Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/330

 306 fided his plans to the Grand Vizier, Mehemet-Sokolli, that illustrious warrior gave him a discouraging reply: 'The Tsar was a formidable foe, and nobody in the whole world, except the Sultan, was fit to measure swords with him.' For the Sultan, too, proposed to observe a strict neutrality. But the King, we may be sure, had foreseen all these disappointments, and made his calculations accordingly.

The point of attack had yet to be selected. The Lithuanians wanted to march on Pskov. Once there, the only road that connected the Russia of those days with the Baltic coast was cut. The way was barred, northward, by a series of lakes, and southward by marshes, rivers, and pathless forests. But before the army could get to Pskov it must either march right through Livonia, and thus deal the final blow to a country it had better spare, or make its way through Russian territory, leaving a ring of fortified places in its rear, and Lithuania without any protection at all. Batory decided to strike first at Polotsk. This town, on the banks of the Dvina, commanded, to some extent, the roads into Livonia and Lithuania. The place had been quite lately snatched from Poland, and thus might fairly lay claim to the King's first attention. He could go on to Pskov afterwards.

This point once settled, the great Hungarian worked wonders, as will be proved by the choice of Svir as his starting-point, which enabled him to conceal the object of his expedition till the very last moment; by his skilful division of his forces on the roads leading to this trysting-place; by his equally skilful flank movement from Svir to Disna, while continuing to screen Wilna and the parks of artillery with the main army; and his ingenious utilization of rivers and boat bridges for his heavy transport. Specialists have objected that this method of acting on the enemy's lines of communication was not known in Europe till towards the close of the seventeenth century. That may be. But inventors of methods are frequently forestalled by men of action.

Yet Batory was not able to carry out his plan according to his original idea. The tryst at Svir had been fixed for May 4, 1579. But, in spite of all the King's energy, there were delays—money, supplies, troops, all fell short. And for this reason, too, the Russian envoys, who had been dragged from town to town and from one audience to another, were not dismissed till June, and not till then did a Polish courier carry the formal declaration of war to Moscow. A few days later Batory had opened his campaign. The army which crossed the Disna with him, on a bridge of boats put together in the space of three hours, numbered, as to the Polish contingent, 6,517 horsemen, 1,338 of whom were Germans or Hungarians; 4,830