abstract
| - At the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century, the magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth intervened in the affairs of Moldavia, which was—and had been since its conquest by Mehmed II in the 15th century—a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, the Ottomans were aggravated by the constant raids by Cossacks, then nominally subjects of the Commonwealth, across the border into Ottoman territories. In the meantime, the Thirty Years' War was raging across Europe. The Commonwealth was relatively uninvolved in this war but the Polish King Sigismund III Vasa sent an elite and ruthless mercenary unit, the Lisowczycy, to aid his Habsburg allies. They defeated George Rákóczi of Transylvania at the Battle of Humenné in 1619, and Gabriel Bethlen, the reigning Prince of Transylvania, asked Sultan Osman II for aid. He agreed, and a large Ottoman army was gathered for a punitive invasion of the Commonwealth. On 20 September 1620 an Ottoman army under the command of the governor of Oczakov (Ozi) Iskender Pasha routed the Polish-Commonwealth army at the Battle of Cecora and sent Tatar raiders into southern Poland. The campaign was suspended for the winter but, in 1621, both sides resumed hostilities. In April 1621 an army of 120,000–150,000 soldiers (sources vary), led by Osman II, advanced from Constantinople and Edirne towards the Polish frontier. The Turks, following their victory at the Battle of Cecora (1620), had high hopes of conquering Ukraine (then a part of Poland), and perhaps even toppling the Commonwealth entirely and reaching the Baltic Sea. Khan Temir of the Budjak Horde and the Khan of Crimea, Canibek Giray. Approximately 25% of the Ottoman forces were composed of contingents from their vassal states: Tatars, Moldavians and Wallachians, a total of about 13,000 troops. The Ottoman army had about 66 heavy guns. In Poland, meantime, the Sejm, shaken by the previous year's defeat, agreed to raise taxes and fund a larger army, as well as to recruit a large number of Cossack allies. Polish commander Grand Lithuanian Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz crossed the Dniester River in September 1621 with approximately 20,000 soldiers, joined by 10,000 more led by the future king of Poland, Prince Władysław Vasa. The Polish-Ukrainian-Lithuanian army numbered 30,000 (18,000 cavalry, 12,000 infantry) and their allied Cossack army was composed of 25,000–30,000 troops—mostly infantry—led by ataman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny. The Commonwealth army had about 50 heavy guns.
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