Angol békeközvetítés és a lengyel–török tárgyalások a tizenöt éves háború időszakában (1593–1598)
English peace mediation and the Polish–Turkish talks during the Fifteen Years’ War, 1593–1598

Summary/Abstract: The policy of the Polish Kingdom towards the Turks in the 16th century was determined by the ’eternal peace’ concluded with the Ottoman Empire in 1533. The interests of the Kingdom in the Baltics and later towards the basin of the Black Sea required that it should not get into armed conflict with the Ottoman Empire. The Fifteen Years’ War, which broke out in the last decade of the 16th century between the Ottoman Empire and Emperor Rudolph II, put the Polish peace policy to a hard test. Christian solidarity, the political traditions with the Hungarian Kingdom, the more recent relations with the Transylvanian Principality would all work towards pushing the Polish royal court to join the war on the side of the Hapsburg- Transylvanian alliance. This, however, did not happen. Polish interests pointed against joining the conflict. The paper discusses the Polish-Turkish talks between 1593 and August, 1598 on the basis of the reports of Edward Barton, English ambassador to Constantinople. During the period in question English merchants and, along with them, English foreign policy were taking determined steps to establish bridgeheads in the Levantine region as well as in the Baltics in the north. The English were trying to establish strong connections with both the Ottoman Empire and Poland. What could be more natural then, that the English intention to mediate peace in the Fifteen Years’ War and the foreign policy of Poland, which basically wanted peace with the Porte, should meet? The English ambassador to the Porte regularly reported on the events of the Turkish-Polish negotiations, and on the various questions debated by the parties. Early in 1596 Barton was himself participant of the talks as an interpreter and a mediator. The most important items on the agenda of the Ottoman- Polish negotiations concerned the passage of Crimean Tartar auxiliary troops across territories that belonged to Poland, and the establishment of the Polish, Turkish and Crimean Tartar spheres of interest of the Rumanian voivodates. The English ambassador wrote confidently as early as 1596 that the King of Poland would not go to war against the Sultan. Thus the most importan issue of the Fifteen Years’ War from the Hungarian point of view was decided. Subsequent negotiations centred around the division of the western basin of the Black Sea among various powers. In that question Poland was also consulting with the Crimean Khanate. The Sultan was willing to recognize Polish interests in the Rumanian voivodate of Moldva. This, compared to the Polish-Turkish treaty of 1533, which had set the line of the Dniester as the border between the zones of interest of the two states, extended the Polish sphere of interest as far to the south as the Danube delta. The Sultan was also ready to recognize the jurisdiction of the Polish monarch over the territories north of, and, naturally, including, the towns of Kassa, Munkács, and Huszt.

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