Vienna 1683-2025 - horses

 Salvete Omnes,

today we commemorate the battle of Vienna 1683 -  I have written many posts on the battle, and I am sure will write many more, God willing. 

I would like to commemorate the struggle with the images of horses from the period paintings, mostly from this one - Anonym Entsatz Wien 1683 (painting in Vienna , Austria). 

Many thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand,  of horses participated in this battle. Horses on both sides suffered from lack of adequate feed. Days before the battle the Ottoman side had to take  their horses across the  Danube River to pasture and hay cutting parties roamed further and further from the besieged city and their own camps. During the battle some horses died from wounds but many more, especially of the Polish cavalry and wagon trains, died from malnutrition and near  starvation (the last couple days before the battle they ate tree leaves or nor food at all,  ). After the battle there was very little fodder  in and near Vienna, captured Ottoman camps had stores of fodder but they were wasted by the pillaging victorious soldiers,  while mostly Polish forces captured more than 20,000 animals in the Ottoman camps, including some very fine Turkish and Arabian noble horses.
Imperial bureaucracy was slow to deliver hay and grain to the encamped armies, while the armies  immediate supplies for men and horses. Only when the Polish royal army decamped away from Vienna and entered the country near Pressburg (present Bratislava) they had enough fodder for their horses - but then many Polish soldiers were sick with fever (bloody dysentery) and dying from this plague.
There was more fighting to be had in October against sultan's vizier Kara-Mustafa and his armies. 

Valete

Battle of Warsaw 1656, July 28-30th

 Salvete Omnes,

the famous battle in the fields of Warsaw's suburb Praga took place between July 28th to 31st, 1656AD.

King of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Swedish king saw their forces struggle for supremacy and glory, while soldier and their horses  fought the actual battle

Carolus X Gustavus

The events of July 29th, i.e., the maneuvers and epic fighting of  the second day are the most notoriously debated - it was the day of the Polish (actually the grand duchy) winged hussars banners famous charge[1] against the allied armies commanded  by the Swedish king.

This three day battle ended in a tactical victory of the Brandenburg-Swedish allies, but Swedish king Charles X Gustavus failed to destroy or even dent the main body of the Polish king's army, and in winning this battle the Swedish side faced again and again the guerilla-style warfare  waged by Stefan Czarniecki and other Polish commanders. On the other hand the withdrawal of the Polish forces from Warsaw led to another surrender of the city and the infamous pillages carried by the allied Swedes and Brandeburg-Prussian soldateska continued for another season..  
We are fortunate to have several prints made by Erik Dahlberg, who participated in the battle, of this momentous event in military history. And some primary sources writtten by this battle's participants, including Lithuanian magnate, Boguslaw Radziwill, who fought on the allied side against his king and country. 

Swedish-Prusian-Brandenburg forces come south from Nowy Dwor

the Polish king's army included an allied light cavalry Crimean Khanate Tatar contingent. Its size has been variously interpreted from the sources (like our Polish participant and poet Wespazjan Kochowski gave the size of the Tatar division at 6,000)  - see the XIX century German researcher August Riese's assessment from a German 1870 book on the battle.

Johan Philip Lemke painted the battle, here a detail from his painting showing winged Tatars with short cirit javelins and swords

I may write more about what the present Polish scholarship presents about the numbers of the king's army 28-30th July 1656.
..to be continued

ps

I could note here that we also have the memoirs or recollection of a westerner on the Polish side, namely, shortly after the battle a certain Scottish officer in Polish service (since March 1656) one Patrick Gordon was taken prisoner by the Brandenburgian soldiers, and general Douglas of the Swedish army came to his rescue, so to speak, hence Gordon went to serve his old masters, the Swedish king's army, but was to be taken prisoner several more times during the Deluge, and eventually ended up in the Muscovite army where he became one of the most strongest supporters of tsar Peter I. But this is for another day.
[1]My friend Radoslaw Sikora wrote a chapter in his dissertation on the winged hussar charge at Warsaw. I may do a little synopsis of his findings.

Valete

Waclaw Boratynski (1908-1939) and his Potop postcards

 Salvete Omnes,

a quick post about an unusual  Polish illustrator and his artwork to illustrate the national epic , i..e., Sienkiewicz' Potop, 2nd novel in the 'Trylogia' ('The Trylogy') cycle.
Waclaw Boratynski (Pracowit z Ryglit)  was an illustrator  and painter, member of Stanislaw Szukalski's Szczep Rogate Serce (Horned Heart Band/Clan). 

Lowicz peasant- male and female-  costume from 1930s

He was mobilized in as the infantry - 18th infantry regiment -  cadet officer (podchorazy) in 1939. He was part of the Polish army defending the city of Lwow against the German invasion, was wounded and died there on Septemebr 25, 1939, his body was buried there but it is said his grave did not survive the war, as Poles were ethnically cleansed (1939-47)  and deported from the Soviet Western Ukraine to the new Polish state. Boratynski's life was cut prematurely and Polish art was deprived of his talent.

perhaps the music platoon of the 1st 'szwolezerow' regiment 

In the 1937-38 he created a series of postcards - available for download at Polona website - based on  the national epic novel 'Potop' ('The Deluge'). Kmicic, Wolodyjowski, winged hussars, Tatars, Carpathian gorale, reiters, Swedish army, Luadanska company etc in these cards

enjoy

Valete

Birth of Argentine Cavalry Feb. 3, 1813 - battle of San Lorenzo

 Salvete Omnes,

today we will canter to Argentina, when the country was being born and its cavalry too. 

I saw this monument by Fernando Pugliese  on the Argentinian portal and decided to do a quick post about the Argentinian cavalry and their first victorious battle, of San Lorenzo, during long war for the Latin American independence. 

In early March 1812 Lt. Colonel Jose Francisco de San Martin petitioned the junta (el Primer Triunvirato) to organize cavalry unit  for the rebellion and on March 16, 1812 the first squadron of the cavalry (Ganaderos a Caballo) was born, housed in the Cuartel de la Rancheria (moved in May 1812 to the Cuarteles de el Retiro) in Buenos Aires. In September 1812 2nd squadron  was organized, and the 3rd was formed in the late 1812.

The  newly formed cavalry regiment consisted of 3 squadrons, 
each squadron :    1 squadron commander, 

1 squadron Corporal Major, 1 Adjutant Major, 1 Guidon Bearer 

1 cavalry captain, 1 cavalry lieutenant and 1 cornet.
9 cavalry sergeants, 3 cavalry corporals, 31 cavalry grenadiers and one cavalry trumpeter
 The cavalrymen were armed with lances, flintlock carbines,   and curved sabres. They rode in the so called Hungarian saddles.* 

Montevideo, the capital of Spanish viceroyality of La Plata, was under siege of the rebellion's forces (or Republican) but royalist organized naval raids on the settlements along Rio de la Plata, using ships,  boats and naval-borne infantry aka marines.  That February 1813 the royalist landing force force, 250 militia infantry with 4 artillery guns, were about to raid the vicinity of the settlement of San Lorenzo.

De San Martin was ordered to 'raid the raiders' and upon scouting the plains around the San Lorenzo Convent he prepared, in a gaucho fashion,  a dawn surprise attack on the raiders coming onto the land from their ships and boats. During this expedition he led 125 cavalry, men and horses, and 50 militia. 

Lt. Colonel de San Martin ordered his cavalry to use their white arms only and his cavalry, divided in two columns of 60 each moved, in a pincer movement, charged the infantry, fought a hard fight and eventually defeated the raiding royalists. 

during the fighting one of the cavalrymen, el sargento Juan Bautista Cabral, saved de San Martin's life, when   lt. colonel de San Martin was pinned down by his fallen horse and in danger of betting killed - as depicted in the said  monument  in from the the modern regiment's barracks. 

* original document printed in ''La Revista de Buenos Aires,' v. Iv, 1864 page 480-1 , 

***

the Regiment is the guard regiment of the Argentinian army - 

Valete

Vaclav Hollar - carriages

 Salvete Omnes,
October is our new 2024 month, and it should be glorious and full of shinning leaves and color.

But we have a new escalation of open warfare in the Middle East - my prayers are with the poor and defenseless civilian population of Lebanon and Holy Land, with Iran, Iraq, Syria Yemen and Jordan perhaps also affected... what a disaster

.. Ad rem, yet again we shall revisit 1630-60s in the continental Europe - and again with our Czech master Vaclav Hollar.
let us enjoy the sumptuous, multi-horses carriages of the nobility as shown in maestro Hollar's prints.

nice group of horse trumpeters on the right

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England -

enjoy 

Valete