ABSTRACT
The vast commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania which stretched from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea had been in decline for nearly two centuries. In 1572 the principle of elective monarchy had been introduced into Poland. The effect was to make the Polish nobility virtually independent of the crown. As election followed election, the rights of the monarchy were increasingly dismantled and the nobility acquired the power to veto any reform, however necessary in the national interest, which it could be argued threatened its liberties. By the eighteenth century this once great east European state had lost the capacity to take independent or coherent action. It was incapable of raising a large army or even of employing a diplomatic corps to monitor the international scene. Poland’s vulnerability both fascinated and concerned its neighbours. For the security of Russia, Prussia and Austria was bound up with the insecurity of the Polish commonwealth.
