The Polish Cossack Army
The business of war is the principal occupation of a barbarous people, especially in their early nomadic existence, as in Poland The government of such a rude people is uniformly arbitrary, organized and defended by a savage soldiery, and eventually yields to a military despotism. As the state advances in civilization and refinement, the army becomes a subordinate branch of the government, and equally essential, whatever be the form of the government, and however savage or civilized the people. Peace-making was no part of the business of the early Polish chiefs ; and the subsequent kings pursued the profession of their predecessors.
As far back as history and tradition can trace the annals of the Poles, and their early predecessors, the profession of arms was their principal pursuit; booty was their only reward, and their weapons the only baggage with which they encumbered themselves. During the reign of Boleslas, between 1103 and 1139, the pospolite or militia of Poland was first established. Every palatinate, of which Poland proper contained eleven, was obliged to raise a certain number of cavalry within a stated time, to be subject to the king's orders. All the army, at least those who fought on horseback, were styled nobles.
In the reign of Batory, which commenced in 1575, the strength of the nation was augmented by the establishment of the first standing army, and the introduction of military tactics. One of the most powerful divisions of the Polish army was the Cossacks, or plunderers, as their name implies. Batory was the first prince who reduced this formidable foe to some military order, in the latter part of the sixteenth century. It was that Cossack tribe called Zaporog, or Cosaci Zaporohenses, that was first reduced to military order in Poland. These savages inhabited the islands and swamps of the Dnieper, which served as a barrier and common frontier between them and their warlike neighbors.
In the reign of Sigismund I., they were first armed against the Tartars, under their commander and governor, Daszkiewicz, a Polish officer; and from this time they continued unnoticed, until the time of Batory. The Cossacks were the southern borderers of Poland, and like all other savages of their character, were continually carrying on an irregular and predatory war. All the inhabitants of the Ukraine, which means the frontier country, were, in the course of time, called Cossacks. They were only a military body, and not a nation, as some have erroneously supposed. Chevalier, very properly, compares them to the Francarchers, who were formerly established in France by Charles VII. It was their business every season to make periodical naval expeditions against the Turks, and they frequently advanced within two leagues of Constantinople. Their rendezvous was in the islands of the Dnieper; and when winter approached, they returned to their homes.
Previous to the time of Batory, they generally mustered five or six thousand men. Their war boats were sixty feet long, with ten or twelve oars on each side. They were principally of Russian origin, together with many criminal refugees from Poland, Germany, and other countries. They professed the religion of the Greek Church. Their residence was in those naturally fortified places which arc watered by the Dniester. Their sole business was war ; and, when not engaged in actual service, they occupied themselves with athletic sports, preparatory for the field. They lived by hunting and fishing, and gained their principal support for their wives and families by plunder. They were governed by a prefect or hetman, whose sceptre was a reed, and who was chosen by acclamation in a tumultuous assembly. He was associated with four town counsellors, with the absolute power of life and death.
The Poles gave them the Trychtymirow, in Kiovia. They were well fitted for maritime warfare by long continued habit. Their navigation was carried on by means of boats, with flat bundles of reeds fastened to the sides, to buoy them up, and resist the violence of the waves and winds. With these boats they sailed with great rapidity, and frequently captured Turkish vessels in their piratical voyages.
Formerly, as late as the time of the father of John Sobieski, who describes them very graphically, not many of them used lances; but they were all furnished with arquebuses, and, in this kind of warfare, the kings of Poland could match the infantry of all the monarchs in the world. One of their usual military fortifications consisted of their camps, with waggons ranged round in several rows, called tabor, which were made their last refuge from an overpowering enemy. The Poles were obliged to furnish them with arms, provisions, and forage, for their horses.
In the year 1576, Batory divided them into six regiments, and appointed superior and subordinate officers over them. They were only infantry, until Batory joined to them two thousand horse, and in a short time they became principally cavalry. Their hetman or ataman, or chief, received from the Polish king, as ensigns of authority, a flag, a horse-tail, a staff, and a mirror. Rozynski was their first hetman under Batory. The Cossack army finally pervaded Russia, and constitutes the most terrible military force in all Europe. It was this invincible army, of which Bonaparte uttered that memorable prediction : " Twenty years hence, and Europe will be Cossack or republican."
The Polish nobles were ever jealous of the independence of this wild race, and resolved to reduce them to the condition of serfs. The Jesuits, who could not endure the thought of their adherence to the doctrines of the Greek Church, determined to convert them, sword in hand, to the Catholic faith ; and the king, who was the mere political tool of the nobles and Jesuits, resolved to cut down what little liberty the Cossacks bad. The development of this tyrannical purpose for ever alienated these wild and lawless hordes from Poland, and made them a most cruel foe.
Wladislas erected forts in the Ukraine, to awe them into subjection ; and the Cossacks immediately armed in defence of their liberty. In violation of their treaties, the Poles were guilty of murdering their hctman, and others they had taken prisoners, in the most barbarous manner. The Polish nobles acted on the principle, that treaties and oaths were not binding longer than they served their ambitious.and capricious interest. Treaty after treaty was made and broken by the contending parties, till, at length, these repeated acts of injustice drove the Cossacks again to rebel, who were obtaining victorious advantages when death relieved them from the tyranny of Wladislas VII, in 1648.
John Casimir, or Casimir V., the younger brother of the late king, was called to the throne, equally distinguished for his bigotry and vice - a Jesuit in principle, education, and character. The nobility of Poland continued their cruel oppressions on the Cossacks ; and Casimir connived at their injustice, till, at length, their notorious villany roused them to another revolt.
Chmielnicki, a man of notoriety and power in the Ukraine, having been unjustly deprived of his little farm by the Polish governor, resented the insult, and asserted his right. The governor adding injury to injury, carried off his wife, and burned down his house, in which his slumbering infant was consumed. Chmielnicki drew his sword, and joined the Cossacks, as their leader, to revenge his wife's dishonor, the death of his child, and the destruction of his home.
But Casimir, believing the Cossacks were the aggrieved party, refused to prosecute the war, and restored the hetman to his office by way of conciliation. The Cossack chief withdrew his forces, and entertained negotiations of peace, which were soon broken off by the refractory nobles, who again renewed the war. The Cossacks chastised them severely, and crimsoned their march with the slaughter of the pugnacious aristocrats, while they advanced into Poland, and surrounded the king in his camp at Zborow. This war, in which the Poles were again defeated, ended in a new treaty in 1649, securing to the Cossacks the free enjoyment of their rights and religion.
The treaty-breaking nobles, as usual, again disregarded their solemn contracts, and renewed the war against the Cossacks, with an army of 100,000 nobles, and 50,000 of their foreign troops, who had served in the thirty years' war. This outrage drove the Cossacks to ally themselves with the Tartars. Victory, for a short time, declared in favor of the Poles, and a new treaty was made in 1651. The Cossacks, smarting under the pains of injustice and oppression, joined Russia in 1654, and, reinforced by their new alli:s, again declared war with the Poles.
Not satisfied with the wars and misfortunes of the past, the Poles again declared war with the Cossacks, in violation of the treaty of 1658, which caused a permanent union of the Ukraine and Russia, and ultimately crushed the Polish nation. The Poles, for a time, resisted the Russians, under the command of the great John Sobieski, but were finally compelled to make a treaty of peace in 1667, in which Servia and the Ukraine, on the east of the Dnieper, were ceded to Russia; and the Cossacks or Zaporienses, were to remain under the joint dominion of both nations, to serve either, against the Turks, when required, with the free exercise of their religion.
This was an unfortunate reign for Poland in all its domestic and foreign relations.
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