 Born in Warsaw on 15 April 1786, as a child he lived through the last of the partitions of Poland that destroyed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.He joined the Polish military early, serving in the army of Duchy of Warsaw from 1807 to 1815 and later in that of Congress Poland.In Congress Poland, a puppet state of the Russian Empire, ruled by the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia, the Polish army's morale was very low.