And Fleet in non-being.
Part 1.
Preamble of 2026 This article, co-authored with Sergei Makhun, was published in Zerkalo Nedeli in 2010 and was immediately reprinted on the websites of the Ukrainian Navy and the Russian Navy. Many years have passed since then, and many battles have taken place.. Including naval ones, between Russian and Ukrainian... I almost wrote - fleets, but the fact of the matter is that there is no fleet in Ukraine!
In 1690, the English admiral Arthur Herbert introduced the concept of “Fleet in being” (literally “fleet in existence”) - this is a strategy at sea when a naval fleet influences the enemy only by the fact of its existence, even if it sits in port and does not engage in battle. A weak fleet often did this so as not to lose to a strong enemy in battle, but still remain a serious threat. The enemy is afraid of a blow at any moment. Because of this, he is forced to keep his forces focused and spend a lot of resources on guarding rather than attacking..
But I repeat that Ukraine has practically no fleet. It's time to introduce the concept of Fleet in non-being? No, it's time to recognize that unmanned aerial (UAV) and seaborne (UAS) drones have revolutionized warfare on both land and sea.. Now, as I am writing these lines, a message has arrived about the destruction of two Russian radar stations on the coast of Crimea by Magura naval drones, and the day before yesterday it became known that they drowned a large (100 thousand. t) Rosatom container ship in the Black Sea, 130 miles from Novorossiysk.
Where are the remnants of what was called the Russian Black Sea Fleet four years ago?. Now they go out to sea only 10-15 miles to launch Caliber missiles into Ukraine - and then immediately hide back. But even in the harbor they are hit by Ukrainian UAVs and BECs! Here to them, to these fragments of former glory (and was there ever any? Perhaps during the time of Ushakov. ), the concept of fleet in non-being is quite applicable.
If you remember, the beginning of hostilities was already marked by the sinking of the cruiser " The ports of Crimea, except for Kerch, have long lost their practical significance, and Novorossiysk and Tuapse are quickly moving towards this. And all this was done by Ukraine, which has no fleet! After this necessary preamble, you can move on to the article itself, I also translated it into Ukrainian.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire passed the apogee of its glory. But even at the end of this century, the Turks were barely stopped at the walls of Vienna and near Chigirin! Only their constant wars with the Persians saved Europe from conquest. But were it only the Persians who saved Europe The importance of the Istanbul factor in European politics is evidenced by the behavior of the Spanish King Philip II towards the Netherlands. As soon as the Sublime Porte eased pressure in the Mediterranean, he immediately intensified the persecution of Protestant heretics, but the slightest increase in Turkish activity immediately distracted Spain from the rebellious provinces!
The Europeans resisted the powerful Turkish fleet with enormous difficulty, especially since there was no unity in their ranks. Thus, France has long been almost an ally of the Ottoman Empire. The famous Battle of Lepanto in 1571 was not decisive in the long-term confrontation between the warriors of the Cross and the Crescent. Soon followed by Venice's final loss of the island of Cyprus, Istanbul quickly rebuilds its fleet - and regains dominance in the Mediterranean. After subjugation in 1574. Tunisia, and in 1576. Morocco - all of northern Africa became Turkish. To the Pillars of Hercules and even further, to the Moroccan Atlantic coast. The Brilliant Porte stretched from Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf, from the banks of the Danube, Dnieper, Dniester and Don - to the rapids of the Nile in Africa.
And at this time, the unknown Cossacks entered into a fight with this strongest power in the world, stretching to three parts of the world, raising armies of three hundred thousand and a huge fleet on campaigns.. The number of which never exceeded 15-20 thousand people, and they were based on river islands in the middle of the Wild Field. And yet, for two hundred years they successfully fought with the Turks and their vassals - on land and at sea!
Historians often, and even primarily, emphasized the pirate nature of the sea campaigns of the Cossacks, denying the political implications and goals of the “steppe knights-filibusters” in their confrontation with the Turks and Tatars. And they exaggerated the “jointness” of the Turks and Crimeans. But more than once or twice, the Cossacks armed force to help the contenders for the khan’s throne from the Tatar dynasty of Gerayev (Gireev), landing amphibious assaults in the ports of Crimea.
Pirates? Filibusters? Not without that. That was the time, and even now it’s no better. But to a large extent, both sea and land campaigns of the Cossacks were preventive actions of self-defense. Attack is the best way to defend! Cossack attacks destroyed the imperial infrastructure on the Black Sea, freeing slaves, many of whom in turn became Cossacks.
Sir Arnold Toynbee himself, in his interesting “Comprehension of History,” called the Cossack republics river civilizations. The Dnieper and Volga, the Urals, Kuban and Terek have provided shelter to free people for centuries. But not only did seekers of freedom from the captivity of rigidly centralized states and from wild nomads find refuge there, not only did they find protection. No, they themselves continuously attacked!
Toynbee wrote that “the Cossacks were a semi-monastic military brotherhood like the Viking brotherhood, the Hellenic Spartan brotherhood or the knightly order of the Crusaders.”. Meanwhile, according to Kharkov resident Evgeniy Zarudny, “separating the Cossacks from the tsardom is not justified from a socio-economic point of view”.
“In the tired statements about the Cossack, its first hypostasis, that of military labor, tends to be overshadowed by another, military... Indeed, strong labor on the free land is invisible in the very essence of Cossackism and becomes one. “It’s good, the Cossack yelled from the sable on the boat; leave Ralo without allowing hunger, leave Shabl without allowing the Tatar. Only the most desperate spirits, having staked everything on the army's giving back, abandoned the state and became leaders; only on the very border with the Wild Field, where the hope of seizing the dominion from the wicked steppes becomes absolutely primary, having founded the licar order - the Zaporizhzhya Military. To be honest, there are no European analogues; Little Europe does not have a spacious border with a foreign, wild, lower world “beyond the threshold,” writes Evgeny Zarudny.
And the sharpest weapon of the Cossacks was the fleet, which long before Admiral Ushakov had, if not strategic, then operational dominance in the Black Sea. Zaporozhye, and soon the Don Cossacks brought hundreds of seagulls and plows into the sea. A Zaporozhets, who had never been in a sea raid, was not considered a real Cossack! “Ordinary Cossacks knew about this campaign only from the Zagal rices... A participant in the sea campaign took a template, two towels, six pounds of gunpowder, a large quantity of sacks and meal. The tea housed a crew of 50 to 70 Cossacks, a number of falconettes (small harmats), one Nuremberg quadrant... Taking with you and drinking alcohol was categorically forbidden. If they were caught like that, then the culprits were thrown overboard" Here you have the “freemen”, here you have the “filibusters”!
The first victory of the Cossack fleet is considered to be Victoria near Tyagin in 1492; near Tavan in 1502 and 1504 the Cossacks again won victories. For almost half a century, fighting between the Cossacks and Turks with the Crimean Tatars took place mainly on land. But in 1561, the Cossacks burned the Akkerman fortress and, in alliance with the Donetsk people, stormed Azov from the sea. Soon the first trip to Crimea took place. Koshevoy ataman Ivan Sirko mentions him in a letter: " Roku 1575 Bogdanko fought with the Cossacks and plundered. In 1575-1576, 1578, 1582, 1586-1590, 1593–1595, 1599. Cossack seagulls ruled near Gezlev (Evpatoria), Kafa (modern. Feodosiya), Kerch, Ochakov, Kiliya, Varna, Trebizond, Sinop and Istanbul.
And in the 17th century, trips to the Black Sea were carried out almost every year. “The Cossacks (despite the king’s ban, who feared angering the Turks) began their sea raids. Their flotillas, numbering from 30 to 100 seagulls, annually left the mouth of the Dnieper and headed to plunder seaside villages on the Turkish and Crimean coasts. The Khan's port of Gezlev, which had previously suffered more than once from Cossack attacks, was again defeated by sea in 1612, and the following year the Cossacks invaded Crimea twice" II).
In 1614, the Cossacks of the glorious hetman Peter Konashevich-Sagaidachny took by storm, defeated and burned the well-fortified port of Sinop on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Having loaded huge booty onto the seagulls, the “full” and part of the freed slaves, the Cossacks calmly left the Sinop harbor. According to the Turkish version, the imperial fleet intercepted them near Ochakov, “and there, with God’s help, some were cut down with sabers, others were sunk in the sea, and some. fled"
But the well-informed Great Crown Hetman Stanislav Zholkiewski reported that upon returning from Sinop, the Zaporozhye flotilla lost about 200 people killed and wounded. And this is out of two thousand who went on a campaign! And twenty prisoners brought to the “capital of the world” is not enough for a triumph, so there is no need to talk about the crushing defeat of the Cossacks. Sultan Ahmed I was enraged by the defeat of Sinop, beat the Grand Vizier Nazir Pasha with a buzdugan and ordered his hanging.
And finally, in the spring of 1615. Cossacks attacked the capital of the empire! On 80 seagulls they approached Istanbul and set fire to the ports of Mizevnu and Arhioku. The Sultan, at the sight of smoke, interrupted his country hunt and rushed into the city.. The Turkish fleet received an order to go to sea, caught up with the Cossacks near the mouth of the Danube, but in a naval battle some of the Turkish galleys were boarded, some were sunk, the rest scattered across the sea. The wounded commander of the Turkish squadron was captured by the Cossacks, offered them a ransom of 30 thousand zlotys, but did not wait for his release and died in captivity.
In the spring of 1616, two thousand Cossacks of Peter Sagaidachny defeated the squadron of Ali Pasha that blocked their path in the Dnieper estuary, captured fifteen galleys and about a hundred small ships, and then moved to the shores of the Crimea. There, with the help of the cannons of captured galleys, they stormed Cafa. Another flotilla in the fall of the same year ravaged Trabzon (Trebizond) and repeated the defeat of unfortunate Sinop, and burned 26 Turkish ships in the port of Miner.
Admiral Tsikoli Pasha tried to defeat the Cossacks, but lost three galleys and was forced to retreat.
Already in 1618. Italian traveler Pietro della Balle wrote about the Cossacks that “there are no more places subject to the Turks in the vicinity of the Black Sea that they did not capture, that they did not plunder and completely ruin. They are very strong today in the Black Sea, and it is obvious that no matter how few they may be, no one will ever dare to challenge their dominion."
To be continued.