Battle of Laba River
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Battle of Laba River was an engagement between Russian forces under the command of Grigory Zass and Circassians under the command of Aytech Qanoqo during the Russo-Circassian War.
Background
In July 1833, Zass was appointed commander of the Batalpashinsky section of the Kuban Line. Starting in August, Zass launched a series of expeditions against Circassians in an effort to push the Circassians as far as possible from the Kuban line. Zass systematically destroyed Circassian villages near the Kuban and Laba and cut clearings along the banks of the Laba and Khodz. Aytech Qanoqo, who had for a while fought on the side of the Russians, recently switched sides and joined the Circassians following a series of military setbacks by Russian forces in the late 1820s.
Battle
Zass assembled a force of 800 infantry and 400 Cossacks with 6 light guns, and launched an attack on the Besleneys across the Laba river. He unexpectedly attacked the aul of Aytech Qanoqo and ravaged it. On the way back to the crossing over the Laba, the force was attacked by a detachment of 2,000 Besleney, Abzakhs and Kabardians led by Qanoqo. Qanoqo's forces set fire to dry grass and reeds along the path of the retreating Russians. Zass ordered a site to be burned for his force and protected himself from fire.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Laba River” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.