the treaty or
pay the tribute; and hostilities were resumed the next year with
increased inveteracy on both sides. The sultan accompanied his army only
to the Danube, where he remained engrossed with the pleasures of the
chase at Babataghi; while Sobieski, who had accommodated for the time
his differences with his colleague and rival Pac, hetman of Lithuania,
and was at the head of 50,000 men, boldly anticipated the tardy
movements of the Turks, who were advancing in several separate _corps
d'armee_, by crossing the Dniester early in October. He was forthwith
joined by Stephen, waiwode of Moldavia, with great part of the Moldavian
and Wallachian troops, who unexpectedly deserted the standards of the
crescent; and, after several partial encounters, a general engagement
took place, November 11, 1673, between the Polish army and the advanced
divisions of the Ottomans under the serasker Hussein, pasha of
Silistria, who lay in an intrenched camp on the heights near Choczim. A
heavy fall of snow during the night, combined with a piercing north wind
had benumbed the frames of the Janissaries, accustomed to the genial
warmth of a southern climate; and the enthusiastic valour of the Poles,
stimulated by the exhortations and example of their chief, made their
onset irresistible. The Turkish army was almost annihilated: 25,000 men,
with numerous begs and pashas, remained on the field of battle, or
perished in the Dniester from the breaking of the bridge: all their
cannon and standards became trophies to the victors: and the green
banner of the serasker was sent to Rome by Sobieski, in the belief that
it was the _Sandjak-shereef_, or sacred standard of the Prophet--the
oriflamme of the Ottoman empire. Never had a defeat nearly so
disastrous, with the single exception of that of St. Gotthard, ten years
before, befallen the Turkish arms in Europe; and the other corps, under
the command of the grand-vizir and of his brother-in-law, Kaplan-pasha
of Aleppo, which were marching to the support of Hussein, fell back in
dismay to their former, ground on the right bank of the Danube. The
Poles, however, made no further use of their triumph than to ravage
Moldavia, and the death of the king, on the same day with the victory at
Choczim, recalled Sobieski to Warsaw, in order to become a candidate for
the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet, in May 1674, he made
overtures for peace to the Porte, but they were rejected, and the
contest conti