RISE OF RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA
197. We have had little occasion hitherto, in dealing with the history of western Europe, to speak of the Slavic peoples, to whom the Russians, Poles, Bohemians, and many other nations of eastern Europe belong. Together they form the most numerous race in Europe, but, as has been well said, "they occupy a greater place on the map than in history." In the eighteenth century, however, Russia began to take an increasingly important part in European affairs, and it is now a great force in the politics of the world. The realms of the Tsar which lie in Europe exceed in extent those of all the other rulers of the continent put together, and yet they are scarcely more than a quarter of his whole dominion, which embraces northern and central Asia, and forms together an empire occupying toward three times the area of the United States.
Movements of the Slavs during the period of the German invasions.
The Slavs were settled along the Dnieper, Don, and Vistula long before the Christian era. After the East Goths had penetrated into the Roman empire, the Slavs followed their example and invaded, ravaged, and conquered the Balkan Peninsula, which they held for some time. When the German Lombards went south into Italy, about 569, the Slavs pressed behind them into Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, where they still live within the bounds of the Austrian empire. Other Slavic hordes had driven the Germans across the Oder and upper Elbe. Later the German emperors, beginning with Charlemagne, began to push them back, but the Bohemians and Moravians still hold an advanced position on the borders of Bavaria and Saxony.
Beginnings of Russia.
In the ninth century some of the Northmen invaded the districts to the east of the Baltic, while their relatives were causing grievous trouble in France and England. It is generally supposed that one of their leaders, Rurik, was the first to consolidate the Slavic tribes about Novgorod into a sort of state in 862. Rurik's successor extended the bounds of the new empire so as to include the important town of Kiev on the Dnieper. The word Russia is probably derived from Rous, the name given by the neighboring Finns to the Norman adventurers. Before the end of the tenth century the Greek form of Christianity was introduced and the Russian ruler was baptized. The frequent intercourse with Constantinople might have led to rapid advance in civilization had it not been for a great disaster which put Russia back for centuries.
The Tartar invasion of the thirteenth century.
Russia is geographically nothing more than an extension of the vast plain of northern Asia, which the Russians were destined finally to conquer. It was therefore exposed to the great invasion of the Tartars or Mongols, who swept in from the east in the thirteenth century. The powerful Tartar ruler, Genghiz Khan (1162–1227), conquered northern China and central Asia, and the mounted hordes of his successors crossed into Europe and overran Russia, which had fallen apart into numerous principalities. The Russian princes became the dependents of the Great Khan, and had frequently to seek his far distant court, some three thousand miles away, where he freely disposed of both their crowns and their heads. The Tartars exacted tribute of the Russians, but left them undisturbed in their laws and religion.
Influence of the Tartar occupation on manners and customs.
Ivan the Terrible assumes the title of Tsar.
Of the Russian princes who went to prostrate themselves at the foot of the Great Khan's throne, none made a more favorable impression upon him than the prince of Moscow, in whose favor the Khan was wont to decide all cases of dispute between the prince and his rivals. When the Mongol power had begun to decline in strength and the princes of Moscow had grown stronger, they ventured to kill the Mongol ambassadors sent to demand tribute in 1480, and thus freed themselves from the Mongol yoke. But the Tartar occupation had left its mark, for the princes of Moscow imitated the Khans rather than the western rulers, of whom, in fact, they knew nothing. In 1547 Ivan the Terrible assumed the Asiatic title of Tsar,[356] which appeared to him more worthy than that of king or emperor. The costumes and etiquette of the court were also Asiatic. The Russian armor suggested that of the Chinese, and their headdress was a turban. It was the task of Peter the Great to Europeanize Russia.
Peter the Great, 1672–1725.
198. At the time of Peter's accession, Russia, which had grown greatly under Ivan the Terrible and other enterprising rulers, still had no outlet to the sea. In manners and customs the kingdom was Asiatic, and its government was that of a Tartar prince. Peter had no quarrel with the despotic power which fell to him and which the Russian monarchs still exercise, since there is no parliament or constitution in that country down to the present day. But he knew that Russia was very much behind the rest of Europe, and that his crudely equipped soldiers could never make head against the well armed and disciplined troops of the West. He had no seaport and no ships, without which Russia could never hope to take part in the world's affairs. His two great tasks were, therefore, to introduce western habits and to "make a window," as he expressed it, through which Russia might look abroad.
Peter's travels in Europe.
In 1697–1698 Peter himself visited Germany, Holland, and England with a view to investigating every art and science of the West, as well as the most approved methods of manufacture, from the making of a man-of-war to the etching of an engraving. Nothing escaped the keen eyes of this rude, half-savage northern giant. For a week he put on the wide breeches of a Dutch laborer and worked in the shipyard at Saardam near Amsterdam. In England, Holland, and Germany he engaged artisans, scientific men, architects, ship captains, and those versed in artillery and the training of troops, all of whom he took back with him to aid in the reform and development of Russia.
Suppression of revolt against foreign ideas.
He was called home by the revolt of the royal guard, who had allied themselves with the very large party of nobles and churchmen who were horrified at Peter's desertion of the habits and customs of his forefathers. They hated what they called "German ideas," such as short coats, tobacco smoking, and beardless faces. The clergy even suggested that Peter was perhaps Antichrist. Peter took a fearful revenge upon the rebels, and is said to have himself cut off the heads of many of them. Like the barbarian that he was at heart, he left their heads and bodies lying about all winter, unburied, in order to make the terrible results of revolt against his power quite plain to all.
Peter's reform measures.
Peter's reforms extended through his whole reign. He made his people give up their cherished oriental beards and long flowing garments. He forced the women of the better class, who had been kept in a sort of oriental harem, to come out and meet the men in social assemblies, such as were common in the West. He invited foreigners to settle in Russia, and insured them protection, privileges, and the free exercise of their religion. He sent young Russians abroad to study. He reorganized the government officials on the model of a western kingdom, and made over his army in the same way.
Founding of a new capital, St. Petersburg.
Finding that the old capital of Moscow clung persistently to its ancient habits, he prepared to found a new capital for his new Russia. He selected for this purpose a bit of territory on the Baltic which he had conquered from Sweden,—very marshy, it is true, but where he might hope to construct Russia's first real port. Here he built St. Petersburg at enormous expense and colonized it with Russians and foreigners. Russia was at last becoming a European power.
Northeastern Europe at the Opening of the Eighteenth Century
The military prowess of Charles XII of Sweden.
In his ambition to get to the sea, Peter naturally collided with Sweden, to which the provinces between Russia and the Baltic belonged. Never had Sweden, or any other country, had a more warlike king than the one with whom Peter had to contend, the youthful prodigy, Charles XII. When Charles came to the throne in 1697 he was only fifteen years old, and it seemed to the natural enemies of Sweden an auspicious time to profit by the supposed weakness of the boy ruler. So a union was formed between Denmark, Poland, and Russia, with the object of increasing their territories at Sweden's expense. But Charles turned out to be a second Alexander the Great in military prowess. He astonished Europe by promptly besieging Copenhagen and forcing the king of Denmark to sign a treaty of peace. He then turned like lightning against Peter, who was industriously besieging Narva, and with eight thousand Swedes wiped out an army of fifty thousand Russians (1700). Lastly he defeated the king of Poland.
Defeat and death of Charles XII.
Though Charles was a remarkable military leader, he was a foolish ruler. He undertook to wrest Poland from its king, to whom he attributed the formation of the league against him. He had a new king crowned at Warsaw, whom he at last succeeded in getting recognized. He then turned his attention to Peter, who had meanwhile been conquering the Baltic provinces. This time fortune turned against the Swedes. The long march to Moscow proved as fatal to them as to Napoleon a century later. Charles XII was totally defeated in the battle of Pultowa (1709). He fled to Turkey and spent some years there in vainly urging the Sultan to attack Peter. At last he returned to his own kingdom, which he had utterly neglected for years. He was killed in 1718 while besieging a town.
Russia acquires the Baltic provinces and attempts to get a footing on the Black Sea.
Soon after Charles' death a treaty was concluded between Sweden and Russia by which Russia gained Livonia, Esthonia, and the other Swedish provinces at the eastern end of the Baltic. Peter had made less successful attempts to get a footing on the Black Sea. He had first taken Azof, which he soon lost during the war with Sweden, and then several towns on the Caspian. It had become evident that if the Turks should be driven out of Europe, Russia would be a mighty rival of the western powers in the division of the spoils.[357]
For a generation after the death of Peter the Great, Russia fell into the hands of incompetent rulers. It only appears again as a European state when the great Catherine II came to the throne in 1762. From that time on, the western powers had always to consider the vast Slavic empire in all their great struggles. They had also to consider a new kingdom in northern Germany, which was just growing into a great power as Peter began his work. This was Prussia, whose beginnings we must now consider.
Brandenburg and the Hohenzollerns.
199. The electorate of Brandenburg had figured on the map of Germany for centuries, and there was no particular reason to suppose that it was to become one day the dominant state in Germany. At the time of the Council of Constance the old line of electors had died out, and the impecunious Emperor Sigismund had sold it to a hitherto inconspicuous house, the Hohenzollerns, which is known to us now through such names as those of Frederick the Great, William I, the first German emperor, and his grandson, the present emperor. Beginning with a strip of territory extending some ninety or a hundred miles to the east and to the west of the little town of Berlin, the successive representatives of the line have gradually extended their boundaries until the present kingdom of Prussia embraces nearly two thirds of Germany. Of the earlier little annexations nothing need be said. While it has always been the pride of the Hohenzollern family that practically every one of its reigning members has added something to what his ancestors handed down to him, no great extension took place until just before the Thirty Years' War. About that time the elector of Brandenburg inherited Cleves, and thus got his first hold on the Rhine district.
Prussia acquired by the elector of Brandenburg.
The elector of Brandenburg assumes the title of King of Prussia, 1701.
What was quite as important, he won, far to the east, the duchy of Prussia, which was separated from Brandenburg by Polish territory. Prussia was originally the name of a region on the Baltic inhabited by heathen Slavs. These had been conquered in the thirteenth century by one of the orders of crusading knights, who, when the conquest of the Holy Land was abandoned, looked about for other occupation. The region filled up with German colonists, but it came under the sovereignty of the neighboring kingdom of Poland, whose king annexed the western half of the territory of the Teutonic Order, as the German knights were called.[358] In Luther's day the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, who happened to be a relative of the electors of Brandenburg, concluded to abolish the order and become duke of Prussia. In good time his family died out, and the duchy fell to the electors of Brandenburg. When one of them was permitted by the emperor, in the year 1701, to assume the title of king, he chose to be called King of Prussia.[359]
The Great Elector, 1640–1688.
Brandenburg accepted the Protestant religion before Luther's death, but played a pitiful part in the Thirty Years' War. Its real greatness dates from the Great Elector (1640–1688). In the treaties of Westphalia he acquired a goodly strip on the Baltic, and he succeeded in creating an absolute monarchy on the model furnished by his contemporary, Louis XIV. He joined England and Holland in their alliances against Louis, and the army of Brandenburg began to be known and feared.
Frederick William I, 1713–1740.
While it was reserved for Frederick the Great to stir Europe to its depths and establish the right of the new kingdom of Prussia to be considered one of the great European powers, he owed to his father, Frederick William I, the resources which made his victories possible. Frederick William strengthened the government and collected an army nearly as large as that maintained by France or Austria. He had, moreover, by miserly thrift and entire indifference to the amenities and luxuries of life, treasured up a large sum of money. Consequently Frederick, upon his accession, had an admirable army ready for use and an ample supply of gold.[360]
The Hapsburgs in Austria.
200. Prussia's aspiration to become a great European power made it necessary for her to extend her territory. This inevitably brought her into rivalry with Austria. It will be remembered that Charles V, shortly after his accession, ceded to his brother, Ferdinand I, the German or Austrian possessions of the house of Hapsburg, while he himself retained the Spanish, Burgundian, and Italian dominions. Ferdinand, by a fortunate marriage with the heiress of the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, greatly augmented his territory. Hungary was, however, almost completely occupied by the Turks at that time, and till the end of the seventeenth century the energies of the Austrian rulers were largely absorbed in a long struggle against the Mohammedans.
Conquests of the Turks in Europe.
A Turkish tribe from western Asia had, at the opening of the fourteenth century, established themselves in western Asia Minor under their leader Othman (d. 1326). It was from him that they derived their name of Ottoman Turks, to distinguish them from the Seljuk Turks, with whom the crusaders had come into contact. The leaders of the Ottoman Turks showed great energy. They not only extended their Asiatic territory far toward the east, and later into Africa, but they gained a footing in Europe as early as 1353. They gradually conquered the Slavic peoples in Macedonia and occupied the territory about Constantinople, although it was a hundred years before they succeeded in capturing the ancient capital of the Eastern Empire.
The defense of Europe against the Turks.
This advance of the Turks naturally aroused grave apprehensions in the states of western Europe lest they too might be deprived of their independence. The brunt of the defense against the common foe devolved upon Venice and the German Hapsburgs, who carried on an almost continuous war with the Turks for nearly two centuries. As late as 1683 the Mohammedans collected a large force and besieged Vienna, which might very well have fallen into their hands had it not been for the timely assistance which the city received from the king of Poland. From this time on, the power of the Turks in Europe rapidly decreased, and the Hapsburgs were able to regain the whole territory of Hungary and Transylvania, their possession of which was formally recognized by the Sultan in 1699.
The question of the Austrian succession.
In 1740, a few months before the accession of Frederick II of Prussia, the emperor Charles VI, who was the last representative of the direct line of the Hapsburgs, died. Foreseeing the difficulties which would arise at his death in regard to the inheritance of his possessions, he had spent a great part of his life in trying to induce the European powers to promise that his daughter, Maria Theresa, should be recognized as his successor. England, Holland, and even Prussia were ready to bid Godspeed to the new archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia, but France, Spain, and the neighboring Bavaria held back in the hope of gaining some portion of the scattered Austrian dominions for themselves. The duke of Bavaria insisted that he was the rightful heir and managed to have himself elected emperor under the title of Charles VII.
Accession of Frederick II of Prussia, called 'the Great,' 1740–1786.
Frederick's attack upon Silesia.
201. In his early years Frederick II grieved and disgusted his boorish but energetic old father by his dislike for military life and his interest in books and music. He was a particular admirer of the French and preferred their language to his own. No sooner had he become king, however, than he suddenly developed marvelous energy and skill in warlike enterprises. He realized that Prussia must widen its boundaries, and he saw no better way of accomplishing this than by robbing the seemingly defenseless Maria Theresa of Silesia, a strip of territory lying to the southeast of Brandenburg. He accordingly marched his army into the coveted district, and occupied the important city of Breslau without declaring war or offering any excuse except a vague claim to a portion of the land.
The War of the Austrian Succession.
France, stimulated by Frederick's example, joined with Bavaria in the attack upon Maria Theresa. It seemed for a time as if her struggle to maintain the integrity of her realm would be vain; but the loyalty of all the various peoples under her scepter was roused by her extraordinary courage and energy. The French were driven back, but Maria Theresa was forced to grant Silesia to Frederick in order to induce him to retire from the war. Finally, England and Holland joined in an alliance for maintaining the balance of power, for they had no desire to see France annex the Austrian Netherlands. On the death of the emperor Charles VII (1745), Maria Theresa's husband, Francis, duke of Lorraine, was chosen emperor. A few years later (1748) all the powers, tired of the war, laid down their arms and agreed to what is called in diplomacy the status quo ante bellum, which simply means that things were to be restored to the condition in which they had been before the opening of hostilities.
Frederick promotes the material development of Prussia.
Frederick and Voltaire.
Frederick was, however, permitted to keep Silesia, which increased his dominions by about one third of their former extent. He now turned his attention to making his subjects happier and more prosperous, by draining the swamps, promoting industry, and drawing up a new code of laws. He found time, also, to gratify his interest in men of letters, and invited Voltaire, the most distinguished writer of the eighteenth century, to make his home at Berlin. It will not seem strange to any one who knows anything of the character of these two men, that they quarreled after two or three years, and that Voltaire left the Prussian king with very bitter feelings.[361]
The Seven Years' War.
202. Maria Theresa was by no means reconciled to the loss of Silesia, and she began to lay her plans for expelling the perfidious Frederick and regaining her lost territory. This led to one of the most important wars in modern history, in which not only almost every European power joined, but which involved the whole world, from the Indian rajahs of Hindustan to the colonists of Virginia and New England. This Seven Years' War (1756–1763) will be considered in its broader aspects in the next chapter. We note here only the part played in it by the king of Prussia.
The alliance against Prussia.
Maria Theresa's ambassador at Paris was so skillful in his negotiations with the French court that in 1756 he induced it, in spite of its two hundred years of hostility to the house of Hapsburg, to enter into an alliance with Austria against Prussia. Russia, Sweden, and Saxony also agreed to join in a concerted attack on Prussia. Their armies, coming as they did from every point of the compass, threatened the complete annihilation of Austria's rival. It seemed as if the new kingdom of Prussia might disappear altogether from the map of Europe.
Frederick's victorious defense.
However, it was in this war that Frederick earned his title of "the Great" and showed himself the equal of the ablest generals the world has seen, from Alexander to Napoleon. Learning the object of the allies, he did not wait for them to declare war against him, but occupied Saxony at once and then moved on into Bohemia, where he nearly succeeded in taking the capital, Prague. Here he was forced to retire, but in 1757 he defeated the French and his German enemies in the most famous, perhaps, of his battles, at Rossbach. A month later he routed the Austrians at Leuthen, not far from Breslau. Thereupon the Swedes and Russians retired from the field and left Frederick for the moment master of the situation.
Frederick finally triumphs over Austria.
England now engaged the French and left Frederick at liberty to deal with his other enemies. While he exhibited marvelous military skill, he was by no means able to gain all the battles in which he engaged. For a time, indeed, it looked as if he might after all be vanquished. But the accession of a new Tsar, who was an ardent admirer of Frederick, led Russia to conclude peace with Prussia, whereupon Maria Theresa reluctantly agreed to give up once more her struggle with her inveterate enemy.
The kingdom of Poland and its defective constitution.
Frederick was able during his reign greatly to strengthen his kingdom by adding to it the Polish regions which had hitherto divided his possessions in Brandenburg from those which lay across the Vistula. The kingdom of Poland, which in its declining years was to cause western Europe much trouble, was shut in between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The Slavic population of this region had come under an able ruler about the year 1000, and the Polish kings had succeeded for a time in extending their power over a large portion of Russia, Moravia, and the Baltic regions. They had never been able, however, to establish a successful form of government. This was largely due to the fact that the kings were elected by the nobles, the crown not passing from father to son, as in the neighboring kingdoms. The elections were tumultuous affairs, and foreigners were frequently chosen. Moreover, each noble had the right to veto any law proposed in the diet, and consequently a single person might prevent the passage of even the most important measure. The anarchy which prevailed in Poland had become proverbial.
The first partition of Poland, 1772.
On the pretense that this disorderly country was a menace to their welfare, the neighboring powers, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, agreed to reduce the danger by each helping itself to a slice of the unfortunate kingdom. This amicable arrangement resulted in what is known as the first partition of Poland. It was succeeded by two others (1793 and 1795), by the last of which this ancient state was wiped from the map altogether.[362]
Achievements of Frederick the Great.
When Frederick died (1786) he left the state which had been intrusted to him by his father nearly doubled in size. He had rendered it illustrious by his military glory, and had vastly increased its resources by improving the condition of the people in the older portions of his territory and by establishing German colonies in the desolate regions of West Prussia, which he strove in this way to bind closely to the rest of the kingdom.
General Reading.—Tuttle, History of Prussia (4 vols., Houghton, Mifflin & Co., $8.25). Carlyle, Frederick the Great (3 vols., Chapman, $2.25). Longman, F.W., Frederick the Great (Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.00). Rambaud, History of Russia (2 vols., Coryell & Co., $2.00). For Peter the Great and his Age, Waliszewski, Life of Peter the Great (D. Appleton & Co., $2.00). For the Seven Years' War and France, Perkins, France under Louis XV (2 vols., Houghton, Mifflin & Co., $4.00).