On 26 October 1597, a date converted from the Korean lunar calendar (some studies give 25 October), Admiral Yi Sun-sin, restored to command after a spell in prison, held the roaring Myeongnyang Strait off Korea's south-west coast with 13 warships against a Japanese fleet ten times larger, and destroyed 31 of its ships. On the same day in 1794, 16 days after Kościuszko fell wounded into Russian hands at Maciejowice, Suvorov's cavalry caught the retreating Lithuanian divisions of the uprising at Kobyłka, north-east of Warsaw. The insurgents lost the battle and about 1,300 men, but bought time for the army to reach Praga, where Suvorov struck nine days later.
Myeongnyang, 1597: twelve ships and a released prisoner
In 1597 Japan invaded Korea for the second time, the campaign Koreans call the Jeongyu War. Yi Sun-sin, the admiral who had beaten the Japanese at sea in the first invasion, was falsely accused, dismissed and imprisoned in the spring. His replacement, Won Gyun, lost the fleet at Chilcheollyang in the seventh lunar month, and only Bae Seol escaped with 12 warships.1
Yi was restored to command. According to Mark Peterson and the Korea Herald, the court had concluded that the navy could no longer win, and Peterson writes that Yi was ordered to fight on land instead. Korean memory keeps his answer as "I still have 12 ships". A thirteenth ship joined before the battle: brought in by civilians, says the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, while Peterson says it was quickly repaired.2
The roaring strait
Yi chose to fight in the Myeongnyang Strait, which Koreans also call Uldolmok, between Jindo Island and the mainland. Ogawa Takaaki explains the name Myeongnyang by the roar of the sea at the turn of the tide, and the Korea JoongAng Daily notes that Uldol, in the name Uldolmok, roughly translates as "crying stone". A 2002 study in Korean Studies Quarterly puts the channel at about 290 meters wide at its narrowest and 1,700 meters long.3
The size of the Japanese fleet is the most disputed figure. Yi's diary counts 133 ships coming at him, or in the other version of the diary more than 130. The Joseon court annals and the memoir Jingbirok speak of more than 200, as Ogawa notes in his review of the literature, and some modern accounts give 330. Lim Won-bin's explanation is that about 330 ships were gathered nearby and 133 of them passed into the strait to fight. The Japanese fleet was led by Todo Takatora and other daimyo, among them Kurushima Michifusa.4
Before the battle Yi wrote in his diary a line adapted from the Chinese military classic Wuzi: "Those who are resolved to die will live; those who hope to live will die." He added that one man holding a narrow pass can frighten a thousand.5
The 16th day of the ninth moon: the battle
Early on the 16th day of the ninth lunar month, lookouts reported countless enemy ships entering the strait. Yi's diary records that more than 130 surrounded his ships and that his captains, judging the odds hopeless, held back. For a time his flagship fought almost alone, firing cannon and arrows "like wind and rain". He told his frightened men that even a thousand enemy ships could not stand against their own. Then he signaled An Wi and Kim Eung-ham forward, and by his own account shouted to An Wi asking whether he wanted to die under military law. An Wi's crew fought off boarders with spears, clubs and stones.6
Then Junsa, a Japanese defector on Yi's ship, recognized a man in a red brocade robe in the water as the enemy commander Madashi. Yi had the body hooked aboard and cut up, and the Korean accounts say the sight shook the attackers. Japanese records say Kurushima Michifusa was killed in the battle, though Lim Won-bin cautions that it is not certain he and Madashi were the same man. The current turned against the Japanese, and Yi's ships destroyed 31 of theirs before the rest drew off. "This was truly the favor of Heaven," Yi wrote in his diary.7
The cost, and what Myeongnyang changed
Peterson writes that Yi did not lose a single ship and that only about ten Koreans died. The Japanese records give no figures for their losses, but the Todo family record, quoted by Ogawa, says Kurushima and many of the men on the leading ships were killed or wounded, and that Todo himself was wounded twice in the hand.8
For Korea it is the great victory that stopped the Japanese advance by sea toward the west coast, and a turning point of the war. Ogawa, reading Yi's own diary, stresses that Yi left the strait that same evening and in the following days sailed north as far as Gogunsan, off the northern end of Jeolla, and argues that it was a tactical victory over the Japanese vanguard rather than a strategic one. For the full story, see our article on the Battle of Myeongnyang and our article on Admiral Yi Sun-sin.9
Korean records date the battle to the 16th day of the ninth lunar month of 1597. Ogawa converts this to 26 October in the Gregorian calendar, while the Korean Studies Quarterly study and the Korea Herald give 25 October.10
Kobyłka, 1794: after Maciejowice
On 10 October 1794 the Russians beat Kościuszko at Maciejowice, and the commander of the uprising was seriously wounded and captured. Suvorov joined forces with Fersen and marched on Warsaw. General Stanisław Mokronowski, commander of the Lithuanian insurgent army since August, led it back toward the capital and left the division of General Jan Meyen at Kobyłka. According to Leszek Podhorodecki, the division of General Byszewski came up from Praga to reinforce it during the night.11
The town of Kobyłka's history gives Meyen 5,560 men, including 1,103 cavalry, and 9 guns, against a Russian leading column of 7,000 cavalry and 12 guns; Podhorodecki gives similar figures. The Russian military encyclopedia of 1913 puts Meyen's force at about 4,500 and Suvorov's main force at 10,000.12
Dawn at Kobyłka
Suvorov's column marched through the night, with the Cossacks of Brigadier Isaev in the lead. At about five or six in the morning Isaev attacked and was thrown back. Then the main Russian force arrived. Russian cavalry broke the left wing and drove it into the woods while the right gave way as well. According to Podhorodecki, Meyen left the field for Praga and handed command to Byszewski, and shot damaged a tower of the church in Kobyłka. The Russian encyclopedia says one column of about 1,000 men was cut off in the forest and laid down its arms.13
The rest fell back toward the inn at Zielonka on the road to Praga; Podhorodecki puts Byszewski's column at about 2,500 men. Russian horsemen caught them in the woods, dismounted, and went in with sabers and bayonets. Podhorodecki describes the poorly trained Lithuanians holding wooded hillocks for half an hour against Suvorov's veterans until the column broke. The Russian encyclopedia called the battle tactically interesting because it was won in forest country almost entirely by cavalry.14
The cost at Kobyłka
About 450 insurgents were killed and about 850 taken prisoner, by one count 44 officers and 800 men. According to Podhorodecki, Byszewski was among them, wounded. Podhorodecki cites Suvorov's report of 23 Russians killed and 130 wounded, and the 1913 Russian encyclopedia gives the same total of 153. Podhorodecki doubts these figures and thinks Suvorov played down his dead.15
According to Podhorodecki, Suvorov released almost all the prisoners. When Count Unrug, the lord of Kobyłka, gave a feast for the victors in his manor beside the church, Suvorov invited the captured Polish officers, drank to them crying "Vivat zgoda!" (long live concord) and lamented aloud the shedding of Slavic blood. The dead were buried at a site called Kąpiel, where a mound was later raised. For the 200th anniversary the parish put up a plaque to the fallen.16
The last stand before Praga
Kobyłka was the last battle of the uprising before Praga. Most of the Lithuanians got away through the woods, and the resistance of the rearguard let Mokronowski's corps withdraw in order and later take part in the defense of Praga. Suvorov stormed Praga on 4 November 1794. His troops overran the defenses within hours and massacred civilians as well as soldiers, and Warsaw capitulated. For the man who began the uprising, see our article on Tadeusz Kościuszko.17
Also on 26 October
In 1917 the Canadian Corps went into the Battle of Passchendaele on 26 October, after its commander, Arthur Currie, objected and was overruled. The ridge was taken on 10 November. The battle is told on our 31 July page.18
In 1942 American and Japanese carriers fought the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal campaign. The carrier Hornet was sunk, but the Japanese lost about a hundred aircraft. John Rickard notes that on the face of it the Americans suffered the worse losses, but that Japan lost 100 aircraft and experienced crews it lacked the training facilities to replace.19
Also on this day
- 1597: Battle of Myeongnyang. In the Myeongnyang Strait off Jindo Island, Admiral Yi Sun-sin and the 13 ships left to the Joseon navy faced a far larger Japanese fleet during the Japanese invasion of Korea.
- 1794: Battle of Kobyłka. At Kobyłka, north-east of Warsaw, Suvorov's Russian forces caught Polish-Lithuanian insurgents retreating toward the capital during the Kościuszko Uprising.
