Читаем Poland полностью

The forces of the crown joined Russian troops under General Suvorov and defeated the confederates at the Battle of Lanckorona. Russian intervention provoked sympathy for the cause, and a guerrilla war started all over south-eastern Poland. On the night of 3 November 1771, a group of confederates surrounded the King’s carriage in the middle of Warsaw and abducted him. The plan was as ill-executed as it was ill-conceived. The kidnappers lost their way, one of them changed his mind and allowed the King to escape, and by next morning Stanisław Augustus was back in his palace. But his authority was seriously undermined.

The confederates were gradually mopped up by the Russian armies, with the last of them holding out at Częstochowa until 1772. The magnates who had joined the confederation went into exile, but over 5,000 captured szlachta were sent to Siberia, endowing the cause with an aura of martyrdom. Both Rousseau and Mably had lent their support to it, seeing in it an expression of pure patriotism and civic spirit.

For the Commonwealth, the Confederation of Bar could hardly have come at a worse moment. Under the ministry of Choiseul, France was straining to bring a Franco-Turkish-Austrian-Saxon alliance to bear against Russia and Prussia. Hence the French interest in the confederation. Russia merely wanted to keep Poland docile. But Frederick the Great of Prussia had already announced his intention of eating up various Polish provinces ‘like an artichoke, leaf by leaf’. The sudden fall of Choiseul in 1770 brought an end to French schemes in the area. Frederick had already worked out a plan for weaning Austria away from France and binding her to Russia and Prussia—by dragging her into a tripartite despoliation of Poland. He had opened negotiations with Russia on the subject in 1771, and signed an agreement with her in February 1772. Both powers then approached Austria. The Empress Maria Teresa was at first reluctant, but then complied, and on 5 August 1772 the first partition of the Polish Commonwealth was agreed. Prussia took 36,000 square kilometres with 580,000 inhabitants; Austria 83,000 square kilometres with 2,650,000 inhabitants; and Russia 92,000 square kilometres with 1,300,000 inhabitants. Prussia’s share was the most valuable, since it included the most developed areas, linked up the two halves of the Prussian realm, and gave her control of the Vistula, Poland’s lifeline to the outside world. The balance of power in the area was dramatically altered, with Prussia enlarged by some 80 per cent and the Commonwealth, which had lost over a third of its population, reduced by a third.

The partition caused alarm in many quarters. It also shocked public opinion throughout Europe. The Polish Commonwealth was in alliance with Russia and was not at war with either of the other two powers when the arrangement was made. Moreover Russia was the self-proclaimed guarantor of Polish independence and the protector of Polish territorial integrity. In the hope of correcting this unfavourable impression, Catherine and Frederick enlisted the pens of their clients among the French philosophes to project an image of Poland as an obscurantist backwater which had been crying out to be liberated by enlightened monarchs such as themselves. They also insisted that the treaties of partition be ratified by the Sejm.

An assemblage of malcontents, magnates who had prospered under the Saxon kings and szlachta whose estates were now within Russia or Austria were elected, in the presence of Russian and Prussian troops, to a confederated Sejm under the marshalcy of Adam Poniński. Even so, some of the deputies raised havoc in the chamber, obstructing the ratification. The King and the Familia resorted to stalling tactics, while pulling every available diplomatic string to exert pressure on the three powers. Alarmed by the Prussian predominance in the Baltic, England lodged a strong protest, but nobody was prepared to go further. Russia and Prussia threatened to seize even more territory, so the Sejm had no alternative but to ratify the treaties of partition, which it did on 30 September 1773. Prussia took the opportunity to foist a trade agreement on Poland which included draconian duties on Polish corn shipped down the Vistula.

The five ‘eternal principles’ dictated by Russia excluded all possibility of constitutional reform, and neither Russia nor Prussia allowed their interest in what was happening in Poland to wane. Nevertheless, the next twenty years were to see a complete transformation of the Commonwealth. From 1775 the country was ruled by a Permanent Council, which carried out far-reaching improvements. The army, which could not be increased, was modernised. The treasury began to function in a regular way. The police department enforced legislation, reorganised the administration of towns, and made its mark on everything from roads to prisons.