Augustus II the Strong

Augustus was born in Dresden on 12 May 1670, the younger son of John George III, Elector of Saxony and Princess Anna Sophie of Denmark. As the second son, Augustus had no expectation of inheriting the electorate, since his older brother, Johann Georg IV, assumed the post after the death of their father on 12 September 1691. Augustus was well educated, and spent some years in travel and in fighting against France.[2]

Augustus married Kristiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth in Bayreuth on 20 January 1693. They had a son, Frederick Augustus II (1696–1763), who succeeded his father as Elector of Saxony and King of Poland as Augustus III.[3]

While in Venice during the carnival season, his older brother, the Elector Johann Georg IV, contracted smallpox from his mistress Magdalena Sibylla of Neidschutz. On 27 April 1694, Johann Georg died without legitimate issue and Augustus became Elector of Saxony, as Friedrich Augustus I.[4]

To be eligible for election to the throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1697, Augustus had to convert to Roman Catholicism. The Saxon dukes had traditionally been called "champions of the Reformation". Saxony had been a stronghold of German Protestantism and Augustus' conversion was therefore considered shocking in Protestant Europe. Although the prince-elector guaranteed Saxony's religious status quo, Augustus' conversion alienated many of his Protestant subjects. As a result of the enormous expenditure of money used to bribe the Polish nobility and clergy, Augustus' contemporaries derisively referred to the Saxon duke's royal ambitions as his "Polish adventure".[4]

Augustus II by Marcello Bacciarelli

His church policy within the Holy Roman Empire followed orthodox Lutheranism and ran counter to his new-found religious and absolutist convictions. The Protestant princes of the empire and the two remaining Protestant electors (of Hanover and Prussia) were anxious to keep Saxony well-integrated in their camp. According to the Peace of Augsburg, Augustus theoretically had the right to re-introduce Roman Catholicism (see Cuius regio, eius religio), or at least grant full religious freedom to his fellow Catholics in Saxony, but this never happened. Saxony remained Lutheran and the few Roman Catholics residing in Saxony lacked any political or civil rights. In 1717, it became clear just how awkward the situation was: to realize his ambitious dynastic plans in Poland and Germany, it was necessary for Augustus' heirs to become Roman Catholic. After five years as a convert, his son—the future Augustus III—publicly avowed his Roman Catholicism. The Saxon Estates were outraged and revolted as it became clear that his conversion to Catholicism was not only a matter of form, but of substance as well.[4]

Since the Peace of Westphalia, the Elector of Saxony had been the director of the Protestant body in the Reichstag. To placate the other Protestant states in the Empire, Augustus nominally delegated the directorship of the Protestant body to Johann Adolf II, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. However, when the Elector's son also converted to Catholicism, the Electorate faced a hereditary Catholic succession instead of a return to a Protestant Elector upon Augustus's death. When the conversion became public in 1717, Brandenburg-Prussia and Hanover attempted to oust Saxony from the directorship and appoint themselves as joint directors, but they gave up the attempt in 1720. Saxony would retain the directorship of the Protestant body in the Reichstag until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, despite the fact that all remaining Electors of Saxony were Catholic.[5]

The wife of Augustus, the Electress Christiane Eberhardine, refused to follow her husband's example and remained a staunch Protestant. She did not attend her husband's coronation in Poland and led a rather quiet life outside Dresden, gaining some popularity for her stubbornness.[3]

Election of Augustus II for King of Poland in Wola near Warsaw in 1697

Following the death of Polish King John III Sobieski and having converted to Catholicism, Augustus won election as King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1697 with the backing of Imperial Russia and Austria, which financed him through the banker Berend Lehmann. At the time, some questioned the legality of Augustus' elevation, since another candidate, François Louis, Prince of Conti, had received more votes. Each candidate, Conti and Augustus, was proclaimed as king by a different ecclesiastical authority: (the Primate Michaŀ Radziejowski proclaimed Conti and the bishop of Kujawy, Stanisław Dąmbski proclaimed Augustus, with Jacob Heinrich von Flemming swearing to the pacta conventa as Augustus's proxy). However, Augustus hurried to the Commonwealth with a Saxon army, while Conti stayed in France for two months.[6]

Although he had led the imperial troops against the Ottoman Empire in 1695 and 1696 without very much success,[7] Augustus continued the war of the Holy League against Turkey, and after a campaign in Moldavia, his Polish army eventually defeated the Tatar expedition in the Battle of Podhajce in 1698. This victory compelled the Ottoman Empire to sign the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Podolia and Kamieniec Podolski returned to Poland. An ambitious ruler, Augustus hoped to make the Polish throne hereditary within his family, and to use his resources as Elector of Saxony to impose some order on the chaotic Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was, however, soon distracted from his internal reform projects by the possibility of external conquest. He formed an alliance with Denmark's Frederick IV and Russia's Peter I to strip Sweden's young King Charles XII (Augustus' cousin) of his possessions. Poland's reward for participation in the Great Northern War was to have been the Swedish territory of Livonia. Charles proved an able military commander, however, quickly forcing the Danes out of the war and then driving back the Russians at Narva in 1700, thereby allowing him to focus on the struggle with Augustus. However, this war ultimately proved as disastrous for Sweden as for Poland.

King Augustus II, by Louis de Silvestre

Charles defeated Augustus' army at Riga in July 1701, forcing the Polish-Saxon army to withdraw from Livonia, and followed this up with an invasion of Poland. He captured Warsaw on 14 May 1702, defeated the Polish-Saxon army again at the Battle of Kliszów (July 1702), and took Kraków. He defeated another of Augustus' armies under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Adam Heinrich von Steinau at the Battle of Pułtusk in spring 1703, and besieged and captured Toruń.

By this time, Augustus was certainly ready for peace, but Charles felt that he would be more secure if he could establish someone with whom he had more influence on the Polish throne. In 1704 the Swedes installed Stanisław Leszczyński and tied the commonwealth to Sweden, which compelled Augustus to initiate military operations in Poland alongside Russia (an alliance was concluded in Narva in summer 1704). The resulting civil war in Poland (1704-1706) and the Grodno campaign (1705-1706) did not go well for Augustus. Following the Battle of Fraustadt, on 1 September 1706, Charles invaded Saxony, forcing Augustus to yield the Polish throne to Leszczyński by the Treaty of Altranstädt (October 1706).

Meanwhile, Russia's Tsar Peter had reformed his army, and he dealt a crippling defeat to the Swedes at the Battle of Poltava (1709). This spelled the end of the Swedish Empire and the rise of the Russian Empire.

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1701

The weakened Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth soon came to be regarded as almost a protectorate of Russia. In 1709 Augustus II returned to the Polish throne under Russian auspices. Once again he attempted to establish an absolute monarchy in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but was faced with opposition from the nobility (szlachta, see Tarnogród Confederation). He was handicapped by the mutual jealousy of the Saxons and the Poles, and a struggle broke out in Poland which was only ended when the king promised to limit the number of his army in that country to 18,000 men.[2] Peter the Great seized on the opportunity to pose as mediator, threatened the Commonwealth militarily, and in 1717 forced Augustus and the nobility to sign an accommodation favorable to Russian interests, at the Silent Sejm (Sejm Niemy).

For the remainder of his reign, in an uneasy relationship, Augustus was more or less dependent on Russia (and to a lesser extent, on Austria) to maintain his Polish throne. He gave up his dynastic ambitions and concentrated instead on attempts to strengthen the Commonwealth. Faced with both internal and foreign opposition, however, he achieved little.[3] In 1729 he established the Grand Musketeers Company in Dresden, one of the oldest Polish officers' schools, which in 1730 was relocated to Warsaw.[8]

Capsule with the heart of Augustus II the Strong in the Dresden Cathedral

Augustus died at Warsaw in 1733. Although he had failed to make the Polish throne hereditary in his house, his eldest son, Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, succeeded him to the Polish throne as Augustus III of Poland although he had to be installed by the Russian Army during the War of the Polish Succession.

In 1936 Augustus was the subject of a Polish-German film Augustus the Strong directed by Paul Wegener. Augustus was portrayed by the actor Michael Bohnen.

The Electress Christiane, who remained Protestant and refused to move to Poland with her husband, preferred to spend her time in the mansion in Pretzsch on the Elbe, where she died.[3]

Augustus, a voracious womanizer, never missed his wife, spending his time with a series of mistresses:[13][14]

• 1694–1696 with Countess Maria Aurora von Königsmarck
• 1696–1699 with Countess Anna Aloysia Maximiliane von Lamberg
• 1698–1704 with Ursula Katharina of Altenbockum, later Princess of Teschen
• 1701–1706 with Maria Aurora, later married von Spiegel, a woman of Turkish origin captured as a toddler named Fatima at the Siege of Buda (1686) and brought up in Sweden as the goddaughter of Maria Aurora von Königsmarck
• 1704–1713 with Anna Constantia von Brockdorff, later Countess of Cosel
• 1706–1707 with Henriette Rénard
• 1708 with Angélique Debargues, French dancer and actress
• 1713–1719 with Maria Magdalena of Bielinski, by her first marriage Countess of Dönhoff and by the second Princess Lubomirska
• 1720–1721 with Erdmuthe Sophie of Dieskau, by marriage of Loß
• 1721–1722 with Baroness Kristiane of Osterhausen, by marriage of Stanisławski

Some contemporary sources, including Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, claimed that Augustus had as many as 365 or 382 children. The number is extremely difficult to verify. Perhaps the number refers not to the king's children but to the nights that he spent with his mistresses. Augustus officially recognised only a tiny fraction of that number as his bastards (the mothers of these "chosen ones", with the possible exception of Fatima and Angélique Debargues,[lower-alpha 2] were all aristocratic ladies):

• In Latin: Augustus Secundus, Dei Gratia rex Poloniae, magnus dux Lithuaniae, Russie, Prussiae, Masoviae, Samogitiae, Livoniae, Kijoviae, Volhyniae, Podoliae, Podlachiae, Smolensciae, Severiae, Czerniechoviaeque, necnon haereditarius dux Saxoniae et princeps elector etc.
• English translation: Augustus II, by the grace of God, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Livonia, Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Podlachia, Smolensk, Severia and Chernihiv, and Hereditary Duke and Elector of Saxony, etc.

• Rosalba Carriera
• Louis de Silvestre

• History of Saxony
• History of Poland (1569–1795)
• Rulers of Saxony
• List of Lithuanian rulers
• Dresden Castle – Residence of Augustus II the Strong

• Media related to August II the Strong at Wikimedia Commons