Polish-Turkish war (1672-1676)

The failure of the hetman Petro Doroshenko during the Polish-Cossack-Tatar war of 1666-1671 became the occasion for a new war of the Ottoman Empire against the Commonwealth. In an effort to maintain his power, Doroshenko signed an agreement with Sultan Mehmed IV in 1669 , recognizing the power of the Sultan ^[4] . The Ottoman Empire three years earlier had successfully completed the war with Venice and conquered Crete , and the great vizier Ahmet Kepryulu decided to direct his efforts against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth weakened by the long wars.

At the same time, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth tried to suppress the unrest in Ukraine, but the Polish-Lithuanian community was weakened by decades of long wars (the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Flood and the Russo-Polish War (1654-67)).

The agreement with the Turks deprived Doroshenko of the support of a significant part of the Cossacks. In 1670, he tried to seize control of all of Ukraine, and in 1671 the Crimean Khan Adil Gerai, the protege of the Poles, was replaced by Selim I Gerai , the protege of the Turks, who entered into an alliance with the Cossacks of Doroshenko. The combined army was defeated by the troops of Sobieski, and Selim asked the Sultan for help. So the border conflict escalated into another war in 1671 : the Ottoman Empire saw for itself a real opportunity to gain control of Ukraine ^[5] .

In 1672, Turkey, trying to take control of Ukraine, started a war against Poland. Ottoman forces numbering 80,000, led by the great Vizier Köprül Fazil Ahmed Pasha and the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, invaded Polish Ukraine in August, captured Kamenetz-Podolsky and besieged Buchach and Lvov . Sobieski’s forces were too small to stop the Ottoman army, and were able to achieve only a few minor tactical victories over individual Turkish units. Unprepared for war and torn by an internal conflict between King Michael I and the gentry nobility, the Sejm of the Commonwealth could not act to raise taxes and raise a large army. As a result, Poland was forced to conclude the Buchach peace with Turkey in 1672 . Right-bank Ukraine was transferred to the hetman Doroshenko as a Port-dependent property; Podolia and Kamenets were directly part of Turkey as the Kamenets Pashalyk ^[5] ; The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth paid Turkey a reward for military expenses and necessarily paid an annual tribute.

This agreement was not recognized by the Sejm of the Commonwealth in April 1673 ^[5] . The Sejm, by a majority of the deputies, united by anger over territorial losses and humiliating tribute, raised taxes on the new army and accepted Khonenko as a Cossack. During the renewed hostilities, the great crown hetman Jan Sobieski defeated the Turkish troops of Huseyn Pasha near Khotyn on November 11, 1673 . 20 thousand Turks were killed, 66 banners and 120 guns were in the hands of the Poles. Sobessky planned to occupy the Danube principalities , but after the battle a significant part of the Polish and Lithuanian troops went to the Commonwealth ^[6] . Therefore, I had to confine myself to placing a garrison in Moldavian fortresses - Suceava , Khotyn and Neamt . On December 13, 1673, the detachment of M. Senyavsky took Iasi, but was forced to leave them in connection with the approach of the Tatar cavalry in January of the following year ^[6] . In the same year, King Michael I died, and, in recognition of his victories and devotion, Jan Sobieski was elected king of the Commonwealth in 1674 .

Over the next year, Polish troops began to decline, as the Sejm again refused to raise taxes and pay the army, as a result desertion began. Polish problems were further aggravated by the incompetent leadership of the hetman Pats, who opposed Sobieski's initiatives, while the Ottomans continued to receive reinforcements. Nevertheless, in 1674, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth resumed the offensive, taking advantage of the new Russian-Turkish war. The 6 thousandth army of Sobieski defeated 20,000 Turks and Tatars near Lviv in August 1675 ^[5] .

In 1676, Polish troops repulsed the offensive of the Turkish-Tatar forces on Lviv with a little tension. Despite successful battles near Zhuravny (September-October 1676 ), Poland signed the 1676 treaty with Turkey. This agreement gave the Turks 1/3 of Ukraine but returned 10 thousand Christian prisoners.

The war showed the growing weakness of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which in the second half of the XVII century began to decline, which eventually ended a century later by the division of Poland. An ineffective Diet paralyzed by liberum veto law, corruption and the deputies' concern for their own interests harmed the state’s defense from external enemies.

Poland lost to the Ottomans Podolia . Right-bank Ukraine, with the exception of the Belotserkovsky and Pavolochsky districts, passed under the rule of the Turkish vassal hetman Petro Doroshenko , thus turning into an Ottoman protectorate ^[7] .

• Battle of Ladyzhin
• Battle of Zhuravno

• Davies, Brian L. Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe, 1500-1700 . - London: Routledge, 2007 .-- ISBN 9780415239851 .
• Polish-Ottoman War, 1672-1676
• Polish Warfare: The Turkish and Tartar Wars 1667—1676 parts 7 and 8
• (Polish) Wojny polsko-tureckie , Encyklopedia WIEM
• Viorel Panaite, On Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations , Asian Studies. International Journal for Asian Studies (II / 2001), [1]
• Stanford Jay Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey , Cambridge University Press, 1977, ISBN 0-521-29163-1 , Google Print, p.213

• Edward Krysciak, Wojny polsko-tureckie w drugiej połowie XVII wieku , Portal historicus.pl (Polish)
• Wojna 1672-1676 (Polish)