The Election of Stephen Báthory as King of Poland and His Peace Treaty with the Sultan Murad III (1577) from an Ottoman Perspective

Abstract

The second Polish interregnum gave Stephen Báthory, voivode of Transylvania, an opportunity to seek the Polish throne for himself. When he entered the contest, he appeared to be one of the least likely candidates, and would have remained so had the Ottoman Empire not recognized the advantages of supporting him. Sultan Murad III and Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, who also directed Ottoman foreign affairs, exerted significant diplomatic and, at times, military pressure on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the same time, they did everything in their power to persuade Báthory’s much stronger and more promising opponent, the Habsburg emperor, to accept the choice made by the Polish estates. Consequently, one of Báthory’s first major foreign policy initiatives was to stabilize relations between Poland and the Ottoman Empire and to conclude a peace treaty that served as a model for the later Polish–Ottoman treaties and as an example for the first Anglo–Ottoman trade agreement.