The latest events around Ukraine gain global alert. The all-around attention calls for the study of the East-European military history, of which the “Ukrainian issue” has been central since the second half of the 15th century. The studies of the conflicts and forces in Eastern Europe must have the same prominence as the military history of Western Europe, the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East and South-Eastern Asia. Historians have to research the development of warfare in Eastern Europe, tracking the numerous wars there in detail.
More of, historians have to explain the specific East-European warfare phenomenons, such as the intrinsic trend to the hegemony over the subcontinent by military power and the disconnection of the military leverage of the international policy from the fundamental economic and social determinants. Both properties put apart the East-European history from the history of Western Europe, they have to be studied in the past, and the knowledge brought to now-a-day service.
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•In War on the Eve of Nations: Conflicts and Militaries in Eastern Europe, 1450–1500, Vladimir Shirogorov examines how Eastern European armed forces produced critical geopolitical changes in the region. Analyzing the interactions between changes in warfare and the nation-building process, Shirogorov focuses on developments regarding the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Muscovy, Sweden, the Kazan Khanate, and Ottoman Turkey.
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A SYNOPSIS OF THE BOOK
The background of events
In the geopolitical Grand Design of Eastern Europe, the year 1500 marked the passage between the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Time. The territorial partition for the nation-building was fixed and a confrontation for hegemonic domination over the subcontinent started. The coalitional conflict of 1497–1503, including the pivotal Moscow–Lithuanian War that began in 1500, concluded the former epoch and opened the latter one. One great military event sharpened the edge: the battle of the river Vedrosha on 14 July 1500. The battle showed not only the tactical development of the belligerent armies but also the operative game of the campaign of 1500. Strategically, it demonstrated the crucial rift in Eastern Europe – which hasn’t faded since – between its outer belt of the Baltic region, Poland, the Western Ukraine and Belarus, and the inner landmass of Russia.
In the battle of the Vedrosha, the capability of the combatants’ military models was evaluated in the geopolitical outcome, and the fighting capacity of the clashing armies was compared in action. But the battle is poor in data and obscure in descriptions, although all of them accentuate its tremendous importance. The event could be fruitfully studied only being the outcome of the preceding epoch. The coalitional conflict in Eastern Europe of 1497–1503 became the mature play of forces that had been built up before.
In-depth research reveals that the epoch crowned with the battle of the Vedrosha is quite specific in Eastern European history. It started around 1450 with the rise of the early regular armies in the main military centres of the region, those of the kingdom of Poland and the Grand Principality of Moscow. Both emerging nations were striving – Poland to remain afloat and Moscow to survive – and sensed the inadequacy of their former forces to the urgent challenges. Their armies were self-styled armed agents of societies, lacking the special military organisation and inferior to more solid adversaries. The limited fighting capacity of the Polish magnate-led gentry levy and Moscow’s communal militias coupled with elite horsemen of princely courts pushed the rulers to look for another solution.
New troops were born in conflicts – Poland’s war against the Teutonic Order for Prussia in the 1450s–60s, the Dynastic War in Moscow and its rivalry with the Republic of Novgorod over the consolidation of North-Eastern Rus’ in the 1430s–50s. New model troops were established, the national models for the regular service elaborated and the particular tactics of the professional troops introduced. The objectives of both nations were gained in hard campaigning.
The regular troops demonstrated fighting excellency, but their volumes were not sufficient to press for grand international changes. Effective mass armies were needed, but they were absent. This deficiency paralysed the Polish efforts in the conflict with Hungary for Silesia in the 1470s and led to the disaster of the Crusade venture against Moldavia and Crimea in 1497. The efforts to cut off the Crimean raiding in South-Eastern Poland and the Turkish advance along the Black Sea shores were ruined. The backbone of the levy fractured and Poland was devoid of the mass army until it found a new military model.
In Moscow, the military reforms cancelling the militia service led to a decrease in the army’s numbers, and only due to political quickness and military luck the gains from the conflicts against the Novgorod Republic, the Khanate of Kazan and the Grand Horde were retained in the 1470–80s. Novgorod was conquered, Kazan subjugated and the Grand Horde repelled, but the question of the mass army remained urgent.
Soon Poland and Moscow became rivals over Lithuania. Lithuania was a giant country, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea steppes. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it included the western half of former Rus’ destroyed by the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century. While Poland developed its ideology of being the bulwark of Western Catholic Christianity against the schismatic and Muslim East and slowly merged Lithuania in step-by-step Union arrangements, a contending idea was born in Moscow. That was the idea of All Rus’ as the inheritance of the rulers of Moscow after their ancestors, the grand princes of Kiev and Vladimir. It was fed by unforgotten Rus’ unity and the Orthodox belief.
Lithuania was split between the factions of merger with Poland and of independence. A fierce Civil War was fought between the Lithuanian factions in the 1430s, but the dispute wasn’t settled. The conservative oligarchy of magnates took over rule of Lithuania and suppressed any social changes. The Lithuanian military stagnated and lagged behind its dynamic counterparts in Poland and Moscow.
It was the deadly moment when the aggressive Tatar Hordes of the Steppes revived under the Turkish umbrella to prey on Lithuania for spoil and slaves. In 1482 Kiev was burned and sacked by Crimean marauders. The South-Eastern Rus’ was devastated. In the 1490s Crimean raiders penetrated the Lithuanian heartland of the Western Rus’ and Lithuania proper.
The Lithuanian protectorate over the Republic of Novgorod and the Grand Principality of Tver was lost to Moscow in the 1450s–70s. The Grand Horde, a Lithuanian nomadic ally, was defeated by Moscow in 1480. The pro-Moscow insurgency spread over the semi-independent principalities of the Lithuanian South-East, and they switched their allegiance to Moscow. Since the middle of the 1470s, urgent political and military reforms were launched in Lithuania and a lot of progressive military forms introduced but the gap with the Polish, Moscow and Crimean fighting efficiency wasn’t closed. Although Lithuania wasn’t a decomposing polity, it fell under the contest over its partition.
The contest for Lithuania was more important to the geopolitics of the transition from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Time in Eastern Europe than the decay of the Teutonic Order, the decline of the Golden Horde in the Eurasian Steppes, the rise of the Swedish kingdom in the Baltic and the advance of Ottoman Turkey on the northern shores of the Black Sea. It was three centuries-long, fiercely fought and ideologically acute; it heavily influenced the construction of the Polish and Russian nations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it brought into being the contemporary nations of Ukraine and Belarus.
Poland and Moscow invested their fresh regular troops in the conflict and expected their mass national armies to prevail. They couldn’t be created by simply reproducing regular troops on a larger scale because they needed another mobilisation base, administration, weaponry and morale. The quest for the mass army became the pinnacle of the military build-up of the last quarter of the fifteenth century: it would grant military superiority and geopolitical domination to the winner of the race.
Content
•Entering 1500: A Guide to the Book
•The Reign Expeditio: Four Decades of the Polish Fighting Eminence, c. 1450–1490
•Lithuania’s Sequel: A Breakdown and Consolidation of the Lithuanian Military, c. 1450–1485
•A Blind Visionary: Moscow’s Search for Superior Warfare, c. 1450–1480
•A Carousel of Forces: The Interplay of Moscow, Novgorod and Kazan Warfare, c. 1480–1490
•The Operational Theatre: Approaching the Partition of Eastern Europe, c. 1485–1500
•Inside 1500: The Campaign of Eastern Europe’s Partition
•A Pot for Two Heads: Conclusions and Explanations
•Appendix: The Action Schedule of Eastern Europe, c. 1450–1500
Index of Persons
Index of Notions
Geographical Index
Annotation of the chapters
Entering 1500: A Guide to the Book
The Layout of conflict. The triple maxim of a military in History. – The challenge of historiography and sociology. – On names and notions. A reading guide. – A post mortem. – All Rus’. – The count of blood. – The eastward axis.
Notes about the field of study and methodology.
The climax of the epoch came with the confrontation on the river Vedrosha in 1500.
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The Reign Expeditio: Four Decades of the Polish Fighting Eminence, c. 1450–1490
The Krasna alarm. – Dracula’s student. – Spiral of warfare. – The ascension of the tabor. – The dead and survivors. – The lizard of Konitz. – Bidding for Wilkomierz. – Tannenberg redressed. – The Oboz paramount. – The iron nut cracked. – Et in Bohemia ego. – The black siege. – A combat beauty awakened. – Twilight of fighting.
Polish warfare of the High Middle Ages was established by King Casimir III in the 1340s as the well-organized levy. New challenges emerged for Casimir IV. In the 1450s the Teutonic Order regained its perfection of fighting utilising the Central European mercenaries. The Teutons defeated the Polish levy-based armies and turned back the tide of Polish pressure. Starting in the 1460s Poland replaced its feudal levy with the army of professionals with the distinctive tactic of the wagon array. The national Polish model of the commissioned service of the regular horse troops was introduced. The contracted units of the foot mercenaries were rented from abroad. The offices of the overall military build-up and field command were incepted. The mixed mass army of Poland of the levy, native hired professional horse and mercenary foot was created. It matched the political ideals of the Polish gentry class, but it fell in Bohemia in 1477 and occurred wrong in the dynastic war for the Hungarian crown in 1490–92. It was ineffective against the Crimean raiding intensifying since the 1470s. The sound results of the professional troops led to the establishment of the regular corps of the border defence. The inertia mass of the levy and the dynamic professional troops remained unconsolidated.
The major conflicts observed:
The Polish intervention in the Lithuanian Civil War of 1432–40 and the battle of Wilkomierz in 1435;
The Polish venture in Bohemia in 1438 supporting the aspiration of the Polish prince Casimir for the Bohemian Crown;
The Polish intervention in the dispute of Moldavian factions in 1450 and the battle of Krasna;
The Polish involvement in the War for the Hungarian Crown in 1440–43;The Hungarian-Polish Crusading invasion of European Turkey in 1443–44 and the battles of Kunovica and Varna in 1444;
The Thirteen Years’ War of Poland and the Prussian Union against the Teutonic Order of 1454–66 with the battles of Konitz in 1454, Schwetz in 1462 and other actions;
The War for the Bohemian succession between Poland and Hungary in 1471–78 with the siege of Breslau in 1474;
Moldavia’s resistance against the Turkish invasions with the battles of Vasluj in 1475 and Neamt in 1476, the Ottoman taking of the Chilia and Akkerman port-fortresses in 1484 and the battle of lake Katlabuh in 1485;
The Crimean depredation of Polish Rus’ in the late 1470s–80s with the devastation of Galicia in 1474 and combats of Savranka and Koperstin in 1487;
The Polish venture in Hungary in 1490–92 following the claim of the Polish prince John Albert for the Bohemian Crown with the battle of Presov in 1492.
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Lithuania’s Sequel: A Breakdown and Consolidation of the Lithuanian Military, c. 1450–1485
Rus’ insidious. – The conference of Lutsk. – The Civil War feigned. – An oligarchy next. – A top lapse. – The steppes’ star. – Defence alternatives. – Force of three. – A Crimean tartar. – The coming of Wil. – The Kievan crossbreeds. – The Volhynian transplant and Severa emigre.
The Civil War of 1432–40 was fought in Lithuania between the faction of independence and one of merger with Poland, without a clear edge of either of them. The course of the Civil War was heavily influenced by the Polish involvement with the first faction and the Golden Horde’s support of the latter one. An intermediate party of magnates triumphed and established the rule of the conservative Oligarchy. The ancient social-military model of Rus’ constituted in Lithuania by Grand Prince Olgierd in the 1350s–70s stagnated. The Tatar Hordes of the Steppes revived to strike. The Crimean Khanate consolidated under the Ottoman protectorate. Lithuanian South-Eastern Rus’ was devastated. Moscow denied Lithuania’s ancient protection rights over the Republic of Novgorod and the Grand Principality of Tver. Lithuania wasn’t able to participate in the onslaught of the Grand Horde on Moscow in 1480 and the Grand Horde was defeated. Casimir IV initiated reforms promoting the new generation of Lithuanian political and military leaders. They introduced innovatory military forms and revived traditional institutions. But the Lithuanian rally lagged behind the dynamics of Poland and Moscow and didn’t catch up with the rise of Crimea.
The major conflicts observed:
The Lithuanian Civil War of 1432–40 with the battle of the river Styr and siege of Lutsk in 1431; battle of the river Murafa in 1432; battle of Krasnopol in 1438; and sabotage in the castle of Troki in 1440;
The intervention of the Grand Horde of the khan Sayid Ahmed in Lithuania in 1433–55;
The Turmoil in the Golden Horde of 1419–37 and following conflicts of its fragmentation in the 1450s–60s;
The Genoese expedition to Crimea in 1434 and the engagement of Karakhoz;
The Ottoman capture of the Crimean seashore in 1475 with the taking of Kaffa and Mangup; and imposing of the Turkish protection over the Crimean Khanate;
The aborted Lithuanian participation in the onslaught of the Grand Horde of khan Ahmed on Moscow in 1480;
The Crimean raiding in Lithuania and its overrunning of the Northern Black Sea Steppes with the taking of Kiev in 1482.
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A Blind Visionary: Moscow’s Search for Superior Warfare, c. 1450–1480
A yoke-style. – Praying to the enemy’s God. – The fourth capital. – The maxima of 1446. – A spear and an arrow. – The republic amok. – A bear neither dumb nor numb. – Moscow’s river-borne campaigns. – Novgorod explored. – The edge of Bereg. – Grandes battagliones of Moscow: First echelon. – Novgorod blood-sucked. – The prince and subterfuge. – The khan of Doomsday.
North-Eastern Rus’ converted its pre-Mongolian military inheritance and Mongolian adoptions into the peculiar Russian style of warfare combining contracted noble horse troops and communal militias. The Golden Horde split, its domination weakened. The Kazan Khanate boomed as the new hub of the Tatar-Islamic ascension. The Moscow Grand principality wrecked in the Dynastic War of 1425–53. The Republic of Novgorod arose superior in arms, developing its particular military model of the pensionary heavy horse, contracted troops of mercenary princes, professional amphibian armies of the magnates and city militia. In 1446 the grand prince Vasily II of Moscow switched from contracted noble horse troops and communal militia to the new army combining the regular court corps and Kasimov Tatar mercenaries. The rest of North-Eastern Rus’ lagged, and Moscow consolidated its gains. Novgorod lost its edge. Moscow launched long-range river-borne campaigns and suppressed Kazan. Moscow defeated the Novgorod Republic in 1471. The major incursion of the Grand Horde in 1472 was cut abruptly. Moscow enrolled the forces of North-Eastern Rus’ and arranged them in new-style territorial troops. Moscow annexed the Novgorod Republic in 1478 abolishing its political and military institutions. The Livonian Order ravaged Moscow’s dependent the Republic of Pskov. The general invasion of the Grand Horde in 1480 was fought to a standoff.
The major conflicts observed:
The War of the Kazan emergence, with the battles of Belev in 1437 and Suzdal in 1445;
The climax of the Moscow Dynastic War of 1425–53 with the battle of Galich in 1450;
The Republic of Novgorod’s war against the Livonian Order in 1444–47 with the amphibian battle of the Narva estuary;
The Moscow’s war against Novgorod in 1456, with the battle of Rusa;
The Moscow’s war against the Khanate of Kazan of 1467–69, with the Moscow amphibian attacks on the city of Kazan and the on-river battles of Zvenich Bor and Kama estuary;
The Moscow’s war against Novgorod in 1471 with the battle of the river Shelon; Moscow’s counter-amphibian actions of Korostyn and New Rusa; the amphibian battle on the river Shelenga;
The amphibian expedition of the Vyatka Republic to the residence capital of the Grande Horde of Saraychik in 1471;
The attack of the Grand Horde on the Moscow defensive barrier, the river Oka, in 1472 with the Horde’s taking of Aleksin and the battle of the Mitkov ford;
The Moscow’s armed suppression of Novgorod in the winter of 1477–78;
The armed upheaval of the appanage princes of the Moscow house against the Grand prince Ivan III in 1480;
The amphibian assault of the Moscow and Kasimov troops on the residence capital of the Grande Horde of Saraychik in 1480;
The on-land and amphibian assault of the Livonian Order on Moscow’s dependent the Republic of Pskov in 1480;
The Grand Horde’s onslaught on Moscow in 1480 resulting in a standoff on the river Ugra;
The assault of the Siberian Khanate and Nogay Horde on the roaming capital of the Grand Horde in 1480 and the assassination of the khan Ahmed.
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A Carousel of Forces: the Interplay of Moscow, Novgorod and Kazan Warfare, c. 1480–1490
The ideals of Moscow and Co. – Novgorod converted. – Tver absorbed. – Kazan’s portfolio. – The khanate anticlockwise. – Grandes battagliones of Moscow: Second echelon. – On steel and breed.
The small volume of regular troops and the infirmity of militia pressed the grand prince Ivan III of Moscow to establish regular territorial forces of a new model that adapted the Lithuanian precedents, Novgorodian forms of organisation, Kazan’s experience and Byzantine legislation. The central bureaucratic management of the national military build-up and war-waging was established. Standardisation of weaponry and tactical reform followed. The Grand Principality of Tver was annexed and transformed according to the new Moscow military model as well as the Novgorod Republic. At the same time, the Khanate of Kazan constructed its effective military model with the Horde’s heritage and Central Asian adoptions. Moscow launched the invasion and enforced Kazan’s allegiance.
The major conflicts observed:
Moscow’s annexation of the Grand principality of Tver in 1485;
Moscow’s war against the Khanate of Kazan in 1487, with the siege and surrender of Kazan;
Moscow’s annexation of the Republic of Vyatka in 1489.
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The Operational Theatre: Approaching the Partition of Eastern Europe, c. 1485–1500
Lithuania galvanised. – Buffer wars. – The Cossackdom authored. – Vyazma’s sabotage. – A wound of Wisniowec. – The thunder of Vyborg. – Ivangorod amphibious. – Jagellonian thorns. – Arrogant strategists and humble tactician. – Bali’s seasons. – The Crimea’s transcontinental.
After the ascension of grand prince Alexander to the Lithuanian seat in 1492, Lithuania capitalised on the reforms of Casimir IV. The advanced military forms, found before, were promoted: the large mercenary army was rented in Poland; the garrisons of marginals were hired from the frontier settlers, and the strengthened noble levy was moved into action. Lithuania took a tough stance against Moscow in the Oka Upper reaches and against the Crimea in South-Western Rus’. In the following confrontation, Lithuania was pressed by the superior Moscow forces and was defeated by the Crimeans, but it didn’t give up and fell apart. Crimean khan Mengli Geray established the new operational design for his raids on Lithuania and Poland. He arranged western and central raiding hubs in the Bucak Steppe and Dnieper estuary, in addition to the traditional raiding base of the Crimea’s Perekop isthmus. He also fortified logistical raiding passes across the Dnieper. Sweden recharged its expansion in Karelia along the Gulf of Finland; the Swedish regular army of mixed mercenary and the native stock was born. Moscow deployed its new model army against Sweden, and Sweden utilised its advanced warfare techniques against the Moscow attack. The struggle resulted in a stalemate. In 1497 Poland and Lithuania mobilised and launched the joint two-thorn offensive towards the Turkish Black Sea ports of Chilia and Akkerman across Moldavia and on the Crimea. The Lithuanian army turned back after the vanguard action against the Crimeans in Podolia. The Polish army was heavily defeated by Moldavian troops in the battle of the Kozmin forest. The Ottoman retaliation of a grand scale followed. In two attacks in 1498, the Polish armed resistance was suppressed, and the South-East of Poland was devastated. In 1499–1500 Khan Mengli Geray launched giant circular raids over Eastern Poland to the vicinity of the Baltic and back to Crimea across the Lithuanian heartland
The major conflicts observed
The pro-Moscow insurgence in the Lithuanian dependent principalities of the Upper reaches of the river Oka and the frontier war between Moscow and Lithuania in 1487–92;
The onslaught of the Grande Horde on the Crimean Khanate in 1490–91 with involvement of the Turkish, Moscow and Kazan forces on the Crimean side;
The Moscow advance against Lithuania in the Upper reaches of the river Oka and war between them in 1493–94;
The Moscow taking of Vyazma in the Lithuanian Smolensk province in 1493;
The Lithuanian counter-attack on the Crimean fortified passes across the Dnieper and on the raiding hub of Ochakov in the Dnieper estuary in 1493;
The Crimean onslaught on Lithuania in 1492–97; the combat of Wisniowiec in 1494; and the Crimean breakthrough across the Pinsk marshes into North-Western Lithuania in 1497;
The Moscow war against Sweden of 1495–97, with Moscow’s siege of Vyborg in 1495 and the Swedish amphibian attack on Ivangorod in 1496;
The Lithuanian onslaught on the Crimea in 1497 and the combat of Braclaw;The Polish invasion of Moldavia in 1497 and the battle of Kozmin forest;
The Turkish invasions of Southern Poland in 1498;
The Crimean circular raids across Eastern Poland to the vicinity of the Baltic and back across the Lithuanian heartland in 1500.
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Inside 1500: The Campaign of Eastern Europe’s Partition
Reason reversed. – The meleé of heirs. – Severa’s rift. – A corps from oblivion. – A knot of stratagems. – Looking for an engagement. – Vedrosha’s protocol.
A new Union of the close military alliance was accorded between Poland and Lithuania in 1499, it was directed against Moscow and Crimea. The transfer of Polish regular troops into Lithuania was smoothed, the Jagellonian reigns of Hungary and Bohemia participated in the joint military efforts sending a large number of mercenaries. The Grand prince Alexander of Lithuania drafted the mixed army of Polish, Czech and Hungarian mercenaries and Lithuanian noble levy. Ivan III suppressed peacemakers in Moscow and mobilises his mass army. The Orthodox princes of the Lithuanian Severa province deserted to Moscow with their possessions. The hostilities between Moscow and Lithuania restarted. The Moscow forces attacked Lithuania in the North-West, West and South-West strategical directions at once. Alexander moved his army to Moscow’s stronghold of Vyazma to destroy Moscow’s central column. The Lithuanians looked for the decisive engagement and marched in concentration. Ivan III hid his operational deployment and played with his reserves. The troops of Kazan campaigned together with the Moscow forces. The resolute engagement of the epoch was going on.
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A Pot for Two Heads: Conclusions and Explanations
Eastern Europe well-done. – The application of forces against the guns and numbers. – Tailoring warfare. – Turning to professionals. – Gaining the mass. – Warfare à la Carte. – Social-military relations reversed. – Ad hominem.
The operational approach emerges as the link between the tactical edge of the troops and large-scale historical changes. The organisation of forces and their application had upturned warfare before the domination of firearms and social spread of the martial craft did. The reverse socialisation and political grab of the advanced military forms came as the postponed cost of the leap of fighting capability.
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Appendix: The Action Schedule of Eastern Europe, c. 1450–1500
A Table of military reforms, build-ups, campaigns, battles, combats, sieges, raids, assaults, riots, acts of sabotage and armed coups. Each of its entries has a brief comment and a reference to its page in the study.
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Bibliography
The bibliography consists of over 500 items in eight languages: Belarusian, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian. The major literature of the field is embraced. English, Polish and Russian titles are in the leading majority. The titles in East-European languages are translated into English to support a choice for further reading.
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Illustrations
There are a couple of dozen references to the Russian Illustrated Anthological Chronicle of the sixteenth century, integrated into the text. Each of them has the link to the digital image of the miniature on the website of a depository.
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Reviews:
“Vladimir Shirogorov unveils a military historical triptych framed around the half-century in which Eastern Europe’s nation-states were born of endemic warfare. The author reveals how twists and turns in campaigning and combat wrought state formation and illuminates how the catalyst of warfare sculpted Eastern Europe.”
— Mark Charles Fissel, Augusta University
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Vladimir Shirogorov’s study of the evolution of military practice in Eastern Europe from 1450 to 1500 offers a valuable narrative on a period and region largely unfamiliar to most Anglophone readers. It has the added virtue of examining not only Polish–Lithuanian and Muscovite military history but integrating developments in the Livonian order, Greta Horde, Crimean Khanate, Bohemia, Kingdom of Hungary, and Moldavia and discussing the practices of recruitment, force organization, and tactics in each of these powers.
— Brian Davies, University of Texas at San Antonio
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An important book that truly does fill a gap, Vladimir Shirogorov’s study tackles a period in Eastern European warfare that has received less attention than the subsequent centuries, although there remains room for a study of the following half-century. Offering what he terms an action-orientated account. Shirogorov in practice provides a study that is military, international, political and sociological, one, indeed, that also highlights the need for a similarly synoptic work for Western Europe. The focus is on Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy, but the range encompasses the Livonian Order, the Great Horde, the Crimean Khanate, and other players in Europe, in what is aptly termed “A Carousel of Forces.”
There is a needs-must, fitness-for-purpose account, although it can at times underplay the complexities of securing outcomes. For example, the following may seem plausible:”In the first half of the reign of Casimir IV, until the 1480s, Lithuania failed to undertake the urgent military reforms [sic]…. As the Polish king, Casimir IV exercised a great deal to advance the Polish army to a very modem level of organisation and tactics, while as the grand prince of Lithuania he did nothing” (134).
That, indeed, is one way to approach the issue, but there is possibly a little-too-much of a needs-must development on a certain trajectory. This is especially the case because of a more general lack of clarity as to how best to assess capability and effectiveness in this period, and indeed every period. At any rate, Ivan III is acclaimed as a visionary, a term also used of others as with Sten Sture.
The discussion of the applicability of the concept of an early-modern European military revolution is instructive, not only because it is found inapplicable for Eastern Europe but also because this raises questions about the validity of the concept for Western Europe itself. For example, and as part of an important longer discussion that cannot be summarised simply in terms of one quotation:
“The “classic” Military Revolution of the firearms, bastions, infantry of commoners, sail gunships and states bureaucracy that allegedly needed to push them to the height of efficiency wasn’t evident. There weren’t new material tools in the armies. The organisation and application of the forces was what mattered (367-8)… the tactical Military Revolution … was distanced from the Military Revolution of the fiscal-military state’ (373).
There is much here to consider. In particular, the range of circumstances and developments in Eastern Europe comes to the fore. Indeed, the very concept of Eastern Europe deserves scrutiny, as also, for example, with economic history. Inherently a region that, however defined, is larger than Western Europe, this diversity is also one that undermines the kind of past simplification or primitivisation that continues to the present. Scholars such as Larry Wolff in Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilisation on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, 1996), have produced significant accounts of this past process that remains all-too-apparent in modern discussion by military historians. Similarly, there is reason to reconsider the extent to which other geographical categories would repay consideration.
Given the length and cost of this book, it is unlikely that many will read it, which is a pity but also makes a summary particularly relevant. Here there are a number of problems, not least the difficulty of seeing the wood for the trees. The value of a narrative is clear, not least given the lack of any available, and here there is an instructive parallel with the comparable period in Western Europe prior to the outbreak of the Italian Wars in 1494.
Yet, such a narrative, however valuable, can pose serious problems of clarity and, to a degree, that is the case with this book. Possibly more signposting would have helped, and not just in the form of maps. At any rate, there is the classic issue of balance, and I am not sure this is one that is helpful to the reader. The glibness of so much work on the early-modern period is avoided, but, possibly, the book moves too far in a different direction.At any rate, Shirogorov makes the case very well for agency as opposed to simply structure, with agency approached principally in terms of the ability of individual leaders to respond to circumstances whether changing or not. This, therefore, is a non-Marxist account, and that for an area that suffered long from that intellectual straitjacket, and, not least, from the tendency to offer a materialist and schematic account of military history. The reach toward a non-Marxist account deserves encouragement, but there are clearly a variety of approaches that can be adopted.While it certainly could have been better edited, Shirogorov’s study deserves wide attention.
— Jeremy Black, University of Exeter
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Vladimir Shirogorov 