shatter Shamil’s resistance in a single campaign. This strategy did not produce the desired results. Although the tsar’s columns proved repeatedly that they could march deep into the rugged interior of the region to assault and capture virtually any rebel position, Shamil’s forces would not stand still long enough to risk total defeat. Moreover, upon retreating from the mountains, where it was impossible to supply Russian armies for more than a few weeks, Russian forces suffered repeated ambushes and loss of prestige The last such attempt was the nearly disastrous expedition of 1845. Under the command of the new Viceroy of the Caucasus, Prince Mikhail Vorontsov, a force of about eighteen thousand, including one thousand native militiamen, drove deep into the mountains and stormed a fiercely defended fort at Dargo. Yet, the mountaineers managed to evade total destruction by melting away into the surrounding forests.
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Upon their return from the mountains, Russian troops suffered incessant harassment by unseen snipers and were cut off from resupply. Only the arrival of a relief column prevented a complete debacle, but the invaders endured more than three thousand casualties during the campaign.
Finally, in 1846, Russian strategy changed to reflect a more patient and methodical modus operandi. Russia refocused its efforts on limited, achievable objectives with the overall intent of gradually reducing the territory under Shamil’s influence. The advent of the Crimean War disrupted Russian progress as the diversion of Russian regiments to fighting the Turks served once again to encourage popular resistance. However, with the conclusion of that war in 1856, the empire resolved to finish its increasingly tiresome struggle for dominion over the Caucasus by massing its strength in the region for the first time.
To accomplish this, the new viceroy, General Alexander I. Baryatinsky, retained control of forces assumed committed against Turkey in the Caucasian theater. With approximately 250,000 soldiers at his disposal, Baryatinsky was able to apply relentless pressure against multiple objectives by mounting separate but converging campaigns. He was ably served in this endeavor by Dmitry Mi-lyutin, the future War Minister, as chief of staff. Both men were veterans of fighting in the Caucasus and understood the necessity to separate the resistance from the general population. They ruthlessly achieved this end by systematically clearing and burning forests, destroying villages, and forcibly resettling entire tribes, thereby progressively denying Shamil access to critical resources. Following the fall of Shamil’s key stronghold at Veden in 1859, the Russians captured the resistance leader himself at Gunib. Then, having gained success in the east, Russian forces liquidated remaining opposition in the west during the next several years. Ultimately, as many as half a million Moslem tribesmen, above all Cherkes in the west, were relocated from their ancestral lands. See also: BARYATINSKY, ALEXANDER IVANOVICH; CAUCASUS; GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS; MILYUTIN, DMITRY ALEXEYEVICH; SHAMIL; VORONTSOV, MIKHAIL SE-MENOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baddeley, John. (1908). The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus. New York: Longmans, Green and Co. Baumann, Robert. (1993). Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Afghanistan. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute. Gammer, Moshe. (1994). Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan. London and Portland, OR: F. Cass.
The Caucasus region is a relatively compact area centered on the Caucasus Mountains. The foothills to the north and some of the steppe connected to them form a northern border, while the southern border can be defined by the extent of the Armenian plateau. The Black Sea in the west and the Caspian Sea in the east form natural boundaries in those directions. It is a territory of immense ethnic, linguistic, and national diversity, and it is currently spread over the territory of four sovereign nations.
The Caucasus region has long been known for the diversity of its peoples. Pliny the Younger in the first century, writing in his Natural History (Book VI.4.16), cited an earlier observer, Timos-thenes, to the effect that three hundred different tribes with their own languages lived in the Caucasus area, and that Romans in the city of Dioscu-rias, encompassing land now in the Abkhaz city of Sukhumi, had employed a staff of 130 translators in order for business to be carried out.
The relative remoteness of the Caucasus from the Greek and Romans lands led to erroneous ideas concerning its location, not to mention exotic claims for its people. Some thought that the mountains extended far enough to the east that they joined with the Himalayas in India. The Caucasus was the scene of the legendary Prometheus’ captivity, the goal of Jason’s Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece, and the homeland of the famous and fantastic fighting women known as Amazons. When Pompey invaded the region, he was said to have wanted to see the mountain where Prometheus had been chained.
The main Caucasus range is often considered part of the boundary that separates the state of mind that is Europe from that of Asia, despite aspirations of people to the south to be a part of Europe. The highest peak is Mount Elbrus at 18,510 feet (5,642 meters), making it the highest in Eu212
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rope; other prominent summits include Kazbek (Qazbegi) in Georgia at 16,558 feet (5,047 meters). The lands to the south are protected by the barrier they form against the cold northern winds, to the point that lands along the Black Sea coast, although at latitudes above 40? N, possess a subtropical climate.
To the north of the Caucasus range is the Eurasian steppe, which stretches far to the east and west; it has been the route of countless invasions. To the south are a variety of lesser mountain ranges, plateaus, and plains-an area that has also been a crossroads of military and economic intercourse-Persians from the east, various Greco- Roman states from the west, and Semitic cultures from the south have interacted with the peoples of the South Caucasus.
There are a variety of climates in this region due to the steep gradient in elevation from sea level to mountain peak. Glaciers are nestled at the tops of the mountains only a couple hundred miles from citrus and tea plantations. Fast-moving rivers course along this gradient. By and large, the mountain rivers, cutting steep gorges, for example, the Pankisi in eastern Georgia and the Kodori in Abkhazia, are not navigable, but there are rivers to the south and north-such as the Mtkvari (Kura), which starts in Turkey and flows through Georgia and Azerbaijan to the Caspian Sea, and the Terek to the north, which flows also to the Caspian-that have been important water highways throughout human history. The mountains hold mineral resources such as coal and manganese. The Caucasus is near the oil resources of the Caspian Sea and pipelines run to, or are planned for, the north and south of the mountains.
There is great potential for promoting a prosperous tourist industry. Alpine skiing, pristine mountain lakes, white-water rafting, and the breathtaking scenery of snow-capped mountains juxtaposed with fertile plains are all available to the visitor, and the hospitality of the many peoples of the region, when they are not fighting among themselves, is the stuff of story and legend.
The region, formerly contained within the boundaries of the Soviet Union, is in the early twenty-first century spread over four nations: the Russian Federation to the north; and the three republics of the South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The Russian part of this area is divided into several ethnic jurisdictions: Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan.
The Northwest Caucasian languages include Abkhazian, spoken in Georgia, and Abaza, Adyghe (or Circassian), and Kabardian in Russia.
Balkar-Karachay is a Turkic language, as is Kumyk of Dagestan. These languages were left behind as Turkic peoples moved along the steppes from Central Asia.
The Ossetes speak an Iranian language, as do the Judeo-Tats of Dagestan. The Tats have the added distinction of being Jews in the midst of a predominantly Muslim territory; many of them reside in Israel.
The Ingush and Chechen languages are fairly closely related and are collectively known as Vainakh languages. They might have been considered one language, but Soviet-era language policy often encouraged a fragmentation in linguistic definition. At the same time, languages that had little or no written expression before the twentieth century were given alphabets and encouraged- principally, of course, to be instruments of communist propaganda. Such was the case with many of the languages of the Caucasus, the two major exceptions being
