When was Chodkiewicz born?

Older works, including Britannica, give 1560. Recent research by Marian Chachaj, followed by Karol Żojdź, places his birth between September 1570 and September 1571. His birthplace is given as Stary Bykhov or as Vilnius.

What is Chodkiewicz famous for?

For the Battle of Kircholm on 27 September 1605, where about 3,600 Polish-Lithuanian troops, above all the winged hussars, destroyed a Swedish army of about 11,000 to 14,000 under King Charles IX after drawing it off its hill with a feigned retreat.

How did Chodkiewicz win at Kircholm?

He refused to attack the strong Swedish position, waited for hours, then had part of his army feign a retreat. When the Swedes came down in pursuit, his cavalry charged and broke first their horsemen and then their infantry.

Was Chodkiewicz Polish or Lithuanian?

He came from a family of Ruthenian origin in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Lithuanian half of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and served the shared state as Grand Hetman of Lithuania. Poland and Lithuania both count him among their great commanders.

How did Chodkiewicz die?

He died of illness on 24 September 1621 in the besieged camp at Khotyn (Chocim), while commanding the defense against the army of Sultan Osman II. The Ottomans made peace on 9 October 1621.

Where was Chodkiewicz buried?

His body was taken to Ostrog in Volhynia, the seat of his wife Anna Alojza Ostrogska's family, where she founded a Jesuit church meant to serve as the couple's mausoleum.

Jan Karol Chodkiewicz: The Hetman Who Won at Kircholm

Q: Who was Jan Karol Chodkiewicz?

He was Grand Hetman of Lithuania from 1605 and Voivode of Vilnius from 1616, one of the greatest commanders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, best known for his victory over the Swedes at Kircholm in 1605.

Quick answer

Who was Jan Karol Chodkiewicz?

Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was Grand Hetman of Lithuania from 1605 and one of the finest commanders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He is best known for Kircholm in 1605, where about 3,600 men, led by the winged hussars, destroyed a Swedish army about three times their size under King Charles IX. He fought the Swedes in Livonia, the rebels at home and Muscovy in the east, and died of illness on 24 September 1621 in the besieged camp at Khotyn, a little over two weeks before the Ottomans made peace.

Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was one of the outstanding European commanders of the early seventeenth century, a hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania whose name is bound to one autumn day at Kircholm in 1605, when a small Polish-Lithuanian army destroyed a Swedish force several times its size. He spent the rest of his life at war on every frontier of the Commonwealth, against Sweden, Muscovy and the Ottoman Empire, and died in a besieged camp on the Dniester while the last of those wars was still being fought.¹

Early life

Even the year of his birth is uncertain. Britannica and the Danish national encyclopedia give 1560, and the older literature agrees. Karol Żojdź, following research by Marian Chachaj, places it between 25 September 1570 and 24 September 1571, which would make the hero of Kircholm a man in his mid-thirties rather than in his forties on the day of his great victory. The sources disagree on the place as well: Britannica names Stary Bykhov, on the Dnieper in today's Belarus, while the Danish encyclopedia names Vilnius.²

He was born into the Chodkiewicz family, Ruthenian in origin and long prominent in the service of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Like many magnates' sons he was schooled at home and then sent abroad to study, and in later life he endowed churches and monasteries of his own. In 1599 he became starost of Samogitia, the first of a run of offices that would lift him to the top of the Lithuanian state.³

He learned his trade under the two great commanders of the Polish Crown in his day, Stanisław Żółkiewski and Jan Zamoyski. In 1600 he made his name in Zamoyski's campaign in Moldavia, and the next year he followed Zamoyski north to Livonia, where the Commonwealth and Sweden were fighting for the Baltic coast and the trade of Riga.⁴ › Jan Zamoyski: chancellor, hetman and founder of Zamość

Hand-colored early modern map of Livonia and the Gulf of Riga with a blue title cartouche — Livonia, the Baltic province contested by Poland-Lithuania and Sweden, in Gerard Mercator's map from the Atlas Minor, published by Jodocus Hondius in Amsterdam in 1609 (National Library of Poland). Public domain

The Livonian war, 1601 to 1605

When Zamoyski returned to Poland in 1602, Chodkiewicz took over the command in Livonia. It was a thankless post. Britannica stresses that he fought with inadequate supplies and little support from the Sejm or from King Sigismund III Vasa, and the National Bank of Poland's biography describes his troops as small in number, unpaid and disheartened. With them he won a brilliant victory over the Swedes at Weissenstein (Biały Kamień, today's Paide in Estonia) in 1604, and the following year he received the great mace, becoming Grand Hetman of Lithuania.⁵

Kircholm, 1605

In September 1605 King Charles IX of Sweden was besieging Riga, and he marched out with most of his army to destroy the Polish-Lithuanian force that threatened his siege. The two armies met on 27 September at Kircholm, on the Daugava (Dvina) upstream of Riga, today's Salaspils in Latvia. Chodkiewicz had about 3,600 men. The Swedish strength is given as about 11,000 by the Museum of Polish History and the National Bank of Poland, and as about 14,000 by Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT.⁶ › Battle of Kircholm, 1605

Dark locator map with a gold star marking the site of the Battle of Kircholm on the Daugava upstream of Riga — Kircholm lay on the Daugava, a short march upstream of Riga, which Charles IX was besieging in 1605. The star marks the approximate site. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

The Swedes stood on high ground in a strong position, and Chodkiewicz would not attack it head on. He waited for hours, then had part of his army feign a retreat. Charles took the bait and ordered his army down onto the plain in pursuit, loosening its formation. At that moment the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry turned and charged, and the winged hussars broke the Swedish horse and then the isolated infantry blocks one after another.⁷

Portrait of a bearded king in black armor with a white collar and gold sash — King Charles IX of Sweden, who led the Swedish army at Kircholm and escaped from the field, in a seventeenth-century portrait by an unidentified painter. Public domain

The result was a massacre. The Swedish dead are put at close to 9,000, the Museum of Polish History estimating 8,000 to 9,000. Polish-Lithuanian losses were about 100 to 200 men. Charles IX himself barely escaped, and the news of the victory travelled across Europe. It became the most famous victory of the hussars.⁸

A few thousand horsemen, held back for hours and then loosed at the right moment, broke an army three times their number.

Panoramic painting of cavalry and infantry formations clashing on a wide plain — The Battle of Kircholm, painted by Pieter Snayers around 1620, a bird's-eye view of the victory that made Chodkiewicz famous across Europe. Public domain

A victory without a harvest

Kircholm lifted the threat to Riga but did not win the war. The treasury could not pay the army, and soon after the battle unpaid soldiers left the hetman or mutinied. At home the Commonwealth slid into a noble rebellion against Sigismund III in 1606 and 1607, and Chodkiewicz stood by the king and fought the rebels. He then returned to Livonia, where the Swedes, remembering Kircholm, avoided open battle and kept to their towns and castles.⁹ › Wars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The wars with Muscovy

The Commonwealth's intervention in Muscovy drew Chodkiewicz east. When the Polish-Lithuanian garrison in the Moscow Kremlin was besieged, Chodkiewicz tried in 1611 and 1612 to come to its aid. He could not break through and had to withdraw.¹⁰

In 1616 he received the senatorial office of Voivode of Vilnius, the summit of his civil career. The following year he went east again, this time with Prince Władysław Vasa, the son of Sigismund III, who still claimed the tsar's crown. The expedition of 1617 and 1618 reached Moscow, but attacks on the city failed and the siege was abandoned. The Truce of Deulino in 1618 ended the fighting.¹¹

Khotyn, 1621: the last campaign

In 1620 the Crown army was destroyed by the Ottomans at Cecora, and the next year Sultan Osman II marched north with a vast army of Turks and Crimean Tatars. The Commonwealth raised a new army and gave its command to Chodkiewicz, now an old soldier in poor health. He gathered it at Khotyn (Chocim), a castle on the Dniester, where it was joined by the Zaporozhian Cossacks under Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny. Estimates of the Ottoman force run from about 150,000 (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) to about 220,000 (LRT); the Commonwealth and the Cossacks together had about 70,000.¹² › Battle of Khotyn 1621

Engraved bird's eye view of a fortified camp by a river surrounded by a huge army — A bird's-eye plan of the siege engraved by Giacomo Lauro in 1624: the fortified Polish and Cossack camp beside Khotyn castle, with the Dniester behind it and the Ottoman army spread around it. Public domain

The fighting began on 2 September 1621. Behind field fortifications, the defenders threw back attack after attack. The hetman did not see the end. His health, poor for years, gave way in September, and he died on 24 September 1621 in the besieged camp. The siege went on without him, and on 9 October 1621 the sultan made peace. The Ottoman offensive against the Commonwealth had been stopped.¹³

Painting of Polish cavalry in battle with a commander on a white horse — The Battle of Chocim, 1621, painted by Józef Brandt in 1867; Hetman Chodkiewicz is shown on a white horse with his mace (National Museum in Warsaw). Public domain

Command style

Chodkiewicz won with small armies. At Kircholm he refused to attack a stronger enemy on ground of its choosing, waited, and used a feigned retreat to draw the Swedes down from their position, so that his cavalry could strike them while they were in motion and strung out. Patience and timing, not numbers, decided the day.¹⁴

He also knew when to dig in. At Khotyn, against an enemy far larger than at Kircholm, he did not seek a pitched battle but held a fortified camp and let the Ottomans wear themselves out against it. Throughout his career he commanded troops who were short of pay and supplies, and keeping such an army in the field, and in hand, was part of his skill as much as the charge itself.¹⁵

Death, funeral and family

Late in life Chodkiewicz married Anna Alojza Ostrogska, of the great princely house of Ostrog in Volhynia. After his death his body was taken to Ostrog (Ostróg), the seat of her family. His widow founded a Jesuit church and college there, and the church was meant to serve as the mausoleum of the hetman and his wife.¹⁶

Legacy and memory

Kircholm made Chodkiewicz famous across Europe in his lifetime, and poets, painters and writers have celebrated him ever since. The Danish national encyclopedia notes that his deeds are praised in several classics of Polish literature, and painters returned to him long after, as Józef Brandt did in his Battle of Chocim of 1867. Khotyn is remembered beyond Poland and Lithuania too: the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine stresses that the Cossacks bore the brunt of the fighting there.¹⁷

Portrait of Jan Karol Chodkiewicz by Marcello Bacciarelli, 1781 — Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, portrait by Marcello Bacciarelli, 1781, painted for the Royal Castle in Warsaw. Public domain

In 2021, the four hundredth anniversary of his death, Lithuania named the year after him, and a bronze relief of the hetman, paid for by a Lithuanian charitable foundation that bears his name, was unveiled on the wall of the courtyard of the Chodkiewicz Palace in Vilnius, now home to the Vilnius Picture Gallery of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.¹⁸ › The Greatest Commanders in Polish History

See his greatest day at the Battle of Kircholm, follow the same day through history on 27 September in military history, or meet his rival for fame in the Crown army, Stanisław Żółkiewski.