Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800 History of Warfare
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Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800 History of Warfare Editors Kelly DeVries Loyola University Maryland John France University of Wales, Swansea Michael S. Neiberg United States Army War College, Pennsylvania Frederick Schneid High Point University, North Carolina VOLUME 72 Th e titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/hw Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800 Edited by Brian J. Davies LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 Cover illustration: Detail of the View of the Siege of Polotsk by Stephen Bathory (1533-86) in 1579 (engraving), Mack, Georg the elder (c.1556-1601).Image ID: CZA 228782. © Czartoryski Museum, Cracow, Poland / Th e Bridgeman Art Library. Th is book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800 / edited by Brian L. Davies. p. cm. -- (History of warfare, ISSN 1385-7827 ; v. 72) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-22196-3 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Europe, Eastern--History, Military--16th century. 2. Europe, Eastern--History, Military--17th century. 3. Europe, Eastern--History, Military--18th century. I. Davies, Brian L., 1953- II. Title. DJK47.W37 2012 355.020947’0903--dc23 2011042137 ISSN 978 9004 22196 3 (hardback) ISSN 978 9004 22198 7 (e-book) ISBN 1385-7827 Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. CONTENTS Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Brian Davies Economic Eff ectiveness of the Muscovite Pomest’e System: An Examination of Estate Incomes and Military Expenses in the Mid-16th Century.......................................................................19 Janet Martin Th e Habsburg Defense System in Hungary Against the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century: A Catalyst of Military Development in Central Europe .........................................................35 Géza Pálff y Th e Polish-Lithuanian Army in the Reign of King Stefan Bathory (1576–1586) ............................................................................63 Dariusz Kupisz Guliai-gorod, Wagenburg, and Tabor Tactics in 16th–17th Century Muscovy and Eastern Europe ..............................................93 Brian Davies Th e Flodorf Project: Russia in the International Mercenary Market in the Early Seventeenth Century .......................................109 Oleg A. Nozdrin Food and Supply: Logistics and the Early Modern Russian Army ......................................................................................119 Carol B. Stevens Crimean Tatar Long-Range Campaigns: Th e View from Remmal Khoja’s History of Sahib Gerey Khan .................................147 Victor Ostapchuk Th e Siege of Azov in 1641: Military Realities and Literary Myth .......................................................................................173 Brian J. Boeck vi contents Th e Generation of 1683: Th e Scientifi c Revolution and Generalship in the Habsburg Army, 1686–1723 .....................199 Erik A. Lund Command and Control in the Seventeenth-Century Russian Army ......................................................................................249 Peter B. Brown Ottoman Military Power in the Eighteenth Century ..........................315 Virginia Aksan List of Contributors .................................................................................349 Bibliography .............................................................................................353 Index .........................................................................................................357 INTRODUCTION Brian Davies Scholars in Central and Eastern Europe have produced a rich literature on the military history of Eastern Europe—Polish and German histo- rians have been especially prolifi c–but until recently little of it was made available in English. Anglophone readers are therefore less famil- iar with the ways in which resource mobilization for war, the conduct of war, and the impact of war on the state and society diff ered in Eastern from Western Europe. Th is has perpetuated some misunderstandings about the geopolitical centrality of Western European military con- fl icts in the early modern period and the extent to which Western European techniques associated with “Military Revolution” had already become essential prescriptions for the military success of states. We hope that the essays in this volume will help address these misconcep- tions. Th ese essays reveal the scale of destructiveness of Eastern European wars over the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries and the enor- mous consequences these wars had for the balance of power elsewhere, in the West and in Asia; they also provide knowledge useful for criti- cally unpacking two of the prevailing paradigms in early modern mili- tary history, the concepts of Military Revolution and Fiscal-Military State, testing how far either is applicable to early modern Eastern European experience. In comparing Western and Eastern European military practice in the 16th–18th centuries it is fi rst important to recognize that there could have been no single, monolithic Eastern European “mode of warfare” any more than there was a comprehensive, uniform Western mode. Diff erences in terrain, length of campaign season, population densities, and above all in the constellations of warring powers make it necessary to speak here of at least two great military theaters in Eastern Europe in the early modern period, each with its own distinctive reper- tory of military practices. Th ey were not the only identifi able theaters in Eastern Europe, but they were the two most signifi cant, and they present a striking contrast in terms of military praxis. Th e Baltic theater of war extended across northern Eastern Europe from the Oresund into Ingria and Karelia, and from Scania and Karelia 2 brian davies as far south as central Poland and the Smolensk road to Moscow. Population density and urban commercial development were greater here than in the Pontic theater of war to the south, making it easier for armies to forage and extort “contributions.” Th e larger port cities of the old Hanse along the southern Baltic coast were especially rich strategic prizes because of the tribute and control of terms of Baltic trade they off ered. But the longer winter season and the heavy rains of autumn discouraged long operations and required that armies be demobilized at winter’s approach or sent into winter quarters. Th e dense network of rivers and tributary rivers facilitated movement of artillery and provi- sions by barge, which was cheaper and faster than carriage overland. Because settlement was denser armies could follow shorter march routes between respites. Th ick forest, marshland, and narrow winding roads tended to slow march rates, however, particularly on major expe- ditions where larger armies were followed by long trains. Long delays along comparatively short march routes occurred when baggage wag- ons caused bottlenecks or slid off -road. Th e abilities to lay down cordu- roy roads and erect pontoon bridges were quicker to become necessary skills in the Baltic theater. Th ere were some large-scale and decisive fi eld battles in the wars of the Baltic theater (Orsza, Klushino, Dirschau, Warsaw, Kliszów, etc.), but they do not provide a clear test of the superiority of Mauritsian line tactics—this is true even of many of Gustav II Adolf’s battles—in part because terrain was oft en too broken to facilitate line tactics, troops lacked the drill to master more than the most elementary fi ring systems, and because commanders still preferred to trust to cavalry action to decide the fi nal outcome. At Kirchholm and at Klushino Polish husarz cavalry routed much larger forces of Swedish and Scots musketeers and pikemen.1 Except in Swedish and mercenary forces pikes were not much used—janissary, haiduk, and strelets infan- try largely dispensed with them. To substitute for pike protection mus- keteers were oft en deployed behind fi eld fortifi cations or in a wagenburg. Sieges were more common than fi eld battles and until the beginning of the eighteenth century the capture of enemy strongholds was considered a more important campaign objective than attriting or 1 Robert I. Frost, Th e Northern Wars, 1558–1721 (Harlow, London, New York: Longman, 2000), 63–64, 67–68. introduction 3 destroying enemy fi eld armies. Until the mid-17th century, when some Baltic coast cities were refortifi ed with trace italienne works, most for- tresses were old curtain-wall stone fortresses and not very large (with the exceptions of Ivangorod and Smolensk), or, as in Muscovy and Lithuania, palisade or ostrog-style wooden fortresses with high towers. One would suppose both types to be more vulnerable to bombardment than the trace italienne, except that the heavy rains and early freezing