The consternation at Warsaw was fearful. The king assembled the Pospolite at Golemba, near the capital; but his one aim was to conclude peace on any terms. And advances on Leopol.The Sultan, sending on an advanced guard to besiege Leopol, the capital of Russia, encamped at Buczacz, where amongst the Podolian mountains he enjoyed his favourite pastime of hunting. Meanwhile Sobieski had not been idle. A large body of Tartars had passed into Volhynia in support of the Turks, and, after loading themselves with spoil and with a vast train of captives, prepared to beat a retreat. Hovering always on their rear, Sobieski struck a blow whenever it was practicable, and finally caught them in a defile at Kalusz, in the Carpathian mountains. Victory of Sobieski over the Tartars.After a great carnage he dispersed them, recovered the spoil, and liberated nearly 30,000 Polish captives. His attack upon the Sultan’s camp.He then formed the daring plan of a night attack on Mahomet’s camp. By swift and silent marches he approached unperceived, and burst with his cavalry on the imperial tents. For a moment the quarters of the Sultanas were in imminent danger; but the arrival of succours put an end to the raid.
Peace of Buczacz.With his small force Sobieski could do no more than harass the Turkish army, yet it was with indignation that he heard that the king had concluded a peace at Buczacz (October 18th). Michael concealed the terms as long as he could; and this increased the suspicions of the Grand General that they were dishonourable to the country. At length it was found that Podolia, the Ukraine, and Kaminiec had been ceded to the Porte, and that the king had consented to pay an annual tribute of 22,000 ducats. In return for this the Vizier withdrew his army from Polish soil; but he established a vast military camp with 80,000 men at Kotzim, on the Dniester, to overawe the vanquished nation. By this treaty, which he had no power to make without the sanction of the republic, the king of Poland reduced himself to the condition of a vassal of the Sultan.
Hostility of the Pospolite to Sobieski.Yet the leaders of the Pospolite at Golemba, who dreaded nothing so much as a long campaign, were loud in his defence. Suspecting that Sobieski would not accept the peace, they renewed against him the sentence of proscription, and confiscated his estates. On receiving intelligence of these attacks, Louis XIV. offered him a French dukedom and a marshal’s bâton; but Sobieski would not forsake his country. Indeed his position did not justify it; for his party grew stronger day by day, while the Pospolite, ill-furnished with provisions, and rent in pieces by faction, gradually melted away. At length the queen took on herself the part of a mediator, and she was seconded by the Lithuanians, who were weary of anarchy. It then appeared how strong a hold Sobieski had upon the affections of the people. Popularity of Sobieski.When his exploits during the war became generally known there was an immense reaction in his favour. Plot against him.His personal enemies, among whom may be reckoned the king, viewed this with the utmost uneasiness, and a few of them concocted an atrocious plot against him. They suborned a poor noble, named Lodzinski, to come forward in the Diet and declare that Sobieski had sold Kaminiec to the Turks for 1,200,000 florins, and that this money had been seen in waggons on the way to its destination. This calumny raised the Diet to the highest pitch of excitement, and they would have put the slanderer in irons but for the intervention of the king. The army declared that they would wash out the insult with blood; but Sobieski calmed them, and proceeded to Warsaw to demand a trial. He was welcomed with acclamations; the palace of Wiasdow, decorated with all the trophies of Zolkiewski, was placed at his disposal; and Michael sent the Grand Chamberlain to pay him his compliments. Discovered and punished.Lodzinski, when brought before a tribunal of senators and deputies, lost all courage, and confessed that he had invented the story for the sum of 1,000 francs—promised him by certain of the nobles. He was condemned to death; but the sentence could not be carried out without the consent of the Grand Marshal, and he was therefore suffered to live. The nobles who had been his instigators had to ask pardon on their knees.
He persuades the Diet not to accept the peace.The first object of Sobieski in this sudden blaze of his popularity was to procure the rupture of the peace of Buczacz. He at once published a memorandum, setting forth necessary reforms in the administration and the army, and promising that their adoption would ensure a successful struggle against the Turks. The Diet sent him a message in high-flown Polish rhetoric, in which they begged for the presence of that hero “who, if the system of Pythagoras be true, seems to unite in his own frame the souls of all the great captains and good citizens of the past.” He took his seat amid great enthusiasm (March 14th), and easily persuaded the deputies to follow his advice. They did not now dream of paying the tribute. They decreed an army of 60,000 men, the establishment of a war-tax, and the despatch of embassies for foreign aid, and finally placed in the hands of Sobieski full powers both for peace and war. This was in effect to put aside the king, and make the Grand Marshal Regent; but no voice was raised against the proposal. Their confidence in him.Since there was only a trifling sum remaining in the exchequer, Sobieski persuaded the Diet to use the treasure stored up as a reserve in the castle of Cracow. This, with an opportune subsidy which arrived from the Pope, was deposited with him instead of the Grand Treasurer, as the person most likely to use them to advantage.
His difficulties.Such unbounded confidence carried with it a responsibility which few men would have dared to face. Sobieski accepted it cheerfully, yet at the outset of the campaign he had to meet two difficulties, which he had not foreseen. His old enemy, Michael Paz, caused much delay by arriving late with his Lithuanians (Sept. 16th); and at the last moment the king announced that he should put himself at the head of the force. He came, and reviewed the troops; but during the ceremony he was seized with illness; and the next morning the Poles raised a hurra on seeing the “bonzuk,” or long lance, in front of the Grand General’s tent in an upright position—a sure sign that the king had quitted the army. The next day (October 11th), with a force of nearly 40,000 men, and forty small field-pieces, Sobieski began his march.
His plan of the campaign.His plan of the campaign, though simple, was boldly conceived. Having heard that Caplan Pacha, with 30,000 men, was advancing through Moldavia to reinforce the camp at Kotzim, he proposed to cut him off upon his march, and then to turn upon the camp itself. If he should succeed in capturing it, he hoped to isolate Kaminiec, and so to take it by blockade, and recover all that had been ceded to the Porte. He was not dismayed at the lateness of the season; for he trusted that on this account the Turks would be less willing to fight.
March of the army.The banks of the Dniester were reached after three weeks’ march, and here a mutiny broke out among the troops, which was industriously fomented by Michael Paz. They clamoured for rest and provisions; Sobieski promised them both under the tents of the barbarians. “My resolution,” said he, “is not to be shaken. I intend to bury myself here or to conquer. You must do the same, or nothing can save you.” His firmness had the desired effect. They crossed the Dniester and penetrated into the forest of Bucovina; but Sobieski was obliged to alter his original plans. It would have been madness to wait for Caplan Pacha and so give him time to join the camp; and yet his undisciplined soldiery shrank from the inclement plains of Moldavia. He therefore turned aside, and advanced at once on the entrenchments at Kotzim.
Castle and camp of Kotzim.The castle of that name was strongly situated on the right bank of the Dniester, about twelve miles from Kaminiec. Between this and the advancing Poles, at the height of twenty feet from the plain, was the vast fortified camp, unassailable on the side of the river, where the rocks were steep, and surrounded on the other sides by a broad ravine. The ground immediately in front of the entrenchments was marshy, and broken up by rapid streams, and the Turks could sweep it from end to end with their admirable artillery. Within the lines were ranged 80,000 men, the flower of the Turkish army, most of them spahis and janissaries, under the command of the Seraskier[46] Hussein.
Insubordination of Paz.The day after the Poles arrived (November 10th) Paz declared an assault to be impracticable, and announced his intention to retire. Sobieski replied with truth that flight was not in their power except at the risk of extermination. The enterprise indeed seemed superhuman; but the Grand General ranged his troops in order of battle with full confidence of success. During the day a large body of Moldavians and Wallachians,[47] who occupied a spot on the left of the Turkish camp, deserted to the Poles, and greatly raised their drooping spirits. When night came on, the troops were still kept under arms, although the weather was most severe. The snow fell thickly, but Sobieski visited all the posts, and animated the men by his cheerful manner. At length he reclined on the carriage of a cannon and waited for the dawn.
Crisis in Sobieski’s life.It was the crisis of his great career; yet he could not but regard the scene as one of happy omen. On this spot, more than fifty years before, his father had gained a splendid victory over the Turks, which was followed by a long peace. Then indeed the Poles were the defenders instead of the assailants of the entrenchments; but that only made the victory in prospect seem a more glorious prize.