West Prussia
The Province of West Prussia was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and from 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth annexed in the First Partition of Poland. West Prussia was dissolved in 1829 and merged with East Prussia to form the Province of Prussia, but was re-established in 1878 when the merger was reversed and became part of the German Empire. From 1918, West Prussia was a province of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, losing most of its territory to the Second Polish Republic and the Free City of Danzig in the Treaty of Versailles. West Prussia was dissolved in 1919, and its remaining western territory was merged with Posen to form Posen-West Prussia, and its eastern territory merged with East Prussia as the Region of West Prussia district.
West Prussia's provincial capital alternated between Marienwerder and Danzig during its early existence. West Prussia was notable for its ethnic and religious diversity due to immigration and cultural changes, with the population becoming mixed over the centuries. Since the early Middle Ages the bulk of the region was inhabited by West Slavic Lechitic tribes, while the actual Old Prussians populated only the remaining part of the territory lying to the east of the Vistula River. The Teutonic Order's conquest of the region resulted in German colonization in the 14th century. As a result of Germanisation, Germans became in the middle of the 19th century the most numerous ethnic group in West Prussia as a whole, remaining as such until the dissolution of the province in 1920, though their distribution was uneven: their majority was concentrated in Danzig, the western lands of the province, along the Vistula river, and in the Pomesanian and Pogesanian portion of the province located east of the Vistula, with a small admixture of Poles. Meanwhile, Poles as well as Kashubians continued to predominate in parts of Pomerelian territories west of Vistula and in parts of the Chełmno Land, forming altogether around 36% of the population of the province as a whole. There were also sizeable minorities of Mennonites and Jews settling in the region.
Geography
The landscape of West Prussia consisted of the lower reaches of the Vistula River near its mouth on the Baltic Sea, and neighboring lands to the west and east.In the west, the province shared a border with easternmost Brandenburg, and comprised those lands between the provinces of Posen and Pomerania. This region of the province was characterized by the Baltic Uplands, with southward flowing rivers joining the Netze. The Brahe drained much of this area, joining the Vistula after passing through Bromberg. Numerous large expanses of woodland, including the Tuchola Forest, were located in this part of the province. Further north near the sea is the Kashubian Lake District, where the highest point of the former province, Turmberg, reached 329 meters above sea level. The headwaters of Pomeranian rivers such as the Stolpe and Leba were located in these uplands.
In the north was the Baltic coast, consisting of a graded shoreline with landmarks such as the Hel Peninsula stretching 35 kilometers into the Gdańsk Bay, and the Vistula Fens where that river meets the sea. The Vistula delta encompasses a heavily cultivated area of approximately 2,000 square kilometers of land, much of it below sea level. Danzig, the largest city of the province, was found at the northwestern end of the delta. The Nogat river, a distributary of the Vistula, flowed to the northeast past the city of Marienburg and into the Vistula Lagoon. Further east near Elbing, the border with East Prussia crossed the Vistula Spit, Vistula Lagoon, and the Elbląg Upland.
In the southeast, the course of the Vistula river forms a wide, flat plain, with adjacent escarpments sometimes exceeding 60 meters in height above the river valley. This area included the fertile Chełmno Land, with historic cities such as Culm, Thorn, and Graudenz. The Culmerland stretched eastward to the border with East Prussia, partially bound on the south by the path of the river Drewenz, which formed part of the province's southeastern border with Congress Poland and the Russian Empire.
History
Context
The region of Pomerelia or Gdańsk Pomerania, historically Polish and never inhabited by Old Prussians, was forcibly occupied by the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights in 1308, following an invasion of Poland under the pretext of helping the King Władysław I Łokietek to quell a rebellion, with subsequent Teutonic atrocities against the Polish population, such as the Slaughter of Gdańsk. The possession of Danzig and Pomerelia by the Teutonic Order was questioned consistently by the Polish kings Władysław I and Casimir the Great in legal suits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333. Both times, as well as in 1339, the Teutonic Knights were ordered by the Pope to return Pomerelia and other lands back to Poland, but did not comply. These events resulted in a series of Polish–Teutonic Wars throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. Under the Teutonic rule, an influx of western, mainly German-speaking farmers, traders and craftsmen was encouraged. Subsequent rebellions organized by the local population against the Teutonic state, initially by the Lizard Union and later by the Prussian Confederation, both pledging allegiance to the Polish king, caused the Thirteen Years' War which ultimately led to the Second Peace of Thorn, when most of the region and was reclaimed by Poland and henceforth formed Royal Prussia, consisting of the originally Polish Pomerelia and Chełmno Land, expanded by the addition of parts of the formerly Old Prussian territories of Pomesania, Pogesania and Warmia. The region had initially a degree of autonomy with an own local legislature, the Prussian Estates, and maintaining its own laws, customs and rights, but was ultimately re-absorbed directly into the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, following the Union of Lublin in 1569. The locally spoken language differed among social classes, with the aristocracy and urban burghers initially highly Germanised as a result of earlier Teutonic policies, but gradually Polonized in the later years, while the peasantry continued as predominantly Kashubian- and Polish-speaking. A small area in the west of Pomerelia, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land, was granted to the rulers of Pomerania as a Polish fief before it was reintegrated with Poland in 1637, and later again transformed into a Polish fief, which it remained until the First Partition of Poland.East Prussia around Königsberg, on the other hand, remained with the State of the Teutonic Knights, who were reduced to vassals of the Polish kings. Their territory was secularised to become the Lutheran Duchy of Prussia according to the 1525 Treaty of Kraków and the Prussian Homage. The duchy was later ruled in personal union with the Imperial Margraviate of Brandenburg from 1618. The Hohenzollern rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia were able to remove the Polish suzerainty by the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau, taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge, shortly thereafter transforming their possessions into a kingdom. This development turned out to be fatal to the Polish monarchy, as the two parts of the rising Kingdom of Prussia were separated by Polish land. Subsequently, the newly established kingdom entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories.
Even though some German authors viewed the establishment of West Prussia as a historic reunification of the lands of the Teutonic State, officially, the Prussian government shunned from justifying the annexation by such argument. The reason was that the Teutonic Order still called for reestablishment of their rule over East- and West Prussia.
Establishment
In the 1772 First Partition of Poland the Prussian king Frederick the Great took the occasion to annex most of Royal Prussia. The addition gave Prussia a land connection between the Province of Pomerania and East Prussia, cutting off the Polish access to the Baltic Sea and rendering East Prussia more readily defensible in the event of war with the Russian Empire. The annexed voivodeships of Pomerania excluding the City of Danzig, Malbork and Chełmno excluding the City of Thorn were incorporated into the province of West Prussia the following year, along with the formerly East Prussian Marienwerder Kreis. Ermland became part of East Prussia while the annexed parts of Greater Poland and Kuyavia formed a separate Netze District located to the south. The Partition Sejm ratified the cession on 30 September 1773, complemented by renouncement by the Polish king of his royal title in regard to Prussia. Thereafter, Frederick finally started to style himself "King of Prussia" rather than "King in Prussia." Both abovementioned exempted cities were ultimately captured by the Kingdom of Prussia upon the Second Partition of Poland in 1793.The Polish administrative and legal code was replaced by the Prussian system, and 750 schools were built from 1772 to 1775. Both Protestant and Roman Catholic teachers taught in West Prussia, and teachers and administrators were encouraged to be able to speak both German and Polish. Frederick II of Prussia also advised his successors to learn Polish, a policy followed by the Hohenzollern dynasty until Frederick III decided not to let William II learn Polish. Despite this, Frederick II looked askance upon many of his new citizens. In a letter from 1735, he calls them "dirty" and "vile apes". He had nothing but contempt for the szlachta, the numerous Polish nobility, and wrote that Poland had "the worst government in Europe with the exception of Ottoman Empire". He considered West Prussia less civilized than Colonial Canada and compared the Poles to the Iroquois. In a letter to his brother Henry, Frederick wrote about the province that "it is a very good and advantageous acquisition, both from a financial and a political point of view. In order to excite less jealousy I tell everyone that on my travels I have seen just sand, pine trees, heath land and Jews. Despite that there is a lot of work to be done; there is no order, and no planning and the towns are in a lamentable condition." Frederick invited German immigrants to redevelop the province. Many German officials also regarded the Poles with contempt. According to the Polish historian Jerzy Surdykowski, Frederick the Great introduced 300,000 German colonists. According to Christopher Clark, 54 percent of the annexed area and 75 percent of the urban population were German-speaking Protestants. Further Polish areas were annexed in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, now including the cities of Danzig and Thorn.