The empress Anna was no sooner established upon the throne, than her friends gave her an opportunity of carrying the advice of General Iagushinski into effect. A petition signed by several hundred noblemen was presented to her, in which she was entreated to abrogate the restrictions which the council had placed upon her authority, and to assume the unlimited power that had hitherto been exercised by her predecessors. Fortified by this requisition, the empress presented herself before the council and the senate, and, reading the terms of the capitulation, demanded whether such was the will of the nation. Being answered in the negative by the majority of those who were present, she exclaimed, “Then there is no further need of this paper,” and tore the capitulation in pieces. This act was ratified and published in a manifesto which declared that the empress ascended the throne not by election but by hereditary right, and which exacted from the people an oath of allegiance, not to the sovereign and the country, as had formerly been the case, but to the empress alone, as unlimited sovereign, including not only the rights of sovereignty already existing but those that might be asserted hereafter.
Anna was now empress without conditions, and her chamberlain, von Biren, was raised to that place in her councils which Menshikov filled during the reign of Catherine I. The first exercise she made of her power was to abolish the council of seven and to restore to the senate the privileges it enjoyed under Peter the Great. She appointed, however, a cabinet of three persons, with Ostermann at its head, whose duty it was to superintend the affairs of the most pressing importance, leaving to the senate the management of less momentous matters. When these arrangements were completed, the urgent attention of the empress was directed to the foreign relations of the empire, which, at this crisis, demanded serious consideration.
The struggle for the throne in Poland had entailed jealousies which threatened not only to involve the peace of Russia but to draw France and Sweden into the quarrel. The cause of Augustus, the elector of Saxony, which had originally been espoused by Peter I, was still maintained by the Russian cabinet; and, although France made strenuous exertions to reinstate Stanislaus, the father-in-law of Louis XV, yet, by the determined interference of his northern ally, Augustus was proclaimed king of Poland, and Stanislaus was compelled to fly. The mortification which France endured under these circumstances excited in her a strong feeling of hostility against Russia; but there existed still more cogent reasons why she should make an attempt to restrain the advances of that power.
It had long been a favourite point in the policy of France to secure upon the throne of Poland a monarch who should be devoted to her will, and although she had been hitherto defeated in that object, she did not relinquish the hope of its ultimate accomplishment. She saw also rising in the north a gigantic empire, which had already acquired extraordinary power in Europe, and which threatened at last to overshadow and destroy the influence which she had been accustomed to exercise in that part of the globe. Urged by these considerations, and knowing how important it was to Russia to be at peace with Sweden, she left no means untried to engage the court at Stockholm on her side. Her diplomacy succeeded even better than she expected and Russia was once more compelled to watch with vigilance the movements of a dangerous neighbour, who was still suffering under the disastrous effects of a war from which Russia had reaped all the benefits and she the misfortunes.
But affairs pressed with still greater energy in a more remote quarter. It was found by experience that the territories which Peter had acquired in Persia by the treaty entered into between him, the sultan, and the shah were exceedingly burdensome to the country. In his desire for the enlargement of his dominions, Peter overlooked the necessity of ascertaining whether the new provinces were likely to be productive of advantages, either in the way of revenue or as adding strength to the frontiers. In order to preserve the possession of those provinces, it was necessary to maintain a considerable garrison in the interior, even in time of peace; they were also frequently exposed to scenes of warfare and devastation; and the climate was so injurious to the health of the Russians that in the course of a few years no less than 130,000 men perished there.
[1735 A.D.]
The great cost of these dependencies, and their uselessness in a territorial point of view, determined Anna to relinquish them upon the best terms she could procure from the shah. She accordingly proposed to that prince the restoration of the conquered provinces, upon condition that he would grant to the Russian merchants certain commercial privileges in the trade with Persia. To these terms the shah acceded, and in 1735 Russia made a formal surrender of her Persian possessions. This negotiation was connected with another of still greater importance—a defensive treaty between Persia and Russia, which was concluded at the same time. The motives which induced Anna to enter into this alliance require a brief recapitulation of preceding events.
The unfortunate situation in which Peter I was placed upon the banks of the Pruth compelled him to submit to the terms dictated by the Porte, by which he surrendered many important advantages which he had previously obtained by conquest. The principal sacrifices he had made upon that occasion were the evacuation of Azov and the destruction of the fortifications at Taganrog which had the immediate effect of shutting him out from the trade on the Euxine. The annoyances also to which the empire was subjected by the frequent incursions of the Crimean and other Tatars into the border lands, where they committed the most frightful excesses, and the haughty refusal of the Porte to acknowledge the imperial title which the people had conferred upon him, led Peter to meditate a new war against the Turks. He made ample preparations for the fulfilment of this design by fortifying the frontiers in the neighbourhood of Turkey; but his death arrested the execution of the project, which was entirely laid aside by Catherine I and Peter II.
Anna, however, relying upon the assistance of thirty thousand auxiliaries from Germany, considered this a favourable opportunity for reviving a stroke of policy which promised such signal advantages to the country, particularly as the Turk was at this period employed in hostilities against Persia. She did not long want an excuse for opening the war. The Tatars had of late made several predatory inroads upon the Russian territories, and laying waste the districts through which they passed carried off men and cattle on their return. These Tatars being under the protection of the Porte, the empress remonstrated upon the subject, and demanded satisfaction; but the sultan, in his reply, excused himself from interfering in the matter, upon the pretext that it was impossible to keep those roving bands under proper restraint. This evasive reply was precisely what Anna anticipated, and as the sultan declined to render her any atonement, she undertook to obtain retribution for herself. A force was immediately despatched into the country of the Tatars, which they overran, spreading ruin in their path, and destroying the marauders in great numbers. The expedition failed, however, in consequence of the incautious advance of the troops too far into the interior, where, not being prepared with a sufficient stock of provisions, they underwent severe privations, and sustained a loss of ten thousand men.
But this discomfiture did not divert the empress from her grand design; and in the year 1736 Count Munich, at the head of a sufficient force, was sent into the Ukraine, with a free commission to retaliate upon the Tatars. After a victorious course through that region, he passed into the peninsula of the Crimea; the Tatars, unequal to contending with him in the open field, flying before him until they reached their lines, extending from the sea of Azov to the Euxine, behind the intrenchments of which they considered themselves secure. The lines were established with a view to protecting the Crimea from any attack on the land side; and, having been built with incredible toil, and being strongly fortified with cannon, the Tatars deemed them impregnable. They did not long, however, withstand the vigorous assault of the Russians, who speedily scaled them, and, driving the tumultuous hordes before them, soon possessed themselves of the greater part of the Crimea. But the same inconveniences were felt on this as on the former expedition. The Tatars on their flight laid the country in ashes, and it was impossible to provide sustenance for the troops without keeping up a constant communication with the Ukraine, where provisions at least were to be had, but which was attended with great difficulty. In this exigency, Count Munich was obliged to return to the Ukraine, to take up his winter quarters.