Danube Legion

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The Danube Legion (Polish: Legia Naddunajska) was a unit of Poles in the service of Napoleonic France, one of the larger Polish Legions of Napoleonic Period.

It was formed on 8 September 1799 in the Batavian Republic from Polish volunteers, mostly French prisoners of war from the Austrian Army. Numbering about 6,000 the legion was commanded by general Karol Kniaziewicz.

The legion fought at the Battle of Marengo and Battle of Hohenlinden (1800). However during treaty negotiations between French and Austrians the French were finding the Polish issue to be a problem; Poles wanted the French to continue fighting against the partitioners of Poland; the future Polish national anthem, Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, created by Józef Wybicki, promised 'the return of the Polish army from Italy to Poland'. Instead, the French used Polish troops to quell down uprisings in conquered territories, which led to much unrest in the Polish troops. After Kniaziewicz and some others resigned from the command position, the Legion was reformed into the 113rd demi-brigade, and commanded by Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski sent to Haiti to put down the Haitian Revolution. Eventually combat casualties and tropical diseases (like the yellow fever) reduced the 5,280 strong Legion to a few hundred survivors in the space of less than two years. By the time French forces retreated from the island in 1803 about 4,000 Poles were dead (either from disease or combat), few hundreds chose to switch sides and remain on the island.