Constitution of May 3, 1791 - Adoption and Fall - War in Defense of The Constitution

War in Defense of The Constitution

The constitution remained in effect for little over a year before being overthrown by Russian armies allied with conservative Polish nobility in the Polish–Russian War of 1792, also known as the War in Defense of the Constitution. With the wars between Turkey and Russia and Sweden and Russia having ended, Empress Catherine was furious over the adoption of the document, which she believed threatened Russian influence in Poland. Russia had viewed Poland as a de facto protectorate. "The worst possible news have arrived from Warsaw: the Polish king has become almost sovereign" was the reaction of one of Russia's chief foreign policy authors, Alexander Bezborodko, when he learned of the new constitution. The contacts of Polish reformers with the Revolutionary French National Assembly were seen by Poland's neighbors as evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy and a threat to the absolute monarchies. The Prussian statesman Ewald von Hertzberg expressed the fears of European conservatives: "The Poles have given the coup de grâce to the Prussian monarchy by voting a constitution", elaborating that a strong Commonwealth would likely demand the return of the lands Prussia acquired in the First Partition.

Magnates who had opposed the constitution draft from the start, Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, Seweryn Rzewuski, and Szymon and Józef Kossakowski, asked Tsarina Catherine to intervene and restore their privileges (the Cardinal Laws) abolished under the new statute. To that end these magnates formed the Targowica Confederation. The Confederation's proclamation, prepared in St. Petersburg in January 1792, criticized the constitution for contributing to, in their own words, "contagion of democratic ideas" following "the fatal examples set in Paris". It asserted that "The parliament... has broken all fundamental laws, swept away all liberties of the gentry and on the third of May 1791 turned into a revolution and a conspiracy." The Confederates declared an intention to overcome this revolution. We "can do nothing but turn trustingly to Tsarina Catherine, a distinguished and fair empress, our neighboring friend and ally", who "respects the nation's need for well-being and always offers it a helping hand", they wrote.

Shortly after, they formed the Targowica Confederation with other nobles of the Commonwealth in order to overthrow the constitution. The Confederates aligned with Catherine and asked her for military intervention. Russian armies entered Poland and Lithuania, starting the Polish-Russian War of 1792. The Sejm voted to increase the army of the Commonwealth to 100,000 men, but owing to insufficient time and funds this number was never achieved and soon abandoned even as a goal. The Polish King and the reformers could field only a 37,000-man army, many of them untested recruits. This army, under the command of Józef Poniatowski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, defeated or fought to a draw the Russians on several occasions, but in the end, a defeat loomed inevitable. Despite Polish requests, Prussia refused to honor its alliance obligations. Stanisław August's attempts at negotiations with Russia proved futile. As the front lines kept shifting to the west and in July 1792 Warsaw was threatened with siege by the Russians, the King came to believe that victory was impossible against the numerically superior enemy, and that surrender was the only alternative to total defeat. Having received assurances from the Russian ambassador Yakov Bulgakov that no territorial changes will occur, the cabinet of ministers called the Guardians of the Laws (or Guard of the Laws, Polish: Straż Praw) voted 8:4 to surrender. On July 24, 1792, King Stanisław August Poniatowski joined the Targowica Confederation, as the Empress had demanded. The Polish Army disintegrated. Many reform leaders, believing their cause was for now lost, went into self-exile. Some hoped that Stanisław August would be able to negotiate an acceptable compromise with the Russians, as he had done in the past. But the King had not saved the Commonwealth and neither had the Targowica Confederates, who governed the country for a short while. To their own surprise (they thought they had a deal worked out with Catherine II), the Second Partition of Poland ensued. With new deputies bribed or intimidated by the Russian troops, the Grodno Sejm took place. On 23 November 1793, it concluded its deliberations under duress, annulling the constitution and acceding to the Second Partition. Russia took 250,000 square kilometres (97,000 sq mi), while Prussia took 58,000 square kilometres (22,000 sq mi). The Commonwealth now comprised no more than 215,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi). What was left of the Commonwealth was merely a small buffer state with a puppet king, and Russian garrisons keeping an eye on the reduced Polish army.

For a year and a half, Polish patriots bided their time while planning an insurrection. On March 24, 1794, in Kraków, Tadeusz Kościuszko declared what has come to be known as the Kościuszko Uprising. On May 7 he issued the Proclamation of Połaniec (Uniwersał Połaniecki), granting freedom to the peasants and ownership of land to all who fought in the insurrection. Revolutionary Tribunals meted summary justice to those deemed traitors to the Commonwealth.

After some initial victories – the Battle of Racławice (April 4) and the capture of Warsaw (April 18) and Wilno (April 22) – the Uprising was dealt a crippling blow: the forces of Russia, Austria and Prussia joined in a military intervention. Historians consider the Uprising's defeat to have been a foregone conclusion in face of the gigantic superiority in numbers and resources of the three invading powers. The defeat of Kościuszko's forces led in 1795 to the third and final partition of the Commonwealth.