Michał Baczkowski

Antoni Morbitzer as the President of the Krakow Municipal Council (1812–1815)

The article is devoted to the activity of Antoni Morbitzer (1757–1824), a Krakow merchant, economic and political activist and president of the Krakow Municipal Council in the years 1812–1815, that is the final years of the existence of the Warsaw Duchy. Contrary to the letter of the existing law, while standing at the helm of the Municipal Council, Morbitzer, managed to transform this rather superfi cial institution into an authentic organ of municipal authority which co-governed the city of Krakow. Despite a diffi cult political and economic situation (Napoleon’s war with Russia in 1812, the two-year occupation of Krakow by the Russian army in the years 1813–1815), he tried to realize an investment program in the city (charting out new roads, paving the streets, laying down sewage pipes, demolishing derelict buildings); he supported Krakow’s activity as a trading center and opposed the city’s excessive supplies for the Polish and then the Russian armies which according to him ruined the city budget. Thanks to his own industriousness and cooperation with the city mayor and department prefect, as well as his ability to impose his own point of view on the Municipal Council, he contributed to a relatively effi cient functioning of the city and to continuing modernization work in this difficult period. Due to the different political system, (which operated in the city at the time of the Austrian rule and in the period of the Free City of Krakow), he was the only president of Krakow municipal self-government in the first half of the 19th c.

Could Cracow Have Become the Capital of Galicia at the Beginning of the 19th Century?

In the years 1796–1809 Cracow belonged to Austria. Up until the year 1803, it was the capital of the so called Western Galicia which in this very year became incorporated into the crown land of Galicia which up until then had included the Polish territories incorporated into Austria in 1772, with the capital in Lvov. The latter city which was bigger and better developed than Cracow, was however rather badly positioned lying on the north-easterly borderlands of the state. In this situation, in the year 1807 the military circles came forward with the conception of extending the institutions associated with the provincial administration in Cracow. This idea was subsequently taken up by a large section of Austrian officials who suggested that for political and propaganda reasons the capital of Galicia should be transferred from Lvov to Cracow, the old capital of Poland. The above conception was associated with a wider program of reforms of the Polish territories under Austrian domination; the main goal of these reforms was the winning over of the Polish public opinion and drawing away of the Polish nobility from cooperation with Napoleon and with the Duchy of Warsaw. Establishing the capital of Galicia in Cracow and the coronation of Austria’s emperor as the king of Galicia in the Cracow cathedral was to have been a gesture addressed to the conservative Polish nobility. Yet, the above plans had fallen flat due to the outbreak of the war with France in the year 1809, in the consequence of which Austria had lost Western Galicia to the Duchy of Warsaw.

Economic consequences of the occupation of Galicia by the Russian army in 1809

The intervention of the Russian army in Galicia in June 1809, during the War of the Fifth Coalition, was formally the implementation of the alliance with Napoleon (the Treaty of Tilsit). In reality, Russia was concerned with preventing territorial expansion of the Duchy of Warsaw and hoping for a possible seizure of some Austrian lands. The costs of maintaining the Russian army had to be covered by the inhabitants of the part of Galicia they occupied. The value of food, forage supplies and taxes collected to supply Russian troops, as well as requisitions, amounted at least to 5.87 million florins. That was a serious sum, all the more so because taxes had already been collected from Galicia and the supplies were transferred to the Austrian army. However, these burdens have not led to the collapse of the country’s economy. This was partly due to the fact that only the beneficiary of military supplies changed: the Russian army took the place of the Austrian army. The several-month stay of the Russian army in Galicia contributed to the weakening of the economic and military potential of the Habsburg monarchy at the final stage of the war of 1809, as the state was deprived of the inflow of financial and material resources from its north-eastern areas before the Treaty of Schönbrunn.

Krakow as a center offering assistance to the Great Army during the Russian campaign of 1812
In the Napoleonic plans concerning the war with Russia in 1812, Kraków was not supposed to play any major role. The marches of Napoleonic army troops did not lead through the city nor were there plans of locating any major food storage places for the Great Army here. During the several drafts to the army of the Warsaw Duchy, conducted in 1812, 381 recruits were drafted from the city of Krakow; moreover the Krakow regiment of the National Guards, consisting of 160 soldiers, took part in the campaign. Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the soldiers of the 7th and 8th corps of the Great Army were supplied with food at the expense of the city. However the organization of food supplies was not carried out well; it was delayed and the city authorities were not able to collect the supplies and dispatch them on time. During the war, Krakow did not realize any major military orders; it was only in December 1812 that the government imposed on the city the obligation to gather a bigger food contingent which led to vehement protests of the city council. In the opinion of witnesses, Krakow and its surroundings came out of the war of 1812 relatively unscathed; the city itself had not suffered at the hands of the marauders of the Great Army and was able to play a decisive role in the reorganization of the Polish troops in 1813, as a logistic and supply center for the units of the Warsaw Duchy.

Extension to the health resort in Krynica in 1806–1830 in the light of the files of the Lviv Governorate

The Austrian authorities in Galicia sought to use the mineral springs existing in that land. Krynica was one of the few state-owned villages that had mineral springs. The health resort was founded in 1793. But it was only the investments from 1806-1810 that transformed the village into a real health resort. In 1811, further works were stopped, and after a few years they were resumed to a very limited extent. The main reason for the lack of new investments was the financial crisis of the state related to the Napoleonic wars. Hopes for a quick transformation of Krynica into the main health resort of Galicia, to which Poles would also come from abroad (Russia, Prussia, the Duchy of Warsaw – later the Kingdom of Poland), ended in failure. The high number of visitors recorded in the first years of the 19th century soon declined. Krynica lost the competition with other spas in Southern Poland (Krzeszowice, Swoszowice), as well as with resorts in the Kingdom of Bohemia and in Hungary. Only in the second half of the 19th century, Krynica became the largest spa in Galicia, and one of the most important in Austria. However, this took place under completely different socioeconomic circumstances.

National identity of Austro-Hungarian soldiers

In the Austrian army (Austro-Hungarian army) in the second half of the 19th century the question of the national identity of officers and soldiers belonged to the most important problems of the Habsburg monarchy. Officially proclaimed army transnational password (“imperial”), in which the officers and soldiers of different nationalities and different faiths were fully-fledged and united by the idea of a common state, which was the personification of the emperor. The privileged role of the German language in the army had technical, not ideological reasons. In fact, by the second half of the 19th and early 20th century a dispute was waged among the generals and politicians on whether the army was to be transnational, multinational, or German.
In the context of transnational password Galician, the “imperial” army was popular especially among the peasant population. The “imperial” identification of the rural population was strengthened by the social conflict on the axis: noblemen (Polish) – peasants (“imperial”). Military service was associated with an increase in the standard of living by most of the recruits and with prestige in rural communities. These aspects further reinforced the “imperial” identity of the recruits. With the development of the modern sense of national consciousness in the late 19th century this identity was modified in the case of the Polish. During World War I the “imperial” identity of the Galician recruits was eventually weakened by failures at the front, the economic crisis and the collapse of state authority. In 1918 it was only a historical memory.
 

The Kraków Fortress and Its Crew in the 1866 War

In 1866 the Austrian Kraków fortress was under construction. In preparation for the war with Prussia, it was provisionally completed and equipped in the event of a siege. The crew of the fortress (over 14 thousand soldiers) had the task not only to defend it but also to guard the western Galicia railway. To this end, part of the soldiers were sent to fight in the field. The command of the fortress failed to manage these operations properly and, as a result, despite the victory in the battle of Auschwitz (June 27, 1866), the Austrian troops abandoned the defense of their own railway and concentrated near the Krakow fortress. This situation was used by the weaker Prussian troops (about 6.5 thousand soldiers), who occupied without a fight the border region of Galicia, which enabled the Prussian command to transfer the Hungarian volunteer György Klapka legion to this area; the legion was to begin the anti-Austrian diversion in Hungary. As a result of the rapid end of the Austro-Prussian War, the role of the Kraków fortress and its crew in this conflict was of minor importance. It turned out that the fortress provided sufficient protection for the greater part of Galicia against the Prussian threat, but its field divisions were inefficiently used and had no influence on the course of the war.