The
Battle of the Vorskla River was a great battle in the medieval history of
Eastern Europe. It was fought on August 12, 1399, between the
Tatars, under
Edigu and
Temur Qutlugh, and the armies of
Tokhtamysh and Grand Duke
Vytautas of
Lithuania. The battle ended in a decisive Tatar victory.
Background
In late 1380s the relationship between
Tokhtamysh,
Khan of the
Golden Horde, and his former master,
Timur, was growing tense. In 1395, after losing the
Tokhtamysh–Timur war, Tokhtamysh was dethroned by the party of Khan
Temur Qutlugh and Emir
Edigu, supported by Timur. Tokhtamysh escaped to the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania and asked
Vytautas for assistance in retaking the Horde in exchange for surrendering his suzerainity over Ruthenian lands. A surviving
iarlyk shows that Tokhtamysh had asked for Polish–Lithuanian assistance previously in 1393.
Vytautas' expeditions
Vytautas gathered a large army which included
Lithuanians,
Ruthenians,
Russians,
Poles,
Moldavians, and
Wallachians. To enlist support from the
Teutonic Knights, Vytautas signed the
Treaty of Salynas, surrendering
Samogitia to the Knights. Vytautas's son-in-law,
Vasily I of Moscow, formally a Tatar vassal, did not join the coalition. The joint forces organized three expeditions into Tatar...
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