Battle of Vedrosha

The Battle of the Wedrosch was one of the greatest battles in the late medieval history of Russia. It occurred on July 14, 1500, about 50 km west of Kaluga near the river Wedrosch between the armed forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the leadership of the Lithuanian Hetman, Prince Konstanty Ostrogski, as well as the Russian army under Prince Daniel Schtschenja.

The Russian commander applied a similar tactic, which already helped the Russians in the Battle of Kulikovo Pole to victory over the Mongols of the Golden Horde. Wedrosch was a decisive victory for the Muscovite Grand Duke at the " gathering " of the Ruthenian principalities that are a part of the lost during the Mongol invasion of the kingdom of Kievan Rus were to 1240 and the starting of the 14th century entirely due to a weakness of the Horde in the southwest of Grand Duchy of Lithuania were absorbed. After the battle, the Lithuanians had to mourn a large number of victims, no less a few fell into Russian captivity, including personally Ostrogski who came to the prison to Vologda.

The battle led to the signing of a ceasefire agreement in 1503, after considerable territories fell to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, especially the present-day eastern Ukraine and western Russia (about one-third of the national territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ). After Ostrogski the Moscow Grand Duke took off an oath and was released, he made ​​several attempts to return the favor, but even its significant victory, during the Russo -Lithuanian War, 1512-1522, at the Battle of Orsha in 1514, Lithuania did not yield any political- territorial advantages more. The Russians secured 1522 contract and the 1514 conquered Smolensk and surrounding area.

Comments

The battle was of Siegmund von Herber stone in his Commentarii Rerum Moscoviticarum ( 1549) described. Herbersteins made ​​an ironic remark that the Muscovite Grand Prince " has managed in a battle that for which the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas had his whole life used".