POLAND, (HISTORY.) 



599 



of the Prussian Polish provinces was formed into 

 the duchy of Warsaw, which received a German 

 ruler in the king of Saxony, and at the same time 

 with the French code, a constitution similar to the 

 French, by which bondage was abolished. Dantzic 

 was to have been a republic, under the protection 

 of Prussia and Saxony, but remained a French place 

 of arms. The dotations (q. v.) bestowed on the 

 French officers, and still more the continental system 

 which destroyed all trade, exhausted the public re- 

 venues, so that Poland, amid all its natural wealth, 

 experienced the fate of Tantalus. The necessity of 

 furnishing troops for the French service, was also 

 a check on the prosperity of the new state, and 

 annihilated all that Prussia had effected at great 

 sacrifices. Yet the woollen and cotton manufactures, 

 that had grown up in Posen and Broomberg, sustain- 

 ed themselves. The government of the duchy did 

 every thing practicable under such unfavourable 

 circumstances. The war between France and 

 Austria, in 1809, augmented, indeed, the sufferings 

 of the country, but developed, to an extraordinary 

 degree, the military energies of the people. Under 

 the command of Poniatowski and French officers, 

 the Polish troops rivalled the best troops of France 

 in valour. They advanced to Cracow, and the peace 

 of Vienna (Oct. 14, 1809) annexed Western Galicia 

 to the duchy of Warsaw, which had hitherto con- 

 tained 39,000 square miles, with 2,200,000 inhabi- 

 tants ; so that it now comprised 60,000 square miles, 

 with 3,780,000 inhabitants, and furnished a well- 

 equipped army of 60,000 men, which fought in Spain 

 with great bravery. Under these circumstances, the 

 old national pride revived ; their former boundaries, 

 a native king, and the restoration of the name of Po- 

 land, were the unanimous wish of the nation. On 

 this wish, which he artfully encouraged, Napoleon 

 founded his plan of attack upon Russia, in 1812, 

 which he styled the second Polish war. He con- 

 trived that a general Polish confederation, in War- 

 saw (June 28, 1812), should solemnly proclaim the 

 restoration of Poland ; but the ardour was not uni- 

 versal. The exertions of the duchy, which raised 

 upwards of 80,000 men, were, for the most part, 

 rendered useless by Napoleon's method of waging 

 war. Tormassoff kept the Lithuanians in check, 

 and, instead of the " 16,000.000 Poles," whom Na- 

 poleon boasted that he should find on horseback at 

 his command, only a few battalions of volunteers 

 assembled. A brave resistance was, nevertheless, 

 offered by the fortresses Zamosc, Modlin arid Thorn, 

 which, however, were partially garrisoned by French 

 and German troops. The sufferings of Poland, in 

 this war of restoration, and the manner in which 

 Napoleon counterworked his own plans, may be 

 learned from De Pradt, archbishop of Malines, who 

 was his ambassador in Warsaw (Histoire de VAmbas- 

 sade dans le Grand Duche de Varsovie, en 1812 ; 

 Paris, 1815, 8th edit.). The Polish bands followed 

 the defeated emperor to France: a part even to 

 Elba. 



Meanwhile Russia assumed the administration of 

 the whole duchy. Dantzic, with its territory, re- 

 verted to Prussia, and the congress at Vienna (in 

 May, 1815) decided the fate of the country. 1. The 

 city of Cracow, with its territory (466 square miles, 

 96,000 inhabitants, and a revenue of 250,000 dollars 

 [thalers]), was to be governed by its own laws, as 

 a free and independent republic; 2. the country on 

 the right bank of the Vistula, with the circle of 

 Tarnopola, which had been ceded to Russia by the 

 peace of Vienna, was restored to Austria; 3. the 

 circles of Culm and Michelau, the city of Thorn and 

 its territory, the department of Posen, with the ex- 

 ception of the circles of Powitz ar.d Peysern, and 



part of the department of Kalisch, as far as the 

 Prozna, excluding the city and circle of that name 

 (these limits were more exactly defined by the boun- 

 dary-treaty between Russia and Prussia of Nov. 11, 

 1817), were ceded to the king of Prussia, who united 

 Dantzic, Thorn, Culm and Michelau with West 

 Prussia, and from the remainder (11,400 square 

 miles, with 847,000 inhabitants) formed the grand- 

 duchy of Posen, and appointed prince Radziwill 

 governor ; 4. all the rest was united with the Rus- 

 sian empire, under the name of the kingdom of Po- 

 land, but with a separate administration, and such a 

 territorial extent as the Russian emperor should see 

 fit. The emperor Alexander, therefore, assumed 

 the title of czar and king of Poland, and received 

 homage in Warsaw. Poland, though thus divided, 

 preserved its name and language, as the treaties of 

 Vienna secured to all Poles, who were subjects of 

 either of the three powers, such an organization as 

 tended to maintain their national existence. A Po- 

 lish charter was accordingly promulgated (Nov. 27, 

 1815), consisting of one hundred and sixty-five arti- 

 cles, which, if faithfully executed, would have pro- 

 moted the welfare of Poland. The government of 

 the country was to be vested in a native Pole, as 

 lieutenant of the kingdom, unless one of the imperial 

 princes should be appointed viceroy. This was ren- 

 dered nugatory by the presence of the tyrannical 

 Constantine, as commander-in-chief. Equality of 

 religious sects, personal security, liberty of the press, 

 the entire possession of all employments, civil and 

 military, in the country, by Poles, were among the 

 promises of the charter ; and these rights were to be 

 secured by a national diet, composed of two cham- 

 bers. But these promises were kept only to the ear; 

 restrictions on the press, arbitrary imprisonment, 

 arbitrary and cruel punishments, insults added to in- 

 juries, a solemn mockery of a diet, which was not 

 allowed to exercise any real authority ; the violation 

 of every article of the charter by a Russian barba 

 rian ; peculation and extortion practised by the in- 

 ferior officers ; these were some of the features of 

 the Russian government of Poland. 



The first diet was assembled in 1818, and the 

 liberty of the press was abolished by an act of 1819. 

 Another diet was held in 1820, but these meetings 

 were rendered mere ceremonies ; they had no free- 

 dom of debate, for those members who dared to ex- 

 press opinions unpalatable to the government were 

 banished to their estates, and made to pay the troops 

 that guarded them ; it could not refuse supplies ; 

 and, in 1825, an ordinance was issued by the govern- 

 ment, abolishing publicity of debate. The resources 

 were squandered to maintain a Russian and Polish 

 army, and Russian governors practised all sorts of 

 extortion ; state prisoners were sent into Russia, 

 and imprisoned without trial ; respectable citizens 

 were flogged or made to work in the highways with- 

 out any charge being specified against them. On 

 the death of Alexander (December, 1825) and the 

 accession of Nicholas, a conspiracy broke out in 

 Russia, and, on pretence that it extended to War- 

 saw, several hundred persons were arrested in Po- 

 land, and a commission constituted, contrary to the 

 provisions of the charter, to inquire into the affair. 

 The only discovery of this inquisitorial tribunal was, 

 that secret societies had existed in Poland since 

 1821. In May, 1829, Nicholas was crowned at 

 Warsaw. In 1828, however, a secret society had 

 been instituted, for the purpose of gaining over the 

 officers of the army to the cause of independence ; 

 and to their agency is the insurrection of 1830 to be 

 attributed. It appears, nevertheless, that it was 

 immediately occasioned by a sham conspiracy got 

 up by the Russian police, who had thus induced a 



