Talk:Civil war in Lithuania (1700)

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[edit] Civil war

Don't know that's really quite correct. August II gained temporary control of Lithuania in order to prepare to keep Sweden out by allying himself with the enemies of the Sapieha faction, who had dominated the last decade after Michał and Zygmunt Pac died. Daniel Stone's (seminal) history of Poland-Lithuania then has only one sentence on conflict: "Lithuanian Great Hetman Jan Sapieha lost the battle of Olkienniki in 1700 to a magnate levy stiffened with Saxon regulars." (August II was Saxon) In the subsequent division of power among the remaining families, Lithuania could not act in a united manner. August failed to raise enough money and to train his men well enough to successfully resist the Swedes. Fast forward (slightly) and we've got Swedish-occupied Warsaw. It wasn't as much a civil war as a consequence of August II maneuvering to try to head off the Swedes.
   I would speculate that Polish sources might see this "civil war" as having divided and weakened the north, leading to the Swedes being able to break through. Is this the case? —PētersV (talk) 01:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The term civil war (pl: wojna domowa) is used for this 1700 conflict in some Polish scholarly publications. Examples: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]... Of course this war was part of the larger picture, and we should expand the article and elaborate on that. PS. Yes, I think it is the true that this civil war further weakened Poland.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)