ABSTRACT
Between 1772 and 1795, in the most drastic redrawing of European frontiers before the twentieth century, a state larger than France was removed from the political map. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic era witnessed the elimination of the Holy Roman Empire and the restructuring of the Italian polities, but something that contemporaries could call ‘Germany’ or ‘Italy’ survived. ‘Poland’ was excised altogether, even if its ghost never let European statesmen rest until its reincarnation in a very different body after the First World War. The First Partition sent shudders of novel alarm through the weaker states of Europe, even though many observers felt that the Poles had only themselves to blame; if not, indeed, that such enlightened rulers as Frederick the Great or Catherine the Great were doing them a service.
