What happened at the Battle of Czarny Ostrów?
On 20 July 1657 Polish armies under Stanisław Rewera Potocki, Stefan Czarniecki and Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski caught the retreating army of George II Rákóczi, Prince of Transylvania, at Czarny Ostrów in Podolia. Rákóczi had invaded Poland that year as Sweden's ally, hoping for the Polish crown. Beaten and surrounded, he capitulated a few days later at Międzybóż, promising to pay heavy reparations, abandon Sweden and leave Poland. On the way home his army was destroyed by Poland's Tatar allies.1
By 1657 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had been at war with Sweden for two years. The Swedish invasion of 1655, remembered in Poland as the Deluge, had been partly turned back, but Sweden was looking for new allies. One was George II Rákóczi, Prince of Transylvania. By the Treaty of Radnot of 6 December 1656 he and the Swedish king Charles X Gustav agreed to partition the Commonwealth; Rákóczi was promised the Polish crown and a much reduced kingdom.2
Invasion from the south
Early in 1657 Rákóczi crossed the Carpathians into Poland. His army included Moldavian and Wallachian contingents and Cossacks sent by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The diarist Jan Chryzostom Pasek, who fought against him, wrote mockingly of forty thousand Hungarians and Moldavians and as many Cossacks again; the figure is his, not a count. Rákóczi failed to take Lviv, then plundered Lesser Poland, sacking towns and castles such as Dukla, Lesko and Odrzykoń, and marched towards Warsaw.3
With Charles Gustav's help he took the capital. Then, on 16 June, Denmark declared war on Sweden, and Charles Gustav hurried west to meet the new enemy, leaving Rákóczi on his own in Warsaw. At the same moment Austrian troops arrived to help the Poles and laid siege to Kraków, where Transylvanian troops formed part of the garrison.4
Lubomirski strikes at Transylvania
The decisive blow came from an unexpected direction. Rákóczi had attacked Łańcut, the seat of the Lubomirski family, and the Grand Marshal of the Crown, Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski, answered by leading his own army over the mountains into Transylvania itself, to draw Rákóczi home. Pasek describes him burning and laying waste wherever he went, and taking a large ransom from Rákóczi's mother.5
Rákóczi could not leave his own country undefended, and he abandoned Warsaw and turned south-east for home. Polish forces closed in on his retreating army, and the Muzeum Historii Polski names the commanders who finally brought him to bay: Stanisław Rewera Potocki, Stefan Czarniecki and Lubomirski. The lexicon of Polish battles published by Jagiellonian University historians names Czarniecki, Lubomirski and the Grand Lithuanian Hetman Paweł Sapieha.6 › Stefan Czarniecki
Surrounded on the Bug
On 20 July 1657 the Poles caught Rákóczi's army near the castle of Czarny Ostrów, on the Southern Bug in Podolia, and beat it in battle. The sources say little about the fighting itself; what they agree on is the result. The defeated prince fell back with what was left of his army to the nearby town of Międzybóż, where he found himself surrounded.7
To save himself and his remaining troops, Rákóczi offered to capitulate to Czarniecki and Lubomirski. The date is given as 23 July in the Jagiellonian lexicon and 24 July by the Muzeum Historii Polski. He promised to withdraw his garrisons from Kraków and Brest, break his alliance with Sweden, leave the Commonwealth and pay 1.2 million Polish złoty in reparations; the Polish Army Museum adds that the commanders were to receive about 2 million and the army 1 million more. The lexicon says he also agreed to hand back all the loot taken in Poland.8
The Tatars and the end of an army
Rákóczi had bought his army's freedom, but not for long. On its way home it was attacked by the Crimean Tatars, then allies of Poland, who, according to the Muzeum Historii Polski, did not know of the capitulation. They routed it completely and took about 11,000 men captive, among them the commander János Kemény, a future prince of Transylvania. The two museums disagree about Rákóczi himself: the Muzeum Historii Polski says he escaped, while the Polish Army Museum writes that the Tatars took him prisoner.9
Pasek, writing years later, mocked the prince who came for a crown and went home in a very small escort, leaving noble hostages behind against a ransom that never came. Rákóczi did reach Transylvania, but he was soon deposed there and died fighting to win back his throne.10
What Czarny Ostrów decided
The campaign of 1657 cost Sweden its most dangerous ally against Poland, at the very moment when Charles Gustav was tied down by the new war with Denmark and Austrian troops were besieging Kraków. For Lubomirski it was a high point: the Rzeczpospolita writer Leszek Szymowski calls Czarny Ostrów the decisive battle of the campaign against Rákóczi, fought by a magnate who would later turn his armies against his own king.11
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego, księcia Siedmiogrodu”; Jerzy Ronikier, “Oblężenie Czarnego Ostrowa (23 lipca 1657)”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Leszek Szymowski, “Jerzy Lubomirski”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Leszek Szymowski, “Jerzy Lubomirski”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Jerzy Ronikier, “Oblężenie Czarnego Ostrowa (23 lipca 1657)”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Jerzy Ronikier, “Oblężenie Czarnego Ostrowa (23 lipca 1657)”; Leszek Szymowski, “Jerzy Lubomirski”; Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego, księcia Siedmiogrodu”. ↩
- Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego, księcia Siedmiogrodu”; Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Jerzy Ronikier, “Oblężenie Czarnego Ostrowa (23 lipca 1657)”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego, księcia Siedmiogrodu”. ↩
- Leszek Szymowski, “Jerzy Lubomirski”; Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”. ↩
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”; Leszek Szymowski, “Jerzy Lubomirski”. ↩
Sources
- Muzeum Historii Polski, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego”
- Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, “Kapitulacja Jerzego II Rakoczego, księcia Siedmiogrodu”
- Jerzy Ronikier, in Bitwy polskie. Leksykon (Znak, 1999), via Twoja Historia, “Oblężenie Czarnego Ostrowa (23 lipca 1657)”
- Leszek Szymowski, Rzeczpospolita, “Jerzy Lubomirski: Najlepszy wróg króla”
