Quote Originally Posted by Watchman

What, you mean the state of Poland was at some point actually able to fix those problems given the ability of the feudal landholders to flatly torpedo any and all laws they didn't like - and their intense dislike of any and all measures that even looked like they'd strenghten the King in relation to themselves nevermind now at their expense...?
More than a couple of times. The main thing was to get support of the public opinion and hey presto big armies appear - it was the case in 1579-82, 1621, 1633-35, 1651, 1656-60, 1673-76, 1683~~~1699 (to some extend here).


Besides they were NOT feudal landholders - the full rights were a matter of noble birth which DID include numerous landless nobles - overall 10-15 % of the population.

It was always the question of an AGREEMENT - Sigismund III was extremely 'talented' in undermining trust he could earn or by got deafault with the office (kings were highly respected and trusted before him). Wladyslaw IV was much better and even if he had his bad habits (extravagant) he was more able to LISTEN and TALK and those were the essential elements to achieve anything in the democratic Commonwealth.
Sigismund III managed to start 2-3 unnecessary wars, a civil war and almost got himself killed in the first ever assassination attempt in the entire history of Polish monarchs. As Jan Zamoyski said 'our little, numb devil from Sweden' - but it was him who tried to use the man as a puppet, which sadly was not possible.

If you mean the famous three-day battle, well, it was pretty much a total rout wasn't it ? And the fact they had to flee over bridges meant the Swedes were somewhat unusually able to actually catch a fair few of the Poles, which would certainly have made it a rather bloodier defeat than the usual dispersals of Polish armies in the field...

If it happened... It might be a rout in the end, but please - the Swedish-Brandenburg army wasn't able to exploit the limited victory.
The assembled militia force was able to run faster than anyone could get them.
Also the Allied force wasn't able to pursue them at that time or not much later anyway.


The losses on Polish-Lithuanian side cannot be higher than 4000, but usually are counted around 1500-2000.

Some people just have rather 'colourful' imagination and as I know the battle is obscured with some weird myths in Sweden, but well... it is hard to build a reliable picture of a clash without reading the opposite sources which as we know are in Polish - the language so 'many' Swedes fluently speak.


In recent decades (since 1989) wars of the 1st Republic are again studied and researched in Poland -before it was 'burguise, imperialistic and definetely anti-Soviet (because Russia was destined to become Soviet Union as all people in the XVIIth century would agree ) anti-revolutionary force, so the studies were made unpopular unless you were really lucky/stubborn/didn't care for material goods in this life.
So in numerous researches the earlier inventions of mainly XIXth century propaganda are revised and some long forgotten battles re-appear ( Shklov 1654, Konotop 1659, Basia 1660 etc) - Warsaw was one of better researched before and now it might be seen as wasted opportunity, but nothing more than very limited tactical victory of Swedish-Brandenburgian force.
War was lost in the winter 1655-56 by Sweden and later nothing could be done with it except losing it earlier. Warsaw would matter if Charles X Gustav was killed - otherwise it is rather a battle of little importance, though interesting because never before or later Polish-Lithuanian force had so much cavalry militia and so little infantry (usually it was 33-40 %, here it was 8 %).

'Course, I've also heard people who really should know better to honestly think the main tactic of Polish cavalry in WW2 against German panzers was a lance charge (), so you may be on to something here.

Which is a myth especially hard to eradicate, though ironically nothing bad can be said about Polish cavalry's performance against German panzers in 1939 - it was rightly seen as formidable opponent of panzer divisions.

I suggest reading the whole thread from the TWC - link is above in my answer to Innocentus, despite its minor flaws ( the author couldn't know about political situation in Poland and proposed reforms by nobility which king stopped) it is about the most balanced view of the entire war in Royal Prussia in 1626-29.