Duchy of Warsaw

Telling us that under the weight of the unhappy issue of the war of eighteen oh five Austria had collapsed, that the Confederation of the Rhine had taken the place of the German Empire.

that Tyrol had been given to Bavaria, and that the Duchy of Warsaw had been pushed in between Russia and Austria; that the Peace of Tilsit had brought about an alliance between Russia and France, the twofold object of which was the silent assent of the former power to the attacks of the latter, and the partition of the Ottoman Empire between the two, adjusted on the supposition of its impending fall.

He adds this confession, Austria therefore was not in a position in which she could possibly maintain herself.

Then peeps out the fear which subsequent events proved to have been utterly unsubstantial, but which pervaded the court of Vienna and inspired all its action.

It did not.

On the 4th September Napoleon completed his demand.

He required, he said, three circles of Bohemia to be given to his ally the King of Saxony and about one half of Galicia to add to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.

If all these demands should be granted, the population of Austria would be diminished by five millions.

These events prompted Prussia to declare war on Napoleon in October 1806, but within less than a week, Napoleon shattered Prussia's military reputation by defeating Prussian armies at Jena and Auerstedt and occupying most of the country.

In the aftermath of these events, the Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807 created a restored Polish state known as the Duchy of Warsaw, from what had been Prussian Poland, but was now a client state of Napoleonic France.

In 1813, following Napoleon's calamitous Russian campaign the previous year, Russian and Prussian armies occupied the duchy, and in 1815, Poland was once again wiped off the European map, and the Kingdom of Prussia resumed its leading role in northern Germany, as part of a German confederation, led by the Austrian Emperor.

The Prussian resistance to Napoleon from 1813 had been inspired in part by a sense of German nationalism, with liberal Prussian officers seeing themselves as leaders of a German unification movement.