Dmitri’s army, commanded by the veteran prince Roman Rozinski, defeated that of the czar with great havoc near Volkhov, on the 24th of April 1608. All the vanquished who escaped the lances of the Poles and Cossacks fled in disorder to Moscow, and had the victors pressed their advantage, the capital would have fallen into their hands. Possibly the Polish leaders were in secret unwilling to let their protégé triumph too soon or too completely, or to give up Moscow to pillage, which is always more profitable to the soldier than to the general; but, whatever was the reason, they halted at the village of Tushino, twelve versts from Moscow, which the impostor made his headquarters, and there he held his court for seventeen months.
With a view to prevail on Sigismund to recall the Polish volunteers in Dmitri’s service, Vasili resolved to liberate the ambassadors, the palatine of Sendomir and his daughter, and the other Poles whom he had kept in captivity since the massacre of Moscow. With their liberty he bestowed on them indemnifications for their losses, and only exacted from them a pledge that they would not bear arms against Russia, or in any way favour the new pretender. Thus, after having made sport of the most solemn oaths, Vasili expected to find in men, so deeply provoked, scruples of conscience which he had never known himself. He sent Mniszek and his daughter away under charge of an escort; but they were intercepted by a detachment of Poles, and carried to Dmitri’s camp.
They had been prepared for this event by a letter previously received by the palatine from his pretended son-in-law, which contained this remarkable phrase: “Come both of you to me, instead of going to hide yourselves in Poland from the world’s scorn.” He could hardly have dropped a hint more adapted to move a woman of Marina’s character. Rather than go back to encounter ridicule at Sendomir, she was willing to share the bed of a bandit who might bestow a crown upon her. It is said, however, that in their first interview with Dmitri neither she nor her father testified all the emotion befitting so touching an occasion, nor could quite conceal their surprise at the sight of a man not at all like him whose name he bore. But after a few days the scene of meeting was played over again with more success, and the whole camp was witness of Marina’s demonstrations of tenderness for her husband. In apology for her previous coldness it was said that, having so long believed her Dmitri was dead, she durst not yield to the delight of seeing him alive again until she had received the most certain proofs that it was not a delusion. This clumsy excuse was admitted; Marina’s recognition of the impostor brought over to him numbers who had doubted till then; and, the news being soon spread abroad, almost all Russia declared for him, except Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.
This was the culminating point of his fortunes: their decline was rapid. The mutual jealousy of the Polish commanders rose to such a pitch that it became necessary to divide the army; and Sapieha quitted the camp of Tushino, with thirty thousand men and sixty cannon, to lay siege to the famous monastery of the Trinity, near Moscow, which was at the same time a powerful fortress and the most revered sanctuary of Russian orthodoxy. The support which Shuiski received from the monks was worth more to him than an army; for besides large subsidies he derived from them a moral force which still kept many of his subjects true to their allegiance. The loss of such auxiliaries would have consummated his ruin; therefore the capture of the monastery was of extreme importance to the impostor. But in spite of the most strenuous efforts, continued for six weeks, Sapieha was unable to obtain the least advantage over a garrison whose courage was exalted by religious enthusiasm; and meanwhile the Poles had to sustain a harassing and murderous guerilla warfare, waged against them by the plundered peasants, whom they had made desperate. These partisan bands were about to be supported by a more formidable army, led by Skopin Skuiski and by James de la Gardie, who brought five thousand Swedish auxiliaries to Vasili’s aid.
[1609-1610 A.D.]
Early in 1609 these two generals began a brilliant campaign in the north; the Poles and the partisans of the impostor were beaten in several encounters, and in a few months the whole aspect of the war was changed. Finally, Sapieha himself was defeated in an obstinate engagement, forced ignominiously to raise the siege of the monastery, and shut himself up with the remnant of his force in Dmitrov. Skopin entered Moscow in triumph; but Vasili’s jealousy kept him there inactive for two months until he died suddenly, in his twenty-fourth year. Vasili, to whose cause the young hero’s death was fatal, was accused by public rumour of having effected it by poison.
For some months before this time there had been a new champion in the field, whose appearance was equally to be dreaded by Shuiski and Dmitri. About the end of September, 1609, Sigismund, king of Poland, laid siege to Smolensk, with an army of twelve thousand men, and immediately summoned to his standard the Poles who served under Dmitri. The greater part of them complied, and the impostor fled to Kaluga. In the spring of 1610 Russia presented a most deplorable spectacle, being devastated by three great armies, all opposed to one another. In the west, Sigismund was pressing the siege of Smolensk; in the south, Dmitri was in possession of Kaluga, Tula, and some other towns. Some of the Poles who had quitted the impostor’s service had established themselves on the banks of the Ugra, in a fertile country, which had not yet experienced the sufferings of war; and there, under the command of their new leader, John Sapieha, they offered their services simultaneously to Sigismund and the false Dmitri, being ready to join whichever of them bid highest. Nor was this all: one of the Russian princes, Procope Liapunov, took advantage of the general confusion to raise a new banner. He proclaimed himself the defender of the faith, and, at the head of a considerable force, waged a war of extermination against the Poles and the Russians who recognised either Dmitri or Vasili. A chronicler applies to him the phrase which had served to characterise Attila—“No grass grew where his horse’s hoof had been.” And, as if all these armies were not enough for the desolation of the land, the Tatars of the Crimea had crossed the Oka, under pretence of succouring Vasili, their ally, but in reality to plunder the villages, and make multitudes of captives, whom they carried off into slavery.
Such was the condition of Russia at the moment of Skopin’s death. Vasili still derived some hope from the division of his enemies, and turned his whole attention against the most formidable among them. He despatched to the relief of Smolensk an army of nearly sixty thousand men, consisting partly of foreign mercenaries, under James de la Gardie; but he gave the chief command to his brother, Dmitri Shuiski, who was neither liked nor respected by the soldiers. Chiefly in consequence of this fatal appointment the whole army was defeated at Klushino, by a force of only three thousand horse and two hundred infantry, led by the veteran Zolkiewski, and was forced to lay down its arms. But for the enormous blunders subsequently committed by Sigismund, the battle of Klushino might have determined forever the preponderance of Poland in the north.
A Woman of Tschutski