Журнал «История: факты и символы»

THE LAST STATUS ON THE DEGREE IN THE XVII CENTURY:MILITARY CAMPAIGN 1698 AS THE FINAL OF THE "PETROVSKAYA WAR"WITH TURKEY

Author: Petrukhintsev N.N., Nikitina A.A.

The article analyzes the course and results of the last campaign of the Russo-Turkish War of 1686-1700 in the context of the initial stage of the reforms of Peter I associated with his "Eastern policy". The authors come to the conclusion that one of the main reasons for the failure of this campaign was the "fatigue" of the military organization that emerged in the second half of the 17th century. as a result of the military reforms of Alexei Mikhailovich and his heirs, which was clearly manifested by the end of the war in the conditions of crop failure and famine in 1697-1698. The caution of Prince Dolgorukov in the summer campaign of 1698 is quite understandable: his troops, after the strengthening of the Turks in Ochakov with an almost 20,000-strong group, were not enough for a military campaign. This led to the failure of the 1698 war, the main factor of which was the "fatigue" of the military structure from a protracted war in theaters of military operations remote from its territory. But the absence of half of the field army on the campaign raised the question of the effectiveness of the existing military structure and could become an impetus for the large-scale military reform that followed soon. The loss of the effectiveness of the existing military structure, poorly adapted to the needs of protracted wars in extremely remote theaters of military operations, aggravated by the objective difficulties of conducting operations in an almost uninhabited steppe theater, was clearly revealed in the end of the war and could become one of the prerequisites for a large-scale reform of the army that Peter began shortly after completion campaign in 1698