Since the triumphal campaigns of Mohammed II the Conqueror and Suleiman I the Magnificent, the Turkish sultans never abandoned their ambitious intentions to expand their influence throughout Europe.
The role of the bulwark of Western civilization against the onslaught of the Ottoman Empire was played, according to Arnold Toynbee, by the Habsburg or Austro-Hungarian Empire based on a military alliance formed after a devastating defeat of the united Christian troops in 1526 near MohЗcs on the Danube. This alliance allowed Vienna to endure its first major siege in 1529, following which the Turkish troops retreated. Still, a sizable part of the Hungarian kingdom was seized by the Porte.
In the next century and a half, the Christian and Muslim worlds were in a constant state of war. Venetians, Spaniards, Poles, and Zaporozhzhian Cossacks were forced to actively engage the Ottomans. In particular, the Turks inflicted a crushing defeat on the Polish army in 1620 near Cecora, but a year later, near Khotyn, the Polish Royal Hetman Chodkiewicz managed to break off the Turkish offensive thanks to the assistance of 40,000 Cossacks led by Hetman Petro Doroshenko. Then Venice again attempted to form a union of Christian states against Turkey after an earlier abortive attempt late in the previous century. But the Cossack War of 1648 long delayed such an alliance.
However, the Cossack War against Poland-Lithuania, the more so in close alliance with the Tatar Khan Islam-Girey, undoubtedly helped the Ottoman Porte to carry out its intention to weaken Western Christendom. Thus as soon as in early 1649, Chyhyryn, Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s Cossack capital, was visited by the Turkish sultan’s envoys who tried to persuade him to become a subject of the Sublime Porte. The hetman refused. But simultaneously he also declined a proposal by the Venetian ambassador Alberto Vimini to join the anti-Turkish coalition.
However, a year later the Cossacks renewed their talks with the Turks. Bohdan Khmelnytsky even sent to them envoys of his own headed by Colonel Dzhedzhaliy, one of his most trusted lieutenants. There is no exact information about the details of negotiations between the experienced Dzhedzhaliy and the Turkish divan (government), but, very soon after, Chyhyryn received a tchaouche (petty officer — Ed.) with a letter from the grand vizier reassuring Khmelnytsky on behalf of the underage Sultan Mohammed IV of support. The letter must have struck a chord in the hetman, because he boasted the next day to Kyiv’s voyevoda (commandant — Ed.) Hryhory Kysil, “Greetings to me! I’ve won the protection of Turkey.”
In the spring of 1651, when it was clear another clash between the Cossack and Polish forces was inevitable, both sides began to prepare for a war. The sultan offered 20,000 janissaries to help, but the cautious Bohdan Khmelnytsky declined this at first glance tempting offer.
After the Berestechko catastrophe, in September, on the eve of signing the Treaty of Bila Tserkva with the Poles, the hetman received Turkish envoy Osman only to tell him he no longer wished to become the Sultan’s subject but was relying on the Muscovite tsar who professed the same faith as he did. The hetman also came out against the Turkish option at the Pereyaslav Rada, “The Turkish Sultan is an infidel; it common knowledge that the Orthodox suffer greatly in the lands under his power.” Still, Turkey did not abandon its claims, but only bided its time. The turning point in the relationship with the Cossacks came when Petro Doroshenko was elected hetman. In February 1666, the Great Rada supported Doroshenko’s intention to overthrow the power of commonwealth on the Cossack territory with Turkish help. Negotiations began with the Turkish divan. Foreign moles learned that what was on the agenda was Khmelnytsky’s old idea of the Ottoman Porte’s protectorate.
Petro Doroshenko’s contacts with Istanbul caused quiet a stir in Austria, Poland, and Venice. Emperor Leopold II officially promised help to the Polish king in the fight against the Muslims and their henchman Doroshenko. The worried Jan-Kazimierz decided to call on the Moscow tsar to conclude an armistice, given a mortal threat to the Christian world from Turkey and its vassals, and launch hostilities against the common enemy.
It was not for the first time that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth put forward such projects against the Muslim world. For instance, even in late 1649, after signing the Treaty of Zboriv under pressure of the Tatar Khan, the Polish king offered Moscow a military alliance. It is not known against who it was aimed, but the tsar declined the proposal. Similar talks were then held almost uninterruptedly from 1662 on, only to reach a deadlock each time. Only in early 1667 did Moscow become much more pliable. At last, on January 30, 1667, a truce was signed in Andrusovo, near Smolensk, for thirteen and a half years. Not to waste time on border delimitation, the two sides agreed that the Muscovite tsar would exercise control over Left Bank Ukraine and, for two years, Kyiv. The “liberated” Zaporozhzhian Sich was to be under joint jurisdiction of the two sides, although in practice it also fell under Moscow’s rule.
Ukrainian historians, when analyzing the 1667 Polish- Muscovite agreement, emphasize almost unanimously that the Andrusovo negotiations were conducted without Ukrainian representatives, although the questions under discussion primarily related to it. In reality, however, there was not the least question of Ukrainian problems. The talks dealt with a somewhat more urgent question: joint action against the Muslim world, with the territory under Hetman Doroshenko’s control being the forward edge of it. High on the agenda was a Polish- Muscovite alliance and later with other Christian states. With the infidel menace looming large, conflicts between Christians receded into the background.
The next step was taken in the fall of 1667 after Doroshenko with 24,000 Cossacks, several tens of thousands of Tatars, and even a sizable corps of Turkish janissaries, launched an offensive in September against Polish Royal Hetman Jan Sobieski. This threat forced Muscovy and the commonwealth to sign the so-called Allied Resolution whereby the two countries took an official commitment to carry out joint actions against Turkey and the Crimea.
The signing of the Peace of Andrusovo triggered a negative reaction among a sizable segment of the Cossacks, while Hetman Doroshenko even suffered a heart attack. Yet, he must have understood that the two mighty states would not turn a blind eye to his cultivating the infidels. Moreover, Cossack hetmans were often considered in Moscow and Warsaw as tools of the Crimean khan. In the fall of 1667 Moscow and Warsaw concluded their Allied Resolution. It seemed as if Ukraine’s two hetmans — Petro Doroshenko and especially the Left Bank ruler Ivan Briukhovetsky — would join, as devout Christians, the anti- Muslim alliance. But no! Both Cossack leaders rushed for a Turkish protectorate. In January 1668 Doroshenko convened a council of his senior officer corps. The Cossack elite supported his idea, and the Right Bank Hetman entered into negotiations with Ottoman Empire emissaries. The Turks promised assistance in conquering the other side of the Dnipro.
Briukhovetsky was also prompt. Violating his oath to the Orthodox tsar, he announced at the Hadiach council of senior officers that the Moscow tsar had betrayed (had he?) the Cossacks and that the only way out was seeking the support of Turkey, that is, of the infidels. Tellingly, neither of hetmans took the trouble to find out whether the Orthodox people will accept an alliance with the unbelievers.
To be concluded in the next issue
