‘A powerless king, a powerful democratic nobility divided as to interest and religious belief, a middle class which lived in the state without belonging to it, and the peasants who formed the mass of the nation, without political rights, almost without the common rights of humanity, and living in utter misery. What a dreadful picture of confusion does this unhappy country present!’
‘At a time when European monarchs gradually deprived the great feudal barons of all share in the administration of the law, the Polish kings were deprived of this power by the nobles. While the people of Denmark gave their kings unlimited power, the Polish nobles destroyed the last vestiges of the royal prerogative.’
Moltke, as a young lieutenant in the Topographical Department of the Prussian General Staff, was tasked with surveying Silesia and the province of Posen. During this task, he spent his spare time studying the history and customs of Poland. Eventually, his studies resulted in this essay on Poland, which was originally published in 1832 in Berlin. Moltke, as a true historian, stated his facts dispassionately, leaving us to draw our own conclusions regarding the virtues and defects that made up the Polish state.
Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, also known as Moltke the Elder, was a Prussian and German general and the chief of staff of the Prussian and German General Staff. He was responsible for Prussia’s victories against Denmark, Austria, and France in three wars that eventually led to the unification of Germany. Moltke along with Otto von Bismarck and Albrecht von Roon were the dominating figures of Prussian politics leading up to Germany’s unification.