Wielbark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship

In January 1807 70,000 Napoleonic soldiers traversed the town and had to be supplied. Napoleon headquartered here from 21 January to 2 February prior to the Battle of Eylau. The French troops caused a fire which damaged the town furthermore. In 1813 Tsar Alexander I of Russia received the official message of the Prussian accession to the struggle against Napoleon by General von Kleist at Willenberg.[7]

The Prussian administration reform of 1818 made the town part of Landkreis Ortelsburg (Szczytno). On 23 September 1819 and on 9 June 1834 the town was again damaged by fire and in 1831 and 1852 cholera caused many casualties.

In 1823 a crisis happened when the authorities of Congress Poland in the Russian Partition of Poland introduced high custom tariffs on imports, reaching 60% to 80%, which brought large losses to the population in the town, mainly engaged in cloths trade.[2] Despite this, the local fairs attracted large attendance of merchants from Masuria and the Russian-controlled Congress Poland, said to be the largest fairs at the time in Masuria.[2] A new Protestant Church was built in 1827, based on plans of Karl Friedrich Schinkel.[8]

The area played a role in Polish preparations for uprising against Russian Empire. Hoping to gain assistance from the population of Warmia, uprising plans from 1845-1846 hoped to establish seven main camps on border between Prussia and Russia, with one of them located near Willenberg, to which two Polish units, including one from Allenstein (Olsztyn) and one from Ortelsburg, would be directed, to attack Myszniec later on.[9] During the January Uprising Polish units operated in the area, and in January 1864 a unit of Olszański-Ostrorog numbering 300 soldiers established a camp near the town.[10] Local population itself engaged in smuggling of weapons to Polish resistance across the border.[11]

In 1871 the town became part of the German Empire. In the years 1872-1887 the cleric in charge of the local parish was Polish priest Jan Szadowski - a religious and social activist, involved in defence of the Polish language. At that time the German Empire engaged in policy of Kulturkampf which combined anti-Catholicism with anti-Polish actions in areas inhabited by Poles. Thanks to his efforts a petition was made to Prussian authorities demanding that Polish language should remain in rural schools.[12] He also initiated the construction of a local Catholic church and was engaged in popularizing Polish religious singing and wrote several collections of religious songs.[13] Szadowski complained about the teaching system imposed on the Polish population "No child can read in Polish. The new teaching system strips poverty stricken Poles of their books for prayer and their beautiful songs".[14] He also complained about expulsions of Poles by German authorities in the so-called Rugi Pruskie.[15] During this time around 60 Poles were expelled by German authorities from the area of the town.[16]

Szadowski’s work in Willenberg was continued by Walenty Barczewski, priest, notable activist in the Polish national movement, author of numerous books about Warmia, its geography, history and folk culture,[17] who arrived in Willenberg on 11 April 1889.[18] Already in 1890 he managed to open up a Polish school in the town for young clerics.[19] A Catholic church was built in 1878-1880. Wielbark was attached to the railway line Ortelsburg - Willenberg - Neidenburg (Nidzica) on 1 July 1900.[7]

In the beginning of World War I, Willenberg was occupied by Russian troops in the Battle of Tannenberg (1914). On August 30, 1914, 16,100 Russian soldiers were captured in a battle near Willenberg. The commander of the Russian Second Army, General Samsonov, committed suicide in a forest just south of Willenberg.

During the Polish-Soviet war, a plebiscite was organized to determine if the town should remain in Germany or be attached to Poland. On July 11, 1920, 1,581 citizens voted to remain in Weimar Germany’s East Prussia and 24 to join the Second Polish Republic in the East Prussian plebiscite.[7] Afterwards posters were hung out in the town demanding that “traitors who voted for Poland” leave the town within three days with their belongings.[20] Due to the Nazi Party's significant success in Masuria in the 1932 elections, Adolf Hitler visited the area in April 1932 and gave a speech in the town.[6][21] In August 1939, Germany introduced martial law in the region, which allowed for increasing and blatant persecution of Poles.[22]

At the beginning of World War II, in September 1939, German troops invaded Poland towards Mława and Warsaw from the area.[2] In January 1945, the town was taken over by the Red Army from Nazi Germany. Due to the fast Soviet advance, large parts of the populace remained in the town or were overrun on their flight.[7] After World War II the remaining German populace was expelled[7] and the area was assigned to Poland. The Polish Commission for the Determination of Place Names gave it the name of Wielbark, the name by which it had been known in Polish before the war.[23] The Polish name of Wielbark is mentioned in its entry in Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland, printed out in the years 1880-1902, in volume XIII published in 1893.[23][24]