Battle of Warka (1656)

Course of events

At the turn of March and April 1656 Charles X Gustav was trapped in the fork of the Vistula and the San near Sandomierz¹. His brother, Prince Adolph John (Adolf Johan), sent to his aid the corps of Frederick, Margrave of Baden². Stefan Czarniecki set out against the margrave².

Near Kozienice Czarniecki surrounded and cut down the margrave's vanguard². The margrave, learning that the king was escaping along the right bank of the Vistula, began to fall back. He crossed the Pilica, broke down the bridge behind him and halted at Warka, where he waited for Ritter, the commandant of Radom².

Czarniecki reached the swollen Pilica and, seeing the bridge broken, was the first to plunge into the current himself. According to Kubala, he cried out as he did so: „Tyle drogi do nich wbród, co mostem!” ("It is as far to them by the ford as by the bridge!")². Detachments sent towards Warka and Czersk were to cut off the Swedes' retreat, and Czarniecki caught the rearguard marching towards Czersk. The margrave accepted battle near a wood, where he had hidden an ambush. He withstood the first charge, but then turned and fled with heavy losses². The victors pursued the fugitives for seven old Polish miles, as far as the suburbs of Warsaw⁶. The margrave, with his brother, Count Schlippenbach and several colonels, shut himself up in Czersk castle⁶.

Forces and losses

Significance

The margrave's corps was to support Charles Gustav near Sandomierz². The king, however, managed to cross the San by his own efforts and escape to Warsaw¹¹, while the relief force marching to his aid was routed and scattered as far as the suburbs of the capital⁶. The battle belonged to the campaign that Kubala calls Czarniecki's winter campaign¹². In Lwów the news of the victory arrived on the seventh day after the Lwów vows of John II Casimir Vasa¹⁰.

In the novel

Sienkiewicz describes the march on Warka after the vanguard had been destroyed:

Po czym ruszyli, jakby kto sierpem rzucił, do Magnuszewa, szpiegowie bowiem dali znać, iż margrabia badeński z całym wojskiem w Warce się znajduje.

Henryk Sienkiewicz, The Deluge (Potop)¹³

(Our translation: "Whereupon they set off for Magnuszew, as if someone had flung a sickle, for the spies had reported that the Margrave of Baden was at Warka with his whole army.")

Notes

1. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 288–289
2. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 292
3. Bitwa pod Warką, Kalendarium, Warszawa: Muzeum Historii Polski w Warszawie
4. Iwona Stefaniak, Rok 1656… O Bitwie pod Warką i Stefanie Czarnieckim niezapomnianym w Warce, Warka: Muzeum im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego w Warce
5. Władysław Czapliński, Czarniecki Stefan, herbu Łodzia (1599–1665), Polski słownik biograficzny, t. 4, Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1938
6. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 293
7. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 292, 309, 476
8. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 292, 476
9. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 476
10. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 309
11. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 291–292
12. Ludwik Kubala, Wojna szwecka w roku 1655 i 1656, Szkice historyczne, serya IV (Biblioteka Historyczna Altenberga), Lwów; Warszawa: H. Altenberg, G. Seyfarth, E. Wende i Sp.; E. Wende i Sp., 1913, s. 274–293
13. Henryk Sienkiewicz, Potop, Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska (Wolne Lektury), 2009–2010, t. III, rozdz. IX