By Brian Glyn Williams - The Jamestown Foundation

The Tatars' valuable skills as guides on the steppe were noticed by a nineteenth century observer who
wrote:
One might as well attempt to steer a vessel at sea without a compass, as to journey over
one of these boundless plains without a Tatar guide, whose practiced eye can always
estimate the distance by the position or peculiar form of tumuli, which he separately
distinguishes, and with the same facility as a shepherd does his flocks and herds. Indeed,
the Tatar of these Russian steppes is not less distinguished for the sharpness of his eyesight
than the quickness of his hearing. 49
The Ottoman force arrived at Astrakhan on September 16, 1569, without any mishaps and the Serdar quickly
commenced siege operations. Despite the Porte’s high expectations of success, the Russian's fortifications
proved to be too strong for the Ottoman besiegers who had no heavy cannons to destroy the enemy defenses.
This difficulty, combined with the early approach of winter and a mutiny among the troops, forced the
Ottoman commander to withdraw at the end of September. W.E.D. Allen puts part of the blame for this
retreat on the Khan, Devlet Giray, and claims the Ottoman troops revolted against their commander
after hearing that the Khan's forces were returning to the Crimea for the winter. 50
In describing the Ottoman retreat from Astrakhan, George Eversley claims that:
The expedition was a total failure. The Turks were unable to capture Astrakhan, and a
Russian army completely destroyed that of the Tatars. The main Turkish army was
compelled to retreat to Azoff. 51
Massa's account, which may have been used as source by Eversley, makes the same claim but his
writings are often unreliable on account of their pro-Russian bias. Kurat, on the other hand, claims that:
Their retreat was certainly not due to pressure from Russian forces who had
remained on the defensive and never engaged the Turks in a serious encounter. What
really caused them to leave Astrakhan was the approach of winter and the growing
shortage of provisions and supplies. 52
Kurat also goes on to give an interesting insight into the Tatars' hardy character:
The Turkish soldiers and horses died in their hundreds of hunger and thirst, and only a
relatively small number arrived at Azak unscathed. By contrast losses were insignificant
among the Crimean and Nogai Tatars who were inured to the hardships of this kind of
march and avoided hunger and thirst by eating horse flesh and drinking mare's milk. 53
Although this mission was certainly a failure, it was not a total loss according to Kortepeter who claims it taught
the Russians an important lesson: "If the Ottomans so desired, they could always send another army to
the steppe." 54 Devlet Giray, the Crimean Khan at the time of the Astrakhan campaign, more than made
up for this failure in the next campaign to be analyzed, the great raid of 1571. In this attack a
Crimean army broke through a Russian defense force and struck directly at Moscow itself. In the
course of the raid, the victorious Tatars succeeded in carrying off tens of thousands of slaves into
captivity and in burning down much of the Tsar's capital. The following account made by an English
eyewitness observer, graphically demonstrates the effects of the Tatars' raid on a city that proudly called itself
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