27 September in military history: the Battle of Kircholm, 1605

It was fought on 27 September 1605 (New Style) at Kircholm on the Daugava near Riga, today Salaspils in Latvia, during the war between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden that began in 1600.

The sources differ. Piotr Abryszeński gives 11,000 Swedes against 3,600 men under Chodkiewicz; the Lithuanian encyclopedia gives about 14,000 against about 4,000. Mariusz Balcerek writes of an almost threefold Swedish superiority.

He waited before giving battle, then drew the Swedes off their position with a feigned withdrawal. When they pursued, his cavalry, led by the winged hussars, broke them, and within three to four hours, depending on the source, the Swedish army was smashed.

Estimates of the Swedish dead run from about 8,000 to 9,000. The Commonwealth lost about one hundred to two hundred men, including, according to Abryszeński, only 13 hussars.

No. Some soldiers owed arrears of pay left the hetman, the two sides agreed a truce that lasted until the end of October 1608, and the fighting resumed. The Store norske leksikon writes that the defeat spurred a reorganization of the Swedish army.