Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/196

POLAND. ing efficient support from France, Conti renounced the office: and Frederick Augustus I. of Saxony, surnamed the Strong, a protégé of the House of Austria, entered Poland at the head of a Saxon army, and was chosen King as Augustus II. (1697-1733). Augustus never identified his interests with those of his Polish subjects. The Treaty of Karlowitz, in 1699, brought the last struggle between Poland and Turkey to a close and restored to Poland a large part of the Ukraine. In 1700 Augustus entered into an alliance with Russia and Denmark for a joint attack upon Sweden, then under the rule of Charles XII. This conflict brought nothing but misfortune. The war with Sweden was unpopular in Poland; in fact, the Poles of the eastern provinces received Charles with open arms; but his attempt to force upon them Stanislas Lesczynski as their King deeply wounded their national pride. At Altranstädt in 1706 Augustus was compelled to abdicate, but after the defeat of Charles XII. by Peter the Great at Poltava, in 1709, he returned, supported by Russia, and Russian as well as Saxon troops were maintained in the country in spite of the protest of the people.

This beginning of Russian interference was a visible mark of the decline of Poland. The Polish army was reduced at the instance of Peter the Great, and the evil example of the Saxon Court brought in immorality, prodigality, and effeminacy. Protestants were persecuted and excluded from public office. The election of Augustus III. (1733-63) was accomplished by the most shameless bribery and under the compulsion of Russian troops, and led to the War of the Polish Succession. (See .) His reign was of the same character as that of his predecessor. Toward its close the more enlightened of the Poles entered into a league to promote the establishment of a well-organized hereditary monarchy. But the conservative or republican party was equally strong, and relied on Russian influence, which was used to continue the divisions in the country. Catharine II. of Russia determined at the beginning of her reign to control Poland or take it, as it barred the way to the accomplishment of her great ambition, to bring Russia fully into the circle of the Western powers. On the death of Augustus III. she, acting in harmony with Frederick of Prussia, put forward as a candidate for the Polish throne Stanislas (Augustus) Poniatowski, an old lover of her own. This roused the national spirit of the Poles to intense opposition. The monarchic party, led by Prince Czartoryski, had succeeded in abolishing the liberum veto and in otherwise strengthening the Government. Catharine, in alliance with Prussia, seized the pretext furnished by the oppression of religious dissidents of the Protestant and Greek communions by this dominant party, and appeared as the champion of religious liberty. Russian troops entered the country and forced the election of Poniatowski (1764). The Confederation of Bar (so called from Bar in Podolia) was formed in 1768 by a few zealous patriots, and entered upon a vigorous resistance to Russia. Similar confederations were organized, and Turkey seized the occasion to attack Russia. To avoid the danger of a general war and to obtain compensation for the inevitable seizure of Polish territory by Russia, the governments of Prussia and Austria proposed a treaty of partition, which was concluded at Saint Petersburg, August 5, 1772. Russia acquired a part of the old Lithuania, comprising an area of 42,000 square miles, with a population of 1,800,000; Prussia took West Prussia without Danzig and Thorn, and the district on the Netze, 13,000 square miles, with 415,000 inhabitants; and Austria received Galicia and Lodomeria, 27,000 square miles, with 2,700,000 inhabitants.

Members of the Polish Diet were freely bribed to consent to the cessions. The old anarchical Constitution with the liberum veto was restored. The country was now aroused to a sense of its danger; and the result was the adoption of the admirable Constitution of 1791, which gave political rights to the cities, civil rights to the peasantry, and rendered the kingly authority hereditary. Frederick William of Prussia promised the Polish patriots support against Russia, Catharine II., however, by intrigues and bribery, won a small number of the higher Polish nobility, who formed the Confederacy of Targovitza (May, 1792), and protested against the new Constitution as derogatory to the ancient liberties. Catharine, thus armed with a pretext for interference, invaded Poland with an overwhelming army. The Poles fought bravely under Kosciuszko (q.v.) and won a victory over the Russians at Dubienka (July 17,1792); but King Stanislas, after pledging his loyal support to the nation, gave his adhesion to the Confederacy of Targovitza, A Prussian army now entered Poland, and the country, its strength broken, was subjected to a second partition (July 17, 1793). Russia took a large part of Lithuania, half of Volhynia, Podolia, and the portion of the Ukraine which had remained with Poland — 96,000 square miles, with about 3,000,000 inhabitants. Prussia appropriated the westernmost part of the kingdom, 22,000 square miles, with 1,100.000 inhabitants. A Diet convened at Grodno was compelled to sanction this 'cession.' A general rising of the Polish people to resist this dismemberment of their country took place in 1704. Kosciuszko was made dictator and drove the Russians from Warsaw, but dissension among the Poles ruined their cause at the moment of seeming triumph. The Russians and Prussians reentered the country with increased numbers, and on October 10, 1794, Kosciuszko was decisively defeated and taken prisoner at Maciejowice by the Russians, On November 8th Suvaroff entered Warsaw, and Polish resistance came to an end. The third and last partition (October 24, 1795) distributed the remainder of the country. Russia taking 45,000 square miles, with 1,210,000 inhabitants; Prussia. 21,000 square miles (including the capital. Warsaw), with 1,000,000 inhabitants; and Austria, 18,000 square miles, with 1,000,000 inhabitants. King Stanislas resigned his crown and died at Grodno as a pensioner of Russia in 1708. Napoleon, who promised the restoration of Poland and thereby gained the support of the patriots, was hailed with satisfaction, but all that Napoleon accomplished was the establishment, by the Treaty of Tilsit (1807), of the Duchy of Warsaw, formed out of the Polish territories taken by Prussia in 1793 and 1795. This .State received a fairly liberal constitution, and King Frederick Augustus of Saxony as its nominal head, the real power being exercised by the French Emperor. The duchy was increased by Western Galicia, ceded by Austria in the Treaty of Schönbrunn, in 1809. The Poles