Polish wars

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Polish Wars is a term used by Napoleon I for the Russian campaign he has just begun and the Fourth Coalition War of 1806/07.

He introduced the name in 1812, on the one hand to tie in with the Fourth Coalition War, which was successful for him against Prussia , and on the other hand, to address the renewed war against Russia as a fight for the defense and further territorial restoration of the dual state of Poland, which had been broken up in the Polish partitions of Austria, Prussia and Russia - Legitimate Lithuania .

Although one of the main results of the First Polish War was the partial re-establishment of Poland as the Duchy of Warsaw at the expense of Prussia, the cause of the second war was the Russian-French dispute over the implementation of the continental barrier in the Baltic Sea region.

Napoleon addressed his army in Lithuania on June 22, 1812:

“Soldiers, the second Polish war has begun! The first ended in Friedland and Tilsit (1807) […] The second Polish war will be as glorious for French arms as the first was […] ”

- Napoleon I : Tarle, p. 347

The war began with a French advance by the Grande Armée into Russia, but ended in a debacle for France. For Poland it did not bring the hoped-for permanent expansion through the Lithuanian territories conquered in 1812, but rather occupation, bogus independence and ultimately Russian annexation from 1831 to the First World War .

See also

literature