Editing Napoleonic Wars (section)

===Poland===
{{Main|Duchy of Warsaw}}
[[File:January Suchodolski, Bitwa pod Somosierrą.jpg|thumb|[[Polish cavalry]] at the [[Battle of Somosierra]] in Spain, 1808]]

In 1807, Napoleon created a powerful outpost of his empire in Central Europe. [[History of Poland|Poland]] had recently been [[Partitions of Poland|partitioned by its three neighbours]], but Napoleon created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which depended on France from the beginning. The duchy consisted of lands seized by Austria and Prussia; its Grand Duke was Napoleon's ally King [[Frederick Augustus I of Saxony]], but Napoleon appointed the intendants who administered the country. The population of 4.3&nbsp;million was released from occupation and, by 1814, sent about 200,000 men to Napoleon's armies. That included about 90,000 who marched with him to Moscow; few marched back.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Otto Pivka |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ETYsTuIaKkQC&pg=PA8 |title=Napoleon's Polish Troops |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78096-549-9 |pages=8–10 |access-date=18 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160515091845/https://books.google.com/books?id=ETYsTuIaKkQC&pg=PA8 |archive-date=15 May 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> The Russians strongly opposed any move towards an independent Poland and one reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was to punish them. The Grand Duchy was absorbed into the [[Russian Empire]] as a semi-autonomous [[Congress Poland]] in 1815; Poland did not become a sovereign state again until 1918, following the collapse of the neighbouring Russian, [[German Empire|German]] and [[Austria–Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]] Empires in the aftermath of [[World War I]]. Napoleon's impact on Poland was significant, including the Napoleonic legal code, the abolition of [[serfdom]], and the introduction of modern middle-class bureaucracies.{{sfn|Riley|2013|pp=27–28}}{{sfn|Grab|2003|pp=176–187}}