Foreign Minister
Tsar Alexander appointed Czartoryski curator of the Vilna Academy (3 April 1803) so that he might give full play to his advanced ideas. Czartoryski was, however, unable to devote much attention to education, for from the beginning of 1804, as foreign-affairs adjunct, he had exercised practical control of Russian diplomacy. His first act had been to protest energetically the murder of Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé (20 March 1804) and insist on an immediate rupture with the government of the French Revolution, then under First Consul Napoléon Bonaparte.
On 7 June 1804, the French minister, Gabriel Marie Joseph, comte d'Hédouville, left St. Petersburg; and on 11 August a note dictated by Czartoryski to Alexander was sent to the Russian minister in London, urging the formation of an anti-French coalition. It was also Czartoryski who framed the Convention of 6 November 1804, whereby Russia agreed to put 115,000, and Austria 235,000, men in the field against Napoleon.
Finally, in April 1805 he signed an offensive-defensive alliance with George III's United Kingdom.
But Czartoryski's most striking ministerial act was a memorial written in 1805, otherwise undated, which aimed at transforming the whole map of Europe: Austria and Prussia were to divide Germany between them. Russia was to acquire the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, the Bosporus with Constantinople, and Corfu. Austria was to have Bosnia, Wallachia and Ragusa. Montenegro, enlarged by Mostar and the Ionian Islands, was to form a separate state. The United Kingdom and Russia together were to maintain the equilibrium of the world. In return for their acquisitions in Germany, Austria and Prussia were to consent to the creation of an autonomous Polish state extending from Danzig (Gdańsk) to the sources of the Vistula, under the protection of Russia. This plan presented the best guarantee, at the time, for the independent existence of Poland. But in the meantime Austria had come to an understanding with England about subsidies, and war had begun.
Read more about this topic: Adam Jerzy Czartoryski
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