Russia
Moscow – Time of Troubles
The so-called Time of Troubles, which began with the doomed reign of Boris Godunov, was a saga of destruction, murder and betrayal, but its final chapter, in the Kremlin, was the darkest one of all. In July 1610, a group of boyars, with the support of church leaders and hand-picked citizens, drove Vasily to abdicate. They made sure of his…
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Russian ship Azov (1826)
Azov in Valletta, Malta. Azov is a large ship on the left of the Battle of Navarino painting by Ivan Aivazovsky. Azov was a 74-gun ship of the line of the Imperial Russian Navy. Azov was built in 1826 to compensate the losses of the disastrous 1824 Saint Petersburg flood.…
GOLITSYN IN THEÂ CRIMEA
Vasily Golitsyn The Ottoman failure at Vienna in 1683 led to renewed Russian expansion. Strengthened in 1686 by confirmation of the Andrusovo terms in the Treaty of Eternal Peace with Poland, Russia became committed to war with the Ottoman Empire. The leading minister, Prince Vasily Golitsyn, led two campaigns to…
Russia’s victory at Poltava (1709)
Russia’s victory at Poltava (1709) led to the fall of the Swedish empire in northern Europe. Casualty rates in the battles of this period were formidable. At Poltava the Swedes suffered terrible casualties, as their attack on well-defended Russian posit ions exposed them to superior forces and artillery. Only 14…
The Russian Army of 1812
The Russian Army of 1812 was, in many respects, quite different from the one Napoleon faced in 1805 and 1807. The lessons of Austerlitz, Eylau and Friedland led the Russian government to realize the need for change and to pursue a modernization through military reforms. It was a lengthy process,…
The Pomest’e System
Ivan III began the process of asserting centralized authority over the army. Before his reorganization, the armies available to the grand prince directly reflected the political character of the Russian lands. Each ruling prince, as well as some of the prominent boyars, maintained his own military retinue. This arrangement enabled…
The New Cold War
S-400 air defense system On the face of it, Russia is still an intimidating military power. It has one of the world’s largest armies, excellent special forces, and some remarkable modern weapons. The Shkval torpedo, for example, is an underwater rocket that travels in a capsule of gas created by…