Talk:Greater Poland uprising (1918–1919)

Old talk
This article appears to be rather one-sided in depicting the Polish-German conflict, a more neutral point of view would be welcome.

And whatever the historical and political aspects: the English used is awkward and full of spelling mistakes.

If you want your opinion taken seriously, please clean up the language, especially in the calendary section - BTW a good example for the problem: the word calendary is not idiomatic English, how about Timeline instead?

Well, this article has been tagged for improvement since August - it is December now, and nothing relevant has happened. It is still very one-sided by providing only a partisan, if not nationalistic, pro-Polish view. It is still full of orthographic and grammatical errors, and it also makes a number of factual mistakes: e.g. on November 11, the Alles signed an armistice with Germany, not a formal capitulation.

Please correct these shortcomings, otherwise this may be a candidate for deletion. 66.52.202.26 13:34, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this date be 1918? "but serious preparations had been going on since 9 November 1919." Otherwise, the text doesn't make sense. Also, while conditions at the end of WWII in Poland are fairly well known, the same cannot be said for WWI and some description should be given. How much military presence did Germany have in Great Poland? What were their main forces doing? Bwood 01:11, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * In Russia there was a civil war, so there was no Russians nearby
 * Main German Forces were still on eastern front
 * I will try to find how many German troops were fighting against uprising (only in Poznan few thousands soldiers) Radomil 01:27, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some grammatical corrections
Tried my hand at helping clean up some grammatical errors and put some neutral perspective into the body of the article - (did not touch the timelines or references as I am not privy to them)

C. Kraj

Move and disambig
This page should be a disambig for the following uprisings, thus this and other articles from the following series should be renamed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Greater Poland Uprising 1794, to help the Kościuszko Uprising
 * Greater Poland Uprising 1806, to help Napoleon I to liberate Poland and create the Duchy of Warsaw
 * Greater Poland Uprising 1846, part of the all-Polish 3-partion uprising
 * Greater Poland Uprising 1848, part of the Spring of Nations
 * Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919), Poland regains independence after the World War I
 * Support. Szopen 09:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I made the very change that Piotruś suggested even before I knew about this discussion, so yes, it makes sense to me. Appleseed (Talk) 21:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not realy sure. Most of people hen they say "Powstanie Wielkopolskie", thinks about this from years 1918-1919. Moreover I'm sure that, even most of Poles, knows only this one uprising. So for now oppose. Radomil talk 15:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, it's true this is how it is solved on Polish wiki, but I think that the date-in-name is the best solution.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. logologist|Talk 04:17, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * But why to move it to some Polish name instead of English name? I thought WP:UE is binding... Halibutt 16:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I haven't studied enough to advocate for or against "move and disambig", but I just have to express my consternation/amusement? at how the uprisings are mentioned in a way that is so blantantly, pitifully POV. How can you mention; "An 1806 uprising was followed by the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw which lasted for eight years before being partitioned again between Prussia and Russia." without referring to Napoleon? The bullet list above is more NPOV and should be incorporated. Bwood 19:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Be bold. Let's upgrate article about 1806 uprising starting from translation of pl:wiki article (I'm working abut that on user:Radomil/brudnopis). Radomil talk 20:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Use English Naming Conventions
I have moved the page to Great Poland Uprising, in accordance with the Wikipedia Naming Conventions. On a tertiary note, shouldn't most of the city names be in German, as they were legally German Imperial territory? Ameise -- chat 17:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, is a timeline overly necessary? Can't you just give a normal summary of it? Ameise -- chat 17:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

On a third note, the timeline should be deleted alltogether -- it is obviously being written by people IN POLAND who hardly know the English language -- half of the stuff makes absolutely no sense, and the other half is terrible English. Please, stop bringing people here with the sole goal of adding a Polish POV to everything, who don't even know how to write in English. Ameise -- chat 18:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You realy think that deleting is better than correcting? WWII has it's timeline. Radomil talk 18:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, this timeline is very, very drawn out, and also goes into very very vague references, or ones that are not overly signifigant. Plus, the timeline is longer than the article itself. And about my Poland comment, sorry, but I do believe that if you want to contribute you request a proper interpretation in the discussio page, otherwise the resulting text often does not make any sense -- Polish grammar and syntax is vastly different from English. Ameise -- chat 19:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Optional moving it to separate article... but forme here is optimal place for it. Summary is in begining of article. Radomil talk 19:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a shame that such a poor and manipulative article made it on the main page.--62.214.246.45 17:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This article should be called the Wielkopolska Uprising (1918-1919), in my opinion. At a minimum, a person searching for Wielkopolska Uprising should be directed to this page.Bdell555 23:41, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

List or Article?
It seems to me this page is stuck somewhere in the middle between a list and an article. Certainly not an ideal solution. Jaqu 16:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Basically, this page is Polish nationalist propaganda, unworthy of Wikipedia, and written in bad English. As a previous poster said "It's a shame that such a poor and manipulative article made it on the main page".Giordaano 14:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Giardaano's right, this is really a one-sided article. I recently read Count Harry Kessler's diaries. Kessler was the German officer sent by the German government to deal with Pilsudski in pulling German forces out of Poland at the end of the war. There is no mention at all in his diaries of the "heavy fighting with the regular German army" and all these "uprisings" cited in this article. Pilsudski had been chosen by the German General Staff to head a "Polish Legion" to fight against Russia- with the promise that a Polish state of some sort would be resurrected from the territories of a defeated Tsarist Russia. So the Germans really started the ball rolling for an independent Poland. Of course, when Germany signed the armistice with the Allies in November 1918, it was made clear to them that they would have to withdraw from a new Polish state. Kessler was a liberal by standards of the time and his problem wasn't so much Pilsudski (whom he knew well), it was the German armies in eastern Poland, who were still trying to support the Ukrainian state the Germans had set up against the Bolsheviks. Kessler was afraid that the Poles would rile the German generals, leading to a major war in Poland, which the Germans likely would have won (and which would have led to a resumption of war on the Western Front). Kessler's mission was ultimately successful, the German armies withdrew back into Germany proper, leaving the Poles to fight it out with the Bolsheviks over Ukraine. Shirokuma1 (talk) 16:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You're mixing two places. All You wrote about Piłsudski matches to pupet state - Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918). Uprising was in Province of Posen Radomil talk 17:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Non-Polish sources in bibliography
Just added two non-Polish sources to bibliography. This should help to resolve the doubts of those who never heard about the event before.

Note that Blanke, who's work contains a chapter on the uprising, writes explicitly from civilian German point of view. Therefore his vision of the event is quite different from standard Polish narrative and shows the uprising as unexpexted, unneccessary and frightening turmoil. The article would probably benefit from including a mention of that perspective.

Also, the Polish part of bibliography would benefit from some modernizing - there seems to be nothing written after 1989, while in several cases (personal memories) the books mentioned there qualify as primary sources and therefere do not necessarily make a suitable Wikipedia reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.24.162.59 (talk) 17:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

There are no footnotes in this article. It remains unclear if this is history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.66.93.198 (talk) 19:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Funny that Molobo would remove a German title with the pretext that it “doesn't seem to be reliable source”. At the same time we have a book by the National Democracy politician Roman Dmowski listed here. Double standards, what else (if one may draw parallels to Molobo's itch of finding 'nationalist' undertones in different German historians' works). I've taken the liberty to revert the removal of that book from 1919. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog  (woof!) 10:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

More accurate map
I added a more accurate map, the previous one missed large sections of Polish population in the eastern areas.--Molobo (talk) 03:34, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

The timeline
It looks like this page has been quite for awhile but I do agree with the comment made somewhere above that the time line is too long and too much like a list. It would be good to somehow collapse it and make it more succinct and presentable. Any thoughts?radek (talk) 00:00, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

timeline error
9 February 1919 is listed twice. The second time it is actually placed after 18 February 1919. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.190.253.150 (talk) 00:53, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

B-class review
This article is currently at start/C class, but could be improved to B-class if it had more (inline) citations. Also, the structure should be converted from timeline bullet list to prose. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 22:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Propaganda page which should not be here
This article page is simply blatant Polish nationalist propaganda which has little bearing on historical truth/fact. It is how the Polish nationalists wish the world to view things. The Allied Occupation Forces 1919-1930 archives, and many books written by those involved, demonstrate this page to be a silly nonsence. It is impossible to edit/correct this page as a scroll through the hundreds of edits show that a gang of Poles just delete them. References to Polish books which are inaccessible and/or unreadable to English-language speakers should not be acceptable. This is the English-language Wikipedia. 81.131.120.210 (talk) 10:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed 100%. 2A00:23C4:B607:CB01:C143:1C6F:3BC8:4CCA (talk) 13:47, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

What 'Allied Occupation Forces 1919-1930'? There were no allied occupation forces of any kind in the territory described in this article (that is former Provinz Posen and Provinz Westpreussen of German Empire) The author of the comment above is maybe confusing Greater Poland uprising with the Silesian uprisings, which happened later an in different place?

What 'many books' and who were 'those involved'? What exactly do they demonstrate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.171.125.18 (talk) 09:17, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Fantastic fictitious mythology which had no bearing whatsoever on the Versailles Treaty. All Central Powers military forces returned home after November 11th, 1918. Can hardly believe this rubbish. 86.154.104.128 (talk) 12:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Note that there are only few Polish photos of soldiers (fake). There aren't any German photos and the only battle pictures existing are hand-painted illustrations in Polish student's books. This uprising is just a hoax. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.117.32.61 (talk) 17:26, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


 * This is a fiction page, an invented story by fanatical Polish nationalists. No English-language books of the period mention this and it does not get a mention in the British diplomatic papers which are widely available in printed editions. The Germans were resigned to the loss of Posen province and there simply was no fighting. Wikipedia has become unreliable allowing fanatics to write their own histories which have no basis in fact. 2A00:23C4:B607:CB01:C143:1C6F:3BC8:4CCA (talk) 13:45, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Major rewrite needed
This article should be completely rewritten, it's an incredibly vague timeline with no sources which includes stuff like "The Xmen retreated from Y town" without the reader even knowing they occupied Y town in the first place. Crainsaw (talk) 16:30, 4 August 2023 (UTC)