Augustus The Strong II, Poland

Augustus The Strong II (1670-1733)

Augustus II, likewise called Augustus Frederick, by name Augustus the Strong, Polish August II Wettin or August Mocny, German August Friedrich or August der Starke (conceived May 12, 1670, Dresden, Saxony [Germany]—passed on February 1, 1733, Warsaw, Poland), ruler of Poland and balloter of Saxony (as Frederick Augustus I). Despite the fact that he recovered Poland's previous areas of Podolia and the Ukraine, his rule denoted the start of Poland's decrease as an European power.

The second child of Elector John George III of Saxony, Augustus succeeded his senior sibling John George IV as voter in 1694. After the demise of John III Sobieski of Poland (1696), Augustus wound up plainly one of 18 possibility for the Polish honored position. To advance his odds, he changed over to Catholicism, in this manner estranging his Lutheran Saxon subjects and causing his significant other, a Hohenzollern princess, to abandon him. Not long after his crowning celebration (1697) the "Turkish War," which had started in 1683 and in which he had taken an interest discontinuously since 1695, was finished up; by the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, Poland got Podolia, with Kamieniec (Kamenets) and the Ukraine west of the Dnieper River from the Ottoman Empire.

Trying to overcome the previous Polish region of Livonia, at that point in Swedish hands, for his own Saxon place of Wettin, Augustus shaped an organization together with Russia and Denmark against Sweden. In spite of the fact that the Polish Diet declined to help him, he attacked Livonia in 1700, in this manner starting the Great Northern War (1700– 21), which destroyed Poland monetarily. In July 1702 Augustus' powers were driven back and vanquished by King Charles XII of Sweden at Kliszów, upper east of Kraków. Dismissed by one of the Polish groups in July 1704, he fled to Saxony, which the Swedes attacked in 1706. Charles XII constrained Augustus to sign the Treaty of Altranstädt (September 1706), formally abandoning and perceiving Sweden's competitor, Stanisław Leszczyński, as lord of Poland (see Altranstädt, arrangements of). In 1709, after Russia vanquished Sweden at the Battle of Poltava, Augustus proclaimed the settlement void and, bolstered by Tsar Peter I the Great, again progressed toward becoming ruler of Poland.

At the point when Russia mediated (1716– 17) in an inner question amongst Augustus and nonconformist Polish nobles (Confederation of Tarnogród) and, in 1720, added Livonia, the ruler saw the peril of Russia's developing impact in Polish undertakings.