Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611)

Polish–Swedish War
Part of the Polish–Swedish Wars of 1600–1629
Battle of Kircholm
Date 1600 to 1611 Location Estonia, Livonia, Latvia Result Truce
Belligerents
Sweden	Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Commanders and leaders
Charles IX of Sweden Carl Gyllenhielm Anders Lennartsson Count of Mansfeld	Sigismund III of Poland Jan Karol Chodkiewicz Jan Zamoyski Stanisław Żółkiewski Thunderbolt Radziwiłł Jürgen von Farensbach

The Polish–Swedish War (1600–11) was a continuation of struggle between Sweden and Poland over control of Livonia and Estonia, as well as the dispute over the Swedish throne between Charles IX of Sweden and Sigismund III of Poland.

This conflict between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland) and Sweden traces its roots to the War against Sigismund. In this civil war (1597–1599), Sigismund III Vasa, at one time king of both the Commonwealth and Sweden, lost the throne of Sweden. Few Commonwealth troops participated in that conflict, and it is mostly regarded as a Swedish civil war, not part of the Polish–Swedish wars. After an early stalemate, Sigismund was defeated at the Battle of Stångebro in 1598. By 1599 Sigismund was dethroned by his uncle, Duke Charles and forced to retreat to the Commonwealth. This also spelled the end of the short-lived personal union between Poland and Sweden (the Polish–Swedish union).

However, Sigismund did not give up on regaining the Swedish throne. From then on, most of his policies would revolve around his attempts to conquer Sweden, even though Commonwealth nobility had little will for such a long and bloody conflict. Sigismund began his plans in 1599, when he confirmed the pacta conventa. These documents, signed when he was elected as a King of Poland, promised that the then-Swedish territory of Estonia would become part of the Commonwealth.

Polish nobility, the szlachta, supported this particular conflict, assuming it would be limited to Estonia only, and expecting many gains in form of new lands and increases of grain export through access to Estonian ports on the Baltic Sea. In addition, szlachta did not think highly of the Swedes, and did not expect this war to drag long or be difficult. They grossly underestimated their opponent, thinking that Poland, having been nearly undefeated in battle for over a hundred years, would be easily able to parry any attacks of the Scandinavians. The Commonwealth had nearly 10 million inhabitants, almost 10 times that of 1 million in Sweden. On the other hand, szlachta forgot that the Commonwealth had one of the smallest military to population ratios in Europe, and that Sweden was able to draft a large army much more quickly than the Commonwealth, due to its centralized government and obligatory draft of free peasants.

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