Historical calendar: an anniversary of the little-known Polish-Swedish conflict of Rakvere, in which Poles cut out a large enemy army, losing only 1 killed.
Today in our calendar we will look at times of little known Polish-Swedish war.
In 1599 the Swedish invasion of Estonia began. Therefore, Zygmunt III Vasa announced the accession of this land to Poland at the General Sejm of 12 March 1600. He hoped that he could pull the Republic into his fight for the Swedish crown. Unfortunately, before the Sejm decided on hauls, Karol Sudermański's army was already in full force.
Three times weaker than the Swedish troops, forces Voivods of the Venetian Jerzy Farensbach, although they resisted fiercely, they did not prevent the enemy from occupying the main cities inflantic. Additionally, underpaid Polish-Lithuanian soldiers deserted and plundered their own country.
It was only in early 1601, that the Sejm dealt seriously with the Swedish War. Taxes were passed on to the army, which defeated the Swedes in June at the conflict of Kokenhausen. The opponent withdrew in the disorder north, awaiting reinforcements and weapons. At the end of July, he arrived at the Swedish camp close Parnawa, most likely along with immense sums of money, adopted by Wilhelm Oranski, studhoudera The Netherlands, prominent chief Jan of Nassau. It could regroup decimated troops and equip them with state-of-the-art spades and muskets.
Soon, an experienced Dutchman took full command of the Swedish army at the hands of Karol Sudermański. Reorganized troops moved on to a fresh offensive against Poles, but the tough defence of Riga and the epidemic in the attack camp forced the aggressors to retreat again.
A struggled war began, during which Poles recovered almost the full Infinity. Unfortunately, the money allocated to the military by the parliament was exhausted and most of the army withdrew into the country. any of the unpaid soldiers, for a time they maintained from a private box 2 hetmans: Zamoyski and Chodkiewicz, thus continuing the offensive to the north.
After sending the expected money and meals, the Polish-Lithuanian troops defeated the enemy of a number of battles, among others, under the White Stone (26 September 1604) and caused him a devastating defeat at Kircholm (27 September 1605). Earlier there was a less-known conflict at Rakvere.
It happened erstwhile 300 Polish soldiers led by Jan Karol Chodkiewicz went to aid the endangered crew of Rakvere Castle. 500 crewmen joined him. On 5 March 1603 Polish-Lithuanian troops encountered the front defender of the Swedish army of 1,000 soldiers. Colonel Krister Somme commanded the Swedes. As the husaria set off to charge, the tights fled, leaving the isolated peasant infantry.
Winged riders cut off the infantry, to which the tights returned, reinforced by a dense German infantry. erstwhile the Hussars left the peasants and went to the tights, they fled again. Soon, the main Swedish forces commanded by Colonel Anders Lennartsson appeared from Revla. erstwhile the Hussars saw them, she stopped the chase, waiting for her own infantry to arrive. However, this 1 did not come long and Chodkiewicz, seeing a considerable advantage of the enemy's numbers, withdrew. Lennartsson was besides afraid to attack and decided the another way around.
The Polish side lost only 1 killed and 2 wounded in the battle. The beaten Swedes lost 70 dense Germans and 100 peasant infantry. The triumph at Rakvere accelerated the surrender of the Swedish Dorpat crew (13 April 1603).
Poles besides prevailed at sea – during the conflict of Salis (March 1609) they succeeded with the usage of explosive ships branders, sink 2 Swedish warships.
After further disasters, The Swedes began to avoid clashing in an open field. The Polish side, on the another hand, could not usage the victories due to the failure to pay soldiers and their mass desertion. By mid-1609, the inflants' war effort almost completely froze. Further events were closely related to events in Russia – a fresh dicitriad and Polish military intervention.
Previous entry from our calendar is available Here..
