Although the word "Kozak" evokes images of daring horsemen galloping across the Eurasian steppes, during the 16th and 17th centuries some Kozaks became maritime warriors, every bit as deadly and colorful as their counterparts on the Spanish Main. Their raids and campaigns against the Ottoman Empire remain the stuff of legend in Ukrainian folklore and literature.

The catalyst for those seagoing exploits was slavery. By 1500, the Turks had forced the Crimean Tartar khanate to recognize Ottoman suzerainty, and were conducting trade in Ukrainian slaves at the Crimean port of Kaffa. Abducted by Tartars during lightning raids on the southern Ukraine, young girls were carried off to become concubines in Turkish harems. Boys went directly into the ranks of oarsmen, though the luckier ones became janissaries. Understandably, the slave market at Kaffa burned in the hearts of Ukrainians, and especially in those of the Kozaks of the wild empty steppe lands. Over time, freeing Ukrainian slaves held by Turks became one of the most satisfying accomplishments of the Kozaks, who were coalescing in small military bands called vatahy.

In many ways, the runaway serfs and peasants who settled these steppes north of the Black Sea were not unlike the American mountain men of the early 19th century. They were free men living at the edge of society, which is in fact what the word Kozak means in Turkish. Known as the dyke pole, or wild fields, their homeland had been virtually depopulated as a result of the Mongol invasion of 1240. Their lives on the steppes were an unrelenting military struggle, first against the Crimean Tartars, then against the Turks, which hardened them and made them skilled at warfare.

The military potential of these Kozaks did not go unnoticed. In 1553 a Ukrainian nobleman, Dmytro Vyshnevetsky, gathered several bands into a single command or "host," based at a fortified camp, or sich. Because the fortification was located on the lower Dnieper River near a series of cataracts (za porohamy), the host took the name Zaporozhian Kozaks. In order to protect the adjacent hinterland, Vyshnevetsky began raiding both Turkish and Tartar forces along the Black Sea. Thus were the seagoing warrior Kozaks born. They lost their first leader in 1563 during an unsuccessful campaign in Modavia, where Vyshnevetsky was captured by the Turks and executed.

The first recorded naval raid occurred prior to the founding of the Zaporozhian host, when a Kozak flotilla attacked the Ottoman fortress of Ochakiv in 1538. The fortress, situated on a cliff on the western side of the Dnieper River mouth, had walls more than 25 feet high. Below the cliff was a smaller battlement and a battery capable of firing cannon balls across the entire width of the river. A stone watchtower on the eastern side of the river augmented those fortifications. Ochakiv’s garrison often numbered as many as 2,000 men. But in spite of those defenses, the Kozaks succeeded in storming and partially leveling the fort.

The Kozaks followed that raid with more frequent, better-organized incursions into Ottoman-controlled areas. The Kozaks always regarded the freeing of slaves as the noblest deed a person could perform, but that motive increasingly coexisted with the lure of plunder. Early Kozak successes understandably gained the attention of the Turks’ European enemies. The Papacy and both the French and Hapsburg courts opened diplomatic relations with the Kozaks, in hopes of launching joint campaigns against the Turks. During one such mission to the Kozaks in June 1594, Hapsburg diplomat Erich von Lasotta recorded in his journal that he arrived in camp just as 1,300 Kozaks under Bohdan Mikosinsky were returning from a successful 50-ship sea raid.

From 1600 to 1624, the Zaporozhian sea campaigns reached their high-water mark. During that period, raids involved from 40 to 80 shallow draft galleys called chaiky, which in Ukrainian refers to the small sea bird called a pewit. These vessels constituted the backbone of the Kozaks’ fleet. Each galley was 60 feet long and 12 feet in both width and depth. About half the size of the average 17th-century Mediterranean man-of-war, chaiky were made from stone oak, linden, ash or other hardwood trees growing along the lower reaches of the Dnieper. In place of a traditional keel, the Kozaks used a 45-foot section of a willow trunk upon which the ribbing and planks were added. To enhance the chaika’s buoyancy, sheaves of reeds were fastened along both sides to act as a flotation collar. That adaptation was essential because, as undecked vessels, the galleys were very prone to being swamped in rough seas. The reeds also provided some protection against enemy fire.

The galleys were propelled by 10 to 12 sets of oars and one or two square-rigged sails. The latter were only used in fair weather, and both sails and masts were lowered before going into battle. These were relatively fast vessels that could reach speeds of more than 10 knots. According to the Kozaks’ own archives, the chaiky could cross the Black Sea from the mouth of the Dnieper River in 40 hours and land their 50- to 70-man crews on the Anatolian coast of Asia Minor. Another unusual chaika feature was rudders located at both the bow and stern. That provided exceptional mobility, allowing a chaika to execute a 180-degree turn within its own length. The chaika’s main armament consisted of four to eight small cannons, or facsetts, which were augmented by the muskets and sabers that each crew member carried. Blunderbusses were very popular for boarding enemy vessels and close-quarter combat because of their wide dispersal shot pattern. Despite their relatively small size, each galley had its own compass, which was unusual for such small vessels in the 17th century.

The Kozak fleet of chaiky was augmented by a number of Turkish-style galleys that served as command-and-control ships for the senior officers. These larger vessels were powered by about 30 oars and three or four sails. They also mounted larger cannons than the chaiky. A curious feature of these vessels was the mast arrangement. The foremast was the tallest of the three, the mainmast the shortest. For raids requiring both additional men and supplies, the Kozaks employed a river cargo vessel called a "dub." The dub was about 50 feet long and 8 feet wide.

Kozaks themselves were flamboyant individualists, which was manifested in their dress. Most men wore large pantaloons called sharovary, loose fitting linen shirts and sashes around their waists. Unlike their neighbors, Ukrainians always kept the tails of their shirts inside their trousers. An old Ukrainian proverb popular among the Kozaks declared that only Russians and the lowest class of serfs wore their shirts over their trousers. Bright colors predominated. Footwear usually took the form of morocco leather boots, often with heels of solid silver. The head was covered by a lambskin hat called a kuchma, a toquelike cap or a straw hat. Like other Eastern Europeans of the period, the Kozaks sported long moustaches and shaved heads, save for one long forelock placed over the left ear.
Until 1613, the Kozak sea raids remained relatively short forays on the Crimean coast or along the western shore of the Black Sea as far south as the mouth of the Danube River. Most targets were Turkish ships and small commercial centers. In the 10 years after 1613 the raids grew into large, well-coordinated naval campaigns against major Turkish centers in Crimea, along the Anatolian coast and even Constantinople. There were two reasons for the increasing size and boldness of those forays. First, hundreds of Kozaks were returning from Polish service during the Muscovite dynastic war commonly called the "Time of Troubles." With the re-establishment of civil authority under the new Romanov dynasty, those unemployed Kozaks became a large manpower reserve that could be utilized in major campaigns against the Turks.

The second reason was the election of Petro Konashevych Sahaidachny as hetman in 1613. Sahaidachny was a dynamic nobleman from the Halychyna region of the western Ukraine. After studying at the Ostrih Academy, he quickly rose in the ranks and helped lead successful raids against several Turkish strongholds along the western shore of the Black Sea, including Varna (1606), Ochakiv (1607), Perekop (1607 and 1608), Kilia (1609), Ismail (1609) and Akkerman (1609).

Unlike his predecessors, Sahaidachny realized that the Zaporozhian host could be more than just a large band of mercenaries living on the fringes of the Polish Commonwealth. They could also be the potential nucleus of a Ukrainian nation. By attacking Ottoman targets, he hoped to obtain recognition and support from the European states opposing the Turks in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. By 1618, the Zaporozhians were members of the Anti-Turkish League. Sahaidachny even moved the official leader’s seat of power to the old Ukrainian capital of Kyiv (Kiev), and conducted a foreign policy that was nominally under the Polish Crown’s authority, but for practical purposes was independent.

The two major campaigns of 1613 took the form of assaults on Kaffa and other Turkish trading centers in the Crimea. After receiving news of the second raid, Sultan Ahmed I dispatched a large fleet of galleys to block the mouth of the Dnieper near Ochakiv. Aware that they would be at great disadvantage in a daytime engagement, the Kozaks kept their chaiky just below the horizon until nightfall. At dusk, the chaiky under Sahaidachny’s command advanced from the southwest with their masts lowered, riding only 21¼2 feet above the water, which made the flotilla virtually invisible to the Turks. With half their crews rowing and the other half forming boarding parties, about 80 to 100 chaiky surrounded the Turkish galleys around midnight. After a bloody but brief hand-to-hand battle, the Kozaks subdued the Turkish forces, freed the Ukrainian galley slaves and seized any plunder or weapons they could find before firing the Turkish galleys.

It should be noted that although Ochakiv provided the Turks with a fine land base, it lacked a natural harbor and its adjacent coastline only provided an unsheltered anchorage for a few vessels. Consequently, the Turks were never able to maintain a large permanent naval squadron there. That weakness allowed the Kozaks relatively unhindered access to the Black Sea.

The Kozaks’ first campaign of 1614 suffered a temporary setback when a spring storm wrecked several vessels before they could cross the Black Sea. But in the early summer, 40 vessels and 2,000 men headed for the Anatolian coast. The towns and cities on its shoreline made up a 17th-century Turkish Riviera, populated by rich merchants. Leaving two men behind per ship to guard the fleet, Sahaidachny and the Kozaks proceeded to plunder and sack their first landfall, Trebizond. From there, they used Turkish exiles and former slaves as guides to make a surprise attack on the luxurious Anatolian pleasure port of Sinope, known in the Ottoman Empire as the "City of Lovers." Storming the port from the landward side, the Kozaks seized the citadel, and in addition to sacking the city destroyed the large Turkish fleet of galleys and galleons at anchor in the harbor. Departing as quickly as they arrived, the Kozaks avoided a powerful Turkish force sent to relieve Sinope.

According to legend, when Sultan Ahmed I heard of the attacks, he threatened to execute his grand vizier. After calming down, however, he spared the vizier and ordered the Constantinople squadron to intercept the Kozak flotilla near Ochakiv. Overladen with Spanish pieces of eight, gold bars, Persian rugs, silks, cottons, cloth of gold and other booty, half of the Kozaks landed east of Ochakiv and tried to portage their chaiky to a tributary of the Dnieper, an operation that usually took two to three days, depending on the tides. While moving their vessels on wooden rollers, the Kozaks were attacked by mounted Tartars and sustained heavy losses before reaching the tributary. The other Kozaks, finding no way to bypass the Turks, opted to fight their way through and were forced to jettison much of their plunder in the process. Some Kozaks fell into Turkish hands, and 20 of them were sent to Constantinople. Those unfortunates were eventually turned over to the citizens of Trebizond, who promptly tore them to pieces.

Naima, a 17th-century Ottoman historian, described the Kozak raiders with a degree of grudging admiration: "One can safely say that in the entire world one cannot find a [people] more careless for their lives or having less fear of death; persons versed in navigation assert that because of their skill and boldness in naval battles these bands are more dangerous than any other enemy."

Contributing to the Kozaks’ success was the fact that from the reign of Murad III to that of Murad IV (1574-1623), the Ottoman sultans were for the most part weak-minded puppets of the viziers. For much of that period, the actual leadership became vested in Sultana Baffo, a Venetian noblewoman who had been captured by corsairs and sold to Murad III’s harem. Coupled with palace intrigues, that lack of decisive, energetic leadership interfered with the Turks’ ability to mount a coordinated and sustained campaign against the Kozaks.

The major campaign of 1615 included one of the Kozaks’ greatest naval exploits. In camp the Kozaks had boasted that they would "smudge the wall of Tsarhorod [Constantinople] with the smoke from their muskets." They made good on their boast. After entering the Bosporus, an 80-vessel fleet landed the Kozaks between Mizevna and Archioca, the twin ports of Constantinople. Sahaidachny split his forces into two units, which simultaneously assaulted and plundered both ports. According to the Ottoman chronicles, Sultan Ahmed I saw the smoke from the burning ports while on a hunting trip and immediately ordered the janissaries from the 30,000-man garrison to engage and massacre the Kozaks. However, Sahaidachny quickly recalled the Kozaks, who re-embarked before the janissaries arrived. After a four-day pursuit along the west coast of the Black Sea, the Turks overtook the Kozaks near the mouth of the Danube. At that point the Kozaks, making use of the chaika’s superior mobility, suddenly reversed course and boarded the leading Turkish galleys, capturing the Turkish admiral. With the loss of their commander, Turkish morale collapsed and their remaining vessels fled southward. The Kozaks in a typical gesture of defiance towed the captured galleys to Ochakiv and burned them in view of its garrison. Using the burning vessels as a diversion, some of the Kozaks slipped ashore, seized all the garrison’s cattle and horses, and drove them overland to their camp. The only sour note in an otherwise profitable campaign was that the Turkish admiral, who was being held for a ransom of 30,000 gold pieces, died in captivity.
After returning to camp, each man received his portion of the spoils and hid it in a secret underwater location along the labyrinth of small islands, reed beds and marshes. As a result, this region of the Dnieper became known as Shcharbniza Voyskova, or "Treasury of the Kozaks."

In the wake of their direct assault on Constantinople, the Kozaks constituted the most serious Christian challenge to Turkish naval power since the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. Turkish strategic thinking concluded that the best way to control the threat was to blockade the mouth of the Dnieper and deny the Kozaks access to the Black Sea. About 25 large Kozak galleys and 100 smaller support vessels reached the mouth of the Dnieper in the spring of 1616. In a night battle, the flotilla broke through the blockading Turkish squadron and either captured or dispersed the Turkish vessels. The Kozaks then pillaged the Crimean coast and took its capital of Kaffa. Before burning the port, the Kozaks freed all the captives who were awaiting sale in the slave market. The freeing of thousands of would-be slaves was of special satisfaction to the Kozaks, since many were either their relatives or neighbors.

The second, autumn campaign of 1616 graphically illustrated one of the fundamental rules of naval warfare—one must find the enemy before one can defeat him. The campaign had been initially scheduled to attack and plunder the Anatolian city of Samsum, but a stronger than normal wind blew the flotilla manned by 2,000 Kozaks off course in the direction of Trebizond. After making the most of things by sacking and burning that port, they were intercepted by a Turkish coastal squadron of six galleys, commanded by Admiral Cicali of Genoa. After a brief skirmish, the Turkish squadron fled to Constantinople. Assuming that the Kozaks would immediately withdraw with their plunder, Sultan Ahmed I ordered the bulk of the Turkish fleet to intercept them at the mouth of the Dnieper near Ochakiv. Anticipating that maneuver, the Kozaks sailed southwest instead—to find Constantinople virtually defenseless. They plundered the city’s suburbs at their leisure, and according to one account may even have rampaged through the Topkapi, the imperial harem. On the return voyage, Sahaidachny ordered his men to follow the eastern shore of Crimea into the Sea of Azov, rather than sail up the Dnieper. They finally reached the Dnieper above the Turkish fleet by using a series of local tributary rivers and portages.

As a footnote to that campaign, the Turkish pasha, fearful of the Sultan’s wrath, led his fleet up the Dnieper to assault the Kozak settlement in late November 1616. It was an act of desperation, for normally the Turks never ventured more than 15 miles up the river, because the Shcharbniza Voyskova provided a superb natural defensive position and numerous ambush sites for the Kozaks. To enhance that natural barrier, the Kozaks hid cannons near strategic islands that could be raised from the river and prepared for action in just a few hours.

Upon reaching the Kozak base, the Turks were surprised to learn that the Kozaks, with the exception of a small garrison, had returned home to their families for the winter. Rather than make a futile stand, the garrison retreated onto the steppes, leaving the Turks with only a few huts and some disabled vessels. Loathe to leave empty handed, the pasha returned to Constantinople "in triumph" with the abandoned vessels and proclaimed that the Kozaks has been destroyed. In spite of that wishful thinking, the raids continued for almost another five years, including one on Constantinople in 1620 and three more in 1624.

In 1621 the Zaporozhian Kozaks applied their martial skills to a strictly land campaign. In April of that year, 16-year-old Sultan Osman II led a large army, conservatively estimated as numbering 100,000 troops with 300 cannons, four elephants as well as horses and camels, into southwestern Ukraine. His objective was to march through Moldavia and destroy Poland. The Polish king, Zygmunt III Wasa, was only able to send a 40,000-man army under the aging Lithuanian hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, and by the time he reached the fortified town of Khotyn (or Chocim) on the right bank of the Dniester, about 5,000 of his troops had deserted. To bolster their forces at that critical time, the Poles asked for Sahaidachny’s help, promising the Kozaks broader representation in the Polish legislature, or Sejm, broader rights and protection of their Orthodox religion. Sahaidachny agreed, and in the late summer of 1621 he led a small detachment toward Khotyn from the north, while the main force approached from the east. Along the way, Sahaidachny’s column was ambushed and he was among the casualties, dying of his wounds at Kyiv on April 10, 1622. The leader of the eastern Kozak host, Yakiv Borodavko, was ousted in a Kozak revolt and put to death on September 12, 1621. The Turks seized this opportunity to negotiate a separate peace with the Kozaks, but it failed—on September 20, 40,000 Kozaks arrived to assist the Poles besieged at Khotyn.

By then, the Poles had barely been holding their own, thanks to well-prepared trenches and a series of spoiling forays by their infantry and 8,000 husaria, or heavily armored shock cavalry. During one determined assault, the Turks managed to break through the Polish defenses, only to be driven from the fortress by a counterattack by Chodkeiwicz at the head of three regiments of husaria and one of light cavalry. In that critical fight, the aged, ailing Chodkiewicz had to transfer command to his lieutenant, Stanislaw Lubomirski. He died soon after, on September 24.

At that point, the Turks were as exhausted as the defenders, while the Kozaks were relatively fresh and full of fight. During one of their reprisal raids they penetrated the Turkish camp, seizing several artillery pieces and other supplies before retiring and settling in on the left flank of the Polish defenses. The Turks launched their final major attack on September 28, and by October 3 Osman II was admitting that his campaign was a failure, having lost 30,000 troops in combat as well as from disease, starvation and desertions. On October 9, he signed a peace agreement with the Poles and withdrew. After returning to Istanbul, Osman II initiated reforms in the Turkish army that would have included the dissolution of the janissary corps. The janissaries moved first, however, overthrowing the young reformer on May 19, 1622, strangling him in his own dungeon the next day and establishing his uncle, the more traditionalist Mustapha I, as sultan.

Zygmunt did not keep all his promises to the Kozaks. Although 6,000 more of them were registered for representation in the Sejm in 1625, the Poles failed to pay their military expenses and the Treaty of Khotyn’s terms prohibited the Kozaks from raiding the Crimean Khanate and the Black Sea coast. In spite of that, following Sahaidachny’s death his successors, Olifer Holub and Michael Doroshenko, led further naval campaigns until the end of 1624.

The Kozak naval raids finally petered out, because they found more lucrative markets for their talents. With the Thirty Years’ War raging in central Europe, trained mercenaries were in demand. Kozaks fought first for the Hapsburgs and later for France. The Turks gradually retreated southward along the western Black Sea coast into present-day Romania, as a series of defeats began the steady decline of the Ottoman Empire.

The Zaporozhian Kozaks’ sea raids were of major political importance to Ukrainian nation-building efforts in the 17th century. An incident in the summer of 1992 demonstrated that those swashbuckling traditions live on in the modern Ukrainian navy. At that time, a small ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet hoisted the azure and gold Ukrainian flag. There ensued a dramatic sea chase from the Crimean coast to the port of Odessa as several larger Russian warships tried to ram, board and even entangle the defecting vessel’s screws with chain. In spite of that, the Ukrainian crew, in tribute to their predecessors’ and their own seamanship, managed to give their pursuers the slip and steamed into Odessa Harbor unscathed.