(Washington, 1907).

CHODKIEWICZ, JAN KAROL (1560-1621), Polish general, was the son of
Hieronymus Chodkiewicz, castellan of Wilna. After being educated at the
Wilna academy he went abroad to learn the science of war, fighting in
the Spanish service under Alva, and also under Maurice of Nassau. In
1593 he married the wealthy Sophia Mielecka, by whom he had one son who
predeceased him. His 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 1599 he was
appointed starosta of Samogitia, and in 1600 acting commander-in-chief
of Lithuania. 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. His crowning achievement was the great victory of Kirkholm
(Aug. 27th, 1605), when with barely 5000 men he annihilated a threefold
larger Swedish army; for which feat he received letters of
congratulation from the pope, all the Catholic potentates, of Europe,
and even from the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia. Yet this
great victory was absolutely fruitless, owing to the domestic
dissensions which prevailed in Poland during the following five years.
Chodkiewicz's own army, unpaid for years, abandoned him at last _en
masse_ in order to plunder the estates of their political opponents,
leaving the grand hetman to carry on the war as best he could with a
handful of mercenaries paid out of the pockets of himself and his
friends. Chodkiewicz was one of the few magnates who remained loyal to
the king, and after helping to defeat the rebels in Poland a fresh
invasion of Livonia by the Swedes recalled him thither, and once more he
relieved Riga besides capturing Pernau. 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 e