love that speech, quite the idol of mine Bismarck is
What an unfortunate state for the porte, oh well, Prussia´s still there at the least
The “Magnificent Age” - Catherine II TL
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
What an unfortunate state for the porte, oh well, Prussia´s still there at the least
And, yet, in OTL there 5 (unless I missed something) major wars in the XIX century. To be fair, two of them were started by the Ottomans. Not that any of those were really “necessary”.
The best (economically) parts just by a pure geography would go to Prussia and Austria but there still are predominantly Orthodox pieces some of which are not bad at all and strategically important as well.
But so far I left the numerous domestic and some foreign affairs completely ignored. Still not sure what goes first, Poland or “the rest of the world”. 😉
34. Piece of cake #1
34. Piece of cake #1
“The war between Russia and Turkey mixed up the entire political system of Europe, a new field for activity opened; it was necessary to have no dexterity at all or be in a senseless numbness in order not to take advantage of such a favorable opportunity.”
Friedrich II
“The most merciful Sovereign decided to turn their own ingratitude to the Poles in accordance with the King of Prussia and to make at their expense their decent acquisitions both to the borders of her empire and the borders of her allied King of Prussia, following the measure of the Vienna court, which took into its own hands the eldership of Tsip with its circles according to some old claims.”
Count Panin to the Russian Ambassador to Vienna, Prince D.M.Golitsyn, 1771
“Prince Kaunitz has completely changed his system and not only does not want to oppose our species anymore, but after that he wants to enter all orders with us and the King of Prussia in a friendly way.”
Prince D.M.Golitsyn to Count Panin, 1772
“Having adopted a system of partition with the intention not to outrage the balance of states, maybe it was not necessary to seek solution from one Poland, which if it was not quite enough for an equal partition between the three courts, then there would be a means to take away more land from someone else who has a surplus in it.”
Prince Kaunitz to Prince D.M.Golitsyn, 1772
“Bon appétit ! messieurs !” [1]
Victor Hugo, ‘Ruy Blas’
“And Poland? What will become of it?” [2]
‘Marysia and Napoleon’
Even before the Russian-Ottoman war was over, the negotiations regarding who is going to get what from the PLC had intensified with some stumbling points getting clear and signing a peace greatly helped the Russian diplomacy.
Prussia. With all goings back and forth on the issue, Frederick kept bringing up the Danzig issue insisting that without it the whole schema would bring to Prussia nothing of value. In a meantime his troops stationed in the Royal Prussia kept looting the countryside collecting supplies well above the needs of their numbers and, contrary to the agreement between three potential consumers of the Polish pie, not paying anything.
But this did not sit well with the Russian government:
Austria. In April 1772, the Austrian ambassador to the PLC received a project from Vienna, which claimed almost a third of Polish territory, including Galicia and part of Volhynia, with the cities of Lublin, Helms and Vladimir Volynsky. Prince Lobkovich (Ambassador to St. Petersburg) and Van Switten (Ambassador to Berlin), to whom a similar document was sent, were instructed not to agree to any protests in respect of Austria's claims. Two items in the wish list were especially sensitive to the Poles: in Cracow the Polish royal archives had been stored and in Lwow region there were salt mines from which a considerable part of the king’s income was coming.
At the end of April, Vienna introduced a 20,000-strong army into the territory of Poland from Hungary, planning to concentrate another 70,000 soldiers on the borders with Silesia. Of course, a distance between this plan and its implementation was quite considerable and Joseph in correspondence with his brother was extremely skeptical on that account but the pan was announced and everybody involved was made aware of it. Frederick, extremely irritated by this turn of events, sounded the alarm. However, Panin not only refrained from any protests in connection with the actions of Austria, but also considered them useful for suppressing the activities of the confederates, which had strongholds near the Austrian border.
Actually, situation with the confederates had been developing in a somewhat strange or even funny way. After a failed attempt to abduct Stanislaw-August, the Court of Vienna stopped its support of the confederates: an attempt to commit an act of violence upon a legitimate monarch, even if one whom the Hapsburgs did not approve of, was as close to a sacrilege as it goes and can’t be condoned. However, the confederates and Austrian troops communicated with each other quite well and, before the Russian troops withdrew to the East, some confederate units even fled under protection of the Austrian invaders or surrendered to them the fortified places they held.
Intermission: On one of such occasions the confederates who defended a fortified monastery besieged by Suvorov (this, obviously, happened before he joined the 1st Army) managed to contact commander of a nearby Austrian detachment who sneaked at night few of his soldiers into the monastery and then requested from Suvorov to lift a siege because the place already has Austrian garrison. Luckily for everybody involved, Suvorov’s superior commander ordered him to withdrew because he was ready to attack both the monastery and the Austrians.
To make things more “interesting”, there was an alternative point of view in the PLC: quite a few people, including many influential figures, hold an opinion that the Austrians were the worst out of the three invaders. The Russians had serious reasons for the frustration after the PLC government got back on the issues already legitimized by the Sejm and dumped upon them all burden of a war with the confederates. The Prussians were an old and open enemy so the hostile behavior was expected. But the Austrians were friends who, for quite a while, were encouraging the Poles to resist to all Russian and Prussian requests. And now they were the most greedy ones.
In France Minister of the Foreign Affairs, Marquis de Choiseul, was replaced by the Duke of La Vrillière who, after few months in the office, was replaced by the Duke d’Aiguillon.
The new minister was making a military and administrative career fitting to his social position and, while being a governor of Brittany, managed to alienate its parliament and was ridiculed by the pamphleteers, after which he returned to the court and its intrigues. When Louis XV, acting on the advice of Madame du Barry, reorganised the government with a view to suppressing the resistance of the parlements, d'Aiguillon was made Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. His qualifications for this position were zero and elaborate system of the French diplomacy created by Choiseul was falling apart. Taking into an account that the Polish intrigue was quite convoluted and lacked any visible sense while costing money, which France did not have, the French officers sent to make army out of the confederates were recalled home (which they did with a great relief).
Bar Confederation. The only relatively good news for the PLC were those about the Bar Confederation and they were closely related to the international affairs. Specifically to the change of the French foreign policy.
Now, the Confederation was lacking political support from Austria, financial and military support from France, and expectations of the Ottoman invasion became so unrealistic that even the Confederation leaders understood this. Their regions of operation had been pretty much exhausted and even sympathetic szlachta could not supply and host them forever. Their raids, some of them quite daring, were leading nowhere and their numbers dwindled to insignificance. Some of the most notorious … oops… heroic leaders, like Pulaski, left the country to avoid the persecution, the big fish, like Hetman Oginski and Radziwill, made deals and returned to their estates and the small fish simply went back to their homes because nobody was interested in chasing or persecuting them. Definitely not Stanislaw-August who played (unsuccessfuly, as most of the things he did) a defense attorney at the trial of his own kidnappers. Of course, their exploits were going to be a subject of bragging in the drinking parties for the coming years but who cares?
Of course, even with the Confederation being R.I.P. by the natural causes, the PLC was a mess with the foreign troops being present on its territory, government of Stanislaw-August being inept and the King himself seemingly being capable only of two things: making a long pointless speeches against the occupying powers and begging Catherine for money. The szlachta was,, at the time free from drinking and other entertainments, frosting at its collective mouth on account of the dissidents conspiring to destroy the Republic. In which noble occupation they were supported by the Papal Nuncio and most of the Polish bishops. Not that there was any meaningful initiative from any corner to remedy the situation and save their beloved Republic.
Russia. Panin stood firmly for Poland to maintain its political independence after the partition, becoming a buffer between the three powers participating in the partition. His proposed comprehensive approach to assessing the equality of shares made it possible to prove the disproportion of the Austrian claims to Krakow and Prussian - to Danzig and Thorn. In general, however, the negotiations in the triple format were viscous, all the deadlines were broken. Frederick, who was particularly nervous in this regard, later lamented in his memoirs not only about the machinations of Kaunitz, but also about "lenteur et irrésolu tion des Russes". [4]
The slowness shown in St. Petersburg had its reasons. In the Council G.G. Orlov and his supporters openly stated that neither Prussia nor Austria, as powers that did not directly participate in the Russian-Turkish war, had the right to claim any territorial compensation. OTOH, Panin was advocating a “balanced approach” aimed to retaining the good relations with Prussia and perhaps restoring relations with Austria, which may become useful in the case of a future conflict with the Ottomans; regardless the assurances of a mutual friendship in the recent treaty, there was a fair chance that, as soon as it recuperates from the defeat, the Ottoman Empire will try to reclaim its losses: strategic importance of the Crimea was obvious and the Tatar population of the peninsula was unreliable at best, as their help to the Turkish landing at Alushta and the militant activities elsewhere demonstrated.
This circumstance played a role in the fact that when the Russian-Prussian contacts on Polish affairs entered the decisive phase (September - end of November 1771), Orlov found himself in Moscow, where he was engaged in the pacification of the Plague riot. Now he was back, rewarded for his performance in Moscow (where he demonstrated competence which nobody expected from him), but his influence was steadily diminishing. It was rumored that the only reason why Catherine still kept him in the Council was a fear of the “Adulthood Crisis” [5]: Orlov still was popular in the Guards.
Anyway, with the peace signed, Catherine had her domestic and international prestige soaring and, of at least equally important, she had, besides 30,000 in the PLC, at least 60 - 70,000 battle-tested experienced troops with very good generals free to use wherever she sees fit. And this not counting the new troops raised in 1770-71, which were finally equipped, trained and either marching to compensate the losses of the existing troops or forming the new regiments. This was “Ultima ratio regum” which came quite handy: in the summer of 1772, after Austria gave up its claims to Lublin, Helms and Vladimir Volynsky, all the disputed issues were finally agreed upon.
On July 25, two secret conventions were signed in St. Petersburg: one between Russia and Prussia, the other between Russia and Austria. It was based on the draft drawn up by Kaunitz, which differed from the Russian-Prussian convention of January 4 (15) by both the structure and the preamble, which focused on the fears of Poland's neighbors about the "complete disintegration of the Polish state". In the area of a shameless political demagoguery the Russian diplomats and Catherine still had to learn a lot from the Austrians. But they were learning fast both from the Austrians and Prussians.
_____________
[1] While this is not in English, the original will do. 😜
[2] In the movie Maria Walewska asks this question just before Napoleon puts out a candle.
[3] Among other items of a varied importance, the famous Danzig’s “Goldwasser” (root and herbal liqueur with small flakes of 23 karat gold suspended in it; 40% ABV) and “Kirschwasser” (brandy made from double distillation of morello cherries; 40 - 50% ABV) had a big consumer market in the Russian Empire (including its ruling elite) and to put supply of these strategic products into Old Fritz’s hands may create undesirable dependency from Prussia depriving Russian diplomacy of a freedom of diplomatic maneuver.
[4] slowness and irresolution of the Russians
[5] In October 1772 Paul will be 18 years old and there were wild guesses about all types of the potential problems related to his changed status. A greater role in the government? A co-ruler? An Emperor? This subject will be attended to later.
“The war between Russia and Turkey mixed up the entire political system of Europe, a new field for activity opened; it was necessary to have no dexterity at all or be in a senseless numbness in order not to take advantage of such a favorable opportunity.”
Friedrich II
“The most merciful Sovereign decided to turn their own ingratitude to the Poles in accordance with the King of Prussia and to make at their expense their decent acquisitions both to the borders of her empire and the borders of her allied King of Prussia, following the measure of the Vienna court, which took into its own hands the eldership of Tsip with its circles according to some old claims.”
Count Panin to the Russian Ambassador to Vienna, Prince D.M.Golitsyn, 1771
“Prince Kaunitz has completely changed his system and not only does not want to oppose our species anymore, but after that he wants to enter all orders with us and the King of Prussia in a friendly way.”
Prince D.M.Golitsyn to Count Panin, 1772
“Having adopted a system of partition with the intention not to outrage the balance of states, maybe it was not necessary to seek solution from one Poland, which if it was not quite enough for an equal partition between the three courts, then there would be a means to take away more land from someone else who has a surplus in it.”
Prince Kaunitz to Prince D.M.Golitsyn, 1772
“Bon appétit ! messieurs !” [1]
Victor Hugo, ‘Ruy Blas’
“And Poland? What will become of it?” [2]
‘Marysia and Napoleon’
Even before the Russian-Ottoman war was over, the negotiations regarding who is going to get what from the PLC had intensified with some stumbling points getting clear and signing a peace greatly helped the Russian diplomacy.
Prussia. With all goings back and forth on the issue, Frederick kept bringing up the Danzig issue insisting that without it the whole schema would bring to Prussia nothing of value. In a meantime his troops stationed in the Royal Prussia kept looting the countryside collecting supplies well above the needs of their numbers and, contrary to the agreement between three potential consumers of the Polish pie, not paying anything.
But this did not sit well with the Russian government:
- After the War of the Polish Succession Danzig got guarantees of its status from the Russian Empire.
- There was a noticeable Russian trade with it [3].
- Frederick would use it to choke pretty much all Polish trade so the Stanislaw-August will be begging for money even more often, which would become unbearably annoying.
- Why to give Frederick such a gift for pretty much nothing?
Austria. In April 1772, the Austrian ambassador to the PLC received a project from Vienna, which claimed almost a third of Polish territory, including Galicia and part of Volhynia, with the cities of Lublin, Helms and Vladimir Volynsky. Prince Lobkovich (Ambassador to St. Petersburg) and Van Switten (Ambassador to Berlin), to whom a similar document was sent, were instructed not to agree to any protests in respect of Austria's claims. Two items in the wish list were especially sensitive to the Poles: in Cracow the Polish royal archives had been stored and in Lwow region there were salt mines from which a considerable part of the king’s income was coming.
At the end of April, Vienna introduced a 20,000-strong army into the territory of Poland from Hungary, planning to concentrate another 70,000 soldiers on the borders with Silesia. Of course, a distance between this plan and its implementation was quite considerable and Joseph in correspondence with his brother was extremely skeptical on that account but the pan was announced and everybody involved was made aware of it. Frederick, extremely irritated by this turn of events, sounded the alarm. However, Panin not only refrained from any protests in connection with the actions of Austria, but also considered them useful for suppressing the activities of the confederates, which had strongholds near the Austrian border.
Actually, situation with the confederates had been developing in a somewhat strange or even funny way. After a failed attempt to abduct Stanislaw-August, the Court of Vienna stopped its support of the confederates: an attempt to commit an act of violence upon a legitimate monarch, even if one whom the Hapsburgs did not approve of, was as close to a sacrilege as it goes and can’t be condoned. However, the confederates and Austrian troops communicated with each other quite well and, before the Russian troops withdrew to the East, some confederate units even fled under protection of the Austrian invaders or surrendered to them the fortified places they held.
Intermission: On one of such occasions the confederates who defended a fortified monastery besieged by Suvorov (this, obviously, happened before he joined the 1st Army) managed to contact commander of a nearby Austrian detachment who sneaked at night few of his soldiers into the monastery and then requested from Suvorov to lift a siege because the place already has Austrian garrison. Luckily for everybody involved, Suvorov’s superior commander ordered him to withdrew because he was ready to attack both the monastery and the Austrians.
To make things more “interesting”, there was an alternative point of view in the PLC: quite a few people, including many influential figures, hold an opinion that the Austrians were the worst out of the three invaders. The Russians had serious reasons for the frustration after the PLC government got back on the issues already legitimized by the Sejm and dumped upon them all burden of a war with the confederates. The Prussians were an old and open enemy so the hostile behavior was expected. But the Austrians were friends who, for quite a while, were encouraging the Poles to resist to all Russian and Prussian requests. And now they were the most greedy ones.
In France Minister of the Foreign Affairs, Marquis de Choiseul, was replaced by the Duke of La Vrillière who, after few months in the office, was replaced by the Duke d’Aiguillon.
The new minister was making a military and administrative career fitting to his social position and, while being a governor of Brittany, managed to alienate its parliament and was ridiculed by the pamphleteers, after which he returned to the court and its intrigues. When Louis XV, acting on the advice of Madame du Barry, reorganised the government with a view to suppressing the resistance of the parlements, d'Aiguillon was made Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. His qualifications for this position were zero and elaborate system of the French diplomacy created by Choiseul was falling apart. Taking into an account that the Polish intrigue was quite convoluted and lacked any visible sense while costing money, which France did not have, the French officers sent to make army out of the confederates were recalled home (which they did with a great relief).
Bar Confederation. The only relatively good news for the PLC were those about the Bar Confederation and they were closely related to the international affairs. Specifically to the change of the French foreign policy.
Now, the Confederation was lacking political support from Austria, financial and military support from France, and expectations of the Ottoman invasion became so unrealistic that even the Confederation leaders understood this. Their regions of operation had been pretty much exhausted and even sympathetic szlachta could not supply and host them forever. Their raids, some of them quite daring, were leading nowhere and their numbers dwindled to insignificance. Some of the most notorious … oops… heroic leaders, like Pulaski, left the country to avoid the persecution, the big fish, like Hetman Oginski and Radziwill, made deals and returned to their estates and the small fish simply went back to their homes because nobody was interested in chasing or persecuting them. Definitely not Stanislaw-August who played (unsuccessfuly, as most of the things he did) a defense attorney at the trial of his own kidnappers. Of course, their exploits were going to be a subject of bragging in the drinking parties for the coming years but who cares?
Of course, even with the Confederation being R.I.P. by the natural causes, the PLC was a mess with the foreign troops being present on its territory, government of Stanislaw-August being inept and the King himself seemingly being capable only of two things: making a long pointless speeches against the occupying powers and begging Catherine for money. The szlachta was,, at the time free from drinking and other entertainments, frosting at its collective mouth on account of the dissidents conspiring to destroy the Republic. In which noble occupation they were supported by the Papal Nuncio and most of the Polish bishops. Not that there was any meaningful initiative from any corner to remedy the situation and save their beloved Republic.
Russia. Panin stood firmly for Poland to maintain its political independence after the partition, becoming a buffer between the three powers participating in the partition. His proposed comprehensive approach to assessing the equality of shares made it possible to prove the disproportion of the Austrian claims to Krakow and Prussian - to Danzig and Thorn. In general, however, the negotiations in the triple format were viscous, all the deadlines were broken. Frederick, who was particularly nervous in this regard, later lamented in his memoirs not only about the machinations of Kaunitz, but also about "lenteur et irrésolu tion des Russes". [4]
The slowness shown in St. Petersburg had its reasons. In the Council G.G. Orlov and his supporters openly stated that neither Prussia nor Austria, as powers that did not directly participate in the Russian-Turkish war, had the right to claim any territorial compensation. OTOH, Panin was advocating a “balanced approach” aimed to retaining the good relations with Prussia and perhaps restoring relations with Austria, which may become useful in the case of a future conflict with the Ottomans; regardless the assurances of a mutual friendship in the recent treaty, there was a fair chance that, as soon as it recuperates from the defeat, the Ottoman Empire will try to reclaim its losses: strategic importance of the Crimea was obvious and the Tatar population of the peninsula was unreliable at best, as their help to the Turkish landing at Alushta and the militant activities elsewhere demonstrated.
This circumstance played a role in the fact that when the Russian-Prussian contacts on Polish affairs entered the decisive phase (September - end of November 1771), Orlov found himself in Moscow, where he was engaged in the pacification of the Plague riot. Now he was back, rewarded for his performance in Moscow (where he demonstrated competence which nobody expected from him), but his influence was steadily diminishing. It was rumored that the only reason why Catherine still kept him in the Council was a fear of the “Adulthood Crisis” [5]: Orlov still was popular in the Guards.
Anyway, with the peace signed, Catherine had her domestic and international prestige soaring and, of at least equally important, she had, besides 30,000 in the PLC, at least 60 - 70,000 battle-tested experienced troops with very good generals free to use wherever she sees fit. And this not counting the new troops raised in 1770-71, which were finally equipped, trained and either marching to compensate the losses of the existing troops or forming the new regiments. This was “Ultima ratio regum” which came quite handy: in the summer of 1772, after Austria gave up its claims to Lublin, Helms and Vladimir Volynsky, all the disputed issues were finally agreed upon.
On July 25, two secret conventions were signed in St. Petersburg: one between Russia and Prussia, the other between Russia and Austria. It was based on the draft drawn up by Kaunitz, which differed from the Russian-Prussian convention of January 4 (15) by both the structure and the preamble, which focused on the fears of Poland's neighbors about the "complete disintegration of the Polish state". In the area of a shameless political demagoguery the Russian diplomats and Catherine still had to learn a lot from the Austrians. But they were learning fast both from the Austrians and Prussians.
_____________
[1] While this is not in English, the original will do. 😜
[2] In the movie Maria Walewska asks this question just before Napoleon puts out a candle.
[3] Among other items of a varied importance, the famous Danzig’s “Goldwasser” (root and herbal liqueur with small flakes of 23 karat gold suspended in it; 40% ABV) and “Kirschwasser” (brandy made from double distillation of morello cherries; 40 - 50% ABV) had a big consumer market in the Russian Empire (including its ruling elite) and to put supply of these strategic products into Old Fritz’s hands may create undesirable dependency from Prussia depriving Russian diplomacy of a freedom of diplomatic maneuver.
[4] slowness and irresolution of the Russians
[5] In October 1772 Paul will be 18 years old and there were wild guesses about all types of the potential problems related to his changed status. A greater role in the government? A co-ruler? An Emperor? This subject will be attended to later.
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Well that still means I have one, can you say the same my telugu friend?
You know it's gotten bad when even Polish rebel groups are getting pessimistic.