| Polono-Austrian War | |||||||||
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 Siege of Danzig |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Poland
|  Holy Roman Empire
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| Strength | |||||||||
| Initial force:
| Initial force:
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 22,800 15,200 killed by disease 7600 killed in combat | 19,900 13,000 killed by disease 6900 killed in combat |
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The Polono-Austrian War (1724-1731) was a conflict fought between the Swedish puppet state of Poland and the Holy Roman Empire. Although Sweden was not technically involved, they provided support to the Poles as if they were. Ending in the defeat of the Polish forces, the heavy toll of the war on the Swedish army forced the selling of West Pomerania to Prussia in return for the Free City Danzig and the revenues coming from the port there. The long sought connection between Prussia and Brandenburg was soon established in the aftermath of the war, and Galicia was annexed by Austria. Augustus II, the king of Poland-Lithuania and elector of Saxony before the Great Northern War, was reinstated to the throne he possessed before 1706.
Starting after the Rzeszow crisis in 1723 according to the political agenda of the Hapsburgs, Charles XII could not stand for the claims on Galicia from the Austrians and decided to send a ultimatum to Austria, demanding the claims be renounced. The letter was ignored by Austria, and another ultimatum, this time by the Hapsburgs, reached Poland as they demanded that Poland cede Galicia to Austria. Enraged, Charles XII had Stainisław I Leszczyński declare war on Austria as Poland, although Sweden itself never did formally declare war. Russia soon joined in as an ally of the Austrians. In his rage, Charles had not considered the possibility of the Holy Roman Empire getting involved, but soon the whole of the Germanic states had joined in. Luckily for the Swedes, as Sweden had never officially joined the war, many of the Swedish holdings in Germany were not taken, although some were sold after the war to pay of war debts.
Throughout the war, Swedish/Polish supplies were low and the influx of Swedish troops in more rural regions of Poland stretched supplies thin. A series of victories for the Hapsburgs on the southern front, mainly at Bielsko-Biala and Gdańsk, improved morale for the Holy Roman Empire. However, battles on the Russian front were going in favor of the Polish, as Swedish reinforcements, especially in the north, were close to the supply, and knocked Russia out of the war with status quo ante bellum in 1724. With more troops freed up to go to the southern front, though, supplies already stretched thin struggled to feed the massive army with even meager amounts of grain. In 1726, 40,000 Swedish troops would be recalled as a huge push through Galicia and West Prussia was enacted by the allied forces. The massive success of the two campaigns spelled disaster for the Polish and the Russian Tsardom rejoined the war in 1727.
After a hasty regrouping effort by the Swedes, 25,000 of the 40,000 troops recalled were soon sent to the Russo-Polish border, but the Russians had already made large territorial gains. The army was poorly organized, and soon defeat after defeat came. The Swedish were driven back to Minsk, where they were defeated, and in 1729, all remaining Swedish forces were recalled to Sweden and effectively knocked Sweden out of the war. Massive offensives pushed into Poland, and Warsaw fell to Prussian hands in 1731, ending the war.
The Treaty of Kraków ended the war, bringing Poland back under the rule of Augustus II. Galicia was annexed by Austria and West Prussia and Posen were absorbed into Prussia. Russia regained lands from Poland lost in the Great Northern War. Under the treaty, Western Pomerania was sold to the Prussians by the Swedes in exchange for 500,000 Reichsthaler (~694,444 USD) and Danzig. The anti-Austrian sentiment in the Swedish Empire soon led to the Swedish involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession.
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