So, by now, we should be pretty familiar with the idea that at the end of the Seven Years' War, circa 1763-1768, Fritz wants:
- Time to recover from the last war. - That means no more war for a while. - An alliance between Prussia and Russia. - No alliances between Prussia and anyone else. - No alliances between Russia and anyone else.
So basically, Russia/Prussia is his OTP. :P
In 1763, worried about how long Catherine is taking to agree to an alliance with him, and at how she's shopping around for alternatives, Fritz starts inviting the Turks over and making a big show of hosting them with great pomp. This has the desired effect, and a treaty is signed between Russia and Prussia on April 11, 1764, with these terms:
- The two powers guarantee each other's European possessions. - In the event of attack by a third power, they agree to provide 10,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. - Frederick has to support Poniatowski's election as king of Poland. - They agree to protect the 'dissidents', i.e. the Orthodox and Protestant believers in Poland.
Secret terms: - Prussia guarantees ducal Holstein to the Grand Duke Paul. - No changes in the Polish constitution, and agreement to forestall any attempt to make such changes by force of arms if need be. - In the event of an attack by the Turks on Russia, or by another power beyond the Weser River on Prussian possessions, military assistance can be replaced by a subsidy of 400,000 rubles. - They agree to preserve the existing balance of political parties in Sweden, and to coordinate their intervention if there was any threat to that.
The treaty was to be valid for eight years.
During the subsequent 8 years, the two rulers did their best to keep Poland weak, though they often had different priorities. While Catherine was going to get the dissidents equal political rights come hell or high water, Fritz was rolling his eyes at her and focusing on crippling the country economically. In 1766, under Poniatowki's leadership, the Sejm actually started passing some measures to stabilize the currency, and to impose a set of nation-wide customs duties to bring in revenue.
But one of the issues with trying to centralize, as most rulers find, is that local provinces start yelling about what we in the US would call "states' rights." Polish Prussia (the part of Poland that will later be acquired by Fritz and Heinrich) starts protesting this measure, and the locals there reach out to Fritz in his capacity as ruler of East Prussia to help them. Fritz obligingly points out that there was a 1657 treaty by which there couldn't be any customs duties in Polish Prussia without coordination with East Prussia. Invoking that, he sets up his *own* customs duties on the Vistula.
Fritz's original goal was to force the Poles to abandon their duties, but this new source of income proved so lucrative that Fritz started offering to lower the amount he was charging and cut Poniatowski in on the proceeds.
Poniatowski refuses, being a man who is busy trying to turn Poland into an independent state, and he turns trustingly to Catherine for help. Frederick, as sure she will take *his* side as Poniatowski is that she'll take *his*, agrees to allow her to mediate.
Catherine, being an unsentimental believer in realpolitik, backs her ally Fritz over her ex-lover and increasingly un-puppetlike puppet king. She makes everybody tear down their customs houses and go back to the status quo (the one that made for a weak Poland).
Catherine: Now both of you stop it! Poniatowski, you have standing orders to try to force pro-dissident legislation through the Sejm, you need to get back to that! None of this trying to make Poland into an economically viable independent country.
Catherine: And Fritz, we have a treaty whose main point, as I see it, is to get the dissidents in Poland equal rights. Stop getting distracted by customs and things.
Poniatowski and Fritz, in unison: But, Mom!
Poniatowski: It is my bounden duty to do right by my country, which I was called by God to rule.
Fritz: I'm trying to undermine the Polish economy!!
Catherine: No more whining, either of you, or I'm turning this car around and nobody gets any legislation! Now, back to my dissidents.
Fritz: Okay, Catherine is getting kind of out of control here. Joseph, wanna meet up?
Kaunitz and MT: No! (1766)
1768:
Catherine: *forces her legislation through, accidentally or on purpose triggering a civil war*
Kaunitz: Okay, Catherine is getting kind of out of control here. Joseph, wanna meet up with Fritz?
Joseph and MT: No!
1769:
Joseph: Fritz, wanna meet up?
MT: No!
Joseph, Kaunitz, and Fritz: Sorry, MT, you're outnumbered this time.
Fritz: Okay, so, peace in Germany, no matter what Britain and France, or Sweden and Russia, or anyone else for that matter, does? Besides, if things go too badly wrong, I do have a gangster side:
If we have serious disagreements with England, we can revenge ourselves on her by seizing the Electorate of Hanover, a territory ill-prepared to defend herself. [This quote actually dates to c. 1767-1768, but Joseph is the source.]
Joseph: You got it. Plans for restraining Catherine?
Fritz: This meeting with you is my plan. Once she sees I'm considering an alliance with you, she'll have to renew our treaty early. Hey, playing hard to get worked in 1763 when I used the Turks!
Catherine: It worked again, damn you, Fritz.
(See the upcoming section on Sweden for the details of this treaty; I'm not going to get too involved in Prussia and Sweden in this section, since there's not a lot new to add compared to what's there.)
Sticking to Russia, 1770 is the year of Russian success against Turkey. Fritz and Joseph get even more worried, and they meet up at Neustadt in September. While they're there, Turkey requests formal mediation from Prussia and Austria.
Catherine wants to dictate her own terms, but her terms are too extreme for Fritz. But her army is on a roll, so she doesn't want to accept his much more moderate terms. And Fritz wants to end the war for two reasons. One, he has to pay subsidies, and those are getting expensive. Two, Austria is acting like they're about to get drawn into joining the Turks and fighting Russia. One of Fritz's hopes in meeting with Joseph and Kaunitz at Neustadt is to be friendly enough with them that they won't attack him if they do fight Russia.
But while the war goes on, Austria does something that unintentionally turns out to be very useful to Fritz and his anti-Polish designs: they bring troops into Poland, ostensibly to establish a cordon sanitaire against the plague, but obviously with the intent of appropriating some territory. This gives Fritz a chance to do the same in 1770. And he starts reviving claims to Pomerelia (part of Poland).
During the 1768-1772 period, the idea of Prussia getting part of Poland is in the air. Fritz emphasizes it in his secret 1768 political testament to his heir. Kaunitz actually proposes it as one of Austria's endless "Well, maybe we could arrange the territories *this* way" ideas. Fritz mentions it to the Austrian ambassador. He tries sounding out the Russians by pretending it was Danish Count Lynar's idea. But nobody takes the bait, and by the time Heinrich shows up in Russia and tells Fritz they're open to it, Fritz is reluctant to jump at the idea, especially for such a small amount of territory. He writes to Heinrich (the quote that I shared with cahn recently):
As to the question of occupying the duchy of Warmia, I ruled that out, as the whole operation is not worth tuppence. The portion is so small that it fails to compensate for the song and dance it will necessarily drum up. On the other hand, Polish Prussia would be worth the trouble, even without Danzig, as then we would have the Vistula and what would be very important, free access to the kingdom [of Prussia] … If you are too eager to snatch at trifles, it gives you a reputation for greed and insatiability which I don't want to have any more than I do already in Europe.
Fritz is clearly thinking along the lines of "Gimme gimme" about Poland, but he needs two conditions to be met:
- Russia won't go to war over it (and preferably Austria, which is why he spends so much time trying to tempt Austria into joining the partition). - The territory he acquires will be large enough to be worth the bad PR.
So he turns down Heinrich's initial offer, but I think he's waaaaay more interested than Volz gives him credit for, and it's a ploy to get more by playing hard to get (Fritz: willing to play hard to get in the 1760s!).
Even the Comte de Broglie, a contemporary, wrote: "The King of Prussia is anxious that another should commence to dismember her, so that he may have his share."
Okay, I did my best, but it's hard to get a map that covers all of the placenames we're about to talk about. This map will show you Danzig, Marienburg, Pomerelia (not to be confused with Pomerania), and Culm. Ermland is the same as Warmia.
The Vistula runs through Warsaw and empties into the Baltic at Danzig. This is why Danzig is such a great port city that Fritz so eager to have and everyone else is so eager for him not to have.
This one will show you Warmia and Thorn:
And here's a great one-minute video showing the evolution of the map of Poland through the 3 partitions, of which this write-up only covers the first (but selenak is helpfully bringing up implications of the following ones): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=601zBAfXoWE
All of this to illustrate the following quote from MacDonogh:
Frederick decided which cuts of the turkey he would like best: Pomerelia, south of Danzig, the part of Great Poland that lay beyond the Netze, the bishopric of Warmia and the palatinates of Marienburg and Culm. He was also anxious to get his hands on Danzig and Thorn. The Russians, he alleged, had offered him the former, and then had withdrawn the offer, citing their 'guarantees' of Polish liberties. Frederick believed that the 'base perfidious' British had scuttled the acquisition because they did not want to see him master of the Vistula. Frederick reconciled himself with the idea that he would get it in the long run, possibly starving it out by transferring the port trade to Elbing. His sentiments closely followed those he had expressed in the 1768 Testament politique. In September 1773, he acquired 36,300 square kilometres. It was the smallest chunk: the Austrians had taken 81,900 and the Russians, 92,000.
In fact, even after the partition is agreed on in 1772, Prussia, like Austria and Russia, keep finding every excuse throughout the 1770s to snatch up little bits and pieces here and there. Not until the surveyors have marked the exact boundaries in 1777 is Fritz done squeezing out every little bit he can get when no one is looking. He's unable to get Danzig, despite trying very hard, because too many of the major trading powers of Europe are concerned about that (remember Lehndorff later being offended that the inhabitants of Danzig don't want to be Prussian), and it won't be until 1792 and the Second Polish Partition that Prussia gets its grubby hands on Danzig.
But by 1772, Fritz is already taking advantage of his newly acquired Polish territories to...you guessed it...cripple the Polish economy!
One, he systematically bans all Polish grain exports, with an eye toward making it easier to acquire new territory from an even more impoverished Poland. Two, he seizes a Polish customs house on the Vistula and starts levying tolls on up to 50% of the value of cargoes passing through.
That's all a pretty sweet deal for Prussia, which comes out of this the best of all the partitioning powers, despite having the weakest cards to play.
Fritz: See? Watch me play hard to get three times and get what I want three times. I have learned a few things since I was 28.
1764-1772 Foreign policy: Prussia
- Time to recover from the last war.
- That means no more war for a while.
- An alliance between Prussia and Russia.
- No alliances between Prussia and anyone else.
- No alliances between Russia and anyone else.
So basically, Russia/Prussia is his OTP. :P
In 1763, worried about how long Catherine is taking to agree to an alliance with him, and at how she's shopping around for alternatives, Fritz starts inviting the Turks over and making a big show of hosting them with great pomp. This has the desired effect, and a treaty is signed between Russia and Prussia on April 11, 1764, with these terms:
- The two powers guarantee each other's European possessions.
- In the event of attack by a third power, they agree to provide 10,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry.
- Frederick has to support Poniatowski's election as king of Poland.
- They agree to protect the 'dissidents', i.e. the Orthodox and Protestant believers in Poland.
Secret terms:
- Prussia guarantees ducal Holstein to the Grand Duke Paul.
- No changes in the Polish constitution, and agreement to forestall any attempt to make such changes by force of arms if need be.
- In the event of an attack by the Turks on Russia, or by another power beyond the Weser River on Prussian possessions, military assistance can be replaced by a subsidy of 400,000 rubles.
- They agree to preserve the existing balance of political parties in Sweden, and to coordinate their intervention if there was any threat to that.
The treaty was to be valid for eight years.
During the subsequent 8 years, the two rulers did their best to keep Poland weak, though they often had different priorities. While Catherine was going to get the dissidents equal political rights come hell or high water, Fritz was rolling his eyes at her and focusing on crippling the country economically. In 1766, under Poniatowki's leadership, the Sejm actually started passing some measures to stabilize the currency, and to impose a set of nation-wide customs duties to bring in revenue.
But one of the issues with trying to centralize, as most rulers find, is that local provinces start yelling about what we in the US would call "states' rights." Polish Prussia (the part of Poland that will later be acquired by Fritz and Heinrich) starts protesting this measure, and the locals there reach out to Fritz in his capacity as ruler of East Prussia to help them. Fritz obligingly points out that there was a 1657 treaty by which there couldn't be any customs duties in Polish Prussia without coordination with East Prussia. Invoking that, he sets up his *own* customs duties on the Vistula.
Fritz's original goal was to force the Poles to abandon their duties, but this new source of income proved so lucrative that Fritz started offering to lower the amount he was charging and cut Poniatowski in on the proceeds.
Poniatowski refuses, being a man who is busy trying to turn Poland into an independent state, and he turns trustingly to Catherine for help. Frederick, as sure she will take *his* side as Poniatowski is that she'll take *his*, agrees to allow her to mediate.
Catherine, being an unsentimental believer in realpolitik, backs her ally Fritz over her ex-lover and increasingly un-puppetlike puppet king. She makes everybody tear down their customs houses and go back to the status quo (the one that made for a weak Poland).
Catherine: Now both of you stop it! Poniatowski, you have standing orders to try to force pro-dissident legislation through the Sejm, you need to get back to that! None of this trying to make Poland into an economically viable independent country.
Catherine: And Fritz, we have a treaty whose main point, as I see it, is to get the dissidents in Poland equal rights. Stop getting distracted by customs and things.
Poniatowski and Fritz, in unison: But, Mom!
Poniatowski: It is my bounden duty to do right by my country, which I was called by God to rule.
Fritz: I'm trying to undermine the Polish economy!!
Catherine: No more whining, either of you, or I'm turning this car around and nobody gets any legislation! Now, back to my dissidents.
Fritz: Okay, Catherine is getting kind of out of control here. Joseph, wanna meet up?
Kaunitz and MT: No! (1766)
1768:
Catherine: *forces her legislation through, accidentally or on purpose triggering a civil war*
Kaunitz: Okay, Catherine is getting kind of out of control here. Joseph, wanna meet up with Fritz?
Joseph and MT: No!
1769:
Joseph: Fritz, wanna meet up?
MT: No!
Joseph, Kaunitz, and Fritz: Sorry, MT, you're outnumbered this time.
Fritz: Okay, so, peace in Germany, no matter what Britain and France, or Sweden and Russia, or anyone else for that matter, does? Besides, if things go too badly wrong, I do have a gangster side:
If we have serious disagreements with England, we can revenge ourselves on her by seizing the Electorate of Hanover, a territory ill-prepared to defend herself. [This quote actually dates to c. 1767-1768, but Joseph is the source.]
Joseph: You got it. Plans for restraining Catherine?
Fritz: This meeting with you is my plan. Once she sees I'm considering an alliance with you, she'll have to renew our treaty early. Hey, playing hard to get worked in 1763 when I used the Turks!
Catherine: It worked again, damn you, Fritz.
(See the upcoming section on Sweden for the details of this treaty; I'm not going to get too involved in Prussia and Sweden in this section, since there's not a lot new to add compared to what's there.)
Sticking to Russia, 1770 is the year of Russian success against Turkey. Fritz and Joseph get even more worried, and they meet up at Neustadt in September. While they're there, Turkey requests formal mediation from Prussia and Austria.
Catherine wants to dictate her own terms, but her terms are too extreme for Fritz. But her army is on a roll, so she doesn't want to accept his much more moderate terms. And Fritz wants to end the war for two reasons. One, he has to pay subsidies, and those are getting expensive. Two, Austria is acting like they're about to get drawn into joining the Turks and fighting Russia. One of Fritz's hopes in meeting with Joseph and Kaunitz at Neustadt is to be friendly enough with them that they won't attack him if they do fight Russia.
But while the war goes on, Austria does something that unintentionally turns out to be very useful to Fritz and his anti-Polish designs: they bring troops into Poland, ostensibly to establish a cordon sanitaire against the plague, but obviously with the intent of appropriating some territory. This gives Fritz a chance to do the same in 1770. And he starts reviving claims to Pomerelia (part of Poland).
During the 1768-1772 period, the idea of Prussia getting part of Poland is in the air. Fritz emphasizes it in his secret 1768 political testament to his heir. Kaunitz actually proposes it as one of Austria's endless "Well, maybe we could arrange the territories *this* way" ideas. Fritz mentions it to the Austrian ambassador. He tries sounding out the Russians by pretending it was Danish Count Lynar's idea. But nobody takes the bait, and by the time Heinrich shows up in Russia and tells Fritz they're open to it, Fritz is reluctant to jump at the idea, especially for such a small amount of territory. He writes to Heinrich (the quote that I shared with
As to the question of occupying the duchy of Warmia, I ruled that out, as the whole operation is not worth tuppence. The portion is so small that it fails to compensate for the song and dance it will necessarily drum up. On the other hand, Polish Prussia would be worth the trouble, even without Danzig, as then we would have the Vistula and what would be very important, free access to the kingdom [of Prussia] … If you are too eager to snatch at trifles, it gives you a reputation for greed and insatiability which I don't want to have any more than I do already in Europe.
Fritz is clearly thinking along the lines of "Gimme gimme" about Poland, but he needs two conditions to be met:
- Russia won't go to war over it (and preferably Austria, which is why he spends so much time trying to tempt Austria into joining the partition).
- The territory he acquires will be large enough to be worth the bad PR.
So he turns down Heinrich's initial offer, but I think he's waaaaay more interested than Volz gives him credit for, and it's a ploy to get more by playing hard to get (Fritz: willing to play hard to get in the 1760s!).
Even the Comte de Broglie, a contemporary, wrote: "The King of Prussia is anxious that another should commence to dismember her, so that he may have his share."
Okay, I did my best, but it's hard to get a map that covers all of the placenames we're about to talk about. This map will show you Danzig, Marienburg, Pomerelia (not to be confused with Pomerania), and Culm. Ermland is the same as Warmia.
The Vistula runs through Warsaw and empties into the Baltic at Danzig. This is why Danzig is such a great port city that Fritz so eager to have and everyone else is so eager for him not to have.
This one will show you Warmia and Thorn:
And here's a great one-minute video showing the evolution of the map of Poland through the 3 partitions, of which this write-up only covers the first (but
All of this to illustrate the following quote from MacDonogh:
Frederick decided which cuts of the turkey he would like best: Pomerelia, south of Danzig, the part of Great Poland that lay beyond the Netze, the bishopric of Warmia and the palatinates of Marienburg and Culm. He was also anxious to get his hands on Danzig and Thorn. The Russians, he alleged, had offered him the former, and then had withdrawn the offer, citing their 'guarantees' of Polish liberties. Frederick believed that the 'base perfidious' British had scuttled the acquisition because they did not want to see him master of the Vistula. Frederick reconciled himself with the idea that he would get it in the long run, possibly starving it out by transferring the port trade to Elbing. His sentiments closely followed those he had expressed in the 1768 Testament politique. In September 1773, he acquired 36,300 square kilometres. It was the smallest chunk: the Austrians had taken 81,900 and the Russians, 92,000.
In fact, even after the partition is agreed on in 1772, Prussia, like Austria and Russia, keep finding every excuse throughout the 1770s to snatch up little bits and pieces here and there. Not until the surveyors have marked the exact boundaries in 1777 is Fritz done squeezing out every little bit he can get when no one is looking. He's unable to get Danzig, despite trying very hard, because too many of the major trading powers of Europe are concerned about that (remember Lehndorff later being offended that the inhabitants of Danzig don't want to be Prussian), and it won't be until 1792 and the Second Polish Partition that Prussia gets its grubby hands on Danzig.
But by 1772, Fritz is already taking advantage of his newly acquired Polish territories to...you guessed it...cripple the Polish economy!
One, he systematically bans all Polish grain exports, with an eye toward making it easier to acquire new territory from an even more impoverished Poland. Two, he seizes a Polish customs house on the Vistula and starts levying tolls on up to 50% of the value of cargoes passing through.
That's all a pretty sweet deal for Prussia, which comes out of this the best of all the partitioning powers, despite having the weakest cards to play.
Fritz: See? Watch me play hard to get three times and get what I want three times. I have learned a few things since I was 28.