On This Day In History: Sweden’s Greatest Defeat: Battle Of Kirchholm Was Fought – On Sep 27, 1605

AncientPages.com - On September 27, 1605, one of the significant battles in the Polish–Swedish War was fought.

The battle was decided at a maximum of half an hour, by the devastating charge of Polish cavalry, the Winged Hussars.

The fleeing Swedes tried to defend themselves in several places and save the situation but in vain. The Swedish cavalry was in full retreat on both flanks exposing the infantry in the center to the hussars and the firepower of Polish infantry.

Monument devoted  Battle of Kircholm in Salaspils, Latvia

It ended in the decisive victory of the Polish-Lithuanian forces and is remembered as one of the greatest triumphs of Commonwealth cavalry.

The event's location was a small town Kirchholm (now Salaspils in Latvia, some 18 km south East of Riga).

The forces of Charles IX of Sweden were superior. The Polish Crown declined to raise funds for defense. However, Great Hetman of Lithuania Chodkiewicz promised to pay out army wages from his fortune, thereby gathering at least some army.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army under Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was composed of roughly 1,000 infantry and 2,600 cavalries and only five cannons.

The Polish-Lithuanian forces had a small number of Polish cossack light cavalry and Lithuanian cossack with Tatar cavalry. But these forces at this date were not the same as the Ukrainian/Russian Cossacks or Tatars), used chiefly for reconnaissance.

Chodkiewicz tried for four hours to lure the Swedes from their positions with his light cavalry sent out to skirmish between the two armies. The Swedes under Charles thought that the Lithuanians and supporting Poles were retreating and advanced to the bottom of the slope, using his second line of cavalry to cover his flanks while the first line of infantry closed up. Chodkiewicz was waiting for this maneuver.

The Swedish defeat was utter and complete. The army of Charles IX had lost at least half, perhaps as much as two-thirds, of its original strength. The Polish-Lithuanian losses numbered only about 100 dead and 200 wounded.

After the defeat, the Swedish king was forced to abandon the siege of Riga, withdraw by ship back across the Baltic Sea to Sweden, and relinquish control of northern Latvia and Estonia.

The Battle of Kircholm is commemorated on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Warsaw, with the inscription "KIRCHOLM 27 IX 1605".

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