Targowica Confederation

Passage of the Polish constitution alarms nobles who stand to lose considerable stature under the new order.

In autocratic states such as Russia, the democratic ideals of the constitution also threaten the existing order, and the prospect of Polish recovery threatens to end domination of Polish affairs by its neighbors.

In 1792 domestic and foreign reactionaries combine to end the democratization process.

Polish conservative factions form the Confederation of Targowica and appeals for Russian assistance in restoring the status quo.

Catherine gladly uses this opportunity; enlisting Prussian support, she invades Poland under the pretext of defending Poland's ancient liberties.

The irresolute Stanislaw August capitulates, defecting to the Targowica faction.

Arguing that Poland has fallen prey to the radical Jacobinism, at this time at high tide in France, Russia and Prussia abrogate the Constitution of May 3, carry out a second partition of Poland in 1793, and place the remainder of the country under occupation by Russian troops.

The majority of the szlachta is reconciled to the end of the commonwealth in 1795, but the possibility of Polish independence will be kept alive by events within and outside Poland throughout the nineteenth century.

Poland's location in the very center of Europe will become especially significant in a period when both Prussia/Germany and Russia are intensely involved in European rivalries and alliances and modern nation states take form over the entire continent.

Poland's Constitution had not been adopted without dissent in the Commonwealth itself.

Magnates who had opposed the constitution draft from the start, namely Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, Seweryn Rzewuski, and Szymon and Józef Kossakowski, have asked Tsarina Catherine to intervene and restore such privileges as the Russian-guaranteed Cardinal Laws had abolished under the new statute.

To this end, these magnates form the Targowica Confederation.

The Confederation's proclamation, prepared in St. Petersburg in January 1792, criticizes the constitution for contributing to, in their own words, "contagion of democratic ideas" following "the fatal examples set in Paris".

It asserts that "The parliament ... has broken all fundamental laws, swept away all liberties of the gentry and on the third of May 1791 turned into a revolution and a conspiracy."

The Confederates declare an intention to overcome this revolution.

The Confederates align with Tsarina Catherine and ask her for military intervention.

The Commonwealth Lithuanian Army, commanded by Duke Louis of Württemberg, numbers about fifteen thousand, with an additional Crown detachment of about three thousand.

Württemberg has made no plans for the war, and the troops are not readied for action by the time the war starts.

The Russian army in this theater under General Mikhail Krechetnikov is thirty-three thousand seven hundred strong or thirty-eight thousand strong.

The Russian army is also divided into four corps: the 1st under one of the Targowica Confederate leaders, Szymon Kossakowski, seventy-three hundred strong; the 2nd under General Boris Mellin, seven thousand strong; the 3rd under General Yuri Dolgorukov, fifteen thousand four hundred strong, and 4th under General Ivan Fersen, eighty-three hundred strong.

The Polish forces in the southeast corner of the country—the Ukrainian lands—are initially concentrated separately in three regions of the expected front, under Tadeusz Kościuszko, Michał Wielhorski and Prince Poniatowski himself.

The Polish Crown army in Ukraine, led by Prince Poniatowski, and supported by Kościuszko, consists of the primary force of seventeen thousand and Prince Michał Lubomirski's reserve division, of forty-five hundred).

They are faced on this southeastern war theater with an enemy army nearly four times larger under General Mikhail Kakhovsky, who has about sixty-four thousand men under his command.

Kakhovsky's forces are divided into four corps: 1st,  under the command of General Mikhail Golenishchev-Kutuzov, 2nd, under General Ivan Dunin, 3rd, under General Otto Wilhelm Derfelden, and 4th, under General Andrei Levanidov.

The Targowica Confederates do not represent any real strength; and their attempts to gather popular support in Poland upon crossing borders fails miserably, with only few dozens joining at first; later the number will grow but not significantly, and even the Russians see them as having no military value, keeping them from the front lines.

Additional Polish forces, about eight thousand strong, are to concentrate in Warsaw under command of King Poniatowski as reserve.

Tadeusz Kościuszko proposes a plan where the entire Polish army will be concentrated and will engage one of the Russian armies, in order to assure numerical parity and to boost the morale of mostly inexperienced Polish forces with a quick victory; this plan is, however, rejected by Prince Poniatowski. (Only a few months ago, however, both commanders had had the opposite idea—Poniatowski had wanted the troops concentrated, and Kościuszko, dispersed).

Poniatowski also plans to avoid serious engagements in the first phase of the war, hoping to receive the expected Prussian reinforcements of thirty thousand, which will bring parity to the two sides.

Russian forces first cross the border in Ukraine on the night of May 18/19, 1792.

The Russians in this theater wlll encounter significantly more resistance than they expect, as Commonwealth's top commanders, Prince Poniatowski and Kościuszko, are stationed here.

The Russian ambassador to Poland, Yakov Bulgakov, delivers a declaration of war to the Polish Foreign Minister Joachim Chreptowicz on May 18, 1792.

Russian armies enters Poland and Lithuania on the same day, starting the war.

The Russian army numbers nearly ninety-eight thousand. 

It is commanded by generals Mikhail Krechetnikov and Mikhail Kakhovsky.

The Russians also have an advantage in combat experience.

The Russian plan calls for Kakhovsky to advance through Ukraine, taking Kamieniec Podolski, Chełm and Lublin, and approach Polish capital of Warsaw from the south.

Krechetnikov is to advance through Minsk, Wilno, Brześć Litewski and Białystok, and approach Warsaw from the north, where he is to link with Kakhovsky.

Whereas the Russians have good intelligence network in Poland, and are mostly aware of Polish army distribution and strength; the Poles have much less intelligence, receiving contradictory and often erroneous reports, and unsure whether the war will even start, up to the point the Russian troops cross the border.

Stanisław August Poniatowski, King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, is the commander-in-chief of the Polish forces, but in practice he has delegated this position to his nephew, Prince Józef Poniatowski.

Poniatowski has in theory at his disposal a forty-eight thousand strong Crown army and the Lithuanian army more than half that size to confront them.

In practice, Polish forces, still forming following the reforms of the Constitution of 3 May (which specifies an army size of one hundred thousand) number only thirty-seventy thousand.

The army is in the midst of reorganizing, with key documents on unit numbers and composition passed as recently as in April; it is also short on equipment and experienced personnel.