The Last Great Jochid, or Akhmatova's Drama. Act II: Venice
Venice, Doge's Palace
Two epochal dates
Article The Last Great Jochid, or Akhmatova's Drama. Act One: Khorezm We've focused on the Khan's reorientation of foreign policy from east to west. This occurred after Moscow stopped paying the Horde's quitrent following the Battle of Aleksin in 1472. Akhmat's attempt to restore things to normal eight years later will be discussed later.
For now, let us mention an epochal event, along with Timur's defeat of Tokhtamysh in the Battle of Kondurcha in 1391, in Western Eurasia in the second half of the 14th–15th centuries: the fall of Constantinople and the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, which created a direct threat to Central and Southeastern Europe, primarily the Holy Roman Empire, Genoa, Venice, and the Kingdom of Naples.
Regarding the latter, in 1481, the threat was realized with the capture of Otranto and the blood-curdling massacre, when the Ottomans beheaded over 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam. Thus, the threat to the Christian world and its culture from the Porte was all too real.
It's no coincidence that long before the Otranto tragedy, Western Europe was seeking a counterweight to the Ottoman threat. Three powers were seen as such: the Great Horde and the Ak Koyunlu, which was mentioned in the article. Iran: A Look Back Through the Lens of Moscow-Safavid Relations in the 16th Century — and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Let's talk. Naturally, we're primarily interested in Akhmat.
He came to power, according to historian A. A. Gorsky, no later than 1468 and quickly attracted the attention of Venice—before the Great Geographical Discoveries and the Ottoman conquests, a key player in Europe and the Mediterranean. However, 1453 became a turning point. stories this fragment of Pax Romana.
On the one hand, the collapse of Byzantium played into the hands of Venice, since it weakened the economic position of Genoa in the region, whose connection with its Crimean colonies, as a result of the loss of control over the Bosphorus, was significantly shaken.
However, the further expansion of Ottoman conquests threatened the Venetian trading posts on the coasts of the Aegean, Black, and Azov Seas, without which the republic would have slowly begun to die. And so, in 1463, the Venetian-Ottoman War broke out.
The Republic was unable to resist the Porte on its own. Allies were needed to distract Ottoman forces on other fronts.
The Senate considered two approaches in this regard. The first was the eastern one, where the Porte's rival was the Ak Koyunlu, which sought to break through to the Mediterranean in order to gain access to the European market, and, in turn, saw Venice as an ally.
And although our focus is on Akhmat, I will allow myself to devote a little attention to the failed attempt by the Ak Koyunlu and Venice to create a united front against the Porte. This is necessary both for the sake of completeness, illustrating the twists and turns of the complex military-political game unfolding in Western Eurasia, and partly to understand why Akhmat did not escalate the conflict with Mehmed II in the war against the Ak Koyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan, who demonstrated the power of the Ottoman Empire. weapons.
Thus, Tabriz, the capital of the Aq Qoyunlu, also expressed interest in an alliance with Venice and Rome. The desire was mutual, as the doge and pontiff—the Venetian-born Paul II, who held the office from 1464 to 1471—were consolidating their efforts to confront a common enemy, the Ottoman Empire, and, as I have already noted, were seeking an ally in the east.
The Battle of Otlukbeli, which had important geopolitical consequences for Western Eurasia
Uzun-Hasan, who received the Venetian ambassadors, also sent his representative, Haji Muhammad, to the papal capital.
The Republic tried to help the Ak Koyunlu by supplying them with the arquebus, a critical weapon for their melee-only army. artilleryHowever, the Ottomans thwarted this attempt and defeated Uzun Hassan's forces at the Battle of Otlukbeli on August 11, 1473. The Ak Koyunlu lost its political influence in the region and soon fell to the Safavids.
Mission Trevisano
While establishing contacts with Tabriz, Venice began seeking rapprochement with Sarai. And here, things proved more complicated.
In April 1471, at the behest of the Senate, its secretary, D. Trevisano, set out for the banks of the Volga. His route passed through Moscow, and another representative of the republic, A. Gislardi
should have, writes historian V. P. Gulevich, interested Ivan III in close contacts with Rome, conveying to him the Pope’s permission to trade with Moscow merchants in all Catholic lands.
In relation to attracting Akhmat to the anti-Ottoman alliance, Venice came up with an original idea: to allow the Tatars into Hungary, which was opposing Mehmed II, and to pay them, according to V.P. Gulevich, 10 thousand ducats monthly and another 6 thousand in gifts.
However, in the realities of 1472, Akhmat saw his primary goal as restoring control over the Grand Duchy of Moscow, shaken by the Horde's turmoil. It must be said that until recently—we are speaking, of course, of the second half of the 15th century—the Grand Duchy had not challenged the Horde king's suzerainty and had once paid quittance to three Jochids who claimed that title. This was under Vasily II the Dark, who had replenished the treasury of Kichi-Muhammad, Ulugh-Muhammad, and Sayyid Ahmad.
In this context, it should be noted that, apparently, Venetian diplomacy did not pay due attention to the growing conflict between Moscow and Sarai and, accordingly, did not take into account the suspicion that could have been aroused - and was aroused - by the Trevisano embassy heading to Akhmat's Headquarters.
As a result, in 1472 the latter was arrested by order of the Grand Duke. Moreover, it is possible that the Italian's planned mission to the Lower Volga came as a surprise to the Moscow ruler, since, as noted by the famous Venetian traveler A. Contarini, a participant in the defense of Constantinople who visited the Ak Koyunlu, visited Moscow, and was favorably received by Ivan III, the Grand Duke met him at the meeting. "with an agitated face he began to complain about Zuan Battista Trivisana".
If Ivan III hadn't trusted the Venetian from the start, he'd hardly have reacted so emotionally to the compromising information. Trevisano wasn't the only one caught in the crossfire, as they say.
Thus, Ivan III sent the Venetian D. Volpe, who served as a coin minter at the Moscow court and had traveled to Rome to fetch Sophia Palaiologina, to explore the sights of ancient Kolomna—into exile. In fact, the aforementioned Gislardi was Volpe's nephew.
In this case, the intrigues of the Venetians’ enemies, the Genoese, were not without their influence.
Akhmat's Double Game
Nevertheless, everything ended well for Trevisano: in 1474, he was released and reached Akhmat's headquarters, where he was greeted with a warm welcome. The Venetian set out on his return journey with Temir, an ambassador from the "Emperor of the Tatars."
V. P. Gulevich cites the conditions under which the Horde expressed its readiness to fight the Ottomans: 200 ducats. They were paid 2 as an advance, as far as I understand.
Temir returned to the Horde in June 1476 with a request from Venice to begin military operations against the Ottomans from the Danube when they opened a campaign against Hungary.
However, the alliance planned by Venice with the Great Horde directly affected the interests of Poland and Lithuania, despite the fact that Mehmed II and Casimir IV were in allied relations and granted each other various trade preferences.
Mehmed II Fatih, who was considered an ally by Akhmat
But this wasn't the republic's only problem in attracting the Great Horde to the anti-Ottoman alliance. Another was the Crimean Khanate. Both fragments of the Ulus of Jochi sought to prevent its final disintegration and even restore its former power, but each under its own auspices. Moreover, Crimea was increasingly coming under Istanbul's influence.
Under these conditions, Venice had to play a complex diplomatic game: while winning Akhmat over to its side, it had to take into account the interests of Casimir IV.
The latter did not view the Great Horde from a hostile perspective, seeing it as a counterweight to Moscow. However, at the same time, the king naturally did not share Venice's plan for Akhmat to participate in a war with the friendly Porte and for Horde troops to pass either directly through territory linked to Poland by the Krewo Union of Lithuania or through Moldova.
Krakow considered the latter as its sphere of interests and was not eager to see a third force, along with the Ottoman Empire, on its territory.
Casimir IV sent a representative to Venice with a corresponding explanation of his position. The Senate responded with understanding. The Polish ambassador was told that the Horde should pass through Moldavian lands, avoiding Lithuanian territory, and invade Bulgaria, which had already been conquered by the Ottomans a century earlier.
V. P. Gulevich quotes a document with the corresponding instructions from the Doge to his representative in Lithuania:
And if suddenly the passage through the Danube and the transition to the Turkish lands will not be possible due to the will of the khan or due to the resistance of the governor Stefan (the governor of the ruler of the Moldavian Principality - I.Kh.), or due to other reasons, you declare and demand from Khan Akhmat that he first take the city of Kaffa (in 1475 captured by the Ottomans from the Genoese - I.Kh.) and other places in their province captured by the Turks, as well as the castle of Tana (located near Azov, in the same 1475 was captured by the Ottomans - I.Kh.), and others located near the borders of the khan, and do everything possible against the enemy.
But, of course, the Venetians couldn't guarantee the Poles that, having passed through Moldova, the Tatars wouldn't want to stay there. The situation for Venice became more complicated when, in 1477, according to a report by the republic's representative at the Khan's Headquarters, cited by V.P. Gulevich:
Akhmat is at war with Kasym Khan, his nephew.
Moreover, there were three nephews. Thus, traveling from Derbent to Moscow, Contarini visited Astrakhan, which, according to him, belonged to
three brothers; they are the sons of the brother of the chief khan, who currently rules the Tatars who live in the steppes of Circassia and near Tana (a city on the site of today's Azov, destroyed by the Ottomans in 1475 – I.Kh.). Kasim believed that he himself should be the chief khan, since his father, who had previously ruled the Horde, had been one, and therefore there was a great war between them.
A major war—that's just the rumor. And the intensity of hostilities between uncle and nephew remains an open question. I find Kasym's serious claim to the khan's title dubious.
Otherwise, he would have claimed the right to issue a label to the Russian princes and demanded Moscow's withdrawal. However, Kasym's real ambitions may have been more modest: independence for the lands that later became the Astrakhan Khanate, without any claims to power over the entire Great Horde.
With Moscow, I think, Kasym sought to establish trade relations rather than tributary ones:
"The ruler of Astrakhan," wrote Contarini, "named Kasim Khan, sends an ambassador to Russia every year to the Grand Duke of Moscow, more to receive a gift than anything else. Accompanying the ambassador are many Tatar merchants; they form a caravan and bring with them silk goods from Yazd (a city in Persia – I.Kh.) and bokkasi (a type of fabric – I.Kh.), to exchange for furs, saddles, sabres, bridles, and all sorts of other things they need."
But in any case, it would have been short-sighted for Akhmat to open a campaign on the Danube without resolving the problem with his nephew, who had Crimea, which was hostile to Sarai, right next door.
Istanbul, for its part, did not seek to exacerbate relations with Sarai. In the late 1470s, the two powers exchanged embassies. According to V.P. Gulevich, this was due to Akhmat's loss of interest in the Venetian venture to transfer Horde troops to Bulgaria.
Indeed, the Great Horde's campaign in the Balkans left the metropolis itself defenseless against Crimean Tatar invasions. It's worth noting that Akhmat briefly succeeded in installing his own protégé in Crimea. But more on that in the next article.
It's possible that the Khan of the Great Horde was considering joint action with the Ottomans. In any case, the ambassador who traveled from Sarai to Istanbul was supposed to assure Mehmed II of his readiness to support him in any campaign.
Thus, Kasim, who was on hostile terms with Akhmat, as well as Casimir IV's reluctance to see Tatars in Moldova, let alone Hungary, coupled with the stable relations between Sarai and Istanbul, made Venice's plan unrealistic. In 1477, the Venetians essentially succeeded in persuading the Poles to allow Tatars to enter the Balkans, but the plan remained unrealized.
The army of yesterday
But there was another reason worth paying attention to: the military potential of the Great Horde itself.
Contarini gave him a rather negative characterization. However, it must be taken into account that he himself never met Akhmat or saw his troops. Nevertheless:
Everyone claims the Great Horde is vast in numbers, but useless for military purposes due to its enormous number of women and children. They also claim that in the entire Great Horde, there aren't even two thousand men armed with sabers and bows; the rest are ragamuffins without any weapons.
This is partly true. The reason was mentioned in the previous article: Tamerlane, who defeated Tokhtamysh in 1391 at the Battle of Kondurcha and destroyed the Volga cities that formed the economic foundation of the Golden Horde.
Military historians V. Yu. Gumelev and A. V. Parkhomenko cite a similar reason for the military degradation of the Ulus of Jochi:
It should be noted immediately that the Golden Horde khanates significantly deteriorated in the decades following its collapse. The primary reason for this was the sacking of the Horde cities in 1395 by Timur-Askak, the emir of Turan. The Horde never recovered from this blow. Many of the Horde's largest cities were reduced to smoldering ruins and never revived. The city's inhabitants—skilled artisans and resourceful merchants—were either exterminated or driven to Central Asia (Turan). This is likely the only reason why the Horde khanates failed to establish industrial firearms production, as the material and production base was destroyed, and the personnel capable of organizing and even operating such production were eliminated. For example, the main occupation of the Great Horde population became herding, either transhumance or nomadic. With the collapse of the cities of the middle and lower Volga region, the economy of the Horde khanates began to take on a distinctly raiding character. The main force of the Horde armies—the shock units of medium and heavy cavalry—must have been quite limited in the Great Horde. The reason was the same: the degradation of urban life in the state. The ability to provide large numbers of warriors with protective armor and necessary weapons disappeared.
I will add that Tamerlane not only destroyed the Golden Horde's industrial base, which perhaps, albeit on a limited scale, would have allowed it to establish the manufacture of firearms, but also deprived the rulers of Sarai of the prospect of forming an imperial bureaucratic apparatus, unthinkable outside the urban environment.
Let me remind you that the revival of the Safavid state under Abbas I occurred precisely because, instead of the separatist-inclined Qizilbash nomadic aristocracy, the young shah began to rely on the sedentary Iranian bureaucracy.
Tamerlane did not give Akhmat such a chance, condemning the Great Horde to an inevitable, in historical perspective, defeat in the confrontation with Moscow, which, albeit not fully, took advantage of the fruits of the “gunpowder revolution,” to which the Great Steppe, by and large, had nothing with which to adequately respond.
Regarding the armament of the Horde, the same researchers V. Yu. Gumelev and A. V. Parkhomenko write the following:
The composite bow, complete with various types of arrows, was the most fundamental weapon for long-range combat in the 15th century. And not only among the Tatars. The traditional use of bows by large cavalry units in maneuverable battles, typical of the Horde armies, was particularly effective.
But archery is always an art, especially when it comes to horseback archery. Training such an archer is a long and arduous process. He practically has to be a professional. Militia archers were of little use in battle (as was confirmed at the Battle of the Ugra). And the impoverished Horde khanates, including the Great Horde, simply couldn't afford to maintain a large number of professional archers.
Not every lightly armed warrior had a shield, which was typically round and small (less than 50 cm in diameter). A helmet was also not readily available.
But archery is always an art, especially when it comes to horseback archery. Training such an archer is a long and arduous process. He practically has to be a professional. Militia archers were of little use in battle (as was confirmed at the Battle of the Ugra). And the impoverished Horde khanates, including the Great Horde, simply couldn't afford to maintain a large number of professional archers.
Not every lightly armed warrior had a shield, which was typically round and small (less than 50 cm in diameter). A helmet was also not readily available.
However, Akhmat had ambitions on his side and, although obviously inferior in power to the Ottoman and Muscovite armies, still a strong army.
Not following the lead of the Venetians, the khan decided to achieve geopolitical success in the south, intervening in the affairs of the Crimean Khanate, as well as in the west, attempting to once again resolve the Moscow problem.
And what about Venice? Having failed to form a proper anti-Ottoman coalition, it signed the Treaty of Constantinople in 1479, which was unfavorable to it.
The fate of history is inexorable. At the close of the 15th century, the era of the great powers of the Middle Ages was fading: the Ak Koyunlu, Venice, and the Great Horde were all in decline. However, let's not rush into the latter. Ahead of us lies the third act of Akhmatova's drama.
References
Gumelev V.Yu., Parkhomenko A.V. Armament of the Horde and methods of waging war in the second half of the 15th century // History and Archaeology. 2013. No. 7
Gorsky A.A. Moscow and the Horde. – M.: Nauka, 2000
Alekseev Yu. G. Sovereign of all Rus'. – Novosibirsk: Science, Siberian Branch, 1991
Pochekaev R. Yu. Tsars of the Horde. Biographies of the Khans and Rulers of the Golden Horde. — 2nd ed., corrected and enlarged. — St. Petersburg: EURASIA, 2012
Gulevich V.P. Venetian diplomacy and the Great Horde in the 70s. // https://goldhorde.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ЗО-1-2017-149-163.pdf
Trepavlov V.V. Steppe empires of Eurasia: Mongols and Tatars. – Moscow: Quadriga, 2015
Chernikova T.V. “The Discovery of Russia” in the Works of Foreigners of the 15th – 16th Centuries // https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/otkrytie-rossii-v-sochineniyah-inostrantsev-xv-xvi-vv?ysclid=mpz3qxq716976603219
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