Sobieski’s campaign against Tatars

When it comes to the Polish-Turkish war of 1672-76, most people have heard of two events from that war. The first is, made famous by Sienkiewicz, the capture of Kamieniec Podolski by the Turks in August 1672 and the death of Jerzy Wołodyjowski, and the second event is the Battle of Chocim (11 November 1673), in which Sobieski led the Polish-Lithuanian troops and almost completely annihilated the Turkish army.

Today I will write about a slightly less known event, called in Polish “wyprawa na czambuły” – the Jan Sobieski’s campaign against Tatars. The tactic chosen by Sobieski brought enormous success to the Polish side, but let’s start from the beginning.

The Truce of Andrusovo (rozejm w Andruszowie) from 30 January 1667, ending the Polish-Russian war (1654-67), divided Ukraine into two parts, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth kept the part on the right side of the Dnieper (but without Kiev), and the rest was kept by Russia. Peter Doroshenko, the Cossack Hetman, didn’t agree with the treaty’s provisions and wanted to subordinate all of Ukraine to the Ottoman Empire. He allied with the Crimean Tatars and in September 1667 they attacked towards Lwów, but their plans were thwarted by the Field Crown Hetman Jan Sobieski. An agreement was concluded, which lasted only until the summer of 1671, when the Tatars with Doroshenko’s Cossacks struck again, but were again beaten by Sobieski (from 1668 the Grand Crown Hetman), who then also conquered most of Ukraine (on the right bank). The Ottoman Empire did not interfere yet, but in the fall of 1669 Turkey ended its 25-year war with Venice and was able to focus on the Commonwealth. The pretext for the war was, of course, the Doroshenko’s subordination to the sultan.

On 10 December 1671 Turkey declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but the Commonwealth was torn by internal disputes and in the first half of 1672 both parliament (Sejm) sessions were voided, without approving the expenses for a new enlistment (read some parliamentary journals – a real parody, Lithuanian MPs take offense at the Polish, another MP left the meeting because he did not like the way the vacancies were divided – children would be more serious). In August 1672, the Turkish army of about 80,000 soldiers crossed the Dniester and besieged Kamieniec Podolski (known as the key to Podolia), which was poorly defended (about 1,000 soldiers and several hundred townspeople) and surrendered after less than two weeks. After taking the fortress, the Turkish army moved towards Lwów (also poorly defended), where it arrived at the end of September, at the same time the Tatar raiding hordes (in Polish – czambuły) were released (2 October), in the strength of about 20,000 warriors. Lwów was saved after paying a large contribution (80,000 thalers), the Polish king began peace negotiations but what about the Tatars?

The Tatars usually acted in the same way, setting up one or more camps (depending on the number of Tatars), and from these fortified camps (called kosz in Polish) they let out their bands around the area. After a few days, the warriors returned to the camp from raids, then split the loot and either sent some of them back to Crimea and moved the kosz elsewhere, or, if they had already captured enough loot and prisoners, they all returned to Crimea. The trick was to intercept a czambuł [a plundering raid, a word used in Polish to describe “a pack of Muslim plunderers” – usually Tatars; in Polish, a word czapuł taken from the Turkish czapmak “to run, gallop, invade”] before the Tatars started plundering, which was difficult due to the constant weakness of Polish forces and the speed of the Tatars; or to intercept Tatars returning to Crimea with loot and jasyr [in Arabic esir, in Turkish dialect jesir – means a prisoner, however in Polish this is used to describe a crowd of Christian prisoners in Muslim captivity, but also the captivity itself by Turks or Tatars]. As the Tatar camps were always far away from each other, the only effective tactic was to go between them and attack the Tatar bands one after another. With such a system, the distances between the individual bands were too great for them to help each other.

Czambuły went all over the Red Ruthenia (Ruś Czerwona) and the Lublin region. As the king and the slowly gathering nobles (Levée en masse – pospolite ruszenie) were in Gołąb on the Vistula River, there was little chance that the Tatars would get there as well. Or at least that was the excuse Sobieski used and he took off “to save the king”. His force consisting of 2.5-3 thousand cavalry (mainly Cossack cavalry and Dragoons; according to Jan Wimmer, no hussar banner took part in the campaign) set off on 5 October towards Zamość from Krasnystaw without tabors (wagons) to move faster, but each soldier with an additional horse. On the way, they annihilated a few small Tatar units. Scouts reported in the evening that there was a Tatar camp (kosz) near Krasnobród. Cossacks faithful to the Commonwealth (acting separately) attacked the Tatars from one side (they recaptured about 2,500 jasyr), and Sobieski and his soldiers chased and defeated several smaller units. On 6 October, Hetman Sobieski destroyed, inter alia, two czambuły near Narol, freeing about 2000 jasyr; he also learned that there was a large Tatar camp near Niemirów. After a few hours of rest, the Poles set off in that direction.

On 7 October Sobieski simulated an attack from one side, and attacked with his main forces on the Jambet Giray’s camp from the other. After a short battle, the Tatars started to flee, and the Polish cavalry gave chase, leaving behind a wide trail of the Tatar corpses. The chase lasted until the next day (8 October). More than a dozen thousand captives were released, including a large number of children, and the Poles spent part of the next day looking for children dropped by fleeing Tatars in the fields and woods.

On 9 October Sobieski set off towards Gródek, because Tatars were supposed to be there, but it turned out to be untrue, so he turned towards Komarno, where there was a large kosz with about 11,000 Crimean Tatars and some Lipka Tatars and Cossacks. The Hetman knew there was no time to regroup, because if the Tatars saw them, they would start killing the captives, so he struck immediately, even though he did not have all his banners with him. The fight did not last long again, as Tadeusz Korzon described it: “… and Sobieski began to cut through the dense crowd of Tatars, they were overwhelmed by such fear that some, after a short resistance, started disgracefully escaping backwards, and others forward” (“…i Sobieski zaczął się przeżynać przez gęsty tłum Tatarów, ogarnął ich taki strach, że jedni w tył, a drudzy w oczy, mało co potarłszy się, sromotnie uchodzić poczęli”). About 1,500 Tatars managed to escape, the rest were killed in the chase that lasted until late at night, and about 20,000 prisoners were also freed.

One last large group of Tatars left, under the command of Haji Giray (the name is spelled differently in practically every book). Sobieski thought that he had to look for them in the vicinity of Lwów, when a peasant escaped from Giray’s camp informed him that the Tatars were in the vicinity of Hruszowa, and that’s where the Poles headed on 11 October. For a small fee, a local peasant agreed to lead the Poles through the swamps and backwaters the next day, but they did not find Tatars in Hruszowa. Sobieski decided to rest for a few hours. On 13 October the march continued, and Polish soldiers were often mistaken for Tatars and shot at. In the evening of 13 October they set up a camp near Rożniatów, and there the reconnaissance brought the news that the Tatars would be retreating towards Halicz, to the Bednarowskie forests. Sobieski sent messengers to local peasants with an order to block forest roads. Unable to cross the forests, the Tatars headed towards Kalush.

Polish troops set out after midnight on 14 October. Sobieski didn’t want the Tatars to sneak out, so he divided his forces into several groups and at dawn he attacked the Tatar warriors from several sides at once. The Tatars sent the jasyr ahead, and they wanted to stop the Polish cavalry. However, they couldn’t withstand the charge and began to flee towards Petranka and the Średni Uhrynów, chased by the Poles. The terrain was very difficult for the cavalry, and when the Tatars got to the forest, they got off their horses and began to run away on foot. But peasants armed with a few rifles, scythes and axes were waiting for them in the woods. They finished the slaughter. The killing of the Tatars continued the next day. The peasants did so well that Sobieski even praised them in a letter to the king. About 150 Tatars were taken prisoner, about 6,000 were killed. The Poles had only a dozen or so wounded and 10,000 prisoners were freed.

And that was the last battle of Sobieski’s campaign against Tatars. Most of the Tatar raids looting in the Lublin region and Red Ruthenia, that is about 20,000 soldiers, were killed. According to Sobieski himself, 44 thousand jasyr (prisoners) were freed. Polish soldiers were exhausted, they slept for a few hours a day at most, they ate what they found in the fields, and the country was devastated by war after all. Half the horses died. They covered about 450 kilometres in 10 days. Sobieski ate and slept as much as his soldiers, so not much. It is hard to find a more beautiful example of a cavalry action in the history of Poland. This expedition rightly brought great fame to Sobieski.

Was Sobieski’s campaign madness? Looking at the numbers (6-7:1 in favour of the Tatars), probably yes, but it wasn’t a pure madness – there was a method, or rather a tactic, that Sobieski chose. After all, he didn’t fight the entirety of the Tatar forces, he was attacking individual units, ranging from several dozen to several thousand Tatar warriors, which were often moving slowly, because they were laden with loot and they led the captives. He could also count on help of the local population, who sincerely hated the Tatars.

Sobieski’s successes, however, did not change the main conditions of the peace signed in Buczacz (on 16 or 18 October 1672), under which the Commonwealth lost to Turkey Podolia with Kamieniec Podolski and Ukraine, and was to pay 100,000 thalers of ransom annually, becoming a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. This sum was reduced to 22,000 thalers a year and it was the result of Sobieski’s victorious expedition. As Zbigniew Wójcik wrote in the biography of Jan Sobieski, the Turks “… clearly pointed out to the Poles that they only respect and will respect in the future the attitude presented by the Grand Hetman – an attitude of resistance to the enemy – cowardice and capitulation in fact they despise” (“…wskazali wyraźnie Polakom, że liczą się i będą liczyć na przyszłość jedynie z taką postawą, jaką zaprezentował hetman wielki – postawą oporu wobec nieprzyjaciela – tchórzostwem zaś i kapitulanctwem w rzeczywistości gardzą”).

The treaty in Buczacz was not ratified by the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. New enlistment started, the war was still going on…

Bibliography:

Abrahamowicz Z., Kara Mustafa pod Wiedniem. Źródła muzułmańskie do dziejów wyprawy wiedeńskiej 1683 roku, Kraków 1973

Korzon T., Dzieje wojen i wojskowości w Polsce. Epoka przedrozbiorowa, t. 2, Kraków 1912

Nowak T.M., Wimmer J., Historia oręża polskiego 963-1795, Warszawa 1981

Orłowski D., Chocim 1673, Warszawa 2008

Pajewski J., Buńczuk i koncerz. Z dziejów wojen polsko-tureckich, Warszawa 1983

Podhorodecki L., Chanat krymski. Państwo koczowników na kresach Europy, Warszawa 2012

Sobańska-Bondaruk M., Lenard S.B., Wiek XVI-XVIII w źródłach, Warszawa 1997

Wimmer J., Wojsko polskie w drugiej połowie XVII wieku, Oświęcim 2013

Wójcik Z., Jan Sobieski, Warszawa 1983