The szlachta, in its periodic opportunities to fill the throne, exhibits a preference for foreign candidates who will not found another strong dynasty.

This policy produces monarchs who are either totally ineffective or in constant debilitating conflict with the nobility.

Furthermore, aside from notable exceptions such as the able Transylvanian Stefan Batory (r. 1576-86), the kings of alien origin are inclined to subordinate the interests of the commonwealth to those of their own country and ruling house.

This tendency is most obvious in the prolonged military adventures waged by Sigismund III Vasa (r. 1587-1632) against Russia and his native Sweden.

On occasion, these campaigns bring Poland near to conquest of Muscovy and the Baltic coast, but they compound the military burden imposed by the ongoing rivalry with the Turks, and the Swedes and Russians will extract heavy repayment a few decades later.

King Michael Wisniowiecki, a native Pole and descendant of Korybut, brother of King Wladyslaw II Jagiello, had in 1669 been freely elected by the unanimous vote of the Polish nobility but had been chosen chiefly for the merit of his father, Jérémi Wisniowiecki, a great border magnate.

The senior Wisniowiecki had kept in check the Cossacks who, allied with Turks and Tatars, had refused to accept Polish authority in the western Ukraine after the Russo-Polish War of 1658-57; they continue to stage bloody raids in the region.

The junior Wisniowiecki proves to be a passive tool in the hands of the Habsburgs.

The French party, in view of this, rallies round Jan Sobieski, a military commander of rising fame.

Unprepared for war, and torn by internal conflict between the king and the szlachta nobility, the Commonwealth Sejm cannot act to raise taxes and gather a larger army The dissensions between the two camps cost Poland a new defeat at the hands of the united Turks and Cossacks.

Ottoman grand vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed always has the support of the sultan against those who belittle and struggle against him.

Whenever he is away from the capital, Kara Mustafa, husband of his sister, is left as his deputy.

In the battlefield, he also has the close cooperation of Gürcü Mehmed, Kaplan Mustafa, his brother-in-law, and other able generals.

The prestige of the empire that his father had reestablished is so great as to bring under his command during his campaigns in central Europe the auxiliary forces of the vassal principalities—Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia, and the Crimean Khanate.

He has also followed his father's reforms aiming at reducing the number of the Janissaries (the core of the Ottoman standing army) and spahis (the Ottoman cavalry) and makes them more efficient by restoring discipline among them.

Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed also places emphasis on the age-old Ottoman policy of protection of the reaya (non-Muslim taxpayers), which is possible only under a strong central government.

The causes of the Polish-Ottoman War of 1672 to 1767 can be traced to 1666, when Petro Doroshenko, Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine, had aimed to gain control of Ukraine but suffered defeats from other factions struggling over control of that region.

Hetman Doroshenko, in final bid to preserve his power in Ukraine, had signed a treaty with Sultan Mehmed IV that recognized the Cossack Hetmanate as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.

Commonwealth forces had in the meantime been trying to put down unrest in Ukraine, but had been weakened by decades-long wars (the Khmelnytsky Uprising, The Deluge, and the Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667).

Trying to capitalize on that weakness, Tatars, who commonly raid across the Commonwealth borders in search of loot and plunder, had invaded, this time allying themselves with Cossacks under Doroshenko.

They had been stopped, however, by Commonwealth forces under hetman Jan Sobieski, who halted their first push (1666–67), defeating them several times, and finally gaining an armistice after the battle of Podhajce.

Hetman Doroshenko had in 1670, however, tried once again to take over Ukraine, and in 1671 the Khan of Crimea, Adil Giray, supportive of the Commonwealth, had been replaced with a new khan, Selim I Giray, by the Ottoman sultan.

Selim has entered into an alliance with the Doroshenko's Cossacks; but again, as in 1666–67, the Cossack-Tatar forces had been dealt defeats by Sobieski.

Selim now renews his oath of allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan and pleads for assistance, to which the Sultan agrees.

Thus an irregular border conflict escalates into a regular war, as the Ottoman Empire is now prepared to send its regular units onto the battlefield in a bid to try to gain control of this region for itself.

Ottoman forces, numbering eighty thousand men and led by Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed and Ottoman sultan Mehmed IV, invade the province of Podolia in August, take the Commonwealth fortress at Kamianets-Podilskyi and ...

...besiege Lviv.

Sobieski's forces are too small to meet the Ottoman army head on, and can only score several minor tactical victories over the Ottoman detached units.

The Lipka Rebellion, a mutiny of several choragwie (regiments) of Lipka Tatar cavalry in 1672, which had been serving in the forces of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth since the fourteenth century, involves between two thousand and three thousand Tatar soldiers, although exact numbers have not been established.

The immediate cause of the rebellion is arrears of payment of soldiers' wages, although increasing restrictions on their established privileges and religious freedoms also play a role.

Notably, only those Tatar units serving in the army of the Crown rebel, but not the units which serve in the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Some sources also state that an unknown number of Chermis, who had been deprived of livelihood by the Chmielnicki Uprising, also joined the rebellion.

As a result of the rebellion, the Lipkas become subjects of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV.

Initially, the mutinied units join forces with Ottoman allied Cossack Hetman Petro Doroshenko and await the anticipated invasion of the Commonwealth by the Sultan's army.

During the campaign of the Polish-Ottoman War the rebels serve as guides and scouts for the Sultan's main army as they are very familiar with the terrain, and as a result cause great harm to the Polish-Lithuanian war effort.

The leader of the mutiny, rotmistrz (rotamaster) Aleksander Kryczynski, is made the Bey of Bar by the Sultan as a reward for his defection.

While the main Turkish army besieges Kamieniec Podolski, the Tatar units pillages and burns the surrounding areas of Podolia.

On several occasions the Lipkas, dressed in Polish uniforms, would ride into Polish villages as allies, then quickly attack and capture the surprised inhabitants.

The Sultan settles some of the Lipkas around Kamieniec after the city's fall.

These will tend to be the Tatars who do not return to the Commonwealth after the end of the rebellion.

The Kamieniec Lipkas still hold on to their separate traditions to this day.

The expedition in 1672 against Poland, in which the sultan himself has taken part, is a great achievement for Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed.

Under the Treaty of Buczacz, reluctantly accepted on October 18, 1672, by King Michael, Podolia is annexed to the empire, and the Polish Ukraine (the Right-bank Bracław Voivodeship, Podole Voivodeship and part of Kiev Voivodeship; Left-bank Ukraine has been controlled by Muscovy since the Treaty of Andrusovo of 1667) is surrendered to the Cossacks under Ottoman suzerainty.

Poland is also to pay a yearly tribute of twenty-two thousand gold pieces.

The Commonwealth Sejm, with most of the deputies finally united by anger due to the territorial losses and the demeaning tribute (which can in fact be seen as reducing the Commonwealth to Ottomans' vassal), instead of ratifying the peace treaty with the Sublime Porte, finally raises taxes for a new army (an army of about thirty-seven thousand strong is raised) and increases the Cossack register to forty thousand.

King Michael is unable to cope with his responsibilities and with Poland's quarreling factions; he dies at Lviv on November 10, 1673.