Against all foreign and domestic political resistance, the proven general Jan Sobieski was raised to the Polish throne in 1674. As king, he successfully strove to forge an alliance against the Ottomans, eventually defeating the Turks under his leadership in 1683. The tug of war between the Roman-German Emperor Leopold I, the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I and the French King Louis XIV for the Polish throne and its occupation by Jan III. Sobieski and the threat of the Ottomans dominated European politics in the 1670s and 1780s. In the form of a modern history of diplomacy, the detailed analysis of archival sources in this volume brings the thinking and actions of the European monarchs to life. Above all, the correspondence of the diplomats working for the various European courts about their personal encounters and conversations are presented in detail for the first time. Based on the mutual perception of the protagonists, previously common prejudices are revised and the events are put in a new light.