The Napoleonic Period and After

THE NAPOLEONIC PERIOD AND AFTER After the third partition, the more high-spirited Poles, chiefly officers and soldiers of Kokiuszko's army, emigrated and formed, on Italian soil, the Polish Legions, which, during the next ten years, fought the battles of the French republic and of Napoleon all over Europe and even outside it, from Egypt to the West In dies. They were commanded by Dombrowski, one of Kokiuszko's ablest generals; but Kokiuszko himself stood aloof, distrusting Napoleon.

The Grand Duchy of Warsaw.

In 18o6 and 1807, when Napoleon defeated Prussia and engaged in a war with Russia, Polish soldiers once more appeared on Polish soil, and the hopes of the nation seemed near fulfilment. In fact, the peace of Tilsit resulted in the reconstruction of a Polish State out of the central provinces of Prussian Poland ; but Napoleon's anxiety to con ciliate Russia effectually prevented him from making his new creation large enough to be self-supporting. The grand-duchy of Warsaw, as it was called, originally consisted of about 1,85o sq.m., to which Western Galicia with Cracow, about 90o sq.m. more, were added in 1809, in consequence of Napoleon's war against Austria. The constitution was dictated by Napoleon : it was framed on the French model and on very advanced lines. Equality before the law (implying personal freedom of the peasant), absolute religious toleration, and highly-developed local autonomy, were its salient features. The king of Saxony, as grand duke, took the initiative in all legislative matters ; but the ad ministration was practically controlled by the French. In spite of being subject to most burdensome financial and military exigencies for the purposes of Napoleon's continuous wars, the small grand-duchy contrived, during the few years of its exist ence, to do much peaceful, productive, organizing work, especially in the educational and economic spheres.

Poland's hopes for greater things revived once more when Napoleon announced his war against Moscow (1812), as his "second Polish war." The grand-duchy, by an immense effort,

put an army corps of nearly 8o,000 men into the field. But the calamity which overtook Napoleon in Russia, also sealed the fortunes of the duchy. The remainder of the Polish troops faith fully followed Napoleon in his campaign of 1813-14, during which the heroic leader of the Poles, Prince Joseph Poniatowski (nephew of the last king), perished in covering the Emperor's retreat from Leipzig. The duchy was occupied by the Russians.

The Congress Kingdom, 1815-31.

Tsar Alexander I. had been united by youthful friendship to the most eminent Polish noble of his time, Prince Adam Czartoryski, and had even made him, on his accession, foreign minister of the Russian empire. On Napoleon's downfall the Poles, to whom Alexander did not spare promises and flatteries, entertained the highest hopes.

It was not Alexander's fault, indeed, if the Congress of Vienna, owing to jealousy among the great powers and to the entangle ment of the Polish question with that of Saxony and other terri tories, did not end in a re-union of Poland, even under the Russian sceptre, but confirmed the division of the country between the three partitioning powers. Cracow only, with a small surrounding territory, was erected into a free city republic. Great Poland, with Posen for its centre and a population of 81o,000, was left to Prussia. Austria remained in possession of Galicia with 1,5oo,000 inhabitants. The Eastern borderlands, from Lithuania and White Russia to Volhynia and the Ukraine, continued to be incorporated in Russia. The remnant of central Poland only—about three f ourths of the territory of Napoleon's grand-duchy of Warsaw— was constituted as the so-called Congress kingdom under the emperor of Russia as king of Poland. Guarantees of home rule in all parts of the divided country, and of free communication be tween them, were given by all powers concerned, only to prove soon more or less futile.