Józef Sułkowski

Józef Sułkowski (; 1770 or 1773 – 22 October 1798, Cairo, Egypt) was a Polish captain in the French Revolutionary Army and friend and aide de camp to Napoleon Bonaparte. He also became friends with Muiron, Vivant Denon, Lazare Carnot, Augereau, and Bourienne. His name is engraved on the Arc de Triomphe, on the 28th column, as ''SULKOSKY''.

Life

Origins

The origins of Sułkowski, and even the date of his birth, remain unclear. It is known that he came from and was raised in the noble Sułkowski family of the Sulima coat of arms. The identity of his parents has not been definitively established to this day. According to the most likely version, conveyed by his guardian, Prince , he was the son of Teodor Sułkowski and his wife, Julia Quelisk, and was born on 18 January 1773 in Raab, Hungary.

Historian Szymon Askenazy claims that Sułkowski was born out of wedlock as the son of and Marguerite Sophie de Fléville, later the second wife of Teodor Sułkowski. According to Władysław Konopczyński, his father was Franciszek de Paula, but his mother was Maria Karolina Radziwiłł, who was divorced at the time. Tadeusz Korzon pointed to Antoni Sułkowski as his father.

Austria

Teodor Sułkowski served in the Austrian army, where he achieved the rank of colonel. He also owned an estate in Raab, Hungary. After the death of his first wife, Julia Quelisc, on 31 December 1773, he retired from military service and settled in Tokaj, and later in Bielsko. He remarried Marguerite Sophie de Fléville, the daughter of Leopold Guiot, a lawyer from Nancy.

It is likely that shortly after the death of his first wife, he entrusted his two children, Teodora and Józef, to the care of his cousin, Prince Aleksander Antoni Sułkowski, at his Viennese court. In 1777, Prince August Sułkowski, the brother of Aleksander, took Teodor's two children to Poland.

Poland

Teodora was placed in a boarding school in Warsaw, while Józef Sułkowski was sent to Rydzyna under the care of the Piarist Ildefons Zawadzki and Michał Sokolnicki. From 1779, Józef traveled across Europe with Prince August, visiting Paris, Naples, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal. August considered him a child prodigy, affectionately calling him "Don Pepi" and envisioning a scholarly career for him. Upon their return to Poland, August granted him a Maltese commandery with a lifelong pension.

Sułkowski began his military service in 1783 as a cadet in the 10th Regiment of Foot stationed in Rydzyna. During his stay in Saint Petersburg, he received the rank of officer aspirant in the Horse Guards Regiment from Empress Catherine II. In November 1786, he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1789, the regiment was relocated to Warsaw. Sułkowski witnessed the adoption of the Constitution of May 3rd, which he already regarded as not radical enough, a view he expressed in his work ''Le dernier Cri d'un citoyen polonais''. During this period, he also fell into conflict with Antoni Sułkowski, who, after the death of Prince August Sułkowski, managed his estate and effectively sought to deprive Józef of any inheritance.

He participated in the Polish–Russian War of 1792. He carried reports from General Józef Judycki to the Commander-in-Chief of the Lithuanian Army, Prince Ludwig of Württemberg. From June 1792, he fought in the vanguard of General Michał Zabiełło's troops, under the command of Michał Wedelstedt, where he distinguished himself as a capable commander and brave soldier. After the king joined the Targowica Confederation and Antoni Sułkowski was appointed Grand Chancellor of the Crown, he decided, influenced by his friend Piotr Maleszewski, to leave for France, where he arrived at the beginning of 1793.

French service and Kościuszko Uprising

In France, he wrote down his war memoirs and was soon granted citizenship. It is possible that at this time he married the daughter of the French orientalist Jean-Michel de Venture de Paradis, whose sister Maleszewski had married. Sułkowski planned to make a name for himself in the French service in order to better assist in the fight for Polish independence.

He enlisted in the French diplomatic service as an expert on Polish affairs. In May 1793, he went to Venice. From there he travelled to India to help train the troops of the Sultan Tipu Sahib and organise the anti-English rebellion in Mysore. His journey was interrupted by English agents in Aleppo. He then travelled to Istanbul, where he attended a Jacobin meeting. On hearing of the outbreak of the Kościuszko Uprising, he travelled to Poland on 17 October 1794. On 21 October, in Bucharest, he learned of the defeat at Maciejowice, but nevertheless continued his journey towards Lviv. Troubled by Austrian agents, he turned back and returned via Bucharest to Istanbul in January 1795. In November, he was again in Paris. On 1 May 1795 he was assigned to the Army of Italy commanded by General Bonaparte.

Italy

On 28 June he arrived in Livorno, Bonaparte assigning him to General André Masséna's division where he was given the post of aide-de-camp with the rank of captain. He then served with Gen Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier at the siege of Mantua and under Bonaparte himself at Castiglione. He then intervened with Bonaparte on behalf of Michał Kleofas Ogiński in the Polish cause. His war-time merits were recognised, and on 27 October he became one of Bonaparte's five aides-de-camp. He took part in the subsequent battles. On 15 November, at the Battle of Arcole, he was wounded. He took part in the Tyrolean campaign, the campaign against the Papal States, the capture of Venice.

Malta

On arrival of the French fleet at Malta, Sulkowski distinguished himself to Napoleon during the capture of Malta.

Egypt

After is arrival in Egypt 1 July 1798, Napoleon provisionally promoted him to chef d'escadrons on 6 July 1798. The following month on 11 August he was badly wounded the Battle of Salahieh. Afterwards he was named a member of the Institut d'Égypte.
He died in the revolt of Cairo on 22 October 1798, his body could not be buried properly and was left to rot and be eaten by animals. On hearing of his death Bonaparte showed remorse and, asked why he did not honour him more when he was alive, replied "On first meeting him, I saw in him a commander in chief". Dying too young, Carnot would have seen in him a potential replacement for the future emperor. Shortly before his death, he had married one of the daughters of Venture de Paradis, an old military interpreter and scientist on the Egyptian expedition.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sulkowski, Jozef
1770s births
1798 deaths
Polish military personnel
Kościuszko insurgents
People of the Polish–Russian War of 1792
French military personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars
French Republican military leaders killed in the French Revolutionary Wars
Recipients of the Virtuti Militari
Joseph
Names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe