poland & the pursuit of parity
To the nations herein assembled:
I, the Marquis T.P. Kookoozski, have been asked by his Majesty, the King of Poland, to report the Polish sense of events to the court of nations. T.P. Corksky will no longer represent the Polish interests, as the King has had him thrown into the darkest dungeon with strict instructions that he be allowed not a crumb of cake. As he is quite old, he will not likely last long, I'm afraid.
Things began well for Poland this season. She had retaken most of the lands lost to the Russians during their wars of retribution for the French-led alliance with the French and the Northern Alliance on Austria. We understood the Russian reasons for not wanting Austria reduced well -- it was not in the interests of the Tsar to have Poland not have a serious contender at his back, for that wld make it harder to destroy Poland when the opportunity came. The Tsar may have felt that it was not "nice" to dismantle Austria; we've noticed that His Majesty had no such reservations when it comes to some Central Asian nations. However, what they did was entirely honorable, and I do not mean to show fault with them. They did as any honorable competitor would do. Their alliance with Sweden puts fear in the hearts of the Poles. This, I'm sure, is what they wish. And, I must say, the Tsar behaved most rationally when he attempted to avoid the second war with Poland when he refused to honor that alliance. It was not entirely in his interests to see a large Sweden develop either. But there was nothing dishonorable about this. The Tsar did rightly, just as he did rightly by reentering the NEETO alliance. He protected his interests as he saw them, and the Danes do not hold it against him that he followed what he thought was the best course of action for his country. And neither do the Poles. The Poles will not complain if they eventually lose to the Tsar, for the Tsar is an honorable opponent.
He does not spend much of his time hiding behind sham excuses. He simply does what he sees fit. As I once said to someone who pointed out that the Gauls lost to Ceasar that this proved that the French were weaklings, unable to fight for themselves, "There is no shame in losing to Ceasar, name me someone who didn't."
But, that said, this most recent season had started well for the Poles. The threat of Austria had been removed. Our lands in Lithuania had mostly been reclaimed. We were under the delusion that a semblance of balance had been established in the West with the invention of the Channel Coalition, a device, it must be said was mostly the doing of T.P. Corksky. I know, from personal correspondence with him prior to his imprisonment, sadly, he is not even allowed letters in his new home, that he had misgivings about the idea. He said, "I think I will be hoisted by my own petard." But he was a gambling man, and so he paid his monies and made his choice. There was the belief that the long wars of old would be replaced with a considerable period of peace in that region and, so it was, though not promised for quite as long as Poland would have hoped.
Spain, in the course of our history, has proven to be a worthy and canny opponent. He saw in the French/Ottoman and Polish effort a threat to his interests. Austria, of course, was a natural ally and presented a better balance against France, which, for the simple reason that she is stronger than Spain, but poorer, would likely want to rob her. The Spanish King acted in his own best interests in doing his best to support Austria. The Poles do not blame the Spanish King for doing so. The Poles are glad to have a worthy opponent. The Spanish King has made some comments about the "cruelty" of what was done to Austria, but no one outside of T.P. Corksky even made mention of the utter destruction of the nations of Chimu, Azteca, Zapoteca, Inca and Maya. I suppose that it is the sense of the Court of Nations that some nations, for reasons not well understood, must be allowed to survive, and others not, except, of course, when it's inconvenient or doesn't suit their interests.
With this device, the Channel Coalition, T.P. Corksky believed that he had set in motion balancing effects in the West. He was also of the belief that he had secured security in case of another war against the Tsar. He had entered into an alliance, the Treaty of Krakow, the second ill-fated treaty to be so called. (Indeed, they now make targets for darts w/ images of his head in that fair city.) By this device he believed that he had secured long-term friendship with the French Monarch and the Sultan. The text of the treaty will soon be posted below, although it is not certain if it is still in effect. But, to paraphrase, it guaranteed financial, political & policing support in case of war. There was no stipulation for whether or not it be aggressive or defensive. In order to secure peace between our nations, military access treaties were signed between all three. <Sidenote: i'm curious about this kleves, i think you still have access ... so did you not take the stab hit for the DoW. if so, is that a bug we shld report?> Furthermore, in private discussions the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Sultan explained the Polish designs on Russia to his French counterpart. That done, T.P. Corksky believed he had secured Poland's rear and could focus on the East.
But a new and serious threat had developed on Poland's borders, this time coming from the North. Denmark, it was noted, was totally at her mercy and had already been shorn of one of her most valuable provinces. However, it was not in the interests of the colonizing powers to see another important sea power develop, as that would present a potential threat to them. So the enterprising T.P. Corksky went to some of the nations so affected -- not Russia of course -- and asked them if they would finance Danish war against Sweden. There were a variety of replies, but T.P. Corksky was satisfied, as was his Danish counterpart who was doing some negotiating of his own, some aid was secured at least -- and that the Danes would be restored to their previous heights. In the meantime, the Danes would enter into an alliance with the Poles, so as to provide the Swedes with a warning about the consequences of aggression. At the time the session began, the Swedes were asking the Danes to join their alliance. But the Danes did not think this was in their interest, and perhaps smarting for their earlier loss, did not take kindly to the idea of becoming an protectorate of the very state that inflicted it. We saw this once before, in fact, with the Austrian refusal to join the Polish Alliance. Thoroughly understandable of course. Both decisions, it turned out, were not in their short-term interests, but who can say what the future will bring? But the Danish decision was in part decided, I think, by the chance to reclaim what once was theirs. That was certainly an honorable intention of theirs. The Swedish intention to become strong at someone's expense, anyway, was certainly honorable. So, in the end, the Danes decided to try their luck and joined into a formal alliance with Poland, to be named the Cake and Cookie Coalition Pact, or CCCP, so named for their favorite confectionary treats.
T.P. Corksky, I'm afraid, has a number of flaws, but the fatal one was impatience. When there was a discussion among the war party, he suggested the earliest possible time. The others thought that we should wait for the century to close first. There were obvious reasons for this, plus certain magicks had produced the prediction that the Tsar would be in considerable difficulties for some time following the start of the early 17th century. But T.P. Corksky was keen to go ahead quickly, for the arrangements he had set in place would not likely last forever. Then exciting news was passed to the then Minister, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs had sent by diplomatic pouch the news that now was a good time to attack Russia, for she hadn't a single army within 10k miles of my border. We informed the war party of the news and the next year the Ottomans joined the Polish alliance for a strike on the Tsar.
On 6 April 1585 Denmark declared war on Sweden, on the 9th Poland joined in, they were followed by the Ottoman's on the 10th. In an attempt to forestall war, on the 10th the Tsar declined to come to the aid of her ally. But the pursuit of Polish parity was not to be denied and soon afterwards Poland declared war on Russia joined by her faithful allies Denmark and the Ottoman Empire.
The war initially went well. The Polish armies quickly covered much Russian land. Led by some generals of note, they managed to get to Moscow. There were some valiant attempts at counter-attack, and once the seige was forced to lift, but province after province fell to the Polish onslaught and eventually even Moscow itself was taken. The first notion that something was not right came when Denmark asked for help. He said that Sweden kept on building armies. How could this be? Sweden surely had run out of manpower long ago. Later investigation showed that the Spaniards and the French had supplied considerable financial support to Sweden. The most surprising thing was that most of it came from Spain -- why wld a resurgent Denmark hurt Spain's interests. But, we were otherwise occupied and felt sure that Poland would be able to come to their Danish aid soon, for our warscore was 99%, and we were ready to ask for peace soon. Since they would have been separate peaces, the Swedes could be dealt with at our leisure. Surely, they too would be forced to come to terms.
Then everything came apart. On 30 July 1586, Spain declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Poland and Denmark soon afterwards joined the Sultan's cause. The Channel Coalition threatened a DoW if the war did not end right away. I offered peace to the Russians -- four provinces to Poland and three to the Ottoman Empire (not including Astrakhan) -- which they did not accept and took the corresponding hit to stability.
Right after the offer was rejected, on 4 October 1586, the Channel Coalition declared war on the CCCP. This was bad. T.P. Corksky offered new terms -- three provinces to Poland and three provinces to the Ottoman Empire (not including Astrakhan, although the Sultan was desirous of this province) -- the Tsar said he would accept, the official offer was proferred, and the Tsar refused for the very good reason that the Channel Coalition had told him not to, to hold out, they were sending aid.
The Polish continued offering terms in the hope that the stability concerns the Russians would face would make them reconsider. But our stout foe calmly took our best as my troops hurried back to Poland to defend it from the coalition. As enemy troops poured into Danish territories in northern Germany and English began their seige of Danzig on 21 December 1586, the Austrian Monarch decided to take this opportunity to get some of his own back, and declared war on Poland as well, which brought him into conflict with the OE, too, which was strange, for someone must have promised to the Holy Roman Emperor that the Channel Coalition would stay in this fight long enough for him to secure his winnings. On 12 January 1587, Russia entered into formal alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor at its head.
It appears from his statement that someone at least promised him financial aid. It is a matter of much curiousity to the historians in Warsaw as to who, exactly, such a promise came from. But there is more story to tell ... the Polish armies rushed back for confrontation with the Channel Coalition. Seeing that there was no chance for parity to be established at this time, the CCCP and Russia signed a white peace on 29 December 1587.
But the Channel Coalition were not ready for peace and Polish armies were decimated ... one by one. As the Austrians proudly point out, they were responsible for the complete annihilation of one. Sadly, all the Polish armies had been spent and Poland had truly been beaten. It must have been the height of frustration for the Holy Roman Emperor when a white peace was signed with Poland by the Channel Coalition at about the time a large Ottoman army appeared beside a small French one seiging Polish land.
True ignominy in the Polish view, entice a small defenseless nation to attack a much more powerful coalition that it had made peaceful arrangements with ... and then, after it looks like there's gonna be a real fight, make peace leaving the small country to its fate? No thought for the small country to give it some time to make peace first? Luckily -- well, one supposes that depends on how you see it -- for the Holy Roman Emperor, the Sultan was feeling magnanimous and did not instantly annex him for his treachery. Perhaps the Austrians will find an opportunity to relieve themselves from his protectorate-ship in the future.
A little while later, on 27 February 1592, Poland signed a white peace with Sweden. There was little that the Poles could do, but at least the Poles waited for Denmark to agree to peace first. Perhaps the Danish Monarch blames the Pole for his fate, I do not know, but at least I lost every army in my arsenal before accepting defeat.
But the Foreign Ministry of Poland has made careful note that this has happened more than once in this court of nations, whatever blather they might wish to make about balance, fairness, and the like. Perhaps the Monarchs of Denmark and Austria now understand the thinking behind the Polish pursuit for parity with Russia or Sweden without the help of any coalition.
Seeing that there was little room for maneuvre, T.P. Corksky spent much time recovering his powers. The economy was in rather bad shape after the war, but it is doing alright. 20 years or so of peace followed. Nothing much happened during that time. In a way, the balance of power
had been established. At least Poland was unable to do anything of note. Sweden and Russia were limited by the threat of the Ottomans and so Poland was safe, for then. But it is not a very stable balance of power, this one. This is because the present balance is constantly being tipped by the fact of relentless Russian expansion. And Polish pursuit of parity must not be abandoned.
With that in mind, in 1606 we decided to turn West and declared war on Brandenberg. It was not the most fetching choice, but it was something that might add to our coffers. Since Brandenberg's size is a direct result of Polish efforts, whose vassalage was broken because of the new energy of the minister installed there, whose province of Memel was annexed to it by a desperate Polish attempt to keep Brandenberg alive, whose gains stopped the minute Brandenberg was abandoned by an energetic minister for fairer lands, whose helpfulness was removed by the end of the Northern Alliance, a move not authorized by us, a move that would not have happened had their of been an energetic minister in Brandenberg, The Polish Foreign Ministry is of the view that it belongs to Poland.
A final note: the Polish King has taken a disliking to the comments about his perfidity. The record is plain. Poland has honored her agreements to the one. If Poland made a promise of no attack, no attack was made. If Poland promised to declare war on behalf of an ally, Poland did so in all but one instance -- and that instance was when an ally stole his alliance right from under his nose. He did not choose to honor the DoW with his old alliance, which kept him in compliance with the understanding he had with his other alliance. I think we can all sympathize with the Polish decision not to turn around and DoW the old ally. Perhaps the letter of the law was broken, but not the spirit of it. He would add that this was done on behalf of an ally who had already left him twisting in the wind twice before, but this is precisely why Poland seeks parity. Weaker partners often have to accept the whims of stronger partners if they wish to survive. That is why it is essential to find
trustworthy allies.
Poland refuses to sympathize with monarchs that have lost their kingdoms by rashly exposing themselves to danger. I will empathize completely, but sympathize no. I will also refuse to cry crocodile tears as some new "state that can't fail" fails & then do nothing about it, or even worse, hasten his downfall all the while crying, what can I do? If they are weak, as am I, seek a good strong ally or many of them. If you are "meant" to be strong, remember that you ought to secure some protection for your growth in the future. If you are "meant" to fail, as I am, seek to thwart your fate. (In the future, people negotiating with me should probably remember what saying I'm doing better than "historically" implies.) And having done that, should you still fail, then you've done just fine, even the best laid plans sometimes come to naught.
However, I must admit that the coming session is going to be the session I look forward to most. For I have a feeling all this fancy talk of "fair fights" and "historicity" and "balance" and "honor" are going to be severely tested & that I'm going to have an incredible time just being the most nasty sardonic SOB you've ever heard commenting upon it. And if I'm wrong, then this game will become awfully boring.
Yours faithfully,
For the King of Poland,
The Marquis Kookoozski, Minister Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary
