When Augustus II invaded Livonia in 1700 he had reason to
hope for Polish support. His coronation charter included a promise to reconquer
the lands lost to the Commonwealth since 1620 and his planned seizure of Riga
was intended to present his new subjects with a fait accompli. He had discussed
the plan with a small group of senators, including the primate, cardinal Michal
Radziejowski, and Polish treasurer Hieronim Lubomirski. Believing that he had
their permission for his Livonian policy, he summoned the Senate Council in May
1700 to approve war against Sweden. The Council, however, with Radziejowski’s
encouragement, opposed the Commonwealth’s involvement in the war. Only in
Lithuania were the anti-Sapieha forces prepared to back Augustus in return for
protection against the Sapiehas, and there were Lithuanian troops in Flemming’s
invading force.
The failure to take Riga and the startling Swedish victories
over Denmark and Russia left Augustus in a delicate position as the Sapiehas,
facing complete destruction, turned to Sweden for protection. For Charles, this
seemed a golden opportunity. He was aware of the support for the Sapiehas in
Poland, and of concern about Augustus’s political aims, demonstrated when the
Sejm broke up in bitterness in late 1701 after agreeing to offer mediation between
Charles and Augustus. Charles found this ridiculous: how could the Commonwealth
mediate between its own king and his enemy? The crumbling of Augustus’s
position in Poland seemed too good an opportunity to waste: Augustus had failed
to establish a strong regalist party, and the circle of Polish malcontents was
extensive, led by a group of Wielkopolska magnates, including Rafał
Leszczyński, his son Stanisław, and Jan Pieniążek. This group had close links
to the Sobieskis, who were still smarting from the failure of Sobieski’s
maladroit eldest son Jakub to secure the throne in 1697. In Malopolska the
Lubomirskis and Potockis, who were closely linked with Radziejowski, led a
broad faction of magnates with extensive Ukrainian estates who had little interest
in Livonia, but were attracted by the idea of an alliance with Sweden against
Russia to recover the lands lost in 1667. For them, war with Sweden was
particularly inconvenient.
When Charles invaded, the Swedes met little resistance
outside Lithuania. The Commonwealth was all but defenceless: the Polish army
numbered barely 13,000, 5,000 short of its agreed état; the situation was even
worse in Lithuania, where Augustus had deliberately run down the army, an
important Sapieha power-base, to under 4,000. Most of the Polish army was in
the Ukraine, where the outbreak of Semen Palii’s revolt threatened a return to
the savagery of the 1650s. As far as the Commonwealth was concerned, it was
still neutral, and politicians awaited Sweden’s response to its mediation
offer. The Swedes enjoyed a guardedly favourable reception:
Quartermaster-General Axel Gyllenkrook, sent ahead to establish magazines for
the march on Warsaw, found Mazovian nobles happy enough to supply the necessary
provisions. Augustus’s attempt to buy off the opposition by appointing Rafal
Leszczyński Treasurer and bestowing the Grand Hetmanship on Feliks Potocki and
then – after Potocki’s death – on Hieronim Lubomirski, merely strengthened his
enemies. Leszczyński remained in obdurate opposition, and if Lubomirski did
fight at Kliszów in July, he remained in close contact with the Sapiehas. His
presence was largely due to a fear that if, as expected, Augustus defeated
Charles with the Saxon army alone, his position would be immeasurably strengthened.
Yet Oxenstierna was right to warn Charles of the pitfalls of
Polish politics. The Great Northern War was largely won and lost in the
Commonwealth long before 1709; for, despite the fact that Charles won every
battle that mattered until Lesnaia in 1708, he was comprehensively
outmanoeuvred by Peter, who showed a far surer grasp of Polish politics than
Charles or, indeed, any of Peter’s predecessors. For the Great Northern War was
as much a Polish civil war as a Swedish-Russian conflict. Despite the fact that
it was largely fought in the Commonwealth until Poltava, the Poles and
Lithuanians raised substantial numbers of troops: by 1708 its armies may well
have surpassed the 48,000komput agreed by the 1703 Lublin Sejm; at the peak of
the fighting perhaps 100,000 Poles and Lithuanians were mobilised on both
sides, although their performance was often lamentable, with contemporaries
observing that they displayed more enthusiasm for fighting each other than
Swedes or Russians.
The struggle for control of the Commonwealth between 1702
and 1708 was decisive. Not only was Peter given time to construct his new army
and push back the Swedes in the Baltic provinces, he was able to fight for six
years outside Russian territory; for all the Russian subsidies given to Peter’s
Polish supporters, the benefits greatly outweighed the expense. The increasing
Russian demands caused problems, and there were bitter complaints even from the
Lithuanian lesser nobility, who were among their most loyal supporters; nevertheless,
Peter proved to have a much more subtle understanding of the dynamics of Polish
politics than did Charles, whose Polish policy focused on his demand for
Augustus’s deposition, an idea long floated by his opponents, in particular the
Sobieskis, with whom Radziejowski was linked. Deposition seemed to offer the
sort of quick, painless solution which Charles had achieved in Denmark, but it
proved a dangerous policy. Instead of isolating Augustus by accepting the
Commonwealth’s neutrality, Charles insisted on regarding it as a combatant,
while the demand for deposition was a clear interference in its internal
politics: Augustus might be widely unpopular, but he enjoyed substantial
support in Lithuania and was the legally-elected king, whose title to the
throne had been confirmed in 1699. Charles, like many historians, overestimated
the power of magnate coteries. His association with the Sapiehas was
particularly ill-considered: this odious family was universally hated in
Lithuania, and Charles’s support for them ensured that his armies met fierce
resistance. More ominously, when Augustus proved unable to protect Lithuania
from the Swedes, the Lithuanian szlachta turned to Russia. In April 1702, a
Lithuanian–Russian treaty guaranteed Russian military support and 40,000
roubles in aid, in return for revenues from Sapieha land.
Lithuanian support for the Russian alliance was of
incalculable importance for Peter, since it cut off the Swedish army in the
Baltic provinces and provided him with a firm base in the Commonwealth. Matters
did not look so good in Poland, where there was substantial opposition to the
Russian alliance. Yet Charles’s obstinate refusal to accept anything less than
Augustus’s deposition as the price for evacuating the Commonwealth played into
Peter’s hands by violating the Poles’ innately legalist sensibilities.
Radziejowski, whose cardinal’s hat had gone to his head, tried to use Charles
to weaken Augustus’s position in favour of his own, but his exalted views of
the powers of the primate were not widely shared, and he was reduced to what
Charles understandably regarded as duplicitous manoeuvres, refusing publicly to
support deposition. Most sejmiki were in favour of a show of strength to
persuade the Swedes to leave, petitioning Augustus in June 1702 to issue the
final summons to the noble levy, and the palatinate of Sandomierz formed a
confederation to organise defence. Even in the Leszczyński heartland of
Wielkopolska, the general sejmik at Środa agreed to summon the levy and
petitioned Lubomirski to support them with troops from the foreign contingent.
Augustus patiently built his support, as it became clear
that most of the szlachta regarded magnate intrigues with Sweden with
hostility: in August 1702, Feliks Lipski, member of a delegation to Charles,
who had actually been accused by his fellow envoys of being too favourable to
Augustus, was lynched at a gathering of the noble levy on suspicion of
conspiring with the Swedes. By March 1703 Augustus was supported by the
majority of the Senate, by both Polish hetmans, and by four confederations on
the model of that drawn up in Sandomierz, including a general confederation of
Wielkopolska, where Leszczyński’s death in January had weakened the opposition.
Only a handful of senators turned up to a rival meeting called by Radziejowski
in Warsaw, and there was widespread condemnation of the primate’s presumption.
The strength of Augustus’s position was demonstrated at the
Lublin Sejm of June-July 1703, which provided the legal basis for his defence
of his throne. By calling it, Augustus made it clear that he, unlike the
opposition, was basing his actions on the Commonwealth’s legal institutions. He
agreed to uphold szlachta liberties and promised not to begin any wars, either
as elector of Saxony, or as king of Poland-Lithuania. The Swedish demand for
deposition was categorically rejected. There were to be no territorial
concessions, and peace was to be on the basis of the status quo ante bellum.
Charles’s supporters were declared enemies of the fatherland; those who did not
abandon him within six weeks were to lose their offices, lands and honour. The
Sejm agreed to raise an army of 36,000 in Poland, and 12,000 in Lithuania, to
be supplemented by 12,000 Saxons, 21,000 from the noble levy (15,000 in Poland
and 6,000 in Lithuania), 10,200 private troops, and Brandt’s corps of 600.
Taxes were agreed to support these forces, and the fiscal autonomy of sejmiki
was substantially trimmed to the advantage of the central treasury. Considering
the weakness of Augustus’s position in 1701, it was a triumph.
The Sejm did not, however, declare war; the show of strength
was merely to persuade the Swedes to leave. Yet Charles still held the military
advantage; despite his exasperation with the slippery Radziejowski – who
attended the Lublin Sejm – and the Polish malcontents, he continued to insist
on dethronement. Gradually his position improved, as Augustus squandered much
of his accumulated political capital. There had been some opposition in Lublin
to royal proposals, and envoys from Poznan and Kalisz had been excluded from
its debates; this provoked the formation of a confederation which became a
focus for opposition. Augustus’s blatant bid to align the monarchy with
patriotic szlachta opinion was worrying for many magnates, while there was
resistance to the Lublin decisions from some sejmiki, alarmed at limitations on
their autonomy, while the difficult economic situation ensured opposition to
the new taxes. The most explosive issue, however, was that of relations with
Russia. The Sejm had confirmed Augustus’s powers to make alliances; when his
hopes of international intervention to force Sweden to accept a reasonable
settlement failed, and as it became clear that the Sejm’s military decisions
would only be implemented slowly and in part, Augustus drew closer to Russia.
Peter, anxious to ensure that the Commonwealth continued as the main theatre of
war for as long as possible, tempted him with offers of financial and military
support.
The need for aid was pressing. The Swedes occupied Poznań in
September to secure their position in Wielkopolska, while delays in
implementing Sejm decisions meant that Augustus was unable to save the
6,000-strong Saxon garrison in Thorn, which surrendered in October. In
November, Saxon envoys signed a treaty in Moscow in which Peter promised
financial and military support with the clear aim of drawing the Commonwealth
into open war against Sweden; this was followed in December by the ‘triple
alliance’ signed at Jaworów, in which Augustus drew on the strong Lithuanian
support for the Russian alliance. Peter agreed to send 12,000 infantry and pay
subsidies of 300,000 roubles annually; the treaty was ratified by the
Lithuanians who, in return for raising 14,000 men, would be supported by 10,000
Russian infantry, 5,000 cavalry and subsidies of 60,000 roubles per annum.
Despite Charles’s refusal to compromise, this was a
dangerous step. Opposition to closer ties with Russia grew among senators,
including Lubomirski, who lodged a formal protest. Meanwhile, the anti-Augustus
confederates were gathering support. The behaviour of Saxon troops in Polish
Prussia from November 1702 alienated opinion in a province in which Augustus
had never been popular, and which would be in the front line in any war against
Sweden. There were no Prussian envoys at the Lublin Sejm, which meant that its
decisions were of doubtful validity in Prussia. The Swedish siege of Thorn in
1703 provoked hostility to Swedish demands for contributions, but Augustus’s
failure to relieve the city enabled his opponents to gain the upper hand. In
October, a confederation was formed at Stargard; although it was not initially
opposed to Augustus, it soon drifted towards an alliance with the Środa
confederates. Now Radziejowski openly declared for Sweden, humiliated by his
hostile reception at Lublin where he was accused of treason and forced to swear
oaths of loyalty to Augustus and the Commonwealth. He told Charles in December
that the Polish army would abandon Augustus if it was paid, and agreed to call
the szlachta to Warsaw to effect a dethronement. On 14 February 1704,
Radziejowski declared an interregnum; two days later, a general confederation
was called to rally Augustus’s supporters.
Initially, this bold move seemed to work. In March
Lubomirski, who had long harboured hopes of the throne for himself, abandoned
Augustus and joined the Warsaw Confederation, after the daring kidnap of Jakub
and Konstanty Sobieski by Augustus’s agents in Silesia in February which
deprived Charles of his leading candidate for the throne. In June he
unexpectedly proposed the candidature of Rafal Leszczyński’s son Stanislaw,
after Aleksander Sobieski’s refusal to accept what he felt was his elder
brother’s due. With Leszczyński’s formal election in July, Charles had achieved
the aim for which he had entered the Commonwealth two years earlier, yet it
hardly solved his problems. For two years, his armies had seen little serious
fighting; if he wished to consolidate Leszczyński’s position he could not
abandon the Commonwealth. In May, Augustus’s supporters established their own
general confederation at Sandomierz, where the Commonwealth – or at least that
portion of it which supported Augustus – finally declared war on Sweden. In
August, the Russian alliance was formalised at Narva. The phoney war was over.
Despite holding the military advantage for the next five
years, Charles proved unable to secure victory. Although Leszczyński attracted
considerable support, particularly in Polish Prussia and Wielkopolska, Charles
was unable to conciliate or crush his enemies. Individual magnates were enticed
over from the Sandomierz camp, including Lithuanian Grand Hetman Michal
Wisniowiecki, but factional intrigues merely divided Augustus’s enemies.
Radziejowski opposed Leszczyński’s election, absenting himself from the formal
proclamation of the new king. Lubomirski was similarly disappointed, while his
defection had destroyed his control of the crown army, threequarters of which
remained loyal to Augustus. Together with Radziejowski, whose actions were
condemned by the Pope after lobbying from Augustus, he had already begun secret
negotiations with Augustus in August 1704; in November he openly abandoned
Leszczyński. Radziejowski withdrew to Danzig, where he met Leszczyński in
January 1705, but refused to call a general assembly to confirm the election.
By 1706, death had removed Radziejowski and Lubomirski from the scene.
Even the invasion of Saxony and the treaty of Altranstädt
did little to improve Leszczyński’s position. Despite Augustus’s abdication,
Leszczyński failed to win over his enemies, and his tenure of the throne was
too obviously dependent upon Swedish arms. An awareness of what was to come has
meant that for some Polish historians, the Commonwealth’s failure to rally
round Leszczyński represented the loss of a great opportunity to prevent the
200-year Russian domination of Polish politics. Leszczyński, it is suggested,
offered the prospect of a return to the Polish-Swedish alliance which had
defeated Ivan IV, and which might have prevented the humiliations of the
eighteenth century. Yet for contemporaries, there was more reason to see Sweden
as the greatest danger to the Commonwealth: Narva had seemed to confirm the
superiority of Swedish arms, while Turkish and Tatar threats and news of the
1705 Astrakhan rising suggested that Peter might be in danger of a major
defeat, or even the loss of his throne.
The bankruptcy of Charles’s Polish policy was starkly
demonstrated after Altranstädt. Since Leszczyński’s election, several
influential figures had defected to him, including Lithuanian Grand Chancellor
Karol Radziwill, Lithuanian Vice-Chancellor Stanislaw Szczuka and the
Jablonowskis. The bitter rivalry between Ogiński and Wiśniowiecki lay behind
the latter’s defection, while naked ambition led many to support Leszczyński
when he began distributing offices and starosties. Nevertheless, many defectors
maintained links with the Sandomierz confederates, and their loyalty was always
suspect. Altranstädt might have knocked Saxony out of the war and deprived them
of their king, but it did not win over the majority of the szlachta, who had
little hope of such reward.
The manner of Leszczyński’s election and the nature of his
rule were a travesty of Polish law. With Radziejowski sulking in his palace,
the election took place under the protection of Swedish bayonets, in the
presence of a handful of senators and szlachta. There was no reading of the
Pacta Conventa, the formal agreement made by every new king with the
Commonwealth, and contemporary opinion was dismissive of a monarch chosen by a
foreign ruler and elected at his insistence. The alliance Leszczyński signed
with Sweden in November 1705 was too obviously drawn up to suit the Swedes, who
were given the right to occupy Polish cities and fortresses. The Commonwealth
was to annul all alliances deemed contrary to Swedish interests, Sweden was to
be allowed unrestricted recruitment rights in the Commonwealth, whose trade was
to be strictly subordinated to Swedish interests: all goods from Lithuania,
Ruthenia, Courland and Polish Prussia were to be exported through Riga, while
the Polish port of Połęga in Courland was to be abandoned.10 In the war against
Russia, Smolensk and Kiev were to be returned to the Commonwealth, but Courland
and Polish Livonia were to be ceded to Sweden.
Peter’s treatment of his Polish allies was a stark contrast.
Despite anger at the behaviour of Russian troops in the Commonwealth, and
growing fears of Russian annexations in Lithuania and the Ukraine, which played
a part in Wisniowiecki’s defection, the alliance held firm. Peter dealt with
Augustus and the Sandomierz confederates in a manner very different from
Charles’s peremptory contempt for the Commonwealth’s legal norms. Although he
clearly had no intention of surrendering his conquests in the Baltic, until
after Poltava he maintained the polite fiction that Livonia would be returned
to the Commonwealth once it had been taken from the Swedes. Russian armies
crushed Palii’s revolt and Peter promised to return the right-bank Ukraine to
Polish control.
For all the undoubted tensions, and endless bickering over
Peter’s failure to fulfil the terms of the Narva treaty, his cautious approach
paid dividends. When Charles launched his Russian campaign in late 1707 and the
Russian armies withdrew towards the Russian border, the Sandomierz confederates
remained largely loyal. Although they still demonstrated considerable
independence in rejecting Peter’s proposals on a number of important issues,
including candidates for a new election, there was no mass defection. Many of
those who changed sides were disappointed at their reception. Charles
constantly interfered in the crucial question of appointments to office and
honour – a highly sensitive issue, given that many of these appointments were
to positions still held by his enemies. He favoured certain groups among Leszczyński’s
followers, in particular the Sapiehas, which did little to help Leszczyński.
His insistence on offering the Lithuanian grand hetmanship to Jan Sapieha after
browbeating Kazimierz Sapieha into resigning outraged Wiśniowiecki, who
expected promotion to the post he had abandoned on defecting to Charles.
Charles’s strategy assumed that Leszczyński and the Swedish
general Krassau, who was left with a small Swedish corps in Poland, would lead
a substantial force into the Ukraine in support of the main Swedish army. Yet
to achieve this, Leszczyński would have to break through the confederate and
Russian forces occupying Malopolska, Podolia and Volhynia. As he prepared to
launch his campaign in March 1708, Wiśniowiecki withdrew to Lithuania to
consider changing sides again. A significant number of other important figures,
disillusioned by their reception, were already doing so, including the
Lubomirskis and Michal Potocki. Throughout 1708, the two sides engaged in a
vicious war of raids and counter-raids. In November, a pro-Leszczyński force of
10,000 was defeated by a confederate force of roughly the same size in a bloody
encounter at Koniecpol.
Koniecpol made a great impression on szlachta opinion.
Malopolska, which had been leaning towards Leszczyński, now lost all
enthusiasm. Few would commit themselves until the outcome of the Russian
campaign was known. Augustus, aware that many Poles did not recognise his
abdication, gathered troops on Saxony’s eastern borders, but was content to
play a waiting game. After Koniecpol, neither Leszczyński nor Krassau could
stop a Confederate thrust into Polish Prussia while Ogiński and the Confederate
Grand Hetman Adam Sieniawski blocked the route eastwards. In the spring of
1709, with Charles waiting impatiently outside the walls of Poltava,
Leszczyński made a half-hearted attempt to break through, but news of the
approach of Russian reinforcements soon forced him back. Charles was about to
face the consequences of the failure of his Polish policy. He had been unable to
impose his will on the Commonwealth, and the Sandomierz confederates had shown
that, even deprived of a king, the Commonwealth’s decentralised military and
political system was robust enough to thwart its enemies, if not defeat them.
Winning battles was not enough. Charles had failed to win the Polish war; his
army paid the price at Poltava.
