Though this Persian ambassador, named Ismail Beg, was not yet arrived, his negotiation had succeeded. On his landing at Astrakhan, he heard that General Matufkin was on his march with fresh troops to reinforce the Daghestan army. The town of Baku, from which the Persians called the Caspian Sea, the sea of Baku, was not yet taken. He gave the Russian general a letter to the inhabitants, exhorting them, in his master’s name, to submit to the emperor of Russia; the ambassador continued his journey to St. Petersburg, and General Matufkin went and sat down before the city of Baku. The Persian ambassador reached the czar’s court at the same time as the news of the surrender of that city (August, 1723).
Baku is situated near Shemakha, where the Russian factors were massacred; and although in wealth and number of people inferior to it, is very famous for its naphtha, with which it supplies all Persia. Never was treaty sooner concluded than that of Ismail Beg. The emperor Peter, desirous of revenging the death of his subjects, engaged to march an army into Persia, in order to assist Thamaseb against the usurper; and the new shah ceded to him, besides the cities of Baku and Derbent, the provinces of Ghilan, Mazandaran, and Astarabath.
Ghilan, as we have already noticed, is the southern Hyrcania; Mazandaran, which is contiguous to it, is the country of the Mardi; Astarabath borders on Mazandaran; and these were the three principal provinces of the ancient kings of the Medes. Thus Peter by his arms and treaties came to be master of Cyrus’ first monarchy; but this proved to be but a barren conquest, and the empress Anna was glad to surrender it thirteen years afterwards in exchange for some commercial advantages.
So calamitous was the state of Persia that the unhappy sophy Thamaseb wandering about his kingdom, pursued by the rebel Mahmud, the murderer of his father and brothers, was reduced to supplicate both Russia and Turkey at the same time, that they would take one part of his dominions to preserve the other for him. At last it was agreed between the emperor Peter, the sultan Achmet III, and the sophy Thamaseb, that Russia should hold the three provinces above mentioned, and that the Porte should have Kasbin, Tauris, and Erivan, besides what it should take from the usurper.
LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF PETER
[1723-1724 A.D.]
Peter, at his return from his Persian expedition, was more than ever the arbiter of the north. He openly took into his protection the family of Charles XII, after having been eighteen years his declared enemy. He invited to his court the duke of Holstein, that monarch’s nephew, to whom he betrothed his eldest daughter, and from that time prepared to assert his rights on the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, and even bound himself to it in a treaty which he concluded with Sweden (February, 1724). He also obtained from that power the title of royal highness for his son-in-law, which was a recognition of his right to the throne, should King Frederick die without issue. Meanwhile he held Copenhagen in awe of his fleet, and ruled there through fear, as he did in Stockholm and Warsaw.
The state of Peter’s health now warned him that his end was near; yet still he delayed to exercise the right of naming a successor, which he had arrogated to himself in 1722. The only step he took which might be interpreted as an indication of his wishes in that respect was the act of publicly crowning his consort Catherine. The ceremony was performed at Moscow (May 18th, 1724) in the presence of the czar’s niece, Anna, duchess of Courland, and of the duke of Holstein, his intended son-in-law. The manifesto published by Peter on this occasion deserves notice; after stating that it was customary with Christian monarchs to crown their consorts, and instancing among the orthodox Greek emperors Basilides, Justinian, Heraclius, and Leo the Philosopher, he goes on to say:
“It is also known how far we have exposed our own person, and faced the greatest dangers in our country’s cause, during the whole course of the last war, twenty-one years successively, and which, by God’s assistance, we have terminated with such honour and advantage, that Russia never saw a like peace, nor gained that glory which has accrued to it by this war. The empress Catherine, our dearly beloved consort, was of great help to us in all these dangers, not only in the said war but likewise in other expeditions, in which, notwithstanding the natural weakness of her sex, she voluntarily accompanied us, and greatly assisted us with her advice, particularly at the battle of the river Pruth against the Turks, where our army was reduced to 22,000 men, and that of the Turks consisted of 270,000. It was in this desperate exigency that she especially signalised a zeal and fortitude above her sex; and to this all the army and the whole empire can bear witness. For these causes, and in virtue of the power which God hath given us, we have resolved, in acknowledgment of all her fatigues and good offices, to honour our consort with the imperial crown, which, by God’s permission, shall be accomplished this winter at Moscow; and of this resolution we hereby give notice to all our faithful subjects, our imperial affection towards whom is unalterable.”
In this manifesto nothing was said of the empress’ succeeding to the throne; but the nation were in some degree prepared for that event by the ceremony itself, which was not customary in Russia, and which was performed with sumptuous splendour. A circumstance which might further cause Catherine to be looked upon as the presumptive successor was that the czar himself, on the coronation day, walked before her on foot, as first knight of the order of St. Catherine, which he had instituted in 1714 in honour of his consort. In the cathedral he placed the crown on her head with his own hand. Catherine would then have fallen on her knees, but he raised her up, and when she came out of the cathedral the globe and sceptre were carried before her.