Keys of This Blood (89 page)

Given those complex royal bloodlines of Europe, such an idea was far from frivolous or unattainable. For the Order of the Palm included such active and powerful leaders as Swedish Chancellor Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna, Swedish King Gustavus II Adolphus, and Friedrich Wilhelm, Grand Elector of Brandenburg. Moravian bishop Jan Amos Komensky acted as agent for the order between the Swedes and the Germans. And German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, as secretary of the Alchemist Society of Nuremberg—an affiliate of the Order of the Palm—employed his undoubted talents in favor of getting Palatine Philip Wilhelm elected as King of Poland in 1668–69, when the Polish crown did in fact fall vacant. The Leibniz effort failed; but it was a portentous stab at the legalistic dismemberment of Poland.

As the 1600s drew to a close, another effort to take Poland from within, as it were, came much closer to success. Friedrich Augustus I of Saxony was elected King of Poland in 1697. Like the first Piast King, Mieszko I, in 966, and like Jagiello in 1386, Friedrich converted to Roman Catholicism. But in his case, it was no more than a drill to pass muster; for he was and remained a devotee of the “reconstructed”
Kabbala
, and indulged in so-called cabalistic experiments.

Friedrich's German prime minister, Baron Manteufel, was clearly of the same stripe. A few years later, in fact, in 1728, he created the Masonic Court Lodge in Dresden, with an affiliate Lodge in Berlin. The seal of this Court Lodge was the Rosy Cross—the cross surmounted by a rose; and it counted among its members Friedrich Augustus I himself, and two Prussian kings, Friedrich Wilhelm I and Friedrich Wilhelm II.

Unlike Mieszko and Jagiello, Friedrich Augustus I did not last long as King of Poland. But during his seven-year reign, his foreign policy was directed toward the eventual partitioning of Poland's lands among her neighbors—an effort he continued even after he was deposed, in 1704.

It did not help Poland's position in this new political onslaught from within that she had been continuously at war since 1648. At one stage, she had sustained what contemporary Polish historians called the “Deluge”—a combined invasion of her territory by Swedes, Brandenburger Germans, Transylvanian Hungarians and Muscovites, all of whom were banking on the support of Cromwell's England and on an internal revolt of Protestants and pro-Protestant Catholics within Poland.

Poland survived the “Deluge,” just as she had survived so many wars. But by the opening of the 1700s, she had sustained over a century of nearly continuous armed conflict. Now an abuse of constitutional privileges by Poles themselves, and a succession of weak and unacceptable rulers—Friedrich Augustus I was but one—brought the country to the condition of the “Sick Man of Europe.”

The first half of the 1700s was, as well, a time that witnessed the great efflorescence of European Masonic Lodges—the true dawning of Accepted Masonry; and Poland by no means escaped its impact. Undoubtedly, in fact, Masonry had been introduced as an important dimension among Poland's ruling classes by Friedrich Augustus I; and the influence of Prime Minister Manteufel doubtless accounts for the Prussophile character of Polish Masonry underlined by some historians.

This was also the Enlightenment era. Inevitably, therefore, philosophy and science entered the fray; for many brilliant exponents of the new
disciplines were also adherents of the principles of Masonry. Human intelligence, as a reflection of and participation in the wisdom of the Great Architect of the occultist humanists, was now seen as the infallible element in man's progress.

While the notion of the Great Architect was maintained, the alchemist element of the old humanist associations fell into disrepute and disuse with the onrush of scientific discoveries. The energies of the new initiates were channeled into more practical ways of attaining their sociopolitical goals.

Much of the symbolism and ceremonial that had been evolved in that earlier prescientific cabalism survived. But Masonic humanism as a living force now relied on uninhibited human inquiry, free from any adjudication—especially on the part of the Church and of religion; for that bedrock anti-Church ideology inherited from the thirteenth-century Italian dissidents remained intact—as the only foundation of human civilization. Catholic beliefs were seen as retrograde, as the great inhibitors of human happiness.

Predictably, such political and philosophical elements involved in Masonry as ideological foundation blocks exacerbated the already virulent hatred of the Roman papacy. And this was true especially in the Catholic heartland countries of France, Belgium, Italy and Spain.

The most powerful and all-directive Masonic Lodge in Europe, for example, was the Grand Orient of France. The anti-Roman and anti-Christian hostility in the Grand Orient became almost legendary. With true Gallic logic, in fact, its participants abolished even the old Masonic obligation to believe in the Great Architect of the Universe. In this step—bold even for Accepted Masons of the Enlightenment era—the French Masons were being very French: ahead of everybody else, and discomfiting in their frankness. Still, it was the Grand Orient type of Masonry that took hold in Catholic countries such as Portugal, Spain and Austria, and in Italy itself.

As early as 1738, Pope Clement XII could see the full georeligious and geopolitical implications of Accepted Masonry, whose Lodges included not only the new and deeply influential intellectual leaders, but the most powerful political personages of the day. Clement condemned Masonry as incompatible with Catholic belief—as indeed it was. And he condemned its secrecy as an unlawful practice that would make possible the subversion of nations and governments.

By then, however, it would appear that the die was all but cast. And Poland was to become the classic fulfillment of Pope Clement's warning concerning the subversion of nations and governments.

·   ·   ·

During the first half of the 1700s, Masonic Lodges—many modeled on the Grand Orient and on English-Teutonic Masonry—proliferated in Poland like eggs in a henhouse. According to historians of the stature of Stanislaw Zaleski, Jedrzej Giertych and Stanislaw Malachowski-Lipicki, some 316 Lodges dotted Poland in the seventy-seven years between 1738, when Pope Clement issued his condemnation, and 1815, when the Great Powers of the world agreed at the Congress of Vienna to ratify, under international law, the then accomplished fact of the obliteration of Poland from the face of the geopolitical world.

As in every other country, it was not the number of Lodges in Poland, or the size of their membership—reported by historians as 5,748—that was the determining factor in their influence over Poland's fate. Rather, it was as always the fact that Masonry successfully recruited leading and influential intellectuals and the politically powerful members of royalty and the aristocracy—the “superstructure” of society that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels would point to, within a mere thirty-three years after the Congress of Vienna, as the oppressors of the “working masses.”

The historical track of the founding of important humanist Masonic Lodges in Poland, and that of the three successive land grabs—partitions, they were called—of Polish territory, are compelling in the way that they seem to intertwine.

One of the more important Lodges, Wisniowiec, was founded in 1742 at Volhynia. In Warsaw, four major Lodges—Three Brothers, Dukla, Good Shepherd and Virtuous Sarmatian—were founded in 1744, 1755, 1758 and 1769, respectively. The Grand Polish Lodge dated from 1769, as well; its doctrinal authority was the Scottish Chapter of St. Andrew, and the Rosicrucian chapter founded in Germany by Poland's former prime minister Manteufel.

Within this stunningly fertile period for Masonry, Poland saw the election of three monarchs—her last as a republic—who ranked among the most ardent promoters of Polish Masonry. Augustus III died in 1763. He was succeeded by Stanislaw Leszczynski, who died in 1766. He in turn was succeeded by Stanislaw Poniatowski, who outlived the Republic by about three years.

Within that period, as well, Poland was subjected to unremitting invasion, to commercial harassment, to an increasing international isolation, and to what was probably the most crippling influence of all—internal subversion on a wide scale.

Recent studies by scholars demonstrate that during the first two thirds
of the eighteenth century, large numbers of the Polish political and intellectual elite were won over to the humanist ideals of Masonry. As a consequence, they willingly collaborated in producing a numbing constitutional paralysis in the First Polish Republic. For clearly, in all their breadth and implications, the Three Pacts of Polishness—the Piast Pact with the Holy See of Rome, the Pact with the Primate Bishop as
Interrex
, and the Pact with Mary as the Queen of the Kingdom of Poland—were irreconcilable with the secularizing intent of Masonry. As it happened, sweetly enough for Masonry, the political fortunes of the Holy See were in visible decline all over Europe by this time.

It is more than merely ironic that the first great model of modern democratic government was also the first to fall victim to all the pitfalls that have lately become familiar all over again.

Poland's legislature began to use its oversight powers to encroach on the powers of the elected head of state. The supreme court followed suit, encroaching onto the domain of the legislature. Representatives began to resort to political ruses to ensure their constant reelection. Democratic liberty was cited as the basis to undermine the moral foundations on which that liberty had been based, and to paralyze government along doctrinaire lines of ideological humanism.

All of these embittering and inhibiting conditions had contributed their generous share to Poland's political decadence and to its internal weakness by the time Stanislaw Poniatowski took power in 1766 as the third in the line of Polish Masonic kings.

By 1772, Poland was so weakened by wars and international intrigues and corrupt government, that the first partial dismemberment of her territory—the First Partition of Poland—became possible. Russia and Prussia, in alliance with Austria, were the beneficiaries, carving up the first spoils three ways.

At about this time also, there started in Russia and Prussia that process that was to become so familiar: the slandering of everything Polish and the poisoning of the European mind with a dislike that amounted to contempt for Poles, and what remained of Poland.

On the Masonic front in Poland, an intra-Masonic rivalry broke out for predominance in Polish Masonry. After much contention between the English, French and German Masonic authorities, the Royal York Lodge of Berlin won the day. In 1780, it organized a new Polish Lodge, Catherine of the Polish Star, and obtained for it from English authorities a patent as a Grand Provincial Lodge. In 1784, it became the Polish Grand Orient.

By 1790, on the political front, the First Polish Republic had deteriorated
into such a helpless condition that it was successfully forced into an unnatural and ultimately deadly alliance with its mortal enemy, Prussia. The Polish-Prussian Pact of 1790 was signed. Its chief architect, Ignacy Potocki, was Grand Master of Polish Masonry. And the conditions of the Pact were such that the succeeding and final two partitionings of Poland were inevitable, in the circumstances.

The final blows fell quickly upon Poland. In 1793, the Second Partition reduced Poland from its original population of 11.5 million to about 3.5 million. In effect, however, it was merely a prelude to the Third Partition. By the end of 1795, the long struggle to take Poland from the Poles was over. The last freely elected chief executive of the First Polish Republic, King Stanislaw, was forced to abdicate by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Triumphant at last, the Three Powers proceeded to divide the cadaver of Poland between them.

In a great foreshadowing of things to come in the twentieth century, Russia grabbed all of Lithuania and the Ukraine, with a combined population of some 1.5 million people. Prussia seized Mazovia, with Warsaw as its center—a million people more. And Austria made off with the Krakow region and its one million people.

With Poland's extinction complete, all that remained to accomplish was the eradication of the name of Poland from the map of Europe; and the obliteration of the memory of the Polish presence in Europe. It was precisely to that declared and openly pursued policy that the Three Powers made a joint commitment.

Among the ordinary Polish people, now forcibly parceled out among other populations, hope lingered that the tripartite decision to liquidate their country would be reversed. That hope was given an enormous boost by the sudden and stunning military successes of France's Napoleon Bonaparte. Beginning in 1796—only a year after the Third Partition of Poland—his resounding victories against all comers threw all the powers of Europe into violent flux; and, in geopolitical terms, it made sense for Poles to take hope.

In spite of his extraordinary genius as a military strategist, however, and in spite of his grandiose imperial ambitions, Napoleon was and remained a man of the French Revolution. When he looked at a map of Europe, he saw only lands to conquer, and the contours of military campaigns by which to do it. He never once grasped the geopolitical forces at work in Europe.

As a consequence, he attacked where he should have defended and
befriended—his natural allies were in Poland, Russia, Spain and Italy; and with them, he could have beaten the northern alliance ranged against him. Further, he preserved what he should have destroyed—Prussia, for example, after soundly defeating it at the battle of Jena. And finally, he neglected to build strength where he needed it. A divided Poland was the most pathetic example of that neglect; for while he did create the duchy of Warsaw, it was no more than a sorry caricature of Poland, and neither restored the Polish nation-state nor constituted anything that could be of help to Bonaparte.

At the end, the whole world wanted to be done with the “little corporal,” for, as long as he held strong, there would be no peace in Europe. After rampaging around the continent for almost twenty years, Napoleon was definitively eliminated. Banished to the remote island of St. Helena in June 1815, he died there on May 5, 1821.