History

Particular concern for Polish lawfulness among our neighbors

King Augustus II would eagerly change the political system in Poland and establish a dynasty. But it was only the Constitution of 3 May 1791 that implemented both these things although such changes would have been useful much earlier.

If one reads carefully the history of Poland, it turns out that the prelude to the third partition of Poland in 1795 was not only in the two previous partitions. A big country in the middle of the continent cannot lose its statehood so quickly and easily. At first, it had to somehow substantially bother its neighbors for more than 23 years that have elapsed between the first and the third partition. But the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth caused no inconvenience to anybody if only because of its weakness, and for the same reason the rulers of neighboring countries had their eye on it.

When, in the middle of the 17th century Poland unexpectedly swiftly and, in actuality, to a large extent willingly, yielded to Charles X Gustav, king of Sweden and the latter was unable to “consume” the prey, in Radnot, Transylvania nothing less than a treaty on the partition of Poland was signed. The signatories to the treaty of Radnot were a team slightly different from the later, actual partitioners of Poland and it all ended with bad intentions. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth survived nearly one a half centuries more but for most of that time as – a more or less discrete – Russian protectorate governed with the help from the West, precisely: from Prussia. For different reasons more cautious in this matter was the tsar Peter I, more ostentatious – Catherine II.
On September 13, 1732, shortly before the Polish king Augustus II passed away, Austria and Russia signed an agreement against Saxon and French influence in the Commonwealth. When, on December 13, the agreement was joined by Prussia the pact was nicknamed “Treaty of the Three Black Eagles” and was an expression of particular concern for Polish matters:

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE “[The three powers decided] to use all means consistent with the Polish constitution so that the election would elect a king who would be able to maintain peace and good relations with neighboring states; experience has shown that the French party in Poland incites constant unrest against the emperor and king of Prussia, and at the same time threatens Russia with intrigues in Constantinople [in Turkey]. In Poland, a party supporting Stanisław [Leszczyński] may arise and incite to acts that are unlawful and contrary to the decisions of the Commonwealth […] the allies, therefore, undertake to deploy armies on the Polish borders during the election, not in order to impose the choice by force of arms, but to protect Polish freedom from any embarrassment on the part of third countries”.

The elective nature of the Polish monarchy itself was an incentive to do so and the three black eagles (out of which two were two-headed) showed, for the first time together, a concern for the rights in Poland, Polish law, and Polish liberty. The Treaty of the Three Black Eagles wasn’t ratified and had spurred no political effects. After Augustus II’s death the history accelerated and already in 1733 both candidates for the Polish throne, against whom the Treaty warned, became kings of Poland, elected in a double election. On this occasion, not for the first time, Russian troops entered Poland in a situation where Russia wasn’t officially at war with the Commonwealth.

Son of Augustus II, Frederick Augustus, later reigning as Augustus III needed their help. His counter-candidate, Stanisław Leszczyński, needed only money from his son-in-law, the king of France, Louis XIV and appeal to the true popularity of his person and candidature which had considerably risen during the reign of Augustus II. Stanisław Leszczyński won 13 thousand votes, Augustus III – only over a thousand. But the legally elected and victorious Leszczyński soon had to flee the country as the Russian army for the second time – and not the last one – settled who would fill the Polish throne.

The Russian protectorate over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at times had to seek Prussian support and, since the Treaty of the Three Black Eagles – the Austrian one. Usually, until the first partition in 1772 Russia had manage to incapacitate Poland by itself. In the official rhetoric it was called guarding the principal civil liberties within the Commonwealth – the royal election (lit. “free election”) and liberum veto. For Poland’s neighbors the free election was an occasion to place a favored candidate on the Polish whereas the liberum veto, i.e. the unanimity rule in parliamentary voting guaranteed them that Poland be militarily defenseless. Every sejm [session of the Diet – trans. note] could be paralyzed while the army’s numerical strength as well the taxes to maintain it weren’t fixed but determined anew at each session. By buying vetoes it was possible to virtually deprive Poland of its army. In the 18th century the ratio between the Russian and Polish armies was about 10:1.

Poland’s neighbors didn’t always play together. Even after the Treaty of the Three Black Eagles the Russians arrived in Berlin while Berlin and Vienna waged the Silesian Wars. Nothing resulted inexorably from the situation of Poland and cooperation between the enemies around. In order to succumb to that joint power at the end of the century, the Commonwealth had to succumb first to its own helplessness, which was conserved by its neighbors. What was the decisive event from which the Commonwealth began its descent into oblivion? Norman Davies – and not only him – believes that it was the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

Not battle of ours, but such an important one in the history of Poland, because as a result of it, Russia, victorious over the Swedes, could begin a wide-ranging expansion to the West. And what did Poland’s sovereignty look like before Poltava?

On June 27, 1697, the nobility gathered in the election fields near Warsaw elected François Louis, prince of Conti, Louis XIV’s cousin, as king. But on the same day, the few supporters of the later Augustus II, the elector of the Holy Empire and the hereditary duke of Saxony, hailed this very man as king.

The prince of Conti was in little hurry to his kingdom, and the Duke of Saxony was quicker. He reached Kraków when Conti had not yet reached Gdańsk. The primate did not want to crown him, so another bishop was found. He could not legally obtain the keys to the door of the Wawel treasury containing regalia, so a hole was made in the wall. Faced with the coronation of his rival, prince Conti returned from Gdańsk to France, which was prompted by the appearance of Augustus II’s army at Oliwa.

Along with Augustus II, the Saxon army came to Poland and it was it that were responsible for maintaining order in the country. It can hardly be considered an occupation, since the nobility crowned the Saxon prince as the king of Poland. Undoubtedly, Augustus II acted for the Polish raison d'état by taking Podolia and Kamieniec from Turkey at the beginning of his reign. On the other hand, the alliance of the Polish monarch with tsar Peter I plunged the Commonwealth into the Great Northern War. Augustus II, initially with only Saxon troops, and Peter I attacked Charles XII, the king of Sweden.

Augustus II dreamed of domains on the Baltic Sea that could be inherited by the Wettins, which would strengthen the position of himself and his descendants in the Commonwealth. He would eagerly change the political system in Poland and establish a dynasty. But it was only the Constitution of 3 May 1791 that implemented both these things although such changes would have been useful much earlier.

Did Augustus II, acting in his own interest and that of his successors, have the good of the Republic of Poland in mind? As to intentions, probably not, as to hypothetical effects, one can speculate.

Charles XII fared better in the Northern War for some time. Threatened with the ravages of Saxony, Augustus II officially abdicated in 1706, and in reality he was deprived of his crown from 1704. In that year, Charles XII found himself a candidate for the king of Poland in the person of the young voivode of Poznań, Stanisław Leszczyński, who was “elected” as king in a Swedish military camp.

The whole of central Poland was taken over by the Swedes, their army burned Wawel, which should not have contributed to Leszczyński’s adherents, but he did have them and the division of the nobility, when some were “with the Saxon” (“od Sasa”) and others “With Las” (i.e. Leszczyński – “od Lasa”), reflected the popular mood and cast a shadow on his five-year reign.
Plan of the division of the Commonwealth attached to the Treaty of Radnot. Illustration: Wikimedia / Par AmbroiseL – Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0.
In 1709 Augustus II, having forgotten about his abdication, returned to the country, which was made possible by Sweden’s defeat at Poltava. Following the fleeing Swedes, the army of Peter I entered the Commonwealth. Since there was also a Turkish threat, and the Swedes behaved as if in a conquered country, the Russian army in Poland was welcomed by many, and Peter I assumed the role of a negotiator between the confederated nobility who supported either Leszczyński or the Saxon.

Stanisław Leszczyński had to escape from Poland and sought help with the sultan. With the Tatar corps, he even arrived at Khotyn, but the sultan was talked out of further support for Leszczyński by the Russian diplomacy and the German emperor. For this, the sultan forced the tsar to withdraw his army from the Commonwealth, which he willingly promised and did not keep.

In 1717, the actions of Peter I resulted in a sejm, which was to pacify the mood in the divided country and confirm Augustus II on the throne. The sejm lasted one day and was called mute, because none of the deputies – apart from the rapporteurs – was allowed to speak: that was guaranteed by the Russian army, which, it must be admitted, was withdrawn by the tsar two years later. Although neither the nobility nor the king agreed to the formal protection of the tsar, from then on Russia considered itself a mediator between the crown and the nation.

In 1720, Russia and Prussia signed a treaty, renewed every few years, on maintaining statelessness in Poland by preventing the system from being repaired, and even preventing the strengthening of Poland within the framework of the existing law. A simple consequence of these agreements was the agreement between Catherine II and Frederick II during the election of Stanisław Augustus Poniatowski in 1764. Both countries supporting the candidate for the throne pledged to protect the existing system of the Commonwealth with the liberum veto at the forefront. How it ended, everyone remembers.

After Augustus II died in 1733, Stanisław Leszczyński appeared in the country and was re-elected as king of Poland on September 12, this time without the help of foreign troops, but on September 29 a strong Russian corps appeared in Praga to ensure the election of Frederick Augustus II, son of the late Augustus II. On October 5, the election took place in the village of Kamion (i.e. in the present-day Kamionek district of Warsaw), and the future Augustus III managed to secure eleven times fewer electors than the previously elected Stanisław Leszczyński.

Leszczyński,besieged in Gdańsk by the Russians and Saxons, had to flee Poland after a few months – this time forever. In today’s language: he won the Polish crown as the majority candidate and gave way to the minority Augustus III. His father was also “ minority” to Prince Conti.

This conflicted with the political system of the Commonwealth, as well as the election of the Saxon after the legal election of Leszczyński, but the Russian army was an argument of strength, and foreign power at that, deciding issues related to power throughout the eighteenth century. The so-called gentry democracy was set in motion, or rather made motionless, by the foreign bayonet, mostly Russian one.

Leszczyński’s supporters, yet without him, confederated in Dzików and fought against the forces of Augustus III for two years. Unrest in the Commonwealth was put to an end by the so-called pacification sejm in 1736. It is worth mentioning, because it was the only sejm that was not interrupted during the reign of Augustus III.

Matters important for individual lands were dealt with by sejmiks, and tribunals took over some of the previous competences of the sejm. They could not however take over the most important ones – those allowing to reform the state system. Poland became only a formal union of truly independent magnate states. For decades, this had not arisen anxiety in the nobility, because it was believed that since “Poland is misrule-stricken” it does not threaten anyone and, in return, no one will invade it

The Misrule of one’s own meant foreign rule and three black eagles (Russia, Prussia and Austria) consumed the non-ratified treaty of 1732 during the partitions due to the ambitions of the Prussian king, Frederick II. Had it not been for Prussia, the Russian protectorate with the governor from St. Petersburg, called ambassador for concealment, could have lasted longer. Russia, admittedly without enthusiasm, had to share the Commonwealth with others.

Paradoxically, under Stanisław Augustus Poniatowski, the reform movement, behind the Constitution of May 3, accelerated the fall of Poland. One can say that enlightened patriots woke up late, only under the reign of King Staś. What if they had woken up after the Northern War or under Augustus III? Better not to investigate.

The seventeenth-century prelude to the third partition of Poland - the Treaty of Radnot

Charles X Gustav wanted to make the Baltic Sea the inner sea of Sweden. The Polish king was to be Prince George II Rakoczy, Duke of Transylvania.

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There were reformers in Poland before the times of Stanisław Augustus. The Czartoryski family and the Potocki party were already active under the Saxons. At that time, both parties were still reformatory and meant well, even the Potocki, who had a terrible reputation for actions in Poniatowski’s times, but they effectively checked one other.

Time passed by escaping into propaganda and diplomatic guerrilla wars and looking to Russia or Prussia. There was even an alliance between the king and the Czartoryski. Augustus III understood that a strong Commonwealth would raise his position among other princes of the Reich. Sejms, however, were broken off by the Potocki’s supporters for Prussian and French money so as not to strengthen their rivals. When the king and the Czartoryskis tried to confederate the sejms, threats came from St. Petersburg with the support of Berlin.

Augustus III, so that the black eagles would not remember the treaty of 1732, had to agree to Maria Theresa on the Austrian and imperial throne, disregarding the rights of his own wife, and to show courtesy to the Russian Empress Anna Ivanovna with Courland for her favorite. Although it is good that he paid partly with his claims to the throne in the Reich and the throne in a feudal land, and not with integral parts of Poland.

During the reign of Augustus III, the Commonwealth did not experience external wars until 1754, when Russian corps crossed Poland to the west going to the Seven Years’ War, not only plundering but also burning villages and towns. From these times comes the comparison of the country to an inn for foreign troops.

Under Augustus II, during the Northern War, in which the king involved the Commonwealth in 1704, not only the Swedes and Russians – allegedly supporting the Polish kings elected twice – behaved as occupiers of the worst kind. Also the Saxon army subordinated to the king of Poland did the same thing. The saying: “eat, drink and loosen your belt” concerned the times of the second Saxon.

At the beginning of the Northern War, the Swedes broke into the Commonwealth, formally not taking part in it, and captured Warsaw and Kraków. In 1702, the Swedish army defeated the Polish-Saxon forces near Kliszów, which had a symbolic dimension, because the last charge of the hussars took place there, unsuccessful. After that, the Grand Crown Hetman Hieronim Lubomirski withdrew the Polish forces, thus manifesting his attitude towards Augustus II. In the later years of the state's existence, the hussars will play the role of a “funeral army” - the name explains the tasks for which the terror of battlefields from Kirholm to Vienna were used in the 18th century.

The Polish funeral lasted longer than week-long obsequies with the participation of the funeral military. And the 1795 as the date defining the loss of statehood seems at least inaccurate.

– Krzysztof Zwoliński
– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki


TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

Main photo: Wawel Royal Castle. Crown Treasury, fragment of a coin cup with the image of king Stanisław Leszczyński. Photo: PAP / Irena Jarosińska.
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