The Poles had learnt a great deal from their experiences and displayed remarkable professionalism in the art of subversive organisation. The City Committee became the Central National Committee under the chairmanship of Stefan Bobrowski. It had five ministries: a diplomatic service which travelled widely and freely on forged documents, gaining admittance to European chancelleries as well as Russian émigrés’ garrets; a treasury which collected donations from sympathisers and ‘taxes’ from the lukewarm, and even floated an international loan; a quartermastership which purchased and smuggled arms and supplies; a department of the interior which formulated policy on emancipation of the peasants and the Jews; and a department of justice complete with its own ‘stiletto police’. The intelligence department had men in every branch of the Russian army and civil service. The fighters trained and operated clandestinely in Warsaw under the noses of the Russian army encamped not only in the Citadel but in the squares and streets. The Russian General Berg, who had been instructed by the Grand Duke Constantine to investigate the conspiracy, reported back after some weeks that he had discovered ‘only one thing, namely that I don’t belong to it’. As an afterthought, he added: ‘And neither does Your Imperial Highness.’
Wielopolski still hoped to avert insurrection. He brought forward the annual selective conscription into the Russian army and excluded landowners and settled peasants from the lists. By concentrating the draft of more than 30,000 on the educated young and the cities he calculated that the majority of the conspirators would be caught in the net, while those who purposely avoided it would reveal their identity. In the event, the majority slipped away from home as the draft drew near. On 22 January 1863 the National Committee proclaimed the insurrection, and that night small units attacked Russian garrisons around the country.
The rising was doomed to failure. The insurgents numbered no more than about 20,000 ill-equipped men dispersed in bands of between fifty and five hundred. Their numbers grew periodically, and in all some 100,000 people would fight over the next eighteen months, but they were no match for the 300,000 Russian regulars concentrated against them. By virtue of good reconnaissance, timing, and an ability to melt away into the countryside, they managed to harass the Russian forces, cut supply lines, and occasionally defeat a column on the march, but they could not capture a town or take on a full division in pitched battle, as they had no artillery. Only in the remoter areas of Sandomierz, Podlasie and Kielce was it possible for units of more than 2,000 men to survive in the open. Nor was there any continuity of command. Ludwik Mierosławski, who was to take control, was defeated while moving in from Poznania. Marian Langiewicz did manage to assume overall command, but was soon defeated and forced to withdraw to Galicia.
World opinion was strongly pro-Polish, and while newspapers ranted against Russian injustice, young men flocked to Poland, from Ireland, England, France, Germany and, most of all, Italy. Garibaldi’s friend Francesco Nullo was one of several redshirts who fought and died in Poland. Remarkably, the largest non-Polish contingent was Russian.
Foreign governments were less eager to help. Bismarck made it clear that he would help Russia if the need arose. Austria turned a blind eye to the activity going on along its border, which was the only entry point for supplies. On 17 April 1863 Britain, France and Austria made a joint
This changed hands more than once over the next months, and in October 1863 came to rest in those of Romuald Traugutt, a Lithuanian landowner. He was a devout, almost ascetic thirty-fiveyear-old father of two who had reached the rank of colonel in the Russian army and seen service in the Crimean War. He reorganised the National Committee and the military command, and it was largely owing to his leadership that the insurrection revived in the autumn of 1863 and expanded its area of operations.