DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31076#0077
The effects of this widespread political impotence were
manifold: corruption spread everywhere; taxes were not paid;
soldiers were demoralized and mutinous due to a lack of
money; sentences waited for execution; towns declined; and
peasants were oppressed.
Sobieski tried in vain to enforce some reforms. After his
death in 1696, the effects of the forthcoming election were
unexpected. There were two nominations: Duke Francis Louis
de Conti, who was supported by King Louis XIV of France; and
Frederick August, the Elector of Saxony who was supported by
Emperor Leopold I, Pope Innocent XII, and Tsar Peter the
Great. Everything depended on speed, on physical access to the
crown and the throne.
Of course, the Saxon Kiirfurst was in a better situation than
the French duke, who had to sail from Paris to Gdansk. The
Saxon candidate converted from Lutheranism to Roman Catholi-
cism in order to be crowned in Cracow on 15 September 1697, at
which time he assumed the name of August II (“the Strong”). He
had many ambitious plans in which the Polish throne was only a
step towards hegemony in Central Europe.
To succeed to the throne, he had promised economic pros-
perity, renewed military power, the acquisition of Livonia,
and an end to the war with Turkey. In regard to the last promise,
he successfully confirmed the Treaty of Carlovitz (1699),
which marked the decline of the Ottoman Empire. August II
then decided, in agreement with Peter the Great, to declare
war on Sweden in order to weaken that country’s power in the
Baltic Sea. This decision would tum out to be a devastating
mistake.
67
manifold: corruption spread everywhere; taxes were not paid;
soldiers were demoralized and mutinous due to a lack of
money; sentences waited for execution; towns declined; and
peasants were oppressed.
Sobieski tried in vain to enforce some reforms. After his
death in 1696, the effects of the forthcoming election were
unexpected. There were two nominations: Duke Francis Louis
de Conti, who was supported by King Louis XIV of France; and
Frederick August, the Elector of Saxony who was supported by
Emperor Leopold I, Pope Innocent XII, and Tsar Peter the
Great. Everything depended on speed, on physical access to the
crown and the throne.
Of course, the Saxon Kiirfurst was in a better situation than
the French duke, who had to sail from Paris to Gdansk. The
Saxon candidate converted from Lutheranism to Roman Catholi-
cism in order to be crowned in Cracow on 15 September 1697, at
which time he assumed the name of August II (“the Strong”). He
had many ambitious plans in which the Polish throne was only a
step towards hegemony in Central Europe.
To succeed to the throne, he had promised economic pros-
perity, renewed military power, the acquisition of Livonia,
and an end to the war with Turkey. In regard to the last promise,
he successfully confirmed the Treaty of Carlovitz (1699),
which marked the decline of the Ottoman Empire. August II
then decided, in agreement with Peter the Great, to declare
war on Sweden in order to weaken that country’s power in the
Baltic Sea. This decision would tum out to be a devastating
mistake.
67