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Frederick had despised the Poles since his youth, and numerous statements are known in which he expressed anti-Polish prejudice,[63] calling Polish society "stupid" and stating that "all these people with surnames ending with -ski, deserve only contempt".[64] He passionately hated everything associated with Poland, while justifying his hatred and territorial expansion with ideas of the Enlightenment.[65] He described Poles as "slovenly Polish trash";[66][c] referring to them in a letter from 1735 as "dirty" and "vile apes",[67] and compared the Polish peasants to American Indians.[68]
Frederick undertook the conquest of Polish territory under the pretext of an enlightened civilizing mission, given his disparagement of Poland and its ruling elite, all of which provided a convenient entree for the "sanguine meliorism" of the Enlightenment and heightened assurance in the "distinctive merits of the 'Prussian way'".[69][70] He prepared the ground for the partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1752 at latest, hoping to gain a territorial bridge between Pomerania, Brandenburg, and his East Prussian provinces.[71] Frederick was himself partly responsible for the weakness of the Polish government, having inflated its currency by his use of Polish coin dies obtained during the conquest of Saxony in 1756: the profits exceeded 25 million thalers, twice the peacetime national budget of Prussia.[72][73] He opposed attempts of political reform in Poland, and his troops bombarded customs ports on the Vistula, thwarting Polish efforts to create a modern fiscal system.[74] As early as 1731 Frederick had suggested that his country would benefit from annexing Polish Prussia in order to join the separated territories his own kingdom.[75]
According to Scott, Frederick was eager to exploit Poland economically as part of his wider aim of enriching Prussia. Scott views this as a continuation of his previous violations of Polish territory in 1759 and 1761 and raids within Greater Poland until 1765.
Lewitter says: "The conflict over the rights of religious dissenters [in Poland] had led to civil war and foreign intervention." Out of 11–12 million people in Poland, 200,000 were Protestants and 600,000 Eastern Orthodox. The Protestant dissidents were still free to practice their religion, although their schools were shut down.[76] All dissidents could own property, but Poland increasingly reduced their civic rights after a period of considerable religious and political freedoms.[77] They were allowed to serve in the army and vote in elections, but were barred from public offices and the Polish Parliament (Sejm), and during the 1760s their importance became out of proportion compared to their numbers.[78]Frederick exploited this conflict as means to keep Poland weak and divided.[79]
Empress Catherine II of Russia was staunchly opposed to Prussia, and in response Frederick opposed Russia, whose troops had been allowed to freely cross the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Seven Years' War of 1756–63. Despite their personal hostility, Frederick and Catherine signed a defensive alliance in 1764 that guaranteed Prussian control of Silesia in return for Prussian support for Russia against Austria or the Ottoman Empire. Catherine's candidate for the Polish throne, Stanisław August Poniatowski, was then elected King of Poland in September of that year, and she gained control of Polish politics.
Frederick became concerned, however, after Russia gained significant influence over Poland in the Repnin Sejm of 1767, a position which also threatened Austria and the Ottoman Turks. In the ensuing Russo-Turkish War (1768–74), Frederick supported Catherine with a subsidy of 300,000 rubles, albeit with reluctance as he did not want Russia to become even stronger through acquisitions of Ottoman territory. The Prussian king achieved a rapprochement with the Austrian Emperor Joseph and chancellor Kaunitz.
After Russia occupied the Danubian Principalities in 1769–70, Frederick's representative in Saint Petersburg, his brother Prince Henry, convinced Frederick and Maria Theresa that the balance of power would be maintained by a tripartite division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth instead of Russia taking land from the Ottomans. They agreed to the First Partition of Poland in 1772, which took place without war. Frederick claimed most of the Polish province of Royal Prussia. Prussia annexed 20,000 square miles (52,000 km2) and 600,000 inhabitants, the least of the partitioning powers.[80] However, Prussia's Polish territory was also the best-developed economically. The newly created province of West Prussia connected East Prussia and Farther Pomerania and granted Prussia control of the mouth of the Vistula River. Frederick also invited German immigrants to the province,[81] hoping they would displace the Poles.[82] Maria Theresa had only reluctantly agreed to the partition, to which Frederick sarcastically commented, "she cries, but she takes".[68]
Frederick himself tried further propaganda to justify the Partition, portraying the acquired provinces as underdeveloped and improved by Prussian rule. According to Karin Friedrichthese claims were accepted for a long time in German historiography and sometimes still reflected in modern works.[83] Frederick did not justify his conquests on an ethnic basis, however, unlike later nationalist, 19th-century German historians. Dismissive of contemporary German culture, Frederick instead pursued an imperialist policy, acting on the security interests of his state.[84] Frederick II settled 300,000 colonists in territories he had conquered, and enforced Germanization.[85]
After the first partition Frederick engaged in plunder of Polish property, confiscating Polish estates and monasteries to support German colonization, and in 1786 he ordered forced buy-outs of Polish holdings.[86] The new strict tax system and bureaucracy was particularly disliked among the Polish population, as was the compulsory military service in the army, which didn't exist previously in Poland.[87] Frederick abolished the gentry's freedom from taxation and restricted its power.[88] Royal estates formerly belonging to the Polish Crown were redistributed to German landowners, reinforcing Germanization.[89] Both Protestant and Roman Catholic teachers (mostly Jesuits) taught in West Prussia, and teachers and administrators were encouraged to be able to speak both German and Polish.[81] Economic exploitation of Poland, especially by Prussia and Austria, followed the territorial seizures.
Frederick looked upon many of his new Polish citizens with scorn, but carefully concealed that scorn when actually dealing with them. Frederick's long-term goal was to remove all Polish people from his territories, both peasants and nobility. He sought to expel the nobles through an oppressive tax system and the peasantry by eradicating the Polish national character of the rural population by mixing them with Germans invited in their thousands by promises of free land. By such means, Frederick boasted he would "gradually...get rid of all Poles".[90][91]
Frederick wrote that Poland had "the worst government in Europe with the exception of Turkey".[68] After a prolonged visit to West Prussia in 1773, Frederick informed Voltaire of his findings and accomplishments: "I have abolished serfdom, reformed the savage laws, opened a canal which joins up all the main rivers; I have rebuilt those villages razed to the ground after the plague in 1709. I have drained the marshes and established a police force where none existed. ... [I]t is not reasonable that the country which produced Copernicus should be allowed to moulder in the barbarism that results from tyranny. Those hitherto in power have destroyed the schools, thinking that the uneducated people are easily oppressed. These provinces cannot be compared with any European country—the only parallel would be Canada."[92] However, in a letter to his favorite brother, Prince Henry, Frederick admitted that the Polish provinces were economically profitable:
- It is a very good and advantageous acquisition, both from a financial and a political point of view. In order to excite less jealousy I tell everyone that on my travels I have seen just sand, pine trees, heath land and Jews. Despite that there is a lot of work to be done; there is no order, and no planning and the towns are in a lamentable condition.[93]
Frederick also sent in Jesuits to open schools, and befriended Ignacy Krasicki, whom he asked to consecrate St. Hedwig's Cathedral in 1773. He also advised his successors to learn Polish, a policy followed by the Hohenzollern dynasty until Frederick III decided not to let the future William II learn the language.[81]
