Századok – 2000

TANULMÁNYOK - Gebei Sándor: II. Rákóczi György szerepe a Rzeczpospolita felosztási kísérletében 801

848 GEBEI SÁNDOR main obstacle in the way of this alliance was the fact that, besides Sweden, the Rzeczpospolita and the Army of Zaporozhie (Ukraine) also „applied for" the military potential of Transylvania. At first the Poles offered the „best voivodate" and then the restitution of the thirteen towns of the Szepesség for the prince of Transylvania's military or financial aid. Later they went one step further and offered the Polish throne first to Rákóczi's son and then to the prince himself with the stipulation that he could only be elected but not crowned according to the Polish constitution. The diplomatic subterfuge of the Poles—to gain as much as possible without giving anything in return— and their constant reference to the noble constitution and law was all grist to the Swedes's mill. The Swedish envoys who stayed in Transylvania from May 1656 were perfectly aware that an alliance with Rákóczi would at the same time secure the military force of the Cossacks, the Moldavians and the Wallachians, and were consequently ready to raise the price. Rákóczi and his chief councillor, János Kemény set ever more ambitious demands against the Swedish offers. Charles Gustav's offer comprised, besides the the thirteen towns of the Szepesség, two districts of the voivodate of Lvov and the rich trading city of Lvov itself, but Rákóczi and Kemény wanted to have the district of Sanok and Przemysl and the voivodate of Belz as well. When it became apparent that Rákóczi longed for no less than the Polish crown, the king of Sweden proposed a series of possible titles, only demanding in return that the prince should not use his royal title towards Sweden and Brandenburg. Rákóczi was free to become king of Little Poland, of Eastern Poland, or that of „parts of Galicia and Little Poland". Charles Gustav was perfectly aware of what the weak point of Rákóczi was. The Polish crown and the regions which represented it seemed such a safe, hon-hazardous offer that the prince was willing to forget about the Ottoman menace and wage war against the enemies of Sweden. The Swedish-Tramsylvanian treaty, signed on 6 December 1656 at Radnót, prepared the partition of the 1 Rzeczpospolita among five powers (Sweden, Brandenburg, Transylvania, Army of Zaporozhie, Lithuania). ' Moreover, Rákóczi crowned his overambitious plan with a serious diplomatic mistake, for he regarded the treaty as a ratified document right from the outset, and engaged himself to enter war ' without formal pledges. He also misjudged the aims of the Cossacks and ignored the fact that the ultimate aim of hetman Bogdan Chmielnicki was the military destruction of Poland. Yet his greatest error was to misjudge the functioning of the European political system. For the „revolt of the vassals" (Transylvania was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, Ukraine that of Russia, and Prussia was dependent on Poland), supported by Sweden, ran counter to the interests in Central Europe of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, which were by no means ready to acquiesce in any modification of the European status quo. Consequently, the success of Rákóczi's Polish campaign was dependent on Sweden's keeping together the coalition and it collapsed as soon as the illusion of the territorial aggrandizement offered by the king of Sweden was over.