Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/78

 which had been made. Poland, indeed, believed herself to be saved from anarchy and invasion alike. "The Cossacks will no longer ravage our fields, the infidel will no longer exact tribute," cried the women.

As soon as he was proclaimed, Sobieski made magnificent gifts to the nation, greater indeed than the foreign princes had promised, and which they were not likely to have performed: one hundred thousand florins went to the support of the Lithuanian part of the army, two hundred thousand for that of the Polish half, sixty thousand for the fortifications of Lemberg, three hundred thousand to buy back the jewels of the crown, pledged to the Jews of Vienna and Warsaw. All this was out of his private purse, and gives some measure of the resources of a great Polish noble at this time. Refusing a coronation on account of the expense and delay it would entail, Sobieski declared that his "mission was to make war on the Turks. I am placed on the throne to fight, not for representation. Festivals may come later."

High-minded, brave, pious, disinterested, caring much for the interests of his country, and little for his own grandeur, with a love of books which contrasted strangely with his military tastes and the life of incessant movement which fate had forced him to lead, Sobieski was indeed one of the rare instances where the highest qualities had led a man to great fortune.

His statesmanship as well as his great military qualities are insisted on in all the contemporary accounts; his love of science and of books, and his power of speaking German, Italian, French, English, and Turkish almost as well as his own language.

One of the handsomest men of his time [said the official French Gazette] his countenance is such that he inspires at the same time respect and affection. Enlightened, kind, he is so forgiving that it has been always said that he only revenged himself for the calumnies of his enemies by his great actions. [His picture, in armor, fully bears out this description.]

Achmet Kiuprili was not likely to leave the new sovereign time to settle himself firmly on the throne. He regarded Poland as a good position to take up between the Muscovites, whom he despised, and Austria, whose flank would thus have been turned. The ports of the Baltic tempted him onward, and Europe in this manner would have been cut in two, when the Turks might soon have dominated the whole continent.

In 1674, Mahomet himself again joined the army, which was once more to march on Kotzim. The enormous supplies of men which the Turks were able to draw from their provinces in Asia, Africa, and Europe, after the tremendous defeats which they had undergone and the waste of life, are surprising in our eyes, with whom the want of men to supply even the demands of an army in times of peace is sometimes found impossible to meet.

Sobieski, who had been called the Whirlwind, from the rapidity of his marches and the vigor of his onslaughts, was carrying all before him, when the intrigues of Leopold deprived him of half his army; the Lithuanian grand hetman Paz, who had opposed Sobieski's election, suddenly left the camp with his troops, and the winter was lost in vain attempts to restore order, for the disbanded soldiers spent their time in pillaging their own country instead of fighting the enemy.

Gradually Sobieski, by dint of patient courage, tact, and skill, collected an army again in the central position of Lemburg. He alone preserved his courage and confidence in the midst of the universal alarm. "He fears nothing who has foreseen all," said the Poles afterwards. He was at the same time attempting to form a political coalition to assist his military manoeuvres, in spite of the enmity of Leopold, who strove to keep Poland weak, calculating that it might thus occupy the Porte in the north and prevent any attack being made in his direction.

The Turks, under Ibrahim the Seraskier, began the siege of Zbaras; a number of Russian peasants had taken refuge in the town, and treacherously gave it up to the enemy, when Ibrahim cut to pieces the whole population except the women, who were reserved for the seraglios. The old, the children, perished in the flames or by the sword, and the Turks moved on to other sieges, where the same horrible cruelties were exercised. Von Hammer, after repeated descriptions of barbarities on such occasions which make one's blood run cold, and indeed are sometimes quite unreadable, at length seems to grow weary of such horrors, and merely writes, "The town was taken; the usual cruelties ensued;" or, "The city was sacked with the atrocities used by barbarian troops." The love of pillage was so great among them that the army was delayed, so that their advantage in numbers was lost, and the fine season passed away, while 