The war took place during the administrations of three successive Russian
Tsars:
Alexander I (reigned 1801–1825),
Nicholas I (1825–1855), and
Alexander II (1855–1881). The leading Russian commanders included
Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov in 1816–1827,
Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov in 1844–1853, and
Aleksandr Baryatinskiy in 1853–1856. The famous
Russian writer
Leo Tolstoy, who gained much of his knowledge and experience of war for his book
War and Peace from these encounters, took part in the hostilities. The Russian poet
Alexander Pushkin referred to the war in his
Byronic poem The Prisoner of the Caucasus (), written in 1821.
Mikhail Lermontov, often referred to as "the poet of the Caucasus", participated in the
battle near the river Valerik which inspired him to write
the poem of the same name. In general, the Russian armies that served in the Caucasian wars were very eclectic. They included ethnic Russians from various parts of the empire, as well as
Cossacks,
Armenians,
Georgians,
Caucasus Greeks,
Ossetians, and even soldiers of Muslim background like
Tatars,
Bashkirs,
Kazakhs,
Uyghurs,
Turkmen. Some Caucasian Muslim tribes also sided with the Russians against fellow Muslims of the Caucasus. Muslim soldiers of the
Imperial Russian Army had played a role in religious discussion and wooing allies for Russia against their Muslim counterparts in the
Caucasus. The Russian invasion encountered fierce resistance. The first period of the invasion ended coincidentally with the death of Alexander I and the
Decembrist Revolt in 1825. It achieved surprisingly little success, especially compared with the then recent
Russian victory over the of
Napoleon in 1812. Between 1825 and 1833, little military activity took place in the Caucasus against the native North Caucasians as
wars with Turkey (1828/1829) and with
Persia (1826–1828) demanded the Empire's attention. After considerable successes in both wars, Russia resumed fighting in the Caucasus against the various rebelling native ethnic groups in the North Caucasus. This marked the beginning of what is now referred to as the
Circassian genocide. Russian units again met resistance, notably led by
Ghazi Mollah,
Hamzat Bek, and
Hadji Murad.
Imam Shamil followed them. He led the mountaineers from 1834 until his capture by
Dmitry Milyutin in 1859. In 1843, Shamil launched a sweeping offensive aimed at the Russian outposts in
Avaria. On 28 August 1843, 10,000 men converged from three different directions, on a Russian column in
Untsukul, killing 486 men. In the next four weeks,
Shamil captured every Russian outpost in Avaria except one, exacting over 2,000 casualties on the Russian defenders. He feigned an invasion north to capture a key chokepoint at the convergence of the Avar and Kazi-Kumukh rivers. In 1845, Shamil's forces achieved their most dramatic success when they withstood a major Russian offensive led by
Prince Vorontsov. During the
Crimean War of 1853–1856, the Russians brokered a truce with Shamil, but hostilities resumed in 1855. Warfare in the Caucasus finally ended between 1856 and 1859, when a 250,000 strong army under
General Baryatinsky broke the mountaineers' resistance. The war in the Eastern part of the North Caucasus ended in 1859; the Russians captured Shamil, forced him to surrender, to swear allegiance to the Tsar, and then exiled him to Central Russia. However, the war in the Western part of the North Caucasus resumed with the
Circassians (i.e. Adyghe, but the term is often used to include their Abaza kin as well) resuming the fight. A manifesto of Tsar Alexander II declared hostilities at an end on June 2 (May 21
OS), 1864. ==Aftermath==