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cahnBackground: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
1764-1772 Foreign policy: Overview
Date: 2023-11-29 04:03 am (UTC)Today, I'll just post an overview. Please let me know if you can see this map, because I'm going to be including it over and over again:
It's a map of Europe from 1783 to 1790, which is slightly different than 1768-1772, but it's the best I could do, and we'll talk about the differences in detail in a later installment.
First, in order to understand 1768-1772, we're going to have to go back in time to 1764, but we'll only cover events to give us context for the First Polish Partition. There's going to be a lot of repetition, and that's by design to help retain some complex events that aren't always as exciting and memorable as the high-quality gossipy sensationalism content that salon usually delivers. :D
Our background is that the Seven Years' War has just ended in 1763. Nobody wants another war. Not Britain, not France, not Austria, not Russia, and certainly not the "hung on by the skin of my teeth" King of Prussia. Toward end of the year, August III (he who lost the posthumous PR war massively), king of Poland, dies, leaving Catherine in the best position to put a candidate on the throne.
In 1764, Catherine gives the job to her ex Poniatowski, thinking that he will be a nice obedient puppet king. Unfortunately, he has his own ideas about how to reform the country that differ from hers. His maternal family, the Czartoryskis, also have their own ideas about reforms. Then there are the conservatives with a different set of ideas.
Then there's Fritz, whose opinions will be relevant, because he and Russia end up in an alliance. Even as Catherine's junior partner, he can cause trouble for her in Poland, so there are times when he gets things his way by throwing his weight around.
In 1768, Catherine's ambassador Repnin (the one who treats Poniatowski like shit to undermine P's position) drives a bunch of unwanted reforms through the Sejm (senate/parliament of Poland). Immediately, riots break out, and are inflamed into civil war in Poland. This is the period of the Confederation of Bar, named after the group of people who confederated at the town of Bar in 1768 to resist the reforms. The civil war will last from 1768-1772.
Poland's semi-powerful neighbor the Ottoman Empire doesn't want their neighbor Russia de facto taking over Poland, so they start threatening war. Once the blood of Ottoman subjects is shed on Ottoman territory, the Turks declare war on Russia. This Russo-Turkish War will last from 1768 to 1774.
Russia will be massively victorious, crushing Turkish armies and navies and conquering territory wherever they go, especially in 1770. This will freak the heck out of Austria and to a lesser but still significant degree, Prussia.
In particular, Russia has just conquered Wallachia and Moldavia, which border on Habsburg territory. None of the Austrian triumvirate (MT, Joseph, Kaunitz) want to trade a weak Ottoman neighbor for a powerful Russian neighbor.
Fritz also doesn't want Russia getting out of control. Russia may be his ally, but one, he has to pay subsidies, and two, he lives perilously close to Russia (even if he never goes to East Prussia any more, lol, he still wants to keep it), and has had problems with it before (Zorndorf, Kunersdorf).
So for quite some time, different partition ideas are tossed around. I will go into those in more detail in the Austrian section, but suffice it to say that divvying up Poland was settled on to keep Russia from making Moldavia and Wallachia into nominally independent Russian satellites right on MT's doorstep.
Amazingly, on paper, Fritz has the weakest hand to play, but he (with Heinrich's help) manages to play his cards so well that he ends up with the best outcome of the First Polish Partition. Smallest territory, most strategic and economic value. And he doesn't even have to fight a 3.5 front war!
Having completed this overview, in subsequent installments we'll look at these events from the perspective of different countries, what motives drove each country, and how it reacted to developments.
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Overview
Date: 2023-12-08 01:07 am (UTC)Ha! Well, that's great for Fritz :)