INTRODUCTION
This is a thread about how Poland of 1792 could perhaps be better represented using the mechanisms and political options already in place and given to us by WCS. While most of CoG:EE doesn't deal with Poland, it does make an appearance in all of the 1792 scenarios...just before the final partitions of it took place. How can one best represent these partitions?
For a long time, I have been a fan of Polish history. Think of it. This was a MASSIVE country, which after its union with Lithuania stretched from Prussia deep into the Ukraine. I have long wondered if I ever did a game on the Rennaissance/ Enlightenment era, how would one represent this type of creature which was a strong centralized authority in one century, and was capable of being carved up with little or no resistance by 1772? The lesson to me was that centralization must be a variable of some sort.
Well, CoG:EE does not allow for the rise and decline of the centralization of powers within a nation/political institution (I don't believe). However, most nations of the time were somewhere along the spectrum of centralized monarchy (Russia) to barely functioning wreck of a hulk (Holy Roman Empire, Poland). At the moment, CoG:EE gives us the ability to show political entities in just one state of centralization, but there is wiggle room with some of the options available.
While really in the same ship wreck shape as Poland at the time, the Holy Roman Empire doesn't even get a mention in CoG:EE. Not even as a surrender term to shut it down completely as it did in EiA. But CoG:EE's Poland is a massive minor power which appears to be centralized adequately. Indeed, in the scenario where you can play as Poland, there is no real difference between playing that and France (I don't think). Yet, I argue, both Poland and the Holy Roman Empire were equally decentralized at this period in time.
THE HISTORY
What was Poland like at the end of the 18th century?
From Wiki...
In the eighteenth century, the powers of the Polish monarchy and the central administration became purely formal. Kings were denied permission to provide for the elementary requirements of defense and finance, and aristocratic clans made treaties directly with foreign sovereigns. Attempts at reform were stymied by the determination of the szlachta to preserve their "golden freedoms" as well as the liberum veto. Because of the chaos sown by the veto provision, under Augustus III (1733-63) only one of thirteen Sejm sessions ran to an orderly adjournment.
Unlike Spain and Sweden, great powers that were allowed to settle peacefully into secondary status at the periphery of Europe at the end of their time of glory, Poland endured its decline at the strategic crossroads of the continent. Lacking central leadership and impotent in foreign relations, Poland-Lithuania became a chattel of the ambitious kingdoms that surrounded it, an immense but feeble buffer state. During the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725), the commonwealth fell under the dominance of Russia, and by the middle of the eighteenth century Poland-Lithuania had been made a virtual protectorate of its eastern neighbor, retaining only the theoretical right to self-rule.
Quite frankly, this could be a description of the Holy Roman Empire after the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. I have been puzzled as to how one could treat Poland in a game like this. And it seems that by 1700 at the latest, it should perhaps be represented by lots of small states, like Germany, which can be manipulated by foreign powers individually. And occupied individually. However, this doesn't solve the whole problem and would be an oversimplification as well.
Let's look a little bit closer at how it got like this. But belive me, this short thread is only scratching the surface. For the details you can see the wiki links below (Nature magazine rated Wiki higher for accuracy than Encyclopedia Brittanica last year, so I don't mind quoting them at all now)...
In 1730 the neighbours of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita), namely Prussia, Austria and Russia, signed a secret agreement in order to maintain the status quo: specifically, to ensure that the Commonwealth laws would not change. Their alliance later became known in Poland as the "Alliance of the Three Black Eagles" (or Löwenwolde's Treaty), because all three states used a black eagle as a state symbol (in contrast to the white eagle, a symbol of Poland). The Commonwealth had been forced to rely on Russia for protection against the rising Kingdom of Prussia, while Prussia was demanding a slice of the northwest in order to unite its Western and Eastern portions, although this would leave the Commonwealth with a Baltic coast only in Latvia and Lithuania. The Commonwealth could never be liquidated unless its longtime ally, Austria, allowed it,[citation needed] and first Catherine had to use diplomacy to win Austria to her side.
Now, looking at the partitions, how did they occur?
Concerning the First Partition in 1772...
The defeat of the Confederation of Bar again left Poland exposed to the ambitions of its neighbors. Although Catherine initially opposed partition, Frederick the Great of Prussia profited from Austria's threatening military position to the southwest by pressing a long-standing proposal to carve territory from the commonwealth. Catherine, persuaded that Russia did not have the resources to continue its unilateral domination of Poland, agreed. In 1772 Russia, Prussia, and Austria forced terms of partition upon the helpless commonwealth under the pretext of restoring order in the anarchic conditions of the country.
In February, 1772, the agreement of partition was signed in Vienna. Early in August the Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops simultaneously entered the Commonwealth and occupied the provinces agreed upon among themselves. On August 5, 1772, the occupation manifesto was issued; much to the consternation of a country too exhausted by the endeavours of the Confederation of Bar to offer successful resistance;[9] nonetheless several battles and sieges took place, as Polish troops refused to lay down their arms (most notably, in Tyniec, Częstochowa and Kraków).
After the first partition, some elements in Poland felt it was time for reform and a period of national revival followed. In 1791, Poland produced Europe's first national codified constitution. "Conceived in the liberal spirit of the contemporaneous document in the United States, the constitution recast Poland-Lithuania as a hereditary monarchy and abolished many of the eccentricities and antiquated features of the old system. The new constitution abolished the individual veto in parliament; provided a separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; and established "people's sovereignty" (for the noble and bourgeois classes)."
This constitution was never fully implemented. I am guessing they never had the time.
From Wikipedia...
Passage of the constitution alarmed nobles who would lose considerable stature under the new order. In autocratic states such as Russia, the democratic ideals of the constitution also threatened the existing order, and the prospect of Polish recovery threatened to end domination of Polish affairs by its neighbors. In 1792, Polish factions formed the Confederation of Targowica and appealed for Russian assistance in restoring the status quo. Catherine was happy to use this opportunity; enlisting Prussian support, she invaded Poland under the pretext of defending Poland's ancient liberties. The irresolute Stanislaw August capitulated, defecting to the Targowica faction. Arguing that Poland had fallen prey to the radical Jacobinism then at high tide in France, Russia and Prussia abrogated the Constitution of 3 May, carried out a second partition of Poland in 1793, and placed the remainder of the country under occupation by Russian troops.
The second partition was far more injurious than the first. Russia received a vast area of eastern Poland, extending southward from its gains in the first partition nearly to the Black Sea. To the west, Prussia received an area known as South Prussia, nearly twice the size of its first-partition gains along the Baltic, as well as the port of Gdañsk. Thus, Poland's neighbors reduced the commonwealth to a rump state and plainly signaled their designs to abolish it altogether at their convenience.
In a gesture of defiance, a general Polish revolt broke out in 1794 under the leadership of Tadeusz Koœciuszko (Koœciuszko Uprising), a military officer who had rendered notable service in the American Revolution. Kosciuszko's ragtag insurgent armies won some initial successes, but they eventually fell before the superior forces of Russian General Alexander Suvorov. In the wake of the insurrection of 1794, Russia, Prussia, and Austria carried out the third and final partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795, erasing the Commonwealth of Two Nations from the map and pledging never to let it return.
Much of Europe condemned the dismemberment as an international crime without historical parallel. Amid the distractions of the French Revolution and its attendant wars, however, no state actively opposed the annexations. In the long term, the dissolution of Poland-Lithuania upset the traditional European balance of power, dramatically magnifying the influence of Russia and paving the way for the Germany that would emerge in the nineteenth century with Prussia at its core. For the Poles, the third partition began a period of continuous foreign rule that would endure well over a century.
A POSSIBLE SOLUTION
It is my arguement that perhaps the way Poland is represented in CoG:EE is not as true to history as the tools which WCS has already given us could represent it. Of course, I am not suggesting that the apparatus of each state be modelled and coded individually, but WHAT can be done with what WCS has given us?
It seems that Poland of 1792 is almost as sickly as the Holy Roman Empire and could be represented in much the same manner. With each region being an individual element to be manipulated and controlled by the neighboring powers. Ready to be divided up as needed to prevent conflict between the major neighboring powers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Ideally, one would do some research and divide Poland into the circles of its aristocratic clans which existed at the time, forming larger "power blocks" within Poland.
There was no more unified Polish state by this time. However, the rise of one was threatened with the constitution enacted in 1791.
An even more tantalizing solution for CoG:EE might be to leave Poland as a sick man of Europe, with many independently operating powers, until the constitution of 1791 is fully enacted, unifying it once more and making it a force to be rekoned with. Historically, this "reestablishment of a Poland to be rekoned with" was aborted by the partition. Perhaps the CoG:EE solution would be to form a full single Polish state, along the lines of every other multi-provence minor nation (like Naples) from the initial Polish provences which hadn't been occupied by a European power by 1795 or 1796 or 1797--this could be a random date which the neighbors would be unsure of. The effect of this mechanism would be to urge Prussia, Austria, and Russia to rush in to divide it before it became a danger and allied with its old French allies, who had traditionally sought it to balance Habsburg power...however, now, united by ideals of democracy and liberalism, there would be a greater bond between them. Suddenly, Poland, and its fate in the game, and the decisions of those around it, become very interesting.
Interestingly, this solution would allow for a relatively good depiction of actions such as the "War of the Confederation of Bar" from 1768-1772, where the Poles tried to expel Russian forces from Commonwealth territory. In this stuggle, the irregular and poorly commanded Polish forces had little chance in the face of the regular Russian army and suffered a major defeat. I can however, imagine this to be a proxy war between powers who control different regions or aristocratic clans within Poland (because interestingly, only a few regions actively participated in the Confederation of Bar...perhaps 2-3 by CoG:EE standards).
Ideally, somehow one would do some research to discover which aristocratic clans controlled which parts of Poland at the time and divide Poland among them, much like Bavaria in the Holy Roman Empire. If playing this kind of "Poland" in 1792, it might be more realistic to represent the Polish player as the controller of several regions of "Poland" who is struggling against his nieghbors to control the alliegances of other Polish aristocratic clans. Then, there might be a few options and historical events which would occur which would allow him to attempt to centralize his power--much to the consternation of his neighbors.
One thing cool, is that anyone reading this far will now perhaps have a better understanding as to why France can reivive Poland in most Napoleonic wargames and get troops out of them. I wish someone would have told all of this to me 20 years ago.
If anyone is STILL reading, I would be curious as to your thoughts.
By the way, the full Wikipedia article on this fascinating period of Polish-Lithuanian history is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
An article on the renaissance and enlightenment history of Poland-Lithania is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... 1569-1795)
The picture below: "Rejtan - The Fall of Poland", oil on canvas, 1866, 282 x 487 cm, Royal Castle in Warsaw. In September 1773 Rejtan tried to prevent the legalization of the first partition of Poland. The dramatic events in the Polish Sejm are depicted on the painting.
