By Brian Glyn Williams - The Jamestown Foundation

oth the Russians and Cossacks who presented a threat to the Khanate's interests as well as the Sultans.
The Crimean Khans and mirzas (chieftains) were usually more than willing to participate in joint
missions against their traditional steppe enemies.
The enthusiastic attitude of the Crimea's leadership combined with the Tatars' steppe skills to render
their assistance against the Ottomans' steppe foes more effective here than on the plains of Hungary or
the valleys of the Caucasus.
It must be noted that the Tatars were aided on this front by the nature of the steppe. The vast
waterless expanses of this region suited the Tatars' methods of warfare far more than the Western tactics
which Russia began to adopt during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The orderly formations of foot-soldiers
that dominated the battlefields of Western Europe were ineffective on the open steppe where the Khan's
horsemen could destroy slow moving baggage trains, cut off supply convoys and burn the grasslands
to hinder progress. Cannons were also rarely used on the steppe for the heavy artillery of the age was
too awkward to be used against the elusive Tatar riders until the late seventeenth century.
Although the Russians did use artillery and Western style formations when fighting the Swedes, Livonians
and Poles, they were forced to imitate the Tatars' mode of combat when fighting on their southern borders. In
consequence, the Russian cavalryman, armed with a bow and saber, differed little from his Tatar
adversary. The following description of Ivan the Terrible's warriors shows how strongly the Tatars
influenced their northern neighbor's cavalry.
All his men are horsemen. He useth no foot soldiers but such as go with the
ordinance or labourers. The horsemen are all archers with such bows as the Turks have,
and they ride short as do the Turks. Their armor is a coat of plate with a skull on their
heads. Some of their coats are covered with velvet or cloth of fold. Their desire is to be
sumptuous in the field.
Although the Tsar's warriors did adapt admirably to the conditions of the steppe, their equine skills
never matched those of the Tatars. The Khan's horsemen, who considered riding to be more than
just a part-time occupation, were usually able to outride the Tsar's less capable cavalry as this seventeenth
century account clearly shows. According to this observation, the Russians:
retire to certain rivers and woods to prevent their passage. But the Tatar is an enemy so light
and dexterous that he understands this, and amuses the Muscovite army with 20-30,000
horses, meanwhile sending a number of people to raid the land by some other way, which
is done with such promptness that they have dealt their blow before the Muscovites
know of it. 74
The Crimean Tatar's contributions on the steppe were once again not without a negative side. Many of the
problems with the Tatars on the northern front stemmed from the fact that the Crimean Khans had political
aspirations of their own on the steppe; most of which did not coincide with those of the Porte. The Crimean
Khan's independent attempts to reunite the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan under Crimean authority posed
a threat to the Ottoman control over the river basins of the Ukraine. The Ottomans feared that a reunited
Golden Horde might not be as friendly or complacent in its dealings with the Ottoman Empire. On at least
one occasion, the Astrakhan Expedition of 1571, historians have accused the Crimean Tatars of
deliberately sabotaging an Ottoman mission for fear that its success would weaken the Khanate's
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