Moldavian Magnate Wars

Three powerful magnate families from the Commonwealth, the Potockis, Koreckis and Wiśniowieckis, were related to the Moldavian Hospodar (Prince or Voivode) Ieremia Movilă (Jeremi Mohyła), and, after his death in 1606, they supported his descendants.

Consecutive treaties between the Ottoman Empire and the Commonwealth called both parties to curb Cossack and Tatar activities, but they were never implemented on either side of the border.

Sometimes Cossacks just needed resources to ensure their subsistence, while on other occasions they were bribed by the Habsburgs to help ease Ottoman pressure on their borders.

Later on, Mihai defeated Ieremia Movilă and took control over almost all of Moldavia, with the exception of Khotyn (Chocim or Hotin, a castle and a city on the right bank of the Dniester), which remained in Polish hands.

In the meantime, Mihai Viteazul traveled to Vienna to ask for the Emperor's help, in exchange for assisting the Habsburgs against the Ottomans and Imperial influence over Moldavia, previously aligned with the Commonwealth.

Captain John Smith, the famous leader of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia and the Pocahontas story, was serving Sigismund Báthory as a mercenary.

A year later, Simion Movilă was ousted from the Wallachian throne by local boyars who replaced him with Radu Șerban, with the consent of the Ottomans (relieved to see the Polish influence at the Danube diminish).

However, the Peace of Žitava ended the Habsburg-Ottoman conflict known as the Long War, and forced the Ottomans to recognize the Habsburgs as equals, due to the former's inability to penetrate royal Hungary.

This ended direct war between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs for decades, but the two powers still struggled for influence in the region that constitutes modern-day Romania.

Potocki's 7,000 strong army was defeated on 19 July in the Battle of Sasowy Róg (near Ștefănești) by troops of Tomșa and Khan Temir's Tatars of the Budjak Horde.

Tomșa assured about his friendliness, that he will help to patch up conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Commonwealth and pledged allegiance to the Polish king.

In 1613, when Sigismund signed a de facto anti-Turkish defensive treaty with the Habsburgs, counting on their support for his restoration to the Swedish throne, Poland further moved into the enemy camp from the Ottoman point of view.

Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, with a show of force, induced Moldavians and Turks to compromise and signed an agreement in 1612 with Ștefan Tomșa at Khotyn.

Żółkiewski's troops made another demonstration, but Ahmed Pasha did not attempt to cross the border, and settled for building new fortifications in the region of Ochakov (Oczaków, tr:Ozi) in order to prevent future raids.

In 1615, Ieremia Movilă's widow and dukes Michał Wiśniowiecki and Samuel Korecki organized a third intervention, this time carried against King Sigismund's wishes.

But this situation was not to last: in August 1616 Iskender Pasha, beylerbey (bejlerbej) of Bosnia, defeated magnate forces on the very same spot at Sasowy Róg, with Duke Samuel Korecki and the Movilă family ending up as prisoners in Constantinople (Wiśniowiecki had died prior to imprisoning).

Korecki managed to escape captivity, briefly reemerged, but was taken prisoner yet again after the defeat in the Battle of Cecora in 1620 and was strangled to death while in custody.

Again in 1616, Stefan Żółkiewski managed to cool the tensions, displaying Commonwealth military readiness and signing a new agreement with the new hospodar, Radu Mihnea, in Braha.

Żółkiewski met them near Busza (on the Jaruga River), but neither side could decide to attack, and letters between leaders had been exchanged since the start of Iskender's march.

In July 1618, after many warnings to the Commonwealth, the young and ambitious Sultan Osman II sent a letter to King Sigismund III with the threats of a new war and the burning of Kraków.

When the fight was joined by Gabriel Bethlen on the Protestant side, his siege of Vienna threatened to extend Transylvanian rule (and thus Ottoman) to Bohemia and Silesia.

Sigismund III decided to help the Habsburgs and privately hired an infamous [citation needed] mercenary group called the Lisowczycy (name took from their founder Aleksander Józef Lisowski), who were unemployed after the end of the wars with Muscovy (Dymitriads) and were plundering and terrorizing the entire region of Lithuania.

In the end, Ferdinand did not agree to any permanent concessions in Silesia, and only made Prince Karol Ferdynand (Władysław's brother) bishop of Wrocław.

Their envoy actively worked against a new treaty between the Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire because the Habsburgs knew that any Polish-Ottoman conflict meant less trouble for themselves.

This intrigue, coupled with Ottomans annoyance with Commonwealth pro-Habsburg actions and constant attempts by some Polish magnates to gain influence in Moldavia, caused a new war to be unavoidable.

Some historians say that King Sigismund decided to intervene in Moldavia because of internal problems caused mainly by the dispatch of Lisowczycy mercenaries to the Habsburg side and their conduct in war.

Others point out that some nobles threatened with armed rebellion (rokosz), and, in case of a successful intervention, the king would increase his and the hetman's authority and focus noblemen's attention on external instead of internal problems.

The new young Ottoman sultan Osman II made peace with Persia and promised to burn the Commonwealth to the ground and "water his horses in the Baltic Sea".

After the tides turned, the defeat and subsequent retreat of the Ottoman armies, coupled with internal matters, triggered the rebellion of janissaries in 1622, during which Osman II was murdered.