The
Warsaw Uprising of 1794 (otherwise the "Warsaw Insurrection"); was an armed
Polish insurrection by the city's populace early in the
Kościuszko Uprising. Supported by the
Polish Army, it aimed to throw off
Russian control of the
Polish capital. It began April 17, 1794, soon after
Tadeusz Kościuszko's victory at
Racławice. Although the Russian forces were more numerous and better equipped, the Polish regular forces and
militia, armed with rifles and sabers from the
Warsaw Arsenal, inflicted heavy losses on the surprised enemy garrison. Russian soldiers found themselves under crossfire, shot at from all sides and from buildings, and several units broke early and suffered heavy casualties in their retreat. Kościuszko's envoy,
Tomasz Maruszewski, and
Ignacy Działyński and others had been laying the groundwork for the uprising since the spring of 1793. They succeeded in winning popular support: a National Militia was formed from several thousand volunteers, led by
Jan Kiliński, a master shoemaker and one of Warsaw's notable residents. Apart from the militia, the most famous units to take part in the liberation of Warsaw were formed of Poles who had previously been forcibly conscripted into the Russian service. A witness to the fighting was
Jan Piotr Norblin, a French-born Polish painter who created a set of sketches and paintings of the struggle.
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