Everyone is well aware of the victory won by the united squads of Prince Dmitry Donskoy in Kulikovo Field in 1380. However, not everyone knows that it was preceded by another battle, which went down in history as a battle on the River Vozhe, and which covered Russian weapons with no less glory. It took place two years earlier, and was the first major defeat of the Golden Horde, dispelling the myth of its invincibility.
The internal problems of the Golden Horde
By this time, the once united Horde, gathered in a powerful fist by its founder Genghis Khan, was experiencing a process of internal strife and strife. After the assassination of Khan Berdibek in 1358, several dozen contenders fought for the right to have supreme power.
The closest to achieving the goal was Mamai - the son-in-law of the murdered ruler, but, not being Genghiside - a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, he did not have the right to become ruler of the Horde, and skillfully promoted his protege Abdullah, whose pedigree met all the requirements.
Victory over the Bulgars
In the spring of 1376, Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich, taking advantage of the weakening of the Golden Horde caused by the turmoil mentioned above, sent his squad, led by governor D.M. Beaver-Volynsky to the middle Volga. There, his army, defeating the Bulgars, who were Mamai’s proteges, took a considerable reward from them, amounting to 5 thousand rubles, and, in addition, replaced the local customs officers with the people of the prince.
News of this infuriated Mamaia. On his orders, one of the Tatar commanders named Arab Shah ravaged the Principality of Novosil, located in the upper reaches of the Oka and Don, and then, having won a victory over the Russian squads on the Pyan River, continued on his way to Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod.
Absurd defeat
This defeat of the Russian troops is rarely mentioned in popular historical literature. The reason for this is not only the tragedy of the event, which cost the lives of several thousand warriors, but mainly the absurdity that led to it. According to chroniclers, this was the case.
Due to the fact that the news of the approach of the enemy was received long before its appearance, in Nizhny Novgorod it was possible to form and send to meet him a large well-armed army, under the command of Moscow Prince Dmitry Ivanovich himself. However, days passed, and the enemy did not appear. Not wanting to waste time in vain, the prince returned to Moscow, and the command entrusted the young prince Ivan - the son of the Nizhny Novgorod ruler.
The army entrusted to him, Prince Ivan took to the bank of the Drunken River, and began to wait for the enemy, about which nothing was heard before. Boredom and idleness reigned in the camp, which, as you know, is the mother of all vices. Everyone began to while away his time.
Someone went hunting in the nearby forests, someone catches songbirds, and the vast majority of warriors gave themselves to the most unbridled drunkenness. It was it, as the ancient author admits with shame, that caused the bloody battle that the Tatars suddenly appeared on the banks of the river.
Another campaign of the Horde
Momai, encouraged by such a successful start of hostilities, two years later moved an army of many thousands under the command of an experienced general Begic against the Moscow prince himself. The battle on the river Vozhe in 1378 was for him a very sad result of this campaign. Wanting to raise his prestige, he almost lost it.
The river Vozha, which is the right tributary of the Oka River, flows in the Ryazan Region and has a very small length, barely exceeding a hundred kilometers. It is known that in the area where the main forces of the Tatars approached it in the beginning of August, there was only one ford, which allowed crossing to the opposite bank, but, approaching it, the Horde stumbled upon a dense defensive barrier set up by the Russian troops in advance.
Military trick of Prince Dmitry
According to the chroniclers, the battle on the Vozha River had a favorable outcome for the Russians, largely due to skillful tactical actions undertaken by Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, who personally took command. Taking advantage of the fact that Begic for several days did not dare to take active measures to master the crossing, he took his troops to a considerable distance, as if giving shore to the enemy. At the same time, the prince placed his forces in the form of an arc with flanks protruding forward.
This was the trick that the Tatars came across. Having crossed the river, and moving forward, they were surrounded on three sides. Historians rightly point out the fact that the battle on the river Vozhe in 1378 demonstrated the ability of Prince Dmitry to take advantage of the surrounding landscape. He then brilliantly demonstrated this quality on the Kulikovo field.
The defeat of the Tatar army
The river Vozha (Ryazan region) in the place where the battle took place flowed between the hilly banks, cut with deep ravines. Dmitry Ivanovich, taking the squad away from the river, lured the enemy just to such a section where his main striking force - cavalry, could not rush forward with a powerful onslaught. As a result, her attack was repelled, which allowed the Russians to go on the counterattack.
The Horde fled, and many of them died, because the river Vozha, which was located behind them, in this case, was a natural obstacle to retreat. In the ensuing ruthless felling of an enemy fleeing, almost the entire command of the Horde forces, including Begic himself, ingloriously died.
The complete destruction of all Tatars was prevented only by a falling night. When, at dawn, the Vozha River emerged from the morning fog, then not one Horde was visible on either its right or left bank. Everyone who was lucky enough to stay alive disappeared under the cover of darkness. The winners were only hastily abandoned by the convoy.
Battle results
The defeat of the Horde troops on the Vozha River had a number of important historical consequences. The main one was that this first major victory of the troops of North-West Russia over the Horde contributed to raising morale among the people. She showed that the enemy, who had been ruled with impunity in the Russian lands for almost a century and a half, can be beaten, and eventually expelled from the homeland. In this sense, the Vozha River was the starting point from which the process began, the result of which was the overthrow of the Tatar-Mongol yoke.
In addition, the events described above became largely fatal for the main enemy of Russia - Khan Mamaia. After the defeat in 1378 of the troops sent by him, the khan quickly began to lose credibility in the Horde, giving way to a younger and stronger competitor - Takhtamysh. Wanting to rectify the situation and keep power slipping from his hands, Mamai made the next year a successful campaign against the Ryazan principality, but already in 1380 he was finally defeated by Dmitry Donskoy in the famous battle on the Kulikovo field.