First Partition of Poland - Division of Territories

Division of Territories

The partition treaty was ratified by its signatories on September 22, 1772. It was a major success for Frederick II of Prussia: Prussia's share might have been the smallest, but it was also significantly developed and strategically important. Prussia took most of Polish Royal Prussia, including Ermland, allowing Frederick to link East Prussia and Brandenburg. Prussia also annexed northern areas of Greater Poland along the Noteć River (the Netze District), and northern Kuyavia, but not the cities of Danzig (Gdańsk) and Thorn (Toruń). The territories annexed by Prussia became a new province in 1773 called West Prussia. Overall, Prussia gained 36,000 km² and about 600,000 people. According to Jerzy Surdykowski Frederick the Great soon introduced German colonists on territories he conquered and engaged in Germanization of Polish territories According to Christopher Clark 54 percent of the area and 75 percent of the urban populace were German-speaking Protestants. In the next century this was used by nationalistic German historians to justify the partition, but it was irrelevant to contemporary calculations; Frederick, dismissive of the German culture, was instead pursuing an imperialist policy, acting on the security interests of his state. The new-gained territories connected Prussia with Germany proper, and were of major economic importance. By seizing northwestern Poland, Prussia instantly cut off Poland from the sea, and gained control over 80% of the Commonwealth's total foreign trade. Through levying enormous custom duties, Prussia accelerated the inevitable collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian state.

Despite token criticism of the partition from Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, Austrian statesman Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz considered the Austrian share an ample compensation; despite Austria being the least interested in the partition, it received the largest share of formerly Polish population, and second largest land share (83,000 km² and 2,650,000 people). To Austria fell Zator and Auschwitz (Oświęcim), part of Little Poland embracing parts of the counties of Kraków and Sandomierz (with the rich salt mines of Bochnia and Wieliczka), and the whole of Galicia, less the city of Kraków.

Russia received the largest, but least-important area economically, in the northeast. By this "diplomatic document" Russia came into possession of the commonwealth territories east of the line formed roughly by the Dvina, Drut, and Dnieper rivers — that section of Livonia which had still remained in commonwealth control, and of Belarus embracing the counties of Vitebsk, Polotsk and Mstislavl. Russia gained 92,000 km² and 1,300,000 people, and reorganized its newly acquired lands into Yekaterinoslav Governorate and Mogilev Governorate.

By the first partition the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lost about 211,000 km² (30% of its territory, amounting at that time to about 733,000 km²), with a population of over four to five million people (about a third of its population of 14 million before the partitions).