The princes of Kief and its adjacent provinces became jealous of the encroachments of André, and hostile feelings were excited. The king at length sent an embassador to them with very imperious commands. The embassador was seized at Kief, his hair and beard shaven, and was then sent back to Moscow with the defiant message,
"Until now we have wished to respect you as a father; but since you do not blush to treat us as vassals and as
peasants—since you have forgotten that you speak to princes, we spurn your menaces. Execute them. We appeal to the judgment of God."
This grievous insult of word and deed roused the indignation of the aged monarch as it had never been roused before. He assembled an army of fifty thousand men, who were rendezvoused at Novgorod, and placed under the command of the king's son, Georges. Another army, nearly equal in number, was assembled at Tchernigof, collected from the principalities of Polotsk, Tourof, Grodno, Pinsk and Smolensk. The bands of this army were under the several princes of the provinces. Sviatoslaf, grandson of the renowned Oleg, was entrusted with the supreme command. These two majestic forces were soon combined upon the banks of the Dnieper. All resistance fled before them, and with strides of triumph they marched down the valley to Kief. The princes who had aroused this storm of war fled to Vouoychegorod, an important fortress further down the river, where they strongly entrenched themselves, and sternly awaited the advance of the foe. The royalist forces, having taken possession of Kief, pursued the fugitives. The march of armies so vast, conducting war upon so grand a scale, excited the astonishment of all the inhabitants upon the river's banks. A little fortress, defended by a mere handful of men, appeared to them an object unworthy of an army sufficiently powerful to crush an empire.
But in the fortress there was perfect unity, and its commander had the soul of a lion. In the camp of the besiegers there was neither harmony nor zeal. Many of the princes were inimical to the king, and were jealous of his growing power. Others were envious of Sviatoslaf, the commander-in-chief, and were willing to sacrifice their own fame that he might be humbled. Not a few even were in sympathy with the insurgents, and were almost disposed to unite under their banners.
It was the 8th of September, 1173, when the royalist
forces encircled the fortress. Gunpowder was then unknown, and contending armies could only meet hand to hand. For two months the siege was continued, with bloody conflicts every day. Wintry winds swept the plains, and storms of snow whitened the fields, when, from the battlements of the fortress, the besieged saw the banners of another army approaching the arena. They knew not whether the distant battalions were friends or foes; but it was certain that their approach would decide the strife, for each party was so exhausted as to be unable to resist any new assailants. Soon the signals of war proclaimed that an army was approaching for the rescue of the fortress. Shouts of exultation rose from the garrison, which fell like the knell of death upon the ears of the besiegers, freezing on the plains. The alarm which spread through the camp was instantaneous and terrible. The darkness of a November night soon settled down over city and plain. With the first rays of the morning the garrison were upon the walls, when, to their surprise, they saw the whole vast army in rapid and disordered flight. The plains around the fortress were utterly deserted and covered with the wrecks of war. The garrison immediately rushed from behind their ramparts united with their approaching friends and pursued the fugitives.
The royalists, in their dismay, attempted to cross the river on the fragile ice. It broke beneath the enormous weight, and thousands perished in the cold stream. The remainder of this great host were almost to a man either slain or taken captive. Their whole camp and baggage fell into the hands of the conquerors. This wonderful victory, achieved by the energies of Mstislaf, has given him a name in Russian annals as one of the most renowned and brave of the princes of the empire.
George, prince of Novgorod, son of André, escaped from the carnage of that ensanguined field, and overwhelmed with shame, returned to his father in Moscow. The king, in this
extremity, developed true greatness of soul. He exhibited neither dejection nor anger, but bowed to the calamity as to a chastisement he needed from God. The victory of the insurgents, if they may be so called, who occupied the provinces in the valley of the Dnieper, was not promotive either of prosperity or peace. Mindful of the former grandeur of Kief, as the ancient capital of the Russian empire, ambitious princes were immediately contending for the possession of that throne. After several months of confusion and blood, André succeeded, by skillful diplomacy, in again inducing them, for the sake of general tranquillity, to come under the general government of the empire. The nobles could not but respect him as the most aged of their princes; as a man of imperial energy and ability, and as the one most worthy to be their chief. He alone had the power to preserve tranquillity in extended Russia. They therefore applied to him to take Kief, under certain restrictions, again into his protection, and to nominate for that city a prince who should be in his alliance. This homage was acceptable to André.