From the Prepatatory Materials
Mr. Fox has rolled up a rather phantastic picture of the foreign policy of the French Ancient Regime. According to his view, France allied herself with Sweden, Poland, and Turkey in order to protect Europe from Russia. The truth is that France contracted those alliances in the 16th and 17th centuries, at a time when Poland was still a powerful state and when Russia, in the modern sense of the word, did not yet exist. There existed then a Grand Duchy of Muscovy, but there existed not yet a Russian Empire. It was therefore not against Russia that France concluded those alliances with the Turks, the Magyars, the Poles, and the Swedes. She concluded them against Austria and against the German Empire, as a means of extending the power, the influence, and the territorial possessions of France over Germany, Italy, Spain. I shall not enter upon details. It will suffice for my purpose to say, that France used those alliances in the midst of the 17th century to bring about the treaty of Westphalia,[195] by which Germany was not only dismembered, one part of it being given to France and the other to Sweden, but every little German prince and baron obtained the treaty right to sell his country and France obtained a protectorate over Germany. After the treaty of Westphalia, in the second part of the 17th century, Louis XIV, the true representative of the old Bourbon policy at the time of its strength, bought the king of England, Charles II, in order to ruin the Dutch .republic.[194] His system of vandalism and perfidy then carried out against Holland, Belgium, Spain, Germany and Piedmont — during about 40 years, cannot be better characterised than by the one fact, that in a memorandum, drawn up in 1837 by the Russian chancellery for the information of the present Czar,[195] the system of war and diplomacy of Louis XIV from the middle to the end of the 17th century is recommended as the model system to be followed by Russia.
Modern Russia dates only from the 18th century, and it is therefore from that time alone that resistance to Russia could have entered into the policy of France or any other European state.
I proceed at once to the time of Louis XV which Mr. Fox has justly pointed out as the epoch when the French foreign policy was most favourable to Poland and most hostile to Russia.
Now there happened three great events under the regime of Louis XV — in regard to Russia and Poland, 1) the so-called Polish succession war, 2) the Seven Years' War, and 3) the first partition of Poland. I shall consider the attitude taken by the French government in regard to these events.
1. The So-called Polish Succession War
After the death of Augustus II (king of Poland and elector of Saxony), in September 1733, one party of the Polish aristocracy wanted to elect his son(1) as king. He was supported by Russia and Austria, because he had promised to the Czarina(2) not to reclaim Courland,[196] formerly a fief of Poland, and because he had promised to the Emperor(3) the guarantee of the pragmatic sanction.[197] The other party, instigated by France, elected Stanislaus Leszczinski, who had formerly been made Polish king by Charles XII of Sweden and who was at that time the father-in-law of Louis XV. There broke consequently a war out between France on the one hand, Russia and Austria on the other. This is the only war which France has ever professedly carried on behalf of Poland. France made war in Germany and Italy, but as far as her Polish protégé was concerned, limited herself to sending 1,500 men to Dantzick, then a Polish town.[198] The war having lasted two years, what was its upshot? A treaty of peace (Peace of Vienna, October 1735),[199] by which the duchy of Lorraine, a German fief, was incorporated into France, and the Bourbon dynasty planted in Naples and Sicily, the same dynasty of which king Bomba(4) was the last lively representative. In all other respects this "war about the throne of Poland" ended in acknowledging the Russian candidate, Augustus III, as king of Poland, but securing to Louis XV's father-in-law the prerogative of being called king and a very large yearly pension to be paid by Poland. This war instigated and carried on by France under false pretences, ended in the humiliation of Poland, the extension of the Russian power, and great disadvantages to Turkey and Sweden, which France had also driven into a false position and then left in the lurch. But I shall not enter upon these details.
The conduct of the French government cannot be excused on the plea that the British government prevented it during this so-called Polish succession war of acting in the right direction. On the contrary. When the Emperor Charles VI appealed to England, the latter clung to the Anglo-French alliance which had continued since 1716 and was barren of any good results whatever. At all events: this time the French government's good designs for Poland were not baffled by England.
Before leaving the subject, I. must mention that the peace between Turkey and Russia, brought about by French mediation ( Villeneuve, French ambassador) in 1739, was a great blow to Poland.[200] I quote Rulhière; he says:
"it annulled the treaty of the Pruth, the only shield that remained to the Poles" ("cet unique bouclier qui restait à la Pologne"), et le nouveau traité, signé à Belgrad, in
1739, déclara dans son dernier article "que toutes les conventions antérieures n'auraient plus aucune force".(5)
2. The Seven Years' War (1756-1763)
I come now to the 7 Years' War.[201]
Mr. Fox has told you that that war was very unhappy for France, because it deprived her, to the benefit of England, of most of her colonies. But this is not the question before us. What we have to inquire into is, what part France played during that war in regard to Poland and Russia.
You must know that from 1740 to 1748, during the so-called Austrian succession war,[202] France had allied herself with Frederick II of Prussia against Russia, Austria and England. During the Seven Years' War she allied herself with Austria and Russia against Prussia and England, so that, at all events, during this war England was the official enemy, and France the avowed ally of Russia.
It was first in 1756 under the Abbé Bernis, and then again 1758 under the duke of Choiseul, that France concluded her treaty with Austria (and Russia), against Prussia.
Let us hear Rulhière. (Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne etc. Paris, 1819. 2nd edit.)
"When Count Broglie arrived in 1752 as ambassador at Varsovie, France had no party in Poland. People thought of the promises which France had already so often failed to fulfil (auxquelles la France avait déjà si souvent manqué). They had not forgotten that three times since a century, France had rallied around her powerful Polish factions... but that after having formed them with passion (ardeur), she had always abandoned them with levity (elle les avait chaque fois abandonnées avec légèreté). She had left in distress the majority of those who had trusted to the seductions of her pretended projects for the welfare of the republic" (t. I, 213). ("Elle avait laissé dans l'infortune la plupart de ceux qui s'étaient livrés à la séduction de ces prétendus projets pour le salut de la république.")
"The Duke of Broglie, after three years' activity, had formed a counterparty against the Czartoryski,(1) won over the Polish court, put into motion the Swedes, the Tartars, the Turks, opened a connection with the Cossacks of the Ukraine" etc. "Frederick II contributed to call into life this formidable coalition against the Russians, from which he expected himself his own security. The Russian minister(2)
had lost all influence at Warsaw. In one word, in the first months of 1756, at the moment when the hostilities between England and France, first opened in America, were on the point of embracing the whole of Europe, Count Broglie had it in his power to form in Poland a confederation which, supported by the subsidies of France, provided by her with arms and munitions, and protected by so many border nations would have altogether withdrawn Poland from the yoke of Russia and restored to that republic laws, government, and power. But France suspended all the help (secours) she had promised, and upset all the measures of her ambassador." (Rulhière, t. I, p. 225.)
The levity with which France abused her influence may be seen — en passant — from the way in which she treated Sweden. First she goaded her into a war with Prussia against Russia (in the Austrian succession war), and then into a war with Russia against Prussia, Sweden being both times the victim of those French intrigues, and Russia gaining both times in that quarter.
Well. What were the consequences of the Seven Years' War which France carried on as the ally of Russia (and Austria) against Prussia (and England)?
That the material resources of Poland were exhausted, that Russia founded her supremacy in Germany, that Prussia was made her slave, that Catherine II became the most powerful sovereign in Europe, and that the first partition of Poland took place. Such were the immediate consequences of the French policy during the Seven Years' War.
1) During the Seven Years' War the Russian armies treated Poland as their property, took there their winter-quarters etc. I shall quote Favier:
"The peril was that Russia, improving the pretext of the war against the king of Prussia, enforced, on the territory of Poland, the passage of her troops, appropriated herself the means of subsistence, and even took her winter-quarters in Poland. By allowing her to employ anew those arbitrary means, that vast country was surrendered to the greediness of the Russian generals, the despotism of their court, and all the projects of future usurpations which Russia would be tempted to form, from the facility of exercising all sorts of vexations against a nation divided, insulated, and abandoned." (Politique de tous les cabinets de l'Europe etc. 2nd edit, par
L. P. Ségur, Ex-ambassadeur. Paris, 1801, t. I, p. 300.)
France discredited herself by giving the Russians such free scope.
"That weakness on her part seemed the less pardonable (excusable) because ... she was then in a position to make the law to Russia and Austria, and not at all to receive it from them."
Count Broglie had made in vain proposals to that effect... France allowed Russia to treat Poland like her own property... The Polish nation, from that moment, considered France as a mere instrument in the hands of the courts of Vienna and Petersburg.
" This was the origin of our discredit, of our nullity at the time of the election of Count Poniatowski, and of the bad success of everything we attempted or favoured since that epoch". (303, 304, 1. c. Ségur.) ("la nation polonaise ne vit plus dès lors la France que comme un instrument des cours de Vienne et de Pétersbourg. [...] Voilà l'origine de notre discrédit, de notre nullité etc.")
France was bound, by the treaty of Oliva (1660)[203] to protect the Polish Republic.
2) During the 7 Years' War the Russians used Poland, although she was ostensibly neutral,[204] as their basis of operations against Prussia. This the Poles allowed under the diplomatic pressure of France. It was thus that the Russians were enabled during 7 years to devastate Prussia proper, Silesia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and even sack Berlin. They in fact ravaged the Prussian monarchy like wild beasts, while the French acted in the same style in Hanover, Westphalia, Saxony, Thuringia etc. Now, Poland was by the treaty of Wehlau (1660 or so)[205] obliged to defend Prussia, against Russia. Frederick II insisted upon the fulfilment of this treaty. That he was right in asking the Poles to observe at least a complete neutrality, and not allowing the Russians to use their country etc., is proved by the fact that on all the diets kept in Poland since the opening of the Seven Years' War, it was impossible to come to any resolution, because the patriotic party declared, the Poles could not deliberate as long as Russian armies occupied the Polish soil and acted against Prussia. In the last year of the war (1762) the nobility of Posen (Great Poland) had even formed a confederation against the Russians.
If f. i. Belgium allowed Prussia to use it during 7 years, despite its neutrality, as a basis of warlike operations against France, would France not be entitled to treat Belgium as an enemy, and, if she could, to incorporate Belgium, or destroy its independence?
3) The immediate upshot of the 7 Years' War was a treaty between Prussia and Russia, by which the king of Prussia professed himself the vassal of Russia, Poniatowski king of Poland but was allowed, in compensation, to share in the partition of Poland. That the latter was already convened upon in the treaty of 1764 between Russia and Frederick II[206] is shown by the fact that in the same year Frederick II's and Catherine II's ambassadors at Warsaw(3) solemnly protested against that "calumny", and that a few years later the English resident at Berlin(4) wrote to his court that Austria, although at first protesting, would be compelled by her proper interests to share in the partition of Poland.
Mr. Favier says:
"Our exclusive alliance with the court of Vienna deprived Frederick II of all hope, and reduced him to the necessity of joining that very court which had let loose France upon him, in order to destroy him."(5)
The same Favier avers that the secret of all the future successes of Catherine II and of the first partition of Poland is to be found in the infeodation to her of Prussia. (Frederick II.)
Such was the result of the French policy during the 7 Years' War. It cannot be said that England this time prevented her good designs for Poland, because France was then the ally of Russia, while England stood on the other side.
3. First Partition of Poland
Now I must say that even if France had acted more energetically during the Polish war which ended in the first partition of Poland than she really did, it would not have made up for the immense services she had rendered to Russia during the Seven Years' War. The sending of some French officers and subsidies to Poland during the war of the Confederation of Bar[207] could in the best case only prolong a useless resistance. It is true that France incited (1768) Turkey to a war against Russia, but only to betray Turkey as usually, and prepare for her the "treaty of Kudjuk Kainardji" (1774),[208] from which the supremacy of Russia over Turkey must really be dated.
1770. Russian Expedition into the Mediterranean. The then almost dying republic of Venice showed much more courage than France. In that year Choiseul still French foreign minister. It was only at the end of 1770 (beginning of 1771) that he was replaced by the Duke d'Aiguillon.
"How," says Favier, "did it happen that, while France was at peace with England, no step was taken for a convention of neutrality for the Mediterranean? Or why did France alone not oppose this Russian enterprise in a quarter so important for her interests?"
The opinion of Favier is, that
"the destruction of the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean by the French [which] might have been easily effected, would probably have changed the whole course of events both in Turkey and Poland, and would, moreover, have taught Austria to respect the French Alliance" (Ségur etc. Politique de tous les cabinets etc., v. II, p. 174).
But France who had goaded Turkey into the war against Russia did not move one finger against the Russian expedition of 1770, the only one which was of any import. (The Turkish fleet destroyed in the narrow bay of Tschesmé.[209]) The same Choiseul had English bluster (Chatham himself) not allowed to prevent him a year ago from buying Corsica from the Genoese. You must not forget that at that time North was minister, and could only keep himself in office by keeping the peace at any price. He was one of the most unpopular ministers. At that time revolutionary, antidynasdc movement in England. It is true that in 1773 (the Russians made then a new naval expedition which, however, remained without any influence upon the war with Turkey) the duke of Aiguillon allowed himself to be prevented by the English Ambassador at Paris, Lord Stormont, from attacking the Russian fleet in the Baltic (and Mediterranean). At that time the first partition of Poland was already consummated. The true object of the French demonstration was not Poland, but Sweden, and France so far succeeded, that Gustave HI was not forced by Russia to rescind his coup d'état (1772).[210]
Moreover, what sort of fellow this d'Aiguillon was?
Ségur says in his notes to Favier:
"When the rumour got first afloat as to the partition which was to give Prussia an increase of territory which Austria was afraid of, the court of Vienna warned France, and gave her to understand that she would oppose herself, if the court of Versailles would support her. Louis XV, at that time only occupied by his pleasures, and M. d'Aiguillon by his intrigues, the Austrian cabinet received no re-assuring answer and liked better to concur to the partition of Poland than to maintain alone a war against the Prussians and Russians combined." ([t. I], 147, Note.) "Count Mercy—Austrian ambassador — has publicly given out" (répandu dans le public) "that the king of Prussia had communicated to the Austrian minister3 the answers of the Duke of Aiguillon, by which that minister assured His Prussian Majesty that France was indifferent to all that could be done in Poland and that she would not consider a casus foederis" (case of war) "anything that might be agreed upon, in regard to that subject, by the courts of Berlin and Vienna" (243, Note).
Now, although I do not put any confidence whatever in the assurances of the Austrian court, which was then acting with the utmost perfidy, the very fact, that a French ambassador of Louis XVI (Ségur), published this at Paris, shows the estimation Louis XV and his d'Aiguillon enjoyed — and were worth enjoying.
4. French Republic
From September 21, 1792 to November 11, 1799 (the day after 19 Brumaire, when the Executive Directory[211] was overthrown)11
The second partition treaty between Russia and Prussia on 4 January 1793?
The first crusade against France 1792 had taken such an unfortunate turn, that already in the beginning of winter the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) were occupied by the French. Prussia withdrew her troops from the field of action; the condition insisted upon by her on the Congress of Verdun[212] for continuing her participation in the Anti-Jacobin war was that she should be allowed to make with Russia a second partition of Poland. Austria was to be compensated by indemnities in the Alsace.
At the end of 1793 (September) Prussia again withdrew her troops to march them, under the king,d to the Polish frontier (to "secure" his Polish possession), because some differences had broken out, in regard to some definitive stipulations, between Prussia and Russia, the latter seeming to turn against Prussia her influence over the expiring diet of the traitors of Targowicze.[213]
The result of this second withdrawal of Prussia, to take real possession of her Polish provinces, forces the Austrians to withdraw from the Alsace.
In the spring of 1794 Kosciuszko's revolutionary rising. Prussia marched at once her troops against Poland. Beaten. In September 1794, while forced to retreat from Warsaw, at the same time rising in Posen. Then the king of Prussia declared his intention to withdraw from the contest carried on against France. Austria also, in the autumn 1794, detached a body of troops for Poland, by which circumstance the success of the French arms on the Rhine and so forth was secured. Already towards the end of 1794 Prussia commenced negotiations with France.[214] Withdrew. Consequence: Holland succumbed to the French (conquest of Holland through Pichegru).
Those diversions facilitated by turns the conquest of Belgium, the success on the Alps, the Pyrenees, the left bank of the Rhine, and, 1795, the conquest of Holland by Pichegru. In the very months October, November (1794) everywhere French successes when Kosciuszko succumbed, Praga was taken by Suvorov etc., immense murdering etc.
Third Partition of Poland signed: 24 October 1795. By the outbreak of the French Revolution Catherine got the opportunity quietly first to carry on her war with Turkey,[215] while all Europe was turned to the West.
As the Pope has issued bulls for crusades against the infidels, so Catherine II against the Jacobins. Even while Leopold II chased the French Emigrés from his states and forbade them to assemble on the French frontiers, Catherine, through her agent Rumjanzev, provided them with money and quartered them in the frontier provinces, bordering upon France, and ruled by ecclesiastic princes.
After the conclusion of her war with Turkey, Catherine II did not commence her hostilities against Poland before she had been informed that the National Assembly had declared war to Austria. This news arrived at Vienna on 30 April 1792, and on the 18 May the Russian ambassador Boulgakov presented a declaration of war to the Polish king Stanislaus.* The first in impressing upon England, Austria and Prussia the dangers of the revolutionary principles, Catherine steadily pursued her own separate interests (in Turkey and Poland) without furnishing a single Cossack or subscribing a single rouble for the "common cause".
Poland was blotted out under cover of the French Revolution and the Anti-Jacobin war.
Rev. L. K. Pitt (a nephew or cousin of the English minister), chaplain to the British factory at St. Petersburg, writes in a secret document: "Account of Russia during the Commencement of the Reign of the Emperor Paul":
"She" (the Czarina) "was not perhaps displeased to see every European power exhausting itself in a struggle, which raised in proportion to its violence her own importance ... the state of the newly acquired provinces in Poland was likewise a point which had considerable influence over the political conduct of the Czarina. The fatal effects resulting from an apprehension of revolt on the late seat of conquest, seem to have been felt in a very great degree by the combined powers who, in the early period of the revolution, were so near re-instating the regular government in France. The same dread of revolt deterred likewise the late Empress of Russia from entering on the great theatre of war."
The question is now: How behaved revolutionary France towards this useful ally.
Let us first hear a French historian, Lacretelle (t. XII, p. 261 sqq.):
"The Republic", says he, "had shown itself very indifferent to the troubles and misfortunes of Poland. It was on the contrary a great motive of security for it to see the Empress of Russia occupy all the forces of her powerful empire for the conquest and dismemberment of that unfortunate country. Ver) soon the French Republic became aware that Poland freed it of its most ardent enemy, the king of Prussia etc."(1)
But republican France actually betrayed Poland.
"The Polish agent Bars at Paris presented to the government", says Ogiiiski, an eye-witness, "the plan of the revolution which was preparing in Poland, and which was received with a general enthusiasm and approbation. He enumerated the assistance of every kind which would be necessary for that important and daring enterprise. The Comité du Salut Public found his demand very just and promised to do every thing possible; but to promises all the negotiation was limited." (Michel Oginski: Mémoires sur la Pologne etc., from 1788 to the end of 1815. Paris, 1826, t. I, p. 358.)
"The comité of public welfare had promised to general Kosciuszko a sum of 3 millions of livres and some officers of artillery; but we did receive neither one single sou nor one single officer",
we are told by an aide-de-camp of Kosciuszko, J. Niemcewicz: Notes sur ma captivité à St. Pétersbourg, en 1794-1796. Paris, 1843. (V. p. 90.)(2)
On 5 April 1795 the directory (which had then replaced the comité du salut public) concluded with Prussia the Peace of Basel. By this peace Holland and the left bank of the Rhine were surrendered to France. The northern part of Germany, designed by a line of demarcation, was neutralised, Prussia to be indemnified by the secularisation of several German bishoprics. That treaty of Basel "by guaranteeing the respective possessions of the two contracting powers, and including no clause whatever in regard to the newly invaded provinces of Poland, granted their possession to the king of Prussia".(3)
Oginski tells us that when the Poles were informed of the peace-negotiations, their agent Bars addressed the members of the directory peculiarly friendly to Poland, and asked for a clause obliging the king of Prussia to renounce etc.
"He was answered that the condition was not acceptable since it would retard the negotiations with Prussia, that France wanted to restore her forces, that the peace with Prussia would not last long, that the Poles should keep themselves ready for new efforts which would be asked from them in the cause of liberty and their country etc."
The same Oginski, t. II, p. 133 and 223, tells us:
"The treaty concluded between the French Republic and the king of Prussia had made a very bad impression upon the Divan, which pretended that if France had been unable to obtain anything for Poland in her negotiations with the court of Berlin, it was impossible that the Turcs alone could act in favour of Poland."
After the third division Russia was forced to keep quiet for a few years. The Poles now participated in all the campaigns of the French Republic, principally in Italy. (See: Chodzko: Histoire des Légions Polonaises en Italie, de 1795 à 1802. Paris, 1829.)
Before the conclusion of the Peace of Campo-Formio (17 October 1797),[217] after a plan mutually agreed upon, and with the consent of Bonaparte, General Dombrowski was to march through Croatia and Hungary, into Galicia, and thus make a diversion in favour of Bonaparte, who would have marched upon Vienna. Charles de la Croix, minister of foreign affairs (see Oginski, t. II, p. 272-278) proposed to Oginski "to insurge Galicia". Oginski was afraid lest the Poles should be treated as mere tools thrown away after having been used. He therefore demanded a positive assurance that those sacrifices would earn for them French assistance for the recovery of their country. Lacroix played then the irritated bully. The French government did not want them; if they had no confidence, they might try their fortune somewhere else etc. He gave Oginski three days' time for considering, after which they were to accept or [to] refuse, but without putting any conditions whatever. The poor Poles declared ready for whatever the French government wanted. But that government wanted only their formal acceptance in order to intimidate Austria by it and so to hasten the conclusion of peace. Armistice at Leoben, 18 April 1797.
Treaty of Campo-Formio in which the Poles were again sacrificed in the same way as they had been in the treaty of Basel.
In 1799 at last Suvorov, the effect of the disappearance of Poland made itself felt to the French republic. Russian armies appeared in Holland and in Italy. Suvorov penetrates to the very frontiers of France.
When on 27 July3 1799 the French surrendered Mantua to the Russian general Vielhorski,[218] there was a secret article in the capitulation by which the Austrians got back their deserters, viz. the Austrian Poles who had entered the legions. After the surrender of Mantua, the 2nd legion fell into the hands of the enemy; the first legion, under Dombrowski, joined the Great Army,[219] and was almost entirely annihilated in the great battles against the Russo-Austrian armies.
5. Consulate[220]
"to the stern constancy of general Kniaziewicz and his Polish soldiers".b
Treaty of Lunéville with Austria, 9 February0 1801.[221] No article relating to Poland.
Treaty of Paris, October 1801, with Paul I of Russia.[222] In this treaty Paul I and Bonaparte promised each other
"not to allow that any of their subjects should be allowed to entertain any correspondence, whether direct or indirect, with the internal enemies of the actual governments of the two states, there to propagate principles contrary to their respective constitutions, or to foment troubles".A
This article related to the Poles on the [one] hand, to the Bourbons and their partisans on the other.
In 1801 there appeared in the Moniteur a series of articles written by Bonaparte himself and justifying the ambition of France, because her conquests were hardly an equivalent for the acquisitions which Russia, Austria and Prussia had made by the partition of Poland. {Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire, t. III, p. 153.)
During the peace the Polish legions were treated as an encumbrance. Part of them were, like Mamelucks, given by Bonaparte as a present to the queen of Etruria.(1)
Treaty of Amiens. 27 March 1802.[223] The first consul made embark, by force, for St. Domingo part of the Polish legions and made present of the other part to the new king of Naples.(2)
Threatened by the fire of artillery, they were embarked at Genoa and Livorno to find their graves in St. Domingo.[224]
6. Empire
May 1804 (crowned 2 December 1804) until 1815. 1806-1807. During his war with Prussia, supported by Russia, Napoleon sent the remainders of the Polish legions under Dombrowski into Prussian Poland, where they conquered Dantzick for him, and insurged the country.
18 December 1806. Napoleon himself in Warsaw, then Prussian. Great enthusiasm of the Poles. In his autobiography Thomas Ostrowski (Paris 1836), president of the Senate, narrates that Napoleon, at the first audience he gave to the members of the administration, received them with the words:
"Gentlemen, I want to-day 200,000 bottles of wine, and as many portions of rice, meat and vegetables. No excuses; if not, I leave you to the Russian knout... I want proofs of your devotion; / stand in need of your blood" ("j'ai besoin de votre sang").(1)
He enrolled a Polish army. The campaign lasted until 6 May 1807.
25 and 26 June 1807. Fraternisation between Napoleon and Alexander on the Niémen.
Treaty of Tilsit, signed 7 July 1807 (9 July with Prussia).[225]
Art. V of that treaty proclaimed the foundation of the duchy of Warsaw which Napoleon cedes
"in all property and sovereignty to the king of Saxony,(2) to be ruled by constitutions, which, while securing the liberties and privileges of the duchy, were compatible with the tranquillity of the neighbouring states".
This duchy was cut out of Prussian Poland.
Art. IX cedes to Russia a part of Poland, the circle of Byalistock, recently conquered from Prussia, and which
"shall be united in perpetuity to the Russian empire, in order to establish the natural limits between Russia and tlie duchy of Warsaw".(3)
Dantzic, on the pretext of being made a free town, was made a French maritime fortress.
Many large estates in the new duchy were made a present of by Napoleon to the French generals.
Lelewel calls this justly the Fourth Division of Poland}[1]
Having beaten the Prussians and the Russians by the assistance of the Poles, Napoleon disposed of Poland, as if she was a conquered country and his private property, and he disposed of her to the advantage of Russia.
The duchy of Warsaw was small, without position in Europe. A large civil list; civil government by Saxony, military by Napoleon. Davout ruled like a Pasha at Warsaw. He made in fact of the duchy a recruiting place for France, a military depot.
(Sawaszkiewicz, Tableau de l'influence de la Pologne sur les destinées de la Révolution française. Paris, 1848, 3(4)""' édit.)
The duchy of Warsaw was for Napoleon not only an advanced post against Russia. Napoleon had possessed himself of those very points which would serve him as a basis of offensive operations against Prussia and Austria. Nicholas acted in his spirit when he fortified those points by a chain of fortresses.
(By inserting at the head of the treaty of Tilsit the declaration that only out of courtesy for Alexander he restored to the king of Prussia' half of his old territories, Napoleon proclaimed that king, and Prussia, a mere appendage to Russia.)
By the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit the public ones were partly revoked. Thus f. i. only to deceive Austria, the public treaty contained articles for the integrity of Turkey. By the secret articles Napoleon sacrificed Turkey and Sweden to the Czar who surrendered to him Portugal, Spain, Malta, and the North African coast; promised his accession to the continental system, and the surrender of the Ionian islands to France.[226] The partition of Turkey was only prevented by the opposition of Austria. All the arrangements for a partition of Turkey were beginning after the conclusion of the Tilsit treaty. In August 1808 Alexander handed over to Napoleon the strong places of Dalmatia, also the protectorate over the Ionian islands; while the Danubian principalities were occupied by his troops, Napoleon ordered Marmont, the French commander in Dalmatia, to prepare the march upon Albania and Macedonia. The negotiations about the partition of Turkey were continued at Petersburg, whither Napoleon had sent Savary, the head of his gendarmes and mouchards. The Report on his negotiations with Rumjanzev, the Russian foreign minister, has been recently published. Even Thibaudeau, one of Napoleon's senators and admirers, says about the negotiations of Savary with Alexander 1 and Rumjanzev:
"Putting aside every diplomatical form, they transacted their business in the impudent and reckless way of robber-chiefs dividing their booty".[3]
According to the negotiations between Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit, Sweden and Denmark were to be forced to join the continental system. Napoleon ceded to Alexander Finland (which the Russians occupied in 1808, and have ever kept since), and besides Denmark was interested in the robbery of Sweden by making Norway over to her. Thus Napoleon succeeded in completely breaking down this old antagonist of Russia.
27 September 1808. Napoleon and Alexander at the Erfurt Congress. Never before had any man done so much to exalt the Russian power as Napoleon did from 1807-1812. From 1808 to 1811 the Poles were consumed by Napoleon in Spain. For the first time in their history they were prostituted as the mercenaries of despotism. Of the army of 90,000, formed in the duchy, so many were despatched to Spain, that the duchy was denuded of troops when the Austrian archduke Ferdinand invaded it in 1809.
1809, April. While Napoleon marched upon Vienna, the archduke Ferdinand upon Warsaw. The Poles invade Galicia, force the archduke to withdraw from Warsaw (1 June); the Russians, Napoleon's allies, enter Galicia to assist in fact the Austrians against the Poles.
14 October 1809: The Polish provinces called by the Austrians "New Galicia", together with the district of Zamojsk, was reunited to the duchy of Warsaw. Napoleon left to Austria old Galicia, after having separated from it, in order to make it over to Russia, the district of Tarnopol, part of old PodoliaP(5) What we have to think of this Fifth Partition (Lelewel) may be seen from a satirical letter of Czar Alexander I to prince Kourakin, published at the time in the gazettes of Petersburg and Moscow,3 d. d. Petersburg 1/13 November 1809. The Czar writes:
"The treaty is being ratified between France and Austria, and consequently our hostile movements against the latter cease simultaneously. According to the principles of that peace, Austria remains, as before, our neighbour by her possession of Galicia, and the Polish provinces, instead of being united into one single body, are divided for ever between the three crowns. Thus the dreams of a political revolution in Poland have vanished. The present order of things fixes the limits between Poland and Russia who has not only not suffered any loss in this affair, but on the contrary extends her dominion" (au sein de la Pologne) "in the very heart of Poland."0
The Poles now demanded the restoration of the name of Poland for the duchy. The Czar opposed. On October 20, 1809, Champagny, minister of foreign affairs, addressed a note, by order of Napoleon, to the Russian government, in which it was stated that he approved the effacing [of] the name of Pole and Poland, not only from every public act, but even from history. This was to prepare his proposal — after his divorce with Joséphine — for the hand of the Czar's sister/
4 January 1810: Secret convention between Napoleon's ambassador Caulaincourt and count Rumjanzev, to this effect:
"Art. 1. The kingdom of Poland shall never be re-established. Art. 2. The name of Poland and Pole shall never be applied to any of the parties that previously constituted that kingdom, and they shall disappear from every public or official act." Besides "the Grand duchy shall never be aggrandised by the annexation of any of the old Polish provinces; the orders of Polish chivalry shall be abolished; and, finally, all these engagements shall be binding on the king of Saxony, Grand Duke of Warsaw, as on Napoleon himself." (Thiers, Consulat et l'Empire, XI, [357, 358].)
It was after the negotiations for that convention that Napoleon proposed for the hand of Alexander's sister.[228] Napoleon's irritation and wounded self-love at the hesitation of the Czar (who delayed declaring himself from middle of December to middle of January, under various pretexts), and the repugnance of the Czar's mother,d made Napoleon look elsewhere for a wife, and break off negotiations.
"The Emperor Napoleon," says Crétineau-Joly: "Histoire de l'église Romaine en face de la Révolution", "did not allow his policy to lose itself in a phraseology sentimentally revolutionary. With one stroke of the pen his minister effaced, even from history, the name of Poland, and a treaty, which subsequent events rendered null, struck out that name as if it were a geographical superfetation."
After his marriage with the daughter of the Austrian Emperor* Napoleon had a new opportunity for the restoration of Poland. I quote from a French author, whose history is an apotheosis of Napoleon. Norvins says:
"Napoleon was enabled, in 1810, to realise, at last, that noble project", viz. the restoration of Poland, "because Austria offered him both the Galicias, but he refused, in order not to have a war with Russia who prepared war against him the very day after the conclusion >f the treaty of Tilsit."b
After what has preceded, it is almost superfluous to say that Napoleon made his war of 1812 against Russia not out of any regard for Poland. He was forced into it by Russia who on 19/31 December 1810 allowed the import of colonial commodities in neutral ships, prohibited some French commodities, hardly taxed others, and made not the least concession despite all the diplomatic efforts of Napoleon at preventing the war. He must either resign his continental system, or make war against Russia.
28 June 1812. Day of entry of Napoleon at Vilna. On that day the existence of confederate Poland (that is Poland united to Lithuania) was proclaimed at the diet of Warsaw, and a national war. Napoleon told the deputies of Warsaw, that he did not want a national war. (Charras tellsc us that by his hatred of such a war etc. 100 days.)[229]
Endnotes
[194] Marx is referring to a secret treaty between Louis XIV and Charles II concluded in Dover in 1670 against the Republic of United Provinces. The conclusion of the treaty envisaged large money subsidies for Charles II. As a result, Britain was involved in a predatory war against Holland unleashed by Louis XIV in 1672. But in 1674 Britain concluded a peace treaty with Holland and withdrew from the anti-Dutch coalition.
[196] Courland or the Duchy of Courland—a state in the Baltic area formed in 1561 as a result of the disintegration of the Livonian order. It was a vassal state of the 19* Kingdom of Poland (Rzecz Pospolita). In 1705, during the Northern War, Courland was occupied by Russian troops who drove out the Swedes. The marriage of Anna Ivanovna (Peter I's niece and the future Empress) and the Duke of Courland in 1710 enabled the Tsarist government to consolidate its power in Courland, which formally became part of the Russian Empire in 1795.
[197] The pragmatic sanction—a law of succession in the Habsburg Empire issued in 1713 by Charles VI. It envisaged the indivisibility of the Habsburgs' lands and the possible transfer of the Austrian crown to Maria Theresa, daughter of Charles VI.
[198] During the War of the Polish Succession, Danzig (Gdansk) supported Stanislaus Leszczinski in his claims to the throne. The town was besieged by Russian troops (from January 17 to May 27, 1734). A French squadron sent to aid the Poles considered that a landing would be useless, and Danzig capitulated on May 29, 1734.
[199] Marx is referring to the preliminary peace treaty of Vienna concluded on October 3, 1735 between Austria and France with its allies (the final treaty was signed in Vienna in November 1738). Under this treaty, which ended the War of the Polish Succession, August III was recognised as King of Poland while Leszczinski received Lorraine, which was to go to France after his death. The younger, Spanish line of the Bourbons gained possession of Southern Italy (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies), for which Austria was compensated by other Italian lands. Russia and other states joined the Vienna treaty, p. 312
[200] A reference to the Belgrade peace treaties of September 1 and 18, 1739, which were concluded, with France's mediation, between Russia and Austria on the one hand and Turkey on the other and which put an end to the war between these countries lasting from 1735 to 1739. Russia regained Azov (but undertook to remove the earthworks) which it had lost under the Pruth Russo-Turkish Treaty of 1711 (mentioned in the text below; it also contained an article by which Russia was forbidden to interfere in Polish affairs) and received the right to build a fortress on the Don. Austria was to return Serbia, part of Bosnia and Little Wallachia to Turkey.
[201] The Seven Years' War (1756-63)—a war of Britain and Prussia against Austria, France, Russia, Saxony and Sweden. In 1756 and 1757 Prussian troops under Frederick II won a number of victories over Austrian and French troops, but the gains were nullified by the Russian successes in Prussia in 1757-60. As a result of the war, France ceded many of its colonies (including Canada and almost all its possessions in the East Indies) to Britain, while Prussia, Austria and Saxony had in the main to recognise the pre-war frontiers. 0j the Austrian Succession (1740-48) was caused by the claims of some
[202] The \yar European states, primarily Prussia, to the Austrian Habsburgs' possessions which, after the death of Charles VI, passed to his daughter Maria Theresa, there being no male heir. Prussia's allies were France, Bavaria, Saxony (at the beginning) and other states. England, which strove to weaken France — its commercial and colonial rival — fought on the side of Austria, also supported by the Netherlands, Sardinia (Piedmont) and Russia. As a result of the war, Prussia seized and annexed Silesia, but the main Habsburgs' possessions remained in the hands of Maria Theresa.
[203] The Treaty of Oliva, signed on May 3, 1660 (near Gdansk) between Sweden, on the one hand, and Poland (Rzecz Pospolita), Austria and Brandenburg, on the other, ended the war between these states in the latter half of the 1650s. The treaty confirmed the transfer of a number of Polish lands in the Baltic area to Sweden and the earlier Polish-Brandenburg treaties under which Poland renounced its supreme rights to the Duchy of Prussia (formerly belonging to the Teutonic order) annexed to Brandenburg in the early seventeenth century as a Polish fief. France acted as mediator in concluding the treaty.
[204] Poland did n o t take part in the Seven Years' War (see Note 201), but August III, as the Elector of Saxony, fought against Prussia. Troops of the two belligerents passed through Polish territory devastating the country.
[205] Under the Treaty of Wehlau of September 19, 1657, which formalised an alliance of Poland and Brandenburg against Sweden (until then Brandenburg fought on the side of the Swedes against Poland), the King of Poland renounced his supreme rights to the Duchy of Prussia and pledged himself to render military aid to Brandenburg.
[206] A treaty of friendship and alliance between Russia and Prussia, signed on April 14, 1764, envisaged joint action by the two parties in the Polish question.
[207] T h e Confederation of Bar, formed in Bar (Podolia) on February 29, 1768, represented chiefly the conservative Polish nobility (szlachta) who wanted to preserve the privileges of the Catholic Church, and opposed the granting of equal rights to other believers (Orthodox and Protestant), the reform of the political system and the limitation of feudal freedoms. At the same time the Confederation opposed Russia's interference in the home affairs of Poland, and this attracted patriotic elements to it despite its reactionary programme. Various groups of magnates within the Confederation waged a fierce struggle for supremacy. Internal struggle in Poland (1768-72) enabled the neighbouring countries to reach an agreement on the first partition of Poland (see Note 111).
[208] The Treaty of Kudjuk Kainardji (Kuchuk Kainarji), signed between Russia and Turkey on July 21, 1774, put an end to the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-74, in which Turkey was defeated. By that treaty Russia obtained the Black Sea coast between the Dnieper and the Southern Bug with the fortress of Kinburn, and also Azov, Kerch and Jenikale, and secured independent status for the Crimea, facilitating its incorporation into Russia. Russian merchant ships were granted the right of free passage through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. The Sultan was to grant a «number of privileges to the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey.
[209] A reference to the battle of July 5-7, 1770 between the Russian fleet, which had undertaken an expedition from the Baltic Sea into the region of the Greek archipelago in the Mediterranean, and the Turkish naval forces. On July 5, the Russians defeated them in the Chios Straits, trapped their ships in the Bay of Tschesmé (western coast of Asia Minor), and in the small hours of July 7 almost entirely destroyed the Turkish fleet there. This victory played an important role in the outcome, advantageous for Russia, of the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-74.
[210] Relying on his own army and France's financial and diplomatic support, Gustavus III of Sweden staged a coup d'état on August 19, 1772. The regime of an aristocratic oligarchy was in fact replaced by absolute monarchy.
[211] The Directory consisted of five directors one of whom was re-elected every year and was the leading executive body in France, founded under the 1795 Constitution after the fall of the Jacobin revolutionary dictatorship in the summer of 1794. The Directory existed until November 9-10, 1799 (18-19 Brumaire according to the Republican calendar), when General Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup d'état and established a dictatorship in France. He concentrated all government power in his hands as a first Consul and was proclaimed Emperor in 1804.
[212] The Congress of Verdun (1792), at which Britain and Holland were represented, was convened on the initiative of Prussia and Russia. Frederick William II, defeated in the struggle against the French Republic, sent a Note to the Congress on October 25, demanding that his losses should be compensated by Polish lands.
[213] Marx is referring to the so-called Targowicze Confederation, a reactionary association of Polish magnates set up in the spring of 1792 to abrogate" the progressive reforms of the four-year Sejm (1788-92) which restricted the arbitrary rule of the aristocracy. The confederates' treacherous activities weakened Polish resistance to Prussian and Russian troops and facilitated a second partition of Poland by these states in 1793 (see Note 111). The Polish people reacted to the partition and national betrayal by the liberation uprising of 1794 under the leadership of Tadeusz Kosciuszko.
[214] Prussia and France started unofficial negotiations on a separate peace treaty in July 1794. At first, France insisted that Prussia should return Polish lands, but at subsequent talks and in the Basle Peace Treaty of April 5, 1795 (mentioned below in the text) it recognised the partition of Poland and guaranteed Prussia its possessions on the eastern frontier in exchange for territorial concessions in the west and Prussia's withdrawal from the anti-French coalition.
[215] A reference to the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-91 that ended in a Russian victory. As a result, the Crimea's annexation to Russia was confirmed and Russia's south-western frontier was established along the Dniester.
[217] The Treaty of Campo Formio was concluded by General Bonaparte and Austria's representatives on October 17, 1797, after the Leoben armistice agreement in April. The treaty formalised Austria's withdrawal from the first anti-French coalition, its relinquishment of its possessions in Northern Italy where the Cisalpine Republic was formed under French protectorate, and also other concessions (Belgium was virtually ceded to France, etc.).
[218] An inaccuracy in the text: General Vielhorski commanded the Polish legion in the Mantua garrison defending the city against Austrian and Russian troops during the war between France and the second European coalition (Britain, Austria, Russia, Naples, Turkey, etc.). Mantua capitulated to the Austrian command on July 27, 1799.
[219] The Great Army (Grande Armée)—the main body of French armed forces operating in the main theatres of the Napoleonic wars. Apart from French troops, it included contingents from countries conquered by Napoleon (Italy, Holland and German states) and also Polish legions.
[220] At the Battle of Marengo (Northern Italy) on June 14, 1800 Napoleon's army defeated the Austrian troops. In the Battle of Hohenlinden (Bavaria) on December 3, 1800 the French army under Moreau defeated the Austrians. The outcome of these two battles was of great importance for France's victory over the forces of the second European coalition, p. 322
[221] The Treaty of Lunéville, concluded between France and Austria on February 9, 1801, confirmed in the main the terms of the Campo Formio Treaty of 1797. The conclusion of the Lunéville Treaty marked the virtual collapse of the second anti-French coalition.
[222] A reference to the Franco-Russian negotiations opened by Paul I's representatives in Paris in January 1801 with a view to concluding a peace treaty with France. The Treaty was signed in Paris on October 8, 1801 during the reign of Alexander I.
[223] T h e Treaty of Amiens was signed on March 27, 1802 by Napoleonic France and Britain. It was actually a brief truce in their struggle for supremacy, which was resumed in May 1803.
[224] The Polish legions, reformed into infantry demi-brigadesof the French army, were sent to Haiti (St. Domingo, French West Indies) to suppress a local liberation uprising. Most of the legionaries died of diseases or were killed fighting the insurgents.
[225] The treaties of Tilsit—peace treaties signed on July 7 and 9, 1807 by Napoleonic France and member countries of the fourth anti-French coalition, Russia and Prussia, which were defeated in the campaigns of 1806 and 1807. In an attempt to split the defeated powers, Napoleon made no territorial claims on Russia and even succeeded in transferring part of the Prussian monarchy's eastern lands to that country. He concluded an alliance with Alexander I when the two emperors met in Erfurt in the autumn of 1808. The treaties imposed harsh terms on Prussia, which lost nearly half its territory to the German states dependent on France, was made to pay indemnities, and had to reduce its army. Russia, like Prussia, had to break the alliance with Britain and join Napoleon's Continental System, or Continental Blockade, which was to its disadvantage. Napoleon formed the vassal Duchy of Warsaw on Polish territory seized by Prussia during the partitions of Poland. Frederick August of Saxony, a French figurehead, was proclaimed Duke. Napoleon planned to use the duchy as a springboard in the event of war with Russia.
[1] On September 28, 1864 an international meeting was held at St. Martin's Hall,. Long Acre, London. It was organised by the London trade-union leaders and a group of Paris Proudhonist workers jointly with the representatives of German, Italian and other foreign workers then living in London and a number of prominent European democratic émigrés. The meeting resolved to found an International Working Men's Association (later known as the First International) and elected a Provisional Committee which shortly afterwards constituted itself as the leading body of the Association. This body, known as the General Council of the International, was mainly called the Central Council until the end of 1866. Karl Marx was elected to this Committee and later to the Sub-Committee appointed at its first meeting on October 5 to draw up the Association's programme documents. The Sub-Committee, or Standing Committee, subsequently functioned as an executive body and included the President of the Central (General) Council (until autumn 1867, when this post was abolished), the General Secretary and the corresponding secretaries for different countries. Marx did not attend its first meetings, when the Sub-Committee drew up a document consisting of an introductory declaration of principles, written by the Owenite John Weston and edited by the French petty-bourgeois democrat Victor Le Lubez, and the Rules of the Italian workers' societies, drawn up by Mazzini and translated into English by the Italian Luigi Wolff. This document, edited by Le Lubez, was discussed at the Sub-Committee meeting on October 15 about which Marx was informed too late for him to attend, and at the Provisional Committee meeting on October 18, when Marx first familiarised himself with this material. His critical assessment of it is to be found in his letter to Engels of November 4, 1864 (see present edition, Vol. 42). Circumstances did not allow Marx to prevent the Provisional Committee's approval of the declaration of principles and the Rules, but he convinced the Committee members that the document needed polishing and insisted on referring it back to the Sub-Committee for final editing. On October 20 the Sub-Committee met at Marx's house; at that meeting th^7 managed to edit only the first point of the Rules. By the next meeting of the Sub-Committee on October 27 Marx had completely revised the submitted document. He wrote a new document — the Inaugural Address of the 17* he altered the Preamble to the Rules, discarding the loosely-phrased declaration of principles, reduced the 40 points of the Rules to 10, and formulated them in a way which expressed the proletarian nature of the organisation then being founded, and eliminated all Mazzinian organisational principles (petty regulation typical of secret societies, etc.). The Sub-Committee approved the Address and the Rules as drawn up by Marx, stipulating, however, that two declarative phrases on "rights and duties" and "truth, justice, and morality" be inserted in the Preamble to the Rules. On November 1, 1864 both documents were unanimously approved by the Provisional Committee. On the proposal of a Committee member, Whitlock, Marx supplemented the Inaugural Address with a note on carbon and nitrogen as most important elements of food. The Inaugural Address was first published by The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 160, November 5, 1864 without the sanction of the Central Council and as an offprint to be sent to various newspapers. Marx strongly disapproved of this publication which contained a number of misprints (see this volume, p. 353). In November 1864 the Address and the Rules were published in London as a pamphlet Address and Provisional Rules of the Working Men's International Association, Established September 28, 1864, at a Public Meeting Held at St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, London. On the decision of the Central Council of May 9, 1866 the English version of the Inaugural Address, the Provisional Rules and some other documents were again published as a pamphlet in London in August that year. The Address was also published in The Miner & Workman's Advocate, No. 93, December 10, 1864. The German authorised translation entitled "Manifest an die arbeitende Klasse Europa's" was published in Der Social-Demokrat, Nos. 2 and 3, December 21 and 30, 1864. During 1865, 1866 and later, various translations of the Inaugural Address appeared: into French in Paris, Geneva and Brussels; into Italian in Genoa and Naples; into German in Leipzig, Geneva, Berlin and Vienna in 1866 and 1868; into Hungarian in Pest in 1868; into Russian in Geneva in 1871; into Spanish and Portuguese in Madrid and Lisbon in 1873. Various German translations continued to be published in Germany and Switzerland (Zurich) in the early 1870s as well. The Inaugural Address has survived in two manuscript copies written by Mrs. Marx and Jenny Marx (Marx's daughter), and copies of pamphlets with Marx's corrections. In this volume the document is published according to the English pamphlet of 1864. The most important differences between the English version and the German authorised translation are given in footnotes. At the end of the pamphlet there was a list of the Central Council members: "Names and Nationalities of the Central Provisional Council. "English: Longmaid, Worley, Leno, Whitlock, Fox, Blackmore, Hartwell, Pidgeon, Lucraft, Weston, Dell, Shearman, Nieass, Shaw, Lake, Buckley, Odger, Howell, Osborne, Carter, Gray, Wheeler, Stainsby, Morgan, Grossmith, Cremer, Dick. "French: Dénouai, Le Lubez, Jourdain, Morrissot, Leroux, Bordage, Bocquet, Talandier, Dupont. "Italian: L. Wolff, Fontana, Setacci, Aldovrandi, Lama, Solustri. "Swiss: Nusperli, Jung. "German: Eccarius, Wolff, Otto, Lessner, Pfänder, Lochner, Marx, Kaub, Bolleter. "Polish: Holtorp, Rybczinski. George Odger, President of the Central Council. George W. Wheeler, Honorary Treasurer. Karl Marx, Honorary Corresponding Secretary for Germany. G. P. Fontana, Honorary Corresponding Secretary for Italy. /. E. Holtorp, Honorary Corresponding Secretary for Poland. Hermann F. Jung, Honorary Corresponding Secretary for Switzerland. V. Le Lubez, Honorary Corresponding Secretary for France. William R. Cremer, Honorary General Secretary.»
[226] The Ionian Islands, annexed by France under the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797), were seized by the allied fleet of Russia, Turkey and Britain during the war of the second European coalition against France (1798-1801). The islands were under Russia's control until the Tilsit Peace of 1807, which recognised France's sovereignty over them. The Vienna Congress of 1814-15 established Britain's protectorate over the Ionian Islands.
[3] Garottes—robbers who strangled their victims. In the early 1860s such attacks often occurred in London and were a subject of special debate in Parliament.
[228] The convention signed by Chancellor Rumyantsev and Napoleon's Ambassador Caulaincourt in St. Petersburg on January 4, 1810 was not ratified because the St. Petersburg Court refused to give its consent to the marriage of the Grand Princess Anna Pavlovna and Napoleon.
[229] The 100 days—the period between Napoleon's arrival in Paris from Elba on March 20, 1815 and his second deposition on June 22 of the same year after his defeat at Waterloo on June 18. The manuscript breaks off with the words "100 days". An idea of what Marx said next can only be partly gleaned from the concluding text of his preparatory materials for the polemics against Fox, written by Marx in English and French and reproduced below. French quotations are translated into English; longer passages are placed in asterisks; the explanations in square brackets have been provided by the editors. [...] Napoleon told the deputies of Warsaw that he did not want a national war. H e took possession of the old Polish provinces in his name, not in that of Poland. The Polish army he disperses amongst the Grand Army. It was, therefore, not the disaster of Napoleon which caused him to abandon Poland, but it was his renewed betrayal of Poland, that caused his disaster. The enthusiasm in Poland was above all checked by the infamous conduct of the troops under the kings of Westphalia [Jerome Bonaparte] and Naples [Joachim Murat]; under Vandamme etc. They were worse than Russians. In Lithuania, besides, the grandees were brought over by George Adam Czartoryski to Alexander's side. Hence no national demonstrations and movements, when the French entered. * Fearing even that the Poles may start a war with Russia in their own interests, Napoleon dispersed their 80,000 troops in his Great Army — this is what produced a very pernicious effect on this campaign.* With a reconstituted Poland he might have restored himself from his disasters and waited u p o n the return of good weather on the lines of the Niémen, Bug and Narew. Nobody will wonder at Napoleon's tremendous blunder. Charras (colonel) has shown in his Histoire des cent jours that that despot rather than have a truly national and revolutionary war in France after his defeat at Waterloo, preferred to succumb to the Coalition. At the same time not to forget: * "Poland was literally ravaged by the half-million soldiers composing the Great Army, whom it was obliged to feed" * [Sawaszkiewicz, op. cit., p. 96]. Those who want to be informed upon the details as to this point ought to read: "Abbé de Pradt, Histoire de l'Ambassade dans le Grand Duché de Varsovie en 2nd edit. Paris, 1815." This Abbé was Napoleon's ambassador at Warsaw 1812, at that time. The secret instructions which de Pradt received from Napoleon, amounted to this: "he should arouse in the Poles a patriotic enthusiasm and excite them to the most extensive war preparations, but avoid giving any nourishment to the hope of a restoration of Poland." Is "Sawaszkiewicz" wrong when he says: * "The Poles fought abroad exclusively in the interests of France. Never did France undertake a single war in the interests of Poland: on the contrary it always sacrificed its ally for the sake of its own, ill-understood interests" * [op. cit., p. 85]. Restoration. 3 January 1815. Secret treaty of Austria, France, England against Russia and Prussia. (Restoration of Poland one of the articles.) (Brought about by Talleyrand.) (It cannot be denied that the correspondence between Castlereagh and Alexander, respecting the kingdom of Poland, Vienna, October, November 1814 (laid before the House of Commons 1847) does great honour to Castlereagh.) This treaty paralysed and annulled by Napoleon's return from Elba. Talleyrand, the only Anti-Russian minister of the Restoration, fell in disgrace. 1821 at Hanover agreement between Metternich and Castlereagh at In Hanover. Richelieu, the French Premier under Louis XVIII, Russian minister. Chateaubriand (see his Congrès de Vérone) afterwards tool of Alexander. Polignac made treaty with Russia for the partition of Turkey, and the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France, when the Revolution of July (1830) took place. By the secret despatches, found after Grand duke's Constantine flight from Warsaw, and published in the "Portfolio", 1836, it is seen — see f. i. despatch of Pozzo di Borgo, Paris, December, 1815—that Russia considered Metternich (Austria) as the only serious impediment in her way, but that she was also not quite content with England. In an account to Nesselrode Pozzo di Borgo says: "Metternich addressed himself to England with the view of arming her against the Emperor, and he repeats his attempts at every phase which events present to him. He accredits the idea that all the governments are exposed to internal revolutions, because Russia would compel the Sultan to observe treaties; and he succeeds in intimidating many of them. He tampered with the French ministry, and it resisted, and he raises up internal broils because of that resistance. On the one hand he flatters the Bonapartists, and encourages them to revive the memory of the son of Napoleon [Herzog von Reichstadt]; on the other, he appropriates to himself the Gazette de France and the Quotidienne, pretended representatives of true royalism and Jesuitism; and these papers, so-called Christian, become Turk, overwhelm the public with a deluge of insults and falsehoods against us. These truths, Count, escape no one here. The French ministry is convinced of them, it repeats and confirms them to me constantly." Louis Philippe. A single night's sleep on the velvet cushions of the Tuileries was enough to chase all liberal aspirations from the mind of Louis Philippe. In an autograph and submissive appeal to the father of all the Russias he prostituted both his dignity and the revolution by representing himself as an involuntary instrument in the current of events, and apologised for the charter he had promised to France. It was characteristic of the man—before the Polish Revolution: he did not scruple to encourage the refugees of Spain, led by Mina, Valdes, and Torrijos against the bigotted Bourbon king [Ferdinand VII], who refused to acknowledge his dignity, and whose minister had issued a formal circular, condemna-tory of the July revolution. These refugees paid dearly for their confidence placed in the French cabinet. Provided with arms and money, and incited to war by the most unequivocal assurances, they were afterwards permitted to be pursued by the Spanish army across the French frontiers, there to be hewn down or carried off. Outbreak in Warsaw 29 November 1830. Prince Metternich indulged in a scheme for the reconstruction of Poland, in favour of an Austrian prince, and broached it to England and France; but as Louis Philippe would not act without England, and as Palmerston proved true to the Czar [Nicholas], the whole was quashed in embryo.... The ambitious designs of the Emperor Francis on Poland soon vanished, before the disturbed state of Italy. Louis Philippe's conduct was the more infamous, since the Polish insurrection had saved France from a new Anti-jacobin war; since Prussia's convention with Russia against France, and her active measures against Russian Poland, and the general state in Germany allowed Louis Philippe to act without any regard whatever to England. He might have forced Palmerston, because England herself then in a revolutionary upheaving, and the Whig ministry, as Peel told them, lived only upon the "French Alliance". The Russians, on the news of the revolution, of the barricades in Paris, determined to march upon France ... one of their first measures was to strengthen the Russian (not Polish) garrison of Warsaw with fresh Russian troops, in order to facilitate the movement of Constantine's Polish army towards the French frontier. Now, this location of Russian garrisons in Warsaw and elsewhere, was one of the gross violations of their promised constitution.... Some of their bravest young men flew to arms and attacked the Russian garrison and ere long the Polish population rose and joined them as if with one heart. 1831. Louis Philippe in his crown speech: "that the nationality of Poland shall not perish". The French chamber of deputies answered in the same strain. Afterwards Sébastiani: * order is reigning in Warsaw.* (Casimir Périer told the chamber on 7 March 1832, that Poland had not lost her treaty rights; on 26 February had Russia issued her statute, which made a Russian province of Poland.) The Polish nation (that is to say the diplomatic clique) relied on the French "compliments". An intimation was given to the Polish generals, that if they delayed attacking the Russian army for 2 months, their security would be guaranteed. The Polish generals did delay — that fatal delay, and Poland was ruined, not by the arms of Russia, but by the promises of France (and Austria). Lafayette communicated against the denials of Guizot, Thiers, Périer, Sébastiani, to the chamber of deputies the documentary proofs; 1) that the Poles had broken the Russian coalition against France; 2) that Louis Philippe had caused the Poles to prolong their resistance for 2 months; 3) that it had quite been in the power of France, by one firm declaration, as they had made it on behalf of Belgium, to prevent the Prussian help which in fact decided the Russian victory. leaving her! Well! Let her die! Her children are accustomed to die for us" (B. Sarrans, Lafayette et la Révolution de 1830, Paris, 1832, t. 2, pp. 157, 160-61). 19 and 20 September 1831. The Minister of Foreign Affairs [Sébastiani] vigorously defended himself against the accusation that he had advised the Polish government to postpone the struggle for another 2 months, so as to give France time to intervene in favour of Poland. Lafayette exposed him as a liar by producing documents confirming this fact. After a few explanations concerning the conduct of the French consul [Durant] in Warsaw, who, before taking his oath to the new, insurrectionist government, had dared to ask the permission of the Emperor of Russia, * he shows that the French cabinet by his advice first paralysed the means of defence, and afterwards prolonged the insurrection upon false pretences. He read: 1 ) Official declaration of Czartoryski, when Foreign Minister of the insurrectional government:* "Having placed our confidence in them" *(the cabinets)*, "we did not make use of all the internal and external resources... had it not been for the promises of the cabinets, we could have struck a blow which could have proved decisive; but we thought that we must wait a little" * [Lelewel, Histoire de Pologne, t. 1, p. 359]. (Lelewel says that the diplomatie clique by suppressing the Patriotic Society, opposing the emancipation of the peasants, and proclaiming the Constitutional Monarchy, spoiled everything.) 2) Lafayette read a letter, signed by General Kniaziewics and L. Plater d.d. Paris, 20 September 1831, where it is said: * "that it was the Minister of Foreign Affairs who suggested, on July 7, that we should send a messenger to Warsaw whose travelling expenses he had covered; that the purpose of sending this messenger was, as His Excellency Count Sébastiani told us, to convince our government to wait another 2 months because it was the time necessary for negotiations". "To the dictation of the French government,* the Polish Embassy at Paris wrote to Czartoryski * 'that in 2 months the affairs will be arranged and that they should bide their time until then'"* [B. Sarrans, op. cit., t. 2, pp. 255-56, 324]. Sébastiani! The Polish Refugees, disembarked from Prussia on the island Aix, were reduced to misery. The French government would not allow them any other asylum than Algiers. They say in their petition to Louis Philippe, Aix, 21 September 1832: "Orders are announced as proceeding from Your Majesty, to organize a Polish battalion of us, in conformity with the ordinance of March 10, 1832. The stipulations contained in it, we consider to be repugnant to our custom, our honour, and our glory. A Polish soldier has never ranked among mercenaries; he has fought but for his domestic hearth, for his liberty, and for the freedom of his neighbours, and for that of France.... We learn with regret that France is interdicted to us. We did not hesitate to present a petition to Your Majesty's ministers with respect to what we called our transportation to Algiers.... Sire, you would not permit, we trust, that an expedition, not unlike that formerly sent to St. Domingo, should annihilate the last wrecks of ill-fated Poland" [Polonia, London, 1832, No. 3, pp. 170-71]. Blanqui — and under Louis Philippe the men of the rue Transnonain [worker participants in the Republican uprising in Paris in 1834]—were true friends of Poland. But their acts do not belong to the traditions of the French Foreign Office!
[195] This refers to Memoir on Russia, for the Instruction of the Present Emperor. Drawn in 1837, published in The Free Press on July 13, 1859. This up by the Cabinet document, which was claimed to be an instruction for the heir to the Russian throne, the future Emperor Alexander II, was reprinted from the conservative newspaper Preußisches Wochenblatt zur Besprechung politischer Tagesfragen, Nos. 23, 24 and 25, July 9, 16 and 23, 1855. As was later established, it was a forgery.