Battle of the Wedrosch

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Battle of the Wedrosch
Part of: Russo-Lithuanian War 1500–1503
date July 14, 1500
place Near the Vedrosch River, near the present day city of Kaluga
output Russian victory
Parties to the conflict
Commander
Troop strength
about 40,000 men
about 40,000 men
losses
low
8,000

The Battle of the Wedrosch was one of the most momentous battles in the late medieval history of Russia . It occurred on July 14, 1500, about 50 km west of Kaluga near the Wedrosch River, between the armed forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the leadership of the Lithuanian hetman, Prince Konstantin Ostroschski , and the Russian army under Prince Daniel Shtschenja .

The Russian general used a similar tactic that had already helped the Russians to defeat the Mongols from the Golden Horde in the battle on the Kulikowo Pole . Wedrosch was a decisive victory for the Muscovite Grand Dukes in “collecting” the Ruthenian principalities , which until 1240 had belonged to the Kievan Rus , which fell during the Mongol storm and were completely absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the end of the 14th century due to a weak phase of the Horde in the southwest . After the battle, the Lithuanians suffered a high number of victims, and no less were taken prisoner by Russia, including Ostrogski himself, who was imprisoned in Vologda .

The battle led to the signing of an armistice treaty in 1503, according to which considerable territories, especially what is now eastern Ukraine and western Russia, fell to the Grand Duchy of Moscow (about a third of the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania). After Ostrogski had sworn an oath to the Moscow Grand Duke and was released, he made several attempts at reconquest, but even his significant victory in the Battle of Orsha in 1514, during the Russo-Lithuanian War 1512-1522 , did not bring Lithuania any political-territorial advantages more. In 1522 the Russians contractually secured Smolensk and its surrounding area , which they had conquered in 1514 .

Remarks

The battle was described by Siegmund von Herberstein in his Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (1549). Herberstein made an ironic remark that the Muscovite Grand Duke "achieved in one battle what the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas had needed all his life to do."

See also

Individual evidence

  1. a b Nikolai Karamsin . History of the Russian State . Volume VI. St. Petersburg.; 1819. - p. 299.

Coordinates: 54 ° 49 ′ 7 ″  N , 33 ° 28 ′ 37 ″  E