Someone brought up (back in March) on a podcast about the number of invasions of Russia....which settles back into the typical mindset of most Russians. So I sat and reviewed the total number:
1. For about a five-year period in the mid-1200s....the Mongols invaded Russia (really over and over). It was more like a raiding-party invasion, than a typical regular 'we-intend-to-stay' invasion strategy.
2. There was a Latvia-Estonia invasion around 1240 (2-years) where some Teutonic knights felt compelled to invade Russia. The pure hearted knights (left over from the Crusades period) felt the need to convert the Godless Russian to Catholicism. That mostly failed because no one much supported the knights. On my scale of invasions.....this was barely a '2'. One interesting aspect (toward the end) was some type of battle conducted on a frozen lake (one probably would have paid money to sit and view the action from the shore).
3. About three-hundred years would pass before the next invasion (1570).....which was the Russo-Crimean Wars (note plural). At the beginning of this....a Turk-Crimean Army of 120,000 took on a 6,000 man Russian Army. That collapsed pretty quickly, and retreat took place....leading the remains of the group to Moscow.
A chase ensued....where the Turk-Crimean group burned the outer suburbs of Moscow....set up massive chaos....and over a couple of hours, the city of Moscow burned to the ground.
What one could say after the 1570 event....because of the vast nature of Russia....the Turk-Crimean effort stalled out, but not before dozens of minor battles.
4. About forty years would pass, and then the Polish–Muscovite War (going from 1609 to 1618) would occur.
This was mostly a regional conflict....Poland versus Moscow. It would give rise to the Romanov family, who would lead Russia until 1917.
If you were looking for a long period of anti-Polish feelings (probably even existing today)....this 9-year war helped.
5. For a period of roughly eight years (starting in 1610)....the Ingrian War went on....mostly over a Swedish invasion of the western part of Russia.
6. Around a hundred years would pass, then in 1708....a brief two-year war occurred with the next Swedish invasion of Russia.
This war would end in dramatic fashion as a big victor for Russia....at the Battle of Poltava (July 1709).
7. Another hundred years would pass, when the Napoleon invasion of Russia would occur in 1812. The six-month invasion was wildly successful in the beginning, and as fall approach....the supply lines for the French failed miserably. The French weren't prepared for winter fighting and the war collapsed in mid-December 1812. I should note here....this is one of the first major occasions that guerilla-warfare was practiced (by the Russians) and was very successful in helping to bring the invasion to an end.
8. In the mid-1850s....the Crimean War would occur with five different players (the Russians....versus the British, the Ottomans, the Sardinians, and the French). This 'war' centered around two key things....a religious conflict, and the decline of the Ottoman Empire (needing something to prove they were still a major power).
You could make the case that this was Russia-against-the-World scenario, and there's a significant amount of genocide that goes on. There's probably over a thousand books written of this war, and it came to an end only because the Russians saw no viable way to win. This 2.5-year war ended with the Treaty of Paris.
I won't call it a miserable loss for the Russians, but they cover this a great deal in high school history discussions.
9. Around fifty years would pass, when the Japanese would invade Sakhalin Island (1905). This was a three-week war in the summer of 1905.
Before any Russian gets all defensive about this war....please note....it was an island of only 30,000 residents and had been for years (before the 1870s) a joint-run island. The Russian primary use on the island? Well...it was their prison colony where political dissidents were sent. If you were looking for a cold miserable place.....Sakhalin was a five-star location.
I should also note....on the corruption scale for local Russians in 1905 or prior....this was also a five-star location.
On Japanese quick success? You can attribute most of this to a marginalized Russian military group....so the collapse of the Russians was fairly quick. They gave up Sakhalin without much discussion.
10. WW I. As Russia collapsed (with the Soviet Union being created out of the 'ashes)....peace ended up with casting Belarus, the Baltic region and Ukraine away.
11. A brief war period between 1914 and 1918...called the Caucasus campaign.
12. Then you come to the Russian Civil War period....where the US and UK briefly invaded Russia. In this period, you have allied troops that land in Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok. This was mostly a failed strategy in the end for the allies.
13. Operation Barbarossa in 1941 by the Germans? A failure on resupply efforts and a misunderstanding about winter weather in Russia. A miserable failure for the German Army.
14. The Finn invasion in 1941? Mostly a failure for the Finns.
15. The War of Dagestan in 1999? This Chechen invasion of Dagestan was a pretty bloody conflict, with Russia establishing authority in the end.
There are three key elements when you view past history of invasions into Russia. First, most all invasion fail or sputter out. Second, the boundary of Russia is too much for the Russians to adequately protect the 'big landscape'. Third, winter weather usually plays against each invasion.
But here's the thing....they end up memorizing each invasion as some Bible-like lecture, and Russians take the invasions to be a personal matter.
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