The Livs and their christened chief Caupo of Turaida had rebelled against the tightening grip of the German crusaders.

Caupo's forces had been defeated at Turaida in 1206, and the Livonians declared to be converted.

The Knights of the Sword, aided by the newly converted local tribes of Livs and Letts, initiate raids into part of what is present-day Estonia.

By 1208, the important Daugava River trade posts of Salaspils (Holme), …

Chodkiewicz at Wesenberg (Rakvere) defeats a Swedish reinforcement force under Arvid Eriksson Stålarm sent to relieve the Swedish troops in Dorpat.

The Commonwealth and Swedish forces meet on September 27, 1605, near the small town of Kircholm (now Salaspils in Latvia, some eighteen kilometers southeast of Riga) near the Düna (Daugava, Dvina, Dźwina, Väinä) River.

The Swedish army, numerically superior and composed of ten thousand eight hundred men and eleven cannons, includes a few thousand German and Dutch mercenaries and even a few hundred Scots.

The Polish Crown had declined to raise funds for defense, although Chodkiewicz has promised to pay out army wages from his own fortune, thereby gathering at least some forces.

The Commonwealth army is composed of roughly thirteen hundred infantry (one thousand and forty pikemen and two hundred and sixty musketeers), twenty-six hundred cavalry and only five cannons.

The Lithuanian forces are well-rested, however, and their cavalry comprises mostly superbly trained Winged Hussars or heavy cavalry armed with lances, while the Swedish cavalry are less-well trained, armed with pistols and carbines, on poorer horses, and tired after a long night's march in torrential rain.

Most of the hussars are from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; about 200 are from the Polish Crown, most of them mercenaries or close personal allies of Chodkiewicz.

The Polish-Lithuanian forces are also aided by a small number of Tatars and Polish-Lithuanian Cossack horse (a class of light cavalry at this date not to be confused with the Russian Cossacks), used mostly for reconnaissance.

The Battle of Kircholm is Chodkiewicz's crowning achievement.

Having smaller forces (approximately at 1:3 disadvantage again), Chodkiewicz uses a 'feint' to force the Swedes off their high position.

The Swedes under Charles believe that the Commonwealth forces are retreating; therefore, they advance, spreading out their formations to give chase.

This is what Chodkiewicz is waiting for.

The Commonwealth's army now give fires with their infantry, causing the Swedes some losses, at which point the Hussars reform and charge the Swedish infantry formations, which break completely, the King himself fleeing, barely escaping back to his flotilla off the coast.

Thus, Chodkiewicz, with barely four thousand hussars, has defeated a Swedish army of eight thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry; for which feat he will receive letters of congratulation from the Pope, all the Catholic potentates of Europe, and even from the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia.

The fighting has lasted barely twenty to thirty minutes, yet the Swedish defeat is utter and complete.

The army of Charles IX has lost at least half, perhaps as much as two-thirds, its original strength.

The Polish-Lithuanian losses number only about one hundred dead and two hundred wounded, although the Hussars, in particular, lose a large part of their trained battle horses.

As in all crushing victories in this period, the larger part of the Swedish losses are suffered during the retreat, made more difficult by the dense forests and marshes on the route back to Riga.

The Lithuanians and Poles spare few.

Polish-Lithuanian casualties are light, in large part due to the speed of the victory.

During the hussar's charges, it is the horses that take the greatest damage, the riders being largely protected by the body and heads of their horses.