Unwanted war: the first clash between Russia and Turkey
Istanbul's concerns
In this material, we will finally get directly to the conflict between Moscow and Istanbul, immediately noting that for the latter, despite its importance, it was still of a peripheral nature. In addition, the article focuses on the events preceding the Astrakhan campaign of 1569, rather than on the military operations themselves.
Astrakhan. XVI century. Yesterday, the capital of the weak Khanate suddenly found itself at the epicenter of a confrontation between two powers laying claim to the heritage of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Porte's main adversary in the 16th century was the Habsburg Empire in the West and Safavid Iran in the East. The Sultan's troops also expanded in the South, conquering North Africa in turn. fleet fought against the Portuguese for control of the strategically important Gulf of Aden, as well as the western part of the coast of India.
The conflict with Iran turned out to be the most uncompromising for the Porte. For in the same European theater, the Ottomans’ partners were the French, who fought either the Spaniards or the Austrians. We are talking about the alliance concluded in 1536 between King Francis I and Sultan Suleiman I.
In the East things were different. The confrontation between the Sunni Porte and Shiite Iran was not only military and economic, but also religious in nature. In general, the conflict between two directions in Islam flared up almost immediately after the death of its founder and at times took on an uncompromisingly bloody character.
Ismail I
XVI century was no exception. The first of the Safavid dynasty, Shah Ismail I, accumulated another round of struggle, although he invaded not the Ottoman Empire, but the territory of Shirvan, populated by Sunnis.
The sultans, in addition to the title Kaisar-i-Rum adopted by them, were also caliphs, that is, the defenders of all the “faithful,” but the Sunnis in the first place. The first of them was Selim I, in 1517, five years after ascending the throne, who conquered Mamluk Egypt and deposed its ruler - the last of the Abbasids on the throne: Caliph al-Mutawakkil.
And his response to the anti-Sunni escapades of Ismail I turned out to be immediate and cruel; it was not for nothing that Selim I bore the nickname “Yavuz”, that is, “Fierce”. In 1513, he carried out a massacre of Shiites in Anatolia, and a year later he defeated the troops of Ismail I in the Battle of Chaldiran.
An interesting detail: in the Sultan’s troops, according to the Italian bishop Paolo Giovio, who was under Selim I, Slavic speech was widespread. However, this should not be surprising, given the presence in the ranks of the Ottoman military-political elite and administrative and bureaucratic apparatus of a considerable number of talented figures who had Christian and Slavic origins. Perhaps the most prominent of them is the Grand Vizier, the Serbian Mehmed Pasha Sokollu.
In general, in the first quarter of the 16th century. Istanbul had enough worries without conflicts with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which was unfamiliar to it. And the latter was never bored in the field of foreign policy either. In the year when Selim I defeated Ismail I, the troops of Vasily III returned Smolensk on the third attempt.
Accordingly, in the first half of the 16th century. Moscow and Istanbul rather looked closely at each other. Following the mission of M. A. Pleshcheev, which took place under Ivan III, Vasily III sent an embassy to the court of Selim I.
Selim I
Favorably received, it received confirmation of the rights of Russian merchants in the Port and assurance of intentions to maintain good neighborly relations, expressed in the ban on the Crimean Khan to raid Moscow-controlled lands, which, however, Bakhchisarai did not particularly observe.
Here I would like to take a step aside and note, in anticipation of a possible question from readers: what kind of good neighborly relations are there against the background of eschatological expectations in Russia, described in the previous article, with discussions about “pure” and “impure” lands and in the context of Pleshcheev’s defiant behavior in Istanbul ?
To a greater extent, such expectations were characteristic of the father and son of Vasily III. The reign of the first fell on the date mentioned in the previous material: 1492, respectively, the 7000th from the creation of the world, that is, the epicenter of eschatological sentiments in Russian society.
However, due to the fact that the end of the world did not occur, the tension subsided somewhat, although the attitude towards non-Orthodox lands as “unclean” did not change, just the perception of them became more pragmatic. And neither a person nor a society can remain in a state of increased internal tension for a long time.
And under Vasily III, I believe, the pendulum swung towards calm. However, with his son, who had excessive impressionability, aggravated by psychotraumas received in childhood, in modern terms, eschatological expectations were updated again. They were associated with the date 7070 from the creation of the world and began to determine the nature of the thinking of the king, who, more than his predecessors, perceived power in a religious context.
Seeing himself as a descendant of the Roman Caesars, Ivan IV attached sacred content to his royal service. Hence his perception of himself as the abbot of the oprichnina brotherhood (in journalistic literature one can find the definition of the Oprichnina as a religious order).
In general, in this regard, Grozny was not original: according to popular beliefs in France, its kings healed those suffering from scrofula by laying on of hands. It is not surprising that in Europe there were heated discussions in the Middle Ages and Modern times on the subject of whether royal power was priestly.
Istanbul and Bakhchisaray: crayfish and pike
But let's return to Vasily III. He established at least neutral relations with Selim I, who was busy in other strategic directions.
But the Crimean Khanate remained - on the one hand, a vassal of the Porte (however, the question of the degree of dependence on it in science is debatable), on the other, Bakhchisarai sought to realize its own geopolitical interests in the Volga region. His focus was on Kazan.
Her subjugation allowed the Gireys to take control of the Volga trade route and revive the Golden Horde. In 1521, the brother of the Crimean Khan Sahib-Girey took Kazan and raided Moscow.
Russian troops repelled the invasion, but the strategic situation for Vasily III worsened, and three years later Sahib-Girey recognized himself as a vassal of Istanbul. Accordingly, the contours of the Ottoman threat began to emerge more and more clearly for Moscow. Especially against the background of the Porte’s victories over Iran, which made the eastern direction, from a strategic point of view, a priority for the former.
Plus, one should not discount the religious factor, expressed in the patronage of the caliph to all the “faithful,” including those living in the Volga region.
As a response, Vasily III launched a campaign against Kazan in 1524, forcing Sahib-Girey to flee to the Crimea. However, the next Kazan khan, Safa-Girey, also recognized himself as a vassal of the Porte. True, in 1531 he was overthrown as a result of a palace coup and replaced by the Russian protege Jan-Ali.
The already difficult situation in the international arena for Moscow became more complicated with the death of Vasily III. A descendant of Gediminas and Princess Anna of Ryazan, Semyon Belsky, who fled to Lithuania, came to the forefront of the Russian game of thrones.
Vasily III
He dreamed no more and no less about the revival of the independent Grand Duchy of Ryazan, which was only subordinated to Moscow in 1521. Belsky moved to Crimea and encouraged the khan to campaign against Russia, but Moscow was warned by Sahib-Girey’s enemy, Islam.
I believe that readers will hardly be surprised to learn that Belsky’s plans were supported by Istanbul, whose patronage he sought. And all this against the background of the permanent confrontation between Russia and Lithuania and the Crimean-Kazan-Nogai raids, about which Ivan IV later wrote to Prince I. A. Kurbsky:
“From all sides, foreign peoples came to war against us - Lithuanians, Poles, Crimean Tatars... Nogais, Kazanians.”
In 1549, Safa-Girey died, and power passed to his wife, the famous Syuyumbika, who became regent for his young son Utyamysh-Girey. In essence, the military leader Kuchak, who commanded the Crimean Guard, ruled. That is, Kazan again found itself in the shadow of Bakhchisarai.
However, part of the Kazan elite, who saw the war with Russia as futile, decided to extradite Syuyumbike and his son to Moscow, and transfer the throne to the Russian protege Shah-Ali.
This happened, but in 1552 he was overthrown by Yadigar-Muhammad. And then Grozny radically cut the Kazan Gordian knot. That same year, the Turks captured Yerevan, successfully advancing into Transcaucasia and, apparently, at the same time turning their attention to Astrakhan.
Of course, Girey did not intend to abandon expansionist plans in the Volga region, supporting the speech in the same year, 1552, of the Mari prince Mamysh-Berdy, who sought to revive the Kazan Khanate.
Russian troops suppressed the uprising, and, as you know, Astrakhan was taken. The latter no longer suited the Porte, which saw Astrakhan as a communications base for a future war with Iran. That is, Moscow’s actions were viewed by Istanbul as an invasion of someone else’s sphere of influence.
And it’s enough to glance at the map to be convinced: geography itself determined the vector of the northeastern Ottoman strategy: to connect the Transcaucasus conquered from the Safavids with the Crimean Khanate. Just as the map shows: the Transcaucasus-Black Sea corridor controlled by the Porte represented, at least in the future, a kind of springboard for establishing control over Astrakhan and Kazan.
In turn, Ivan IV created the basis for driving a wedge into these plans. For from now on, the Russians could, through an attack from Astrakhan in the southwestern direction, cut off communications connecting Transcaucasia with the Black Sea region. Let me remind you that Grozny’s second wife, Maria Temryukovna, was from Kabarda. Accordingly, both regions were considered by Grozny as a sphere of Russian interests.
Yes, in the second half of the 16th century. Moscow did not have the strength to establish control over them, but the imperial consciousness is characterized by large-scale thinking that goes beyond the immediate local interests that determined both the scale of planning and the wars of the period of feudal fragmentation.
In 1568, Sokollu made peace with the Austrian Habsburgs, and the center of gravity of Ottoman geopolitics focused on the upcoming fight with Iran. As part of the confrontation with him, the Astrakhan campaign of 1569 was organized.
Chasing the blue bird, or the unrealizable plans of Istanbul
It was conceived not so much as an anti-Russian action, but rather in order to provide a northern flank in case of a campaign against the Safavids. In addition, Istanbul was counting on establishing contacts with Bukhara and Khiva to coordinate joint actions in the direction of Iran.
However, the weakness of the Astrakhan-Bukhara communication line made this plan unrealizable, just as within the framework of the technology of that time, Sokoll’s idea to connect the Volga and Don with a canal, in order to more quickly transfer troops to the Caspian Sea, turned out to be impossible.
Bakhchisaray was unenthusiastic about such plans, which left Kazan on the periphery of Istanbul’s interests, and the war with the Safavids did not bring significant benefits to the Girays.
On the contrary, military operations against Iran, in the long term, led to serious losses in manpower, which the Girays would have used with great pleasure to raid southern Russian lands. Actually, the military potential of the Khanate was focused on raids rather than full-scale operations against the regular army, and even, in the event of the capture of Astrakhan, in the mountain theater.
In other words, a long campaign against the Safavids could undermine the military and economic potential of the Bakhchisarai rulers.
Also for this reason, the campaign of the Crimean-Turkish troops against Astrakhan in 1569 was unsuccessful. Strained relations developed between the Tatar military leaders and the commander of the expeditionary army, Kasim Pasha. Plus, the enemy underestimated neither the military leadership abilities of Prince Pyotr Serebryany-Obolensky, who defended Astrakhan, nor the willingness of the Russians to offer stubborn resistance. Let us pay tribute to the royal command, which promptly transferred Serebryany’s army along the Volga and approached the city walls just in time.
But the Crimean-Turkish campaign was poorly organized in terms of supplies and ensuring a communication line from the Azov side, attacked by the Cossacks. The following two factors also had their say. The first was typical for all active armies of that period - illness and desertion exceeded combat losses; the second is inherent specifically to the Ottomans - the rebellion of the Janissaries, when, as they say now, something went wrong.
Near Astrakhan, when it quickly became clear that the city could not be taken by assault, a long and grueling siege would be required with unsatisfactory supplies, they also began to insist on returning to Azov. And the crowds of non-combatants brought in to dig the canal intensified the chaos, demanding payment.
Ultimately, faced with the discontent of the Janissaries, the prospects of a long siege with poor supplies, and the threat of the enemy interrupting the line of communication with Azov, Kasym Pasha ordered a retreat.
On the way back, illnesses decimated the army, which dreamed of quickly evacuating from Azov. But such plans were not destined to come true: the storm practically destroyed the Ottoman fleet. This is how the first military conflict with Russia ended ingloriously for the Porte.
In turn, Ivan IV, who fought in Livonia, sought peace with the Sultan, which was concluded in 1570.
But in the story of the Russian-Turkish confrontation, we do not put a full stop, but an ellipsis. Because, yes, the war turned out to be short, but the global conflict between the two powers was just beginning.
Использованная литература:
Balfour D.P. Ottoman Empire. Six centuries from rise to decline. XIV-XX centuries / Per. from English L.A. Igorevsky. - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2017.
Filyushkin A.I.M.: Vasily III. - M.: Young Guard, 2010.
Yurganov A.L. Categories of Russian medieval culture. - M.: MIROS, 1998.
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