Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Gazetteer
- Glossary
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1
- Map 2
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The origins of Royal Prussia
- 3 Royal Prussia and urban life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
- 4 History, myth and historical identity
- 5 Political identity in the cities of Royal Prussia and the meaning of liberty (1650–1720)
- 6 Loyalty in times of war
- 7 Divergence: the construction of rival Prussian identities
- 8 Centre versus province: the Royal Prussian cities during the Great Northern War
- 9 Myths old and new: the Royal Prussian Enlightenment
- 10 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN HISTORY
6 - Loyalty in times of war
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Gazetteer
- Glossary
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1
- Map 2
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The origins of Royal Prussia
- 3 Royal Prussia and urban life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
- 4 History, myth and historical identity
- 5 Political identity in the cities of Royal Prussia and the meaning of liberty (1650–1720)
- 6 Loyalty in times of war
- 7 Divergence: the construction of rival Prussian identities
- 8 Centre versus province: the Royal Prussian cities during the Great Northern War
- 9 Myths old and new: the Royal Prussian Enlightenment
- 10 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN HISTORY
Summary
War had been a constant reality for the provinces of Poland-Lithuania since the devastating wars against the Teutonic Knights in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. After the Livonian wars in the sixteenth century, and the almost permanent threat of Muscovites, Tartars and Turks to the Commonwealth's eastern and south-eastern borders, the Swedes invaded Poland in the 1620s. The first province to feel the impact, Royal Prussia, proved, however, a tough training ground for the Swedish armies: the two cities they had been most eager to occupy, Thorn and Danzig, staunchly defended themselves and kept their gates closed to Swedish troops. In the naval battle of Oliwa in 1627, the Swedish fleet blockading Danzig was defeated and two Swedish ships were sunk; in June 1629, Gustav Adolf was defeated at Honigfelde, near Marienwerder (Kwidzyn). Some lessons were learned: in 1637, Władysław IV established a separate artillery corps and the army was restructured. The kwarta tax, first established in the 1560s to guarantee some continuity in funding the army, was now levied at double the rate to expand Polish-Lithuanian forces more easily in wartime.
Yet nothing prepared the Commonwealth and Royal Prussia for the conflicts of the second half of the seventeenth century, which historians ever since have considered a turning point in the fortunes of this large composite state: the Cossack revolt which triggered the Muscovite invasion of 1654, and the Swedish Deluge of 1655–60, which precipitated Poland-Lithuania's military and political collapse, although the Commonwealth rallied after 1656.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Other PrussiaRoyal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 1569–1772, pp. 121 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000