Partition of Poland

From 1795 to 1918, Poland was split between Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and Russia and had no independent existence.^¹ In 1795 the third and the last of the three 18th-century partitions of Poland ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.^¹ Nevertheless, events both within and outside the Polish lands kept hopes for restoration of Polish independence alive throughout the 19th century.^¹ Poland's geopolitical location on the Northern European Lowlands became especially important in a period when its expansionist neighbors, the Kingdom of Prussia and Imperial Russia, involved themselves intensely in European rivalries and alliances as modern nation-states took form over the entire continent.^¹