Category Archives: military

by Joel | 13 August 2025 · 3:03 am

U.S. Aid for Ireland, 1847

From The Famine Ships: The Irish Exodus to America, by Edward Laxton (St. Martins, 2024), Kindle pp. 54-56:

No fewer than 5,000 crossings are estimated to have carried the million Irish Famine emigrants westwards over the Atlantic. Yet a single passage in the opposite direction has achieved great significance historically. This was the voyage of the Jamestown, a well-armed man-of-war and one of only six sloops in the American navy, transformed overnight into a merchant vessel on a mission of mercy.

The winter months of 1846 right through to the following spring were bitterly cold, with unusually heavy snowfalls, and the full extent of the suffering in Ireland, especially during the early months of 1847, was never fully or widely appreciated around the world, especially in England where the plight of the Irish achieved neither recognition nor sympathy. The greatest help came from the United States: the recent emigrant arrivals carried the news with them and each one had a personal story which bore testimony to the hopeless situation in every corner of their homeland. Months before the first of the coffin ships sailed, a wave of relief organizations and meetings broke across America. Ships from Newark, Philadelphia and New York sailed before the spring arrived for Cork, Londonderry and Limerick, carrying some clothing but mostly food.

The Quakers Society of Friends were the first large-scale organizers of relief for Ireland, and when the American Vice-President chaired a huge public meeting in Washington on February 9th, they urged that every city, town and village should hold a meeting so that a large national contribution might be raised and forwarded with all practicable dispatch to the scenes of the suffering. Just before that meeting, the government in London announced they would pay the freight charges on all donations of foodstuffs to Ireland.

Washington matched this by stating that no tolls would be charged on roads or canals for goods on their way to Ireland, and several independent railway companies promised to carry suitably labelled packages for free. Cash came in from all sides, including a noteworthy contribution of US $170 dollars from the Choctaw Indian Tribe. Suddenly, available shipping for the eastern crossing of the Atlantic became scarce, and another crowded February meeting, this time in Boston, heard that Congress had been petitioned that one of the ships of war now lying in Boston Harbour, be released to sail for Ireland freighted with provisions.

Reaction in the capital was swift. We need to remember that at this time America was heavily engaged in war against Mexico. Congress voted on March 8th that the USS Jamestown in Boston and the USS Macedonian in New York be released from service, their armaments removed and assigned to the Irish Relief Committee in each city who would arrange for a civilian captain and crew to sail these ships to Ireland with relief supplies.

Three weeks later, the Jamestown set sail. The sloop, which was 157 feet long, 1,000 tons and normally carried 22 guns, was now commanded by Captain Robert Bennet Forbes, a well-known Bostonian. By May 16th he was back home, fully a month before the Macedonian, a frigate of 1,700 tons with 44 guns and buffeted by all sorts of political problems, could leave New York.

Loading had begun in Boston on St Patrick’s Day; the Labourers’ Aid Society composed almost entirely of native Irishmen, stowed all the cargo without drawing pay. If the departure of the Jamestown was seen as such a triumph in America, imagine how she was greeted as she dropped anchor after a voyage of only 15 days in the harbour of Cove, close to Cork City.

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by Joel | 8 August 2025 · 6:27 am

I came across two striking Polish acronyms in the last chapter of the history book I just finished reading: Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014).

ZSRR = Związek Socjalistycznych Republik Radzieckich, lit. Union of Socialist Republics Soviet (abbr. Związek Radziecki, Union Soviet),
also ZSRS = Związek Socjalistycznych Republik Sowieckich (abbr. Związek Sowiecki, Union Soviet)

ZOMO = Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej, lit. Motorized Reserves of the Militia of Citizens. These were the troops who broke up large public demonstrations against the regime from the 1950s through the 1980s. They were disbanded in September 1989, after the election of June 4, 1989, a day of glory in Poland (and of infamy in China).

Another linguistic tidbit from the last chapter (p. 630) is Nie ma wolności bez Solidarności! lit. Not have freedom without Solidarity!

The Far Outliers will be heading for Poland next month.

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by Joel | 29 July 2025 · 5:59 am

Kościuszko in Poland

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 404-407:

The last third of the eighteenth century had initiated an increasingly painful spiral of action and reaction. Catherine’s trampling of Polish religious sensibilities led to the Confederation of Bar, which in turn resulted in the first partition. That shock propelled Poles to contemplate the series of reforms that culminated in the Constitution of May 3, 1791. The reaction to this was the Targowica Confederation and the second partition. Despite the Russian terror and intimidation, however, not all Poles were resigned to this fate.

One of these Poles was Tadeusz Kościuszko. Hailing from the region of Polesie (in the vicinity of today’s Belarus), Kościuszko was one of the poor but deserving young noblemen who received an education from the reform-minded Piarists, as well as at the Knights’ School in Warsaw. After a brief period spent in France (where he studied further) and elsewhere in western Europe, Kościuszko headed across the Atlantic in 1776. The Pole offered his services to George Washington and the Continental Congress. Kościuszko’s arrival was timely, and his services were both needed and appreciated by the Americans fighting for their independence. The Pole was given a commission and put to great use his skill as both a military engineer and a field commander. Among other things, Kościuszko fortified and defended places such as Philadelphia, Saratoga, and West Point, thus enabling these locations to withstand British attack. For his contributions to the American victory, the Polish nobleman was given United States citizenship and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army before returning home in 1784.

Having secured a position in the Polish army as of 1789, he fought on the side of King Stanisław in August 1792. However, upon learning the summer of 1793 that the king had acceded to the Targowica Confederation, General Kościuszko resigned his commission and left the country. France awarded him honorary citizenship. While in emigration, he was prevailed upon to return to rump Poland to lead a national insurrection.

With his eye-opening experience in America as well as Poland, Kościuszko was the right person for the job. He was convinced that the Poles had to fight a new type of war, one in which the entire citizenry rose to defend their country. In other words, he sought to mobilize the entire population of Poland—all estates, all regions. The challenge of getting burghers and peasants as well as nobles to join the fight did not escape Kościuszko. He admitted himself, “we must awaken love of our country among those who hitherto have not even known that they have a country.”

Kościuszko, thus, was a man with a mission. Although given dictatorial powers to lead the national rising, the general was not one to abuse them. This is seen from the oath he gave in Kraków on March 24, 1794, when he took control of the rising that would bear his name. Kościuszko swore he would use the dictatorial powers invested in him “only for the defense of the integrity of the frontiers, the gaining of sovereignty for the nation, and the establishment of universal freedom.” He truly was an anti-magnate.

The all-powerful military commander set about gaining support from all sectors of society. An important source of manpower had to be the numerous peasantry. While in Kraków, Kościuszko conscripted local peasants, who—given their lack of other weapons—turned their scythes into bayonets and joined the battle for Polish freedom. (A lack of arms and ammunition was a big problem for the insurrectionists.) Fighting alongside what remained of the Polish army, such peasants—it was hoped—would be the mainstay of Kościuszko’s insurrectionary forces. Having over the course of several weeks assembled an army of some four thousand regular troops and two thousand peasant scythe men, Kościuszko set north to engage the Russians in battle.

The two forces met near the village of Racławice on April 4. The Russian army was in for a surprise. The first battle of the Kościuszko Insurrection would look like nothing the Russians had ever fought. The Polish military commander employed tactics inspired by his experience in America. While the regular troops engaged the Russians, the fearless peasant scythe men raced out from behind them and toward the Russian cannons. They captured a dozen cannon and caused disarray and dismay among the Russians, who hastily retreated—if not before taking heavy losses. The Russians also left behind much-needed ammunition and arms.

Kościuszko’s secret weapon—the Polish peasant—proved decisive at the battle of Racławice. After the battle, the military commander famously ennobled several peasant scythe men, the most notable of whom was Bartosz Głowacki, for their bravery. Kościuszko also donned the traditional peasant cloak as a sign of recognition of what this new and vital part of the nation had achieved. Still, for numerous reasons this did not result in an influx of peasant scythe men. The following month, Kościuszko would issue a proclamation at Połaniec that gave the peasants personal freedom and reduced their labor dues for the duration of the insurrection. Like the potent image of peasant scythe men defending their country, the picturesque symbolism of a nobleman in peasant garb was but a first step in breaking down the barriers that had separated the two estates.

Kościuszko embraced the peasant out of conviction, not out of convenience. This, after all, was the man who had freed his own peasants upon his return to Poland and later would bequeath the property and money he had in the United States to free as many American slaves as was possible, charging his friend Thomas Jefferson to execute this, his last will and testament. Not for nothing did Jefferson famously call Kościuszko “the purest son of liberty.”

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by Joel | 24 July 2025 · 1:29 pm

German vs. Polish War Damage

From The Stories Old Towns Tell: A Journey through Cities at the Heart of Europe, by Marek Kohn (Yale U. Press, 2023), Kindle pp. 126-128, 130-131:

[“Bomber”] Harris believed that the bombing campaign against German cities, together with the Soviet struggle against Hitler’s forces in the east, would bring the war to an end in 1944, sparing the Western Allies from having to mount an invasion. The Ministry of Economic Warfare provided him with a table of a hundred German towns, compiled from Bomber’s Baedeker data, rating them according to their economic importance. He crossed them out one by one as his planes worked through the list. Although the campaigns did not have the effect that he had predicted, they continued after the D-Day invasion in June 1944, and were sustained almost up to the moment at which Germany finally surrendered.

During those last terrible months before the clock stopped at Stunde Null, Allied bombers made sure that they had left few German cities unvisited. The major targets had all been struck over and over again; minor potential targets now attracted increasing attention from the mission planners. With hindsight, speculative remarks in the Bomber’s Baedeker entry for Pforzheim read like a death sentence upon the Black Forest town and its inhabitants, who specialised in making jewellery and watches. ‘These industries were formerly carried out largely in the homes of the individual workers,’ the report observed, ‘and it may be said that almost every house in this city is a small workshop . . . As was the case in the 1914–1918 war, most of the factories and workshops of Pforzheim will have now been turned over to the manufacture of precision parts for instruments, small-arms components, fuzes, clockwork movements and similar products . . .’

In his post-war report on Bomber Command’s operations, Harris rewrote the Baedeker’s presumption into a statement of fact. As if the RAF’s reconnaissance aircraft could see through roofs and ceilings, the chief of Bomber Command asserted that ‘almost every house was a small workshop engaged in the production of instruments, small arms and fuzes’. Every house was therefore confirmed as a legitimate target, and so was everybody in it. The RAF bombed the town towards the end of February 1945, raising a firestorm. ‘Hardly a building remained intact,’ Harris claimed: the accepted figure for the extent of the destruction is 83 per cent. He noted that Pforzheim had a population of 80,000, but not that the raid killed 17,600 of those inhabitants. It was the third highest toll from an Allied raid in Europe, after the firestorms that left 18,500 dead in Hamburg and 25,000 in Dresden. The scale of the whole campaign is indicated by the estimate of 350,000 for the total death toll.

In hindsight, looking back along a timeline in which the war against the Third Reich ended in May, the attacks carried out against modest German towns in February and March seem to defy any strategic justification. Pforzheim and Würzburg were the most horrific instances of bombing that was, in Richard Overy’s measured judgement, ‘evidently punitive in nature and excessive in scale’. At the time it may have looked different to many on the Allied side, after the Western Allies’ slow progress towards German territory and the Reich’s deployment of new weapons, including the V-2 ballistic missiles that represented a new technology for bombing cities. The first American troops did not manage to get across the Rhine until early March, little more than a week before the climax of the British raids on Würzburg. In January, Britain’s Bombing Directorate had advocated inducing ‘a state of terror by air attack’. Hitherto, the RAF had euphemistically talked of attacking ‘morale’. Now the word ‘terror’ was slipping into the Allies’ usage, as they cast about for ways to win the war.

Even with hindsight, and even with decades in which to reflect upon how to locate right and wrong in the history of the air war against Germany, the campaign poses questions that are intractable even when they are answered. The period of reflection seemed to last until almost the end of the century, and then the books began to appear. Peter Johnson wrote his memoirs, subtitled Reflections and Doubts of a Bomber, which were published in 1995. The writer W.G. Sebald produced a series of essays that came out in 1999 under the title Luftkrieg und Literatur (Air War and Literature). Lighting his argument with firestorm scenes, he criticised his fellow German authors for having failed to write about the bombing war in a satisfactory fashion, or at all. Then, in 2002, came Jörg Friedrich’s Der Brand (The Fire), the best-seller that thrust the Bombenkrieg, and German suffering, to the forefront of national public debate about the Second World War. Written by a freelance scholar-journalist, Der Brand was not an argument about morality or a detached academic summation of events in their broader context. It was a literary enactment of agony, its testimony unbearably eloquent, and a lament for loss. To describe it as repetitious is not to deprecate its narrative structure, but to recognise the depiction of similar horrors in city after city as an assertive act of remembrance. Professional historians criticised its standards of scholarship, while acknowledging its literary power. Pushing its readers onward through inferno after inferno, Der Brand insisted that their gaze should be fixed upon the lives consumed in the fires, and the agonies in which those lives ended.

…

Across the eastern border, by contrast, Germany’s actions had created a moral framework of invulnerable simplicity for the Poles. In Warsaw the narrative was grand, tragic and unequivocal. It was easy to put together a story of urbicide planned from the start of the occupation, or even earlier (on the basis of a rumour that Friedrich Pabst had been appointed as the future Chief Architect of Warsaw more than a month before the German invasion). The so-called Pabst plan made a compelling narrative element, although in reality it may have been little more than a vanity project for a peripheral regime functionary from Würzburg. Poles embraced the story that emerged from the capital’s ruins, a sublime arc of victimhood and valour, as the story of the nation. Warsaw’s tragedy was Poland’s tragedy in its most concentrated form, reaching a peak of intensity in the Old Town’s passion of resistance, devastation and martyrdom. As it rebuilt its capital city, the whole nation created an example to be followed throughout the country, in spirit if not necessarily in form. The reconstruction of each individual Polish town or city was understood to be part of the greater national project.

No such understanding was available to Germans, for whom the very idea of a national story was fundamentally compromised. Jörg Arnold notes that Der Brand rarely even speaks of ‘Germans’ at all: ‘the locality, not the nation, is the focal point of reference’. That was the position in which the people of German cities found themselves after Stunde Null. Each town had to work out a story of its own upon which to rebuild itself.

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by Joel | 17 July 2025 · 12:52 pm

Poland’s Silver Age Ends

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 329-330:

The seventeenth century had proven a mixed bag for the Commonwealth. It began on a relatively high note, with the reign of Zygmunt III Vasa that ushered in the so-called Silver Age. Mid-century, however, the Commonwealth nearly imploded, wracked by devastating invasions, civil war, and the loss of left-bank Ukraine. The country’s recovery from the [Swedish] Deluge, although noteworthy, was only partial. The nobility clung ever more tightly to its cherished Golden Freedoms and rejected anything that smacked of political reform, particularly if it might lead to a strengthening of the monarch’s position within the country. Even the triumphant, world-historical victory of Sobieski and his forces at Vienna—the high point of the century—did more for Western Christendom than for the Commonwealth itself.

The final election of the seventeenth century did not lead to the confirmation of a new Piast (or native Sarmatian) dynasty. Despite his efforts, King Jan III Sobieski proved unable to secure for his sons the Polish succession. To the contrary, the election of 1697 would mark a reversal of recent policy, which since the Deluge had given preference to candidates of noble Piast heritage. From the vantage point of hindsight, an interesting pattern emerges. Consider the elections both preceding and following the triplet of Vasa reigns. The first two elections, limited to foreign candidates, put one regrettable (Valois) and one memorable (Batory) candidate on the Polish throne. The anti-foreign backlash following the abdication of Jan Kazimierz Vasa (which marked the end of the Polish Vasa dynasty) put two Piasts (native candidates) on the Polish throne: once again, one regrettable (Wiśniowiecki) and one memorable (Sobieski) candidate.

Despite the fact that Sobieski not only had significant military victories under his belt but also had fathered sons who could contend for the throne, the electoral pendulum swung once again—out of their reach….

This clear rejection of the Sobieski heir—and, by extension, all candidates of Polish/Sarmatian noble descent—opened the doors wide to foreign involvement. This time, the results of the election ended up demonstrating to what extent the Commonwealth elections could be used in the power struggle between the various major European players.

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by Joel | 15 July 2025 · 1:05 pm

Poland-Lithuania Shrinks

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 302-304:

The population of the Grand Duchy [of Lithuania] had demonstrated its commitment to the Commonwealth, of which they considered themselves citizens. Perhaps a creative extension of citizenship was the answer to the Cossack debacle? Not relying on divine intercession, the nobles of the Commonwealth strove to put an end to the civil war with the Cossacks via diplomatic means. They entered into negotiations with the new leader of the Cossacks, Ivan Vyhovsky. Already earlier it had become clear that his predecessor Khmelnytsky was not entirely satisfied with the outcome of Pereiaslav. Centralizing and humiliating Russian rule proved very different from the genuine autonomy the Cossacks had expected. After all, not all Cossacks were uneducated; whether they had studied at the Mohyla Academy, elsewhere in the Commonwealth, or even in the West, they had been exposed to ideas at great odds with the autocracy they now encountered. Even the Orthodox clergy of the Cossack lands, especially Kyiv, were unhappy at being subordinated to Moscow. Among other things, this dissonance and the resulting dissatisfaction led Khmelnytsky to join the other potential partitioners of Poland—Sweden, Transylvania, and Brandenburg—at the end of 1656.

After Khmelnytsky’s death in 1657, Vyhovsky reached agreement with the Commonwealth. The two parties convened in a town of the Kyiv palatinate near the border with Russia. Although lying to the east of Pereiaslav, Hadiach (Polish: Hadziacz) notably marked a move westward. The Treaty of Hadiach established the terms of the Cossacks’ return to the Commonwealth—terms that were far better than the Cossacks had ever been offered before.

Signed in 1658, this treaty has been compared to the Union of Lublin, and for good reason. The Commonwealth of Two (Both) Nations would be transformed into a Commonwealth of Three Nations—the third being a newly established Duchy of Ruthenia. Consisting of the former palatinates of Kyiv, Bratslav, and Chernihiv, the Duchy of Ruthenia would be an autonomous entity, on par with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Under the leadership of the common king, the Duchy would share a common foreign policy and send its own citizens to the Seym. A certain number of Cossacks would be accepted into the Commonwealth nobility.

The new Duchy would also retain its distinctiveness: executive power would be wielded by the hetman of the Ruthenian army, some thirty thousand strong. The Uniate Church would be disallowed on the Duchy’s territory, where the Orthodox Church would be the favored religion, its higher clergy members of the Senate. The Mohyla Academy would be treated on par with other institutions of higher learning in the Commonwealth.

In short, the Cossacks appear to have successfully won the rights and privileges they had long sought. No longer to be looked down upon, they were to be treated as an equal partner. The Cossacks would be the third “nation” of the Commonwealth—a Ruthenian/Cossack/Orthodox one.

The Seym ratified the Treaty of Hadiach the following year, marking a sea change in the mentality of the Commonwealth’s citizenry, the Polish-Lithuanian nobility. For many Cossacks back in the hetmanate, however, it was too little, too late—at least a decade too late. To be sure, power politics within the hetmanate likely helped to determine the rejection of the proposal. Vyhovsky had been acting in the name of the underage son of Khmelnytsky, Yuri, who now displaced Vyhovsky at the top of the hetmanate. Yet, might the deal still go through—be pushed through? For a moment it looked as though the Poles, who now amassed the largest army in their history—a force of some seventy to eighty thousand, and one that had a string of victories over the Russian and Cossack armies in 1660—would be able to expel the Russians from the Grand Duchy and implement the new arrangement with the Cossacks.

Ultimately, this was not to be. As a result of internal political problems, the Commonwealth was not able to profit from this impressive surge. The terms reached between Russia and the Commonwealth in the armistice of 1667 at Andrusovo were by Commonwealth accounts devastating. The armistice confirmed the Commonwealth’s loss of both the Smolensk region in the north and the Cossack lands to the south, albeit in a novel configuration. The Cossack Hetmanate itself was partitioned between the two states—the dividing line being the Dnieper River. Territories on the right bank of the Dnieper (that is, in the west) were awarded to the Poles, while the left (east) bank came under Russian rule. The Russians also reserved to themselves control over Kyiv, on the right bank of the Dnieper, ostensibly for a two-year period …. The city would never again be part of the Commonwealth. As the famous mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz observed at the time (albeit from his comfortable vantage point in the west), the “barbaric East” was on the rise.

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by Joel | 13 July 2025 · 6:40 am

Polish-Lithuanian Noble Mythmaking

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 269-271:

Men like Żółkiewski, who put national interests and faithful service above private gains, were becoming more rare. Nobles—especially the wealthy magnates—had few reasons to put up with what they saw as unreasonableness on the part of the king. Instead, they embraced a new idea that would knit the diverse Commonwealth nobility even closer together.

This represented an adjustment to the myth of Sarmatian origin. Already in the sixteenth century, Kromer and others had concluded that the inhabitants of Poland-Lithuania were descended from this ancient warrior people. Increasingly, this origin myth was limited to the Commonwealth’s nobility, however. The divisions between the estates solidified and became firmer—as the nobles maintained that, while they themselves were descended from the Sarmatians, the country’s commoners were not and thus were inferior in status. Already a brotherhood of privilege, the noble nation (the diversity of religious faiths and ethnic origins notwithstanding) came to be seen as a brotherhood of blood.

Sarmatian descent was seen as a distinction of another kind—a sign that the noble nation was a chosen nation, one destined for greatness. This sense of Sarmatian uniqueness had three components: economic, cultural, and political. First, that the Commonwealth was the Granary of Europe had been made amply clear to the owners of manorial estates, who in the period of peace that ensued in the 1620s promptly settled back into that still lucrative occupation. Their mission was to feed Europe, to help it thrive and, in the process, to help themselves thrive.

Second, their battlefield encounters with the infidel—here, understood as the Muscovites to the east as well as the Tatars and Ottomans to the south—had bolstered their vision of the Commonwealth as being the Bulwark of Christianity (antemurale Christianitatis)—a vision that the Baroque Church was all too happy to reinforce. This aspect of the Sarmatian myth was expanded to depict the nation as being under God’s special protection. Despite this fervent Catholicism, Commonwealth nobles increasingly embraced Eastern elements of dress and adornment. Witness the trend of having shaved heads—or heads with just a wisp of hair, just like the Moslem warriors they repeatedly fought. Thus, while the Commonwealth nobles defended Western values, their encounter with the East also shaped their identity—if only superficially.

Third, the sense that the Commonwealth’s mixed form of government, which provided the nobility with their cherished Golden Freedoms, was seen as infinitely superior to absolutist rule elsewhere. The myth of Sarmatian descent, thus, gave the nobles a sense of superiority, even invincibility, vis-à-vis the rest of Europe.

Sarmatian pride percolated down to even the poorest of nobles. Despite the exponential growth of magnate wealth during this period, the Sarmatian brotherhood was posited on noble equality. As the saying went, “The nobleman on his plot is equal to the palatine.” The thought that a landless noble might fancy himself as the peer of a magnate with his estates, court, and private army (practically a kinglet himself) nonetheless suggested that there was no glass ceiling: the possibility of upward mobility was always present, if not always likely. All it took was a happy accident of luck or patronage—an advantageous marriage, an appointment to a state office—and a clever nobleman could rise in stature. It was possible to become instantly wealthy if one married the heiress to a magnate family fortune that had been established as an indivisible inheritance (ordynacja). After all, even magnate families died out, to be replaced by new beneficiaries of the Commonwealth’s system. And even the magnates had to take care that their less wealthy noble clients—the men who hoped for that comfortable job, an education for their sons, and a decent marriage prospect for their daughters—retained their allegiance.

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by Joel | 7 July 2025 · 6:10 am

Mazovia (with Warsaw) Joins Poland

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 146-149:

Zygmunt’s reign did bring many positive developments, however. One important accomplishment was the ultimate incorporation of Mazovia (with its ducal capital of Warsaw) into the Crown of Poland. Regardless how odd this may seem to contemporary readers, Warsaw—despite its central location and later claims to fame—was not yet fully a part of the realm. Since the fourteenth century, Mazovia had been a fief of Poland, controlled by a branch of the old Piast princely dynasty. Bit by bit, the Crown of Poland had acquired pieces of that territory; yet it was only after the death of the last Mazovian prince, Janusz III, in 1526 that the process of incorporation was completed.

For a Polish province, Mazovia was in many ways atypical. The duchy had long eschewed battle with the Teutonic Knights to its immediate north and even maintained good trade relations with them. As of the late fourteenth century, Mazovians had played an important role in facilitating the trade of timber and naval stores coming to Baltic ports via the Narew, Bug, and Vistula Rivers. The duchy likewise assisted the transit trade of furs, wax, and honey from Lithuania as well as cattle from Volhynia. After 1500, Mazovians expanded their activities to include the grain trade. As for the social composition of the duchy, it boasted a preponderance of nobles—certainly vis-à-vis Poland-Lithuania as a whole. Some 20 percent of the population claimed a noble patent—quite a large number, though to be sure most of these were impoverished soldier-nobles. Warsaw had a provincial feel, although in the sixteenth century it was beginning its ascent, in part thanks to trade.

[It sounds as if Poland may have acquired its own equivalents of the Prussian Junker class when it incorporated Masovia into the Crown of Poland.–J.]

Although King Zygmunt managed to incorporate the remaining pieces of Mazovia into the Crown, he was less successful in pressing state and dynastic interests in the region of the Baltic Sea, this despite a very real occasion to do so. For a war fought against the Teutonic Order in 1519–1521 brought the Knights to their knees—literally. One of the most famous images in Polish history dates from 1525, the so-called Prussian Homage. A triumphant view of this grand event was painted in 1882 by the nineteenth-century Polish artist Jan Matejko, whose colorful brushstrokes lavishly rendered the scene of the former grand master of the Teutonic Knights, Albrecht von Hohenzollern, kneeling before the Polish king and publicly swearing his fealty.

Yet such a rosy view of the event—although attractive to Matejko’s contemporaries, who took especial pleasure in seeing Prussians bowing down before the Poles, even if only in the deep historical past—was misleading. Much more could have been achieved than simply having Albrecht von Hohenzollern kneel before the Polish king (who was, after all, his uncle) and resign himself to the status of subordinate. What could have marked the end of Prussia as an independent entity—had Zygmunt pursued the fight further—instead gave little Prussia a new lease on life. Recall that part of Prussia had already been incorporated into the Crown by Zygmunt’s father. This was the so-called Royal Prussia, which had sought to break away from the hold of the Teutonic Knights and turned to the Polish king for help.

What went wrong, then? Although it was a Polish fief, in this moment Prussia was permitted to undergo a notable change. No longer to be run by the Teutonic Knights, it was transformed by Albrecht von Hohenzollern-Ansbach (the aforementioned nephew of Zygmunt) into a secular state. Henceforth the last grand master of the Teutonic Order would be known as Duke of Prussia, and his successors would have hereditary rights in the lands formerly held by the Order. Not only that: the Prussia of Albrecht von Hohenzollern simultaneously embraced the views promulgated by Martin Luther, who by nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg in 1517 initiated a movement that would forever change the face of Christian Europe. This was the Protestant Reformation. Close to Martin Luther himself, Albrecht became—with Zygmunt’s permission—the first territorial Lutheran ruler and Prussia became the first Protestant state in Europe.

That this should occur without bloodshed or upheaval was in part due to Zygmunt the Old’s willingness to approve this amazing transformation of the former arch-Catholic polity—in part to keep Ducal Prussia from moving into the orbit of the Holy Roman Empire. To be sure, in the Treaty of Kraków of 1525—the first European treaty between a Catholic and a Protestant state—Zygmunt and Albrecht agreed that Ducal Prussia would come fully under Polish control on the extinction of Albrecht of Hohenzollern’s line. That only a generation later a different king would, in a pinch, exchange his hereditary rights to succession for military assistance is but one of the fateful missteps that would haunt Polish history for centuries to come, even if it could not be foreseen in 1525.

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by Joel | 4 July 2025 · 5:42 am

The Jagiellonian Moment, c. 1500

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 116-120:

Kazimierz IV Jagiellon married Elizabeth, the daughter of Albrecht Habsburg and granddaughter of Sigismund of Luxemburg. She produced for him an abundance of heirs: six sons and five daughters. This situation was enviable in a world where dynasties so often died out but also challenging, in that all this royal blood cried out for distinguished posts. And indeed: the royal pair strove to find places for their children to rule, capitalizing on the still prevalent medieval idea that royal bloodlines were important. All their children were brought up for exalted positions, and many of them would rule on one throne or another (sometimes on several at once). They were given an excellent education under none other than Jan Długosz, former secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki and Kraków canon. His greatest and certainly most durable claim to fame came from his twelve-book Latin-language history of Poland, Annales seu Cronicae Regni Poloniae (Annals or Chronicles of the Kingdom of Poland), which covered the history of the country up to 1480. In addition to royal heads of state, the pupils of the royal tutor Długosz included a future cardinal (Kazimierz’s son Fryderyk) as well as a future saint (his namesake, Kazimierz).

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A longer period ensued before the same Jagiellon gained control over the Hungarian throne. In Hungary, it was the Transylvanian-born Matthias Corvinus (son of János Hunyadi) who was chosen king in 1458, doubtless in part due to the memory of his father’s military prowess, which he seemed to have inherited. Better known by a nickname taken from the raven (Latin: corvus) on his escutcheon, Corvinus was the first commoner to ascend to the Hungarian throne, and he was an outstanding ruler. He made inroads into what had been Poděbrady’s holdings, annexing Moravia and Silesia as well as the Lusatias. At one point the Hungarian king even occupied Vienna, the Habsburgs’ capital, which he retained control of until his death in the spring of 1490. Władysław followed these developments closely. To strengthen his position as a candidate for the throne, that autumn the Jagiellon secretly married Corvinus’s widow, and she sought to have him gain power in Hungary. Although it may seem paradoxical, there was opposition from Władysław’s own father, who wanted to seat another son, Jan Olbracht, on the Hungarian throne. The men even fought two wars over the succession (so much for family unity). Yet, once the Habsburgs got involved, the tide turned against Jan Olbracht. To keep Hungary and Bohemia safely in Jagiellonian hands, Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk threw his weight behind his eldest son, already seated on the Bohemian throne.

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Although in Hungary he was officially hailed as King Ulászló II, Władysław came to be known there as King Bene—this, apparently, from always answering “very well” (bene) to whatever was asked of him. Among other things, in 1514 he allowed the Hungarian nobles to establish the so-called Tripartitum, a new codification of Hungarian law that gave them increased power over their peasants. Yet the Jagiellon was indeed the true ruler of the two countries, though he reconfigured them somewhat, restoring Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia to the kingdom of Bohemia (they had come under Hungarian control under Matthias Corvinus). He also notably restored Vienna and eastern Austria, which had been occupied by Corvinus, to the Habsburgs—a move that, while keeping Habsburgs from conniving to unseat him, would nonetheless strengthen a future rival to Jagiellonian rule. Władysław lived until 1516, to be succeeded on both thrones by his son Louis (Czech: Ludvik; Hungarian: Lajos). In this way, Jagiellons came to control both the Bohemian Crown of Saint Wenceslas and the Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen.

But this was only the near realm of Central Europe. All five daughters of Kazimierz Jagiellończyk fared well in the marriage game also. They demonstrated the potential impact of the Jagiellonian dynasty on the German-speaking world. Jadwiga married George the Rich, prince of Bavaria. Another daughter, Barbara, wed another George the Bearded, duke of Saxony. Two other sisters, Anna and Elżbieta, married the dukes of Pomerania and Legnica (German: Liegnitz), respectively; each of these husbands (Bogislaw X and Friedrich II) would be given the sobriquet of Great. Their other sister, Zofia, was the wife of Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Ansbach, elector of Brandenburg. Zofia would give birth to Albrecht von Hohenzollern-Ansbach, who (as we shall see) would be last in the long line of grand masters of the Teutonic Order on the Baltic Sea coast.

All this left the Jagiellons seemingly in a strong position. Men from the dynasty came to control all of East-Central Europe: from Hungary and Bohemia through Poland and Lithuania, putting them in a position to rule over vast territories and peoples. Kazimierz IV Jagiellon ruled Poland and Lithuania, while his son Władysław had ascended to the Crowns of Saint Wenceslas and Saint Stephen—that is, Bohemia and Hungary, respectively. Jagiellons would rule uninterruptedly over these four political entities for some thirty-six years: from 1490 to 1526, their power extended from the Baltic to the Adriatic and nearly all the way to the Black Sea.

That the Jagiellonian Moment in Central and Eastern Europe is so little known has to do with both the nature of Jagiellonian rule and the times in which they lived. With the exception of Lithuania, the countries they ruled—Poland, Bohemia, Hungary—were elective monarchies with relatively powerful, noble-dominated parliaments. In these countries, what was wanted was not an absolute monarch but, rather, someone who would work with the existing parliamentary bodies.

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by Joel | 2 July 2025 · 6:11 am

Dilemmas of Pagan Lithuania

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 88-90:

The pagan Lithuanians had managed to conquer the western Ruthenian territories (roughly today’s Belarus and Ukraine) at the time of these lands’ greatest weakness. In a relatively short space of time, they made huge advances. Lithuania gained control over Polatsk in 1307, over Minsk in 1340, over Smolensk (a mere 230 miles from Moscow) in 1356, and even over the far-distant Kyiv—the former, great capital of Kyivan Rus’—in 1363.

This tremendous expansion was in part facilitated by the protoplast [= progenitor] of the great Lithuanian dynasty, Gediminas (1315–1341). He was ably assisted by his numerous sons, the most important Kestutis and Algirdas. While Kestutis’s presence could be felt in the Polish southeast in 1376, it was Algirdas who earlier defeated the Golden Horde at Syni Vody (Blue Waters; Polish: Sine Wody) and gained control over Kyiv. The two formed a sort of diarchy—a kind of dual rule that would be inherited by their sons, Jogaila (Algirdas’s favorite son) and Vytautas.

In the process of conquering this large swath of Eastern Europe, the Lithuanian Gediminid dynasty inherited a sizable population that was Slavic and Orthodox—a population that outnumbered the Lithuanians themselves eight to one. The Lithuanians figured mainly as rulers and elites. Most of the East Slavic inhabitants—most notably, the boyars (nobles) of Ruthenia to the south—were members of the Orthodox faith. In other words, they were Christians, but not followers of the Church of Rome.

The pagan Lithuanians within this large multiethnic entity were the nobles and villagers of the north—that is, residing in the core Lithuanian territories, before the decline of Rus’ allowed the Lithuanians to gain control of a good chunk of the Ruthenian lands. This was a small but not insignificant population, especially as it included members of the ruling family, such as the future king of Poland. This expanded Lithuanian state was a completely decentralized entity, with descendants of Gediminas ruling over various sections of the state (and often quarreling among themselves).

Although Lithuanians ruled, the rapid expansion of the state left the initial population, which had yet to establish a written language, with real challenges. How could they rule over Christian, and lettered, peoples? In part this imbalance was ameliorated by the Lithuanians availing themselves of a ready-made state language—the language of the conquered Ruthenes. Intermarriage with Ruthenian princes led to the spread of Ruthenian culture within the Grand Duchy. Many Gediminids became converts to Orthodoxy and otherwise found the culture of the conquered Slavs to be attractive. Some went so far as to ally themselves with the Muscovite state to the east. This most certainly was true of the numerous sons of Algirdas and his first wife, Maria, all of whom embraced Orthodoxy and ruled in the eastern section of the Grand Duchy. (Their half-brother Jogaila long remained a pagan, as did the other children of Algirdas and his second wife, Juliana of Tver—this notwithstanding her Orthodox provenance.)