Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/187

 Rh (from volk, wolf, and miétat, to launch). No Christian Prince of the period, according to Fletcher, possessed such a quantity of ordnance, and in 1557, Jenkinson speaks with wonder of the Russian gunners' drill, in which he saw them vie with each other, laying their guns with extraordinary swiftness and skill.

The chronicles speak of 150 pieces of ordnance as having been brought under the walls of Kazan in 1552. This figure is probably as much of an exaggeration as that of 150,000 men given as the total effective of the troops which accompanied the guns. But certain it is that the Tsar entered on this campaign with a very considerable force. And yet he must have made a great effort of will to start at all. Apart from that dislike of the risks of war, which he shared with all the Rurikovitchy, other motives must have held him back. His wife was expecting the birth of her first child, and the appeal of the Kazantsy to their Crimean brethren had not been in vain—the bands of the new Khan, Devlet-Ghireï, had already made their appearance before Toula. But the young Tsar would not be turned from his resolve. Toula held out, on August 13 he was at Sviajsk, where the effect produced by his presence was more salutary than that of the holy water and admonitions despatched from Moscow, and on the 23rd he was encamped before Kazan.

The ramparts of the town were only built of wood and earth, but from the very outset the garrison, which the chroniclers reckon at 30,000 men, seemed determined on a most obstinate resistance. Judging, and rightly, that it could expect no pardon, it also realized, no doubt, that this meeting was destined to decide a struggle, now centuries old, between two races, two powers, and two religions. Until now, apart from the foundation of a few outposts, such as the new establishment at Sviajsk, Moscow had done no more than exercise reprisals. In Kazan she was to take possession of one of the bulwarks of ancient Islam. Supported by a chief sent from the Crimea, Tsar Indiger-Mohammed, and strengthened by the picked warriors who had come with him, the Tartars revived the memory of their ancient valour, victoriously repulsed the first assaults, and drove Ivan to fear the merciless winter would again overtake him.

In September a fearful storm overthrew quantities of tents in the Russian camp and destroyed a number of storehouses on the Volga, and from the top of their ramparts, in which his artillery failed to make any breach, the besieged began to jeer at the White Tsar. Making obscene gestures, so the