INTRODUCTION.
The wars described in THE DELUGE are the most complicated andsignificant in the whole career of the Commonwealth, for the politicalmotives which came into play during these wars had their origin inearly and leading historical causes.
The policy of the Teutonic Knights gave the first of its final resultsin the war of 1655, between Sweden and Poland, since it made theelector independent in Prussia, where soon after, his son was crownedking. The war with Great Russia in 1654, though its formal cause came,partly at least, from the struggle of 1612, in which the Poles hadendeavored to subjugate Moscow, was really roused by the conflict ofSouthern Russian with Poland to win religious and material equality.
The two fundamental events of Polish history are the settlement of theTeutonic Knights in Prussia, through the action of the Polesthemselves; and the union of Poland with Lithuania and Russia by themarriage of Yadviga, the Polish princess, to Yagyello, Grand Prince ofLithuania.
Before touching on the Teutonic Knights, a few words may be given tothe land where they began that career which cut off Poland from thesea, took from the Poles their political birthplace, and gave its nameand territory to the chief kingdom of the new German Empire, thekingdom which is in fact the creator and head of that Empire.
Prussia in the thirteenth century extended from the Vistula eastward tothe Niemen, and from the Baltic southward about as far as it does atpresent. In this territory lived the Prussians. East of the Niemenlived the Lithuanians, another division of the same stock of people.West of the Vistula lay Pomorye,[1] now Pomerania, occupied at thattime exclusively by Slavs under Polish dominion.
The Prussians, a people closely related to the Slavs, were stillPagans, as were also the Lithuanians; and having a more highlydeveloped religion than either the pre-Christian Slavs or the Germans,their conversion was likely to be of a more difficult nature.
At the end of the tenth and in the beginning of the thirteenthcenturies attempts were made to convert the Prussians; but the onlyresult was the death of the missionaries, who seem to have been toogreatly filled with zeal to praise their own faith and throw contempton that of the people among whom they were really only guests andsojourners.
Finally, a man appeared more adroit and ambitious than others,--Christian,a monk of Olivka, near Dantzig. This monk, we are told, had a knowledgeof the weak points of men, spoke Prussian as well as Polish, was notseeking the crown of martyrdom, and never made light of things heldsacred by those to whom he was preaching. After a few years his successwas such as to warrant a journey to Rome, where he explained to InnocentIII. the results of his labor. The Pope encouraged the missionary, andin 1211 instructed the Archbishop of Gnezen to aid Christian with hisco-workers and induce secular princes to help them.
Christian returned from Rome with renewed zeal; but instead of beinghelped he was hindered, for tribute and labor were imposed on hisconverts by the secular power. Since the new religion was coupled withservitude, the Prussians were roused greatly against it.
Christian strove to obtain relief for his converts, but in vain. Then,taking two native followers, he made a second journey to Rome, wascreated first Bishop of Prussia, and returned again to the field.
The great body of Prussians now considered all converts as traitors.The priests of the native religion roused the people, and attackedthose persons as renegades who had deserted the ancient faith and werebringing slavery to the country. They went farther and fell uponMazovia, whence the propaganda had issued. Konrad, unable to defendhimself, bought them off with rich presents. The newly made convertswere killed, captured, or driven to deep forests.
Christian turned to the Pope a third time, and implored him to directagainst Prussia those Poles who were going to the Holy Land.
The Archbishop of Gnezen was instructed from Rome to make this change,and the Poles were summoned against Prussia for the following year. Thecrusade was preached also in Germany.
Warriors arrived from both countries in fairly large numbers, andduring their presence ruined villages and churches were rebuilt in thedistrict of Culm, where the conversions had taken place mainly. In acouple of seasons the majority of the warriors found their way homeagain. A second crusade was proclaimed, and men responded freely. Allthese forces were simply guarding the missionaries and the converts,--aposition which could not endure.
Christian, seeing this, formed the plan of founding an order of armedmonks in Poland like the Knights of the Sword in Livonia. Konrad gavehis approval at once.
The Bishop of Modena, at that time papal legate in Poland, hastened theestablishment of the order; for to him it seemed the best agent to bendthe stiff necks of idolaters. Permission to found the order wasobtained from the Pope, and a promise of means to maintain it fromKonrad.
Christian, who had interested Rome and the West in his work, now gavegreat praise before the world to the Prince of Mazovia, who thereuponrewarded him with a gift of twelve castles and one hundred villages,reserving merely sovereign rights without income. This gift wasconfirmed to the Bishop of Prussia by Honorius III.
Christian labored so zealously that in 1225 he consecrated twenty-fivesuperior knights in his new order, which received the same rules as theLivonian Knights of the Sword,--that is, the rules of the Templars.
The new knights were called Brothers of Dobjin, from the castle ofDobjin, which Konrad gave them as a residence, adding the district ofLeslin near Inovratslav as a means of support.
As soon as the Brothers had settled in their castle, they attacked thePrussians, ruined villages, and brought in plunder. The enragedPrussians collected large forces, and attacked the land of Culm, withthe intent to raze Dobjin. On hearing this, Konrad with his own troopsand a general levy hastened to the relief of the order.
A bloody and stubborn battle of two days' duration was fought withgreat loss on both sides. Konrad, despairing of victory, left thefield, thus causing the complete overthrow of the Poles. The survivingBrothers of Dobjin took refuge in the castle, which the Prussians wereunable to capture. The order, shattered at its very inception, hopedfor reinforcements from abroad; but the Pope at that juncture wassending a crusade to Palestine, and would not permit a division in theforces of the West. The Prussians, elated with victory, plundered atpleasure the lands bordering on their own.
In this disaster Christian conceived the idea of calling in theTeutonic Knights against Prussia. This idea, suicidal from a Polishpoint of view, was accepted by the Prince of Mazovia.
The Teutonic Order was founded in Palestine near the end of the twelfthcentury to succeed some German hospitallers who had resided inJerusalem till the capture of the city by Saracens in 1187.
In a few years the new order became military, and under the patronageof Frederick, Duke of Suabia, afterward the Emperor Frederick II.,acquired much wealth, with great imperial and papal favor. Under HermanVon Salza, who was grand master from 1210 to 1239, the future of theorder was determined, its main scene of action transferred to the West,and that career begun which made the Teutonic Order the most remarkableof the weapon-bearing monks of Europe. Herman Von Salza--a keen, craftyman, of great political astuteness and ambition--had determined to winseparate territory for the order, and the dignity of Prince of theEmpire for the grand master.
Nothing therefore could be more timely for his plans than theinvitation from the Prince of Mazovia, who in 1225 sent envoys toHerman; especially since the order had just been deprived inTransylvania of lands given to support it while warding off heathenKumanians.
The envoys offered the Teutonic master Culm and some adjoining landsfor the order, in return for curbing the Prussians. Herman resolved toaccept, should the Emperor prove friendly to the offer. He hastened toFrederick at Rimini, explained the whole question, received a grant inwhich Konrad's endowment was confirmed; besides the order was given allthe land it could conquer and make subject to the Emperor alone. Thegrand master's next care was to obtain papal approval.
Two e
nvoys from Herman were sent to Poland, where they obtained, as thechronicles of the order relate, a written title to Culm and theneighboring land as well as to all Prussia which they could conquer.Near Torun (Thorn) a wooden fortress was built, called in GermanFogelsang (Bird-song). This fortress was the first residence of theknights, who later on had so much power and such influence in thehistory of Poland.
Only two years later did Herman send his knights to Culm. One of thefirst acts was to purchase for various considerations, from the Bishopof Plotsk and from Christian, the Bishop of Prussia, their rights overthe lands granted them in Culm. The labor of conversion began, and soonthe grand master prevailed on the Pope to proclaim throughout Europe acrusade against Prussia.
From Poland alone came twenty thousand men, and many more from otherparts of Europe. When the knights had made a firm beginning of work,their design of independence was revealed. They wished to be rid ofeven a show of submission to the Prince of Mazovia. They raised thequestion by trying to incorporate the remaining Brothers of Dobjin, andthus acquire the grant given them by Konrad. They had disputes alsowith Bishop Christian and the Bishop of Plotsk. In 1234 the Bishop ofModena was sent as papal legate to settle the disputes. The legatedecided, to the satisfaction of the bishops, that of all lands won fromthe Pagans two thirds were to be retained by the knights and one thirdgiven to the bishops, the church administration being under the orderin its own two thirds. For the Prince of Mazovia nothing was left,though he asserted sovereign rights in Culm and Prussia, and would notpermit the order to acquire the grant given the Brothers of Dobjin byincorporating the remaining members of that body.
The Teutonic Order would not recognize the sovereignty of the Polishprince, and insisted on incorporating the Brothers of Dobjin. Theorder, knowing that Konrad would yield only under constraint, placedits possessions at the feet of the Pope, made them the property of theHoly See. This action found success; the Pope declared Culm and all theacquisitions of the order the property of Saint Peter, which the churchfor a yearly tax then gave in feudal tenure to the Teutonic Knights,who therefore could not recognize in those regions the sovereignty ofany secular prince. In August, 1234, the Pope informed Konrad in aspecial bull of the position of the order, and enjoined on him to aidit with all means in his power. The Polish prince could do nothing; hecould not even prevent the incorporation of the majority of theremaining Brothers of Dobjin, and of the lands and property given fortheir use he was able to save nothing but the castle of Dobjin.
Konrad now found himself in a very awkward position; he had introducedof his own will a foreign and hostile power which had all WesternEurope and the Holy See to support it, which had unbounded means ofdiscrediting the Poles and putting them in the wrong before the world;and these means the order never failed to use. In half a century aftertheir coming the knights, by the aid of volunteers and contributionsfrom all Europe, had converted Prussia, and considered Poland and theadjoining parts of Lithuania as sure conquests to be made at their ownleisure and at the expense of all Western Christendom.
The first Polish territory acquired was Pomerania. The career of theknights was easy and successful till the union of Poland and Lithuaniain 1386. In 1410, at the battle called by the names both of Gruenwaldand Tannenberg, the power of the order was broken. Some years laterPomerania was returned to Poland, and the order was allowed to remainin East Prussia in the position of a vassal to the Commonwealth. Inthis reduced state the knights lived for a time, tried to gain allies,but could not; the most they did--and that was the best for the Germancause--was to induce Albert, a member of the Franconian branch of theHohenzollerns, to become grand master. He began to reorganize theorder, and tried to shake off allegiance to Poland; but finding no aidin the Empire or elsewhere, he acted on Luther's advice to introduceProtestantism and convert Prussia into a secular and hereditary duchy.This he did in 1525. Poland, with a simplicity quite equal to that ofKonrad, who called in the order at first, permitted the change. Themilitary monks married, and were converted into hereditary nobles.Albert became Duke of Prussia, and took the oath of allegiance toPoland. Later the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg inherited the duchy,became feudatories of Poland as well as electors at home. This was theposition during the war between Sweden and Poland described in THEDELUGE. Frederick William, known as the Great Elector, was ruling atthat time in Brandenburg and Prussia. He acted with great adroitnessand success; paying no attention to his oath as vassal, he took thepart of one side, and then of the other when he saw fit. He fought onthe Swedish side in the three days' battle around Warsaw in which YanKazimir was defeated. This service was to be rewarded by theindependence of Prussia.
Hardly had the scale turned in favor of Poland when the Great Electorassisted Yan Kazimir against Sweden; and in the treaty of Wehlau (1657)Poland relinquished its rights over Prussia, which thus becamesovereign and independent in Europe. This most important change wasconfirmed three years later at the peace of Oliva.
Frederick, son of the Great Elector, was crowned "King in Prussia" atKoenigsberg in 1701. The Elector of Brandenburg became king in thatterritory in which he had no suzerain.
At the first division of Poland, Royal Prussia of THE DELUGE, theterritory lying between the Vistula and Brandenburg, went to the newkingdom; and Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Prussia became continuousterritory.
The early success of the Teutonic Knights was so great that in thethird half century of their rule on the Baltic their power overshadowedPoland, which was thus seriously threatened. Toward the end of thefourteenth century, however (1386), the Poles escaped imminent dangerby their union with Lithuania and Russia. Through this most importantconnection they rose at once from a position of peril to one of safetyand power.
This union, brought about through the marriage of the Polish princessYadviga to Yagyello, Grand Prince of Lithuania, and by exceedinglyadroit management on the part of the Polish nobles and clergy, openedto the Poles immense regions of country and the way to vast wealth.Before the union their whole land was composed of Great and LittlePoland, with Mazovia (see map); after the union two thirds of the bestlands of pre-Tartar Russia formed part of the Commonwealth.
Since Poland managed to place and maintain itself at the head ofaffairs, though this roused at all times opposition of varying violencein the other two parts of the Commonwealth, the social ideals andpolitical structure of Poland prevailed in Lithuania and Russia, so faras the upper classes were concerned. In Lithuania, by the terms of theunion, all were obliged to become Catholic; in different parts ofRussia, which was Orthodox, the people were undisturbed in theirreligion at first; but after a time the majority of the nobles becameCatholic in religion, and Poles in language, name, manners, and ideas.To these was added a large immigration of Polish nobles seekingadvancement and wealth. All Russia found itself after a time undercontrol of an upper class which was out of all sympathy with the greatmass and majority of the people.
During the Yagyellon dynasty, which lasted from 1386 to 1572, thereligious question was not so prominent for any save nobles; butownership of their own land and their own labor was gradually slippingaway from the people. During the reign of Sigismund III. (1587-1632),religion was pushed to the foreground, the United Church was broughtinto Russia; and land and religion, which raise the two greatestproblems in a State, the material and the spiritual, were the mainobjects of thought throughout Russia.
Under Vladislav in 1648 the storm burst forth in Southern Russia. Therewas a popular uprising, the most wide-spread and stubborn in history,during which the Poles lost many battles and gained one great victory,that of Berestechko; the Southern Russians turned to the North, andselected the Tsar Alexai Mihailovich as sovereign.
Jan. 8, 1654, there was a great meeting in Pereyaslav,[2] at whichBogdan Hmelnitski, hetman of the Zaporojian army and head of allSouthern Russia, after he had consulted with the Cossacks, took hisplace in the centre of the circle, and in presence of the army, thepeople, and Buturlin, the envoy of Alexai Mihailovich, said:--
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"Gentlemen, Colonels, Essauls, Commanders of hundreds, the wholeZaporojian army, and all Orthodox Christians,--You know how the Lorddelivered us from the hands of our enemies who persecuted the Church ofGod and were envenomed against all Christians of our Eastern Orthodoxy.We have lived six years without a sovereign, in endless battles againstour persecutors and enemies who desire to root out the church of God,so that the Russian name may not be heard in our land. This positionhas grown unendurable, and we cannot live longer without a sovereign.Therefore we have assembled a council before the whole people, so thatyou with us may choose from four sovereigns that one whom you wish. Thefirst is the Sovereign of Turkey, who has invited us under hisauthority many times through his envoys; the second is the Khan of theCrimea; the third the King of Poland, who, if we wish, may receive usinto former favor; the fourth is the Orthodox sovereign, the Tsar andGrand Prince Alexai Mihailovich, the sole ruler of all Russia, whom wehave been imploring six years with unceasing petitions. Choose whom youlike. The Sovereign of Turkey is a Mussulman; you all know how ourbrethren, the Greeks, Orthodox Christians, suffer, and what persecutionthey endure from godless men. A Mussulman also is the Khan of theCrimea, whom we took into friendship of necessity, by reason of theunendurable woes which we passed through. Of persecutions from Polishlords it is needless to speak; you know yourselves that they esteemed aJew and a dog more than a Christian, our brother. But the greatOrthodox sovereign of the East is of one faith with us, one confessionof the Greek rite; we are one spiritual body with the Orthodoxy ofGreat Russia, having Jesus Christ for our head. This great sovereign,this Christian Tsar, taking pity on the suffering of our Orthodoxchurch in Little Russia, giving ear to our six years' entreating, hasinclined his heart to us graciously, and was pleased to send with hisfavor dignitaries from near his person. If we love him earnestly, weshall not find a better refuge than his lofty hand. If any man is notagreed with us, let him go whither he pleases; the road is free--"
Here the whole people shouted: "We choose to be under the Orthodoxsovereign; better to die in our Orthodox faith than to go to a hater ofChrist, to a Pagan!"
Then the Pereyaslav colonel, Teterya, passed around in the circle, andasked in every direction: "Are all thus agreed?"
"All with one spirit," was the answer.
The hetman now said: "May the Lord our God strengthen us under thestrong hand of the Tsar."
The people shouted back in one voice: "God confirm us! God give usstrength to be one for the ages!"
The hetman, the army, and the representatives of Southern Russia tookthe oath of allegiance to the Tsar. The result of this action was a warbetween the Commonwealth on one side, and Northern and Southern Russiaon the other. The Commonwealth being thus occupied on the east, Swedendecided to attack on the west.
The war between Russia and the Commonwealth lasted thirteen years, andended with a truce of thirteen years more, made at Andrusovo. By thisagreement the city and province of Smolensk went to Russia, and all theleft bank of the Dnieper, while Kieff was to be occupied by Polandafter two years. This truce became a treaty during the reign ofSobyeski. Kieff remained with the Russians, and peace was unbroken tillthe second half of the following century, when all Russia west of theDnieper was restored to the East in nearly the same limits which it hadbefore the Tartar invasion; excepting the territory included inGalicia, and known as Red Russia.
Jeremiah Curtin.
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, November 25, 1891.