THE SWEDISH CONNECTION 347
to view their Grand Duchy as an 'Empire of Russia' were rapidly gaining real
substance.
Concurrent to the workings of the 'northern triangle', a 'southern triangle'
was created by the presence of the Turks on the Black Sea coast. Here, the three
sides of the arena were formed by the contiguous territories of the Republic,
Muscovy, and the Ottoman Empire. In effect, the danger from this quarter
rarely materialized. Preoccupied with their campaigns in the Danube valley and
in Asia, the Turks usually left the fighting north of the Carpathians to their
Crimean vassals. Year by year, throughout the Vasa period and beyond, the
Crimean Tartars tried all the possible permutations in turn. They launched
raids in the service of Muscovy against the Republic; raids in the service of the
Republic against Muscovy; raids with the Cossacks or against the Cossacks; and
raids on their own.^19
The short Turkish War of 1620-1 was the only occasion between 1498 and
1672 when the Poles came into conflict with the main Ottoman Army directly,
and that in consequence not of a Muscovite intrigue, but of a Transylvanian
one. In 1618, Zygmunt III had sent some cavalry detachments to Vienna, to help
his brother-in-law the Emperor against the attacks of Bethlen Gabor, Prince of
Transylvania. It was Bethlen who intrigued with the Porte to stage a suitable
response. In September 1620, Iskender-Pasha advanced against the Republic,
and at Cecora on the Pruth inflicted a crushing defeat on the Poles, taking
Hetman Koniecpolski into captivity and receiving the severed head of
Zolkiewski on a pike. A year later, the fortunes of war were dramatically
reversed. Sixty-five thousand Poles and Cossacks under Hetman Chodkiewicz
and Ataman Sahajdaczny were surrounded in their camp at Chocim on the
Dniester by an Ottoman army three times their number under the personal com-
mand of Sultan Osman II. Their fate appeared to be sealed. The scene, and the
later action, was recorded in the Latin memoirs of Jakub Sobieski (1588—1646),
Wojewoda of Ruthenia, which in due course served to inspire Waclaw Potocki's
Wojna okocimska (The War of Chocim), perhaps the most celebrated epic
poem in Polish literature:
White gleamed the hills by the banks of the Dniester
(Like land all covered with fresh-fallen snow),
As the Turk drew close, and with marvellous speed
Arranged his pavilions in endless array...
When Osman looked down and viewed our lines,
Like a ravenous lion baring his claws,
With bristling mane and quivering tail,
Hungry for gore, he eyed his prey
Which lay like a bison stricken on the plain...
In their midst, the Janchar-aga in peacock plumes
Sent his fiery regiments to the fore;
Astride his white Arabian steed,
In cloak of gold beneath a canopy of feathers,