"The infantry ate itself and ate others, catching people." How the Russian militia liberated Moscow from Polish cannibals
"The Expulsion of Poles from the Kremlin by Pozharsky". Ernest Lissner
Russian militia
In September 1612, the Zemstvo militia defeated the Polish-Lithuanian troops of Hetman Khodkevich (Moscow battle, Part 2), who tried to unblock the garrison in Moscow. The siege of the Polish-Lithuanian troops in Kitay-gorod and the Kremlin became more dense.
The battle with Khodkevich showed that the strength of the Russian troops is in unity. It was necessary to unite the Second Militia of Minin and Pozharsky with the Cossacks of the First Militia of Trubetskoy. Under pressure from the spiritual authority of the influential and wealthy Trinity-Sergius Monastery, including the cellar Avraamy Palitsin, the voivodes entered into negotiations.
Prince Trubetskoy, referring to the nobility of his origin, demanded recognition of his chief leader. Pozharsky and Minin, in order to avoid strife, showed flexibility and made concessions. At the end of September 1612, both armies and authorities united. At the head of the united army and the Russian kingdom stood a new triumvirate - Trubetskoy, Pozharsky and Minin (under the formal command of Trubetskoy).
State administration bodies (orders) were formed, military issues were resolved by a single camp (headquarters) on the Neglinnaya River near the walls of the Kremlin. Orders and the camp were placed on neutral ground - in the middle between two camps - Cossack and Zemstvo. All letters were signed necessarily by Trubetskoy and Pozharsky. The name of Trubetskoy was in the first place, since he had the boyars received in Tushino from the "Tsar" False Dmitry II, and Pozharsky was only a steward. In fact, Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich, as a more talented commander and a just leader, had more influence in the army.
Sigismund's drawing of Moscow, made by the Poles, engraved in 1610
Siege continued
A general siege of the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod began, which were held by the Poles. 4 batteries were installed - in Zamoskvorechye, near the Cannon Yard, on Kulishki and Dmitrovka. The shelling of the Moscow fortifications began. The Poles were sent an offer to surrender. Pozharsky promised free passage to everyone, the sick and wounded were guaranteed carts.
The pans responded with rudeness:
“The Moscow people are the meanest people in the world and are like donkeys or marmots in courage ... henceforth do not write us your Moscow stupidities, but rather you, Pozharsky, let your people go to the plows.”
The courage of the Poles was due to the fact that they thoroughly robbed Moscow and took Russian treasures stored in the Kremlin as a “pledge”. The Poles even robbed their allies, the Russian boyars. So, they broke into the estate of the head of the Seven Boyars, Prince Fyodor Mstislavsky, beat him and robbed him. Bishop Arseniy Elassonsky did not escape robbery. He wrote:
“They took away all provisions from the Russians, things - silver, gold, clothes of gold-woven and silk.”
Therefore, the greedy gentry did not want to leave empty. The soldiers were starving, began to eat strangers and their own, called for help from the king and Khodkevich. But they didn't want to give up the gold.
Militarily, the position of the Polish garrison was hopeless. The king and the hetman could not help the Moscow garrison under the command of Colonels Mykolaj (Nicholas) Strus and Józef Budzilo (Osip Budilo) in the near future.
The Russian command took measures to strengthen the external defense in order to repel a new attack by the Poles. In Zamoskvorechye, the small fortresses destroyed in the battles - prisons - were restored. The banks of the Moskva River were surrounded by a fence-palisade with a shaft, the guns were placed so as to fire both at the Polish garrison and at the enemies who would break through to the Kremlin.
The militias dug a deep ditch not far from the Kremlin, fortified it by placing a battery near the Cannon Yard to shell the Kremlin. Prudent Prince Pozharsky personally supervised all engineering work.
Continued famine and cannibalism
The famine in the city began in the winter of 1611–1612. Polish-Lithuanian soldiers robbed Muscovites, took everything they liked (including wives and daughters). Prices for provisions jumped sharply, speculators from the Moscow region sold bread in the city at thirty times the price. Those who did not have money, they ate carrion. During this period, detachments of Khodkevich, Koretsky and Budzila broke into the fortress, brought carts with food, which temporarily alleviated the position of the garrison.
But on the whole, the situation was already difficult in the first winter of the blockade. One of his contemporaries wrote:
“In the fortress, the famine is so great that others were already dying of hunger, they ate what they could get. Dogs, cats, rats, dry skins (skins) and people even ... "
In the autumn of 1612, when hetman Khodkiewicz was unable to bring supplies into the fortress, and the blockade became complete, the situation became even worse. During the Battle of Moscow, part of the defeated detachments of Khodkevich managed to get into Kitai-Gorod and the Kremlin. But the soldiers arrived without convoys, provisions. That is, the garrison increased numerically, but food did not increase. Therefore, Neverovsky's companies were the first to die out, breaking through without money and their own supplies.
People began to disappear. Walking girls and servants who were at the garrison, lonely passers-by, sick and wounded. The commanders allowed the prisoners and prisoners to be slaughtered and eaten. The real nightmare began.
The Polish historian K. Waliszewski noted:
“The besieged used Greek manuscripts for cooking, finding a large and priceless collection of them in the archives of the Kremlin. Boiling parchment, they extracted from it a vegetable glue that deceives their painful hunger. When these sources dried up, they dug up the corpses, then began to kill their captives, and with the intensification of feverish delirium, they reached the point that they began to devour each other; this is a fact beyond the slightest doubt: the eyewitness Budzilo reports incredibly terrible details about the last days of the siege, which he could not invent ... Budzilo names faces, notes the numbers: the lieutenant and haiduk each ate two of their sons; another officer ate his mother! The strong took advantage of the weak, and the healthy took advantage of the sick. Quarreling over the dead…”
When Russian troops entered the Kremlin, they found many bodies and vats in which human flesh was salted. That is, the process was put on stream. They even traded in human beings.
There were few Russians left in the fortress: some fled, others died, and others were expelled as unnecessary eaters. Therefore, they slaughtered their own for meat. The bodies of the dead were dug out of the graves. Budzilo wrote:
"The infantry ate itself and ate others, catching people ... The strong slaughtered and ate the weak."
Surrender
The strength of the Polish-Lithuanian garrison dropped significantly. Of the 3,5 thousand soldiers, 1,5 thousand remained. The rest died of disease, starvation, wounds, some were eaten, prepared for future use. But during the ongoing negotiations, the lords behaved as before brazenly, refused to surrender.
On October 22 (November 1), 1612, the Cossacks, taking advantage of the fact that the Poles and Lithuanians could not reliably cover all the fortifications, launched an assault. The Russians broke into Kitai-Gorod. Weakened by hunger, the Polish-Lithuanian troops were unable to offer strong resistance. The Poles lost many people and fled to the Kremlin.
Seeing that further resistance is a quick death, the Polish command agreed to surrender. There was no more talk of free passage. Only unconditional surrender.
On October 26 (November 5), 1612, the remnants of the Polish garrison agreed to surrender. The Polish invaders were promised to save their lives if they handed over the stolen goods to the treasury.
October 27 (November 6) began the surrender of the Polish-Lithuanian garrison. The Polish regiment of Strusya, which entered the camp of Trubetskoy, was almost completely driven out by the Cossacks, contrary to the agreement. Among the Cossacks there were many fugitive peasants and serfs from the places that were ravaged and burned by the Polish troops, so they longed for fair revenge and refused any agreements.
In the Lithuanian regiment of Budzila, which surrendered to Pozharsky, there were also killed, but in much smaller numbers. Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich took special precautions to avoid a massacre. The prisoners were exiled to Russian cities, where they were under arrest, waiting for an exchange for Russian prisoners. So, Strus and Budzilo were in captivity until the Deulinsky truce in 1619.
On October 27 (November 6), 1612, the Russian militia solemnly entered the Kremlin, devastated and defiled by enemies. Temples were robbed, polluted, desecrated, estates and graves were plundered. The Lyakhs tried to hide some of the looted treasures in specially prepared caches, but they were found.
On Sunday, November 1 (11), 1612, in the morning on Red Square near the Execution Ground, militia warriors and Cossacks converged to the cheers of Muscovites. After the thanksgiving service, a solemn procession to the Kremlin opened. Zemstvo militia, led by Pozharsky and Minin, to the sound of bells and cannon fire, moving from the Arbat, entered the Frolovsky (Spassky) gates. The warriors carried lowered Polish banners, beaten off from the enemy.
In the Kremlin itself, the winners were met by colonels Strus, Budzilo and other Polish commanders, who dutifully laid down the banners of the royal army. Meanwhile, the Cossacks, led by Prince Trubetskoy, entered the Kremlin through the Borovitsky and Trinity Gates.
Muscovites celebrated the victory.
By a letter dated November 15 (25), the co-rulers of the Russian state, Pozharsky and Trubetskoy, convened representatives from cities and estates to choose a tsar.
Poles in Russian captivity. Hood. Mikhail Klodt
Heroic defense of Volokolamsk
The Russian capital was completely cleared of foreign invaders. This was an important stage in the fight against the interventionists to restore the unity of the Russian state. Minin and Pozharsky forever entered the Russian history like folk heroes.
However, the complete liberation of Russia was still far away. The western and northwestern regions of the Russian state were captured by Polish and Swedish troops. The Polish crown did not want to give up Moscow and the Russian throne. King Sigismund III was gathering an army for a new campaign against Moscow. The country was still plundered by gangs of Polish adventurers, "thieves' Cossacks", various impostors and chieftains. Before the end of the Time of Troubles, there were still years of stubborn struggle.
The Polish king was unable to muster a large army. Under his command was selected Polish cavalry, German mercenaries and part of the Smolensk garrison. In total, up to 5 thousand fighters. In Vyazma, the king united with the remnants of Khodkevich's army. Polish-Lithuanian troops marched along the Rzhev road. Sigismund, having learned about the surrender of the Kremlin garrison, said that he had come to give the kingdom of the prince Vladislav, chosen by the Russians.
But they did not want to submit to the enemy. The small fortress Pogoreloye Gorodishche refused to capitulate. Voivode Shakhovskoy ironically advised:
"Go, king, near Moscow, Moscow will be behind you, and we are ready to be yours."
In Moscow itself, the Russian command decided not to enter into negotiations with the king and withdraw troops towards the enemy. The city itself was badly damaged, the walls have not yet been restored. There were no reserves to withstand the siege. Most of the noble detachments and part of the Cossacks, due to lack of supplies, had to be disbanded to their homes. Pozharsky and Trubetskoy had no more than 3-4 thousand soldiers left.
The Polish army went to Volokolamsk. Voivode Karamyshev decided that resistance was pointless. However, the Don Cossack atamans Nelyub Markov and Ivan Yepanchin took command and did not let the enemy into the city. Sigismund was furious and laid siege to the fortress. An embassy was sent to Moscow, headed by Mezetsky, accompanied by a regiment of a thousand horsemen.
The Russian commanders did not conduct negotiations. The Poles were met near Vagankovo, beaten and thrown back. Ambassador Mezetsky went over to the side of the Russians. The nobleman Filisofov, who was captured, confused the Polish command even more, misinforming him:
“Moscow is crowded and rich, everyone promised not to take the prince to the kingdom and die for the Orthodox faith.”
Volokolamsk held out heroically. Russian warriors
“They fought in attacks, almost holding hands, and in three attacks they killed a great many Lithuanian and German people.”
The Cossacks made a sortie, captured several guns. Winter has begun. The Polish army was not ready for long-term hostilities.
November 27 (December 7) Sigismund gave the order to retreat. The Polish troops wandered back, leaving the wagon trains stuck in the snow, losing frozen and frostbitten soldiers.
The Polish raid to recapture Moscow failed. Sigismund's boasts of "bringing the great Russian state under himself and under Poland ..." did not come true.
I. P. Martos. Monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square in Moscow. Built in 1818
- Alexander Samsonov
- https://ru.wikipedia.org/, https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/
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