PETER the GREAT.
At the close of the sixteenth century, the dominions of Russia, or Muscovy, as it was then more generally called, were far thrown back from the more civilized nations of southern Europe, by the intervention of Lithuania, Livonia, and other provinces now incorporated in the Russian empire, but then belonging either to Sweden or Poland. The Czar of Muscovy therefore possessed no political weight in the affairs of Europe; and little intercourse existed between the Court of Moscow and the more polished potentates whom it affected to despise as barbarians, even for some time after the accession of the reigning dynasty, the house of Romanof, in 1613, and the establishment of a more regular government than had previously been known. We only read occasionally of embassies being sent to Moscow, in general for the purpose of arranging commercial relations. From this state of insignificance, Peter, the first Emperor of Russia, raised his country, by introducing into it the arts of peace, by establishing a well organized and disciplined army in the place of a lawless body of tumultuous mutineers, by creating a navy, where scarce a merchant vessel existed before, and, as the natural result of these changes, by important conquests on both the Asiatic and European frontiers of his hereditary dominions. For these services his countrymen bestowed on him, yet living, the title of Great: and it is well deserved, whether we look to the magnitude of those services, the difficulty of carrying into effect his benevolent designs, which included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the grasp of mind, and the iron energy of will, which was necessary to conceive such projects, and to overcome the difficulties which beset them. It will not vitiate his claim tothe epithet, that his manners were coarse and boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and revolting to a polished taste: if that claim be questionable, it is because he who aspired to be the reformer of others, was unable to control the violence of his own passions.
The Czar Alexis, Peter’s father, was actuated by somewhat of the spirit which so distinguished the son. He endeavoured to introduce the European discipline into his armies; he had it much at heart to turn the attention of the Russians to maritime pursuits; and he added the fine provinces of Plescow and Smolensko to his paternal dominions. At the death of Alexis, in 1677, Peter was but five years old. His eldest brother Theodore succeeded to the throne. Theodore died after a reign of five years, and named Peter his successor. We pass in silence over the intrigues and insurrections which troubled the young Czar’s minority. It was not until the close of the year 1689, in the eighteenth year of his age, that he finally shook off the trammels of an ambitious sister, and assumed in reality, as well as in name, the direction of the state. How he had been qualified for this task by education does not clearly appear; but even setting aside the stories which attribute to his sister the detestable design of leading him into all sorts of excess, and especially drunkenness, with the hope of ruining both his constitution and intellect, it is probable that no pains whatever had been taken to form his intellect or manners for the station which he was to occupy. One of the few anecdotes told of his early life is, that being struck by the appearance of a boat on the river Yausa, which runs through Moscow, which he noticed to be of different construction from the flat-bottomed vessels commonly in use, he was led to inquire into the method of navigating it. It had been built for the Czar Alexis by a Dutchman, who was still in Moscow. He was immediately sent for; he rigged and repaired the boat; and under his guidance the young prince learnt how to sail her, and soon grew passionately fond of his new amusement. He had five small vessels built at Plescow, on the lake Peipus; and not satisfied with this fresh-water navigation, hired a ship at Archangel, in which he made a voyage to the coast of Lapland. In these expeditions his love of sailing was nourished into a passion which lasted through life. He prided himself upon his practical skill as a seaman; and both at this time and afterwards exposed himself and his friends to no small hazard by his rashness in following this favourite pursuit.
The first serious object of Peter’s attention was to reform the army. In this he was materially assisted by a Swiss gentleman named Lefort; at whose suggestion he raised a company of fifty men, whowere clothed and disciplined in the European manner; the Russian army at that time being little better than a tribe of Tartars. As soon as the little corps was formed, Peter caused himself to be enrolled in it as a private soldier. It is a remarkable trait in the character of the man, that he thought no condescension degrading, which forwarded any of his ends. In the army he entered himself in the lowest rank, and performed successively the duties of every other: in the navy he went still further, for he insisted on performing the menial duties of the lowest cabin-boy, rising step by step, till he was qualified to rate as an able seaman. Nor was this done merely for the sake of singularity; he had resolved that every officer of the sea or land service should enter in the lowest rank of his profession, that he might obtain a practical knowledge of every task or manœuvre which it was his duty to see properly executed: and he felt that his nobility might scarcely be brought to submit to what in their eyes would be a degradation, except by the personal example of the Czar himself. By the help of Lefort and some veteran officers, several of whom, and those the objects of his especial confidence, were Scotchmen, he was enabled in a short time to command the services of a large body of disciplined troops, composed, one corps principally of foreigners, another of natives. Meanwhile he had not been negligent of the other arm of war; for a number of Dutch and Venetian workmen were employed in building gun-boats and small ships of war at Voronitz, on the river Don, intended to secure the command of the sea of Asof, and to assist in capturing the strong town of Asof, then held by the Turks. The possession of this place was of great importance, from its situation at the mouth of the Don, commanding access to the Mediterranean seas. His first military attempts were accordingly directed against it, and he succeeded in taking it in 1696.
In the spring of the ensuing year, the empire being tranquil, and the young Czar’s authority apparently established on a safe footing, he determined to travel into foreign countries, to view with his own eyes, and become personally and practically familiar with the arts and institutions of refined nations. There was a grotesqueness in his manner of executing this design, which has tended, more probably than even its real merit, to make it one of the common places of history. Every child knows how the Czar of Muscovy worked in the dock-yard of Saardam in Holland, as a common carpenter. In most men this would have been affectation; and perhaps there was some tinge of that weakness in the earnestness with which Peter handled the axe, obeyed the officers of the dock-yard, and, in all points of outward mannersand appearance, put himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their daily bread. Most men too would have thought it unnecessary, that a prince, intent upon creating a navy, should learn the mere mechanical art of putting a ship together; and that his time would have been better employed in studying the sciences connected with navigation, and the discipline and details of the naval service as established in the best schools. It seems, however, to have been the turn of Peter’s mind always to begin at the beginning; a sound maxim, though here perhaps pushed beyond reasonable bounds. We have said, that he scrupulously went through the lowest services in the army and navy: probably he thought it as necessary that one who aimed at creating and directing a navy should not be ignorant of the practical art of ship-building, as that a general should be capable of performing himself the movements which he directs the private to execute. And his abode and occupations in Holland formed only part of an extensive plan. On quitting Russia he sent sixty young Russians to Venice and Leghorn to learn ship-building and navigation, and especially the construction and management of the large galleys moved by oars, which were so much used by the Venetian republic. Others he sent into Holland, with similar instructions; others into Germany, to study the art of war, and make themselves well acquainted with the discipline and tactics of the German troops. So that while his personal labour at Saardam may have been stimulated in part by affectation of singularity, in part perhaps by a love of bodily exertion common in men of his busy and ardent temper, it would be unjust not to give him credit for higher motives; such as the desire to become thoroughly acquainted with the art of ship-building, which he thought so important, and to set a good example of diligence to those whom he had sent out on a similar voyage of education.
Peter remained nine months in Holland, the greatest part of which he spent in the dock-yard of Saardam. He displayed unwearied zeal in seeking out and endeavouring to comprehend every thing of interest in science and art, especially in visiting manufactories. In January, 1698, he sailed for London in an English man-of-war, sent out expressly to bring him over. His chief object was to perfect himself in the higher branches of ship-building. With this view he occupied Mr. Evelyn’s house, adjoining the dock-yard of Deptford; and there remain in that gentleman’s journal some curious notices of the manners of the Czar and his household, which were of the least refined description. During his stay he showed the same earnestness in inquiring into all things connected with the maritime and commercialgreatness of the country, as before in Holland; and he took away near five hundred persons in his suite, consisting of naval captains, pilots, gunners, surgeons, and workmen in various trades, especially those connected with the naval service. In England, without assuming his rank, he ceased to wear the attire and adopt the habits of a common workman; and he had frequent intercourse with William III., who is said to have conceived a strong liking for him, notwithstanding the uncouthness of his manners. Kneller painted a portrait of him for the King, said to be a good likeness, from which our print is engraved.
He left London in April, 1698, and proceeded to Vienna, principally to inspect the Austrian troops, then esteemed among the best in Europe. He had intended to visit Italy; but his return was hastened by the tidings of a dangerous insurrection having broken out, which, though suppressed, seemed to render a longer absence from the seat of government inexpedient. The insurgents were chiefly composed of the Russian soldiery, abetted by a large party who thought every thing Russian good, and hated and dreaded the Czar’s innovating temper. Of those who had taken up arms, many were slain in battle; the rest, with many persons of more rank and consequence, suspected of being implicated in the revolt, were retained in prison until the Czar himself should decide their fate. Numerous stories of his extravagant cruelties on this occasion have been told, which may safely be passed over as unworthy of credit. It is certain, however, that considerable severity was shown. Many citizens who had not borne arms were condemned to death as instigators of the rebellion, and their frozen bodies exposed on the gibbets, or thrown by the way-side, remained throughout the winter, a fearful spectacle to passers by. In some accounts it is stated that two thousand of the soldiery were put to death: but the absurd falsehoods told of Peter’s conduct on this occasion afford opportunity for a doubt, which we gladly entertain, whether justice was suffered to lead to such wholesale butchery. This insurrection led to the complete remodelling of the Russian army, on the same plan which had already been partially adopted.
During the year 1699 the Czar was chiefly occupied by civil reforms. According to his own account, as published in his journal, he regulated the press, caused translations to be published of various treatises on military and mechanical science, and history; he founded a school for the navy; others for the study of the Latin, German, and other languages; he encouraged his subjects to cultivate foreign trade, which before they had absolutely been forbidden to do under pain ofdeath; he altered the Russian calendar, in which the year began on September 1, to agree in that point with the practice of other nations; he broke through the Oriental custom of not suffering women to mix in general society; and he paid sedulous attention to the improvement of his navy on the river Don. We have the testimony of Mr. Deane, an English ship-builder, that the Czar had turned his manual labours to good account, who states in a letter to England, that “the Czar has set up a ship of sixty guns, where he is both foreman and master builder; and, not to flatter him, I’ll assure your Lordship, it will be the best ship among them, and it is all from his own draught: how he framed her together, and how he made the moulds, and in so short a time as he did, is really wonderful.”
He introduced an improved breed of sheep from Saxony and Silesia; despatched engineers to survey the different provinces of his extensive empire; sent persons skilled in metallurgy to the various districts in which mines were to be found; established manufactories of arms, tools, stuffs; and encouraged foreigners skilled in the useful arts to settle in Russia, and enrich it by the produce of their industry.
We cannot trace the progress of that protracted contest between Sweden and Russia, in which the short-lived greatness of Sweden was broken: we can only state the causes of the war, and the important results to which it led. Peter’s principal motive for engaging in it was his leading wish to make Russia a maritime and commercial nation. To this end it was necessary that she should be possessed of ports, of which however she had none but Archangel and Asof, both most inconveniently situated, as well in respect of the Russian empire itself, as of the chief commercial nations of Europe. On the waters of the Baltic Russia did not possess a foot of coast. Both sides of the Baltic, both sides of the Gulf of Finland, the country between the head of that gulf and the lake Ladoga, including both sides of the river Neva, and the western side of lake Ladoga itself, and the northern end of lake Peipus, belonged to Sweden. In the year 1700, Charles XII. being but eighteen years of age, Denmark, Poland, and Russia, which had all of them suffered from the ambition of Sweden, formed a league to repair their losses, presuming on the weakness usually inherent in a minority. The object of Russia was the restoration of the provinces of Ingria, Carelia, and Wiborg, the country round the head of the Gulf of Finland, which formerly had belonged to her; that of Poland, was the recovery of Livonia and Esthonia, the greater part of which had been ceded by her to Charles XI. of Sweden. Denmarkwas to obtain Holstein and Sleswick. But Denmark and Poland very soon withdrew, and left Russia to encounter Sweden single-handed. To this she was entirely unequal; her army, the bulk of it undisciplined, and even the disciplined part unpractised in the field, was no match for the veteran troops of Sweden, the terror of Germany. In the battle of Narva, a town on the river which runs out of the Peipus lake, fought November 30, 1700, nine thousand Swedes defeated signally near forty thousand Russians, strongly intrenched and with a numerous artillery. Had Charles prosecuted his success with vigour, he might probably have delayed for many years the rise of Russia; but whether from contempt or mistake he devoted his whole attention to the war in Poland, and left the Czar at liberty to recruit and discipline his army, and improve the resources of his kingdom. In these labours he was most diligent. His troops, practised in frequent skirmishes with the Swedes quartered in Ingria and Livonia, rapidly improved, and on the celebrated field of Pultowa broke for ever the power of Charles XII. This decisive action did not take place until July 8, 1709. The interval was occupied by a series of small, but important additions to the Russian territory. In 1701–2, great part of Livonia and Ingria were subdued, including the banks of the Neva, where, on May 27, 1703, the city of St. Petersburg was founded. It was not till 1710 that the conquest of Courland, with the remainder of Livonia, including the important harbours of Riga and Revel, gave to Russia that free navigation of the Baltic sea which Peter had longed for as the greatest benefit which he could confer upon his country.
After the battle of Pultowa Charles fled to Turkey, where he continued for some years, shut out from his own dominions, and intent chiefly on spiriting the Porte to make war on Russia. In this he succeeded; but hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning, by the battle of the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catharine, first the mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner and successor of Peter in the throne of Russia. By her coolness and prudence, while the Czar, exhausted by fatigue, anxiety, and self-reproach, was labouring under nervous convulsions, to which he was liable throughout life, a treaty was concluded with the Vizier in command of the Turkish army, by which the Russians preserved indeed life, liberty, and honour, but were obliged to resign Asof, to give up the forts and burn the vessels built to command the sea bearing that name, and to consent to other stipulations, which must have been verybitter to the hitherto successful conqueror. Returning to the seat of government, his foreign policy for the next few years was directed to breaking down the power of Sweden, and securing his new metropolis by prosecuting his conquests on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland. Here he was entirely successful; and the whole of Finland itself, and of the gulf, fell into his hands. These provinces were secured to Russia by the peace of Nieustadt, in 1721. Upon this occasion, the senate or state assembly of Russia requested him to assume the title of Emperor of all the Russias, with the adjuncts of Great, and Father of his Country.
Of the private history and character of Peter, we have hitherto said nothing. He was passionately fond of ardent spirits, and not only drank very largely himself, but took a pleasure in compelling others to do the same, until the royal banqueting-room became a scene of the most revolting debauchery and intoxication. But towards the close of life, his habits, when alone, were temperate even to abstemiousness. In his domestic relations he was far from happy. At the age of seventeen he married a Russian lady, named Eudoxia Lapouchin, whom he divorced in less than three years. According to some accounts, this separation was caused by her infidelities; according to others, by her obstinate hostility to all his projects of improvement: a hostility inculcated and encouraged by the priesthood, in whose eyes all change was an abomination, and the worst of changes those made professedly in imitation of the barbarous nations inhabiting the rest of Europe. By her the Czar had one son, Alexis, heir to the throne; who, under the guardianship of his weak and bigoted mother, grew up in the practice of all low debauchery, and with the same deference to the priesthood, and dislike to change, which had cost herself the society of her husband. The degeneracy of this, his eldest, and long his only son, was a serious affliction to Peter; the more so, if he reflected justly, because he could not hold himself guiltless of it, in having intrusted the education of his legitimate successor to one, of whose incapacity for the charge he had ample proof. It appears from authentic documents that even so early as the battle of the Pruth, Peter had contemplated the necessity of excluding his son from the throne. In the close of the year 1716, he addressed a serious expostulation to Alexis, in which, after reviewing the errors of his past life, he declared his fixed intention of cutting off the prince from the succession, unless he should so far amend as to afford a reasonable hope of his reigning for the good of his people. He required him either to work a thorough reformation in his life and manners, or to retire to a monastery; and allowed him six months to deliberate upon this alternative. At the end of the timeAlexis quitted Russia, under pretence of going to his father at Copenhagen; but instead of doing so he fled to Vienna. He was induced, however, to return by promises of forgiveness, mixed with threats in the event of his continued disobedience, and arrived at Moscow, February 13, 1718. On the following day the clergy, the chief officers of state, and the chief nobility were convened, and Alexis, being brought before them as a prisoner, acknowledged himself unworthy of the succession, which he resigned, entreating only that his life might be spared. A declaration was then read on the part of the Czar, reciting the various delinquencies of which his son had been guilty, and ending with the solemn exclusion of him from the throne, and the nomination of Peter, his own infant son by Catharine, as the future emperor. To this solemn act of renunciation Alexis set his hand. Thus far there is nothing to blame in the parent’s conduct, unless it be considered that in the promise of forgiveness, a reservation of his son’s hereditary right was implied. His subsequent conduct was severe, if not faithless. Not content with what had been done, Peter determined to extract from Alexis a full confession of the plans which he had entertained, and of the names of his advisers. For near five months the wretched young man was harassed by constant interrogatories, in his replies to which considerable prevarication took place. It was on the ground of this prevarication that, in July, 1718, the Czar determined to bring his son to trial. By the laws of Russia a father had power of life or death over his child, and the Czar absolute power over the lives of his subjects. Waving these rights, however, if such oppressive privileges deserve the name, he submitted the question to an assembly of the chief personages of the realm; and the document which he addressed to them on this occasion bears strong evidence to the honesty of his purpose, unfeeling as that purpose must appear. On July 5, that assembly unanimously pronounced Alexis worthy of death, and on the next day but one Alexis died. The manner of his death will never probably be entirely cleared up. Rumour of course attributed it to violence; but there are many circumstances which render this improbable. One argument against it is to be found in the character of Peter himself, who would hardly have hesitated to act this tragedy in the face of the world, had he thought it necessary to act it at all. Why he should have incurred the guilt of an action scarce one degree removed from midnight murder, when the object might have been effected by legal means, and the odium was already incurred, it is not easy to say. He courted publicity for his conduct, and submitted himself to the judgment of Europe, by causing the whole trial to be translated into several languages, and printed. Hisown statement intimates that he had not intended to enforce the sentence; and proceeds to say that on July 6, Alexis, after having heard the judgment read, was seized by fits resembling apoplexy, and died the following day; having seen his father and received his forgiveness, together with the last rites of the Greek religion. This is the less improbable, because intemperance had injured the prince’s constitution, and a tendency to fits was hereditary in the family.
If our sketch of the latter years of Peter’s life appear meagre and unsatisfactory, it is to be recollected that the history of that life is the history of a great empire, which it would be vain to condense within our limits, were they greater than they are. Results are all that we are competent to deal with. From the peace of Nieustadt, the exertions of Peter, still unremitting, were directed more to consolidate and improve the internal condition of the empire, by watching over the changes which he had already made, than to effect farther conquests, or new revolutions in policy or manners. He died February 8, 1725, leaving no surviving male issue. Sometime before, he had caused the Empress Catharine to be solemnly crowned and associated with him on the throne, and to her he left the charge of fostering those schemes of civilization which he had originated.
Of the numerous works which treat wholly or in part of the history of Peter the Great, that of Voltaire, not the most trustworthy, is probably the most widely known. Fuller information will be found in the ‘Journal de Pierre le Grand, ecrit par lui-même;’ in the memoirs published under the name of Nestesuranoi, and the Anecdotes of M. Stæhlin. For English works, we may refer to Tooke’s History of Russia, and the ‘Life of Peter,’ in the Family Library.
END OF VOL. II.Printed byWilliam Clowes, Duke-Street, Lambeth.
END OF VOL. II.Printed byWilliam Clowes, Duke-Street, Lambeth.
END OF VOL. II.
Printed byWilliam Clowes, Duke-Street, Lambeth.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESChanged “Ecole” and “Ecoles” to “École” and “Écoles” on p.92.Changed “Eloge” to “Éloge” on p.88.Changed “Veritá” to “Verità” on p.139.Silently corrected typographical errors.Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES