Almost eight centuries ago, on May 31, 1223, a significant battle took place on the Kalka River, in which the Russian princes were defeated …
The events leading up to the battle took place a year earlier. It was in 1222. Then the Mongol-Tatar army under the command of the commanders of Genghis Khan Jebe and Subedei entered the Polovtsian steppes from the North Caucasus. Chroniclers write that the Russian princes received news of this very soon. Their response to this event was stormy and filled with righteous anger. At least, the words of the Kiev prince Mstislav on the subject of this event are known: "While I am in Kiev - on this side of the Yaik, and the Pontic Sea, and the Danube River, the Tatar saber cannot be waved."
Meanwhile, the unfortunate Polovtsians, whom the Mongols swiftly and mercilessly drove deep into the territory, thus winning more and more new lands for themselves, were forced to ask for help from the Russian princes, but not in the usual way in the form of the lowest request, but by blackmail. The key phrase was: "Today they took our land, and tomorrow yours will be taken."
The argument was weighty, and the princes, after consulting, decide that the Polovtsians need to be helped, all the more so since some of them were Polovtsian relatives in the female line. The presence of close family ties obliged the Kiev princes to take decisive action (after all, it is useless to leave loved ones in trouble!). The Kievites also had one more reason to go on a campaign: the risk was too great that the Polovtsy, finding themselves face to face with the enemy's army, would go over to the enemy's side, and then the forces of the invading warriors would increase incredibly!
On reflection, the princes decided to hold a council in Kiev. The squad of Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich Vladimirsky was not in time for the Kiev training camp. Without waiting for Prince Vladimir, three princes headed the council: Mstislav Romanovich, Mstislav Mstislavich and Mstislav Svyatoslavich. Meanwhile, the Polovtsians, for whom a positive decision of the council was vital, send rich gifts to the princes in order to appease them. Moreover, the Polovtsian Khan Basty, who, by the way, is a very influential person, even converted to Orthodoxy. What can you not do for the common good … So, the council decided: "It is better to meet the enemy on a foreign land than on your own." They began to gather a squad. The result was a considerable army, which, alas, had the only but significant drawback: the lack of an integral command. The squads obeyed the orders of only their commanders.
Having received information about the gathering of squads into the army, the Mongols, who, by the way, had a very good intelligence apparatus with, speaking in modern language, professional espionage agents, at the same hour equipped ambassadors to the princes with a proposal to unite and "be friends" against the Polovtsians. The explanation was simple: they say, from them, that is to say, the Polovtsians, the Russians also did not and will not live, and therefore it is better to stick together. The ambassadors listened attentively, nodded their heads, as if agreeing, but the conviction that an enemy, from whom they knew what to expect, was better than a new, but unknown friend, outweighed all reasonable arguments. Order - "kill all the ambassadors!" - was executed immediately. This was an outrageous violation of the unwritten law, which endowed ambassadors with the status of inviolable: "Ambassadors are not forged or knitted, and their heads cannot be chopped off!"Having deprived the ambassadors of their lives, Russia thereby presented itself as a country with outrageous diplomatic illiteracy, the act of the Kiev princes was regarded as real barbarism. As a result, the attitude of the Mongols sharply deteriorated not only towards the princes, but also towards the Russians in general.
The Russian princes acted more sensibly with the second Mongolian embassy that came for negotiations: they were left alive. They came with the following message: “You listened to the Polovtsians and killed our ambassadors; now you come at us, so go; we did not touch you: God is above all of us. The ambassadors were listened to and released in peace.
At that time, Russian squads, marching from different sides of Southern Russia, united and, having crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper, saw an advanced enemy detachment. After a short but extremely difficult battle, the enemy was forced to retreat. Then, for two weeks, the Russians went to sunrise until they came to the banks of the Kalki River.
Until now, no one knows where the bed of this river was. There are a great many versions. Scientists believe that this is most likely the Kalchik River, the right tributary of the Kalmius River, about 88 kilometers long. Most likely, the Kalchik River is the very Kalka. But this is just a hypothesis, an assumption. Thorough excavations by archaeologists along the banks of the river have been unsuccessful. Complicating the search for the location of the battle was the absence of at least some coins that could shed light on this mystery. That is why the place where the hot battle took place is still unknown.
Going down to the river, the allies destroyed another detachment of Mongols and began to move to the opposite bank.
No reliable data on the number of soldiers in the Russian-Polovtsian army was found. The information of the chroniclers varies. Some claimed that it was between 80 and 100 thousand people. The point of view of the historian V. N. Tatishcheva is as follows: the Russian army consisted of 103,000 infantry and 50,000 Polovtsian horsemen - well, an overkill, characteristic of the historiography of that time. Some modern historians claim that there were about 40–45 thousand Russian soldiers, but this is something very much.
The number of soldiers in the Mongol army at the very beginning numbered about 30,000 people, but then the Tumen - a detachment of 10,000 people, led by Tohuchar-noyon, lost a fair amount of its soldiers in the Iranian battle. At the time of the first appearance of the Mongolian army in the Caucasus (in 1221), its number was about 20,000. In 1221, the advanced units of the Mongol army captured several Central Asian cities. Among them were Merv and Urgench. Jelal-ad-Din, the successor of the family of the Sultan of Khorezm, was defeated in a battle at the Indus River, after him Genghis Khan sent a pursuit of two tumens. Subedei and Jebe were assigned a direction to Eastern Europe, bypassing Georgia, and again by the same number, not less than two tumens.
The first to wade across the Kalka was Prince Galitsky Mstislav Udatny. The prince received his eloquent nickname for his ingenuity, luck, originality of thinking and victory in battles. He was the first here too. Having crossed to the opposite bank, he personally decided to scout the situation. Assessing the balance of forces of the enemy, the prince gave the order to the army to prepare for battle. The start of the battle was scheduled for the early morning of May 31st.
The Galician prince sent forward the Polovtsian cavalry, followed by the squad of Mstislav Udatny, turned to the right and stood along the river bank. The squad of Mstislav of Chernigov settled at the crossing on the banks of the Kalka, and the squad of Prince Daniil Romanovich received the task of going forward as a striking force. Mstislav of Kiev took up a position behind the crossing next to the coast. Warriors from Kiev began to build fortifications from carts. They put them on the edge, tied them together with chains, and put stakes at the joints.
Then at the end of May (count summer!) There was an unbearable heat … She also played a fatal role in the battle. The battle began quite well for the Russians. Daniil Romanovich, the first to enter the battle, began to press the Mongol vanguard, pouring a cloud of arrows over them. They began to retreat, the Russians decided to catch up with them, and … the formation was lost. And then something happened that, most likely, the Russian squads were afraid of. Hidden for the time being in reserve, the Mongols, unexpectedly for the pursuers, went on the attack and defeated numerous Polovtsian and Russian troops. In the light of the events that had begun, the question involuntarily asked itself: how did it happen that the Russians and the Polovtsians overlooked the lurking Mongol troops in the open steppe? Was the area where the battle took place riddled with hills and ravines that the enemy used as natural defenses? A hill by the river, by the way, had a place to be … Among other things, one should remember about the specifics of equestrian combat. The cavalry, the more heavy, undoubtedly, needs a lot of space, as well as a sufficient amount of time to start hostilities, because it cannot go into an attack "from a swoop"!
Meanwhile, the Mongol commanders, who closely watched the battlefield, noticed that the Russian horsemen, having got out to the river bank, would be forced to climb to a hill, and, consequently, the offensive would slow down. Having safely hidden their cavalry on the opposite slope of the hill, the Mongols, in fact, organized a real ambush. And when the Russian cavalry scattered across the steppe and began to chase the retreating Mongols, anticipating a quick victory, it was then the turn of the soldiers from the ambush came. It is possible that the Mongol cavalry has already received an order to attack. When the inflamed cavalry of the Mongols suddenly rose on the top of the hill in front of the Russians and Polovtsians, they hastily began to turn their horses back, realizing that nothing could hold back such darkness on the descent of the hill!
Nobody knows how everything really happened. No joke, 793 years have passed since then, a considerable period. The Ipatiev Chronicle, as one of the few sources that have survived to this day, only tells in detail what happened in the midst of the battle, and correlates the flight of the Russian squads with the powerful onslaught of reinforcements from the Mongol troops. The Novgorod first chronicle calls the flight of the Polovtsy the cause of the defeat.
Stunned by such a swift advance, the Polovtsians wavered and rushed to the crossing, causing chaos and confusion in the ranks of the troops of Mstislav Chernigov, who were already ready to march. Mstislav Udatny and Daniil Romanovich were the first to reach the Dnieper, to dive into boats, and the empty boats, pushing them away from the shore, were sent downstream in order to avoid being chased.
The camp of Prince Mstislav of Kiev, meanwhile, tried to lay siege to the second half of the Mongol army. Mstislav and his squad fought bravely for three whole days. They surrendered only after, on the fourth day, the delegation sent for negotiations, led by the voivode-wander Ploskynya, came to the negotiations. Ploshnia kissed the cross and promised that if the Russian squads lay down their arms, they would be able to safely go home and no one would touch them. "And who wants to stay, and you are good warriors, we will take him to the detachment …". A vague premonition told the Russian soldiers that they could not believe sweet speeches. But … The heat is incredible, there is no water. Mstislav Kievsky agrees. He and other princes, armed on their war horses, go down the path down the path. Mongol horsemen are standing at the foot of the hill. A mountain of surrendered weapons is growing … When every last arrow was thrown into a heap, and the soldiers became defenseless like babies, they attacked unarmed people with a whistle and a whoop. Few survived then. The princes were disarmed, tied up and taken prisoner.
The Mongols decided to avenge their dead ambassadors. They knew how to do this subtly, with knowledge of the matter. Following the canons of the Mongolian "knightly" military code, they decide to take revenge by disgracing the warriors. And what could be more shameful than the inglorious death of a warrior? Not on the battlefield, not with a sword in hand, defending himself and bleeding from combat wounds …
The bound princes were pressed down with shields, and then they danced and feasted on them. The prisoners were crushed. The groans of the unfortunate were heard the next morning. By the way, historians claim that the Mongols promised by oath that "not a single drop of the princes' blood will be shed," therefore, theoretically, they kept their word, following the letter of the Yasa law. But the same law demanded merciless death for those who kill ambassadors … This is such justice in Mongolian style …
Presumably, only a tenth of the entire Russian army survived in this massacre. Henry of Latvia in the "Chronicle of Livonia", written about 1225, gives the losses of the Russians in that battle in numerical terms, and even then very approximately, this is what he writes: "And the great king Mstislav of Kiev fell with forty thousand soldiers who were with him. Another king, Mstislav Galitsky, fled. Of the remaining kings, about fifty fell in this battle."
Enemy casualties are unknown. Although it is easy to guess that they were also large enough. This can be judged by the fact that Subedeya and Jebe did not continue military operations. Having learned about the approach of reinforcements from the Russians, they chose to refrain from marching on the capital city of Kiev and retreated to the Volga. There, at the Samarskaya Luka, they took a battle with the Volga Bulgars, lost it, and were forced to return back to Central Asia. The next campaign against Russia was undertaken 13 years later …
