The
Kingdom of Prussia acquired Polish territories in all three military partitions.
The First Partition The
First Partition of Poland in 1772 included the annexation of the formerly
Polish Prussia by
Frederick II who quickly implanted over 57,000 German families
there in order to solidify his new acquisitions. In the first partition, Frederick sought to exploit and develop Poland economically as part of his wider aim of enriching Prussia. and described it as an "artichoke, ready to be consumed leaf by leaf". As early as 1731 Frederick had suggested that his country would benefit from annexing Polish territory. By 1752, he had prepared the ground for the partition of Poland–Lithuania, aiming to achieve his goal of building a territorial bridge between Pomerania, Brandenburg, and his East Prussian provinces. The new territories would also provide an increased tax base, additional populations for the Prussian military, and serve as a surrogate for the other overseas colonies of the other great powers. Frederick did not justify his conquests on an ethnic basis; he pursued an imperialist policy focused on the security interests of his state. However, Frederick did use propaganda to justify the partition and his economic exploitation of Poland, portraying the acquired provinces as underdeveloped and in need of improvement by Prussian rule; these claims were sometimes accepted by subsequent German historiography and can still be found in modern works. Frederick wrote that Poland had "the worst government in Europe with the exception of
Turkey". After a prolonged visit to West Prussia in 1773, Frederick informed Voltaire of his findings and accomplishments: "I have abolished serfdom, reformed the savage laws, opened a canal which joins up all the main rivers; I have rebuilt those villages razed to the ground after the plague in 1709. I have drained the marshes and established a police force where none existed. … [I]t is not reasonable that the country which produced
Copernicus should be allowed to moulder in the barbarism that results from tyranny. Those hitherto in power have destroyed the schools, thinking that uneducated people are easily oppressed. These provinces cannot be compared with any European country—the only parallel would be Canada." However, in a letter to his favorite brother, Prince Henry, Frederick admitted that the Polish provinces were economically profitable: :It is a very good and advantageous acquisition, both from a financial and a political point of view. In order to excite less jealousy I tell everyone that on my travels I have seen just sand, pine trees,
heath land and Jews. Despite that there is a lot of work to be done; there is no order, and no planning and the towns are in a lamentable condition. Frederick's long-term goal was to displace the Poles from the conquered region and colonize it with Germans, whom he considered better workers. To accomplish this goal, Frederick invited thousands of German colonists into the conquered territories by promises of free land. He also engaged in the plunder of Polish property, gradually appropriating (Polish Crown estates) and monasteries and redistributed them to German landowners. In 1783, Frederick also passed legislation allowed buyouts of noble land. This legislation allowed the free
alienation of Polish nobles' estates so that this property could be purchased by German colonists. This resulted in a greater percentage of noble land being transferred to bourgeoise owners than in any other part of Hohenzollern land. Ultimately, Frederick settled 300,000 colonists in territories he had conquered. He expressed
anti-Polish sentiments when describing the inhabitants, such as calling them "slovenly Polish trash". He also compared the Polish peasants unfavorably with the
Iroquois, and named three of his new Prussian settlements after colonial areas of North America: Florida, Philadelphia and Saratoga. Teachers and administrators were encouraged to be able to speak both German and Polish, and recognizing that his kingdom now had Polish inhabitants, Frederick also advised his successors to learn Polish. However, German was to be the language of education. The introduction of compulsory Prussian military service would also Germanize the Poles. And, the rural Poles were to be mixed with German neighbors so these Poles could learn "industriousness", "cleanliness, and orderliness" and acquire a "Prussian character". By such means, Frederick boasted he would "gradually...get rid of all Poles".
The Second Partition In the
Second Partition of Poland in 1793, the Kingdom of Prussia annexed
Gdańsk (Danzig) and
Toruń (Thorn), part of the
Crown of Poland since 1457. The incursion sparked the first
Greater Poland Uprising in
Kujawy under
Jan Henryk Dąbrowski. The revolt ended after General
Tadeusz Kościuszko was captured by the Russians.
The Third Partition entering Poznań in 1806 The subsequent
third partitioning of 1795 marked the Prussian annexation of
Podlasie region, with the remainder of
Masovia, and the capital city of
Warsaw (handed over to the Russians twenty years later by
Frederick III). The second
Greater Poland Uprising against Prussian forces (also under
General Dąbrowski) broke out in
Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) in 1806, ahead of the
Prussian total defeat by Napoleon who created the
Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. However, the fall of Napoleon during his
Russian Campaign lead to the dismantling of the
Duchy at the
Congress of Vienna (1815) and the return of Prussian control. The third
Greater Poland Uprising under
Ludwik Mierosławski occurred in 1846. The Uprising was designed to be part of a general uprising against all three states that had partitioned Poland. Some 254 insurgents were charged with high treason in Berlin. Two years later, during the
Spring of Nations, the
fourth Polish uprising broke out in and around
Poznań in 1848, led by the
Polish National Committee. The Prussian army pacified the area and 1,500 Poles were imprisoned in Poznań Citadel. The Uprising showed to Polish insurgents that there was no possibility whatsoever to try to negotiate Polish statehood with the Germans. Only sixty years later, the
Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) in the Prussian Partition helped Poland
regain its freedom in the
aftermath of World War I. == Ethnicity ==