Verhovayak Lapja, 1954 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1954-04-07 / 4. szám

Fate that he had to become a champion of freedom by the sheer weight of destiny. He was the son of Count Joseph Pulaski, first in a long line of Polish national heroes. He fought as a young man at the side of his father for the cause of his dear country; he was only twenty-three and already a leader of his compatriots and not yet twenty-four when he learned to suffer the bitter life of a political exile. He left Poland in 1772, spending the following five years in Turkey and France. In 1777 he offered his fortune and fiery zeal to the cause of American freedom. He signed an agreement with Deane Silas, in Paris, the latter serving there as business agent for America. Within two months, by the end of July, Pulaski was already in Boston. He fought and distinguished himself at Brandywine^ and four days later, September 15,1777, on the strength of his agreement with Silas, was made the brigadier general and Commander-in- Chief of Washington’s Cavalry by the Continental Congress.

Such are the ways of fate and destiny. Our Kováts, the expert, the soldier, the obvious man for the job, suffered obscurity; the hero of freedom was given the job by destiny, effortlessly and perhaps against the wish of the selected.

Casimir Pulaski was a young man, being twenty-nine only at that time. His military experience just could not be compared with that of Kováts. But Pulaski was a born leader. He knew the difference between commanding a nonexisting cavalry and creating one. Somehow he found Kováts, or Kováts found him. They needed each other; they complemented each other; they formed a perfect combination, and both knew it.

Poka-Pivny, the biographer of Kováts, speculates at great length on the possibility of an earlier friendship existing between the two men back in Europe. He refers to various possible dates of their meeting, such as 1761 in Poland, 1765 and 1771 in Eperjes, Hungary. From this supposition he draws rather important conclusions: their meeting in France, arriving together in America; being old friends, and, by implication, a mutual plan made by them in France concerning the organization of the American cavalry. If true, this would disprove the initiative of Kováts

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and put him in the shadow of Pulaski. The biographer is definitely mistaken. Casimir Pulaski was born in 1748, that making him Kováts’s junior by 24 years. They could not have drunk together and enjoyed other manly pastimes at sports: nor formed a lasting friendship in 1761, Pulaski being only 13 years of age at that time. The difference in their ages is too great. The same applies to their possible meeting at Eperjes, when, though the age difference becomes relatively smaller, it is still too great to allow the formation of a real friendship. The biographer’s mistake is obvious; he mistakes father for son. A meeting, or even a friendship, between Kováts and the older Pulaski, Joseph, is more than possible, but Joseph never came to America.

Poka-Pivny supposition leads to more romantics. But birth dates are sometimes inconvenient facts. Thus we believe that even if they knew of each other, each came to this country on his own: Pulaski to serve the cause of American freedom in any way he was able, and Kováts to create a light cavalry for Washington.

But they formed a friendship here in America, a lasting one. Their background, philosophy, aims, military principles and methods show a decisive similarity. They recognized each other’s importance in the common play and were inseparable from then on until death parted them.

Pulaski was the official head of a cavalry yet to be organized, but the organizer, the spiritus rector, was our Kováts.

In the memorandums Pulaski submitted to Washington, in November and December of 1777, on the principles of cavalry organization, we see Kováts and only Kováts and always Kováts. Pulaski recommended the Prussian service regulations, though he was antagonistic to anything Prussian. There was not a word which would even indicate Polish, Turkish or French influence. All the methods and principles were clear-cut Prussian, and in one case at least, typically Hungarian. Pulaski’s recommendations were not even the general principles of light cavalry but definitely that of the Hussars.

It is quite significant that in one of Pulaski’s memo— 9 —