When was the Battle of Cecora of 1595?

Jerzy Ronikier dates it 18 to 20 October 1595; the Tatar army surrounded the Polish camp on 19 October.

Who fought at Cecora in 1595?

The Polish army of Grand Hetman Jan Zamoyski against Tatar and Turkish troops under the Crimean khan Gazi II Giray.

Why did Zamoyski invade Moldavia?

To put Jeremi Mohyła, a ruler friendly to Poland, on the Moldavian throne as a Polish vassal, while the Ottoman Empire was tied down in its war with the Habsburgs.

What was the result of the Battle of Cecora in 1595?

The khan's attack on the Polish camp failed, and in the agreement that followed Jeremi Mohyła was recognized as hospodar of Moldavia.

Is this the same Cecora where Żółkiewski died?

Same place, different battle. In 1620 Żółkiewski's army camped on the site of Zamoyski's camp and was defeated, and the hetman was killed.

Battle of Cecora, 1595: Zamoyski's camp on the Prut

Jan Zamoyski with scenes of his deeds, among them Moldavia in fidem recepta, Moldavia received into allegiance; anonymous, second half of the 18th century, National Museum in Kraków (detail). Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Quick answer

What happened at Cecora in 1595?

In October 1595 the Polish army of Grand Hetman Jan Zamoyski, about 7,000 men in a fortified camp on the Prut river in Moldavia, was surrounded by what the historian Jerzy Ronikier puts at some 20,000 Tatar and Turkish troops under the Crimean khan Gazi II Giray. The attack on the camp failed, and the khan agreed to terms that recognized Zamoyski's candidate, Jeremi Mohyła, as ruler of Moldavia.¹

The name Cecora is remembered in Poland mainly for a disaster: in 1620 Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski was killed there in a rout. Twenty-five years earlier, on the same ground, the Poles had won. The campaign of 1595 under Jan Zamoyski was the model the later expedition tried and failed to copy.²

Moldavia between Poland and the Ottomans

Moldavia had long been squeezed between the Ottoman Empire and Poland. Its rulers, the hospodars, paid tribute to the sultan, and several of them looked to Poland for support against the Ottomans. King Sigismund Augustus had twice accepted their oaths of allegiance without going to war with Turkey over it.³

Dark locator map with a gold star in a glowing circle marking the approximate site of Battle of Cecora, the coasts, rivers and lakes of the region, and a small world map inset with the area boxed — Battle of Cecora: the star marks the approximate site, and the inset shows the area on a world map. Drawn for this article from Natural Earth data, with no modern borders. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

In 1595 Jan Zamoyski, Grand Hetman of the Crown and Chancellor, decided to go further. He marched into Moldavia to put his own candidate, Jeremi Mohyła (Ieremia Movilă), on the throne as a vassal of Poland. The timing was deliberate. The Ottoman Empire was at war with the Habsburgs, and Zamoyski used that to act where the sultan could not answer in full force.⁴

The army and the camp

According to Jerzy Ronikier's entry in the lexicon Bitwy polskie, Zamoyski led about 7,000 soldiers: some 2,500 hussars, 1,900 light horse of the Cossack type, 250 arquebusiers, 1,500 peasant infantry from the royal estates and 800 Polish infantry, with several dozen light guns. He entered Iași, the Moldavian capital, and then built a fortified camp at Cecora, on the Prut.⁵

The site was well chosen. The Wilanów Palace Museum, writing about the campaign of 1620, notes that Żółkiewski camped in a bend of the Prut, on its left bank, on the very spot where Zamoyski's camp had stood a quarter of a century earlier.⁶

October 1595: the khan's attack

The Ottoman answer came through their vassal, the Crimean Tatars. On 19 October Khan Gazi II Giray surrounded the Polish camp with an army that Ronikier puts at about 20,000 Tatar and Turkish troops. After the first skirmishes the Tatars moved to storm the camp. Zamoyski led his hussars and some of the light companies out through the gate, and the charge drove the attackers back.⁷

The failed assault decided the matter. The khan offered to negotiate, and the talks went well for the Poles. Under the agreement Zamoyski concluded, the Ottoman side recognized Jeremi Mohyła as hospodar of Moldavia. The Wilanów Palace Museum describes the result as a shared overlordship: Turkey, busy with the Habsburg war, accepted that Poland would have a share in ruling the principality.⁸

Numbers and dates

The figures for both armies come from Ronikier's lexicon and should be treated as estimates; the size of the khan's army in particular is uncertain, and the sources used here give no casualty figures for either side. Ronikier dates the battle 18 to 20 October 1595.⁹

What Cecora won, and lost

In the short run the expedition was a success: Mohyła took the throne, and for a time the Moldavian question seemed settled. His family held Moldavia until 1612, and three of his daughters married into great Polish families, the Wiśniowieckis, the Koreckis and the Potockis, who went on fighting for Mohyła rulers there. The Wilanów Palace Museum calls Zamoyski's move a gamble that gave Moldavia a chance to break free of Ottoman control, a chance lost in the civil wars that followed Jeremi's death.¹⁰

The precedent proved dangerous. In 1620 Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski marched to Cecora again intending, in the Wilanów museum's reading, to repeat the maneuver of 1595: install a friendly hospodar and force the Turks to negotiate by a show of force. This time the campaign ended in disaster, and the old hetman was killed. The war that followed led to the siege of Khotyn in 1621. For Zamoyski himself, see our life of Jan Zamoyski.¹¹ › Stanisław Żółkiewski