Polish-Swedish War (1600-1611)

The Polish-Swedish War of 1600 to 1611 was the first long phase of the wider Polish-Swedish War of 1600 to 1629, a struggle between Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth over control of Livonia and Estonia and over the Swedish crown. Charles IX had taken that crown from his nephew Sigismund III Vasa, who was also King of Poland and would not give up his claim. Fighting opened with a Commonwealth strike into Swedish-held Estonia and Livonia, where Sweden at first gained ground through numerical superiority. The Lithuanian hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz then took the field and, relying on hussar cavalry, won repeated victories, most famously at Kircholm in 1605, where about 3,600 men defeated a Swedish army reported at around 11,000. Dissension at home and unpaid troops kept those victories from being decisive, and a truce was signed in 1611 after the death of Charles IX. Historians disagree on the result, some calling it even and others a Polish-Lithuanian success.