Uprising
Dąbrowski sent emissaries before him to Poznań, to evaluate the situation. After they returned to the General with the news that the whole "region is full of patriotic spirit and joy about the success of the French Army", Dąbrowski and Wybicki entered the city on 3 November 1806 leading the first units of the French army. Their arrival became a large Polish patriotic demonstration. On this same day, Dąbrowski called Poles to stand with arms on Napoleon's side and fight against Prussian occupation. Dąbrowski and Wybicki created Voivodship Commissions (Komisja wojewódzka) whose tasks were to take administrative control and keep the area quiet, preventing fights about social and economical issues.
Dąbrowski's and Wybicki's proclamation was enthusiastically adopted by the bourgeoisie but with reserve by the szlachta. Therefore, in the newly created Poznań Department, Polish units were formed mostly in large urban areas like Poznań, and in the countryside, mobilisation was very slow.
In the Kalisz Department, a special Proclamation for this area was announced on 9 November. Large centers of uprising fighters formed in Kalisz and Konin. On 10 November, Polish fighters engaged in battles against Prussian troops near Ostrzeszów and Kępno; then, on 13 November the uprising spread to the area around Sieradz.
Poles had the most difficult fighting in the Bydgoszcz Department. As Commander of the newly created Polish units in this region, General Amilkar Kosiński had to fight against the largest Prussian troops in Greater Poland on one side and with an uncooperative French intendent on the other one, using troops with very little training or experience.
Meanwhile, Dąbrowski was already creating a regular army, mobilising one man from each ten cottages, and on 3 December appointed the pospolite ruszenie as auxiliaries to the regular troops. These regular Army units, alongside some irregular uprising troops, cleaned Greater Poland of some pockets of remaining Prussian units. An uprising spread in other regions, and in November, fighters took control over the Jasna Góra fortress.
Mainly due to the action of Wybicki at the beginning of January 1807, the regular Polish army, organised like other Napoleon's armies, had 23,000 soldiers (20,000 of them were from the Poznań and Kalisz Departments). The French Emperor stayed in Poznań between 27 November and 12 December 1806.
Read more about this topic: Greater Poland Uprising (1806)
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