The Duchy of Warsaw existed in 1807–1815. It was created by Napoleon, and although formally considered independent, in fact it was a satellite of France. In the event of a victory over Russia, Bonaparte was going to transform it into a kingdom, but these plans were not destined to come true. After the defeat of France from the allies, the Duchy of Warsaw was divided among its neighbors: Austria, Prussia and Russia.
Backstory
At the end of the 18th century, after the divisions of the Commonwe alth, part of Poland was annexed to Prussia. The attitude of the local population towards the German authorities was extremely negative. Meanwhile, while the Polish drama was being played out in the east of Europe, the Great French Revolution broke out in the west of the Old World. Soon Napoleon came to power in Paris. He led the struggle of the French against the rest of the European monarchies, who saw the fall of the Bourbons as a threat to their own existence. Napoleon won campaign after campaign. In the conquered European lands, hearranged a new order and established civil liberties by analogy with those that have recently appeared in France.
Thus, for the Poles, who lived under the yoke of foreign rule, Bonaparte became a symbol of hope for imminent change. Representatives of the bourgeois class were waiting for French help. This confidence had its reasons, because Napoleon fought with Prussia, which meant that the two countries have a common enemy. With each defeat of the monarchist coalitions, nationalist sentiments in Poland grew stronger and stronger. In 1806 Bonaparte's army entered Prussia.
Polish lands occupied by the French Napoleon gave under the auspices of a special temporary government commission. Marshal Stanislav Malakhovskiy became its leader. The new authority was engaged in equipping and feeding the Polish and French troops. In addition, the commission canceled the Prussian laws and restored the old legislation of the times of the Commonwe alth.
Establishment of the Duchy
In 1807, the Peace of Tilsit was signed between France and its opponents. According to this document, the Duchy of Warsaw, independent of Prussia, arose. This new Polish state received the lands assigned to the Germans, according to the II and III sections of the Commonwe alth. However, the Duchy remained without access to the B altic Sea. Napoleon gave the disputed Bialystok region to the Russian Emperor Alexander I.
The area of the newly formed state was 101 thousand square meters. km. It was home to 2.5 million people. Gdansk received a special status. He became freecity (similar to the era of the Holy Roman Empire) under the supervision of the French governor.
Napoleon Project
The artificially created Duchy of Warsaw lasted only 8 years. This period fell on the period of the greatest successes of Napoleon in the foreign policy arena. Of course, despite the imaginary independence, the Duchy of Warsaw has always remained a satellite of France, like many other newly formed states in Western Europe. Poland became the eastern bastion of the Napoleonic empire. Its significance was extremely great in connection with the inevitable approaching conflict with Russia. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1812 the Duchy of Warsaw suffered huge losses. His army, sent to Russia, numbered about 100 thousand people. The status of the country as a military camp was also confirmed by the fact that Napoleon distributed part of the Polish state property to his French generals and marshals.
In July 1807, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw received its own constitution. The document signing ceremony took place in Dresden. The new basic law recognized the importance of the Sejm and the dominant position of the Polish nobility. Thus, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw received a somewhat looser constitution than those adopted in other European states created by Napoleon.
The French emperor removed the Jacobins from power in Poland. The consequence of his intervention was that the Seimas had a preponderance in favor of the landed nobility and aristocracy. Key Polish politicians were Stanisław Potocki (Chairman of the State Council), Felix Lubensky (Minister of Justice), Tadeusz Matuszewicz (Minister of Finance) and Jozef Poniatowski (Army Organizer and Minister of War).
Power
Formally, the Duchy of Warsaw was a monarchy. It concluded a union with Saxony. Thus, the ruler of this German state, Friedrich August I, became a duke. The monarch had the right to change and supplement the constitution, to make adjustments to the work of the Sejm. The government was subordinate to him.
The Sejm had two chambers - the Embassy hut and the Senate. This authority, due to historical tradition, has become another stronghold of the influence of the nobility (gentry). Interestingly, the Warsaw constitution contradicted other Napoleonic constitutions (for example, Westphalian and Naples) in the sense that it fixed the principle of not appointing, but electing a parliament.
Many state features of the Duchy of Warsaw were adopted from revolutionary France. Voevodas, bishops and castellans sat in the Senate. All of them were presented in the same proportions. The Senate, unlike the Embassy hut, was replenished according to the appointments of the monarch. In the commune (volost) assemblies, the majority was mainly assigned to industrialists and landowners who were not nobles.
The Council of State became a replica of the French system in the Duchy of Warsaw. The monarch was its chairman. The council also included ministers. This body drafted bills, resolved disputes between administrative andjudicial authorities. Also, the Council of State performed advisory functions under the duke.
Seim
The Sejm was responsible for taxes, criminal and civil law. Also in his charge was the coinage of the Duchy of Warsaw. Much broader powers of the monarch extended to legislation on administrative and political matters. The duke also regulated the budget. Draft laws were written in the State Council. The Sejm could only reject or accept them. Under this authority, a commission worked that proposed its own amendments to laws, but in this case the final word was with the State Council.
For the entire time of its existence, the Seimas met only three times: in 1809, 1811 and 1812. The last session was extraordinary. It was then, because of the decision of the Sejm, that the Patriotic War began with the Duchy of Warsaw, which took the side of Napoleon. Bonaparte, passing through Poland, himself initiated the convocation of an emergency session. It is interesting that at the same time the French emperor began the process of reviving the union with Lithuania. Relations between Vilnius and Warsaw also worried Alexander I. The Russian emperor tried to win over the Lithuanians to his side, promising them the revival of the Grand Duchy. One way or another, but the project of the new Commonwe alth did not take place. The future of Poland was determined not by agreements, but by the war between France and Russia. The accession of the Duchy of Warsaw and the decisions of the Congress of Vienna left the idea of a Polish-Lithuanian union in the past.
Government
GovernmentThe duchy consisted of 6 ministers: interior, justice, religion, finance, police and military. It met in Warsaw. At the same time, the Saxon prince lived in Dresden. For this reason, there was always an intermediary between him and the government. In addition, when discussing particularly important decisions in both domestic and foreign policy, the decisive word was left to the French residents.
Also, the activities of the government were under the control of the State Council. At the same time, the ministers did not depend on the Sejm in any way. Each department in the government was monocratic. In other words, the bureaucratic hierarchy made the minister the key figure in his field. His subordinates could not challenge the decisions of their superior. The ministries of police and internal affairs were of particular importance. They had to monitor the maintenance of order in the state. In emergencies, the Minister of Police could even use the Special Guard himself.
Society
Together with political changes, the formation of the Duchy of Warsaw gave Poland a fundamentally new legislation. According to the adopted constitution, the principles of equality of all citizens before the law were enshrined. Although the division into estates was not abolished, it was noticeably limited. Already the first elections to the commune assemblies and the Sejm showed that the townspeople (philistines) were able to use the electoral rights that had just been given to them.
At the same time, in 1808, a decree was adopted that hit hard on the position of the Jews. They were temporarily (for 10 years) limited in their civil rights. According to the new rules,Jews had to request official permission to marry. The Jewish population was exempted from compulsory military service, but instead they were heavily taxed.
As in many other European countries, the sick peasant question remained the most important. The Duchy of Warsaw was created in Poland when serfdom still existed there. The new government abolished the feudal dependence of the villagers. However, the peasants were actually deprived of the land, which remained with the nobles. The reform never came to fruition. The constant Napoleonic wars caused the destruction and impoverishment of many households. The enmity between peasants and nobles only grew every year.
Victory over Austria
Moving in the wake of the Napoleonic policy, the Duchy of Warsaw went into inevitable conflict with the opponents of the French Emperor. In 1809, the War of the Fifth Coalition began. This time, France and its allies faced Austria, Britain, Sicily and Sardinia. Most of the Polish forces joined the army of Bonaparte himself. The corps of Jozef Poniatowski (about 14 thousand people) remained in the Duchy. The Austrian army attacked Saxony and the Duchy of Warsaw, which, in the conditions of the dispersion of Napoleonic forces, seemed easy prey.
A 36,000-strong army invaded Poland. On April 19, 1908, a general battle took place - the Battle of Rashinsky. The Poles were commanded by Jozef Poniatowski, the Austrians by Archduke Ferdinand Karl. The collision took place onrugged swampy terrain. The Poles fought hard, but finally retreated. Warsaw was soon surrendered. However, the general turn in the war of the Fifth Coalition was a stab in the back for the Austrians. In just a few weeks, the Poles went on the counteroffensive, returned all the territories taken away and, in addition, captured Sandomierz, Lublin, Lvov and Krakow. At the end of the war, according to the peace treaty, the Duchy of Warsaw annexed Western Galicia, thereby increasing its territory by one and a half times.
War with Russia
By the start of the war between France and Russia, the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1813) turned out to be a kind of buffer between the two main opponents. In June 1812, the Sejm, sitting in Warsaw, decided to take the side of Napoleon. The campaign of the French emperor in Russia failed. Departing east with an army of half a million, he returned to his homeland with several thousand ragged and starving officers.
The defeat of Napoleon also meant the imminent end that awaited the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The war spread to the Polish lands. On January 1, 1813, three columns under the command of Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov crossed the border river Neman and headed towards Polotsk. By this time, a few Polish-Saxon troops remained in the Duchy, which were not able to resist the Russian army that had gained momentum. In Poland, her famous foreign campaign began, ending with the capture of Paris.
Warsaw was peacefully taken on January 27th. In fact, the Duchyceased to exist. Part of the Poles, however, remained loyal to Napoleon. The 15,000th corps under the command of Jozef Poniatowski went to Austria, hoping that the French would still defeat the Russians, and the independence of the state would be restored. In Poland, only French units stationed on the Vistula resisted. However, they could not stop the enemy - the neutrality of Austria and Prussia, who decided to move away from the conflict, had an effect.
Abolition
When Napoleon was finally defeated, the victorious powers gathered in Vienna to determine the future of the Old World. The French emperor redrawn all the borders within the European continent - now other monarchs had to clear up this political mess. First of all, another partition of Poland took place. It coexisted with three powerful powers (Austria, Prussia and Russia) that were not interested in its existence.
May 3, 1815, according to the decision of the Vienna Congress, new borders were established in Eastern Europe. The division of Poland took place - the Duchy of Warsaw was abolished. Krakow, which was part of it, was proclaimed a free city with a republican state system. In this format, it existed until 1846.
Most of the Duchy of Warsaw became part of Russia. Emperor Alexander was proclaimed the Polish king. He granted autonomy and a liberal constitution to the new territories. Thus, although the Duchy of Warsaw became part of Russia, its natives lived muchfreer than the Russians themselves. The western lands of the abolished state were given to Prussia. They formed a new German province - the Grand Duchy of Poznań.
