Podlachia

Partition and Napoleonic Wars

In 1807, by the Treaties of Tilsit, Prussia ceded all of its gains in the second and third partitions, as well as part of the first. Most of this territory, including the western and northern parts of Prussian Podlasie, became part of the Duchy of Warsaw, a Polish client state of the First French Empire, while the east-central part including Białystok fell under Russian rule as the Belostok Oblast. The Podlachian territory within the Belostok Oblast corresponded with the Bielsk and Drohiczyn Uyezds (roughly "counties") and the western part of Belostoksky Uyezd. The small amounts of Podlachian territory in the Duchy of Warsaw lay within the Łomża Department, itself based on the territory of the Prussian Białystok Departement after the removal of the Belostock Oblast. The Habsburg part of Podlasie became part of the Duchy of Warsaw by the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn, forming much of the Siedlce Department. Although Prussian and Austrian rule was brief, it has remained administratively divided by the Bug ever since.