Warsaw and Saxony absorbed Prussia

  • Thread starter Deleted member 109224
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Deleted member 109224

My understanding is that Napoleon's plan for a partitioning of Prussia involved
  • Austria gaining Silesia
  • Warsaw getting West Prussia
  • Russia getting East Prussia
  • Sweden getting Pomerania
  • Confederation of the Rhine getting Brandenburg
But what if Napoleon opted to just divide Prussia between Poland and Saxony? Poland gets Prussia east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, Saxony gets Prussia west of the Rivers.

upload_2019-6-3_8-47-15.png
 
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alexmilman

Jackson Lennock said:
My understanding is that Napoleon's plan for a partitioning of Prussia involved
  • Austria gaining Silesia
  • Warsaw getting West Prussia
  • Russia getting East Prussia
  • Sweden getting Pomerania
  • Confederation of the Rhine getting Brandenburg
But what if Napoleon opted to just divide Prussia between Poland and Saxony? Poland gets Prussia east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, Saxony gets Prussia west of the Rivers.

View attachment 463419
Click to expand...
Interesting idea but wasn’t Saxony too small for absorbing such a big territory with a well-developed sense of the statehood/nationality? Changing a dynasty, however unlikely, is one thing but in all other aspects wouldn’t tail of that size be wagging such a small dog?

Another aspect of it is that the King of Saxony also being a ruler of the greatly expanded Duchy of Warsaw may start getting ideas about his own importance ceasing to be Nappy’s puppet. Not sure how the Poles would absorb their share of the spoils, even with the historic references (which Prussian side probably forgot long ago) but (a) the German minority is really big and much better organized than Polish majority and (b) I strongly suspect that the Poles in the expanded Duchy will start getting ideas about getting back the pre-partition PLC territories getting Nappy sucked into the war(s) with Austria and Russia on the Polish schedule.
 

marcinL

alexmilman said:
Interesting idea but wasn’t Saxony too small for absorbing such a big territory with a well-developed sense of the statehood/nationality? Changing a dynasty, however unlikely, is one thing but in all other aspects wouldn’t tail of that size be wagging such a small dog?

Another aspect of it is that the King of Saxony also being a ruler of the greatly expanded Duchy of Warsaw may start getting ideas about his own importance ceasing to be Nappy’s puppet. Not sure how the Poles would absorb their share of the spoils, even with the historic references (which Prussian side probably forgot long ago) but (a) the German minority is really big and much better organized than Polish majority and (b) I strongly suspect that the Poles in the expanded Duchy will start getting ideas about getting back the pre-partition PLC territories getting Nappy sucked into the war(s) with Austria and Russia on the Polish schedule.
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I think that in this case Nappy would rather give this creation to a family member or trusted marshal than king of Saxony, who would have to be satisfied with Brandenburg and Lusatia. Which I think had smaller population than Saxony, but I could be wrong.

The problem of Poland causing conflict with Austria, and massive German minority, could be solved by exchanging Silesia for Lesser Poland (btw. this map gives DoW third austrian partition which was gained later on).
 

Deleted member 109224

  • The Duchy of Warsaw had 4.6million people in 1809.
Prussia had 10.7million in 1800.
Brandenburg had 1.5million in 1806.

Warsaw here, I suppose, would be around 9 million with 4.6 million people being from Warsaw.

The 1819 Prussian Census marked West Prussia as being
  • 52% Poles (327,300)
  • 46% Germans (290,000)
  • 2% Jews (12,700)
In 1824, East Prussia had 1,080,000 people
  • 50-52% Germans (Slightly over half were German)
  • 26% Poles (280,000) A mix of Warmians (Catholic) and Masurians (Protestant) I think.
  • 19% Lithuanian (200,000)
  • 1.8% Curonian and Latvian (20,000)
  • The remainder being Jews (~2,000) and Russian Old Believers

The 1819 Prussia Census marked Upper Silesia as being
  • 67% Polish (377,100)
  • 29% German (162,600)
In the 1905 Prussian Census, it was marked that 3/4 of Prussian Silesia were German-speaking and that the population east of the Oder was mostly Polish-speaking. Upper Silesia was also pretty mixed. I imagine in 1809 this would have been even more Polish. Plus, Hlucin was Czech.

Prussian Pomerania had a population of around 500,000 in 1800, pretty much all Germans. This includes Western Pomerania. Most of the population was in West Pomerania I think.


Warsaw here would still be 3/5 to 2/3 Polish I think. Plus 3-5% Balts and whatnot.
 

Chris S

Jackson Lennock said:
My understanding is that Napoleon's plan for a partitioning of Prussia involved
  • Austria gaining Silesia
  • Warsaw getting West Prussia
  • Russia getting East Prussia
  • Sweden getting Pomerania
  • Confederation of the Rhine getting Brandenburg
But what if Napoleon opted to just divide Prussia between Poland and Saxony? Poland gets Prussia east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, Saxony gets Prussia west of the Rivers.

View attachment 463419
Click to expand...

So what would the map look like under the original partition? I'm curious to see. Especially as the Duchy of Warsaw sounds like it would have a finger of land between two Russian territories.
 

marcinL

Jackson Lennock said:
How about this instead?

Saxony gains Silesia south and west of the Oder.
Warsaw gets all Prussian lands east of the Oder.
Brandenburg is a small rump polity.

View attachment 463794
Click to expand...
First, if you speak of partition of Prussia, your Duchy of Warsaw should be based only on Prussian partition. Third Austrian partition was only gained later,after, obviously, the war with Austria in 1809 iirc. It would not include Cracow, and the border with Austria would be just south-east of Warsaw. OTOH, if Russians are getting nothing, DoW should keep the Białystok region that was given to Russia otl.
 

Deleted member 109224

Chris S said:
So what would the map look like under the original partition? I'm curious to see. Especially as the Duchy of Warsaw sounds like it would have a finger of land between two Russian territories.
Click to expand...

The original idea in 1807 was
  • Austrian Silesia
  • Swedish Pomerania
  • Warsaw gains West Prussia
  • Russian East Prussia
  • Rump Brandenburg in the Confederation of the Rhine
I'm not sure if getting Pomerania was contingent on joining the Continental System.

Since the Swedish King literally thought Napoleon was the antichrist, I suppose it was more likely that either Brandenburg would keep Pomerania, he'd make it another duchy in the CotR, or he'd give a slice to Warsaw. Austria would have accepted Silesia happily.

If Russia is getting East Prussia, I imagine they'd get Suwalki as well.

upload_2019-6-5_15-5-22.png


The Austrian Border is weird considering Austria has its 1809 border but also has Silesia (which I imagine they would have lost along with the Illyrian Provinces). But, you can get the gist of what Napoleon was thinking.

marcinL said:
First, if you speak of partition of Prussia, your Duchy of Warsaw should be based only on Prussian partition. Third Austrian partition was only gained later,after, obviously, the war with Austria in 1809 iirc. It would not include Cracow, and the border with Austria would be just south-east of Warsaw. OTOH, if Russians are getting nothing, DoW should keep the Białystok region that was given to Russia otl.
Click to expand...

You are correct. I used an 1812 basemap and didn't think to correct that. Good catch.


JackLumber said:
Why are you trying to give Poland that disgusting modern oder border?
Click to expand...

What's disgusting about it? Aesthetics can vary. Plus I like the idea of an industrializing Poland - control of the Oder and Vistula Rivers and Polish Silesia serves that idea well.
 
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RGB

Jackson Lennock said:
What's disgusting about it? Aesthetics can vary. Plus I like the idea of an industrializing Poland - control of the Oder and Vistula Rivers and Polish Silesia serves that idea well.
Click to expand...

I, for one, am terribly distressed that it doesn't in fact lie along the bold and mighty Elbe as opposed to the timid Oder.

Doing that would make it indisputably beautiful.
 

Deleted member 109224

RGB said:
I, for one, am terribly distressed that it doesn't in fact lie along the bold and mighty Elbe as opposed to the timid Oder.

Doing that would make it indisputably beautiful.
Click to expand...

Well, if you go with my original idea of Saxony annexing all of Brandenburg, then you have a Personal Union that kind of does that.
 
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