Battle of Vedrosha

The Battle of the Vedrosha River was a battle in the course of the Russo-Lithuanian war of 1500–1503 which ended with a decisive Russian victory and proved to be of strategic significance. It was carried out on 14 July 1500,[1] some 50 km to the west of Kaluga, between forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, under command of Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky and Russian (Muscovite) army under Prince Daniil Shchenya.[2]

Battle of the Vedrosha River
Part of the Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars

Map of army movements in 1500
Date14 July 1500
Location
Vedrosha River, 50 km west of Kaluga
Result Decisive Russian victory[1]
Belligerents
Grand Duchy of Lithuania Grand Duchy of Moscow
Commanders and leaders
Prince Konstantin Ostrogski Prince Daniil Shchenya
Strength
40,000 40,000
Casualties and losses
8,000 dead unknown

The skilled Russian commander employed similar tactics that proved successful for the Russian army in the Battle of Kulikovo. Vedrosha was a crushing victory for the Russians. Some 8,000 Lithuanians were killed, and many more were taken prisoner, including Prince Konstantin Ostrogski,[2] the first ever Grand Hetman of Lithuania.

After the battle the Lithuanians lost the possibility for military initiative and restricted themselves to defensive actions.

Comments by contemporaries

The battle was described by Sigismund von Herberstein in his Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (1549). Herberstein acidly commented that "in one battle and in one year the Grand Duke of Moscow achieved what Grand Duke Vytautas had spent all his life in achieving".

References
  1. Russia, 1462–1584, J.L.I. Fennell, The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume 2, The Reformation, 1520–1559, ed. G.R. Elton, (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 599.
  2. The Muscovite Dynastic Crisis of 1497-1502, John V. A. Fine Jr., Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 8, (1966), 213.

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