Johann Ernst Knittel

A map of the Prussian and Russian occupation of the Duchy of Warsaw by Johann Ernst Knittel.

• Johann Ernst Knittel (German).
• Neue militairische Situations=und Post=Carte von Polen und Preussen von I.E. Kinittel. Nouvelle Carte militaire et routiere de la Pologne et de la Prusse par I.E. Knittel.
• Nuremberg: Friedrich Campe, 1812.
• Original color.
• Dissected and laid on linen as issued.
• This work is presented unframed.

A separate-issue map of the Duchy of Warsaw as the Prussians and Russians occupied the country after Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow. It places emphasis on the post roads, which would have been the main lines of communication for the occupying army.

At the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars the Polish people saw Bonaparte as the best chance for them to regain their country after the three Partitions inflicted on them by Austria, Russia and Prussia. Polish Legions fought with the French in Europe, Egypt and the West Indies, and were rewarded with the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. However, as Napoleon's army fled from Moscow, the Russians followed, overrunning the Duchy and occupying it until the Congress of Vienna (1815) divided it between Russia and Prussia.