Józef Wielhorski

Józef Wielhorski
Coat of arms	Kierdeja
Noble family	Wielhorski
Father	Michał Wielhorski
Mother	Elżbieta Ogińska
Born	1759 Horochów
Died	1817 Rusinów

Józef Wielhorski (1759–1817) was a Polish general.

As an officer (rotmistrz) he fought in the Polish–Russian War of 1792 and later, as a colonel, in the Kościuszko Uprising. Tadeusz Kościuszko sent him to revolutionary France with the goal of obtaining help from the Committee of Public Safety, his requests for a French expeditionary corps were however futile. Under Napoleon, he would become (in 1797) a general in the Polish Legions, where he would be taken captive at the Siege of Mantua (1799). As a protest for the French-Austrian peace, he returned to partitioned Poland, but in 1809, with the France again at war with Austria, he would join the pro-French Polish forces and became a general in the Duchy of Warsaw, where he also became a deputy minister of war. He remained in the Duchy during Napoleon's invasion of Russia; in its aftermath, in the Congress Poland, he was a Minister of War and a member of its senate.

Bibliography

• H. P Kosk Generalicja polska t. 2 wytd.: Oficyna Wydawnicza "Ajaks" Pruszków 2001