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The Owl of the steppes
Chapter 1:From Lipka to Qirim

Imagine a sight: a massive campsite, surrounded on all sides by a seemingly endless steppe, completely engulfed by the dark and calmness of the night. And yet, in this atmosphere of peaceful rest, one man couldn’t allow himself such luxuries, at least until one of his messenger’s returns.

This man was Nur Devlet, son of the previous Khan of Crimea - Haci Giray, currently engaged in a war against his younger brother – Menli Giray who wished to usurp his throne. And in this time of need the new Qirim Khan sent messengers to his closest ally – Casimir IV Jaggelion, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in pursuit of help in this affair.

The response from Casimir arrived swiftly. In it the Christian monarch claimed that he wouldn’t abandon his friend and ally in need and would indeed gather a grand army from both of his realms to help the Crimean Khan in defeating his traitorous sibling.

Everything seemed to be going the way Nur Devlet hoped.

Seemed, only seemed.

While Casimir pledged to gather a force from both of his realms, this was impossible as the Teutonic knights and Kingdom of Poland had just signed the second peace of Thorn after 13 years of gruesome and brutal war. This meant that the Polish nobility – the szlachta, was against any sort of further military action and demanded further increase in rights, privileges and even territorial concessions in the form of Ruthenian territories from Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Casimir couldn’t accept this, thus no Polish forces would participate in the upcoming campaign.

Raising a military force in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was also met with opposition from some parts of the nobility, but in this realm the power of the monarch was stronger, not to mention that the Grand Duchy hadn’t suffered a decade of war, thus an army of 15 thousand was organised for the campaign.

Of course, organizing such a force took massive amounts of time, not mentioning the conflicts in Royal Prussia over who should be the bishop of Warmia and the tensions between Hungary and Bohemia, something which Casimir wished to capitalist on to put himself or his son Vladislaus on the throne. Thus the army only began moving southwards in February of 1467, over a year after the plea for help was received. It took several more months for the force to arrive to Kherson, where Nur Devlet waited for them with his own forces.

The last year and a half was difficult for the Khan as he had lost massive swathes of land to his brother’s forces. Everything southern of Don and even the Crimean peninsula itself fell to the forces of Menli Giray, who was now being supported by the Genoese through their colonies in both the peninsula and near the mouth of river Don. This support meant that forces of the claimant to the Crimean throne were not only more numerous than the loyalists, but also better equipped.

Genoans hoped that by supporting one of the sides in this war, especially the claimant to the throne, they would be able to increase their influence in the region and thus ensure control over the trade of the produce that was created in both the peninsula and other territories belonging to the Khanate. However, even with these goals, the forces that the Genoese organised in support of Menli, were just enough to tip the balance of power in favour of the claimant to the Crimean throne.

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"Vyčiai prie Dniepro" (Lithuanian knights near Dniepr)​

This balance of power changed however, with the arrival of Casimir and the ducal army. Of course, while Nur Devlet was informed on the composition of the forces that were coming to help, it’s claimed that he still was surprised that Polish forces weren’t part of the army and was furious over the fact. This event, while seemingly unimportant, is usually cited as the beginning of the difficult relations between the Kingdom of Poland and Khanate of Crimea. However, the force that Casimir had brought with him was more than enough to ensure that loyalists would emerge on the top.

The first target of the Crimean-Lithuanian army were the territories south of river Don, more specifically the Genoese settlement of Tana. It took a substantial amount of time to reach this settlement, due to difficulties crossing the massive river. This gave the Genoan force of 500 stationed in the settlement time to prepare and even get a minor reinforcement from the forces of Menli. However, even with these additions, Tana swiftly fell to the 10 thousand strong force of Nur Devlet and Casimir. Such development allowed the united force to move southwards, reclaiming territories. And while they did encounter substantial opposition, resulting in several battles, such as the bloodbath that was the battle of the Kuban river.

This engagement happened on the October 16th 1468 near the mouth of river Afip, which flowed into Kuban. The forces on both sides were quite uneven, with 8 thousand soldiers on the loyalist side, 5 thousand Tatars and 3 thousand Lithuanians, while the force arrayed against them was only 5 thousand strong, with most of those being Tatars with only a seemingly token force of around 800 Genoese mercenaries. However, the forces loyal to Menli possessed great number of black powder weapons, which while not advanced enough to completely overwhelm their opponents, did somewhat even the fight and ensure that Nur Devlet wouldn’t achieve victory easily.

By the end of the battle nearly half of Devlet’s and Casimir’s forces laid dead, while their opponents had lost a small, in comparison, number of 1600. Of course, while such a situation might seem like a loss for the loyalist forces, it should be noted that by the end of the battle the forces of Menli were the ones retreating as they had simply ran out of ammunition for their weaponry and as such continuing the battle would end in their destruction.

Such a pyrrhic victory, which costed him half of his forces, not counting in casualties that were suffered while pursuing and eliminating the retreating and later on scattered enemy, did imprint several ideas into the mind of the Khan and while he wouldn’t enact any of them during the conflict with his brother, he would put great effort into making them a reality after the war had ended.

By the end of 1468 only the peninsula remained in the hands of Menli Giray and his Genoan allies, who at this point were only on the side of the claimant not due to believing that he can still win, but due to being forced into such position by Nur Devlets refusal to sign a peace treaty with the merchant republic. However this was also the year that Casimir had to leave for Poland for both Bohemia and Hungary were currently in a war over the Bohemian throne and the Jaggelion hoped to use such a conflict in his own advantage. This meant that the leader of the forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania changed, with the mantle being bestowed upon Jonas Kęsgaila (Jan Kieżgajło).

The advance into the Crimean peninsula was quite the bloody affair as both sides were fighting with everything they had. Loyalists suffered daily raids, as the 22 thousand strong force was quite slow in comparison to the numerous small groups of skirmishers that tried to stop them. Of course, Nur Devlet also had a number of his own troops perform raids on the settlements belonging to Menli, but these weren’t as numerous or effective.

Surprisingly there was only one engagement which could be considered a true battle across the campaign as it seems that Menli had hoped, in the last bid of desperation, to defeat his brother in a single battle. This battle was the battle of Bachisaray, which happened on 26th of August 1469, where 18 thousand loyalist Tatars and Lithuanians met with 10 thousand Tatars of Menli and Genoans.

It was a victory for Nur Devlet, who, using the great numerical superiority of his forces, was able to encircle his opposition, removing their advantage of mobility and forcing them to engage in traditional cavalry warfare, where they were simply overwhelmed by the better equipped for such engagements Lithuanian cavalry.

Menli Giray was able to escape capture and fled to the Genoan colonies and latter from them to the Ottoman Empire. The loyalists also suffered substantial losses. However, none of this put a dent into the triumph of Nur Devlet. His opposition was defeated, his traitorous brother had fled and any and all forces that opposed him had either surrendered after the battle or were slain. He was now truly Khan Qirim, the rightful Khan of Crimea.

It is an opinion held by many modern historians that had Menli Giray reached victory over Nur Devlet, both the future of Crimea and future of Eastern Europe would have been extremely different.
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