In one of these interviews, in which the dismemberment of Poland was resolved on, Catharine said,
"I will frighten Turkey and flatter England. Do you take it upon yourself to buy over Austria, and amuse France."
Though the arrangements for the partition were at this time all made, the portion which was to be assigned to Austria agreed upon, and the extent of territory which each was to appropriate to itself settled, the formal treaty was not signed till two years afterwards.
The war still continued to rage on the frontiers of Turkey. After ten months of almost incessant slaughter, the Turkish army was nearly destroyed. The empress collected two squadrons of Russian men-of-war at Archangel on the White Sea, and at Revel on the Baltic, and sent them through the straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. All Europe was astonished at this wonderful apparition suddenly presenting itself amidst the islands of the Archipelago. The inhabitants of the Greek islands were encouraged to rise, and they drove out their Mussulman oppressors with great slaughter. Catharine was alike victorious on the land and on the sea; and she began very seriously to contemplate driving the Turks out of Europe and taking possession of Constantinople. Her land troops speedily overran the immense provinces of Bessarabia, Moldavia and Wallachia, and annexed them to the Russian empire.
The Turkish fleet encountered the Russians in the narrow channel which separates the island of Scio from Natolia. In one of the fiercest naval battles on record, and which raged for five hours, the Turkish fleet was entirely destroyed. A courier was instantly dispatched to St. Petersburg with the exultant tidings. The rejoicings in St. Petersburg, over this naval victory, were unbounded. The empress was so elated that she resolved to liberate both Greece and Egypt from the sway of the Turks. The Turks were in a terrible panic, and resorted to the most desperate measures to defend the
Dardanelles, that the Russian fleet might not ascend to Constantinople. At the same time the plague broke out in Constantinople with horrible violence, a thousand dying daily, for several weeks.
The immense Crimean peninsula contains fifteen thousand square miles, being twice as large as the State of Massachusetts. The isthmus of Perikop, which connects it with the mainland, is but five miles in width. The Turks had fortified this passage by a ditch seventy-two feet wide, and forty-two feet deep, and had stationed along this line an army of fifty thousand Tartars. But the Russians forced the barrier, and the Crimea became a Russian province. The victorious army, however, soon encountered a foe whom no courage could vanquish. The plague broke out in their camp, and spread through all Russia, with desolation which seems incredible, although well authenticated. In Moscow, not more than one fourth of the inhabitants were left alive. More than sixty thousand died in that city in less than a year. For days the dead lay in the streets where they had fallen, there not being carts or people enough to carry them away. The pestilence gradually subsided before the intensity of wintry frosts.
The devastations of war and of the plague rendered both the Russians and Turks desirous of peace. On the 2d of August, 1772, the Russian and Turkish plenipotentiaries met under tents, on a plain about nineteen miles north of Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia. The Russian ministers approached in four grand coaches, preceded by hussars, and attended by one hundred and sixty servants in livery. The Turkish ministers came on horseback, with about sixty servants, all dressed in great simplicity. The two parties, however, could not agree, and the conference was broken up. The negotiations were soon resumed at Bucharest, but this attempt was also equally unsuccessful with the first.
The plot for the partition of Poland was now ripe.
Russia, Prussia and Austria had agreed to march their armies into the kingdom and divide a very large portion of the territory between them. It was as high-handed a robbery as the world ever witnessed. There is some consolation, however, in the reflection, that the masses of the people in Poland were quite unaffected by the change. They were no more oppressed by their new despots than they had been for ages by their old ones. By this act, Russia annexed to her territory the enormous addition of three thousand four hundred and forty square leagues, sparsely inhabited, indeed, yet containing a population of one million five hundred thousand. Austria obtained less territory, but nearly twice as many inhabitants. Prussia obtained the contiguous provinces she coveted, with about nine hundred thousand inhabitants. They still left to the King of Poland, in this first partition, a small fragment of his kingdom. The King of Prussia removed from his portion the first year twelve thousand families, who were sent to populate the uninhabited wilds of his hereditary dominions. All the young men were seized and sent to the Prussian army. The same general course was pursued by Russia. That the Polish population might be incorporated with that of Russia, and all national individuality lost, the Poles were removed into ancient Russia, while whole provinces of Russians were sent to populate Poland.