The Battle For Livonia 1600-1611 | The Polish-Swedish Wars (Pt. 1)
In July 1599 Sigismund III, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Sweden was deposed from the Swedish throne. The man who had conspired against him was his uncle Charles, the Duke of Södermanland. He was to become Charles IX of Sweden in 1604. Sigismund, however, had not yet given up his birthright. He tried to establish a blockade on Sweden and made plans to invade Swedish territory in Estonia, which he formally claimed for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in February 1600. Now, war was inevitable. For the next eleven years the armies of the Commonwealth and Sweden would battle for Livonia.
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Chapters:
00:00-00:52 Intro & Recap
00:52-07:28 Towards Kircholm
07:28-11:51 Battle of Kircholm
11:51-16:58 Battle for Livonia
Bibliography:
Frost, R., Northern Wars, State and Society in Northeastern Europe 1558-1721, 2000.
Roberts, M., Gustav Adolf and the Art of War (first printed 1955), in: Essays on Swedish History, 1967.Stone, Daniel, The Polish-Lithuanian State 1386-1795 (History of East Central Europe), Washington 2001.
Oakley, Steward P., War and Peace in the Baltic. 1560-1790, Oxford 1993.
My acquaintance owned a land near Salaspils (Kirchholm) where, allegedly, Swedish king ran onto the boats. He had some business ties in Sweden and was a history geek. In 90ties he went to the Swedish embassy and asked if they were OK that he would erect a small statue and made a small park in memory of miraculous escape of the Swedish king to attract some tourism to region. And also score some points with his business partners in Sweden. Guys at the embassy were supper angry telling him "You want to dedicated a statue to the greatest lose in Swedish history?!". So he kind of backed of on that idea.. Should have gone to the Polish embassy.. xD
hey thats a funny story!! haha but of course i think it was immature of the swedish embassy, your should embrace your history good times or bad times
@@Toujeo I do hope our embassy was simply lazy, or that there was some other reason around it like fear of insulting others and national pride. Very funny story! And probably true! :-) There are stones marking "this is where the Swedish King Some-Name" landed when he managed to escape after the failure at Someplace - all around our country.
From wiki "The Swedish defeat was utter and complete." Other sources: "Poltava is more famous, but, explains historian Magnus Olofsson, Kircholm was probably the greatest defeat in Swedish history." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kircholm
you mean lithuanian embassy right?
"No kingdom can endure two kings" Sparta : "Hmm ?"
Hunic Empire?
to be fair the spartan kings where not absolute rulers but more heads of state with a number of military and ceremonial roles. the main political power were the oligarchical 5 elected ephors and the gerousia assembly
Rome: We got Two Consuls.
@@animeweng Me: I got two balls.
@@dragooll2023 no kingdom can endure 3 kings...
Good pronunciation of polish names, made me feel good. Great(staggering) video as always : )
'Staggering' Lol
And poor pronounciations of Latvijas names.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Also of swedish names lol. I think this guyis polish.
@@nathanaelsallhageriksson1719 This guy is swis.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 yup
By the way, there's a memory stone here in Salaspils. Every year Polish military pays a visit to Kircholm (Salaspils) and lay flowers in order to commemorate the date of this battle.
That Lithuanian commander seems to have been a great general. All he did was win battles against numerically superior foes. Maybe some folks would like to give all the credit to the excellent Winged Hussars, but how many army leaders have foolishly pissed away their advantages by doing something stupid? This man understood the strength and weaknesses of both his and the enemy's forces, and acted accordantly. Well done!
Yeah, Jan Chodkiewicz has to be one of the most underrated XVIIth century commanders.
"Lithuanian commander" He was Polish. Some Lithuanian once claimed him for his country, so I researched Chodkiewicz's family. His ancestor was of Rus origin, but married a Polish lady, then his son did the same and so forth for a few generations. I think his grandfather already considered himself to be fully Polish, though I don't exactly remember. (The concept of nation did exist among the nobility, even back then.) The author uses the terms "Lithuanian commander" and "Lithuanian forces" how they were used in XVIIth century Rzeczpospolita. Lithuania meant the Grand Dutchy, people living there were called Lithuanian, regardless of which language they spoke and what religion they followed. The language was usually Rus and Polish, the religion was more diverse.
@@bakters nice try
@@AbsentasLT You a Lithuanian? They teach you lies, buddy. I hate that.
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was undoubtedly a great commander a proud Lithuanian but understood being "Lithuanian" very differently than a modern ethnic Lithuanian nationalist would, I doubt he could speak the actual Lithuanian language, similarly how most Scottish people don't speak Gaelic (not just now but even back then, or earlier in the times of William Wallace and Robert de Bruce). The same goes for Krzysztof Mikołaj 'Thunderbolt' Radziwiłł, although in his case the Radziwiłł/Radvila family definitely had Lithuanian-speaking ancestors. Long story short, several different and competing nationalisms arose among the various linguistic communities of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the middle of the 19th century and are battling over the shared legacy (nowadays chiefly in Internet comments). It's messy and complicated. As you can see, you can't say the word "Lithuanian" without starting a discussion. Fun fact: Chodkiewicz wrote a lot of letters to his wife from his campaigns and they have some very funny parts, like when he's describing getting absolutely plastered with the king himself. :) I, unfortunately, don't know if any were translated from Polish. Fun fact 2: the Lithuanian folk song 'Oi šermukšnio' references Chodkiewicz. The band Ugniavijas recorded a pretty badass-sounding version of it.
Exellent video! Few more intresting facts about Battle of Kircholm - Swedish forces numberd 11000, Polish only 3600, 2600 of which was cavalry - only 13 Hussars and Pancerni (light cavalry) died during battle, also 150 horses and 100 more soldiers - at one point of the battle, one banner of Hussars (around 100 men) suddenly flanked Swedish positions and directly attack command post, where king himself was present. He fled covered by his men but then his horse stumbled and fell. One of his rajtar/noble gave king his own horse and stood alone against incoming Hussars. After returning to Sweden king awarded family of his savior with land.
A few questions. "Swedish forces numberd 11000, Polish only 3600, 2600 of which was cavalry" Wasn't there also thousands of armed servants with the PLC army? Some of whom participated in the battle - alongside those 3,600 - that is not accounted for in your numbers? "only 13 Hussars and Pancerni (light cavalry) died during battle, also 150 horses and 100 more soldiers" Does this number include armed servants fighting alongside the PLC army, too? Just curious.
@@Leaffordes Camp servants were stationed near Polish camp, they didn't participate in fighting, they were supposed to look like reinforcement to boost morales and fool enemy. Can't find info about numbers but they weren't that significant and big - they were just servants not soldiers. They may be included in that 3600 number or may not. That's total casualties of the battle - 100 killed, 200 wounded and aroud 150 horses killed.
@@alder2460 Alright - I read a post by Radosław Sikora on some forum, where he estimated that there were possibly 5,000 armed servants following the Polish-Lithuanian army, most of which guarded the camp, but some of which participated in the battle (but their numbers are unknown, and so are their casualties), not accounted for in the number of 3,600 soldiers. I suppose you've done your own research here, which contradicts this claim? What I find interesting is that: 8,918 or 8,983 bodies are said to have been buried after the battle (according to two different Livonian accounts); at least 2,526 out of the 10,868 Swedish soldiers made it out alive (only counting 37 of the 71 Swedish banners), meaning their total casualties could not reach over 8,342 men - even if the remaining 34 banners had suffered 100% losses, which they obviously had not - it's estimated that the total Swedish casualties were around 8,000 men (Kungl. Svea livgardes historia: 1560-1611, pages 542-545). So, if the Polish-Lithuanian army admitted a loss of only 100 men killed, and the Swedes had 8,000-8,342 men killed, who were the rest of the 476-883 bodies that were buried? According to Radosław Sikora, most of the Swedish camp followers had remained at Riga, so all of these losses can not be attributed to them. Do I have to mention that, a mere loss of 100 men killed for the Polish-Lithuanian army is not considered very likely, according to Swedish research?
@@Leaffordes Intresting, could you provide me a source, link to that forum? My "research" did not contradicts anything, I wrote pretty clearly that I could not find anything and don't know it. Rotmistrz Jan Rudomina, wrote that Polish fake retreat was away from the camp, therefore away from armed servants - by dr Radosław Sikora. So their participation in the battle could indeed be marginal. It's hard to estimate true casualties of a battle 400 years ago especially when different sources claim different numbers not only of the dead but also participants. It's very possible that Commonwealth lost more than 100 men. Many of Swedes also drown, got lost in forests or get killed by peasants during retreat, so their bodies might not be buried at all. Maybe that number you claimed were camp followers, maybe they were diseased soldiers or maybe peasents from Kircholm and other villiges who took their arms against fleeing Swedes? It probably will never be known for sure. All we can agree on is that Swedish loses were devastating but Commonwealth's were minimal.
@@Leaffordes Casualties and dead are not the same. Casualties also includes wounded and missing (whom are also unfit for combat).
Excellent video on an underrated topic! Greetings from Sweden 🇸🇪
In 1600-1605 Commonwealth troops were fighting at the same time in todays Estonia and Latvia with Swedes, and fighting in Wallachia/Moldavia aganist Michael the Brave. Logistics and money for payment for soldiers were clearly overstreached.
Love to see another video from the series about Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth!
Please continue history about Sweden and Poland. Very interesting. Great content
As far as i know he is, starting from the original cause of the conflict, and ending it in the utter swedish destruction of poland in the Swedish deluge period of polish history.
As a huge fanboy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, I'm very pleased now.
I dislike the inconsistency of names. But other than that this is grate. Eddit: No at 13:59 Rīga is on the wrong side of Daugavas.
Just you wait
That war was the peak of PLC. After that it was in steady decline. At the same time it was the dawn of the new modern warfare methods.
Thank you SandRhoman, there has been an increase in Polish-Swedish content on KZhead recently but there's not nearly enough, thank you for making it better!
It’s hard to find information about it. So this video is great.
In 1572, Jan Hieronimowicz Chodkiewicz (father of Jan Karol Chodkiewicz) converted from Calvinism to Roman Catholicism with his two sons, which made them the first Polonized generation of the once Lithuanian-Ruthenian family. Jan Hieronimowicz had Polish wife Krystyna Zborowska she was definitely from a polish noble family.
Fascinating presentation. I love this Baltic history and the way you illustrate the battles. Thank you!
And I also love lingusitics and he is failing at that.
Never attack the enemy who has hight advantage. Instead lure him onto even ground. Art of War at its finest
Obi Wan at his finest too
They have 3 vs 1 ratio in troops soldiers.
The Polish hussar individually also had 2-3 retainers in support often armed with bandolet (carbine) and saber and lance.
To ride with them in battle or to guard their possessions at the camp?
@@Leaffordes They were riding with them to battle. All hussar banners were composed of retinues which were composed of "companions" and their one or two retainers. Companions basically were an equivalent of NCOs and were always expected to form the first row of the formation. As you probably already deduced, the hussar retinue was an evolution of the medieval "lance".
@@kamilszadkowski8864 Thank you! I need to find myself time to study the Polish hussars.
@@Leaffordes kzhead.info/sun/lL6ofsOsmWtrY6c/bejne.html Here's a guy that does good breakdown on how they operated, but it's in polish only.
SandRhoman I appriciate you mentioning Finnish cavarly because big part of swedish army was finnish especially the cavarly so thank you!
It's fine, as long as it's done in a way which doesn't confuse viewers (who are new to the subject); as Finland was - and had been for a long time - a legitimate part of Sweden, they were Swedes. If you distinguish them too much, without explanation, people might think there were two separate kingdoms, which wasn't the case.
insane how your videos got better across the last year. really cool to see.
Great video, good to see that you guys make more of this interesting stuff. This is a very underrated part of both Nordic/Swedish and Polish-Lithuanian/Eastern European history. Well done!
beautiful illustrations btw (as always)
I've been playing Mount and Blade With Fire and Sword all morning then this pops up 😂 perfect timing
Another great documentary, thank you! Fascinating!
Amazing work , as always.
Great video I love these videos about the Polish Swedish conflict
Awesome as always
AAA - Awesome As Always ! Thanks !
I enjoyed this video. Great job.
Very interesting! Thanks a lot !
Impressive pronunciation, very well done, good job.
excellent stuff
Great video!
Great video as always!! Throughly enjoyed this. "Then the Winged Hussars Arrived!!!🐎🐎🐎" 🤟💪
I love those videos about wars that are little known here in Western Europe
Please do a series on the Time of Troubles in Russia
Great video. Will you eventually cover the War of Devolution and the Second Northern War?
Yes, eventually. Nome time off though. We touch on these subjects in some videos of 2022 for sure but I'm not sure whether we will do a whole series dedicated to them next year.
I see... I'm especially interested in the March Across the Belts. It was such a feat that the Swedish Empire were able to cross thousands of their troops across the straits that surround Copenhagen to quickly defeat Denmark and then faces their other many enemies. Is there any possibility that you will cover this topic in one of your future videos?
I cant wait for the later part of the polish swedish wars and the battle of Wallhof. There you will start to see the type of fighting that the swedes brought to the 30 years war.
At that time, the Commonwealth had great commanders and a very modern fighting style based on great reconnaissance, mobility, quick attacks, etc. The army usually won against a larger opponent thanks to these advantages.
@@dominikkacprowicz6735 You dont understand what i mean modern . I am talking mainly about the modern today battlefield where quick recognition , decision loops , maneuver . mobility etc, decide often about victory . The Polish troops of that time won not thanks to numbers but thanks to good command, quick reconnaissance, decision loops , maneuvering, mobility (they were able to move very quickly) and quick strikes of Hussars which were kind of tanks on today bettlefield . Thanks to these advantages, the Polish army was victorious often on the battlefield against a much larger enemy . Hetmans like Chodkiewicz , Żółkiewskie were very good militar and strategic educated and very good use this advantages . Such Hussaria etc has been victorious for over 100 years so for one kind of troop this is long term of victories . Polish army at that time fought successfully against almost all possible armies of that time so rather you are stubborn .
@@dominikkacprowicz6735 At that time, these advantages of maneuver and mobility (covering many kilometers during the day) were provided by cavalry, but the development of firearms made these advantages of cavalry smaller. Later, only Sobieski reformed the armies ( he was cousin of Żółkiewski) there were yet such victorious like at Vienna with Turks etc . . After the Swedish Deluge, Poland fell into deeper and deeper political and economic problems, and unfortunately the army was not reformed sufficiently, especially nobility in Poland was used to r smaller army and the noble democracy in Poland was based on extremely liberal principles and tax collection was very low result were always problems with money for the big army etc .
@@dominikkacprowicz6735 Stubborn :)) yep so stubborn that many years they won even with bigger opponents . You rather produce propagand . Poland was a regional land empire and had huge land spaces to defend, a very mobile army was needed for this, and cavalry was the best weapon in such a situation. This is long story Swedish raid and many factors contributed to it was preceded by a very bloody accidents Cossack uprisings and attack from many sides etc,
@@dominikkacprowicz6735 Not true. And btw, during the Deluge Swedes attacked Poland when the bulk of its army was fighting in the east against rebelled Cossacks and invading Russians. What Swedes faced in the first battles of the Deluge in Pomerania and Greater Poland was mostly a militia (levy en masse) led by only around 1000 strong professional soldiers. During the Deluge Swedes made up only 20% of the total forces which Poland faced, and Poland fought against like 8-9 hostile enemy armies then.
I really like your videos
Fantastic.
Thanks for this. Very interesting as no one knows the 30 years war is about to start.
Loved the video. A great job as always. But guys, you need a better thumbnail for this one. I almost missed it on my own subscribe feed. I didn't recognize it as your video, but some other channel. Sorry for saying this, I know that the artist wanted to be perfect. I just want to help
Stålarm. It literally means steel arm. He must have been a mean foe in hand wrestling... But I guess he wasn't too good at commanding.
Swedish names are quite something. I'm told Gyllenhall means golden hand, not a bad one either.
Again a great video! Could you make a video with recommended books about the early modern period?
We once had a list with recommended books (see below). I haven't updated it in a while and please note that these are affiliated links to Amazon which means we earn a small commission if you choose to buy anything via the links. For me, Clifford J. Rogers, Christopher Duffy, Olaf Van Nimwegen, Robert I Frost, and Goeffrey Parker are always delivering quality books. Our reading list on military history: Duffy, C., Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World 1494-1660, Vol. 1, 1979. amzn.to/32dvvwM Rogers, C.J., The military revolution debate. Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe, 1995. amzn.to/3geVDMM Rogers, C.J., Soldiers' Lives through History - The Middle Ages, 2006. amzn.to/3j2kQvG Parker, G., The Cambridge History of Warfare, 2005. amzn.to/32ggn1L Van Nimwegen, O., The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688, 2010. amzn.to/2E3Fc95
@@SandRhomanHistory Thank you for the reply! Seems i already got three of them :) I will definitely check out the books by Rogers. Many thanks!
@@TimDutch While thinking about it a few others came to mind: John A. Lynn, David Parrott and Jeremy Black are also well known authors that have contributed much about the period. But I'm not sure whether Lynn and Parrott have published anything outside of academic literature. Black has for sure though. Another tipp is the books by a publisher called Helion. They have an immense amount of books covering the period, however, these books are a bit like the Osprey series "man-at-arms". This is to say that they're sometimes written by people without any academic background (which isn't a problem per se) but I'm not sure whether these books involve a degree of self publishing, so I can't vouch for the content. In some cases their books were quite good though (if a tab bit behind the discussion of academic military historians).
@@SandRhomanHistory Thanks!
Charles had a plan to beat the Polish, but then the Winged Hussars arrieved.
Damn in Swedish school we barely learnt anything about the war and it was more portrayed as an even war.
Gustavus plug walking into your video knowing he's a fucking badass was great. Love the video and can't wait for more on the Baltic conflicts.
You really love the late medieval/ Renaissance style warfare don't you? I find most of your videos cover battles waged in the 16th-17th centuries, almost exclusively.
Yeah, we love the period. But ancient Rome / Greece is also high up on our list. We'd love to go into the 17th and 18th century as well at some point in the future.
@@SandRhomanHistory The early modern period is unique in that warfare consisted of medieval style tactics and weapons and with the introduction of mass firearms in Europe, created a kind of mixed bag of old and new. Its a fascinating era and I'm glad it's so well covered on your channel. PS- I would love to see you guys branch out into other time periods! That would be cool!
Now, fast forward just 400 years, and you have Sabaton singing about this in Poland in front of thousands of people lol
Sabaton never made any songs about this topic at all.
Winged Hussars too op pls nerf
They got power-creeped at some point like everyone else tho 😉
Don't worry; they'll be nerfed in the 1626-1629 patch, drastically nerfed in the 1655-1660 patch, and overnerfed in the 1700-1721 patch.
@@Leaffordes Actually they were quite nerfed only during Chmielnicki uprisign around 1650, becouse cossacks destroyed stables where horses where trained. 1626-1629 was just normal war with casualties but this casualties could be replaced, but after destruction of these stables well....
@@kosa9662 Nope they were nerfed in all those periods he mentioned when the swedish army beat them to a decimating degree, no elite units last forever, eventually a degree of newer tactics and newer technologies in the weapons sector changes that - and thats an undisputable historical fact. (atleast so far)
@@alexanderrose1556 First of all, I want to say that comparing Commonwealth in 1600-50( start of Chmielnicki's uprisign) and in 1670-1730 its like comparing Germany in 1941 and in 1944. Yes, no units live forever, there is no point to discus this. I only wanted to say that even after Gustavus military reforms, Sweds were figting aganist Pols 'only' as equal aganist equal. During 1626-1269 Sweds didnt decimate hussars, nor Commonwealth economy that support hussars. And when truce was ending in 1630s, Commonwealth wanted to join 30 years war to beat Swedes from Pomerania and Livonia... Reaction of protestants? They ask Russia and Ottomans to strike Commonwealth, they both were defated at the same year! Only after Chmielnicki and Deluge Sweden got upper hand aganist Poland, becouse of destruction of economy.
Super ❤️
Very interesting
Thank you for doing videos on that area. Nice to know that my homeland is built on bodies :D I believe few months ago here in Estonia they found bodies from a siege under a street road in Tartu. They came out when they were trying to work on the sewage system.
Fighting in open field or chasing Poles, attacking Russkies in winter, artillery engagements against Serbs and light cavalry skirmishes against Lithuanians are the worst mistakes you can make and Swedes did rwo of them.
@ger du Truth be told both Mongols and Poles also successfully waged war against Russians during winter. Winter in fact is the best season next to summer to wage war in Eastern Europe.
@ger du Winter has little to do with it, in the Finnish War they performed a fighting retreat up north in the winter and the Russians did well in the pursuit, though the Swedes and Finns didn't do bad either considering the enemy's numerical superiority, still they had better winter gear mostly due to Swedish mismanagement of their troops. In the Winter War the story couldn't have been more different, but it had nothing to do with the Russian, or Finnish ability to withstand the cold, I can assure you that Swedes, at least the ones living in the more northern areas, Finns and Russians are all about equal in their ability to withstand the cold, what matters is who gets the best winter coats, the warmest dugouts, who has the most secure supply lines etc.
Yeah at some point. You learn the hard way. Those who have not suffered military defeats have not been at war long. That's true today and it has always been that way. Every nation who has a history of war have triumph and disaster everyone remembers the triumph and wants to forget the disasters.
Lol chasing Poles is the "worst mistake you can make?" I can't hear you over my Battle of Kliszów.
@@billywiththebulgingbaloonb5105 You do realize you were chasing polish troops under SAXON command meaning polish military doctrine wasn't the one that was beaten? Like, Vietnam had a few volunteers for Soviet invasion of Afghanistan but we're not saying that Vietnam was beaten in Afghanistan as vietnemese weren't the ones forming strategies... Don't comment if you're drunk, stupid or uneducated.
Sigismund Vasa was also important for establishing a navy in Gdansk
Which he later hand over to Habsburgs during 30 years war.
@@kosa9662 what has been interesting is archeologically Gdansk had been an early shipyard for the Pomeranians as detailed by Ossowski
The first rank formation of hussars has left (lewy róg), center front (czolo or huf czelny), and prawy róg. Second rank were left and right support (polisek) flanking czal or huf walny. Third rank are support and last reserve.
Ahh... Kircholm. One of the greatest victories in the history of winged hussars. Against the odds.
@SandRhoman History, pls make a content about battle of Kłuszyn, there wing hussars charde 10 times agains the enemy.
Can you make a video about the Russo-Ottoman War (1676 - 1681)?
Video koymuş kalbimin efendisi
YESSSSSSSS! That is all.
Can you please tell me the background sample you use in many videos? An example is at around 7:58 to 8:03
Is there any good videos/books/sources on how Muscovite army was organized/equipped around this period?
You'd think that any decent military commander by this point would have learned how to spot a feigned retreat. It just works every time. Bonus points if you hide some guys in a nearby treeline.
Great video! But as a Finn I have to nitpick on your map of "The eastland" of Sweden. First of all, The "Bjöneborg" is written: "Björneborg". Secondly though The city was growing fast in the early 17th century, it was only third most populous city at it's peak, behind Åbo (Turku) and Vyborg (Viipuri).
good
Thank you for covering this topic.
Stålarm... great name for a military man, especially if he is good at fencing 😀
Just as a fun fact that I was surprised when I found out about it. The Polish sejm actually refused to fund his (Sigismund) early campaigns against Sweden to regain his throne
IIRC Everyone on the Sejm had a veto, so getting anything passed there was a nightmare. Also the Polish nobility didn't really have anything to gain by helping their monarch conquer Sweden. Just the bill, really.
@@Oxtocoatl13 Actually liberum veto was first used at Sejm around ~1650.
@@kosa9662 ok my bad then. In any case, I can see why the Poles weren't enthusiastic to fund repeated expensive wars with Sweden, especially after the Swedish nobility had quite comprehensively rejected Sigismund's rule.
Checklist for new kings of Sweden. 1) Before setting any major plans in motion, check what the danish are up to.
Well hussars were also used to using fire weapons also bow and arrow, they could easily destroy pike formations if they had time to reload wich was the case. "Fighting a pike formation" or "charging" can mean a lot of things. Anyway, awesome content!
Winged Hussars weren’t a western cavalry, they charged pike formations straight on as their Kopia’s were much longer then your average pike.
@@Dreamissohot is not really known for sure how it really happened. I find it impossible to believe that they simply charged well trained, steady formation of pikes frontally. Lenght od the lance doesn't matter, even if it would be slightly longer from horse head to the event soldier than the pike, because even if you kill the first soldier there are several more next to him and the horse can't stop in place. I rather suspect the secret of the great success was mobility and they probably could flank infantry formations so fast and efficiently that the infantry must have lost its morale and rout when the charge happened. But we'll never know for sure.
The threat of a cavalry charge at any moment should be very stressful for the infantrymen that was stuck in place and in formation to defend against a possible one. With a few feign ones and a couple of real ones, their minds should break.
@@jankoodziej877 There is few clues suggesting that hussars were indeed charging the pikes. Winged Hussars were more psychological wepon than brutal force, all thing with the wings, tiger furs, extrreamly long hollowed lances were unbearable even for trained pikemens. Job of shock cavalary is to break the lines of the enemy, force them to flee. There are inscription mentioning that in later years pikeman mercenaries were singning the contract with annotation that they will not fight against hussars.
Even if one could theoretically break a pike formation with a direct charge, it could easily cost very heavy casualties. Winged hussars are expensive and valuable troops, so why do it that way when there are other options? A bit of maneuvering and threatening punctuated by some missile weapon work could demoralize, confuse and disrupt a formation making it much more vulnerable to direct action. It is classical cavalry work which they would have been familiar with. I am sure there were some hot-headed direct charges from time-to-time but it would be interesting to break down the numbers on how often that actually happened as opposed to a more sophisticated approach.
If you read Polish Winged Hussar 1576-1775 by Richard Brzezinski page 60-61, the poczet consisted of two retainers (pacholiks who formed rear ranks) and 3-6 camp servants. What we know about the retainer is based on the painting or Battle of Klushino where he wears a kapalin helmet, chainmail, arm guards, a single gauntlet on bridle arm, and a cape.
I am not sure the question of cavallry at the time can be answered as a yes/no in terms of how effective it was. Usually, things are way more complex then "weapon a defeat weapon b". But you xan aaywkth certainty that cavallry as a chock force going for the front of a fresh, well trained and well equiped block of infantry was maybe not a good idea. Then again, I suppose that has always been the case to some extent.
3:50 "then the winged Hussars arive💪🏻" ... lost my focus there...
**Insert Sabaton music**
The Spanish Mercenary Captain 👨🏻✈️ was Alonzo Cacho de Canut. Very little is known about him I was surprised to hear he was fighting as a mercenary and plus, for a protestant faction.
could u do a video on the mongols ?? @sandrhoman
We will cover parts of their history in the beginning of 2022 but not really as a general overview / documentary.
Nice video but a question. Why does war back in those days last very long?
Depends on what you call war. Fighting was divided in phases, sometimes intermitted with a truce or peace, its only the political state of war which was ongoing as far as I'm aware. Correct me if I'm wrong!
Logistics mostly, it took time to get armies places when the fastest they could go was by wind driven ships or horse back. Not to mention that campaigning in the winter was much harder back then. The other factor is levy armies were farmers that had to return home for harvest regardless otherwise famine would ensue
Because there is no way to quickly organize or quickly move.
@@NRH111 yeah, plus winter over there goes from late August to early June 😉
It was not possible to put a large armies in one place and deliever a knock out blow like today. Would you try to put 200.000 men in one place back then it would have ended with starvation and diseases killing half of your men before you have even come into contact with an enemy force. So it would therefore be better to not have so many men at one place - but that on the other hand will make it more difficult for you to take cities and win battles as you cannot use superior numbers to your advantage as much as in modern warfare. You had no truck or railroads so feeding large armies was difficult. The army had to move and plunder food and make a picnic in one village after another. And your army stopped for too long in a village then there would soon be no food left there and your men would become undernourished and frozen and die from diseases. Clothes back then was not that effective and the got worn out in long wars and sleeping in tents wet from rain was probably not fun. And you could not take trees from the forrest to make you warm since it was too wet, so you either had to buy wood or destroy a building and burn the timber to keep yourself warm so you would not freeze to death. An army of 20-30.000 men doesn't sound much today. But remember that Stockholm only had 6000 inhabitants back then and Berlin and Vienna only had 30.000 each. So there was nearly no places that could feed so huge armies for any long time. Roads were bad and the speed of warfare was low. And it was often prefered to siege a city and starving it into submission over storming it and losing many lives in doing so. And even if you wanted to storm a city you needed to make preparations for doing so... building ladders and transporting all slow moving cannons in place - those big siege guns that needed 12 horses to pull. And before a storming you need to stack up food supplies before you can concentrate a large invasion force outside the city. And Generals felt no hurry to make any fast wins either. There would always be another day and a new chance to do what they wanted. So there was no point in hurry.
Oh boy, teenage King, here we go again.
I understand this may not be your area of expertise but will you consider making videos about wars or conflicts outside of Europe? I really enjoy your style of documentary making and focus, I would really enjoy similar content about Asian or African conflicts as well.
At some point we will do that. It's difficult because we don't know these parts of history that well. Also, we have know idea about the important authors for asian / african history and lastsly, we still struggle to get the money together to pay for new illustrations.
I enjoy this comment section is very wholesome
Gh-yllen-helm. It literally means golden helm or helmet.
4:30 why did you portray lithuanian cavalry as shooting? Weren't they purely shock troops?
Polish-Lithuanian light cavalry aka cossack and/or pancerni (panzer, armored) riders were equipped with pistols or bandolets (and so were the winged hussars).
12:35 But I thought this was Poland-Lithuania?
As a massive history nerd from Canada, I'm always curious about the history of Poland. All i know is about wartime occupation 1st by an aryan anti-Christ & then by the beast from the east. But what happened before that? This series is top notch stuff, but what happened before this? Is there an order in which i should view the playlists In order to maintain chronological integrity? I hztehate not knowing stuff, more so when its as well presented like this film is! Great job on yer channel, i hope you get 5 millions subscribing!
@Piotr Bury Thank you for such a well thought out & concisely worded reply, i didn't know any of that & was quite impressed. I love learning! It's a pity most of the great history documentaries aren't in English.
Sweden was 1 other state’s declaration of war away from Oofing.
At 13:59 you have Rīga on the wrong side of Daugavas.
damn. i actually corrected all the maps after this video was finished. the next video covers the siege of riga and by then i noticed that the map templates we relied on were wrong.
@@SandRhomanHistory Very good.
14:11 methinks someone was a Hannibal fan
Could we see a video on the Livonian War between the Tsardom Of Russia and the Livonian Confederation and their allies?
A sacrifice for the Algorithms
*SABATON INTENSIFIES*
It's nice to finally see someone covering this part of Swedish history. Normally Sweden is only mentioned in the context of the 30 Years War and Great Northern War. The skewed image of near invincibility has produced quite a lot of Swedenboos being almost as hm... detached from reality as Wehraboos. Not to mention that Early Polish-Swedish conflicts provide great insight into the development of cavalry tactics in the first half of the XVII century.
Wich is interesting as sweden lost often in both wars
@@Spiderfisch Right?! It's like everyone is focusing mostly on the early battles which indeed favored them. It is also interesting that this "over-focusing" on the Early battles is partially to blame for the claims of the older historians about the supposed defectives of cavalry (speaking here mostly about 30 years war).
@@kamilszadkowski8864 sure but lets not forget wat country wo burned and disapeared sall we war is muc more tan just figting its politics!
@@12345678981010 Can you re-write this sentence using English or any human language this time?
Swedes used their negative and positive experiences to reorganize and improve their military, to become very effective and influence others to follow. Winged hussars were reorganized during Stefan Batory (Stephen Bathory) time, as medium heavy cavalry, following Serbian-Hungarian experimentation and it influenced Swedes too. Winning wars, not battles, is what matters
The Swedish commanders do have baddass name Gylllenhelm = golden helmet, Stålarm = steel arm Oxelstjärna =ox star.
The name of the great opponent of Gustavus Adolphus, the Polish hetman Koniecpolski, can be literally translated as "the end of Poland",which sounds especially grim when you consider that immediately after his death there was a catastrophic Cossack uprising that began a period of destructive wars for the Polish-Lithuanian Republic that forever destroyed its position as a superpower. BTW: His war nickname was "Nacinacz" which in Polish means The Cutter
I´ve always wondered: if the Commonwealth had a potential to raise a 100 000 men strong army (as we´ve seen in your Khotyn video), why did they bring such a small force against the Swedes? Like wasn´t it reasonable to invest more resources and end the war quickly instead of dragging it for decades?
1. The Swedes were ignored and disregarded by the Poles, for whom Livonia was a distant periphery devoid of much importance. It was only when the Swedes attacked the critically important region of Royal Prussia and Pomerania that the Polish-Lithuanian Republic began to get involved in the conflict seriously. 2. The Polish-Lithuanian Republic had a minimal amount of army at its disposal. This was the rule, and great armies were deployed only in moments of greatest danger. The focus was on the quality of the army, which usually defeated a more numerous opponent. The system was based on a narrow cadre of veterans. This was due to the political regime and economy of the country. Only the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland maintained a certain number of permanent soldiers (1,000-6,000 depending on the period) to protect the south-eastern regions threatened by Tatar raids. The nobility was very reluctant to finance armaments, believing that a king with a strong army could use it to establish despotic rule in the country, destroying the Republic. (neighboring countries were ruled by despotic or authoritarian governments, Poland was at that time qite unique.) Although only the nobility, as a privileged class, had political rights, but it was over 10% of the country's population! What taxes and in what amount were decided by the Sejm (Parliament), not the monarch, or government which meant that the noble nation could be taxed only by itself. One can guess that taxes were set and paid reluctantly and only in a state of necessity. The financial system of the state, which was a paradise from the point of view of the ordinary, privileged citizen, was disastrous from the point of view of the global interests of the state. Armies in Poland were notoriously poorly paid, payleaf was late, and soldiers sometimes plundered their country for a livelihood…or organized their own political forms of representation. 3. There were private armies. Powerful magnates could afford to maintain their own professional armies, numbering even several thousand troops. In need, they lent them to defend the country, sometimes subordinating that forces to the authority of the Hetmans (the office of the highest military commander) 4. There was a Zaporozhian Sich, which supplied recruits to the so-called Registered Cossacks. It was constantly limited, which was one of the reasons for the growing problems with the rebelious Cossacks. 5. And one more thing. Contrary to popular stereotypes, the Polish nobility was a nation steeped in pacifism.
Fun fact Charles IX tries to challenge the Danish King to Duel 1vs1 to settle the war. the Danish King says no.
Can you do a video on Swedish cavalry? We know nothing about them besides the fact that they arne't like the Winged Hussars
Well a little tidbit of fact alot of them were from Finland, they heavily dominated the men that made of the cavalry part of the swedish armed forces that would eventualy crush poland for around 100 years from the period of 1620-1720.
@@alexanderrose1556 What weapons and tactics did they use?
@@donwarren3253 In this time period mostly a mix between more aggressive use of Cavalry, and major advancements in especially artillery (and to a lesser degree muskets) ended up being quite revolutionary in warfare. Again later this changed in the early 1700 with more tecnological advancements and newer tactics to counter the current dominating ones.
Its hard to find any info on this (only tried in swedish tho) but i think they are kind of like predecessors of the infamous finnish light cavalry hakkapeliitta which did a very good job during the thirty years war, but i dont know when they were ¨founded¨ could very well been active here or they might have been similar light cavalry which were morphed into hakkapeliitta later. I believe but could be wrong that the swedish cavalry was generally heavier cavalry and finnish lighter
@@alexanderrose1556 Yeah but what is "aggressive" in this context? Did they charge with swords or lances or not? Did they use pistols or muskets? Did they shoot before or after charging with steel?
Why do you use German names for some towns and Estonian ones for others? The art is getting better and better though.
Quite staggering if you ask me tbh
Ah the faint retreat, even after centuries of mongol invasions armies still fall for it, this just emphasize how advanced mongol tactics were for the time
It's quite obvious that Charles IX was a better politician and statesman than he was a general. It's also interesting that Sweden struggled to find capable commanders at all.
Anders Lennartsson, who unfortunately died at the battle of Kircholm, was quite a capable commander; I think he was the one advocating for the cautious chess-like Swedish deployment on the hill, with cavalry deployed behind the gaps created by the infantry (a hard formation even for the Polish hussars to crack). Charles IX, however, as you say, was a terrible general - he decided to break this formation and venture out in the open to, as he thought, pursuit a fleeing enemy.
@@Leaffordes iirc Charles only lived that day because a soldier was willing to give up his horse and stay behind to be killed. Charles was a hell of a schemer and a master politician, but given his military record it's a wonder young Gustav turned the way he did.
Which side did the ordinary population in this area of Europe prefer to live under, the Swedes or the Polish/Lithuanian?
For them Sweds/Commonwealth were almost the same, but they clearly dont liked Russians.
@@kosa9662 thanks for the answer, one more question where common people in that region Protestant catholic or orthodox and how about today?
@@jasip1000 Livonia and Estonia were/ still are protestant. Ethnic Lithuanians today are catholic, but in the past many regions in Commonwealth were mixed between catholics/orthodox/protestants and muslims tatars&jews. Actually, when 20 years earlier- around 1580s, Russian Tsar Ivan 'Terrible' invaded Grand Duchy of Lithuania under pretext of saving 'greek' orthodox church from heretics(protestants). Commonwealth was really diverse in terms of religions and ethnicies.
@@kosa9662 thank you mate, always nice to learn.
I heard someone from livland area say that people in general liked Swedish rule alot, because of improvements in infrastructure and building universities, but cant really remember if this was a century later and i cant say they preferred swedish rule, if this really was a century later well then they hadnt really experienced any other rule
For those who wonder how the few hussars were able to thwart the overwhelming forces, this video shows how such a charge looked like, from 10:06 kzhead.info/sun/hdqzacapmoePf3A/bejne.html Maybe you will also be interested in this: kzhead.info/sun/rap9n5xshGNpo68/bejne.html
Man, I dont envy the job of burying and counting the dead after a battle outside your city...
Better bury them or face epidemy without modern medicine.
I actually do envy that job. Plenty of free golden tooth to collect.