KLUSHINO
Polish hussars holding their lances upright emerged at dawn on 4 July 1610 from deep woods on the west bank of the Gzhat River 100 miles east of Moscow. In the faint light, the first to arrive reconnoitred a long fence that blocked their route of attack towards a cluster of small hamlets along the river. Beyond the fence lay their objective, a seemingly endless sea of tents for 36,000 Swedish and Muscovite troops and their camp followers that stretched towards the distant horizon.
Polish Grand Crown Hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski, the round-faced, moustachioed, elderly Polish hetman commanding the Polish field army, directed his staff to form work parties. They were tasked with smashing holes in the fence for the horsemen to pass through in order to assault the enemy camps. As he did so, the hussars that formed the core of his army arrayed themselves for battle. The men in the camps began to stir, and a regiment of Swedish mercenary arquebusiers raced forward to defend the fence line.
When all of his 5,500 hussars were on hand, Zolkiewski gave the signal for the attack to begin. Kettle drums rumbled and trumpets blared, and hussars poured through the gaps in the fence.
The Swedish arquebusiers fired on the hussars at point-blank range but they could not stop the rushing tide of heavily armoured cavalry. One of the epic clashes of the Polish-Muscovite War (1605 to 1618) had begun.
Time of Troubles
Although a state of undeclared war had existed between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Muscovy since 1605, Polish-Lithuanian King Sigismund III Vasa did not actually declare war on Muscovy until February 1609. The catalyst for the war was Tsar Vasily IV Shuisky’s decision to enter into an
