On 14 July 1500 a Lithuanian army under Grand Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski was routed by a much larger Muscovite army on the Vedrosha river near Dorogobuzh, in the Smolensk lands. Ostrogski himself was wounded and taken prisoner with several other Lithuanian commanders. It was the first great Muscovite victory of the war of 1500 to 1503, and the peace that ended that war cost the Grand Duchy of Lithuania a wide belt of its eastern lands.
Ivan III moves west
Since the 1480s the grand prince of Moscow, Ivan III, had been taking frontier principalities from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, helped by local princes who changed sides. In 1500, using the defection of several more princes, he attacked again. The Lithuanian army was not ready, and the grand duke's brothers, King John Albert of Poland and Vladislaus of Hungary and Bohemia, were occupied with the Turks and could not help, according to the Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia.1
The historian Mirosław Nagielski of the University of Warsaw describes three Muscovite thrusts: one into the Seversk lands to the south, one on Toropets in the north, and one along the Vyazma road toward Dorogobuzh and Smolensk. When the Lithuanians began to gather under Prince Konstanty Ostrogski, the Muscovites reinforced the central force and put it under Prince Daniil Shchenya; Nagielski puts the Muscovite strength on the Smolensk road at about 20,000 men.2
The battle
Ostrogski, the grand hetman of Lithuania, did not wait for Grand Duke Alexander's main army, which according to Nagielski was some 300 km behind near Minsk. He marched toward the Vedrosha with only about 8,000 to 9,000 men, hoping to stop the Muscovite columns from joining up, and kept going even after he learned that Shchenya's reinforcements had arrived, counting on surprise.3
The sources size the armies differently. Nagielski's figures are given above; the Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia speaks of a Lithuanian army of more than ten thousand and a Muscovite main force of about 40,000, under the boyars Yakov Zakharyin and Daniil Shchenya. They agree on the outcome. The encyclopedia writes that the Muscovite vanguard drew the Lithuanians onto the main army, and Nagielski that the much stronger Muscovites outflanked them; either way the Lithuanian army was destroyed. Ostrogski was wounded and captured, and with him several other dignitaries, among them, Nagielski lists, Ivan Khreptovich, Mikołaj Hlebowicz and Michał Zenowicz.4
The battle was fought long before the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582, so 14 July is a date in the Julian calendar.
A shock for Lithuania
Nagielski, following the historian Stanisław Herbst, calls Vedrosha the first defeat of its scale for the Lithuanian forces in the field, one that shook Lithuania's political elite and pushed more princes toward the service of Moscow. Smolensk held out. But when the war ended in 1503, Lithuania gave up to Moscow, among other places, Nevel, Velizh, Toropets, Dorogobuzh, and the Seversk towns with Bryansk, Starodub, Novgorod-Seversky and Chernigov, so that Polotsk, Vitebsk and Smolensk became frontier fortresses. The Polish Press Agency's history portal dzieje.pl writes that the Grand Duchy lost about a third of its territory in the wars against Ivan III.5
Ostrogski's captivity did not last. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine writes that he swore loyalty to Moscow in 1506 and escaped to Lithuania at the first opportunity, in 1507, where he was reinstated as grand hetman; dzieje.pl adds that his oath had been meant to lull Ivan III. In 1514 he took his revenge on the Muscovites, as told in our article on the Battle of Orsha.6
Also on this day
- 1808: Battle of Medina de Rioseco. North of Valladolid, the Spanish armies of Joaquín Blake and Gregorio de la Cuesta met Marshal Bessières early in the Peninsular War.
