The November Uprising (Polish: powstanie listopadowe), also known as the Polish–Russian War of 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when young Polish officers from the military academy of the Army of Congress Poland revolted.
The Kingdom of Poland, established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, was formally a constitutional monarchy in personal union with the Russian Empire, but over time Russia increasingly violated its constitutional autonomy. Political repression, censorship, and the curtailment of civil liberties, combined with the influence of revolutionary movements in Western Europe, contributed to growing discontent among Polish elites, officers, and students. The uprising began on the night of 29 November 1830 in Warsaw, initiated by a group of young Polish military cadets led by Piotr Wysocki. Their goal was to assassinate or capture the Russian viceroy, Grand Duke Constantine, and spark a national revolt. Although the initial action was poorly coordinated, it quickly escalated as Warsaw’s population and parts of the Polish army joined the rebellion. Within days, Russian authorities were forced to withdraw from the capital, and the provisional Polish National Government was formed.
Large segments of the peoples of what now constitutes Lithuania, Belarus and Right-bank Ukraine soon joined the uprising. The Polish leadership, however, was divided between moderates seeking compromise and radicals advocating full independence, which hindered effective decision-making. Despite several tactical successes—such as the battles of Stoczek and Wawer, the Polish army was outmatched by Russia’s superior numbers and resources under Ivan Paskevich. In February 1831, the Polish Sejm formally deposed Tsar Nicholas I as king of Poland, turning the uprising into a struggle for complete sovereignty. The decisive defeat came after a prolonged campaign culminating in the siege and storming of Warsaw in September 1831. After the capital fell, resistance continued briefly in fortresses such as Modlin and Zamość, but organized resistance collapsed by October.
In retaliation, Tsar Nicholas issued the Organic Statute in 1832, according to which, henceforth Russian-occupied Poland would lose its autonomy and become an integral part of the Russian Empire. Warsaw became little more than a military garrison, and its university closed. Thousands of insurgents were executed, imprisoned, or forced into exile in what became known as the Great Emigration, which included many prominent intellectuals and artists. The response to the November Uprising in Western Europe revealed a sharp divide between popular sentiment and state policy. While the Polish cause inspired admiration and moral support, geopolitical caution and commitment to the Vienna System ensured that Poland remained diplomatically isolated.
Background
After the Partitions of Poland by Austria, Prussia, and Russia, Poland ceased to exist as an independent political entity at the end of 1795. However, the Napoleonic Wars and Polish participation in the wars against Russia and Austria resulted in the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. The Congress of Vienna brought that state's existence to an end in 1815, and essentially solidified the long-term division of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria. The Austrian Empire annexed territories in the south, Prussia took control over the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Poznań in the west and Russia assumed hegemony over the semi-autonomous so-called Congress Kingdom.
Initially, the Russian-formed Congress Kingdom enjoyed a relatively large amount of internal autonomy and was only indirectly subject to imperial control. It had its own constitution. The province, united with Russia through a personal union with the Tsar as King of Poland, could elect its own parliament (the Sejm) and government. The kingdom had its own courts, army and treasury. Over time, the freedoms granted to the Kingdom were gradually taken back, and the constitution was progressively ignored by the Russian authorities. Alexander I of Russia never formally crowned himself as King of Poland. Instead, in 1815, he appointed his brother, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich as de facto viceroy and disregarded the constitution.
Soon after the Congress of Vienna resolutions had been signed, Russia ceased to respect them. In 1819, Alexander I abandoned liberty of the press in the Congress Kingdom and introduced censorship. The Russian secret police, commanded by Nikolay Nikolayevich Novosiltsev, started to infiltrate and persecute Polish clandestine organizations, and in 1821, the Tsar ordered the abolition of Freemasonry. As a result, after 1825, sessions of the Polish Sejm were conducted in secret. Nicholas I of Russia formally crowned himself as King of Poland on 24 May 1829 in Warsaw.
Despite numerous protests by various Polish politicians who actively supported the "personal union", Grand Duke Constantine had no intention of respecting the Polish constitution, one of the most progressive in Europe at that time. He abolished Polish social and patriotic organizations and the liberal opposition of the Kaliszanie faction, and replaced Poles with Russians in important administrative positions. Although married to a Pole (Joanna Grudzińska), he was commonly considered an enemy of the Polish nation. Also, his command over the Polish Army led to serious conflicts within the officer corps. The frictions led to various conspiracies throughout the country, most notably within the army.
Outbreak
The armed struggle began when a group of conspirators led by a young cadet from the Warsaw officers' school, Piotr Wysocki, took arms from their garrison on 29 November 1830 and attacked the Belweder Palace, the main seat of the Grand Duke. The final spark that ignited Warsaw was a Russian plan to use the Polish Army to suppress France's July Revolution and the Belgian Revolution, in clear violation of the Polish constitution.
The rebels managed to enter the Belweder, but Grand Duke Constantine had escaped in women's clothing. The rebels then turned to the main city arsenal and captured it after a brief struggle. The following day, armed Polish civilians forced the Russian troops to withdraw north of Warsaw. That incident is sometimes called the Warsaw Uprising or the November Night. (Polish: Noc listopadowa).
Uprising
Taken by surprise with the rapidly unfolding of events during the night of 29 November 1830, the local Polish government (administrative council) assembled immediately to take control and to decide on a course of action. Unpopular ministers were removed and men like Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the historian Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz and General Józef Chłopicki took their places. Loyalists led by Prince Czartoryski initially tried to negotiate with Grand Duke Constantine and to settle matters peacefully. However, when Czartoryski told the council that Constantine was ready to forgive the offenders and that the matter would be amicably settled, Maurycy Mochnacki and other radicals angrily objected and demanded a national uprising. Fearing an immediate break with Russia, the government agreed to let Constantine depart with his troops.
Mochnacki did not trust the newly constituted ministry and set out to replace it with the Patriotic Club, organized by him. At a large public demonstration on 3 December in Warsaw, he denounced the negotiations between the government and Grand Duke Constantine, who was encamped outside the city. Mochnacki advocated a military campaign in Lithuania to spare the country from the devastation of war and to preserve the local food supply. The meeting adopted a number of demands to be communicated to the administrative council, including the establishment of a revolutionary government and an immediate attack upon the forces of Constantine. The Polish army, with all but two of its generals, Wincenty Krasiński and Zygmunt Kurnatowski, now joined the uprising.
The remaining four ministers of the pre-revolutionary cabinet left the administrative council, and their places were taken by Mochnacki and three of his associates from the Patriotic Club, including Joachim Lelewel. The new body was known as the "provisional government". To legalize its actions the provisional government ordered the convocation of the Sejm and on 5 December 1830 proclaimed General Chłopicki as "dictator of the uprising".
Chłopicki considered the uprising an act of madness but bowed to pressure and consented to take command temporarily in the hope that it would be unnecessary to take the field. An able and highly decorated soldier, he had retired from the army because of the chicanery of Constantine. He overestimated the power of Russia and underestimated the strength and the fervor of the Polish revolutionary movement. By temperament and conviction, he was opposed to a war with Russia and did not believe in a successful outcome. He accepted the dictatorship essentially to maintain internal peace and to save the constitution.
Believing that Tsar Nicholas was unaware of his brother's actions and that the uprising could be ended if the Russian authorities accepted the constitution, Chłopicki's first move was to send Prince Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki to Saint Petersburg to negotiate. Chłopicki refrained from strengthening the Polish army and refused to initiate armed hostilities by expelling Russian forces from Lithuania. However, the radicals in Warsaw pressed for war and the complete liberation of Poland. On 13 December, the Sejm pronounced the National Uprising against Russia, and on 7 January 1831, Prince Drucki-Lubecki returned from Russia with no concessions. The Tsar demanded the complete and unconditional surrender of Poland and announced that the "Poles should surrender to the grace of their Emperor". His plans foiled, Chłopicki resigned the following day.
Power in Poland was now in the hands of the radicals united in the Towarzystwo Patriotyczne ('Patriotic Society'), directed by Joachim Lelewel. On 25 January 1831, the Sejm passed the Act of Dethronization of Nicholas I, which ended the Polish-Russian personal union and was equivalent to a declaration of war on Russia. The proclamation declared that "the Polish nation is an independent people and has a right to offer the Polish crown to him whom it may consider worthy, from whom it might with certainty expect faith to his oath and wholehearted respect to the sworn guarantees of civic freedom."
On 29 January, the national government of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski was established, and Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł was chosen as successor to Chłopicki, who was persuaded to accept active command of the army.
Russo-Polish War
It was too late to move the theatre of hostilities to Lithuania. On 4 February 1831, a 115,000-strong Russian army under Field Marshal Hans Karl von Diebitsch crossed the Polish borders. The force included the Finnish Guards' Rifle Battalion. The first major battle took place on 14 February 1831, close to the village of Stoczek near Łuków. In the Battle of Stoczek, Polish cavalry under Brigadier Józef Dwernicki defeated the Russian division of Teodor Geismar. However, the victory had mostly psychological value and could not stop the Russian advance towards Warsaw. The subsequent Battles of Dobre, Wawer and Białołęka were inconclusive.
The Polish forces then assembled on the right bank of the Vistula to defend the capital. On 25 February, a Polish contingent of approximately 40,000 met a Russian force of 60,000 east of Warsaw at the Battle of Olszynka Grochowska. Both armies withdrew after almost two days of heavy fighting and with considerable losses on both sides. Over 7,000 Poles fell on that field, and the number of killed in the Russian army was slightly larger. Diebitsch was forced to retreat to Siedlce and Warsaw was saved.
Chłopicki, whose soldierly qualities reasserted themselves by military activity, was wounded in action and his place taken by General Jan Skrzynecki, who, like his predecessor, had won distinction under Napoleon for personal courage. Disliked by Grand Duke Constantine, he had retired from service. He shared with Chłopicki the conviction that war with Russia was futile but with the opening of hostilities took command of a corps and fought creditably at Grochov. When the weak and indecisive Michał Radziwiłł surrendered the dictatorship, Skrzynecki was chosen to succeed him. He endeavored to end the war by negotiations with the Russian field commanders and hoped for benign foreign intervention.
Sympathetic echoes of the Polish aspirations reverberated throughout Europe. Enthusiastic meetings had been held in Paris under Lafayette's chairmanship, and money for the Polish cause was collected in the United States. The governments of France and Britain, however, did not share the feelings of some of their people. King Louis-Philippe of France thought mainly of securing for himself recognition on the part of all European governments, and Lord Palmerston was intent on maintaining friendly relations with Russia.
Britain regarded with alarm the reawakening of the French national spirit and did not wish to weaken Russia, "as Europe might soon again require her services in the cause of order, and to prevent Poland, whom it regarded as a national ally of France, from becoming a French province of the Vistula". Austria and Prussia adopted a position of benevolent neutrality towards Russia. They closed the Polish frontiers and prevented the transportation of munitions of war or supplies of any kind.
Under those circumstances, the war with Russia began to take on a somber and disquieting aspect. The Poles fought desperately and attempts were made to rouse Volhynia, Podolia, Samogitia and Lithuania. With the exception of the Lithuanian uprising in which the youthful Countess Emilia Plater and several other women distinguished themselves, the guerilla warfare carried on in the frontier provinces was of minor importance and served only to give Russia an opportunity to crush local risings. Notorious was the slaughter of the inhabitants of the small town of Ashmiany in Belarus. Meanwhile, new Russian forces under Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of Russia arrived in Poland but met with many defeats. Constant warfare, however, and bloody battles such as that at Ostroleka in which 8,000 Poles died, considerably depleted the Polish forces. Mistakes on the part of the commanders, constant changes and numerous resignations, and the inactivity of the commanders, who continued to hope for foreign intervention, added to the feeling of despair.