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Why did Russia, Prussia, and Austria carry out the First Partition of Poland?

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Map showing Poland's territory in 1634 under the reign of Wladyslaw IV Vasa, shaded in pink and spanning from the Baltic Sea in the north to near Kyiv in the southeast. Major present-day cities such as Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Vilnius, Minsk, Lwow (Lviv), Pinsk, and Kyiv are marked within the territory, with surrounding cities like Moscow, Riga, Vienna, and Budapest shown for reference. — Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Poland's territory in 1634, during the reign of Władysław IV Vasa.

The First Partition of Poland in 1772 was driven by a combination of regional power struggles and the internal instability of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The primary catalyst was the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). Russia achieved significant military victories against the Ottoman Empire, which alarmed Austria and brought the two powers to the brink of war. To prevent this escalation, Frederick II of Prussia proposed partitioning Poland as a way to resolve the eastern crisis through mutually agreeable territorial compensations.123

At the time, the Commonwealth was suffering from severe internal chaos, including a civil war sparked by the Confederation of Bar and frequent foreign intervention. This structural weakness made the state incapable of resisting the territorial seizures proposed by its neighbors. While Maria Theresa of Austria initially opposed the partition on moral grounds, the geopolitical pressure led the three powers to sign the treaty, effectively beginning the process that would eventually lead to the total dissolution of the Polish state.1243