The Battle on the Ice or the Battle of Lake Peipsi is a battle between the Novgorod-Pskov army of Prince Alexander Nevsky and the troops of the Livonian knights, which took place on April 5, 1242 on the ice of Lake Peipsi. Set a limit to the advancement of German chivalry to the East. Alexander Nevsky - Prince of Novgorod, Grand Duke of Kiev, Grand Duke of Vladimir, legendary commander, saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Causes
In the middle of the XIII century, foreign invaders threatened Russian lands from all sides. From the east, the Tatar-Mongols approached, from the north-west, the Livonians and Swedes claimed the Russian land. In the latter case, the task of rebuffing fell on the mighty Novgorod, which had a vital interest in not losing its influence in the region and, most importantly, not allowing anyone to control trade with the Baltic countries.
How it all began
1239 - Alexander took measures to protect the Gulf of Finland and the Neva, strategically important for the Novgorodians, and therefore was ready for the invasion of the Swedes in 1240. In July, on the Neva, Alexander Yaroslavich, thanks to extraordinary and swift actions, was able to defeat the Swedish army. A number of Swedish ships were sunk, Russian losses were extremely insignificant. After that, Prince Alexander was nicknamed Nevsky.
The Swedish offensive was coordinated with the next attack of the Livonian Order. 1240, summer - they took the frontier fortress Izborsk, and then captured Pskov. The situation for Novgorod was becoming dangerous. Alexander, not counting on help from the Vladimir-Suzdal Rus, devastated by the Tatars, imposed large expenses on the boyars to prepare for the battle and tried to consolidate his power in the Novgorod Republic after the victory on the Neva. The boyars turned out to be stronger and in the winter of 1240 they were able to remove him from power.
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Meanwhile, German expansion continued. 1241 - the Novgorod land Vod was taxed, then Koporye was taken. The crusaders intended to seize the coast of the Neva and Karelia. A popular movement broke out in the city for an alliance with the Vladimir-Suzdal principality and the organization of a rebuff to the Germans, who were already 40 versts from Novgorod. The boyars had no choice but to ask Alexander Nevsky to return. This time he was given extraordinary powers.
With an army of Novgorodians, Ladozhians, Izhorians and Karelians, Alexander drove the enemy out of Koporye, after he liberated the lands of the Vod people. Yaroslav Vsevolodovich sent the Vladimir regiments, newly formed after the Tatar invasion, to help his son. Alexander took Pskov, then moved to the lands of the Estonians.
Movement, composition, disposition of troops
The German army was located in the Yuriev area (aka Dorpat, now Tartu). The order gathered significant forces - there were German knights, the local population, the troops of the king of Sweden. The army that confronted the knights on the ice of Lake Chud had a heterogeneous composition, but a single command in the person of Alexander. "Grassroots regiments" consisted of princely squads, boyars squads, city regiments. The army that Novgorod fielded had a fundamentally different composition.
When the Russian army was on the western shore of Lake Peipsi, here in the area of the village of Mooste, a patrol detachment led by Domash Tverdislavich reconnoitered the location of the bulk of the German troops, engaged them in a battle, but was defeated. Intelligence was able to find out that the enemy sent insignificant forces to Izborsk, and the main parts of the army moved to the Pskov Lake.
In an effort to prevent this movement of enemy troops, the prince ordered to retreat to the ice of Lake Peipsi. The Livonians, realizing that the Russians would not allow them to make a roundabout maneuver, went directly to their army and also stepped onto the ice of the lake. Alexander Nevsky placed his army under the steep eastern bank, north of the Uzmen tract near the Voroniy Kamen Island, opposite the mouth of the Zhelcha River.
Battle of the Ice
The two armies met on Saturday, April 5, 1242. According to one version, Alexander had 15,000 at his disposal, and the Livonians had 12,000 soldiers. The prince, knowing about the tactics of the Germans, weakened the "brow" and strengthened the "wings" of his battle formation. The personal squad of Alexander Nevsky took refuge behind one of the flanks. A significant part of the prince's army was the foot people's militia.
The Crusaders traditionally attacked in a wedge ("pig") - a deep formation, shaped like a trapezoid, the upper base of which was facing the enemy. At the head of the wedge were the strongest of the warriors. The infantry, as the most unreliable and often not at all knightly part of the army, was located in the center of the battle formation, in front and behind it was covered by mounted knights.
At the first stage of the battle, the knights were able to defeat the advanced regiment of the Russians, and then they broke through the "brow" of the Novgorod battle order. When after some time they scattered the "brow" and rested on the steep steep shore of the lake, they had to turn around, which was not easy for a deep formation on the ice. Meanwhile, the strong "wings" of Alexander struck from the flanks, and his personal squad completed the encirclement of the knights.
A stubborn battle was going on, the whole neighborhood was filled with shouts, crackling and clanging of weapons. But the fate of the crusaders was sealed. The Novgorodians dragged them off their horses with spears with special hooks, ripped open the bellies of their horses with knives - "bootstrapers". Bored in a narrow space, the skillful Livonian warriors could not do anything. Stories about how ice cracked under heavy knights are widely popular, but it should be noted that a fully armed Russian knight weighed no less. Another thing is that the crusaders did not have the opportunity to move freely and they were crowded in a small area.
In general, the complexity and danger of conducting hostilities with the help of cavalry on ice in early April leads some historians to the conclusion that the general course of the Battle on the Ice was distorted in the annals. They believe that not a single sane commander would lead an army rattling with iron and riding on horses to fight on the ice. Probably, the battle began on land, and during it the Russians were able to push the enemy back onto the ice of Lake Peipsi. Those knights who were able to escape, the Russians pursued to the Subolichi coast.
Losses
Controversial is the issue of the losses of the parties in the battle. In the course of the battle, about 400 crusaders were killed, and many Estonians who were attracted by them to their army died. The Russian chronicles say: "And Chyudi was beschisla, and Numets 400, and 50 with the hands of a yasha and brought him to Novgorod." The death and capture of such a large number of professional soldiers, according to European standards, turned out to be a rather heavy defeat, bordering on catastrophe. About Russian losses it is said vaguely: "many brave soldiers fell." As you can see, the losses of the Novgorodians were in reality heavy.
Value
The legendary battle and the victory of the troops of Alexander Nevsky in it were of exceptional importance for the entire Russian history. The advance of the Livonian Order to the Russian lands was stopped, the local population was not converted to Catholicism, and access to the Baltic Sea was preserved. After the victory, the Novgorod Republic, led by the prince, moved from defensive tasks to the conquest of new territories. Nevsky undertook several successful campaigns against the Lithuanians.
The blow inflicted on the knights on Lake Peipsi echoed throughout the Baltic. The 30 thousandth Lithuanian army launched large-scale military operations against the Germans. In the same year 1242, a powerful uprising broke out in Prussia. The Livonian knights sent ambassadors to Novgorod, who reported that the order was abandoning claims to the land of Vod, Pskov, Luga and asked for an exchange of prisoners, which was done. The words that were spoken to the ambassadors by the prince: "Whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword," became the motto of many generations of Russian commanders. For his feats of arms, Alexander Nevsky was awarded the highest award - he was canonized by the church and declared a Saint.
German historians believe that while fighting on the western borders, Alexander Nevsky did not pursue any kind of integral political program, but the successes in the West provided some compensation for the horrors of the Mongol invasion. Many of the researchers believe that the very scale of the threat that the West posed to Russia is exaggerated.
On the other hand, L. N. Gumilev, on the contrary, believed that not the Tatar-Mongol "yoke", but precisely Catholic Western Europe represented by the Teutonic Order and the Archbishopric of Riga, posed a mortal threat to the very existence of Russia, and therefore the role of Alexander's victories Nevsky in Russian history is especially great.
Interesting Facts
Due to the variability of the hydrography of Lake Peipsi, historians for a long time could not accurately determine the place where the Battle on the Ice took place. Only thanks to long-term research carried out by the expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, they were able to establish the site of the battle. The battle site is submerged in the summer and is located about 400 meters from the island of Sigovets.
Memory
The monument to the squads of Alexander Nevsky was erected in 1993, on Mount Sokolikha in Pskov, almost 100 km away from the actual place of the battle. It was originally planned to create a monument on Voronyi Island, which geographically would be a more accurate solution.
1992 - on the territory of the village of Kobylie Gorodische of the Gdovsk region, in a place close to the alleged battle site, a bronze monument to Alexander Nevsky and a wooden worship cross were erected near the Church of the Archangel Michael. The Church of the Archangel Michael was created by the Pskovites in 1462. The wooden cross was destroyed over time under the influence of unfavorable weather conditions. 2006, July - to the 600th anniversary of the first mention of the village of Kobylye Gorodishche in the Pskov Chronicles, it was replaced with a bronze one.