Catherine the Great

He was not favored by Catherine. Without waiting for Augustus to die, she had made a different choice. The strongest native Polish figure would have been Prince-Chancellor Adam Czartoryski, the leading member of Poland’s Russophile party, a strong character and a man of influence and wealth. But strength, experience, and wealth were not the qualities Catherine was seeking in a new king. She wanted someone weaker, more pliable—and in need of money—and she had a candidate who would suit her purpose admirably. This was Adam Czartoryski’s nephew—and her former lover—Stanislaus Poniatowski. As early as August 2, 1762, a month after her accession, she had written to Stanislaus, “I am sending Count Keyserling immediately as ambassador to Poland to make you king after the death of August III.” Catherine had told Hermann Keyserling that he was authorized to bribe whomever was necessary and could spend up to a hundred thousand rubles. To add steel to gold, she moved thirty thousand soldiers to the Russian-Polish frontier.

Not wishing her candidate’s election to be seen as based purely on Russian money and bayonets, she looked for another monarch to support her choice. She knew that Austria and France would prefer the Saxon; she also knew that Frederick of Prussia emphatically did not want another Saxon; that, in fact, he would automatically oppose whomever Maria Theresa of Austria favored. She believed that Frederick would support a native Pole. She understood that if Prussia joined Russia, Poland would feel pressure from both east and west, and that the floundering state would find itself in a diplomatic and military vise.

Frederick carefully considered Catherine’s proposal. His own diplomatic situation was weak. Having narrowly escaped defeat in the Seven Years’ War, Prussia was exhausted, impoverished, and diplomatically isolated. Frederick needed an ally, and Russia seemed the best—perhaps the only—prospect. But Frederick was too skillful a negotiator to rush into an arrangement in which the Polish crown was the only subject on the bargaining table. He, like Catherine, prefered a native Pole to a Saxon candidate, but he realized that Catherine’s interest in the continuation of “fortunate anarchy” in Poland was greater than his own. Cannily, therefore, he declared that he would cooperate with her, but only in return for what he most wanted: a Prussian-Russian alliance. Initially, this bargain suited Catherine not at all; she was aware that a new alliance with Prussia would remind Russians of Peter III’s short-lived, highly unpopular alliance with Frederick, whom he had called “the king my master.”

She delayed giving a definite answer, attempting to soothe and woo him with exotic gifts. Instead of a treaty, Frederick received watermelons from Astrakhan, grapes from the Ukraine, dromedaries from central Asia, caviar, sturgeon, and furs of fox and marten. Frederick thanked her for the gifts, noting wryly, “There is a vast difference between melons from Astrakhan and the assembly of deputies in Poland, but everything comes within the scope of your activity. The same hand that gives away fruit can distribute crowns and guarantee the peace of Europe, for which I and all those who are interested in the affairs of Poland will eternally bless you.”

Mutual interest prevailed. Frederick made a gesture of approval of Catherine’s choice for Poland by awarding Stanislaus the Order of the Black Eagle, Prussia’s highest military decoration. Catherine allowed herself to forget that not long before, Frederick had bestowed the same award on her husband, Peter III, who was no more a soldier than Stanislaus. But Frederick had the alliance he wanted, a reciprocal defense treaty, binding for eight years. Each of the two powers pledged to assist the other in the event of an attack by a single power, sending an annual financial subsidy of four hundred thousand rubles. Should two hostile powers attack one of the allies, its partner was pledged to send a force of ten thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry. Further, it was understood that Russia and Prussia would cooperate in all matters concerning the Polish political quagmire. In the immediate situation, this meant Prussian support for the candidacy of Stanislaus. There was to be no subtlety and no hesitation. In a secret corollary, the two monarchs declared that both parties were resolved to guarantee “a free and uninfluenced election” and “to resort, if need be, to force of arms, should anyone attempt to prevent the free election of the king in Poland or to meddle with the existing constitution.” If certain Poles opposed their new “lawfully elected king” by proclaiming an opposing confederation, the allies agreed to employ “military severity against them and their lands without the slightest mercy.”