Baron Dezydery Adam Chłapowski (1788 in Turew – 27 March 1879) of the Dryja coat of arms was a Polish general, businessman and political activist.
Early life
His father Józef Chłapowski (born 1756, died 1826) was the baron of Kościan County and his mother Urszula was from the Moszczeńska family. His tutor as a child was the French immigrant priest Steinhoff. He began his education at the Piarist university in Rydzyna and then in Berlin.
Napoleonic Wars
At the age of 14, his father placed him in the Prussian dragoon regiment of General Bruesewitz that was stationed in Greater Poland. Simultaneously, the young soldier studied at the Berlin Inspection Officers Institute, from which he graduated in 1805 with a promotion to lieutenant. In 1806, he sought exemption from participating in the war with Napoleonic France.
After the Berlin's occupation by the French, he left for Poznań. Here he joined the hundred-man honor guard of Emperor Napoleon formed by the local nobility after the Greater Poland uprising under the command of Umiński. During this period he gained favor with Napoleon, who appointed him a lieutenant. During the 1807 campaign, he fought in the voltigeur company of the commanded by General Fr. Antoni Paweł Sułkowski formed in Gniezno. Decorated after the battle of Tczew, as a half-company commander, the Virtuti Militari cross and the Legion of Honour. During the siege of Danzig, he was captured by the Prussians.
After the Treaties of Tilsit and returning from Riga, where he was interned, he was promoted to captain on August 1 and assigned as General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's adjutant. In February 1808 he was summoned to Paris, where he became Napoleon's orderly officer. During this stay, he graduated from military studies at the Paris École Polytechnique. He passed the final exams before General Bertrand. He went through Spanish and Austrian campaigns alongside Napoleon. He was awarded the title Baron of the Empire for his participation in the Battle of Regensburg. In January 1811, he was appointed the head of a squadron of the 1st Polish Light Cavalry Regiment of the Imperial Guard. With it he partook in the French invasion of Russia and War of the Sixth Coalition. During the latter, in Dresden, he asked for dismissal, which he obtained on 19 June. The decision was caused by Chłapowski's bitterness over Napoleon's attitude towards Poland (plans to give the Duchy of Warsaw to the Tsar in exchange for peace) and the hardships of the campaigns he had gone through. Among the Napoleonic veterans, however, this action was badly received with accusations of desertion. As a retired colonel, he left for Paris. After Napoleon's abdication, he went to Great Britain. In 1815, during the Hundred Days, he returned to Greater Poland through Paris.
Congress Poland
He settled in his hometown Turwia, which he and Rąbin bought back from the debtor father of a professor, and then tidied up the property and began introducing a modern economy. To deepen their knowledge once again went on a trip to England ( 1818 - 1819 ), where among other things practiced physically working on the farm. Upon his return, he introduced solutions observed in England. Thanks to this, he repaid debts within 15 years and the property in Turwia quickly became one of the best farms in the Grand Duchy of Poznań . Chłapowski among others he introduced crop rotation instead of three- crop , used an iron plow and sowed soil enrichmentclover . As a result, Chłapowski was one of the guests invited to a conference in Berlin, where a plan of enfranchisement of peasants in the Grand Duchy was developed. He, for his part, allocated some of his land to parcel among peasants. In 1821 he married Antonina née Grudziński , sister of the Łowicz duchess Joanna , wife of the grand prince Konstanty . He was a deputy from the knighthood from the Kościan poviat to the provincial parliament of the Grand Duchy of Poznań in 1827 [1] and in 1830 [2] . He was a co-founder and activist of Credit Land and Fire Insurance Association. Palace in Turwia