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Revision as of 14:21, 25 May 2005
The Smolensk War was a conflict fought in the years 1632-1634 between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy. After recovering to a certain extent from the Time of Troubles, Muscovy, expecting the Commonwealth to be weakened by the death of king Sigismund III, launched the war in an attempt to recover the key city of Smolensk which it lost to the Commonwealth in 1611, during the Dimitriads wars.
A large, carefully prepared Russian army of 34,500 men reached Smolensk in October of 1632 and began a siege. The city held out for the following year while the Commonwealth, under its newly elected king Wladislaw IV, organised a relief force. This force, led personally by the king, finally arrived near Smolensk in September,1633 and began operations against the besieging forces. In a series of fierce combats, the Muscovites were first forced to break their siege of Smolensk by October 3, and then by the end the month were themselves surrounded by Commonwealth forces. The surrounded Muscovites waited for relief but none came, and they surrendered on March 1,1634. The war was ended soon after by the Treaty of Polanów signed in May 1634, which confirmed the pre-war status quo, with Russia paying a large war indemnity (20,000 rubles), while Wladislaw IV agreed to surrender his claim to the Muscovite throne and return the Muscovy royal insignia.
The treaty ended the almost unbroken series of wars that the Commonwealth waged with its neighbours since the start of the 17th century. The 14 years of peace that followed were arguably the most prosperous in Commonwealth's history.
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