The origin of the Volga or Golden Horde, which was named after the gilded and gold-embroidered tent of ‘Older works, pre-dating the discovery of this earlier reference, usually cite 1389 as the date of introduction.
Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu Khan (1226-55), dates to 1251 when Batu established his rule in Sarai, which subsequently broke away from the central Mongol state in 1266 under Mangu Timur. Superficially Islamized c.1340, it began to decline after the death of Khan Janibek (1342-57), when assorted rivals vied with one another for the throne. In the 20 years between 1360-80 the Horde had as many as 14 different khans, of whom the last, Mamai, was defeated in the signal Russian victory of Kulikovo. Its power was further eroded under his successor, Tokhtamysh of the Blue Horde21 (1380-97, d. l406), who was defeated by fellow-Moslem Tamerlane in three decisive campaigns in 1387, 1389 and 1395. The Horde continued to wane throughout the 15th century, with the Crimea (1430), Kazan (1445) and Astrakhan (1466) breaking away as separate, independent khanates, all of them individually stronger than the remaining residue of the Golden Horde itself. It was the Grim Tartars who, in 1502, finally overthrew the Golden Horde; they had become vassals of the Ottoman Turks following the seizure of the Crimea by the latter in 1475, and from the 1480s launched a series of Ottoman-inspired attacks against Poland under their khan, Mengli-Girei, even sacking Kiev in 1482. After achieving their own independence from the Golden Horde in 1481, the Muscovites usually referred to what remained of it as the ‘Great Horde of the Volga Tartars’.
The military organisation of the Horde was fundamentally unchanged from that of Genghis Khan, with units of 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 men, grouped into right (western) and left (eastern) wings with a central division made up of the khan’s guards. The country was divided up into units which were responsible for raising the requisite numbers of soldiers on the basis of one per 10 men, the largst being the t’ma, responsible for raising a tuman or horde of 10,000 men. The Russian Grand Duchy of Vladimir, wherein lay Muscovy, comprised 15 such Vmy in 1360 and 17 under Tokhtamysh Khan, not including the 2 t’my of Riazan, the 5 of Nizhni-Novgorod and those of Tver (probably at least 5). A document of 1507, recording the situation as it nominally existed c.1428, records the existence of the following West Russian t’my (most of which had in fact been lost to Lithuania by 1363): Kiev; Volhynia (Vladimir-Volynsk); Lutsk; Sokal; Podolia; Kamenets and Braslav (both in Podolia); Cherginov; Kursk; Egolday (part of the old principality of Pereyaslavl, the original t’ma of which it probably replaced); Liubutsk and Okhura (both only mentioned in a 1540 copy of the list); Smolensk; Polotsk (actually centred on Vitebsk); and Riazan (at least 2 t’my, Riazan and Pronsk). The following can also be added for the early part of this period: Galicia (probably 3 t’my, lost to Poland 1349); Galich; Lvov (Polish Lwow); and Sanok. In total. East and West Russia amounted to more than 43 t’my. Considering the size of the Horde, it is therefore no surprise to read that Egidei (1397-1410) was supposedly able to field 200,000 first class cavalry ‘at a moment’s notice’.
Military service was obligatory and was performed at the individual’s own expense; nor was there any time limit on how long it might be required. The Cilician Armenian chronicler Hetoum wrote in 1307 that ‘in matters of arms they are very good, and more obedient than any other people; and in battle do easily know by certain signals their commander’s will: whereby the Tartar army is easily governed and commanded. Their lord does not bestow any stipend on them, but they live by hunting and such prey as they can get; and their lord can take from them whatever they have whenever he wishes to.’ Vassal princes, ruling under Mongol patents, were likewise expected to provide such service — Khan Mamai, for instance, claimed to have in his army at Kulikovo 12 hordes, 3 kingdoms and 33 princes, and his forces (allegedly 703,000 men, but probably 150,000 at most) certainly included Turks, Armenians, Burtas, Circassians, Ossetians, and even Genoese infantry from the colony of Kaffa in the Crimea. In the 1330s Russian troops could be found serving in Mongol armies even as far away as North China.
Gunpowder artillery was unknown to the Tartars, and this despite the presence of the Genoese in Kaffa, which in the 1430s Pero Tafur records as ‘well provided with crossbows, bombards, cannon, handguns and culverines, and all manner of defensive artillery.’ Indeed, an attack on Kaffa following its capture by the Ottomans in 1475 was scared off simply by the roar of the Ottoman artillery, to which the Tartars were unaccustomed.
World History
