Ignacy Skorupka
A day later his body was transported to a garrison church in Warsaw, and shortly, he was given a state funeral at the prestigious Powązki Cemetery, attended by many government and military authorities; general Józef Haller presented him with a posthumous Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari. His death became a political ploy, used by the opponents of Polish military commander and leader Józef Piłsudski, architect of the Polish strategy that led to the victory at Warsaw. His opponents labelled the battle "miracle of Vistula", and attributed the Polish victory to a number of causes, up to and including divine intervention, and Skorupka's martyr-like death became part of their attempt to minimize Piłsudski's fame. Several monuments, streets and other landmarks were dedicated to him in the Second Polish Republic; he became a central figure in several books, poems and dramas; and Pope Pius XI commissioned a wall painting of him by Jan Henryk de Rosen at the battle at the Castel Gandolfo. Another popular painting of him was created by Jerzy Kossak.
History of Warsaw
After the Battle of Maciejowice General Tadeusz Kościuszko was captured by the Russians. The internal struggle for power in Warsaw and the demoralisation of the city's population prevented General Józef Zajączek from finishing the fortifications surrounding the city both from the east and from the west. At the same time the Russians were making their way towards the city. The Russian forces reached the east outskirts of Warsaw on November 3, 1794. The heavy fighting lasted for four hours and resulted in a complete defeat of the Polish forces. Only a small part managed to evade encirclement and retreated to the other side of the river across a bridge; hundreds of soldiers and civilians fell from a bridge and drowned in the process. After the battle ended, the Russian troops, against the orders given by General Alexander Suvorov before the battle, started to loot and burn the entire borough of Warsaw (allegedly in revenge for the slaughter or capture of over half the Russian Garrison in Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising in April 1794, when about 2,000 Russian soldiers died). Almost all of the area was pillaged, burnt to the ground and many inhabitants of the Praga district were murdered. The exact death toll of that day remains unknown, yet it is estimated up to 20,000 men, women and children were killed. In Polish history and tradition, these events are called “slaughter of Praga”. A British envoy, William Gardiner, wrote to the British Prime Minister that “the attack on the Praga’s lines of defense was accompanied by the most gruesome and totally unnecessary barbarousness”.