The peace of Stolbova was as favourable an accommodation as the Tzar could reasonably have expected to secure. The surrender of a hopeless pretension to the last shred of Baltic coast still further checked the struggle for an outlet seawards which had been pursued for the last half-hundred years with such discouraging result; but Moskovy got back some of the places which had been wrung from her weakness, and above all gained breathing time to concentrate her energies on the strife with the arch-enemy Poland.
Both parties had made preparation for pushing the quarrel to the uttermost. The Korolovitch[200] Vladislav had, with the insistence of youth, induced the Poles to support him in enforcing his election to the throne of all the Russias, a sovereignty stretching away over a vast expanse of tributary lands till it was almost lost on the horizon of western politics. On the other hand, Mikhail and the Moskovites were braced to fight for their faith, their fatherland, for very existence. [Sidenote: 1616] Vladislav’s enterprise had received the cautious sanction of the Senate and the more unrestrained blessing of the Archbishop of Warszawa, and in a schismatic-Greek church in the old Volhynian capital, Vladimir, a standard bearing the arms of Moskva had been consecrated; a standard which would, it was hoped, draw the Russians over to the cause of the Polish pretender. In the autumn of 1616 a detachment under the hetman Gonsievskie, consisting of a small but capable force, moved out of Smolensk towards Dorogoboujh and camped at the gorodok of Tverdilitz. Instantly the Tzar ordered his voevodas to make a dash upon Smolensk, thus cutting off Gonsievskie’s line of communication and striking at the enemy on their own ground. The move was well conceived and swiftly executed, but its success stopped short at the outworks of Smolensk. The Russians were not well versed in the art of taking a city by sudden assault, and their leader, Boutourlin, remained helpless in his intrenchments for the rest of the year, his troops exposed to attacks from the besieged on one side and Gonsievskie’s skirmishers on the other, and reduced to feed on horse-flesh for want of other provisions. [Sidenote: 1617] The new year witnessed vigorous action on both sides; a Polish force was routed by a Russian detachment near Dorogoboujh, an event which caused much rejoicing at Moskva, while in May Gonsievskie drove Boutourlin from before the walls of Smolensk. The same month another Polish attack on Dorogoboujh was repulsed, and the Russians hoped at least to maintain an effective defensive resistance to the invaders, but the turn of the year brought with it worse tidings. In July the hetman’s troops made themselves masters of Staritza, Torjhok, and other places, and pushed their advance guard into the Bielozero district, and at the same time came news that the Korolovitch himself was marching with a fresh army upon Moskva. At the end of August Vladislav effected a junction with the Malo-Russian hetman Khodkievitch, and two months later Dorogoboujh and Viasma had both been occupied by the conquering Vasa. Mikhail saw the fate of his forerunners looming large upon him, and already perhaps heard the bells of Moskva knelling his overthrow or the crowds of Krakow jeering at his misfortunes. But the winter season brought with it a respite; the Poles were beaten back from attacks on Tver and Mojhaysk, and in December Vladislav retreated to quarters in Viasma. From here he put forward proposals for peace negotiations, hoping perhaps to gain over the boyarins and people to his side without recourse to further fighting. The Moskovites, however, answered the Korolovitch boldly, and seemed as little disposed to yield an inch of territory as he was to abate a jot of his pretensions. [Sidenote: 1618] The first six months of the ensuing year were spent in fruitless discussions, during which time hostilities were as far as possible suspended. On the 29th of June the Poles resumed the offensive by an assault on Mojhaysk, which was defended with spirit against this and several subsequent attacks. Seeing, however, the hopelessness of prolonging the defence of this place against the determined efforts of the Korolovitch’s army, the Russian voevodas withdrew their force on the dark and wet night of the first of August, and retired upon Moskva. Masters of Mojhaysk, the Poles now prepared to clinch their successes by an attack on the capital itself, and Mikhail saw himself threatened in his last stronghold.