Born into Polish nobility, Sobieski was educated at the Jagiellonian University and toured Europe in his youth. As a soldier and later commander, he fought in the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Russo-Polish War and during the Swedish invasion known as the Deluge. Sobieski demonstrated his military prowess during the war against the Ottoman Empire and established himself as a leading figure in Poland and Lithuania. In 1674, he was elected monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth following the sudden and unexpected death of King Michael.
Sobieski's 22-year reign marked a period of the Commonwealth's stabilization, much needed after the turmoil of previous conflicts.[1] Popular among his subjects, he was an able military leader, most famously for his victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.[2] The defeated Ottomans named Sobieski the "Lion of Lechistan", and the Pope hailed him as the saviour of Western Christendom.[3] Suffering from poor health and obesity in later life, Sobieski died in 1696 and was buried at Wawel Cathedral in Kraków. He was succeeded by Augustus II of Poland and Saxony.
By 26 May 1656, he received the position of the chorąży koronny (Standard-bearer of the Crown).[14] During the three-day-long battle of Warsaw of 1656, Sobieski commanded a 2,000-man strong regiment of Tatar cavalry.[14][15] He took part in a number of engagements over the next two years, including the Siege of Toruń in 1658.[14] In 1659, he was elected a deputy to the Sejm (Polish parliament), and was one of the Polish negotiators of the Treaty of Hadiach with the Cossacks.[14] In 1660, he took part in the last offensive against the Swedes in Prussia, and was rewarded with the office of starost of Stryj.[14] Soon afterward he took part in the war against the Russians, participating in the Battle of Slobodyshche and Battle of Lyubar, and later that year he again was one of the negotiators of a new treaty with the Cossacks (the Treaty of Cudnów).[14]
Through personal connections, he became a strong supporter of the French faction in the Polish royal court, represented by Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga. His pro-French allegiance was reinforced in 1665, when he married Marie Casimire Louise de la Grange d'Arquien and was promoted to the rank of the Crown Grand Marshal.[4]
In 1662, he was again elected a deputy to the Sejm, and took part in the work on reforming the military. He was also a member of the Sejm in 1664 and 1665.[14] In between he participated in the Russian campaign of 1663.[14] Sobieski remained loyal to the King during the Lubomirski Rebellion of 1665–66, though it was a difficult decision for him.[14][16] He participated in the Sejm of 1665, and after some delays, accepted the prestigious office of the Marshal of the Crown on 18 May that year.[16] Around late April or early May 1666 he received another high office of the Commonwealth, that of the Field Crown Hetman.[16] Soon afterward, he was defeated at the Battle of Mątwy, and signed the Agreement of Łęgonice on 21 July, which ended the Lubomirski Rebellion.[16]
In October 1667, he achieved another victory over the Cossacks of Petro Doroshenko and their Crimean Tatar allies in the Battle of Podhajce during the Polish–Cossack–Tatar War (1666–71).[13] This allowed him to regain his image as a skilled military leader.[16] Later that year, in November, his first child, James Louis Sobieski was born in Paris.[16] On 5 February 1668, he achieved the rank of Grand Hetman of the Crown, the highest military rank in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and thereby the de factocommander-in-chief of the entire Polish Army.[13] Later that year he supported the French candidacy of Louis, Grand Condé for the Polish throne, and after this candidacy fell apart, Philip William, Elector Palatine.[16] Following the election of Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki he joined the opposition faction; he and his allies helped veto several sejms (including the coronation ones), and his attitude once again resulted in him losing popularity among the regular szlachta.[16] While his pro-French stance in politics alienated some, his military victories against invading Tatars in 1671 helped him gain other allies.[16]
The year 1672 saw internal politics destabilizing the Commonwealth, as the pro-French faction of Sobieski and pro-court faction of King Michał formed two confederations, which despite major Ottoman incursions in the south seemed more concerned with one another than with uniting to defend the country.[17] The court faction called openly for confiscation of his estates and dismissal from office, and declared him an "enemy of the state".[17] This division culminated in the humiliating Treaty of Buchach, where the Commonwealth was forced to cede territories to the Ottomans, but promise an annual tribute.[18] Sobieski eventually succeeded in balancing politics and national defense, and a combination of his military victories over the invaders, and successful negotiations at the Sejm in April 1673, led to a compromise in which the court faction dropped its demands and challenges against him.[17]
In the year 1672, the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars rose up in open rebellion against the Commonwealth. This was the widely remembered Lipka rebellion. Thanks to the efforts of Sobieski, who was held in great esteem by the Tatar soldiers, many of the Lipkas seeking asylum and service in the Ottoman Army returned to his command.
On 11 November 1673, Sobieski added a major victory to his list, this time defeating the Ottomans in the Battle of Khotyn and capturing the fortress located there.[13] The news of the battle coincided with the death of King Michal the day before the battle.[13] This made Sobieski one of the leading figures of the state, so on 19 May the following year, he was elected monarch of the Commonwealth.[4] His candidacy was almost universally supported, with only a dozen or so members of the diet opposing him (mainly centered around magnates of the Lithuanian Pac family).[17] In light of the war, requiring Sobieski to be on the front lines, the coronation ceremony was significantly delayed – he was crowned John III almost two years later, on 2 February 1676.[4][17]
Though Poland-Lithuania was at that time the largest and one of the most populous states of Europe,[19] Sobieski became a king of a country devastated by almost half a century of constant war.[20] The treasury was almost empty and the court had little to offer the powerful magnates, who often allied themselves with foreign courts rather than the state.[21][22]
Sobieski had a number of long-term plans, including establishing his own dynasty in the Commonwealth, regaining lost territories, and strengthening the country through various reforms.[22][23] One of his ambitions was to unify Christian Europe in a crusade to drive the Turks out of Europe.[23] At the beginning of his reign, however, the Polish state was in dire fiscal straits and faced military threats to the north. King Louis XIV of France promised to mediate a truce between the Ottomans and Poland so that Sobieski could focus his attentions on Prussia. The negotiations ended in failure and Sobieski's Baltic goals had to be tempered by the immediate reality of the Ottoman threat to the south.[18][22][24]
In the autumn of 1674, he recommenced the war against the Ottomans and managed to recapture a number of cities and fortresses including Bratslav, Mogilev, and Bar, which re-established a strongly fortified line defending Poland's southern border in Ukraine.[17] In 1675, Sobieski defeated a Turkish and Tatar offensive aiming at Lviv.[17][25] In 1676, the Tatars began a counter-offensive and crossed the Dneper, but could not retake the strategic town of Żórawno, and a peace treaty (the Treaty of Żurawno) was signed soon afterwards.[17] Although Kamieniec Podolski and much of Podolia remained a part of the Ottoman Empire, Poland gained the return of the towns of Bila Tserkva and Pavoloch.[17]
The treaty with the Ottomans began a period of peace that was much needed for the repair of the country and strengthening of the royal authority. Sobieski managed to reform the Polish army completely.[24] The army was reorganised into regiments, the infantry finally dropped pikes, replacing them with battle-axes, and the Polish cavalry adopted hussar and dragoon formations.[26] Sobieski also greatly increased the number of cannon and introduced new artillery tactics.[26]
Sobieski wanted to conquer Prussia with Swedish troops and French support.[24] Regaining control of this autonomous province was in the Commonwealth's best interest, and Sobieski also hoped for it to become part of his family domain.[22] To this end he made the secret Treaty of Jaworów (1675), but he achieved nothing. The wars with the Ottoman Empire were not decisively won by the Commonwealth, the ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia made treaties with France, Prussia defeated the Swedish invasion, and Sobieski's plans for the Commonwealth's own military campaign against Prussia was opposed by Commonwealth magnates, many of them taking the Prussian side.[17][22][25][27][28] Backed by Brandenburg and Austria, internal enemies of Sobieski even planned to dethrone him and elect Charles of Lorraine.[27]
The French-Prussian treaty of 1679 meant that Sobieski lost the major foreign ally for his planned campaign against Prussia; consequently, he started to distance himself from the pro-French faction, which, in turn, resulted in the cooling down of the Polish-French relations. During the Sejm of 1683, the French ambassador was expelled for involvement with a plan to dethrone Sobieski, which definitely marked the end of the Polish-French alliance.[27] At the same time Sobieski made peace with the pro-Habsburg faction and started to gravitate towards an alliance with Austria.[27][28] This did not end the existence of strong internal opposition to Sobieski; however, it changed a number of allegiances, and further opposition was temporarily weakened through the king's successful political maneuvering, including granting the Grand Hetman office to one of the opposition's chief leaders, Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski.[27][29]
Polish coin minted during John III Sobieski reign, c. 1682
Conscious that Poland lacked allies and risked war against most of its neighbours (a situation similar to the Deluge), Sobieski allied himself by 1683 with Leopold I, of the Holy Roman Empire.[27] Both sides promised to come to one's another aid if their capitals were threatened.[22] The alliance was signed by royal representatives on 31 March 1683 and ratified by the Emperor and Polish parliament within weeks.[30] Although aimed directly against the Ottomans and indirectly against France, it had the advantage of gaining internal support for the defense of Poland's southern borders.[27] This was a beginning of what would become the Holy League, championed by Pope Innocent XI to preserve Christendom.[31]
Meantime, in the spring of 1683, royal spies uncovered Ottoman preparations for a military campaign. Sobieski feared that the target might be the Polish cities of Lwów and Kraków.[13] To counteract the threat, Sobieski began the fortification of the cities and ordered universal military conscription.[13] In July, the Austrian envoy asked for Polish assistance.[32] Soon afterward, the Polish army started massing for an expedition against the Ottomans, and in August was joined by Bavarians and Saxon allies under Charles of Lorraine.[30][32]
Sobieski's greatest success came in 1683, with his victory at the Battle of Vienna, in joint command of Polish, Austrian and German troops, against the invading Ottomans under Kara Mustafa.[27][32] Upon reaching Vienna on 12 September, with the Ottoman Army close to breaching the walls, Sobieski ordered a full attack. In the early morning, the united army of about 65,000[33]–76,000[32] men (including 22,000,[33]–27,000 Poles[27]) attacked a Turkish force of about 143,000[33][32] men. At about 5:00 pm, after observing the infantry battle from the Kahlenberg hilltop, Sobieski led the Polish husaria cavalry along with Austrians and Germans in a massive charge down the hillside. Soon, the Ottoman battle line was broken and the Ottoman forces scattered in disarray.[34] At 5:30 pm, Sobieski entered the deserted tent of Kara Mustafa and the Battle of Vienna ended.[30][32]
The Pope and other foreign dignitaries hailed Sobieski as the "Savior of Vienna and Western European civilization."[35] In a letter to his wife, he wrote, "All the common people kissed my hands, my feet, my clothes; others only touched me, saying: 'Ah, let us kiss so valiant a hand!'"[36]
The war against the Ottomans was not yet over, and Sobieski continued the campaign with the Battle of Párkány on 7–9 October.[37] After early victories, the Polish found themselves a junior partner in the Holy League, gaining no lasting territorial or political rewards.[37] The prolonged and indecisive war also weakened Sobieski's position at home.[37] For the next four years Poland would blockade the key fortress at Kamenets, and Ottoman Tatars would raid the borderlands. In 1691, Sobieski undertook another expedition to Moldavia, with slightly better results, but still with no decisive victories.[37]
Later years and death
Although the King spent much time on the battlefields, which could suggest a good state of health, towards the end of his life he became seriously and increasingly ill.[38]
King John III Sobieski died in Wilanów, Poland on 17 June 1696 from a sudden heart attack.[38] His wife, Marie Casimire Louise, died in 1716 in Blois, France, and her body was returned to Poland. They are interred together in Wawel Cathedral, Kraków,[39] although his heart is interred separately in the Church of the Transfiguration in Warsaw, Poland.[40][41] He was succeeded by Augustus II.[42]
Sobieski is remembered in Poland as a "hero king", victor at Vienna who defeated the Ottoman threat, an image that became particularly well recognized after his story was told in many works of 19th-century literature.[43] In the Polish Biographical Dictionary he is described as "an individual above his contemporaries, but still one of them"; an oligarch and a magnate, interested in personal wealth and power.[43] His ambitions for the most part were instilled in him by his beloved wife, whom he undoubtedly loved more than any throne (when being forced to divorce her and marry the former Queen as a condition to gain the throne, he immediately refused the throne) and tended to obey, at times blindly.[44][45]
He failed to reform the ailing Commonwealth, and to secure the throne for his heir.[43] At the same time, he displayed high military prowess, he was well educated and literate, and a patron of science and arts. He supported the astronomer Johannes Hevelius, mathematician Adam Adamandy Kochański and the historian and poet Wespazjan Kochowski. His Wilanów Palace became the first of many palaces that would dot the lands of the Commonwealth over the next two centuries.[43]
daughter (20 December 1684), stillborn or died shortly after birth
Royal titles
Official title (in Latin): Ioannes III, Dei Gratia rex Poloniae, magnus dux Lithuaniae, Russiae, Prussiae, Masoviae, Samogitiae, Livoniae, Smolensciae, Kijoviae, Volhyniae, Podlachiae, Severiae, Czernichoviaeque, etc.[46]
Official title (in Polish): Jan III, z łaski Bożej, król Polski, wielki książę litewski, ruski, pruski, mazowiecki, żmudzki, kijowski, wołyński, podlaski i czernichowski, etc.
Vincenzo da Filicaia[47] (1642–1707) wrote a collection of odes or canzoni about the raising of the siege of Vienna by King John III Sobieski titled "Canzoni in occasione dell'assedio, e liberazione di Vienna," published by Piero Matini in Florence in 1684.[48]
the first known book review journal Nouvelles de la république des lettres (News from the Republic of Letters), edited and largely written by the ProtestantphilosopherPierre Bayle, included a number of works about King Sobieski's victory in its 1st volume:[49] an address to the King (pp. 179–180), Motet Dramatique ou Oratoire (pp. 181–182), Paralelle de Jules Cesar et du Roi de Pologne ("Venit, vidit, vicit..." (pp. 183–185)[50]
William Wordsworth wrote on February 4, 1816, and published the same year among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"[51] (or "Poems dedicated to Independence and Liberty"[52]) his "Siege of Vienna Raised by John Sobieski", which was his take on da Falicaia's ode to Sobieski's victory, about which Wordsworth wrote, "This, and his other poems on the same occasion [of Sobieski's raising the siege of Vienna], are superior perhaps to any lyrical pieces that contemporary events have ever given birth to, those of the Hebrew Scriptures only excepted.—W. W. (1816 and 1820.)"
When he turned to go back to the camp, he discovered that there was another man up on this hill, a stone's throw away: some kind of monk or holy man, perhaps, as he was dressed in a rough sackcloth robe, with no finery. But then the bloke whipped out a sword. It was not one of your needle-thin rapiers, such as fops pushed at each other in the streets of London and Paris, but some kind of relic of the Crusades, a two-handed production with a single crossbar instead of a proper guard—the sort of thing Richard the Lionhearted might've used to slay camels in the streets of Jerusalem. This man went down on one knee in the dirt, and he did it with verve and enthusiasm. You see your rich man kneeling in church and it takes him two or three minutes, you can hear his knees popping and sinews creaking, he totters this way and that, creating small alarums amongst the servants who are gripping his elbows. But this brute knelt easily, even lustily if such a thing were possible, and facing toward the city of Vienna, he planted his sword in the ground so that it became a steel cross. The morning light was shining directly into his grizzled face and glinting from the steel of the blade and glowing in some indifferent colored jewels set into the weapon's hilt and crossbar. The man bowed his head and took to mumbling in Latin. The hand that wasn't holding the sword was thumbing through a rosary—Jack's cue to exit stage right. But as he was leaving he recognized the man with the broadsword as King John Sobieski.
— Neal Stephenson, King of the Vagabonds, chapter "The Continent"
^ abcWiktor Waintraub (1976). Memoirs of the Polish Baroque: the writings of Jan Chryzostom Pasek, a squire of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. University of California Press. p. 308. ISBN0-520-02752-3.
^Ignacy Zagórski, Edward Rastawiecki (baron) (1845). Monety dawnej polski jakoteż prowincyj i miast do niéj niegdy należacych: z trzech ostatnich wieków zebrane (in Polish). S.H. Merzbach. p. 75.
^Jerzy Starnawski, Łacińska scenka dramatyczna ku czci Jana III Sobieskiego na łamach 'Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres' /1684/, Zeszyty Naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Bydgoszczy. Studia filologiczne 1983 z. 18.
^The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. VI (of 8). William Knight (ed.). Macmillan and Co. 1896. p. 110.
^John Frederick Wyatt, "Wordsworth and the Geologists: A Correlation of Influences". 1991. pp. 292–293
Bibliography
Tindal Palmer, Alicia (1815), Authentic memoirs of John Sobieski, King of Poland, Printed for the author; and sold by Longman and Co
Red. (Eds.) (1962–1964). "Jan III Sobieski". Polski Słownik Biograficzny (in Polish). Vol. X.
Further reading
Chełmecki, König J. Sobieski und die Befreiung Wiens (Vienna, 1883)
Coyer, Histoire de Jean Sobieski (Amsterdam, 1761 and 1783)
Du Hamel de Breuil, Sobieski et sa politique de 1674 à 1683 (Paris, 1894)
Dupont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Sobieski (Warsaw, 1885)
Rieder, Johann III., König von Polen (Vienna, 1883)
Salvandy, Histoire de Pologne avant et sous le roi Jean Sobieski (two volumes, new edition, Paris, 1855)
AA.VV., L'Europa di Giovanni Sobieski. Cultura, politica, mercatura e società, a cura di Gaetano Platania, Viterbo, Sette Città editore, 2005 (CESPoM n. 10, Centro Studi sull'Età dei Sobieski e della Polonia Moderna)
G. Platania, Polonia e Curia romana. Corrispondenza del lucchese Tommaso Talenti segretario intimo del Re di Polonia con Carlo Barberini protettore del regno (1681–1693). vol. 1, pp. 7–613, Viterbo, Sette Città Editore, 2004, ISBN8886091613
Miltiades Varvounis, Jan Sobieski: The King Who Saved Europe (2012)
G. Platania, L’inedita corrispondenza di Jan III Sobieski e Carlo Barberini, cardinale Protettore del Regno, in Studia Wilanowskie, vol. XXII, pp. 99–119, Wilanów-Muzeum Palacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie. ISSN0137-7329.
G. Platania, Polonia e Curia romana. Corrispondenza di Giovanni III Sobieski, re di Polonia, con Carlo Barberini, protettore del regno (1681–1696). Collana Barberiniana vol. 2, pp. 11–385, Viterbo, Sette Città editore, ISBN978-88-7853-252-6
Waliszewski, Acta (three volumes, Cracow, 1684)
Prochazka Jiří: "1683. Vienna obsessa. Via Silesiaca". (Brno, Wien 2012), ISBN978-80-903476-3-2
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