The Lubomirski rokosz was barely over and the truce with Muscovy newly signed when the Cossacks in the Polish part of divided Ukraine submitted to Turkey and called for Tatar aid against Poland. Victories won by Hetman Jan (John III) Sobieski only temporarily forestalled the threat, and in 1672 the Commonwealth faced a major invasion by Turkey. The fall of the key border fortress Kamieniec Podolski was followed by the humiliating Peace of Buczacz. The Commonwealth lost the provinces of Podolia and Bratslav and part of Kiev, which remained under Turkish rule for more than 20 years, and it had to pay a tribute to the Sublime Porte. Sobieski’s victory over the Turks at Chocim in 1673 was not exploited, because of the lack of financial means, but it paved the way for Sobieski’s election to the Polish throne. His predecessor, Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki—who had followed John Casimir—reigned for only four years (1669–73) and proved utterly incapable.
Sobieski, ruling as John III (1674–96), sought to improve Poland’s position and at first considered conquering Prussia in alliance with France. But that plan did not succeed. With the papacy and the Habsburgs preparing for all-out war against Turkey, John reverted to an anti-Turkish policy and concluded an alliance with Austria. In 1683 he led a relief army to a Vienna besieged by the Turks and, as supreme commander of the allied forces, won a resounding victory that marked the beginning of Turkish withdrawal from Europe. The Commonwealth, however, did not share in the subsequent victorious Austrian campaigns. Poland became a secondary partner, and, when the final peace with Turkey was concluded with the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, the Poles recovered only the lost Ukrainian lands. By that time John was no longer alive, and Augustus II, the elector of Saxony, had succeeded him on the throne (reigned 1697–1733).
John III Sobieski, engraving by Carel Allardt.Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.
The Saxons
The “Saxon Era” lasted for more than 60 years and marked the lowest point in Polish history. Research since the 1980s has somewhat corrected the largely negative picture of Augustus II and Augustus III by stressing that they were operating in a context of political anarchy, dominated by factions of struggling oligarchs and subject to the meddling of neighbouring powers. The neighbouring states signed agreements among themselves to promote weakness within the Commonwealth, as for instance the Austro-Russian accord of 1675 and the Swedish-Brandenburg pacts of 1686 and 1696, which were followed by others in the 1720s.
Augustus II, oil painting by Louis de Silvestre; in the State Collections of Art in the Wawel, Kraków, Poland.Courtesy of the Państwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Kraków, Pol.
Foreign interlopers corrupted politicians and fomented disorder. During the reign of Augustus II, 10 out of 18 Sejms were paralyzed by liberum veto. In 1724 a Protestant-Catholic riot in Toruń resulted in Protestant officials’ being sentenced to death. Prussian and Russian propagandists spoke of a “bloodbath” and used the situation as an opportunity to denounce Polish intolerance. Posing as a protector of non-Catholics, St. Petersburg was in fact using them as a political instrument. Polish politics, ways, and manners, as well as declining education and rampant religious bigotry, were increasingly pictured as exotically anachronistic. The Polish nobles became the laughingstock of Europe. Because the promises John Casimir made during the darkest days of Swedish invasion to improve the lot of the peasantry had remained empty, the oppressed peasants were largely alienated from the nation. Augustus II
A personal union with Saxony, where Augustus II was a strong ruler, seemed at first to offer some advantages to Poland. A king with a power base of his own might reform the Commonwealth, which was still a huge state and potentially a great power. But such hopes proved vain. Pursuing schemes of dynastic greatness, Augustus II involved unwilling Poland in a coalition war against Charles XII of Sweden that proved disastrous. In 1702 Charles invaded the country, forced Augustus out, and staged an election of the youthful Stanisław I Leszczyński as king.
The country, split between two rival monarchs, plunged into chaos. The slowly proceeding demographic and economic recovery was reversed as the looting armies and an outbreak of bubonic plague decimated the people. A crushing defeat of Sweden by Peter I (the Great) of Russia at the Battle of Poltava (Ukraine, Russian Empire) in 1709 eventually restored Augustus to the throne but made him dependent on the tsar. Having failed to strengthen his position through war and territorial acquisitions, Augustus contemplated domestic reforms while his entourage played with the idea of a coup backed by Saxon troops. Peter intervened as an arbiter between the king and his noble opponents. A settlement at the “silent Sejm” surrounded by Russian troops removed Saxon contingents from Poland, but it brought about certain reforms. Subsequent attempts by Augustus to mount a coalition against the rising might of Russia foundered on the distrust of the king’s motives. He was even suspected of plotting partitions of the Commonwealth. During the remaining years of his reign, Augustus’s main preoccupation was to ensure the succession of his son. Augustus III
Upon Augustus’s death in 1733, Stanisław I, seen this time as a symbol of Poland’s independence and supported by France (his daughter, Marie Leszczyńska, married Louis XV), was elected once again. The counterelection of Augustus III followed, and Russian troops drove Stanisław out of the country. He abdicated, receiving as compensation (after the so-called War of the Polish Succession) the duchy of Lorraine.
Marie Leszczyńska, detail from a pastel by Jean de la Tour; in the Louvre, Paris.Giraudon—Art Resource/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The reign of Augustus III (1733–63)—during which 5 out of 15 Sejms were dissolved while the remainder took no decisions—witnessed the nadir of Polish statehood. The Commonwealth no longer could be counted as an independent participant in international relations; the king’s diplomacy was conducted from Dresden in Saxony. Poland passively watched the once-Polish territory of Silesia pass from the Habsburgs to Prussia as a result of the War of the Austrian Succession. Prussia, under Frederick II (the Great), whose grandfather had already been recognized in 1701 as “king in Prussia” by Augustus II, was becoming a great power. During the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), Austrian and Russian troops marched through Poland, and Frederick flooded the country with counterfeit money. The Commonwealth was being treated as a wayside inn.
Augustus III, detail of an oil painting by Louis de Silvestre; in the State Collections of Art in Wawel Castle, Kraków, Poland.Courtesy of the Państwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Kraków, Pol.
And yet there were also the first signs of economic recovery and population growth, the beginnings of a transition from Sarmatism to Enlightenment, and the appearance of a reformist political literature. In 1740 Stanisław Konarski, a member of the Roman Catholic Piarist teaching order, founded the Collegium Nobilium, which was to train the future elite. A network of Piarist schools followed, while the ideas of the Enlightenment were being spread, often through Freemasonry. Konarski’s writings, as well as those coming from the circle of Stanisław I in Lorraine, attacked the liberum veto and advocated an improvement of the lot of towns and peasantry. After the 1740s, from the medley of factions, coteries, and partisan groups, two major camps were emerging: the so-called Familia, led by the Czartoryskis, and the Republicans, with the Potockis and Radziwiłłs at their head. Reforms, agony, and partitions Reform under Stanisław II