Polish–Ottoman War (1672–76)
| Polish–Ottoman War (1672–1676) | |||||||||
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| Part of Polish–Ottoman Wars | |||||||||
 Battle of Khotyn 1673 (1673) |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Principality of Wallachia (in 1673)Khanenko's Cossacks |
 Ottoman Empire Crimean Khanate Principality of Moldavia Cossack Hetmanate (Doroshenko's faction) |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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John Sobieski Michał Kazimierz Pac Mykhailo Khanenko |
Mehmed IV Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Kara Mustafa Pasha Selim I Giray Petro Doroshenko |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 12,000 Crown troops and 5,400 Lithuanian troops After 17 October 1672 troops were increased to 31,000 and 12,000 Crown and Lithuanian troops including militiamen and private troops the forces available for campaign numbered nearly 60,000 |
50,000 to 80,000 | ||||||||
Polish–Ottoman War (1672–76) or the Second Polish–Ottoman War was a conflict between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, as a precursor of the Great Turkish War. It ended in 1676 with the Treaty of Żurawno and the Commonwealth ceding control of most of its Ukraine territories to the Empire.
The causes of the Polish-Ottoman War of 1672–76 can be traced to 1666. Petro Doroshenko Hetman of Zaporizhian Host, aiming to gain control of Ukraine but facing defeats from other factions struggling over control of that region, in a final bid to preserve his power in Ukraine, signed a treaty with Sultan Mehmed IV in 1669 that recognized the Cossack Hetmanate as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.
In the meantime, Commonwealth forces were trying to put down unrest in Ukraine, but were weakened by decades long wars (Khmelnytsky Uprising, The Deluge and Russo-Polish War (1654–67)). Trying to capitalize on that weakness, Tatars, who commonly raided across the Commonwealth borders in search of loot and plunder, invaded, this time allying themselves with Cossacks under hetman Doroshenko. They were however stopped by Commonwealth forces under hetman John Sobieski, who stopped their first push (1666–67), defeating them several times, and finally gaining an armistice after the Battle of Podhajce.
In 1670, however, hetman Doroshenko tried once again to take over Ukraine, and in 1671 Khan of Crimea, Adil Giray, supportive of the Commonwealth, was replaced with a new one, Selim I Giray, by the Ottoman sultan. Selim entered into an alliance with the Doroshenko's Cossacks; but again like in 1666–67 the Cossack-Tatar forces were dealt defeats by Sobieski. Selim then renewed his oath of allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan and pleaded for assistance, to which the Sultan agreed. Thus an irregular border conflict escalated into a regular war in 1671, as the Ottoman Empire was now prepared to send its regular units onto the battlefield in a bid to try to gain control of that region for itself.
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