Chapter 105 Death of White Eagle (Two Chapters in One)

Selim was reading the Polish war report with great interest.

It must be said that Kosciuszko's idea was not wrong. According to the ideal situation, Poland could indeed repel the opponent this time.

But ideals are ideals, and reality is reality. The Polish army does not have the ability to execute it, the Polish Sejm is indeed difficult to keep secret, and the Polish nobles are really unable to lead.

But at least Sai the Great got what he wanted.

Heavy cavalry is still useful in this era.

The cavalry of the new army can fully devote their energy to forming such a force.

Thinking of the new army, Selim began to consider whether Haji Pasha's term of office was too long.

After all, such a large army has been trained in the hands of the opponent for many years. Although Haji Pasha has always been loyal, Selim also arranged Hussein to contain the opponent, but he was still a little worried.

The Sultan rubbed his eyebrows. According to this idea, Haji Pasha can actually replace Yusuf Pasha after his retirement, but who should be responsible for Egypt?

This place is too lucrative, and it is also a new policy development zone set up by Selim. If there are any evil intentions in the local area, it does have the strength to secede.

It seems that sending Ishak out is okay, but if the leader of this faction is sent out, it is likely to cause a power imbalance for a period of time.

However, Selim can use Haji Pasha as the Grand Vizier, which can also effectively suppress the major factions. After all, the other party's prestige is sufficient.

While the Sultan was busy with political affairs, several major events abroad also came to an end at the same time.

The war in Poland has become clear.

The Prussians have penetrated the defense line in the northwest of Poland, but the Poles cannot spare a troop to support them.

Kosciuszko lacks time. Although he has suppressed Franz, he needs more time to make this unit play its combat effectiveness.

As for the Russian army, it was really pushed all the way.

After Poniatowski commanded the Polish army to retreat from the Bug River defense line, the two sides fought the Battle of Kazimien, where the Lithuanian ambush failed, the Battle of Brest, where the defense of Warsaw's periphery failed and retreated, and the Battle of Makuszów.

The latter was the last battle of the entire war, and Poniatowski defeated the Cossack Corps that attacked the rear of the Polish army.

Just as the Polish soldiers were preparing to retreat to the Vistula River to build a defense line, they received shocking news that the king joined the Targowica Union and ordered the Polish army to lay down their arms and the war was over.

Stanisław II announced that he had joined the Targowica Union and ordered all Polish troops to lay down their arms and stop resisting. This order caused an uproar in the army.

Because although they were retreating, the main force of the Polish army had not suffered a fatal blow, morale was high, supplies were sufficient, and they could still continue to fight.

Many people, including the two major commanders, Joseph Poniatowski and Kościuszczuk, opposed surrender. The two even imagined launching a coup and holding the king hostage to continue the war.

But after more painful thinking, Joseph Poniatowski gave up this idea, and they accepted August's backup plan.

In the subsequent battles, Poniatowski was discouraged and wanted to commit suicide several times, but he still had a mission.

Kosciuszko suffered the heaviest blow because he had not lost a battle since the war began.

August Kazimierzski had already discussed with the two of them, and in the worst case, they left a way out for Poland.

After receiving the news from the king, the two sent a small number of troops to stay behind, and then took the army and a lot of treasures to rush all the way to the border between the Ottoman Empire and Poland.

Since the king was unable to protect Poland, they had to at least leave seeds for Poland.

August was unwilling to blame Kamil Czapotorski and Enson Machowski, whose behavior was undoubtedly much better than that of the traitor.

In the case that Poland was hopeless, not everyone was willing to make the same choice as him.

After the victory of the war, Catherine II ordered the Sejm to go to Grodno to hold a new session of parliament to confirm the demands of the Russian Empire. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would dissolve on its own, and the major parts of the commonwealth would choose to join Prussia, Austria and Russia.

Jacob Sievers became the new Russian ambassador to Poland, and his mission was to manipulate the parliament to implement the treaty to dissolve the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

What happened next seemed to be a repeat of history. Sievers continued to use tried and tested tricks, military siege, financial and power inducement, coercion and intimidation, and any resistance was warned, arrested or even beaten, and of course the most classic Russian method - exile to Siberia.

The parliamentarians were still making a last, desperate effort. They used all procedures to delay the meeting, and the result was that the Russians arrested another seven parliamentarians and exiled them.

The meeting was constantly delayed, and the exasperated Sievers threatened all the parliamentarians that delaying the parliament would be regarded as a provocation to the Tsar.

Even so, some people still stood up, perhaps this was the last roar of the once Eastern European lion.

"They want to exile us to Siberia!" said an influential patriot.

"Let them come, threats will not scare us.

He added to Stanislaw II who was present: "Your Majesty, if it must be, please lead us to Siberia!

Let us leave this threatening place and go to that sad wasteland! At least our virtues will confuse those who try to destroy our spirit. "

At this time, all the members of parliament were filled with grief and indignation, and cried bitterly: "Let us go to Siberia! "

In contrast to these MPs loyal to Poland was the Targowica Confederation.

They played a pitiful and hateful role. The original idea of ​​these nobles was to use the Russians to destroy the new laws that interfered with their own interests. They naively thought that the Russians would help them selflessly, and Catherine the Great would respect Poland's unity and territorial integrity, and everything would be the same after the war.

However, the mockery of history soon fell on them.

The Prussian army invaded the northwestern territory in a high-profile manner, which was not at all like Catherine II's promise of just helping.

The Targowica Confederation was furious. They accused Prussia of crimes to Catherine II and were eager to get help from their master.

Catherine II finally took off the disguise of the protector of Poland and said bluntly: "If you intend to resist the Prussians, you must face the Russian army. ”

As the saying goes, greed can blind people’s minds. The Targowica Confederation thought they had taken advantage of the Russians, but from the beginning to the end they were just a pawn of Catherine II, played with by her.

They tried their best to please the Russians and sold out their motherland madly, but in the end they got nothing. Instead, they were nailed to the pillar of shame in history forever and became the object of eternal curse of the Polish nation.

In this way, the Targowica Confederation was not a good person on both sides. Its leader Czesław Potocki fled to Vienna, and most of the remaining traitors surrendered to Tsarist Russia.

Stanisław II knew that the partition of Poland was a foregone conclusion, and the resistance of the parliamentarians was meaningless. In the end, the parliament compromised and passed the "Bill on the Dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" by a vote of 61 to 23.

But when the "Bill on the Self-Determination of the Regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" was proposed, these parliamentarians again They could not stand it any longer, and they stood up and tried to leave the parliament.

Sievers ordered the Russian army to directly surround the parliament hall, and used the shining bayonets to force back the members who tried to leave, and forced them to continue the meeting.

The Russian commander broke into the parliament fully armed, threatened and abused the members rudely and rudely, and ordered them to approve the bill.

The speaker asked three times whether they agreed to pass the bill, and the members remained silent.

Sievers used all his tricks. He read out the instructions of Catherine the Great loudly and sternly ordered the members to approve the treaty.

The parliament hall was dead silent.

In desperation, Sievers declared that the members had acquiesced to the bill, and the "Self-Determination Act for the Regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" was forcibly passed. The provisions are as follows.

"Russia occupied most of eastern Poland, and at the same time obtained Lithuania and Ukraine west of the Dnieper River.

Prussia obtained Warsaw and most of western Poland.

Austria obtained the Western Galicia (including Krakow) area."

Prussia eventually had a population of the Federation 23% and 140,000 square kilometers of territory, Austria has 32% of the population and 130,000 square kilometers of territory, and Russia has 45% of the population and 430,000 square kilometers of territory.

This is a bloody feast of three black eagles against white eagles. They will eat each other up, but Stanislaw II covered the seeds of the Poles. He is not so bad, but things have come to this point and there is nothing he can do.

In despair, the disheartened King of Poland asked Catherine II to abdicate, and the latter agreed.

He specially held a banquet and invited senior officials from Prussia, Austria and Russia. When the banquet was in full swing, several senior officials , such as Franz of Austria, Potemkin of Russia, and Friedrich Wilhelm von Schonburg of Prussia all came to the center of the dance floor with the king.

At this moment, the bomb exploded. Because Friedrich was close to the king, he met God on the spot, while Franz and Potemkin saved their lives.

The parliamentarians published a protest written by the king, condemning the atrocities of Austria, Russia and Prussia. In addition, he tiredly expressed his despair at his inability to save the country and his ardent expectations for future generations. This is Poland’s last elegy.

"I, the King of Poland, am old, and many disasters have weakened my body and exhausted my mind.

We, every member of the parliament, even at the cost of our lives, cannot liberate our country from the cage of the oppressors.

Here, we declare that this task will be handed over to our descendants, believing that in a happier time in the future, they may find a way to liberate the country from oppression and slavery.

Unfortunately, this way and method are not in the hands of our generation, and we can only leave it to fate. "

Due to the commander's injury, the armies of the three countries did not pursue the fleeing Polish army for a while, which allowed them to reach the Ottoman Empire safely.

The king who had always tried to reform Poland but never succeeded left himself the best funeral. He took away his enemies, called his people, and left seeds for Poland. That's enough, isn't it?

It was late at night when Selim received the news of the death of the Polish king. He did not speak, but silently thought about the reasons why Poland had fallen to this point.

At this time, the social structure of Poland was no different from that of hundreds of years ago. The noble tycoons were rich enough to rival a country and had tremendous power.

A large number of proletarian nobles were idle, the bourgeois class was weak, the small and medium nobles had a sense of crisis but did not constitute a strong force, and the serf class, which accounted for 70% of the country's population, was in a state of "deaf and blind" at the political level. They had been occupied and oppressed by the great nobles for hundreds of years, causing this group to almost fall into a state of complete numbness.

Under the control of the great nobles, they did not care about changes in national policies, changes in the international situation, and turned a deaf ear to the struggle between reformers and conservatives.

The heavy daily labor constituted the absolute protagonist of their lives. Even if a war broke out, they had to continue working. The great nobles were afraid that once they were armed, the serfs would have a revolution or uprising.

So in fact, the middle and small nobles served as the main force of the army in the war. They received a good education since childhood, paid close attention to the current situation of national crisis, and had abundant patriotic enthusiasm and willingness to reform.

So after the outbreak of the war, they prepared their own weapons and joined the army enthusiastically. In addition, the citizens of large cities also constituted an important force to resist the Russian army, but their number was limited, and they alone were far from enough.

Facing the encirclement of half of Europe, France could inspire all classes to fight together and unite against foreign enemies, so France won. Poland could not do this, and failure became inevitable.

This leads to another major problem in Poland in the late period - the serf system.

At the end of the 18th century, serfs became a typical example of backward systems. As early as the 15th century, Western European countries completely abandoned the serf system through reforms triggered by developed market economies and multiple uprisings.

The serf system became one of the biggest cancers in the deteriorating Polish system. Such a large number of classes were locked in the fields by the landlords and could not further exert their productivity.

Responsibly, in the middle and late reign of Stanislaw II, the fate of Polish serfs had changed.

He and his staff noticed the destructiveness of the serf system, but they could not abolish this ancient system that had existed for hundreds of years at once.

So they tried to gently change many ills, including serfdom, which was in line with Poland's national conditions.

But others will not give you so much time. Being at the junction of the three major powers and lacking the power to protect yourself, what else can you expect?

The law of the jungle has always been the truth of the world.

This is also the reason why Selim wants to reform. After all, in another time and space, how much better is the fate of the Ottoman Empire than Poland?

Thanks to the players of P Club, Kuangxi, Guomo Ruo, Feifei Chi, Tiankong Wenhao, Qingning Marshmallow, Luguo Dazhilao and all the book friends for their monthly tickets. I am very busy today, so I posted it late.

It is recommended to be consumed with "Poland Will Not Perish" for the second time