Abstract
In the immediate aftermath of the Polish uprising of 1830–1, Prince Adam Czartoryski, leader of the conservative faction of Polish émigrés, established his political headquarters in Paris. Within the course of the next decade Prince Adam was to build a diplomatic network, known as the Hotel Lambert, which eventually stretched from London to Persia. For close to forty years, Czartoryski and his adherents were to play a diplomatic role in Europe, creating a Polish foreign policy in exile designed to gain major power support for Polish aims: to keep the Polish question alive and to oversee the successful re-establishment of an independent Polish state.1 The question facing the Poles was by which means this could best be accomplished.
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Notes
The history of Prince Czartoryski and the Hotel Lambert is discussed in depth in Marceli Handelsman, Adam Czartoryski, 3 vols (Warsaw, 1948–50).
See also Marian Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity, 1770–1861 (Princeton, 1955).
For a detailed account of the establishment of the Hotel Lambert as a diplomatic agency, see Hans Henning Hahn, Aussenpolitik in der Emigration; Die Exildiplomatic Adam Jerzy Czartoryskis 1830–1840 (Munich, 1978)
and the first chapter of this volume. Other recent works which deal with major aspects of the Hotel Lambert’s activities include Jerzy Skowronek, Polityka Bałkańska Hotelu Lambert (1833–1856) (Warsaw, 1976),
and Robert A. Berry, ‘Czartoryski and the Balkan Policies of the Hotel Lambert, 1832–1847’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Indiana University, 1974).
Jerzy Skowronek, Antynapoleońskie koncepcje Czartoryskiego (Warsaw, 1969) pp. 51 ff,
and Skowronek, ‘Le programme Européen du prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski en 1803–1805,’ Acta Poloniae Historica, 17 (1968) pp. 140–1, provide details on these plans. For a discussion of Czartoryski’s early ideas with respect to the Balkans, see Berry, ‘Czartoryski’, pp. 6–19.
Barbara Konarska, W kręgu Hotelu Lambert: Władysław Zamoyski w latach 1832–1847 (Wrocław, 1971) p. 154.
Adam Lewak, Dzieje emigracji polskiej w Turcji (Warsaw, 1935) p. 12. Czartoryski sent Alexander Wereszczyński as his agent at this time. Wereszczyński helped to pave the way for later representatives.
Handelsman, Adam Czartoryski, vol. II, pp. 69–70, also notes that this is the first reference to a Polish colony, Adampol, which generated controversy among many Polish officers opposed to such an idea. See also: Henryk Graniewski, ‘The Mission of General Chrzanowski to Turkey (1836–1840), Antemurale, vol. XII (1968) p. 124; and Kukiel p. 233. Namik’s tentative plan was that the Polish Emigration would then be used to carry out military and administrative reforms. However, the requirement that all émigrés would be required to accept Islam rendered the scheme unacceptable.
Lewak, Dzieje, pp. 27–8, adds that Czartoryski wrote of this to Zamoyski and that later Namik reiterated his invitation to Czartoryski through General Dembinski: see Władysław Zamoyski, Jenerał Zamoyski, 6 vols (Poznan, 1910–30) vol. III, p. 107; and Biblioteka Czartoryskich (B. Cz.) 5587, p. 194; B. Cz, 5587, pp. 385–7.
Stanford Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, II (Cambridge, 1977) p. 22; Lewak, Dzieje, p. 36;
Lewak, Działalność polska na Wschodzie 1830–1870 (Warsaw, 1933) p. 9;
Henryk Batowski, Podstawy sojuszu bałkańskiego 1912 r. (Cracow, 1939) pp. 16–17.
Frederick Stanley Rodkey, ‘Lord Palmerston and the Rejuvenation of Modern Turkey, 1830–41,’ Part I, Journal of Modern History (December, 1929) vol I, pp. 578–9, notes Chrzanowski’s mission to the Ottoman Empire.
Lewak, Dzieje, p. 38. James Edgar Swain, The Struggle for the Control of the Mediterranean prior to 1848: A Study in Anglo-French Relations (Boston, 1933) p. 100, states: ‘Palmerston expected to use him as a medium through which the British government could be kept informed of the developments of special interest. This project was not so successful. Chrzanowski was not received with much enthusiasm. Von Moltke was sent to Turkey by the Prussian government of the same purpose and made much more headway than Chrzanowski.’ Graniewski, ‘The Mission’ p. 136, indicates Chrzanowski’s double role. His work is also an excellent study of Chrzanowski’s activity in the Ottoman Empire and on behalf of the British government which clearly demonstrates the importance of his actions during this period in contradistinction to Swain’s comments. A rather interesting document found in B. Cz. 5326, p. 139 ff, lacking a date but presumably written during the 1830s, provides a detailed plan for restructuring the Ottoman army, drawing upon the Prussian model to some extent. Whether this is the work of Chrzanowski or something from von Moltke that was sent as part of a report to Czartoryski is unknown.
For a discussion of the Romanian national movement, see Radu Florescu, The Struggle Against Russia in the Roumanian Principalities: A Problem in Anglo-Turkish Diplomacy 1821–1854 (Munich, 1962).
Frederick Rodkey, ‘Reshid Pasha’s Memorandum of August 12, 1839,’ Journal of Modern History, vol. II (June, 1930) pp. 251–7.
Frederick Rodkey, ‘Lord Palmerston and the Rejuvenation of Turkey, 1830–41’, Part II, Journal of Modern History, vol. II (June, 1930) pp. 203–4.
Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire pp. 59–60. Translations of the Hatt itself are available in J. C. Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics (New Haven, 1975) vol. I, pp. 269–271;
and in Frank Edward Bailey, British Policy and the Turkish Reform Movement. A Study in Anglo-Turkish Relations 1826–1853 (Cambridge, Mass:, 1942) pp. 277–9. The latter appears to be somewhat more complete.
The degree of Western influence is certainly debatable. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal, 1964) p. 144, argues in effect against any outside influences: ‘We do not have to look at the English or French political impact in order to discover the origins of the ideas contained in the Tanzimat Charter and we shall not find them in the Muslim political thinking of the past. The ideas embodied in the Charter were simply a formulation of those that had become more or less crystallized during the latter part of Mahmud’s reign. In fact, the contents of the Charter were under discussion before Mahmud’s death.’
This led directly to the establishment of a permanent agency in Rome. A detailed study of the Hotel Lambert’s relations with Rome can be found in Jan Wszołek, Prawica Wielkiej Emigracji wobec narodowego ruchu włiskiego (przed rewolucję 1848 roku) (Wrocław, 1970).
Janina Brzozowska, Z polityki wschodniej ks. Ad. Czartoryskiego, Przegląd Powszechny, CXXXV, n. 1 (1917) pp. 176–177. Brzozowska attributes part of the French willingness to support the Hotel Lambert’s policies to the French position as Catholic protectors of the Holy Places in Jerusalem.
Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński, Michał Czajkowski (Sadyk-Pasza) jego życie, działalność wojskowa i literacka (St Petersburg, 1901) p. 38.
Vladimir Dedijer et al., History of Yugoslavia (New York, 1974) p. 289.
Mercia Macdermott, A History of Bulgaria, 1393–1885 (London, 1962) pp. 144–5. See also Berry, pp. 327–52 for details.
Roderick Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856–1876 (Princeton, 1963) p. 76.
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© 1992 International Council for Soviet and East European Studies, and John Morison
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Berry, R.A. (1992). Polish Diplomatic Activities in the Ottoman Empire, 1832–48: The Influence of the Hotel Lambert on Ottoman Policy. In: Morison, J. (eds) Eastern Europe and the West. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22299-5_2
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