Frederick Augustus I of Saxony
Frederick Augustus I was a member of the House of Wettin who reigned as the last Elector of Saxony from 1763 to 1806 and as the first King of Saxony from 1806 to 1827. He was also Duke of Warsaw from 1807 to 1815, a short-lived disputed Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1812, and a legitimate candidate to the Polish throne.
Throughout his political career Frederick Augustus tried to rehabilitate and recreate the Polish state that was torn apart and ceased to exist after the final partition of Poland in 1795. However he did not succeed, for which he blamed himself for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, his efforts at reestablishing an independent Polish nation did endear him to the Polish people.
The Augustusplatz in Leipzig is named after him.
Elector of Saxony and King Designate of Poland
Family background
Frederick Augustus was the second son of Frederick Christian, Elector of Saxony and Maria Antonia Walpurgis, Princess of Bavaria. Because he was underage at the time of his father's death of smallpox in 1763, his mother served as Regent until 1768. His uncle, Prince Francis Xavier, functioned as his representative. Through his father's side, he was descended from two kings of Poland, and through his mother's side Siemowit, the first confirmed Duke of Poland.Renunciation of the Polish throne
Two of Frederick Augustus' predecessors as Elector of Saxony had been kings of Poland, but due to his young age he was not considered eligible during the 1764 Polish–Lithuanian royal election. However, when a constitution was ratified by the Polish Sejm, Frederick Augustus was named successor to King Stanisław II August. At the same time, the head of the Saxon Royal House was established as heir to the Polish throne through Article VII of that very constitution. Frederick Augustus declined to accept the crown upon Stanisław's death in 1798 because he feared becoming entangled in disputes with Austria, Prussia and Russia, which had begun to partition Poland in 1772. In fact, by then the title would have been in name only - a full partition of Poland among those neighboring powers had already taken place in 1795.Foreign policy up to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire
In August 1791, Frederick Augustus arranged a meeting with Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia at Pillnitz Castle. The move was intended partly to offer support for the French monarchy in the face of revolutionary agitation in France. The Declaration of Pillnitz warned of the possibility of military action against the French revolutionary government, a provocation that provided the latter with grounds to declare war on Austria in April 1792. Frederick Augustus himself did not sign the Declaration.Saxony wanted nothing to do with the defensive alliance against France formed between Austria and Prussia. Nonetheless, a declaration of a Reichskrieg by the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire issued in March 1793, obliged Frederick Augustus to take part. There was great concern in Saxony in April 1795 when Prussia suddenly concluded a separate peace with France in order to facilitate the Third Partition of Poland. Saxony dropped out of the coalition against France in August 1796 after France had advanced east into the German lands and additional conditions for the Holy Roman Empire to conclude a separate peace were agreed.
Both the peace agreement with France and Saxony's participation in the Congress of Rastatt in 1797 served to demonstrate Frederick Augustus' loyalty to the conventional constitutional principles of the Holy Roman Empire. The Congress of Rastatt was supposed to authorize the surrender to France of the territories on the left bank of the Rhine in return for compensation for the rulers relinquishing territory. However, at Rastatt and again in 1803 at the issuance of the Final Report of the Empire Delegation, the law of the Holy Roman Empire that laid out the new order of the Empire, Saxony refused to agree to territorial adjustments, since these were designed to benefit Bavaria, Prussia, Württemberg, and Baden.
Foreign policy until the peace with Napoleon
Frederick Augustus also did not participate in the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which led to the final dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. With respect to the Prussian idea of a north German empire, within which Saxony was supposed to be raised to a kingdom, he appeared reserved. However, after September 1806, in response to the Berlin Ultimatum, which demanded the withdrawal of French troops from the left bank of the Rhine, Napoleon advanced as far as Thuringia. At that point, Frederick Augustus joined with Prussia. However, at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 Napoleon inflicted a crushing defeat on the Prusso–Saxon troops. The Prussian government and army then withdrew headlong to the east. Frederick Augustus, left without any information concerning Prussian intentions, and with Napoleon's troops about to occupy Saxony, was forced to conclude peace. On 11 December 1806 in Poznań a treaty was signed by authorized representatives of both sides. According to its terms, Saxony was forced to join the Confederation of the Rhine and to surrender parts of Thuringia to the recently organized Kingdom of Westphalia. As compensation, Saxony was given the area around Cottbus and was raised to the status of a kingdom alongside the Confederation states of Bavaria and Württemberg.King of Saxony and Grand Duke of Warsaw
Elevation to Saxon-Polish ruler
Frederick Augustus was proclaimed King of Saxony on 20 December 1806. After the Treaty of Tilsit, which Frederick William III of Prussia and Tsar Alexander I of Russia concluded with Napoleon in July 1807, Frederick Augustus was also named Grand Duke of Warsaw. Although he had rejected the offer of the throne of Poland in 1795 by the Sejm, he could not refuse a Polish title a second time.Article V of the Constitution of the Duchy of Warsaw, which Napoleon dictated to Saxony, was linked to the Polish Constitution of 1791 and joined the Duchy of Warsaw hereditarily to the Royal House of Saxony. Geopolitically the Duchy of Warsaw comprised the areas of the 2nd and 3rd Prussian partitions, with the exception of Danzig, which was made into the Free City of Danzig under joint French and Saxon "protection", and the district around Białystok, which was given to Russia. The area under Prussian control was made up of territory from the former Prussian provinces of New East Prussia, Southern Prussia, New Silesia, and West Prussia. In addition, the new state was given the area along the Noteć river and the "Land of Chełmno".
Altogether, the Duchy had an initial area of around 104,000 km2, with a population of approximately 2,600,000. The bulk of its inhabitants were Poles.
In 1809, Austria was successfully defeated by Polish–Saxon troops when it attempted to take possession of the Duchy and for its part had to cede to the Duchy of Warsaw Polish regions absorbed up to 1795, among them the old Polish royal city of Kraków. In July 1812 Frederick Augustus ratified a proclamation of the Sejm of the Duchy of Warsaw that restored the Kingdom of Poland. Napoleon lodged a protest against this action.
Events during the War of Liberation
In 1813 during the German Campaign of 1813, Saxony found itself in a more difficult situation than many other warring states. The country was still solidly in Napoleon's grip and at the same time had become the central arena of the war. In the autumn of 1813 at the start of the Battle of Leipzig the local population of Saxony, which tallied about 2 million, saw almost a million soldiers brought to its territories. Napoleon openly threatened to consider Saxony as enemy territory and treat it accordingly should Frederick Augustus change sides. Frederick Augustus' room for maneuver was consequently greatly limited. He did not want to put the country's well-being into play frivolously. At the same time, he still remembered vividly the way in which Prussia had simply abandoned him in 1806.In this difficult situation the King attempted to enter cautiously into an alliance with the Sixth Coalition in 1813 without risking a public break with Napoleon and a declaration of war. As the Prussian and Russian troops entered Saxony in the spring, the King first moved to the south in order to avoid a direct encounter and pursued an alliance with Austria secretly from Regensburg. The Saxon-Austrian Pact was concluded on 20 April and the King made the Prussian and Russian allies aware of it at the same time. Napoleon, from whom Frederick Augustus was not able to keep the diplomatic maneuvers concealed, summoned the King urgently to Saxony after he had defeated the Prusso-Russian troops at Lützen on 2 May. Frederick Augustus decided to comply with the ultimatum presented to him. With no prospect of concrete assistance from Austria, and in view of the defeat of the Prussian – Russian coalition, which now sent peace signals to France, he felt he had no choice.
Frederick Augustus' decision brought the country scarcely any relief. Napoleon, angered at the near defection of the King and at the same time dependent upon the full mobilization of all available forces against the Coalition troops, harshly demanded the full resources of Saxony. In addition, the country suffered under the changing fortunes of war and associated movements and quartering. At the end of August the Allies failed again to defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Dresden. Meanwhile, Saxony became the principal arena of war and Dresden the midpoint of the French army movements. Not until 9 September in Teplitz did Austria conclude its alliance with Prussia and Russia. In September, as Napoleon's troops in Saxony formed up to retreat before the expanded Coalition, there came the first defections to the Allies within the Royal Saxon Army.
Frederick Augustus was mistrustful of Prussia in view of the experiences of the spring and arguably disappointed as well by Austria's decision not to join the Coalition immediately, especially while the country was exposed as before to French domination. Thus he chose not to break with Napoleon. At the Battle of Leipzig the Saxon as well as the Polish troops fought on the side of Napoleon. In view of the apparent defeat of the French, even larger Saxon troop formations went over to the Coalition during the battle, whereas the Polish troops were largely annihilated.