"THE POLISH HAVE... RECONQUERED THE ENTIRE DUCHY OF WARSAW..." NAPOLEON Ier. Letter signed "Napole" to the archchancellor Jean-Jacques-Régis Cambacérès. Palace of Schönbrunn [near Vienna], June 13, 1809. 1/3 p. in-4. "My cousin, I receive your letter of June 7. There is nothing new here. The Poles have not only reconquered the entire duchy of Warsaw, but are also masters of a large part of Galicia. On the 2nd of the month, the Austrians evacuated Warsaw...". Between Essling and Wagram. After the capture of Vienna on 14 May 1809, Napoleon I made the difficult crossing of the Danube, the bridges having been destroyed, to meet the Austrian army, but he was unable to achieve the success he had hoped for at the battle of Essling on 21-22 May 1809. It would take the victories of Wagram on 5-6 July 1809 and Znaïm on 10 July 1809 to force Austria to make peace: the Treaty of Schönbrunn would then be signed in October 1809. Prince Poniatowski's successes. As part of the conflict between France and Austria, the latter sent an army against the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, an avatar of Poland under Napoleonic control. Archduke Ferdinand of Austria took and held Warsaw for a time, but the Polish army under Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski (which also included French and Saxon troops) managed to repel him and even take Western Galicia, east of Kraków up to and including the Lublin region (an area Austria had annexed when Poland was partitioned in 1795), and a portion of territory around Zamość in Eastern Galicia. Western Galicia was to become part of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw under the Treaty of Schönbrunn in October 1809. The Russians, who, under the Treaty of Tilsit, were to lend a hand to the French army, intervened only belatedly and without much effect - they feared the reconstitution of an independent Poland. Napoleon I, Correspondance générale, Paris, Fayard, vol. IX, 2013, no. 21218. An export certificate for a cultural object will be issued with this letter.