Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/310

Rh 298 POLAND [HISTORY. of interest ; the nation, thus consisting of men who did not understand each other, remained perplexed and divided. The peasants, who had at one time communal possession of the land, according to the old Slavonic custom, had long ago lost all their rights. Those Poles who struggled for liberty themselves were not willing to extend it to their unhappy serfs. Kosciuszko desired to see serfdom abolished ; but the peasants who followed him only enjoyed their liberty during the war, and his decree of emancipation was so vaguely expressed that it was ineffec tual. It is strange to think that the real liberators of the peasant were the Russians, who in the revolt of 1863 gave him a portion of the land which he cultivated. Partition In 1772 Prussia took the palatinates of Malborg, | of the Pomeria, and Warmia, Culm, except Dantzic and Thorn, j country. an( j a p ar j. o f Q rea j Poland ; Austria took Red Russia or ! Galicia, with a part of Podolia, Sandomir, and Cracow ; . and Russia took White Russia, with all the part beyond j the Dnieper. The Poles were obliged to sanction this ; plundering of their country in a diet held in 1778. ; The only real benefit conferred on the nation by this diet, was the introduction of a better system of education ; the Jesuits were also suppressed, and their immense estates j became national property. Although the country had been mutilated in this fashion, it yet enjoyed tranquillity for a short time, and even made some material progress. Thus some useful manufactures were introduced. In 1788 a remarkable diet was opened which lasted four years, the longest on record, for the others had only endured a few days or a few weeks at most. At this many important changes were introduced, such as the amelioration of the condition of the burghers and peasants ; but it was now too late. On this occasion the liberum veto was decisively suppressed and the throne declared hereditary. The elector of Saxony, grandson of the wretched and incapable Augustus III., was declared the successor of Stanislaus. The Roman Catholic was to be the dominant religion, but the Dissidents were to be toler ated. The burghers were to send deputies to the diet on the same footing as the nobles. The peasants were not yet emancipated, but their condition was improved. The new constitution was finally promulgated on the 3d May 1791. The king and the two chambers took the oaths to preserve it. The country now seemed to breathe afresh, and to be established upon a new. basis. But the selfish ness of the Polish nobles, who had always been the evil genius of the country, overturned all the arrangements. Among the most prominent non-contents was Felix Potocki, who was anxious to restore to the nobility the privileges they had lost by the new constitution. In concert with him were Francis Xavier Branicki and Severin Rzewuski, who sought the assistance of foreign powers, and especially Russia. These enemies of their country formed, in 1792, the Confederation of Targovica, and soon afterwards at their instigation Russian troops invaded Poland and Lithuania. The feeble king, Stanis laus Augustus, made no resistance ; he signed the conven tion of Targovica, and the Russians occupied Warsaw. In 1793 another treaty of partition was signed, by which Prussia acquired the remainder of Great and a portion of Little Poland, and the Russian boundary was advanced to the centre of Lithuania and Volhynia. An insurrection now broke out under the leadership of Thaddeus Kosci uszko, which at first made head against the Prussians and Russians, who had invaded the country from all quarters ; but the successes of the insurgents were stained by the murders committed by the popular party at Warsaw. Suwaroff now entered the country, and Kosciuszko was finally defeated and made prisoner at the battle of Macie- jowice in 1794 ; there is no truth, however, in the assertion that he cried out on that occasion, &quot; Finis Polonite &quot;; this he always denied till the day of his death. After storming the suburb Praga, Suwaroff took Warsaw, and the city was sacked with great cruelty. The kingdom of Poland was now at an end, and the third division took place. Austria had Cracow, with the country between the Pilica, the Vistula, and the Bug ; Prussia had the capital, with the territory as far as the Niemen ; and the rest went to Russia. Stanislaus resigned the crown at Grodno on April 25, 1795; he was summoned to St Petersburg, where he is said to have endured many indignities from the emperor Paul, who never allowed him to remain seated in his presence. There he died in 1798. Many of the Poles now entered foreign services, as, for instance, the legion which followed the fortunes of France ; but the fate of these exiled patriots was often a sad one. Many perished on the burning sands of St Domingo. Many were killed in the famous expedition to Moscow. The Poles looked anxiously to the success of Napoleon. But all that the conqueror did for them was to form the duchy of Warsaw, consisting of six departments Posen, Kalisz, Ptock, Warsaw, Lomza, and Bydgoszcz with a population of more than two millions, which he united with Saxony. A resettlement of Poland took place by the treaty of Resettle- Vienna (1814). (1) Austria was to have Galicia and the ment by salt-mines of Wieliczka. (2) Posen was to belong to Prussia. This power was also confirmed in what it had gained at the first partition. (3) The city and district of Cracow were to form an independent republic under the guarantee of the three powers. This historical town was annexed by Austria in 1846 in defiance of all international law. (4) The remainder of ancient Poland, comprising the chief parts of the recent grand-duchy of Warsaw (embracing a tract bounded by a line drawn from Thorn to near Cracow on the west, to the Bug and Niemen in the east), reverted to Russia, and was to form a constitutional kingdom subject to the czar. This constitution, consider ing the circumstances, was a very liberal one. Poland w T as to be governed by responsible ministers, a senate, and a legislative chamber. There were to be a national army under the national flag and a separate budget. Polish was to be the official language ; personal liberty and the freedom of the press were also guaranteed. It was obvious from the first that it would be difficult to unite a country with such a liberal constitution to another still governed by a patriarchal despotism. Zajacek was named viceroy, and the grand-duke Constantine, brother of the emperor Alexander, took the command of the army. The rebellions of the Poles in 1830 and 1863 more properly belong to Russian history ; perhaps, however, a few facts connected with them may be appropriately intro duced here. Considering the delicate position of affairs in Russian RebelKr Poland, things had worked fairly well. The impulse to of 183 the Polish revolution w r as undoubtedly given by the French. It was begun by some students, who hoped to seize the grand-duke Constantine at his residence, Belvedere, in the vicinity of Warsaw. In the evening of November 29, 1830, they accordingly proceeded to the palace, but did not succeed in capturing the grand-duke. The city, however, rose, the troops fraternized with the people, and the chief command was entrusted to General Chlopicki, a veteran of the wars of Napoleon. Early in 1831 a large Russian army, commanded by Diebitsch, advanced to reduce them to submission. Chlopicki laid down his dictatorship, but the Poles pursued the insurrection with vigour under the command of Prince Adam Czartoryski. They were disappointed in their hopes of assistance from foreign powers. On the 8th September Warsaw surrendered to