Wincenty Nieszokoć (1792 – 1865?), a Napoleonic soldier and artilleryman, served as a second lieutenant in the 4th Light Artillery Company after the creation of the Congress Kingdom, and was subsequently a lieutenant assigned to the Directorate of Artillery Materiel.
Initiated into the plan to start an uprising, he decided to take part in it. In the initial phase of the uprising, he met with Piotr Wysocki. When asked: “where are you going?” Nieszokoć replied: “to the camp, for the cannons”. Wysocki instructed: “Hurry, the Fatherland is waiting for you”. Nieszokoć headed towards Wola. While in Leszno, he called on the people of Warsaw to release political prisoners. During the November Uprising, he organized the production of cannons and gunpowder. In the Battle of Grochów, Captain Nieszokoć commanded the 6th positional battery, which held out until the end of the fight. On September 9, 1831, he was awarded the Gold Cross of the Virtuti Militari Order. After the fall of the uprising, he went into exile in France. In Mont-de-Marsan, he published two books, and a third one in Paris. He actively participated in the political life of the Polish emigration. He also worked as an engineer in Senegal.
Logistics issues
W. Nieszokoć undertook the translation and dissemination of a work written by General Baron A. H. de Jomini, who was highly valued by Napoleon. Thanks to this, various issues of the art of war were to become accessible to every Pole. He attempted to polonize terms not previously used in the Polish language, and if the proposed words raised doubts, he also included the original French words next to them. In W. Nieszokoć’s translation, “Logistics (Logistique) is the art of well-arranging the marches of troops, the art of well-combining the order of troops in columns, the time of their departure on a journey, and the means of communication necessary to ensure their arrival at a designated point; it is the principle of knowledge and duties of general staff officers”.
Military marches were treated as a branch of the art of war. Those that led to the defeat of the enemy were classified not as logistics, but as strategy. The fundamental goal of a properly organized march was the movement of specific forces and resources to a planned area. Efficient transport and communication were conditioned by the communication infrastructure existing in a given area, which is why the task of engineering subunits was to maintain and build roads and bridges. A large role was attributed to time-space calculations. Individual columns of troops had to start their march at different times in order to reach the planned area on time. Therefore, the calculations had to take into account the composition of the columns, the speed of movement of troops and supply trains, distance, terrain, damage caused by the enemy, the commander’s intent, etc.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 4/2009.