16
SOBIESKI:
Terror of the Turk (1674-1696)
'Sobieski' is one of the very few names from Polish History to be widely known
in the world at large. He has been eulogized by contemporaries and by histori-
ans alike. According to John Milton, he was 'the first of the Polanians to show
that the terrible, main Battalion of the Turk might be broken at one stroke.' His
military skill was specially praised by Clausewitz. A household word in Poland,
he has been remembered throughout Europe as a king who saved the Empire
and Christendom from the Infidel. For this very reason, it is not easy to discuss
the face behind the mask of glory, or, more importantly, to describe the prob-
lems of a kingdom overshadowed by the feats of its king.^1
Jan III Sobieski (1629-96) was born at Olesko, near Lwow, the second son of
Jakub Sobieski, Wojewoda of Ruthenia, and of Maria Daniltowicz. He received
his Latin education at the Nowodworski Gymnazium in Cracow and at the
Jagiellonian University, and in 1646—8 departed on a Grand Tour which took
him to Paris, London, and Amsterdam. In 1652, on the death of his elder
brother, he stepped into the combined inheritance of three great families - the
Sobieski, the Zotkiewski, and the Daniltowicz. But from early manhood he
chose a military career; whilst his wealth and connections gave easy access to
court, diplomacy, patronage, and politics. He first joined the army in 1648, and
fought throughout the dozen years of Chmielnicki's Rebellion and the Swedish
'Deluge' under the orders of Jerzy Lubomirski and of Stefan Czarniecki. For
seven months between August 1655 and March 1656, together with many
deserted royal officers, he accepted a colonel's commission under Charles X. He
first joined an embassy, to Constantinople, in 1654; was first presented at court
in 1655; and was first elected as an envoy to the Sejm in 1659. Thereafter his pro-
motions succeeded each other in steady procession. In 1665 he received the
wand of the Grand Marshal, in 1666 the dignity of the Field Hetman, and in
1668 the supreme military honour, the baton of the Grand Hetman of the
Crown. In the reign of Michal Korybut, he spent his time warring against the
Turks. His astonishing annihilation of an entire Ottoman Army under Hussein
Pasha, on the site of Chodkiewicz's earlier victory at Chocim on the Dniester,