Ivan the Terrible's Campaign to Kazan 1549–1550. Preparation for a Military Campaign
В past publication we stopped at how the Crimean protégé on the Kazan throne, Safa Giray, "died in his stomach" and his two-year-old son Utyamish ascended to the throne. The crisis of power looked especially dangerous for the Kazan people against the backdrop of unrest among some of the native Bulgar feudal lords. Back in 1546, the right-bank (mountain) Cheremis, together with the Chuvashes, rebelled against the khan and practically escaped his subordination.
Moreover, the pro-Moscow bloc of the Kazan aristocracy began sending the usual signals to the Russian tsar again. To paraphrase the famous lines of the chronicler, it sounded like "our land is abundant, but there is no order in it; come with an army and seat your henchman."
Such requests from loyal Kazan feudal lords are reflected in the story of Archimandrite Nikifor of the Spassky Monastery about the campaign of 1550 and in other sources. But this time Ivan IV's intentions could have been much more serious than establishing another shaky protectorate.
How did Moscow prepare for the upcoming campaign, what goals did it set, how many forces and weapons did it manage to gather? Let's talk about all this.
What goals did Moscow set?
There is still no consensus in historiography on this matter. According to researcher S. Kh. Alishev, as early as 1545, the First Throne planned a full-fledged conquest of the khanate, “but the decision to take (the khan’s capital. – Note by P. Kanaev) was probably made by the Boyar Duma in the spring of 1549, where, in addition to the boyars, Metropolitan Macarius, Prince Vladimir and the tsar’s brother Prince Yuri participated.”
Some historians even believe that already in 1445 Moscow firmly decided to take Kazan and include it in the Russian state as soon as possible. According to researchers R. G. Fakhrutdinov and A. M. Ermushev, such a turning point in goal-setting in the Volga theater occurred only in 1550. A. G. Bakhtin suggested that Moscow finally set its sights on annexing Kazan only in the spring of 1552, when it was not possible to reach a peace agreement with the Kazan people.
It is difficult to say which of the listed positions is closer to the truth. Beginning with the reign of Ivan III, Moscow regularly sent large armies and artillery outfits under the walls of Kazan, but the matter has not yet gone beyond another protectorate and the establishment of a pocket khan. It is possible that the same thing was planned back in 1548, and only the power vacuum in the khanate in connection with the sudden death of Safa Giray finally pushed Moscow to more decisive measures.
On the other hand, the need for a radical solution to the Kazan issue was openly discussed much earlier, even under Vasily III. For example, after the founding of Vasilgorod (modern Vasilsursk), Metropolitan Daniil wrote about this in 1523.
Maxim the Greek, who ruled out the possibility of an alliance between the Orthodox and Muslims, also belonged to the "party of hawks." He suggested that Vasily Ivanovich take advantage of the truce with Lithuania to throw all his forces into conquering the Volga Khanate. These statements fell on fertile ground: it was not for nothing that at the start of the Volga campaign in 1524, the sovereign traveled with his army all the way to Nizhny Novgorod, visiting holy places and listening to prayers.
Initially, the Grand Duke allegedly intended to reach Kazan itself. All this looked like a declaration of intent to move on to bolder actions in the eastern direction. Although the most large-scale information campaign in favor of conquering Kazan unfolded later, through the efforts of Metropolitan Macarius, Ivan Peresvetov and a number of other Moscow propagandists of the times of the formidable Tsar.
Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III Ivanovich. Engraving from the end of the 16th century by the French traveler and explorer Andre Thevet
A seditious thought arises that, beginning with the establishment of the first Crimean protectorate in the khanate in 1521 (the accession of Sahib Giray) and right up until 1552, there was no clear goal in all Moscow's campaigns. The minimum program in any case was the liberation of Kazan from the tenacious clutches of the Crimean Girays. Further actions could depend on a number of factors: how successful the military campaign would be for Moscow, what would be the balance of power and the mood among the Kazan aristocracy.
Who knows how events would have unfolded, say, in 1530, if the Russian troops had won a more impressive victory. In reality, the military success was half-hearted, and Moscow had to expel the Crimean protege (the same Safa Giray) again and put its henchman (Jan-Ali) on the throne with the help of the pro-Russian bloc of the Kazan aristocracy.
Of course, in such a situation, there could be no talk of annexing the khanate.
Moreover, everyone understood perfectly well that Kazan and Moscow were not in a vacuum: it was necessary to take into account the factor of third forces (Crimea, Lithuania, etc.) and the overall situation on the international arena. In this context, the already mentioned reasoning of Maxim Grek, who suggested “strike while the iron is hot” in Kazan while it is “not hot” in the Lithuanian direction, is indicative.
Preparation for the hike
Despite the failure of the previous one February campaign of 1549 year, the tsar and the high command again decided to march on Kazan in winter. This can be considered a tactical know-how of the mid-16th century. Earlier, during the times of Ivan III and Vasily III, almost all Volga campaigns began in late spring - early summer. This choice was explained by considerations of military logistics. The easiest and fastest way to deliver artillery to the theater of military operations was by river on ships.
Ivan the Terrible put first not logistics, but the operational situation on the borders of the Russian state. After all, the most dangerous enemies of Moscow – the Crimeans – rushed to the Moscow borders in the spring and summer to profit from the spoils and captives. It was during this “resort” season that the most large-scale Crimean invasions of Russian territories took place.
The situation on the Oka defensive line was heating up, where Vasily III had sent guards "in the amount of 20 people to curb the raids and robberies of the Perekop Tatars" every year. Of course, the figure given by Sigismund Herberstein should be treated with caution: after all, no one had presented the Austrian envoy with any military lists.
But it is quite possible that such an assessment is not far from the truth. In 1549, from April until the very beginning of autumn, all the best armies were stationed in the cities "from the Field" and along the "Bank", as that very Oka defensive line was briefly called then.
Meanwhile, Khan Safa Giray died suddenly in Kazan. Representatives of the pro-Eastern bloc of the Kazan aristocracy decided not to waste time and sent Ambassador Yenbas with twenty people to Crimea. The embassy was carrying a letter to the ruler of Taurida with a request to send Tsarevich Davlet Giray, who was in Istanbul, to Kazan to replace the underage Utyamish, who took the throne after his father's death. The coming to power of an able khan, and on Crimean sabres, would significantly increase the defense capability of the Kazan people.
The label is interesting as one of the few surviving Kazan documents from the 16th century. The message is thoroughly imbued with religious rhetoric: the confrontation with the Muscovite kingdom is interpreted as a "holy war" with the infidels, death in which grants a pass to heaven.
However, the Crimean Tsar did not have the opportunity to appreciate the determination of the Kazan feudal lords and the high-flown language of the letter.
The Meshchera Cossacks loyal to the Russian sovereign "beat" the ambassadors "on the field" at the mouth of the Medveditsa River, captured the labels and sent them to Moscow. Although it is not known for sure whether other similar appeals were sent to Taurida. As researcher Aksanov suggests, some of the Kazan envoys did reach their destination. But, running ahead, the Crimeans did not intervene in the Russian-Kazan clash.
While the Crimean threat did not allow large forces to be diverted to Kazan, the Muscovites decided to probe the theater of military operations. The discharge books contain information about a small campaign to the "Kazan places" in June 1549. The event was led by the governors B. I. and L. A. Saltykov. There are no details about the summer operation in the sources, but most likely it was purely reconnaissance in nature.
Meanwhile, the gathering of troops for the great Volga campaign was in full swing. A significant force was mobilized, including noble militias from the Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, Toropets, Lutsk, and Rzhev lands. The vassal Kasimov prince Shah-Ali and the Astrakhan prince Ediger with their courts also took part in the campaign on the side of Moscow. The Kazan people, led by the "princes" Tabay and Kostrov, who had gone over to the service of Ivan Vasilyevich, also joined the Russian armies.
And again, not a word is said about the number of troops in the act materials. The narrative evidence is no more realistic than the Babylonian king who came to congratulate Ivan the Terrible on the capture of Kazan from the Kazan Chronicler. Thus, the Astrakhan poet Sherefi, who was in Kazan during the military campaign, counted no less than 800 warriors at hand of the "godless Ivan".
Ранее The method proposed by the researcher A. Lobin for calculating the framework number of military contingents in the first half of the 4th century, based on the number of large commanders, has already been cited, by analogy with the well-documented Polotsk campaign of Ivan the Terrible (one large commander had 5–150 combat hundreds at his disposal, each of which had about XNUMX fighters).
For the campaign in question, the rank books tell us about 21 commanders. It is important to consider that two of the listed commanders were "in line", that is, they led artillery formations. It is unlikely that they had more than 1 fighters. Let's be optimistic and assume that all the other commanders had 000 combat hundreds under their command.
As for the Kasimov Tatars in service, there must have been about 1 of them. Such conclusions can be made by studying later military lists from the time of the formidable tsar and from the early narrative evidence of A. Cantarini (000). Let us add another 1476 Tatars from the courts of Ediger and the allied Kazan princes.
In total we get approximately 17 warriors.
Once again we repeat that such calculations are approximate and only show the possible order of numbers. After all, there was simply no fixed staffing of regiments, combat hundreds and other military formations at that time.
Composition of the Moscow army
The numbers are the numbers, but what combat units are behind these figures?
Four main branches of the military were sent on the Volga campaign.
Boyar people.
As stated in the discharge book of 1475-1605 regarding the campaign we are considering,
“and at the attack the sovereign had infantrymen in armor from the boyars and governors and from the boyars’ children (in the list of M.A. Obolensky this place appears differently – “with arquebuses in armor”).
It was precisely these warriors who made up the largest part of the Moscow army in Ivan the Terrible's Volga campaigns. They were mostly horsemen from among the combat servants of the boyar children and boyars, only dismounted and thrown into the assault. Such improvised infantry was armed with hand arquebuses, sabres and spears and was equipped with armour - quilted tegelai or chain-plate armour.
The main advantage of such fighters was that, if necessary, they could “with a slight movement of the hand” turn back into horsemen with their usual saddle kits and act against enemy cavalry in the field. Also, the “boyar people” knew how to conduct positional actions and defend fortifications. In a word, they were real “universal soldiers” who were at the junction of infantry and cavalry and were suitable for solving almost any combat mission.
Horse children of the boyars and their servants.
This is the same landed cavalry that formed the main striking force of Russian sovereigns since the time of Ivan III. But in this military campaign, the number of mounted warriors was most likely inferior to the foot "boyar people": after all, the main forces were allocated directly for the assault and siege. The horsemen had to protect the gunners and other foot contingents from enemy cavalry units in the field, and at the same time carry out raids on enemy territory and perform various tactical tasks (which ones exactly, we will say in the next publication).
As for the appearance of such warriors, our old friend Sigismund Herberstein described it well.
"Their horses are small, castrated, unshod, the bridle is the lightest, then their saddles are adjusted in such a way that the riders can turn in all directions and draw the bow without any difficulty. When sitting on a horse, they pull up their legs so much that they are not at all able to withstand a strong enough blow (spear or arrow). Very few resort to spurs, and most use a whip, which always hangs on the little finger of the right hand, so that at any moment, when necessary, they can grab it and put it into action, and if the matter again comes to weapons, then they leave the whip, and it hangs freely from the hand."
Boyar children and their military servants. Images from "Notes on Muscovy" by Sigismund Herberstein
In short, the Muscovite mounted warriors were practically no different from the Tatar ones: their sets of defensive and offensive equipment were very similar to each other and had common Iranian-Ottoman roots. In historiography, such assimilation of the Russian cavalry to the eastern model was called "orientalization" (from the Latin orientum - east).
The horsemen of Ivan the Terrible were armed with oriental sabres and saadaks – sets of bow case, bow, arrows, quiver and sword belt. And again, there is no difference between the Russian and Kazan warriors: both masterfully wielded the composite bow of the “Tatar” (or Ottoman-Iranian) type. This machine gun of its time, in skilled hands, had a rate of fire of approximately ten shots per minute, versus two for the arquebus, and hit at 100–150 m.
The already mentioned chainmail and chainmail armor (baidans, bekhtertsy, kalantari, yushmans) was used as protection. Although not all of them fought "in scales, like the heat of grief." Judging by the rank books and other surviving documents from the second half of the 16th century and later, half of the army or even more could be "without armor."
Looking ahead, in 1556 in the Kashira military corporation only 45 out of 222 nobles had metal armor. Most were content with quilted tegelai (from the Old Mongolian "degel" - clothing): a multi-layered, wool or hemp-lined quilted caftan with short sleeves and a high stand-up collar.
Things were better with metal helmets: both misurkas with erekhonki and high sphero-conical helmets were widely used.
Plate-and-ring armour, which was used by Russian troops during the period in question
Gunners and squeakers.
In the period we are considering, they already represented separate branches of the military. Beginning in the 1540s, gunners served permanently for the state's salary and were engaged exclusively in military affairs (previously, artillery guns on the battlefield were operated by the masters themselves, who cast the guns, which greatly undermined the state's combat capability).
Russian gunner and Italian military engineer in Moscow service in the 15th century. Drawing by N. Kanaeva
Judging by the official documents, by the middle of the 16th century, gunners were called specialists in shooting from large siege bombards, and pishchalniks were called specialists in shooting from wheeled field guns and hand pishchals. Both received a ruchnitsa (hand pishchal) as a personal weapon for self-defense. A uniform was also provided for them - "single-row" caftans, which were issued from the treasury.
Auxiliary peasant staff.
These are literally workers of the knife and axe, as well as the shovel, hunting spear and much more. Such temporary contingents were recruited mainly from the rural population according to principles that varied at different times. Most often, they called up 1 horse or foot man from 3-5 or more peasant households. "Pososhniks" were used mainly for engineering work: digging canals, building temporary primitive fortifications, hunting, etc.
In the campaign we are considering, one of the main tasks of the "posochi" was the transportation of numerous artillery pieces.
Although their weapons could include primitive combat knives and maces, the staff-bearers were only called directly into military action in the most extreme cases – when the enemy had a total superiority of forces or suffered very large combat losses.
god of War
For the Volga campaign of 1549–1550, the Moscow command assembled not only a large army, but also an impressive artillery detachment.
Let us recall that earlier in February 1549, many Russian guns were lost during an unsuccessful attempt to march on Kazan. At that time, the troops barely managed to reach the place where the village of Rabotki in the Kstovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region is located today, when
“There came great heat and much dampness, and all the ice was covered with water on the Volga, and many cannons and squeaks fell into the water.”
It is obvious that the heavy artillery, siege arquebuses and bombards, sank in the literal sense of the word. For Moscow, this was an unfortunate but not fatal loss. In this regard, the words of Vasily III, quoted by Sigismund Herberstein to one gunner who tried to save his guns during the unsuccessful Kazan campaign of 1506, are indicative:
"It is not the tools that are important to me, but the people who know how to cast them and handle them."
Even if the incident described by the Austrian ambassador is just an “idle tale,” it did not come out of nowhere.
By this time, Moscow really had everything in order with specialists and a production site, so Ivan the Terrible was constantly expanding his artillery park. If necessary, the Moscow cannon yard (first mentioned in sources in 1475) could quickly manufacture missing guns.
Cannon Yard in Moscow. Painting by A. Vasnetsov
Jumping ahead a bit, it is precisely this kind of emergency replenishment of losses that is indicated by the minimum of ornaments and decorations on the cannons cast in 1551–1552. The speed of production and the number of guns then outweighed beauty. Of course, this is not yet the standardization of the artillery park, but the first, as yet unconscious steps in this direction.
Returning to the campaign of 1550, the same Astrakhan resident Sherefi reports on "11 firearms" and "4-5 air guns" that fired cannonballs, "like a piece of a mountain." According to Sherefi, such information was received from a Russian gunner who defected to the Kazan people. Let us briefly outline some of the types of guns that were sent to Kazan in 1549-1550.
Bombards (“great guns”).
We are talking about those same "4-5 air guns" from Sherefi's report. In other words, we have before us analogs of large-caliber German Hauptbusche. Such guns were also called "wall guns" because they were used to breach fortifications. The bombards did not have wheeled carriages and were placed on special wooden mounts.
The calibers of such guns can be judged by later act materials. Thus, in the discharge of 1577, three "ringed" bombards were recorded, firing 6-7 pood cannonballs. If the Astrakhan resident compared such projectiles to "pieces of a mountain", it is interesting what he would have said about the 20-pood cannonballs fired by the most monstrous "great cannons". However, even 7-pood cannons could cause serious damage to the Kazan fortress.
Breaching musket Inrog. 1577.
Fire and mounted guns.
These were large mortars that fired "from above", that is, overhead fire, stone and incendiary cannonballs. According to Sherifi, there were at least 11 of them. The most impressive siege mortars fired projectiles weighing from 1 ½ to 6 poods (from 25 to 98 kg).
With ordinary cannonballs, everything is simple: they were lead, iron or stone.
Of much greater interest are incendiary shells. Their design can be found in a charter from 1555 to clerks F. Eremeev and K. Dubrovsky, which lists the materials needed to make such a "hellish flame". Apparently, these were iron cannonballs covered with several layers of oiled cloth and paper and tied with "uzhishchi" (ropes).
Small-caliber light squeakers.
The use of a field (small) artillery unit was first mentioned in sources in the context of the Moscow campaign against Kazan in 1506. Since then, according to military historian V. V. Pensky, field artillery has become a mandatory component in all Russian military campaigns.
A significant part of the "small" outfit consisted of small-caliber falconets or, in other words, falconets. Thus, after the capture of Kazan in 1552, 340 "fancalet cannonballs" remained in the city warehouse, and 21 falconets, 9 spans long and with a caliber from ¾ to 1¾ grivna, were in Sviyazhsk. During assaults, such small weapons were often used to fire at the loopholes of enemy fortresses.
So, the preparations were completed, and it was time to move on Kazan. But the progress of the military campaign will be discussed in the next, final publication of the article series.
Sources:
Sherifi H. "Zafer name-i Vilayet-i kazan".
History about the Kazan kingdom. Kazan chronicler // Complete collection of Russian chronicles. T. 19. M., 2000.
The Discharge Book of 1475–1605. Moscow, 1977.
Herberstein Sigismund. Notes on Moscow Affairs // Russia of the 1986th–XNUMXth centuries through the eyes of foreigners. – L.: Lenizdat, XNUMX.
References:
Penskoy V. V. Military affairs of the Moscow state. From Vasily the Dark to Mikhail Romanov. Second half of the 2018th – beginning of the XNUMXth centuries. – M.: "Tsentrpoligraf", XNUMX.
Khudyakov M. G. Essays on the history of the Kazan Khanate. M., 1991.
Alishev S. Kh. Kazan and Moscow: interstate relations in the 1995th–XNUMXth centuries. Kazan, XNUMX.
Lobin A. Artillery of Ivan the Terrible. M., 2019.
Aksanov A. V. Kazan Khanate and Muscovite Rus': Interstate Relations in the Context of Hermeneutic Research. Kazan, 2016.
Volkov V. A., Vvedensky R. M. Russo-Kazan War of 1547-1552. Siege and capture of Kazan.
Florya B. Ivan the Terrible. M., 2019.
Zimin A. A., Khoroshkevich A. L. Russia in the time of Ivan the Terrible. M., 1982.
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