b> Jan III Sobieski was able to think with real panache. He had scarcely defeated the Sultan's armies at Vienna in 1683, and was already beginning to plan a general crackdown on the Ottoman Empire. He knew that the alliance with the Habsburgs was not enough for him. He decided to make a great alliance with distant Persia. And he almost did it
Polish attempts to win Persia against Turkey had a long tradition. Regardless of diplomatic actions, Polish missionaries tried to operate in today's Iran. Suffice it to say that Shah Abbas II, who died in 1666, was to be baptized on his deathbed by a Polish Carmelite , Rafał's father.
Two years later, the Polish diplomatic representative, Bohdan Grudziecki, arrived in Isfahan, the capital of the Persian Empire, to congratulate the new Shah Soliman.
Polish MP who… hates Poles!
It was a Georgian whose real name was probably Alaverdashvili. However, the locals called him Buchtam-Beg. A poor testimony was given to him by the Dutch traveler Jan Struys:
MP Bohdan is a bad Christian. […] He leads a reckless and dissolute lifestyle […].
He bought two 18-year-old Georgian women from Dagestani Tatars, whom he made his concubines, and when he got drunk or when guests came to him, he ordered them to dance, jump, to cheer up the company.
Hates Poles, treats them like the plague; they don't show up where he happens (quoted after:Chodubski, Poles in Azerbaijan , p. 84).
Grudziecki was a specific diplomat in general. And especially a specific representative of Polish interests!
… Of course THOSE Persians. Shah Soliman I is shown.
He threatened the Poles in Persia that he would sell them into slavery, they in turn tried to kill him. At some point, the representative of the Republic of Poland decided to stay permanently in Persia and convert to Islam. Then he changed his mind, returned to Poland, explained his actions and returned to Isfahan many times.
Persian libation in honor of Sobieski
It was with the help of this bizarre type that Jan III Sobieski tried to draw Persia into the anti-Turkish alliance. After the victory over the Turks at Vienna in 1683, there was a chance for specifics, not only diplomatic pleasantries (of course, there were also the latter, for example, Sobieski slept under the canopy he received from the Shah).
Soliman's reaction to the news of the Viennese victory was quite encouraging.
The Shah, overjoyed at the defeat of his greatest and most dangerous enemy, was then to address Grudziecki like the second Clodwig: "Tell your Lord that as soon as he conquers Constantinople, I alone with my court and all the officials in my country, I am about to embrace Christianity! ”
Then he ordered the wine to be served and, with all the council around him, got drunk in honor of the Polish king (Brzeziński, Missionaries and diplomats , p. 34).
Shah and his surroundings. The same neighborhood that got drunk in honor of Jan Sobieski.
In July 1685, another envoy from Sobieski, Salomon Syri Zgórka, a Syrian Armenian, brought up in Portugal, arrived in Isfahan. More or less at the same time other people reported:a Pole named Kantecki and an Armenian named Teodor Mirowicz. Their task was to bring Soliman into the anti-Ottoman coalition.
The war of interviews
Sobieski's representatives pointed to the weakening of Turkey and the possibility of regaining Mesopotamia from Turkish hands. They tempted the Shah with the vision that, after finally defeating the enemy, Persia would take over Arabia with Mecca, which would bring huge revenues from customs duties and fees charged to pilgrims. Regardless of this, they created the legend of Sobieski in Persia, who began to be called "El ghazi", God's Hero .
Everything was going according to plan. Although Soliman delayed the answer, he began to gather troops and move them towards the Persian-Turkish border. Polish diplomats were of good cheer. After a few weeks, the Shah unexpectedly suspended military preparations, officially waiting for more information about the defeats of the Turks. It was just an excuse.
The Ottoman diplomacy did not fall asleep in the ashes and won over the Grand Vizier, person number 2 in Persia, for its cause. In addition, the French intervened in the person of the monk Raphael du Mons, the translator of Soliman. France did not want Turkey to fall because it would strengthen its greatest enemies - the Austrian Habsburgs.
I want to but can't
Polish deputies waited months for the Shah's answer. They heard her only on March 20, 1686, at a ceremonial audience. They were informed that religion did not allow the Persians to go against the Turks and they have not made any claims to Mesopotamia since they made up for its loss with gains in Armenia.
Saint John Sobieski? Polish agents went to great lengths to make the Persians perceive him as a "Divine Hero".
Sobieski's representatives did not give up. They recalled that the Turks had no objection to attacking their Persian fellow believers. However, the Shah had already made a decision and did not intend to change it.
- Yes Thus, Sobieski's great diplomatic effort did not achieve its goal. It would not be relevant today to wonder what the effects of Persian subversion might be. It can only be said that Soliman's refusal saved Turkey from a terrible crash and that it delayed the solution of the eastern question for several centuries - commented in 1926 the historian Czesław Chowaniec, dealing with the eastern policy of the victors from Vienna.
The Ethiopians will help us!
Persia, however, was not the only potential ally in the fight against the Ottoman Empire. A truly exotic idea was an attempt to involve Abyssinia in the anti-Turkish coalition. In 1686, Jan Sobieski planned to send a legation there with the appropriate letters, and the mediator in talks with the ruler of Abyssinia was to be the patriarch of "this people in Cairo".
Do you find the plan of the alliance with the Persians too realistic? There was also a project of a Polish-Abyssinian alliance!
The Abyssinians would attack Egypt, which at that time was in Turkish hands. Nothing else is known about the message - although, who knows ... Maybe one day there will be sources about the envoys of Jan III Sobieski who traveled several thousand kilometers to make an unusual offer to the Abyssinian ruler Ijasu the Great?