error.

In the flat country to the northeast of Austria-Hungary and east of
Prussia lay the kingdom of Poland, the largest country in Europe with
the exception of Russia. The Poles, as has been said before, were a
Slavic people, distant cousins of the Russians and Bohemians. They had
a strong nobility or upper class, but these nobles were jealous of
each other, and as a result, the country was torn apart by many
warring factions. The condition of the working class was very
miserable. The nobles did not allow them any privileges. They were
serfs, that is to say, practically slaves, who had to give up to their
masters the greater part of the crops that they raised. In the council
of the Polish nobles, no law could be passed if a single nobleman
opposed it. As a result of this jealousy between factions, the Poles
could not be induced to obey any one leader, and thus, divided, were
easy to conquer.

Frederick the Great, regretting the fact that he was separated from
his land in East Prussia by the county of West Prussia, which was part
of Poland, proposed to his old enemy, Maria Theresa of Austria, and to
the Empress Catharine II of Russia that they each take a slice of
Poland. This was accordingly done, in the year 1772. Poor Poland was
unable to resist the three great powers around her, and the other
kings of Europe, who had been greedily annexing land wherever they
could get it, stood by without a protest. Some twenty years later,
Prussia and Russia each again annexed a large part of the remainder of
Poland, and two years after this, the three powers divided up among
them all that was left of the unhappy kingdom. The Poles fought
violently against this last partition, but they were not united and
were greatly outnumbered by the troops of the three powers.

This great crime against a nation was the result of the military
system; and this in turn was the result of the feudal system, which
made the king, as commander-in-chief of the army, the supreme ruler of
his country. The men in the Prussian and Austrian armies had no desire
to fight and conquer the poor Poles. Victory meant nothing to them.
They gained no advantage from it. To the kings who divided up the
countries it simply meant an enlargement of their kingdoms, more
people to pay taxes to them, and more men to draw on for their armies.

[Illustration: Catharine II]

Instead of crushing out the love of the Poles for their country, this
wrongful tearing apart