De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars

by Thomas De Quincey

Having thus sufficiently roused the angry passions of his
vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this
pretended scheme against their firstborn (an artifice
which was indispensable to his purpose, because it met 30
beforehand every form of amendment to his proposal
coming from the more moderate nobles, who would not
otherwise have failed to insist upon trying the effect of
bold addresses to the Empress before resorting to any
desperate extremity), Zebek-Dorchi opened his scheme of
revolt, and, if so, of instant revolt; since any preparations
reported at St. Petersburg would be a signal for the
armies of Russia to cross into such positions from all
parts of Asia as would effectually intercept their march. 5
It is remarkable, however, that with all his audacity and
his reliance upon the momentary excitement of the Kalmucks,
the subtle prince did not venture, at this stage of
his seduction, to make so startling a proposal as that of
a flight to China. All that he held out for the present 10
was a rapid march to the Temba or some other great
river, which they were to cross, and to take up a strong
position on the farther bank, from which, as from a post
of conscious security, they could hold a bolder language
to the Czarina, and one which would have a better chance 15
of winning a favorable audience.

These things, in the irritated condition of the simple
Tartars, passed by acclamation; and all returned homeward
to push forward with the most furious speed the
preparations for their awful undertaking. Rapid and 20
energetic these of necessity were; and in that degree
they became noticeable and manifest to the Russians who
happened to be intermingled with the different hordes,
either on commercial errands, or as agents officially from
the Russian Government, some in a financial, others in a 25
diplomatic character.

Among these last (indeed, at the head of them) was a
Russian of some distinction, by name Kichinskoi—a man
memorable for his vanity, and memorable also as one of
the many victims to the Tartar revolution. This Kichinskoi 30
had been sent by the Empress as her envoy to overlook
the conduct of the Kalmucks. He was styled the
Grand Pristaw, or Great Commissioner, and was universally
known amongst the Tartar tribes by this title. His
mixed character of ambassador and of political surveillant,
combined with the dependent state of the Kalmucks,
gave him a real weight in the Tartar councils, and might
have given him a far greater had not his outrageous
self-conceit and his arrogant confidence in his own 5
authority, as due chiefly to his personal qualities for
command, led him into such harsh displays of power,
and menaces so odious to the Tartar pride, as very soon
made him an object of their profoundest malice. He had
publicly insulted the Khan; and, upon making a communication 10
to him to the effect that some reports began to
circulate, and even to reach the Empress, of a design in
agitation to fly from the imperial dominions, he had ventured
to say, "But this you dare not attempt; I laugh at
such rumors; yes, Khan, I laugh at them to the Empress; 15
for you are a chained bear, and that you know." The
Khan turned away on his heel with marked disdain; and
the Pristaw, foaming at the mouth, continued to utter,
amongst those of the Khan's attendants who stayed
behind to catch his real sentiments in a moment of unguarded 20
passion, all that the blindest frenzy of rage could
suggest to the most presumptuous of fools. It was now
ascertained that suspicion had arisen; but, at the same
time, it was ascertained that the Pristaw spoke no more
than the truth in representing himself to have discredited 25
these suspicions. The fact was that the mere infatuation
of vanity made him believe that nothing could go on undetected
by his all-piercing sagacity, and that no rebellion
could prosper when rebuked by his commanding presence.
The Tartars, therefore, pursued their preparations, confiding 30
in the obstinate blindness of the Grand Pristaw as
in their perfect safeguard, and such it proved—to his
own ruin as well as that of myriads beside.

Christmas arrived; and, a little before that time, courier
upon courier came dropping in, one upon the very heels
of another, to St. Petersburg, assuring the Czarina that
beyond all doubt the Kalmucks were in the very crisis of
departure. These dispatches came from the Governor
of Astrachan, and copies were instantly forwarded to 5
Kichinskoi. Now, it happened that between this governor—a
Russian named Beketoff—and the Pristaw
had been an ancient feud. The very name of Beketoff
inflamed his resentment; and no sooner did he see that
hated name attached to the dispatch than he felt himself 10
confirmed in his former views with tenfold bigotry, and
wrote instantly, in terms of the most pointed ridicule,
against the new alarmist, pledging his own head upon the
visionariness of his alarms. Beketoff, however, was not
to be put down by a few hard words, or by ridicule: he 15
persisted in his statements; the Russian ministry were
confounded by the obstinacy of the disputants; and some
were beginning even to treat the Governor of Astrachan
as a bore, and as the dupe of his own nervous terrors,
when the memorable day arrived, the fatal 5th of January, 20
which forever terminated the dispute and put a seal upon
the earthly hopes and fortunes of unnumbered myriads.
The Governor of Astrachan was the first to hear the news.
Stung by the mixed furies of jealousy, of triumphant
vengeance, and of anxious ambition, he sprang into his 25
sledge, and, at the rate of 300 miles a day, pursued his
route to St. Petersburg—rushed into the Imperial presence—announced
the total realization of his worst predictions;
and, upon the confirmation of this intelligence
by subsequent dispatches from many different posts on 30
the Wolga, he received an imperial commission to seize
the person of his deluded enemy and to keep him in strict
captivity. These orders were eagerly fulfilled; and the
unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards expired of grief
and mortification in the gloomy solitude of a dungeon—a
victim to his own immeasurable vanity and the blinding
self-delusions of a presumption that refused all warning.

The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faithful
a prophet. Perhaps even he was surprised at the suddenness 5
with which the verification followed his reports.
Precisely on the 5th of January, the day so solemnly
appointed under religious sanctions by the Lama, the
Kalmucks on the east bank of the Wolga were seen at
the earliest dawn of day assembling by troops and 10
squadrons and in the tumultuous movement of some great
morning of battle. Tens of thousands continued moving
off the ground at every half hour's interval. Women
and children, to the amount of two hundred thousand and
upward, were placed upon wagons or upon camels, and 15
drew off by masses of twenty thousand at once—placed
under suitable escorts, and continually swelled in numbers
by other outlying bodies of the horde,—who kept falling
in at various distances upon the first and second day's
march. From sixty to eighty thousand of those who 20
were the best mounted stayed behind the rest of the
tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder more
violent than prudence justified or the amiable character
of the Khan could be supposed to approve. But in this,
as in other instances, he was completely overruled by the 25
malignant counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. The first tempest
of the desolating fury of the Tartars discharged itself
upon their own habitations. But this, as cutting off all
infirm looking backward from the hardships of their
march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all 30
the chieftains that even Oubacha himself was the first to
authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch
previously prepared with materials the most durable as
well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers
of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general
wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils
and that part of the woodwork which could be applied
to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This
chapter in their memorable day's work being finished, 5
and the whole of their villages throughout a district of
ten thousand square miles in one simultaneous blaze, the
Tartars waited for further orders.

These, it was intended, should have taken a character of
valedictory vengeance, and thus have left behind to the 10
Czarina a dreadful commentary upon the main motives
of their flight. It was the purpose of Zebek-Dorchi that
all the Russian towns, churches, and buildings of every
description should be given up to pillage and destruction,
and such treatment applied to the defenceless inhabitants 15
as might naturally be expected from a fierce people
already infuriated by the spectacle of their own outrages,
and by the bloody retaliations which they must necessarily
have provoked. This part of the tragedy, however, was
happily intercepted by a providential disappointment at 20
the very crisis of departure. It has been mentioned
already that the motive for selecting the depth of winter
as the season of flight (which otherwise was obviously
the very worst possible) had been the impossibility of
effecting a junction sufficiently rapid with the tribes on 25
the west of the Wolga, in the absence of bridges, unless
by a natural bridge of ice. For this one advantage the
Kalmuck leaders had consented to aggravate by a thousand-fold
the calamities inevitable to a rapid flight over
boundless tracts of country with women, children, and 30
herds of cattle—for this one single advantage; and yet,
after all, it was lost. The reason never has been explained
satisfactorily, but the fact was such. Some have said
that the signals were not properly concerted for marking
the moment of absolute departure—that is, for signifying
whether the settled intention of the Eastern Kalmucks
might not have been suddenly interrupted by adverse
intelligence. Others have supposed that the ice might
not be equally strong on both sides of the river, and 5
might even be generally insecure for the treading of
heavy and heavily laden animals such as camels. But
the prevailing notion is that some accidental movements
on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in the
neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, though really 10
having no reference to them or their plans, had been construed
into certain signs that all was discovered, and that
the prudence of the Western chieftains, who, from situation,
had never been exposed to those intrigues by which
Zebek-Dorchi had practised upon the pride of the Eastern 15
tribes, now stepped in to save their people from ruin.
Be the cause what it might, it is certain that the Western
Kalmucks were in some way prevented from forming the
intended junction with their brethren of the opposite
bank; and the result was that at least one hundred 20
thousand of these Tartars were left behind in Russia.
This accident it was which saved their Russian neighbors
universally from the desolation which else awaited them.
One general massacre and conflagration would assuredly
have surprised them, to the utter extermination of their 25
property, their houses, and themselves, had it not been
for this disappointment. But the Eastern chieftains did
not dare to put to hazard the safety of their brethren
under the first impulse of the Czarina's vengeance for so
dreadful a tragedy; for, as they were well aware of too many 30
circumstances by which she might discover the concurrence
of the Western people in the general scheme of revolt,
they justly feared that she would thence infer their concurrence
also in the bloody events which marked its outset.

Little did the Western Kalmucks guess what reasons
they also had for gratitude, on account of an interposition
so unexpected, and which at the moment they so generally
deplored. Could they but have witnessed the thousandth
part of the sufferings which overtook their Eastern brethren 5
in the first month of their sad flight, they would have
blessed Heaven for their own narrow escape; and yet
these sufferings of the first month were but a prelude or
foretaste comparatively slight of those which afterward
succeeded. 10

For now began to unroll the most awful series of
calamities, and the most extensive, which is anywhere
recorded to have visited the sons and daughters of men. It
is possible that the sudden inroads of destroying nations,
such as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol 15
Tartars, may have inflicted misery as extensive; but there
the misery and the desolation would be sudden, like the
flight of volleying lightning. Those who were spared at
first would generally be spared to the end; those who
perished would perish instantly. It is possible that the 20
French retreat from Moscow may have made some nearer
approach to this calamity in duration, though still a feeble
and miniature approach; for the French sufferings did
not commence in good earnest until about one month
from the time of leaving Moscow; and though it is true 25
that afterward the vials of wrath were emptied upon the
devoted army for six or seven weeks in succession, yet
what is that to this Kalmuck tragedy, which lasted for
more than as many months? But the main feature of
horror, by which the Tartar march was distinguished from 30
the French, lies in the accompaniment of women[5] and
children. There were both, it is true, with the French
army, but so few as to bear no visible proportion to the
total numbers concerned. The French, in short, were
merely an army—a host of professional destroyers, whose
regular trade was bloodshed, and whose regular element 5
was danger and suffering. But the Tartars were a nation
carrying along with them more than two hundred and
fifty thousand women and children, utterly unequal, for
the most part, to any contest with the calamities before
them. The Children of Israel were in the same circumstances 10
as to the accompaniment of their families; but
they were released from the pursuit of their enemies in a
very early stage of their flight; and their subsequent residence
in the Desert was not a march, but a continued halt
and under a continued interposition of Heaven for their 15
comfortable support. Earthquakes, again, however comprehensive
in their ravages, are shocks of a moment's
duration. A much nearer approach made to the wide
range and the long duration of the Kalmuck tragedy may
have been in a pestilence such as that which visited 20
Athens in the Peloponnesian war, or London in the reign
of Charles II. There, also, the martyrs were counted by
myriads, and the period of the desolation was counted
by months. But, after all, the total amount of destruction
was on a smaller scale; and there was this feature of 25
alleviation to the conscious pressure of the calamity—that
the misery was withdrawn from public notice into private
chambers and hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by
Vespasian and his son, taken in its entire circumstances,
comes nearest of all—for breadth and depth of suffering, 30
for duration, for the exasperation of the suffering from
without by internal feuds, and, finally, for that last most
appalling expression of the furnace heat of the anguish in
its power to extinguish the natural affections even of
maternal love. But, after all, each case had circumstances
of romantic misery peculiar to itself—circumstances 5
without precedent, and (wherever human nature is ennobled
by Christianity), it may be confidently hoped, never
to be repeated.

The first point to be reached, before any hope of repose
could be encouraged, was the River Jaik. This was not 10
above 300 miles from the main point of departure on the
Wolga; and, if the march thither was to be a forced one
and a severe one, it was alleged, on the other hand, that
the suffering would be the more brief and transient;
one summary exertion, not to be repeated, and all was 15
achieved. Forced the march was, and severe beyond
example: there the forewarning proved correct; but the
promised rest proved a mere phantom of the wilderness—a
visionary rainbow, which fled before their hope-sick
eyes, across these interminable solitudes, for seven months 20
of hardship and calamity, without a pause. These sufferings,
by their very nature and the circumstances under
which they arose, were (like the scenery of the steppes)
somewhat monotonous in their coloring and external
features; what variety, however, there was, will be most 25
naturally exhibited by tracing historically the successive
stages of the general misery exactly as it unfolded itself
under the double agency of weakness still increasing from
within and hostile pressure from without. Viewed in this
manner, under the real order of development, it is remarkable 30
that these sufferings of the Tartars, though under
the moulding hands of accident, arrange themselves
almost with a scenical propriety. They seem combined
as with the skill of an artist; the intensity of the misery
advancing regularly with the advances of the march, and
the stages of the calamity corresponding to the stages
of the route; so that, upon raising the curtain which
veils the great catastrophe, we behold one vast climax of
anguish, towering upward by regular gradations as if constructed 5
artificially for picturesque effect—a result which
might not have been surprising had it been reasonable to
anticipate the same rate of speed, and even an accelerated
rate, as prevailing through the latter stages of the expedition.
But it seemed, on the contrary, most reasonable to 10
calculate upon a continual decrement in the rate of motion
according to the increasing distance from the headquarters
of the pursuing enemy. This calculation, however, was
defeated by the extraordinary circumstance that the Russian
armies did not begin to close in very fiercely upon 15
the Kalmucks until after they had accomplished a distance
of full 2000 miles: 1000 miles farther on the assaults
became even more tumultuous and murderous: and already
the great shadows of the Chinese Wall were dimly descried,
when the frenzy and acharnement of the pursuers and the 20
bloody desperation of the miserable fugitives had reached
its uttermost extremity. Let us briefly rehearse the main
stages of the misery and trace the ascending steps of the
tragedy, according to the great divisions of the route
marked out by the central rivers of Asia. 25

The first stage, we have already said, was from the
Wolga to the Jaik; the distance about 300 miles; the time
allowed seven days. For the first week, therefore, the
rate of marching averaged about 43 English miles a day.
The weather was cold, but bracing; and, at a more 30
moderate pace, this part of the journey might have been
accomplished without much distress by a people as hardy
as the Kalmucks: as it was, the cattle suffered greatly
from overdriving; milk began to fail even for the children;
the sheep perished by wholesale; and the children themselves
were saved only by the innumerable camels.