What's the most realistic explanation of Poland's downfall from one of the biggest and richest countries of the 17th...

what's the most realistic explanation of Poland's downfall from one of the biggest and richest countries of the 17th century to a bunch of provinces?

>liberum veto

that's just a single factor, there must be more

Being surrounded by Germans and Russians

>Poland's downfall from one of the biggest and richest countries of the 17th century

It had like 3 or 4 million inhabitants and was actually quite poor compared to the rest of Europe. If anything it's a miracle their state didn't end earlier.

Surrounded by more powerful entities, not as rich as an entity its size needed to be, silly governmental structure

Clinging to a decentralised, high-liberty system in an era which favoured centralised autocracy, and a host of other systemic problems. The latter is usually emphasized over the former so I'll focus on the former.

People are also likely to protest about how the "decentralised, high-liberty" was only good for the nobility and terrible for commoners. So I'll just make note of the fact that as the partitions happened, and they took place in three steps over twenty years, the partitioning powers had to really ramp up their border forces to stop commoners from fleeing across the border from their newly acquired lands back into the shrinking Poland.

The reason for that was the same reason why the Commonwealth had no chance to oppose her larger neighbours militarily at the time: the Commonwealth didn't force its commoners into military service via mass conscription.

Russians wanted the Ruthenian land because of muh heirs fo Kievan Rus. Germans wanted Polish land because of muh Teutonic Order. Austrians just wanted land.

no reformation or Enlightenment

>It had like 3 or 4 million inhabitants
Not true. Before the Deluge, the Commonwealth had a population of approx. 12.5 million, making it one of the most populous in Europe. After that, around 8-9, more than a half in Poland.
>was actually quite poor compared to the rest of Europe
Also not true regarding the 16th century. However, the inability to reform and reliance on serfdom, which evolved into a virtual slavery in the 17th and 18th century, caused the Commonwealth to become poor indeed. Still, the Polish part of the Commonwealth kept it up with Prussia/Hungary in terms of wealth. It was the East that was shamefully neglected and backwards. Even in the beginning of 20th century the most common grain-harvesting tool in contemporary Belarus was a fucking sickle. Heck, even my grandfather(I'm Polish) used scythe in the late 50s-early 60s, but that's probably also due to the WW2.

My bad, I recalled that number but after some searching I found out that 4 million figure was ethnic poles living in Poland around the late 16th and early 17th century.

That said, even with 12 million is not that densely populated was it? France was like half the size yet had a population of 20 million around 1600.

It was too liberal

...

Pollacks are pigs literally

It wasn't densely populated but on the whole it was more populous than Prussia, which was one of the powers that partitioned it.

The difference was Prussia (and the other two powers) had conscription and whipped their peasantry into soldiers by force, while the Commonwealth military remained a voluntary one.

Sure it was.

The complaints about serfdom mentioned are valid in the larger scope but rather disingenuous and/or ignorant in context. All three of the patitioning powers had serfdom too. They've also had mandatory conscription where you could get sent off to die for your emperor for 5-10 years on top of the serfdom.

Ethnic Poles constituted about 4-4.5 million, in this you were right. 3 is too much of an understatement, since Poland population-wise was on par with, say, Brandenburg and Hungary.
As for the density you are obviously right, but to compare it with 16th century France is like to compare with nowadays China.
Back to the point of the thread: serfdom and the absolute power of magnates prevented the Commonwealth from having a standing army for a long time. Its tactics were outdated, based ONLY on the cavalry charge even deep into the line infantry era. While in its heyday it proved to be successful, especially against Russia and Ottoman Empire, it was no match for professional armies of 18th century. When the Commonwealth tried to reform, it was too late and the standing army was too small(40k - compare it to, from what I remember, 200k of Prussia), albeit very well trained.

Also, during the 18th c. the parliament was a joke, with two parties of magnate families bribed either by France or Russia. Every time one of them tried a reform, the other would prevent them from it on the orders of their employer.

It was big, it was cumbersome, it was slow and unwilling to change. The nobility had it real good and they had all the power, so why would the country change? The wealth was concentrated at the top and the wealth was mostly from exporting grain to wealthier countries like the Netherlands. It was so decentralised that when one part of the country was literally invaded by a foreign country the other part wouldn't feel compelled to do anything.

The fact that they treated their subjects as shittily as they could to squeeze as much money as possible also lead to internal unrest, like with the Cossack/Ukrainian uprising which pretty much triggered them getting their country destroyed by Russia and Sweden in the middle of the 17th century. Ukrainians weren't even allowed to make their own alcohol.

This combined with ambitious neighbours like Sweden and Russia which were certainly ambitious and willing to develop was a recipe for disaster. Polish outdated castles and tactics pretty much got wrecked by modern infantry and artillery.

Maybe all of Eastern Europe wasn't really liberal to begin with, I was comparing it to Western Europe. Most countries east of the Elbe had serfdom and all that jazz.

>The complaints about serfdom mentioned are valid in the larger scope but rather disingenuous and/or ignorant in context
True, but the serfdom in those countries did not weaken the strength of the ruler. In the Commonwealth it did, since the nobility did not want to send their workers to die in a war and they had the power to prevent it.
And to think that all of this shit started as early as 1374

>Almost all cities, towns, castles and churches in locations where Swedish troops were stationed were destroyed; and as prof. Rottermund says this can be seen even today, as in guides to many Polish towns and cities one will find a note that says "object destroyed during Swedish invasion".
>. After the Deluge, the Commonwealth became a "cultural desert". Poland and Lithuania lost 67 libraries and 17 archives. Of all major cities of the country, only Lwów and Gdańsk were not destroyed, and when Swedish soldiers were unable to steal an item, they would destroy or burn it. In ruins were castles, palaces, churches, abbeys, towns and villages. As a result of the Swedish invasion, few pre-Baroque buildings remained in Poland.
>According to the estimates of Polish scholars I. Ihnatowicz, Z. Landau, A. Mączak and B. Zientara, the invasion by the Swedish army and its allies (Brandenburg-Prussia and Transilvania), resulted in the loss of 25% of the population in four core Polish provinces. Lesser Poland lost 23% of population, Mazovia 40% in villages and 70% in towns, Greater Poland 50% in villages and 60% in towns. Royal Prussia lost some 60% of its population.

Pic somewhat unrelated, too early for Caroleans.

How terrible of them not wanting their workers and themselves sent off to fight and die in service of some despot's dynastic ambitions.

Yeah they did it out of altruism lmao
They were scared of common people taking arms

When did Prussia start conscription anyways? I thought it didn't happen quite until Napoleon.

They started building a national army and reforming their government in the middle of the 17th century inspired by Sweden. Pretty sure that included conscription.

Yeah, see where it got them, their serfs, and the whole of the country

Or inspired by France and Sweden I should say

hmm i'd have to check that. I was always thought the Landwehr was a novel concept introduced after Napoleon. Prussian armies were rarely much larger than 60.000 men and quite often smaller than that.

Not the best source, but at least wikipedia says
>After acceding to the electoral throne, Frederick William started building a standing army through conscription to better defend his state in spring 1644.
And another page mentions a previous conscription system
>On 9 February 1813 a decree replaced the previous conscription system with an obligation to serve by canton Kantonpflichtigkeit),

Proud European tradition of killing polish people started sometime in early 16 century.

I did some quick searching and found out the initial conscription was more limited in scale, the Napoleonic levee en masse applied to a larger group but the army was raised for a shorter time and given less training.

And the autocrats fought their wars out of altruism?

The fact that the they were able to act in their own perceived self-interest over the self-interest of their monarch is testament to how liberal their situation was.

The point I'm making is that the Commonwealth was not autocratic enough to survive at the time and place of its collapse.

>Prussian armies were rarely much larger than 60.000 men and quite often smaller than that.
Prussia was tiny and so was its population.

Not disagreeing with that. Your phrasing just made it sound like they did it out for some sort of good will for "their workers".

>biggest and richest countries of the 17th century
Funny way to spell Russia and the Netherlands.

>Russia
>Rich

The average 17th century Russian had the purchasing power for a 13th century English peasant. Besides Russia was quite sparsely populated and had little urbanization. Or are you referring to the size of the land?