Jan Karol Chodkiewicz

Jan Karol Chodkiewicz (1560- September 24, 1621) was a famous Polish-Lithuanian military commander (from 1601 Field Hetman of Lithuania, from 1605 Grand Hetman) and one of the most prominent 17th century noblemen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

[edit] Biography

He was the son of Jan Hieronim (Hieronymus) Chodkiewicz, Ruthenian (or Lithuanian-Ruthenian) rooted castellan of Wilno (now Vilnius). After being educated at the Wilno University he went abroad to learn the science of war, fighting in the Spanish service under Alva, and also under Maurice of Nassau. In 1593 he married the wealthy Sophia Mielecka, by whom he had one son who predeceased him. His first military service in Poland was against the Nalyvaiko Cossack uprising as lieutenant to hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, and he subsequently assisted hetman Jan Zamoyski in his victorious Moldavian campaign.

Chodkiewicz Coat of Arms

Honours and dignities were now showered upon him. In 1599 he was appointed starosta of Samogitia, and in 1601 Field Hetman (commander-in-chief) of the Lithuania army.

Chodkiewicz's first claim to fame were his victories in 1600 during the Moldavian Magnate Wars, where he defeated Turks and their allies, serving under the command of the Polish Chancellor and Hetman Jan Zamoyski. A year later, in 1601, he accompanied Zamoyski north, to Latvia. In the war against Sweden for possession of Livonia he was appointed acting commander in chief of Lithuania after Zamoyski's return to the Poland in 1602. Chodkiewicz, despite inadequate supplies and little support from the Commonwealth Sejm (parliament) and King Sigismund III, brilliantly distinguished himself, capturing fortress after fortress and repulsing the duke of Södermanland, afterwards Charles IX, from Riga. In 1604 he captured Dorpat (Tartu), twice defeated the Swedish generals at Biały Kamień and near Weissenstein in 1604, and was rewarded with the rank of Grand Hetman (supreme commander) of Lithuania's army. Criminally neglected by the diet, which turned a deaf ear to all his requests for reinforcements and for supplies and money to pay his soldiers, Chodkiewicz nevertheless more than held his own against the Swedes. His crowning achievement was the great victory near the Dvina River in the Battle of Kircholm (modern Salaspils, Latvia) on September 27th, 1605, when with barely 4000 troops, mostly the famous heavy hussars, he annihilated a threefold larger Swedish army; for which feat he received letters of congratulation from the Pope, all the Catholic potentates of Europe, and even the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia.

Yet this great victory was virtually fruitless, owing to the domestic dissensions which prevailed in the Commonwealth during the following five years. Chodkiewicz's own army, unpaid for years, abandoned him en masse in order to plunder the estates of their political opponents, leaving the hetman to carry on the war as best as he could with a handful of mercenaries paid out of the pockets of himself and his friends. Chodkiewicz was one of the few magnates who remained loyal to the king, and after helping to defeat the Sandomierz rebellion (rokosz) against the Polish king in 1606-1607, a fresh invasion of Livonia by the Swedes recalled him thither, and in 1609 once more he relieved Riga besides capturing Pernau.

Jan Karol Chodkiewicz painted by Juliusz Kossak

Meanwhile the war with Russia broke out (the Dimitriad wars), and Chodkiewicz was sent against Moscow with an army of 2,000. Moreover, the diet neglected to pay for the maintenance even of this paltry 2,000, with the result, that they mutinied and compelled their leader to retreat through the heart of Russia to Smolensk. Not till the crown prince, Władysław arrived with tardy reinforcements did the war assume a different character, Chodkiewicz opening a new career of victory by taking the fortress of Dorogobuzh in 1617. During that campaign, among many officers under Chodkiewicz's command, was future hetman, Stanisław Koniecpolski.

The Dimitriads had no sooner been ended by the treaty of Deulino than Chodkiewicz was hastily dispatched southwards to defend the southern frontier against the Turks, who after their victory at the Cecora had high hopes of conquering Poland altogether. An army of 160,000 Turkish veterans led by Sultan Osman II in person advanced from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier, but Chodkiewicz crossed the Dnieper in September 1621 and entrenched himself in the fortress of Chocim right in the path of the Ottoman advance. Here for a whole month the Commonwealth hetman resisted the sultan's 200-thousand army, repelling all its asaults till the first fall of autumn snow compelled Osman to withdraw his diminished forces. But the cost of victory was dearly paid for by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A few days before the siege was raised the aged Grand Hetman died in the fortress on September 24, 1621.