Józef Bem was yet another Polish freedom fighter, with a military reputation recorded in the history not only of Poland, but other European countries as well. Just as Tadeusz Ko¶ciuszko, who fought in the American War of Independence, or Jan Henryk D±browski who fought alongside Napoleon in Italy and Russia, Bem also fought outside Poland's borders, for the future of Poland; he fought everywhere where his leader's talent and military skills were needed.

Józef Bem was born on 14 March 1794 in Tarnów. The 2nd Partition of Poland in 1793, when his country suffered further territorial losses to the neighbouring powers, put his home town under the Austrian Empire. After the creation of the tiny Duchy of Warsaw on the territories captured by Napoleon, Bem moved with his parents to Cracow, where after finishing school he joined the Duchy's forces as a fifteen-year-old cadet. A brilliant army career brought him up to the rank of sub-lieutenant after only half a year of study; later, as a lieutenant in the artillery, he took part in Napoleon's 1812 campaign. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Duchy of Warsaw was transformed into a constitutional Kingdom of Poland and Bem became a teacher at a military college, where he carried out research on a newly designed type of rocket missile. He published his research results along with extensive illustrations. The Kingdom of Poland was a dependent territory of Russia, and Bem also became involved in a conspiracy to restore Poland to full independence. When his membership of a secret partiotic organisation was discovered he was degraded and sentenced in 1822 to a year in prison. Although the verdict was suspended, Józef Bem resigned his commission, moved to Galicia (the Austrian zone of partitioned Poland) and researched on steam engines and their application, again publishing his results.

Józef Bem lived in Brody, Galicia, until 1830. When, on 29 November, an ant-Russian uprising broke out in the Kingdom, he immediately joined the Polish insurgents. He arived in Warsaw and was given a major's commission and the command of the 4th Light Cavalry Battery, which he led during the Battles of Iganie and Ostro³êka. During the Battle of Ostro³êka Bem's forces bravely charged at the Russian opponents. Thanks to this, the Polish army was not completely destroyed, although it did suffer a severe defeat, losing six thousand men. For his valour on the battlefield, Bem was awarded the Virtuti Militari Golden Cross and promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. He was steadfastly against capitulation until the very end of the Uprising. Nonetheless the Polish army was eventually compelled to lay down arms, on 5 October 1831, and crossed the Russo-Prussian partitional border under the command of General Maciej Rybiñski.

As a result of the fall of the November Uprising, Józef Bem was forced to emigrate. The period between 1832 and 1845 is known as the Great Emigration and Bem, like the majority of Polish combatants, went to France, which had become a haven for exiled Polish patriots. He published his next work there, on the National Uprising in Poland, in which not only did he give an appraisal the 1831 insurrection, but also tried to present a programme for the continuation of the struggle for the country's freedom.

In Paris Bem witnessed another freedom movement. This time it was not an uprising in Poland, but the 1848 Spring of the Nations, which engulfed all of Europe. In that year the Polish general went to Austria, where he fought alongside the revolutionaries, defending Vienna against the Habsburg forces. Next he went to Hungary. He became the commander-in-chief of the Transylvanian army, with which between December 1848 and March 1849 he cleared Transylvania of Austrian soldiers, thereby becoming a Hungarian national hero. In 1849 he was given the supreme command of the entire Hungarian army. But when Hungary was invaded by the Russian armies, the Magyar forces were not capable of withstanding the 70-thousand-strong combined Austro-Russian forces and the uprising collapsed (13 August 1849).

Together with the remnants of the Hungarian army, Bem crossed the Turkish border. He tried to rebuild his forces and even converted to Islam to facilitate his career in the Turkish army, but his actions did not bring the expected results. Turkey, for that matter, was forced by Austria and Russia to spread out its immigrants, so there was no possibility of creating any coherent armed units.
The Polish general, appointed Marshal of Turkish Army, died of fever on 10 December 1850 in Aleppo, Syria. His ashes were brought back to Poland in 1929 and laid to rest in a mausoleum in Tarnów.

Facts After the fall of the November Uprising, Polish women who emigrated to France used to wear black ribands and jewellery as a symbol of mourning for their lost homeland. Such images can be seen in the first scenes of the movie Pan Tadeusz, filmed by Andrzej Wajda in 1999, based on the Polish national epic.