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Thread: [AAR] MTW: A History of Russia

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    Default [AAR] MTW: A History of Russia



    Author: Morble
    Original Thread: Not Available

    A History of RussiaAuthor: [user]Morble[/user]
    Original Thread: A History of Russia

    This AAR is an exciting read throughout, from beginning to end. Perhaps one of the longest AARs we have seen on TWC, A History of Russia recounts a MTW campaign of the author Morble. It begins near 1205 and ends near 1305, over 100 years of intense battles and interesting politics all in one AAR! This is a must read for anyone interested in AARs or Russia itself.

    A lot of time went into this AAR, and it turned out beautifully.



    Hader.


    MTW: A History of Russia IntroductionA History of Russia

    © Copyright 2004 Sherman Ponder

    Introduction:
    This was written by our own Morble, the strategist extraordinaire of TWC. This story is an exact recount of an MTW campaign Morble played. So, you could say it is a true history--but only of an MTW game. It's a tribute to the strength of the MTW game that every battle and strategic move are described just as they happen. Morble only had to fill in the surrounding details, and these mostly became quite apparent to him as he was writing the story.




    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter IChapter 1

    In the year 1205, Prince Yesevolod III of the People of Novgorod took stock of the People. Yesevolod himself was only 26 years old, but was already a warrior to command respect and admiration, as both an excellent battle commander and a prince of the People. A superb horseman, as would be expected of a man of the People, he was a skilled attacker and an expert defender on the battlefield. His regal bearing and steely gaze, both on the field and at court, inspired significant dread to those who came into his presence. Yet he was not a malevolent man; it was simply that his manner instilled a sense of respect and caution.

    As Prince of the People, he was acknowledged as the leader of the most powerful of the Steppe tribes. The People of Novgorod, through assiduous care and development, now possessed citadels in both Novgorod and the new territories of Muscovy. In addition, the People controlled the provinces of Kiev and Pereyaslavl far to the south, bordering the lands of the barbarians.

    While many of the People were repulsed by the strange ways of the southern barbarians, Yesevolod was curiously intrigued by them and their ideas. He sought to exchange both trade goods and knowledge with them, and thereby to gain both economic and military advantages for his People and his armies.

    A religious man, Ysevolod regarded the Orthodox church as a great strength of the People. The People of Novgorod, almost alone of all the Steppe tribes, had rejected the pagan gods and embraced Orthodoxy. And the People now had riches and strength beyond any other Steppe tribe. To Ysevolod, this was demonstration enough of the power of the Church.

    Being in a cold northern country, with limited arable lands, the People had learned the best and most efficient methods of agriculture for their clime. Now Prince Ysevolod sought to bring further income and riches to the People by opening trade with the barbarians over land and sea. But first, his dream was to unite his lands and the pagan Steppe tribes into a mighty nation under the Orthodox banner.

    The People had originally been nomadic, and had traditionally scouted their lands on horseback. Now, however, the Prince initiated the first of many sweeping changes to the nomadic traditions. He built a series of watchtowers in all his lands, while in Pereyaslavl he built a defensive fort.

    In the mean time, he assigned titles to his generals. Grigorii Molov he made Grand Prince of Kiev, while Zaiats Voislavov became Duke of Pereyaslavl. Vasilii Pavlov served as Grand Duke of Novgorod and Chamberlain of the Great Council, while Maksin Domaslovov was named Grand Duke of Muscovy. These last two men were of unknown abilities in administering a province, but the Prince found he was satisfied with their work. In particular, Pavlov’s rule of Novgorod made that province the richest of all the People’s lands. Grand Duke Molov had reasonable skills as an administrator, while Domozhirov had only rudimentary abilities in reading and writing, but would serve until a more talented administrator could be found.

    Ysevolod meant to unite all the Steppe tribes, but his first interest was to geographically unite his lands. To this end he sent his emissary, Guba Shchukir, to Lithuania to negotiate an alliance with whoever ruled that territory. His daughter, Princess Maria, he sent to the far off land of Flanders to observe and learn what she could of the barbarians there.

    Stanimir Zubov, the warlord of Lithuania and commander of a significant army, including 2 companies of the famed Lithuanian cavalry, rebuffed Shchukir’s offer. After this first failure, Shchukir traveled to Chernikov to parley with Guba Ivanovich. In the meantime, Ysevolod ordered the raising of border forts in his provinces and increased the size of his armies.

    Ivanovich, Prince of Chernikov, agreed to ally with Prince Ysevolod, but the gifts offered to Ivanovich as a reward for this alliance greatly depleted the royal treasury. Recognizing also that he needed more florins to aid him in his dream of uniting the tribes, the Prince of the People ordered the construction of trading posts in Novgorod, Moscow, and Kiev.

    Princess Maria had traveled to Wessex to interview the English. The English were known, at the time, to have the most skilled artisans and weaponsmakers in the world. When Maria arrived, she found only a single company of feudal knights patrolling the province. These knights, while well-trained and possessing lances that made them formidable attackers, were few in number and had armor inferior to the People’s boyars. However, there was also a company of English longbows in the province, and their archery skills were impressive.

    Ysevolod, upon hearing her report, told her to continue scouting. He knew, though, that he needed to ally with soldiers, not shopkeepers. While he was disdainful of the English cavalry, Maria’s report on the longbows aroused an interest. With a history of mounted archery, the People might find something of use in these longbows. While Ysevolod considered the English to be no greater than some of the larger Steppe tribes, he thought they might be useful allies. But, in her travels, Maria was to find that, while the English were capable of producing weapons of surprising strength, they appeared to have a rather small military. Unable to discover more, the Prince ordered Maria to travel to Italy.

    In 1208, Prince Ysevolod IV reached his majority. The young prince was headstrong and aggressive to the point of arrogance in his demeanor. He had a killer instinct on the battlefield. Ysevolod IV was only 13 years the junior of his father, and perhaps for this reason, was not as respectful to his father as would be seemly. While marriages at a very young age were not unheard of among the People, Ysevolod’s precocity in this area had sometimes been the subject of hidden smirks behind the hands of the women of the People.

    Ysevolod IV had grown up as almost a younger brother to Ysevolod III, instead of in a more traditional father-son relationship. He knew that while he was the heir to the throne, his coronation would likely be very late in his life (assuming his father did not die in battle). While some sons might have taken some of the kingly duties onto themselves, to eventually become almost co-rulers with their fathers, Ysevolod IV’s personality was such that he developed a devil-may-care attitude towards the obligations of the crown. He often declared that his sole duty was to inquire daily upon the health of his father, and he refused to be hindered with any consideration of what the French barbarian tribes called “noblesse oblige”. It clearly rankled him that he would not receive the crown until he was, in his words, “ancient of age”, and shockingly, had sometimes speculated on what would happen if some hunting accident occurred to his father. While Ysevelod IV was the equal of his father in generalship, his loyalty was suspect and Ysevolod III did not trust him with an army.

    Ysevelod III’s fame had spread to faraway lands, and in these years both the Byzantines, where the great cathedral of Orthodoxy was located, and the Almohads, a desert tribe from beyond the sea, offered alliances, which were accepted. The Prince also offered an alliance to the Aragonese, who accepted. The next year he proposed marriages to the Germans and the Italians, but both offers were rebuffed.

    The People’s coffers, depleted by the absorption of the Chernikov tribe, were filling only very slowly, hindering Ysevelod’s plans for expansion. At this rate, it would be a number of years before he could attempt another tribal alliance. Impatient, he looked to the lands neighboring his to find the weakest tribes and conquer them with his army. He sent his troublesome young son, along with 2 companies of boyars and 1 of horse archers to Ryazan. The 1 company of archers and 2 companies of horse archers of the Ryazan tribe refused to meet them in battle, and fled to the protection of the Khazar tribe.

    The next year, the Prince of the People himself led an army of 2 halberdiers, 1 crossbows, 1 horse archers, and 2 boyar companies, including his personal guard, into Volga-Bulgaria. At the same time, general Chort Milov invaded Smolensk from Novgorod with 5 companies of boyars and a horse archer. Both of the Steppe tribes retreated without engagement. Chort Milov was then appointed Duke of Smolensk. Ysevolod III was able to take 350 Volga-Bulgarians captive, whom he freed in a display of mercy. This show of occasional mercy increased the happiness of the People he ruled.

    Meanwhile, Princess Maria had reached the age of 27. Rather than have her retire to a convent, Ysevolod presented her hand to Duke Voislavov of Pereyaslavl. Voislavov was pleased with his marriage into the royal line, and rededicated his efforts to the realm.

    Guba Shchurkin, having earlier failed to persuade the Lithuanians to join the People, traveled to Livonia to discuss an alliance with them. Shchurkin had significant discussions with Duke Nitikin of Livonia, but the Duke required more than 3000 florins to join forces with the People, and there was only about 500 in the treasury of the People.

    At this time, the annual income to the realm was over 2500 florins per year, but the profits were only around 500 florins per year. The spoils from the invasions of Smolensh and Volga-Bulgaria allowed Ysevolod to complete the trading post in Novgorod. Even so, he was having difficulties finding enough money to hire even peasant companies to maintain order in the provincial garrisons. His was not the only nation with such problems, and the province of Volhynia rose up in a successful rebellion against the Poles. Still, the situation was vexing to the Prince of the People. Ysevolod intended to build a dockyard in Novgorod and then increase income to the realm through trade on the high seas. In addition, he scoured the realm for better administrators to govern his provinces.

    Another annoying problem was that there was now Catholic missionary activity in several of his provinces, particularly in Novgorod. As the figurehead of the Orthodox church in the North, Ysevolod felt a responsibility to spread Orthodoxy among his people, including the recently-conquered pagan provinces. He thus instructed the church in Novgorod to send out priests to preach to the People, and to counter the Catholic evangelism.

    Emboldened by the rebel success in Volhynia against the Poles, the Lithuanians attacked Kiev in 1214. Grand Prince of Kiev Molov attempted to block the invaders at a river crossing with his 1 company each of boyars, horse archers and peasants. But the rebel forces of 2 companies of Lithuanian cavalry and 1 company each woodsmen, spearmen, and crossbowmen forced their way across, killing 99 men, as well as Molov, while losing 68 men.

    In retaliation, Tsar Ysevolod sent a 500 man liberation army to Kiev, while Prince Ysevolod attacked Lithuania directly. The rebels in Kiev retreated to Moldavia, while the Prince found Lithuania empty and occupied it without resistance. The Danes invaded Finland in 1214 and conquered it, while the Byzantines took Khazar in 1215.

    Thus, the year 1216 found the new Russian nation bounded by the Danes in Finland, the Byzantines in Khazar, and rebel tribes in Livonia, Prussia, Volhynia, Crimea, and Moldavia.

    The Steppe tribes continued their wars and resistance to the annexation of their territories. In 1217, the people of Finland rebelled against the Danes, while the Livonians attacked Novgorod with a company each of feudal knights and archers. Lord Pavlov defended with his company of boyars and a company of peasants. The battle became an archery duel, with the boyars shooting at the knights while the archers shot at the boyars. By the time all the quivers were expended about 22 boyars and 15 knights remained. Pavlov managed to sandwich the knights between his boyars and the peasants and killed the rebel leader, causing the Livonians to rout. Pavlov refused to take prisoners from his victory and slaughtered all captives on the field. The Russians lost 87 men to the Livonians’ 97.

    The Tsar had had enough of the seesaw war with the nomadic tribes, and was especially angered over the attacks on Russian settlements. He sent Prince Yvesolod with 6 boyars and 1 horse archer into Livonia. The prince was met in battle by 1 Lithuania cavalry, 2 woodsmen, and 1 spearmen. Without a ranged fire ability, the Livonians were slaughtered, literally, and lost 261 men to 44 Russians. After the conquest of Livonia, rumors began to circulate about the prince’s bloody treatment of captives in battle.

    Meanwhile, Poland had managed to persuade one of the rebelling Volhynia armies to defect to them. Once these defectors were reinforced with Polish regulars, they managed to re-take the province for Poland. The next year, they also conquered Moldavia. The Poles also tried to conquer Prussia, but were repulsed. The popular rebellion in Finland was successful and managed to kick the Danes out of the province.

    This left rebel tribes adjacent to Russia in only Finland, Crimea, and Prussia in 1220. But the Tsar could not spare the troops to attack any of these tribes. Despite their Orthodoxy, both Lithuania and Livonia were recalcitrant and reluctant to yield to Russian rule. A significant number of garrison troops were required to pacify these provinces.

    In 1222, Prince Ysevolod invaded Finland with 7 boyars, 2 halberdiers, 1 pavise crossbowmen, and 1 horse archers. They attacked 2800 peasants and fanatics by surrounding the woods the enemy units were hiding in and decimating them with arrow fire. When the Finns tried to attack out of the woods, the Russian boyars drew their sabers and charged, putting the ragtag peasant army to rout. Ysevolod IV showed no mercy that day, slaughtering 1254 men on the field, and thus became known as the Butcher of Finland. Truly, no man had ever been so dreaded.

    The Poles lost Volhynia once again to a popular rebellion, and this touched off a rebellion in Moldavia the following year. In Khazar, the population rebelled, but rumors of an approaching eastern tribe of barbarians soon made the rebels reconsider. These barbarians, known as the Mongols or The Golden Horde, were supposed to be the most horrific and fierce warriors ever assembled. The rumors grew so great that the Khazaran rebellion reconciled with the Byzantines in the besieged fort—they acceded to Byzantine rule and looked to Byzantium for protection from the approaching Mongols. In fact, the Mongols were not to arrive for another 7 years, but thus did Byzantium regain control over Khazar.

    Tsar Ysevolod had also heard the rumors. Although there was now a shipyard in Novgorod, the Tsar could not afford the men to produce ships there. Instead, he concentrated on building triple armored halberdiers there. Muscovy was producing triple armored boyars, while Lithuania and Livonia trained arbalesters. The remainder of the provinces sought to improve their agriculture, with the idea to eventually build horse farms and Steppe cavalry. However, there was rarely enough money to fund these efforts.

    The continued focus on training and improving the army is a demonstration of how seriously the Tsar took the Mongol threat. In fact, he was quite angry with his son for slaughtering the prisoners during the battle for Finland, because he very much needed the money that could have been raised from their confiscated lands. However, Ysevolod IV had always been beyond the full control of his father and, while he was now more loyal to Mother Russia, it is likely that only the satiation of his love of war was responsible for his increased loyalty.

    Tsar Ysevolod began moving his troops closer to the Eastern front to prepare for the Mongol onslaught. Meanwhile, the Poles lost their battles against the nomadic tribes that had opposed them for so long. Prussian rebels invaded Poland in 1228, and by 1229 the Poles were destroyed.

    Then, in 1231, with Russia’s northern and western borders secure, but her southern border lined with nomad tribes, the Mongols invaded Byzantine-held Khazar and Georgia.




    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter IIChapter 2

    5400 Mongol warriors invaded Khazar in the fall of 1231. Nearly 2000 Mongols also invaded Georgia at the same time. Ysevolod, by this time, had brought all his fighting troops—halberdiers backed by arbalesters, boyars and Steppe cavalry—to the provinces ringing Khazar. Most of these provinces, excepting Pereyaslavl, had a river delineating the border with Khazar.

    While the Mongol Khan devastated Khazar, royal emissary Guba Shchurkin and Princess Ekatarina worked assiduously to obtain a ceasefire and alliance with the Khan. Negotiations dragged on for 3 years while the Khan’s armies fought the Byzantines. By 1234, the Mongols owned Khazar, and the future looked ominous for Mother Russia. Ysevolod gathered all his army into Pereyaslavl.

    Having noted that the Khan’s fighting methods were best suited for an attacking style, Ysevolod was determined not to simply sit back and allow the Horde to invade Russian territories. If an alliance could not be forged, he would attack the Mongols with everything he had. It was a risky plan. He only had about 2000 troops, as compared to the Khan’s 5400.

    But Guba Shchurkin was able to conclude an alliance with the Khan, the final point being the vacating of Russia’s alliance with the Byzantines. As it turned out, this change of allegiance had no repercussions for the Russians, because the Byzantine empire was to fall in 1237 when the Byzantine emperor was captured by the Horde and executed. Thus, the Mongol threat was defused, and the Golden Horde moved south, leaving behind about 1800 men in Khazar.

    Freed from the invasion watch in Pereyaslavl, the Tsar moved his armies through Kiev and then attacked the disorganized nomadic tribes surrounding his southern border. Prussia, Volhynia, Moldavia, and Crimea were attacked simultaneously.

    This time, Prince Ysevolod IV was strictly charged by his father not to harm a single prisoner on the field. The prince, now known as the Scourge of the North, took his army of 4 boyars, 2 halberdiers, and 1 pavise crossbowmen to Crimea where he handily defeated a tribal force of 4 horse archers and 1 spearmen. When the two armies met at a double bridge crossing, Prince Ysevolod sent 3 companies of his boyars racing across the northern bridge, while he approached the southern bridge with his footmen. The rebels feinted at the southern bridge, but chose not to separate their forces with an attempt to block the northern crossing. The boyars were thus able to cross the northern bridge. With the boyars now able to maneuver and threaten their rear, the rebels were subsequently unable to move to prevent the southern crossing. His troops reunited on the far side of the river, the Scourge ordered a birbas formed.

    A birbas is a hunting technique perfected by the People of Novgorod. In hunting, an area is encircled by riders, and then the circle is gradually tightened, driving the game into the center. It is a point of pride among the hunters not to allow even one of the smallest, nor the most ferocious, animals to escape the tightening noose. The warriors of the People had found that a birbas worked just as well when the game to be hunted was human.

    Some of the rebels managed to fight their way out of the birbas, but there was no fort they could repair to, and they were all soon captured. In the battle, the Scourge killed 151 men and captured 78, while losing 19 men.

    Tsar Ysevolod III invaded Volhynia at the head of his own army. So impressive were his troops that the rebel tribe retreated to Poland without a fight. Prince Yuri obtained the same result when his army invaded Moldavia. The rebels there retreated to Wallachia, in the center of Hungarian lands. Prussia was invaded by an ad hoc Russian army of footmen and peasants, but the province had been deserted by the indigenous tribes, moving south into Poland for the oncoming winter, and there was no opposition.

    The Tsar gained over 4500 florins from his outward push in the south. He gladly welcomed the windfall, because he was now more determined than ever to build a modern economy, and he dedicated all of these funds to improving agriculture and trade in his provinces. At this time, national income was about 4500 F per year. But, due to the size of his armies, the Tsar was only making about 500 F per year in profits.

    With the successful campaign in the south, Mother Russia now had extensive land holdings, and a world class military force, but her people had a very low standard of living. Russian serfs scratched out a living from the prairies of the inland provinces in much the same way that their ancestors had lived on the land 5000 years ago. While Ysevolod’s military and geographical strength gave him great influence in the world, he realized that he would not be able to compete with the richer world powers unless he could strengthen his economy and raise his people and society to modern levels. Focused on this goal, his main purpose during the next few years was to increase trade and agriculture in his lands. But the plunder gained from the southern campaign had turned his head, and he realized that he could accelerate toward his goals by adding rich provinces to his lands of conquest.

    It was for this reason, the Tsar being desirous of its rich resources, that Ysevolod III pushed his army forward into the province of Poland. He met no resistance in the field there and a year later he successfully assaulted the castle in Krakow. The Grand Duke of Muscovy, Maksin Domaslavov, lost his life in this assault.

    Now most of the Russian southern borders were flush against the Hungarian empire. The exception was at Wallachia, where the remaining nomadic tribes had congregated. Along the northern section of the Russia’s European border, self-styled Prince Heinrich, who had broken away from the Holy Roman Empire during a civil war, controlled Silesia. The French owned Pomerania, and the Holy Roman Empire owned Brandenburg. The Tsar was finally able to launch his first ship, a barque, into the Baltic Sea in 1239, and it was soon discovered that Sweden was also an independent province. The rebels there had no central government were too backward to form a regular trade route with Russia. Ysevolod would need another ship in order to form a trade route with the nation of Denmark.

    Two peaceful years passed. Ysevolod was able to initiate some simple agricultural improvements in the eastern provinces, and to establish a trading post in Finland. He managed to form alliances with the Almohads and the Turks, while refusing an offer of alliance with the French. Since Hungary and Turkey were at war, he chose to secure his borders and remain allied with the Hungarians. Then, still governing from his seat in occupied Poland, he caught a fever and died. He was 64 years old.

    His son, Ysevolod IV, the Scourge, was crowned Tsar in Novgorod in 1242, at the age of 51. Ysevolod’s brothers, Princes Yuri, Yuroslav, and Vladimir, remained in the line of succession, and he also had two sons, age 6 and 1, a sister, and 3 daughters. Because he was relatively unknown in international relations, the Scourge commanded only about half the influence his father had on the world stage. But, he was very well known indeed in Russian lands, and his fearsome reputation gave a sense of foreboding to everyone present whenever he entered a room. Still infamous as the Scourge of the North and The Butcher of Finland (though no one dared say so to his face), with a killer instinct that showed no mercy on the battlefield, the Scourge had become more loyal to the ideal of a nation state as his coronation came closer to reality. Perhaps he had mellowed some, but such was difficult to discern beneath his forbidding demeanor. It also seemed that he had a particular fondness for certain young, active soldiers, but absolutely no one was about to ask whether this fondness was real or imagined.

    The first 5 years of Ysevolod IV’s reign were to be times of peaceful development in Russia, and annual profits were to climb close to 2000 F per year. But outside the Motherland, the world was in turmoil. The Turks warred with the Hungarians, the Horde warred with Egypt, the Italians declared war on the Sicilians, and the French fought wars with both the English and the Almohads. Polish nationalists managed to sway the populace of Silesia to reform the Polish nation. Amidst all this foment, the peasants of Khazar rebelled against the Mongols. The Scourge, Tsar Ysevolod IV, saw an opportunity and readied his army. If the Horde did not defend their beleaguered garrison in Khazar, the Scourge would be ready to grab the province.

    And so it happened in 1249. The Scourge sent his brother, Prince Yaroslav, at the head of the Russian army to invade newly-independent Khazar. By this time, Yaroslav was a world-famous general. Skilled at mediation, his talents on the battlefield were even greater. His uncanny ability at generalship had allowed him to turn numerous battles to his advantage. With his victory in the Battle of Khazar, he was to become known as a skilled attacker.

    Prince Yaroslav met the rebel forces across a river with two bridges nearby. The rebel army, composed of 22 peasant and 6 fanatics companies, had set up near the western bridge. The Russian army—4 boyar, 5 halberdier, and 6 arbalester companies with an additional 2 pavise crossbow and 4 Steppe cavalry companies in reserve—approached the river near the western bridge. Having shown his intent to force a western crossing, Yaroslav then sent his boyar companies at full gallop to cross the eastern bridge. The rebel general, lacking any cavalry, tried to rearrange his troops to meet this new threat, but succeeded only in allowing the remainder of Yaroslav’s army to cross the western bridge. Once the Russians were across the river, the birbas began.

    While the battle line of halberdiers advanced from the west, the boyars encircled the rebels and riddled them with arrows. When rebel companies tried to force their way out of the circle, they were met with saber charges from the boyars and were soon routed. This continued until eventually the rebel general was killed in melee, and the entire rebel army was routed soon after. The Russians chased the rebels off the field, then drew back into a semicircle, with the boyars spread to the wings, as 12 peasant reinforcement companies appeared for the rebels. But without a commander to rally them, the rebels were wavering in their resolve even as the Russian boyars began to loose their arrows. When Yaroslav ordered his halberdiers to advance, the rebels’ courage failed them and they started to run. 2600 rebels were killed or captured during the Battle of Khazar, while Yaroslav took only 24 casualties.

    After the conquest of Khazar, Ysevolod IV, Scourge of the North, Tsar of Russia, began to look further outward from his borders. With four daughters to aid Guba Shchurkin in his intelligence gathering, and a line of ships stretching to the English channel, the Tsar could now begin to make reasoned assessments of the state of the world’s powers.

    By 1250, Europe had fragmented into a number of small nations—a situation that Ysevolod, as the descendant of nomadic Steppe tribes, could well understand and exploit. The Holy Roman Empire existed in isolation in Brandenburg, and likely in 1 or 2 provinces further west. The Turco-Hungarian war still raged, with the Hungarians holding on to at least the 3 provinces bordering Russian Poland. But the Turks now owned Bulgaria, while Wallachia remained a land of barbarian nomads. The Danes were isolated in their sole province, surrounded by independent provinces in Scandinavia and Saxony. The English had apparently been reduced to 1 or 2 provinces on their island homeland, and the Poles were isolated in Silesia.

    From their ducal lands spread out across the continent it appeared that the French had once owned much of Western Europe, but that they were now losing control under pressure from the Almohads. The Almohads had earlier destroyed Spain and had by now expanded into Flanders and Burgundy. Egypt had been forced to absorb the Mongol saber slash deflected by Russian diplomacy and had been vanquished by the Golden Horde. Not much was known about the state of Italy or the Italians and the Sicilians—except that they were at war with each other. The division of lands south of the Black Sea between the Mongols and the Turks was also unknown at this time.

    This disarray of fragmented states suited Ysevolod’s purposes nicely. He still needed time to build his economy and unite his conquered provinces, and it was therefore profitable to him that other nations should war amongst themselves. Of the countries on her borders, Russia maintained alliances with the HRE, Hungary, and the Mongols. Opportunities for conquest existed against the Turks in Bulgaria, the Poles in Silesia, and French in Pomerania.

    French fortunes increased the next year, however, when 4 rebel provinces sought annexation into the French realm—although 2 of these provinces still warred among themselves. Yet, Ysevolod rejected the French request for alliance, since this would have meant breaking with both the Almohads and the English. The following year, Princess Tatiana sent back word that the English not only held some provinces on the English Isles, but also maintained several lands on the very western edge of Europe. In the same year, the Italian Doge was killed warring against the Sicilians and Italy ceased to exist.

    Like perpetual gadflies, Catholic bishops continued to travel throughout Russia, spreading their lies and drawing off converts from the one, true Orthodox Church. For the most part, Russian territories remained Orthodox, and newly-conquered provinces converted readily to the truth and power of the Orthodox Church. But the constant battle to draw souls and believers from the one true Church caused no end of complaints from Russian priests to the court, and this state of religious affairs was beginning to annoy the Tsar. The great cathedral in Moscow was still ten years from completion, but the Moscow church meanwhile continued to send out priests to minister to the faithful. The contest for souls was particularly intense in Kiev, Volhynia, and Prussia, where Catholic bishops had set up religious missions, but this was a continual contest throughout all of Russia. Ysevolod ordered the production of a security office in Poland to find a way to deal with these interfering Catholics.

    He also sent priest Nikita Zhoznubodov to scout Turkish and Mongol lands, and to found small gatherings of the faithful as he went among the pagans and Muslims. Zhoznubodov found Armenia in the hands of the pagan Mongols, while Trebizond and Constantinople were held by the Muslim Turks. When Zhoznubodov arrived in Constantinople, he believed he had found his true calling and he elected to remain there, to encourage and revitalize the faithful in the traditional home of Orthodoxy, even while under the occupation of the Turks.

    In 1253, the province of Hungary was invaded by barbarians, splitting the Hungarian Empire. Ysevolod and the Hungarian king, Lazlo IV, agreed to enjoin their alliance and work together to foil the barbarians. Lazlo took his armies to lift the siege in Hungary, while Ysevolod sent Prince Yaroslav to root the rebel tribes out of Wallachia. King Lazlo found he had to both fight the barbarians in Hungary and simultaneously repulse a Turk invasion, but he did manage to liberate Hungary for his kingdom. Yaroslav’s reputation was such that the Russians met little resistance in Wallachia, and Yaroslav easily claimed Wallachia for Russia. As he had in Khazar, Tsar Ysevolod allowed the release of all the Wallachian nomads, but such was the dread of his name that these acts of mercy did not alter his reputation one whit.

    Meanwhile, a three way war between France, England, and the Almohads continued to rage across Western Europe. Ysevolod was determined to stay out of the fray, and won an alliance with the Poles, while accepting an additional alliance with the Sicilians. Although he desired the rich lands left behind by the now-extinct Italians, Ysevolod would have had to go to war with the Turks or the Hungarians in order to reach these lands, and he did not feel he could spare the funds to initiate such a war. Still looking to develop his economy, he invested the 5800 florins gained from the conquest of Wallachia into improvements for infrastructure and agriculture. His son, Prince Mikhail, had recently come of age, and the Tsar kept him close in Novgorod to train him in the ways of international statecraft.

    Tsar Ysevolod’s dreaded reputation was to live on after him when he died peacefully in 1254 at the age of 63. The Scourge of the North had made his name, now and forever, with his butchery of the captives on the battlefield in Finland. Even today, the mere mention of his name can cause a horripilation of superstitious dread. Although he was to become known as a magnificent builder and the founder of many new buildings and organizations that still bear his imprint, Ysevolod IV never shook off the terror that clung to his name from the actions of his youth.

    Ysevolod IV’s desires for his succession were to be thwarted by court intrigue. He had wanted his son Mikhail to inherit the throne. However, Mikhail was only 18 when Ysevolod IV died, and still had little experience in the exercise of power. In contrast, Prince Yuri, Ysevolod IV’s younger brother, was well versed in covert political manipulations. With the support of the army, and his brother, Prince Vladimir, in Poland, Yuri managed to wrest the crown from the young Mikhail to become Tsar Yuri II. It is believed that greed, both for power and money, was the primary motivator behind Yuri’s power grab.

    It is said that Prince Yaroslav, the third eldest of the brothers, did not fully approve of his older brother’s actions. However, at the time this all occurred he was commanding the army in Wallachia and was not in contact with Novgorod. By the time he heard the news that Yuri had been crowned Tsar, it was too late for him to oppose the coronation without starting a civil war. Thus, Yuri II got his desire, and was crowned Tsar. He was 58 years old and unmarried when he assumed the throne.




    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter IIIChapter 3

    Tsar Yuri II was anxious to make his mark on Russian history. He immediately married a woman from a wealthy Russian aristocratic family, and was rewarded with a son the very next year. He increased his elder brother’s intensive building program, and soon became known as a builder in his own right. Some nobles were not particularly happy with Yuri’s coronation, especially the manner in which it was made to happen, and he therefore set about shoring up loyalties by marriages into the royal line. Princess Anastasia was married to the Duke of Livonia, Princess Maria was married to the Duke of Muscovy, and Princess Tatiana was married to the Duke of Crimea. Annual profits to the crown had now swelled to 3700 florins per year. But the new Tsar was not happy with solely domestic improvements. Mindful of the windfall obtained by the conquest of Wallachia, he devised a devious plan of foreign conquest.

    The Turks currently owned Constantinople and the richest lands near Russia, but the only direct contact with the Turks was through Bulgaria. Any Russian invasion of Bulgaria would likely be required to meet Turkish resistance at several river crossings, whether the invasion came from Wallachia or Kiev. In addition, the Turks had heavily fortified Bulgaria. Constantinople could conceivably be attacked by sea, but the only Russian port was at Kiev, and Russia had no dockyards available to build ships on the Black Sea. Thus, though Yuri coveted Turkish lands, he could see no easy way to conquer them.

    Hungary, however, could be invaded from both Poland and Wallachia. A victory in the province of Hungary would split the Hungarian empire into Moldavia and Bohemia, just as had happened during the reign of Ysevolod IV, when barbarian tribes had overrun the province. With communication impossible between the other Hungarian provinces, the King of Hungary would be isolated in whichever province he fled to from Hungary. Yuri planned to invade Hungary, and then follow this attack with an invasion of whichever province the king had fled to. He planned to capture the Hungarian king and collect a ransom on him. After ransacking the Hungarian treasury with the ransom demand, Yuri then planned to complete the conquest of Hungary and absorb the entire nation into the Motherland. Russian courtiers were quick to note that they could lift the Tsar’s mood at any time by beginning a discussion of the Hungarian invasion plans. At its mention, Yuri’s eyes would begin to sparkle as he imagined the rich conquests—and particularly the gold they would bring.

    There was an obstacle, however, to Yuri’s plans in that Russia was still allied with Hungary. But Yuri plotted to get around this hurdle by allying Russia with Turkey. Since Turkey and Hungary were at war, Yuri could then immediately cancel his alliance with Hungary without any loss of reputation. Yuri commanded the Grand Duke of Muscovy to begin training diplomats. With a diplomatic corps, he could approach Turkey on various levels, and also could prepare bribes for any Hungarian generals with less than sterling loyalty.

    But while Yuri’s schemes were being put into effect, the Turks and Hungarians made peace. This was a severe setback to Yuri’s plans, because now he could not reasonably abrogate Russia’s alliance with Hungary. He was, in fact, never able to initiate his planned conquest of Hungary.

    Meanwhile, Prince Chort matured. While Prince Mikhail seemed rather resigned to his being passed over for the crown by dint of his uncle Yuri’s manipulations, Chort was not so equananimous. Concerned about a possible coup, Yuri shipped Prince Chort to the border to serve with the Duke of Prussia.

    Internationally, the English and Almohads continued to whip the French throughout Western Europe. However, French culture had a lasting effect on its peasantry, and there were constant loyalist revolts, especially against the Almohads. As a result, the Almo-Franco War seesawed across the continent, with the Almohads beating the French on the battlefield, only to see loyalist rebellions spring up behind them to wrest away the hard-won provinces.

    In 1260, gunpowder was discovered, and while it had some obvious possibilities for military applications, it was thought that it would be some time before it could be used reliably on the battlefield. Yuri ordered some experimentation with this new technology, both for foot weapons and for large weapons on ships, but dependable and usable weaponry was not to be perfected for many years, and Yuri eventually lost interest in the technology. Still, now that the Grand Cathedral of Moscow had been completed, Lord Domaslavov, Grand Duke of Muscovy (and cousin of the previous Grand Duke who had been killed in the assault on Krakow Castle), had been appointed Metropolitan of Moscow. Lord Domaslavov had a fascination with gunpowder and its uses and ordered a training school for handgunners to be built in Muscovy.

    Yuri again turned to his plotting of the conquest of Hungary, but it seems that his grand plans of invasion and kidnapping were ill-favored by fate. In 1260, while Yuri was demanding of his court ambassadors to conceive of any kind of diplomatic initiative that could be used to free him from relations with Hungary, the Poles launched a surprise attack on the Russian province of Poland.

    Prince Yaroslav’s armies were in Wallachia, and were therefore out of position to defend against the attack—which left only Prince Vladimir’s army in position to resist the invaders. Vladimir had 3 boyar and 2 pavise crossbow companies, plus 2/3 of a company of halberdiers, and a catapult, but the remainder of his army was made up of peasants, Steppe cavalry, and light horse archers. Vladimir was outnumbered 741 to 880 by a fearsome Polish army, commanded by Prince Miezko, comprised of feudal and royal knights, chivalric sergeants, feudal and chivalric foot knights, and archers and arbalesters.

    Upon hearing of the surprise attack by the Poles, and instantly realizing that his plans of Hungarian conquest had been thwarted yet again by the events of the day, Tsar Yuri II was thrown to the floor in a fit of apoplexy. He lingered for three days and then he died. He was 64 years old.

    In Poland, Prince Vladimir provided a masterful defense. He met the Poles as they were crossing a river and plugged his end of the bridge with his heroic 1st Guard halberdiers. The 1st Guard was to lose 35 out of their complement of 41 men in this battle. Vladimir backed the 1st Guard with his peasants and Steppe cavalry. He then lined all his missile units around the foot of the bridge and placed his single catapult company so that it could fire directly down the length of the bridge.

    Although there was a second crossing to the east, the Polish Prince Miezko, believing his superior troops would shatter the Russians, chose to meet the Russians head-on at the western crossing. He charged his spears and foot knights forward first, then followed with his heavy cavalry units. Eventually, he also charged his own company of royal knights into the fray on the bridge, and for some time was at the very forefront of the battle.

    Meanwhile, Vladimir sent 1 peasant company and 1 Steppe cavalry to the eastern bridge in order to block or delay the Poles there. When they met no opposition at the east bridge, these two companies crossed and attacked the missile troops in the Polish rear on the far side of the river. While these two Russian companies were successful in destroying 2 enemy archer units, Miezko disengaged feudal knights and halberdiers from the bridge to counterattack them, and both of the brave Russian companies were obliterated in the ensuing melee.

    At the front of the battle, the fighting on the bridge was horrific and it continued throughout most of the day. Prince Vladimir was forced to use every asset at his disposal to continue holding the bridge. When the 1st Guard started to flee, Vladimir replaced them, first with peasants, and then with his remaining Steppe cavalry. When all his missile troops, except the pavise crossbows, had run out of arrows, he charged his boyar companies onto the bridge, while the crossbows concentrated their fire on Prince Miezko.

    The Polish Prince, while only a fair general and warrior, was acquitting himself well in the melee on the bridge. But one by one his personal guard was slain, and then finally he himself was killed. Even before the Prince’s death, some of the Polish units had routed away, but now the entire Polish army began to run. Vladimir chased them across the bridge and claimed an amazing victory that day in the First Defense of Poland. Prince Vladimir lost 451 out of 741 men in the battle. The Poles lost 774 out of 880, including Prince Miezko.

    With the death of Tsar Yuri II, it was thought in some political circles that Prince Mikhail would become the next Tsar. But this was not to be, and Mikhail had actually grown to prefer the life of a prince of the realm over the power and responsibility that comes of being Tsar. Thus it happened that Yaroslav, the next eldest son of Yvesolod IV, was crowned Tsar Yaroslav II in 1261.

    Yaroslav was unmarried, so emissary Guba Shchurkin, now in charge of a growing diplomatic corps, interviewed 4 foreign princesses as candidates for Tsarina. But Yaroslav would not wait for the negotiations to conclude, and married the daughter of a local aristocrat. At the age of 46, Yaroslav was already known as Russia’s greatest general. He had a friendly disposition and a reputation as a builder, but he also had a taste for luxury. In spite of Yaroslav’s pleasant demeanor and obvious skills, some provinces, especially Lithuania and Livonia, were unhappy that Prince Mikhail had not ascended to the crown, as was arguably his right. But Mikhail refused to involve himself with the matter and, in the end, Yuroslav merely increased the garrisons of these provinces so that order could be maintained, and had no further dissensions about his becoming Tsar.

    After being crowned in Novgorod, Yaroslav rushed back to the front, first to Prussia, and then to meet up with his armies in Poland. In the meantime, Prince Mikhail had also marched a small army to Poland to shore up Prince Vladimir’s defenses there.

    Instead of pursuing Yuri’s plan of a surprise invasion of Hungary, Yaroslav devised his own plan to first defeat the Poles in Silesia, and then to take an interest in the far northern territories of Scandinavia. He also hoped that the constant back and forth fighting between the Almohads and the French would provide additional opportunities for conquest of independent provinces. The Holy Roman Empire provided another possible opportunity when they canceled their alliance with Russia and sided with the Poles. Years earlier, the Empire had apparently been a great power in central Europe, but now the Holy Roman Empire was thought to be only a minor faction. The only province known by the Russians to be currently ruled by the HRE was Brandenburg.

    King Miezko IV, after the Polish defeat at the First Defense of Poland had cost him nearly half his total army and his son, surely recognized that he had signed his death warrant when he attacked the Russians in Poland. He was aware that Yaroslav was returning to the region with a large army, and that Vladimir still commanded the defense of the province. He also was aware that Mikhail was marching to reinforce the provincial defenses—although it appears he was unaware that Mikhail had already arrived there when Miezko gave his army their marching orders. In desperation, Miezko sent his other son, Prince Boleslaw, a the head of an army to try to conquer Poland with a second invasion.

    Thanks to Prince Mikhail’s reinforcements, the Russians now outnumbered the invading force, 638 to 477. Boleslaw, mindful of the losses his brother had taken to his archer companies when the Russians crossed the river behind them, decided to attack along a section of river where there was only one bridge available. This choice suited Vladimir well, however, and in placing his defensive positions, he lined his missile troops up so that they could focus concentrated fire on the Poles before they were even able to reach the bridge. An uninspiring general, Boleslaw could not maintain order among his troops as they tried to advance in the face of the lethal hail of Russian arrows. Boleslaw’s infantry was ripped to shreds even as they approached the bridge, their courage failed them, and they were routed.

    In final desperation, Boleslaw and his cavalry units attacked the halberdiers holding the bridge, but the charge was for nought. The Polish prince was killed, and his cavalry destroyed. The Polish colonel who suddenly found himself acting battlefield commander immediately ordered a general withdrawal, but he still lost an entire company of halberdiers as they tried to get to safety. In all, the Poles lost 251 men in the Second Defense of Poland; the Russians lost 11. In another result of this act of aggression against Russia, the Turks cancelled their alliance with Poland.

    By the spring of 1263, Tsar Yaroslav had his armies well positioned in Poland and he invaded Silesia. The invading Russian army outnumbered the Poles by 1428 to 567 men. Yaroslav chose to mount his invasion across the very same single-bridge river location as the Polish Prince Boleslaw had chosen in his failed attack. Picked for the initial Russian attack wave were 10 boyar, 5 halberdier, 2 arbalester, and 1 Steppe cavalry companies. The Poles had 3 feudal knight, 1 ½ royal knight, 1 ½ chivalric sergeant, 1 ½ arbalester, 1 ½ archer, and 1 ½ feudal men-at-arms companies in defense.

    The Russians first attempted to engage the Polish arbalesters with their missile troops, but this was mostly futile, because the Poles had set up their defenses slightly away from the river, and therefore out of arbalest range. So, the 5 halberdier companies were sent charging across the bridge to establish a beachhead. The Poles attempted to stack up the Russians at the foot of the bridge, but the triple-armored halberdiers were too strong, and were able to push the battle line forward. This left enough space clear for Yaroslav to order his boyar companies across the bridge behind the halberdiers. The boyars reached the beachhead on the far side of the river, then drew their sabers and spread out on both flanks. From both sides, the Russian boyars then turned and charged into the Polish flanks. The Poles were routed, and only the Polish king and 17 soldiers were able to escape to Wroclaw Keep. The Poles lost 547 men in the Battle of Silesia, while the Russians lost 157. Wroclaw Keep fell to a Russian assault in the following year, and the second kingdom of Poland was thus destroyed.

    With victory over the Poles now in hand, Tsar Yaroslav was also intent on punishing the Germans for their insults given when they sided with Poland in the war. He thus personally invaded Brandenburg with 1223 men. The Baron von Blauss put up a brave defense of the province, but he commanded only 303 men and was handily defeated by the Russian army. The Germans lost 193 men; the Russians lost 7. Brandenburg castle was assaulted the next year, and the province of Brandenburg became a Russian possession.

    However, the war with the HRE was not to continue because there were no other German provinces adjacent to the Motherland. Yaroslav was content with taking Brandenburg as a penalty to German adventurism.

    Now that the wars with Poland and the HRE were over, the Tsar needed to return to Novgorod to settle the realm and increase loyalties. Some of the new officers, particularly from the eastern provinces, were not especially content. They saw that Russia was changing, and felt that the Tsardom held too closely to the worst of the old ways, while ignoring the extended family and communalism of the ancestral tribal ways. To mollify and extinguish this spark of discontent, Yaroslav returned from the far-off borderlands to take a firmer hand in the rule and direction of his court.

    One of the means by which he hoped to knit Russia together more tightly was through the Orthodox church. By now, all but Silesia and Brandenburg were predominantly Orthodox, but the Tsar thought to increase the fervency of the Church. With the Byzantine empire consigned to the history books by the Mongols, only Mother Russia kept the light of the Orthodox church shining. Thus, the Tsar reasoned, faith in the Orthodox Church would translate directly into support for Russia. Already known twice over as a builder, Yaroslav now increased his attention on building churches.

    At the same time, he gave orders to improve national security in the form of assassin training schools and state police. The Tsar realized that Russia was on the verge of becoming a modern nation and an internationally recognized power. It was high time, he thought, for the Motherland to learn and use the techniques of both statecraft and security.

    Russian territory now surrounded Hungary on three sides. The Mongols were in Georgia, and the Turks were in Bulgaria. To the north lay French Pomerania and Almohad Saxony. The Almohads continued to fight the French and the English in seesaw battles throughout western Europe. The Germans and Sicilians, as well as the newly re-organized Italians and Egyptians, were all far-off lands without direct contact with the Motherland, and were considered to be but minor factions in the world struggle.

    In 1264, the Pope sent an emissary to Yaroslav with the offer of an alliance. But the Papacy was yet another far-off land of which little was known—except they were at war with the Almohads. In addition, Catholic bishops attempting to convert Russian subjects had been an annoyance to Yuroslav and his elder brothers before him. The Papal offer was rejected, and 2 years later it was heard that the Pope Innocent IV had barely escaped into exile with his life, fleeing from an invasion of Rome.

    In 1269, the English king was captured and executed, and the English nation fell apart. This left the French as the only major power to oppose the Almohads in western Europe. The Almohad Sultan offered an alliance to Yaroslav, but it was rejected, only in part because it would have abrogated the Russian treaty with France. The Almohads were now rulers of half or more of western Europe, plus all of Iberia, and had a naval armada at the Straits of Gibraltar. The extent of their holdings in North Africa and the Middle East had yet to be discovered, but were thought to be considerable. The strength of the Almohads was becoming a threat to Mother Russia.


    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter IVChapter 4

    From 1269 onward, Tsar Yaroslav continued his programs of building churches and improving international relations and homeland security. Aware that Russia’s interests spread beyond her now-expansive borders, he sent intelligence agents ranging throughout the world to determine the strengths and weaknesses of potential friends and foes. What he learned caused him to look to strengthen both his army and navy.

    For the past 60 years, starting from the rule of Prince Ysevolod III of the People of Novgorod, the main concern of the crown had been subjugating the fierce nomadic tribes on the Steppes and to the south. But the very success of the Tsars in forming the Russian nation had altered circumstances irrevocably. Except for the Mongols, who ruled a strip of provinces along the eastern Mediterranean, the nomadic cultures of the world had all been absorbed and dissipated. Instead of growing through subjugation and absorption of nomadic indigenous peoples, Russia would now have to contend as a nation among rival nations in the new world order.

    By 1269, the Mongols had settled into a relatively small area running from Georgia on Russia’s border to the Holy Lands in the south. The Turks ruled from Rum and Trebizond to Serbia and Bulgaria, and they also ruled Venice. The Egyptians were a fairly small nation in Egypt and Sinai. Of the ancestral western Europeans, only Hungary (and possibly Sicily) had retained her identity. Through the years, Hungary had managed to hold on to Hungary, Bohemia, Carpathia, and Croatia. Spain had vanished decades earlier, vanquished by the Almohads. The English had lost their war with the Almohads, and a new, much smaller, England had been formed in Ireland and Brittany. The French were in the process of losing their war with the Almohads, and current intelligence suggested they owned only Austria, Northumberland, and Mercia. Little was known about the Sicilians and the re-constituted Italians, although the Italians were known to hold provinces around the northwest of Rome. The Catholic Pope, as best could be determined, was still in exile, and the Holy Roman Empire was only a rumor to Russian Emissaries.

    There were still opportunities for Russian expansion without going to war, especially in Sweden and Norway. But Yaroslav had been concerned about depleting his armies. The conquest of Sweden would require him to isolate an expeditionary force there until he could build a port. Without sufficient arms stationed in her outermost provinces, the long Russian borders would be vulnerable. Nonetheless, the Russian army, typically organized with about 50% boyars, and 25% each of arbalesters and halberdiers, could be a formidable opponent against any attacker. As had been learned by the former Polish king only a decade ago, Russia was not to be attacked with impunity.

    But, while Russia’s armed forces were sufficient to ward off any attacks, they were not numerous enough to allow for the growth of the nation, and its sphere of influence, by conquest. With large Almohad armies now on his borders, Yaroslav decided to improve the strength and number of Russian arms. At the same time, he began the slow process of building military training installations that would allow Russia to reinforce her armies quickly.

    Because of his previous building and expansion programs, Yaroslav could now afford the funds to increase his armed forces. In 1274, for example, annual income was better than 12,000 F per year, with profits around 6,000 F per year, and Russia’s treasury stood at over 10,000 F.

    By 1273, Russian shipyards were pumping out additions to the Russian navy from Kiev, Livonia, and Novgorod. Russian trade ships now plied routes from Finland to the north of Italy, as well as across the Black Sea and the Sea of Marinara. Muscovy continued to provide a combination of boyars and halberdiers, while Lithuania trained arbalesters. A number of Steppe provinces could now produce cavalry or horse archers. But this was still not enough to counter the huge potential threat of the Almohad empire—which now stretched from Cyrenicaea through most of western Europe.

    Yaroslav made some telling changes in diplomacy around 1273-1274. He allied with the Egyptians, which allowed him to drop his alliance with the Mongols. He also allied with the Almohads, and refused an offer of alliance from the French. And, after years of careful consideration and husbanding of resources, he finally sent an expeditionary force to conquer Sweden.

    Sweden was a province of profoundly rich resources that could be developed into an economic powerhouse. It was conquered easily by the Russian expeditionary force, and was a welcome addition to Russian lands. Worldwide, 1274 was a relatively peaceful year. The only wars in progress were between France and the Almohads, and Egypt and the Mongols. But there were more storm clouds on the horizon.

    Although the Almohads were allied with Russia, the Kalifah had posted a 3000 man army in Pomerania and a 1500 man army in Saxony. The Almohads claimed they needed these troops to pacify the regions, and to defend against possible Danish invasion. But it was likely that they were also telling the Danish they needed those troops to guard against Russia.

    Not all was going well for the Almohads. They had left only minimal forces behind them while fighting their European wars. Their harsh system of subjugation of indigenous peoples led to the revolt of Cordoba in 1273. This was followed by the revolt of Portugal in 1275, and the rebellion of Granada in 1277. The Iberian peninsula appeared to be slipping away from Almohad hands.

    Unfortunately for Yaroslav, there was not much he could do to take advantage of this—Iberia was simply too far away. He could not spare the troops in any case, because he had to protect his western borders, while at the same time he was preparing to attack the Mongols on his southern border. He could have sent diplomats to try to bribe the mostly peasant Iberian forces, but Russian finances were not so improved as to allow such profligate spending while still maintaining the buildup the army. Even if Yaroslav had been able to spare an invasion army to send to any of the independent Iberian provinces, that army would have been isolated, and the Almohad navy could likely have kept it in isolation for a very long time. So, the Tsar could only sit on his hands and watch the Iberian rebellions with avid interest.

    It was in the fall of 1277 that Tsar Yaroslav II died in his sleep, at the age of 62. Yaroslav had been Russia’s greatest general, and a skilled attacker, and even in his 50’s had personally commanded the successful invasions of Silesia and Brandenburg against the Poles and Germans. Although the trappings of the Tsardom inspired awe in those who met with him, he had been a friendly and personable man. Throughout his reign, he had steadily improved Russia’s economy and made vast improvements to the nation’s infrastructure. He was known as a natural leader, a magnificent builder, and a steward of the land.

    With Yaroslav’s death, the crown passed to a son instead of a brother for the first time in 35 years. Tsar Andrei II, the 24 year old son of Yaroslav II, possessed many of the attributes of his father. Like his father, he was a moderately pious man, with a steely gaze, and a talent as a natural leader. He had a disturbing tendency to refuse to admit he was ever wrong , but was exceptionally valorous in battle. He was unmarried when he ascended the throne.

    Perhaps because Yaroslav IV had had limited contact with the world outside Russia, the worldly influence of the nation did not suffer greatly in the passing of power. Similarly, since Russia and Russians were in the process of forming a national identity (and perhaps also because the crown was not passing to yet another brother), loyalties in the provinces remained more or less intact. Andrei’s worst attribute was his dislike of book learning, and his literacy and math skills were poor, at best. Income to the crown soon dropped to 12,600 F per year, with only 5200 F in annual profits.
    Last edited by Nazgûl Killer; February 22, 2010 at 03:06 PM.

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    Default Re: [AAR] MTW: A History of Russia

    Andrei was a man enamored of action, and he was anxious to add new conquests to his rule. He believed he saw an opportunity in the East. The Mongol Khan was on a tour of his realm, and he had been spotted in the lightly defended province of Georgia. If the Khan could be captured by an invading Russian army, he would likely command a significant ransom. Andrei ordered Ghuba Zhiroslavov, a talented but inexperienced general, to invade Georgia and capture the Khan. However, Zhiroslavov’s army of less than 500 men contained mostly Steppe cavalry supported by halberdiers and arbalesters. Known for his extensive planning before taking action, Zhiroslavov took extra care in preparing for a campaign that would employ such lightly armed forces at its core. As a consequence, the Khan had left Georgia by the time Zhiroslavov invaded with his army. Still, the province was poorly defended, and Zhiroslavov met no resistance in the field.

    The Mongols counterattacked Zhiroslavov when he tried to assault the Georgian fort the next year. Zhiroslavov’s army had 820 men: his own boyars company, 6 Steppe cavalry, 2 arbalesters, 2 halberdiers, and 3 peasants. The Mongol army consisted of 420 men, with 1 heavy Mongol calvary, 5 horse archers, 3 Steppe cavalry, and 1 Mongol warriors. Knowing that the Mongol horse archers could simply pick his footmen apart from range, Zhiroslavov opted for an attacking strategy to defend Georgia. But the horse archers and Steppe cavalry of the Mongols were more than a match for the Russian Steppe cavalry, and when they met in melee, Zhiroslavov lost 4 out of his 6 Steppe cavalry companies, a peasant company, and, by the end of the battle, most of his personal boyars were also casualties.

    It was Zhiroslavov’s company of boyars that turned the battle for him, slicing into the Mongol light cavalry, and destroying the Mongol commander and his heavy cavalry in melee. The Mongols fled Georgia in defeat, losing 392 men while the Russians lost 339. Zhiroslavov managed to take 41 men prisoners captive, including a noble, but the Mongols refused to ransom them, saying the captives had soiled themselves with dishonor and deserved to die.

    Because the Horde had denuded their garrison in Armenia in order to assemble the army they had used to counterattack Georgia, Armenian Muslim peasants were able to rise up and begin a rebellion there. The pagan Mongols thus lost not only Georgia, but Armenia as well, as a direct result of Zhiroslavov’s successful defense.

    Also in this year, the Pope returned from exile and set up operations in Rome. Andrei, perhaps more aggressive or more mindful of the Orthodox Church than previous Tsars, and benefiting from the disarray in which the Catholic Church was mired, refused to allow Catholic bishops to proselytize in Russia and began arresting the offenders. This in turn was sure to enrage the Pope.

    Popular rebellions altered the world status in 1282. The Almohads had managed to force all of the Iberian populist rebellions to retreat into the single province of Cordoba, but now Portugal rebelled again. In the meantime, the rebellion in Armenia was besieging the Mongol garrison in their fort there. But Zhiroslavov was hesitant to invade Armenia without any intelligence as to what resources and arms the Mongols had further south. He did not want to put down the peasant rebellion in Armenia, only to be forced out of the province by a counterattacking Mongol army. As he debated his course of action, the Turks seized the opportunity and conquered Armenia for themselves. Now, with no contact between the Mongols and the Russians, the war between them fizzled out.

    But Tsar Andrei still looked for expansion. With Sweden now pacified, he sent the expedition force stationed there to invade Norway. But perhaps his riskiest strategy in 1282 was to order the assassination of the King of Hungary.

    The invasion of Norway succeeded easily, but the inexperienced assassination team met with total failure in Hungary. All of the Russian team of assassins was caught and killed by the king’s bodyguards. Another assassin, sent to target Prince Karoly in Croatia, was caught at the border. On his 30th birthday, then, Tsar Andrei II had a mixed bag of birthday presents.

    It appeared clear that Russia did not have skilled enough assassins to overcome the cohort of bodyguards King Istvan V of Hungary now kept around him. The assassination attempts had forced the Hungarian king to adopt new habits. He was now very nervous about his security, and ate and slept poorly. The Hungarian king’s increased security meant that the Russian conquest of Hungary, if such was to proceed, would almost certainly have to come by force of arms alone.

    On the other hand, the conquest of Norway went smoothly. Although Lord Shukin, Earl of Sweden, participated, it was Nikita Kuz, commander of the sole boyar company in the expeditionary force, to whom the command fell. Kuz had his own boyars, 4 horse archers, 3 arbalesters, 2 halberdiers, and 1 woodsman company, for a total of 560 men. The rebels had 1 feudal knights, 3 Vikings, and 2 woodsmen companies for a total of 340 men.

    The Norwegians set up in a strong defensive position on the side of a mountain, but Kuz sent his horse archers ahead of his army to harangue the rebels with their missile fire. Lacking any sort of ranged attack, the Norwegians were forced to either absorb the hail of arrows, or to move out of their solid position and push the Russian horse archers down the mountain. The Norwegians elected to attack, but the Russian horse archers were too nimble and, racing away tauntingly, succeeded in spreading out the rebel formations.

    When the Russian arbalesters marched onto the mountainside at the scene of the developing battle, the rebel general tried charging straight downhill to clear them off the mountain, but he was killed, along with most of his knights, when Kuz and his boyars, as well as his halberdiers and woodsmen, were able to charge in front of the Russian arbalesters and engage the rebel knights. As has always been typical of nomad and rebel armies, the rebels routed when word of the loss of their commander spread. The Norwegians lost 321 men in the battle, while the Russians lost 119—a major portion of the Russian casualties came from the woodsmen company.

    The Russian navy had by now extended its domain to the Middle East, and it was discovered in 1283 that France had strong armies posted in Antioch, Tripoli, and Cyprus. The strength of the French Levant was unexpected, because French resources had fallen away from them in Europe. Austria and Scotland were the only French holdings in Europe. The Mongols had not fared well in their invasion of the south, and had dwindled greatly from their original strength. In fact, the entire Mongol national army was only 275 men in Edessa, the only surviving Mongol province. In contrast, the resurgent Egyptians appeared to be on the rise, and they now owned Egypt, Sinai, Palestine, Arabia, and Syria.

    By 1285, Andrei had gained the reputation as a master builder, which increased loyalty and happiness throughout the Motherland. He remained poorly skilled in financial acumen, but the crown still managed to bring in over 16,000 F in annual income, and annual profits were nearly 7,000 F.

    With the Tsar’s expansion plans stymied by the current political situation, one of Andrei’s eldest advisors brought an idea forward. Thirty years earlier, Andrei’s uncle, Tsar Yuri II, had plotted to attack Hungary by invading the province of Hungary, thereby splitting the realm so that the remaining provinces could not communicate, and then planned to capture the Hungarian king to hold for ransom. Yuri II was never able to enact this plan because, at the time, Russia and Hungary were allied. Then the Polish invaded the province of Poland in a surprise attack, and Yuri died without ever getting the chance to enact his plan against Hungary.

    But now Hungary had vacated the alliance with Russia, during Russia’s war with the Mongols, and was currently neutral to Russia. The kingdom of Hungary had maintained the same geography as it had during Yuri’s day: Hungary, Bohemia, Carpathia, and Croatia. Thus, it appeared that Andrei could adopt Yuri II’s original plan, without the international repercussions that would be result from attacking an ally. Tsar Andrei ordered the assembly of the Russian armies in preparation of an attack on Hungary.

    General Zhiroslavov, Hero General of Georgia, gathered armies in Kiev, Wallachia, and Poland to prepare for the invasion. However, the old Tsar Yuri II’s plan for the conquest of Hungary seemed cursed by the stars. It was, perhaps, fated never to happen because—only weeks away from the scheduled invasion date—the Turks declared a jihad to reclaim Georgia. Russia and Turkey were at war.




    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter VChapter 5

    In retrospect, the Turkish attack on the Armenian rebels in 1282 might be seen as not so much opportunistic as representative of a fundamental change in Turkish goals and national policy. Sultan Selim II was 44 years old at the time, and had been ruling over a static kingdom. Selim was an excellent Sultan, with an influence rivaling that of the Almohad Kalifah. He was moderately pious, awe-inspiring in his bearing, and possessed of both a sound mind for numbers and an eloquent manner of stating the facts. He was also a superb general and a natural leader, who showed occasional mercy to his vanquished foes. He had the reputation as a magnificent builder at home.

    But Selim was not content with the kingdom he had inherited. For more than a decade he had ruled quietly, but efficiently, enhancing the Turkish economy and culture. During this time, he saw the Russian and Almohad empires increase their holdings through conquest and development, while the resurgent Egyptians had exploded out of the south against the Mongols.

    About 1281, Selim came to the realization that Turkey was in real danger of being constricted to extinction as these three surrounding empires gobbled up any opportunities for expansion in the Bosphorus region. Thus it was that, when he saw the Mongols allow Armenia to slip into rebellion, he ordered all available troops into Armenia to secure the province for his sultanate. By wresting Armenia from the rebels, he had managed to expand his rule without starting a war with one of his neighbors.

    Flush with success, Selim saw what he thought was a reasonable chance for expansion when Russia pulled her fighting troops out of Georgia, leaving behind a peasant garrison. Russia was adjacent to Turkey only in provinces next to the Black Sea—at Bulgaria and Georgia. Having learned from reports, from his traveling alims, that all of the eastern provinces of Russia were but lightly defended, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia seemed like a reasonably safe opportunity to attack Georgia, while reinforcing Bulgaria. If the attack was successful, then Russian Khazar might also fall, and Turkish soldiers might even be able to push all the way to Muscovy.

    As a final argument and justification, the Turkish Sultan could make the claim that Georgia was an ancestral homeland of Turkey. While the actual ancestral geography was somewhat questionable, it was clear that Turkey had held the province within recent memory, and this fact served as justification enough to organize a holy jihad aimed at returning Georgia to Islamdom.

    The Sultan concentrated most of his forces into an army around Trebizond, where the jihad was organizing, and went himself, at the head of a separate army stripped from Constantinople, to reinforce Bulgaria. Yet a third army was sent to attack Edessa, where the last remnant of the Mongols resided. (This last occurred because the Sultan reasoned that, with only a single province to their name, any war with the Mongols would be very short-lived, and would not interfere with his war on Russia) As a final precaution, he ordered attacks on Russian naval vessels from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean.

    Meanwhile, Russia had also been looking for means of expansion, and had already been gearing up for armed conquest (of Hungarian lands). Tsar Andrei had wanted to leave the Turks in peace for two reasons: first, he was unsure of the number of troops Turkey commanded and the troops that he could see made Turkey appear a larger foe than Hungary; and, second, he wanted to maintain the profitable trade routes with Turkish provinces, and he expected that trade to grow even greater within the next few years, as his ships took up station in all areas of the Mediterranean.

    Andrei had moved most of his troops away from the Turkish border in Georgia to prepare for a central blow in Hungary. Georgia by now was 59% Orthodox, and approaching 200% loyalty, so the Tsar did not need to station a fighting army there as a garrison. Anticipating continued peace with the Turks, he left only 700 peasants garrisoned in the now-docile Georgia.

    This turned out to be an error, because the weakness of the garrison allowed the Turks to view Georgia as a military target. But Sultan Selim had also erred in that, while the Tsar’s movement of Russian troops to Kiev and Wallachia had indeed placed them out of position to defend Georgia, those troops were now in excellent position to mount a concentrated attack on Bulgaria. In addition, the Turks had failed to clear the Black Sea of Russian ships in their initial surprise attack—surely due only to the fact that Kiev launched a new caravel in the same year as the Turkish attacks.

    During the surprise attack, a Turkish dhow sank the Russian barque that had been patrolling the Black Sea. But the dhow was then sunk in its turn by the Russian caravel. With an uncontested Russian caravel patrolling its waters, the Black Sea was still traversable by the Russians—and the Sultan had left Constantinople and Greece vacant when he reinforced Bulgaria.

    Tsar Andrei had meanwhile been scrambling to adjust his forces to the new situation. When Turkey announced its jihad, the Tsar immediately dropped his plans for a Hungarian invasion and ordered his armies to attack Bulgaria. If he could win Bulgaria, then he would likely win Greece and Constantinople as well. The question was how to defend his eastern flank.

    The Tsar decided to sacrifice Georgia to the Turkish jihad and armies. The predominately (59%) Orthodox province had high loyalty to Russia, and might well rebel if the Turks did not garrison it heavily. At the same time, he moved all of his available assassins and clergy into Georgia. The assassins would lie in wait for targets of opportunity, while the clergy would preach to the population against the evils of Islam and their Turkish overlords. Except for some peasants as a garrison, he pulled all remaining combat troops out of Georgia to Khazar. He also began to build a resistance army in Khazar out of the units produced in the nearby provinces. Lastly, he stripped Georgia of all its improvements, even tearing down the defensive fort and selling it for scrap. When the Turks invaded, his troops would abandon the province and join the resistance in Khazar. Hopefully the Georgian people would prove unruly enough to tie down a significant number of Turkish troops while Andrei’s military campaign in the west went forward. Having thus laid his plans as best he could, Andrei ordered his armies to invade Bulgaria.

    The number and variety of units involved, on both sides, in the impending Battle of Bulgaria would have made it arguably the largest and most complex battle in the world to that date. The invading Russians were commanded by Lord General Zhiroslavov, by now Grand Admiral of the Russian Fleet and one of Russia’s two top generals. As the Hero General of Georgia, and Grand Admiral of the Fleet, Zhiroslavov had a personal stake in the hostilities, and an intimate knowledge of the area. The Russians had assembled a total of 2874 men for the conquest of Bulgaria. The Turks in Bulgaria were commanded by Sultan Selim II, who was also an excellent general and was even slightly more experienced than Zhiroslavov, and who, of course, also had a very personal interest in the outcome. The Turkish order of battle for Bulgaria had a total of 1308 men.

    But, as has been noted by others, “the first casualty of any battle is the battle plan”, and neither country was able to execute their strategic plans as intended. The Turkish Sultan, recognizing that control over the Black Sea left Constantinople and Trebizond exposed, chose to move armies into those provinces. In addition, facing 2:1 odds in Bulgaria, with his own person threatened, the Sultan decided not to engage the Russian invasion force, but to retreat from Bulgaria into Constantinople, stranding 550 men in Turnovo Castle in Bulgaria as a consequence. But these strategic retreats left the Turks in good position to counterattack Bulgaria, with a total available strength of 3200 men available from Constantinople and Serbia.

    The Russians had hoped for a battle in Bulgaria with 2:1 numerical advantage. Instead, they were now facing a possible difficult defense, against possibly stronger units. The Turks had moved only 480 men into Georgia and the population was disappointingly complacent under their new lords, showing 111% loyalty with high taxes. The Tsar desperately needed to do something right away to shake up the Turks and knock them out of their planned track, or he was likely to lose the Black Sea region, with the possible domino effect of destroying his entire Tsardom. Realizing that he was gambling for the very highest of stakes, Andrei nonetheless decided to roll the dice.

    Control of the Black Sea allowed the Russians to transport troops directly to Constantinople. So, Andrei shipped his half-formed resistance army of about 500 men, currently assembling in Khazar, to Constantinople. He left nearly 1000 peasants behind in Khazar, as well as some fighting units that had arrived too late to board the transport ships. He also set 8 assassins to the task of assassinating the general of the Turkish army now occupying Georgia.

    Andrei was gambling that the Turks would counterattack in Bulgaria in the next year, and that they would leave only token forces behind in Constantinople, Greece, and Serbia. His court advisers thought that a major impetus for the Turks to stage a counterattack in Bulgaria was the 550 Turkish soldiers still stranded there in Turnovo Castle—the besieged castle was not expected to hold out more than a year, and half the men inside would likely starve before then if the siege was not lifted.

    Andrei was also gambling that the Turkish army in Georgia would not attempt to invade Khazar, since the occupying army in Georgia had only 480 men total, and a major portion of these would surely be required to remain as a garrison. Of course, the Turks could still send reinforcements from Lesser Armenia or other nearby provinces to act as the Georgian garrison, but Andrei hoped that the besieged Mongols in Edessa, and the fear of a counterattack in Georgia, would stay the Turks’ hand. Also, if Andrei could manage to assassinate the Turkish general in Georgia, it was probable that the Turks would be in no condition to invade, or would lose in Khazar if they did.

    Andrei therefore split his forces in Bulgaria, sending Zhiroslavov with 1500 men into Constantinople, where they would join with the half-formed army shipped from Khazar, to attack the Sultan. Because many of these men were arriving by sea, Andrei knew his forces had to prevail in the attack on Constantinople, or else they would be stranded and lost. Tsar Andrei sent an additional 750 men from Bulgaria to Greece. Then he hired 650 mercenaries (all that were available) in Wallachia and moved them to shore up the defenses remaining in Bulgaria (685 men). At the same time, Russia accepted an offer of re-alliance with Hungary; but Sicily and Denmark dropped their alliances with Russia and sided with Turkey.

    Surprisingly, since there were a number of experienced men available, the major battles to be fought in 1287 were commanded by fledgling generals on the Russian side. The Sultan had opted for a moderate approach in his west. He sent 950 men to Greece and 2267 to Bulgaria, while leaving only about 800 in Constantinople. Zhiroslavov was directing the invasion of Greece, and he called off his attack in the face of the heavy Turkish reinforcements. The large Russian army invading Constantinople met with no resistance in the field as the Turks retreated to their fortress. This left Ivan Shubin in command of the defense of Bulgaria against an invading Turk army of nearly 2300 men.

    Shubin was an undistinguished general prior to the Battle of Bulgaria. In fact, next to nothing stood out in his service record. Personally, he was known to possess an approachable manner, and the gossip about his affair with another noble’s wife was widespread in aristocratic circles. But nothing in his resume suggested he was capable of mounting the kind of ferocious defense he managed in Bulgaria.

    Shubin had a mishmash of units, predominantly mercenary troops, under his command. His order of battle was: 3 Steppe cavalry companies (including Shubin’s own unit), 2 boyars, 2 hobilars, 1 horse archer, 2 pavise arbalesters, 2 arbalesters, 1 ½ pavise crossbows, 1 Trebizond archer, 2 Italian infantry, 2 halberdiers, 1 Vikings, 1 militia, 1 woodsmen, 1 catapult, and 1 mangonel. With these men he had to meet and defeat a disciplined army of Turkish regulars. The Turks outnumbered the Russian by a margin of 2267 to 1235.

    Shubin had the use of all the missile and artillery troops, the Italian infantry and halberdiers, and his boyars and horse archers, for his first line of defense. He lined his missile troops around a small wooded knob in the center of a hollow, and hid his Italians and halberdiers in the woods behind them. He placed his artillery on the left side of the knob, just slightly below the trees. Then he sent his 2 boyars and his horse archer far forward of the small hillock he had chosen to defend. The Turks marched onto the field with ½ Ghulam bodyguards, 2 Armenian heavy cavalry, 1 Ghulam cavalry, 2 ½ Saracens, 2 spearman, 3 Turcoman foot soldiers, 1 archer, 1 crossbowmen and 2 trebuchets.

    The Russian cavalry made contact first from its forward position, but could not maintain stand-off distance, and soon got suckered into meleeing with the Saracens and a spear company. Try as they might, the Russian horses were not able to prevail against the Turk spears; the boyars could inflict as many casualties on the Saracens as they received, but the Saracens heavily outnumbered them. Eventually the Russian cavalry was forced to retreat with large losses. But the cavalrymen had managed to inflict a fair number of casualties in return, and perhaps more importantly, had separated most of the Turk spear troops from the main body of the attacking army.

    Meanwhile, the Turkish cavalry, except for the general and his bodyguard unit, had advanced to a position off the Russian right flank. But the rest of the Turkish army had not yet reached their assigned positions, and the Turk horsemen were forced to wait in place while the Turk foot troops re-formed after the melee with the Russian cavalry and then approached the wooded knob. Because the foot troops were delayed, the Turk cavalry were forced to hold their position until their support could arrive. But Shubin was able to take advantage of the delay caused by his cavalry melee, and rearranged his missile troops during this time to target the Turk cavalry. Shubin’s arbalesters managed to nearly completely destroy the Turk cavalry with volley after volley of quarrels. When the Turk foot troops finally approached the Russian hill, the remnants of the Turk cavalry attempted a charge, but Shubin simply pulled his arbalesters back to lay bare his lines of polearm troops, and the Turk cavalry died, impaled on Russian halberds and Italian spears. Shubin then rushed frantically to reposition his missilers as the Turk infantry began their attack.

    The air sang with feathered death as the Turks began their attack. Turkmen fell, but their brethren filled in the gaps, and still they came onward. The Russian missile troops gave way, retreating up the hill to avoid melee contact, while the Italian mercenaries and halberdiers charged downhill at the Turks. The Turks, including the general’s company of Ghulam bodyguards, charged up the hill to meet them.

    Shubin’s placement of his artillery was near perfect in this battle. A mangonel has a very small angle of fire, but Shubin managed to place his company of mangonels so that it, and his catapult company, could fire down the flank of the Turks as they attacked the hill. It is thought that it was this enfilade artillery fire that broke the first assault wave of the Turks and put them to rout. Others argue that the Turks routed because Shubin had managed to slip a company of Italian infantry behind the battleline to attack from the rear. Probably, it was a combination of these two actions, but it is certain that the Turks broke and ran. The Turkish general’s bodyguard cohort was destroyed in this attack, but the general managed to escape and run off the battlefield.

    Shubin gave chase with his light cavalry reinforcements, while the Turks brought on a Turcoman horse and a horse archers as reinforcements. Their arrival was later followed by the arrival of more Saracens, spearmen, and more Turcoman foot. The Russian cavalry gave up chasing the routers, and began to skirmish with the newly-arrived Turk cavalry. Again the Russian cavalry took serious casualties, but were still able to inflict respectable damage on the Turks.

    Because of the self-sacrifice of the Russian cavalry units, the force of the first Turkish assault wave had been diminished by misdirection of some of the Turk units. The second Turkish assault wave of the battle was thus composed of the remainder of the troops that initially appeared on the field, plus some reinforcements. The second wave did not have as many Saracens as the first, but its force was still considerable. It was still mid-morning when the second wave of Turks charged up the hill. A company of Saracens, having traversed much of the left side of the battlefield, now entered into the woods at the top of the wooded knob, where it was met and sandwiched by an Italian spear company and a halberdiers. The Saracens were routed, but this halved the number of infantry Shubin could use to oppose the frontal assault.

    Once again Shubin pulled his missiles back and charged with his two unoccupied halberdiers and Italian spearmen to meet the Turkish advance. The battle raged in a small clot near the bottom of the hill, with missile troops from both sides pouring quarrels and arrows into the scrum. Then Shubin, from his position near the top of the wooded knob, spotted two Steppe cavalry companies coming on as reinforcements. He ordered them to loop around behind the clump of meleeing soldiers, and then to charge into the Turks from the rear. At the same time, the Italians and halberdiers in the woods had by now destroyed their Saracen target, and Shubin ordered them to charge down the hill at the main melee. Even though they were only light cavalry, the charges from the two companies of Steppe cavalry, combined with the appearance of the two additional infantry companies out of the woods, were enough to cause the Turks to break and run. So ended the second assault.

    In the relatively quiet intermission period that followed, the Russian cavalry gave chase to the routers over most of the field. During the chase, one Russian horse company was able to approach the Turkish trebuchets, and destroyed both of them with their crews. Almost simultaneously, Turk light cavalry destroyed the Russian artillery machines, which had nearly run out of ammunition anyway. Meanwhile, Shubin lined his troops up on the hill again to await another assault, while trading missile fire with the Turk horse archers and Turcomans.

    The Turks brought on 1 Turcoman horse and 2 horse archers, and then followed with a full complement of foot troops. As the third Turkish assault wave came on the battlefield, Shubin’s cavalry attacked the Turk horse archers and managed to destroy one of the companies. Then Shubin called off the chase and ordered the Russian cavalry back to their ready positions at the flanks of the Russian wooded knob. The Turks brought on 3 archers, 1 muwahid, 1 Ghazi, 1 crossbowmen, 1 peasant, 1 spearmen, and 1 urban militia. One of the Russian light cavalry was able to entice 2 archers and the muwahid infantry to split off from the main body. The Russian company led the Turk units in a long arc around the edges of the battlefield and away from the main battle scene.

    The third Turkish assault wave attacked what had originally been the Russian left flank, where the artillery had been positioned. But Shubin had had enough time during the Turk approach to reposition his troops, withdraw his remaining artillery companies, and bring on the remainder of his reinforcements. The Turk infantry now had to cross a small hollow of death between the hill they were on and the hill the Russians defended. The air virtually hummed with the rush of air through feathers as hundreds of quarrels flew across the gap with deadly effect. Since 2/3 of the Turk archers on the field had been drawn off from the main attack to chase a single Russian light cavalry company, the Turks could not respond in equal kind to the Russian volleys. Realizing that any further delay would only increase their death toll, the Turkish infantry ran down one hill and up the other, leaving dead and wounded comrades in a blood-riven trail of bodies behind them, to engage the Russians.

    For a third time, Shubin pulled back his missile troops and charged with his footmen as the Turks closed on his position. His left side was the most poorly defended, and he pressed his mercenary Trebizond archers, who had run out of arrows by this time, into service as infantry on this flank. He also brought his woodsmen out of the trees on the left flank to meet the charge of the Turks coming up the hill. When the Turks still did not break, he charged his own depleted Steppe cavalry company into the Turk right flank. But still, the Turks did not break. Finally, Shubin’s Viking mercenaries arrived in position, and he ordered them to charge down the center, then turn to their left, sandwiching the Turk companies on the Russian left flank. This was too much for the Turk peasant company attacking there. They routed. With the right flank collapsing and rolling up on them, the rest of the Turk companies began to rout. The third Turk assault wave had been repulsed and the Turks ran for their lives.
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    Shubin sent his remaining cavalry to chase the routers again, while he firmed up his lines on the hill. By now many of his missile troops were running out of quarrels. His men knew the Turks had outnumbered them 2:1 at the start of the battle, but they had already turned away three assault waves. If the Russian arbalesters ran out of missiles, there was no way Shubin’s men could continue to withstand wave after wave of attacking Turks. Although all of his men were very tired, verging on exhaustion, Shubin ordered them out to gather quarrels from the ground and the bodies of the dead. Even as the Russians prepared to make another defensive stand, the fourth assault wave of Turks could be seen coming on the field.

    The new Turk reinforcements consisted of 1 crossbowmen, 1 horse archer, 1 muwahidin, 1 archer, 1 peasant, and ½ spearmen companies. They marched straight for the Russian hill. But the archer and muwadin units from the earlier set of reinforcements had by now chased their decoying Russian cavalry company back to the Russian lines, and the Turks now began to fire arrows from their position on the far left of the Russian flank. Shubin adjusted his lines once again to return fire, and drew his remaining cavalry back from chasing Turk routers. Once they had returned, he and a company of hobilar mercenaries charged the archers off his left flank, putting them to rout.

    The fourth wave of Turks now approached the hollow in front of the Russian hillock, and began taking fire from the Russian missile troops. The Turkish archers did not have the range or power of the Russian arbalesters and were definitely receiving worse damage than they were inflicting. The Turk infantry began to cross the hollow to attack the Russian hill. But as they were climbing towards the wooded hill to engage the Russian arbalesters, Shubin charged all of his infantry troops out of the woods and down the hill.

    The Turk infantrymen were already fearful after having crossed nearly the entire battlefield, which was littered all over with dead and dying men and horses. Very tired, their bodies drenched with sweat, their mouths dry, they scrabbled up the hill to engage the Russian arbalesters. Suddenly, a screaming horde of Russian halberdiers and spears appeared out of the woods where they had been hiding and charged down the hill at them. It was too much for the Turk foot soldiers, and they threw down their weapons and ran. Seeing their infantry rout, the Turk missile units on the far hill also began to run. The Turks had lost their nerve and were leaving the field. The Turk army had been destroyed. Shubin ordered his men to give chase and, finally, after ripping into a last enemy horse archer unit that had been hiding in the far woods, he was able to claim his hard-won victory.

    When it was over, the entire battlefield was covered with bodies, both human and equine. On a small flat to the Russian right lay the remains of most of the three Turk heavy cavalry companies, where the Russian arbalesters had torn them apart. In the far center of the battlefield were scattered nearly equal numbers of bodies of Russian light cavalry and Turk foot soldiers and archers, where advance units of both armies had meleed. Directly in the center were the ruins of the two Turk trebuchets and their massacred crews, killed when the Russian light cavalry company broke off from chasing routers. All of the rolling pastures on the Russian left had been liberally salted with dead and dying men and horses, footmen and cavalry from both armies. And on the base and slopes of the wooded knob lay a veritable carpet of broken bodies, torn livery, and shattered weapons. So great a slaughter had occurred in front of the small hill where Shubin had staged his defense that a pond of blood had formed at its foot.

    In all, 1373 Turks were killed and 569 captured in the First Defense of Bulgaria. In spite of outnumbering the Russians by 2:1, the Turks received a total of 1942 casualties, while the Russians lost only 564 men. Shubin was promoted and declared a Hero of the People by the Tsar for his efforts. He became briefly famous and was feted throughout the Motherland.

    Shubin had used all of his cavalry with a heavy hand in this battle. The relatively few cavalrymen who survived, including Shubin’s own depleted company of Steppe cavalry, were all totally exhausted by day’s end. Ironically, all the galloping back and forth that he had done with his own Steppe cavalry company—leading Turk elements astray from the main assault waves, chasing down routers, positioning his company at the correct angles for a charge—was misunderstood by his own men, and the false charge that he was quick to run from personal combat would dog him for the rest of his days.
    Attack and counterattack, Turkey and Russia duke it out, a big battle in Constantinople.



    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter VIChapter 6

    While Hero General Ivan Shubin had managed to execute a near miraculous defense in Bulgaria, general Nikita Grechinov was to fail miserably in Khazar. Lachin al Muntasir, the commander of the Turks in Georgia, brought his entire army of 480 men into Khazar, leaving Georgia without a garrison.

    Muntasir was an adequate battlefield commander, but it is somewhat surprising that the Sultan gave him such a free hand in the east, when Turkey had a number of far superior military minds. Nonetheless, he had conquered Georgia without opposition, and was also wildly victorious in the First Battle of Khazar.

    It is thought that Muntasir invaded Khazar with his entire army because of the Russian assassination attempts on his life. Historically, it is known that Muntasir was to fall to an assassin’s trap the very next year, when the entire wall of a building fell on him and killed him. But in 1286-1287, during the year he was in Georgia, his bodyguards managed to foil 4 assassination attempts. Muntasir had instituted strong security measures once it became obvious that he was a marked man, and he did not want to leave any garrison behind in such a climate, where he knew he would be signing at least the garrison commander’s death warrant. He therefore brought his entire force when he attacked Khazar.

    In fact, the Russians had exerted considerable effort to make sure Muntasir never traveled to Khazar, and there were a total of 12 assassins assigned to take his life. But the security measures Muntasir had instituted not only caught or killed four of the assassins, but had also foiled numerous other attempts and plans. Because of the effectiveness of his bodyguard, the general was able to reach Khazar alive and to command his army in the crowning achievement of his life—the Battle of Khazar.

    Muntasir had 3 Khwarazmian cavalry, 1 Armenian heavy cavalry, 2 Turcoman horse, 1 Saracen infantry, 2 Futuwwas, ½ murabitin infantry, and 1 mangonel company in his battle command. Grechinov commanded 2 boyars, 1 mounted crossbow, 1 arbalester, 2 spearmen, 1 militia sergeant, and 11 peasant companies. By all indications, Grechinov was not a very talented general, and had certainly done nothing to distinguish himself prior to Khazar. But it is fair to note that his army, such as it was, was grossly inferior in both discipline and power as compared to Muntasir’s

    The engagement happened along a deeply cut roadbank. Lacking adequate missile troops, Grechinov lined his single companies of arbalesters and boyars along one cliff, and placed his mounted crossbows to hold the flank on the other. He supported his boyars and arbalesters with his spearmen and militia sergeants. The undisciplined peasants he placed on a hill in the rear.

    In placing his men, Grechinov had wanted to avoid blasts from the Turkish mangonel, and he managed to do so, but he had divided his forces too far apart for their mutual support. The 3 Turkish Khwarazmian companies simply ran up the hill and smashed the boyars. As the boyars routed, including Grechinov, the Turks turned their attention to the foot troops, and whipped them in turn. On the other hill, a single Turcoman horse company easily handled the mounted crossbows. By the time the battle even came close to the peasant companies, the peasants were already withdrawing, but Muntasir’s troops still managed to rip in to some of them and cause a rout of the remainder.

    Possibly, Grechinov might have alleviated some of the carnage to his army if he had placed the peasants and mounted crossbows where they could support his main fighting force. With enough peasants surrounding each company of Khwarazmians, it is possible the outcome would not have been so lopsided. However, Grechinov was not overly skilled, and neither was he inspiring, so it is still highly debatable today as to whether the Russian side in this battle was ever anything but a dead loss. As it happened, the Russians lost 500 men while the Turks lost 119. Grechinov gained a reputation as a poor defender and a good runner, while Muntasir gained the reputation as a skilled attacker.

    Thus, 1287 ended with the Turks in Khazar, while the Russians besieged Bulgaria and Constantinople. The Russians continued their sieges throughout the year and also managed to finally assassinate general Muntasir while he was in Khazar.

    In 1288, both the besieged castle in Bulgaria and the besieged fortress in Constantinople attempted to sally forth, with Turk reinforcements joining them from Serbia and Trebizond, respectively. In the Second Defense of Bulgaria, Shubin had a much easier time of it because he now fielded a number of mercenary artillery and had vastly superior numbers. He simply mounted his 2 mangonels and 3 catapults on a hilltop, laid in missile troops just beneath them, and harried from both flanks with his boyars. The Turks were easily routed. Shubin started with 1591 men and lost 78. The Turks began with 334 men and lost 186.

    In the Defense of Constantinople, Zhiroslavov finally got a taste of battle in the western theater and won handily. Zhiroslavov had 2074 troops available to him, but only used 6 boyar, 3 halberdiers, and 7 militia sergeants. He spread the boyars on a long ridge overlooking a small valley, while he hid the footmen in a wooded hill farther back behind the ridge. The Turks sent a single Turcoman to reconnoiter, but these were waylaid by 2 companies of the boyars and forced to stay below the ridge. The Turks then sent a Ghulam cavalry and a Khwarazmian company to reconnoiter in force.

    At first, Zhiroslavov let the two Turk cavalry units pass through his line of boyar companies and approach the wooded hillside where his foot troops were hidden. Then he closed up his boyars behind them and peppered them with arrows, hemming them in until he could engage them by charging with his halberdiers. Not a single man of the two Turk cavalry companies would survive the onslaught.

    About the time the halberdiers were starting to slice and dice the Turk horses, the main Turk battle force was approaching the ridge. Zhiroslavov turned his boyars around and began to shower them with arrows. The Turks first attempted to run past the Russian right flank on the ridge with one of their remaining cavalry, but were contained by two of the boyar companies who met them in melee.

    This conflict near the base of the ridge drew additional Turk cavalry and two Saracen infantry companies. The Turk cavalry involved included Armenian heavy cavalry, and the 200 Saracens were armored well enough to stand up to the boyars in melee. The Turks began to get the upper hand in the melee, but then Zhiroslavov continued to add single companies of boyars, charging them to the rear of the Turkish units until, one by one, the Turk units began to rout.

    In the meantime, the Turk general had ridden forward over the ridge and approached the hillside where he again located the Russian infantry. He urged his men to follow him up and over the ridge. But most of the Turk units not already involved in the melee on the flank were missile troops, and they were justifiably unwilling to meet the Russian infantry in melee.

    The two forces traded missile fire for a few minutes while the boyars arranged themselves in positions surrounding the Turk general. Zhiroslavov stood closest to the wooded hillside, beside his infantry line and directly facing the rest of the battle. Then, when he could see that his boyars had all maneuvered into positions surrounding the Turk general, he ordered them to charge from all directions into the general’s Ghulam bodyguard unit. Attacked from all sides, the Turk general quickly met his death.

    The boyars then spread out and charged into the remaining Turk missile troops, who were ill-equipped to withstand the force of the boyars. They were quickly routed. The boyar companies continued to chase the routing Turks across the small valley, attacking and destroying the Turk artillery as they reached it.

    By this time, the Turks had brought on 3 Ghazi infantry and 4 Turcoman horse as reinforcements. The Ghazis remained on a hillside near the Turk rear while the Turcomans attempted to wear down the boyars. Zhiroslavov retreated all the boyars back to the wooded hillside where his footmen were still ensconced. This drew the Turcomans up over the ridge and close to the hillside. By this time, the boyars’ quivers were nearly empty, and Zhiroslavov was in any case unwilling to risk boyars against mere Turcomans in an archery duel. So, he called for a birbas.

    The boyars moved out, splitting wide to each flank, while the Russian footmen formed up in a semicircle, with the halberdiers in the middle and militia sergeants on each wing, and marched forward in this semicircular formation. The Turcomans retreated from them to maintain stand-off distance and avoid melee. Zhiroslavov sent the boyars even wider, circling out along the surrounding hills, while the footmen approached the ridge in front. By this time, the Turcomans had retreated to the floor of the small valley. The boyars then adjusted further, running along the ridgetops ringing the valley, and closed up in a semicircle behind the Turcomans, while the semicircle of Russian footmen continued their march forward.

    Zhiroslavov saw a hole developing at about the 8 o’clock position of the circle and raced to plug it with his personal guard. He arrived in position just as the Turcomans saw the same opening and tried to escape through it. Zhiroslavov quickly called for the closure kill, and all of the Russians charged at the center. Almost instantly, over 70% of the Turcomans were killed in the collapse of the ring. The few survivors ran for their lives.

    Only the 3 Ghazi infantry units remained to the Turks now. They came down off their hill and attempted to form a battle line. But the size and power of the Russian forces, led by the boyars, was too much for them, and they routed nearly as soon as they were engaged.

    So did Hero General Zhiroslavov claim his first victory against the Turks. Zhiroslavov began with 2074 troops and lost 183. The Turks started with 1092 and lost 1008.

    Meanwhile, in Khazar, general Muntazir’s assassination left his army in disarray. So when the Russians attempted to attack them, the Turks retreated from the province without engagement. Since the Turk garrison in Bulgaria failed to sally successfully, they succumbed to starvation, and the Russians now owned Bulgaria. The besieged Fortress Constantinople held only 83 Turks, and they were unlikely to hold out for more than a year.

    So it was that, by the beginning of the year 1289, Tsar Andrei II believed he was well on his way to winning the war against the Turks. The Sultan had lost nearly 3000 men to the Russians in little more than two years. He had used up all of Turkey’s treasury and could not afford to ransom prisoners any longer. Yet, the Sultan was still short of troops, and Greece, Trebizond, Nicaea, and Anatolia were all garrisoned with less than 100 men each.

    It was true that there were 2000 men in Venice, 1100 men in Serbia, 700 in Edessa, and 400 in Georgia. But, Venice appeared isolated and without a ship for troop transport, while Edessa needed the stability of a strong garrison to keep the populace from rebelling, and Georgia was facing an imminent invasion. Also, Georgia was a hotbed of assassins, and there was a definite likelihood that Amir al Mu’tasim, Amir of Nicaea (now commanding the Georgian army in place of the assassinated Muntazir), would not survive an entire year there. Finally, the Turkish bid for sea power was being quashed, with Russia continuing to hold control of the Black Sea. The Turks appeared to have only 2 dhows remaining, and both of these were being hunted by Russian caravel duos.

    Tsar Andrei, knowing that the Turk army in Georgia would be unable to attack if one of the 12 assassins assigned to its commander was successful, decided to ignore the province of Georgia for now. Instead, he sent Hero General Zhiroslavov with 539 men to Greece, Yaroslav Miroslavov with 531 men to Nicaea, and Domaslav Malov from Khazar with 636 men to Trebizond. He left Vladimir Ivanovich with 651 men to finish the siege of Constantinople.

    Of all these assignments, the invasion by sea of Trebizond was the riskiest. Only the Sultan and his household were providing the garrison for Trebizond, but it was unknown how many troops there might be in Rum to reinforce him. Also, the Georgian army might retreat to Trebizond. But general Malov, though undistinguished, had demonstrated himself to be an efficient commander, and so he was trusted with the task of invading Trebizond from the sea.

    The Russian armies invading both Greece and Nicaea were told to retreat if they met substantial resistance. The Russian army in Bulgaria was left as a garrison, and as a defense against Turkish Serbia.

    As it turned out, all of the Russian attacks were successful, and general Ivanovich succeeded in his assault on Fortress Constantinople. Only in Greece did the Turks retreat to the castle. In every other instance where they were faced with an invading Russian army, the Turks abandoned the province. Thus, Andrei was take undisputed possession of Nicaea and Trebizond.

    Feeling magnanimous, Tsar Andrei handed out several titles. Lord Zhiroslavov, Hero General of Georgia, and Grand Admiral of the Russian Fleet, now became Governor of Constantinople. Adding the victory in Greece to his other accomplishments, Zhiroslavov was now Russia’s greatest living general. It is thought that Zhiroslavov now rivaled even the historical hero, Tsar Yuroslav at the height of his powers as a commander and general, although (as seems always to be the case) there were some who claimed the historical figure was much better than anyone in the present day could ever be. General Yaroslav Miroslavov became Duke of Trebizond and Grand Marshall of Russia. Miroslavov’s victory in Nicaea had shown that he was quickly developing into another brilliant commander.

    In 1290, using intelligence information generated by the passage of Russian emissaries through Turkish lands, it was found that Turkey did not have any more large armies still hidden from the Tsar’s eyes. However, the occupation of Greece had revealed that Turkey still had some naval forces patrolling in the Ionian and Adriatic Seas. This meant that the forces in Venice were not isolated there, in contrast to what had been previously thought.

    The Tsar thought to leave the two major Turk armies in Serbia and Venice alone while he conquered eastern Turkey. He sent an army of 600 men to Anatolia, and planned to reclaim Georgia in the following year with the new army currently forming in Khazar. However, the Sultan countered by reinforcing Anatolia and sending 3200 troops from Venice and Serbia to Greece. Andrei’s generals were forced to retreat from both Greece and Anatolia.

    The year was now 1291. Turkey still held Greece, Serbia, and Venice in the west. In the east, the Turks owned Anatolia, Rum, Lesser Armenia, Edessa, Armenia, and Georgia. Tsar Andrei’s armies pressed them from the north, and he sent a 1000 man army to invade Georgia, which was garrisoned by 231 Turks, to add pressure from the east. Andrei particularly wanted to conquer the fortresses in Rum and Lesser Armenia, which were training new Khwarazmian cavalry and Turcoman foot soldiers, respectively, each year. He hoped to use the army coming through Georgia to squeeze the eastern Turks in a vise. But this would not be an easy task, because the Turks still had a considerable number of troops there.

    The situation was made more difficult in the west by the presence of the 3100 man Turkish army in Greece. Andrei reasoned that he could not hold both Bulgaria and Constantinople by splitting his 3650 available men (including 1000 peasants) between the two provinces if the Turkish army were to attack. Although he was loathe to give up the fortress in Constantinople, the loss of Bulgaria would give the Turks quick access to Poland and Kiev. He could protect Constantinople by conquering Greece, and thereby creating a buffer zone out of Greece and Bulgaria. He therefore decided to put Zhiroslavov in charge of the Bulgarian defenses, and prepared an invasion army aimed at Greece out of the fighting units posted in Constantinople. He also moved most of the peasant companies to Bulgaria. This meant that the garrison in Constantinople was comprised of only 200 peasants. The peasants were sufficient to maintain the peace as a garrison, but could not hope to match the discipline and power of Turkish arms.

    The invasion army had orders to retreat if they met substantial resistance in Greece. If the Turks left their main army in Greece the next year, then Andrei could hold both Bulgaria and Constantinople. However, if the Turks attacked with that army, then the Russians would overwhelm the garrison left behind in Greece, while the peasants in Constantinople would retreat to the fortress. With only 200 men holed up in the Fortress, it was hoped the garrison in Constantinople would be able to withstand years of siege, while Andrei trained more troops and readied an army to rescue them. The Tsar awaited the Turks’ next move with trepidation.


    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter VIIChapter 7

    Instead of attacking in the west, the Sultan Selim moved most of his western army to Serbia, while leaving 861 men as a garrison in Greece. In the east, he chose to attack both Trebizond and Nicaea.

    The attack on Nicaea was called off once the Turks realized the size of the Russian garrison there. But in Trebizond they chose to fight. Domaslav Malov had 814 men to the Turks’ 460. Most of the Turkish army was cavalry, including 2 Khwarazmian and 1 Armenian heavies. The Russians had 4 boyars, 1 horse archers, and 1 mounted crossbows to counter the Turkish cavalry, plus they had arbalesters and spear and pole troops. Malov deployed his arbalesters on a wooded hillside and supported them with his footmen. His cavalry he placed forward on each flank. When the Turks appeared, the Russians concentrated their missile fire on the Turk heavy cavalry.

    The situation devolved into two melee actions in the forward center and forward right of the field. In the center, the boyars were winning, but pulled away when the Turk foot troops, including Saracen infantry, approached. The remaining Turk cavalry then tried to charge the Russian foot troops on the hill but were destroyed by combined missile fire.

    On the right, Malov and another company of boyars were defending well against Armenian heavy cavalry and Khwarazmian cavalry, both of which had been nearly halved in strength by Russian missile fire. But the Turk Saracens now approached the melee. The other company of boyars separated and began firing arrows at the Turkish troops. Malov’s men, however, would not disengage.

    Malov ordered the retreat repeatedly, but each time one or more of his men remained engaged. The others in the company did not want to leave them behind, so the entire company re-entered the melee. This occurred several times, with the boyars losing more of their number each time they failed to separate. Malov could not control his men and could not control the situation, and it all overwhelmed him. Suddenly realizing he and only 6 other boyars were fighting half a company each of Khwarazmians and Armenian heavy cavalry, and almost an entire company of Saracens, he and his men panicked. The Russian troops on the hillside watched stolidly as their commander ran from the field, screaming like a terrified little girl. It was clear to their minds that General Malov was a coward. He would never be able to command an army again.

    After Malov fled, the Turks tried to organize a charge at the Russian foot troops. But the Russian arbalesters killed the remainder of the Turk heavy cavalry, and they killed the Turk general, too. With their general dead, the Turks began to withdraw. The remaining Russian cavalry began their pursuit, even as Malov continued to flee from the field in terror. The Russians won a victory at Trebizond, receiving only 129 casualties to the Turks’ 311, but the victory could not be said to belong to Malov.

    As poorly as things went for Malov in Trebizond, Miloslav Domslavov had an even worse experience in Greece. Domaslavov had been trained at the military center in Moscow, but he was completely without field experience. His orders had been to call off his attack if he met strong resistance. But when he met up with the 454 man Turk army, Domaslavov blithely thought his 861 men could easily prevail and ordered the attack to proceed. He did not consider, however, that his academy training was no substitute for valor learned in the field, and that he was commanding mostly militia sergeants and arbalesters with poor morale and weak discipline. He also did not realize that he was attacking an army led by the Amir Gazi, King of Serbia, and one of the best generals in the entire world.

    Domaslavov maneuvered his troops well to minimize the Turk positional advantages in the hills of Greece. He was perhaps in as good an attack position as was possible. But as soon as the two armies engaged, his troops began to melt away from casualties. And as soon as their casualties began to mount, his men panicked and began to run away. It was a total rout, and Domaslavov was captured as he fled. The Russians lost 512 men, while the Turks lost only 103. The Tsar was so displeased with Domaslavov’s ignominious defeat that he refused to ransom him or the other prisoners.

    Thus, the only Russian general to have any personal success in the field in 1291 was Kuritsa Chernekov—and that was by default. When Chernekov’s army invaded Georgia, the Turks abandoned the province. In all, it was a black year for Russian arms.

    Tsar Andrei was determined to press the Turks in their eastern domain. He continued to train troops and send them to the front. He still had experienced troops and commanders in Prussia, Brandenburg, and Poland, but he dared not remove them from their positions because of the Almohad armies on those borders.

    Andrei had begun to notice a pattern. When his armies consisted of the traditional 50% boyars, 25% arbalesters, and 25% triple armored halberdiers, they won handily. When his armies were made up primarily of militia sergeants, spearmen, and Steppe cavalry, they were defeated. Moscow and Novgorod continued to pump out boyars and halberdiers, while Lithuania trained arbalesters, but Andrei had no other provinces at that time that could provide these kinds of quality troops.

    The problem was not economic. By now, annual income to the crown was in excess of 26,000 F and annual profits were more than 14,400 F. But the construction of the training facilities was a very lengthy process requiring a castle, advanced armorsmiths, and other buildings. Frustrated as he was, he could see no other option but to continue to improve the training facilities as fast as he could.

    In 1292, Andrei ordered the invasion of Armenia from Georgia, and the invasion of Anatolia from Nicaea. He also reinforced Trebizond and Bulgaria with fresh troops, and brought in Prince Ysevolod to replace Malov in Trebizond. Colonel Malov was sent to join Iosif Alekseev’s army in the invasion of Anatolia.

    The Turks retreated to their fort in Armenia, but chose to fight in Anatolia. Alekseev, a general of some moderate expertise, deployed his troops in standard fashion with his arbalesters in front, supported by a battle line of his footmen, and his cavalry split to both flanks. His 1000 man army met the Turk Anatolian army of 868 men.

    By this time, as a direct result of their defeat in Trebizond, the Turks were having trouble fielding cavalry in the east, and the Anatolian army had only 1 company of Khwarazmian heavies for their cavalry. They also had 1 mangonel and 1 catapult company, 1 crossbowmen and 1 Turcoman foot company. The remainder were infantry, including 2 Saracens, 2 spears, and 1 Ghazi infantry.

    The Turks began lined along a ridge, but pulled back to a mountainside as the Russians advanced. This ordered retreat left their artillery exposed, and Alekseev ran his cavalry up the left flank and destroyed it. At the same time, he looped the rest of his cavalry to the far right towards the mountain where the Turks were setting up their defensive positions.

    The pincer movement by the Russian cavalry caused the Turks to split their forces. The Khwarazmians charged down the mountain towards the Russian units still chasing the routing artillery squads. But they were unable to fully engage before the Russians brought their main battle line forward. As a result, the Khwarazmians were cut apart and surrounded, then put to rout.

    On the Russian right flank, 2 boyars and 2 Steppe cavalry companies, commanded by Colonel Malov, were supposed to harass and skirmish, deflecting as many Turks as possible from the main force of the Russians. Malov well succeeded in drawing attention to his cavalry units, but then forced his men into a disastrous melee.

    It is unknown what Malov might have been thinking during the battle, but it seems likely that he was looking to put down the reputation of poltroonery that was laid upon him after the battle of Trebizond. At Trebizond, he had not been able to get his men to disengage and follow him in an ordered retreat. In the Battle of Anatolia, it was Malov who would not disengage. Drawing his saber, he charged into a wall of Saracens, spearmen and militia, and exhorted his men over and over to attack.

    Three times his men began to separate from the Turkish spear troops, and three times, his saber flashing, his face red with exertion, Malov ordered them back into the fray. But the Russian cavalry units were taking horrendous losses, and the third time, one of Malov’s boyars rode up beside him and reached for his reins. At that moment, Malov’s horse went down. Malov was killed by a Saracen spear as soon as he hit the ground. The boyar who had tried to retrieve him was quickly swallowed by a sea of Turks and also killed. The remnants of Malov’s cavalry then managed to retreat, but their losses had been staggering. The two Steppe cavalry units had been completely destroyed, and Malov’s two boyar companies had each sustained more than 60% casualties.

    It is debatable as to whether Malov achieved the honorable death he apparently sought, or if the loss of so many men under his command blotted out the honor of death in battle. Nevertheless, Malov’s attack did serve the purpose of splitting the Turkish ranks, and likely made the difference in the battle. With the Turks on the left side having been put to rout, the Russian main force now began to re-form their line on the mountainside. The Turk general, with his personal company of militia, ran downhill to try and disrupt the Russians before they could complete their maneuvers, but one of the nearby companies of Russian boyars drew their sabers and charged him. Alekseev also raced his Steppe cavalry to the spot and charged at the militia’s flank. Sadly, Alekseev was killed in this charge, and suddenly the Russians were wavering and beginning to rout.

    But the Russians rallied, and the melee with the Turk general continued until a boyar managed to kill him. Now it was the Turks who were wavering. But the Russians by now had superior numbers and position on the field, and the Turks could not recover as their soldiers began to run away from the battle. The new Russian field commander, General Ivanovich, ordered his men to chase after them, and the Russians were victorious. In retribution for the death of General Alekseev, Ivanovich ordered the executions of the 207 prisoners the Russians had taken. In all, the Turks lost 585 men while the Russians lost 288 men at Anatolia.

    In the same year (1292), the Turks invaded Constantinople, leaving only Amir Gazi behind to garrison Greece. The weak Russian garrison retreated to the fortress in Constantinople. The Turks had completely denuded Venice to concentrate their western forces in Serbia against the Russians, but now both the Italians and Sicilians marched into the unprotected Venice. The Italians claimed the province by dint of greater force. Some of the pressure was taken off of the Russian provinces in Europe when the Almohads moved nearly 3000 men away from Russia’s borders. The Almohads were still having difficulties garrisoning Cordoba and Portugal, and rebellions had arisen again in both provinces.

    In 1293, Andrei ordered his brother, Prince Ysevolod, into Rum with an army of 1500 men. It was known that the Turkish Sultan was in Rum at that time with only 290 men. The Tsar let the sieges against the Turks continue in Armenia and Anatolia while he sent Vasilii Sidorov with 950 men to join up with the 435 man garrison in Constantinople.

    The Turks retreated when faced with the reinforced army in Constantinople. The Sultan concentrated his eastern forces to relieve the siege at Anatolia. So great was his desire to rescue this garrison that he pulled all of his troops out of Rum and left that province undefended. So, Prince Ysevolod entered Rum unopposed.

    In Anatolia, fledgling General Ivanovich had 832 men to face 985 Turks, who were led by their Sultan. Ivanovich made a mighty attempt to defend himself, but ultimately could not overcome the supreme discipline of the Turkish companies, many of whom fought to the very last man.

    Ivanovich aligned his forces on the top of a steep hill, with his arbalesters spread slightly in front of his militia sergeants and spearmen. He hid his Steppe cavalry in wooded hills forward and to either side. As the Turks were approaching the Russian hill, 2 of the Steppe cavalry companies were spotted and flushed from their position.

    Ivanovich had not had enough men to completely secure his flanks, and Sultan Selim took advantage of this. Early in the battle, he ran a Turcoman horse and a horse archer company up the hill and outside the Russian right flank. Ivanovich and his personal boyar company galloped to cut the Turcomans off, but the horse archers managed to get outside of him to continue up the hill. Ivanovich broke off a sergeants unit from his battle line and tried to pinch the horse archers between the sergeants and his boyars. But the horse archers were too fast and escaped to the rear corner of the battlefield, where they were able to loose missiles on the Russian rear throughout the battle.

    By this time, the main assault had begun as the Turks climbed the hill and attacked Ivanovich’s foot troops. The Russians fought bravely, with losses of over 90% for most of their infantry companies. They managed to surround the Sultan’s Ghulam bodyguard and killed all of the men in his company, but the Sultan himself escaped. Ultimately though, Ivanovich’s army was outmatched by the disciplined Turks and, with the extreme casualties to his units, he literally did not have enough hands available to him to carry on the fight. With his army destroyed and routing away from him, Ivanovich made a last ditch attempt to stall the Turks with his last remaining boyars, but they were caught by the faster Turk light cavalry. Ivanovich tried to flee the field, but he was captured.

    Noted for his scant mercy in the First Battle of Anatolia, Ivanovich would now be snickered at as “a good runner” because of what happened to him in the Second Battle of Anatolia. In all, the Russians lost 692 men, of which 102 were ransomed, while the Turks lost 520.

    The Turks now owned only Greece and Serbia in the west, and Anatolia, Lesser Armenia, and Edessa in the east. With Constantinople recovered, Hero General Zhiroslavov resumed his governorship of the province. Tsar Andrei selected Lord Volchkov to be the new Grand Marshall of Russia and Duke of Rum. Chernekov was ordered to assault the fort in Georgia, but all other troops were to remain in their positions in 1293. The Almohad forces had returned to Pomerania, as the Kalifah’s peasant rebellions were back under control. The Almohads had also gone to war with France and were besieging Innsbruck Castle in Austria.

    Andrei saw that he had an opportunity to defuse the Turkish armies in Serbia. Up until the last year, Turkey’s morale, and the loyalty of her generals, had been very high. But now, with the loss of Turkey’s ancestral homeland province of Rum, some generals were beginning to consider for the first time what might happen if Turkey were to lose the war with Russia.

    There were four commanders present with the Turkish army in Serbia. Two of these commanders were certain that the Sultan would eventually succeed against the Russians, but the other two had begun to worry about their futures. Andrei decided to offer bribes to the two generals that were beginning to waver in their support. As for other two, he sent assassination teams to permanently remove their faith in Turkey.

    If the Russian agents could carry out their duties perfectly, Russia would turn half of the troops garrisoned in Serbia to its cause. The other half of the troops would lack any state of readiness with their commandeers killed. By now, Bulgaria had been receiving reinforcements for several years, and Andrei planned to follow his negotiations with the Turkish commanders with an attack from Bulgaria in support of any defecting units. This attack would occur simultaneously with attacks on Greece, Anatolia, and Lesser Armenia. Assailed from all sides, the Turkish nation would likely perish in the flurry of attacks.

    But it all depended on whether the Russian agents could complete their missions.



    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter VIIIChapter 8

    The year 1294 stood out as the first notable success of the Russian security services. Russian spies were able to catch Sultan Selim operating a blackmailing scheme. They revealed all to the Turkish public, which was suitably outraged at the Sultan. The public revelation came at a crucial point in the war because, even though Turkey had been slowing losing its provinces, most of Turkey’s generals had been staunch supporters of the Sultan up to this point. Now several were wavering in their loyalties. The Sultan, furious to have been discovered, installed a net of informants to prevent any further sensitive leaks, but the damage had already been done.

    It was at this time of general public outrage and decreasing loyalties that the Tsar’s emissaries offered their bribes to two of the four commanders of the massive army in Serbia. For a total of 17,000 florins, both generals agreed to throw their support to Russia and to bring their armies with them. It is lost to history whether one or both of these generals had been personally victimized by the Sultan’s blackmailing, but that is certainly one possible explanation for their actions. The Russian assassins sent to Serbia were somewhat less successful, but they did manage to eliminate a third general by poisoning him.

    The fort in Armenia was assaulted in 1294 and captured, securing the province for Russia, but no new invasions had been planned by the Russians for that year. The Turks, however, made a desperate attempt to recover Constantinople.

    The reasoning behind the Turkish invasion of Constantinople in 1294 has never been fully explained. Prince Suleyman led an army of 351 men against over 1500 Russians. While it is true that a large number of the Russians were peasants, and that Sidorov was not nearly the general Prince Suleyman was, the invasion was an extremely risky move by any accounting. It is true that the recapture of Constantinople would have re-united the two regions of the Turk nation, allowing for transfer of the large army in Serbia to eastern Turkey. But if the attack failed, it would surely quicken the loss of the western provinces.

    Prince Suleyman, who led the attack on Constantinople, was the sole heir to the Sultanate. He was a very good general, and a superb financial manager. Perhaps most importantly, he was very well liked by the Turkish people. The prince was the bright hope of the fading Turkish empire.

    In Constantinople, General Sidorov defended by lining up his 1 ½ arbalesters on a wooded hill at the back edge of the battlefield. He supported them with 3 spearman and 1 ½ militia sergeants. On a second wooded hill, slightly forward and to the left of the first hill, he hid his missile cavalry—1 horse archer, 2 mounted crossbows, and a boyars. His Steppe cavalry units he split between the two positions, also hiding them in the woods.

    When the Turks came on the field, the first action Suleyman took was to scout the forward hill with one of his horse archers. The horse archers discovered one of the Russian cavalry units and returned to the main force with the news. Suleyman then spread out his Turcoman horse and other cavalry units in a line, and began to advance on the discovered Russian cavalry position. His foot troops formed up a battle line behind the cavalry and started marching in the same direction.

    Realizing that their position had been discovered, the Russian missile cavalry marched out to their left, and took up position in a line along a cleared ridge that extended from the wooded hill where they had been hiding. This was the situation when Suleyman made the mistake that was to cost him his life.

    Seeing 4 companies of Russian horse marching out of the woods where his scouts had spotted only 1, Suleyman rode ahead of his Turcomans to ascertain the situation for himself. It is thought that he might have spotted 1 or more of the 3 Steppe cavalry still hiding on the wooded hill as he approached it and thereby decided to hold the Turk right flank until his Turcomans could engage.

    By whatever cause, what happened was that Suleyman began to ride to his right near the bottom of the ridge, and his army adjusted its advance slightly to its right. Perhaps Suleyman meant only to screen his right flank to prevent the Russian cavalry from maneuvering behind his lines. Perhaps he meant to cap the Russian left flank, and then attack when his Turcomans engaged in front of the ridge. Regardless of what reason the prince had for his action, he was never to complete his ride to the outer flank. The Russian missile cavalry moved slightly down the ridge to get into range, and then released torrent after torrent of deadly missiles onto the prince’s Ghulam bodyguards.

    While the arrows from the boyars and horse archers were dangerous, the heavy armor worn by the prince and his company provided some protection against them. But the quarrels from the mounted crossbows were at no such disadvantage, and were actually extremely good at punching through armor such as the prince wore. Every man in Prince Suleyman’s company died of crossbow fire that day in front of the ridge. Fittingly, the prince was the last to be killed, even as his Turcomans were approaching to within range.

    The success of the entire Turk expedition to Constantinople had been predicated on the battle skills of Prince Suleyman. Kitbugha Gazi, now precipitously promoted to field commander, had no prior command experience, and he saw no hope for continuing the attack. Gazi ordered the withdrawal of the entire Turk army back to Greece. The Russians were at first nonplused, but then realized the Turks were withdrawing, and pursued with their cavalry. The Turks lost only 64 men in the Second Battle of Constantinople, while the Russians lost 12—but Prince Suleyman was dead.

    It was thus with great expectations that Andrei ordered Hero General Zhiroslavov into Serbia at the head of a 1300 man army. He was to join with the two defectors, who had about another 1300 men between them. Together, under the command of Zhiroslavov, they would attempt to beard the lion, Amir Gazi, King of Serbia, in his very den.

    The armies of Bulgaria, having been pent up and ready for action for the last several years, also exploded into Greece. General Sidorov was to lead 1100 soldiers from Bulgaria to invade the province where the recently-deceased Prince Suleyman had made his home for much of his life. In the east, Prince Ysevolod would attack the Sultan in Anatolia with a 1200 man army. Without heirs to the Sultanate, the Turks could ill afford to risk their Sultan in battle, and Andrei hoped to chivvy the king out Anatolia, through lightly-defended Lesser Armenia, and then finally to trap and kill him in Edessa.

    Andrei’s original plan had been to also transport a small army from Lithuania into Lesser Armenia in the same year, thereby trapping the Sultan in Anatolia, and offering the possibility of extorting a ransom from the Turks. But an unusually large ocean storm sank the Russian barque patrolling off the Nile Coast, and there was no safe ocean passage for the troop ships to Lesser Armenia until the patrol could be replaced. Thus, the step-by-step plan was adopted.

    Meanwhile, the Tsar’s security forces had not yet finished their work in Serbia. In 1295, they assassinated Amir Giza’s lieutenant commander, and then bribed his successor. The King of Serbia found himself left with only 800 men to command out of the 2800 man army he had had at his disposal just 18 months earlier. The 2000 defectors were joined by another 1300 Russian regulars and mercenaries. Amir Giza, King of Serbia, was justifiably famous as a highly skilled tactician, but the aging warrior knew he could not expect to fight against these odds and win. Giza took shelter in Beograd Keep. Many of his men could not fit inside the Keep and were captured in the countryside.

    General Sidorov was forced to fight a short battle in Greece against a neophyte Turk commander, but it was indeed a short exercise. The Russians began with 1092 men and lost 65. The Turks started with 307 men and lost 190. Also, by the time Prince Ysevolod arrived in Anatolia, the Sultan had already departed the province. The 473 Turkish troops left behind as a garrison decided to retreat to Antalya Keep when confronted with the invasion by the 1658 man Russian army. Meanwhile, the Russian navy had been hunting down and destroying Turkish ships on the high seas, and now confidently reported that only a single Turk dhow remained, located in the Adriatic Sea. By the end of 1295, western Turkey had collapsed, and eastern Turkey was scrabbling desperately for its survival.

    But, just as it looked like the war with Turkey was to be successfully concluded and peaceful times were drawing nigh, the Egyptians invaded Russian Armenia with an army of 1300 men.

    In all, Egypt was not a major power. The lands of the Egyptians extended from Egypt to Syria, and were bounded by the well-garrisoned French provinces of Antioch and Tripoli, the Turks in Edessa, and the Almohads in Cyrenacia. The 1300 man army that invaded Armenia comprised the majority of Egyptian arms. Tsar Andrei knew, from his emissaries, that Egypt possessed only about 600 men in Syria and less than 100 men each in the rest of her provinces. There was no question that the Russians would defeat the Egyptians.

    But the Egyptians had been very canny in planning their war. Egypt had no illusions that she would be able to conquer Russia; what Egypt wanted was to enlarge her realm so that she could increase her economy and production base. Egypt’s goals were modest; the addition of 1 to 3 provinces to her rule would make a big difference to a country that only owned 5 provinces in total. The Egyptian Sultan hoped to gain some small amount of territory and then sue for peace.

    The Sultan thought this could be possible because the Russians were slightly overextended in their war with Turkey. At the time the Egyptian army was given its marching orders, the Russians were finding it necessary to devote considerable resources to the war in western Turkey. In eastern Turkey, the Russians had a somewhat tenuous position because they were having to garrison recently-occupied Muslim provinces, while Turk armies could still march directly into any of the Russian-held provinces in the region, excepting Georgia. So Russia had to spread out her men to defend Anatolia, Nicaea, Trebizond, and Armenia from potential Turkish attacks, while she also could not attack the Turks in Lesser Armena, Anatolia, or Edessa, without leaving most of her available men behind in garrisons to maintain control over the Muslim populaces. It was clear that, in five years, the Russian military machine would produce enough soldiers to accomplish all of these tasks with ease. For the moment, though, Russia was performing a bit of a balancing act with her troops in the region.

    Egypt also played a canny game in maritime matters. Egypt had only 3 dhows and could not hope to challenge the Russian navy militarily. However, the dhows were considerably faster than the heavy caravels now being produced by the Russians. Egypt had sailed her dhows to take up positions off the Nile Coast, in the Black Sea, and in the Sea of Sicily. When the Sultan initiated the war with the Russians, he did not seek naval battles with the Russian vessels, but instead ordered the dhows to blockade their patrol regions.

    The blockading dhow on the Nile Coast protected the Egyptian homelands from invasion. The dhow in the Black Sea forced any troops arriving from the Russian mainland to take the slower land routes to the south. The dhow patrolling off Sicily prevented the Russians from transporting troops down the coast of northern Europe and across the Mediterranean. Thus, at least initially, the Russian troops in the region were cut-off from rapid reinforcements and were very much on their own.

    In addition, the obstruction of Russian command and control made the local populations in the Bosphorus region more fractious. The Russian governors had to tie down even more troops in local garrisons to prevent rebellions, which thereby hindered the formation of any Russian offensive armies.

    In fact, the Tsar had just such an offensive army, of about 700 crack troops, ready and waiting in Lithuania to be shipped to Turkey. But because of the Egyptian blockade, the Tsar had to send this army overland through Kiev, and would have to continue their overland route around the Black Sea if his navy could not catch the Egyptian blockaders.

    What the Egyptian Sultan had not anticipated was the rapid collapse of western Turkey. In two years, western Turkey had gone from nearly 4000 men in arms to only two besieged keeps, isolated and outnumbered, in Russian-occupied territory. It was to Egypt’s good fortune that most of the ports in the region had been destroyed in the fighting. Still, the collapse of western Turkey freed up a large number of Russian troops that could join the war against Egypt by crossing through Constantinople.

    Russia thus managed to shuffle her troops in the region and come up with a force of 1700 men to oppose the 1300 Egyptians attacking Armenia. The army was led by Lord Ivanovich, Duke of Rum. While Ivanovich had shown some aptitude as a commander, he was still not all that distinguished in the field, but Russia’s better generals were not in position to immediately travel to Armenia.

    Tsar Andrei knew that he had to oppose the Egyptians immediately. Otherwise, Egypt would be able to threaten Georgia, Trebizond, and Rum from Armenia. Adding the Egyptian threat to that of the Turks meant that the entire eastern Bosphorus region would become destabilized. In his favor, Andrei knew that if he broke the Egyptians in Armenia, then they had little force of arms to fall back on, and he could probably roll right through Egyptian lands and right into Egypt.

    With this strategy in mind, Andrei ordered the sieges against the Turks to continue for another year, and, as was his custom, went to church, where he prayed for Ivanovich’s victory in Armenia.



    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter IXChapter 9

    It seems that God answered the Tsar’s prayers in their intent, but not in their specifics. Abu Zayyan al Labi, the Egyptian general in Armenia, underestimated Russian troop strength in the region. He believed the Russians would have to weaken the garrison in Rum in order to attack him in Armenia. He was not overly concerned about defending against the poor quality and small number of troops the Russians might bring from Georgia and Trebizond. He therefore split his army in Armenia and sent half to Rum, while he remained in Armenia with the other half.

    What al Labi did not expect was that the Russians would so completely overwhelm the Turks in the west that year, and would therefore be able to shift a significant portion of the Russian army eastward. Tsar Andrei II had ordered the entire Rum garrison into Armenia to join up with the forces entering from Georgia and Trebizond. Lord Volchkov was able to move his army into Rum to defend there. Unfortunately for the Egyptians, they had no intelligence on Volchkov’s army, but it was a formidable force.

    Volchkov commanded 16 companies, for a total of 840 men, in Rum: 1 arbalesters, 3 pavise arbalesters, 3 boyars, 4 mounted crossbows, 1 Steppe cavalry, 3 halberdiers, and 1 spearmen. The Egyptian invaders in Rum were led by Amir az Zahir, the Amir of Egypt, and numbered 599 men: 1 pavise arbalesters, 2 desert archers, 1 naptha throwers, 1 ½ Khwarazmians, 1 Saharan cavalry, 1 Ghulam bodyguards, 1 Saracen infantry, 1 muwahid infantry and 1 Nubian spearmen. The Amir was known as a prideful and valorous man, but little is known of his command ability except for his actions at the Defense of Rum.

    az Zahir placed his troops in defilade on the far side of a sandy ridge. With his preponderance of missile and horse troops, he hoped gain the top of the ridge and then fire down on the Russians. Then he would encircle and charge from the flanks and rear with his cavalry.

    Volchkov, however, did not follow the Egyptian plan. Instead, because the composition of his army best fit an attacking force, with a large number of cavalry, he chose to defend Rum as if he were actually the attacker. He split his cavalry wide with 2 mounted crossbows and a boyars on each flank. In the center, he formed a battle line with his infantry that was just wide enough to screen companies of arbalesters spread one man deep. Spreading his missile troops to maximize the force of their volleys, he placed them in four single lines behind the infantry. Then he advanced en masse.

    The Russian missile cavalry on Volchkov’s right came up over the ridge far to the left of the Egyptian army and got an excellent view of the enemy position. Volchkov then sent his Steppe cavalry running forward to get behind the Egyptians. Volchkov’s left side cavalry had skirted behind a small wooded hill and were moving to set up on a ridge behind and to the right of the enemy. Not yet realizing that he was the one under attack, az Zahir was concerned about any number of Russian troops that could be concealed in the woods in the small hill and sent his Saharan cavalry to investigate.

    As the Saharans entered the woods and proceeded toward the crest of the hill, Volchkov’s left side missile cavalry had already passed the hill on the way to the far ridge. With his foot troops marching towards the center ridge where the rest of the Egyptians stood, Volchkov faced the risk of letting the Saharan cavalry slip behind his left flank. Lord Volchkov took his personal company of boyars into the woods to chase the Saharans off. The Egyptian general at first thought to support his Saharans with a company of Khwarazmians, but as the Khwarazmian company rode toward the hill, they saw the Russian infantry in line and on the march. Not wanting to chance getting his all-important cavalry locked up in a melee with halberdiers in the woods, az Zahir pulled both his cavalry units back.

    On the Russian right flank, az Zahir sent his Saracen infantry after the Steppe cavalry riding into his rear lines. The Russian missile cavalry on that side then followed the Saracens—their crossbow quarrels picking the Egyptians off one by one. The company of Saracens, as it turned out, would be fated to spend the entire battle chasing cavalry across the field, losing 1/3 of their number in the process, until they were withdrawn.

    With the Russian cavalry moving down off the ridge on the Russian right to track the Saracens, az Zahir saw a possible opening and moved all his cavalry to the Russian right flank. From there, he could either counterattack the invasive Russian cavalry from the rear, or flank the Russian infantry now approaching the center ridge. However, the Russian cavalrymen broke off their pursuit of the Saracens, and resumed screening the right flank, while peppering the Egyptian cavalry with crossbow fire.

    On the left side, Volchkov and his boyars moved off the wooded hill and charged a small contingent of Egyptian militia on the side of the central ridge. While this contact continued, az Zahir charged Volchkov’s boyars with the muwahid infantry, closely followed by the Nubian spearmen. Volchkov’s left side missile cavalry closed to support and he now split off 2 halberdier companies to attack the engaged Egyptian infantry units from the rear. The third halberdier unit he advanced into the center to screen the melee action on the left, and the spearmen company he moved to the top of the ridge on the right. Once his two halberdier companies had made contact with the Egyptian muwahids and Nubians, he pulled his boyars back and began firing at the enemy right flank from range.

    az Zahir, having broken up the Russian infantry line, wanted to keep the Russians from re-forming it. He attacked the spearmen on his left flank with his Saharans, but it fell to him and his 9 Bedouin camel warriors to engage the third halberdier company in the center. This was a brave, but futile, act as the Bedouins quickly lost half their number, and az Zahir had to flee the battle.

    Meanwhile, with all the Russian infantry occupied, the two companies of Khwarazmians on the Russian right flank were free to attack the Russian arbalesters—which they did. The Ghulam bodyguards remained behind to prevent the Russian missile cavalry from chasing the Khwarazmian, and the Ghulams actually managed to engage all three Russian cavalry units on that flank for a time.

    The Russian missile foots were forced to take the charge from the Khwarazmians. While their melee was mostly ineffectual, their pavises allowed them enough defense that they could maintain their positions and hold the Egyptians in engagement. Volchkov charged his boyars across the field and directly into the Khwarazmians,

    Meanwhile, the Egyptian infantry on the Russian left had had enough and began to rout. Volchkov disengaged his halberdiers and raced them (as much as it is possible to race halberdiers) up the ridge to engage the Saharan and Khwarazmian cavalries. He sent one mounted crossbow company from the left flank after each routing infantry unit, then dispatched the boyars from his left flank into the center of the valley where the Egyptian missile troops had congregated. The Steppe cavalry on the far right side, having eluded the Saracens (who were now racing back across the valley in an attempt to support the Ghulam bodyguards), also charged into the valley at the Egyptian missile troops.

    Two of the Egyptian missile units were routed by the Russian cavalry charges, and the third was attacked with yet more Russian cavalry when the Saharans and Ghulams were forced to rout. Recognizing the battle was lost, the remaining Egyptians tried to withdraw, but only the Saracens got away with a majority of their number intact. The Egyptians had lost 515 men in Rum to the Russians’ 186. Sultan Muhammed II did not have the funds to ransom the captives.

    In Armenia, Egyptian General al Labi had expected to be outnumbered, but not by a ration of 3:1. With only about 600 men to face the combined Russian attackers from Rum, Trebizond and Armenia, he abandoned the province.

    The Egyptian navy fared fairly well, sinking 2 out of the 3 Russian ships that attacked them. However, Captain Chort Shchukin was successful in sinking his assigned target, thereby opening the Nile Coast to Russian shipping. While transport to the Bosphorus region was still problematic, Russian armies could now be transported from the Baltic Sea to the Egyptian homeland. The Tsar did exactly that, landing 1100 men and their commander, Chort Alekseev, in Egypt.

    The Egyptians did not try to defend against such a large invasion force in Egypt, but retreated to their fortress. Meanwhile, successful castle assaults were completed against the Turks in Serbia, Greece, and Anatolia. General Sidorov was promoted to his fourth rank for his work in Greece.

    In Rum, having fought off the Egyptians, General Volchkov was awaiting reinforcements for the invasion of Lesser Armenia. But this year, it was the Turks who assaulted Rum.

    The Sultan led a 754 man army into Rum to attack Volchkov’s army of 677 men. Sultan Selim had only 1 horse archer company and his Ghulam bodyguards for cavalry, but had 3 companies of Saracens, along with 1 futuwwas, 1 muhadin, 1 peasants, 1 naptha throwers and 1 archers. Volchkov had 4 arbalesters, 3 halberdiers, 1 ½ spearmen, 2 boyars, 1 Steppe cavalry, and 3 mounted crossbows.

    In the Second Defense of Rum, Volchkov did not have as many cavalry as he had had in the First Defense battle. He therefore defended in a more traditional manner. He chose a very hilly terrain for his defense and placed his horses wide on each wing. For his part, the Sultan chose a very rainy day to attack, so that the Russian missile fire would be somewhat blunted.

    The Turks came on the field and started for the dominating center hill where the Russians had located their arbalesters. The Russian infantry was hidden farther up the hill, in the woods behind them. However, the Turks were not able to actually finish their approach on the hill until late in the day.

    Instead, Volchkov’s cavalry, especially the mounted crossbows and Volchkov’s own company of boyars, repeatedly drew the Turks out of line. Peppering the enemy with missiles, then moving out of range, the Russian cavalry forced the Turks to split apart and chase after them all over the field. A few units were wiped out by the Turks in a sandwich maneuver, but mostly the Russians kept coming back to harass the Saracens.

    Sultan Selim spent most of the day trying to catch the mounted crossbows—all the while losing men to their missile fire. He did eventually manage to corner the Steppe cavalry and the mounted crossbows and rout them. But he had lost a third or more of his men in doing so, and his entire army was near total exhaustion by the time he could finally gather them to assault the Russian defenses on the hill.

    The Turks were by now too tired to perform at their peak abilities. One of the Saracen units engaged in a melee with Volchkov’s two spear units at the top of the central hill. The Saracens were at least holding their own, if not winning, until Volchkov sent nine boyars (all that remained of the 40 man company) to engage them. The boyars were too exhausted from the day’s exertions to manage an actual charge, and could only move up the steep hill through the woods at a walk, but as soon as they made contact, the Saracens routed. Similar situations were replayed all through the afternoon as Volchkov’s fresh halberdiers charged down the hill and routed the Turk units one after the other. Selim lost 687 men, reducing him to only token garrisons in both Lesser Armenia and Edessa. The Russians lost 267 men, and Volchkov was promoted to his fifth rank for the victory.

    The other battle that occurred in 1297 was Lord Schukin’s invasion of Syria. Schukin had participated in the conquest of Scandinavia, and was, in fact, Earl of Sweden. He was not, however, known for his command skills. The Egyptians were to claim a victory in the First Battle of Syria, because they did actually manage to send Schukin’s army back to Armenia. However, from Russian court records, it appears that Schukin and the Russians fulfilled their goals in the battle.

    Schukin’s orders from the Tsar were to engage the Egyptian army in Syria and kill as many of them as he could. If the possibility of a conquest victory presented itself, he could certainly avail himself of it. But his main task was to inflict casualties; he was not overtly risk his men to try and claim the province. No one gave him much chance of a conquest victory in the Battle of Syria because he was facing Egyptian General al Labi, a skilled and experienced commander.

    Schukin’s attack, then, was intended as a softening-up of the Egyptian army for the actual invasion that would come later. Andrei knew that the Egyptians could not oppose him in Egypt, and would likely leave Sinai and Palestine barely garrisoned. All the troops Sultan Muhammed II could spare had been transported to Syria. With so few provinces, it would be difficult for the Egyptians to raise the money to train new troops. And, even if they had the money, the Egyptians had few training facilities in which to use it. Thus, each man lost to Egypt was the equivalent of 3 or 4 Russian casualties. If Schukin could inflict as much damage as he received, the sortie would be considered successful.

    As it happened, the armies met at an oasis surrounded by high hills. Schukin had enough infantry to make a battle line, but over half of them were triple armored halberdiers—poorly suited for desert warfare. The core of his army was comprised of 6 ½ companies of arbalesters, and 4 companies of mounted crossbows.

    Schukin gradually walked his troops 180 degrees around the oasis, bringing his huge number of missile troops to bear on any Egyptian unit that got within range. By the time he reached the other side of the oasis, all of his men were exhausted. There were a few melee actions there, especially with Egyptian reinforcements coming on the field, but the enemy was driven off each time. Schukin held at his location and ordered his arbalesters and crossbows to fire at will. The heat was scorching and exhausting, and by the end of the day, his men could barely raise their weapons. Under cover of darkness, Schukin then marched back to Armenia. The Russians had managed to kill 473 Egyptians, including 97 prisoners taken on the field, while losing 218.

    Schukin’s raid had the desired effect. The sole Egyptian army was reduced to around 1000 men, which the Sultan could ill afford to remove from Syria. Thus, Russian troops moved into Sinai in the next year unopposed, while a popular rebellion caused Arabia to slip from Egyptian hands. This province, still in foment over the course of the next year from the Arabian popular rebellion, would give rise to a second popular uprising that styled itself after the Golden Horde. In a further development, Russian diplomats secured the ownership and fealty of Cyprus, which had previously rebelled against first Byzantine, and then French rule. The Russians immediately began to build a new port there.

    In 1299, Ioseif Malov (no relation) led the invasion of Palestine, attacking Sultan Muhammed II of Egypt in his home province. Meanwhile, Volchkov, now Duke of Trebizond, and as fine a general as Russia had yet produced, invaded Syria, the only other Egyptian-owned province. The denouement of the Turks was prepared as a family affair. Prince Yuri, Andrei’s son, and all of 17 years old, would lead an army to attack Sultan Selim II in Edessa. At the same time, Prince Chort, Andrei’s brother, would invade Lesser Armenia.


    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter XChapter 10

    The battles that resulted in the destruction of the Turkish and Egyptian Sultanates at the end of the 11th century were anticlimactic, after the ferocious conflicts that had preceded them. Neither the Turks in Lesser Armenia nor the Egyptians in Syria chose to offer resistance to the Russians in the field. In Syria, the second in command had been convinced to defect to the Russians with half the Syrian army, while al Labi, the commander in chief of the remainder of the army, was assassinated. Both the Egyptian army in Syria and the Turk garrison in Lesser Armenia retreated to their respective castles.

    The battles that took the lives of the two Sultans were remarkably similar. Each Sultan chose to make their stand on a hilltop with the few of their loyal retainers left to them. Both faced Russian armies that greatly outnumbered them. In both the Second Battle of Edessa and the Battle of Palestine, the Russians formed a semi-circle around a hill where the Sultan had taken cover, and peppered the hilltop with quarrels and arrows from their mounted crossbows and boyars on both flanks. In both battles, the Sultans attempted to attack the Russian battle line head-on but were overwhelmed. Both Sultans died on the field of battle. Russia’s two wars were over. Turkey and Egypt both ceased to exist.

    Thus it was that, at the dawn of the 14th century, Russia held Eastern Europe, the Bosphorus, and most of the Middle East. Hungary still maintained its kingdom in Hungary, Bohemia, Carpathia, and Croatia. French rule survived in Europe only in Austria and Scotland, but King Charles V also ruled Antioch and Tripoli with 3800 men. The Mongol resurgence had resulted in 4500 Mongol troops in Arabia. But ironically, for a culture known historically for its cavalry, the Mongols had lost much of their ability to train warhorses in their wars with Egypt and Turkey. 80% of the Mongol army in Arabia was composed of unmounted peasants.

    Italy had regained all of its former provinces, if not all of its former glory, and now owned Venice, Milan, Genoa, Tuscany, Sardinia, Corsica, and Crete. The Sicilians ruled in the former Papal States, Malta, and Sicily, while the Pope controlled Rome and Naples. The English kingdom survived only in Ireland, and the island of Rhodes was independent.

    All other provinces in the known world were divided between Tsar Andrei II and the Almohad Kalifah Ibrahim II. The Almohad borders ran mostly north-south in Europe—through Denmark, Pomerania, Saxony, Franconia, Bavaria, Tyrolia, Burgundy, and Provence—and ended at Cyrenicia in North Africa. Although Russia was thought to have the largest standing army, the bulk of her troops were spread out among her borders and in the Bosphorus region. The Almohads had collected a huge army of 6600 men in Lorraine, and another 2600 man army was in Saxony. The Kalifah had succeeded, for the moment, in crushing all of the popular rebellions in Iberia.

    The Russian navy now extended to every port except in the Adriatic Sea. The Almohads had constructed trade routes from the Western Mediterranean to Skagarrad and maintained an armada at the Straits of Gibraltar. As with the land armies, the Russians probably had a larger navy, but the Almohads represented a greater concentration of force.

    Russia maintained alliances with Italy, Sicily, and Germany, but Germany as a nation was a bit of a fiction, since it only existed as a besieged fort in Almohad-occupied Tyrolia. The Almohads were at war with the French and Germans, and were allied with no one. The only other war going on in 1300 was between the Pope and the Sicilians.

    Tsar Andrei II, now 46 years old, still had his killer instinct on the battlefield, but spent all of his time administering his empire. His pridefulness, generally considered a fault, had been kept secret. He was known as a magnificent builder and a steward of the land. In spite of his very limited abilities in the financial arena, the Russian Empire managed an annual income of 33,425 florins, with a profit of 17,345 florins in the year 1300. There were 12,326 florins in the treasury.

    As the new century began, it seemed clear to all that the Almohad and Russian empires would eventually clash. The Tsar was one of those who believed that this clash would inevitably occur, but he wanted to delay it as long as possible.

    For one thing, he did not know if his troops would fare well in a battle with an Almohad army. While the types of units fielded by the Almohad army had not changed in years, most of their troops had double, or even triple, armoring. Except for the halberdiers and boyars trained in Muscovy and Novgorod, respectively, Russian troops had only single armoring, if any at all.

    A second reason for the Russians to delay any contest with the Almohads was the fact that Russia had not yet fully secured the Middle East. The French and Mongol armies there presented a potentially dangerous threat and needed to be controlled or eliminated.

    A third reason to avoid an immediate war with the Almohads was the continued existence of Hungary. The kingdom of Hungary possessed some rich lands that could be used by the Tsar. Perhaps more importantly, the Tsar loathed the idea of going to war with the Almohads while leaving Russia’s underbelly open to a surprise strike from the Hungarians. Also, ownership of Bohemia would provide wider access into Almohad lands for a pre-emptive strike by Russia.

    So, the strategy the Tsar promulgated in 1300 was to build armorers and shipyards domestically, and to conquer Mongol Arabia, French Antioch and Tripoli, and the kingdom of Hungary—preferably in that order. All the while he would be building ships and troops in preparation for the final showdown with the Kalifah. But this was not to be, because the Almohads immediately declared war on Russia, sinking several Russian ships.

    The Almohads went to war for almost exactly the reasons the Russians wanted to postpone war. If the Kalifah waited until Russia was able to produce great numbers of triple armored halberdiers and boyars, then he and his troops surely could not stand against them. Under the current circumstances, Russia had her army and navy spread out all over the world, while the Almohads had assembled superior forces in single locations. Also, Russia had to be concerned with Hungary and France, both of which could attack a number of Russian provinces without delay. The Kalifah had only to worry about Italy to his south. War with the Russians had to happen sometime, reasoned Kalifah Ibrahim II, and it was best for the Almohads that it happened immediately.

    The Tsar, for his part, had to first secure his borders and clarify the situation when the Almohads declared war. He decided he would give France and Hungary each one chance to ally with Russia. If they refused, he would attack. He ordered every ship to attack the Almohad navy wherever they were, and began to assemble 4-ship flotillas in the western Mediterranean and the north of Europe. He adjusted his troop strengths in the Middle East to their best effect and prepared for the Russian invasion of Cyrenacia. Finally, he ordered his armies to invade Almohad Pomerania, Saxony, and Franconia.

    All of the Russian invasions were successful, and the Almohads retreated to their castles without engagements in the field. Meanwhile, both the French and the Hungarians sealed their fates—the French by refusing 3 separate offers in 1301 to ally with Russia, the Hungarians by actually invading Russian-owned Poland.

    The Third Defense of Poland was nearly a farce. Grechin Zaitsev commanded 3 spear companies and a catapult. The Hungarians sent 2 horse archers and a mounted crossbow company to attack them. The Russians set up on a wooded hilltop, and fired at the Hungarian cavalry as they approached. The Hungarians would not close to attack in the woods; the Russians could not catch up to the fleet-footed Hungarian cavalry. The Hungarians lost 6 men to catapult fire, and the Russians lost 12 spearmen in their attempts to trap the Hungarians, before the sun set and the Hungarians departed.

    Elsewhere, the Russians secured the Mediterranean except for the Iberian Coast and Gibraltar. They also controlled the Baltic and Skagerrak, but lost control of the seas along the north of Europe. Popular rebellions arose in Almohad Cordoba and Portugal, and in German Tyrolia.

    In 1302, the main Almohad army moved to Flanders, but the Tsar could not tell whether the army was moving to Scotland to defeat the French, or to Saxony to attack the Russians. Russian diplomats succeeded in bribing the commander of half the French army in Tripoli, but were unsuccessful in finding a bride for Prince Yuri.

    The Russian army moved into Denmark and met resistance there. General Andrei Nitikin was a moderately good general and had a slightly better reputation than the Almohad urban militiaman in command of the Almohads there. But Nitikin beat the Almohads soundly by marching his battleline of spearmen and halberdiers forward, while protecting his arbalesters and running his boyars out to the flanks. The two armies met on the upslope of a wide, low hill, and Nitikin used his boyars to isolate and charge various units of the enemy. Then he had the boyars charge the enemy missile troops while his infantry made contact from the front. The Almohads had 1002 men and lost 868 in the Battle of Denmark. The Russians had 1026 men and lost 365.

    Denmark was the first indication that Russian troops could stand and fight against the more heavily armored Almohads. The boyars were especially important in the First Battle of Denmark. The Russian spearmen were unarmored and took heavy casualties. The Almohad urban militia were difficult foes, but were susceptible to missile fire, and then were handled by the Russian halberdiers. In all, it appeared the Russians could make war with the Almohads, but the sheer numbers of the Almohad military still worried the Tsar and his generals.

    The Almohads sallied from both Saxony and Franconia Castles in the next year. In Saxony, the Almohads attempted to approach up a mild draw and were obliterated by Russian catapult and arbalest fire down the throat of the draw, while Russian boyars fired from either flank. Not a single Almohad survived and Russia claimed the province without a castle assault. The Russians had 2133 men in the Battle of Saxony and lost 15. The Almohads had 351 men and lost them all.

    In Franconia, the Almohads reinforced the troops sallying forth from the castle, but to no avail. The Russians lined all their foot troops on the side of a steep wooded hill at the edge of the battlefield, then set their boyars to flank from either side of the broad plain in front of the hill. The Almohads were unable to crack the Russian defense. Russia had 1471 men at the Battle of Franconia and lost 200. The Almohads had 736 men and lost 685.

    Also in 1302, Tsar Andrei II finally was able to enact the 50 year old plan conceived by his uncle, Tsar Yuri II. Andrei moved nearly 2000 men into Hungary from Bulgaria and Serbia. The Hungarian king had no choice but to flee with his army to Bohemia. Meanwhile, Lord Drozdov surprised Hungarian Prince Caroly in Croatia when he invaded with 530 men. Caroly had only his royal knights and a company of peasants to defend the province. The Hungarians started the Battle of Croatia with 109 men and lost 105 of them, including Prince Caroly, the sole heir to the throne. Lord Drozdov was promoted to his fourth rank for this action. In the Middle East, Lord Shchukin was promoted to his second rank for his successful assault on the fort in Arabia, claiming that province for Russia. The Almohads lost Tunisia to a popular uprising, while the Holy Roman Empire was destroyed by the peasant rebellion that arose in the last HRE province of Tyrolia.

    The year 1303 saw a considerable amount of action for the Russian armed forces. Prince Yuri and Lord Volchkov prepared to invade French Antioch and Tripoli, respectively, while Kisel Grechinov invaded Almohad Cyrenacia. Vladimir Alekseev had intended to assault the castle in Franconia, but the Almohads were reinforced from Bavaria and the Almohad garrison sallied forth. Andrei Nitikin was thus forced to defend Denmark against substantial Almohad reinforcements and a sally from the castle garrison. Prince Sviatopolk assaulted the castle in Almohad Pomerania, while Lord Alekseev invaded Almohad Friesland. Against the Hungarians, Lord Drozdov assaulted the castle in Croatia, while Lord Zhiroslavov took a major army to battle the Hungarian king in Bohemia.

    Several generals completed their orders with ease. Lord Alekseev invaded Friesland without opposition, and Prince Sviatopolk assaulted the castle in Pomerania without difficulty. Vladimir Alekseev used his cavalry and superior numbers to force a victory in Franconia. Alekseev had 1471 men and lost 200 in the Battle of Franconia. The Almohads had 736 men there and lost 685 of them.

    Kisel Grechinov moved into Cyrenacia without opposition. The Almohads had lost Tunisia to a rebellion fomented by Russian spies the previous year, so their army stationed in Cyrenacia had been dispatched to beat down the rebellion, leaving the desert province empty. The French king tried to flee Antioch when Prince Yuri invaded, but the seas had been blockaded by the Russians, and Tripoli had been occupied by Lord Volchkov, so the king and his army were trapped and held for ransom. The French second in command at Tripoli had defected with half the soldiers in the army there, so Lord Volchkov had a relatively easy time completing the invasion.

    Hero General Zhiroslavov had a very difficult time completing the invasion of Bohemia. The two armies met sooner than Zhiroslavov had expected from his intelligence. As a result, Zhiroslavov’s army straggled onto the field in sections, as he rushed whatever units he had available to the front. At the beginning of the battle, Zhiroslavov had time to set up his 8 artillery companies, supported by 2 companies of boyars and some foot troops. However, most of his army was still on the roads approaching the battlefield and he was forced to send back messengers ordering these troops to rush to the scene as reinforcements. As a result, he was required to fight the Battle of Bohemia with very unbalanced forces, because the fastest units all arrived together, then the next slowest, and so on.

    Zhiroslavov was forced to withdraw his artillery after causing little damage to the enemy because the Hungarian king quickly pulled his forces back to a high hill on the edge of the battlefield. But all of the first wave of Russian reinforcements were horse archers who, being fastest, had arrived at the scene first. Zhiroslavov thus had to fight a balanced Hungarian army with 10 horse archers, 2 boyars, 1 arbalesters and 3 infantry.

    Normally, horse archer unit commanders are given a large leeway as to their battle tactics. Lacking an effective melee, horse archers rely on speed and distance for their survival. During the course of a battle, it is typical that the commander of the army will designate a target for the horse archer company captain, and then will leave engagement and positioning to the captain’s discretion.

    But this standard operating procedure did not work so well when the field was crowded with horse archer companies. In the Battle of Bohemia, there were 10 companies of horse archers on the field at one time. The companies attempted to form a semicircle around the Hungarian army. However, the Bohemian battlefield was much more vertically oriented than the flat, featureless Steppes where horse archers were developed as a weapon. When the Hungarians charged one or more of their units in counterattack, the archer companies would attempt to retreat and maintain distance. But because of terrain features and the sheer number of horses on the field, the horse archer units often collided with one another, or trapped themselves against a cliff edge or other terrain feature. While the horse archers did manage to cause considerable damage to a number of units at Bohemia, their casualties were much higher than would usually have occurred under Zhiroslavov’s command. Eventually all of the Russian horse archers were forced to withdraw.

    The next Russian reinforcements to arrive, which is to say that they had the next fastest capability of marching down a road, were infantry units, primarily militia sergeants. Zhiroslavov began with 1 Italian light infantry and 2 halberdiers on the field, and 2 militia sergeants, ½ Vikings, and 1 Trebizond archers in reserve. As the foot reinforcements came on the field, they were able to partially screen some of the horse archer companies as they withdrew. Then Zhiroslavov attempted to set up a battle line on the far right side of the field.

    As he was attempting to form his line, assorted Russian missile troops began arriving. General Zhiroslavov was able to bring these missile troops up into ranged support of his infantry. However, Hungarian reinforcements were also streaming onto the field during this time, and Zhiroslavov’s infantry was soon outnumbered and in danger of being surrounded. The Russian infantry began to retreat under cover from their missilers.

    The Hungarians continued to press the Russian infantry. In particular, the Hungarian mounted sergeants were able to charge into the partially-disrupted lines of the Russian infantry several times, inflicting large numbers of casualties, although at great cost to the mounted sergeants. Zhiroslavov was not able to stem the tide, and his infantry men continued to retreat under the Hungarian onslaught.

    But the Hungarians had by now committed their entire army and all of their reinforcements. They had managed to push and harry the Russian all the length of the field until they were nearing the Russian entry point to the battlefield. Zhiroslavov’s infantry and arbalesters had taken major casualties and were wavering, ready to rout. But still the companies of Hungarian troops marched down the field at them.

    It was at this time that the Russian pavise arbalesters finally arrived on the battlefield. Slow to march and slow to fire, but deadly in their effect, 10 Russian pavise arbalester companies marched on the field. Zhiroslavov’s infantry made a last ditch effort to hold a battle line while the pavise arbalesters set up. But the Hungarians recognized their fading opportunity and charged the Russian battle line. The battle-weary Russian foot troops finally had to give up, and the last of Zhiroslavov’s infantry routed off the field. All of his cavalry had been run off much earlier. Only the 10 companies of pavise arbalesters remained, while there were still more than 5 intact infantry companies of Hungarians. There were also partial Hungarian companies of troops scattered across the field. These partial units had previously been routed, but now might well recover and rejoin the battle as the Hungarians prepared to assault the remaining Russian arbalesters.

    But the all-out assault was not to happen. The 10 pavise arbalester companies had arranged themselves on a small hill like a church choir standing on risers. Now, as the Hungarians turned from chasing the last Russian infantryman from the field, this choir sang to the Hungarians of their mortality. The arbalesters concentrated their fire on a single company of Hungarians at a time. At every order to fire, the targeted unit lost 10 to 20% of their number. No army in the world could stand under such horrific deluge of deadly quarrels. One by one, the Hungarian infantry companies tried to approach the small hill. But they were already battle-weary and tired from crossing the entire battlefield, while the Russian pavise arbalesters were fresh. Each Hungarian infantry company was repeatedly decimated in turn—with every 15-20 seconds that passed, another tenth or more of their number died, and their morale plummeted. The Hungarians tried to charge their line forward, but they could not hold their charge in the face of the Russian volleys. In the end, the remaining Hungarian troops simply did not believe they could swim upstream to the source of the river of death enveloping them. One by one, they all routed. Zhiroslavov had won the Battle of Bohemia.

    The Russians invaded Bohemia with 3170 troops, and were to lose 1653 of them. The Hungarians had 2081 troops to defend the province, and lost 1742. The last of the Hungarian kings, Istvan V, retreated to Prague Castle with the troops remaining to him. Hero General Zhiroslavov had had his entire personal company of boyars destroyed in the Battle of Bohemia. He had shown great personal valor on the field and had managed to pull out hard won victory. For this victory, he was promoted to his eighth rank after the battle. He was now indisputably Russia’s greatest general ever.

    In the meantime, while Lord Zhiroslavov’s attack on Bohemia had been made difficult by circumstances that developed during the battle, Andrei Nitikin knew he was in for a difficult defense from the very start in Denmark. The Almohads sallied forth from Copenhagen and were reinforced from Friesland, making a total of 1901 veteran Almohad troops. Nitikin had only 1577 men, and 900 of those were peasants.

    Nitikin began with 1 catapult, 3 arbalesters, 3 below-strength halberdiers, 1 ½ Steppe cavalry, ½ horse archers, and his own guard plus ½ companies of boyars. The Almohads came on the field with 1 ballista, 1 catapult, 2 arbalesters, 4 murabitin infantry, 4 Almohad urban militia, 3 Ghulam cavalry, and 1 Saharan cavalry.

    Nitikin lined his foot troops along a small slope at the near edge of the battlefield. He had deployed his horses far forward in anticipation of causing Almohad losses as they traversed the field. But he had not counted on the forward placement of the Almohad artillery, and he lost 10 mounted troops before he could withdraw out of range.

    The Almohad general sent his cavalry along the beach on his right flank to attack the Russian left. He marched his foot troops down the center of the field. The Russian missile cavalry focused on the Almohad foots, expecting their halberdiers to defend against the enemy cavalry. In the meantime, the ½ company of Steppe cavalry was sent to destroy the Almohad artillery and crews.

    But one of Nitikin’s arbalester companies had moved too far down the slope in front of his infantry line, underestimating the speed of the Ghulam cavalry. One of the Ghulam companies charged and was able to engage the missilemen. The Russian halberdiers rushed down the slope and were able to destroy the cavalry, but ½ an arbalester company now lay dead at their feet.

    The Almohads attempted to spread their line in front of the Russians, but the Russians were able to contain them. Nitikin took responsibility for the right flank and he and his boyars engaged and put to rout an urban militia unit there. Then the Almohads attempted a frontal attack, but the Russians were able to repulse them.

    Nitikin sent his cavalry to give chase, and lined his foot troops back on the slope, reinforcing with peasants on the right flank. The Almohads brought on 1 ½ Berber camels, 1 Ghulam bodyguards, 2 Saharan and 1 Ghulam cavalries.

    The Russian arbalesters concentrated their fire on the Berber camels, who were the only ranged attack on the field for the Almohads. The Steppe cavalry decoyed most of the Almohad cavalry away from the Russian battle line, while the boyars and a peasant company sandwiched an Almohad arbalester company on the far left flank and destroyed it.

    Nitikin was bringing his Steppe cavalry back to the center when it got caught by a Ghulam cavalry. At nearly the same time, the Ghulam bodyguards rushed to the right, and Nitikin engaged them with his boyars. In the center, the Almohads piled the remainder of their cavalry into the fray, and the remaining Russian cavalry units followed them with charges of their own. Nitikin ordered his foot troops down the slope then and, with their added attack, was able to destroy the Ghulam bodyguard company and rout the other cavalry. The Almohad general was struck down in this melee.

    By this time, the Almohads had brought on 1 archer, ½ desert archer, and ½ peasant companies. They now reinforced with an additional crossbowmen, Ghazi infantry, urban militia, and ½ arbalesters. Nitikin re-formed his men on the slope and awaited the attack. The attack was staggered when it came, but each time the Russians were able to repulse the enemy. Finally the Almohads could not hold their courage and began to rout.

    At this point, Nitikin made a mistake, in that he underestimated the reinforcements remaining to the Almohads. Believing this to be the sum of the Almohad army opposing him, he allowed his men to give chase downfield. But the Almohads brought on another muwahid infantry, 1 archer, 1 crossbowmen, and 1 Ghazi infantry. Some of the Russian soldiers were caught too far downfield, took losses in melee, and routed.

    But Nitikin was able to regroup and take up position again near the base of the slope. As the Almohads attempted to form up, the Russian arbalesters ripped into the individual companies, sending them running. The Almohads now brought on their final reinforcements of 1 archer, 1 desert archer, and 1 muwahid infantry.

    Again the Almohads formed up, and yet again Russian arbalest fire decimated them. Finally, Nitikin was ready to call for the Russian counterattack to end this battle. All that remained on the field for the Almohads was 1 ½ murabitin infantry and 4 assorted missile companies. The Russians had 4 peasants, 3 halberdier companies at half strength, and 2 ½ arbalesters.

    But as Nitikin raised his arm to give the final order to charge, an Almohad arrow found its way under his armpit. Nitikin slumped forward, then fell from his horse, his lifeblood bubbling from his lips.

    With their general dying, the Russian troops at first thought they could hold their positions. But, the Almohad missile fire continued to slay them where they stood. It was the barely-trained and inexperienced peasant companies that lost their nerve first and began to rout. Then the Russian arbalesters routed. The halberdiers, knowing they were not fast enough to chase the Almohad troops alone, and knowing also how vulnerable they were to missile fire, were then forced to withdraw. Denmark was lost.



    MTW: A History of Russia Chapter XIChapter 11

    So it was in 1304 that Mother Russia paused to consolidate. Tsar Andrei II, now age 50, had just conquered Cyrenacia, Tripoli, Antioch, Croatia, Hungary, Pomerania, Saxony, and Franconia. Russian armies were prepared to assault the garrisons in Bohemia and Friesland. All of the Russian military action in 1303 had resulted in the only loss of Denmark, due to the tragic death of Andrei Nikitin. And, until the newly-gained territories could be better garrisoned with spear and peasants companies now in training throughout Russian lands, it was likely that the Almohads would be able to hold Denmark.

    But Denmark was the sole bright spot in an “annus terriblus” for the Almohads. Besides losing five provinces to the Russians, they also lost Navarre and Algeria to popular rebellions—the latter rebellion induced by Russian spies. Unbeknownst to the Almohads, Russia had now moved 8 spies each into Flanders and Morocco. The Almohads were being squeezed from both sides back to the Iberian peninsula.

    Control of the oceans was split almost exactly east and west of Denmark. The Russians controlled the Baltic and Black Seas and the eastern half of the Mediterranean, the Almohads controlled the sea squares around their territories. The English Channel and the Norwegian Sea were contested.

    The Tsar had received 16,984 florins in ransom from the French, for King Charles V, Prince Louis, and 11 other nobles. Since he had paid just under 7,000 florins in bribes for the defection that eased the conquest of Tripoli, Tsar Andrei reckoned he had the best of the bargain. In addition, Russia received nearly 5000 florins from the Almohads in ransoms from castle assaults, although the most commanders were now executing prisoners in the field to reduce the sheer number of Almohads in arms. The Tsar had 28,071 F in his treasury at the beginning of 1304, with an annual income of 22,837 F and annual profits of 7,311 F to the crown. Most Russian provinces were taxed at high or very high rates, excepting the new acquisitions, especially in the Middle East. The only potentially rebellious province was Cyprus, which was blockaded by the sole French ship, and showed loyalty of only 78% at very low taxes.

    The Russians had completely removed the French from the Middle East, and France now only existed as the province of Austria, and perhaps Scotland, although at last news the Almohads were attacking Scotland. Andrei was willing to allow the French a ceasefire if they wanted it at this time, but was not overly concerned if they chose to fight on.

    Zhiroslavov had his orders to pluck the Hungarian king from Prague Castle in Bohemia. If the Hungarians possessed the funds to ransom him, Andrei would collect the money, then invade Carpathia the following year. Fifty years after its conception, Tsar Yuri’s plan to conquer Hungary was finally coming to fruition.

    Because of the need to garrison the provinces captured in 1303, Andrei did not plan much military action this year. The exception was the invasion of Lorraine, where the Kalifah was located with a small garrison. Andrei expected the Almohads to abandon the province rather than risk their leader.

    Other than the invasion of Lorraine, the only other military actions planned were the invasion of Bavaria and assaults on Prague Castle and the fort in Groningen, Freisland. The Almohads had planned the relief of Freisland, the reinforcement of Bavaria, and the invasion of Saxony from Denmark. It was a year of spectacular failures.
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    Default Re: [AAR] MTW: A History of Russia

    The Almohads moved a total of 4295 men into Friesland. With only 1565 men with which to mount a defense, Lord Alekseev elected to abandon the province. In Bavaria, the Almohads retreated, leaving a garrison behind. The Russian assault on Prague failed miserably due to the able defense of the Hungarians. Similarly, the invasion of Saxony was a debacle for the Almohads.

    In Saxony, the Russians defended at a river crossing with 2 arbalesters, 2 ½ boyars, 3 ½ halberdiers, 4 spearmen, and 2 ½ peasants, for a combined force of 1009 men. They did not need nearly so many. The Almohads attacked with a mixed army of 791 men, but not a single man could sustain the courage to cross the bridge in the hail of Russian missile fire. After repeated attempts, Amir ibn Salim began to withdraw and Zub Bolim sent his boyars to give chase. The Almohads lost 463 men while the Russians only lost a total of 4 boyars to ballista fire.

    Off the coast of the former French Levant, the last remaining French ship staged a naval battle and won. This caused the loyalty in Cyprus to drop to 52% and it would surely rebel the next year. Combined with the defeat at Prague and the 4300 man Almohad army at his borders, the Tsar considered the situation intolerable. He threw away his plans for mercy towards the French and ordered the invasion of Austria.

    So, in 1305, Austria was invaded. But the French king, Charles V, had other plans and sent nearly the entire French army to Hungary to relieve his ally, King Istvan V. The Russians retreated from the French in Hungary without a battle, but occupied Austria. (The French were outnumbered in Austria by 1778 to 21. They lost 17, while the Russians lost 5.) Lord Drozdov was promoted to his fifth rank for this victory.

    As a result of the victory in Austria, the French army trying to return from Hungary had nowhere to go, and they were all lost. Elsewhere, the persuasive French culture again asserted itself, and French loyalist rebellions occurred in Cyprus and Switzerland.

    In the following spring, the Tsar was angry at the ubiquitous annoyance of French troops disrupting his plans. He ordered his generals to assault Innsbruck castle again without delay. At the same time, he ordered the assault of the Hungarian castle in Prague. Both the Hungarian and French kings were besieged in these castles, and the Tsar believed the remainder of their troops around the world would go rebel if the kings were killed.

    Rebellions, helped along by Russian spies, were now defying the Almohads throughout southern Spain and North Africa. The Almohads had the rebel forces in Algeria bottled up in the castle there, but loyalty in the province was still below 100%. In addition, Portugal and Cordoba remained in rebellion, while a popular rebellion arose in Morocco, and Granada’s loyalty plunged to 78%. The Almohads had, however, managed to reclaim Navarre, but a Christian rebellion now arose in Tyrolia.

    In the Middle East and North Africa, the Almohad army had retreated in the face of the Russian invasion and the Tsar’s army now held the Almohads under siege in Tunisia. Meanwhile every Russian fortification in the region trained spearmen or peasants. Assuming that the rebels would keep the Almohads from reaching the south of Spain or further south, Andrei intended to stop his army’s forward progress after taking Algeria—which would have meant that all of the Almohad armies below Valencia had been eliminated. The troops that had been used to subdue the Middle East were now being shipped to Croatia to join the European front, as their garrisons were replaced with peasant militias.

    The European front was very active in 1305. The Russians called off the attack on Lorraine and retreated from Flanders due to being substantially outnumbered. The Almohads retreated from the Russians in Swabia for the same reason. The two major battles of the year occurred in Saxony and Bavaria.

    Zub Boldin commanded in Saxony. He had 1073 men, including 2 boyars, 5 spearmen, 2 halberdiers, 1 militia, 1 arbalesters, and 2 ½ peasants. The Almohads attacked with 433 men, including ½ companies of Berber camels, Ghulam and Saharan cavalry, 2 Almohad militia, 1 peasants, 1 muwahid infantry, and 2 artillery companies. Boldin lined his spearmen on a ridge, and supported them with the halberdiers and militia in a wing on his right flank, and the 3 peasant companies slightly further uphill on the left flank. He strung the arbalesters out single file behind the spears, and lined his two boyar companies on his far right flank. The Russians held their position and awaited the Almohad attack. When it came, the spearmen and peasants took huge casualties, but Boldin was able to fold over onto both Almohad flanks, pinning the attackers. He then charged his boyars in wedge formation into the rear of the Almohad battle line. The undisciplined Russian spears and peasants broke and ran more than once, especially when a few of the Ghulams were able to break through the line and attack the Russian rear. But Boldin was able to rally his men and contain the Almohad cavalry. Eventually the Almohads routed, and Boldin claimed victory, which earned him promotion to his third rank by the Tsar.

    In Bavaria, Zhiroslavov was able to force the Almohads into a box canyon. Zhiroslavov was missile-heavy with 1 catapult, 6 pavise arbalester, 2 horse archer, and a mounted crossbow company out of a total of 647 men. His own company of boyars was down to only 6 men. Zhiroslavov lined his missile cavalry on either side of the canyon, then set his foot arbalesters at the head of the canyon just below some forest. He hid his single spearman and militia sergeant company in the forest. The Almohads, although they only had 495 men, chose to split off one company of infantry to chase each missile cavalry company. The Russians cavalry units simply maintained in skirmish mode, stinging each company with a few casualties, then retreating out of reach. In this way, they led much of the Almohad infantry all around the battlefield. The remainder of the Almohad army, including a company of Ghulam bodyguards, tried to approach the head of the canyon, but were destroyed one by one as the Russian missilers focused their fire. The Almohads lost 444 men, while the Russians lost 79, in Bavaria.

    Things were shaping up for a showdown in the center of Europe. The Almohads had an army of 3100 men in Burgundy led by Amir Hatim al Mu’tamid, Duke of Valencia, and Qadi al-Quda of the Kaliphate. The Amir was perhaps the Almohads’ best general, and was nearly the equal of Russia’s Zhiroslavov. The Amir was the brother of Amir Zayyen al Mu’tamid, Earl of Mercia, who led an army of 4500 in Lorraine. Zayyen al Mu’tamid was an excellent general in his own right, but not of the same caliber as his brother.

    Across the border from these two major Almohad armies, Lord Zhiroslavov led a Russian army of 2300 in Swabi, while Lord Alekseev led 1100 men in Franconia. In addition, 2700 men had just traveled by ship to Croatia and were headed for the front. The Russians were outnumbered, but once their reinforcements arrived, they were likely to make a stand. To stall until the reinforcements did arrive, they attacked Friesland again and besieged Bavaria. It was hoped that the uprisings in Switzerland and Tyrolia would secure the southern flank.

    The Tsar tried to ally with the Italians in 1305, since both he and the Italians were allied with Sicily, but the Italians were also allied with the Almohads, and at first did not want to consider the Russian entreaties. But they relented the next year, and the Doge agreed to marry his daughter to Crown Prince Yuri.

    In 1306, Roskilde Castle fell and Denmark was a Russian province once again. The Tsar re-occupied Bohemia, with small losses. Ivan Shubin received promotion to his third rank for the Bohemian action. A Russian army also re-occupied Friesland; the Almohads there retreated to the castle.

    The Hungarian king, Istvan V, found himself in strange circumstances. He had traveled to Poland with a total of 2 royal knight companies as a bodyguard, but was unaware that the French king had been ousted and was at the time traveling to live in exile in Scotland. Istvan V, instead of being greeted by his friend, Charles V of France, was instead met by a Russian garrison of 1 company each of militia sergeants and spearmen. In the skirmish that followed, the Russians lost 18 men while the Hungarians lost 6. Istvan V disengaged his guard and returned to Bohemia, but the lands of Bohemia were by this time now occupied by the Russians. The king was captured and Hungary paid a ransom of 10,406 florins to allow him to return to Carpathia, Hungary’s sole remaining province.

    The big battle between the Russians and the Almohads that had been predicted by all was finally fought in Swabia in 1306. Hero General Zhiroslavov, now an eighth rank general, commanded 2404 troops there. Amir Zayyan al-Mu’tamid, a fifth rank general, invaded Swabia with 3297 men.

    Zhiroslavov knew he could not afford any offensive actions at such a numerical disadvantage. He therefore picked his initial set up with strictly defensive measures in mind. Zhiroslavov chose a sloping pasture with a mild slope at the near edge of the battlefield. At the hedge boundary of the pasture, he lined 4½ halberdier companies, with 5 pavise arbalesters strung 1 or 2 deep slightly upslope of them. He put his 3 catapult companies slightly forward on the right flank, and stationed himself, his guard now reduced to only 5 in number, on the left flank. He had two horse archers companies available to him, and these he put far forward on the left flank.

    The Almohads made their initial attack with 2 ballistas, 4 murabitin infantry, 4 Almohad urban militias, 1 Nubian spearmen, 1 militia sergeants, 2 Ghulam cavalry, and al-Mu’tamid’s own Ghulam bodyguards. But as al-Mu’tamid approached the Russian position, he was killed by a catapult stone. The Almohads charged the catapults and were successful in routing them with one of their Ghulam cavalry before they could do much more damage. They then turned the remainder of the charging Ghulam cavalry company and managed to get behind the Russian lines to engage the arbalesters in the rear. The rest of the Almohads charged at the battle line.

    But the halberdiers Zhiroslavov had brought to Swabia were from the famed 1st division, including the Hero 1st Guard from Bulgaria. The blooded men were equal to their task. They fought off the attack and also managed to send one company to run off the rampaging Ghulams in the rear. The Almohads retreated in disarray.

    Meanwhile, the 2 Russian horse archers companies had managed to draw off 3 companies of Almohads from the main attack force, including a cavalry company. The horse archer companies split in different directions and the Almohad cavalry had to chose which to chase. The Almohad cavalry commander chose one company of horse archers, and the other raced to attack the Almohads ballistas. Before the first attack of the main army was over, both horse archers were routing from the field, but not before the Almohad artillery and crews had been destroyed. This was the only Russian cavalry to see action, except for some archery by Zhiroslavov’s guard, until the very end of the battle. Zhiroslavov held the 4 boyar companies available to him in reserve and only brought them on the field near the end.

    The Almohads had reinforced with a Ghulam cavalry, a Ghulam bodyguards, and a murabitin. Now they brought on another Ghulam bodyguards, 2 Saharan cavalry, 1 Berber camels, and an Almohad militia. The Almohads had sent their strongest offensive units to try and weaken the Russian battle line, so that the Almohad infantry, coming on as reinforcements, could put the Russians to rout.

    But Zhiroslavov’s 1st division halberdiers, backed by 5 ½ companies of arbalesters and pavised arbalesters, were extremely well-equipped to defend against any cavalry charge. As the Almohads lined up their attack formation, the Russians devastated them with quarrel fire. When the Almohads charged into the Russian line, the halberds ripped both men and horses, and the Almohad cavalry was destroyed.

    Zhiroslavov had concentrated his ranged fire on the Berber camels whenever he was not defending against the main assault. The Berbers were the only ranged fire unit on the field, and were no match for the Russian arbalests. Finally, Zhiroslavov sent a spear unit wide right and attacked the Berbers from the flank, routing them.

    But the forward exposed spear company became engaged in melee with a murabitin company, and then drew the attacks of an Almohad militia and Ghulam bodyguards. Zhiroslavov countered by racing a second spear company and a halberdiers forward. The Almohads were put to rout and the Zhiroslavov withdrew his men to re-form the battle line at the pasture hedge. He formed a winged line, with a spear company on either side hinged forward.

    The Almohads brought on more cavalry: 2 Ghulam bodyguards, 1 Ghulam and 2 Saharan cavalries, and 2 ½ Berber camels. This time they tried the left flank, attacking the forwardmost spear company, but Zhiroslavov raced all the rest of his infantry forward and then collapsed his center and right wing onto the rear of the Almohad cavalry. The Almohads were put to rout and Zhiroslavov retreated his men to re-form once again in front of the hedge.

    One of the halberdier companies, and one of the arbalesters, had taken numerous casualties, so these were withdrawn at this time. The Almohads had brought on an archers and a Ghazi infantry during the last attack, and now reinforced with 2 muwahid infantry, 2 naptha throwers, 1 desert archers, 1 Ghulam cavalry, and 1 Saharan cavalry.

    The Almohads, their original optimism dimmed, were more cautious now. They tried various feints to try to disrupt the Russian halberds and expose a weakness. But the Russians were stolid and remained in place, and all the while the Russian arbalesters exacted their tolls from the Almohad units.

    As this situation continued, Zhiroslavov brought on 2 spear companies. They joined with a third spear company to form a lazy J, with the foot of the J extended from the left flank. Zhiroslavov then pushed these three spear companies up the field until one of them was able to get behind the Almohad Berber camels. Once past the Berbers, the spear company wheeled and charged, pushing the Berbers towards the center. The camel riders were met by the other spear companies and the Berbers were finally smashed.

    Zhiroslavov re-formed his men once again, again forming a lazy J. The Almohads brought on 1 Nubian spearmen, 1 militia sergeants, 1 militia, 1 muwahidin infantry, and 1 peasants. When they were in position, the Almohads probed the Russian right with their Ghazi infantry, then advanced along their entire line. But the Russians were once again equal to the task. Arbalester quarrels reduced the Ghazis by half, and they were then met by a full spear company—stopping their attack in its tracks and forcing them into a melee. Meanwhile the entire J of the Russians charged forward to meet the Almohad attack. The foot of the J curled around the Almohad right flank, and the attack was repulsed, the Almohads routed.

    A singe Almohad urban militia, arriving late, engaged the Russian foot troops in their forward position as the rest of the Almohads ran in retreat. This company surely saved some overruns and captures, but was grossly outnumbered and eventually swamped. Zhiroslavov then recalled his troops back to their original battleline.

    The Almohads brought another 300 assorted foot troops and tried again, but they were repulsed once more by the Russian advance of the lazy J, coupled with a collapse of the foot of the J around the Almohad right flank. As this Almohad attack was going on, Zhiroslavov began to replace his arbalesters, who had by now depleted their ammunition. Switching them out one and two companies at a time, he replaced his 5 ½ pavised arbalesters with 4 arbalesters and 2 of his boyars.

    The 2 boyars split wide on each flank and marched upfield. The reinforced Almohad infantry began to form up in front of the Russian line, but they did not attack yet. They were waiting for 4 companies of Almohad pavise arbalesters that were now marching towards their position.

    But Zhiroslavov was not about to let the Almohads march down the field unchallenged now that he had some of his boyars on the field. The 2 boyar companies pincered on the Almohad arbalester companies. The Almohad urban militia unit that had been assigned to escort them had expected to defend against a Russian infantry interception, if anything. They were not equipped to defend against boyars charging from opposite direction and simply did not have the speed to keep up. The two boyar companies destroyed the Almohad arbalesters.

    Meanwhile, the Almohad infantry was still awaiting their reinforcements. But they were also still taking casualties, as the Russian missilers cheated forward to potshot them. Still awaiting for their arbalester reinforcements—not realizing yet what had occurred upfield from them—the Almohads were very tired, discouraged from having had their army forced into retreat all day, and worried about so many casualties to their own unit and the entire Almohad army.

    It was at this time that Zhiroslavov brought on his other 2 boyar companies. As soon as they came into sight, they both began racing forward toward the Almohad right rear flank. At the same time, the 2 boyars far upfield called off their pursuits of routing arbalesters and began to run towards the Almohad left rear. It was too much for the Almohads, they threw down their weapons and began to run.

    The boyars pursued the remnants of the Almohad army off the field, capturing several hundred of them. It was a decisive victory for Zhiroslavov. Originally outnumbered 2404 to 3297, the Russians had killed 2144 Almohads and captured 650. The Russian casualties numbered 641.

    This battle was to prove the turning point in the struggle between the Almohads and the Russians for domination. Reeling from their defeat in Swabia, with their generals’ loyalties wavering, the Almohads would be pushed out of three more Western European provinces in the next two years and Tsar Andrei II was then able to claim control of over 60% of the known world.
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