Livonian War
1570–1577: Russian dominance and the Kingdom of Livonia

During the early 1570s, King John III of Sweden faced a Russian offensive on his positions in Estonia. Reval (Tallinn) withstood a Russian siege in 1570 and 1571, but several smaller towns were taken by Russian forces. On 23 January a Swedish army of 700 infantry and 600 cavalry under command of Clas Åkesson Tott (the Elder) clashed with a Russian and Tartar army of 16,000 men under the command of Khan Sain-Bulat at the Battle of Lode by the village of Koluvere. The Russian advance concluded with the sacking of Weissenstein (Paide) in 1573, where, after its capture, the occupying forces roasted some of the leaders of the Swedish garrison alive, including the commander. This triggered a retaliatory campaign by John centred on Wesenberg, to which the army departed in November 1573 with Klas Åkesson Tott in overall command and Pontus de la Gardie as field commander. There were also Russian raids into Finland, including one as far as Helsingfors (Helsinki) in 1572. A two-year truce on this front was signed in 1575.

John's counter-offensive stalled at the siege of Wesenberg in 1574, when German and Scottish units of the Swedish army turned against each other. This failure has also been blamed on the difficulties of fighting in the bitter winter conditions, particularly for the infantry. The war in Livonia was a great financial burden for Sweden, and by the end of 1573, Sweden's German mercenaries were owed 200,000 daler. John gave them the castles of Hapsal, Leal, and Lode as security, but when he failed to pay they were sold to Denmark.

Meanwhile, efforts by Magnus to besiege Swedish-controlled Reval (Tallinn) were faltering, with support from neither Ivan nor Magnus' brother, Frederick II of Denmark forthcoming. Ivan's attention was focused elsewhere, while Frederick's reluctance perhaps stemmed from a new spirit of Swedish–Danish unity that made him unwilling to invade Livonia on behalf of Magnus, whose state was a vassal of Russia. The siege was abandoned in March 1571, whereupon Swedish action in the Baltic escalated, with the passive backing of Sigismund, John's brother-in-law.

At the same time Crimean Tatars devastated Russian territories and burned and looted Moscow during the Russo-Crimean Wars. Drought and epidemics had fatally affected the Russian economy while oprichnina had thoroughly disrupted the government. Following the defeat of Crimean and Nogai forces in 1572, oprichnina was wound down and with it the way Russian armies were formed also changed. Ivan IV had introduced a new strategy whereby he relied on tens of thousands of native troops, Cossacks and Tatars instead of a few thousand skilled troops and mercenaries, as was the practice of his adversaries.

Ivan's campaign reached its height in 1576 when another 30,000 Russian soldiers crossed into Livonia in 1577 and devastated Danish areas in retaliation for the Danish acquisition of Hapsal, Leal, and Lode. Danish influence in Livonia ceased, as Frederick accepted deals with Sweden and Poland to end nominal Danish involvement. Swedish forces were besieged in Reval (Tallinn) and central Livonia raided as far as Dünaburg (Daugavpils), formally under Polish–Lithuanian control since the 1561 Treaty of Vilnius. The conquered territories submitted to Ivan or his vassal, Magnus, declared monarch of the Kingdom of Livonia in 1570. Magnus defected from Ivan IV during the same year, having started to appropriate castles without consulting the Tsar. When Kokenhusen (Koknese) submitted to Magnus to avoid fighting Ivan IV's army, the Tsar sacked the town and executed its German commanders. The campaign then focussed on Wenden (Cēsis, Võnnu), "the heart of Livonia", which as the former capital of the Livonian Order was not only of strategic importance, but also symbolic of Livonia itself.
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