In 1625 Gustavus
Adolphus having renewed hostilities with Sigismund, King of Poland,
who had ever treated him with undisguised insult, and even taunted
him as a usurper, Colonel Hepburn’s Scottish regiment formed part of
the army which invaded Polish Prussia, and served in that victorious
campaign which gave Selburg, Nidorp, Dorpat, and Duneberg to
Gustavus, and ended in the total rout of the Polish army on the
plains of Semigallia, in the duchy of Courland.
It was during this Polish war that Hepburn began the series of
brilliant achievements which marked his career under the banner of
Gustavus; for the love of bold adventure and military display, which
had led him from his father’s quiet home in the pastoral district of
Dirleton, found an ample field in the operations of the armies on
the banks of the Versa and the Vistula.
Gustavus having resolved to effect the relief of Mewe, a town of
Western Prussia, where his garrison was closely blocked up,
despatched upon this duty two officers, who, though young in years,
were old in experience— "the Count Thurm, and Colonel Hepburn, a
Scottish officer of great ability and approved courage, who
conducted the attack.”
This town, which is strongly situated on the confluence of the Versa
with the Vistula, and has its walls washed by both these rivers, was
blockaded by King Sigismund at the head of thirty thousand Poles,
whom he had intrenched on a steep green eminence, cutting off all
communication between the town and the surrounding country. By this
eminence he foresaw that the Swedes must pass, if they made any
attempt to raise the siege. He strengthened it by the erection of
two batteries of heavy cannon, which commanded the approach by a
cross fire; while the whole line of his intrenched infantry, with
their bows and matchlocks, swept the ground which descended abruptly
from their earthen parapets.
As it was absolutely necessary for the success of the campaign that
this blockade should be broken and the town relieved, the able
Gustavus examined the ground long and attentively; for on the
possession of this place depended his hopes of gaining Dantzic, and
terminating the war victoriously.
He selected in his camp at Dirschau three thousand chosen Scottish
infantry, among whom were Hepburn’s own regiment, and five hundred
horse under Count Thurm, to all of whom he delivered a short address
on the desperate duty they were about to attempt—to cut a passage
over a fortified hill defended by thirty thousand men.
Hepburn marched the column from the Swedish trenches, and without
sound of drum or trumpet, as he intended in the dusk to proceed by a
secret path, and turn the Polish flanks; for in every essay of arms
Hepburn proved eminently, what a celebrated French writer has
affirmed, that war, though a trade for the ignorant, is a science
for men of genius. Dirschau is situated upon the Wezel or Vistula,
and a march of a few hours brought Hepburn in view of the height on
which the Polish infantry, clad in mail of a half Oriental fashion,
and armed with muskets, bows, and matchlocks, iron maces, lances,
scimitars and targets, were strongly intrenched—with their brass
cannon bristling through the green brushwood on their right and
left. In their rear lay the spires of Mewe.
Night was coming on, and finding his approach was as yet unseen,
Hepburn made a flank movement, and began to ascend the hill by a
narrow and winding path, encumbered by rocks and stones, thick
underwood, and overhanging trees, through which the soldiers,
retarded by their heavy muskets and collars of bandoliers, their
corslets, helmets and knapsacks, threaded their way with difficulty;
for the mountain-side was so steep that they were compelled to grasp
the branches in clambering from rock to rock, so that a historian
has likened them to sailors climbing the shrouds of a ship. Hepburn
guided them with admirable caution and intrepidity past the advanced
posts of the enemy. The side of the wooded mountain was still as
death, not a sound being heard but the hoarse roar of the
foam-covered Vistula, which, far down below, came rolling from the
mountains of Silesia.
In the clear twilight of the northern evening the Scots gained the
summit, and the white plume in Hepburn’s helmet was their guide, as
they fell furiously with clubbed muskets on the Poles, who were
still working busily at their trenches, which were stormed at push
of pike. A deadly fire of musketry, mingled with showers of arrows,
stones, and other missiles, opening on the Scots from various
points, compelled them to recoil; and then dense hordes of mounted
Cossacks and Heyducks, clad in mail shirts and steel caps, pressed
at full speed, with their long lances and sharp scimitars, on the
retiring column. Hepburn drew off his men to a rock that was
defensible, charged again and again by these wild light horsemen,
who exultingly shouted, "These curs abide not the bite of the Polish
wolves!”
"Immovable as a wall of brass, the brave Scottish pikemen stood
shoulder to shoulder;” while before them was placed another
insurmountable obstacle, the portable chevaux-de-frise, which they
fixed along their front—the ptla suilla of the historian Loccenius,
and the u Swedish feathers of the famous Captain Dugald Dalgetty.
On this rock, where he was joined by Colonel Mostyn, an Englishman,
and Count Brahe with two hundred German arquebusiers, Hepburn
defended himself for two whole days against the entire force of the
Polish army, led by the young Prince Udislaus, whose father, the
king, happened on this occasion to be absent from the camp. Daring
these two days of incessant fighting, Gustavus achieved the relief
of the town, by putting into it a supply of men and ammunition; upon
which the Poles abandoned their trenches and retired. It was
computed that each of Hepburn’s soldiers killed a man, and yet lost
only one-seventh of their own number.
Gustavus permitted the Poles to retire without pursuit; for it was a
maxim with the generals of those days not to follow such troops too
hastily, as they made war in an irregular and desultoxy manner.
In 1626 the Scots fought well in the neighbourhood of Dantzic, under
Lieutenant-General Sir Alexander Leslie of Balgonie, (afterwards
first Earl of Leven,) an old veteran of the Dutch and Bohemian wars.
That famous leader, with Colonel Dideraik Sperreti-ter, having been
sent with two Scottish companies and a troop of dragoons to
reconnoitre the camp of King Sigismund, they were suddenly
surrounded by seventeen troops of fierce Polish cavalry near the
village of Girlinerwals, and a deadly strife ensued; for the Poles
were savage by nature, and the Scots had engendered sentiments of
hostility against them in consequence of a book abusive of the
nation having been written by a Pole named Stircovius, whom James
VI. had caused to be hanged in 1613. A minute of council is still
preserved, which contains the expenses incurred by Patrick Gordon
for apprehending “Stircovius, who writt and set out the infamous
booke.”
The spearmen of Leslie broke through the dense masses of horsemen
twice, and after cutting a hundred men to pieces, and capturing four
troop-standards, retired with little loss. This brought on a general
engagement, for the whole Polish army advanced in line to support
their cavalry, but were defeated by Gustavus with the loss of three
thousand men, four field-pieces, and fourteen standards. |