This article is a revised version of a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New Orleans, Dec. 1972.

1. Dehio, Ludwig, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, trans. Fullman, Charles (New York, 1965), p. 129.Google Scholar

2. Hintze, Otto, Die Hohenzollern und Ihr Werk, 7th ed. (Berlin, 1916),Google Scholar“Preussens Entwicklung zum Rechstsstaat,” Forschungen zur brandenburgischen und preussischen Geschichte 32 (1920): 389–449,Google Scholarand “Der österreichische und der preussische Beamtenstaat in 17. und 18. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 86 (1901): 401–44;Google ScholarHartung, Fritz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zum Gegenwart, 5th rev. ed. (Stuttgart, 1950),Google Scholarand “Der aufgeklärte Absolutismus,” Historische Zeitschrift 190 (1955): 15–42;Google ScholarDorn, Walter L., “The Prussian Bureaucracy in the Eighteenth Century I–III,” Political Science Quarterly 46 (1931): 403–23 and 47 (1932): 75–93, 259–73;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWeill, H., Frederick the Great and Samuel von Cocceji (Madison, Wisc., 1964);Google ScholarRosenberg, Hans, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience, 1660–1815 (Cambridge, Mass., 1958);Google ScholarBrunschwig, Henri, La crise de l'état prussien et la génèse de la mentalité romantique (Paris, 1947);Google ScholarKoselleck, Reinhardt, Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1791 bis 1848 (Stuttgart, 1967).Google Scholar

3. Koselleck, p. 132.

4. Cf. Krüger's, Horst important study, Zur Geschichte der Manufakturen und der Manufakturarbeiter in Preussen: Die mittleren Provinzen in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1958), p. 93.Google Scholar

5. Brunschwig, pt. 2, chap. 1, “La crise sociale,” passim; Koselleck, pp. 113, 132–33; Krüger, pp. 49, 129–30.

6. Ziekursch, Johannes, Hundert Jahre schlesischer Agrargeschichte: vom Huburtusburger Frieden bis zum Abschluss der Bauernbefreiung, 2d rev. ed. (Breslau, 1927);Google ScholarGörlitz, Walter, Die Junker: Adel und Bauer im deutschen Osten, 2d rev. ed. (Glücksburg, 1957), chap. 2;Google Scholar Koselleck, pp. 80–87; von Braun, Joachim, “Die ostdeutsche Wirtschaft in ihrer vorindustriellen Entwicklung,” in Kraus, Herbert, ed., Das östliche Deutschland (Würzburg, 1959), pp. 603–45.Google Scholar

7. The system of manufactures, organized to a large extent on an outwork basis, undermined the existence of a great many formerly independent guild masters while enriching other more fortunate or enterprising artisans. It thus constituted an important stage in the dissolution of the traditional guild-based urban economy. See Krüger, pp. 25–260, and Schmoller, Gustav, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kleingewerbe im 19. Jahrhundert (Halle, 1870), chap. 1.Google Scholar

8. Cf. Kieniewicz, Stefan and Kula, Witold, eds., Historia Polski (Warsaw, 1958), vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 71–81;Google ScholarKonopczyński, Wladyslaw, Fryderyk Wielki a Polska (Poznań, 1947), an immoderately polemical work;Google ScholarKaplan, H. H., The First Partition of Poland (New York, 1962);Google ScholarFeldman, Józef, Das polnisch-deutsche Problem in der Geschichte, trans, from 1st Polish, ed. of 1946 (Marburg, 1961);Google ScholarBroszat, Martin, Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik (Munich, 1963), chaps. 1–2; Dehio, pp. 124–30.Google Scholar

9. Quotations in Henderson, W. O., Studies in the Economic Policy of Frederick the Great (London, 1963), p. 134.Google Scholar On the trade treaty, ibid., pp. 99ff.; See also Krüger, pp. 56–57, 96–97.

10. Kieniewicz, and Kula, , Historia Polski, 2/1: 206;Google Scholar Krüger, p. 126; quotation from Bär, Max, Westpreussen unter Friedrich dem Grossen (Berlin, 1909), 1: 78.Google Scholar Bär's is the classic work on the subject. See also Koser, Reinhold, Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen, 7th ed. (Stuttgart, 1925), pp. 333–59;Google ScholarHubatsch, Walter, “Der preussische Staat. Probleme seiner Entwicklung vom 16. bis zum beginnenden 19. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch der Albertus-Universität zu Königsberg 12 (1962): 137–39.Google Scholar

11. Bär, chaps. 14–18, 20, 22–24.

12. Ibid., chaps. 9–13; see also Wąsicki, Jan, Ziemie polskie pod zaborem pruskim: Prusy poludniowe 1793–1806. Studium historycznoprawne (Wroclaw, 1957), pp. 30ff.Google Scholar

13. Arnold, Robert, Geschichte der deutschen Polenlitteratur von den Anfängen bis 1800 (Vienna, 1900), passim.Google Scholar Arnold writes, p. 108, of the letters of the German savant Georg Forster from Wilno to his friends in Germany during the years 1784–87: “die ‘verfluchte Leibeigenschaft’ ist das Thema, zu dem seine herrlichen Briefe immer wieder zurückkehren, nächst ihr die herrschende Unordnung, die Anarchie, das, ‘was in den angrenzenden Gegenden Deutschlands, mit einem emphatischen Ausdruck, polnische Wirtschaft genannt wird.’ ”

14. Ibid., pp. 73ff.

15. For examples of this attitude, see the official public proclamations in South Prussia made in 1794 and 1795, attempting to convince the Poles of the advantages of Prussian enlightened absolutism in comparison with Polish rule, quoted by Wąsicki, Prusy Potudniowe, pp. 159, 195.

16. Meinecke, Friedrich, Weltbürgertum und Nationahtaat (reprint of 1921 ed., Munich, 1962), p. 37.Google Scholar The close connection of Prussian patriotism and the Prussian military tradition can be seen in a statement from 1793 of the task of the Berlin military orphanage: “die grösste Zahl gesunder und wohlunterrichteter, soldatisch, d.h. patriotisch-gesinnter, zur Arbeitsamkeit und Subordination gewöhnter Rekruten für das Militär und für das Land zu liefern,” quoted by Krüger, p. 145.

17. See especially Brunschwig, pt. 1, chaps. 1–2.

18. K.-O. an den Oberpräsidenten von Domhardt, June 8, 1777, in Bär, 2 (Quellen): 350. Frederick also used such expressions as “liederliches Zeug,” “unordentliches polnisches Volk,” “garsriges kodriges Polenzeug,” and “das polnische adlige Zeug, das nicht ordentlich ist und sein Geld in Polen vertut,” ibid., passim. See also Frederick's anti-Polish satire, unpublished in his lifetime, entitled La guerre des confédérés: poëme, in Oeuvres de Frédéric le Grand (Berlin, 1850), 14: 216–71.Google Scholar Polish historians—for example, Konopczyński—have sometimes forgotten that Frederick passed similarly drastic judgments on his own German subjects and countrymen, as well as upon other members of the human race who seemed to lack the qualities of order and enlightenment which he prized.

19. K.-O. an den Kammerpräsidenten von Domhardt, Apr. 1, 1772, in Bär, 2: 18. In 1776 a Cadet School was opened in Kulm (Chelmno) where sixty sons of the Polish szlachta began to prepare themselves for Prussian military service. Cf. Bär, 1: 566ff. On the Prussian school system in West Prussia, see Ravens, Jürgen-Peter, Stoat und katholische Kirche in Preussens polnischen Teilungsgebieten (1772–1807) (Weisbaden, 1963), pp. 64ff.Google Scholar

20. Cf. Schottmüller, Kurt, Der Polenaufstand 1806/7 (Lissa, 1907).Google Scholar

21. Koser, Reinhold, “Die preussische Politik von 1786 bis 1806,” Deutsche Monatsschrift für das gesamte Leben der Gegenwart 11 (1906–1907): 453–80, 612–37.Google Scholar Koser accepts the judgment of Caillard, the French envoy in Berlin, expressed in a report to Paris of Dec. 9, 1796: “There is no sensible man in Berlin who will not concede that the last partition of Poland was a disastrous operation, and people recall bitterly the well-known maxim of the great Frederick that the existence of some sort of Polish state is necessary for Prussia's security.” Koser points out that Frederick never committed such a maxim to paper. Caillard continued: “I have seen tears fall from the honorable [General] Moellendorff's eyes whenever he speaks with me of this subject. Herr Bischoffwerder, Herr Haugwitz and also, I believe, the king himself have all admitted that Prussia's situation has become much more critical because of these unfortunate acquisitions. Prince Henry, his brother Prince Ferdinand, all the young princes condemn this operation openly and one can say that on this issue the nation is of one mind.” Quoted on p. 479. It took 12,000 Prussian troops to garrison Warsaw alone, ibid., p. 480. Karl von Hoym, minister of both the turbulent Silesian and South Prussian provinces, wrote Frederick William II after the conclusion of the peace of Basel praising him for having concluded “an honorable peace and thereby forestalled in timely fashion any outbreak of unrest in the provinces.” Quoted by Wąsicki, Prusy poludniowe, p. 190. Many traditional Prussian historians have glossed over the negative impact of the last partitions on Prussian policy, for example, Hubatsch, “Der preussische Staat,” pp. 140–42, Otto Hoetzsch, “Brandenburg- Preussen und Polen von 1640–1815,” in Brackmann, Albert, ed., Deutschland und Polen (Munich, 1933), pp. 201–6,Google Scholar and Meinecke, Friedrich, Das Zeitalter der deutschen Erhebung 1795–1815 (Leipzig, 1906), p. 40.Google Scholar

22. Denkschrift über die Verwaltung Südpreussens während der ersten Amtsperiode des Ministers von Voss, September 1794, in Bussenius, Ingeburg, ed., Urkunden und Akten zur Geschichte der preussischen Verwaltung in Sudpreussen und Neuostpreussen 1793–1806 (Frankfurt a.M., 1961), document 13.Google Scholar

23. Kieniewicz, and Kula, , Historia Polski, 2/2: 60.Google Scholar

24. Broszat, p. 51; Wąsicki, Jan, Ziemie polskie pod zaborem pruskim: Prusy Nowowschodnie (Neuostpreussen) 1795–1806 (Poznań, 1962), p. 262 and passim;Google Scholar Wąsicki, Prusy Poludniowe, pp. 110, 328, and passim; Bussenius, Ingeburg, Die preussische Verwaltung in Süd- und Neuostpreussen 1793–1806, pp. 210–18.Google Scholar

25. This is the position of Wąsicki, Bussenius, and Hubatsch in the above-cited works. It is taken also by Ritter, Gerhard in “Die preussischen Staatmänner der Reformzeit und die Polenfrage,” in Brackmann, Deutschland und Polen, p. 211.Google Scholar

26. Wąsicki, Prusy Nowowschodnie, pts. 1/3 and 2/3; Wąsicki, Prusy Potudniowe, pts. 1/3 and 2/3; Bussenius, Preussische Verwaltung, pt. 1/3, pt. 2, passim.

27. Cf. especially Koselleck, pp. 23–153, which supersedes older interpretations such as Dilthey, Wilhelm, “Das Allgemeine Landrecht,” in Gesammelte Schriften (Leipzig, 1936), 12: 131–204.Google Scholar

28. Otto Hintze analyzes these in his essay “Preussische Reformbestrebungen vor 1806,” written in 1896 and reprinted in Regierung und Verwaltung (Göttingen, 1967), pp. 504–29.Google Scholar Hintze does not assign special importance to the administration of the Polish provinces in advancing the pre-1806 reforms.

29. Arnold, p. 242; Bussenius, pp. 56, 60, 138. The most notorious scandal in the Polish provinces arose from provincial minister Hoym's sale at token prices of confiscated Polish estates to his favorites, proceedings that Bussenius, without denying the prevalence of corruption in the province's bureaucracy, tries lamely to excuse, pp. 186ff.

30. Quoted in Wąsicki, Prusy Poludniowe, p. 317. Cf. also Bussenius, Preussische Verwaltung, p. 141; Ritter, p. 210. Whereas Hoym in the mid-1790s sought to cooperate with the Polish nobility in South Prussia on the basis of common fear of peasant unrest and Jacobinism, his successor as well as Schroetter in New East Prussia stood on the frederickian ground that first the power of the Prussian state must be solidly established, after which all classes of Polish society were to be governed severely but fairly and rationally. Ravens, p. 97; Wąsicki, Prusy Poludniowe, p. 77.

31. Arnold, pp. 98, 105.

32. Arnold, pp. 115–16, 135, 151. As foreign minister, Hertzberg privately described his misgivings about the Polish reforms in a letter written after hearing of the new constitution: “The Poles have given the coup de grace to the Prussian Monarchy by voting a Constitution much better than the English. I think that Poland will regain sooner or later West Prussia, and perhaps East Prussia also. How can we defend our state, open from Memel to Teschen, against a numerous and well-governed nation?” Quoted in Gieysztor, Aleksander et al. , History of Poland (Warsaw, 1968), p. 377.Google Scholar On the Prusso-Polish alliance, see Lord, R. H., The Second Partition of Poland (Cambridge, Mass., 1915).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. Tscbirch, Otto, Geschichte der öffentlichen Meinung in Preussen vom Baseler Frieden bis zum Zusammenbruch des Staates (1795–1806) (Weimar, 1933), 1: 165 and chap. 5, passim.Google Scholar Arnold, pp. 73, 233. Rebmann wrote of the events of 1791–93 in these terms: “A tyrant invades a foreign land—to exterminate the Jacobins, breaks the most solemnly sworn treaties, incites the citizens of this land … to war against another tyrant, promises support and then murders his own ally. That's called—statesmanship.” Quoted in Arnold, p. 238. In the Göttingen Gelehrte Anzeigen, Schlözer compared the second partition to the atrocities in France. Ibid., p. 151.

34. The Berliner Monatsschrift was prohibited from publishing an engraving of Kościuszko, but, according to Arnold (pp. 128–31), such portraits were widely sold throughout Germany.

35. Notably in the poetry of Zacharias Werner, a Prussian official in South Prussia (1796–1805). Cf. Arnold, pp. 227ff., and Werner's poems reproduced on pp. 274–81. One of Werner's themes was the inevitable rebirth of the Polish state; another was Kościuszko's heroism. But the tenuousness of Prussian polonophilia can be seen in Werner's change of heart, expressed in 1804: “Warschau war bei weitem das nicht, was ich traumte; … die Freiheit, für die ich in Plozk enthusiastisch eingenommen war und zu deren, namentlich des Helden Kościuszko Ehren, ich im Zirkel einiger frohen Polen—keine Nation ist froher als die Polen—mehrere Gedichte gemacht hatte verekelte ich mir ganz und gar, als ich in Warschau ihre jämmerlichen Priester näher kennenlernte.” Quoted in Bussenius, p. 147.

36. South Prussian provincial minister Hoym repeatedly complained of the “Pfaffen-Geist” and “Egyptian darkness” of the Polish clergy who opposed his efforts, as Silesian minister, to educate the Upper Silesian Poles to become “German-mannered people.” Ravens, p. 78; Wąsicki, Prusy Poludniowe, p. 191.

37. Wąsicki, Prusy Nowowschodnie, pp. 27, 39.

38. Cf. Immediatbericht der Minister Finkenstein, Alvensleben, Goldbeck und Haugwitz, 12 Oktober 1798, in Bussenius, Urkunden und Akten, document 123. For Hoym's, Schroetter's, and other officials’ hopes for Polish-Prussian coexistence, see Wąsicki, Prusy Nowowschodnie, pp. 220, 245, and Prusy Poludniowe, pp. 168–71, 183. On the Polish policy of Stein and Hardenberg, see Ritter, pp. 213–319.

39. Cf. Meinecke, Friedrich, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat, pt. 2; Schieder, Theodor, Das deutsche Kaiserreich von 1871 als Nationalstaat (Cologne, 1961).Google Scholar