POLES ENTER THE NEGOTIATIONS
Just as the Hetman was mending his fences with Charles XII, the Polish dimension of this entangled situation took on great significance.9 On 4 April 1712, the Russians finally ratified, in an amended form, the Prut Treaty.
One of the main clauses in the treaty stated that the Tsar was obliged to withdraw all his troops from Poland because the Porte considered their presence there to be a threat to its security. In order to ensure that the Russians honored this point, the Ottomans, in June 1712, sent a mission to Poland led by two Tatars, Suleiman Aga and Abdul Mirza.10 These envoys were also instructed that, when an appropriate opportunity arose, they were to sound the Poles on the question of the Right Bank.The mission of Suleiman Aga and Abdul Mirza was not a success. It was soon apparent to the envoys that the Russians had no intention of pulling their troops out of Poland. And the Poles had already heard about Ottoman plans for the Right Bank. Prior to the mission’s arrival, a Polish informant in Bender wrote to August IΓs government that:
Our Ukraine (the Right Bank) stretching from the Dnieper to the Sluch, and from the Teterew to the Berezyna (Rivers) has been given by the minister of the Tsar to the protection of the Porte.... This is the manner in which the Cossack malcontents have drawn up their map and already 60 men have been sent into Ukraine to proclaim possession.11
The Ottoman envoys’ mention of Ukraine only increased Polish consternation and rage. Upon the mission’s return to Constantinople, it became clear to the Porte that Polish opposition to its Ukrainian plan would be fierce.
The news of the renewed Tatar and Ottoman interest in Ukraine was most upsetting to the powerful eastern magnates of Poland, such as Crown Hetman Adam Sieniawski, who had spent most of their careers struggling with the Cossacks for control of the area.
The thought that the Cossacks now had the backing of the Khan and Porte must have filled them with trepidation.12 To August II it was obvious that the matter of the Right Bank could not be left to the Tsar and the Sultan to decide and that a Polish embassy would have to be sent to Constantinople to discuss this problem. In late summer of 1712, however, before the special embassy could be prepared, Sieniawski sent several of his field commanders into the Right Bank to secure the area against the bands of Zaporozhians which had begun to appear.On 12 August 1712, Colonel Rogowski, the administrator of the Kalinowski estates near Rashkiw, had surprising news to report. He stated that he had established contact with the Cossack Hetman who expressed his good intentions vis-a-vis Poland.13 In the following months, other Polish magnates indicated that they too had been approached by Orlyk who offered them his services.14 The Hetman not only informed the Poles of Ottoman plans but also advised them on how they should react, namely, to insist on the terms of the KarlowitzTreaty which acknowledged their control of the Right Bank while simultaneously sending troops into the area to prevent the Cossacks and their Tatar allies from establishing themselves there. Orlyk urged the Poles to act swiftly, for otherwise, the Ottomans might force him to participate personally in the occupation of the area. Sieniawski and his colleagues were only too happy to benefit from this unexpected assistance and instructed their agents to maintain close contacts with Orlyk. It was evident that the Hetman was looking for other alternatives to Ottoman patronage.15
Ottoman designs on the Right Bank coupled with the Ukrainian Cossack presence there, convinced August II that a Polish mission would have to be dispatched to the Porte as soon as possible, Orlyk’s friendliness notwithstanding. The man chosen to lead this mission was Stanislaw Chomentowski, wojewoda of Mazovia.16
It was an exceedingly difficult task which confronted Chomen- towski when he arrived in Constantinople in late November 1712.
And it was complicated by the drastic and rapid changes in policies, attitudes and statesmen which occurred regularly at the Porte during the stay of the Polish mission. Basically, these fluctuations were the result of a bitter, seesaw struggle between the war and peace parties in the Ottoman capital. Because Peter continued to refuse to withdraw his troops from Poland and because Swedish troops, led by General Magnus Stenbock, launched an initially successful offensive in the north, the war party was in the ascendant when Chomentowski arrived. Indeed, on 10 December 1712, the Porte once again declared war on Russia. As usual, the declaration was more a threat than an indication of Ottoman willingness to fight. Nonetheless, as allies of the Tsar, August IΓs envoys were cooly received when they arrived in Constantinople.But, several weeks later, the situation Changedagainwith typical abruptness. The Swedish forces led by Stenbock concluded an armistice in the north. Immediately, the Ottomans’ warlike ardor cooled. The peace party, intent on ejecting the troublesome Charles XII from the empire, had come to power. Pressure mounted on the King to leave. With characteristic obstinacy, Charles XII refused to comply and thereby he set the stage for the famous Kalabalik which took place on 1 February 1713 when hordesof Ottoman Janissaries and Tatars attacked the Swedish compound in Bender. After a brief, confused and heroic resistance, the Swedish Kingwas arrested and interned in Adrianople.
For Orlyk and Chomentowski these dramatic events were of the greatest import. Just as the Khan and the seτasker of Bender were preparing to storm the stockade of the obstinate king, Devlet Girei sent an Ottoman official with two Tatar mirzas to the Hetman to ask which side he favored—the Swedes or the Tatars and Ottomans. At a moment when there could be no question of compromising or procrastinating, Orlyk resolutely rejected Ottoman protection because he had already accepted that of the Swedish King.17 As the Hetman later described it, the Khan’s fury knew no bounds:
During the Kalabalik, when the Swedish King was attacked, Khan Devlet Girei could neither persuade me nor (frighten me) with threats that he would cut off my head before the portals of my quarters and take my family into captivity if I did not desert His Royal Highness and accept the protection of the Turks.18
It was only the intercession of the Khan’s son, Mehmet Sultan and of Jan Sapieha, the starosta of Bobrujsk, that saved Orlyk from death.
After Charles XII was forcibly removed from Bender, Orlyk was left to face the Khan alone. Now he could no longer use the Swedish King as a shield against the Khan’s or the Porte’s demands. Nor was it wise to oppose openly the angry Khan when, shortly after the Kalabalikf he had demanded that the Hetman personally lead his men into Ukraine. Ironically, Orlyk’s miserable financial situation proved helpful in this case. The Hetman pointed out that he could not leave Bender until he had taken care of his considerable debts. Apparently the state of Orlyk’s finances was so deplorable that even the angry Devlet Girei had to agree to postpone the Hetman’s participation in the planned campaign for six weeks.
Nevertheless, the Khan insisted that a combined Cossack-Tatar force immediately set out for Ukraine, even if the Hetman could not accompany it. The colonel of Pryluky, Horlenko, was chosen to lead the Cossack force of several thousand men. In the final days of February and early March, this Cossack force, supported by some 20,000 Tatars, occupied Bratslav and began to advance towards Kiev.19 This incursion, however, was not meant as an offensive move but rather as a consolidating action. Orlyk strictly ordered Horlenko to avoid all possible conflicts with Polish forces and to explain the Cossack presence in the Right Bank as a move directed against the Russians and as a means of preserving order in that chaotic land.20 Although the Poles did not find these arguments convincing, neither side appeared ready to commence open hostilities. For the next several months, Cossack and Polish forces tensely eyed each other but did not engage in major clashes.
Before the six weeks which Devlet Girei had allowed Orlyk were over, the Khan himself was removed from his throne. Another abrupt change in the general political situation had claimed him as its victim. Late in February, 1713, delayed news arrived at the Porte about a resounding victory which General Stenbok had won against the Danes and Saxons on 9 December 1712 at Gadebusch.
Charles XII again regained favor in the Sultan’s eyes, and those who precipitated the Kalabalik were severely punished.21After the excitement subsided, the Porte turned its attention to the Polish envoys and the Ukrainian problem. Initially, it seemed that the setback which Charles XII had suffered would work in Chomentowski’s favor. For several years it was the obstinacy of the Swedish King which had prevented an agreement between August II and the Sultan. But, internal changes occurred at the Porte which, rather than facilitating Chomentowski’s task, made it more difficult. The Sultan, after a short period of active but not very productive involvement in matters of state, decided to concentrate his interests again within the confines of the Serai. A strong and experienced politician, Ali Pasha, was installed as Grand Vizir and took complete control of the government.