The Battle of Moscow was fought from 1 to 3 September 1612 during the Polish-Russian War of 1609-1618. Jan Karol Chodkiewicz's attempt to relieve the besieged Polish garrison in the Moscow Kremlin was repelled by Dmitry Pozharsky's "Second People's Militia," allowing the Russians to crown Michael of Russia as their new czar and reject the Polish prince Wladyslaw IV.
History[]
Following the 1610 Battle of Klushino, Tsar Vasili IV of Russia was deposed and taken to Warsaw. The Polish-Lithuanian army entered Moscow on 21 September 1610, and the boyars, clergy, and Muscovite citizenry accepted the Polish prince Wladyslaw as their new Tsar. However, the foreign Tsar was not universally accepted outside Moscow, and Poles, mercenaries, and gangs of robbers ransacked the countryside. In March 1611, the Muscovites rebelled against the Poles and besieged the Polish garrison of the Kremlin. Prokopy Lyapunov failed to retake the fortress and was murdered by the Cossack leader Ivan Zarutski. The Nizhny Novgorod merchant Kuzma Minin responded with the formation of a better-armed and better-organized "Second People's Militia," and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky assumed command of the army. This militia captured Yaroslavl in March 1612 before entering Moscow in August 1612 and besieging the Polish garrison in the Kremlin.
On 1 September 1612, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz's Polish-Lithuanian relief army attempted to break the siege of the Kremlin, attacking towards the suburbs of Moscow. Polish hussars, backed by Polish, Hungarian, and German infantry, broke the Russian lines before Dmitry Trubetskoy's Don Cossacks attacked the exposed Russian right. The Poles were dispersed, and the Kremlin garrison also mounted a failed sortie. On 3 September, Chodkiewicz attempted to attack Moscow from the south, and 600 Hungarian infantrymen reached the walls of the Kremlin before being halted in the narrow streets of the district and being repulsed by the Muscovites with heavy losses. On 27 October, the Polish garrison of the Kremlin surrendered unconditionally, and many of them were massacred.
Gallery[]
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