- Jan Karol Chodkiewicz
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz (c. 1560ndash
September 24 1621 ) ( _be. Ян Караль Хадкевіч, _lt. Jonas Karolis Katkevičius, in Lithuanian folksongs his name is preserved as Katkus) was a famous Polish-Lithuanian military commander (from 1601 FieldHetman of Lithuania, from 1605 GrandHetman ) and one of the most prominent 17th century noblemen of thePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth .Biography
He was the son of Jan Hieronim (Hieronymus) Chodkiewicz,
Ruthenia n (orLithuania n-Ruthenia n) rootedcastellan of Vilnius (Vilna) and Krystyna Zborowska - daughter of famous aristocratic family from Polonia Maior (Wielkopolska). After being educated at the Vilnius Academy he went abroad to learn the science of war, fighting in the Spanish service underAlva , and also underMaurice of Nassau . In 1593 he married the wealthy Sophia Mielecka, by whom he had one son who predeceased him. His first military service inPoland was against the Nalyvaiko Cossack uprising as lieutenant to hetmanStanisław Żółkiewski , and he subsequently assisted hetmanJan Zamoyski in his victorious Wallachian campaign.Honours and dignities were now showered upon him. In 1599 he was appointed the Elder of Samogitia, and in 1601 Field
Hetman (commander-in-chief) of theLithuania 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 andHetman Jan Zamoyski . A year later, in 1601, he accompanied Zamoyski north, toLatvia , where he commanded Lithuanian army in a victorious battle ofKokenhausen in the war against Sweden for possession ofLivonia . 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 CommonwealthSejm (parliament ) and King Sigismund III, brilliantly distinguished himself, capturing fortress after fortress and repulsing the duke ofSödermanland , afterwards Charles IX, fromRiga . In 1604 he capturedDorpat (Tartu ), defeated the Swedish generals atBiały Kamień in 1604, and was rewarded with the rank of GrandHetman (supreme commander) ofLithuania '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 theDvina River in theBattle of Kircholm (modernSalaspils ,Latvia ) onSeptember 27 ,1605 , when with barely 4000 troops, mostly the famous heavyhussars , 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 relievedRiga besides capturingPernau .Meanwhile the war with
Russia broke out (the Dimitriad wars), and Chodkiewicz was sent againstMoscow 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 toSmolensk . 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 ofDorogobuzh 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 bySultan Osman II in person advanced fromAdrianople towards the Polish frontier, but Chodkiewicz crossed theDnieper in September 1621 and entrenched himself in the fortress ofChocim right in the path of the Ottoman advance. During the battle of Chocim for a whole month the Commonwealth hetman resisted the sultan's 200-thousand army, repelling all its assaults 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 onSeptember 24 ,1621 .Ancestry
familytree | | | | | | | | | | |GRM4|v|GRP4| |GRP3| |GRP3=Chodko Jurewicz |GRP4=Fyodor Bielski|GRM4=Anna of Riazan|boxstyle_GRP3=background-color:#afa;familytree/endSee also
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Lithuanian nobility References
*1911
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