Greater Poland Uprising ( 1794 ) The 1794 Greater Poland Uprising ( Polish : " Powstanie Wielkopolskie 1794 roku " ) was a military insurrection by Poles in Wielkopolska ( Greater Poland ) against Kingdom of Prussia which had taken possession of this territory after the 1793 Second Partition of the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth . The outbreak of Kościuszko Uprising in central Poland in March 1794 served as the spark for the formation of Polish military units in the Prussian partition , as Poles in Wielkopolska hoped to liberate their region . Initially , Tadeusz Kościuszko , who had initiated the fight against Russians in central Poland did not want to support the Greater Poland Uprising in the hope of avoiding a two front war ( at the time , Kingdom of Prussia was nominally in an alliance with Poland against Russia ) . As a result the planned insurrection in Wielkopolska almost ended before it could start . However , the situation changed in June 1794 when the Prussians declared their support for Tsarist Russia and offered them military support in suppressing Kościuszko ( after his victory at the Battle of Racławice ) . As a result the Supreme National Council issued a proclamation " To the Citizens of Greater Poland " calling them to arms . The initial center of the uprising was the Kujawy region . The command was given to Józef Niemojewski , although many of the units in the field operated independently . Initial clashes took place on the 20th of August . On the 22nd of August the insurrectionists took Gniezno . Soon after , general Paweł Skórzewski took Konin and other towns in the area . As a result , the King of Prussia , Frederick William II was forced to withdraw some of his forces from central Poland which were besieging Warsaw . A Polish corps under Jan Henryk Dąbrowski captured Bydgoszcz on October 2 , and entered Pomerania almost unopposed . Dąbrowski planned to winter in Bydgoszcz and then move through Toruń but because of Kościuszko ' s defeat at the Battle of Maciejowice he decided instead evacuate Wielkopolska and make his way into central Poland . Although thanks to the mobility of his forces he evaded being encircled by a much less mobile Prussian army , the Prussians recaptured most of the gains made by the insurrectionists in the previous few months . Dąbrowski unsuccessfully tried to convince Kościuszko ' s successor , Tomasz Wawrzecki to move the insurrection from central Poland to the Prussian partition . On November 17 , 1794 , the last Polish units in central Poland capitulated to the Russians at Radoszyce . In Wielkopolska sporadic guerrilla fighting continued until mid - December . The uprising almost got a second life when a hero of the fighting in Warsaw and one of Kościuszko ' s colonels , the shoemaker Jan Kiliński ( who had been born in Trzemeszno ) , arrived in Wielkopolska to try to reorganize the Polish forces . However , he was soon captured by the Prussians and handed over to the Russians . With the end of the uprising , Dąbrowski was offered commissions in the Russian and Prussian armies but turned these down and emigrated abroad . He went on to organize the Polish Legions in Italy which fought alongside Napoleon in subsequent wars . Niemojewski also emigrated to France and served in Napoleon ' s army where he eventually attained the rank of Brigadier General .