The Victory Of The Don

The history of Russia during the century after the Mongol conquest is

one of shame and anarchy. The shame was that of slavish submission to

the Tartar khan. Each prince, in succession, fell on his knees before

this high dignitary of the barbarians and begged or bought his throne.

The anarchy was that of the Russian princes, on which the khan looked

with winking eyes, thinking that the more they weakened themselves the

ore they would strengthen him. The rulers of Moscow, Tver, Vladimir,

and Novgorod fought almost incessantly for supremacy, crushing their

people beneath the feet of their ambition, now one, now another, gaining

the upper hand.






In the end the princes of Moscow became supreme. They grew rich, and

were able to keep up a regular army, that chief tool of despotism. The

crown lands alone gave them dominion over three hundred thousand

subjects. The time was coming in which they would be the absolute rulers

of all Russia. But before this could be accomplished the power of the

khans must be broken, and the first step towards this was taken by the

great Dmitri Donskoi, who became grand prince of Moscow in 1362.



Dmitri came to the throne at a fortunate epoch. The Golden Horde was

breaking to pieces. There were several khans, at war with one another,

and discord ruled among the overlords of Russia. Still greater discord

reigned in Russia itself. For eighteen years Dmitri was kept busy in

wars with the princes of Tver, Kief, and Lithuania. Terrible was the war

with Tver. Four times he overcame Michael, its prince. Four times did

Michael, aided by the prince of Lithuania, gain the victory. During this

obstinate conflict Moscow was twice besieged. Only its stone walls,

lately built, saved it from capture and ruin. At length Olguerd, the

fiery prince of Lithuania, died, and Tver yielded. Moscow became

paramount among the Russian principalities.



And now Dmitri, with all Russia as his realm, dared to defy the terrible

Tartars. For more than a century no Russian prince had ventured to

appear before the khan of the Golden Horde except on his knees. Dmitri

had thus humbled himself only three years before. Now, inflated with his

new power, he refused to pay tribute to the khan, and went so far as to

put to death the Tartar envoy, who insolently demanded the accustomed

payment.



Dmitri had burned his bridges behind him. He had flung down the gage of

war to the Tartars, and would soon feel their hand in all its dreaded

strength. The khan, on hearing of the murder of his ambassador, burst

into a terrible rage. The civil wars which divided the Golden Horde had

for the time ceased, and Mamai, the khan, gathered all the power of the

Horde and marched on defiant Moscow, vowing to sweep that rebel city

from the face of the earth.



The Russians did not wait his coming. All dissensions ceased in the

face of the impending peril, all the princes sent aid, and Dmitri

marched to the Don at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men.

Here he found the redoubtable Mamai with three times that number of the

fierce Tartar horsemen in his train.



"Yonder lies the foe," said Dmitri to his princely associates. "Here

runs the Don. Shall we await him here, or cross and meet him with the

river at our backs?"



"Let us cross," was the unanimous verdict. "Let us be first in the

assault."



At once the order was given, and the battalions marched on board the

boats and were ferried across the stream, at a short distance from the

opposite bank of which the enemy lay. No sooner had they landed than

Dmitri ordered all the boats to be cast adrift. It was to be victory or

death; no hope of escape by flight was left; but well he knew that the

men would fight with double valor under such desperate straits.



The battle began. On the serried Russian ranks the Tartars poured in

that impetuous assault which had so often carried their hosts to

victory. The Russians defended themselves with fiery valor, assault

after assault was repulsed, and so fiercely was the field contested that

multitudes of the fallen were trampled to death beneath the horses'

feet. At length, however, numbers began to tell. The Russians grew weary

from the closeness of the conflict. The vast host of the Tartars enabled

them to replace with fresh troops all that were worn in the fight.

Victory seemed about to perch upon their banners.



Dismay crept into the Russian ranks. They would have broken in flight,

but no avenue of escape was left. The river ran behind them, unruffled

by a boat. Flight meant death by drowning; fight meant death by the

sword. Of the two the latter seemed best, for the Russians firmly

believed that death at the hands of the infidels meant an immediate

transport to the heavenly mansions of bliss.



At this critical moment, when the host of Dmitri was wavering between

panic and courage, the men ready to drop their swords through sheer

fatigue, an unlooked-for diversion inspired their shrinking souls. The

grand prince had stationed a detachment of his army as a reserve, and

these, as yet, had taken no part in the battle. Now, fresh and furious,

they were brought up, and fell vigorously upon the rear of the Tartars,

who, filled with sudden terror, thought that a new army had come to the

aid of the old. A moment later they broke and fled, pursued by their

triumphant foes, and falling fast as they hurried in panic fear from the

encrimsoned field.



Something like amazement filled the souls of the Russians as they saw

their dreaded enemies in flight. Such a consummation they had scarcely

dared hope for, accustomed as they had been for a century to crouch

before this dreadful foe. They had bought their victory dearly. Their

dead strewed the ground by thousands. Yet to be victorious over the

Tartar host seemed to them an ample recompense for an even greater loss

than that sustained. Eight days were occupied by the survivors in

burying the slain. As for the Tartar dead, they were left to fester on

the field. Such was the great victory of the Don, from which Dmitri

gained his honorable surname of Donskoi. He died nine years afterwards

(1389), having won the high honor of being the first to vanquish the

terrible horsemen of the Steppes, firmly founded the authority of the

grand princes, and made Moscow the paramount power in Russia.