Galician slaughter and the suppression of the Kraków uprising

Background. The Galician peasant uprising of 1846, known as the Galician Rabacja or Szela Uprising, was a two-month revolt of impoverished Austrian Galician peasants. It primarily affected the lands around Tarnów. The uprising was directed against manorial property and oppression, including manorial prisons. By some estimates, peasants killed about 1,000 nobles and destroyed about 500 manors. The Austrian government initially encouraged the uprising to counter the recent Kraków Uprising, which had been organized by Polish nobility.

Motivation and Control. Historians note that peasants were revolting against the oppressive feudal system, not necessarily out of loyalty to Austrians. However, Austrian authorities, particularly District Officer Johann Breindl von Wallerstein in Tarnów, encouraged the peasants to revolt. A popular rumor claimed the Emperor abolished the Ten Commandments, which peasants interpreted as permission to act against the szlachta. The Austrian bureaucracy played a dubious role, exploiting peasant dissatisfaction to suppress noble uprisings.

Consequences. The massacre of the Polish szlachta is credited with helping to bring on the demise of serfdom in Galicia, which existed until 1848. For Polish nobles, the event demonstrated that class lines were powerful forces and that peasants could not be expected to support independent Poland without education and reform. In Vienna, the event fostered complacency, assuming the majority of the Empire's peoples were loyal to the House of Habsburg.