The First World War on a European Scale

To defend the city and trade routes, a small fortress was built on the right bank of the Dniester in the second half of the thirteenth century. Later, it was modernized and expanded, with a new drinking well and warehouses.

With the appearance of firearms in the fifteenth century Khotyn Castle underwent a major renovation. Stephen III ordered the construction of new fortified walls reaching forty meters in height. The Hungarian king’s active fortification efforts proved their worth in 1476 when the Khotyn Castle effectively repelled Sultan Muhammad II’s troops.

In 1514, Moldavia fell under Turkish suzerainty. Turkish troops appeared in Khotyn (also known as Chocim). The Turks started building a mosque with a minaret, baths, stables, new warehouses, and workshops. In 1583, the castle was attacked by the Poles.

Protected by its sturdy fortified walls, the city continued to evolve. Now, apart from feudal lords, knights, and merchants, it was inhabited by blacksmiths, tailors, potters, brick and stonemasons, house painters, and carpenters. Fairs were held annually and business thrived as evidenced by a surviving record of tax returns amounting to 10,000 zlotys. Khotyn was turning into a large cattle, grain, wine, fur, rawhide, and jewelry transfer point whence Armenian and Jewish merchants took goods all over Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

There was a strong smell of gunpowder in Europe in the early seventeenth century. It all started in 1618, with Bohemia rebelling against the Habsburgs. The insurgents received help from Hungary, a perpetual thorn in the side of the Austrian emperor. Then Moldavia stepped in, urged on by Poland and eager to rid itself of the Turkish yoke.

In September 1620, an 8,000-strong Polish host led by Grand Hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski advanced on Jassy. The Polish military leader, famous for his victory over the formidable Cossack rebel Nalyvaiko, hero of the 1612-17 Moscow campaign, decided to do without the Cossacks this time, declaring haughtily, “I do not want to fight shoulder to shoulder with all those Hrytskos, let them go work their fields and look after their pigs.” The Polish troops were met by a 40,000-strong united Turkish-Tartar army at Cecora. The Poles were outnumbered and outmaneuvered, and when Moldavian Palatine Graziani came with his 600 men it did not help the situation. The Poles were forced to retreat to Mogilev. Eventually, their encampment was surrounded and destroyed. Zolkiewski was killed and his head was displayed in Istanbul.

Turkish troops seized Khotyn again in October 1620 and this time the sultan was more resolved. The entire Ottoman Empire was preparing for a new war. Military supplies were to be delivered by 6,000 camels and 300 large galleys. Turkish historians maintain that the army numbered 400,000 officers and men. The Poles, however, “corrected” this number, reducing it to 150,000 Turks and 60,000 Tartars. Remarkably, the Turks had secret weapons in their field train: 4 elephants to use against the infidels.

The shock experienced by Warsaw after the Cecora defeat was replaced by panic. Now the Poles had to find allies, on the double. The government turned to Rome and Vienna. The Pope merely expressed his sympathies with Zygmunt III’s “devout efforts aimed at protecting Christendom” and gave no money. The Austrian emperor banned recruitment for Poland in his lands, preparing for a campaign against Bohemia.

In Poland, the situation was far from satisfactory either. Military commanders complained that “some could not be kicked out of the army, not by royal edicts or even with sticks, while others were deserting en masse.” Lithuanian Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was appointed commander in chief of the Polish forces. Sarcastically, he said, “If things look so bad at the beginning, what will they be like afterward?” In the end, some 40,000 men were gathered at Lviv, by hook or by crook, and 38 artillery pieces. They set off to meet the Turks. Characteristically, big Polish magnates avoided the campaign. Prince Zaslawski with 600 men and Palatine Leszczynski with his company were the only ones to report for duty, but without enthusiasm because the whole affair smacked of suicide. But then true allies materialized: Ukrainian Cossacks.

The Cossack Rada (Council) of Sukha Dibrova agreed to help the Polish Kingdom, but on certain terms. To negotiate them, a delegation headed by Petro Sahaidachny set off to Warsaw. Even before the talks were completed Yakiv Borodavka led his 40,000 Cossacks to Moldavia, along with 20 copper and 3 cast iron cannons.

The remaining 30,000 Poles were already at Khotyn, but Borodavka remained on the Ukraine bank. He did not want to cross the Dniester to join the Poles, saying they should do it, join his Cossacks, and then they would proceed together. This childish bickering about who would do what first could have ended in a disaster as the Turks tried to plunge in between the allies and do away with each separately, had it not been for Sahaidachny arriving with his faithful Cossacks from Warsaw, arresting Borodavka and executing him on charges of sabotage.

The Cossacks took up their position to the left of the Poles on August 22, 1621, forming the joint army’s left flank. The Turkish forces reached Khotyn the following day and pounced on the Cossack camp. Chodkiewicz sent Polish regiments to help and the battle lasted until late evening. The Turks put up camp and they felt so sure of themselves that they did not bother to dig a moat or surround the camp with a protective wall. In fact, there wasn’t even a single sconce. Instead, they put forth 400 heavy and light caliber cannons along the perimeter (each heavy cannon could fire a ball weighing up to 55 kg).

On August 24, the Poles attached again, and again the Cossacks took the heaviest blow, but the Turks lost 20,000 men. The following day the Cossacks launched a counteroffensive and burst inside the Turkish camp. The sultan had to take to his heels and stopped only after putting three km. between himself and the headquarters. Had the Poles supported the attack the entire Khotyn campaign would have ended in three days. But the allies remained in defense, so the Cossacks looted the enemy camp, took a dozen artillery pieces, chopped up the wheels of the others, burned down 17 tents, and returned.

The next day the Turks, after regrouping their forces, attacked the Poles on all sides. Jacob Sobieski wrote that “many szlachta aristocrats from most noted families hid in stacks of supplies on carts.” They were saved by their servants repelling the janissaries with stakes and thills as those were about to start plundering their masters’ property.

On March 18, the Turks tried their last offensive but the Cossacks hit their flanks and defeated them. Turkish casualties reached 80,000. Those of the Polish-Cossack allies were smaller but also significant. Both armies were exhausted, the Moslems totally demoralized, and the Christians lacked food and fodder. Something had to be done without delay, so on September 23-25 talks were held, resulting in the Peace Treaty of Khotyn, placing the Turkish-Polish border along the Dniester. Turkey and the Crimean khanate undertook to refrain from acts of aggression against Ukraine and Poland. Poland surrendered Khotyn to the Moldavian principality and undertook to pay a yearly upominky (lit., remembrance) to the Crimean khan. In the diplomatic parlance of the day upominky did not mean tribute but gifts in terms of money, furs, and jewelry, and was supposed to be a reward for Turkish military aid to Poland.

The contracting parties remembered the Cossacks. They forbade them to make raids on the Turks and Tartars and did not pay them anything for taking part in the war. To subdue mutinous Cossacks, Hetman Stanislaw Koniecpolski was dispatched to Ukraine with 30,000 troops. The war continued with varying success. After the battle of Borovytsia the Hetman’s troops sustained such losses that further operations against the rebels threatened defeat. Koniecpolski held negotiations with the Cossack officers led by Doroshenko.

Under the Treaty of Kurukiv (1625), all insurgents were pardoned and the number of Registered Cossacks was increased to 6,000. Annually, they were to be paid 60,000 zlotys and retained the right to elect their leader, subject to approval by the Polish King or Crown Hetman acting on behalf of the king. The Cossack officers undertook to return all Cossacks not entered in the Register (some 40,000) to their former landlords and station a 1,000 strong garrison in Zaporizhzhia to hold the unregistered Cossacks in check. Koniecpolski did not trust the Cossacks much, and ten years later he ordered the construction of a fortress on the Dnieper, known as Kodak (also known as Kudak in Western sources) to secure the implementation of the Kurukiv Treaty, but this is another story.