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.