AHC/PC: Partition of Poland in mid 17th c. "Deluge"

raharris1973

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What if instead of making peace with Poland-Lithuania and going to war against Sweden in 1650s, Tsar Alexis concludes an anti-Polish treaty with Sweden, seeking to secure territory he already occupied. Russia attempts to keep peace with Sweden through at least 1670 while trying to absorb its gains.

Who gets what in the treaty, and do the other powers stand for it? At the peak of the Deluge/Potop in 1655-1656 the Russians occupied Belarus, Ukraine as far as Lvov and interior Lithuania up to Vilna. The Swedes occupied Livonia, Courland, coastal Lithuania, Ducal Prussia and western Poland as far south as Cracow. The wiki maps show the Swedish and Russian occupation zones overlapping roughly at Lublin. The only unoccupied portion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the Carpathian southern half of what eventually became Austrian Galicia in 1774.

Could the Swedes and Russians establish durable control over their respective occupied areas, and perhaps even seized the remaining unoccupied PLC land down to the Carpathians, a total partition of the PLC.

Would the Ottomans and Habsburgs be able to thwart such a partition, or secure spoils to "compensate" themselves? They are the largest powers with an interest. And what of Brandenburg? With the Swedes occupying ducal Prussia, Brandenburg is a small, minor, but probably pissed off power trying to make alliances to help them recover Prussia.

In a full-partition, what might Brandenburg, Austria, Sweden, Russia, Russian vassals like the Hetmanate, and the Ottomans or Ottoman vassals like Transylvania gain.

Or, even with a Russo-Swedish treaty as a starting point, is it more likely that Poland-Lithuania will suffer partial amputations but not extinction?

How would maximum Russo-Swedish cooperation in the 1650s and 1660s position the two powers against each other if they fight in later decades?

Map of the "Deluge" attached.

765px-Rzeczpospolita_Potop.png
 

raharris1973

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if a partition, or even just larger than OTL territorial amputations occur, how might the different Voivodeships of the PLC be distributed?

767px-ProwincjaMalopolska.png
 
Sweden would love Polish Livonia, Courland and Danzig and other ports on the Baltic to toll the Polish trade to the Baltic Sea. I doubt Sweden would want to annex the whole of Ducal Prussia - controlling Baltic trade and river mouths was far more profitable and easier to control than trying to take over a full region on the continent.
 
If a full on partition happens, how likely is it that neighboring states also jump in on the fray to grab their 'slice of the pie' so to speak?
 
Sweden would love Polish Livonia, Courland and Danzig and other ports on the Baltic to toll the Polish trade to the Baltic Sea. I doubt Sweden would want to annex the whole of Ducal Prussia - controlling Baltic trade and river mouths was far more profitable and easier to control than trying to take over a full region on the continent.
Sweden did enter a union with Lithuania, and if it had not wanted to take the Polish crown as well (and spent several years in fruitless attempts to annex the whole immense commonwealth), we could have had a partition right there, but that left nothing for the Russians to take, so that Russian-Swedish war is still around.
 

raharris1973

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Good point Jurgen. So Sweden could have gotten Lithuania and stopped there, making peace with Poland-Ukraine. This has the advantage of grabbing more Lutherans and fewer diehard Catholics than going for the whole PLC. In theory, Russia could still make gains in the middle Dnepr, Kiev voivideship. However, I agree Russia would covet the new Swedish lands which are so close Moscow. But weren't the Swedes formidable enough at this time to hold their gains at least through the early 1700s?
 
The army was tactically often formidable, but the strategical and political aspects were not the Swedes strong points. If they had stayed with Lithuania/Belarus, and had embarked upon building a strong state there (organisation and using resources were formidable as well), that Swedish realm might still be around to this day.
 
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