PC/WI: Surviving Khanate of Kazan

With a PoD before the Siege of Kazan (1552), how can we foster the tatar-dominated Khanate of Kazan to survival face the muscovites?
If the Khanate survives, then what happens next?
Will they forge an alliance with the Crimean Tatars?
Could Kazan end up colonizing Siberia instead of Muscovy?
What happens to the Nogay Horde, the Kazakh Horde, and the Astrakhan Khanate?
 
Now this one is a really tricky one. To be completely honest with you I think that Muscovy can fail to take Kazan in 1552 but overall Muscovite conquest of Kazan is pretty much inevitable.

The reason is pretty simple – even by XV century Muscovy has several times larger population and much more developed economy. While tactical successes can buy Kazan some time strategically their situation is desperate.
Moreover even peaceful coexistence is more or less unfeasible. While most Kazani population is settled the ruling class consists of Tartars whose primary (or at the very least major) occupation for several generation was pillaging and extorting payments from Russian lands. Unless they suffer major defeats they are very unlikely to stop (in OTL even regular loosing wars and submission to Muscovite terms every 20 or so years didn’t stop Tartars from raiding). Even if by some miracle local elites decide to discontinue raids it would only demonstrate Muscovy Kazan’s weakness and increase the desire to annex/put under tight vassalization.
The only deal that can both satisfy Muscovy and let Kazan remain intact for the time being is something akin to OTL Muscovite-Qasim Khanate relationship. But a) it was exactly what Muscovy repeatedly tried to enact and that for some reason was completely unacceptable to local elites b) it is probably not what OP wants since Kazan by such settlement would definitely have no foreign policy of its own, would probably lose a substantial portion of its territory to Muscovy proper and would eventually be annexed by Russia like Qasim Khanate was IOTL.

One could argue that Crimean Khanate was in similar circumstances and yet managed to hold on until second half of XVIII century. However Crimean Khanate had two invaluable advantages that Kazan Khanate didn’t have.

1. Logistical inaccessibility. Crimean Khanate was separated from settled areas of Muscovy and Grand Duchy of Lithuania by 1000 km strip of unsettled steppes without any good communications that could support a large European army ( Don doesn’t really get you to Crimea while Dniepr had portages that allowed Crimean army to effectively block water transport movement). Moreover Crimea is virtually an island in a sea that is completely dominated by Ottoman fleet (thus allowing Crimean and Ottoman forces to use sea transport and preventing enemy to do this) and has basically two points of access both of which were fortified and well-garrisoned.
So you see that Crimea is a really, really hard nut to crack. The only reasonable strategy against it that Russia was able to implement IOTL is to slowly, generation by generation, reduce this steppes gap by settling a northern fringes of it and erecting a continuous fortified line (abatis line, Zasechnaya Cherta in Russian) that defends it and is able to reduce the effect of raids. Only when settled and fortified area reached Dniepr portages Crimea become reachable by Russian armies.
BTW this is the reason why I personally am really, really skeptical to any PODs or butterflies allowing Russia to crush Crimean Khanate before say mid-XVII century (e. g. cliché one where Ivan IV by some reasons decides to crush Crimean Khanate instead of Livonian War and triumphally accomplishes it) - while settlement up to Dniepr portages can be spead up it cannot take much less than 100 years and without such settlement Russia cannot realistically supply an army in Crimea sufficient to crush it.

Having said all this about Crimea let us look at Kazan. It lies on Volga - a major water artery less than 400 km from core Muscovite territory (all of which from Kaluga and Ryazan to Yaroslavl and Kostroma, from Rzhev and Tver to Nizhny Novgorod including Moscow itself is in this artery’s drainage basin). Can supply line to Kazan be even more convenient to use? Well, yes if you build one or two fortresses between Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. This is exactly what Muscovy did IOTL with building Vasilsursk in 1523 and Sviyazhsk in 1551 and I don’t see any realistic ways Kazan can stop this from happening IOTL.


2. The second major Crimean advantage is that it had a “Big Brother” Ottoman Empire that could always step in if things became fishy. Ottoman Empire also provided Crimean Khanate access to modern weapons and artillery (as well as trained infantry and gunners for Crimean fortresses), fleet to defend its shore, market to sell its goods (mainly slaves) etc. etc. The shear military and political power made conquest of Crimean Khanate an extremely challenging task even when it finally became logistically possible (IOTL after many unsuccessful attempts it took Russia one crushing victory over Ottomans to vasslize Crimean Khanate and another one to finally annex it).

Kazan OTOH lies on the Muscovite side of 1000 km steppes gap. While IOTL they tried to swear allegiance to Ottomans it lead to nothing – even with Crimean support Ottomans couldn’t project force to either threaten Muscovite core territories or reach Kazan (even much closer to Ottomans and much further from Muscovy Astrakhan already was an extreme logistical challenge for the Turks; while with proper Crimean Khan support the 1569 campaign could probably achieve some form of success, Astrakhan would be reconquered by Muscovy shortly after because of logistical reasons).
All other neighbors of Kazan are much less populous and powerful and cannot really shift the balance between Muscovy and Kazan Khanate.


Muscovy of course had other enemies but I find longterm alliance of Kazan with say Lithuania or Sweden extremely implausible. Even if such alliance somehow could have been forged Muscovy lies between Kazan and its potential allies thus any sort of meaningful coordination beween allies is impossible.




IOTL Muscovy had all sorts of disasters when trying to subjugate Kazan – bad luck (in 1478 when bad weather helped Kazan to survive), faulty strategy (in 1487 Muscovy had taken Kazan but instead of annexing the state simply put pro-Muscovite ruler to govern it; of course soon after Russian troops left he quickly became anti-Muscovite), inability to push when necessary (in 1507), tactical mistakes (in 1524 when supply train for besieging Kazan troops was insufficiently guarded and thus destroyed by Kazani) even shear idiocy of high command (in 1530 Muscovite troops waited for whole day at Kazan’s open gates until two supreme commanders of Muscovite argued over who of them should enter Kazan first; after several hours of inaction Kazani finally decided to close the gates)

The fact that after all possible mistakes and mishaps Muscovy was still able to conquer Kazan is in my eyes a testament that such conquest was inevitable.





Having said all that one of course can explore early enough PODs that prevent one principality dominance over the Great Principality of Vladimir lands which would allow Tartar states to play smaller principalities against each other and thus shift balance in the region dramatically possibly allowing the existence of Tartar states for several more centuries.
But since by late XIV century Moscow dominance is pretty much a done deal and Kazan Khanate wasn’t even founded before 1437 I think this disqualifies any such PODs for OP’s intention
 
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This is just me popping in to say that Schnurre must have read a lot of the same sources as I did and generally I have nothing much to add where otherwise I may have.

Kazan's problem was that it wasn't anything compared to pre-Timur Great Horde, but behaved like it anyway.

But even if say, Moscow or a replacement Russian state is a non-factor, somehow, Kazan pushing over the Urals would encounter the Bukharans or the Uzbeks, and conflict between them makes Kazan vulnerable to having other Khanates ally against them, so it's trickier than it was for a Moscow that had already defeated all the relevant Khanates other than Crimea, and as Schnure said, had much greater population and a much stronger economy.

EDIT: One of the few tactical strengths of Kazan vis Moscow was the alliances it had with the local Volga peoples (the Arsk princes, the Cheremisians, and even some of the Chuvash and Mordvins on the southern shore); they had a lot of autonomy and didn't revolt nearly as much as against Moscow. That's probably because Kazan didn't actually tax them or build cities in their lands (income mostly came from slave raids and general trade). Good in the short term, a losing strategy in the long term, probably.
 
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@Shnurre @RGB What do you guys think of the prospects of a united Golden Horde under Tokhtamysh that beats Timur?
That `s before the OP `s limit.

While it may be difficult to strengthen Kazan enough by 1550, would it not be possible to f*** Muscovy up somehow? Sure it´s powerful by then, but even powerful states can crumble on their internal inconsistencies...?!
 
That `s before the OP `s limit.

While it may be difficult to strengthen Kazan enough by 1550, would it not be possible to f*** Muscovy up somehow? Sure it´s powerful by then, but even powerful states can crumble on their internal inconsistencies...?!

There's ample opportunity for that (any time during Ivan IV's childhood for example, or Prince Ivan (Ivan the Younger) living and maybe facing a challenge from stepmother Sofia and young Vasily II), the challenge is making it permanent :p

@123456789blaaa : that's a little early yes and I'm not sure how he's going to beat Timur to start with, but yes, a unified Great Horde that hasn't been absolutely devastated would be able to probably keep Moscow off the steppes for much longer.
 

Kaze

Banned
The siege of Kazan is too late for a POD. There are best options for survival -

a. having Ivan the Terrible die early or an incompetent Tsar in his place. Even with an incompetent Tsar the fate of Kazan is the same.
b. Kazan raids and burns Moscow to the ground and conquers Muscovy instead - ASB in my book.
c. other.
 
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