanwhile the delegates from the American states met again in Philadelphia to talk about new government and constitution. The motion was set by two Middle Templars Charles Pinkney and John Rutledge. From the notes taken by James Madison it transpired that the colonial elites did not want monarchial government but equally resented pure democratic form of government. Eventually the Convention came up with 3 branches of government but only one - House of Representatives - carried hallmarks of a democratic institution where Men but only property-holding excluding women, Indians and slaves, would elect its members. The final document was signed in 1787, delineating the national frame of federal government and describing the rights of state governments. Of 39 members of the Convention who signed the Constitution no fewer than 7 members were of Middle Temple and at lest 13 were Freemasons.
BIRTH OF WASHINGTON D.C.
The states of Maryland and Virginia donated land to form federal district as seat of new government which became known as District of Columbia, in short D.C, a reference to explorer from Genoa, Christopher Columbus, the son-in-law of a knight of Christ, whose ships discovered America sailing under the Knights Templar's flag - red cross in a white field. The capital city was named Washington and like the City of London Washington D.C. would enjoy certain degree of independence being filled with masonic symbols that lied hidden in the buildings, monuments and physical layout of the city.
Subsequently, the revolutionary ideas from the City of London and America have been transplanted onto the European Continent making significant constitutional changes in two strongest Catholic states in Europe, France and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In France, masonic lodges and secret societies were agitating for the revolution. The country was prone to revolutionary ideas not only due to great social divisions but also due to poor economy which was crippled by the earlier war with Britain and Prussia and the help France extended to the American colonists. The revolutionary ideas in France quickly spread to Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Circa 100 masonic loges operated in Poland at the time. Members of these masonic lodges were instrumental in passing in the Polish Parliament first constitution in Europe influenced by the English Bill of Rights, American Constitution and French Revolution. It was however too little too late. When Tadeusz Kościuszko returned to Poland the country was in chaos with Prussia and Russia secretly supported by Britain taking grip on his fatherland. Tadeusz Kościuszko took up arms announced the rebellion on the main market square in Kraków and liberated peasants across the country to gain extra force but the combined Prussian-Russian forces were overwhelming. By 1795 the once great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned. Tadeusz Kosciuszko saved the American colonists from the British grip but could not save his own fatherland from the grip of the 'Northern Alliance'.
Why the famous revolutionary leader Josef Pilsudski the father of the Polish independence chose Krakow as his operational base before marching against Russia to liberate Poland? Who was the mysterious man Josef Retinger whose name is written on a plague near the main market square in Krakow?
Well… that’s for next time.
So stay tuned, leave your comments - and if you prefer history with actual walking join me on my Free Walking Tours in Kraków Old Town.
Trust me… it’s much more fun
