Swedish Invasion Of Poland

The Deluge was a series of mid-17th-century military campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a wider sense, it applies to the period between the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, comprising the Polish theatres of the Russo-Polish and Second Northern Wars. In a stricter sense, the term refers to the Swedish invasion and occupation of the Commonwealth as a theatre of the Second Northern War (1655–1660) only; in Poland and Lithuania this period is called the Swedish Deluge (, Lithuanian: š''vedų tvanas'', ), or less commonly the Russo–Swedish Deluge () due to the simultaneous Russo-Polish War. The term "deluge" (''potop'' in Polish) was popularized by Henryk Sienkiewicz in his novel '' The Deluge'' (1886).

During the wars the Commonwealth lost approximately one third of its population as well as its status as a great power due to invasions by Sweden and Russia. According to Professor Andrzej Rottermund, manager of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the destruction of Poland in the Deluge was more extensive than the destruction of the country in World War II. Rottermund claims that Swedish invaders robbed the Commonwealth of its most important riches, and most of the stolen items never returned to Poland. Warsaw, the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, was destroyed by the Swedes, and out of a pre-war population of 20,000, only 2,000 remained in the city after the war. According to the 2012 Polish estimates, the material damage caused by the Swedish army amounted to 4 billion złotys. 188 cities and towns, 186 villages, 136 churches, 89 palaces, and 81 castles were completely destroyed in Poland.

Historical background

In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky led a popular uprising of Zaporozhian Cossacks and Ukrainian peasants discontented with the rule of Polish and Lithuanian magnates. Although the initial phase of the rebellion ended (after much destruction) at the Battle of Berestechko (1651), it brought into focus the rivalry between Russia and the Commonwealth for hegemony over Ukraine and over the eastern Slavic lands in general. Thus, in October 1653, the Russian Zemsky Sobor declared war on the Commonwealth, and in June 1654 the forces of Tsar Alexis of Russia invaded the eastern half of Poland-Lithuania, starting the Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667. In the summer of 1654, the Russians managed to capture most important cities and strongholds of today's Belarus. Smolensk was captured after a siege on October 3, 1654. The Swedish Empire, which technically already was at war with the Commonwealth (a ceasefire agreement existed from 1629 and was prolonged from 1635 to 1661), invaded in July 1655 and occupied the remaining half of the country.

Swedish invasion

Background

Following the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish Empire emerged as one of the strongest kingdoms on the continent. It had a large army but little money to pay its soldiers. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, weakened by wars with the Cossacks and Tsardom of Russia, seemed like easy prey, also because its best soldiers had been either killed in the 1652 Battle of Batih or massacred after it. Furthermore, Swedes remembered claims to their throne by Polish kings Sigismund III Vasa and his sons Władysław IV Vasa and John II Casimir, who themselves belonged to the House of Vasa. An earlier conflict, the Polish–Swedish War (1626–1629) had ended with the Treaty of Stuhmsdorf.

The Polish–Lithuanian King John II Casimir (reigned 1648–68) lacked support among the Commonwealth nobility () due to his sympathies with absolutist Austria and his open contempt for the " Sarmatist" culture of the nobility. Earlier, in 1643, John Casimir had become a member of the Jesuits and had received the title of Cardinal. Nevertheless, in December 1646, he returned to Poland and, in October 1647, resigned his position as Cardinal to stand for election to the Polish throne, after the death of his brother Władysław IV Vasa. He became King in 1648. However, some of the nobility supported Charles Gustav (King of Sweden from 1654 to 1660 and John Casimir's cousin) for the Polish–Lithuanian throne. Many members of the Polish nobility regarded John Casimir as a weak king or a "Jesuit-King"; Grand Treasurer Bogusław Leszczyński, a Protestant, and Deputy Chancellor of the Crown Hieronim Radziejowski, an old enemy of the Polish King who had been exiled to Sweden, encouraged Charles Gustav to claim the Polish crown. Two Lithuanian noble princes, Janusz Radziwiłł and Bogusław Radziwiłł, introduced dissension into the Commonwealth and began negotiations with the Swedish king Charles X Gustav of Sweden aimed at breaking up the Commonwealth and the Polish–Lithuanian union. They signed the Treaty of Kėdainiai (1655), which envisaged the Radziwiłł princes ruling over two duchies carved out from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under Swedish protection.

1655

In July 1655 two Swedish armies, operating from Swedish Pomerania and the Province of Pomerania, entered Greater Poland, one of the richest and most developed provinces of the Commonwealth, which had for centuries been unaffected by any military conflicts, and whose had not been used to fighting. Greater Poland's noble camp, located in the valley of the Noteć

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