Partitions of Poland

In three partitions Russia, Prussia and Austria divided the territory of the Commonwealth, which ceased to exist in 1795; Austria took no part in the second partition. After the Napoleonic Wars the Congress of Vienna redrew the division in 1815: a Kingdom of Poland tied to Russia, a Grand Duchy of Posen within Prussia and a Free City of Kraków, annexed by Austria in 1846. These became the three partitions, Russian, Prussian and Austrian, that lasted until the First World War.

In 1914 the partitioning powers found themselves on opposite sides: Russia with the Entente, Germany and Austria-Hungary among the Central Powers. Poles served in all three armies, sometimes fighting one another, and the Polish lands became a battlefield. The war, and above all the defeat of all three partitioning powers, opened the way to the rebirth of a Polish state in 1918.