Part 26: No Country For Old Russians (1574-1575)
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Famously dubbed as the "Russian Death March", the retreat from Sychyovka to Tver took 15 days, most of it through heavy hail, blizzards and followed by a lack of basic needs and food, and resulted in a near annihilation of the defeated Russians, as well as the death of their leader and exalted figure, Ivan Kratkov. Despite his best efforts, he did not witness the birth of a united and free Russian state, but even though Sychyovka has been lost and the Opolcheniye have been almost eradicated, the revolutionaries still had some hope. Boris of Vyazma led the remaining soldiers into Tver on the beginning of February, and began preparing for a final stand. Here and now.
If Tver is lost, then Russia will be lost as well.
The Lithuanians, meanwhile, spent the winter preparing for an invasion. The weather was too harsh and cold for any offensive maneuvers - which was the reason why Radvila's armies did not pursue the fleeing Russian forces. There was some actions in other "fronts" during that time, though - additional reserves were sent from Lithuania Propria in February, which captured Novgorod in March. The Russian defenders attempted to burn the center of the city during the assault, but their plans failed. The leader of the Lithuanian troops, Jonas Chomičius, ordered for the 500 most rebellious captives to be executed in the city square. But besides that, the war was static. And as the bitter cold of the winter came to a close and spring began to bloom, it was about to heat back to full capacity...
The very first thing that the survivors of the winter of 1574 witnessed was a familiar sight - famine. Much like in the Polish Succession War a century earlier, the attrition warfare, constant raids and grain seizing amounted to the masses of the Russian heartland not having enough grain or a good enough harvest to survive - and began dying in droves. Even during the winter, there were reports of hunger from the most war torn region, Smolensk, but now it began to spread to Novgorod, Tver and Vladimir. And in this climate and situation, the Lithuanian Army of Kęstutis Radvila suddenly left their camp and began advancing towards Tver. Under the command of Boris of Vyazma, the city had been preparing for an assault ever since the return of their army, but food reserves were already running low. The defenders were demoralized, many of them already wished to go home. Many others were diseased or struck by hunger. And the civilians still remembered the wrath that Mykolas Glinskis served the city during the Tverian-Lithuanian War, and had reason to be afraid that history will repeat itself.
On June of 1574, the Lithuanians descended on Tver once more...
Despite the preparations, the city had little actual defensive fortifications. Valdislavas I ordered the Tver Kremlin to be demolished and replaced with a monument to commemorate the Lithuanian conquest of the city - a monument that was taken down by the Russian rebellion in it's first stages. Kęstutis Radvila stationed his army in the south, behind the Volga, and began bombarding the city with cannons. In response, the Tverians burned all the bridges leading across the river. This proved to be somewhat effective, as the artillery barrage proved to only be moderately successful at subduing the fortified Russians, and, running low on ammunition for the cannons, the Lithuanians retreated, instead moving around the Volga and connected with the reserves that captured Novgorod in July.
This was the beginning of the last major offensive in the entire war. In late July, the Lithuanians reached Tver a second time, which this time did not have the protection of the Volga River. After a siege of 19 days and an assault against the weakened defenders, the city, the heart of the Russian lands, capitulated. Over 11 000 inhabitants from the town and the surrounding countryside fled to the east. Lithuanian troops captured Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov, Yaroslavl and finally Ryazan in the coming months, with the last one surrendering in January of 1575 - all major population centers in the Russian lands were now held by the Lithuanians. Resistance against their rule persisted, though, as many of the most dedicated rebels moved to the countryside and to the forests to work underground. Quite a few years passed before the rule of Queen Sofija under all of her lands could be finalized.
Many Russians fled to the east, to the steppes, fearing both Lithuanian wrath and the famines and poverty that struck their homeland. Boris of Vyazma himself managed to save a small portion of what use to be the mighty army of the rebellion and followed this "exodus". Life was not easy in the steppe. Many of the Russians were captured by the Tatar raiders still dwelling there and sold to slavery, quite a few turned to the roaming Cossack hosts, but many others settled down, usually along the Volga, where defending against Tatar raids was easier, forming tiny specks of the Russian nation far from their homeland.
Never to return. Not in a "dying" way, though...
And with that, the Great Russian Rebellion was defeated and crushed, Lithuania could relax and look back at this crisis of the 16th century. A lot was lost - it's position in foreign affairs was weakened, the armies of Visegrad ripped away a piece of it's heartland, same with the Ottoman Empire, and in exchange it secured an almost depopulated region with sentiment definitely not in favor of the Queen. The world had changed in those years, too. There was a lot to catch up on.
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The world in 1575 (full size here)
Slate grey territory represents minor states: in Germany, Ireland, Yucatan, Central and West Africa, SE Asia and Manchu.
Light grey represents uninhabited or sparsely inhabited lands and territory with no defined "states", i.e. tribal or pre-agricultural.
