Ivan was the first Russian ruler to invade Europe, and his Campaigns against the Livonian Confederation were initially very successful. In 1558, Russian soldiers occupied Dorpat and Narva, and laid siege to Reval, creating vital trade routes over the Baltic Sea. At the Battle of Ergema the Russians defeated the knights of the Livonian Order, fueling Ivan s dreams of a Russian Empire.
However, as Erik XIV of Sweden recaptured Reval, and the Poles joined forces with the Lithuanians, the war began to turn against Ivan. In 1571, an army of 120,000 Crimean Tatars crossed the River Ugra, crushed the Russian defenses, and burned Moscow to the ground. As Ivan became increasingly paranoid and violent, he carried out a number of terrible massacres. It is thought that more than forty thousand were killed when the Russians sacked the town of Novgorod in 1570, and many were tortured and murdered in front of Ivan and his son.
"Ivan the Terrible" describes the organization and equipment of the tsar s army and the forces of his enemies, the Poles, Lithuanians, Tatars and Livonian Knights. The narrative examines all of Russia s military campaigns in Eastern Europe and Western Siberia during the period of 1533 to 1584. This is the first specialist study of Ivan the Terrible s military strategy to be published in English."
Author(s): Alexander Filjushkin
Publisher: Frontline Books
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 320
City: London
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. Russian Military Forces in the Sixteenth Century: The Infrastructure of the Russian Army
Chapter 2. Who Were the Enemies of Russia in the Sixteenth Century? A Brief Review of Their Military Potential
Chapter 3. The Russian Crusades: Ivan the Terrible Against the Muslims
Chapter 4. From Offence to Defence: The Military Policy of Ivan the Terrible Against the Muslims in the 1560s and 1570s
Chapter 5. Ivan’s Baltic Wars
Chapter 6. The Dispute Over Russian Lands: Ivan’s Policy towards Poland and Lithuania in the Third Quarter of the Sixteenth Century
Chapter 7. The Military Disaster of Ivan the Terrible
Epilogue
Notes
Appendix I: Chronology
Appendix II: List of Rulers
Appendix III: State of Troop Alertness and the Mobilisation Potential of the Armies of Countries Participating in the Wars of Ivan the Terrible
Appendix IV: Comparison of Eastern European Armies of the Sixteenth Century
Bibliography
Index
