[1831A.D.]
Soon the diet assembled in Warsaw took a decision which completed the rupture between Poland and Russia. On the 25th of January, 1831, the diet declared the Romanov dynasty to be deprived of the throne of Poland. The Poles themselves thus unbound the hands of the emperor, and the duel between Russia and Poland became inevitable. The emperor replied to the challenge by a manifesto in accordance with which the Russian troops crossed the Polish frontier, and on the 25th of February a decisive battle took place before Prague at Grokhov, by which the Polish army was obliged to retreat to Warsaw with a loss of twelve thousand men.
But Count Diebitsch did not recognise the possibility of taking advantage of the victory gained, and which would have been inevitably completed by the occupation of the Polish capital; and Sabalkanski was not fated to become prince of Warsaw. The Polish troops retreated unhindered across the only bridge to Warsaw; the new Polish commander-in-chief Skrjinetzski set out to reorganise the army, the rising spread even to the Russian governments, and the campaign, against all expectations, dragged on for six months. Meanwhile it was a war upon which depended, according to the expression used by the emperor, “the political existence of Russia.”
On the 26th of May Diebitsch gained a second victory over the Polish army, which also terminated by the favourable retreat of the latter; and on the 13th of June, the emperor found occasion to write to his field-marshal: “Act at length so that I can understand you.” The letter was however not read by Count Diebitsch, for on the 10th of June the field-marshal suddenly died of cholera in the village of Kleshov near Pultiusk.He was replaced by Field-marshal Count Paskevitch-Erivanski, who was as early as April, 1831, called by the emperor from Tiflis to St. Petersburg. It was decided to cross the lower Vis-Suta and move towards Warsaw. The czarevitch Constantine outlived Count Diebitsch only by a few days. He also died suddenly of cholera at Vitebsk, in the night between the 26th and 27th of June of the year 1831.
Field-marshal Paskevitch(1782-1856)
Field-marshal Paskevitch
(1782-1856)
The Polish insurrection from that time daily grew nearer to its definitive conclusion; it was determined by the two days’ storming of Warsaw, which took place on the 7th and 8th of September. Finally Field-marshal Paskevitch was able to communicate to the emperor the news that “Warsaw is at the feet of your imperial majesty.” Prince Suvorov, aide-de-camp of the emperor, was the bearer of this intelligence to Tsarskoi Selo on the 16th of September.
Nicholas wrote as follows to his victorious field-marshal: “With the help of the all-merciful God, you have again raised the splendour and glory of our arms, you have punished the disloyal traitors, you have avenged Russia, you have subdued Warsaw—from henceforth you are the most serene prince of Warsaw. Let posterity remember that the honour and glory of the Russian army are inseparable from your name, and may your name preserve for everyone the memory of the day on which the name of Russia was again made glorious. This is the sincere expression of the grateful heart of your sovereign, your friend, and your old subordinate.”
After the fall of Warsaw the war still continued for a while, but not for long. The chief forces of the Polish army, which had retired to Novogeorgievsk, finished by passing into Prussian territory at the end of September, and on the 21st of October the last fortress surrendered. The Polish insurrection was at an end. But the peace, attained by such heavy sacrifice, was accompanied by a new evil for Russia; in Europe appeared the Polish emigration, carrying with it hatred and vociferations against Russia and preparing the inimical conditions of public opinion in the west against the Russian government.
The emperor had hardly returned to St. Petersburg from opening the diet in Warsaw, when suddenly a new care occupied the attention of the government. The cholera made its appearance in the empire. This terrible illness, until then known to Russia only by name and by narratives describing its devastations, brought with it still greater fear, because no one knew or could indicate either medical or police measures to be taken against it. General opinion inclined, however, towards the advantages to be derived from quarantine and isolation, such as had been employed against the plague, and the government immediately took necessary measures in this direction with the activity that the emperor’s strong will managed to instil into all his dispositions.Troops were without delay stationed at various points and cordons formed from them and the local inhabitants, in order to save the governments in the interior and the two capitals from the calamity.
In spite of all precautions, however, a fresh source of grief was added to all the cares and anxieties that pressed upon the emperor at that period. Since the 26th of June the cholera had appeared in St. Petersburg and in a few days had attained menacing dimensions. This awful illness threw all classes of the population into a state of the greatest terror, particularly the common people by whom all the measures taken for the preservation of the public health—such as increased police surveillance, the surrounding of the towns with troops, and even the removal of those stricken with cholera to hospitals—were at first regarded as persecutions. Mobs began to assemble, strangers were stopped in the streets and searched for the poison they were supposed to carry on them, while doctors were publicly accused of poisoning the people. Finally, on the 4th of July, the mob, excited by rumours and suspicions, gathered together at the Hay Market and attacked the house in which a temporary cholera hospital had been established. They broke the windows, threw the furniture out into the street, wounded and cast out the sick, thrashed the hospital servants, and killed several of the doctors. The police were powerless to restore order and even the final appearance of the military governor-general Count Essen did not attain the necessary result. A battalion of the Semenov regiment forced the people to disperse from the square into the side streets, but was far from putting a stop to the disturbance.
The next day the emperor Nicholas went on a steamer from St. Petersburg to Elagium Island. When he had heard the reports of various persons as to the state of the town he got into a carriage with Adjutant-general Prince Menshikov and drove to the Preobrajenski parade-ground in the town, where a battalion of the Preobrajenski regiment was encamped. When he had thanked the troops, the emperor continued his way along the carriage road where he threatened with his displeasure some crowds and shopkeepers; from there he drove to the Hay Market where about five thousand people had assembled. Standing up in his carriage and turning to the mob, the emperor spoke as follows: “Misdeeds were committed yesterday, public order was disturbed; shame on the Russian people for forgetting the faith of their fathers and imitating the turbulence of the French and Poles! They have taught you this: seize them and take those suspected to the authorities; but wickedness has been committed here, here we have offended and angered God—let us turn to the church, down on your knees, and beg the forgiveness of the Almighty!”
The people fell on their knees and crossed themselves in contrition; the emperor prostrated himself also, and exclamations of “We have sinned, accursed ones that we are!” resounded throughout the air. Continuing his speech to the people, the emperor again admonished the crowd: “I have sworn before God to preserve the prosperity of the people entrusted to me by providence; I am answerable before God for these disorders: and therefore I will not allow them. Woe be to the disobedient!”
At this moment some men in the crowd raised their voices. The emperor then replied: “What do you want—whom do you want? Is it I? I am not afraid of anything—here I am!” and with these words he pointed to his breast. Cries of enthusiasm ensued. After this the emperor, probably as a sign of reconciliation, embraced an old man in the crowd and returned, first to Elagium and afterwards to Peterhov. The day afterwards the emperor again visited the capital. Order was re-established, but the cholera continued torage. Six hundred persons died daily, and it was only from the middle of July that the mortality began to diminish.
Far more dangerous in its consequences was the revolt that arose in the Novgorod military settlements. Here the cholera and rumours of poisoning only served as a pretext for rebellion; the seed of general dissatisfaction among the population belonging to this creation of Count Araktcheiev continued to exist in spite of all the changes introduced by the emperor Nicholas into the administration of the military settlements. A spark was sufficient to produce in the settlements an explosion of hitherto unprecedented fury, and the cholera served as the spark. Order was however finally re-established in the settlements and then the emperor Nicholas set off for them quite alone and presented himself before the assembled battalions, which had stained themselves with the blood of their officers and stood awaiting, trembling and in silence the judgment of their sovereign.b
The possession of the Caucasus is a question vitally affecting the interests of Russia in her provinces beyond that range of mountains, and her ulterior projects with regard to the regions of Persia and Central Asia. Here are the terms in which this subject is handled in a report printed at St. Petersburg, and addressed to the emperor after the expedition of General Emmanuel to Elbruz in 1829:
“The Circassians (Tsherkessians) bar out Russia from the south, and may at their pleasure open or close the passage to the nations of Asia. At present their intestine dissensions, fostered by Russia, hinder them from uniting under one leader; but it must not be forgotten that, according to traditions religiously preserved amongst them, the sway of their ancestors extended as far as to the Black Sea. They believe that a mighty people, descended from their ancestors, and whose existence is verified by the ruins of Madjar, has once already overrun the fine plains adjacent to the Danube, and finally settled in Panonia. Add to this consideration their superiority in arms. Perfect horsemen, extremely well armed, inured to war by the continual freebooting they exercise against their neighbours, courageous, and disdaining the advantages of our civilisation, the imagination is appalled at the consequences which their union under one leader might have for Russia, which has no other bulwark against their ravages than a military line, too extensive to be very strong.”
For the better understanding of the war which Russia has been so long waging with the mountaineers, let us glance at the topography of the Caucasus, and the respective positions of the belligerents.
The chain of the Caucasus exhibits a peculiar conformation, altogether different from that of any of the European chains. The Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians are accessible only by the valleys, and in these the inhabitants of the country find their subsistence, and agriculture developes its wealth. The contrary is the case in the Caucasus. From the fortress of Anapa on the Black Sea, all along to the Caspian, the northern slope presents only immense inclined plains, rising in terraces to a height of 3,000 or 4,000 yards above the sea level. These plains, rent on all directions by deep and narrow valleys and vertical clefts, often form real steppes, and possess on their loftiest heights rich pastures, where the inhabitants, secure from all attack, find fresh grass for their cattle in the sultriest days of summer. The valleys on the other hand are frightful abysses, the steep sides of which areclothed with brambles, while the bottoms are filled with rapid torrents foaming over beds of rocks and stones. Such is the singular spectacle generally presented by the northern slope of the Caucasus. This brief description may give an idea of the difficulties to be encountered by an invading army. Obliged to occupy the heights, it is incessantly checked in its march by impassable ravines, which do not allow of the employment of cavalry, and for the most part prevent the passage of artillery. The ordinary tactics of the mountaineers is to fall back before the enemy, until the nature of the ground or the want of supplies obliges the latter to begin a retrograde movement. Then it is that they attack the invaders, and, intrenched in their forests behind impregnable rocks, they inflict the most terrible carnage on them with little danger to themselves.
On the south the character of the Caucasian chain is different. From Anapa to Gagri, along the shores of the Black Sea, we observe a secondary chain composed of schistous mountains, seldom exceeding 1000 yards in height. But the nature of their soil, and of their rocks, would be enough to render them almost impracticable for European armies, even were they not covered with impenetrable forests. The inhabitants of this region, who are called Circassians, are entirely independent, and constitute one of the most warlike peoples of the Caucasus.
The great chain begins in reality at Gagri, but the mountains recede from the shore, and nothing is to be seen along the coast as far as Mingrelia but secondary hills, commanded by immense crags, that completely cut off all approach to the central part of the Caucasus. This region, so feebly defended by its topographical conformation, is Abkhasia, the inhabitants of which have been forced to submit to Russia. To the north and on the northern slope, westward of the military road from Mozdok to Tiflis, dwell a considerable number of tribes, some of them ruled by a sort of feudal system, others constituted into little republics. Those of the west, dependent on Circassia and Abadja, are in continual war with the empire, whilst the Nogaians, who inhabit the plains on the left bank of the Kuma, and the tribes of the great Kabarda, own the sovereignty of the czar; but their wavering and dubious submission cannot be relied on. In the centre, at the foot of the Elbruz, dwell the Suanetians, an unsubdued people, and near them, occupying both sides of the pass of Dariel, are the Ingutches and Ossetans, exceptional tribes, essentially different from the aboriginal peoples. Finally we have, eastward of the great Tiflis road, near the Terek, little Kabarda, and the country of the Kumicks, for the present subjugated; and then those indomitable tribes, the Lesghians and Tchetchens, of whom Schamyl is the Ab del Kadir, and who extended over the two slopes of the Caucasus to the vicinity of the Caspian.
In reality, the Kuban and the Terek, that rise from the central chain, and fall, the one into the Black Sea, the other into the Caspian, may be considered as the northern political limits of independent Caucasus. It is along those two rivers that Russia has formed her armed line, defended by Cossacks, and detachments from the regular army. The Russians have, indeed, penetrated those northern frontiers at sundry points, and have planted some forts within the country of the Lesghians and Tchetchens. But those lonely posts, in which a few unhappy garrisons are surrounded on all sides, and generally without a chance of escape, cannot be regarded as a real occupation of the soil on which they stand. They are, in fact, only so many pickets, whose business is only to watch more closely the movements of the mountaineers. In the south, from Anapa to Gagri, along the Black Sea, the imperial possessions never extended beyond a few detached forts, completely isolated, and deprivedof all means of communication by land. A rigorous blockade was established on this coast; but the Circassians, as intrepid in their frail barks as among their mountains, often passed by night through the Russian line of vessels, and reached Trebizond and Constantinople. Elsewhere, from Mingrelia to the Caspian, the frontiers are less precisely defined, and generally run parallel with the great chain of the Caucasus.
[1835A.D.]
Thus limited, the Caucasus, including the territory occupied by the subject tribes, presents a surface of scarcely 5000 leagues; and it is in this narrow region that a virgin and chivalric nation, amounting at most to 2,000,000 of souls, proudly upholds its independence against the might of the Russian empire, and has for upwards of twenty years sustained one of the most obstinate struggles known to modern history.
The Russian line of the Kuban, which is exactly similar to that of the Terek, is defended by the Cossacks of the Black Sea, the poor remains of the famous Zaparogians, whom Catherine II subdued with so much difficulty, and whom she colonised at the foot of the Caucasus, as a bulwark against the incursions of the mountaineers. The line consists of small forts and watch stations; the latter are merely a kind of sentry-box raised on four posts, about fifty feet from the ground. Two Cossacks keep watch in them day and night. On the least movement of the enemy in the vast plain of reeds that fringe both banks of the river, a beacon fire is kindled on the top of the watch box. If the danger becomes more pressing, an enormous torch of straw and tar is set fire to. The signal is repeated from post to post, the whole line springs to arms, and 500 or 600 men are instantly assembled on the point threatened. These posts, composed generally of a dozen men, are very close to each other, particularly in the most dangerous places. Small forts have been erected at intervals with earthworks, and a few pieces of cannon; they contain each from 150 to 200 men.
But notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Cossacks, often aided by the troops of the line, the mountaineers not unfrequently cross the frontier and carry their incursions, which are always marked with massacre and pillage, into the adjacent provinces. There are bloody but justifiable reprisals. In 1835 a body of fifty horsemen entered the country of the Cossacks, and proceeded to a distance of 120 leagues, to plunder the German colony of Madjar and the important village of Vladimirovka, on the Kuma, and what is most remarkable they got back to their mountains without being interrupted. The same year Kisliar, on the Caspian, was sacked by the Lesghians. These daring expeditions prove of themselves how insufficient is the armed line of the Caucasus, and to what dangers that part of southern Russia is exposed.
The line of forts until lately existing along the Black Sea was quite as weak, and the Circassians there were quite as daring. They used to carry off the Russian soldiers from beneath the fire of their redoubts, and come up to the very foot of their walls to insult the garrison. Hommaire de Hell relates that, at the time he was exploring the mouths of the Kuban, a hostile chief had the audacity to appear one day before the gates of Anapa. He did all he could to irritate the Russians, and abusing them as cowards and woman-hearted, he defied them to single combat. Exasperated by his invectives, the commandant ordered that he should be fired on with grape. The horse of the mountaineer reared and threw off his rider, who, without letting go the bridle, instantly mounted again, and, advancing still nearer to the walls, discharged his pistol almost at point-blank distance at the soldiers, and galloped off to the mountains.
As for the blockade by sea, the imperial squadron has not been expertenough to render it really effectual. It was only a few armed boats, manned by Cossacks, that gave the Circassians any serious uneasiness. These Cossacks like those of the Black Sea, are descended from the Zaparogians. Previously to the last war with Turkey they were settled on the right bank of the Danube, where their ancestors had taken refuge after the destruction of their Setcha. During the campaigns of 1828-29, pains were taken to revive their national feelings, they were brought again by fair means or by force under the imperial sway, and were then settled in the forts along the Caucasian shore, the keeping of which was committed to their charge. Courageous, enterprising, and worthy rivals of their foes, they waged a most active war against the skiffs of the mountaineers in their boats, which carry crews of fifty or sixty men.
The treaty of Adrianople was in a manner the opening of a new era in the relations of Russia with the mountaineers; for it was by virtue of that treaty that the czar, already master of Anapa and Sudjuk Kaleh, pretended to the sovereignty of Circassia and of the whole seaboard of the Black Sea. True to the invariable principles of its foreign policy, the government at first employed means of corruption, and strove to seduce the various chiefs of the country by pensions, decorations, and military appointments. But the mountaineers, who had the example of the Persian provinces before their eyes, sternly rejected all the overtures of Russia, and repudiated the clauses of the convention of Adrianople; the political and commercial independence of their country became their rallying cry, and they would not treat on any other condition. All such ideas were totally at variance with Nicholas’ schemes of absolute dominion; therefore he had recourse to arms to obtain by force what he had been unable to accomplish by other means.
Abkhasia, situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and easily accessible, was the first invaded. A Russian force occupied the country in 1839, under the ordinary pretence of supporting one of its princes, and putting an end to anarchy. In the same year General Paskevitch, then governor-general of the Caucasus, for the first time made an armed exploration of the country of the Circassians beyond the Kuban; but he effected absolutely nothing, and his expedition only resulted in great loss of men and stores. In the following year war broke out in Daghestan with the Lesghians and the Tchetchens. The celebrated Kadi Mulah, giving himself out for a prophet, gathered together a considerable number of partisans; but unfortunately for him there was no unanimity among the tribes, and the princes were continually counteracting each other. Kadi Mulah never was able to bring more than 3,000 or 4,000 men together; nevertheless, he maintained the struggle with a courage worthy of a better fate, and Russia knows what it cost her to put down the revolt of Daghestan. As for any real progress in that part of the Caucasus, the Russians made none; they did no more than replace things on the old footing. Daghestan soon became again more hostile than ever, and the Tchetchens and Lesghians continued in separate detachments to plunder and ravage the adjacent provinces up to the time when the ascendancy of the celebrated Schamyl, the worthy successor of Kadi Mulah, gave a fresh impulse to the warlike tribes of the mountain, and rendered them more formidable than ever.
After taking possession of Anapa and Sudjuk Kaleh, the Russians thought of seizing the whole seaboard of Circassia, and especially the various points suitable for the establishment of military posts. They made themselves masters of Guelendchik and the important position of Gagri, which commands the pass between Circassia and Abkhasia. The Circassians heroically defended their territory; but how could they have withstood the guns ofthe ships of war that mowed them down whilst the soldiers were landing and constructing their redoubts? The blockade of the coasts was declared in 1838, and all foreign communication with the Caucasus ostensibly intercepted. During the four following years Russia suffered heavy losses; and all her successes were limited to the establishment of some small isolated forts on the sea-coast. She then increased her army, laid down the military road from the Kuban to Guelendchik, across the last western offshoot of the Caucasus, set on foot an exploration of the enemy’s whole coast, and prepared to push the war with renewed vigour.
In 1837 the emperor Nicholas visited the Caucasus. He would see for himself the theatre of a war so disastrous to his arms, and try what impression his imperial presence could make on the mountaineers. The chiefs of the country were invited to various conferences, to which they boldly repaired on the faith of the Russian parole; but instead of conciliating them by words of peace and moderation, the emperor only exasperated them by his threatening and haughty language. “Do you know,” said he to them, “that I have powder enough to blow up all your mountains?”
[1839A.D.]
During the three following years there was an incessant succession of expeditions. Golovin, on the frontiers of Georgia, Grabe on the north, and Racivski on the Circassian seaboard, left nothing untried to accomplish their master’s orders. The sacrifices incurred by Russia were enormous; the greater part of her fleet was destroyed by a storm, but all efforts failed against the intrepidity and tactics of the mountaineers. Some new forts erected under cover of the ships, were all that resulted from these disastrous campaigns. “I was in the Caucasus in 1839,” says Hommaire de Hell, “when Grabe returned from his famous expedition against Shamyl. When the army marched it had numbered 6000 men, 1,000 of whom, and 120 officers, were cut off in three months. But as the general had advanced further into the country than any of his predecessors, Russia sang pæans, and Grabe became the hero of the day, although the imperial troops had been forced to retreat and entirely evacuate the country they had invaded. All the other expeditions were similar to this one, and achieved in reality nothing but the burning and destruction of a few villages. It is true the mountaineers are far from being victorious in all their encounters with the Russians, whose artillery they cannot easily withstand; but if they are obliged to give way to numbers, or to engineering, nevertheless they remain in the end masters of the ground, and annul all the momentary advantages gained by their enemies.”
The year 1840 was still more fatal to the arms of Nicholas. Almost all the new forts on the seaboard were taken by the Circassians, who bravely attacked and carried the best fortified posts without artillery. The military road from the Kuban to Guelendchik was intercepted, Fort St. Nicholas, which commanded it, was stormed and the garrison massacred. Never yet had Russia endured such heavy blows. The disasters were such that the official journals themselves, after many months’ silence, were at last obliged to speak of them; but the most serious losses, the destruction of the new road from the Kuban, the taking of Fort St. Nicholas, and that of several other forts, were entirely forgotten in the official statement.
On the eastern side of the mountain the war was fully as disastrous for the invaders. The imperial army lost four hundred petty officers and soldiers, and twenty-nine officers in the battle of Valrik against the Tchetchens. The military colonies of the Terek were attacked and plundered, and when General Golovin retired to his winter quarters at the end of the campaign, he had lost more than three-fourths of his men.
The great Kabarda did not remain an indifferent spectator of the offensive league formed by the tribes of the Caucasus; and when Russia, suspecting with reason the unfriendly disposition of some tribes, made an armed exploration on the banks of the Laba in order to construct redoubts, and thus cut off the subjugated tribes from the others, the general found the country, wherever he advanced, but a desert. All the inhabitants had already retired to the other side of the Laba to join their warlike neighbours.d
However, in spite of all these disastrous campaigns, Nicholas had not lost sight of his most important task—that of consolidating internal order by reforms. His attention had been directed above all to the administration, from the heart of which he had sought especially to exterminate corruption with a severity and courage proportioned to the immensity of the evil. Then he had announced his firm desire to perfect the laws, and had charged Count Speranski to work at them under his personal direction. The digest (svod) promulgated in 1833 was the first fruit of these efforts and was followed by various special codes. Finally, turning his attention to public instruction, he had assigned to it as a basis the national traditions and religion and charged Uvarov, president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, a man of learning and talent, to animate it with this spirit, so hostile to the ideas of the west, but—let us say it at once—better suited to the real needs of the country.
Nicholas, allowing himself to be ruled by this spirit, plunged further and further into a system which, though contrary to that of Peter the Great, we do not pretend absolutely to condemn on that account, and which the marquis de Custineehas highly extolled in his celebrated book,La Russie en 1839. “The emperor Nicholas,” he said, “thought that the day of mere seeming was past for Russia, and that the whole structure of civilisation was to remake in that country. He has relaid the foundations of society. Peter, called the Great, would have overturned it a second time in order to rebuild it: Nicholas is more skilful. I am struck with admiration for this man who is secretly struggling, with all the strength of his will, against the work of Peter the Great’s genius. He is restoring individuality to a nation which has strayed for more than a century in the paths of imitation.”
Without ceasing to borrow diligently from Europe her inventions and arts, her progress in industry, in administration, in the conduct of land and sea armies—in a word, all the material improvements which she devises and realises, he endeavoured to close Russia to her ideas on philosophy, politics, and religion. He condemned exotic tendencies as pernicious to his states, and, without depriving himself of the services of the Germans, the principal depositaries of superior enlightenment in that country, as yet only imperfectly moulded to civilisation, he relied by preference on the party of the old Russians, which included the clergy, whom he treated with respect in spite of the inferiority of their position. Nationality, autocracy, orthodoxy—these three words, taken as the national watchword, sum up the ideas to which he subordinated his internal policy. The expression,Holy Russia, which has been the object of such profound astonishment to the Latin world, reflects also this spirit.
He surrounded with great solemnity those acts which he performed in his quality of head of the church in his own country, and posed as the protector of all his co-religionists in Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, Montenegro,and other countries. Like his ancestors of preceding dynasties, he adorned himself on solemn occasions with a gold cross which he wore diagonally on his breast. This bias was summed up in the new wordcæsaropapism. He regarded with special enthusiasm that one act on account of which, the accusation of religious intolerance was fixed upon him—an accusation justified by many of his deeds. In consequence of the decisions of the council of Florence, and up till 1839, there were in Russia 1,500,000 United Greeks, subjected to the papal obedience. At their head was the archbishop, sometimes the metropolitan, of White Russia, and the bishop, or archbishop, of Lithuania. In 1839 these two prelates, having met in conjunction with a third, at Polotsk, the seat of the first of these eparchies, had signed a document in which they expressed the wish to unite, they and their church, with the national and primitive church, and prayed the emperor to sanction this union. Nicholas referred the matter to the holy synod, and, the latter having with great eagerness signified its approval of the act, he sanctioned it in his turn, adding these words beneath his signature: “I thank God and I authorize it.” It is well known to what complaints on the part of the pope this suppression of the uniate Greek church soon afterward gave rise.c
The emperor Nicholas was fond of great gatherings of the troops, and an occasion for such was afforded in 1839 by the unveiling of the monument erected on the battle-field of Borodino. The thought of this muster of the troops had already occupied the emperor’s mind since 1838, but at that time he had in view not merely the participation of the troops in manœuvres and exercises, but the immortalisation of the tradition of the valorous exploits of the Russian army in the defence of the fatherland against the invasion of Napoleon. On the day of the unveiling of the Borodino monument, August 26th, 120,000 men were gathered around it. The emperor invited to take part in the solemnities all the surviving comrades of Kutuzov and many foreign guests.
On the anniversary of the battle of Borodino a great review of all the troops assembled on this historic spot took place. In the morning, before the review began, the following order of his imperial majesty, written by the emperor’s hand, was read to the troops:
“Children. Before you stands the monument which bears witness to the glorious deeds of your comrades. Here, on this same spot, 27 years ago, the arrogant enemy dreamed of conquering the Russian army which fought in defence of the faith, the czar and the fatherland. God punished the foolish: the bones of the insolent invaders were scattered from Moscow to the Niemen—and we entered Paris. The time has now come to render glory to a great exploit. And thus, may the eternal memory of the emperor Alexander I be immortal to us: for by his firm will Russia was saved; may the glory of your comrades who fell as heroes be also everlasting, and may their exploits serve as an example to us and our further posterity. You will ever be the hope and support of your sovereign and our common mother Russia.”
This order aroused the greatest enthusiasm amongst the troops, but it was highly displeasing to the foreigners; it appeared to them strange and almost offensive, they considered that “in reality it was nothing but high sounding phrases.”
Three days later the emperor Nicholas had the battle of Borodino reproduced. After the unveiling of the Borodino monument the laying of the first stone of the cathedral of Christ the Saviour took place in Moscow. This solemnity brought to a close the commemoration of the year 1812 which had delivered Russia from a foreign invasion and was the dawn of the liberation of Europe.
The year 1839 was remarkable for yet another important event: the reunion of the Uniates.[68]
Little by little the workers in the political arena of Alexander’s reign had disappeared. Count V. P. Kotchulzi, who had been president of the senate since 1827 and afterwards chancellor of the interior, died in 1834 and had been replaced by N. N. Novseltsev as president of the senate. After his death the emperor Nicholas appointed to that office Count I. V. Vasiltchikov, who remained at his post until his death, which took place in 1847.
The emperor was above all grieved at the death of Speranski in the year 1837. He recognised this loss as irreparable, and in speaking of him said: “Not everyone understood Speranski or knew how to value him sufficiently; at first I myself was in this respect perhaps more in fault than anyone. I was told much of his liberal ideas; calumny even touched him in reference to the history of December 26th. But afterwards all these accusations were scattered like dust, and I found in him the most faithful, devoted and zealous servant, with vast knowledge and vast experience. Everyone now knows how great are my obligations and those of Russia to him—and the calumniators are silenced. The only reproach I could make him was his feeling against my late brother; but that too is over”.... The emperor stopped without finishing his thought, which probably contained a secret, involuntary justification of Speranski.
In 1844 died another statesman who was still nearer and dearer to the emperor Nicholas; this was Count Benkendorv of whom the emperor said: “He never set me at variance with anyone, but reconciled me with many.” His successor in the direction of the third section was Count A. F. Orlov; he remained at this post during all the succeeding years of the emperor Nicholas’ reign.
In that same year Count E. F. Kankrin who had been minister of finance even under Alexander I was obliged on account of ill health to leave the ministry of which he had been head during twenty-two years. As his biographer justly observes Kankrin left Russia as an heritage: “Well organised finances, a firm metal currency, and a rate of exchange corresponding with the requirements of the country. Russia was in financial respects a mighty power whose credit it was impossible to injure. And all this was attained without any considerable loans, and without great increase in taxes, by the determination, the thrift and the genius of one man, who placed the welfare of the nation above all considerations and understood how to serve it.”
But at the same time it must not be forgotten that all these brilliant results were attainable only because behind Count Kankrin stood the emperor Nicholas. The enemies of the minister and of his monetary reforms were many; but the snares they laid were destroyed before the all powerful will of a person who never wavered. This time that inflexible will was directed in theright path, and the results showed unprecedented financial progress, in spite of the three wars which it had been impossible for Russia to avoid, despite the ideally peace-loving disposition of her ruler; and to these calamities must be added also the cholera and bad harvests. Kankrin’s resignation was accompanied by important consequences; he was replaced by the incapable Vrontchenko, while Nicholas took the finances of the empire into his own hands, as he had previously acted regarding the other branches of the administration of the state.
Among the old-time servitors of Alexander I, Prince P. M. Volkonski remained longest in office. He lived until he attained the rank of field-marshal and died in 1852, having filled the office of minister of the court during twenty-five years.
One of the younger workers of the Alexandrine period, P. D. Kisselev, former chief of the staff of the second army, attained to unusual eminence in the reign of the emperor Nicholas. In 1825 his star nearly set forever, but soon it shone again with renewed brilliancy and on his return from the Danubian provinces, which he had administered since 1829, Kisselev was created minister and count. “You will be my chief of the staff for the peasant department,” said the emperor to him, and with this object, on the 13th of January, 1838 there was established the ministry of state domains, formed from the department which had until that time been attached to the ministry of finance.
A disastrous fire at the Winter Palace began on the evening of the 29th of December, 1837, and no human means were able to stay the flames; only the Hermitage with its collection of ancient and priceless treasures was saved. The ruins of the palace continued to burn during three days and nights. The emperor and the imperial family took up their abode in the Anitchkov palace.
The rebuilding of the Winter Palace upon its previous plan was begun immediately; the palace was consecrated on the 6th of April, 1839 and the emperor and his family were installed there as previously. As a token of gratitude to all those who had taken part in the rebuilding of the palace a medal was struck with the inscription: “I thank you.”—“Work overcomes everything.”
On the last day of the Easter holidays the emperor Nicholas resolved to allow visitors access to all the state rooms, galleries, etc.; and in that one day as many as 200,000 persons visited the palace between the hours of six in the evening and two in the morning.
Twice the emperor and his family passed in all directions through the palace that was thronged with the public. An eye-witness writes that “the public by prolonging their visitation for seven hours so filled the palace with damp, steamy, suffocating air that the walls, the columns, and carvings on the lower windows sweated, and streams of damp poured down on to the parquet flooring and spoiled everything, while the marble changed to a dull yellowish hue.” 35,000 paper rubles were required to repair the damage. But the matter did not terminate with this; during one night that summer, fortunately while the imperial family were staying at Peterhov, the ceiling in the saloon of St. George fell down with the seventeen massive lustres depending from it.
[1851A.D.]
In August 1851, upon the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his coronation the emperor Nicholas left St. Petersburg for Moscow, accompanied by his family. For the first time the journey was accomplished by the newly completed Moscow railway, constructed in accordance with the will of the emperor, and in opposition to the desires of many of his enlightened contemporaries. The opening of the railway to the public followed only on the 13th of November. In Moscow the emperor was met by Field-marshal Paskevitch, prince of Warsaw. On the eve of the festivities in honour of the anniversary of the coronation Nicholas visited the field-marshal, and addressed the following memorable words to him:
“To-morrow will complete twenty-five years of my reign—a reign which you, Ivan Feodorovitch, have made illustrious by your valiant service to Russia. It was under sorrowful prognostications that I ascended the throne of Russia and my reign had to begin with punishments and banishments. I did not find around the throne persons who could guide the czar—I was obliged to create men; I had none devoted to me. Affairs in the east required the appointment there of a man of your intellect, of your military capacity, of your will. My choice rested on you. Providence itself directed me to you. You had enemies: in spite of all that was said against you, I held fast to you, Ivan Feodorovitch. You proved, commander, that I was right. Hardly had affairs in the east quieted down when my empire was overtaken by a public calamity—the cholera. The people ascribe every misfortune to the person who governs. God knows how much suffering this national affliction cost me. The war with Poland was another grievous trial. Russian blood was shed because of our errors or because of chastisement sent from above. Our affairs were in a bad way. And again I had resource to you, Ivan Feodorovitch, as the only means of salvation for Russia; and again you did not betray my trust, again you exalted my empire. By your twenty years’ administration of the Polish land you have laid the foundation for the happiness of two kindred yet hostile elements. I hope that the Russian and the Pole will constitute one Russian Empire—the Slavonic Empire; and that your name will be preserved in history beside the name of Nicholas. It is not so long ago—when western Europe was agitated by aspirations after wild, unbridled freedom; when the people overthrew lawful authority and thrones; when I decided to give a helping hand to my brother and ally, the monarch of Austria—that you, commander, led my soldiers to a new warfare: you tamed the hydra of rebellion. In six weeks you had finished the war in Hungary, you supported and strengthened the tottering throne of Austria, Ivan Feodorovitch. You are the glory of my twenty-five years’ reign. You are the history of the reign of Nicholas I.”
When Prince Louis Napoleon had accomplished hiscoup d’étatof the 2nd of December, 1851, and the restoration of the second empire was to be expected, the emperor Nicholas, judging by a letter which he had received from Frederick William IV, said: “Before the end of next year Louis Napoleon will become our colleague. Let him become what he likes, even the great mufti, if it pleases him, but to the title of Emperor or King I do not think he will be so imprudent as to aspire.” According to the emperor’s opinion, as soon as Louis Napoleon desired to make himself emperor he would become ausurper, because he did not possess the divine right—he would be emperor in fact but never by right; in a word, “a second Louis Philippe, less the odious character of that scoundrel.”
[1853A.D.]
When the French diplomatic representatives in St. Petersburg and Warsaw evidenced an intention to celebrate the 15th of August, the emperor Nicholas drew up the following resolution: “A public church service for Napoleon cannot be allowed, because he ceased to be emperor, being banished and confined to the island of St. Helena. There is no propriety in celebrating the birthday of the late Napoleon in our country, whence he was despatched with befitting honour.” The Napoleonic empire had already transcended the limits which the emperor Nicholas would at one time have allowed; it was in direct contradiction to the stipulations of the congress of Vienna, which formed the basis of the national law of Europe. The emperor’s allies, however, looked on the matter somewhat differently. Austria and Prussia recognised Napoleon III; it therefore only remained to the emperor Nicholas, against his will, to follow their example; but still he departed from the usually accepted diplomatic forms, and in his letter to Napoleon III he did not call him brother, but “le bon ami” (good friend). Soon on the political horizon appeared the Eastern question, artfully put forward with a secret motive by Napoleon III; his cunning calculations were justified without delay; the Russian troops crossed the Pruth in 1853, and occupied the principality, as a guarantee, until the demands presented to the Ottoman Porte by the emperor Nicholas were complied with. Austrian ingratitude opened a safe path for the snares of Anglo-French diplomacy. The Eastern War began, at first upon Turkish territory and afterwards concentrated itself in the Crimean peninsula around Sebastopol; France, England, and afterwards, in 1855, little Sardinia, in alliance with Turkey, took up arms against Russia; on the side of the allies lay the sympathy of all neutral Europe, which already dreamed of wresting Russia’s conquests from her.b
The revolution of July, 1830, by threatening Europe with the ideas then triumphing in France, had tightened the bonds, previously a little relaxed, between the czar and the two great German powers, Austria and Prussia. Independently of diplomatic conferences, the three monarchs had frequent interviews for the purpose of adopting measures to oppose the invasion of the revolutionary principle. Even whilst affecting to abandon the west to the dissolution towards which he felt it was marching, and to regard it as afflicted with approaching senility, Nicholas by no means lost sight of its development. But the East, then in combustion, remained the true mark of Russian policy. A movement was on foot for the overthrow of the declining Ottoman power, and its substitution by an Arab power, inaugurated by Muhammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt. France regarded this movement with no unfriendly eye, but Russia entered a protest. By giving the most colossal proportions to this Eastern Question, which extended as far as the countries of central Asia, the situation created grave embarrassments for the British government. For, to begin with, when, in 1833, Ibrahim Pasha, at the head of the Egyptian army, was ready to cross the Taurus and march on Constantinople, within two months the northern power (summoned to aid by that very sultan whom Russia had hitherto so greatly humiliated) landed on the Asiatic coast of the Bosporus a body of fifteen thousand men in readiness to protect thatcapital; then the secret treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (July 8th, 1833) granted her, as the price of an offensive and defensive alliance with the Porte, the withdrawal in her exclusive favour of the prohibition forbidding armed vessels of foreign nations to enter the waters of Constantinople; finally, by the conclusion of the Treaty of London July 15th, 1840, which left France, still obstinately attached to the cause of Muhammed Ali, outside the European concert, she had the joy of causing the rupture of theentente cordialebetween that country and Great Britain—but only momentarily, for a new treaty, concluded the 13th of July, 1841, likewise in London, readmitted the French government to the concert.
The events of the year 1848, by bringing back the Russians into Moldavia and Wallachia, afforded Europe new apprehensions relative to the preservation, growing daily more difficult, of the Ottoman Empire and the political balance, the latter of which was seriously threatened if not destroyed by the colossus of the north, with its population now increased to as much as sixty-five million souls. But Germany was absorbed by the serious situation of her own affairs, to which the czar was far from remaining a stranger; and the latter linked himself by new ties to Austria, in whose favour he had already renounced his share in the protectorate over the republic of Cracow, when at the request of the Vienna cabinet he marched against insurgent Hungary (June, 1849) an army which beat the insurrectionary forces, compelled them to submission, and thus closed the abyss in which one of the oldest monarchies of Christendom was about to be engulfed. Then, in 1850, chosen as arbiter between Austria and Prussia, who were on the point of a rupture, the czar turned the scale in favour of Austria, and kept Prussia in check by threats.
“Austria will soon astonish the world by her immense ingratitude”: this famous prophetic saying of Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, prime minister of the young emperor Francis Joseph, was not slow of accomplishment. The ingratitude was a necessity which the history of Austria explains; for in her case, as for the rest of Europe, the continued and immoderate aggrandisement of Russia was the greatest of dangers. This leads us, in finishing this general glance over the history of the period, to say a word on the complications which, at the moment of the empire’s attaining its apogee, commenced for it a new phase.
We have elsewhere explained the final cause of the decay of Turkey. That decay was consummated in favour of the northern neighbour who followed with attentive gaze the progress of what she called the death struggle. Certain words pronounced by the autocrat on this subject, and consigned to diplomatic despatches, had, not long ago, a great circulation. But the influence of Russia was counterbalanced by that of France and that of Great Britain. The cabinets of Paris and Vienna obtained important concessions, we might say diplomatic triumphs, from Constantinople—the one in relation to the Holy Places, the other on the subject of Montenegro. Russian jealousy immediately awoke. According to the czar, Turkey had a choice between two things only: she must regard Prussia as either her greatest friend or her greatest enemy. To remind her of this, and to neutralise the embassy of the prince of Linanges on behalf of Austria, Nicholas sent Prince Menshikov, one of his ministers and confidants, to Constantinople. Arriving February 28th, 1853, Menshikov exhibited a haughty and irritable demeanour; and, after astonishing the Divan by his noisy opposition, put forward pretensions relative to the Holy Places which were only designed to lull the vigilance of England, but were soon followed by others more serious and exorbitant; for they amounted to nothing less than the restoration to the czar of the protectorateover all the sultan’s subjects professing the Græco-Russian worship—that is to say the great majority of the inhabitants of Turkey in Europe.
In vain the Divan protested; in vain the friendly powers interceded. Unable to obtain the satisfaction he was demanding with the extreme of violence, the Russian ambassador extraordinary quitted the Bosporous with menace on his lips. And, in effect, on the 2nd of July, the czar’s troops crossed the Pruth to occupy, contrary to all treaty stipulations, the two Danubian principalities. Nicholas was not prepared for war and did not expect to be obliged to have recourse to that last appeal; he hoped to triumph over the Divan by audacity. Moreover, he did not think the western powers were in a position to come to an understanding and to act in common. He was mistaken: Turkey’s death struggle did not prevent her from making a supreme effort to sell her life dearly, if it were impossible for her to save it; and on the 26th of September the sultan declared war on the aggressor. Hostilities began in the course of the month of October, first on the Danube and afterwards in Asia, where a surprise made the Turks masters of the little maritime fort of St. Nicholas or Chefketil. The Porte was not long abandoned to its own resources, for the time of political torpor in regard to the territorial aggrandisement of the Muscovite colossus had gone by; the eyes of all were at last opened and a European crisis was inevitable. At that moment, the fleets of France and England were already at the entrance of the Dardanelles; and even before the end of October these fine naval armies passed the straits under the authority of a firman, and approached Constantinople. In consequence of the position taken up by these two states, the autocrat broke off relations with them in the beginning of February, 1854. On the 21st of the same month he informed his subjects of the fact in a manifesto, recalling to some extent, by its tone, by its biblical references, and its exalted language, the Treaty of the Holy Alliance. It may be worth while to reproduce here the following passage:
“Against Russia fighting for orthodoxy England and France enter the lists as champions of the enemies of Christianity. But Russia will not fail in her sacred vocation; if the frontier is invaded by the enemy we are ready to resist him with the energy of which our ancestors have bequeathed us the example. Are we not to-day still the same people whose valour was attested by the memorable displays of the year 1812? May the Most High aid us to prove it by our deeds. In this hope, and fighting for our oppressed brothers who confess the faith of Christ, Russia will have but one heart and voice to cry: ‘God, our Saviour! whom have we to fear? Let Christ arise and let his enemies be scattered!’”