This sculpture was done in a large piece of alabaster that I found in a stone cutter's yard while living in May-en-Multien near Paris, where I had a home. Without a previous sketch or model in clay or plaster, I carved this work directly in the stone, working as close to the original shape as to not lose its dimension.

The subject matter commemorates one of the most tragic instances in early Polish history. The frequent attacks on the Polish borders by Tartars, Turks and others made vigilance a vital duty for every patriot. The country never had a standing army, but depended solely on the popular rise to the emergency. Thus, the term for war was potrzeba or necessity.

On one such occasion, Stanislaw Żółkiewski, one of the greatest generals Poland produced, asked for a military force. The nobles, resenting his extraordinary importance to the country, refused to help him. He went with a small army of ten thousand to fight against the chronic invaders. The vast enemy, having all of Asia behind them, surrounded his patriotic followers.

The army of Żółkiewski formed an oblong of wagons chained together, the horses inside, and began to push back towards the center of Poland. Their plight was hopeless. Nobility still did not come to their aid, and at a place called Cecora (pron. tseh-tsoh-ra), the whole army of ten thousand was wiped out. The head of Zolkiewski was carried away by a galloping Tartar to be thrown at the feet of the Asian leaders.

Here, in this over life-size sculpture, a warrior drinks his own blood which drains from the wound on his forehead. It is mixed with the open-eyed tears an angel on his cheek directs into his mouth.