- Battle of Chudniv
Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Chudniv (Cudnów)
caption=Józef Brandt .Polish hussar .
partof=Russo-Polish War (1654–1667)
date=September 27 1660 –November 2 1660
place=Chudniv (Cudnów),Ukraine
result=Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth victory
combatant1=
combatant2= allies
commander1=Stanisław "Rewera" Potocki Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski
commander2=Vasily Sheremetev Timofey Tsetsura
strength1=28,000 Poles with 20 artillery pieces Ref_label|a|a|none
12,000 Tatars
strength2=15,000 Russians with 48 artillery pieces
15,000 Cossacks with several artillery pieces (under Cieciura; not counting 20,000 under Khmelnytsky)
casualties1=Poles: 3,400 dead, 2,500 woundedOssoliński, 1995, p.47-48]
Tatars: 400 dead, 700 |wounded
casualties2=Russians: 2,800 dead, 4,500 wounded, 12,500 captive and all artillery
Cossacks: 2,000 dead, 2,000 wounded, 8,000 |captives (not counting Khmelnytsky casualties)The Battle of Cudnów or battle of Chudniv took place from14 October to2 November 1660 , between the forces of thePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , allied with theCrimean Tatars , and theTsardom of Russia , allied with theCossaks . It ended with a decisive Polish victory, and thetruce of Chudniv ( _pl. Cudnów). The entire Russian army, including its commander, was taken into jasyr slavery by the Tatars.The battle of Cudnów was the largest and most important Polish victory over the Russian forces until the battle of Warsaw in 1920. [Ossoliński, 1995, p.5]
Background
In July 1660, tsar
Alexis I of Russia orderedVasily Sheremetev to resume the sporadicRusso-Polish War (1654–1667) , and push the Poles west, takingLwów (Lviv) and securing disputed Ukrainian territories for Russia.In September 1660, the commander of the Russian army, Sheremetev – acting on misleading information greatly underestimating the numerical strength of the Polish army – decided to seek out and destroy the Polish forces with what he believed would be overwhelming strength (15,000 Russian soldiers and 15,000-35,000 of his Cossack allies).Ossoliński, 1995, p.12-20] Sheremetev's major tactical error was to advance relying on outdated and sparse intelligence reports, and without adequate scouting; [Ossoliński, 1995, p.9-10] he expected only a weak army of 10,000 (in fact, it numbered only about 7,000) under
Great Crown Hetman Stanisław "Rewera" Potocki , and was unaware it was soon to be reinforced by about 12,000 men underField Crown Hetman Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski who had recently defeated Russian army in Lithuania.The Polish commanders —
hetman s Potocki and Lubomirski — had much better intelligence (they were also aided byIvan Vyhovsky 's spy network), and became quickly aware of Sheremetev's error. Polish historian Łossowski notes that "while Shermetev's advanced blindly, Polish hetmans knew almost everything about his army and moves". [Ossoliński, 1995, p.10] The Poles decided to engage Shermetev's forces before he in turn would be reinforced by hisCossack allies. A portion of the Cossacks (about 15,000 underTimofey Tsetsura (Polish: "Tymofiej Cieciura") were to stay with Sheremetev's corps, and another part (about 20,000 underYurii Khmelnytsky ), according to Sheremetev's plan, were to intercept and defeat the 12,000-strong Tatars from theCrimean Khanate under nuradyn-sultanSafer Giray (of whose coming to Polish aid Sheremetev was aware) - but Khmelnytsky failed to do so, with most of the Tatar forces slipping past them around middle of August. Further, Cossack's leader,Yurii Khmelnytsky , was increasingly at odds with Sheremetev (who favored Tsetsura over Khmelnytsky, and who refused to promise Khmelnytsky any loot from the upcoming battles), and was in no hurry to execute his orders or stick to his plan. [Ossoliński, 1995, p.8]Orest Subtelny , "Ukraine: A History",University of Toronto Press , 2000, ISBN 0802083900, [http://books.google.com/books?id=HNIs9O3EmtQC&pg=PA145&dq=chudniv+1660&as_brr=3&ei=EzpsR6uCDYHUiwHvxJxg&sig=1UGOAxtEzlU4_QP3YMA5d3Ps0pE Google Print, p.145] ] The Tatars met Potocki's forces on1 September , and they in turn met with Lubomirski on7 September , while Khmelnytsky were still far from Shermetev's army.The combined Polish army (not counting 12,000 Tatars and 1,500 Cossaks under Vyhovsky) numbered about 27,000 (including about 700
Winged Hussars , 8,000pancerni , 3,500 light cavalry, 1,500raitar s, 5,000dragoon s, and 10,000 infantry). Sheremetev troops (not counting Cossacks) numbered 18,000 (including 4,500 Russian traditional cavalry, 5,500 raitars, 3,500 dragoons, 3,000 foreign infantry and 1,000streltsy ).The Russian army was surprised near
Lubar on14 September . Shermetev'sfront guard was wiped out, and Sheremetev — who until then had failed to send a single scouting party and suddenly realized what was to be an easy victory was a death trap — decided to take defensive positions in a fortified camp. [Ossoliński, 1995, p.22] Numerical superiority of the Polish forces, lack of supplies and several minor defeats convinced him to break away on26 September . The plan succeeded at first. but Polish forces caught the Russian army during its crossing of theIber River, and captured or destroyed a significant portion of the remaining Russian artillery and supplies. The Polish forces caught up again with the Russians on27 September , nearChudniv . At that point, the Russian and Cossack armies had lost about 1,000 troops, and the Poles about 100 (not counting the wounded). Sheremetev also received a minor reinforcement by attaching Chudniv's garrison (about 1,000 troops) to his main army.The battle
Sheremetev decided to stop the Poles by repeating his previous tactics. He burned the town on the side the Poles were approaching from, and created a new camp on the other side of the river. The Poles took the other bank, including the local fort, which Sheremetev abandoned, and which provided them with a useful stronghold and observation point. The Tatars drove the Russians foraging parties into their main camp, but for now no major encounters took place. The Poles were however able to surround the Russian camp, and started engineering works designed to flood their camp.
The Poles learned that a
Cossack army under Khmelnytsky numbering over 20,000 was approaching the area. To prevent it from combining forces with the Russians, the Poles split a 8,000-strong force under Lubomirski, [Ossoliński, 1995, p.31] which stopped the Cossacks nearSlobodyshche (Polish: "Słobodyszcze"). Thebattle of Slobodyshche took place around7 October and8 October ; however, some historians speculate that there was never any battle of Slobodyshche, and it was a misidentification created by Khmelnytsky and Polish commanders (Khmelnytsky did not want to aid Sheremetev, and Poles were able to concentrate on that task); there is however no consensus on that variant. [Ossoliński, 1995, p.39]On
8 October , facing hunger, flooding and low morale, Sheremetev tried to break out of the camp but was defeated. Another attempt on14 October , initially more successful, proved to be also futile and only succeeded in moving the camp to a non-flooded area.In the meantime, Khmelnytsky (also suffering from heavy desertions) decided to enter negotiations with the Poles. The
Treaty of Cudnów was signed on17 October , and mostly repeated the 1657Treaty of Hadiach (although the creation ofDuchy of Ruthenia had to be confirmed by the Polish king) and pledged Cossaks allegiance to the Poles. Having learned that Khmelnytsky signed the treaty with the Poles, Tsetsura decided to defect, and did so on21 October (his Cossacks were however ambushed by the Tatars and suffered heavy casualties). [Ossoliński, 1995, p.44] The Cossacks were no longer allied with the Russians. One Russian army was defeated in the north, and another one tied up inKiev , where they suspected a Polish-Cossack uprising may occur. Russian commanderBoriatyński in Kiev was able to muster only about 5,000-strong army, but retreated to Kiev having learned that Polish reinforcements (numbering about few thousands and led byStefan Czarniecki andJakub Potocki ) were approaching. [Ossoliński, 1995, p.45] Abandoned by his allies, and failing to break through the Polish lines on22 October , Sheremetev decided to enter negotiations on23 October ; he capitulated on4 November . The Russians were allowed to retreat but had to leave their weapons, abandon Kiev,Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi andChernihiv and pay 300,000talar s. Sheremetev and several of his officers were remain Polish prisoners. [Ossoliński, 1995, p.45-46]The remaining Cossacks (numbering around 8,000), abandoned by Tsetsura and Khmelnytsky, left the Russian camp on
3 November , but were ambushed by the Tatars; surrounded and with no help from their former Russian allies, nearly all were taken captive (seejasyr ).Ossoliński, 1995, p.46] The Tatars were however unhappy with the little loot they had captured, but even more with the capitulation - they wanted the Poles, Cossaks and the Russians to fight among themselves as much as possible (since they were all Christian enemies ofIslam ); and attacked the Russian camp after they surrendered, on the night ofNovember 4 andNovember 5 . After a short skirmish with the Poles the latter decided to allow the Tatars to take what they wanted; and even Sheremetev himself was transferred by Poles to the Tatars (he never returned to Russia, and died in 1682 still their captive, although a Cossack army managed to intercept part of the Tatars and take back several thousand captives later).Aftermath
The battle was a major victory for the Poles, who succeeded in eliminating most of Russian forces, weakened the Cossacks and kept their alliance with the Crimean Tatars. The Poles, however, were unable to capitalize on that victory; their army retreated in poor order (there was little aid for the wounded, which accounted for hundreds of deaths after the battle). Furthermore, the country had failed to provide wages for most of the army, which resulted in mutinies in 1661. This prevented the Poles from taking initiative and allowed the Russians time to rebuild their armies.fact|date=June 2008
ee also
*
The Ruin (Ukrainian history) Notes
a. Note_label|a|a|none Numerical estimates are based on 1995 work of Łukasz Ossoliński; in particular his Chapter 3 dedicated to estimating strength of opposing forces. He notes that older historiography often overestimated numbers for that battle (for example, a common mistake in Polish historiography was to estimate Russian forces at 50,000).
References
:Inline::General:
*
* Łukasz Ossoliński, "Cudnów – Słobodyszcze 1660", Inforteditions 2006, ISBN 83-89943-12-3
* Łukasz Ossoliński, "Kampania na Ukrainie 1660 roku"; doctoral thesis (University of Warsaw ), 1995, [http://web.archive.org/web/20040611013227/http://www.historia.icenter.pl/pdf/Kampania_na_Ukrainie.pdf available here]
* Mała Encyklopedia Wojskowa, Tom I, A-J, Warszawa 1967, Wydanie IFurther reading
* Antoni Hniłko, "Wyprawa cudnowska w 1660 roku", Wojskowy instytut naukowo-wydawniczy, 1931
* Romański Romuald, "Cudnów 1660 (Historyczne bitwy)", Bellona 1996, ISBN 8311085900
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.