Chocim 1673 AD - Jan Sobieski's infantry and cavalry victory

 Salvete Omnes,

On November 11, 1673AD Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth armies under the command of Crown  hetman Jan Sobieski, aided by many capable senior commander like Lithuanian grand  hetman Michal Pac and junior commanders like Mikolaj Sieniawski, destroyed the Ottoman army, commanded by Hussein Pasha,  at Chocim (Khotyn in Ukraine now, by the will of Joseph Stain since 1945). Our king Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki died on Nove.10, 1673.
Polish historian D. Orlowski estimated, in his popular book Chocim 1673 (2007), that there were 27 thousand Crown soldiers, the Grand Duchy of Lithuanian brought close to 7 thousand soldiers. In total some 34 thousand soldiers, 65 cannons and 1 mortar. There are still the armed servants from the noblemen soldiers retinue, and we don't know how many of those participated in the storming of the Ottoman earthworks and camps. We have to take into account the 4-5 thousands of the Moldavian and Vallachian soldiers who came over to the Polish side with their rulers. Their infantrymen must have participated in the storming, capturing and dismantling of the Ottoman earthworks.

Ottoman army under Hussein Pasha, according to the Polish historians, were about 30-31 thousand strong, well provided for with munitions, supplies and fodder for the winter. They had a 25-30 artillery pieces and were in contact with their commands in Moldavia and  Kamieneci Podolski, and it is thought that the some Moldavian and Vallachian troops who had stayed with the Ottomans. They could not count on the Tatars, because these Ottoman vassals had been attacked by the Kalmucks from the  Don steppes, and Zaporozhian Cossacks from the north and west. 

I should add that before the battle there were tournament like duels and fights (harc in Polish) between bravest and most audacious horsemen from both sides. Two Polish notable knights died in these duels on the 9th of November, namely the Sieradz sub-cupbearer Jedrzej Modrzewski and leutenant Florian Maj. Polish-Lithuanian tried to take the earthworks defended by the jannisaries on the 10th but after a number of  very bloody engagements Polish attackers had to withdraw from the Ottoman fieldworks. Polish side maintained formations and martial spirit during the night of 10/11th  and thus Ottoman side had to stay in armor and with arms. 

In the morning of the 11th Polish artillery opened fire - the chroniclers say a quarter hour in duration of artillery fire. At 8 A.M.  in a surprise attack the  Polish infantry regiments and companies, camp servants and dragoon companies stormed the earthworks. with Jan Sobieski with a sabre in hand walked ahead of   his own dragoon regiment, yelling - 'for the love of God, for the [Christian] faith, and churches, for Amor Patria (Love of Homeland), with hope in God attack them courageously.'  many great infantry officers and other commander like the Crown artillery commander Marcin Katski,  Stefan Stanislaw Czarniecki, Korycki, Zebrowski, Denhoff, Tetwin, Heydepol, Pietrzykowski, etc. The rest is history 
We should note that Hussein Pasha, with about 5 thousand spahis cavalry, had made across the Dniester bridge before it collapsed, and found refuge in Kamieniec Podolski, with Halil Pasha.  But 8 thousand spahis perished, 6-8 thousand of jannissaries were cut down, many good commanders were killed or died from the wounds. 3000 Ottoman soldiers were taken prisoner.  
Both the small fort on the Turkish side of the river and the Chocim castle (Nov 13th) were taken.
Jan Sobieski marched his Crown army into the Turkish lands, Moldavia, and the war went on, and it was not going as good as the victory at Chocim promised. Moldavia was to become the object of Sobieski-Ottoman struggle and warfare for the next 20 odd years. But that is for another post. 

 
 The next Spring Jan Sobieski would become Jan III after the free election by the noblemen at Wola, then a village near Warsaw.

Saint Martin in the foreground, with Jan Sobieski and his army at Chocim in the background. 

 I played a little bit with this Vasa battle-flag and changed the Vasa coat of arms to Janina, Sobieski family coat of arms. 

. Jan Huchtenburg painting battle  at the National Museum, at Warsaw.

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Jan Pasek, who was not at the battle, observed  in this Memoirs:   'During this[1673] the Turks did no leave the field [of war], but entrenched themselves at Chocim and encamped there. [..] with the Tatars already having gone from them. In inaudio exemplo (unheard of example) our side decided to take the entrenched camp, first they came close to the fieldworks, had the entire camp circumcirca (all around) surrounded. The  infantry climbed the walls' of  Turkish earthworks, and destroyed these walls nemine reclamante (with nobody protesting), since the Turks did not even fired their artillery, yet they had so many artillery pieces [at their disposal]. Our Lord must have blinded the pagans and taken away their hearts[courage]. for they received our men, who were clamoring to get to them, as modeste as if a guest had been arriving and not the foe.

Polish researcher-historian Zbigniew Hundert published an article [in Polish] on the winged hussar companies at Chocim 1673 - available on Academia. 

Like I write above, many thousands of men and horses died in this struggle, and when the bridge across the Dniester River, from the Turkish entrenched camp to the Moldavianside where there was a small Turkish fort, collapsed under the weight of men, horses and equipment, many more Ottoman soldiers and servants perished in the icy waters of the mighty river. Many perished from the Polish light cavalry pursuit and also from the wrath of the Moldavian peasantry. After the victory and march either back to Lwow or march into Moldavia,  the Polish-Lithuanian camps saw many thousands of horses die from the  very cold weather conditions etc. 
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Perhaps some other time I will write about some aspects of this battle - like the booty and captives and animals taken by the victorious side.

Happy 11th to all Polish people around the globe and to all Veterans

Valete

Tuareg - 1810s description by G. F. Lyon

 Salvete Omnes,

in the past I mentioned the Tuareg people of the Sahara/Sahel - Western and North Africa.

I am reading the a book by George Francis Lyon  (1796-1832) about his travels, 1818-1820,in African Sahel. 

Lyon left a description of the Tuareg, the nomads of the Sahel, who like the Tatars in the eastern Europe prior to their conquest by the Russians, were slavers and lived of  long distance trade across vastness of Sahara etc. 

while Project Gutenberg has a book - People of the Veil - to download and peruse - on the history and anthropology of the Tuareg of the Airs. 

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Valete

Saint Hubertus Day and a beautiful chapel

 Salvete Omnes,

Saint Hubertus Feast day and the iconography of the saint and his hunt are not new to my blog.

We will stay in the French kingdom, at the end of the XV century and early XVI century

From Gallica French National Library, digital division,  comes this illumination ( of the Hours of Anne de Bretagne)  by Jean Bourdichon  painted circa 1503-1508AD - 

a groom or servant with warhorse 

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Fantastic relief from the beautiful chapel, dedicated to saint Hubertus himself, built in the Amboise Castle in 1493AD . Incidentally Leonardo da Vinci is buried inside this beautiful chapel. 

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enjoy

Valete

Venezuela - slaves, pearls, Germans & La Conquista

 Salvete Omnes,

Venezuela has been much in the news - eg. Miami Herald, 

But let us go back to the very early XVI century, when the Spanish conquistadors, acting on behalf of their monarchs, were sailing from their ports in Santo Domingo and conquering other islands of the Caribbean See and slowly moving their settlements onto la Tierra Firme (the Mainland).

One of those regions of la Tierra Firme was the norther coast of South America, today's Venezuela & Atlantic coast of  Colombia. Columbus/Colon was the first to try to esbalish a permanent settlement in la Tierra Firme during his 4th voyage.  In 1499 sailing from Santa Maria, Spain, Alonso de Ojeda and his fleet sailed along the Columbus 4th voyage route, and entered the Gulf of Venezuela and the Lake Maracaibo.  There he saw houses built on stilts over the water and he christened the land - Venezuela (Little Venice). At the Gulf of Uraba our Alonso de Ojeda founded Villa de San Sebastian, end settlement after Columbus' one in la Tierra Firme.

Along the Venezuelean coasts the Spaniards (and others acting in their service) attempted to establish forts already in 1500AD, but the scarce resources and often fierce resistance from the natives derailed these plans.
However, the many thousands of gold hungry settlers who came to La Espanola/ Santo Domingo, later Cuba and other islands,  also started conducting naval slaving raids along the coast, looking for slaves, gold, pearls, Brazil wood; the island of Cubagua was attracting colonization attempts due to the rich pearl deposits. The attempts further east mapped the mouth of the Orinoco River 
... The Franciscan and Dominican monks, Bartolome de las Casas among them, voiced their desire to Christianize the natives in the peaceful manner and with the king's blessing and commendation also established missions sailing from the Caribean ports. But more often than not these missions failed, destroyed by the native warriors. Islands of Aruba and Margarita, very close to Venezuelan coast,  were taken by the Spanish conquistadors.
The warrior-like Carib people of the coast did not prevent of the establishment of  three settlements, Nueva Cadiz (famous for the oyster pearls, infamous for slave-diver  force labor, but destroyed by the tsunami in 1541) in 1515AD/1528AD,  Santa Ana de Coro in 1525AD , and Cumana (used to be called la Atenas venezolana) at the mouth of the Manzanares river in the east 1515AD. Cumana was established in the country of the Carib Indians (then the Cumanagoto tribes under el cacique  Maraguey) , and from the start punitive raids were led by the royal leaders, like capitan Gonzalo de Ocampo. Perhaps the first horses came with the entrada de Ocampo in 1515/1516AD.

In the summer of 1527AD incorruptible Juan de Ampies/Ampues, acting under orders from the Real Audiencia in Santo Domingo, landed in the dry scrubby coast of Paraguana Peninsula, where he founded said Coro. He made amicable and peaceable overtures and treaties with the natives, hence it was a short period of law and order and somewhat peaceful coexistence.  

Then in 1528 CarlosI/Charles V, king of Spanish realms, who was embroiled in the Italian wars  with France, needed money and his bankers, the Welsers, gave him a loan in echange for a indefinite lease in the newly established Coquivacoa (province of Venezuela), known to the Germans ad Klein-Venedig. 
King Carlos obligated the bankers to found two cities, forts and give him one fifth of all profits, but the sly bankers ignored those provisions, reasoning that the land was an ocean away. So begun the German episode of La Conquista in the XVI century. 

Their first governor was one Ambrosio Alfinger (Ehinger), who left Spain via the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda and reasonably quickly landed in 1529AD, took possession of Coro from de Ampues, who went on to protest to la Espanola. Alfinger founded Maracaibo,  and started campaigning against the natives in search of gold, pearls, slaves, and lands. Alfinger's troops massacred whole villages and razed the country from Coro, across the llanos y the Andean cordillera to Cucuta in present Colombia. Alfinger died from the wounds while fighting the Chitareros Indians in 1533AD.

The next Welsers' governor was Hans Seissenhofer, known as Juan Aleman to the Spanish,  then came George Hohermuth von Speyer (Jorge de Espira),  the first official searcher for El Dorado between 1535-1538AD. He died in Coro in 1539 or 1540AD.

Then his lieutenant Nicolas Federmann of Ulm represented the Weslers. We could note that for his transgressions against Alfinger  - the search with troops, including mounted troops, for the route to Asia in the Orinoco basin in 1530 - he was first banished to Augusburg,  where he wrote his Indian History. Back in Venezuela in 1535AD he led many expeditions across the lands, reaching Guajira Peninsula in 1535AD, and in 1538 marched his little army into what was the eastern Muisca Confederation in Colombia,  crossed into La Pampa de Bogota, and in 1539 re-founded the city of Bogota, along with Sebastian de Belalcazar and Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada - all famous conquistadores. He was accused of being a Lutheran and recieved no posts from the king Carlos V. He returned to Europe, was sued by the Welsers and died in prison in Valladolid in  1542AD. Nota bene 64 soldiers from the Bogota expedition received their economiendas from the royal chancery. 

The final conquistador and German official or governor was  Philip von Hutten (Felipe de Utre). In search of riches and wealth he undertook large scale 'entrada' into the Amazon Basin searching for El Dorado  in 1541-45AD, and there during the El Dorado expedition he was wounded while fighting the Omagua tribal warriors. 

His long expedition for riches and wealth came to nothing and he returned much weaker in power and support, facing political challenges. His duties of governonr, like spreading Christianity among the native tribes neglected, settlements left to their own measures etc like Maracaibo and Coro.
He founded various settlements during his expeditions, but he was absent and the Council found his replacement, Juan de Carvajal who took some settlers from Coro and founded his one settlement of  El Tocuyo. There de Utre, along with younger Bartholomeus Welser (son of the king's banker of the same name), confronted his replacement Juan de Carvajal.  The Germans was ambushed, disarmed,  chained and finally killed on the spot by de Carvajal and his people. De Utre left a manuscript  titled ''News from the Indies from Junker Philipp Hutten" (German: Zeitung aus India Junkher Philipps von Hutten), published in Germany in 1785AD.

The last acting official of Welsers' governors was perhaps Melchior Gruber (he was a mayor of Coro in the 1550s),  but  in 1546 Carlos V proclaimed the end of the Welsers' grant. But in law the grant lasted until 1556AD, when Spanish king abdicated in favor of his son, Felipe II.  So ended the German participation in the Spanish Crown conquista of Venezuela.

There are many articles and books written about this Klein Vedig of the Germans in Venezuela. 

Giovanna Montenegro published a book, German Conquistadors in Venezuela ( University of Notre Dame PRess, 2022)

ps
one day I may write a bit about opening of the llanos and cattle and horse ranching in that Spanish America in the XVI century.

Valete