military modeling in scale 1/72

Monday, 9 November 2026

Warka 1656 - The deluge

Historical background

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth faced between 1655 and 1660 a Swedish invasion that is still remembered as "deluge". The Commonwealth was already in a bitter war with Russia, which cost them half of their territory and Sweden wanted to capture the rest. The Swedish invasion swepted away all Polish forces and the Commonwealth ceased to exist. But resistance was forming by the Polish magnates which fielded armies to expel any foreign soldiers. In April 1656 one such army confronted the Swedes at Warka (modern day Poland, some 50 km south of Warsaw). The Swedes were ca. 2.000 strong (mostly infantry), the Poles ca. 7.500 (mostly cavalry). The Poles attacked three times frontally and only the last one (with the famous winged hussars) succeeded to break the Swedish lines, which results in a crushing defeat and a big slaughter afterwards. The battle was the first Polish victory in this war, in which later Austria, Brandenburg, Denmark-Norway and other countries became involved. Finally the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was restored, but was very weak and never again was a major European power.

The moment depicted is the final Polish charge against the Swedish battle line. Polish winged hussars (Jan Zamoyskis Crown Hussar Banner) and irregular infantry attempts to cross a little stream and shatter or annihilte any enemy formations.

The diorama

The figures are from Revell (Infantry) and Zvezda (Cavalry). As there were only a few horse poses available and I want to make them riding/jumping over the little stream, there was a strong need for conversions. Originally I intended to accompany the Polish hussars with some other Zvezda cavalry, but they are much too big - so I changed my plan to some irregular infantry.

For a detailed description of the creation of the diorama take a look here:

Warka 1656 - The deluge (Making of)

Photos (click to enlarge)