Moldavian troops engaging the Poles in the
Battle of Obertyn
(1531)
Moldavia
had a
military
force for much of its history as an independent and, later, autonomous principality subject to the
Ottoman Empire
(14th century-1859).
Army
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Middle Ages
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Moldavian troops in battle, as illustrated in
Johannes de Thurocz
(1488 edition); the
Moldavian flag
is displayed
Under the reign of
Stephen the Great
, all farmers and villagers had to bear arms. Stephen justified this by saying that "every man has a duty to defend his fatherland"; according to Polish chronicler
Jan Długosz
, if someone was found without carrying a weapon, he was
sentenced to death
.
[1]
Stephen reformed the army by promoting men from the landed free peasantry
r?ze?i
(i.e. something akin to
freeholding
yeomen
) to infantry (
voinici
) and light cavalry (
hansari
) ? to make himself less dependent on the
boyars
? and introduced his army to guns. In times of crises, The Small Host (
Oastea Mic?
) ? which consisted of around 10,000 to 12,000 men ? stood ready to engage the enemy, while the Large Host (
Oastea Mare
) ? which could reach up to 40,000 ? had all the free peasantry older than 14, and strong enough to carry a
sword
or use the
bow
, recruited. This seldom happened, for such a
levee en masse
was devastating for both economy and population growth. In the
Battle of Vaslui
, Stephen had to summon the Large Host and also recruited
mercenary
troops.
In the
Middle Ages
and early
Renaissance
, the Moldavians relied on light
cavalry
(
c?l?ra?i
) which used
hit-and-run tactics
similar to those of the
Tatars
; this gave them great mobility and also flexibility, in case they found it more suitable to dismount their horses and fight in hand-to-hand combat, as it happened in 1422, when 400
horse archers
were sent to aid
Jagiellon Poland
, Moldavia’s overlord against the
Teutonic Knights
. When making eye-contact with the enemy, the horse archers would withdraw to a nearby forest and
camouflage
themselves with leaves and branches; according to Jan Długosz, when the enemy entered the wood, they were "showered with arrows" and defeated.
[2]
The heavy cavalry consisted of the nobility, namely, the boyars and their guards, the
viteji
(lit. "brave ones", small nobility) and the
curteni
? the Court Cavalry (all nominally part of the
Small Host
). In times of war, boyars were compelled by the
feudal system of allegiance
to supply the prince with troops in accordance with the extent of their
manorial domain
.
Other troops consisted of professional foot soldiers (
lefegii
) which fulfilled the
heavy infantry
role, and the
pl?ie?i
, free peasants whose role was that of border guards: they guarded the mountain passes and were prepared to
ambush
the enemy and to fight delaying actions.
In the absence of the prince, command was assigned to the
Mare Sp?tar
(Grand Sword-Bearer - a military office) or to the
Mare Vornic
(approx. Governor of the Country; a civilian office second only to the
Voievod
, which was filled by the prince himself). Supplying the troops was by tradition-later-made-into-law the duty of the inhabitants of those lands on which the soldiers were present at a given time.
The Moldavians' (as well as Wallachians') favourite military doctrine in (defensive) wars was a
scorched earth
policy combined with harassment of the advancing enemy using
hit-and-run tactics
and disruption of communication and supply lines, followed by a large scale ambush: a weakened enemy would be lured in a place where it would find itself in a position hard or impossible to defend. A general attack would follow, often with devastating results. The shattered remains of what was once the enemy army would be pursued closely and harassed all the way to the border and sometimes beyond. A typical example of successful employments of this scenario is the
Battle of Vaslui
.
Decline and refounding
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Towards the end of the 15th century, especially after the success of
guns
and
cannons
, mercenaries became a dominant force in the country’s military. With the economic demands created by the
stagnation of the Ottoman Empire
, the force diminished and included only mercenaries such as the
seimeni
.
The 1829
Treaty of Adrianople
allowed Moldavia to again maintain its own troops, no longer acting as an auxiliary under strict Ottoman supervision, and assigned red over blue
pennants
(
see
Flag and coat of arms of Moldavia
). Their renewed existence under
Mihail Sturdza
was a major symbol and rally point for the
nationalist
cause, aiding in bringing about the
1848 Moldavian revolution
.
Fleet
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Model of a Moldavian
panzar
on display at the
National Museum of the Romanian Navy
During the 15th century, the Moldavians traded with their ships in both the Black Sea and in the
Mediterranean Sea
, their presence being reported as far as
Crete
.
[3]
During the time of
Stephen the Great
, the fleet of Moldavia consisted of
sailing ships
called
panzare
. With a single mast featuring a
square rig
and crewed by 5-6 sailors and a
helmsman
, the
panzar
was used in various military actions.
[3]
The first documented mentions of a Moldavian
naval fleet
come from 1465 during the siege of
Chilia
. After the capture of
Caffa
by the Ottoman fleet led by
Gedik Ahmed Pasha
, the Moldavian
panzare
captured some Ottoman ships carrying prisoners taken from the
Genoese city
.
[4]
The prisoners were taken to a Moldavian port, where the Ottomans demanded their extradition. Their demands were declined by the Voivode. The Moldavian ships from Chilia and
Cetatea Alb?
, further captured several other Turkish ships.
[3]
Another mention of the Moldavian fleet is found in connection with the rule of
Aron Tiranul
, who used it to help
Wallachian ruler
Michael the Brave
establish his control over the
Chilia branch
of the
Danube
and
Dobruja
.
The Treaty of Adrianople provided for a Moldavian self-defense naval force, to be composed of
caicque
vessels.
Schooners
armed with
cannons
were first built in the 1840s. Along with patrolling the Danube, these made their way on its tributaries, the
Siret
and the
Prut River
.
See also
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References
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