The German Question, Part Thirty

"The Dismantling of Poland" Part One

While this is about German history, you might wonder why a segment about Poland is included. Well, two of the German states, Prussia and Austria, were involved in what is known to history as "The Partitions of Poland," and both added Polish territory to their realms. The overall politics of these partitions (there were three partitions over about a 23 year period) is far more complicated than I want to deal with here, but I'll leave it as a basic effort to maintain a certain balance of power between Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Just a little background: Poland and Lithuania had been joined in a commonwealth in the 1500s.* Initially it was very powerful, both militarily and economically, but over time its power and political stability declined. There were many reasons for this decline, but one reason was the vast diversity of its people, both ethnically and by religion. While Poles were the largest group in the commonwealth, there were substantial numbers of Lithuanians, Jews, Ukrainians, Ruthenians and Germans.** Roman Catholicism was the largest single religion, but there were significant numbers of Eastern Orthodox, Protestants (mainly Lutherans), Eastern Catholics (some referred to as Uniate members), and Jews. A decline in trade, uprisings by some Ukrainians, and out and out civil war conditions helped weaken the commonwealth, and eventually Russia became its protector.

The first partition, known by the unique name....ah..."The First Partition of Poland," was mainly engineered by Frederick the Great in 1772, even though he got the smallest amount of territory. Prussia took much of the northern parts of Polish territory, which included tacking on lands to northeastern Prussia, aka "East Prussia" (Ostpreussen, in German). It also obtained the lands along the Baltic coast and inland, thus depriving Poland of seaports (this issue would come back in the future, and I will cover it when we get to the aftermath of World War One). Much of this new land was called "West Prussia" (Westpreussen, in German). This new territory then linked East Prussia with the rest of Brandenburg/Prussia. Austria received a huge portion of what was known as "Galicia" (in southern and sw Poland) and a further part of southeastern Poland, including the town of Oświęcim, later to become infamous during World War Two, and better known by its German name...Auschwitz. Russia received large territories to the east and northeast. Russia at that time was ruled by Catherine II, better known as "Catherine the Great," who was a German by birth. Only a small rump of Poland remained at that time outside the borders of her neighbors.

The two German states together added more than three million people to their populations, although Prussia gained many people of German or mixed German-Polish background, and Austria gained many non-Germans. The fact that Austria had so many non-German populated territories was an issue that would gradually begin to disqualify Austria, more specifically the Habsburgs, from leading Germany in the eyes of some Germans.

One little humorous note, if there is anything humorous about carving up a country: While Maria Theresa's son and co-ruler of the Habsburg lands (and German Emperor), Joseph, had actually helped plan the partition of Poland, Maria Theresa initially opposed the plans as detrimental to Poland. Frederick the Great later noted something to the effect that (Maria Theresa) cried (in sympathy for the Poles) when she took their land, but the more she cried, the more land she took!

* As I've cautioned previously in this series, national and geographic terms, like in this case, Poland from those times, do not always correspond to our more modern concepts of these territories, as borders changed, sometimes, substantially so.

** The percentage of the population of these various groups changed as the borders periodically changed during the time the commonwealth lasted.

WORD HISTORY:
Court-This goes back to the Indo European root "gher," which meant "enclose/fence or wall in." This gave the Latin offshoot "cohors/cors," which meant "an enclosed area surrounding a house or building." From this, Old French, a Latin-based language, got "cort/curt," which took on the the more specific meaning of "king's or noble's enclosed yard around his residence." This came to English in the latter part of the 1100s from Anglo-Norman, but is more commonly rendered in modern English as the compound "courtyard" ("yard" is from the Germanic roots of English). This basic notion, perhaps associated then with the similar Latin word "curia," which meant "sovereign's assembly/personnel," gave us this further meaning, perhaps seen as "king's personnel assembled in the court(yard)." Further still, association with "curia," which meant "council," gave the term the more legalistic sense that we still use, as in "court of law," as originally, a king/ruler literally sat at the head of a council (or by himself) to decide legal matters of the citizenry. It seems some linguists believe that the verbal meaning "pay court to someone," came from the Italian form "corteggiare" (pay honor to someone) of the above Old Latin word. Others seem to feel it just came from the same path as "court" itself, simply meaning "to behave in a proper manner in court, or to behave as if in court." The verb seems to have come into English usage in the 1500s.