Attempts at reaching an Austrian-Polish agreement in 1790–1815 : a lost opportunity?

The years 1790-1815 saw several attempts at concluding an agreement between the Austrian Empire and the Poles of Galicia. Those initiatives usually got off the ground when the Habsburg monarchy hit a hard patch (ie. the internal crisis of 1790, the military defeats of 1796-1797, the 1809 general mobilization for war against Napoleon, and during talks about the future of the annexed Polish territories in 1813-1815). The common goal of the proposed agreements was to secure Galicia’s autonomy, if possible anchored in a separate constitution, as well to get the government commit itself to increased investment in the region and to ease access for Poles who wished to join the Austrian military and civil service. The Poles also raised the issue of allowing the Polish language to be used in public institutions and schools. Of all the Polish demands only two were met by the Austrians. The terms and conditions of military service were adjusted to the needs of the Polish gentry and the number of regiments manned by Polish volunteers was increased. While in the 1790s proposals of an agreed settlement were usually initiated by some of the Galician gentry, in the following years, when the Poles gave up trying, it was the Austrian offi cialdom that took up the initiative. The main reason was that in the early years of the 19th century the Poles of Galicia were increasingly attracted by other arrangements, ie. accession to the newly formed Duchy of Warsaw, or even submitting to the protection of the Russian Emperor Alexander I. The failure of the idea of a Polish-Austrian agreement after the partition of Poland in 1795 must be blamed on Austria’s holding on to the Josephine political line, which prioritized centralization and insisted on conducting all state business in German. Moreover, whenever the internal and external threats appeared to subside, the Austrians would lose interest in listening to or courting the Poles.