The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 17

by Unknown

CHAPTER VIII. THE AGE OF CATHERINE THE GREAT

We must acknowledge that in many respects Catherine was far from irreproachable; her very accession to the throne casts a dark shadow on her moral image. But the reproaches that must be made to her on this account cannot but be counteracted by the thirty-four years of greatness and prosperity which Russia enjoyed under her and to which the popular voice has given the appellation of the Age of Catherine.—Shehebalski.[b]

[1762-1796 A.D.]

There are few names so popular in Russia and so dear to her as that of Catherine II. The generation of men who belonged to her time spoke of her with the most profound emotion. Memoirs and reminiscences of her contemporaries breathe almost without exception the same ardent devotion—a sort of worship of her. In opposition to these feelings, foreign reports of her represent her as cruel, heartless, and unscrupulous to the last degree. Some authors represent her as a sort of monster. However strange such contradictions may appear, they can readily be accounted for. Foreigners view Catherine II more from the side of her external policy, which was certainly often unsparing and unscrupulous in the means employed; they refer caustically to her private life, which was certainly not irreproachable. Russians, on the other hand, felt above all the influence of her interior administration, which contrasted sharply from that of her predecessors by its mildness, and which was full of useful and liberal reforms. The Russians of her day could not remain indifferent to the glory with which Catherine surrounded Russia. And thus to the descendants of Catherine, acquainted as they are with the reports given of her both by Russians and foreigners, she appears as the two-faced god of antiquity; her visage when turned to the neighbouring powers is stern and unwelcoming; that, on the contrary, which is turned toward Russia is full of majesty and mildness.

[1762 A.D.]

The state of affairs was very much entangled when Catherine ascended the throne, both in the interior of the empire and in respect to exterior policy. One of the first acts of the new empress was the conclusion of peace with all those who had taken part in the Seven Years’ War. Not seeing any advantage to Russia in helping the king of Prussia in his war against the German emperor and his allies, Catherine did not consider it necessary to assist the latter. “I am of tolerably martial tastes,” said she, in the first days after her accession to the throne, to one of the ambassadors to the Russian court, “but I will never begin war without a cause; if I begin war, it will not be as the empress Elizabeth did—to please others, but only when I find it favourable for myself.” These words are characteristic of all Catherine’s further foreign policy; to listen to them was not without profit for foreign courts, which, during the preceding reigns, had certainly been over-spoiled by the complaisance of the Russians.

The next circumstance must have enlightened them still further as to how little Catherine had the intention of allowing herself to be restrained by considerations which did not tend to the furtherance of the glory and prosperity of her dominions. We have already seen by what persistency—sometimes even to the sacrifice of their dignity—the preceding governments had succeeded in obtaining the recognition of their right to the imperial title. France had recognised it only under Elizabeth, and that under the condition that at all foreign courts the Russian ambassador must, as previously, yield the precedence to the French ambassador; the late empress Elizabeth herself engaged that this should be done. When Catherine came to the throne, it was proposed to her to renew this engagement; she, however, very decidedly refused to do so, and commanded that it should be declared that she would break off all relations with those courts that did not recognise her in the quality of empress—a title, she added, which, however, was in no degree more exalted than that of the czars. Such were the first acts of the new empress in regard to foreign governments: they were bold, firm, and determined.[b]

CATHERINE’S OWN VIEWS ON RUSSIA

[1763 A.D.]

The interior condition of Russia and the position at that time occupied by Catherine are best described by herself, in her own words. In the very beginning of the year 1764 the procurator-general, A. I. Glebov, was removed from his functions. As his successor in this weighty and responsible office the empress named Prince A. A. Viasemski. The procurator-general had to superintend the finances of the empire, to direct the senate, and to govern all the interior affairs of the nation, thus uniting in himself the powers of minister of finance, of justice, and of home affairs. He was subordinate to none except the law, the good of the country, and the will of the empress. He was the right hand of the empress: “In cases where you may be in doubt,” said Catherine to him, “consult with me, and put your trust entirely in God and in me; and I, seeing how gratifying your conduct is to me, will not forsake you.” Prince Viasemski was still a young man—he was not yet thirty-seven years of age. A pupil of the land-forces cadet corps, he had taken part in the Prussian War—not, however, in the character of a brave soldier, but as the executor of “secret orders.” At the accession of Catherine to the throne he was already quartermaster-general. In 1763 he was entrusted with the pacification of the peasants in the eastern provinces of Russia. He was well educated, industrious, and was recognised by everyone as an absolutely honest man. It was this last circumstance that determined Catherine’s choice. Having selected for herself her “closest helper,” with whom she would have to be in constant relations, the empress considered it necessary once for all to have a clear explanation with him, and with her own hand wrote him “instructions” in which she expressed her own views on Russia, on the chief branches of the administration, and on herself personally, drawing her portrait for him as empress:

“The Russian Empire,” wrote Catherine, “is so vast in its extent that any other form of government excepting that of an autocratic sovereign would be prejudicial to it; for any other would be slow of accomplishment and would include in itself a multitude of diverse interests and passions which tend to the weakening of the administrative power. No, there must be one sovereign, invested with authority to destroy evil, and who esteems the public welfare as his own. Other rulers are, in the words of the Gospel, hirelings.”

The first institution in the empire is the senate. Catherine thus describes it to the young procurator-general: “In the senate you will find two parties, but in my opinion a wise policy does not require that much regard should be paid to them, lest too much firmness should thus be given them: in this manner they will disappear the sooner; I have only kept a watchful eye over them and have used men according to their capabilities for one object or another. Both parties will now try to catch you for their side. In one you will find men of upright character, although not of far-seeing intellects; in the other I think their views are wider, but it is not clear whether they are always advantageous. Some think that because they have been in one or another country for a long time, everything must be arranged in politics for the good of their beloved land, and everything else without exception meets with their criticism, in spite of the fact that all interior administration is founded on the law of the rights of nations. You must not regard either one party or the other, but be courteous and dispassionate in your behaviour to both, listening to everything, having only the good of the country and justice in view, and walking in firm steps to the shortest road to truth.”

The senate “by its want of attention to the deeds of certain of my forefathers left its fundamental principles, and oppressed other courts through which the lower tribunals fell greatly into decline. The servility and meanness of persons in these tribunals is indescribable and no good can be expected until this evil is done away with. Only the forms of bureaucracy are fulfilled, and people do not dare to act uprightly although the interests of the state thus suffer. The senate having once passed its proper bounds, it is now difficult to accustom it to the necessary order in which it should stand. Perhaps for the ambition of some members, the former measures have some charm, but at any rate while I live, it will remain my duty to command.”

The “servility” of the members of the government offices was ascribed to the senate, but the senate was not to repair the evil it had occasioned. By a ukase of the 19th of December, 1763, Catherine required that the “government offices should be filled by worthy and honest men.” The motive of this ukase is explained in the above cited instructions to Prince Viasemski. In these instructions Catherine draws his attention to the great burdensomeness for the people of the duties on salt and wine, but she confides to his particular care the question of silver or copper money, which had long interested her, as well as the position of trade and commerce. “This very delicate matter,” she says, “of which many persons find it unpleasant to hear must however be looked into and examined by you.” Catherine did not conceal from herself that the laws required amending. “Lack of time alone,” she says, “has prevented the introduction of reforms.”

An Old Mordvinian Woman

Catherine did not forget to tell the young procurator-general what her views were on the frontier country of Russia: “Little Russia, Livonia, and Finland are provinces that must be governed in conformity with their privileges; to violate them by revoking them all suddenly would be quite unseemly, to call them foreign countries, however, and treat them on such a basis would be more than an error—it might rightly be called stupidity. These provinces, as also that of Smolensk, must by the lightest possible means be gradually russianised so that they shall cease to be looked upon as wolves in the forest. The attainment of such an object is quite easy if sensible persons are chosen for the governors of these provinces. When there is no longer a hetman in Little Russia, we must endeavour to abolish even the appellation of hetman.”

Having initiated Prince Viasemski into the most secret matters, having reminded him that a procurator-general in the exercise of his functions is obliged to oppose the most powerful personages and that therefore the sovereign power is his only support, Catherine in the following passage expressed her views on her own sovereign power:

“You ought to know with whom you have to do. Occasions will arise daily which will lead you to seek my counsel. You will find that I have no other aims than the highest welfare and glory of the fatherland and desire nothing but the happiness of my subjects of whatever condition they may be. My only aspiration is that both within and without my dominions tranquillity, contentment, and peace should be preserved. I love truth above all things, and you may speak it, fearing nothing; I shall encourage discussion, if good can be accomplished by it. I hear that all esteem you as an honest man; I hope to show you by experience that persons with such qualities can live happily at court. I will add that I require no flattery from you, but solely frankness and sincerity in your dealings, and firmness in the affairs of state.” Such an administration programme and such political principles gave Catherine full right to look calmly towards the future.[c]

THE POLISH SUCCESSION; THE POLICY OF THE NATIONS

A subject of deep gravity soon claimed her attention—the approaching death of the king of Poland and the consequent opening of the succession. Two parties were contending for power in Warsaw—the court party with minister Brühl and his son-in-law Mniszek at its head, and the party which looked to Russia for support and had for chiefs the Czartoriski. The first-named faction wished to assure the succession to the prince of Saxony, an aim in which France and Austria shared, and the second, planning to elect a piast or native noble who should belong to their party, chose as candidate a nephew of the Czartoriski, Stanislaus Poniatovski. Thus France, which in 1733 had waged war in the cause of a piast against the Saxon candidate, now came to support the Saxon against Poniatovski. The face of affairs had completely changed, and the Polish monarchy, growing weaker day by day, arrived at the point where it could no longer stand erect save by the aid of Saxony, a German state. Frederick II had as much reason to dread an increase of power for Saxony as for Poland, since Saxony was an inveterate enemy of Prussia in the empire, as was Poland in the regions of the Vistula. Russia, which had formerly fought against Stanislaus Leszczynski, father-in-law of Louis XV, was now to oppose the candidate favoured by France and Austria; it was eager also to prevent the accession to the throne of any Polish noble wielding too much power of his own. The choice, therefore, of Stanislaus Poniatovski, a simple gentleman without personal following or influence, met fully the desires of Frederick II, the interests of the Russian Empire, and the private feelings of Catherine II, who was happy to bestow a crown upon one of her former lovers.

[1765 A.D.]

When Augustus III finally died, the diets of convocation and of election stirred up great agitation all over the country. The two rival parties waged fiercer strife than ever; at last the Czartoriski called upon the Russian army to help drive out their enemies, and it was under the protection of foreign bayonets that Poniatovski inaugurated that fatal reign during which Poland was to be three times dismembered and in the end wiped completely from the list of nations. Three principal causes were to bring about the ruin of the ancient royal republic:

(1) The national movement in Russia, which aimed to complete its territory on the west and recover, so said its historians, the provinces which had formerly been part of the domain of St. Vladimir, or White Russia, Black Russia, and Little Russia. With the national question was mingled another which had already led, under Alexander Mikhailovitch, to a first dismemberment of the Polish states. Complaints against the operations of the uniates had multiplied in Lithuania, and Russia had frequently attempted to intervene. Peter the Great protested to Augustus II against the treatment accorded to his co-religionists in Poland, and Augustus had issued an edict assuring free exercise of the orthodox religion; but this never went into effect owing to the inability of the monarchy to repress the zeal of the clergy and the Jesuits. In 1723 Peter begged the intervention of the pope, but his petition was refused and the abuses continued.

(2) The covetousness of Prussia. Poland being in possession of western Prussia, that is the lower Vistula including Thorn and Dantzic, eastern Prussia was completely cut off from the rest of the Brandenburg monarchy, which was thus made a divided state. The government of Warsaw committed, moreover, the serious error of confounding Protestant and orthodox dissenters and harassing them alike.

(3) The inevitable enkindling of Poland in its turn by the spirit of reform that spread abroad during the eighteenth century. Poniatovski and the most enlightened of his countrymen had long perceived the contrast presented by national anarchy as it prevailed at home and the order that was being established in neighbouring states. Nevertheless, while Prussia, Russia, and Austria were exerting every effort to re-form themselves into strictly modern states, Poland still clung obstinately to the traditions of the feudal ages, and allowed the other European monarchies to get so far ahead that when at last the impulse to reform did come it hastened the dissolution of the country.

From a social point of view Poland was a nation of agricultural serfs, above which had been superimposed a numerous petty nobility that was itself in bondage to a few great families, against whom even the king was powerless. There existed no third estate unless we can designate by that name a few thousand Catholic bourgeois and a million Jews, who had no interest in maintaining a condition of things that condemned them to everlasting opprobrium. From an economical point of view the country had only a limited agriculture carried on by serfs after the most primitive methods; but little commerce, no industries, and no public finances. From a political standpoint the “legal” nation was composed exclusively of gentleman—rivalry between the great families, anarchy in the diets, the liberum veto, and the inveterate habit of invoking foreign intervention having destroyed in Poland all idea of law or even of state. From a military point of view Poland was still in the feudal stage of undisciplined militia; it had scarcely any organised troops outside the cavalry formed of nobles, no infantry, but little artillery, and no fortresses worthy the name on frontiers that were thus left open to the enemy. What means of defence had a nation divided against itself, guilty of having received gold from the enemy, against the three powerful monarchies which beset it on all sides, and whose ambassadors had more power than its own king in his diets?

Catherine and Frederick were agreed on two essential points: to vindicate the rights of dissenters and prevent any reform in the anarchial constitution which made Poland their easy prey. By affecting to espouse the cause of tolerance they could blind Europe to their real designs against the integrity of the country, and Poland’s own noisy fanaticism would further enable them to conceal their object.

In 1765 Koninski, an orthodox bishop of White Russia, presented a memoir to the king of Poland in which were recounted all the vexations which the followers of the Greek religion had been made to suffer in his kingdom. “The missionary fathers,” said the memoir, “were particularly remarkable for their zeal; upheld by the secular authorities they were in the habit of summoning all the Greco-Russian inhabitants of the villages and banding them together like a flock of sheep six weeks at a time, forcing them to confess, and displaying thorny rods and stakes to intimidate the rebellious, separating children from their parents and wives from husbands. In case of stubborn resistance the recalcitrant ones were severely beaten, their hands were burned, or they were confined in prison for several months.”

Russia supported the dissenters in the Polish diet and Stanislaus promised to sustain them. To do this it was necessary to assure to the people the free exercise of their religion, and to the nobles the political rights of which they had been despoiled under preceding legislators. The diet of 1766 violently opposed this proposition, and the deputy Gourovski who had tried to speak in favour of the dissenters narrowly escaped assassination.

[1767-1768 A.D.]

Repnin, Catherine’s ambassador, urged the dissenters to resort to the legal method of confederation. Those of the orthodox faith united at Sluth, the Protestants, under the patronage of the Prussian ambassador, at Thorn; even at Radom there was a confederation of Catholics and of all those who feared a reform in the constitution or the abolition of the liberum veto. Russia, which with Prussia had guaranteed the support of this absurd constitution, took these also under its protection. Such were the auspices under which was opened the diet of 1767; the Poles seemed insensible to the attack made on their independence and exerted themselves solely to maintain intolerance. Soltik, bishop of Cracow, Zaluski, bishop of Kiev, and two other of the pope’s ambassadors were the most ardent in opposing the project of reform. Repnin had them seized and carried to Russia, and so persistently had Poland shown herself in the wrong that Europe applauded an act, in itself a violation of the rights of men, which seemed to assure liberty of conscience. The diet yielded and consented to the dissenting nobles being granted equal rights with the Catholics; in any case the state religion was to remain that of Rome.

POLAND IS DISMEMBERED

In 1768 a treaty was drawn up between Poland and Russia by the terms of which no modification could be made in the constitution without the consent of the latter power. This was equivalent to legalising foreign intervention, from the abuse of which Poland was to perish. The Russian troops evacuated Warsaw, and the confederates sent deputies to render thanks to the empress.

The Radom Confederation, the most considerable of the three, which had taken up arms solely to prevent reforms in the constitution, not to support the dissenters, was gravely dissatisfied with the result. On its dissolution another and still more numerous confederation was formed, that of Bar in Podolia, which had for object the maintenance of the liberum veto and the securing of exclusive privileges to Catholics. It sent deputies to the courts of Dresden, Vienna, and Versailles to awaken interest in its cause. In the west opinions differed; on which side were right, the Polish nation, the brightest promise for the future? Were they at Warsaw with the king, the senate, and all those who had striven for the enfranchisement of the dissenters and the reconstruction of Poland, or were they at Bar with the turbulent nobles who, guided by fanatical priests, had revolted in the name of the liberum veto and religious intolerance? Voltaire and most of the French philosophers declared for the king; but the minister of Louis XV, Monsieur de Choiseul, favoured the confederates, without taking into consideration that in weakening the power of the Polish king he was weakening Poland itself. The royal army consisting of only nine thousand men, the government committed the grievous blunder of calling upon Russia for aid, and the result was that the Muscovite troops succeeded in recapturing from the confederates Bar, Berdichev, and Cracow. The Cossacks of the Ukraine, the Zaparogians and the laïdamaks or brigands were called to arms and a savage war, at once national, religious, and social, ensued, desolating the provinces of the Dnieper. The massacre of Ouman, a town belonging to Count Potocki, horrified the inhabitants of the Ukraine.

The confederates obtained the support of the Viennese court and established a council at Teschen, and their headquarters at Eperies, in Hungary. They were still in possession of three strongholds in Poland. Choiseul sent them money and commissioned successively De Taules, Dumouriez, and the baron de Viomesnil to assist in their organisation. From the memoirs of Dumouriez we learn that the forces of the confederation, distributed about over all Poland, consisted of sixteen thousand cavalry divided into five or six separate bands, each commanded by an independent chief. Dumouriez with his undisciplined troops was defeated at Landskron (1771); but Viomesnil, Dussaillans, and Choisy became masters of the château of Cracow (1772), which was finally recovered by Souvorov. An attempt made by certain confederates on the 3rd of November, 1771, to obtain possession of the person of the king, excited noisy but insincere indignation at the three northern courts, and increased Voltaire’s aversion to the confederates.[d]

By the treaty of St. Petersburg (signed August 5th, 1772), the palatinates of Malborg, Pomerania, Warmia, Culm (except Dantzic and Thorn), and part of Great Poland was ceded to Prussia. Austria had Galicia, Sandomir, Cracow, and part of Podolia. Russia had Polotsk, Vitepsk, Mikislav, and Polish Livonia. The next point was to execute the treaty. A pretext could not long be wanting for the armed interference of all the three powers: each had been expressly invited by some one of the parties which divided that unhappy country, which were perpetually engaged in civil war. The three bandit chiefs despatched armies into Poland, and Europe waited with much anxiety the issue of this step. Its suspense was not of long continuance: the Treaty of St. Petersburg was presented to the Polish king and senate; and manifestoes, stating the pretensions of each power, were published.

Never were documents so insulting laid before rational men. King and senate could oppose little resistance to demands so powerfully supported; but their consent alone could not sanction the dismemberment of the republic. Hence the diet was convoked. That eight or ten members only should resist the destruction of their country, that all the rest should tamely sanction it, might appear incredible if it were not a matter of history. In this monstrous robbery the lion’s share fell to Russia. She acquired an extent of territory estimated at 3,440 square leagues, with one million and a half of inhabitants: Austria had 2,700 leagues, but a greater population, viz. two millions and a half: Prussia had scarcely 1,000 square leagues, and less than a million of people.

As the three co-robbers were so courageous as to set at defiance both justice and public opinion, so magnanimous as to show themselves in their real character to all posterity, it may appear matter of surprise that they did not seize on the whole of the kingdom. But though they had resolved to seize the remainder, they were cautious enough to await the course of events—to take advantage of any favourable circumstance that might arise. The French Revolution furnished them with it. That event had many admirers in Poland, many who wished to imitate it at home. It was easy for the three neighbouring powers to take umbrage at the progress of republican opinions; to assert, as indeed truth authorised them to assert, that the Poles were in communication with the heads of the movement in Paris. In reality, in the year 1791 a new constitution was proclaimed, exceedingly like a republic. The reduction of Dantzic and Thorn, the two most important possessions in the north of Europe, convinced the Poles that they had been duped. Catherine was not a woman to let others derive the sole advantage where anything was to be gained. Preparatory to active operations, she declared war against Poland. The diet resolved to resist; but, as usual, the Poles were divided among themselves. One party declared for Russia; and though the greater number declared for independence, they could not be brought to combine. Success after success was obtained by the Russian general; the empress negotiated the details of another partition with Prussia; and the king and the diet were, as before, compelled to sanction it. By it the Russian frontier was extended to the centre of Lithuania and Volhinia; while the remainder of Great and a part of Little Poland were ceded to Frederick William. Much to the honour of Austria, she had no hand in this second iniquity.

The territory of the republic was now reduced to about 4,000 square miles; and her army, by command of the czarina, was in future not to exceed fifteen thousand men. The Poles were never deficient in bravery; and they were, on this occasion, sensitive to the national shame. They felt that the narrow limits still allowed them would soon be passed, and that their remaining provinces were intended soon to be incorporated with the neighbouring states. A general insurrection was organised; an army voluntarily arose, and Kosciuszko placed himself at its head. For a time wonders were wrought by the patriots; though opposed by two great enemies—Russia and Prussia—they expelled the enemy from most of the fortresses; and even when Austria acceded to the coalition and took Cracow they were not desponding. To effect impossibilities, however, was an absurd attempt: the majority felt it to be so, and they sullenly received the foreign law. Kosciuszko was made prisoner; the last outworks of the last fortress were reduced; Warsaw capitulated; Stanislaus was deposed; and a third partition ended the existence of the Polish Republic. By it Austria had Cracow, with the country between the Pilitza, the Vistula, and the Bug. Prussia had Warsaw, with the territory to the banks of the Niemen. The rest, which, as usual, was the lion’s share, fell to Russia.

War with Turkey (1769-1774 A.D.)

[1769 A.D.]

The wars with this power occupied a considerable portion of Catherine’s reign; yet they were not originally sought by her. The Porte, at the suggestion of the French ambassador, whose master was anxious to divert her from her meditated encroachments on Poland, was, unfortunately for itself, induced to declare war against her. The Grand Seignior, indeed, was the ally of the republic; and he was one of the parties to guarantee its independence. But his dominions were not tranquil; the discipline of his armies was impaired, while that of the Russians was improving every day. Perhaps, however, he was ignorant of the disadvantages which must attend the prosecution of the war: certainly his pride was flattered by the insinuation that he held in his hands the balance of power in eastern and northern Europe. In 1769 hostilities commenced by the invasion of the Crimea, the khan of which was the vassal of the Porte. Azov and Taganrog were soon taken; Moldavia was entered; Servia was cleared of the Tatar allies. Before Kotzim, however, Prince Galitzin received a check, and was forced to repass the Dniester. A second attempt on that important fortress was equally unsuccessful. But the Turks, who pursued too far, were vanquished in some isolated engagement; and the campaign of 1769 ended by the acquisition of Kotzim.

The operations of the following year were much more decisive. Galitzin, disgusted by the arrogance of the favourite Orlov, resigned the command into abler hands than even his own—those of Count Romanzov. The reduction of Jassy and Brailov was preparatory to two great victories, which rendered the name of Romanzov forever memorable in the annals of his country. The first was on the banks of the Pruth. The Turks, in number eighty thousand, under the khan of the Crimea, were intrenched on a hill, in a position too strong to be assailed. But after three weeks, they became wearied of their inactivity; and believing, from a feint of the Russian general, that he was about to retire, twenty thousand of them rushed down the hill. They were repulsed with terrible loss; the remainder carried dismay into the camp; and the Russians, taking advantage of the circumstances, ascended, forced the intrenchments, killed many, compelled the rest to flee, and seized considerable booty, with thirty-eight pieces of cannon. Retreating towards the Danube, the Turks effected a junction with the grand vizir, whose army was thereby increased to 150,000.

Unaware of its extent, Romanzov pursued with ardour, and was suddenly in the presence of his formidable competitor. His position was a critical one. The vizir was intrenched; and the khan, resolved to efface the shame of his recent defeat, wheeled round his left flank, and encamped behind him. Hence he could not move backwards or forwards. On the following day the vizir gave the signal of battle; and the contest raged for some hours with desperate fury. Annoyed at the perpetual discharges of the enemy’s artillery, which alarmingly thinned his ranks, the count ordered his men to fix their bayonets and rush on the intrenchments. Here the struggle was more deadly than before; but in the end numbers yielded to discipline and valour. The Turks fled, the vizir with them, leaving immense stores (among which were 143 pieces of cannon) in the power of the victors, and nearly one-third of their number on the field. Romanzov now crossed the Dniester; one of his generals, Repnin, reduced Ismailov; the other, Panin, took the most important fortress, Bender, after a siege of three months; while a detachment from the main army seized the capital of Bessarabia.

Nor were these the only successes of the year. Not satisfied with warfare on land, Catherine resolved to try her fortunes on the deep; and to do what none of her predecessors had ever dreamed—to send a powerful fleet into the Mediterranean, for the purpose of assailing her enemy in Greece. Many new ships were built; many English naval officers persuaded to command them, and to teach her seamen the arts by which the superiority of England had been so long maintained. The Greeks were impatient for the arrival of their co-religionists; the czarina’s gold had gained over the chiefs, and a general insurrection of the people was meditated. Her designs were truly gigantic—no less than to drive the Mohammedans from Europe. The fleet sailed, arrived in the Archipelago, disembarked both on the islands and the continent; and while the Turkish possessions were assailed on the Danube, they were equally perilled in these southern latitudes.

A terrible warfare now commenced—the Greeks everywhere butchering the Mohammedans, the latter retaliating. A naval battle was inevitable; the hostile fleets met between Scio and Natolia: the engagement continued until night, to the manifest advantage of the Russians. That very night the Turkish admiral was so foolish as to run his ships into a narrow bay, in which he was instantly blockaded. Some fire-ships, sent by Vice-Admiral Elphinstone, a Scotchman in the service of the empress, set all of them on fire; and at sunrise the following morning not a flag was to be seen. This blow sensibly affected the Turks, especially as the appearance of the Russians in the Mediterranean had encouraged Tripoli, Egypt, and Syria to rebel against the Porte. Ali Bey, the governor of Egypt, an able, ambitious, and enterprising insurgent, was ready to assist his allies with all his might; but the incapacity yet egregious haughtiness of the Russian admiral, Alexis Orlov, prevented them from deriving much advantage from the union. The year, however, was one of brilliant success; and Catherine was so elated that she built a magnificent palace, which she called after the bay in which the last victory was gained.

[1771-1774 A.D.]

In the spring of 1771, Orlov again resorted to the Mediterranean, where the Russian fleet still lay, with the intention of forcing the Dardanelles; while the armies on the Danube renewed their operations. The position of Turkey was, indeed, critical: not only was one-half of the empire in revolt, but the plague had alarmingly thinned the population. Fortunately, however, for this power, the same scourge found its way into the heart of Russia: its ravages were as fatal at Moscow as at Constantinople; and it no more spared the Christians on the Danube than it did the Mohammedans. This calamity slackened, but did not suspend operations. If the Russians were sometimes repulsed, the balance of success was decidedly in their favour. The famous lines of Perekop, from the Euxine to the sea of Azov were forced by Prince Dolgoruki, though they were defended by fifty thousand Tatars; the whole of the Crimea, one fortress excepted, was subdued; and the surname of Krimski, or Conqueror of the Crimea, was given to the victor. The country, however, was not incorporated with the empire: on the contrary, while it was declared independent of the Porte, it was proclaimed as merely under the protection of Russia. The khan, Selim Girai, being thus expelled, proceeded to Constantinople, where he died. The exertions of the fleet, however, did not correspond with those of the land forces: all that Orlov effected was to destroy the Turkish commerce on the Levant.

During the year 1772 no hostilities were committed, and negotiations for peace were undertaken. Though the two contracting parties, which sent their representatives to Bucharest, could not agree on the conditions, both were anxious to recruit their strength, after the heavy losses they had sustained both by the sword and the plague. Catherine too had another motive for temporary inaction; she was busily effecting the first partition of Poland. With the return of the following spring, however, the banks of the Danube were again the theatre of war; but this campaign was not destined to be so glorious as the one of 1771. Its opening was unfavourable for the Russians: while a body of fourteen thousand, under Prince Repnin, were crossing that river, they were surprised by one of the Turkish generals; many perished; about six hundred, with the prince himself, were made prisoners and sent to Constantinople. Shortly afterwards, Romanzov who had passed that river and was marching on Silistria, was compelled to retrace his steps. At Roskana a considerable body of his troops was defeated by the vizir. This harassing warfare—for the Turks carefully avoided a general action—thinned the ranks and, what is worse, depressed the spirits of the invaders. Romanzov was no less averse to such a risk. Nor did the fleet in the Mediterranean effect anything to counterbalance their indecisive yet destructive operations. What little advantage there was belonged to the Turks.

The campaign of 1774 promised to be more important than the preceding; and the Porte, from the rebellion of Pugatchev, was confident of success. Several actions on the Danube, which, however bravely contested, led to no result, were yet considered as indicative of a severe if not a decisive struggle. But the anticipation was groundless. Though several bodies of Tatars, who were to effect a diversion in favour of Pugatchev, were defeated; though the Danube was crossed; though twenty-five thousand of the Turks were repulsed by Soltikov, and another body still stronger by Suvarov, though the vizir himself was blockaded in Shumla—Europe was disappointed in its expectations; for negotiations were opened for a peace which was soon concluded.

The Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774 A.D.)

[1774 A.D.]

By the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (July, 1774) Russia obtained the free navigation of the Black Sea, the right of passage through the Danube, a large tract of land between the Bug and the Dnieper, with the strong fortresses of Azov, Taganrog, Kertch, and Kinburn. The rest of the Crimea was ceded—not, indeed, to the Turks, but to its own khan, who, though declared independent, must of necessity be the creature of the empress, in whose hands those fortresses remained. They were the keys to his dominions, and even to the command of the Black Sea. A sum of money sufficient to defray the expenses of the war was also stipulated; but it was never paid. The advantages which Russia derived from the other articles were ample enough: among them, not the least, was the commerce of the Levant and of the Black Sea.[e]

THE MIGRATION OF THE KALMUCKS

It seemed as if Catherine’s reign was destined to be marked by the most extraordinary events, and one of them was this simultaneous departure of a horde variously estimated at from three hundred thousand to six hundred thousand Tatars, an example at the end of the eighteenth century of one of those great migratory movements which history never expected again to record. Catherine was humiliated with having to furnish the example; it was in too striking contrast with that happiness which her philosophic friends said the human race enjoyed in her empire; and the peaceful migration of an indignant and angry people gave the formal lie to all the praises loud shouted by philanthropy. Our readers will not regret to find here were details of this unexpected event which suddenly made in the Russian Empire an empty spot, more than fifteen hundred versts in length, between Tzaritsin and Astrakhan. These Tatars, known under the name of Kalmucks, were originally included in three principal tribes. At first subject to China, they had been frequently at war either with it or with themselves. One of their khans, Amusanan, defeated and pursued by the Chinese, had taken refuge at Tobolsk in Siberia, where he died about 1757. These troubles, whose origin dated back more than sixty years, had in 1696 caused a great number of Kalmucks of the three tribes to reunite, quit a country devastated by constant war, and seek new homes at the eastern extremity of the Russian Empire.

They settled or located themselves in a vast stretch of territory close to the Caspian Sea, between the Ural and the Volga. The Chinese claimed that according to some ancient treaties Russia had to return all fugitive subjects, but received no reply except that there was nothing to prevent a wandering people from settling in waste places, a reply which seventy-five years later the Chinese made use of on their own part with advantage. Russia received these fugitive hordes and did not delay in getting service out of them. Another Tatar nation composed principally of Lesghians, who lived beyond Kisliar and were greedy for pillage, made frequent incursions into the empire and depopulated the border by the quantity of slaves they brought back with them. The new Kalmucks were charged with keeping them out and performed the duty if not with constant success, at least with a fidelity which did them great credit. The government felt that this permanent defence was more advantageous to it than a contribution necessarily small and hard to collect would be; and consequently, guided a long time by this wise principle, it contented itself with taking annually from the Kalmucks a certain number of men and horses for the light cavalry; but when once it deviated from a rule which it should never have broken, troubles began and the cupidity of its agents multiplied particular iniquities under pretext of collecting for the public funds. The Russian governors and even the minor officials were confirmed in the belief that everything was permitted them because they were sure that everything would be ignored.

A Kalmuck Woman

Several of the Kalmuck chiefs were treated with indignity. It was established as a state maxim that they had no right to complain against injustice; all protest was regarded as a crime. Finally the khan Ubashi, alive to his people’s misfortunes and wretched himself through the pride and rapacity of his oppressors who had taken his only son from him, dared to draw a picture of his sad position and wished to present it at St. Petersburg. But all means of getting there were closed to him. This attempt only aggravated his fate and vengeance was now added to oppression. Here is exhibited a truly interesting spectacle. This numerous people who, by joining the Lesghians, could, especially in the condition that Russia then was, give it the greatest alarm and mete out terrible retaliation, had no thought of using force. They had come to seek peace and had been deprived of it, so they withdrew. They withdrew without making use of arms, at least none but what they were forced to by the necessity of defending themselves and of procuring what they stood in need of for themselves and their large herds in occupying a front about one hundred leagues wide over a route nearly twelve hundred leagues in length.

The preparations for this journey were made with a secrecy which concealed them from Russia’s knowledge. A nomadic people travels with no other equipment than its herds, which furnish its drink and a portion of its nourishment. Obliged often to change locality in order to obtain grazing grounds, it might without arousing suspicion creep nearer and nearer the frontiers and even cross them without being stopped by detachments sent in pursuit. This is what happened. The preparations were furthered by the Ural Cossacks, who had experienced the same troubles with Russian officials and who were shortly to rise in open rebellion under Pugatchev. Furthermore the migration was carried out like all those of northeastern peoples—with this difference, however: the others came to Europe to invade realms and destroy and replace the inhabitants; while this one was returning to its ancestral home to reunite itself to the empire it had left at the end of the preceding century. In fact, while all known migrations have taken place from the northeast and east to the west and south, this is the single exception which retrograded from west to east.

It divided itself into several columns in order to have sufficient stretch of territory to pasture the herds, and the first column left the Volga on the 16th of December, 1770. This prodigious assemblage of men, women, and children, formed of more than eighty thousand families and taking with it an immense number of cattle, was after a few days on the march vainly attacked by the Russians, continued its journey, was sometimes obliged to use force in making its way, and on the 9th of August appeared in the Elenth country on the borders of China near the river Obi. Its progress may be calculated at about five leagues per day, a rate that seems almost incredible when one thinks of all that composed the body. They also had with them as prisoners a hundred Russian soldiers as well as an officer named Dudun who had commanded them, who is believed to have been French. It was indeed a strange destiny for this officer to be brought to China as the slave of a Kalmuck!

The Kalmucks Reach China

Ubashi, shortly after leaving the Volga, had informed the Chinese of the migration; and precautions were taken in advance that the arrival of such an enormous crowd should occasion no disorder. The emperor of China erected forts and redoubts in the most important places to watch the passing carefully and collect the necessary provisions. The Kalmucks, received like old subjects, found on arriving provision for clothing, food, and shelter. They were worn out by fatigue and in an extremely ragged condition. They had made their way north of the Caspian Sea, one division skirted the borders of Siberia to gain the fertile banks of the Irtish, the other kept farther south near the Usben country in order to reach that of the Elenths without crossing the Kobi desert, where no sustenance would have been found.

They lost on the way more than a third of their number by fatigue, by sickness, and in the battles they were frequently obliged to wage, especially against the wandering Tatars. They were but four hundred thousand on arriving. To each family was assigned a piece of ground suitable as much for pasturage as for agriculture, to which the government desired that they should devote themselves—an efficient means of fixing a people and attaching it to the soil which it cultivates. Ubashi appeared at court and was received with honour. Twenty thousand other Tatar families who had accompanied Amusanan in his flight or were dispersed along the Siberian frontiers followed the example of the Tatars of the Volga, and returned to their old homes. The Chinese government seemed truly paternal in greeting these children whose long misfortunes finally brought them back to their ancestral homes.

Catherine on learning of their departure became justly indignant against the Russian officials who by force of bad treatment had pushed the Kalmucks to this extremity; but the wrong was done, and it was impossible to right it. As soon as she knew what route they had taken she took measures to have the Peking government send them back. The emperor replied that these people were returning to their old homes, that he could not refuse them an asylum, and for the rest if she wished to know the reason of their flight she had only to ask those who had overwhelmed these people, their chiefs, and even their khan with outrages and injustices. Catherine, despairing of bringing them back, was obliged to make use of several bodies of light troops to protect the frontiers the Kalmucks had recently left.[f]

INSURRECTIONS AND PRETENDERS

A riot in Moscow having clearly revealed the depths of barbarism in which were still plunged the lower classes of the capital—the domestic serfs, lackeys, and factory-workers; the insurrection headed by Pugatchev will show what elements of disorder were still fermenting in the most remote provinces of the empire. The peasants upon whom fell the whole burden of state charges, as well as the exactions of proprietors and functionaries, dreamed in their ignorance of all sorts of impossible changes, and were always ready to follow impostors; many were the false Peters and Ivans and Pauls who started up with worthless claims to trade on the credulity of these simple minds, deeply imbued as they were with the distrust of “women on the throne.” The raskolniks, made savage and fanatical by previous persecutions, remained in their forests on the Volga, irreconcilable enemies of this second Roman empire that was stained with the blood of so many martyrs. The Cossacks of the Don and the Zaparogians of the Dnieper chafed under a yoke to which they were unused, and the pagan, Mussulman, or orthodox tribes of the Volga were but awaiting an opportunity to regain their former liberty and retake the lands occupied by the Russians.

How little these various ungovernable elements could accommodate themselves to the conditions of a modern state has been shown, when, in 1770, three hundred thousand of the Kalmuck-Turguts abandoned their encampments. Add to these malcontents a crowd of vagabonds of all sorts, ruined nobles, unfrocked monks, fugitive serfs, and pirates of the Volga, and it will be seen that Russia contained in its eastern portion all the materials necessary for an immense jacquerie, such as had before been unchained by the false Dmitri, or Stenka Radzin.

A Bokharian of Siberia

It was the Cossacks of the Jaik, cruelly repressed after their insurrection in 1766, who were to provide the rebel serfs with a leader in the person of Emilian Pugatchev, a raskolnik who had escaped from prison to Siberia. Passing himself off as Peter III, who had been rescued from the hands of the executioner, he raised the banner of the Holsteins and declared his intention of marching on St. Petersburg to punish his wife and place his son on the throne. With a following of but three hundred men he laid siege to the little fortress of Jaik. All the troops that were sent against him passed over to his side. He caused all the officers to be hanged, and put to death all the nobles in the towns through which he passed, capturing by means of such terrorisation several small fortresses on the steppes. By his intimates who knew the secret of his origin, he was treated in private as a simple Cossack, but the populations were deceived and received him with the ringing of bells. Certain Polish confederates who were captives in these regions organised for him a body of artillery. For nearly a year he kept Kazan and Orenburg in a state of terror, defeating all the generals that were sent against him. Peasants began to rise against the nobles, Tatars and other tribes against the Russians, until the bitterest of social wars was unchained in the whole Volga basin. Moscow with its one hundred thousand serfs was thrown into agitation; among the lower classes there was talk of liberty and extermination of the masters. Catherine II charged Alexander Bibikov to check the progress of sedition.

Bibikov was aghast, on arriving at Kazan, to see the extent of the demoralisation. He set about reassuring the nobles and soothing the lower classes, but in letters to his wife he wrote: “Conditions are frightful, I fear all will go ill!” Without great confidence in his own troops he decided to attack the impostor, whom he recognised as merely an instrument in the hands of the Cossacks. He defeated Pugatchev twice, once at Tatistchev and once at Kargula, dispersing his army and seizing his cannon. Bibikov died in the full flush of victory, but his lieutenants, Michelson, Collongues, and Galitzin, continued to pursue the vanquished pretender. Hunted to the lower Volga, Pugatchev suddenly ascended the river and pillaged and burned Kazan, but was afterwards defeated on the Kazanka. Descending the river he entered Saransk, Samara, and Tsaritsin, and though hotly pursued by his enemies took time to establish there new municipalities. Meanwhile the populations on the route to Moscow were awaiting his coming, and to meet this expectation innumerable Peter III’s and Pugatchevs arose, who at the head of furious bands went about assassinating proprietors and burning châteaux. It was high time that Pugatchev should be brought to justice. Tracked down between the Volga and the Jaik by Michelson and the indefatigable Suvarov, he was taken to Moscow, where the people were given the spectacle of his execution.

[1775 A.D.]

These troubles had been a warning to Catherine II, and she still bore them in mind when she destroyed the Zaparogian Republic in 1775. The valiant tribes of the Dnieper, expulsed under Peter the Great and recalled under Anna Ivanovna, no longer recognised their former territory of Ukraine. Southern Russia, freed from the incursions of the Tatars, was rapidly being colonised; cities were springing up on all sides and the vast herb-covered steppes were becoming transformed into cultivated fields. The Zaparogians were highly displeased at the transformation, and wished to have their lands restored to them in their former condition. They protected the haïdamaks who were constantly harassing the colonists, until Potemkin, the actual creator of “new” Russia, wearied of such uncomfortable neighbours, occupied on the empress’ order the sitcha and destroyed it. The malcontents fled for refuge to the lands of the sultan; the rest were organised into the Cossacks of the Black Sea, and in 1792 the island of Phanagoria and the southern shore of the sea of Azov were assigned to them as residence. Such was the end of the great Cossack uprising which is heard of to-day only in the songs of the kobzars.[d]

FAVOURITISM UNDER CATHERINE II

During the reign of Catherine favouritism attained a very wide development. In her Memoirs[g] we meet with the following characteristic passage which is not devoid of interest: “I was endowed by nature with great sensitiveness, and an exterior which if not beautiful was, nevertheless, attractive; I pleased from the first moment and did not require to employ for this purpose artifice or embellishments. By nature my soul was of such a sociable character that always when anyone had spent a quarter of an hour with me, he felt perfectly at ease and could converse with me as if he had known me for a long time. By my natural indulgence I inspired confidence in those that had to do with me; because everyone was aware that nothing was pleasanter to me than to act benevolently and with the strictest honesty. I may venture to say (if I may be allowed thus to speak of myself) that I was like a knight of liberty and lawfulness; I had rather the soul of a man than that of a woman; but there was nothing repellent in this, for to the intellect and character of a man was united in me the charm of a most amiable woman. I trust I may be pardoned these words and expressions of my self-love: I use them counting them as true, and not desiring to screen myself by any false modesty.

“I have said that I pleased; consequently half of the temptation that arises is already included in that fact itself; the other half in such cases naturally follows from the very essence of human nature, because to be subjected to temptation and to yield to it are very near to each other. Although the very highest principles of morality may be impressed on the mind, yet they soon become involved, and feelings appear which lead one immeasurably further than one thinks. For my part even until now I do not know how they can be averted. People perhaps may say that there is one means—flight; but there are cases, positions, circumstances where flight is impossible; in fact where can one flee to, where seek a refuge, where turn aside amidst a court that makes a talk over the smallest action? And thus if you cannot flee, then in my opinion there is nothing more difficult than to shun that which is essentially pleasing to you. Believe me, all that may be said to you against this is hypocrisy and founded on a want of knowledge of the human heart. A man is not master over his own heart; he cannot at his will squeeze it in his fist and then set it free again.”

Both contemporaries and posterity have not without foundation harshly judged favouritism under Catherine. One-sidedness and harshness of judgment in this respect have however deprived both contemporaries and immediate posterity of the possibility of dispassionately estimating the personality of the empress in general. Taking into consideration Catherine’s unusual capacities, the circumstances in which she was placed, and her temperament, it is impossible not to acknowledge that in accusing her we must not lose sight of the age in general and of the morals at the court in particular. Favouritism was no new apparition under Catherine. Almost the same state of things had arisen during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. A particularly unpleasant impression, however, is made by frequent changes of favourites. One after another in turn there were “in favour”: Gregory Orlov, Vasiltchikov, Potemkin, Zavadovski, Zoritch, Korsakov, Lanskoi, Ermolov, Mamonov and Zubov. Both Russians and foreigners have harshly censured Catherine for the rapidity of these changes, which were unexpected and sometimes without any visible cause. On the other hand, even writers who are unfavourable to Catherine have praised her for the fact that not one of the favourites banished from the court was ever persecuted or punished, while history presents a multitude of examples of cruelty and extreme arbitrariness on the part of crowned women in parallel cases.

It must be acknowledged, however, that favouritism, given the unbounded cupidity of Catherine’s favourites and of their relations, friends, and acquaintances, cost the treasury and the nation very dear.[h]

Under the influence of new favourites and other confidants, the second half of Catherine’s reign assumed an essentially different character as regards her actuating motives, although in the outward course of events a certain resemblance to the first half was preserved. When Catherine began to reign she had in mind a policy of peaceful splendour, advised also by Panin; she would willingly have secured the sovereignty of Poland by pacific means. It was only the force of circumstances which drew her into an undesired war.

Now her ambition assumed a different direction; we behold her recklessly bent on high-handed conquests, taking the initiative and deliberately making plans to bring about new wars. And, as this has often proved the case when government is vested in a woman, the change was caused by the most intimate personal circumstances. It would be out of place here to relate in detail the paltriness of all the court intrigues. It will suffice to recall the fact that Catherine, weary of the brutal tyranny of Gregory Orlov, tried to shake off his yoke and only succeeded with difficulty in wrenching herself free. She sent him at the time of the plague to Moscow, much against his will, and his numerous enemies hardly concealed their hope that he might never return. The empress endeavoured to keep him at a distance when he returned, but he struggled to remain master of the field and to stand his ground, although he saw himself supplanted in her personal favour by an insignificant young officer of the guards called Vasiltchikov.

The Rise of Potemkin

When Catherine began after a time to feel ashamed of the insignificance of this young man, the much discussed General Gregory Alexandrovitch Potemkin, known to the empress in the days of her quarrels with her husband, knew how to take advantage of this favourable moment to force himself almost by violence into the long coveted position of her acknowledged and honoured favourite. The Orlovs tried for some time to wrest from him his sway over Catherine and over Russia, but they were obliged finally to give way, and retired to the ancient capital of the empire—which had remained the national capital, the capital of ancient Muscovy and the refuge of all who had reasons for avoiding the court.

There is much in this strife that is characteristic of time and place. When Gregory Orlov was forced to start on his dangerous journey to Moscow, many hoped, as already pointed out, that he would never return. When he reappeared safe and sound and in excellent health, and it was feared that he might regain his lost position in the favour of the empress, many a shrewd man was unable to conceal his vexation. The distinguished German doctor, Tode, to whom may be ascribed practically all the expedient measures taken in Moscow against the plague, remained not only unrewarded, but was unable for a long time to obtain compensation for the loss of his wardrobe. When he finally expressed his astonishment thereat, one of the senators is said to have solved the riddle with the dry remark: “Well, why did you bring the count back alive?” Then when Gregory Orlov got married in Moscow it was quite seriously proposed in the senate that the marriage should be dissolved as sinful, and that the fallen favourite and his wife should be shut up in penitential monasteries because they had married within the prohibited degrees. The empress, who had bestowed upon her former friend the title of prince as a consolation and a farewell, was angered by this decree and caused it to be revoked. However, in spite of the protection afforded him, Gregory Orlov came to a tragic end a few years later (1783). He died insane—as tradition will have it, a violent death, one of the mysterious occurrences that will never be cleared up.

But the empress Catherine, generally so acute, was singularly deceived concerning Potemkin, the Prince of Darkness, as he was afterwards called from a play on his name. He was the son of an insignificant nobleman of Smolensk, a retired major, and bore a name till then unknown in Russian history; a man of doubtful capabilities, ignorant, and in fact distinguished by nothing but a boundless and unscrupulous egotism, by an immense craving for coarse, extravagant pleasures, and by the nefarious energy with which he pursued his selfish desires. The first condition for his enjoyment of life was the power to exercise a boundless autocracy and to be able to tread under foot not only those who bowed before him but also those who attempted to resist him.

The empress, however, as a woman and conscious of her unauthorised position, feeling the need of energetic support, saw in the man, whose almost gigantic frame seemed to betoken a titanic nature, something really extraordinary, and believed him destined to accomplish great deeds. Thus Potemkin retained his ascendancy even after he had withdrawn from her most intimate favours under the pretence of long-continued ill-health, and had thrust forward all sorts of handsome insignificant young men who were one after the other loaded with riches. Potemkin understood how to increase the distrust which the empress felt for her son, and to keep it constantly awake. He made her believe that she was continually surrounded by dangers; that he was the only one who would protect her, and more especially that he was the only one who would wish to do so under all circumstances. On the other hand he flattered her vanity still more than her ambition by plans on an adventurously large scale, by fantastic pictures of fame and greatness which he suggested to her imagination. Thus, he pointed to the conquest of Constantinople, the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, the foundation of a Greek empire on the Bosporus, not as triumphs which one might hope to see realised in the future but as deeds which might and should be accomplished within the next few years.

The general idea was not originated by Potemkin. Field-Marshal Munich had already pointed out to the empress that Constantinople was the necessary goal of Russian aspirations. But formerly an object so remote in time and place aroused but little interest. Now everything seemed to have advanced within grasp; the empress was to wear the crown of the new Greek empire during her lifetime; now the idea aroused in her the wildest enthusiasm. The very fact that no cautious statesman would consider these plans only made Potemkin appear all the greater in her eyes; his assurance raised him far above the everyday mediocrity of the others.

The eldest grandson of the empress received the name of Alexander, the second the no less significant name of Constantine. The former was in due time to inherit the Greek crown from his grandmother. They took care in a manner which bordered on exaggeration to make prophesies, or to announce to the whole world the vast schemes with which they deluded themselves. The young prince was not christened according to the Russo-Greek but the somewhat different oriental-Greek ritual, as it was practised in the churches of his future empire. They tried to procure a Greek nurse for him, but as that did not succeed they at least chose one called Helen. Greek playfellows were found for him, and he learned modern Greek as if it were his mother tongue.

The fascination which Potemkin exercised over Catherine may be attributed to her feeling of insecurity, to the support Potemkin promised her, and to the vast prospects he opened out for her ambition. There is one thing calculated to astonish us and that is that neither the empress nor Potemkin was able to realise how insufficient was the actual might of Russia at that time to carry out these gigantic schemes. It was scarcely surprising that Potemkin should be unable to judge of this, for he was an ignorant man, who was wanting in the most elementary political foresight and was besides no thinker. But how came it that Catherine should be so deceived, who had studied earnestly and had by that time accumulated a varied experience? How could it escape her that the comparatively limited financial resources of the empire, more especially, would prove quite inadequate, particularly as they were anything but well husbanded? They gave themselves up light-heartedly to the magic of the banknote press and thus brought down untold calamities upon Russia, as has been the case also in other countries. But this calamity did not stand alone; it is in fact not to be regarded as an independent manifestation, but rather as one of a whole series of necessary consequences of a premature effort of Russia to lay claim to a world-power of such magnitude and importance, before her might was fully established at home or had attained sufficient maturity.

General Suvarov

(1729-1800)

The fact that the forces of the empire must from that time be almost entirely devoted to the support of a foreign policy; that little, if anything, could be done for the development of culture and industry (and that only as a matter of secondary importance), that no consideration could be given to the most necessary reforms—none of these circumstances worked Russia such visible and tangible harm as the flooding of the country with unconsolidated paper money doomed in advance to depreciation; as matters stood, this was probably a greater evil. When Russia entered upon the grasping policy of Potemkin she began to lay out her future in advance, so to speak, and that on a scale utterly out of proportion to the actual gain which might be or which was in fact attained. The evils which resulted have continued to work themselves out down to the present day. As in this way the germs of a future power were constantly being sacrificed in order to conjure up power in the present by overdrawing the resources in hand, the real advancement of the empire was paralysed, and even the actual might in which they gloried remained partly a sham which certainly did not correspond with the reality. When later it became necessary for Russia to participate in the momentous struggles which involved the destiny of Europe, her power was not matured, concentrated, or husbanded at the decisive moment—as for instance the power of Prussia by Frederick William I; her future prospects were encumbered by a heavy burden and by manifold obligations, the inner development was behind the times, and her financial position was shaken. It became necessary continually to make fresh, feverish efforts, which always over-reached the possibilities of the present and which hindered the inner development afresh, involved the future deeper and deeper, and exhausted its resources.[i]

The Official Status of the Favourite

It may be deemed necessary in this place to explain what were the duties expected from and the distinguished honours paid to the favourites of Catherine. When her majesty had made choice of a new favourite, she created him her general aide-de-camp, in order that he might accompany her wherever she went, without incurring public censure. From that period the favourite occupied in the palace an apartment under that of his royal mistress, with which it communicated by a private staircase. The first day of his installation he received a present of 100,000 rubles, and every month he found 12,000 placed on his dressing-table. The marshal of the court was ordered to provide him a table of twenty-four covers, and to defray all his household expenses. The favourite was required to attend the empress wherever she went, and was not permitted to leave the palace without asking her consent. He was forbidden to converse familiarly with other women; and if he went to dine with any of his friends, the absence of the mistress of the house was always required.

Whenever the empress cast her eyes on one of her subjects, with the design of raising him to the post of favourite, he was invited to dinner by some one of her female confidants, on whom she called as if it were by chance. There she would draw the new candidate into discourse, and judge how far he was worthy of her destined favour. When the opinion she had formed was favourable, a significant look apprised the confidant, who, in her turn, made it known to the object of her royal mistress’ pleasure. The next day he was examined as to the state of his health by the court physician, and as to some other particulars by Mademoiselle Protasov, one of the empress’ ladies, after which he accompanied her majesty to the Hermitage, and took possession of the apartment that had been prepared for his reception. These formalities began upon the choice of Potemkin, and were thenceforth constantly observed.

When a favourite had lost the art of pleasing, there was also a particular manner of dismissing him. He received orders to travel, and from that moment all access to her majesty was denied him; but he was sure of finding at the place of his retirement such splendid rewards as were worthy of the munificent pride of Catherine. It was a very remarkable feature in her character that none of her favourites incurred her hatred or vengeance, though several of them offended her, and their quitting office did not always depend on herself.

Potemkin’s Schemes of Conquest

[1775-1780 A.D.]

Potemkin’s rule commenced at the very time in which the Peace of Kutchuk-Kainardji was concluded (July, 1774). The disputes with Poland and the rebellion of Pugatchev were no sooner ended than he immediately violated every condition of that treaty, well knowing that the empress would approve of everything he might do. Dowlet Gerai, who was elected khan by the now independent Tatars, still remained much more favourably disposed to the Turks than to the Russians: the latter, therefore, by means of money and intrigues, raised up a pretender against him; and then, under pretence of an armed mediation, a Russian army occupied a part of the Crimea, and seemed disposed to make the khan a prisoner, and to seize the whole province. Dowlet Gerai took refuge with the Turks in April, 1775, and Sahim Gerai, who was a mere creature of Russia, was elected in his stead, to the great satisfaction of the Russians, who foresaw that the majority of the Tatars would oppose the new khan, and thus furnish them with another pretext for a renewal of hostilities. A war with the Porte appeared unavoidable, and Romanzov received commands to collect a considerable army on the Dnieper, whilst Repnin in Constantinople was endeavouring to deceive the sultan, and Potemkin betrayed the unfortunate Sahim Gerai.

By this time Potemkin had ceased to be the personal favourite of the empress; but he himself recommended his successors in that post to her notice. Potemkin was indispensable to Catherine in consequence of those colossal undertakings which procured her the name of Great; and because the fear with which he inspired all her enemies secured to her the possession of the throne, which she withheld from her son Paul. Zavadovski had become the occupant of the apartments of the royal palace in November, 1776, and been created a major-general; as soon, however, as he fell under Potemkin’s suspicion, the latter authoritatively insisted upon his dismissal. Zavadovski had turned against his patron, and was an eager favourer of the Orlovs and Field-Marshal Romanzov. For this reason Potemkin succeeded in obtaining leave of absence for the favourite in July, 1777, in order to provide during his temporary retirement a substitute who should eventually displace him. Potemkin had long before selected a Major Zoritch for his adjutant, who was politically insignificant, but very attractive in his hussar uniform, with a view to present him to the empress. Zavadovski had no sooner left the palace than he carried his design into effect, and the empress made Zoritch a colonel adjutant-general and her companion. At the expiration of nine months, he too fell under Potemkin’s displeasure, and was obliged to retire, for the empress was completely under the control of her minister. Next came Korsakov, a handsome sergeant in the guards, who was suddenly raised to the rank of aide-de-camp general. He too was indignant at Potemkin’s unbounded pride and avarice, but attempted in vain to open the eyes of the empress; he was obliged to yield to the influence of the indispensable tyrant after he had enjoyed the favour of the empress for fifteen months.

The circumstances of the year 1778 were peculiarly favourable to the accomplishment of Potemkin’s plans of conquest, for war had broken out in the spring between France and England, and both powers were so fully occupied in the west that they had no leisure to attend to the concerns of the east. Potemkin, therefore, sent an army, commanded by Suvarov, against the Kuban and Bedjiak Tatars, whilst other Russians penetrated into the Crimea and were guilty of the most cruel devastations. This led to the seizure of some Russian ships in the straits of the Dardanelles on the part of the sultan, who was, however, unable to commence a war without the aid and co-operation of France. But that power, unwilling to break with Russia, insisted on mediating, and the sultan was forced to acquiesce. The result was that the Russian ships were restored, and the sultan formally recognised Sahim Gerai as the rightful ruler of the Crimea.

Catherine was so pleased with the conduct of France on this occasion that she embraced with alacrity the plan of the armed neutrality, which was devised by the French minister Vergennes; and in 1780 she put herself at the head of that league which was joined by almost all the powers of Europe except Great Britain. It was formed for the purpose of resisting the right asserted by the English navy to make prize of an enemy’s goods, or of goods shipped for an enemy’s port, wherever found, and even though covered by a neutral flag. The leading principle of the league was that free ships make free goods. Great Britain would not admit this; but at that time she did no more than expostulate with her good friend and ally the empress of Russia. It was not until the reign of Paul that she waged war for the maintenance of the opposite principle, which she later repudiated during the Crimean War.

From this time forward, as we have seen, Potemkin, Voltaire, and a host of flatterers amused the empress with dreams of the restoration of a Byzantine empire, and the erection of a new capital on the Black Sea. Sahim Gerai prized the slavish title of a lieutenant-colonel in the guards of a foreign empress more than that of prince of a nation to which the Russian czars for many years had been vassals, and he renounced the national costume of his people in order to glitter in a Russian uniform and wear the decorations of the order of St. Anne. Potemkin contrived every month to alienate him more and more from his people, till at last this miserable man was induced to lay down his khanate, from which he derived a revenue of three or four millions of rubles, in order, as he thought, to revel peacefully in the enjoyment of some hundred thousand rubles, which Potemkin was to pay him as the newly appointed Russian governor-general of Tauris, as the country was now to be called. Potemkin was too much accustomed to receive and not to give, and to contract debts without thinking of paying them, to give himself much concern about the payment of the promised salary, although the empress was led to believe that the yearly sum always charged to her was in reality regularly paid to the khan.

[1783 A.D.]

The shamelessness of the Russian government on this occasion fully equalled the audacity of their manifestoes respecting the partition of Poland, or that of the state-papers of a Genz and a Talleyrand. In the Russian manifestoes published in April, 1783, it was made as clear as the sun to the Tatars that the empress and Potemkin were really proposing to confer upon them the most signal benefits. It was stated that the Tatars, as Russian subjects, were in future to be delivered from all the evils of their internal disputes, and by the incorporation of the Crimea, the Kuban, and the eastern Nogaians an end was to be put to those oppressions from which they had hitherto suffered from the Turks and the Russians alternately. What the correspondence was between these promises and the subsequent reality may be learned from all the works of travellers who visited these districts, and gave accounts of the Crimea and the Tatars a generation or two later. That numerous, free, and rich race of people, clothed in silks and of noble appearance, had then dwindled into a crowd of starving beggars; their magnificent tented cities had become gipsy encampments, and their houses and palaces exhibited mere masses of ruin and decay.

These manifestoes, indeed, as is usually the case, were not intended for those to whom they were addressed, but merely to conceal in a cloud of words, from the eyes of those at a distance, the cruelties and bloodshed with which they were accompanied. The Tatars made an effort to defend their liberties, and their magnates made no secret of their dissatisfaction; Potemkin, therefore, had recourse to one of those heroic means which usually find defenders enough when they are applied for the support of the true faith and of autocratic government, and are only reviled and execrated in the hands of a Danton and a Robespierre. He proposed by a single massacre summarily to annihilate the malcontents, and to awe the rest into submission by the dread of a similar fate. Posorovski received express orders to make himself master of the malcontents, their families, and adherents, and put them all to the sword; he, however, possessed moral courage enough to decline the business of an executioner. Potemkin’s cousin was not so scrupulous. According to the accounts, whose unanimous testimony we are obliged to follow, even when it appears to us incredible, Paul Potemkin caused above thirty thousand Tatars, of every age and sex, to be massacred in cold blood, and in this way procured for his cousin the easily won title of the Taurian, and the place of grand-admiral of the Black Sea and governor-general of the new province of Tauris.

The massacre in Tauris took place in April, 1783, and the Turks were unable to render any assistance to the Tatars without foreign support. Among the European powers, however, England was at that time fully occupied with the disturbances which in the following year brought Pitt to the helm of affairs; France was glad to see an end to the American war; Joseph II was bound by the Treaty of Tsarskoi Selo; Frederick II hoped to become master of Thorn and Dantzic, if Russia was well-disposed towards him; and Gustavus III of Sweden was the only monarch who could have rendered any aid. In the very same year, however, Gustavus suffered himself to be induced to go to Friedrichsham, where he sold himself to the empress; nothing, therefore, was now left to the Turks but to yield to their destiny. The sultan did what had been done by the king of Poland a few years before; by his consent he changed that into a righteous and legal possession which, being seized in the midst of peace, was previously a robbery. The whole territory of the Tatars, the Crimea, the island of Taman, and a great part of the Kuban were ceded to Russia, and a treaty of commerce was forced upon the Turks, by virtue of which the Russian consuls in the various ports of Turkey were erected into a power wholly independent of the government of the country. This treaty of commerce had been drawn up by Panin before he had been obliged to yield to the superior influence of Potemkin and withdraw from public affairs; and it was now concluded on the 10th of June, 1783. By virtue of this treaty the Turks were obliged to submit the decision of all mixed civil cases in which a Russian and a Turk were the respective parties, not to the local tribunals, nor to the higher authorities, nor to a court of arbitration, but to the Russian consul; and in all pecuniary transactions the claims of a Russian against a Turk were urged with much greater strictness than in those cases in which the Turk was the claimant and the Russian the debtor.

In the eyes of the world, which regards only externals, Potemkin was now a great and admired statesman; and so absolute was his sway over the empress herself, that she not only tolerated his insolence, his total neglect of all pecuniary obligations, his tyranny over all classes, and his imperial expenditure and magnificence, but allowed him to help himself to an unlimited extent out of the coffers of the state. Potemkin on the one hand did homage to the empress as if she were a goddess, and on the other he suffered himself to treat her with the most insolent familiarity and rudeness. He would even saunter from his own apartments into hers in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his stockings hanging down and his legs bare. He went so far as to extort from those who enjoyed the empress’ favour a part of the money which they received from her, and yet he allowed poor Sahim Gerai to starve. He never paid him the assigned pension of 100,000 rubles which was yearly debited to the empress’ account, and even the displeasure of Catherine could not induce him to bestow upon this Russian protégé the simplest means of life.

The founding of a new Russo-Grecian capital, with which Potemkin now busied himself, was a magnificent piece of flattery for the empress, but for which she was unhappily obliged to pay too dear. Catherine indulged with Voltaire in those visionary schemes of a utopian Greece, of a civilisation of which she and not the people was to be the source, of an enlightenment, industry, and trade to be carried into these conquered deserts by ukases and courtiers; Potemkin acted according to this fancy. He first erected a city with buildings of every description, and then sought for inhabitants, or forcibly drove them for a time from all quarters, when he wished to make a court-spectacle of this theatrical city and to enchant the empress. It was of no consequence to him that his city fell to pieces and its inhabitants disappeared as soon as he turned away his eyes. The new city was called Kherson, a name long since obscured by that of Odessa; the empress granted 18,000,000 rubles, most of which, however, Potemkin diverted to his own private use. The situation was badly chosen, and yet this shadow of a capital was for a length of time charmed into existence by innumerable arts of fraud and open violence; and the deserts of which it was to be the metropolis were erected into a province, to which Potemkin gave the name of Catherine’s Glory (Slava Ekatharina). Another province, somewhat farther to the north, near the celebrated falls of the Kaidak, was also honoured with the name of the empress, and called Iekatarinoslav.

GENERAL SUVAROV

The general to whom Potemkin at this time assigned the congenial task of havoc and destruction in the country of the Nogaian Tatars and in Kuban was Suvarov, a man who from that period till the end of the century had the misfortune to be continually employed as the instrument of a murderous military despotism. In Poland he executed three times those orders of annihilation which were issued from St. Petersburg. He destroyed the Turks and sacrificed the Russians by thousands at the will of Potemkin. He subsequently shared Paul’s hatred against the French and every thought of civil freedom, and performed the same kind of heroic deeds for that madman’s pleasure as he had previously done at the bidding of Potemkin. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest generals of modern times, but wholly destitute of humanity, for he sacrificed thousands without hesitation in order to secure a victory or storm a fortress, when either was calculated to produce a splendid effect though but for the moment. He not only flattered the empress, but even the common soldiers and their superstitions. Though he was a man of various knowledge, and had made himself master of all the arts of life as practised in the highest society, he assumed at court the character of a sort of court-fool, and acted often as if he were mad, merely in order to carry out some surprising piece of flattery. In the company of the common soldiers he affected the manners of the semi-barbarous Russian, lived as they did themselves, submitted to every privation which they might be called upon to endure, and knelt and prayed before every wayside image, often when the roads were deep with mud.

THE FAVOURITES LANSKOI AND IERMOLOV

[1785 A.D.]

At the time when a high-flown sentimentality was the fashion in Germany, and the empress was past fifty, she indulged in a fit of romantic love for the insipid and spiritless Lanskoi. This turn in her affections was very agreeable to Potemkin, for Lanskoi neither took up the cause of the destitute khan, nor yielded to the allurements of the king of Prussia, the emperor Joseph II, or the English, when they were desirous of engaging him in affairs of state. Potemkin freely permitted the empress to indulge her visionary love for the wonderfully handsome and youthful face which captivated her affections, and did not grudge her, among the many gross and degrading scenes of her life, the enjoyment of one romantic passion, after the manner of Werther and Siegwart, from the year 1780 till July, 1784. Catherine’s love for Lanskoi had been romantic in his life, and her sorrow at his death was not less extravagant; but notwithstanding all this ideality, she had been also careful to show him substantial proofs of her affection at the cost of the country. She bestowed upon him not only all possible titles, orders, and decorations—diamonds, plate, and collections of every kind, but he left behind him in cash a property of 7,000,000 rubles.

The fantastic mourning for Lanskoi was no sooner evaporated than the empress allowed Potemkin, who presented candidates for every office, to supply her with a substitute for her departed lover. In order to exclude all other pretenders, Potemkin on every such occasion was prepared to fill the vacancy; and with this view he had for some time made Lieutenant Iermolov one of his adjutants. In 1785 this man became the declared favourite of the empress, and soon ventured to pursue a course which Lanskoi would never have thought of. He directed Catherine’s attention to the tyranny of Potemkin, and gave her some hints respecting his behaviour towards Sahim Gerai. The empress expressed her displeasure without naming the person who had made her acquainted with the unhappy fate of the khan; Potemkin, however easily guessed that no man in the empire would dare to speak ill of him to the empress except Iermolov. He therefore threateningly replied, “That must have been said by the White Moor,” as he was accustomed to call Iermolov on account of his fair countenance and flat nose.

Catherine did not hesitate severely to reproach Potemkin for his harsh and unjust conduct towards the khan, and she even wavered for some months between her favourite and this son of the Titans, whom she regarded as her protector and the creator of her glory and her greatness. At the end of June, 1786, a fresh scene occurred, by which the empress was compelled to declare either for the one or the other. Iermolov had made a new attempt to alienate the empress from Potemkin; the latter, therefore, haughtily insisted that either Iermolov or he must retire from her service; Catherine felt herself constrained to adhere to Potemkin, and Iermolov went upon his travels. During the course of the year he had been loaded with riches, and on his departure he was furnished with 100,000 rubles and imperial recommendations to the Russian ambassadors at all the European courts. On the day after his departure Momonov, another adjutant of Potemkin, occupied his place.

JOSEPH II VISITS CATHERINE; A SPECTACULAR TOUR

[1787 A.D.]

About this period Potemkin repeatedly travelled from St. Petersburg to Tauris and back with all the expedition of a courier, whilst he was engaged in the building of Kherson, in order to prepare a splendid triumph for the empress. The neglected Sahim Gerai hastened thither to meet him and make him acquainted with the urgency of his wants; but Potemkin, instead of rendering him any assistance, banished him to Kaluga, where he fell into a state of the deepest poverty. He then conceived that he might find some relief from his fellow believers, and fled to Turkey, but the sultan caused him to be arrested as a traitor and renegade at Khotin, to be conveyed to Rhodes, and there despatched by the bow-string (1787). The plan contemplated by Potemkin and the empress was to raise the grand duke Constantine, second grandson of the empress, to the dignity of emperor of Byzantium, at the expense of the Turks, and at the same time to incorporate the kingdom of Poland with Russia. The new city of Kherson was no sooner ready for this grand theatrical representation than the empress was to travel thither to receive the homage of her new subjects, and to deceive the world by an ostentatious display of magnificence and pomp.

Joseph II was invited to meet the empress in Kherson, in order to consult with her upon a partition of the Turkish Empire; but Constantine himself was in the first instance left at home. The luxury and extravagance exhibited by Potemkin during the empress’ journey and the fêtes prepared for her reception and entertainment at Kherson were worthy of the heaven-storming characters of the pair. They remind us of the extravagance of the Abassides and the descendants of Timur, with this difference—that civilisation and the arts were strangers to the people of the caliphs and of the Great Mogul. Never perhaps was there seen in monarchical Europe, where such things are not rare, such a gross abuse of the wealth and well-being of the people, and such insult cast on public opinion by a contemptible comedy, as on the occasion of this imperial progress.

It began in January, 1787, and was continued night and day. To facilitate the journey by night, Potemkin had caused great piles of wood to be erected at every fifty perches, which were kindled at nightfall, and imparted to the whole district almost the brightness of day. On the sixth day the cortège reached Smolensk, and fourteen days afterwards Kiev, where the degraded Polish magnates, who made a trade of their nation, their honour, and their friendship, were assembled to offer their homage to the empress and join in the revelry of her court. Potemkin himself had gone forward in advance in order to arrange the side-scenes of the theatre which he erected from St. Petersburg to Kherson. Deserts were peopled for the occasion; and palaces were raised in the trackless wild. The nakedness of the plains was disguised by villages built for the purpose of a day, and enlivened by fireworks. Chains of mountains were illuminated. Fine roads were opened by the army. Howling wildernesses were transformed into blooming gardens; and immense flocks and herds were driven to the sides of the road in order to delight the eyes of the empress in her hasty transit. The rocks in the Dnieper were sprung, that the empress might descend the stream as conveniently as she had travelled thither in the chamber of her sledge. At the beginning of May the whole party embarked on the river in fifteen splendid galleys at Krementshuk, and on the following day Stanislaus of Poland presented himself at Kaniev, in order, as it were, by his insipid and pitiful character to serve as a foil to the monarchial splendour of a woman. He accepted an alms of 100,000 rubles for the expenses of his journey, was very graciously received by Potemkin, treated with coldness and indifference by the empress, and as if his royal Polish income was simply a Russian pension he begged for an augmentation. He was not ashamed to acknowledge to all the courts whose ambassadors accompanied the empress that he regarded his kingdom as a Russian province, for he besought the empress to grant the succession to his nephew and to his nation the free navigation of the Dnieper. As is customary in such cases, there was no lack of promises; but none of his petitions were really granted, for it was impossible either to value or respect him, and in his situation he was incapable of inspiring fear.

MEETING OF CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA AND JOSEPH II OF AUSTRIA

(Painted for The Historians’ History of the World by Thure de Thulstrup)

The emperor Joseph, who had anticipated the arrival of his ally in Kherson, travelled to meet her as far as Kaidak, and returned with her. He soon perceived that she was shamefully deluded by the appearance of prosperity, civilisation, and population, and that soon as she had passed through all was again to become empty and deserted. Like the villages, flocks, and men by the wayside, the new buildings in which the distinguished travellers passed their nights and the houses and shops in Kherson all vanished again when they had served their temporary purpose. It will not be regarded as incredible that 7,000,000 rubles were expended on the journey, when it is known that the throne itself, which was erected for the empress in what was called the admiralty at Kherson, cost 14,000. Catherine made a magnificent entry into the new city, passing under a triumphal arch, on which was inscribed in the Greek tongue, “The way to Byzantium.”

OUTBREAK OF THE AUSTRO-RUSSIAN WAR WITH TURKEY

After the meeting at Kherson the two imperial allies prepared to direct their forces against the whole extent of the Turkish frontier, from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. Care was taken, however, to furnish an excuse for the participation of Austria, by inciting the Turks to make the first attack; for only in such a case was Austria bound to furnish auxiliaries to the Russians. To this end Bulgakov, Catherine’s ambassador at Constantinople, was ordered by every means to excite commotions among the Greeks, Bulgarians, Wallachians, and Slavonians, as well as in Egypt and in Asia Minor. The Turks, justly incensed at these intrigues, insisted upon a distinct declaration of their views on the part of the Russians; and when they received for answer only the usual diplomatic subterfuge that the ambassador must wait for instructions from St. Petersburg, they immediately declared war, sent Bulgakov to the state prison of the Seven Towers, and nothing but the threatening interference of the English minister could have prevented them from inflicting summary vengeance upon him, to show their righteous displeasure at the conduct of his government. Catherine and Joseph had now gained their wishes. The Turks were the first to declare war, and a pretence was thus afforded to the Russians to call upon the Austrians for that aid which they were bound by treaty to render in case of an attack on the part of the Turks.

Catherine published a manifesto, in which after a long enumeration of the pretended wrongs ascribed to the Porte, she added that, provoked by a conduct, in itself so offensive, she had, very unwillingly, been obliged to have recourse to arms, as the only means left her for the support of those rights which she had acquired at the price of so much blood, and to avenge her wounded dignity, suffering from the violence that had been used towards her minister at Constantinople; that entirely innocent of all the calamities inevitably engendered by war, she relied with confidence, not only on the Almighty protection and the assistance of her allies, but on the prayers of the Christian world, for triumph in a cause so just as that which she was obliged to defend. This manifesto was soon followed up by a second, which declared that the Porte had arrogantly presumed to insist on a categorical answer to its absurd demands; and that the empress, forced to repel the aggression of the enemy of the Christian name, armed herself with confidence, under the protection of that just God who had so long and so powerfully shielded the Russian Empire.

Had Potemkin been as great a general as he was capable of devising magnificent plans and playing the Russian tyrant, great things would have been accomplished in 1787, for all the preparations for the war had been made long beforehand. Field-Marshal Romanzov was to share the command of the army with Potemkin; that is to say, he was to do all the work, and the other was to engross all the merit. Romanzov declined this thankless office, and Potemkin stood alone at the head of the army; but he did not succeed in deceiving posterity, for no one has ever ascribed to him what was effected by the officers under his command—by Repnin, Paul Potemkin, Suvarov, Kamenskoi, Galitzin, and Kutusov, all of whom became more or less renowned in later wars. Potemkin found in Suvarov precisely such an instrument as he needed: for to that general the will of the empress or her favourite was in all cases a law paramount to all moral obligations, or any feelings of humanity. He was sent to Kinburn, the chief object of the campaign being apparently the siege of Otchakov, by the main body under Potemkin, whilst other divisions were despatched to observe the movements of the Tatars in the Kuban.

[1787-1788 A.D.]

Kinburn was a small fortress occupied by the Russians, and situated upon a promontory directly opposite to Otchakov, in and around which the Turkish army was stationed. The object of Suvarov’s mission was to frustrate the efforts of the Turkish fleet to land a division on the promontory of Kinburn; and he executed the task in a masterly manner. At first he remained perfectly quiet in the fortress, after having erected a battery at the extremity of the promontory, in order to cannonade the Turkish ships from the land, at the same moment in which they might be attacked by the Russian fleet. He allowed the Turks to proceed without molestation till they had disembarked from six thousand to seven thousand men; he then sent a few regiments of Cossacks against them, and at the same time charged them at the head of two battalions of infantry with fixed bayonets, and exterminated them all. Immediately afterwards he employed his battery against the Turkish fleet. The prince of Nassau-Siegen, who had the command of the Russian gunboats of Nikolaiev, attacked the Turkish ships at the very entrance of what is called the Liman, and within range of Suvarov’s guns, to whose well-directed fire he was indebted for a great share of the advantages which he gained.

The whole remaining part of the year 1787, as well as the spring and a great part of the summer of 1788, elapsed without anything important having been undertaken; the whole of the Russian land-forces were, however, directed towards the Bug, in order to push forward with the greatest expedition to the Danube. The Turks had already suffered defeats at sea and in the Caucasus. The Russian fleet in the Black Sea, which was almost wholly commanded by foreigners, nearly annihilated the Turkish navy; generals Tallitzin and Tekeli massacred the Tatars of the Kuban, and Tamara reduced Georgia and Lesghistan. In August, Potemkin at length marched against Otchakov, but very wisely left the whole conduct of the military operations to Suvarov, the victor of Kinburn. The Russian operations were delayed in expectation of an Austrian army, which, in connection with a Russian force under Soltikov, was to make an incursion into Moldavia. This delay was protracted till King Gustavus began to exhibit symptoms of making an attack on the provinces contiguous to Sweden, which were now deprived of means of defence. He had to revenge on Russia a long series of wrongs, crowned by the intolerable conduct of Catherine’s ambassador Razumovski, whom she had sent to form conspiracies against him, and to persecute and insult him in his own capital.

THE SWEDISH WAR (1788-1790 A.D.)

[1788 A.D.]

Gustavus III would also willingly have induced Denmark to take part in the movement against Russia; in this, however, he was unsuccessful, although supported by England and Prussia. Razumovski, the Russian ambassador, was ordered to leave Stockholm on the 23rd of June, and went to the army in Finland. The king appeared as if he designed immediately to march against St. Petersburg, which excited no small concern in the minds of the government, because, in confident reliance on the king’s misunderstanding with the Swedish nobles, the whole of their good troops had been despatched to the frontiers of Turkey.

The king of Sweden was acquainted with the feelings of his nobles, consequently with those of the generals and officers of his army; he therefore endeavoured to deprive the malcontents of the apparently legal point of a refusal to serve, by changing the offensive war which he contemplated into a defensive one, and for this purpose had recourse to a very childish subterfuge. There had been a long-existing dispute between the two countries respecting the bridge over the small river Kimmene, the boundary between the two states, whether it should be painted in Swedish or Russian colours; he provoked the Russians to maintain this disputed right by force of arms, and then proclaimed that he had been attacked by them, and was therefore justified in carrying on a defensive war without consulting the estates. We leave it undecided whether he took possession of the bridge by force, and thereby compelled the Russians to resist force by force; or whether, as the best accounts allege, he caused some Swedes to be clothed in Russian uniforms in order to attack his own soldiers, and in this way to justify an offensive war.

The distance from the river Kimmene to St. Petersburg is less than 150 miles. There would have been no difficulty in storming the small fortresses of Viborg and Friedrichsham, which lay upon the route, and an unexpected attack from the sea might probably have led to the surprise and capture of Kronstadt and Kronslot, the former of which is less than twenty miles from the open waters, and the latter is situated on a sand-bank in the sea.[54] The favourable moment, however, for an attack by sea had been already allowed to pass by the king’s brother Charles, duke of Södermanland, who commanded the Swedish fleet, and by land the king was precipitate when he ought to have delayed, and hesitated when everything depended on rapidity.

On the 22nd of June Duke Charles, with fifteen ships of the line and five frigates, had fallen in with three sail of Russian ships, to the north of the island of Gothland, which he ought to have captured, but was restrained by a feeling of reluctance to begin the war (which was then actually commenced), and immediately a superior Russian fleet appeared. Admiral Greig, an Englishman, commanded it; his fleet outnumbered the Swedish by two ships of the line and two frigates, and therefore the issue of the engagement between the two fleets which took place on the 17th of July was the less inglorious for the Swedes. They fell in with the Russians off the island of Hogland, and fought with great skill and courage; they lost, it is true, one of their line-of-battle ships, but took one of the Russian fleet in its stead; at length, however, they were compelled to seek for safety in the harbour of Sveaborg, where they were kept in a state of blockade by the Russians during the whole of the campaign. The secretary of the king’s embassy in St. Petersburg delivered such an extremely absurd ultimatum that no other answer was given than an order from the commandant to take his departure from the capital. Gustavus commanded armaments to be prepared and a commissariat to be provided, but left the whole superintendence to others, who neglected everything, and instead of preparing means to oppose entered into secret correspondence with the Russians. All this immediately appeared when the king at length resolved to storm the fortress of Friedrichsham. He found himself destitute of heavy artillery and other materials of war, which he supposed were all in readiness, and whilst the artillery was being slowly brought up by land, the nobles were devising the most shameful treason.

[1789 A.D.]

It was arranged that Friedrichsham should be at once attacked both by sea and by land; and Siegeroth had actually landed his troops and commenced operations when he suddenly received counter orders, because the troops which were with the king refused obedience. In these circumstances, Gustavus had no other alternative than to return to Stockholm, in order there to recover his royal dignity and power which he had lost at Friedrichsham. He entered Stockholm in September, and thenceforth occupied himself in preparing a coup d’état, which he accomplished on the 17th of February in the following year. Meanwhile, his traitorous nobles had concluded a truce with Russia, which was so far advantageous to Gustavus that it liberated his fleet from its captivity in the bay of Sveaborg. He was now dictator and autocrat; he had at command the means of prosecuting the war with Russia: but the favourable moment was past, and the Russians had already completed all their preparations by land and sea for the defence of their provinces bordering upon Sweden. Gustavus’ project of burning the Russian fleet in the harbour of Copenhagen was discovered beforehand, and brought him nothing but disgrace. When he again joined the army in Finland, his Swedes gave evidence of their attachment and courage; but he himself again contrived to injure the success of the war by his interference in its conduct. In the murderous fights which ensued from the middle of June till the end of July, both the Russians and Swedes lost great numbers of men, without any other gain on either side than military renown. The Swedes in the meantime were unfortunate at sea, and could not have profited by their success had they been victorious by land.

Admiral Ehrenswerd commanded the Swedish flotilla of flat-bottomed boats, constructed for navigating the rocky shallows of the coast, whilst the similar Russian fleet was under the orders of the prince of Nassau-Siegen, who had shortly before been commander of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and had fallen into disputes with Potemkin, which led to his being sent to the Baltic. The Russian ships of the line were under the command of Admiral Tchitchakov, and had on board a considerable number of British naval officers of experience. This fleet had on the 26th of June fallen in with that of the Swedes, which was so injured in an engagement between Bornholm and Gothland as to be obliged to return to Karlskrona. The unfortunate issue of the battle was generally ascribed to disloyalty on the part of some of the naval officers.

The king still persisted in his determination of opening up a way for himself to St. Petersburg, and therefore of storming Friedrichsham. He himself directed the execution of the project, although he was, properly speaking, merely a volunteer with his army. By his interference he exposed the Swedish army to considerable loss, on the same day (August 24th) on which the Russian flotilla gained an important victory over the Swedes at Rogensalm. Friedrichsham, according to the king’s command, was to be stormed by the three generals, Siegroth, Kaulbart, and Platen; the assault, however, failed of success, and the Swedes were obliged to retire: their flotilla was twice beaten. The first victory of the Russians at Rogensalm was attributed to the prince of Nassau-Siegen, who, however, was accompanied by three or four persons who rendered him the same service which the British officers did to Admiral Tchitchakov. On the 1st of September the Swedish flotilla experienced a defeat at Högfors, and the land army, commanded by the king, was there also compelled to retreat. The loss in human life was indeed great, but the real injury small, for the Swedish army continued till the beginning of winter to occupy its quarters on the frontiers of Russia.

The Campaign of 1790; the Treaty of Varela

[1790 A.D.]

During the winter, Gustavus withdrew from his army, but he resumed his duties as commander in March, 1790, and was now careful to supply all the deficiencies of the two previous years. On the 15th of April, in Finland, he reduced the two important posts of Kärnakoski and Pardakovski near Vilmanstrand; his Swedes were victorious at Valkiala; and on the 30th repulsed the Russians in their attempt to recover the two posts just mentioned. On the 4th and 5th of May the Swedes were afterwards beaten at Aberfors by the Russian general Numsen, and lost twelve pieces of cannon. The king having again taken Pardakovski, the key of Savolax, immediately caused a portion of his land forces to embark in the flotilla, of which he himself assumed the command, and ordered the remainder of the army to press forward by the shore towards St. Petersburg, relying on the assistance of the fleet, which was to receive them on board in case of a defeat. The fleet consisted of nineteen large ships, twenty-seven galleys, and a number of gunboats, which in all mounted about two thousand guns. It was absolutely necessary to the execution of this adventurous undertaking that Friedrichsham should in all haste be reduced by storm. The king, having been successful on the 15th in a naval engagement, made his third attempt at storming the fortress on the 17th and 18th of May, and notwithstanding a great loss in men failed in effecting his object. Although the way by land thus remained barred, he nevertheless persisted in his design of terrifying the empress in her capital.

Gustavus, having now embarked a greater number of Swedish troops than before, reached Viborg, and on the 2nd of June, 1790, disembarked a division of his army at Blörke, about forty miles from St. Petersburg. The whole success of this rash enterprise depended on his remaining master of the sea. In order to maintain this superiority, Duke Charles was to prevent the junction of the two Russian fleets, one of which was lying in Kronstadt and the other in Revel, and on the 3rd of June he was ordered to engage the division of the fleet in the former harbour. The Swedish fleet was no sooner thus withdrawn from its position than an opportunity was afforded to the Russians to form a junction between their two fleets, which actually took place on the day the duke entered the sound of Viborg (June 6th). The Swedish fleet was blockaded by the Russian squadrons, consisting, when united, of thirty ships of the line and eighteen frigates; the former, however, continued to keep up its connection with the flotilla. It appears that both the Swedish fleets would have been entirely lost had the two Russian admirals been qualified for such a command. Captain Pélissier, who had served in Holland, is said to have given Admiral Tchitchakov advice which he ought to have followed, had he not been too obstinately attached to his own opinions; Pélissier even pointed out to generals Suchtelen and Soltikov the places where they ought to have erected their batteries in order effectually to bar the egress of the Swedish fleet from the bay; no attention, however, was paid to his advice. The prince of Nassau-Siegen proved himself to be in no respect superior as a commander to Tchitchakov. On the other hand, if the advice of Duke Charles had been adopted, the Russians would have been victorious without a battle; King Gustavus and Stedingk, however, rescued the honour of the Swedish name.

The Swedes had now been closely shut up in the bay of Viborg for three weeks, and at the end of June were reduced to extremities; in the beginning of July a grand council of war was held. Duke Charles and many other members of the council recommended a capitulation, but the king and Stedingk were in favour of making a desperate effort to force their way through the enemy’s line. The attempt was accordingly made on the 3rd of July, and through Tchitchakov’s neglect it was so far successful, as it enabled the Swedish fleet to bring the blockading squadron to an engagement. But the Swedes lost in it not only seven ships of the line, three frigates, and more than thirty galleys and gunboats, but almost the whole of the royal guards, the queen’s regiment, and that of Upland, amounting to six thousand or seven thousand men, which had been put on board the fleet. Whilst the larger Swedish ships thus endeavoured to gain the open sea, the flotilla had withdrawn for safety into an arm of the gulf, which runs parallel to the shore and stretches towards Friedrichsham. This inlet, called the sound of Suenske, is extremely difficult of access on the side towards Friedrichsham, in consequence of a group of rocky islands at its mouth, but it may be safely reached through the open harbour of Asph. By this way the prince of Nassau-Siegen determined to pass into the sound with the Russian flotilla, and attack the Swedes in their place of refuge.

The latter were well protected from the attack of the Russian fleet by rocks, and when the prince gave orders for the assault, on the 9th, the sailors were so exhausted and his orders for battle were so unskilful that the king of Sweden gained a splendid victory on that and the following day. The loss of the Russians was so great as to have surpassed any which they had suffered since the Seven Years’ War. Fifty-five vessels were captured, a number of others destroyed, and fourteen thousand Russians either taken prisoners or slain. In spite of this signal victory, the king of Sweden now awoke from his dream of humbling the pride and glory of Russia; already he began to cast his eyes towards France, and in the following year he dreamed his monarchical dream in favour of the French émigrés. The idea of becoming the Godefroy de Bouillon of the aristocratic and monarchical crusade, which Burke at that time proclaimed in the English parliament and in his work on the French Revolution, had been awakened in his mind in 1790, and the empress of Russia found means of confirming him in his visionary projects. Moreover his means were exhausted, and he therefore lent a favourable ear to the proposal of Galvez, the Spanish ambassador, who began to mediate for a peace between Sweden and Russia.

This peace, concluded at Varela on the Kimmene on the 14th of August, 1790, served to show how empty all Gustavus’ splendour was, and how unreal and inefficient were all the efforts he had made. It was now seen that all the blood had been shed to no purpose, and all the treasures of his very poor kingdom mischievously squandered, for everything remained on the footing on which it had been in the spring of 1788.

PROGRESS OF THE AUSTRO-RUSSIAN WAR WITH TURKEY

We now return to the war in which Austria and Russia were jointly engaged against Turkey. The whole Austrian army was ready to take the field at the end of the year 1787: it formed an immense cordon stretching from the mountains on the coast of the Adriatic Sea to the Carpathians, and consisted of a main body and five divisions. Unhappily, the emperor Joseph was desirous of commanding the main army in person, under the unskilful direction of Lacy, his military Mentor, who, like his pupil Mack, was a good drill-sergeant, but no general. The main body consisted of 25,000 infantry and 22,000 horse, and the whole of the troops together amounted to 86,000 cavalry and 245,000 foot, accompanied by 898 pieces of artillery.

In February, 1788, Russia and Austria had simultaneously declared war against the Turks; but in August of that year England and Prussia entered into an alliance, the main object of which was to place Prussia in a situation to prevent the aggrandisement of Austria, if necessary, by force of arms. This, however, was superfluous in 1788, because the diversion effected by the king of Sweden prevented the Russians from proceeding with their usual rapidity, and the emperor Joseph by his presence with the army frustrated the effect of his immense armaments. The dissatisfaction with the whole conduct of the war became so general that Joseph was at length obliged earnestly to entreat Laudon, who had been the popular hero of the Austrians since the time of the Seven Years’ War, and whom the emperor had hitherto neither employed nor consulted, to assume the command of the army in Croatia.

Successes of Laudon (1788 A.D.)

Laudon, having made an express stipulation that the emperor was not to interfere with his plans marched against the Turks, defeated them under the walls of Dubitza the very day after he joined the army, and reduced that fortress; then, pushing into the heart of Bosnia, he compelled Novi to surrender, whilst the emperor himself was obliged to hasten to the aid of the army in the Bannat, which was very hard pressed by the Turks. The division under Wartensleben, which should have supported it, had been driven back by the Turks, who succeeded, in consequence of an incomprehensible neglect on the part of the Austrians, in getting complete possession of the rocky bed through which the Danube has forced a passage at a distance of six-and-twenty miles above New Orsova. The pass, which is not more than a pistol-shot in width, is commanded by a fortified cleft in the rock, called Veterani’s Hole, and this post the Austrians should and could have maintained when the main body of the Turks appeared at Old Orsova on the 7th of August; this, however, they neglected to do. The Austrian general suffered himself to be defeated and lost thirteen pieces of cannon, and as his communications with the main army were cut off, he was obliged to retreat so far that the garrison of this important post was left to its fate. The Turks sacrificed great numbers of men in order to seize this fastness, by the possession of which they immediately became masters of the whole navigation of the Danube as far down as Belgrade. As soon as the Danube was lost, the imperial army found itself threatened in the rear.

Nothing but disaster attended the operations of Joseph and Wartensleben. The army under the prince of Coburg was somewhat less unfortunate. Khotin, which the Russians had captured in the last war without firing a shot, was reduced by it after a most heroic resistance of three months; and this was the last exploit of a campaign in which thirty thousand Austrians fell in desultory skirmishes, and forty thousand were swept off by pestilence—losses but poorly compensated by the capture of Szabatch, Khotin, Dubitza, and Novi. Circumstances, however, afterwards proved more favourable. Jassy was taken; in October, the Russians were in possession of five districts of Moldavia and of several passes in Wallachia, and the main army was again able to extend the limits of its operations. Wartensleben sat down with a part of the army before Mahadia; and the emperor kept possession of the country from Pantchova to Semlin.

Victories of Suvarov (1788-1789 A.D.)

After the massacre perpetrated by Suvarov upon the Turks on the promontory of Kinburn, the Russians had remained for a long time quiet; but by their possession of the coasts they effectually prevented the Turks from landing any troops, and by the capture of the island of Beresam wholly excluded them from the mouth of the Dnieper. It was not till late in the year 1788 that Potemkin summoned Suvarov from Kinburn to conduct the siege of Otchakov, where, however, he was wounded, and after his return to Kinburn the siege made very little progress. The avarice of Potemkin deprived the soldiers of the necessary supplies; and the dreadful cold and disease proved far more injurious to them than the attacks of their enemies.

At length the frost became so intense that the men were obliged to excavate pits for dwellings, but the same frost also opened up a means of attacking the fortress and reducing it after the Russian fashion, that is, without regard to the sacrifice of thousands of men, a few weeks earlier than they could otherwise have done. The city is completely protected on the side towards the Black Sea by a marshy lake called Liman; and now that the lake was frozen, Potemkin issued orders to storm the fortress from the sea side, where it was weakest. The Russians were cruelly sacrificed: one regiment was no sooner mowed down than another was compelled to advance, and above four thousand men were slain before the storming of Otchakov was effected (December 16th), an exploit which was afterwards extolled to heaven. The Russians, having at length borne down all resistance and forced their way into the city, were compensated for their losses and sufferings during the siege by three days’ murder and pillage; they put citizens and soldiers, men, women, and children to the sword without mercy or distinction. It is said that twenty thousand Turks perished in this massacre; but this piece of Russian heroism, which was not performed by Potemkin himself but by others at his command, was also rewarded after the Russian fashion. Every soldier who had taken part in the siege received a medal of honour, whilst Potemkin, who had contributed nothing to its success, derived the only real advantage. The empress had previously deprived Razumovski of the office of hetman, which she now conferred upon Potemkin, who received in addition a present of 100,000 rubles, besides what he had appropriated to himself out of the moneys destined for the besieging army, and what he had seized out of the rich booty which fell into his hands after the capture of the city.

The death of the sultan Abd-el-Habed in April, 1789, made no change in the relations between the Turks and Russians. His successor, Selim, continued to prosecute the war, and Suvarov having recovered from the effects of his wound again joined Potemkin’s army, and was put at the head of the division which was to co-operate with the Austrians. Laudon had now the command of the whole Austrian army; the prince of Coburg, however, retained that of the division which was to keep open the communications with the Russians; and again he gave such numerous proofs of his incapacity to conduct any great undertakings, or even to help himself out of trifling difficulties, that the history of the campaign of 1789 alone ought to have prevented the emperor Leopold from entrusting him with the command against the French, who possessed generals and soldiers of a very different kind from those of the Turks. Selim III had succeeded in getting on foot a very considerable force which was destined to operate on the extreme point of Moldavia, where that country touches upon Transylvania, and is separated from Wallachia by a small river, which also divides the little town of Fokshani into two parts, one belonging to Moldavia, and the other to Wallachia. Coburg was advancing thither slowly and methodically, when the Turkish army encamped in the neighbourhood of the town turned suddenly upon him, and filled him with such apprehensions of being completely shut in that, instead of boldly doing what Suvarov afterwards did, he anxiously besought that general’s speedy assistance.

Suvarov’s army was lying at Belat in Moldavia; when the news reached him he at once began a march of between forty and fifty miles in a direct line over mountains, across ravines and pathless wilds, and in less than thirty-six hours reached the Austrians on the 30th of July, at five o’clock in the evening. At eleven that night he sent the plan of the attack upon the Turks, which was to commence at two in the morning, to the astonished prince, who had never heard of such rapidity of movement, or seen it equalled even on parade. The bewildered prince went three times to Suvarov’s quarters without having seen him; in the battle he made no claim to the supreme command, which should have belonged to him as the eldest general, but submitted as a subordinate to Suvarov’s orders. The Turks, to the number of between fifty and sixty thousand men, were in position at Fokshani when the Russians and Austrians with forty thousand men passed the river Purna and stormed their fortified camp, mounting the ramparts and driving them in at the point of the bayonet, as if they were assaulting ordinary field-works. The camp was taken in an hour, with the loss of about eight hundred men; the whole body of the Turkish infantry fell into disorder, their cavalry galloped off, were scattered in all directions, and pursued for some miles with the greatest impetuosity and vehement zeal. The whole of the baggage and artillery, all the stores collected in Fokshani, a hundred standards and seventy pieces of cannon, fell into the hands of the victors; the Austrians exhibited the same zeal, perseverance, and courage as the Russians, and had they possessed such a commander as Suvarov, they would have reaped immense fruits from the victory, but they became sensible, as early as August, that they were in want of a proper leader.

Suvarov returned to Moldavia; Coburg looked quietly on whilst the Turks were collecting a new army, and suffered the grand vizir to advance without obstruction in Wallachia. The Turks directed Hassan Pasha, who lay in Ismail, to make an expedition against Repnin, whilst the grand vizir was to march against Prince Coburg, who had taken up a position at Martinesti, on the river Rimnik. The news of this fresh attack no sooner reached the Austrian camp than Coburg, instead of attempting to help himself, again had recourse to Suvarov, who had already drawn nearer to Coburg from Belat. The grand vizir’s army, which had been estimated at one hundred thousand men, pushed forward rapidly by Braila (Ibrahil), and compelled the advanced posts of the prince to retire into their camp. Suvarov received the prince’s letter on the 16th of September, immediately gave orders to march, and two days afterwards succeeded in forming a junction with the Austrians, at the very moment in which they were to have been attacked by the Turks.

Austrian and Russian Valour; Austria’s Withdrawal (1789-1790 A.D.)

The Austrians then proved anew that they were not to be surpassed when not commanded as usual by princes and privileged persons, who become generals whilst they sleep. Coburg, as he had previously done at Fokshani, totally relinquished the command at Martinesti to Suvarov, who immediately availed himself of the oversight of the Turks in not fortifying their camp before they offered battle, and attacked them by storm in their unfinished trenches. The issue was as glorious as it had been on the 31st of July at Fokshani; the contest, however, was more obstinately maintained. On this occasion the Russians formed the left wing, whilst the centre and right were occupied by the Austrians, whose admirably served artillery scattered the Turkish cavalry, which had made an attempt to surround and cut off the small body of the Russians. The victory in this dangerous and hard-fought battle was gained not merely by the courage, activity, and bayonets of the Austrian and Russian infantry, but especially by the great military skill of the commander. His orders to avoid the village of Bochsa, and first to drive the Turks out of the woods by which they were covered before commencing the main attack, have been greatly admired, and above all his prudence in not sacrificing the infantry in a blind storm, which was the more remarkable in a general accustomed to bring everything to a rapid determination.

The victory was splendid, the booty immense, the Turkish army a second time utterly dispersed—a necessary consequence of the nature of its composition—and the number of killed and wounded much greater than at Fokshani. Prince Coburg, on account of this victory, in which he was entitled to little share, was created a field-marshal; Suvarov received the dignity of a count of the empire from the emperor Joseph, and the empress of Russia for once gave an honourable surname to a man who had really earned it by his personal services; she raised him to a level with her Tchesmian Orlov and her Taurian Potemkin, and called him Rimnikski, from the name of the river on the banks of which he had been victorious.

The victory of Rimnik and the capture of Belgrade by Laudon on the 9th of October were the harbingers of greater success. Hassan Pasha, the Turkish high-admiral and celebrated conqueror of Egypt, whose confidence in his good fortune had encouraged him to assume the command of an army, was totally defeated at Tobak, in Bessarabia, by Prince Potemkin, and his discomfiture was followed by the surrender of Bender, Akerman, Kilia Nova, and Isatza, and by the investment of Ismail. At the same time the prince of Coburg took Bucharest and Hohenlohe, forcing the passes which lead into Wallachia, made himself master of Rimnik and Krajova. Laudon also reduced Semendria and Kladova, and blockaded Orsova, which, being situated in an island of the Danube, was inaccessible to regular attacks. By these conquests the allies became masters of the whole line of fortresses which covered the Turkish frontier; the three grand armies, originally separated by a vast extent of country, were rapidly converging to the same point, and threatened, by their united force, to overbear all opposition, and in another campaign to complete the subversion of the Ottoman empire in Europe.

AUSTRIANS ENTERING BELGRADE

(From the painting by Karl von Blaas in the Ruhmeshalle of the Arsenal in Vienna)

But in the midst of this successful career, the increasing ferment in the hereditary states of Austria, the rebellion in the Netherlands, and, still more, the interposition of the maritime powers and Prussia, checked the hopes of Joseph at the very moment when his projects of aggrandisement seemed hastening to their completion. Justly alarmed at the successes of the two imperial courts, the three combined powers incited Poland to throw off the yoke of Russia, delivered the king of Sweden from Danish invasion, and laid the foundation of a general alliance for reducing the overgrown power of Austria and Russia. The king of Prussia even encouraged the rising discontents in Hungary, fomented the troubles which the impolitic innovations of Joseph had excited in the Netherlands, and, in the beginning of 1790, opened a negotiation with the Porte for the conclusion of an offensive alliance, intended not only to effect the restoration of the dominions conquered during the existing war, but even of the Crimea, and the territories dismembered by the two imperial courts from Poland.

The only power to which Joseph might have turned as a counterpoise to this combination was France, from whose recent change of system he had flattered himself with hopes of a cordial support, and from which he had even received private largesses to a considerable amount. But now France was in the throes of her great revolution, and Joseph was left without a resource. Worn down by innumerable calamities and disease, he died in February, 1790; and his successor, Leopold, was fortunate enough to conclude a separate peace with the Porte.

Russia Prosecutes the War; the Storm of Ismail (1790 A.D.)

Russia continued to prosecute the war against the Turks without the aid of Austria. Ismail still held out, and Potemkin, who had been besieging it for seven months, began to grow impatient. Living in his camp like one of those satraps whom he even surpassed in luxury, he was surrounded by a crowd of courtiers and ladies, who exerted every effort to amuse him. One of these ladies, pretending to read the decrees of fate in the arrangement of a pack of cards, predicted that he would take the town at the end of three weeks. Potemkin answered, with a smile, that he had a method of divination far more infallible. He instantly sent orders to Suvarov to come from Galatz and take Ismail in three days. Suvarov arrived and took such measures as would seem to indicate that he designed a renewal of the regular siege; he drew together the scattered divisions of the troops, formed them into a large besieging army of about forty thousand men, and ordered the small Russian fleet to come into the neighbourhood of the city; but his real design was to follow the course he had successfully pursued before Otchakov, take advantage of the frost, and reduce the fortress by storm.

Had not Ismail, according to ancient usage, been built without advanced works, even a general like Suvarov would scarcely have ventured on such an attack, which in the actual condition of the defences was attended by such murderous consequences. On the 21st of September the city was twice summoned, and on both occasions the garrison and inhabitants were threatened with the fate of Otchakov. The Turks, however, did not suffer themselves to be terrified into submission, and the fearful storm was commenced on the 22nd, at four o’clock in the morning. The wall was not mounted till eight o’clock, after an unexampled slaughter; but still the hottest part of the struggle took place in the city itself. Every street was converted into a fortress, every house became a redoubt, and it was twelve o’clock before the Russians, advancing through scenes of carnage and desperate resistance, reached the market-place, where the Tatars of the Crimea were collected. The Tatars fought for two hours with all the energy of despair, and after they had been all cut to pieces the struggle was still carried on by the Turks in the streets. Suvarov at length opened a passage for his cavalry through the gates into the devoted city; they charged through the streets, and continued to cut down and massacre the people till four o’clock in the afternoon. At the conclusion of this dreadful butchery the Russians received the reward which had been promised them when they were led to the storm and to certain death,—the city was given up for three days to the mercy of the victorious troops.

[1791 A.D.]

Suvarov himself, in his official report of this murderous enterprise, states that in the course of four days 33,000 Turks were either slain or mortally wounded, and 10,000 taken prisoners. He rates the loss of the Russians at 2000 killed and 2500 wounded: a number which seems to us as improbably small as the usual accounts, which assign 15,000 as the Russian loss, seem exaggerated. There were two French émigrés present at this storm, one of whom afterwards became celebrated as a Russian governor-general and French minister, and the other as a Russian general in the war against his countrymen. The first was the duke de Richelieu, or as he was then called de Fronsac, and the second the count de Langeron. Kutusov also served in this affair under Suvarov and led the sixth line of attack.

European Intervention; the Treaty of Jassy (1792 A.D.)

About this time the whole diplomacy and aristocracy of Europe were busily employed in endeavouring to rescue the Turks, in order to check the dangerously rapid progress of the French and Polish revolutionists. There speedily grew up such a general desire as the English wished to promote—of two evils to choose the least—to secure and uphold the empire of the Turks and to let the nationality of Poland perish. Russia, however, declined the proffered mediation of England in the war with the Turks, as she had resolved for this time to give up her conquests in Turkey in order to indemnify herself in Poland: she accepted merely the intervention of the friendly Danes.

Potemkin and the empress were not unthankful for Suvarov’s servility, since he threw himself and all his services at their feet, and ascribed everything to them alone. Repnin, whom Potemkin left at the head of the army when he went to St. Petersburg in October, 1790, pursued a very different course, doing more in two months than Potemkin had done in three years. He crossed the Danube with his army, pushed forward into Bulgaria, and caused the whole Turkish army to be attacked and beaten near Badadagh by Kutusov, after Gudovitch, the brother of him who had been the faithful aide-de-camp of Peter III, had completely put down the Tatars in the Kuban in January, 1791. At the head of forty thousand Russians, Repnin then advanced against one hundred thousand Turks, under the command of the same vizir, Yussuf, who had fought with such success against the emperor Joseph in the Bannat.

Potemkin eager to appropriate the impending victory, started with great expeditiousness from St. Petersburg when both armies were ready for battle (July, 1791). He took it for granted that Repnin would certainly await his arrival at the army; but he did no such thing. He offered battle before the arrival of Potemkin, whose custom it was to enjoy the fruits in the gathering of which he had no share. The victory which Repnin gained over the great Turkish army in July at Matchin led to a violent altercation between him and Potemkin, who came too late to have any participation in the honours of the day; Repnin, however, still remained in command of the army. Potemkin afterwards did everything in his power to prevent the peace for which Repnin was to negotiate, although he clearly saw that the course of events required the Russians to give up this wholesale conquest of Turkish provinces. Happily, his death left Repnin’s hands free, and a treaty was concluded at Jassy on the 9th of January, 1792, between Russia and the Porte, by which the former acquired nothing more than the fortress of Otchakov, the surrounding territory from the Dniester to the Bug, and the protectorate of Georgia.

THE DEATH OF POTEMKIN (1792 A.D.); SÉGUR’S CHARACTERISATION

[1792 A.D.]

Not long after Potemkin’s arrival at Jassy, where his headquarters or, to speak more properly, his capital and his court were established, he was seized with a malignant fever, and presumed to treat it with the same haughty contempt with which he had long been used to treat his fellow men: he laughed at his physicians, and ate salt meat and raw turnips. His disease growing worse, he desired to be conveyed to Otchakov, his beloved conquest, but had not travelled more than a few miles before the air of his carriage seemed to stifle him. His cloak was spread by the road-side; he was laid on it, and there expired in the arms of his favourite niece Branicka. Catherine fainted three times when she heard of his death: it was necessary to bleed her; she was thought to be dying. She expressed almost as much grief as at the death of Lanskoi; but it was not the lover she regretted: it was the friend whose genius assimilated with her own, whom she considered as the support of her throne and the executor of her vast projects. Catherine, holding her usurped sceptre, was a woman and timid: she was accustomed to behold in Potemkin a protector whose fortune and glory were intimately connected with her own. The character of this Russian vizir has been thus sketched by Count Ségur, who, as ambassador to St. Petersburg, lived long in habits of intimacy with him:

“Prince Gregory Alexandrovitch Potemkin was one of the most extraordinary men of his times; but in order to have played so conspicuous a part, he must have been born in Russia and have lived in the reign of Catherine II. In any other country, in any other time, with any sovereign, he would have been misplaced; and it was a singular stroke of chance that created this man for the period that tallied with him, and brought together and combined all the circumstances with which he could tally.

“In his person were collected the most opposite defects and advantages of every kind. He was avaricious and ostentatious, despotic and popular, inflexible and beneficent, haughty and obliging, politic and confiding, licentious and superstitious, bold and timid, ambitious and indiscreet. Lavish of his bounties to his relations, his mistresses, and his favourites, yet frequently paying neither his household nor his creditors. His consequence always depended on a woman, and he was always unfaithful to her. Nothing could equal the activity of his mind or the indolence of his body. No dangers could appal his courage; no difficulties force him to abandon his projects. But the success of an enterprise always brought with it disgust. He wearied the empire by the number of his posts and the extent of his power. He was himself fatigued with the burden of his existence; envious of all that he did not do, and sick of all that he did. Rest was not grateful to him, nor occupation pleasing. Everything with him was desultory—business, pleasure, temper, carriage. In every company he had an embarrassed air, and his presence was a restraint on every company. He was morose to all that stood in awe of him, and caressed all such as accosted him with familiarity.

“Ever promising, seldom keeping his word, and never forgetting anything, none had read less than he—few people were better informed. He had talked with the skilful in all professions, in all the sciences, in every art. None better knew how to draw forth and appropriate to himself the knowledge of others. In conversation he would have astonished a scholar, an artist, an artisan, or a divine. His information was not deep, but it was very extensive. He never dived into a subject, but he spoke well on all subjects.

“The inequality of his temper was productive of an inconceivable oddity in his desires, his conduct, and his manner of life. One while he formed the project of becoming duke of Courland; at another he thought of bestowing on himself the crown of Poland. He frequently gave intimations of an intention to make himself a bishop or even a simple monk. He built a superb palace, and wanted to sell it before it was finished. One day he would dream of nothing but war; and only officers, Tatars, and Cossacks were admitted to him: the next day he was busied only with politics; he would partition the Ottoman Empire, and put in agitation all the cabinets of Europe. At other times, with nothing in his head but the court, dressed in a magnificent suit, covered with ribbons presented to him by every potentate, displaying diamonds of extraordinary magnitude and brilliance, he was giving superb entertainments without any cause.

“He was sometimes known for a month, and in the face of all the town, to pass whole evenings at the apartments of a young woman, seeming to have alike forgotten all business and all decorum. Sometimes also, for several weeks successively, shut up in his room with his nieces and several men whom he honoured with his intimacy, he would lounge on a sofa, without speaking, playing at chess, or at cards, with his legs bare, his shirt collar unbuttoned, in a morning gown, with a thoughtful front, his eyebrows knit, and presenting to the view of strangers, who came to see him, the figure of a rough and squalid Cossack. These singularities often put the empress out of humour, but rendered him more interesting to her. In his youth he had pleased her by the ardour of his passion, his valour, and his masculine beauty. Being arrived at maturity, he charmed her still by flattering her pride, calming her apprehensions, confirming her power, and caressing her fancies of oriental empire, the expulsion of the barbarians, and the restoration of the Grecian republics.

“Potemkin began everything, completed nothing, disordered the finances, disorganised the army, depopulated his country, and enriched it with other deserts. The fame of the empress was increased by his conquests. The admiration they excited was for her; and the hatred they raised, for her minister. Posterity, more equitable, will perhaps divide between them both the glory of the successes and the severity of the reproaches. It will not bestow on Potemkin the title of a great man; but it will mention him as an extraordinary person; and, to draw his picture with accuracy, he might be represented as the real emblem, as the living image of the Russian Empire. For, in fact, he was colossal like Russia. In his mind, as in that country, were cultivated districts and desert plains. It also partook of the Asiatic, the European, the Tatar, and the Cossack; the rudeness of the eleventh century, and the corruption of the eighteenth; the surface of the arts, and the ignorance of the cloisters; an outside of civilisation, and many traces of barbarism.”[j]

THE QUESTION OF THE IMPERIAL SUCCESSION

Some time before the death of Potemkin, Catherine had begun proceedings intended to bar the czarevitch Paul from the imperial succession.[a] She was by no means the cruel, heartless mother that many writers are inclined to represent; but she knew her son thoroughly well, and foreseeing how destructive of all good his reign would be she could not think without fear of how the empire, which under her rule had made such rapid strides in the path of prosperity, glory, and civilisation, would after her remain without any guarantee for the stability and durability of its existence. With the intention of preserving the country from such a misfortune, Catherine wished to make over the throne to the grand duke Alexander Pavlovitch and therefore the setting aside of the czarevitch appeared in her eyes a state necessity. Meanwhile it is sufficiently well known that Catherine had long been accustomed to place the interests of the state above everything and to sacrifice to them all other considerations and feelings; therefore the difficulties with which so daring an administrative step was doubtless accompanied could not stop the creator of the changes of the year 1762. “Obstacles are created in this world,” Catherine once wrote, “in order that persons of merit may set them aside and thus add to their reputation; that is the meaning of obstacles.” Circumstances were also favourable to this new change contemplated by Catherine, for at that time no law existed that exactly established the order of succession to the throne. The statute of Peter the Great of the year 1722 was still maintained in full power, and by this statute the reigning Russian sovereigns had the right of naming anyone they liked as their successors to the throne according to their own judgment, without being restrained by any ancient right of primogeniture; and in cases where the heir already designated showed himself incapable, he could be removed from the throne.

The diary of Krapovitski can serve as a proof that in the year 1787, after Catherine’s return from her travels in the south of Russia, the question as to the necessity of changing the succession to the throne had already matured in the mind of the empress; she entered upon the historical study of the matter and read “the right of will of monarchs.” On the 20th of August, in connection with this same question, Catherine discussed with her secretary the extent to which the misfortunes of the czarevitch Paul Petrovitch had been caused by the false opinion that as eldest son the throne must belong to him. Further, on the 25th of August, Krapovitski writes: “Ukases as to the heirs to the throne, named since the time of Catherine I, have been asked for, and in the explanations a sort of displeasure was manifested.” To what conclusions the historical study of the measures taken by Peter the Great led Catherine may be seen from the context of the following remarks, written by the empress’ own hand:

“It must be acknowledged that the parent is unhappy who sees himself obliged for the safeguard of the public good to remove his offspring. This is a condition which accompanies or is joined to the autocratic and parental power. And thus I esteem that the most wise monarch Peter I had doubtlessly the strongest reasons for the removal of his ungrateful, disobedient, and incapable son, who was filled with hatred, malice, and viperous envy against him. He sought to find some particle of evil in his father’s deeds and actions which were conceived in the spirit of good, he listened to flatterers, shut his ears to the truth, and nothing was so pleasing to him as to hear his most glorious father defamed and spoken evil of. He himself was a sluggard, a coward, double-faced, unstable, gloomy, timid, drunken, passionate, obstinate, bigoted, ignorant man, of most mediocre intelligence and of weak health.”

Independent of these remarks, Catherine’s ideas are even more clearly expressed in other rough draughts concerning the Greek project and written in her own hand. She writes as follows: “Should the successes of the war give Russia the means and occasion to drive out completely the enemies of the name of Christ from the European frontiers, then Russia, in return for such an entirely Christian service rendered to the human race, would reserve to herself the restoration on the ruins of the barbaric power, of the ancient Greek Empire. Russia would promise to leave such an empire incomplete independence, to entrust and give it up to the young Russian grand duke Constantine Pavlovitch, who must then give his promise not to make in any case any hereditary or other pretensions to the succession of all the Russias, as equally his brother must do in regard to the Greek succession.” All these writings clearly testify that at the time of the second Turkish war the empress Catherine had definitively come to the conclusion that the welfare of the state required the setting aside from the succession of the czarevitch Paul Petrovitch and his replacement by the grand duke Alexander Pavlovitch.

Meanwhile the czarevitch on his part did all that was possible to justify in the eyes of Russia Catherine’s intentions to exclude him from the throne. A contemporary who was in close relations with him, T. V. Rostopschin writes as follows: “It is impossible to see without shuddering and pity what the grand duke’s father does; it is as if he sought for every means of inspiring hatred and disgust. He has taken it into his head that disrespect and neglect are shown to him; therefore for this reason, he catches and cavils at everything and punishes without distinction. Every day one only hears of violence, of quarrels about trifles of which any private individual would be ashamed. He sees a revolution everywhere; he sees Jacobite in everything.”

Catherine’s correspondence shows that already in the year 1791 the plan of excluding the czarevitch Paul from the throne was no secret to those who were in her intimacy. On the 1st of September, 1791, the empress in a letter to Grimm expresses herself quite definitely on the matter; in relating her supposition as to the consequences of the French Revolution, she writes: “But this will not be in my time and, I hope, not in the time of Alexander.” Finally on the 14th of August, 1792, Catherine communicates to Grimm considerations which allow the nomination of Alexander as heir to be regarded as a matter settled. “Why should the coronation be hurried on?” writes she; “in the words of Solomon there is a time for everything. First we will marry Alexander, and then we will crown him with all possible ceremonies, solemnities, and popular festivities. Oh, how happy he will be himself, and how happy others will be with him!” The following letter addressed by Catherine to Count V. P. Mussin-Pushkin on the 14th of September, 1792, written by the empress’ own hand, is characteristic of the relations which subsisted at that time between the czarevitch Paul Petrovitch and his mother:

Count Valentine Platonovitch:

I herewith enclose a copy of Kushilev’s letter to the governor of this town in which he says that the czarevitch has been pleased to order that more than half of the Alexandrovski square, as the plan sent by him to the governor indicates, should be given up to a certain merchant. The order itself is a mad one and of the greatest insolence. Tell Kushilev to come to you and tell him in my name that if he again dares to send such letters anywhere I will send him where the ravens will not have to seek for his bones; and tell the grand duke that in future he is not to send any orders by you at anyone’s request.

September 17th, 1793.

Catherine.

Find out beforehand if this was certainly written by the grand duke.

In the year 1794 the empress had recourse to decisive measures for the accomplishment of the projected change and notified to the council her intention of setting aside her son Paul as her successor giving as reasons his character and his incapacity. The entire council was ready to submit to this decision, but was stopped by Count V. P. Mussin-Pushkin, who said that the character and instincts of the heir might change when he became emperor; these remarks put a stop to Catherine’s intention of declaring her grandson Alexander as her successor, and for a time the matter rested there. But the opposition that Catherine met with in the council naturally did not stop her in the pursuit of the aim she had in view. As has already been observed, obstacles, in her opinion, are only created in order that they may be set aside by persons of merit; guided by such principles, the empress remained true to herself and to the matter that was so close to her heart and continued to seek for fresh ways of carrying through her intentions.[k] Nevertheless all her efforts failed in the end, and, as we shall see, Catherine’s son succeeded her in due course.[a]

THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES

Plato Zubov, the twelfth and last of Catherine’s avowed favourites, succeeded in some degree to the position which Potemkin had held as a sort of vice-emperor. Zubov had superseded Momonov, who, soon wearying of the faded charms of a mistress of sixty, became enamoured of the young princess Sherbatov, and had the courage to avow it and ask permission to marry her. Catherine had pride and generosity enough to grant his request without any reproaches. She saw him married at court to the object of his affection, and sent him to Moscow loaded with presents. But it was currently reported that Momonov was so imprudent as to mention to his wife some particulars of his interviews with the empress, and that she divulged them with a levity which Catherine could not forgive. One night, when the husband and wife were gone to rest, the master of the police at Moscow entered their chamber; and, after showing them an order from her majesty, left them in the hands of six women, and retired to an adjoining room. Then the six women, or rather the six men dressed as women, seized the babbling lady, and having completely stripped her, flogged her with rods in the presence of Momonov, whom they forced to kneel down during the ceremony. When the chastisement was over, the police-master re-entered the room and said: “This is the way the empress punishes a first indiscretion. For the second, people are sent to Siberia.”

It was in the spring of 1789, when the empress was at Tsarskoi Selo, that Momonov was married and dismissed. Lieutenant Zubov commanded the detachment of horse-guards in attendance, and being the only young officer in sight he owed his preferment to that fortunate circumstance. Nicholas Soltikov, to whom he was distantly related, and who was at that time in high credit, took pains to promote his interest, hoping to find in him a protector against Potemkin, whom he heartily disliked. After some secret conferences in presence of the Mentor, Zubov was approved, and sent for more ample information to Mademoiselle Protasov and the empress’ physician. The account they gave must have been favourable, for he was named aide-de-camp to the empress, received a present of a hundred thousand roubles (£10,000) to furnish him with linen, and was installed in the apartment of the favourites with all the customary advantages.

The next day this young man was seen familiarly offering his arm to his sovereign, equipped in his new uniform, with a large hat and feather on his head, attended by his patron and the great men of the empire, who walked behind him with their hats off, though the day before he had danced attendance in their ante-chambers. His own were now filled with aged generals and ministers of long service, all of whom bent the knee before him. He was a genius discerned by the piercing eye of Catherine; the treasures of the empire were lavished on him, and the conduct of the empress was sanctioned by the meanness and the shameful assiduities of her courtiers.

Debaucheries at Catherine’s Court

The new favourite was not quite five-and-twenty years old, the empress was upwards of sixty. Yet even at this advanced period of her life she revived the orgies and lupercalia which she had formerly celebrated with the brothers Orlov. Valerian, a younger brother of Zubov, and Peter Soltikov, their friend, were associated in office with the favourite. With these three young libertines did the aged Catherine spend her days, while her armies were slaughtering the Turks, fighting the Swedes, and ravaging Poland; while her people were groaning in wretchedness and famine, and devoured by extortioners and tyrants.

It was at this time she formed a more intimate society, composed of her favourites and most trusty ladies and courtiers. This society met two or three times a week, under the name of the Little Hermitage. The parties were frequently masqued, and the greatest privacy prevailed. They danced, played at forfeits, joked, romped and engaged in all sorts of frolics and gambols. Leov Narishkin acted the same part there as Roquelaure at the court of Louis XIV; and a fool by title, Matrona Danilovna, seconded him. This was an old gossip, whose wit consisted only in uttering the most absurd vulgarities; and as she was allowed the common right of fools, that of saying anything, she was loaded with presents by the lower order of courtiers. Such foreign ministers as enjoyed the favour of the empress were sometimes admitted to the Little Hermitage. Ségur, Cobenzl, Stedingk, and Nassau chiefly enjoyed this distinction; but Catherine afterwards formed another assembly, more confined and more mysterious, which was called the Little Society. The three favourites of whom we have just been speaking, Branicka, Protasov, and some confidential women and valets-de-chambre, were its only members. In this the Cybele of the north celebrated her most secret mysteries. The particulars of these amusements are not fit to be repeated.

[1793 A.D.]

Catherine survived Potemkin but four years. The last ten years of her reign carried her power, her glory, and her political crimes to their highest pitch. When the great Frederick, dictator of the kings of Europe, died, she remained the eldest of the crowned heads of the continent; and if we except Joseph, all those heads together were unequal to her own. If Frederick was the dictator of these kings, Catherine became their tyrant. The immense empire which she had subjected to her sway; the inexhaustible resources she derived from a country and a people as yet in a state of infancy; the extreme luxury of her court, the barbarous pomp of her nobility, the wealth and princely grandeur of her favourites, the glorious exploits of her armies, and the gigantic views of her ambition threw Europe into a sort of fascination; and those monarchs who had been too proud to pay each other even the slightest deference felt no abasement in making a woman the arbiter of their interests, the ruling power of all their measures.

THE SUBJUGATION AND FINAL PARTITION OF POLAND (1796 A.D.)

The annihilation of Poland, long meditated, was now resolved on. The empress could never forgive that nation either for the act of the diet in 1788, which abrogated the constitution dictated by violence in 1775, or the alliance of Prussia accepted in contempt of her own, or, above all, the constitution decreed at Warsaw on the 3rd of May, 1791. Big with these ideas of revenge, she gave orders to Bulgakov, her minister at Warsaw, to declare war against Poland.

The diet being assembled received this declaration with a majestic calmness, which was rapidly succeeded by the generous enthusiasm of a nation roused to self-defence. The king himself pretended to share the feelings that animated his people; and the Poles had the weakness to believe that, having abandoned his former servility to Russia and his customary indolence, he was becoming the defender of their freedom. An army was collected in haste, and the command of it given to the king’s nephew, Joseph Poniatowski, an inexperienced young man, all of whose efforts were obstructed or misdirected by his traitorous uncle.

The Poles could have opposed the designs of Catherine with an army of fifty thousand men; but they never yet could be brought to unite their forces; and their different corps were soon after pressed between an army of eighty thousand Russians, who fell back from Bessarabia upon the territory which extends along the Bug, another of ten thousand collected in the environs of Kiev, and a third of thirty thousand, which had penetrated into Lithuania.

We shall not here attempt to draw the picture of the various battles that drenched the plains of Poland with blood, and which, notwithstanding some advantages obtained by the Poles, consumed the greater part of their troops. It was then that the illustrious Kosciuszko, who as yet was nothing more than one of the lieutenants of young Joseph Poniatowski, displayed qualities that justly obtained him the confidence of the nation, the hatred of the Russians, and the esteem of Europe.

During all this time Catherine, not trusting alone to the power of her own arms, had been negotiating with unremitted assiduity. She proposed the definitive partition of Poland to Frederick William, who was undoubtedly no less desirous of it than herself. She secretly won over to her views the two brothers Kassakovski, the hetman Branicki, Rejevuski, and particularly Felix Potocki, who, while flattering himself perhaps with the hopes of mounting the throne of Poland, became only the slave of Russia. She even insisted that Stanislaus Augustus should make a public declaration that it was necessary to yield to the superiority of the Russian arms. He submitted to this indignity; but was not on that account treated by the empress with greater indulgence.

In 1793 the confederation of the partisans of Russia assembled at Grodno, where the Russian general proudly seated himself under the canopy of the throne he was about to overturn. The Russian minister Sievers, at the same time, published a manifesto (April 9th) in which he declared that his sovereign would incorporate with her dominions all the territory of Poland which her arms had conquered. The king of Prussia, in concert with Catherine, had already marched an army into Poland.

The Russians, dispersed about the provinces of that kingdom, committed depredations and ravages of which history furnishes but few examples. Warsaw became likewise the theatre of their excesses. The Russian general Igelström, who governed that city, connived at the disorders of his soldiers, and made the wretched inhabitants feel the whole weight of his arrogance and barbarity. The defenders of Poland had been obliged to disperse. Their property was confiscated; their families were reduced to servitude. Goaded by so many calamities, they once more took the resolution to free their country of the Russians. Some of them assembled, and sent an invitation to Kosciuszko to come and put himself at their head. That general had retired to Leipsic, with Hugh Kolonti, Zajonchek, and Ignatius Potocki, a man of great knowledge and sagacity, a sincere friend to his country, and in all respects the opposite of his cousin Felix. These four Poles joined eagerly in the resolution adopted by their honest countrymen: but they were sensible that, in order to succeed, they must begin by giving liberty to the peasants, who till then had been treated in Poland like beasts of burden.

Kosciuszko and Zajonchek repaired, with all expedition, to the frontiers of Poland. The latter proceeded to Warsaw, where he had conferences with the chiefs of the conspirators. A banker named Kapustas, a bold and artful man, made himself responsible for the inhabitants of the capital. He saw likewise several officers, who declared their detestation of the Russian yoke. All, in short, was ripe for an insurrection, when the Russian commanders, to whom Kosciuszko’s presence on the frontiers had given umbrage, forced him to postpone it for a time. To throw the Russians off their guard, Kosciuszko went into Italy, and Zajonchek to Dresden, whither Ignatius Potocki and Kolonti had retired, but all at once Zajonchek appeared again at Warsaw. The king himself impeached him to the Russian general Igelström, who had a conference with him, and ordered him to quit the Polish territory. No alternative now remained for him but to proceed immediately to action, or to abandon the enterprise altogether. Zajonchek resolved on the former.

[1794 A.D.]

In 1794 Kosciuszko was recalled from Italy, and arrived at Cracow, where the Poles received him as their deliverer. In spite of the orders of the Russians, Colonel Madalinski pertinaciously refused to disband his regiment. Some other officers had joined him. Kosciuszko was proclaimed general of his little army, amounting to three thousand foot and twelve hundred horse; and the act of insurrection was almost immediately published on the 24th of March. Three hundred peasants, armed with scythes, ranged themselves under the standard of Kosciuszko. That general soon found himself faced by seven thousand Russians, who were put to flight after a vigourous resistance.

On hearing at Warsaw of the success of Kosciuszko, the Russian general Igelström caused all those to be arrested whom he suspected to have any concern in the insurrection; but these measures served only the more to irritate the conspirators. The insurrection broke out on the 18th of April. Two thousand Russians were put to the sword. Their general, being besieged in his house, requested permission to capitulate; and profiting by the delay that was granted him, he escaped to the Prussian camp, which lay at a little distance from Warsaw. Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, followed the example of Warsaw; but the triumph of the insurgents was there less terrible. Colonel Iazinski, who was at their head, conducted himself with so much skill, that he took all the Russians prisoners, without shedding a drop of blood. The inhabitants of the cantons of Chelm and of Lublin declared themselves also in a state of insurrection, and were imitated by three Polish regiments who were employed in the service of the Russians. Some of the principal partisans of Russia, the hetman Kassakovski, the bishop his brother, Zabiello, Ozarovski, and Ankvitch were sentenced to be hanged, the first at Vilna, and the others at Warsaw.

Kosciuszko exerted himself to the utmost to augment his army. He got recruits among the peasants; and to inspire them with more emulation he wore their dress, ate with them, and distributed encouragements among them; but those men too long degraded in Poland were not yet deserving of the liberty that was offered them. They distrusted the intentions of the nobles, who, on their side, for the most part lamented the loss of their absurd prerogatives. Stanislaus Augustus and his partisans augmented still further the ill-will of the nobles, by representing to them the intentions of Kosciuszko as disastrous to their order, and by caballing continually in favour of Russia.

[1795 A.D.]

In the mean time, the empress, not satisfied with augmenting the number of her troops in Poland, had sent her best generals thither. After several battles, in one of which Frederick William, who had advanced to support the Russians, fought at the head of his troops against Kosciuszko, who was striving to prevent the junction of the Russian generals, Suvarov and Fersen, the Polish commander was attacked by the latter at Macziewice on the 4th of October. His talents, his valour, and his desperation were unable to prevent the Poles from yielding to numbers. Almost the whole of his army were cut to pieces or obliged to lay down their arms. He himself, covered with wounds, was taken prisoner, ejaculating, “Finis Poloniæ!”

All who were able to escape from the conquerors went and shut themselves up in Praga, the eastern suburb of Warsaw, where 26,000 Poles and 104 heavy cannon and mortars defended the bridges over the Vistula and the approach to the capital. Suvarov was soon before the gates with an effective force of but 22,000 men and 86 field pieces; but even with such odds against him he resolved to do as he had done at Ismail, and carry the Polish lines at the point of the bayonet. After cannonading the defences for two days he gave the order for the assault at daybreak on the 4th of November. The trenches were carried after a desperate fight of five hours; the Russians swept into the town, murdering all before them, old men, women, and children; the wooden houses were speedily on fire; the bridges were broken down, so that the helpless crowds who attempted to escape into the city were remorselessly driven into the Vistula. Besides 10,000 Polish soldiers, 12,000 citizens of every age and sex perished in this wanton butchery.

Warsaw itself capitulated on the 5th of November, and was delivered up to the Russians on the 6th. Poland was now annihilated. One division of its troops after another was disarmed, and all the generals and officers who could be seized were carried off. The king, however, who could be induced to do anything if his comforts were spared, was used as an instrument to give to power the impress of right. He was again set nominally at the head of the kingdom till the robbers had agreed upon the division of the spoil, and had no longer need of him. Suvarov held a splendid military court for a year in Warsaw, far eclipsing the king, till at length the city was given up to the Prussians.

The whole of the year 1795 was spent in negotiations with Prussia, and the last treaty for the partition of Poland was not signed till the 24th of October, 1795. In December, Suvarov travelled from Warsaw to St. Petersburg, where the empress appropriated the Taurian palace for his residence, and nominated a special household for his service. On the 1st of January, 1796, Warsaw was first given up to the Prussians, and negotiations were carried on till the 21st of October, 1796, respecting the boundaries of the palatinates of Warsaw and Cracow. By virtue of this partition, first finally arranged in October, 1796, Austria obtained the chief parts of the waiwodeship of Cracow, the palatinates of Sendomir and Lublin, together with a portion of the district of Chelm and portions of the waiwodeships of Brzesc, Podalachia, and Massovia, which lie along the left bank of the Bug. All these districts contain about 834 German square miles. Prussia received those portions of Massovia and Podalachia which touch upon the right bank of that river, in Lithuania those parts of the palatinates of Troki and Samogitia which lie to the left of the Niemen, and, finally, a district in Little Poland which belonged to the waiwodeship of Cracow, making in all about one thousand German square miles. Russia received the whole of what had hitherto been Polish Lithuania as far as the Niemen, and to the frontiers of the waiwodeships of Brzesc and Novogrodek, and thence to the Bug, together with the greater part of Samogitia. In Little Poland she obtained that part of Chelm which lies on the right bank of the Bug and the remainder of Volhinia, in all about two thousand German square miles. During the negotiations for the partition, Russia caused Stanislaus Augustus to lay down the crown. The three partitioning powers ensured him a yearly income of 200,000 ducats, and promised to pay his debts.

THE ANNEXATION OF COURLAND (1795 A.D.)

Catherine had now conquered, either by her arms or by her intrigues, almost one-half of Poland, the Crimea, the Kuban, and a part of the frontiers of Turkey. But she had no need of armaments and battles for usurping another rich and well-peopled country. Courland and Semigallia, where still reigned Duke Peter, the feeble son of the famous Biren, had long been prepared for that annexation, which was now effected almost without an effort. The flattering reception given to the Courish nobles in St. Petersburg by the empress, distinctions, honours, posts, and pleasures, rendering their abode in the imperial residence far preferable to continuing in Mittau, and made them desirous of being under the sway of the sovereign of a vast empire, rather than live in obedience to a duke the obscurity of whose origin they could not forget, and whom they regarded as their inferior. To bring the people to the same way of thinking as the nobles, Catherine artfully embroiled them with their neighbours, and created for them reasons of alarm.

She began by instigating the inhabitants of Livonia to insist upon the fulfilment of an ancient convention, by which the Courlanders were obliged to bring all their merchandises to Riga: certainly a very strange and hard condition, by which a nation, that had on its coasts excellent harbours happily situated, should be obliged to go, at a great expense, to embark the products of its soil in a foreign city. The quarrel between the Livonians and the Courlanders was not yet terminated, when the empress sent engineers into Courland, to mark out a canal, to facilitate the transport of the merchandises of that country into Livonia. The Courlanders seeing this, and fearing lest they should be soon forced to make use of this canal, thought it better for them to be protected than oppressed by the empress, and to be her subjects rather than her neighbours.

Catherine, being informed of these dispositions, called the duke of Courland to her, under the pretence of conferring with him on matters of importance. No sooner was that prince at the foot of the throne of the autocratrix of the north, than the states of Courland held an assembly, wherein it was proposed to put the country under the supremacy of Russia. The principal members of the grand council faintly opposed this motion, observing, that before they proceeded to a resolution it would be expedient to wait the return of the duke. The oberburgraf Hoven rose up, and spoke a long time in favour of Russia. Some councillors expressed themselves of his opinion; others reproached him with treason. The dispute grew warm on both sides; challenges were reciprocally given and swords were about to be drawn, when the Russian general Pahlen appeared in the assembly. His presence restored tranquillity. No one presumed to raise his voice against Russia; and the proposal of the nobles was adopted.

The next day, March 18th, 1795, the act was drawn up, by which Courland, Semigallia, and the circle of Pilten made a formal surrender of themselves to the empress of Russia; and it was carried to St. Petersburg, where the duke of Courland learned, from the mouth of his own subjects, that they themselves had deprived him of his dominions. The empress immediately sent a governor thither. Some discontent, however, remained in Courland; discontent brought on proscription, and the possessions of the proscribed were given to the courtiers of Catherine. The favourite, Plato Zubov, and his brother Valerian obtained a great part of those rich and shameful spoils.[j]

LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF CATHERINE

Catherine II

(1729-1796)

Before the breaking out of the French Revolution the governments of Louis XVI and Catherine II had entered into active negotiations for the formation of a quadruple alliance that should include Austria, Russia, and the two houses of Bourbon, and should have for its object the checking of England’s maritime pretensions and the encroachments of Prussia. After the taking of the Bastille Catherine realised that she could no longer count upon the support of France, since that country was exclusively occupied with its own interior transformation. She kept anxious watch, however, upon the course of events in Paris, and manifested the liveliest antipathy to the new principles, falling ill at the news of the king’s execution on the 21st of January. Led by fear into a violent reaction, the correspondent of Voltaire and Diderot set a close watch upon all Russians suspected of liberalism. She destroyed a tragedy of Kniaznin and exiled to Siberia Radichtchev, the author of a curious book entitled Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, in which were many sharp reflections on serfdom; Novikov was confined at Schlüsselburg, his printing houses were closed and all his enterprises ruined. She dismissed Genêt, the French ambassador, refused to recognise either the constitution of 1791 or the French Republic, issued an ukase announcing the rupture of diplomatic relations with France, refused to the tri-colour admission to Russian parts, expelled all French subjects who refused to swear allegiance to the monarchical principle, extended a warm welcome to French refugees, and lost no time in acknowledging Louis XVIII.

In 1792 she published her famous note on the restoration of royal power and aristocratic privileges in France, asserting that only ten thousand men would be necessary to effect a counter-revolution. She encouraged Gustavus III, who was assassinated by his nobles at a masked ball (March 16th, 1792), to place himself at the head of a crusade against democracy. She further urged England to assist the count d’Artois in a descent he had planned upon the French coast, and stimulated the zeal of Austria and Prussia. Notwithstanding this, though she had repeatedly negotiated treaties for subsidies and promised troops, she took care never to become involved in a war with the west. “My position is taken,” she said, “my part assigned; I shall watch the movements of Turkey, Poland, and Sweden.”

The latter country became reconciled to France after the death of Gustavus III. The punishment of the Jacobins of Warsaw and Turkey was an easier and more lucrative piece of work. We should also take into account an admission that she made to her vice-chancellor Ostermann in 1791: “Am I wrong? I cannot avow all to the courts of Berlin and Vienna, but I wish to keep them engaged in these affairs so that I may have freedom to carry on my unfinished enterprises.” She excused herself for not taking part in the anti-revolutionary crusade by alleging the war with Turkey; then when in consequence of the revolution of the 3rd of May she was obliged to hasten the Peace of Jassy, she made the Polish war her excuse; and when this was ended she affected to excite Suvarov and his soldiers against the atheists of the west, but in reality thought only of gaining her own ends in the east. Muhammed, the new king of Persia, had recently invaded Georgia and burned Tiflis, the capital of Heraclius, a protégé of the empress. Catherine summoned to her court an exiled brother of Muhammed’s and charged Valerian Zubov with the conquest of Persia. [His armies were actually under way when the death of Catherine led to the abandonment of the enterprise.]

[1796 A.D.]

Without being aware of it Catherine II really performed greater service to France than to the coalition. By her intervention in Poland and her projects against the east she had excited the jealousy and suspicion of Prussia and Austria. She took care to pit them against each other; made the second partition with Frederick William in spite of Austria, and effected the third with Francis II to the extreme dissatisfaction of Prussia. She contributed indirectly to weaken and dissolve the coalition, being herself prevented from joining it by the Polish insurrection that received so much encouragement from France. She died on the 17th of November, 1796, at the age of sixty-seven. Since Ivan the Terrible no monarch had extended the limits of the empire by such vast conquests. Catherine made the Niemen, the Dniester, and the Black Sea the boundaries of Russia.[d]

A RUSSIAN ESTIMATE OF CATHERINE

The personality of the empress was as though created for a throne. We do not meet in history with any other woman so fitted to rule. On all and each she produced a profound impression. No one has spoken more harshly and disadvantageously of the empress’ qualities than Masson, yet this pamphleteer-writer observes that during the space of ten years, having had occasion to see Catherine once or twice a week, he was always struck by her unusually attractive personality, by the dignity with which she held herself, and by the amiability of her behaviour to everyone.

In her Memoirs[g] Catherine herself has left a detailed narrative of the course of her development, of her aspirations after power, and of her unscrupulousness in the means she used to attain her aims. The empress’ frankness in this respect amounts almost to cynicism. In maturity she at last became an autocratic sovereign. After the terrible humiliations, the bitter trials she had endured in her youth, her delight when she found herself in the enjoyment of unbounded power was all the greater. The fact that the fundamental change in her surroundings, the rapid passage from entire dependency to entire potency, did not in any wise awaken in her any despotic inclinations testifies to the goodness inherent in her nature; when her son was subjected in his turn to a like change in outward circumstances his despotism knew no bounds.

We have seen that the unfavourable circumstances in which Catherine found herself until the year 1762 exercised a baneful influence upon her character; whereas the power and preponderance which she later acquired had an ennobling effect upon her nature. Until then she had been necessarily obliged often to have resource to mean and trifling measures to better her position and to revenge herself on her opponents; when she was able to exert full power, to enjoy the advantages of her position, the respect of her contemporaries, the adoration of the persons that surrounded her, she no longer needed to employ those means which are generally made use of by the weak in their struggle against the strong. At the time when a sharp watch was kept over her, when she was not trusted by either Elizabeth or Peter, she understood how to dissemble, to play the hypocrite, to feign humility and modesty, whilst in her soul she was filled with arrogance and contempt for mankind. Now that she had surrounded herself entirely with persons devoted to her she could act openly and nobly. The grand duchess in her isolation had been remarkable for her coldness, her mistrust of mankind, her suspiciousness; the empress on the contrary gave full scope to the development of feelings of benevolence, condescension, indulgence, and sincere attention to the interests of the persons that surrounded her. It was not without reason that Peter and Elizabeth had mistrusted Catherine and been suspicious of her character; it was not without reason, either, that in after times many people highly esteemed Catherine’s kindheartedness.

The history of the court under Peter I, under the empress Anna, and under Elizabeth is full of examples of tyranny, cruelty, and arbitrariness; all Catherine’s contemporaries were astonished at the mildness of her behaviour to those around her and rejoiced at the absence of stiff formalities and hard measures in her intercourse with her subordinates. In spite of her quick temper and impulsiveness, Catherine had complete control over herself, and in her intercourse with her fellow creatures she was governed by principles of humanity. “I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly,” she once justly remarked in conversation with Ségur; she sought to avoid occasions of offending anyone, and was particularly careful in her intercourse with servants; “I will live to make myself not feared,” she once said, observing that the stove-heater, who had deserved reproof for some neglect, avoided meeting her. Often when Catherine had given an order she would make excuses for the trouble and labour it occasioned. Krapovitski gives instances of such solicitude on her part; more than once the empress, when impatient or irritated, having expressed herself somewhat sharply, afterwards acknowledged her hastiness and endeavoured to repair her fault.

It is said that Catherine, who awoke early and usually rose at six in the morning, so valued the tranquillity of her servants that without requiring assistance she dressed herself, lit the fire, and without disturbing anyone sat down to her books and papers. Various anecdotes are to be found in the narratives of contemporaries testifying to her indulgence to her servants and her want of sufficient severity in her intercourse with them. When she was in a passion she turned up her sleeves, walked about the room, drank a glass of water, and deferred judgment. Her capacity for removing any misunderstanding that might have arisen between herself and others was particularly remarkable. In her letters to various great lords we meet with frequent exhortations not to give way to despair but to take courage, to believe in their own capacities, and to hope for success. In moments of danger she knew how to raise the spirits of those around her, inspiring them with firmness and courage.

The distinguishing features of Catherine’s character were gaiety, humour, and an inclination for fun and amusements. She once remarked: “As to the gaiety of character of Frederick the Great, it must be observed that it proceeded from his superiority: was there ever a great man who was not distinguished by his gaiety and who did not possess in himself an inexhaustible store of it.” She took the greatest pleasure in going to masquerades and, while preserving the strictest incognito, talking to various people; she herself related in detail how she had once gone to a masquerade in male attire and had made a declaration of love to a young girl who never suspected that it was the empress talking to her. It must not be regarded as a matter of chance or an act of complaisance that such a multitude of anecdotes testifying to the magnanimity of Catherine have been preserved; many contemporaries who do not unconditionally praise her maintain however that she was capable of listening to unpleasing truths, of recognising her faults and deficiencies, and of restraining her anger. Such assertions are to be met with in Razumovski, Derjavin, Mussin-Pushkin, and Teplov.

Of course traits are not wanting which show her obstinacy, self-will, and arrogance. Derjavin cites several circumstances to prove that in her actions Catherine was often governed by personal considerations and desires rather than the real good of the state and strict justice. It is also not without reason that she is reproached with the fact that, while protesting against the use of tortures and corporal punishment, she allowed full scope to the cruelties of Sheshkovski who frequently with his own hand tortured accused persons in the most atrocious manner; we cannot however determine how far the empress was cognisant of his barbarous treatment. Referring to some instances of arbitrariness and infringement of the law, Prince Sherbatov remarks that the empress held herself above the law and that she thus herself set a pernicious example to the great noblemen and dignitaries who imitated her in this respect.

As to Catherine’s piety, Frederick II plainly accused her of hypocrisy and bigotry. We bear in mind that it was not easy for her to adopt the orthodox faith, but that when she had adopted it she used outward piety as a means of strengthening her position in Russia. By strictly observing the rules of the church, and conscientiously fulfilling her religious duties, she endeavoured to produce a certain impression on her subjects. At the same time she remained true to the principles of toleration preached in the literature of enlightenment. When Voltaire reproached her, saying that she humiliated herself by kissing the priest’s hand, she justified herself by replying that it was only an outward observance which would little by little become obsolete. There is no doubt that Catherine’s piety did not spring from any deep feeling. In her letters to Grimm, sallies against Luther and the Lutherans are to be met with more than once; she despised Lutherans for their intolerance and several times praised the orthodox faith as the best in the world; she compared it to an oak tree with deep roots.

Side by side with such remarks we meet with bold sallies both from the lips and in the letters of the empress against excessive piety and fanaticism; such are certain caustic remarks referring to Maria Theresa and the queen of Portugal. In certain jeux d’esprit which she allowed herself in connection with questions of the church and religion in her letters to Grimm, the same rationalism is to be observed as that which distinguished the votaries of French literature of the time. Catherine praised the works of Nicholas Sebaldus Nothanker, especially, because hypocrisy was condemned in them. Deep religious and philosophical questions she did not like; her chief characteristic was a certain worldliness. Her point of view was optimistic and her principal rule of earthly wisdom, gaiety. She did not like to meditate on sad events, to give way to grief, to dwell upon gloomy subjects; and this partly explains her esteem for Voltaire, whom she called the “god of gaiety.” This playfulness and vivacity, this freshness and gaiety she preserved to the end of her life.[h]

FOOTNOTES

[54] The Swedes were not aware of the fortuitous advantage then offered them by a singular incident. Just before the Russian admiral received orders to weigh, the empress had given the command of a ship to the famous Paul Jones. As soon as the British officers in the Russian service heard of this appointment, they repaired in a body to the admiralty, and announced their determination to quit the squadron to which that pirate had been attached. By this act on their part seven or eight ships were left without officers, until the empress, smothering her resentment, withdrew Paul Jones from the squadron, under pretence of sending him to the Black Sea; but, fearing a repetition of so unpleasant a scene, she contrived to get rid of the daring adventurer altogether.