Untitled - OUDL Home

Half a century after Ivan the Great the issue wasfully joined for the possession of the Baltic lands, decidedfirst in favour of Poland, then of Sweden, finally of theRussia of Peter the Great.Sixteenth-century Muscovy needed open access towestern Europe for three main purposes: suppliesof firearms and munitions of war; artificers, engineers,and mercenaries; general trade. Poland-Lithuania, theLivonian Order, and Sweden blocked or impeded directcommunication with the West; often to great effect, asfor instance when (1547) a band of a hundred and twentyfourspecialists, hired for service in Muscovy, weresuccessfully stopped by Liibeck and the Livonian Order.There was an alternative to the Baltic, the newly discoveredWhite Sea route (1553; see p. 28), which wasin fact rapidly developed by the English and the Dutch.But it wa9 a poor alternative, for it was roundabout andremote and ice-bound for much longer than the Baltic.The ice-free outlet at Murmansk (see map 1), wherethere was already a Russian colony and some trade, wastoo hard of access from Moscow and it was of no importanceuntil the present century, with the building of therailway (1915) and the great Soviet development of theNorth. Intercourse with Muscovy was a major matterof diplomacy. After the capture of Narva by Ivan theTerrible (1558), the king of Poland summed up his fearsthus, in protest to queen Elizabeth against Englishtrade: "We know . . . the Muscovite, enemy to allliberty under the heavens, dayly to grow mightier by theincrease of such things as be brought to the Narve, whilenot onely wares but also weapons heeretofore unknowento him, and artificers and arts be brought unto him; bymeane whereof he maketh himself strong to vanquish allothers."The Livonian War (1558-83) had begun. It was partand parcel of the long contest of Muscovy with Poland-Lithuania (see pp. 203-205), but it was also the firstbig-scale effort of Muscovy to win through to the Balticby way of the Dvina; whose banks, in Ivan the Terrible'ssaying, were worth their weight in silver, whose watersin gold. The internal weakness of the Germans in the260