Historical calendar: November 3, 1655 – conclusion of a truce in Niemieża

Historical calendar – the anniversary of the truce between the Republic of Poland and the Russian Kingdom. It was caused by a Swedish threat to both countries.

Today in our calendar we will look at the Polish-Russian War of 1654 – 1667.

Car Aleksy sought an excuse to break the peace of Polanów from 1634, but thanks to the Crimean message to Warsaw, in which Khan promised a joint expedition to Moscow, if this 1 attacked Poland, he withdrew to the waiting positions. He turned out to be much more careful than his predecessors. The decision to attack the Kremlin was only made after the Polish Army was annihilated at Batoh (1652), but a good pretext was inactive needed.

It became the Perejassan settlement of 1654, in which the weakened Chmielnicki illegally surrendered the full of Ukraine to the Tsar. The Republic, despite the declared Tatar aid, faced a fresh threat almost powerless. erstwhile the Russian invasion began in the spring of 1654, the Republic of Poland was only allowed to defy it symbolically, especially in Lithuania. Cities fell 1 by one, incapable to number on any help.

The Russians avenged earlier defeats in the right way for their civilization circle. For example, after winning Avengers They murdered about 15,000 of its inhabitants, and left alive craftsmen moved into Russia. It was the alleged Trubecki massacre. The Smolensk siege led, this time effectively, Scottish mercenary Alexander Leslie, who earned the rank of general. By the end of the year, the Tsar seized and plundered crucial areas of Belarus, and the further offensive only interrupted the winter and plague that decimated his army.

In the spring of 1655, Grodno and Kauna were captured, and Vilnius was demolished and burned. On 13 September, residing in the Lithuanian capital Tsar, declared himself the Grand Duke of Lithuania. His ambitious plans were only thwarted by Swedish intervention. Karol X Gustaw occupied crucial areas of Poland and was declared ruler and defender by traitors. The creation by the Swedes of the Baltic Sea by their interior sea clearly threatened the interests of the Kremlin, who wanted access to this water.

In this situation, it would be a small consolation to destruct Poland. The threat of the imperial imagination of Sweden yet proved to be large adequate that the Tsar decided to strike in Ingria in order to chop himself out of the Baltic. In addition, he decided to deal with the hated Polish enemy. He made a truce with him on 3 November 1655 in Niemieża. Under his power, the Polish side undertook to take the Tsar as the king of Poland even in the life of Jan Kazimierz (election vivente rege).

Thus the Republic of Poland regained freedom of movement and could focus on the fight against the Swedes. The Tsar gained more than he could even give him military conquest of Belarus and Ukraine – a promise of power over the full country, from Smolensk to Kraków.

Unfortunately for him, ambitious plans fell apart. The Swedish run was stuck under Riga, which was unsuccessful. Furthermore, the panic of the Tsarist occupiers in Ukraine began to so much torment the Cossacks that their elders decided to deal with John Kazimierz. The breakthrough was Chmielnicki's death. The fresh Cossack hetman, Ivan Wyhowski, led to a change of alliances, the rejection of the Perejaslav settlement and the start of the fight against the Moskals, which, of course, was in the interests of the reborn Republic of Poland.

The first chord of this war was a triumph against the Tsar army, carried out by the combined Polish-Cossack-Tatar forces in the conflict of Konotop on 8 July 1658. After being expelled from the Swedes' country, Poles shifted their forces to the east, which tipped the scales of renewed war in their favor. The Moskals lost a number of battles, and only the revolts of the unpaid Polish army and later Rokosz Lubomirski saved them from a complete defeat.

The battered Moscow had to sign a peace with Sweden in Kardis in 1661, which meant returning to possession before the fighting. The Republic was much more exhausted. Another serious interior problems caused her to sign a truce in Andruszów in 1667, by which she gave up Russia to Smolensk, Czernikowska, Left Coast Ukraine, and temporarily besides the city of Kiev.

In addition, a common Polish-Russian Cossack condominium was created in Zadnierz, which caused many problems for both sides very quickly, as the right-shore captain, Piotr Doroshenko, entered into agreements with the Tatars and Turks.

The car yet triumphed, although the taste of this triumph was bitter, especially for his impoverished subjects. But in the Kremlin, nobody cared much. After all, large areas were occupied, for which fighting was fought for half a century, and additionally managed to deceive naive Poles again. These agreed to donate Russia to Kiev for 2 years, but in practice they never recovered it again. All demands for return were futile, since there was no military force behind them, and only specified an argument Moscow understood.

Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.