As summarized by Selena, Ziebura's take on the episode in which Heinrich is offered a crown:
August III of Poland & Saxony had died in 1763, and a polish delegation lead by Andreas Mokranowski showed up in Prussia to offer the crown to Heinrich. Now, not only was this when Fritz and Heinrich had just had one of their frequent bust-ups (this one involved the immortal dialogue "mon cher, you just don't understand" "Oh, I think I'm old enough to understand" (exit Heinrich to Rheinsberg, seriously, this from two men who'd just won the 7 Years War), but it also conflicted with Catherine's desire to put her boyfriend, the later unexpectedly self determined Poniatowski on the Polish throne. Fritz, who did not want a new conflict with Russia, therefore forebade Andreas Mokranowski to as much as speak to Heinrich. Who didn't find out until becoming buddies with Catherine years later when negotioting the first Separation of Poland.As part of
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mildred_of_midgard's Poland research, she across a 1905 article by Volz that says, "Not so fast."
Ziebura's account, according to Volz, is the traditional picture repeated by historian after historian, all of whom are copying each other (Volz puts some passages side by side to show the copying evidence), but this claim, as stated, goes back to some very unreliable sources that get everything wrong. The most reliable sources we have, which are unfortunately not as primary source as we would like, but summaries of speeches made orally, have a slightly different take.
First, some political background: There were two parties in Poland, the pro-Russian party led by the Czartoryskis and Poniatowskis (remember that they intermarried), aka "The Family", and the pro-French "Patriots" led by Branicki and Prince Radziwill. When Catherine sent Russian troops to occupy Poland in 1764, Branicki tried to defy them, but he and his troops were forced to flee to Hungary. Then he decided to ask Russia's ally Prussia to mediate.
Right as this was happening, Fritz was finally signing the treaty with Catherine, in which he pledged himself to support Poniatowski as king.
Branicki sent Mokranowski to Berlin to ask Fritz to do two things: 1) Prevent any alteration of the traditional Polish liberties that were aimed at strengthening the monarch's powers, 2) mediate between the two parties.
We have the goals of the delegation and Fritz's handwritten marginal notes in reply, and there is not a single syllable about Heinrich or offering the crown to him.
The only sources we have that mention Heinrich are reports that claim to go back to Mokranowski. An anonymously published life of Heinrich (1784) says that Mokranowski came not from Branicki but from a Polish confederation, and that the purpose of the delegation was to offer Heinrich the crown, and, worst of all, he dates the episode to the First Polish Partition, several years later!
Another anonymous life of Heinrich (1809) copies from it (both the language and the same mistakes show this), but adds the detail that Mokranowski made two trips to Berlin, one in 1764 and one in 1768, with the same request, and was rejected twice. Volz says we know for a fact that Mokranowski only made one trip, in 1764, and that there is clearly a lot of fictionalization happening here.
The most reliable sources we have are summaries made of the speech Mokranowski made when he got back to Poland, when he reported what he and Fritz had said orally. (Unfortunately, we don't have Mokranowski's direct take.)
There is one by a Polish noble named Mosczynki and an anonymous one. In what they include, they pretty much agree, but the anonymous one, which includes more detail, is the only one to mention Heinrich.
Then there's a book on the history of Poland by a Frenchman named Rulhière (cited extensively by de Broglie as well as the H-W bio), that also mentions Heinrich. Now, Rulhière had been in Russia in 1762 and had written an eyewitness account of the Revolution (that Wikipedia tells me was only published posthumously, as Catherine kept trying to destroy it), but he was *not* an eyewitness of the 1764 events. His account of the 1764 delegation to Fritz is largely based on Mosczynki's account, but it includes some extra details not in there (like Heinrich). There is some evidence he knew Mokranowski personally, especially since Mokranowski stayed in Paris from August 1769. However, Rulhière also makes some mistakes in his account, like saying Mokranowski went to Berlin on his own accord, rather than on behalf of Branicki.
A final source that mentions Heinrich is Baron Goltz's report from Paris 1769, Goltz being the Prussian envoy to France (whom I mentioned recently in response to Selena's question) and former Prussian envoy to Peter III.
So, to recap, our three reliable-seeming sources that mention Heinrich are:
- An anonymous recap of Mokranowski's speech to the Poles by a Pole.
- A summary of this episode by a Frenchman who may have known Mokranowski in Paris in 1769.
- An envoy report written several years later by a Prussian who knew Mokranowski during his stay in Paris in 1769, and wrote to Fritz summarizing what Mokranowksi had told him of what happened in 1764.
These three sources agree that 1) the main point of the embassy had nothing to do with Heinrich, 2) Heinrich's name came up in passing as a possible candidate.
Rulhière's version (which has mistakes), has Mokranowski saying, "Give us a king, give us your brother Prince Henri." Goltz's version has him saying, "Why does Your Majesty not want to give us a king from your own hand? The Poles would accept with joy and confidence someone like Prince Henri." In both accounts, Fritz responds, "He doesn't want to become Catholic." [Lol, Fritz.]
Finally, Fritz's reply to Goltz says, "Mokranowksi did indeed mention the proposal that you included in your last letter."
Critically, says Volz, there is no mention of a formal offer, just an idea, and Goltz specifically has Henri included just as an example of someone they (meaning the anti-Russian party) would accept.
In conclusion, it sort of happened, but there was no delegation sent to Fritz *in order to* ask for Heinrich as king, he just sort of came up in conversation as a possibility.
We all agree Fritz noped right out of that, though. ;)
Given that the guy who casually mentioned Heinrich was representing a party that had just been kicked out of Poland by occupying Russian troops, and given Kunersdorf and Zorndorf, I can see why Fritz did not want to touch the clusterfuck that is Poland and a war with Russia with a ten-foot pole in 1764. But you can tell he very much doesn't trust Heinrich to do the right thing here: Rulhière's account has him saying, "No, he really doesn't [want to become Catholic], and his stance on this is so firm that there's no point in talking to him; I will protect you from seeing it."
In *other* interesting Fritz-and-Poland news, I read Volz's account of Heinrich's maneuverings to end up in St. Petersburg, and indeed, it is convincing that Fritz did not send Heinrich to Catherine to propose a partition, but that this was Heinrich's initiative...but I have since turned up something that Volz does not mention in that article (unless I missed it in a footnote), but seems incredibly relevant:
In February 1769, Fritz proposed a partition of Poland to his envoy in St. Petersburg. He tried to pass it off as the idea of Count Lynar (remember, the former Danish ambassador to Russia who lost a game of intrigue with Moltke), who was in Berlin at the time to marry his daughter to a Kamecke, but my source (a 2022 book on the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774) says that it was Fritz's idea, as no reference to any such thing has been found in Lynar's papers. I have no source for the claim that it's *not* in Lynar's papers, but I have read the original letter from Fritz to his envoy Solms in 1769 in the Political Correspondence, so that's legit.
We've also seen that Fritz, in his political testament of 1768, told his successor that Poland must be eaten by an artichoke: leaf by leaf, and he was very interested in getting that land bridge from Pomerania to East Prussia.
But Catherine said no in 1769, and apparently by 1771, Fritz didn't think it was going to happen and was playing cautious. What's interesting is that historians will *either* say the partition was Fritz's idea and he "sent" Heinrich (which is wrong), or they'll say it was Heinrich's idea (or that it was proposed to him at Catherine's court and he started selling it to Fritz) without mentioning that Fritz himself had actually proposed it just 2 years before. (Given that, he may genuinely have believed later on that just a few months later he was chatting about a partition with Joseph, since Russia and Poland and what to do about the situation was a major topic of their discussion.) I actually had to read Norman Davies, of all people, to see that Fritz had made this proposal in 1769 (and then I couldn't find it in the P.C., because he gets the date wrong and doesn't name Solms), and then get this book Amazon recommended on the Russo-Turkish War to tell me how to find the actual proposal by Fritz.
So the true story seems to be: Fritz had the idea first, but got pushback and gave up on it, and wasn't prepared to re-adopt the idea two years later because he was expecting more pushback. (If he thought it was just Heinrich's idea, it's understandable that Fritz didn't realize how much support the idea now had at the Russian court, because of his previous experience, whereas Heinrich, who was there in St. Petersburg, realized how much had changed in 2 years.)
You know, if it didn't seem out of character for Fritz, I would still wonder...if someone makes you a proposal, refusing it because you want more but think you will lose face if you ask directly, if your BATNA is good enough, is a known negotiating technique that I have used myself. And it worked out for Fritz the same way it worked out for me: they started offering him more to catch his interest, and instead of getting one territory (the initial offer), he got the whole land bridge that he needed.
But I don't know that Fritz had that kind of subtlety, and it definitely doesn't seem like he and Heinrich worked this out in advance. He seems genuinely annoyed that little brother has decided to go to St. Petersburg and, as we saw, says, "I could have explained so many things in person." (Except you never would, Fritz, because you would rather poke your own eyes out than entrust Heinrich with a negotiation in a country out of your reach.)
Oh, and I meant to tie Branicki and Mokranowski back to
The King's Secret. Remember when I wrote:
Then there are intrigues in the Polish Diet! The upshot is that the French come out on top for the present: they manage to get a powerful noble to defect to the French side, and prevent an alliance with Austria and Russia., which happened back in 1752? The powerful noble who defects to the French side is Branicki, and Mokranowski, according to Broglie, is the guy who gets him to defect. It's very dramatic:
The Act of Confederation was placed in a tent, which was speedily besieged by a crowd eager to sign the document. Mokranowski, having cleared a passage for himself, suddenly advanced to the table, as if with the intention of adding his own signature, caught up the paper, and, holding it tight against his breast, declared that it should only be taken from him with his life. Then, followed by the multitude attracted by this daring action, he went straight to the dwelling of the Grand General, and there, in a loud voice which could be heard by every one, he explained to the aged patriot what would be the consequences of the proceeding to which he was about to commit himself. He showed him that behind the National Confederation was a foreign invasion, only awaiting the signal to commence; a Russian army already collected on the frontier and ready to march in aid of civil war; and, as a result of this odious intervention of the foreigner, not only a Treaty of Alliance contrary to the interest of Poland, but a revolution by which the ancient liberties of the citizens would be sacrificed to the royal power. Every one knows how versatile are the masses--" Every assembly is a mob," said Cardinal de Retz--even an assembly of nobles like that which the young speaker was addressing. The passion in his face, the fire of his language, spread like an electric shock through the crowd; and, at the last moment, his happy allusion to the designs of the Czartoryski, which were already suspected, touched each member of the assembly on a sensitive point, and a universal clamour arose. Yielding to the popular enthusiasm, the Grand General rose, and, clasping Mokranowski in his arms, thanked him for having saved the country, while the young man tore the document, which he still held, to pieces, and trod upon the fragments.The Grand General is Branicki.
Unfortunately, the H-W biographer says H-W's dispatch home says the defection happened for more boring reasons, and that this episode goes back to Rulhière. If you read The King's Secret and the H-W bio, you will constantly see the former uncritically accepting Rulhière's take, and the latter claiming Rulhière is guilty of pro-French bias, and saying that if you read H-W's and the Comte de Broglie's actual envoy reports, you get a more realistic picture.
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