Orsza 1514 -2022

 Salvete Omnes,

 

and as every year on this day we commemorate the 2nd battle of Orsza 1514AD.

King Zygmunt I Stary (Sigismund I the Old) and his army commanded by prince Konstanty Ostrogski, Ostrogski coat of arms, and hetman Janusz Swierczowski, Traby coat of arms,  won resounding victory over grand prince Vasili III and his  Muscovite army(augmented with the Tatar allied and converted recently into Orthodox Christianity).

 Our king lost Smolensk, his largest and most needed fortress, to Vasili III and his commander Lithuanian Michal Glinski in July 1514- perhaps a 80 thousand strong Muscovy army , with camp followers, servants and retainers, invaded our king's eastern realms in the Spring of 1514Ad.
Polish historian and prolific researcher of this period  prof. Marek Plewczynski puts some blame on the Lithuanian commander prince Ostrogski, who perhaps like the ancient Cuncator tried the tactic of  hanging on  awaiting for the expected large number of Polish Crown troops, but before they could have come to the rescue the fortress of Smolensk fell to mighty charm or magic spelled by prince Glinski. The stronghold at Orsza, however,  defended by Jan Spargeld with resolve and under much less assault than Smolensk withstood perhaps a weaker Muscovite siege and repelled their assaults until king's army came in August.

Having gathered his nobles, retainer, mercenaries and volunteers it was at Minsk in Grand Duchy of Lithuania where our king reviewed his armies before seeing them go east: 

 - 15 thousand Duchy horse - commanded by prince Ostrogski and prince Jerzy Hercules Radziwill.

 - 14 thousand crown horse (heavy lancers, early hussars and light horse armed with crossbows and bows and some early firearms perhaps, and 3 thousand crown  infantry -  this Crown contingent was commanded by Swierzowski, 

 -2,5 thousand court horse, and several thousand of Polish lords private volunteer retinues- commanded by Wojciech Sempolinski, Nalecz coat of arms.

Perhaps as many as 38 thousand horse and men including unknown number of guns, plus many thousands of camp followers and retainers had gathered at Minsk to march onto river and seek a return of captured Smolensk to our lord king's domain.

King decided to stay with 4 thousand soldiers at the fortified camp at Borysow, on the Berezina River, while the combined king's army marched having forded Berezina and forced, with artillery fire,  the vanguard of the Muscovite army to quit the vicinity of Berysow on August 27 and then the royal army marched after the enemy toward Orsza and Dnieper. On the 28 of August Polish vanguard led by Jan Pilecki defeated a Muscovite rearguard ambush, and our royal army continued on the Orsza Road to the Bobr River crossing where at this ford another action was fought, where starost of Rohatyn Jan Boratynski defeated 2000 strong Muscovite command and took their commander, voivode Kiselich(?), prisoner.  During another action by the royal vanguard rotmaister (Captain) Jan Sapieha's command defeated  another Muscovy command.
Voivode Ivan Chelyadnin, who now commanded the entire Muscovy grand prince's field army in this area of war, aided in his command by prince Mikhail Golitza and prince Dymitr Bulgakov withdrew across the Dnieper keen on attacking royal army during their fording of the big river, always a difficult and dangerous maneuver in warfare  for the fording command.

  and so the opposite armies stood, then during the night of 7-8th of September our royal army engineers built two wooden pontoon bridges, on top of wooden large kegs,  the whole royal army crossed fast and the battle joined and the men with lances, bows and arrows, swords, matchlocks and halberds, pikes and axes in hand went to achieve victory.

Ostrogski has become the field victor of this battle  - being supposedly the commander of the combined echelons of the royal army - and here we see this brave Ruthenian as he was seen in this 1540s? Radziwill family painting - now at the Polish National Museum at Warsaw.

Polish heavy lance cavalry and their commander 

early hussars

so let us celebrate with some imagery from the period or near in time period, with some caveat  - our king was unable to recover hie lost city of Smolensk, the most important fortress in that part of  the Grand Duchy of Lithuanian Ukrainian (borderland) zone with the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. It took   circa100 years and a decisive action by our king's namesake Zygmunt, but the III (and his grandson), who campaigned in Grand Duchy of Muscovy and captured Smolensk. 

 ..

 

Valete

Beresteczko 1651-2021

 Salvete Omnes,

another anniversary this month - the gargantuan battle of Beresteczko 28-30th of June 1651 - 370th anniversary of the Polish-Lithuanian(Ruthenian) victory over the rebellious Cossacks and their allies - the Tatars.

Huge victory for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and like Grunwald Ad 1410, this victory in the field was not persecuted to the fullest in the subsequent campaigning, thus allowing the rebellious Cossacks and their Tatar allies to regroup and return to fighting during the autumn of the same year during the so called Biala Cerkiew campaign. C'est la vie - 

Number of combatants must have been huge - more than 80 thousand Polish-Lithuanian troops and national levy, perhaps 2 times as many of camp servants (ox cart and horse wagon drivers were at least as many as the number of those wagons)  on the royal side, and on the Cossack-Tatar side God only knows, more than the Polish-Lithuanian royal host.  So this battle may have been one of the largest of the XVII century.

His Royal majesty Jan II Kazimierz Vasa/Waza was the commander of the Polish-Lithuanian armies and he is the victor of this battle. The enemy commanders - Crimean Tatar Khan Islam Garay and Zaporozhian Cossack Bohdan Chmielnicki - were out maneuvered and their armies routed .

Prince Jeremi or Jarema Wisniowiecki, Korybut coat of arms, already famous for the Zbaraz defense  and his other actions during this terrible war, this time proved his martial prowess again and again, and he gained more fame for his actions during this battle. But he was not in favor with king Jan II, and nothing good came out of it.

Hail the victorious, memento mori to the fallen.

In the coming weeks or even months I will collect and write down  some of the army lists and some other interesting materials related to the battle, like the color of a Tatar horse price Boguslaw Radziwill, Traby coat of arms, captured during the third day of this herculean battle.  

to be continued

Valete

Battle of Walmojza AD 1626 - Polish-Lithuanian army companies

Salvete Omnes,
Wiki Commons has given us access to one unusual XVII century print showing two stages of the winter [January] battle of Walmojza (Wallhof), AD 1626, where Swedish king Gustavus II Adolphus defeated a small Polish-Lithuanian army under starost of Slonim and grand Lithuanian marchall Jan Stanislaw Sapieha, son of Lithuanian grand hetman Lew Sapieha, Lis coat of arms.
Polish-Lithuanian army was divided into two division, starost of Slonim was commanding perhaps a smaller detachment of the Lithuanian army, while the larger one was commanded by the talented hetman Krzysztof Radziwill, Traby coat of arms, who was some 35 km away from the battlefield and in fact was one of the most interesting commanders and tacticians in the Polish-Lithuanian military history.

 Walmojza was the first significant Swedish field victory over the Polish-Lithuanian army, including the winged hussars, during the Polish-Swedish wars for the control of the Baltic provinces and shores.

The map, with all its appearances, looks as it was done shortly after the victory and perhaps represents a piece of Swedish propaganda.
However, even if so  it contains lots of interesting and useful information about the battle, troops involved and even the terrain. or small events taking place during this engagement.
I will attempt to list Polish companies and banners participating in this battle
starting from the top of the first of two prints showing the battle of Walmojza:
right to left of the Polish-Lithuanian army , in parenthesis probable historic names of known commanders :
2 Old kozak-pancerni banners - [commanders' names]
   -Woginski?
  -Zemetowa? [Konstanty Zienowicz]

 2 companies of German 'reitar' cavalry
 -Duce Korfio[Ernest Korff?]

7 banners of winged hussars, under the command of
-Samuel Patz[ Samuel Pac]
-Sanderzewsky?
-Gonsewsky [Aleksander Gosiewski]
-Mlodosky [Mlodski]

artillery - 5 guns with 6 German musketeer infantry 'units'?* standing behind them

7 winged hussar banners - no commanders listed

3 companies of Hajduk infantry
-Racowsky [ Jan Rakowski]
-Kunsacitz [ Marcin Koszczyc? ]

2 Old kozak-pancerni banners
-Krzyzewsky [ Jan Krzyczewski]
-Poplawsky [ Adam Poplawski /Plawski]

so according to the Swedis.h source for this print Polish-Lithuanian army at Walmojza consisted in total of :
20 banners of cavalry - 14 of winged hussars or heavy cavalry,  4 old kozak/pancerni medium cavalry and 2 reitar (pistoleers)
9 units of infantry - 6 'units' of German musketeers*, and 3 companies of Polish infantry.
5 field artillery pieces
 a quick commentary:
from reading Henryk Wisner's article on the very war -  Wojna Inflancka 1625-1629 (Livonian War 1625-29)[1] pp.48058-we can see that the Polish-Lithuanian army at this theater of operations had nowhere near the 14 banners of winged hussars, be it under the command of starost of Slonim or hetman Radziwill -  so this print is quite a bit too optimistic in the portrayal of the Polish-Lithuanian army and represents either  the wrong intelligence the Swedish army command had about their Polish-Lithuanian enemy or it was a willful attempt to make Swedish victory greater, - of the sort : we did defeat the undefeated Polish winged hussars, u la la ! -  than it was in fact.

valete!

[1]Wisner Henryk, Wojna inflancka 1625-1629 [w:] Studia i Materiały do Historii Wojskowości, tom XVI, cz.1, Warszawa 1970
ps




*Michal Kadrinazi wrote some info about of the Duchy of Lithuania infantry during this period.
ps'
Walmojza battlefield as it appeared  in 2009