What if the Russian territorial acquisitions at the PLC expense never extended to Poland and Lithuania proper?
Let’s say that by the 1st partition Catherine II grabbed pretty much what she got by the 1st and 2nd (*): Belorussia and Right Bank Ukraine, the areas which are predominantly Orthodox and linguistically close to Russia. However, she is not going for a complete annihilation of the PLC and not trying to stop the ongoing reforms: it seems that in OTL closer to the end of her reign she started seeing “the Jacobines” everywhere so we are just adding a little bit of a personal sanity.
Perhaps she even withdraws the Russian troops from the PLC territory: with these acquisitions there is no practical reason for the further close control of the rump state and OTL’s final “unpleasantries” (1794 - 95) had been a byproduct of “we had been always doing this” approach rather than of a real geopolitical need.
Will Austria and Prussia go for the final partition if Russia is against it?
What the surviving state look like politically and how it’s future is impacted by the Napoleonic wars?
I repeat, the premise is that Russia is never getting these territories in OTL (personal union) or other arrangement.
____________
(*) At least southern part of what she got by the 2nd was a strategic necessity because it was securing Russian flank in the case of a war against the Ottomans.
Let’s say that by the 1st partition Catherine II grabbed pretty much what she got by the 1st and 2nd (*): Belorussia and Right Bank Ukraine, the areas which are predominantly Orthodox and linguistically close to Russia. However, she is not going for a complete annihilation of the PLC and not trying to stop the ongoing reforms: it seems that in OTL closer to the end of her reign she started seeing “the Jacobines” everywhere so we are just adding a little bit of a personal sanity.
Perhaps she even withdraws the Russian troops from the PLC territory: with these acquisitions there is no practical reason for the further close control of the rump state and OTL’s final “unpleasantries” (1794 - 95) had been a byproduct of “we had been always doing this” approach rather than of a real geopolitical need.
Will Austria and Prussia go for the final partition if Russia is against it?
What the surviving state look like politically and how it’s future is impacted by the Napoleonic wars?
I repeat, the premise is that Russia is never getting these territories in OTL (personal union) or other arrangement.
____________
(*) At least southern part of what she got by the 2nd was a strategic necessity because it was securing Russian flank in the case of a war against the Ottomans.