Although the Polish army suffered a serious defeat with a loss of 6,000 men, Bem's actions prevented the destruction of the entire army. 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, during the desperate defence of Warsaw against Prince Paskievich (September 27, 1831). Nonetheless, the Polish army was eventually compelled to lay down arms on October 5, 1831, and crossed the Russian–Prussian partitional border under the command of General Maciej Rybiński in the Great Emigration. First exile Bem then escaped to Paris, where he supported himself by teaching mathematics. In France, he published his next work, on the National Uprising in Poland, in which he not only gave an appraisal of the 1831 insurrection, but also tried to present a programme for the continuation of the struggle for the country's freedom. During his stay in France, he collaborated with the Hôtel Lambert organization and was a member of the Historical and Literary Society. In 1833 he went to Portugal to assist the liberal Dom Pedro against the reactionary Dom Miguel, but abandoned the idea when it was found that a Polish legion could not be formed there. When in Portugal, he was the target of an assassination attempt, carried out by Russian agents. 1848 hero A wider field for his activity presented itself in 1848 (along with the Austrian Revolution). First he attempted to hold Vienna against the imperial troops of Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, and, after the capitulation, hastened to Pressburg (, today Bratislava, Slovakia) to offer his services to Lajos Kossuth, first defending himself, in a long speech, from the accusations of "treachery to the Polish cause" and "aristocratic tendencies" — which the more fanatical section of the Polish émigré Radicals repeatedly brought against him. He was entrusted with the defence of Transylvania at the end of 1848, and in 1849, as General of the Székely troops, he performed miracles with his little army, notably at the bridge of Piski (now Simeria, Romania) on February 9, where, after fighting all day, he drove back an immense force of pursuers. After relieving Transylvania he was sent to drive the Austrian General Anton Freiherr von Puchner out of the Banat region. Bem defeated von Puchner at Orsova (now Orșova) on May 16, but