500 Russians versus 40,000 Persians

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Colonel Karyagin's campaign against the Persians in 1805 does not resemble real military history. It looks like a prequel to "300 Spartans" (40,000 Persians, 500 Russians, gorges, bayonet attacks, "This is crazy! - No, this is the 17th Jaeger Regiment!"). The golden page of Russian history, combining the slaughter of insanity with the highest tactical skill, delightful cunning and stunning Russian arrogance. But first things first.

In 1805, the Russian Empire fought with France as part of the Third Coalition, and fought unsuccessfully. France had Napoleon, and we had the Austrians, whose military glory had long faded by that time, and the British, who never had a normal ground army. Both those and others behaved like complete fools, and even the great Kutuzov, with all the power of his genius, could not do something. Meanwhile, in the south of Russia, the Persian Baba Khan, who was hummingly reading reports on our European defeats, had an Ideyka.

Baba Khan stopped purring and again went to Russia, hoping to pay for the defeats of the previous year, 1804. The moment was chosen extremely well - due to the usual staging of the familiar drama "The crowd of so-called crooked allies and Russia, which is again trying to save everyone", St. Petersburg could not send a single extra soldier to the Caucasus, despite the fact that the whole Caucasus was 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers.

Therefore, upon learning that 40,000 Persian troops under the command of Crown Prince Abbas Mirza were going to the city of Shusha (this is in present-day Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan), where Major Lisanevich was with 6 companies of rangers, Prince Tsitsianov sent all the help he could send. All 493 soldiers and officers with two guns, the hero Karyagin, the hero Kotlyarevsky and the Russian military spirit.

They did not have time to reach Shushi, the Persians intercepted ours on the road, near the Shah-Bulakh river, on June 24. Persian avant-garde. Modest 10,000 people. Not at all perplexed (at that time in the Caucasus, battles with less than tenfold superiority of the enemy were not counted as battles and were officially reported as "exercises in conditions close to combat"), Karyagin built an army in squares and repelled the fruitless attacks of the Persian cavalry all day until the Persians were left only with scraps. Then he walked another 14 versts and set up a fortified camp, the so-called wagenburg or, in Russian, gulyai-gorod, when the line of defense was built from carts (given the Caucasian off-road and the lack of a supply network, the troops had to carry significant supplies with them).

The Persians continued their attacks in the evening and fruitlessly stormed the camp until nightfall, after which they took a forced break to clear the piles of Persian bodies, funeral, crying and writing postcards to the families of the victims. By the morning, having read the manual "Military art for dummies" sent by express mail ("If the enemy has strengthened and this enemy is Russian, do not try to attack him head-on, even if you are 40,000, and his 400"), the Persians began to bombard our walk -the city with artillery, trying to prevent our troops from reaching the river and replenish water supplies. In response, the Russians made a sortie, made their way to the Persian battery and blew it up, dropping the remnants of the guns into the river.

However, this did not save the situation. After fighting for another day, Karyagin began to suspect that he would not be able to kill the entire Persian army. In addition, problems began inside the camp - Lieutenant Lysenko and six more traitors ran over to the Persians, the next day 19 more joined them - thus, our losses from cowardly pacifists began to exceed losses from inept Persian attacks. Thirst, again. Heat. Bullets. And 40,000 Persians around. It’s uncomfortable.

At the officers' council, two options were proposed: or we all stay here and die, who is for? Nobody. Or we are going to break through the Persian encirclement, after which we STORM a nearby fortress, while the Persians are catching up with us, and we are already sitting in the fortress. The only problem is that there are still tens of thousands of us on guard.

We decided to break through. At night. Having cut the Persian sentries and trying not to breathe, the Russian participants of the program "Staying Alive When You Can't Stay Alive" almost got out of the encirclement, but stumbled upon a Persian patrol. A chase began, a skirmish, then a chase again, then ours finally broke away from the Makhmuds in a dark, dark Caucasian forest and went to a fortress named after the nearby river Shakh-Bulakh. By that time, a golden aura was shining around the remaining participants in the crazy marathon "Fight as much as you can" (I remind you that it was already the FOURTH day of continuous battles, sorties, duels with bayonets and night hide and seek in the forests), a golden aura was shining, so Karyagin simply smashed the gates of Shakh-Bulakh with a cannonball and then wearily asked the small Persian garrison: “Guys, look at us. Do you really want to try? Is that right?"

The guys got the hint and fled. In the course of the run, two khans were killed, the Russians barely had time to repair the gate, when the main Persian forces appeared, worried about the loss of their beloved Russian detachment. But that was not the end. Not even the beginning of the end. After an inventory of the property remaining in the fortress, it turned out that there was no food. And that the convoy with food had to be abandoned during the breakout from the encirclement, so there was nothing to eat. At all. At all. At all. Karyagin went out to the troops again:

- Out of 493 people, 175 of us remained, almost all of them were wounded, dehydrated, exhausted, extremely tired. No food. There is no wagon train. Kernels and cartridges are running out. And besides, right in front of our gates sits the heir to the Persian throne, Abbas Mirza, who has already tried several times to take us by storm.

It is he who waits until we die, hoping that hunger will do what 40,000 Persians could not do. But we will not die. You will not die. I, Colonel Karyagin, forbid you to die. I order you to take up all the impudence that you have, because tonight we leave the fortress and break through to ANOTHER FORTRESS, WHICH WILL TAKE AN STORM AGAIN, WITH THE ENTIRE PERSIAN ARMY ON SHOULDERS.

This is not a Hollywood action movie. This is not an epic. This is a Russian story, to put sentries on the walls, which will echo among themselves all night, creating the feeling that we are in a fortress. We set out as soon as it's dark enough!

On July 7 at 22 o'clock, Karyagin set out from the fortress to storm the next, even larger fortress. It is important to understand that by July 7, the detachment had been fighting continuously for the 13th day and was not able to "the terminators are coming," how many are in the state of "extremely desperate people on only anger and strength of mind move in the Heart of Darkness of this crazy, impossible, incredible, an unthinkable campaign."

With guns, with carts of the wounded, it was not a walk with backpacks, but a big and heavy movement. Karyagin slipped out of the fortress like a night ghost - and therefore even the soldiers who remained to call each other on the walls managed to escape from the Persians and catch up with the detachment, although they were already preparing to die, realizing the absolute mortality of their task.

Moving through darkness, darkness, pain, hunger and thirst, a detachment of Russian soldiers encountered a moat through which it was impossible to ferry cannons, and without cannons the assault on the next, even better fortified fortress of Mukhrata had neither sense nor chance. There was no forest nearby to fill the moat, there was no time to look for a forest - the Persians could overtake at any moment. Four Russian soldiers - one of them was Gavrila Sidorov, the names of the others, unfortunately, I could not find - silently jumped into the moat. And they went to bed. Like logs. No bravado, no talk, no everything. We jumped down and lay down. The heavy cannons drove straight for them.

Only two rose from the moat. Silently.

On July 8, the detachment entered Kasapet, for the first time in many days ate and drank normally, and moved on to the Mukhrat fortress. Three miles away from her, a detachment of a little more than a hundred people attacked several thousand Persian horsemen, who managed to break through to the cannons and capture them. In vain. As one of the officers recalled: "Karyagin shouted:" Guys, go ahead, save the guns!"

Apparently, the soldiers remembered WHAT cost they got these guns. Red, this time Persian, splashed on the carriages, and it sprayed and poured and poured the carriages, and the earth around the carriages, and carts, and uniforms, and guns, and sabers, and poured and poured and poured until the Persians did not scatter in panic, and failed to break the resistance of hundreds of ours.

Mukhrat was easily captured, and the next day, July 9th, Prince Tsitsianov received a report from Karyagin: “We are still alive and for the last three weeks we have forced half of the Persian army to chase us. Persians by the river Tertara , immediately went to meet the Persian army with 2300 soldiers and 10 guns. On July 15, Tsitsianov defeated and drove out the Persians, and then joined the remnants of the troops of Colonel Karyagin.

Karyagin received a golden sword for this campaign, all officers and soldiers - awards and salaries, Gavrila Sidorov silently lay down in the moat - a monument at the headquarters of the regiment.

P. S

In conclusion, we consider it not superfluous to add that Karyagin began his service as a private in the Butyrka infantry regiment during the Turkish war of 1773, and the first cases in which he participated were the brilliant victories of Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky. Here, under the impression of these victories, Karyagin first grasped the great secret of controlling the hearts of people in battle and gained that moral faith in the Russian man and in himself, with which he subsequently never considered his enemies.

When the Butyrka regiment was moved to the Kuban, Karyagin fell into the harsh atmosphere of Caucasian life, was wounded during the assault on Anapa, and from that time, one might say, did not come out from under enemy fire. In 1803, upon the death of General Lazarev, he was appointed chief of the 17th regiment located in Georgia. Here, for the capture of Ganja, he received the Order of St. George of the 4th degree, and the exploits in the Persian campaign of 1805 made his name immortal in the ranks of the Caucasian corps.

Unfortunately, constant campaigns, wounds and especially fatigue during the winter campaign of 1806 finally upset Karyagin's iron health; he fell ill with a fever, which soon developed into a yellow, rotten fever, and on May 7, 1807, the hero passed away. His last award was the Order of St. Vladimir of the 3rd degree, received by him a few days before his death.