Draft:Battle of Bratslav

The Battle of Bratslav took place on 26 August 1671 during the Polish-Cossack-Tatar war of 1666–1671.

Background
From the autumn of 1670, relations between Hetman Doroshenko and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth began to deteriorate, as the Sejm recognised M. Khanenko, whom Doroshenko proclaimed a "traitor", as Hetman and began preparations for war. From November 1670 Polish units, which were near Kamenets, began to devastate the lands of the Podolsk regiment. At the beginning of 1671, the son of Podolsk judge Kavetsky killed Doroshenko's envoys to the crown hetman Jan Sobieski. On 24 January 1671, King Mikhail Koribut Vishnevetsky addressed a universal to the Cossacks and elders, in which he urged: "gather the Black Rada, break the agreement with the Porte, "tear down the Ukrainian economy" (in the sense of the state), establish "security and tranquillity" and "defend the integrity of the Fatherland of the Crown of Poland." In the instruction to the Ambassador Nikolai Rachkovsky it was suggested to pay special attention to the activities of I. Tukalsky, who "never wanted the domination of the king, but stands on that - to make Doroshenko the master and himself the patriarch". The ambassador to the Ottoman Empire had to warn its government that the ambitious Kiev metropolitan was seeking "to create an independent Russian patriarchate and wants to become a patriarch himself".

Realistically assessing the growing threat, in early April Doroshenko sent a letter to the Brandenburg Elector Frederick Wilhelm, urging him to seize the Polish crown and promising to provide military assistance. However, the letter did not reach its addressee, as it was intercepted by the Poles.

With the help of several thousand Budzhak Tartars, Ostap Gogol, patron hetman of Doroshenko, with the Cossacks of the Podolsk regiment, in the second decade of March 1671 travelled to Letichevo district and began a military action against the Poles and Khanenko. The settlements of the Podolsk judge (Masovtsy, Perkhovtsy, Cherepovo and others), the neighbourhoods of Bar, Medzhibozh, Derazhne, Staraya and Novaya Seniav, Zinkova and Gusyatina were devastated. Rebel units led by Ivan Kiyashko, together with the Tatars, passed the outskirts of Dunayevtsi and attacked Kulchyivtsi, Boryshkivtsi and other settlements. According to the testimony of one of the noblemen, such desolation reigned around Kamyanets that "there was not a single man anywhere" and "there was not a plough on any arable land this spring".

Preparation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the campaign against Doroshenko
On 13 May 1671, a council of war was held in Warsaw, which approved Jan Sobieski's proposed plan of campaign against Doroshenko. The king issued a third proclamation to move troops. Units of the crown army began preparations for the campaign. On 17 June 1671 Gabriel Silnytsky suddenly attacked the outskirts of Mogilev-Podolsk, "demolishing villages with fire and sword". Having slaughtered the suburbs ("women and children's blood flowed to the Dniester"), he tried to seize Mogilev, but came under heavy fire from Cossack self-propelled guns, suffered heavy losses and, according to the testimony of Ya. Drobysh Tushinsky, "returned back with confusion". The Polish kings settled in Bar, Solobkovtsy, Mikulintsy, Dunayevtsy, Studenitsa and Kitayhorod.

About 20 July P. Doroshenko began the siege of Bila Tserkva and sent to Podolia the order hetman, his brother Grigory, with 2 thousand Cossacks. To help the Khan to fight against Khanenko's Cossacks and the Zaporozhye went Kalnitsky regiment. Having no more than 6-8 thousand Cossacks (the rest were in pledges) and 5-6 thousand Tatars, the hetman decided, avoiding an open battle, to exhaust the forces of the Poles by defence of the cities and, waiting for the approach of the horde, to go on the counter-offensive. The majority of the Belgorod horde, which arrived to Grigory Doroshenko, having received false news of the approaching movement, hastily left Podolia.

Sobieski's offensive
24 July 1671 at the head of a 6,000-strong (Smolius and Stepankov write about 7,000 together with servants) On 30 July 1671 Jan Sobieski was already in Kamyanets, ready for a systematic attack on Podolia. When Sobieski, who was standing with his army near Orinin (near Kamenets), received the news that significant forces of Tatars were leaving there, Hetman Sobieski decided that it was the ideal moment to start offensive actions. Having learnt also about the intention of M. Khanenko at the head of 16 thousand Cossacks and 5 thousand Tatars to strike Crimea, he sent an order to the Polish hetman Dmytro Vishnevetsky to go to Bar to join him. On 20 August 1671 Jan Sobieski, having put around Kamenets all artillery, except for 6 cannons, and a regiment under the command of Major-General Koritsky, set out with cavalry and dragoons against the Cossack-Tatar troops through Zelenchev, Solobkivtsi, Zenkov, Dashkovtsi and on 23 August, bypassing Bar, arrived at Mankovtsev (shortly before this burned village at a distance of a mile from Bar), where he united with the grouping of D. Vishnevetsky. Vishnevetsky (Smoliy and Stepankov write: "Taking into account that on the way the regiment of the Bratslav voivode also joined the army, its total number increased to 14-15 thousand men (together with servants)", but this does not take into account Koritsky's regiment left in the old camp; probably, the total number of troops was 6 thousand).

Intelligence reported to the hetman that the enemy's forces were not in Vinnitsa, as Sobieski thought, but near the town of Caves. The crown hetman quickly headed (leaving behind under the guard of dragoons his cannons and wagons) through Stanislavchik, Potoki and Voroshilovka to Caves, where he hoped to defeat Doroshenko and the Tatars with a sudden blow. However, the Cossack hetman, warned in time by scouts about this plan (the Polish army encountered the Tatars at the passage from Potoki to Voroshilovka and could not prevent them from withdrawing to their main forces), retreated to Bratslav, at a distance of a mile from the Caves. It should be noted that, starting from the neighbourhood of Bar, the population was extremely hostile to the Polish army and supported the Cossacks and Tatars in every possible way. In a letter to his wife the crown hetman lamented: "... day and night through bad and heavy crossings we hurried to catch the enemy unexpectedly on the spot. But now, in these parts in particular, one cannot even set foot in them, because both the muzhiks and all these people are loyal to our enemies".

Battle
Despite the fact that Sobieski's troops were marching at night on the off-road, they failed to strike the enemy unexpectedly. Notified of his approach, the Cossacks and Tatars took refuge in Ostrog, with the Cossacks occupying the upper town and the Tatars the lower. Bratslav, the capital city of the province, a crowded, commercial, rich place, consisted of two parts: the lower, fortified by a poor rampart, but spacious, with three churches and an impressive Cossack population, and the upper, with a strong fortress, because the rocky mountain on which it was built was protected by cliffs and the Bug River from the north, and from the south it was defended by strong ramparts, palisades and a dry moat. On the west side it was protected by a large lake, which separated the two parts of Bratslav.

On 25 August Sobieski had already camped near Bratslav, and towards the end of the day his artillery and dragoons approached him. On 26 August 1671 the battle began. Sobieski's plan was to lure the Cossack-Tatar army from Bratslav into the field and defeat it.

Sobieski tried to lure the enemy into the field by attacking with two armoured cavalry on one side and several hundred light cavalry under the leadership of his chief captain Myachinsky on the other, but this plan failed: the Tatars were hiding behind the ramparts. Then Jan Sobieski directed his forces into the gap between the old and new towns to cut off the Cossacks from the Tatars. In the vanguard of the attack were the guardian's chariots of Bidzinski and Zbruzek, then the regiments of Sieniawski and two Potocki; after them the right wing led by Jablonowski (7 of Jablonowski's own chariots and a regiment of the Kiev voivode Andrzej Potocki) struck; finally Dmytro Vishnevetski with the regiments of his (left) wing (5 of his own chariots and a regiment under the command of Sobieski Jerome Lubomirski). The vanguard broke into the lower town and almost into the castle brama itself, despite heavy fire from cannons and Cossack guns. The Tartars did not even realise how they were cut off from the castle and squeezed between the Poles in front of the castle and the mire on the western side.

The Tartars fled, and almost all of Sobieski's forces moved in pursuit of them. Sobieski left Polanowski with all the hussars and artillery general Kontsky with a core of dragoons de Bohan and two squadrons of raitarii Buzynski near the town, warning them not to storm the castle, where a well-armed regiment of Cossacks was stationed.

The fleeing Tatars were pursued as far as Batog, 30 kilometres away, and were completely dispersed. The Tatars were not helped even by the fact that in Ladyzhyn the burghers gave the Tatars fresh horses and met the Poles with cannon fire. Cossacks defended themselves in the upper town, but seeing the defeat and the fleeing of the Tatars, surrendered. Emir Ali, who commanded the Tatar army, claimed that the Tatars lost 500 men killed in the battle.

By the battle
Despite the defeat of the Tartars, Jan Sobieski decided to take his army to Bar, where he arrived on 30 August. Here he hoped to wait for the king with reinforcements and units of the crown and Lithuanian troops. The Poles surrendered to Knut, Chetvertinnoe, Nemirov, Ladyzhyn, Krasnoe, Sharhorod and Brailov; they captured Dzialov by storm.

Having learned about the defeat of the Tatars, Peter Doroshenko on 3 September 1671 lifted the siege of Bila Tserkva and withdrew to Uman.

Literature

 * Mała Encyklopedia Wojskowa, 1967, Wydanie I
 * Leszek Podhorodecki, „Chanat Krymski i jego stosunki z Polską w XV-XVIIIw.“, Warszawa 1987, ISBN 83-05-11618-2, str. 213—214
 * Наталия Яковенко „Очерк истории Украины с древнейших времен до конца XVIII века.“ Раздел V Казацкая эра. § 2. Руина (1658—1686)--Андрусовское располовинивание
 * Смолий В. А., Степанков В. М. „Украинская национальная революция XVII ст. (1648—1676 гг.)“. — (Сер. Украина сквозь века) Т.7. — К.: Альтернативы, 1999. — 352 с. ISBN 966-7217-26-4
 * Дмитрий Дорошенко» Очерк истории Украины «1966 издательство» Дніпрова хвиля— — Мюнхен / " ГЛОБУС " Киев 1992 Том 2, Глава 4
 * «Летопись Самовидца». издание подготовил Я. И. Дзира. — Киев: «Наукова думка», 1971. — 208 с
 * «Летопись гадячского полковника Григория Грабянки» / Пер. с староукр. — К.: Т-во «Знание» Украины, 1992, — 192 с
 * Величко С. В. «Летопись. Т. 1.» / Пер. с книжного украинского языка, вст. статья, комент. В. О. Шевчука; ОТП. ред. О. В. Мишанич.— К.: Днепр, 1991.— 371 с.; «Летопись. Т. 2.» / Пер. с книжного украинского языка, комент. В. О. Шевчука; Отв. ред. О. В. Мишанич.— К.: Днепр, 1991.— 642 с.