Free Republic

In 1621, the city of Chocim in today's western Ukraine witnessed a mighty battle between the Polish-Lithuanian Empire and an invading Ottoman army. Chocim is rightly remembered by Poland as a victory, although the conflict ended in a political draw. But this stalemate was fought by only about 50,000 men against three times as many Turks and Mongols. After the death of the Polish commander-in-chief, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, it was Stanisław Lubomirski (1583–1649), not yet forty years old, who turned the tide in favor of Warsaw. Chocim was not the first battle in this war against Muslim aggression. Already in...

On September 11th 1683, Vienna was besieged by Islamic Ottoman Turks. Christians throughout Europe prayed the Rosary in the midst of a desperate situation. At Vienna, vastly outnumbered European Christian forces miraculously and wonderfully delivered a crippling blow to Muslim expansion into Europe, preventing a grim invasion of the continent by Muslim forces. 41,000 Christian forces (including 30,000 troops of Polish King Jan III Sobieski that Pope Innocent XI had called upon) defeated a 140,000 man strong Turkish army the night of September 11th over three centuries before the 9/11 attacks on the United States that were also caused by...