Berecz Mátyás - Bujdosné Pap Györgyi - Petercsák Tivadar (szerk.): Végvár és mentalitás a kora újkori Európában - Studia Agriensia 31. (Eger, 2015)

CIESIELSKI, TOMASZ: Fortresses on the south-eastern borders of Poland in the 18th century

attack it, and in 1793 the last Polish commander gave up the fortress without a fight on 23rd April.

A comparison of the fates of Khotyn and Kamieniec demonstrates clearly how weak the defence system was on the south-eastern borders of the Republic of Poland. On one hand, it was the result of too low a military budget in Poland in the 16th 18th centuries, and on the other — the chosen strategy of defending the south-eastern provinces. Until the end of the 17th century, the greatest threat they had to face were the Tartar raids, which did not require the construction and maintenance of costly, large strongholds. Wars with Turkey were few and far between, and the Poles were able to repel the Ottoman attacks through their field activities, in which large, short-term armies were a decisive factor. Moreover, from the 1720s on, Polish-Turkish relations started improving considerably, until they finally reached a good- neighbours status. With Russia, there was a state of peace achieved as early as 1667. As a result, there seemed to be no need to fortify the borders with those countries, and the Republic of Poland did not possess strongholds suited to the needs of the 18th century war conditions. That was accompanied by the lack of a strong field army, which resulted in the Poles not being able to defend themselves effectively in the south-eastern provinces. It was most acutely manifested by the events of 1734 and 1792 when the Russians had no problem conquering Ukraine, Podolia and Volhynia, and annexing them in the second partition treaty.

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