On December 27, 1918, the Greater Poland Uprising started. It was one of the four victorious Polish insurrections. The event is to be commemorated on Thursday by Poland’s top officials, including the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the President Andrzej Duda.

Greater Poland (“Wielkopolska” in Polish) was taken by Prussia, the predecessor of a unified Germany, as one of the partitions of Poland. In 1849 its name had been changed to the “Province of Posen”



Poles in this region protested against the Prussian and German policy of enforcing German culture and language but tried to achieve change using non-violent methods.



An example of this was a protest by children from Września, some 40km east of Poznań, who protested against having to pray in the German language in the early 20th century. Another was the history of “Drzymała’s wagon,” which had been trying to bypass German law by moving his wagon, where he lived, just a slight amount every day and claiming that it is was not a building but a moving vehicle, so the laws concerning construction and building did not apply to him.



In late 1918, Germany loosened the policy on the occupied lands. Circumstances such as Germany’s defeat in WWI, the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II and the general atmosphere of revolution encouraged people to begin their fight for freedom.

Musical about Paderewski presented in NYC Fragments of the musical “Blacksmith,” inspired by the life of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, pianist, composer and one of the fathers of Poland’s... see more

Paderewski’s visit



The spark that lit the uprising fire was the visit of the Polish pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who arrived in Poznań on December 26, 1918. His visit was an opportunity for patriotic demonstration.



A day after his arrival, Poles started to gather in front of the Bazar Hotel in the city centre. Germans organised a counter-manifestation and destroyed the headquarters of the Supreme People’s Council, the legal Polish authority of the city of Poznań.



The uprising began before 5PM local time. By the end of the year, insurgents had liberated the majority of the Poznań area, and in January a large part of Wielkopolska was under their control.



In late January, Germany started their counteroffensive. They planned to attack not only Wielkopolska but other parts of the country as well.



Polish intelligence acquired information about the German plans and notified the leaders of the Triple Entente. Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the leader of the alliance’s forces, threatened that should Germany attacks Poles, the Triple Entente would take military steps.

The aftermath



On February 16, 1919, the treaty in Trier, Germany, was signed, prolonging the ceasefire between the Triple Entente and Germany. Marshal Foch asked for a point demanding the termination of the Polish-German conflict to be included. However, there was no specified date of when this should come into force, and the Germans continued to conduct military activities.



Finally, the Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, returned nearly the whole area of Wielkopolska to the newly reborn Polish state.



Some historians say that without the insurrection, some parts of the region may have joined Germany. If the plebiscites had been organised, there may have been some areas which would remain under strong German influence and affected by Germanising policies.



The Greater Poland Uprising of 1918-1919 was one of the four Polish insurrections that can be considered as victorious. It was also the largest of them. Other victorious uprisings were the Greater Poland Insurrection in 1806, the Sejny Uprising in 1919, and the 2nd Silesian Uprising in 1920.