King John Albert of Poland, the son and successor of Casimir, had begun military preparations for a new raid into Ottoman-held Moldavia in 1494, despite a three-year truce, signed on April 6 of that year.

Moldavian ruler Stephen III has promised to help the Poles as soon as they reach the Black Sea ports.

It has taken Poland three years to complete preparations.

Its army is composed of Polish Crown forces, aided by a number of foreign mercenaries, four hundred Teutonic Knights under Grand Master Johann von Tieffen, and a six hundred-strong unit from Mazovia.

Altogether, the Polish army is some forty thousand strong, with two hundred cannon.

Polish units of the pospolite ruszenie, the name for the mobilization of armed forces during the period of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, had gathered in May–June 1497 in Podolia, and in early August of this year, the army crosses the Dniestr river, entering Moldavia.

However, Stephan, suspecting that the Polish monarch wants to depose him, resists the invading Poles.

On September 24, 1497, the Polish army begins the siege of Suceava, which is a failure, and on October 19 the Poles begin to retreat.