The Ottoman-Polish Peace of 1630 in the Correspondence of the French Ambassador Comte de Césy and Diplomacy in Istanbul

Abstract

Ottoman diplomatic historians have recently suggested that the Ottomans pursued a peaceful foreign policy in the second half of the sixteenth century. The present study argues that such a suggestion reflected itself in the frontier negotiations between the Ottomans and their neighbours in the first half of the seventeenth century. In the case study of the 1630 Ottoman-Polish peace, both the peace negotiations carried out on the Ottoman frontier and the diplomatic dealings of the Polish envoy Aleksander Piaseczyński in Istanbul have been highlighted. Reports of European diplomats in Istanbul, especially the undated documents left behind by the French Ambassador in Istanbul, Comte de Césy regarding Ottoman-Polish relations during the period under study were chosen as the source group. This contribution discusses, by pointing to the failure of both sides to stop Tatar and Cossacks raids, that the Ottomans were not so much interested in concluding an official treaty as in renewing a perfunctory peace in order to avoid war on two fronts and, hence, to preserve their political interests.