January 23, 1793 - The Second Partition of Poland

Eastern Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth had long been in decline. By 1790, the Commonwealth was essentially a puppet state under the Russian Empress, Catherine the Great. In February 1772, Poland’s three neighbours (Russia, Prussia, and Austria) all agreed to simultaneously take sections of the commonwealth, in order to spread any international criticism between them. In 1792 Russia, claiming that Poland had fallen prey to radicals similar to the Jacobins in France, invaded and, once again, partitioned the nation between itself, Austria, and Prussia. The third partition, done in 1795 as a response to potential revolts, fully ended the Polish independent state until 1919.