By Brian Glyn Williams - The Jamestown Foundation

Crimean Khan, Selim Giray, to once again ravage Podolia. Selim Giray's forces also aided the Ottomans in
their successful siege of Kamenetz, the provincial capital of Podolia. After the capital's fall, the Khan raided
deeper into Poland capturing more than a thousand captives according to Howorth. 90
The war continued with varying successes until the year 1676 when the Polish government finally
bowed before the Ottomans' military supremacy and signed the humiliating Treaty of Buzacz. This
treaty brought the Ukraine under Ottoman suzerainty and Podolia under direct Ottoman control.
The treaty did not, however, bring lasting peace and, in the following years, the Tatars were
called upon to defend the Empire's gains on several occasions. The rise to power of one of Poland's
greatest warriors, Jan Sobieski, in the years following the Treaty of 1676 did not make the Tatars' task any
easier.
Davies' description of Sobieski shows that the Poles had finally found a leader who understood the Tatars and
could beat them at their own game.
He was born in a thunderstorm during a Tartar raid. His maternal grandfather, Hetman
Zolkiewski, and his brother, were both beheaded on the battlefield by Tartars; and his
uncle, Stanislaw Danillowicz, died in Tartar captivity. He could not but be profoundly
affected by the family, and its inscription: O quam est pro patria mori. In 1653, he
voluntarily submitted himself as a hostage in Bakchisaray; in 1654, he was in Istanbul; in
1657, he commanded the Republic's Tartar auxiliaries. No one was more experienced in,
or fascinated by the ways of the East than he. 91
One of Sobieski's greatest achievements was the creation of a highly mobile army that could catch and
destroy the fast moving Tatar chambuls (raiding parties). One has but to look at his many victories
over the Crimean Tatars to understand how the King was able to gain the respect of his Tatar
adversaries. Sobieski was known for making lightning strikes of distances of over 150 miles in Tatar fashion.
One of his more notable successes occurred in 1675. Sobieski was able to move against a Tatar force of
20,000 riders with only 5,000 men and inflict a costly defeat on an enemy that had only a few years earlier
been considered almost invincible. 92
The King's outstanding successes against the Tatars undoubtedly left an impression on the Khanate's
leaders and may have influenced Murad Giray in his decision to flee before the Poles during the famous
Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683. The following description of the Polish attack on the besieging
Ottoman army from Sobieski's letters tends to lend credence to this theory:
It is said that when the Vizier realized he could not hold out against us, he called his two
sons to him, and having embraced them, exclaimed in tears to the Tatar Khan, 'Save me if
you can.' But the Khan replied, 'We know the King of Poland well. He is irresistible. Let
us consider rather how best to escape.' 93
Although the Tatars were able to assist the Ottomans against the Poles as late as 1687, their ability to
strike at Polish targets with impunity had come to an end. Sobiesksi’s reforms on Poland's eastern
border succeeded in bringing this exposed area under Polish control by the end of the seventeenth century.
The Ottomans may have been equally influential in bringing the Tatar's raids to halt in these years for they
had begun to consider the maintenance of a strong Poland as a counter weight to Russian expansion as
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