The Polish Cossacks

The enemy's force consisted of 350,000 men: its numbers were lost in the distance, and presented the appearance of living waves, tossing to and fro on the agitated surface of a tempest-torn ocean. The Cossacks drawn up facing the left wing of the Polish army were intermixed with Turkish troops. Several rows of chariots, linked firmly together by iron chains, called tabor, and defended by picked men, formed their centre; on both wings and on all the neighbouring heights were the innumerable Tatar squadrons, ranged in the form of a half-moon or single crescent. The fog had just dispersed, and the rays of a bright sun disclosed to mutual view the two armies, surprised and motionless, in front of each other. Since the days of Timur-lenkh never had the like for importance and extent been seen. After a few seconds of deep and solemn silence had elapsed, forty-eight pieces of field-artillery, under Przyiemski, opened a deadly fire; the ranks of the enemy were visibly thinned by the discharge, and the entire Polish army rushed upon the Cossacks, who were the principal object of attack; these, after a vigorous defence, broken at last by the fury of the Polish charge, took refuge behind their iron-bound chariots, leaving their Tatar allies openly exposed to the murderous fire of the artillery, beneath which they fell by whole squadrons at a time. Com■ pelled to regain the heights from which they had descended, the Tatars rallied again at first, but when all around the khan had been either killed or wounded, that chief gave way: his best squadrons dispersed, and towards nightfall took to flight, pursued by the Polish cavalry; leaving behind them their camp, their baggage, and their prisoners, as also an immense booty, the whole of which fell into the hands of the victorious Poles. Khmielnitski strove in vain to arrest their retreat, and with this view rode after the Tatars; but the khan, after reproaching him with his deception in having given him a false report of the strength of the Polish army, had him arrested, and even threatened to deliver him up to the Polish king, unless he consented to indemnify him, the khan, for the losses he had sustained in consequence, by delivering to him one half of all the booty which the Cossack chief had realized in the immediately preceding campaign against Poland. The absence of Khmielnitski threw the Cossack army, still 200,000 strong, into a state of paralysing uncertainty. Batteries were erected all around them and they fell by hundreds. After making some unsuccessful sorties, the Cossacks, weakened by two days' fighting, were as a body completely dispersed: the small remnant of their but lately innumerable forces, entrenched themselves on a neighbouring island, where, obstinately refusing to surrender, they were exterminated to the very last man.