The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

FIRST PARTITION OF POLAND

A.D. 1772

JAMES FLETCHER

Of the three partitions which Poland underwent in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the first was due to the jealousies of European powers. It was an event of great significance for the Polish kingdom, ominous of future spoliations, which indeed followed, to the destruction of its political life. It had been long since Poland passed her golden age—two centuries and more. In the mean time she had undergone many vicissitudes, yet had preserved her identity as a state.

When Russia had won successes in the war of 1768-1774 with Turkey, she seized the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Austria, seeing in this acquisition a menace to her eastern frontier, opposed it. Russia, in order to appease Austria, looked about for territory that might be obtained for her in compensation. The state of affairs in Poland presented a tempting opportunity for interference which might lead to a division of the kingdom. Stanislaus II, King of Poland, had been elected in 1764, mainly through the influence of Russia—he was one of Catharine II's lovers. His people had risen against him when Russia adopted her policy of spoliation. Prussia, as well as Austria, advanced territorial claims, and the partition of 1772, really planned by Frederick the Great, was consummated on the basis of a secret treaty of those powers with Catharine's government.

Some writers, possessed with the love of reducing political transactions to one rigid scale of cause and effect, and at the same time of exhibiting their acumen by threading the mazes of events up to remote circumstances, pretend to trace the design of the partition of Poland for more than a century back. Rulhière seems to plume himself on the idea. "The projects executed in our days against Poland," he observes, "were proposed more than a hundred years ago. I have discovered this important and hitherto unknown circumstance in the archives of foreign affairs of France." This point had been canvassed under the reign of John Casimir; and it only remains to be remarked that such very subtle analysis of the motives and progress of actions generally overshoots the mark, since no men can act always according to rule, but are in some degree influenced by circumstances and caprice. It would be equally absurd to imagine that Frederick, in the complicated intrigues which preceded the first partition, was actuated by one deeply laid scheme of policy to arrive at one end: the possession of Polish Prussia. It was, indeed, absolutely essential for him to obtain this province, to consolidate and open a communication between his scattered dominions, which then, as Voltaire says, were stretched out like a pair of gaiters; but it remained a desideratum rather than a design, since he knew that neither Russia nor Austria would be inclined to permit the aggression; for the former had evidently marked out the whole of Poland for herself, and would consider Frederick an unwelcome intruder; while Austria, which had lately experienced the Prussian King's encroachments, was more jealous than ever of his obtaining the slightest aggrandizement, and had openly declared that she would not allow the seizure of the least Polish village. His views, however, widened as he advanced, and no doubt he spoke with sincerity when he told the Emperor Joseph that "he had never followed a plan in war, much less any plan in policy, and that events alone had suggested all his resolutions." Admitting the truth of this, we proceed to trace out the circumstances which produced this crisis.