I have just said that I should speak of the arrangements respecting the Duchy of Warsaw, which were contemplated during the war in the event of the allies being successful. It had been settled that this duchy—once delivered from the pretensions of Napoleon—should be divided between the three military powers, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
But the Emperor of Russia now took a higher tone. The annihilation of Poland, he said, had been a disgrace to Europe: he proposed to himself the task of collecting its scattered members, and reconstituting it with its own laws, religion, and constitution. It would be a pleasure to him to add to what he could otherwise re-assemble, the ancient Polish provinces under his dominion. Poland should live again with the Czar of Russia for its king. I doubt whether the Emperor Alexander did not over-rate the gratitude he expected to awaken, and under-rate the feeling existing among the Poles, not merely as to nationality, but as to national independence.
But his notion most assuredly was, that he should thus create as an avant-garde into Europe a powerful kingdom, capable of rapid improvement, and combining with a complete devotion to his family, all the enthusiasm of a people who again stood up amidst the nations of the world.
He argued, moreover, and not without reason, that a kingdom of Poland thus existing would inevitably ere long draw back to itself all those portions of alienated territory which were in the hands of the other co-partitioning powers, and that thus Russia would ere long dominate the whole of that kingdom which she had at one time condescended to divide.
This project was of course easily seen through in Prussia as well as in Austria; but Russia presumed that Austria would be satisfied with her Italian acquisitions. He saw, however, that Prussia required no common bribe. The bribe proposed was Saxony, and thus a secret engagement was entered into between the two northern courts: Russia promising to stand by Prussia’s claims as to Saxony, and Prussia promising to support Russia’s plans as to Poland.
With respect to England, she seemed more especially occupied with the idea of forming a united kingdom of Holland and Belgium, and beguiled by the delusion that you could unite by treaties populations which were disunited by sympathies, fancied she could, by the union proposed, create a barrier against French ambition where England was most concerned; and thus save us in future from those dangers by which we were menaced when the Scheldt was in Napoleon’s possession, and the British coast was menaced by maritime arsenals, which confronted it from Brest to Antwerp.
The conflict which at once commenced had reference to the ambitious claims of Prussia and Russia.
The King of Saxony, though an ally of Napoleon, had been faithful to France, and there was a feeling in the French nation favourable to him. As to Poland, France, which has always taken a lively interest in Polish independence as a barrier against Russian aggrandisement, could not see with satisfaction an arrangement which was to make Poland an instrument of Russian power.
Our disposition as to Prussia was at first somewhat undecided. We did not approve of the destruction of Saxony, still we were not unwilling to see a strong state established in the north of Germany, if it was an independent state: and would therefore at first have allowed the addition of Saxony to the Prussian dominions, if Prussia would have joined with Great Britain and Austria against the Russian projects in Poland. Austria, on the other hand, was quite as much against the Prussian project as the Russian one; but Prince Metternich, being perfectly aware that Prussia would not separate herself from Russia, affected to fall into Lord Castlereagh’s views, and agreed to sacrifice Saxony if Prussia would insist with ourselves on Polish independence.
Prussia, as Prince Metternich foresaw, refused this; and indeed took possession of Saxony, as Russia did of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, assuming towards the other powers an attitude of defiance.