GRAND HETMAN JAN KAROL CHODKIEWICZ
In autumn 1620 a Polish-Lithuanian expeditionary army was pinned down at Cecora on the Prut River in Moldavia, fighting for its life. The army’s septuagenarian commander, Polish Grand Crown Hetman Stanislaw Zółkiewski, had parried the enemy’s thrusts in an impressive fashion for more than two weeks. At last unable to maintain his position, he ordered a fighting retreat towards friendly territory in Poltava.
Just as the retreating army was nearing the frontier, all semblance of discipline broke down. Ottoman horsemen ran down the fleeing Christians. Zółkiewski was among the slain. The Ottomans severed his head and bore it to Istanbul as a present to Sultan Osman II. When word of the disaster at Cecora reached Polish King Sigismund III Vasa, he knew that only one man had the skill to defeat the Ottomans. That man was Lithuanian Grand Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz.
Groomed for success
Chodkiewicz, who was born around 1560, attended school in Vilnius, where his father was castellan. Upon graduation he travelled west to observe the Spanish and Dutch armies during the Dutch Revolt, presumably as an aide-de-camp. This exposed him to the western tradition of warfare with its linear tactics, as
