The revolution which was thus organised was promptly accomplished. The regent was arrested in the middle of the night, in his house, by a detachment of the guards; and the principal senators assembled in the palace before daybreak, and acknowledged the princess Anna as grand duchess of Russia, and guardian of her son the infant emperor. This proceeding was the work of a few hours. Biron was at first confined in the castle of Schlüsselburg, whence he was removed as a prisoner and brought to trial for obtaining the regency by improper means, for squandering the imperial treasures, for treating with contumely the parents of the emperor, and for violating the statutes and ordinances so as to throw the empire into confusion. For these capital offences he was condemned to death; but his sentence was mitigated to perpetual banishment to the deserts of Siberia, where, in addition to the ordinary miseries of that forlorn region, he was compelled to associate in the labours of the numerous wretches whom he had himself condemned to the same fate. [He was, however, set at liberty by Peter III, and Catherine II ultimately restored to him the duchy of Courland.]
Anna of Brunswick Assumes the Regency (1740 A.D.)
The regency of the princess Anna was slightly perplexed at its opening, by the importunate demands of Munich to be placed at the head of the army—a post which Duke Ulrich appropriated to himself, and peremptorily refused to relinquish. As a compensation, however, to Munich, he removed Ostermann, and appointed his rival in his place as first minister of the government. Munich did not long hold this office: failing to accomplish a course of policy which he urged upon the regent, he tendered his resignation, which was unexpectedly accepted. Frustrated in his hopes, he lingered in St. Petersburg, anticipating that he would be recalled; but the period of his utility was past, and his anticipations were disappointed. The ground of his retirement involved a serious change in the foreign policy of the empire. Frederick II had just ascended the throne of Prussia, and, regarding with jealousy the alliance that had been formed between the courts of St. Petersburg and Vienna, endeavoured to accomplish a union with Russia through the regency of Munich, whose antipathy to Austria was notorious. Frederick did not find it very difficult to work upon the vanity and prejudices of the minister, who was easily brought to prevail upon the regent to enter into a defensive treaty with the cabinet of Berlin; both parties mutually binding themselves to furnish assistance, as occasion might require, to the extent of twelve thousand men. In consenting to this treaty, the regent mentally resolved to fulfil the stipulation it enjoined, only so long as Prussia should be at peace with Austria. An occasion soon offered which obliged her to act upon this secret resolution, Frederick having signified his intention of taking possession of Silesia as a part of the inheritance of Maria Theresa. In consequence of this proceeding, a new alliance was formed with Austria at the commencement of the year 1741, by which a fresh engagement to furnish auxiliaries was entered into. Munich in vain remonstrated against this measure; and at last, finding his influence at an end, he solicited permission to resign, which was granted to him at once. Notwithstanding the disposition thus manifested on the part of Russia, she did not take any part in the war between Prussia and Austria; particularly as the king of Poland and the elector of Saxony, who also raised pretensions to the patrimony of Theresa, protested against the progress of the Russian troops through Poland; Sweden at the same time threatening the empire on the borders of Finland.
Sweden Renews the War
[1741 A.D.]
The Swedes had long looked anxiously for an excuse to make war against Russia; and now that the government of that empire was, to a certain degree, unpopular, and likely from that circumstance to undergo an alteration, a favourable opportunity appeared to present itself for executing a project so gratifying to the whole nation. The ambassador of France at the court of Stockholm encouraged the council to prosecute this war; while the French minister at St. Petersburg demonstrated its facility by representing in strong colours the weakness and instability of the new administration. The Swedes, flattered by the hopes in which they were led to indulge, already calculated with certainty upon the results of the campaign; and the diet at Stockholm were so sanguine of success that they actually drew up no less than three sets of articles containing the conditions which they intended to dictate at the conclusion of the war, when they were assured Russia would be compelled to submit to any terms they might propose. By these articles, they made provision for the resumption of all the provinces that had been ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Nystad; and prepared arrangements, in the event of these not being quite so successful as they expected, by which certain terms, less humiliating but exceedingly extravagant, were to be forced upon their adversary. It was decided, at all events, that, in any case, Russia should surrender Karelia, Ingermanland, and Livonia; that she should not be permitted to keep a single ship on the Livonia or Esthonian coasts; and that she should be compelled to grant the free exportation of corn.
These plans of aggrandisement were deliberately settled by the diet, before any preparations were made for their execution. The Swedes were zealous enough in their desire to wrest from Russia her conquered territories; but they were lamentably deficient in the means by which that desire was to be accomplished. Their fleet was not seaworthy; and the army, brave to a proverb, was insufficiently furnished with provisions, and so destitute of skilful commanders that if it had achieved a victory it must have been by some miracle of good fortune, and not by its own prowess. The generals Levenhaupt and Buddembrock were the most strenuous advocates of the war; yet, although its conduct was committed to their own hands, the sequel proved that the enterprise was as rashly conceived as it was badly conducted.
Russia was the first in the field; and General Lacy, advancing on the Swedes in August, 1741, before they had time to organise their forces, obtained a signal victory over them near Vilmanstrand. This fortress immediately surrendered to the Russians; but the Swedes collected in such superior numbers that no further progress was made by Lacy throughout the rest of the campaign.
When Sweden entered upon this ill-advised war, she acted under a conviction that serious discontents prevailed in Russia against the regency of the duchess of Brunswick. The sudden changes, succeeding each other with marvellous rapidity, that had taken place in the imperial government, justified, in some measure, the supposition that the present regency was as much exposed to revolution as the preceding administrations. The question of the succession had been treated so vaguely, and had been subjected to such fluctuating decisions, that it was believed some new theory would be set up to annul the last election, as others had been annulled before. There was no doubt that the division of parties in Russia afforded a reasonable ground for anticipating a convulsion. The supreme power had latterly become the prize for which base and ambitious men, without hereditary pretensions and destitute of personal merit, had struggled with various degrees of success. There was evidently no settled principle of inheritance; and even the dangerous principle sanctioned by the example of Peter the Great, which gave to one unlimited sovereign the right of choosing another to succeed him, was acted upon capriciously, and appealed to or overruled as it happened to suit the exigency of the occasion.
The brief reigns of Catherine, of Peter, and of Anna, remarkable as they were for the confusion to which they led in the attempts to settle the crown, for the vicissitudes which they drew down upon persons who had previously enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity, and for the factious views which they extracted and condensed into conspiracies, might be referred to as furnishing the probabilities of the future, and confirming the hopes of those who desired, above all things, to see Russia once more broken up by civil commotions. The antipathy which existed against foreigners, and the objections of the old aristocracy to those European reforms that had been from time to time forced upon the people, were well known to the courts of Stockholm and Paris. The vulnerable point in the domestic concerns of the empire was laid bare; and Sweden, who anticipated a revolution from some cause or other, without being able to predicate from what precise ground of discontent it would spring, resolved, at all events, to expose to the Russians the permanent evil of their condition, leaving it to work its effects as it might. With this view she issued a manifesto, containing the following artful reasons, which were designed to draw with her the sympathies of the Russian population.