What if the PLC had been able to avoid it's decline and had remained strong? Could they have realistically been able to consolidate it's power, enforce their borders and avoid total collapse?
What if the PLC had been able to avoid it's decline and had remained strong? Could they have realistically been able to consolidate it's power, enforce their borders and avoid total collapse?
In mid 18th century PLC was at its nadir. The decline began in mid 17th century, and if PLC is to avoid it, as OP wants, this is when it must begin reforming and creating some sort of effective government and financial-administrative system.By the mid-18th century century they'll only be able to survive as a buffer state if they play their cards right against Prussia, Austria, and Russia. The only other solution is to change how the nobility acts so they aren't so easily bribed and divided which will take more proto-nationalism, less rights granted them (this accelerated by the late 16th century IIRC), and no doubt a few civil wars where an "absolutist" monarch smashes the magnates and centralises the state.
Can't happen if you have liberum veto already (one drunk/bribed nobleman is enough to prevent any reforms, just like IOTL)Here's a crazy idea: have a Sejm v. King civil war, like what happened in England, at a point when there's a very capable grand hetman. If they're at war with the king, then a strong grand hetman could push through key reforms (regular Sejm meetings, ending the liberum veto), then cut back on royal power... or even eliminate it completely.
It came in that late? OK, that changes things.Can't happen if you have liberum veto already (one drunk/bribed nobleman is enough to prevent any reforms, just like IOTL)
A sine qua non of PLC surviving is NOT to have liberum veto (so a POD before 1652 - the first known use of it - is necessary)
I disagree. It's no sure thing what would happen. Paul I wasn't exactly the most hostile European monarch towards Napoleon. If his trend towards anti-English policy continued, he may well have become an ally of Napoleon, and there likely would have been no Napoleonic invasion of Poland. And it cannot be discounted that the expansionist nature of Napoleon's foreign policy has been exaggerated. There is no particular reason why Napoleon would come to blows with Polish interests, so whether it happens or not is subject to too many variables to predict with any reasonable degree of certainty. Indeed, if Paul I did survive longer, and Russia became hostile to Britain and indirectly to the coalitions that it helped organize, the wars that really created Napoleon's Europe-spanning Empire, namely the Wars of the Third, and Fourth Coalitions, may not even take place.Absolutely easiest POD is to kill Catherine II of Russia earlier and keep her son Paul alive longer. And then simply wait for Napoleon, would be still defeated (this time Poles would see him as invader and oppresor, not as liberator) but he'd leave his mark on PLC: to extract resources from PLC to feed his war machine he'd need to build working administration.
The PLC survived for a long time with the veto, it must be remembered.Can't happen if you have liberum veto already (one drunk/bribed nobleman is enough to prevent any reforms, just like IOTL)
A sine qua non of PLC surviving is NOT to have liberum veto (so a POD before 1652 - the first known use of it - is necessary)
Unfortunately, the chance of Poland surviving as a Republic is ASB.But even if the veto survives as a legal technicality, centralization is necessary, either in a competent hereditary monarchy or a republican form of government. I have seen one suggestion that Zygmunt II Augustus might have been inclined to end the Polish-Lithuanian monarchy, giving room for the adoption of a Republic on Roman lines--since he was childless, he has no throne to pass on, so that concern is absent
Nope. Fully republican form of government would eliminate severe conflict between legislative and executive.Unfortunately, the chance of Poland surviving as a Republic is ASB.
Nope. Fully republican form of government would eliminate severe conflict between legislative and executive.
Nope. Fully republican form of government would eliminate severe conflict between legislative and executive.
Imo it would quickly rip to shredsBut it could lead to endless civil wars.
Imo it would quickly rip to shreds
Or turn to revolutionary terror