Proposals of peace.The liveliest alarm prevailed in Poland. The Senate called out the Pospolite and placed Prince Radziwill at its head; but the assembling of such a body was necessarily slow. Meantime another engagement took place at Zurawno (October 8th), in which 2,000 Turks were slain; but John failed to break through the enemy’s lines, and was once nearly surrounded and cut off from his men by a body of janissaries. When however the siege had lasted nearly twenty days, the Tartan khan, whose dominion was menaced by the Muscovites,[69] pressed Ibrahim to conclude a peace. The Seraskier knew the straits to which the Poles were reduced, and he therefore sent an envoy to propose the ratification of the treaty of Buczacz and an offensive alliance against Muscovy. Refused by the king.John replied shortly that he would hang the next man who brought him such a message. The bombardment recommenced, and the soldiers murmured against their king’s obstinacy. Paz repaired to the royal tent and announced his intention to desert. “Desert who will,” cried John, “the Turks shall not reach the heart of the republic without passing over my corpse.” He then rode down the ranks, and reminding the soldiers that he had extricated them from many a worse plight, he gaily asked them if his head were enfeebled by the weight of a crown. Yet he passed the night in the gravest anxiety, and when morning broke (October 14th) he quitted his lines and drew up his whole force in order of battle.
Ibrahim proposes fairer terms.The Turks were astounded; and the Tartars cried out that there was magic in his boldness. Brave though he was, Ibrahim dared not face the chances of a defeat. He knew that the Pospolite was approaching; he suspected that the Tartars had been bought over; and he saw winter rapidly closing in. Above all, he remembered that his instructions were pacific, and that a serious reverse might cost him his head. Peace of Zurawno.Before the armies engaged, he proposed a peace upon honourable terms. No mention was now made of tribute. The Porte was to retain only Kaminiec and a third of the Ukraine; the question of Podolia was referred to a subsequent conference; each army was to restore its prisoners of war. It is said that Sobieski, with the sentiments of a Christian knight, inserted an article to provide for the establishment of a Latin guard at the Holy Sepulchre.[70] After witnessing the release of 15,000 captives, and the departure of the Turks (October 16th), John retraced his steps to Zolkiew. He soon encountered the Pospolite, which was advancing to his relief, and the two armies celebrated the conclusion of peace with a grand flourish of trumpets.
Great services of the king.Though satisfactory, the terms were not glorious; but that they should have been obtained at all by a handful of men in the direst extremities was cause enough for rejoicing. A moral triumph like this, following so close upon a crisis so dreadful, carries with it an air of romance. Yet, making every allowance for good fortune and the earnest mediation of his allies, we must regard it as due in the first instance to the potency of the name of Sobieski. With an insignificant force at his back he had conducted to a favourable issue five successive campaigns against the Turks—four of them on Polish ground—and had previously many times repulsed the hordes of Tartars which they had poured into the country. By thus foiling the aggression of the Turks when at the height of their power John III. had rendered a signal service to Europe.
Death of Köprili.The minister whose vast designs he had thwarted was now upon his death-bed. Seven days after the peace of Zurawno (October 23rd), Köprili expired at Constantinople. Had it not been for Sobieski this able vizier would have extended the dependencies of Turkey from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and would have found a golden opportunity for his attack upon the empire. His successor Mustapha, called “Kara,” or “the Black,” was a man of a different calibre. He owed his advancement to the intrigues of the seraglio; he had married a daughter of the Sultan and possessed great influence over his master; and he inherited the ambitious dreams of Köprili without his ability to realise them.
Enthusiasm of Europe.All Europe, with the exception perhaps of Austria, rejoiced at the peace of Zurawno. Madame de Sevigné, writing on the 18th of November, 1676, expresses the general admiration for the hero of Poland;[71] and Condé sent a special messenger to congratulate his friend. Louis XIV. eagerly sought his alliance. He commissioned his ambassador in Poland, the Marquis of Bethune, brother-in-law of the king, to invest him with the order of the Holy Ghost. John imprudently accepted the honour, and thus, in spite of the enthusiasm with which he had been received, excited general murmurs. He was accused of wearing the livery of France, and binding the republic to follow her interests. In the Diet which assembled the next year (January, 1677,) his opponents were clamorous. They complained that, besides part of the Ukraine, he had given up Kaminiec, the key of the realm; and that instead of striving to recover them, he was meditating war against Brandenburg and Austria. They also accused him of aiming at absolute power by the secret help of the French monarch. The majority of the Diet, however, did not forget the dangers from which they had been rescued; and Gninski, palatine of Kulm, was sent to Constantinople to ratify the peace of Zurawno.
He supports the designs of France.No notice was taken of the other charges; yet John was undoubtedly conniving at the designs of France. Louis XIV. had promised assistance to the insurgents in Hungary against the emperor, and was encouraging Sweden to attack the Great Elector. It is said that he gained over Sobieski by the promise of ducal Prussia and a larger frontier on the Baltic. At any rate the Marquis of Bethune was allowed to raise troops destined for Hungary in the starosties of the king, while secret permission was given to the Swedes to pass through Courland to attack the Elector.[72] Frederic William naturally resented the attitude of Poland, and in revenge fomented some disturbances which had arisen in Dantzic.
This prosperous centre of commerce enjoyed, as a Hanse town, a large share of independence. Though belonging to the republic of Poland, it was governed by its own magistrates and its own laws. Disturbances in Dantzic,A religious struggle had broken out between the magistrates, who were Calvinists, and the people, who were headed by an eloquent Lutheran preacher. Quieted by the king.John at once visited the city and mediated between the contending parties (September, 1677), and the unusual spectacle was presented of a Catholic acting as arbiter in a Protestant dispute. His moderation won all hearts, and tranquillity was soon restored. The astronomer Hevelius, who was one of the chief citizens, entertained the king in his house, and entitled his newly-found constellation, “Scutum Sobieski.”[73]
Activity of the Turks.John was recalled from Dantzic by the serious intelligence that the new Grand Vizier was placing every obstacle in the way of the conclusion of peace. He kept the Polish envoy for months at the gates of Constantinople; and when at length he gave him an audience, his tone was haughty and unconciliatory. The Austrian court, fearing for itself, had done its utmost to persuade the Porte that the peace of Zurawno was disgraceful to Turkey, and Mustapha, who longed for military glory, encouraged the idea. His first blow, however, was to fall on Muscovy. The Czar Feodor hastened to conclude the treaty with Poland, which had long been pending, but he could look for no assistance from the republic. He was worsted in the campaign which followed, but the vizier, disgusted at the rigour of the climate, looked out for a more alluring prey. His first thought was to reopen the war with Poland; and he announced that he should keep her envoy as a hostage until Podolia was ceded to the Porte (September, 1678).
Coldness of John towards France.John now saw clearly that the danger from Turkey was still pressing. He therefore at once withdrew his support from the French designs in the west, and prepared to confront his old enemy. Reasons.This change in his policy is reasonable enough. He saw that the Hungarian insurgents would probably call in the Porte, and in that case his natural ally would be Austria, while from France he could expect no material help. His judgment was most sagacious; but it was not uninfluenced by personal reasons. He was offended at the pride of the French king, who had refused him on his accession the coveted title of “Majesty,” and had lately treated his queen with some contempt. Immediately after her coronation, his queen had set out for France to take the waters of Bourbon,[74] and to display her dignity in her native country; but on her way she encountered the French ambassador, who delicately hinted that his master could not receive an elective queen with full honours. The “Grand Monarque” could not stoop to receive on equal terms the daughter of the captain of his brother’s Swiss Guards. The queen retraced her steps in great indignation, which subsequent events only tended to increase. Through her husband she begged a dukedom for her father, the Marquis d’Arquien, but Louis, though his language was fair, deferred compliance.[75] Moreover, John could not but regard with disgust the scarcely concealed efforts of France to set the Turks in motion against the house of Austria. The king himself had throughout his life distrusted Austria and counteracted her influence in Poland, but his chivalrous spirit would have revolted from bringing the infidel against her. He now perceived that it was his policy to make common cause with her.
His designs upon Kaminiec.He was anxious to strike the first blow against the Turks by surprising Kaminiec, which was poorly guarded; but for this the consent of the Diet was necessary. He had to publish his universals[76] to the Dietines describing his projects, and to debate the question in the Diet when assembled. This year (1679) it was convened at Grodno, in Lithuania, and so stormy was the session that it was four months before the king’s proposal passed. The Turks were thus enabled to strengthen and re-victual the town at their leisure; and nothing was left to the king but to send ambassadors to the European courts to propose a general league against the Sultan.