266 THE WAR OF THE BAVARIAN SUCCESSION, 1778-9chamber, and when Frederick was making his obseisances he would
have fallen backwards down the steps if somebody had not grabbed
him in time' (Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen, in Koschatzky and
Krasa, 1982, 92).
In the military displays, the splendid Austrian grenadiers helped
to efface the impression that had been made by the Seydlitz Cuiras-
siers of the year before. It was unfortunate that the grand review,
which was held on the third day, was marred by a terrible deluge
which soaked the two monarchs and the 30,000 troops to the skin, but
afterwards the Austrians were amused to see that Frederick had to
stand in a cloak while his coat and breeches were left steaming in
front of the fire in a peasant hut.
Politically, the Mahrisch-Neustadt conference passed off rather
better than we might have expected, from these descriptions, because
Frederick and Joseph agreed that the Russian conquests from Turkey
represented a threat to the balance of power. Less than two years later
the notorious First Partition of Poland helped to assuage the appetites
of the three great monarchies of eastern Europe, and so helped to
prolong a peace of sorts. The first signal had already been given by
Joseph, who in 1769 had made off with the 'Thirteen Towns' of Zips, a
Polish territory on which the crown of Hungary had ancient claims.
Prince Henry, on a visit to St Petersburg, suggested on his own
initiative that something of the sort might be arranged for the benefit
of Prussia and Russia. Catherine and Frederick were responsive to the
idea, and chaotic Poland lost one-quarter of its surface and more than
one-quarter of its population in virtue of a Prusso-Russian accord of
5 January 1772, and a further agreement embracing Austria on
5 August.
Frederick made what justifications he could to Voltaire, claim-
ing that the partition had helped to avert a general war, but Enlight-
enment Europe persisted in regarding the deal as 'an act that revolted
every mind not insensible to the distinctions of right and wrong'
(Wraxall, 1806, I, 106).
The Austrians gained three million new subjects, and the Rus-
sians 1,800,000. In numerical terms Prussia did the least well, acquir-
ing 20,000 square miles (36,000 square kilometres) and 5,000-600,000
people of very diverse racial stock. In most other respects, however,
Frederick won by far the greatest relative advantages. As master of
West Prussia, he now owned a wide bridge to the hitherto isolated
territory of East Prussia, and he advanced the eastern strategic
borders of his state to the Vistula and the Netze. Frederick controlled
both the mouth and the middle reaches of the Vistula, and by
constructing the Bromberg Canal to the Oder he integrated the
Vistula with the inland waterways of the old dominions. Thus the
city of Danzig remained independent only in name, and Frederick