Битва под Качаником (1690)
На сайте специалиста по истории Албании Роберта Элси размещен перевод на английский анонимной немецкой рукописи "Notes and Reflections on the Glorious Arms of Imperial Forces in 1689", содержащей подробную информацию о наступлении имперских войск на территории западных Балкан в 1689 году и о начале турецкого контрнаступления. Фигурируют в источнике и крымские татары под руководством нуреддина Азамата Гирея. Численность их немецкий автор указывает вполне вменяемую. Максимум (под Качаником) - 3 тыс. татар, в других случаях упоминаются татарские войска под командованием нуреддина в 1 и 1,3 тыс. ("выборные" татары, собранные Азаматом Гиреем) воинов.
Вот что автор сообщает о битве под Качаником:
"When the troops had marched for four hours, they arrived at a pass, less than a mile from Caccianek [Kaçanik] which they discovered that the Turks had taken. The Colonel camped there and, when he set off at 2 o’clock in the morning, he was advised by a lieutenant colonel of the Arnauts not to advance any further because Turkish forces were too great. However, he made fun of the man and called him a potron [kitten?]. At this, the Albanian exchanged some further words. Enraged, Strasser drew his pistol and shot the fellow in the arm, wounding him severely. He also went even further and had one of the other soldiers, from amongst the Albanians, executed for some minor offence. Ignoring all the warnings, he then proceeded through the gorge of Cacianeck [Kaçanik] and stopped to rest with his corps at a marsh where the Turks could not easily get at them.
Thereafter, he left his well-chosen camp on a whim and stopped in an open area which was open to assault from all sides. The Prince of Hanover and the other officers opposed this, explaining to him that once the regiment of Piccolomini and other troops arrived, victory would be certain and that they ought not to risk the crown of His Majesty needlessly.
[44r] If one is destined to have bad luck, good council is ignored and no preparations made for the impending catastrophe. Such a man was Strasser who, convinced of the courage of his men and without considering their small numbers, placed himself in obvious danger and provoked the enemy with cannon shots and din from military equipment so that it would come out and do battle.
The Turkish army, commanded by the above-mentioned pashas Ahmet and Mahmut, consisted of 3,000 Tartars under Sultan Naradin, an equal number of spahees, 4,000 Arnauts with their aga, and over 1,500 Janissaries also with their aga. The faithless Arnauts maintained contacts with our men. They had abandoned our side because of the bad treatment they had received from the Colonel and because Strasser had sentenced one of their comrades to death. They made it clear that, should the Germans actually attack, they would go over to the Ottoman side and assist in the total defeat of Imperial forces. When an agreement had been reached with that barbaric and inhuman nation, or to put it better, because Strasser wanted it so, Naradin advanced with his Tartars to the right of Imperial troops, where the Rascians were deployed. Initially they proved steadfast, but they were then put to flight and left the area [45v] open. The cavalry and infantry suffered great losses when the Tartars flooded in.
While this was happening on the right side, the spahees on the left side were suffering a similar fate. After putting up some weak resistance, they were abandoned by the Arnauts and our whole formation was thrown into confusion. Strasser then endeavoured to repair the damage, as did the brave Prince Carl, but it was to no avail. In this extreme situation, seeing that there was nothing to be done, the courage of a great man revealed itself. He charged between the enemy with weapon in hand, opening a path to bring assistance to his various troops. After accomplishing various extraordinary deeds with this foe and that foe, whom he slaughtered and felled to the ground, he himself finally fell as a victim to the savage enemy assault.
Although the magnanimous Germans had lost their beloved Prince Carl, who was beloved and held in greater esteem than many others, and saw themselves confronted with such a fatal day, they nonetheless turned the situation around, resolved to sell their lives at no cheap price. The commanders thus took council and drove the Turks [45r] and Tartars back to their lines and, in the midst of the fire, joining forces in part with their sabres, arrows, with slaughtering and death, and carried through with the battle for a while, achieving deeds of wonder.
In the absence of the wounded Strasser, who had remained in the confusion during the first [enemy] assault, Count Solari , with the help of the cavalry, now managed to get the musketeers back into order and have them do their work. The battle then raged all the more and all the bloodier. The Turks would indeed never have been able to achieve victory if our men had managed to keep up their defence to the rear and to the sides. But because they were on an open field and were surrounded by the enemy, they began to lose hope, in particular because their ammunition was low.
When the Ottomans observed that Imperial forces had decreased firing, they understood that they had no more bullets and powder. Without further ado, the main corps of the army advanced, attacking the invincible Catholics from the front, from the rear and from the sides. The weight of the attack was such that they could do no other than be defeated. Their souls, however, were not defeated by the burden of their short and arduous live, but were victorious, bearing the palm of victory with them to reinforce the ranks of heaven. [46v] Few of the many men were taken prisoner or remained alive. Some, under cover of night in the nearby forests fled back to Pristina, where they arrived the next day. Many of the officers, including Count Solari, were taken prisoner. As to Strasser, some say that he was seen killed. Others are certain that he was wounded and taken prisoner, and rendered his soul unto God. They say that the field was strewn with the bodies of Imperial troops, and yet a double number of infidels were despatched".
Силы турок и татар источник оценивает в 11,5 тыс., имперцев - в 3,5 тыс. Потери имперцев источник не называет (они составили 2,2 тыс.), ограничиваясь тем, что признает их значительность. Между тем один из австрийских полков (под командованием полковника Монтичелли) столкнулся с нуреддином (имевшим, по данным противоположной стороны, 1 тыс. воинов):
"Meanwhile, Piccolomini’s regiment was marching under the colonel, Count Monticelli, to meet up with Holstein. It arrived near where the defeat had taken place on the day after the battle, i.e. the 3rd, without know at all what had happened.
Coming upon various units of Tartars here and there, he attacked them and drove them into flight. In doing so, he took three men prisoner. Interrogating them, he realised with tears in his eyes the tragedy that had befallen the Imperial soldiers. For this reason, without hesitating any further, he marched to Pristina.
He had been marching a mere half an hour when saw the whole fury of the Tartars behind him at full speed. There were a thousand of them, with Sultan Naradin in person, who had remained behind with the greater part of his men while the triumphant Turks were departing for Pilipoppoli [Plovdiv], taking the [47v] booty, the prisoners and the cannons with them.
From the interrogation of the three afore-mentioned prisoners, Monticelli was convinced that he would probably have to do battle. He thus spoke to his officers and men, inspiring them to live and die with him. When he saw the enemy swarm approaching rapidly, he sought only to cross a bridge and position his men in a small marsh. Making ready there, he awaited the enemy. He also had a courageous lieutenant and 40 cavalrymen guard the bridge that the whole regiment had just crossed.
The battle lasted over two hours. The Christians fired volley after volley at the barbarians with their flint guns and the barbarians rained arrows down upon the Catholics. But the bridge and the marsh lay between them. As such, the Tartars were unable or did not have the courage to attack our men from the rear. When evening approached, the colonel, in full battle gear, led his men through the marsh, accompanied for a time by the screaming and howling of the Muslims, but they were not molested very much from nearby. In this dress, he reached Pristina after [47r] midnight and noted that he had lost only twenty soldiers and that only one captain and a few common soldiers had been wounded".
Сколько же еще интереснейшей информации по военной истории крымских татар спрятано в том же венском Военном архиве....