Background
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was the son of Hieronymus Chodkiewicz, castellan of Wilna.
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was the son of Hieronymus Chodkiewicz, castellan of Wilna.
After being educated at the Wilna academy Jan Karol Chodkiewicz went abroad to learn the science of war, fighting in the Spanish service under Alva, and also under Maurice of Nassau.
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz's first military service at home was against the Cossack rising of Nalewajko as lieutenant to Zolkiewski, and he subsequently assisted Zamoyski in his victorious Moldavian campaign.
Honours and dignities were now showered upon him.
In the war against Sweden for the possession of Livonia he brilliantly distinguished himself, capturing fortress after fortress and repulsing the duke of Sudermania, afterwards Charles IX, from Riga.
In 1604 he captured Dorpat, twice defeated the Swedish generals at Bialy Kamien, and was rewarded with the grand baton of Lithuania.
Criminally neglected by the diet, which from sheer niggardliness turned a deaf ear to all his requests for reinforcements and for supplies and money to pay his soldiers, Chodkiewicz nevertheless more than held his own against the Swedes.
Yet this great victory was absolutely fruitless, owing to the domestic dissensions which prevailed in Poland during the following five years.
Meanwhile the war with Muscovy broke out, and Chodkiewicz was sent against Moscow with an army of 2000 men-though if there had been a spark of true patriotism in Poland he could easily have marshalled 100, 000.
The Muscovite war had no sooner been ended by the treaty of Deulina than Chodkiewicz was hastily despatched southwards to defend the southern frontier against the Turks, who after the catastrophe of Cecora (see Zolxiewski) had high hopes of conquering Poland altogether.
An army of 160, 000 Turkish veterans led by Sultan Osman in person advanced from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier, but Chodkiewicz crossed the Dnieper in September 1621 and entrenched himself in the fortress of Khotin right in the path of the Ottoman advance.
Here for a whole month the Polish hero held the sultan at bay, till the first fall of autumn snow compelled Osman to withdrawhis diminished forces.
But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland.
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz married in 1620 Anna Alojza Ostrogska in November 1620.
