In November, 1860, a great demonstration was held in memory of the revolution of 1830, and the authorities were annoyed. Demonstrations increased for all kinds of undesirable objects, and the troops at Warsaw fired and killed five Poles. A vast crowd of one hundred thousand attended the funeral. The Tsar tried to conciliate them by small gifts. He appointed a Polish Director of Public Instruction and Cults. He created municipal councils for the large towns, and electoral councils for each government and district. But he would not grant a constitution, and the agitation increased. A great crowd went to the Viceroy’s palace to formulate their demands, and soon two hundred of them lay dead upon the pavement. The whole city went into mourning.
A new Viceroy, General Lambert, was appointed, and the Tsar instructed him to carry out conscientiously the reforms he had promised. But the officials who were to carry them out were Russians, and the greater reforms were withheld. There were further demonstrations, and further shootings. A reactionary soldier, Count Luders, was then made Viceroy. His life was attempted. The Poles now openly demanded independence and a restoration of Lithuania. Arrests and banishment were useless. The whole educated nation seemed to be aflame. So on January 15th the authorities decided to decimate the enthusiasts by an enforced recruiting for the army, and Poland entered upon another futile rebellion. Those who escaped the police fled to the country, secured arms, and formed guerilla bands.
It was one of the most pathetic of rebellions. The insurgents had no artillery, no transport or medical service. They moved about, often led by priests, as they were hunted, living on the sympathetic gentry and peasants, occasionally hanging or shooting a pro-Russian landowner. It was not war, and the Russian troops hanged or shot all they captured. The most curious feature of it was that a secret committee or council guided the insurrection, levied taxes, and issued decrees from the University of Warsaw itself without being detected by the police. Poles abroad fierily preached the wrongs of their countrymen, and the English, French, and Austrian governments formally requested the Tsar (1863) to put an end to the anarchy. Two months later they formulated for the Tsar what seemed to them the reasonable demands of the Poles; a general amnesty, parliamentary representation, reform of the law of recruiting, complete liberty of religion, admission of Poles to office, and so on. Alexander indignantly refused. He did not add--one wonders if he reflected--that it was precisely because the Sultan would not grant such rights to his Christian subjects that Russia had made war upon the Turk. Prussia supported, and promised assistance to, the Tsar.