The Battle of

Chełm Chełm (; uk, Холм, Kholm; german: Cholm; yi, כעלם, Khelm) is a city in southeastern Poland with 60,231 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some ...

was fought on 8 June 1794 between

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

and the combined forces of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

and

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

. The Polish were led by

Józef Zajączek Prince Józef Zajączek (; 1 November 1752 – 28 August 1826) was a Polish general and politician. Zajączek started his career in the Army of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, an aide-de-camp to hetman Franciszek Ksawery Branicki. He w ...

, the Russo-Prussian forces by Petrowicz Zagriażski and

Wilhelm Derfelden Wilhelm Christoforovich Derfelden (russian: Вильгельм Христофорович Дерфельден; 1737 – 20 September 1819) was an Russian Empire, Imperial Russian General of the Cavalry from a family of Baltic Germans. He fought i ...

. The Russo-Prussian forces consisted of 16,500 soldiers, and 24 cannons, while the Polish general only had about 6,000 soldiers, 14 cannons, and 2,000 peasant soldiers armed with war scythes. Zajączek occupied the forested hills 1.5 km away from the city. In the early noon the Russian troops started the attack. After several hours of fighting Zajączek could only try to save as much of his army as possible through a withdrawal. In the battle, the Polish forces lost between 1,400 and 1,600 men. The Russian forces lost only about 200 men and were victorious.

Literature

* Andrzej Grabski, Jan Wimmer u. a..: Zarys dziejów wojskowości polskiej do roku 1864. Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, Warschau 1966 * Marian Kukiel: Zarys historii wojskowości w Polsce. Puls, London 1993, . * Andrzej Zahorski: Wypisy źródłowe do historii polskiej sztuki wojennej. Polska sztuka wojenna w okresie powstania kościuszkowskiego. Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, Warschau 1960 * Bolesław Twardowski: Wojsko Polskie Kościuszki w roku 1794. Księgarnia Katolicka, Poznań 1894 * Mała Encyklopedia Wojskowa. Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, Warschau 1967, (Wydanie I Tom II).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Battle of Chelm Chelm Chelm History of Lublin Voivodeship 1794 in Poland