Free Elections

In 1573, the Frenchman Henri Valois (brother of France king) was chosen as the first elected monarch. After four months as Polish king, he received news that his brother had died. He then went to France and claimed the throne as Henry III. This surprised much of the country because Poland had a better economy at the time. Stefan Bathory, the second elected king (1575), achieved the most spectacular successes, mainly in the military field. He reformed the army and waged a brilliant campaign against the Russians, neutralizing this particular threat to Poland's eastern borders for some time to come. Next to be elected (1587) was Zygmunt III Waza, member of the Swedish Waza dynasty. He was a Catholic bigot who soon came into conflict with exclusively Protestant population of his native land and was deposed from the Swedish throne in 1604. In fact Sweden started to be a new increasingly powerful enemy to Poland. After him came Wladyslaw Waza IV. The reign of the third of the Wazas, Jan Kazimierz, was also unfortunate. In the year of his election, the Cossacks revolted in the Ukraine, eventually allying themselves with the Russian army, which conquered eastern Poland. This things inspired Swedes to start an invasion on Poland, known as the Swedish Deluge, which contributed to enormous losses to Polish land and Polish population. Successes in the military field came with Jan III Sobieski, who has defeated Ottoman Turks and was sincerely rewarded, namely in 1673 he was elected for a new king of Poland. In 1693 he was responsible for the successful defence of Vienna, which marked the final repulse of the Turks from western Europe. However, Poland was to pay a heavy price for the heroism of Sobieski, who had concentrated on the Turkish campaign to the exclusion of all other issues at home and abroad. After Sobieski August II The Strong, Stanislaw Leszczynski, August III and Stanislaw August Poniatowski were chosen for kings. The last one, former lover of the Russian empire approved some reforms in defiance of Russians. Since then relations between Poland and Russia became slightly bad what contributed to subsequent Partition of Poland.