13
KONGRESOWKA:
The Congress Kingdom (1815-1864)
The Congress of Vienna did not assemble in September 1814 for the main purpose
of discussing the Polish Question. No Polish representative was invited. But, as on
future occasions, dissension among the Powers turned the settlement of the Polish
clauses into a major obstacle. Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, raised
the issue of Polish independence as a means of trimming the pretensions of his
partners in the victorious Third Coalition. His Memorial on Poland of 23
October suggested three alternative solutions. The first envisaged a sovereign
Polish state within the frontiers of 1772; the second, a return to the position in
1791, including the Constitution of 3 May; the third, a new partition of the Duchy
of Warsaw along the line of the Vistula. To Alexander I, none of these alterna-
tives looked as attractive as a plan prepared in conjuction with Berlin, whereby
Russia would take the whole of the Duchy of Warsaw if Prussia were permitted
to take the whole of Saxony. In January, deadlock was reached. Talleyrand pro-
posed a new alliance between Britain, France, and Austria to resist the Russo-
Prussian combination. For a moment, renewed war threatened, until news of
Napoleon's flight from Elba brought the diplomats to their senses. The common
front was restored. On the Polish Question, the Powers agreed on compromise.
Prussia settled for Poznan and the western fringe of the Duchy of Warsaw, taking
only half of Saxony, together with Danzig, Swedish Pomerania, and several
Rhineland principalities into the bargain. Austria resigned her claim to West
Galicia, but gained Tarnopol, and kept much of New Galicia. Cracow was to be
a Free City under the joint protection of the Powers. The Russian Empire was to
benefit from a minor frontier rectification near Bialystok, whilst the Tsar assumed
the crown of a new and independent 'Kingdom of Poland'. A Treaty incorporat-
ing these provisions was signed by the three partitioners on 3 May 1815. On 9
June, one week before Waterloo, the Treaty of Vienna itself was signed. In effect,
if not in name, the fifth Partition of Poland had been accomplished.^1
The Congress Kingdom of Poland, with its 127,000 km^2 , was smaller than the
Duchy of Warsaw in 1809. Its population of 3.3 millions was less than that of
the old Prussian, or the Austrian, Partitions. It could not be compared to the old
Korona prior to 1793, still less to a restoration of the old Republic as a whole.
On the international scale, it was roughly equivalent in size, though not in
resources, to the United Netherlands created at the same time. In Polish eyes, it
was the result of a very unsatisfactory compromise: