Chapter 118: John Sobieski Attacked On All Sides
Going into the war, John III Sobieski of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was confident. His realm had never been stronger, having defeated all of its neighbors at least once in the 17th century and regaining access to the Black Sea. Conflict with the Sublime Porte and their Crimean vassals had tethered the Cossacks tightly to Warsaw while the factional bickering that had defined the reign of Christian had largely subsided under the reign of John so far. Tymofiy Khmelnytsky and Lithuanian Field Hetman Michal Kazimierz Radziwill mobilized Cossack and Lithuanian magnates respectively in anticipation of an invasion by George II Rakoczi of Transylvania while the king’s older brother Marek Sobieski [1] guarded the capital and John’s heir Alexander [2].
Nevertheless, Sobieski’s uncompromising confidence made him underestimate his first foe on the battlefield, Brandenburg elector and rival claimant Frederick William. Frederick William had ruled Brandenburg-Prussia over the last 36 years, centralizing the administration and pushing through domestic reforms that expanded his military and strengthened his dual realms’ economies. As a result, his realm would be able to punch above its size and weight in this conflict. The elector and his son Charles [3] departed from Berlin at the head of an army numbering 15,000 shortly after declaring war on the Commonwealth and would attract the support of nobles who supported Frederick William’s claim, especially those in the more heavily German-speaking Lower Silesia. John Sobieski left Legnica amidst a struggle to neutralize dissenting nobles with an army of 25,000, leaving 10,000 throughout the rest of the duchy. The two armies clashed near the town of Glogau just north of Legnica on May 14th. Despite having a numerical disadvantage, Frederick William’s infantry and artillery had superior firepower and held back the cavalry charges of the Polish and Cossack cavalry. Although John Sobieski was able to organize an orderly retreat, Polish forces had begun to lose control of Legnica in the king’s absence and Frederick William’s victory had a significant psychological effect on many Silesians. The Polish-Lithuanian army was subsequently forced to abandon Legnica and retreat into Upper Silesia.
Depiction of the Battle of Glogau
As the Commonwealth’s forces were forced back in Silesia and those of Brandenburg-Prussia pushed forward, the Swedes also made their move, advancing from both western Pomerania and Livonia with king John IV Sigismund entering the Commonwealth from the former. The Swedish armies, composed of some of Europe’s most lethal infantry, breezed through the Polish-Lithuanian defenses and with the help of Prussian troops were able to quickly occupy much of Royal Prussia and Courland. Warsaw now lay within striking distance of the Swedes, thrusting John Sobieski into action. Leaving temporary command of Commonwealth-occupied Silesia in the hands of Crown Hetman Dymitr Jerzy Wisniowiecki, the king mobilized more troops from Poland in addition to his personal army from Silesia and confronted his Swedish counterpart at Klecko. At the bloody affair that followed, only through Sobieski’s personal valor at the head of the winged hussars did the Commonwealth snatch victory and halt the Swedish advance towards Warsaw. However, the heavy casualties prevented Sobieski from following up on his victory. Worse, in the absence of the king, the Brandenburgians made further gains in Silesia. By the end of the year, most of Silesia was in the hands of Frederick William and the entire Baltic coast had been lost to the anti-Commonwealth coalition.
However, 1677 would see a sort of reversal of fortunes. Firstly, the Danes entered the war on the side of the Commonwealth at the behest of the latter’s diplomats, eager to regain Jamtland, Halland, and Bohuslan from the Swedish Empire. This created a second front behind the backs of both the Swedes and Brandenburgians. Secondly, George II Rakoczi succumbed to dysentery while on campaign against his Cossack and Lithuanian foes. As his son Francis had died the previous year, this theoretically left his 1 year old grandson as the heir to the Transylvanian princedom. By now, however, Constantinople viewed the Rakoczi princes as a problem who too often risked renewed conflict between themselves and the Habsburgs or the Commonwealth and swiftly placed Francis Rakoczi and his family under house arrest, installing Michael Apafi as the new ruler of Transylvania and tightening its grip over its Balkan vassal states. This effectively took Transylvania out of the war, freeing up manpower in the south. All of this was bad news for the Swedish-Brandenburgian coalition which up until now had held the upper hand on the Silesian and Baltic fronts against Poland-Lithuania. During the second year of the war, John Sobieski pushed Frederick William’s forces out of Lower Silesia completely and retook most of Royal Prussia as John Sigismund was forced to return to Stockholm and oversee the defense of his realm from Denmark-Norway’s unexpected invasion.
The third year of the war would yet again see a major shakeup as seemingly out of nowhere, Russia invaded the Commonwealth’s eastern borders that had been relatively under-defended during the course of the war. As the previous tsar Alexei had only recently died and his son and successor Feodor III was just 17, it had been assumed that Russia would not involve itself in any foreign wars until the latter was older. However, nobles like Artamon Matveyev and Grigory Romodanovsky were eager to take advantage of the Commonwealth’s preoccupation to the west and expand Russian borders into Lithuania and Ukraine. In July, an Russian army of 30,000 led by Romodanovsky entered Lithuania and immediately began besieging Smolensk. In response, a combined force of Lithuanians and Ukrainian Cossacks led by Michal Kazimierz Radziwill advanced upon the Russian position twice at Shklow and Shepeleviche but were rebuffed due to the latter’s sheer manpower. This paved the way for the fall of Smolensk in September 1678 and Muscovy was on course to march on the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius as Orthodox magnates began to waver. However, Radziwill was able to regather his forces and incorporate Cossack reinforcements and at the battle for the capital, the Commonwealth force decisively defeated the Russians.
Portrait of Lithuanian Field Hetman Michal Kazimierz Radziwill
The rest of the conflict over the future of Silesia was largely marked by stalemate, with Sweden dispatching an army to its home turf against the Danes and Poland-Lithuania sending armies in all directions. Denmark’s offensives initially went well, its sizable fleet successfully blockading the Baltic Sea and defeating the Swedes at sea while Dano-Norwegian armies under king Christian V retook Halland and Jamtland with little pushback. The Swedish king, however, soon returned with his army and immediately began reversing Dano-Norwegian gains in Halland and even encroached upon Scania. John Sigismund’s land campaign culminated in the Battle of Landskrona, where his army of 13,000 decisively defeated a similarly sized force under Christian V. The Swedish king now embarked upon an invasion of Scania but was hindered by sturdy Dano-Norwegian defenses, continual enemy supremacy on the seas, and the necessary reconquest of Jamtland.
Up until now, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I had stayed out for fear of triggering a French intervention in favor of the anti-Commonwealth coalition or an opportunistic invasion of Habsburg Hungary by the Ottomans. As both sides began pondering peace amidst the relative stalemate, however, he presented himself as a neutral mediator and ended up overseeing negotiations between both sides. Through these talks, a treaty was signed in Legnica in 1680. This treaty split Silesia between Frederick William and John Sobieski, the former taking Lower Silesia and the latter taking Upper Silesia. Additionally, ducal Prussia would no longer be a vassal of the Commonwealth, meaning that Brandenburg-Prussia now stood completely sovereign. However, if the male Hohenzollern line were to become extinct, ducal Prussia would revert to Commonwealth control. Additionally, Poland-Lithuania would officially recognize Swedish domain over Riga and western Livonia, areas taken by the Swedes in the 1620s but never de jure accepted by the Commonwealth. Although the conclusion of the War of the Silesian Succession did not end in the full assimilation of Silesia into the Commonwealth, John Sobieski had conducted himself admirably even when attacked from all sides and managed to minimize the concessions he made, the Commonwealth losing no significant territory.
Orange = Lower Silesia, Yellow = Upper Silesia
The Commonwealth now turned its attention onto Russia. Although Russian military success had been halted at Vilnius, Muscovy had begun to turn many of Sobieski’s Orthodox subjects and magnates against the Catholic monarch, destabilizing parts of the Russo-Lithuanian border. They even covertly triggered and supported an internal Cossack rebellion led by Demian Mnohohrishny in the Ukrainian lands. This Russo-Polish conflict wouldn’t last long though, for the death of the tsar in 1682 triggered a brief but bloody power struggle between boyar factions behind co-tsars Ivan V and Peter I that saw both Matveyev and Romodanovsky murdered [4]. Regime change in Moscow, together with murmurs of military buildup in the Ottoman Empire, pushed both sides to the negotiating table and in the spring of 1683, a truce was signed in Smolensk that returned Russo-Lithuanian borders to the prewar status quo. After 7 years of conflict caused by John III’s own expansionist ambitions, Poland-Lithuania now returned to peace at least for the moment.
Amidst the raging conflicts in northern and eastern Europe, the Dutch Republic took advantage of Sweden’s diverted attention and the successful Dano-Norwegian naval blockade, invading New Sweden from its New Netherlands colony in 1679. Having always been the larger and more populated of the two colonies, New Netherlands eventually conquered the entirety of Sweden’s slice of North America. Although Stockholm did not immediately make any attempts to retake New Sweden’s former lands from the Dutch, its loss would go unrecognized, opening the door for yet more conflict as the brazen move by the Republic worried both France and England.
[1]: Marek did not die in battle in 1653 ITTL.
[2]: Jakub Louis Sobieski is known as Alexander Louis Sobieski ITTL, as Marek being the older brother gets to name his son Jakub Sobieski.
[3]: Charles was the first son of Frederick William, not Frederick, but died in 1674 of dysentery while on a military campaign IOTL.
[4]: Basically what happens IOTL.