The Battle of Khotyn was fought on 11 November 1673 on the Dniester1. Grand Crown Hetman Jan Sobieski led the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against Hüseyin Pasha's Ottoman army, entrenched in a fortified camp beside the Khotyn fortress. After a night of freezing rain, the Poles stormed the ramparts at dawn and the hussars charged through the breaches; the Ottoman army was destroyed, many drowning when a bridge over the Dniester collapsed. The victory made Sobieski a national hero and helped him become king.2
In 1672 the Ottoman Empire had taken Kamianets and forced humiliating terms on Poland. A year later, on a frozen November morning, Hetman Jan Sobieski answered with one of the most brilliant victories in Polish history, at Khotyn on the Dniester.
Revenge for Kamianets
In 1672 the Ottomans captured the fortress of Kamianets in Podolia, and the Treaty of Buchach forced Poland to give up territory3 and pay tribute. The Sejm refused to accept it, and in 1673 the Commonwealth raised an army to fight back. It found the Ottoman army of Hüseyin Pasha entrenched in a large fortified camp beside the old fortress of Khotyn.
The freezing night
Sobieski brought his army up close to the camp and kept it in battle order through the night4 of 10 to 11 November, in freezing rain and wind3. The Polish troops suffered, but the Ottoman soldiers, many of them from warmer lands, suffered more.
Storming the ramparts
At dawn on 11 November the Polish infantry and dragoons attacked the ramparts3 and broke into the camp. Through the breaches poured the cavalry, led by the winged hussars under Stanisław Jabłonowski. An Ottoman cavalry counterattack was beaten back.
The collapse at the bridge
The Ottoman army broke and fled toward the bridge over the Dniester, which collapsed under the weight of the fugitives3. Thousands were killed or drowned. Hüseyin Pasha escaped with a remnant of his army to Kamianets.3
The road to the throne
By a twist of fate, King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki had died the day before the battle5. The victor of Khotyn returned as a national hero, and in 1674 the nobility elected him king5 as Jan III Sobieski. Ten years later he would lead the relief of Vienna.
