BATTLES OF CHOCIM (1674)

Two major military victories of the Poles over invading Turkish forces.

AT THE FIRST BATTLE OF CHOCIM, Polish forces, allied with the Cossacks, halted and advance of Ottoman Turks into Poland and ended the Turko-Polish hostilities of 1620-21. That conflict had developed from a series of events during the early years of the 17th century: some noble Polish families forcefully intervened in the affairs of Moldavia which had formally recognized Turkish suzerainty; the Cossacks of the Ukraine who were subject to the Polish king, raided Turkish territory; and the Crimean Tatars, sujects of the Turkish sultan, similarly raided Polish lands.

In 1617 the two countries concluded the Treaty of Busza in which the Turks promised to restrain the Tatars in exchange for a Polish pledge to halt intervention in Moldavia, Walachia and Transylvania as well as to halt the Cossacks raids.

Nevertheless, hostilities erupted again in 1620 after the Turks tried to remove a ruler in Moldavia who was friendly to Poland, and individual Polish nobles gathered a small army to fight the Turks.

After the Poles were annihilated at Cecora (September 1620), the Polish Sejm (Diet), which previously had avoided engaging the Polish nation in a war aganinst the Turks, raised an army, which encamped at Chocim (Khotin, located in modern Ukrainian, on the Dniester River, 30 miles northeast of Chernovtsy). There the Turks attacked; but the Poles, led by Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, withstood their repeated assaults for five weeks. When the Polish defenses did not break under an all-day attack on Sept. 28, 1621, the Turkish sultan, Osman II (ruled 1618-22)), agreed to negotiate. On Oct. 9, 1621, a settlement was reached, based on the Treaty of Busza, providing for each party to respect the other´s territory. In addition, the Turks agreed to place Christian hospodars (governors), friendly to Poland, in Moldavia.

THE SECOND BATTLE OF CHOCIM occurred after the Turks attacked Poland (1672) in support of the Cossacks of the western Ukraine, who were rebelling against Polish rule. Initially successful, the Turks compelled the Poles to accept the Peace of Buczacz (October 1672), by which Poland ceded Podolia to the Turks and allowed the Cossacks to form an independent state in the Ukraine under Turkish suzerainty. But the Polish Sejm refused to ratify the treaty and the war was renewed. Commanded by John III Sobieski, the Polish and Lithuanian army, numbering 35,000 troops, attacked the Moldavian fortress of Chocim.

Husein Pasha with an army of 25,000 was unable to defend the fortress, especially after a contingent of 5,000 Romanians deserted his ranks and joined the Poles. On Nov. 11, 1673, Sobieski destroyed the Turkish Army forcing the few survivors to retreat to the Turkish stronghold at Kamieniec.

As a result of this momentous victory, Sobieski not only was elected king of Poland (May 1674) to succeed King Michael Wisniowiecki who had died on the eve of the second Battle of Chocim, but he also, after conducting several more campaigns against the Turks, concluded the Treaty of Zurawno (October 1676) and regained portions of Podolia and the Ukraine.