Part 3

♦Candidates for the throne.♦ The number of aspirants to the vacant throne was, as usual, considerable. The Czar Alexis massed 80,000 troops on the frontier in support of the candidature of his son, but the Poles took little notice either of him or his manœuvres. The Prince of Condé was supported by Sobieski and many of the Senate, but the prejudice against a Frenchman was universal among the lesser nobles. The two candidates most in favour were Prince Charles of Lorraine, secretly supported by Austria, and Philip, Duke of Neuberg, who, though sixty years of age, was set up as the real choice alike of the King of France and the Emperor. The personal advantages of the former were far superior to those of his rival; he was young, courageous, and affable; but he had neither money nor lands, while the offers of the Duke of Neuberg were most advantageous to the state. ♦Disorder on the field of election.♦ The nobles, fully alive to the value of their votes, postponed their decision till May, 1669; and meanwhile the field of election was as usual a scene of wild confusion. A large party clamoured for the exclusion of the Prince of Condé, and, although Sobieski protested against such a measure as interfering with the freedom of the proceedings, it was carried through by the violence of its promoters. At length the tumult rose to such a height that Sobieski, as Grand Marshal, threatened to fire upon the rioters. Order was thus partly restored; and soon the cry of a Piast! a Piast! was heard among the crowd. Sobieski might well suppose that no Piast (or native Pole) would be thought so worthy as himself to wear the crown, but perhaps he had made himself too unpopular during the election. The cry was followed by the proposal of Michael Wiesnowiesçki--a young noble barely thirty years of age, who had neither virtues, nor abilities, nor riches to recommend him to their suffrages. ♦Proclamation of King Michael.♦ Yet such was the fickle excitability of the assembly that he was chosen by acclamation; and, although he implored to be spared the honour, and even attempted to escape, he was dragged to the throne, and invested with the supreme authority.

The reign of such a king could scarcely be prosperous. Ere long the nobles had cause to regret that they had not chosen the man who of all native Poles was worthiest to hold the sceptre. Michael himself, when mounted upon the throne, could not but see that he was far from being the first man in the republic. The thought wounded his pride, which was soon to become as conspicuous as his previous humility. ♦His hatred of Sobieski,♦ He hated Sobieski with a hatred the more violent that he was unable to abridge his powers. He refused the grand coach-and-six which it was the established custom for the general to present to the new sovereign.[41] He plotted with Christopher and Michael Paz, respectively chancellor and grand general of Lithuania, against the man with whom they had a long-standing family feud.[42] ♦Who was popular with the army.♦ But Sobieski, besides having the army at his back, was zealously supported by the greater nobles, and although a struggle appeared imminent the king’s party forbore for a time. Efforts were made to promote a reconciliation by marrying Michael to the daughter of Sobieski’s sister;[43] but the plan was overthrown by the arrival of an ambassador from Leopold to offer him the hand of the Arch-Duchess Eleanor. ♦Marriage of Michael.♦ The honour was too tempting for the weak-minded king; he accepted from the emperor the order of the Golden Fleece, and hastily concluded the marriage without the sanction of the republic. Loud were the complaints against this breach of the constitution,[44] even among his own supporters, the lesser nobles. Austria had always been distrusted by the Poles, but at this moment there was a special reason for her unpopularity.

♦Siege of Candia. Designs of Ahmed Köprili.♦ On the 2nd of September, 1669, after a most memorable defence of more than twenty years, the city and island of Candia surrendered to the Turkish fleet, commanded by the Grand Vizier, Ahmed Köprili. The vast designs of this able minister were the terror of Europe. Five years earlier (1664) he had concluded with Austria a twenty years’ peace, on terms most favourable to the Turks; and it was well known that he only awaited the fall of Candia to resume his schemes against Italy and the empire. That result was now achieved, a peace was concluded with Venice, and he was free to turn the Ottoman arms towards the west and north. ♦Terror in Europe at♦ The Marquis de St. André,[45] who had commanded in Candia, wrote into France that Köprili had opened the way to Rome, and by what he knew of that general’s humour, he doubted not but he had a design to turn St. Peter’s church into the Grand Signor’s stables. ♦The rise of Turkey.♦ It is even said that Pope Clement IX. died of grief at the Turkish successes. These fears were doubtless in part well founded. During the Thirty Years’ War, and the intestine struggles which succeeded it in many of the Christian states, the Turkish power had steadily increased. Two Grand Viziers of consummate ability, Mahommed Köprili and his son Ahmed, had strengthened the empire by numerous fortresses, had sternly quelled the frequent revolts, and had introduced a spirit of order and activity hitherto seldom seen among the Turks. If the jealousies of France and Austria were to continue, a wise vizier might well hope ere long to make a tremendous onslaught upon Christendom. It is not surprising therefore that, after the fall of Candia, the Poles should resent the Emperor’s crafty aim to secure their taking up arms in his defence.

♦Revolt of the Cossacks.♦ But the danger was nearer than they imagined. It threatened them as usual from the quarter of the Cossacks, who had never since their first revolt in 1648 preserved a real peace with Poland. They viewed with dismay the accession to the throne of a son of their former oppressor, Jeremiah Wiesnowiesçki, and imagining that his first object would be to recover his lost estates, they rushed to arms. ♦Sobieski’s campaign of 1670.♦ Immediately after the coronation of Michael (October, 1669) Sobieski was called to the frontiers. Acting with his usual vigour, he sowed discord in the enemy’s ranks, and drove them beyond the Dniester. So unexpected were these victories that the Vice-Chancellor, writing to him in the king’s name, says: “Envy itself is compelled to confess that, after God, you alone, though at the head of so small a force, have once more saved Poland.” ♦Michael refuses a policy of concession.♦ But the king and his general could not agree as to the measures to be taken with the subdued Cossacks. Sobieski was most anxious for a policy of concession. He had seen signs among them of a disposition to call in the Turks, which they had attempted to do in 1651, and he hoped to avert such a disaster. But Michael was wholly deaf to argument. Finding that the Diet was likely to declare against him, he easily procured its dissolution by the veto (April 17th); and the event which Sobieski dreaded came to pass. ♦The Cossacks apply to the Porte.♦ Doroscensko, the Cossack chief, losing all hope of justice from Poland, and persuaded by his metropolitan that he would find it at the patriarchate of the East, went to Constantinople to throw himself at the feet of the Sultan.

♦Köprili prepares for war with Poland.♦ Fortune seemed to play into the hands of Ahmed Köprili. The restless janissaries needed employment, and he preferred a gradual advance upon Austria to a premature declaration of war with her. Poland seemed to offer a splendid field. Proclaiming the Sultan the champion of the oppressed, he prepared a great armament against the oppressor, and created Doroscensko hospodar of the Ukraine. But his plans required time to be fully matured, and in the meanwhile he encouraged the Tartars to burst into Poland (1671).

♦Austrian influence in Poland.♦ The republic was at this moment torn in pieces by the violence of the Austrian and French factions. Leopold had followed up his success in the marriage of his sister by surrounding the weak Michael with creatures of his own, who used all their arts to persuade him that the French monarch had been guilty of bringing in the Tartars against him. Great efforts were made to include Sobieski in these accusations. His second general, Demetrius Wiesnowiesçki, the king’s cousin, who had long been jealous of him, actually put Tartar captives to the torture to obtain evidence, but without success. Sobieski, though deeply indignant, contented himself with publishing a scornful manifesto, and then hastened to defend the frontiers. At the meeting of the Diet (September 20th) the deputies demanded the dismissal of the Austrian courtiers; and the primate Prazmowski vehemently accused the king of treachery to the nation, and of breaking his coronation oaths. ♦Michael calls out the Pospolite.♦ Terrified at this attack, Michael called out the Pospolite, which was devoted to his interests; but he paid no attention to the entreaties of Sobieski that he would use it against the invader. He could not bring himself to save his kingdom at the expense of strengthening his rival.

♦“Miraculous campaign” of Sobieski.♦ Sobieski determined to act without him. Equipping the regular army at his own cost, he appeared to be covering Kaminiec, the key of south-eastern Poland, but when the Tartar hordes had passed into Volhynia, he marched with surprising celerity through Podolia, and cut them off from their allies, the Cossacks. Trembling for their retreat the barbarians broke up their camp, and hurried out of the country as fast as they could, while Sobieski made a triumphant progress through the Ukraine, capturing several towns which had not seen a Polish army for twenty years, and re-establishing communications with the friendly Moldavians. Europe justly termed this “the miraculous campaign;” yet it was accomplished almost solely by the strenuous exertions of the commander. His troops were in the worst possible condition, the Lithuanian army had disbanded without joining him, and the jealousies of the different palatinates had prevented their sending him any succours. He now begged for reinforcements to enable him to dictate peace to the Tartars, and to fortify Poland against the Turks; but the infatuated malice of the king made it difficult for him even to keep together the troops under his orders. ♦December, 1671. He falls sick.♦ At this juncture fatigue, and perhaps chagrin at the treatment which he received, laid Sobieski on the bed of sickness at Zolkiew; and the king redoubled his efforts to separate him from the army. The attempt recoiled upon his own head. That body at once moved their winter quarters to the Palatinate of Russia, and formed themselves into a confederation to protect their beloved general.

♦The Sultan declares war against Poland.♦ But the king’s attention was soon most unpleasantly diverted elsewhere. In the same month (December) an envoy from the Porte arrived at Warsaw, and announcing that the Cossacks had been taken under the protection of the Sublime Porte, demanded reparation for the injuries which they had suffered. No resource was left to the king’s party but to treat this as a mere blind intended to conceal from Austria the Turkish advance on the side of Hungary.

♦Confederation against the king.♦ The patience of the great nobles was now completely exhausted. Under the leadership of Prazmowski they entered into a confederation to dethrone the king. The advice of the primate was that they should take the emperor and the Polish queen into their counsels, and provide some candidate who would be ready to accept the queen’s hand. Eleanor was consulted, and professed herself devoted to the plan, if they would choose Charles of Lorraine, to whom she was deeply attached. ♦Joined by Sobieski.♦ Sobieski, now convalescent, was at length made acquainted with these projects. He strongly opposed any scheme which would place the country under the espionage of Austria; but being firmly convinced of the necessity of a revolution, he exhorted them to choose the brave Duke of Longueville, nephew of Condé. Prazmowski, nothing daunted, sent the queen the duke’s portrait, and was assured of her acquiescence. Everything seemed favourable for the _coup d’état_; the Diet went out in a body to meet Sobieski; and the rejoicings at his recovery were universal, when suddenly news arrived that the Duke of Longueville had been slain at the passage of the Rhine (June 12th, 1672). The party of the king, and the Lithuanians, who had trembled at the coming storm, took fresh courage, while the confederates were proportionately disconcerted. Michael began to negotiate for Austrian troops to employ against the Grand General; ♦Invasion of the Sultan.♦ but in the midst of the confusion it was announced that Mahomet IV. in person, with the Grand Vizier and 200,000 men, was advancing upon Kaminiec. The king’s party loudly averred that this was a fabrication of their opponents; the Lithuanians swore to defend him to the death; ♦Sobieski proscribed.♦ and Sobieski, with others of the leading nobles, was proscribed. This violence raised a similar storm in the Polish army in Russia, who surrounded their general, and swore to follow him to the end of the earth. “I accept your oaths,” was his answer, “and the first thing I require of you is to save Poland.”

Yet Poland seemed lost beyond all hope. Sobieski’s troops scarcely amounted to 30,000 men, and there was now no chance of uniting them to the Pospolite. ♦The Sultan takes Kaminiec,♦ The Grand General flew to Kaminiec to reinforce and provision the garrison; but he was obliged to leave it to its fate, for the governor, who belonged to the king’s party, refused to admit any of his force. Kaminiec was the only great fortress which Poland possessed. Its natural position--defended on one side by the river Smotrycz, and on the other by an inaccessible cliff--was very strong; and the Poles constantly boasted that God, who built it, would alone be able to take it. Yet so skilful were the Turkish miners, after their long experience in Candia, that it surrendered within a month.

The consternation at Warsaw was fearful. The king assembled the Pospolite at Golemba, near the capital; but his one aim was to conclude peace on any terms. ♦And advances on Leopol.♦ The Sultan, sending on an advanced guard to besiege Leopol, the capital of Russia, encamped at Buczacz, where amongst the Podolian mountains he enjoyed his favourite pastime of hunting. Meanwhile Sobieski had not been idle. A large body of Tartars had passed into Volhynia in support of the Turks, and, after loading themselves with spoil and with a vast train of captives, prepared to beat a retreat. Hovering always on their rear, Sobieski struck a blow whenever it was practicable, and finally caught them in a defile at Kalusz, in the Carpathian mountains. ♦Victory of Sobieski over the Tartars.♦ After a great carnage he dispersed them, recovered the spoil, and liberated nearly 30,000 Polish captives. ♦His attack upon the Sultan’s camp.♦ He then formed the daring plan of a night attack on Mahomet’s camp. By swift and silent marches he approached unperceived, and burst with his cavalry on the imperial tents. For a moment the quarters of the Sultanas were in imminent danger; but the arrival of succours put an end to the raid.

♦Peace of Buczacz.♦ With his small force Sobieski could do no more than harass the Turkish army, yet it was with indignation that he heard that the king had concluded a peace at Buczacz (October 18th). Michael concealed the terms as long as he could; and this increased the suspicions of the Grand General that they were dishonourable to the country. At length it was found that Podolia, the Ukraine, and Kaminiec had been ceded to the Porte, and that the king had consented to pay an annual tribute of 22,000 ducats. In return for this the Vizier withdrew his army from Polish soil; but he established a vast military camp with 80,000 men at Kotzim, on the Dniester, to overawe the vanquished nation. By this treaty, which he had no power to make without the sanction of the republic, the king of Poland reduced himself to the condition of a vassal of the Sultan.

♦Hostility of the Pospolite to Sobieski.♦ Yet the leaders of the Pospolite at Golemba, who dreaded nothing so much as a long campaign, were loud in his defence. Suspecting that Sobieski would not accept the peace, they renewed against him the sentence of proscription, and confiscated his estates. On receiving intelligence of these attacks, Louis XIV. offered him a French dukedom and a marshal’s bâton; but Sobieski would not forsake his country. Indeed his position did not justify it; for his party grew stronger day by day, while the Pospolite, ill-furnished with provisions, and rent in pieces by faction, gradually melted away. At length the queen took on herself the part of a mediator, and she was seconded by the Lithuanians, who were weary of anarchy. It then appeared how strong a hold Sobieski had upon the affections of the people. ♦Popularity of Sobieski.♦ When his exploits during the war became generally known there was an immense reaction in his favour. ♦Plot against him.♦ His personal enemies, among whom may be reckoned the king, viewed this with the utmost uneasiness, and a few of them concocted an atrocious plot against him. They suborned a poor noble, named Lodzinski, to come forward in the Diet and declare that Sobieski had sold Kaminiec to the Turks for 1,200,000 florins, and that this money had been seen in waggons on the way to its destination. This calumny raised the Diet to the highest pitch of excitement, and they would have put the slanderer in irons but for the intervention of the king. The army declared that they would wash out the insult with blood; but Sobieski calmed them, and proceeded to Warsaw to demand a trial. He was welcomed with acclamations; the palace of Wiasdow, decorated with all the trophies of Zolkiewski, was placed at his disposal; and Michael sent the Grand Chamberlain to pay him his compliments. ♦Discovered and punished.♦ Lodzinski, when brought before a tribunal of senators and deputies, lost all courage, and confessed that he had invented the story for the sum of 1,000 francs--promised him by certain of the nobles. He was condemned to death; but the sentence could not be carried out without the consent of the Grand Marshal, and he was therefore suffered to live. The nobles who had been his instigators had to ask pardon on their knees.

♦He persuades the Diet not to accept the peace.♦ The first object of Sobieski in this sudden blaze of his popularity was to procure the rupture of the peace of Buczacz. He at once published a memorandum, setting forth necessary reforms in the administration and the army, and promising that their adoption would ensure a successful struggle against the Turks. The Diet sent him a message in high-flown Polish rhetoric, in which they begged for the presence of that hero “who, if the system of Pythagoras be true, seems to unite in his own frame the souls of all the great captains and good citizens of the past.” He took his seat amid great enthusiasm (March 14th), and easily persuaded the deputies to follow his advice. They did not now dream of paying the tribute. They decreed an army of 60,000 men, the establishment of a war-tax, and the despatch of embassies for foreign aid, and finally placed in the hands of Sobieski full powers both for peace and war. This was in effect to put aside the king, and make the Grand Marshal Regent; but no voice was raised against the proposal. ♦Their confidence in him.♦ Since there was only a trifling sum remaining in the exchequer, Sobieski persuaded the Diet to use the treasure stored up as a reserve in the castle of Cracow. This, with an opportune subsidy which arrived from the Pope, was deposited with him instead of the Grand Treasurer, as the person most likely to use them to advantage.

♦His difficulties.♦ Such unbounded confidence carried with it a responsibility which few men would have dared to face. Sobieski accepted it cheerfully, yet at the outset of the campaign he had to meet two difficulties, which he had not foreseen. His old enemy, Michael Paz, caused much delay by arriving late with his Lithuanians (Sept. 16th); and at the last moment the king announced that he should put himself at the head of the force. He came, and reviewed the troops; but during the ceremony he was seized with illness; and the next morning the Poles raised a hurra on seeing the “bonzuk,” or long lance, in front of the Grand General’s tent in an upright position--a sure sign that the king had quitted the army. The next day (October 11th), with a force of nearly 40,000 men, and forty small field-pieces, Sobieski began his march.

♦His plan of the campaign.♦ His plan of the campaign, though simple, was boldly conceived. Having heard that Caplan Pacha, with 30,000 men, was advancing through Moldavia to reinforce the camp at Kotzim, he proposed to cut him off upon his march, and then to turn upon the camp itself. If he should succeed in capturing it, he hoped to isolate Kaminiec, and so to take it by blockade, and recover all that had been ceded to the Porte. He was not dismayed at the lateness of the season; for he trusted that on this account the Turks would be less willing to fight.

♦March of the army.♦ The banks of the Dniester were reached after three weeks’ march, and here a mutiny broke out among the troops, which was industriously fomented by Michael Paz. They clamoured for rest and provisions; Sobieski promised them both under the tents of the barbarians. “My resolution,” said he, “is not to be shaken. I intend to bury myself here or to conquer. You must do the same, or nothing can save you.” His firmness had the desired effect. They crossed the Dniester and penetrated into the forest of Bucovina; but Sobieski was obliged to alter his original plans. It would have been madness to wait for Caplan Pacha and so give him time to join the camp; and yet his undisciplined soldiery shrank from the inclement plains of Moldavia. He therefore turned aside, and advanced at once on the entrenchments at Kotzim.

♦Castle and camp of Kotzim.♦ The castle of that name was strongly situated on the right bank of the Dniester, about twelve miles from Kaminiec. Between this and the advancing Poles, at the height of twenty feet from the plain, was the vast fortified camp, unassailable on the side of the river, where the rocks were steep, and surrounded on the other sides by a broad ravine. The ground immediately in front of the entrenchments was marshy, and broken up by rapid streams, and the Turks could sweep it from end to end with their admirable artillery. Within the lines were ranged 80,000 men, the flower of the Turkish army, most of them spahis and janissaries, under the command of the Seraskier[46] Hussein.

♦Insubordination of Paz.♦ The day after the Poles arrived (November 10th) Paz declared an assault to be impracticable, and announced his intention to retire. Sobieski replied with truth that flight was not in their power except at the risk of extermination. The enterprise indeed seemed superhuman; but the Grand General ranged his troops in order of battle with full confidence of success. During the day a large body of Moldavians and Wallachians,[47] who occupied a spot on the left of the Turkish camp, deserted to the Poles, and greatly raised their drooping spirits. When night came on, the troops were still kept under arms, although the weather was most severe. The snow fell thickly, but Sobieski visited all the posts, and animated the men by his cheerful manner. At length he reclined on the carriage of a cannon and waited for the dawn.