Józef Antoni Poniatowski, Prince

Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor

Born in Vienna's [Wien] Daun-Kinsky Palace  [48.21174, 16.36432] on May 7, 1763 to an Austrian field marshal, Józef Antoni Poniatowski became a Polish prince when his uncle, King Stanislas Augustus of Poland, granted the title to his very large family. However, he continued his studies in Vienna, then Prague, and joined the Austrian army in 1780.

Soon a colonel, then aide-de-camp to Emperor Joseph II in 1788, his conquests were mainly with women, earning him the reputation of a Polish Don Juan in uniform.

In 1789, he left the Austrian army at the call of his uncle, who made him commander of his guard. And despite his admitted ignorance of military theory, the hitherto rather worldly and superficial officer was welcomed into the ranks of the commission charged with drawing up new regulations for the Polish army.

In a letter to a friend a short time earlier, he had expressed the opinion that he had neither the knowledge nor the talent required to command an army, but in 1792, in the face of the Russian invasion, he took command of the Ukrainian army. Operations were affected by the divisions in Polish society − the soldiers didn't want to be killed for the lords; some of the lords formed a Russophile party; the king ended up siding with them − and all ended with Poniatowski's indignant resignation, forcing him to retire abroad to Vienna.

After the second partition of Poland (1793), having become undesirable in Austria, he settled in Brussels. It was here that he heard of the Tadeusz Kościuszko uprising (1794). He immediately returned to Poland, where the insurgents greeted him with circumspection, seeing in him the nephew of a king who had betrayed his country, and an aristocrat. In November, he resigned his command and moved back to Vienna.

After his uncle's death in 1798, he returned to Warsaw, now a Prussian province, where he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle for several years. Throughout this period, he had no sympathy for Bonaparte, with whom several of his former comrades were fighting. On the contrary, he surrounded himself with émigrés, and was quick to support the Count of Provence when the King of Prussia authorized the latter to settle in the former Polish capital.

In 1806, he was appointed governor of Warsaw by Frederick William III, with the task of defending the city against the French invaders. He organized and armed a patriotic militia, which did not stand out for its fighting spirit. As soon as Napoleon's armies entered Warsaw (November 28, 1806), Poniatowski himself befriended their leader, Joachim Murat.

Although Napoleon I had little confidence in him, Murat's friendship won Poniatowski the command-in-chief of the Polish armed forces (January 2, 1807). His disastrous results in raising the forty thousand men demanded by the Emperor came close to costing him his office, especially as, faced with an uncertain military situation, he allowed himself to be courted by the Russophile and Germanophile parties, and Napoleon I knew it.

His situation stabilized after the Treaty of Tilsitt (July 7, 1807). In 1808, he became Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, devoting himself entirely to the creation of a Polish national army.

The following year, at its head, he confronted the Austrians in Galicia and defeated them. In July 1809, he occupied Krakow. Most of the liberated provinces were incorporated into the Grand Duchy.

In 1812, during the Russian campaign, he commanded the 5th Corps of the Grand Army, initially made up of three Polish divisions, with a total strength of 36,000 men. By the time they reached Moscow, however, their number had dwindled to just 4,500. These soldiers performed remarkably well, taking part in numerous battles, saving Murat from complete defeat at Winkowo, and were the first to enter the Russian capital.

Wounded during the retreat, Poniatowski had to relinquish his command and was carried by wagon the rest of the way. However, he made it a point of honor to remain at the head of his troops. They finally reached Smolensk in early December. Six hundred men and thirty cavalry remained.

Returning to Warsaw on December 12, 1812, he reorganized the Polish army and began the German campaign in 1813, leading a new corps of 22,000 men, the 8th, which joined Napoleon I in Saxony. Victorious at Löbau (September 9) and Zedtlitz (October 10), he was made Marshal on October 15, on the eve of the Battle of Leipzig.

On the evening of the third day of the battle, after a heroic defense that left him with only 800 men and the last bridge prematurely destroyed by French sappers, he died attempting to cross the Weiße Elster river  on horseback.

Joseph Antoine Poniatowski's body, found on October 24, is buried  in the crypt of Krakow's Cathedral-Basilica of Saints Stanislaus and Wenceslas [50.05465, 19.93538] on Wawel Hill, alongside several Polish kings, saints and heroes.

His name, spelt "Poniatowsky", is inscribed on the 13th column (east pillar) of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile , while a full-length statue of the prince by Philippe Besnard honors his memory on the north façade of the Louvre, rue de Rivoli .

The Poczta Polska (Polish postal service) issued in 1992 a 1,500 Zlotys stamp  featuring Prince Józef Poniatowski.