On 26 February 1846 an Austrian detachment under Ludwig von Benedek, joined by armed peasants, routed a column of the Kraków Uprising at Gdów, southeast of Kraków. Many of the 154 insurgents who died there were killed by peasants after they had surrendered at the cemetery wall.
Battle of Gdów
26 February 1846 · 180 years ago
An uprising and a peasant revolt
In February 1846 Polish insurgents drove the Austrian garrison out of the Free City of Kraków and set up a National Government. Its manifesto promised the peasants ownership of the land they farmed and an end to their duties to the landlords.1
The countryside did not follow. In western Galicia, the Austrian province around Kraków, peasants turned not against Austria but against the Polish landowners, attacking manor houses and killing nobles and estate officials. Polish sources hold that the Austrian authorities incited the revolt. More than a thousand people were killed; a curator of the National Museum in Kraków puts the dead among the landed gentry at 1,000 to 2,000.2
Surprise at Gdów
A small insurgent column under Colonel Jakub Suchorzewski, many of its men armed with scythes, operated southeast of Kraków. On 26 February it was caught by surprise at Gdów by an Austrian detachment under Ludwig von Benedek, joined by armed peasants from the surrounding villages.3
Killing at the cemetery wall
The scythemen fell back to the cemetery and surrendered there, and the peasants killed them. A contemporary account quoted by the Gdów municipality says the scythemen, pressed against the cemetery wall by the peasant bands, tried desperately to defend themselves, then lost hope, threw their scythes to the ground and begged for mercy, and were cut down.4
In all, 154 insurgents died. Their bodies were thrown into pits on the pasture beside the cemetery.5
After Gdów
The uprising collapsed within days, and Austrian troops entered Kraków. In November 1846 the Free City lost its independence and was annexed to Austria. Benedek, praised for his quick blow at Gdów, rose to the rank of Feldzeugmeister and commanded the Austrian army defeated by the Prussians at Königgrätz in 1866.6
A mound was raised over the mass grave in the Gdów cemetery in 1906, and on it stands Wojciech Samek's monument of the grieving Rachel. The Gdów municipality dates the monument to 1906, while the National Museum curator writes that it was set up in 1916.7
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