The first election of the king in 1573 went remarkable smoothly but, elected Henri de Valois left abruptly Poland in 1574, after the French King died, to take the throne in France. The Poles felt deeply wounded by the behavior of the king and called a new election. In December 1575, a minor candidate at the first election, Stephen Batory, Duke of Transylvania was acclaimed King. Batory reached Krakow in the following year, and was married to Anna Jagiellon, the sister of the last king from Jagiellon dynasty. A forthright man and an able general, Stephen Batory knew how to command. He defeated the Tsar, Ivan the Terrible, leaving eastern areas under Polish rule. Unfortunately for the Commonwealth, Stephen Batory died suddenly in 1586, after a reign of only ten years.

The Commonwealth faced its third interregnum in fourteen years, which fostered a feeling of impermanence and did nothing to contribute to the orderly conduct of the next election. The contest was essentially between Archduke Maximilian Habsburg and Zygmunt Vasa of Sweden. In 1587 Zygmunt Vasa was elected to rule as Zygmunt III. Three days later Maximilian invaded at the head of an army and laid siege to Krakow, but was defeated. When Zygmunt arrived in Krakow to take up his throne he enjoyed the accumulated popularity of his Jagiellon forbears and sealed this by his excellent knowledge of the Polish language but the delight of the Poles was short-lived. The twenty-two-year-old king was obsessively mistrustful and secretive and a religious fanatic. The mention of religious toleration nauseated him. He was good to priests, as his predecessor was good to soldiers. At the king's insistence, the Primate introduced the sine qua non that all candidates to the throne must be Catholic, which guaranteed uproar in the Seym (Parliament) and rejection of the scheme. In 1592 his father the King of Sweden died, and Zygmunt was determined to take up his inheritance. In 1599 the Parliament in Stockholm deposed Zygmunt who then started a chain of wars. The Poland Commonwealth had no part in these wars, and no reason for fighting them but when the king's actions had provoked foreign invasion, it had no choice but to defend itself. Thus Polish foreign policy under the three Vasa kings, Zygmunt III and his sons Wladyslaw IV and Jan Kazimierz, largely took the form of elaborate plans which founded either shortly before or shortly after being put into effect, since it usually pursued objectives for which there was no enthusiasm in the Seym.

Notwithstanding his apologies to the Inquisition Seym, Zygmunt continued on his own course, breaking the pledges he had made. His attitude seemed to be that the Polish constitution was a tiresome obstacle-course which had to be circumvented or bulldozed. The program he presented to the Seym included the imposition of a permanent annual tax in place of those voted by the Seym; the introduction of a larger standing army; the reduction of the Senate; and the abolition of the lower chamber altogether.The opposition pointed out that this was unrealistic, whereupon the king refused to ratify the other business of the Seym and dismissed it. In the last speech, the Seym spokesman told the king that he would have the absolute loyalty of his people, all the taxes he wanted and greater power if only he could bring himself to identify with the interests of his subjects and his kingdom. It was a last appeal on behalf of the szlachta's right to participate in the making of policy, and a warning for Zygmunt to abandon his international schemes. It was a critical moment, but while few people sided with the king, most were reluctant to raise arms against him. All the republican talk apart, the Poles were still monarchists with a deep respect for the kingship. When ZygmuntIII died in 1632, after the longest and possibly most incompetent reign in Poland's history, his eldest son Wladyslaw was elected king unanimously.

During this time, a new magnate class emerged which was to dominate the life of the Commonwealth over the next three centuries. The crown was powerless in the face of this new oligarchy. Any attempt to curb a magnate would be sure to provoke widespread opposition, even from the poorest szlachta, who saw it as an attack on personal liberty. There was also the matter of the magnates' very real physical power. Most of them had numerous retinues, and some maintained regular regiments of foreign mercenaries as well as bodyguards of landless szlachta and a pool of supporters and clients. The factors that contributed to the wealth of the magnates overlapped those that furnished them with manpower. This period saw enormous demand for agricultural produce and high prices on the export market.

The Polish Commonwealth's prestige soared, and Wladyslaw IV was in position to mediate on behalf of the other states caught up in the Thirty Years' War. Poland was like a spectator during the self-perpetuating butchery of war. France repeatedly urged him to take the Imperial crown after the death of ailing Ferdinand II, offering the necessary funds and military as well as diplomatic support. Nobody suspected that within fifteen years the Polish Commonwealth would have virtually disintegrated. The Commonwealth of Two Nations set up in 1569 had one great flaw - it contained three nations, not two. Leaving aside the various minorities, the Commonwealth was inhabited by three principal ethnic and cultural groups: Poles, Lithuanians and Ruthenes, the inhabitants of the Ukraine. There was a fundamental conflict from the start between the Ruthene boyars who sought the freedom of the steppe, and the immigrant Polish and Lithuanian szlachta who wanted to cultivate land, develop amenities and establish order. Polish administration was closely followed by Catholic clergy and large numbers of Jews, mostly brought in by the masters of large estates to act as middlemen, agents, rent-collectors and inn-keepers - all of which made them particularly odious to the local peasants.

The Ukraine had its own nobility. These were well equipped to stand at the head of their people, both by their ancient lineage and by their immense personal power, but became separated from their people by the lure of Polish culture and Western civilization. With the great lords of the area failing to take responsibility, the only influence that could have stabilized this turbulent society was religion, but there were in effect three Churches - Roman, Orthodox, and Orthodox who accepted the Pope, called Uniate. While the Roman and Uniate looked to the West, the Orthodox looked to Moscow. Orthodoxy had become the religion of the peasants. It was inevitable that the peasants would eventually see in it a rallying-point and a weapon. Frontier provinces often have a lore of their own, and in the case of the Ukraine a specific pattern was set by the most identifiable element in the local jigsaw - the Cossacks, who were not a people, they were a way of life. The very name 'Cossack' derives from a Turkish-Tatar word denoting a free soldier. If their origins were mysterious and varied, their attitude and culture were simple, and almost anyone in the Ukraine could be a Cossack if he wished. Cossack leaders were cast as either knights of Orthodoxy crusading against the Jewish and Jesuit interloper, or as folk heroes dreaming of liberation from under the Polish lord's boot. Instead of being admitted as the third nation of the Commonwealth, the Ukraine was treated, by its own elite as well as by the Poles, as a sort of colony, and the resultant sense of deprivation was a cause of profound bitterness. It was these simmering tensions that boiled over in the late 1640s, triggering off a series of events that finally shattered all the dreams of Ukrainian nationhood, broke the Commonwealth's power decisively, and benefited Turkey and above all Moscow beyond its wildest expectations.

The Tatars of the Crimea were separated from the Commonwealth by a broad stretch of no-man's-land known as the Wild Plains. They were nominally subjects of Turkey. Every spring their raiding-parties set off along three trails running north into Muscovy, north-west into Poland, and west into the Ukraine respectively. They would debouch unexpectedly from the Wild Plains burning and looting as they went. The Cossacks were supposed to be a defense force for the Commonwealth but they started negotiating with the Tatars. The situation was not critical. Polish main forces were concentrating, and the Muscovite army had started moving to link up with them. Unfortunately two small Polish armies were defeated and it came as a rude shock to Poland and greatly enhanced Cossacks prestige. Peasants flocked to their banner from all over the Ukraine. At this point, the situation turned critical, specially that Wladyslaw IV, the only man in a position to placate the Cossacks, died unexpectedly. Finally came the first Polish success, after which negotiations were reopened and a basic agreement quickly reached. The three Palatinates were to be declared Cossack territory, into which no Polish troops, Jews or Jesuits would be allowed, and all dignitaries and officials in the area were to be Orthodox Ruthene szlachta.

Wladyslaw IV had been succeeded by his younger brother, Jan Kazimierz, a complex and not very inspiring figure. He had spent some of his life as a soldier and some of it as a Jesuit priest. His lack of charm did not help him to gain the confidence of szlachta, while many magnates felt an intense dislike for him. In 1654, the Cossacks negotiated the treaty placing them under the protection of Moscow in return for military assistance against the Commonwealth.

At this time, Sweden was bankrupt after the Thirty Years' War, its only asset a huge and now redundant army. In spite of the twenty years of peace with the Polish Commonwealth, the Swedes still dreamed of extending their possessions on the Baltic. The discontent of many Polish magnates, the confusion attendant on the Cossack and Muscovite invasions, all paved the way for an invasion, which took place at the beginning of 1655. The structure of the Commonwealth have fallen apart like a house of cards, but Denmark and Holland joined Poland and Swedes were decisively beaten in 1658. In 1660 peace was signed on the basis of a return to the status quo ante. At the same time, Muscovite forces invaded in support of the Cossacks, but they and the Cossacks were also beaten by Polish armies. Poland was devastated and exhausted, and the Ottoman armies hovered in the south.

Strategically, the position had shifted in favor of Muscovy, whose ambition to become the sole and undisputed focus for the future of Russia had been realized. By the treaty in 1667, Poland and Muscovy divided the Ukraine between themselves along the river Dnieper. This was strategically disastrous for the Commonwealth. The Ukraine, a potential partner and ally against both Muscovy and Turkey, had ceased to exist. What remained in Polish hands now formed a sort of promontory surrounded on three sides by enemies. It was a nail in the coffin of the Polish Commonwealth's Great Power status.

On the other hand, the progress of the Counter-Reformation was slow. A psychological connection had been made between Catholicism and patriotism, a patriotism made increasingly vital by the succession of wars. Since these were fought against Protestant Swedes and Orthodox Russians, Jesuits and other writers began to picture the Poles as defenders of Catholicism. When the Turks and Tatars took over as the enemy, it was a short step to turn the Poles into defenders of Christendom. However it is only fair to say that while the Jesuits contributed to the stifling of thought and the ossification of society, their artistic patronage is responsible for much of the best building and painting of the period. In spite of growing chauvinism, Poland was still open to outside influences, and Poles continued to travel abroad in pursuit of culture. Translations of foreign works were published with little delay, and plays by Shakespeare were performed in Poland. Zygmunt III kept an Italian commedia dell'arte at his court, supplemented by an English troupe. He also kept about sixty musicians and singers, and few courts had such good music. Warsaw was the first place outside Italy in which the new art of opera flourished. In 1633 Wladyslaw IV set up a royal opera company and first Polish opera was written in the late 1630s.
Although the wars involved only fraction of the population, they gave rise to a tradition of heroic and pathetic verse, inspired by the unique conditions and atmosphere in which they were fought, particularly in the case of operations against the Turks and Tatars. The enemy was wild, cunning and alien. The odds were almost invariable on his side. These conditions engendered a psychology and a lore which complemented the religious and chivalric element. Like other states, the Commonwealth employed mercenaries - German, Scottish or French infantry and dragoons drilled on standard European lines. It could also count in the hour of need on the private armies of magnates. The core of its armed forces, however, was made up of volunteers and the infantry consisted of peasants.

The Poles set great store by artillery, and in this they were in advance of their enemies until the eighteenth century. Infantry, lightly dressed, without armors possessed ten times greater fire-power on man-to-man basis than standard European infantries. Cavalry made up the backbone of the Poland's military power, and outnumbered the infantry by about three to one. The Poles crossed horses from Turkey with a number of European breeds, with an instinct for speed and endurance. The pride and the glory of the Polish cavalry, its mailed fist, was the Husaria, the winged cavalry. They wore helmets, thick steel breastplates and shoulder and arm guards, or eastern scale armor. For over a century, the Husaria were the lords of the battlefield. Though hardly a maritime nation, the Poles did have a navy for a while. Polish armies were called upon to operate in a variety of terrain and climatic conditions, ranging from baking plains in the south to freezing bogs and forests in the north; from wilderness to heavily built-up areas. Victory was repeatedly achieved at low cost and with little apparent effort.

Excerpts from the book "The Polish Way" by Adam Zamojski
(John Murray-Publishers Ltd. London 1987)