The Commonwealth is not ready for war.…

The Commonwealth is not ready for war.

The royal army numbers barely three thousand men; the Smolensk garrison is about five hundred strong, and most garrisons in the border area are composed not of regular or mercenary soldiers but of one hundred to two hundred local volunteers.

The Sejm (Polish-Lithuanian parliament), aware that Russia is preparing for war, in the spring of 1632 had increased the army by recruiting an additional forty-five hundred men; by mid-1632 the deputy voivode (podwojewoda) of Smolensk, Samuel Drucki-Sokoliński, had about five hundred volunteers from pospolite ruszenie and twenty-five hundred regular army soldiers and Cossacks.

The Senate in May had agreed to increase the size of the army, but Grand Lithuanian Hetman Lew Sapieha had objected, arguing that the current forces were enough and that war is not likely.

Nonetheless the Field Lithuanian Hetman Krzysztof Radziwiłł has recruited an additional two thousand soldiers.