Is there a way for Poland-Lithuania to avoid being partitioned?

What is really needed is a great reform of administration and finances into machine capable of finding money for multi-hundred thousand army. Poland otl was unable (or/and unwilling) to do it, worse the state apparatus devolved to the point it was unable to fund armies that had been being raised in 17. century. In effect Prussia with population third of fourth of that of Poland had ten times more soldiers.
 
WiThe PLC was a very powerful country with probably the finest cavalry in Europe at the time and a great deal of wealth due to the its significant grain exports. It had more than enough resources to stand its ground against the powers around it, the issue was that they failed to centralize enough to take advantage of those resources before it was already too late. Hell there are even a couple of opportunities later, but it would be better if they just manage to not fall behind on centralization in the first place.

The problem is that grain exports can make a landowner profit, but they don't necessarily make a country profitable. Would you rather be Holland or Poland?
 
PODs around the time of Great Northern War could save PLC easily:
1) Sobieski lives longer, at least until start of GNW
2) Augustus II dies in November 1700.
Russians after disaster in Narva are not able to influence Polish election, Austrians too-they are concerned about Spanish succession now. So propably young Sobieski wins. Charles XII ignores PLC, which is not ruled by his enemy anymore.

These two PODs have similar results-Charles XII of Sweden istead of invading Poland-Lithuania march into Russia after battle of Narva to finnish Tsar Peter. PLC eventually joins the war on Swedish side to retake Kiev and Smolensk. Utter Russian-screw (Russia even IOTL was on the edge of collapse during GNW despite fact that Charles XII wasted few years in Poland giving Peter time to recover after Narva) possibly new Time of Troubles. OTOH Poland-Lithuania avoids devastation by Carl's army.
3) Charles XII after battle of Narva ignores Augustus' forces besiging Riga and decides to focus on more dangerous rival-Peter. Charles won several battles in Russia but is ultimately killed. PLC again survives war untouched when Russia is weakened.
4) Charles XII is, as expected unexperienced, incompetent leader. Sweden is beaten after short war, Augustus II gets Riga for his son and estabilish Wettin Dynasty in Poland-Lithuania.
 
And get rid of the liberum veto. Besides, towns and cities must be developed to allow kings to gain more direct power.
Getting rid of liberum veto, or preferably never developing that institution would not be a panaceum for Poland's many ailments. You would still need to gain the majority of nobles to want to tax themselves (tax on nobility's incomes), limit their powers (strenghtening central government), allow for their milking cows to gain more freedoms (bettering the lot of peasants), let the said cows be stolen by the king (conscription of peasants from noble lands) agree to pay more for all kinds of goods (tolls, custom taxes, excise etc), let the townsfolk rabble to think they are almost equal to nobility (more rights to the cities), lose their lucrative sinecures (turning the royal lands into something that would actually turn some real profit for the state treasury)
 
Honestly I think the best case for Poland would be if some foreign King gained power and committed a Stockholm Bloodbath. The Polish nobility was the main curse of the Polish state.
 
Honestly I think the best case for Poland would be if some foreign King gained power and committed a Stockholm Bloodbath. The Polish nobility was the main curse of the Polish state.
Rather conflict between nobles and king. Polish 'Noble Democracy' was not that bad initially. Absolutism under some madman (Polish version of Ivan the Terrible?) would not be any better.
What should be done? King has little power in PLC, so kings often used corruption to achieve their goals-they still could give officies to magnates to get their support, as result corrupt magnate cliques dominated country over time, so maybe royal powers should be even more reduced, not increased?
Another source of troubles were (usually counterproductive) attemps by kings to secure throne for candidates they choosen by trying to enforce very unpopular among nobles idea of election Vivente Rege.
Also long periods of interregnum when country was not ruled effectively where problematic. PLC would be better as either hereditary monarchy or full republic.
 
Rather conflict between nobles and king. Polish 'Noble Democracy' was not that bad initially. Absolutism under some madman (Polish version of Ivan the Terrible?) would not be any better.
What should be done? King has little power in PLC, so kings often used corruption to achieve their goals-they still could give officies to magnates to get their support, as result corrupt magnate cliques dominated country over time, so maybe royal powers should be even more reduced, not increased?
Another source of troubles were (usually counterproductive) attemps by kings to secure throne for candidates they choosen by trying to enforce very unpopular among nobles idea of election Vivente Rege.
Also long periods of interregnum when country was not ruled effectively where problematic. PLC would be better as either hereditary monarchy or full republic.

Noble Republic is one of the worst form of government, and it was the worst possible point in time for such government. there was nothing democratic over it, it was a very small minority which lord over the vast majority which was reduced to little more than slaves.
 
Make the executive considerably stronger and implement an early form of separation of powers in the Union of Lublin. And make the ties between Poland and Lithuania tighter. Should solve most of the Commonwealth's internal problems.

Honestly I think the best case for Poland would be if some foreign King gained power and committed a Stockholm Bloodbath. The Polish nobility was the main curse of the Polish state.
And achieve what? A civil war?

We are not talking about 100-200 magnates or something, but rather an entire noble class. If I remember correctly, upwards of 10% of the population of the Commonwealth was considered nobility in the late 18th century.
 
Make the executive considerably stronger and implement an early form of separation of powers in the Union of Lublin. And make the ties between Poland and Lithuania tighter. Should solve most of the Commonwealth's internal problems.


And achieve what? A civil war?

We are not talking about 100-200 magnates or something, but rather an entire noble class. If I remember correctly, upwards of 10% of the population of the Commonwealth was considered nobility in the late 18th century.

Yes but the nobles outside those magnates doesn't really matters it's not the nobles who are little more than glorified free farmers who would be target in such massacre. Also the king doesn't need to win, Poland just need for power to be consolidated behind a centralised government, so if much of the major nobility are dead and the rest end up backing some central authority out of fear of someone killing them too, that would also serve as well (this was what happened in Sweden).
 
We are not talking about 100-200 magnates or something, but rather an entire noble class. If I remember correctly, upwards of 10% of the population of the Commonwealth was considered nobility in the late 18th century.

But nobility doesn't mean everyone has the same view of the issues. Many of the reformers in late 18th century Poland were noblemen.
 
But nobility doesn't mean everyone has the same view of the issues. Many of the reformers in late 18th century Poland were noblemen.
Oh yes, indeed, but I'm not sure if the reformers would have agreed to to a mass nobility purge.

Especially since most of them were in favor of a constitutional monarchy rather than absolutism.
 
But nobility doesn't mean everyone has the same view of the issues. Many of the reformers in late 18th century Poland were noblemen.
They were all noblemen, unless there was some random commoner among the priests
Yes but the nobles outside those magnates doesn't really matters it's not the nobles who are little more than glorified free farmers who would be target in such massacre. Also the king doesn't need to win, Poland just need for power to be consolidated behind a centralised government, so if much of the major nobility are dead and the rest end up backing some central authority out of fear of someone killing them too, that would also serve as well (this was what happened in Sweden).
Poland had full scale of nobles, from great magnates owning multiple towns, palaces, castles and up to hundreds of villages and many tens of thousands peasants, each of those capable of buying and selling the whole Swedish upper nobility (of the Stockholm massacre period), through all kinds of upper and middle nobility that could own couple or a dozen or two villages, down to those glorified farmers and even posessionless nobility
 
They were all noblemen, unless there was some random commoner among the priests

Poland had full scale of nobles, from great magnates owning multiple towns, palaces, castles and up to hundreds of villages and many tens of thousands peasants, each of those capable of buying and selling the whole Swedish upper nobility (of the Stockholm massacre period), through all kinds of upper and middle nobility that could own couple or a dozen or two villages, down to those glorified farmers and even posessionless nobility

Yes and so?
 
Absolutism is definitely not the best solution for PLC. Absolutism is good if monarch is capable, which is not guaranteed. Just look at Ivan the Terrible.
Even Peter the Great was rather lucky than great-Russia barely avoided collapse during GNW and lost bigger share of population than under Stalin.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
They were all noblemen, unless there was some random commoner among the priests

Poland had full scale of nobles, from great magnates owning multiple towns, palaces, castles and up to hundreds of villages and many tens of thousands peasants, each of those capable of buying and selling the whole Swedish upper nobility (of the Stockholm massacre period), through all kinds of upper and middle nobility that could own couple or a dozen or two villages, down to those glorified farmers and even posessionless nobility
Well, the magnates? Well, something akin to the Red Wedding in ASOIAF could remove them.

Absolutism is definitely not the best solution for PLC. Absolutism is good if monarch is capable, which is not guaranteed. Just look at Ivan the Terrible.
Even Peter the Great was rather lucky than great-Russia barely avoided collapse during GNW and lost bigger share of population than under Stalin.
Well, noble oligarchy is the worse form of government ever. For something like an oligarchy or a quasi-democracy, the ruling class must be the urban bourgeois.
 
Well, the magnates? Well, something akin to the Red Wedding in ASOIAF could remove them.

No it couldn't because first they have sons, brothers and cousins who would launch a rokosz against such tyranny faster than you can say absolutum dominium, and the remaining 200,000 or so able bodied noble men would support it, bringing in their subjects with them, because it would be brutal and unprecedented violation of all Commonwealth's laws.
 
Absolutism is definitely not the best solution for PLC. Absolutism is good if monarch is capable, which is not guaranteed. Just look at Ivan the Terrible.
Even Peter the Great was rather lucky than great-Russia barely avoided collapse during GNW and lost bigger share of population than under Stalin.

No man can rule alone, that's what good about Absolutism, to rule he need to set up a administrator class and institution. There was plenty of incompetent or mad absolut King, their states survived their reign, because the administration takes over. While Poland didn't survive its nobility.
 
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