“Long live the Cossacks!”, shouted the brave musketeer Charles de Batz-Castelmore (Gascon d’Artagnan) after the impregnable fortress of Dunkirk had fallen.
Those skeptics who falsify history and try to abase the Cossacks, depicting them as robbers and idlers, should read the conclusions of foreign studies about who the real Cossacks were. Not everyone likes the real historical portrait of the Cossacks. Perhaps someone wants to erase the handsome and brave figures of warriors in marvelous armor next to beautiful horses from the people’s historical memory, and wants them to forget that the ambassadors of Spanish, French, Polish and Russian monarchs came to those knights-warriors to ask them for help — and those warriors defended both their own and foreign borders.
The Cossacks’ character is the stuff of legends. Yet now for some reason people perceive them quite negatively. Contemporaries see the Cossacks as wearing excessively wide trousers, embroidered shirts and red boots. Our predecessors would have laughed a lot if they had seen such a laughingstock running around back then. The Cossacks are also regrettably seen as having an excessive passion for vodka. Some are even proud of this. When describing Cossacks’ spirits consumption, the French engineer and historian G. Beauplan emphasized: “…it happens only in their free time, as during campaigns or when planning something important, they are absolutely sober… During campaigns these people are very restrained and if somebody happens to be drunk at that time, the otaman orders at once to throw him into the sea.” So, drunkenness during military campaigns led to execution, and everybody who participated in them knew this. Knights remained knights even on a spree.
Cossacks were often killed in battle, but if they weren’t they lived long lives despite the hard times. Could Cossacks have gained their brilliant victories on land and sea if they had drunk all the time? Could Cossacks have afforded to carouse if danger had always awaited them and they had to be ready to face the enemy at any time to repulse an attack, to defend themselves, their home and motherland?
What is more, modern vodka didn’t exist at that time. Cossacks drank varenukha (vodka, boiled with honey and dried fruit and berries), mead, cherry and pumpkin drinks, nuts, pear, cranberry, sea-buckthorn, rose hip liqueurs, etc. Modern 40-percent vodka would probably have knocked down Zaporizhian warriors, as their favorite varenukha was not 40, but 22-25 percent strong. Such heady drink didn’t provoke hangovers, which is why if Cossacks drank one or two quarts, they could dance hopak for a half of The Day or practice firing. In the Zaporizhian Sich Cossacks drank wine from a ritual cup with two handles that was kept by the ataman. They drank and passed it around saying: “One for all, all for one.” It would be interesting to find out who invented this phrase: Cossacks or the musketeers who were their allies during the siege of the Dunkirk fortress.
The fortress-town Dunkirk used to be an important port at the entrance from the North Sea into the Strait of Dover and the English Channel. For 10 (!) years the famous French musketeers couldn’t capture the fortress, which was occupied by the Spanish. There was no way to dislodge the enemy: thousands of people perished, but the fortress remained in the enemy’s hands. Dunkirk was impregnable from both land and sea: a deep moat filled with water and a high rampart with ten bastions on it made the fortress inaccessible.
The French government, represented by the French cardinal Jules Mazarin, was looking for a force that would capture this fortress-town for a song, which is why his ambassadors and officers approached the famous European knights, the Ukrainian Cossacks, and asked them to help capture Dunkirk.
During his stay in Warsaw in 1644 the famous G. Beauplan, when speaking to the French Ambassador to the Rzeczpospolita, count de Bregi, suggested hiring the Cossacks. The latter assured the Cardinal Mazarin, that the Cossacks are “very brave warriors, quite good riders, perfect infantrymen and that they are especially good at defending fortresses.” Some time later, in March 1645, the Otaman Ivan Sirko went to Fontainebleau to discuss the contract under which the French government hired 2,600 Ukrainian Cossacks (1,800 infantrymen and 800 horsemen). For their military service the Cossacks were to receive 12 thalers each and 120 for colonels and lieutenants. In September 1645 the Cossacks sailed from Gdansk (Poland) to Calais (France). The Cossacks took part in the war between France and Spain for Flanders. The purpose was the French king’s annexation of some areas of the Spanish Netherlands and a part of Saxony.
The joint French-Cossack forces first captured neighboring towns. Austrian allies of the French first tried to break out of encirclement but in vain. Then the Otaman Sirko, who headed the campaign, got down to work. He attentively examined the fortress and was amazed by the complicated defensive facilities around it. There were channels in shallow rivers and all the shore was surrounded by fortifications. The locked waterway to the town was protected by the “Mardyck” fort, ahead there was a breakwater with a terrible pilot tower armed with dozens of cannons. Only a thirty-thousand-strong army could capture such a stronghold. The Cossacks stipulated that they would operate alone. The French command agreed not to interfere with their strategies and tactics. Then Ivan Sirko brought two French frigates carrying only 2,200 Cossacks on board to the fortress walls. The French generals were utterly surprised. The inventive Cossacks used the sea flow. However late at night three rapid pirate brigs overhauled and surrounded the Cossacks’ frigates. The otaman ordered the white flag to be raised, signifying their capitulation. Later everything happened in a flash. Pirate brigs boarded the Cossacks’ frigates. The Spanish walked up onto the deck but didn’t find a soul there. They went down to the holds and never went up. When the pirates on the deck got confused and started panicking that some of them disappeared, Sirko whistled shrilly. The Cossacks sprang onto the deck with a wild roar and captured all the Spaniards with the “Mardyck” fort commander among them. On condition that they grant him his life, the commander led the Cossacks on their ships into the harbor and opened the fort. Everything happened according to the genius Cossack’s plan. The town-fortress gate opened and the Cossacks broke in, captured the “Mardyck” fort and opened the cannon fire on the pilot tower and other Dunkirk forts. The major part of the Cossacks occupied the streets and the town square. Everywhere the Cossacks shouted loudly “Glory!” At sunset the French flag was raised above Dunkirk. The Cossacks returned the strongest European fortress to the king and took 7,000 prisoners.
The townspeople welcomed the Cossacks. They respected them for treating the inhabitants and the Spanish prisoners humanely. Soon the royal army, headed by the Prince Conde that tried to capture the fort several times, entered into the liberated Dunkirk.
The French historian and traveler Pierre Chevalier, who was an officer in one of the Cossacks detachments near Dunkirk, described the Cossacks’ feats of arms: “The French army didn’t have to encourage them as they didn’t lack natural bravery.”
However the Cossacks were disappointed. The cardinal Mazarin refused to pay the money due under the contract because the fortress was not captured “according to the military science,” as the Cossacks resorted to ruse, wit and fighting courage as well as surprise. Otaman Sirko had to go to Paris for the money and they had to wait for it for ten months. He lived at the French Prince Conde’s place and the Cossacks that had come with him were lodged in musketeers’ barracks. It is known that Sirko taught the French musketeers the Ukrainian dance “Kozachok” — an art of war invention which is registered among the best European specimens.
The cunning cardinal was probably interested in settling the Cossacks on French soil as he didn’t allocate any ships for the Cossacks to return home and didn’t pay the promised money. Sirko had to stay longer in Paris (in Spring 1647 and Autumn 1648), and he used this opportunity to deliver lectures in the history of Poland and Rus’-Ukraine (in the Latin language) at the Sorbonne. Finally, in May 1648, the Cossacks received the money from the king and started preparing for the journey. However, during that time an unexpected thing happened. Almost half of the Cossack knights broke the vow and married Frenchwomen. The Otaman Sirko noticed: “Cossacks are knights. They have to respect women, and mothers…” That is why he ordered those who were married to stay in France. Some Cossacks were sent to Lorraine and lodged with hospitable French people.
The victors never got the ships, so a thousand Cossacks “free” of women set off to Ukraine… on foot through Holland and Germany. In Holland they were held again and lodged, as a workforce, in widows’ houses. The Cossacks were portrayed by the Flemish painters, probably even by Rembrandt.
The Cossacks’ glory in Dunkirk is a convincing example of their bravery, resourcefulness, honesty and sense of duty. The Cossacks were brave, warm-hearted and pure people. Kindness and disinterestedness, generosity and conscience, respect and sensitiveness were the qualities characterizing the Cossacks.
However, the most important thing is that the Cossacks did their historical duty, they saved the Ukrainian nation from death. Having created their armed forces for their own salvation, the Cossacks never aspired to occupy other territories (though they had a lot of opportunities and pretexts), but only used their military might to defend their motherland and to liberate it from foreign enslavement.
Any nation’s wealth can only hold true when every person knows about their predecessors and is proud of their past. The Scots, Germans, Spanish and other great historical nations never let anybody mock their history and traditions. A nation that doesn’t know its past is deprived of its future.
