In 1802, Napoleon sent a Polish legion of about 5,200 men to join the French forces in Saint-Domingue to put down the Haitian slave rebellion, having actually been told there was a revolt of prisoners there. The Poles had initially fought with Napoleon in the hope of receiving French support in restoring their own country’s independence from its partitioners and oppressors – Prussia, Russia and Austria – who had divided Poland between them in the late 18th century.
After arriving in Saint-Domingue following a gruelling journey across the Atlantic Ocean, and being thrown straight into battle, the Poles quickly learned that the French were, in fact, trying to brutally crush an uprising by enslaved Africans fighting for freedom from their ruthless white masters. Many sympathised with their struggle and joined the ranks of the revolutionaries against the French.
Today’s Polish Haitians (Poloné or La Pologne, in Haitian Creole) are Haitian people of Polish and African ancestry that dates back to those events, after which some 400-500 of these Poles are believed to have settled there after the war. They had been given special status as ‘Noir’ by the governor-general and emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and full citizenship under the Haitian constitution.
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NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
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