First Partition of Poland

August 5, 1772

Russia, Prussia, and Austria signed treaties stripping Poland-Lithuania of nearly a third of its territory - Frederick taking the crucial West Prussian corridor. The Polish diet, ringed by Russian troops, ratified the dismemberment. Europe's largest state was being eaten by its neighbors, and no one did anything. The partition provoked a reform movement inside Poland that produced the Constitution of May 3, 1791 - Europe's first written national constitution.