Between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia...

Between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, which was the best to live in for Poles and which of these countries did they support the most?

The Habsburg Empire was the least worst of the the three because they eventually gave them some autonomy.
Prussia was bad because it wanted to erase the Poles altogether by assimilating them and colonizing their land.
Russia did the same thing with the added bonus of deporting Poles to Siberia.

Naturally there was more "support", as in less hatred between Poles and Austrians.
During WW there was some support in the AU for creating a Polish state under a Habsburg prince, Archduke Karl Stephan of Austria.

KUK was the least wortst as user #1 said because it was relatively autonomous/tolerant but poor as fuck
Prussia was bad because they forced assimilation and were actually decently competent at it
Russia was both poor and shit in terms of cultural freedom though their assimilation was far less successful than prussian

Prussia. Sure, they faced anticatholic sentiment and quite severe germanisierung, but on the other hand there was quite intense development, investment in infrastructure and education, and material wealth and quality of life was quite better compared to the other two.

In Austria, there was more "hands free" approach, which more or less meant that the local landed elite continued their policies, little push for development. Basically the local nobles were allowed to keep oppressing the locals "liberally". Who needs extensive railroad networks or high literacy anyway?

Russia is such a shithole it doesn't even need to be argued about.

having some use, alignment to the hungarian corps in side-by-side taking back istanbul would be best bet. fostered with strong nationalist sentiment and anti ...siberian... sentiment.

I hope people realize, that this Pic was just the initial partition. Most of them were immediately reversed and exhanged during the Napoleonic Epoche.
Prussia ended with comparatively little parts of Poland with a smaller polish population. Besides most what they got (Posen, Prussia) was rightful german clay to begin with

>most what they got (Posen, Prussia) was rightful german clay to begin with

Austria-Hungary.

Kingdom of Galicia & Lodomeria. m8. In addition a Catholic Monarch sat his ass there.

>Besides most what they got (Posen, Prussia) was rightful german clay to begin with
Whole Germany is rightful Polish, Dutch, Danish and French clay. It's meme-country that shouldn't exist.

I always wondered about the initial russian portion of the First Partition.
The whole partition thing was just initiated to stop russian expansion southwards and instead they should get polish lands -while at the same time Austria and Prussia would get a bit as well to not upset the balance of power in eastern europe too much.

But somehow both Prussia and Austria ended up with hugely strategic portions while Russia got a strip of nothing and was still satisfied. Its strange

Because whole Poland was a Russian protectorate by then. The partitions were basically Russia paying with Polish territories for favors elsewhere.

Butthurt polefag detected
Keep crying

>(Posen, Prussia) was rightful german clay to begin with

Hello, kraut. How does it feel to know that Prussia will never be German again and will be rightfully Polish for eternity.

Why should i care?

So the Prussians decided to attack fellow Christian in exchange for saving Turkish Muslims?

>which was the best to live in for Poles and which of these countries did they support the most?


It depends on the period.

1772-1807 Prussia was the best. It absorbed so much Polish-speaking territories (which at that time also included roughly 2/3rds of Silesia, half of East Prussia and 1/3rd of Pomerania) by that time that Polish was in fact the majority language in Prussia. Naturally, they had to accommodate to this situation and Polish was the second official language. DESU, a some sort of hybrid Polish-German culture could have emerged from that.

Austria was second. They were despotic, but in many aspects tried to improve their lands in the spirit of Enlightenment. In some other aspects, they left the land to rule its own devices.

At the same time Russia was being Russia, which means retarded despotism. Tens of thousands of people were killed in massacres that accompanied the destruction of the Uniate Church.

cont

cont.

We skip the Napoleonic intermezzo.

1815-1830.

Russia was mixed bag, but possibly the best. The congress of Vienna created an autonomous rump Kingdom of Poland that had its own constitution and army, in personal union with Russia. This Congress Poland experienced a period of astonishing economic growth and early industrialization (some say it was the second country after Britain that experienced the industrial revolution, exceeding even Belgium). The territories outside the Congress Poland weren't as rosey, but generally the Russian grip was much looser than before.

Prussia was second. The Congress made them to create and autonomous Duchy of Posen for Poles, but elsewhere pervasive Germanization policies were implemented, which started to move the linguistic border eastwards.

Austria was at that time an absolute shithole. Matternich's conservatism resulted in despotic rule that trampled everything. All offices were staffed by outsiders who implemented a policy of intentionally making country destitute and backward. Galicia (as the Austrian part came to be known) was to be a source of expendable manpower. It was considered possible to be lost in case of war with Russia, so literally no investment was made there.

>the partitions were basically Russia paying with Polish territories for favors elsewhere.
But it should have been the other way. Prussia and Austria should pay for the favor of Russia not annexing the Danubian Principalities, but instead gained far more.

Yes? Whats the problem? Noone gave a fuck about some religious BS at that time anymore. An ever expanding Russia on the other hand was something that noone wanted to see.
Thats also why France and GB intervened on the turkish side during the Crimean War a century later.

1830-1863

This is actually the nadir of Polish situation

Although Prussian policies continue, Prussia actually tops the list due to sheer fact that others suck even more. In 1848 Prussia breaches its promises and liquidates the autonomy of Posen, but their grip looses a bit in consequence of the revolution of the same year.

Russia gets worse, like much worse. The autonomy of Congress Poland is practically destroyed. Russification and economic exploitation ensue with destroy the industrialization.

Austria is the lowest and their policies culminate in the Galicia slaughter of 1846. Pure despotism rules.

1863-1914

Austria, after being trashed by wars of 1860s, gives Polish lands broad autonomy which results in flowering cultural life that many still fondly remember. However, this was the poorest part of Poland because complete lack of investments. Borderland mindset among politicians in Vienna continued.

Prussia gets engulfed by nationalistic insanity which leads to massive Germanization efforts, mass settlement of Germans, Kulturkampf and other shit. This policy has mixed results. It resulted in Germanization of Lower Silesia, Pomerania and Eastern Prussia, while it fortified Polish resistance in Posen, West Prussia and Upper Silesia. At the same time however, there's economic growth and industrialization that elevate the income and standard of living.

Russia is a shithole. Period. Poor and opressive. Despite that, Poland manages to industrialize and houses 1/3 of Russia's industry by 1914.

>But it should have been the other way. Prussia and Austria should pay for the favor of Russia not annexing the Danubian Principalities, but instead gained far more.

It was designed to break the Austrian-French alliance against Russian ambitions and discourage Prussia from seeking part in that alliance.

Yes, thats why they got included in the Partitions, but still Russia should have gained more imo for them to be satisfied

Well as an afterthough, if I'm not mistaken that turkish-russian war was also the one where they gained the Ukraine/Novorussiya as well, so they got more then enough strategic valuable land; so that breaking up the anti-russian alliance in Europe while still getting some polish/lithuanian clay as a nice bonus was indeed more then satisfying for them.

This basically. Although it's not apparent from those posts that Silesia wasn't taken during the partitions - it was a Polish speaking land that broke away from the crown in the middle ages, so the situation there was pretty different - there wasn't any larger resistance or oppression until the emergence of Polish national identity in that area in late XIXth century. Until then people mostly thought of themselves as local or Silesian.

Also I wouldn't judge the Russian part in early XXth century that harshly. It was a shithole, but most of Russia was. The late empire was pretty liberal politically and socially, and there were many Polish or Polish-descended people in the upper strata of society. Two of the main leaders of the White Army were half-Polish, and obviously there were just as many Poles or Polish-speaking Jews in the Bolshevik leadership.

Land Prussia acquaired from Poland didn't had to be invested in.

It was already industralized pre-partition and was the richest part of the Commonwealth, hence doubled Prussian economy.

Not to mention how rich province Posen was, both in farming land and industry.

Really? I thought Little Poland (Southern poland) was the most urbanized and industrialized part of them by far, followed by Galicia and the Western Prussian part.

Greater Poland lacked large latyfundia, but had lots of well-organized manors and manufactures.