OF
OF MICHI
. THE UNIVERSIT

2
THE
MICHIGAN.
'
LIBR
1811
ARIES


1
RUSSIA
AND
THE RUSSIANS.
RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS,
COMPRISING AN ACCOUNT OF
THE CZAR NICHOLAS
AND THE HOUSE OF ROMANOFF,
WITH A SKETCH OF
THE PROGRESS AND ENCROACHMENTS OF RUSSIA
FROM THE TIME OF THE EMPRESS CATHERINE.
By J. W. COLE, H. P. 21st FUSILIERS.
“Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whoso conscience with injustice is corrupted."
SHAKESPEARE.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
1854.
Grad
pk
2111
-C68
1854
PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS,
LONDON GAZETTE OFFICE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE,
Hatch / Grad
5000 66485
russ
8-11-os
RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS.
AFTER forty years of peace, the advent of a
general war announces itself by signs and tokens
which can no longer be mistaken. The enlight-
ened nations of the world are driven into an
alternative which they never desired less, and
have struggled to avoid, until forbearance is con-
strued into pusillanimity. Occupied with inter-
nal improvements and the interchange of com-
merce, long experience has taught them that the
steam engine and the electric telegraph are more
wholesome reasoners, more potent instruments of
civilization and happiness, than the bayonet, the
sabre, or the musquet ball. The brand of Althæa
B
2
THE NEW WAR.
is as unwelcome as mischievous, and we may hope
the fire it seeks to kindle, in this instance, will
consume, not the intended victim, but the vindic-
tive aggressor. Those who study prophecy declare
loudly, that the fulfilment of great events foretold
in scripture, but as yet unaccomplished, is rapidly
to be expected. Many theories have been promul-
gated on this subject, which have excited much
interest, and would be more convincing, but that
they are sometimes contradictory and not always
intelligible. On one point only is there perfect
unanimity of opinion; namely, that Russia is to
be the prime mover, the exciting cause in the
mighty struggle about to commence; but whether
::
she is to issue triumphant from the trial she has
80 wantonly provoked, or to be pared down from
her overweening pretensions, and restrained within
reasonable limits for the future, is another ques-
tion in the argument which time only can bring
to an uncontradicted solution. As far as the doc-
trine of chances is open to human calculation, or
the transactions of men are regulated by human
agency; inasmuch as a good cause is preferable
to a bad one, and Providence smiles on the side
of justice, we have little to fear for the result, and
may buckle on our armour in the confidence of
victory. The ambition of the King of the North,
like a portentous comet “with fear of change per-
THE DESTINY OF RUSSIA.
3
plexing nations,” has long hung over us, exciting
undefined terrors, and a perpetual feverish dread
of ruin and combustion—the sword of Damocles
for ever threatening to fall. The time appears to
have arrived when the string by which it is sus-
pended must be cut, the weapon wrested from
the hands that have sharpened it, and turned in
retribution on themselves. When Napoleon crossed
the Niemen in 1812, with continental Europe
obedient to his nod, and an invading army for
which history had no parallel since the days of
Xerxes, he exclaimed with oracular confidence,
“ Let the destinies of Russia be accomplished ! ”
They were, for a time (but in a manner opposite
to what he had predicted), in his own discomfiture,
and the annihilation of his gallant legions. Per-
haps a similar impression stamped itself on the
mind of Nicholas, when he ordered the passage of
the Pruth, in the summer of 1853, and poured his
unwelcome visitants into the defenceless Princi-
palities. The deeply revolved and long-hoarded
project of many years then declared itself in spite
of diplomatic chicanery and plausible avowals of
moderation. An able and well-informed writer
(M. Schnitzler, “Secret History of Russia") has
”
said, that the future prospects of his country
depend mainly upon the present emperor, and
that it seems as if Providence had reserved great
B 2
4
NORTHERN AMBITION.
things for him. The prediction may be fulfilled in
"an inverted sense, as in the preceding example of
Napoleon. Instead of furnishing a parallel in
glory and success to the great Emathian con-
queror, it seems more likely that he will
pass
into
a proverb with Nebuchadnezzar, Crosus, Xerxes,
and Darius. The world cannot submit to be
periodically disturbed, but calls loudly for the
final abatement of an intolerable nuisance. When
the sword is once drawn it will not be safe to
sheathe it, until the common enemy is effectually
crippled, and we can apply to him in essence, if
not in reality, the words which Shakspeare puts
into the mouth of King Edward, when he brings
in his disabled enemy, Warwick, on the field of
Barnet :-
.
66
So, lie thou there; and with thee die our fear;
For Warwick was a bug, that fear'd us all.”
It is well known, that the Russian autocrat re-
jected the recent pacific overture of the French
emperor peremptorily, and with sufficient want of
courtesy. He will not allow the Western powers
to interfere with what he calls his private misun-
derstanding with Turkey. As in a domestic
quarrel between man and wife, he considers the
interference of strangers unnecessary and imper-
tinent. When he hears of our preparations for an
TUE GREEK CHURCH.
5
immediate visit to the Baltic, he may say con-
temptuously, as his grandmother, Catherine the
Second, did to the British ambassador in 1791,
under similar circumstances:"As your Court seems
determined to drive me from St. Petersburgh,
I hope it will permit me to retire to Constanti-
»
nople.” *
a
a
Nicholas is either insane, blinded by systematic
ambition, or urged on by fanaticism, and a belief
that he is a chosen instrument to place the Greek
faith above all other forms of worship, and to
establish it as the true symbol of Christianity
amongst the different races of men. All these
causes have been assigned for his conduct, and
either will suffice to carry out the probable conse-
quences. The speeches which are put into the
mouths of sovereigns in their desultory conver-
sations on state affairs, are not much to be de-
pended on, either as indicating their real senti-
ments, or as correctly delivered. If we can trust
report, Nicholas has said, that Russia need not
fear any coalition, and that after beating Charles
the Twelfth, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon,
her resources and armies are invincible. In this
deduction, truth and falsehood are blended toge-
ther in almost equal proportions. Some of the
* See “ Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East."
London, 1854.
6
CHARLES THE TWELFTH.
abstract facts may be proved, but they bear
neither resemblance nor parallel to the present
state of affairs. Charles the Twelfth rushed in-
cautiously to his own ruin, by holding his enemy
in ill-judged contempt. The easy victory of Narva
laid the foundation for the disaster of Pultowa.
He fell more under his own mistakes than under
the power or prowess of his enemy. Napoleon
furnished a more memorable instance on a grander
scale, and with less excuse, for he had the example
of the Swedish monarch before his eyes, while at
the same time he adopted, in many respects, and in
leading points, the plan of campaign he so empha-
tically condemned in his predecessor. In either
case, the natural obstacles, the elements, and the
errors of the invaders, proved the most available
defences of Russia. At Narva, on the 30th of
November, 1700, ten thousand Swedes stormed
the Russian intrenchments, and drove eighty
thousand men before them like a flock of sheep.
At Pultowa, on the 8th of July, 1709, an ex-
hausted band of twenty-four thousand, contain-
ing not more than half the proportion of Swedes,
attacked fifty thousand Russians, and almost
snatched a victory, until fairly borne down and
ovewhelmed by numbers. The king, unable to
mount his horse from a previous wound, was not
as usual at their head to lead them into the thickest
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
7
a
of the fight; but issued his directions from a litter,
to generals who acted without concert, and troops
disheartened by the absence of a commander
under whom they had never known defeat. At
Borodino, with equal forces, about one hundred
and twenty thousand on each side, the Russians
were forced to abandon a fair field, selected by
themselves to make their stand and cover their
capital; and might have been utterly destroyed,
had Napoleon listened to the urgent entreaties of
Ney and Murat, and followed up the advantages
gained, with his characteristic decision. For once,
and in a most momentous crisis, he wavered and
halted, when he ought to have rushed on with the
overwhelming force of a thunderbolt or an ava-
lanche. This unaccountable apathy has never
been sufficiently explained; but the supposition
of Count Ségur seems the most probable, that he
was enfeebled by fever, and his mind for the
moment prostrated by the sufferings of his body.
It is certain that he never mounted bis horse
during this great battle, but despatched orders
to the several marshals and corps, in conformity
with the reports they furnished, as the varying
conflict assumed different aspects.
It cannot be denied that Russia beat Frederick
the Great, in the rigid acceptation of the term ;
since the annals of the Seven Years' War enu-
8
PRUSSIAN DEFEATS
merate three great battles, in two of which they
were successful. At Gros-Jagersdorff, or Nor-
kitten, in Prussia, on the 30th August, 1757,
Marshal Lehwald, with less than thirty thousand
men, attacked eighty thousand Russians, under
Field Marshal Apraxin. The combat was obstinate
and bloody, both sides claiming the victory; but
the advantage rested with the Russians, who
occupied a well posted camp, fortified with a
numerous artillery. Their loss was much heavier
than that of their opponents; but comparative
lists of killed and wounded are unsafe criteria by
which to estimate the result of a battle. Marl-
borough and Eugene drove Villars from his in-
trenched position at Malplaquet; so did Dumou-
rier dislodge the Austrians from the heights of
Jemmappes; but in either case, the victors
suffered much more severely than the vanquished.
At Zorndorff, on the 25th August, 1758, the
King of Prussia attacked General Fermor, and
totally defeated him with immense loss, although
with far inferior numbers. The Russians fought
with the steady resolution for which they are
remarkable, and struggled hard to redeem the
faulty dispositions of their leader; but they fell
into irretrievable confusion, and left above twenty-
five thousand killed, wounded, and prisoners on
the field, with twenty-seven colours, and one
BY THE RUSSIANS.
9
hundred and three pieces of cannon.
Their
second line, as it advanced, fired upon the first,
and did nearly as much execution as the opposing
enemy. The soldiers plundered their own bag-
.
gage, got drunk with brandy, mutinied against
their officers, and made no distinction between
friends and foes.
At Cunnersdorff, on the 12th of August, 1759,
Frederick, relying on his former success, laid
himself open to a ruinous reverse.
With fifty
thousand men, he ventured to assail Count
Soltikoff, who commanded ninety thousand, and
had the additional advantage of double lines
strongly fortified. For the first six hours he
carried all before him, and drove the Russians
from their posts with prodigious slaughter; but
making a desperate attempt with his exhausted
troops on the last intrenched eminence, near
the Jews' burying ground, his infantry were twice
repulsed, losing many thousands of the best
soldiers in the world; and his cavalry, hitherto
irresistible, met with the same bad fortune. The
king was so confident of final victory, that, in the
heat of the action, he despatched couriers to
Berlin, announcing a decisive triumph, and
ordering a Te Deum in all the churches. The
Russian empress, Elizabeth, after the result,
directed a religious ceremony to be annually
10
POSSIBILITY OF REVERSES.
observed, to perpetuate the memory of this
sanguinary combat.
The greatest generals have met reverses, and
very few have been uniformly successful. He
who has made no mistakes in
war,
has made very
little war, as Turenne once observed, in reference
to a vain-glorious boaster, who pronounced him-
self infallible. Wise heads have declared, that
war is a tissue of errors, and the commander who
commits the fewest, wins the greatest proportion
of prizes. The result of battle depends on so
many incidental casualties, that calculation is often
baffled; as the dicer throws the very number which,
in the table of chances, is the least likely to
turn up. Frederick the Great, who, as a stra-
tegist, has never been surpassed in ancient or
modern times, sustained three memorable defeats,
and always through his own imprudence; this
of Cunnersdorff, against the Russians; Kollin, on
the 18th of June, 1757, where, with only thirty-
two thousand men, he attacked sixty thousand
Austrians; and Hochkirchen, on the 14th Octo-
ber, 1758,* where, with all his unrivalled talents
and experience in the art of war, he suffered
himself to be surprised and routed by Marshal
Daun. Out of twelve pitched battles fought in
>
* On the same day were fought the battles of Jena and Auer.
stadt, in 1806.
FAILURE OF WELLINGTON.
11
.
his many campaigns, he gained nine. Napoleon
delivered above forty, and lost but two great
fields — Leipzig and Waterloo. Marlborough
ventured only four, and won them all. His were
pre-eminently the days of sieges; he conducted
above twenty, and never invested a town that he
did not take; sometimes, too, as in the memor-
able instance of Lisle, in the face of armies
superior to his own. Wellington was foiled once
in an important enterprize, the siege of Burgos,
which political reasons compelled him to under-
take against time, and with inadequate means.
He was obliged to have recourse to sap, in the
absence of an effective breaching train, - not
from deliberate judgment or blameable impru-
dence, but from imperative necessity. As in the
previous cases of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos,
unless he could snatch the fortress away by a
given hour, nothing remained to close a most
brilliant campaign but a retreat to the frontiers
of Portugal, and there to wait for a fresh lion's
spring at a favourable conjuncture. The French
general Dubréton, who commanded at Burgos,
has not received the fair meed of fame to which
he is justly entitled, when we consider the
tenacity of his defence, and the consequences
involved. The
man who, with handful
of soldiers, could detain Wellington for thirty-
four days before a fourth-rate fortress, and suc-
a
12
THE SLAUGHTER AT SINOPE.
cessfully repel five assaults, entirely changing, for
a time, the overpowering current of events, was
no ordinary chieftain, and his name deserves
honourable mention from enemies as well as
friends. Wellington commanded in eighteen
general actions of the first class, and never left
the field except as a conqueror. In a fair esti-
mate of military pretension, the Russians had not
more to boast of in their encounters with
Frederick the Great, than in their late inglorious
achievement at Sinope, which they have signalized
by the prostitution of rewards and the blasphemy
of a thanksgiving. In both cases they presented
an overwhelming superiority of force, and de-
stroyed mercilessly, with unflinching Asiatic bar-
barism. The stern necessities of war are bad
enough when carried on in accordance with the
laws of civilized nations, who spare and save foes
that are incapable of resistance; but when sig-
nally violated from a mere thirst of slaughter,
they demand a signal retribution. The massacre
of Sinope will live for ever in future history as an
act of unequalled atrocity, which supersedes
the fate of Poland, commemorated by the poet of
Hope, as the “ bloodiest record in the book of
time.” When the Russian hordes threw them-
selves into the scale against the King of Prussia, he
was battling for existence with Austria, Saxony,and
France, all upon his hands together. They seized
POPULATION OF RUSSIA.
13
the temptiug opportunity, and plundered without
remorse the cities and provinces which for the
moment could make no resistance, and laid his
defenceless capital under contribution. There
was little even in the shape of pretext, except
that the lion appeared to be beaten to a stand-
still, and the hungry wolves were greedy for prey.
The present population of Russia, including
all her conquests, and the countries under her
protection, looks up towards sixty-five millions,
and surpasses that of France and England com-
bined. It increases more rapidly than is gene-
rally supposed; but being thinly scattered over
an enormous expanse, is not to be estimated by
a relative calculation of figures. In the United
Kingdom there are two hundred and twenty-five
souls to the square mile; in France, one hundred
and seventy-five; in Russia, not more than three.
At the same time, the geographical area of this
unwieldy empire exceeds that of France and
England, sixty-fold. Condensed population and
ready means of transport, are the real ingredients
of solid strength. This scale, and not the mere
extent of territory, is the true measurement of
power. When population increases in highly
cultivated countries, such as France and England,
it brings double nerve from a multiplication of
resources within a limited boundary, produced by
a
1
14
RESOURCES OF RUSSIA.
the augmenting ratio of industrial wealth. When
it expands through the uninhabited wastes of
Russia, where human life and energy are sprinkled
almost imperceptibly over vast districts hitherto
untenanted except by wild animals, or a few
nomadic tribes who migrate periodically without
fixed residence, the impression is too minute to
be felt before the lapse of centuries. The new
inhabitants derive from the land but little means
of subsistence, and the progress of fertilization is
slow and painful. On the other hand, the means
of France and England are available on the
instant. What with us is a question of hours,
becomes with Russia an argument for weeks,
months, and years.
We do not mean to say
Russia is either impotent or feeble, but she is not
that overpowering colossus which she has been
represented. It is true she has gone on from one
success to another, and her grasp is insatiate.
But she has been permitted, rather than is in
herself irresistible.
Apathy or incredulity has
favoured her; but if the eyes of Europe are not
now clearly opened, they will never again have so
promising an opportunity. Russian gold is always
actively at work, in addition to her cannon and
bayonets. The Hungarian chief, Arthur Georgey,
was apparently bought over, and betrayed the
cause of his country. Had he not done so, it is
BRIBES AND THREATS.
15
by no means certain, that even with the aid of
Russia, Austria would have entirely put down the
Hungarian revolt. The flame even now, is but
smothered, rather than burnt out. The author of
the “Frontier Lands of the Christian and the
Turk,” an authority of good repute, has no doubt
of the treachery of Georgey, and adds, as an elo-
quent commentary, that he was the only one of the
Magyar leaders (who had not sought voluntary
exile) that remained unscathed, and is now living
in a town in Austria, on a pension from the
emperor. Russian gold in 1812 purchased the
treachery of the Greek Murusi, who, while in the
Turkish service, was secretly in the pay of Russia,
and through whose diplomatic double-dealings,
Bessarabia was filched from the sultan. It is some
satisfaction to know, that, in this instance, the
traitor was punished by the loss of his head.
Russian gold bought Jussuf Pacha in 1829, when
he basely surrendered the fortress of Varna, and
uncovered the right flank of the Turkish army,
posted in the defiles of the Balkan. Russian
gold was profusely distributed by Prince Menzi-
koff in January, 1853, on his pretended errand to
Constantinople; and doubtless is now working the
calculated effect, in the revolt of the Greeks iv
Albania and other provinces.
16
TURKISH ERRORS.
а
The Turks, it is true, have been universally
unsuccessful in their contests with Russia, since
they circumvented Peter the Great on the banks
of the Pruth, and let him off easily when he lay
completely at their mercy. But they have com-
mitted greater mistakes since. In 1812, Russian
diplomacy prevailed over that of Napoleon, and
Turkey made peace with Russia exactly when
she should have continued the war with double
energy. The release of the army under Tchiga-
goff, threw a force upon the right flank and rear
of the French emperor, which, had it been com-
manded by generals of tolerable capacity, would
have rendered the retreat from Moscow impos-
sible, and not a man could have escaped. If
.
Turkey had then remained deaf to the cajolery
of Russia, and cordially co-operated with France,
she would not have been reduced to the state in
which she afterwards found herself in 1829, when
Diebitsch crossed the Balkan, and encamped on
the plains of Adrianople. And thus a second
a
time she allowed her foes to slide away when
there was no retreat, and to advance, with their
diminished powers, was certain destruction. At
present she is not likely to repeat those fatal
She has a general of first-rate ability,
a well organized army, and powerful allies.
errors.
THE RUSSIAN ARMY.
17
There is little danger of a second Navarino, a
second passage of the Balkan, or a repetition of
the treachery of Bucharest and Varna.
Either of the two great Western nations, France
or England, single-handed, is a match for Russia,
with the rest of Europe neutral. United we can
select our field of operations, and reduce her to
listen to such terms as we shall think
proper
to
dictate. Throughout her own extended territory,
in the sandy plains of Russia Proper, in the
steppes of Lithuania, in the deserts of Siberia, in
the wilds of Tartary, she is inaccessible; we are
not going to march our armies two thousand
miles inland, without a defined base of operations,
to perish in the snow; we have no intention of
going to her, but we can confine her within
bounds, and effectually prevent her from coming
to us.
At home, and in the wide circle of her
own limits, she is formidable. In aggressive and
distant wars, although insatiable in desire, she is
weak in execution. She cannot produce in the
field the large armies that are created in an ukase,
and terrify the credulous by imaginary numbers.
If so, how is it that they have never yet stood in
battle array, or been concentrated on a given
point in the hour of necessity ?
We read of eight
hundred thousand men, and as there are no
colonies to demand large garrisons, no distant
с
18
THE PLAINE DES VERTUS.
wars to operate as a perpetual drain, where are
they when their presence would overwhelm, crush
and annihilate opposition ? At Borodino, in the
heart of their vast empire, retiring on their re-
sources, and resolved at last to make a final stand
to save their capital, and fight for independence,
one hundred and twenty thousand was the fullest
extent of their muster-roll. Neither did they ever
exceed this aggregate in the successive invasions
of France, in 1814 and 1815. Moreover, the
Russian contingent would never have arrived at
all but for the subsidies of England. M. Schnitz-
ler, whose work is generally correct and authen-
tic in facts, as it is often sound in opinions, has
been misinformed, or is tinctured with prejudice,
when he says,
“ The assemblage in the Plaine des
Vertus (10th September, 1814) of a Russian army
of one hundred and sixty thousand men ready for
the field, struck with amazement the diplomatic
corps of Europe, who were present at the imposing
spectacle ; but such an exhibition of the military
strength of a vast empire alarmed them much less
than the invisible power and perfect moral influ-
ence which the greatness of soul and well-known
principles of the monarch who now reviewed his
troops had created.”
I cannot tell what were the
impressions of civilians and diplomatists to whom
I had no access, but happening to be an insignifi.
EXAGGERATED NUMBERS.
19
cant unit among many hundreds of military men
of all nations who were looking on, I can testify,
that as a mere military display we were neither
petrified with amazement nor awe. No mistakes
are so easily made as calculations on the numbers
of troops estimated from a coup d'æil; the gene-
ral belief was, that on this occasion they did not
amount to ninety thousand, and the entire Russian
contingent which marched up to Paris, subse.
quent to the battle of Waterloo and the second
abdication of Napoleon, I was assured by an officer
of the Russian staff, never exceeded, even on
paper, one hundred and ten thousand. At this
vaunted review, which had been long in prepara-
tion, and lasted three days, little or nothing was
done to illustrate strategy or capability of rapid
movement. Three days previous to the com-
mencement of the display, were required to place
them on the ground. On the first day of action,
the operations consisted in marching past in
review order ; on the second, they were confined
to performing worship according to the rites of
the Greek Church; and on the third, the whole
force marched off again to the cantonments from
whence they had been summoned. Not long after
this, in an after-dinner conversation, arising inci-
dentally, the Duke of Wellington proposed to the .
Allied Sovereigns, or they suggested to him, to
C2
20
THE ENGLISH ARMY.
shew them the British army with their allies in
British pay, including the Hanoverian and Danish
division, amounting in all to more than eighty
thousand men. A representation of the principal
manoeuvres and incidents of Salamanca, as nearly
as the ground permitted, was afterwards stated to
have been the programme agreed on for the evo-
lutions of the day. There was no previous an-
nouncement or rehearsal. At nine at night, the
orders were sent round to the different brigades,
and by eight on the following morning, the whole
were drawn up in two lines, the left resting on
Montmartre, and the right on the Seine, with
St. Denis a little in the rear. The Sovereigns
with a gallant escort, comprising many of the
leading generals of the day, rode hastily along the
front. All were then put in motion; the entire
day was occupied in a series of complicated move-
ments, and at seven in the evening the corps
marched past the assembled potentates, and re-
turned to their several quarters. The quickness
and precision of the evolutions, the martial bear-
ing and exact discipline of the men, and especially
the equipments of the horse artillery, excited the
loudest approbation. It was a proud day for
Britain, as showing a solid exhibition of her
power. Thousands still live who will recollect
the impression it produced, and the reminiscences
THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER.
21
will not incline them to join the ranks of despon.
dency. We have not at this moment, the same
numerical amount of men,
for we have not
hitherto required them, but we possess a sub-
stantial nucleus of similar materials, which we
can increase at pleasure, now that a necessity for
the supply has arisen. The Russian Imperial
Guards, during the occupation of Paris, in 1815,
were chosen troops, well appointed and imposing
in appearance; but their ordinary infantry of the
line were anything but formidable. They had
neither muscle nor stamina. Sir William Napier,
speaking of this same army, says, “If we believe
those writers who have described the ramifications
of the one huge falsehood of pretension, which,
they say, pervades Russia, her barbarity, using
the word in its full signification, would appear
more terrible than her strength. Nor can I ques-
tion their accuracy, having in 1815, when the
reputation of the Russian troops was highest,
detected the same falsehood of display without
real strength. For, from the imperial parades on
the Boulevards of Paris, where oiled, bandaged,
and clothed to look like men whom British
soldiers would be proud to charge on a field of
battle, the Muscovite was admired, I followed him
to his billet, where, stripped of his disguise, he
appeared short of stature, squalid and meagre,
22
FOOD OF THE SOLDIERS.
a
his face rigid with misery, shocking sight and
feeling-a British soldier would have offered
him bread rather than a bayonet.”* “The ave-
"
rage pay of the Russian soldier is about twelve
shillings per annum. In some corps, it is a little
more or less, but the difference only amounts to
a few pence per month. Instead of the substan-
tial broth and beef which constitute the daily
mess of the British regiment, his food consists of
coarse rye bread, fermented cabbage, and buck-
wheat grits, to which a little hempseed oil is
added. In the picked regiments of the Guards,
where the men are supposed to 'live like fighting
cocks,' they receive half a pound of meat either
twice or thrice a week. They are supplied with
quass, a drink no way intoxicating, as may be
inferred from the fact of a couple of slices of
sour bread allowed to ferment in half a bucket
of water, being the usual recipe to make it.”+
With this liberal allowanee of sustaining food, the
frame of the Russian soldier cannot be
very mus-
cular, and his empty interior is not much better
furnished than that of poor Tom in King Lear,
when, in the extremity of hunger, he howls out,
Hopdance cries in my belly for two white her-
rings !” Our readers who have seen Russian
* Conquest of Scinde. Part. I. 1845.
+ See Revelations of Russia.
RIGID DISCIPLINE.
23
soldiers under arms, or examined them indivi-
dually, may satisfy themselves that the accounts
given are not exaggerated. Yet they stand dog-
gedly on the field of battle, and will face death
with sullen resolution—the devotion of serfdom
rather than the impulse of heroism. There is a
spice of the Mohammedan predestinarianism, too,
mixed up with their passive courage. They believe
that a soldier who falls bravely in battle has
earned his passport into heaven without absolu-
tion or intermediate purgatory. Their doctrine is
submission, and they submit. Even in their
barracks, they preserve a staid, subdued demean-
our, which is the effect of iron discipline. They
are never joyous and light hearted. When off
duty, the song, the laugh, or the jest, seldom
issues from their mouths, or brightens up their
countenances. They have not the “ alacrity of
spirit,” the “cheer of mind," which animates
the British warrior, who has enlisted freely,
likes his profession, is satisfied with his lot, and
firmly believes, and intends to prove, when in the
field, that he is a better man than his opponent,
let that opponent be who he may. He considers
fight synonymous with victory, and feels as
confident of winning the battle he is about to
engage in, as the sailor on the look-out at the
mast-head of a frigate, who invariably shouts out
>
-
24
SONGS ON THE MARCH.
66
a
*
a prize! a prize!” if he discovers a three-decker
approaching.
“It is true," says Mr. O'Brien,* a very recent
observer, “ that at times, in marching, whole
battalions sing in chorus either the national
anthem, which is a fine solemn air, or some wild
melody generally of a warlike character, inter-
spersed with sharp cries and an occasional shrill
whistle. These latter songs are particularly
animated and spirit-stirring; and the quick rattle
of the drum, which is the sole instrumental
accompaniment, increases their exciting character.
To the listener, there is something sublime in
thus hearing thousands of manly voices blended
together in chorus, uttering sentiments of devo-
tion to God and the emperor, or of fierce defiance
to the enemies of the czar. But even in these
exhibitions, the sternness of military rule is seen.
Upon the faces of the men thus engaged, no trace
of emotion is visible; their tread is measured ;
their forms are erect: they are obeying a com-
mand, and not an impulse. The emotions of the
heart seem to have been drilled into order; and
expressions of love or anger, devotion or revenge,
are only awakened by the voice of their com-
mander."
>
* Journal of a Residence in the Danubian Principalities in
1853.
NATIONAL SONGS.
25
The effect of martial music or melody is doubt-
less of a very imposing character, and well cal-
culated to excite the spirits of participators and
listeners. We have heard the Russian national
anthem, and others of their most popular airs,
played by the bands, or chanted by regiments on
the march, but we were not deeply impressed
by either.
They have nothing in them to
compete with the majestic solemnity of our own
“God save the Queen," or the brilliant anima-
tion of the French “Marseillaise,” “Vive Henri
Quatre," or the “ Veillons sur le Salut de
l’Empire” of the old Imperial Guard.
The Normans advanced to the charge at
Hastings singing the song of Rollo, their favourite
chieftain, and founder of their greatness. On
the plains of Lutzen, in 1632, forty thousand
Swedish voices, led by their king, pealed forth
“Luther's Hymn” in unison, and then rushed to
the attack of the Austrian intrenchments. At
Bannockburn, the Scots knelt in speechless prayer
before the shock of battle. On observing this
the English monarch exclaimed, “They submit,
they sue for mercy !” “They do, indeed,"
observed one of his attendant barons, “but it is
to the King of kings alone !” The stern silence
of determination before the mortal combat, is
more formidable in reality than the eager shout
26
IGNORANCE OF THE OFFICERS.
of anticipated triumph, or the loud clangor of
military instruments. The one proceeds from
patriotic devotion or constitutional courage, an
innate resolve to do or die; the other is, in
some respects, a fictitious excitement, which may
subside as readily as it is provoked.
The Russian soldier obeys orders without
reasoning on their propriety, or thinking of the
consequences. He never presumes to question
the wisdom of his superiors, and is no tactician
like the lively, intelligent Gaul, who thinks him-
self as good a general as the feathered and deco-
rated marshal who directs his movements. The
Muscovite is constitutionally dull, and displays
little excitement except when he anticipates a
rich harvest of plunder. With honest Cuddie
Headrigg, he shows that he is not that dooms
stupid when it comes to lifting.”
Next to the commissariat, which is a nullity,
the greatest defect in the organization of the
Russian army is the inferiority of their regimental
officers, many of whom can scarcely read or write,
and command no respect from personal character.
The private soldier is badly clothed, ill paid,
worse fed, and totally neglected when in hospital,
whether from wounds or sickness. On the open-
ing of a campaign, no matter in what climate, or
at what period of the year, the Russian hospitals,
HOSPITAL EQUIPMENTS.
27
such as they are, soon become crowded with
inmates, who seldom go out again upon their legs.
In the meantime, the number of effective soldiers
in the daily states remains undiminished, for all
the authorities are equally interested in keeping
them up to the full amount. The mortality from
disease far exceeds that of any other European
army. Their sick are as heavy an incumbrance
as the camp followers of an Indian host. In
the war of 1828-9, which brought Diebitsch to
Adrianople, the Russians were computed to have
sacrificed 150,000 men, not more than one-third
of whom perished from death or casualties in the
field. The rest were the trophies of the hospital.
When a battle is reported to the Emperor
Nicholas, his first question is, not “How many
men are killed ?” but “How many musquets
are missing ?” He estimates the value of the
weapon far beyond that of the animated machine
who carries it. The latter is furnished by the
Boyars, the former he must pay for and replace
out of his own pocket. An imperial ukase, with-
out a checque on his banker, cannot create
powder and shot as easily as it can supply the
food for those philanthropic discoveries. The
men are the least expensive components of the
Russian army; hence they are furnished more
readily than their equipments. A British soldier
28
GENERAL PECULATION
is a costly article. He stands the country in at
least one hundred pounds sterling before he is
competent to face an enemy. Half a Russian
battalion may be sent into the field for the same
money.
The government allowances in Russia are not
insufficient in any of their military departments,
but they never reach the purposes for which they
are assigned. Every thing is done by contract,
and thus from the ministers of state to the gene-
rals of divisions, the colonels of regiments, the
inferior officers, and the subordinate provedores,
all descends in a graduated scale of peculation,
until the victimized soldier has nothing admi-
nistered to him but infinitesimal doses of pay and
provisions; and these he must live on, as com-
plaint leads to no redress but the knout and
Siberia.
An accute observer, Mr. Oliphant,* corroborates
this statement in a very impressive passage, which
we here subjoin: He says, speaking of Russian
operations in the south, “In addition to the
natural impediments presented by the configura-
tion of the country, the absence of roads, and the
rigour of the climate, all military operations are
crippled by that same system of wholesale corrup-
tion so successfully carried on in the naval depart-
:
* Russian Shores of the Black Sea, in the Autumn of 1852.
AMONG ALL RANKS.
23
ment. Indeed, it would be most unfair if one
service monopolised all the profits arising from
this source.
The accounts I received of the war
in the Caucasus from those who had been present,
exceeded anything of the sort I could have con-
ceived possible. The frightful mortality among
the troops employed there amounts to nearly
twenty thousand annually. Of these, far the
greater part fall victims to disease and starvation,
attributable to the rapacity of their commanding
officers, who trade in the commissariat so exten.
sively that they speedily acquire large fortunes.
As they are subject to no control in their dealings
with contractors in supplying their requirements,
there is nothing to check the ardour of speculation;
and the profits enjoyed by the colonel of a regi-
ment are calculated at £3000 or £4000 a year,
besides his pay. It is scarcely possible to appre-
hend at a glance the full effect of a process so
paralysing to the thews and sinews of war; or at
once to realise the fact, that the Russian army,
numerically so far superior to that of any European
power, and supplied from sources which appear
inexhaustible, is really in a most inefficient con-
dition, and scarcely worthy of that exaggerated
estimate which the British public seem to have
formed of its capabilities. It is not upon the plains
of Krasnai Selo, or Vosnesensck, amid the dazzling
30
ORGANIZED SYSTEM OF PLUNDER.
glitter of a grand field-day in the emperor's pre-
sence, that
any
correct notions can be formed of
the Russian army.
“The imperial plaything assumes a very different
appearance in the remote Cossack guard-house,
where I have scarcely been able to recognize the
soldier in the tattered and miserably equipped
being before me, or on a harassing march, or in
the presence of an indomitable enemy.
“We have only to remember that the present
position of Russia in the Caucasus has remained
unaltered for the last twenty-two years, notwith-
standing the vast resources which have been
brought to bear upon this interminable war, to
perceive that the brilliant appearance of the
Russian soldier on parade affords no criterion of
his efficiency in the field of battle; while no more
convincing proof could be desired of the gross
corruption and mismanagement which charac-
terise the proceedings of this campaign, than the
fact of an overwhelming force of two hundred
thousand men (quere, on paper ?) being held in
check for so long a period by the small but gallant
band who are fighting for their snow-clad moun-
tains and their liberty.”
This wholesale organized system of public plun-
der exceeds all that we have ever read or heard of,
in the history of ancient or modern peculation.
MORAL WEAKNESS.
31
Our own home practice is not without some shin-
ing examples, but they furnish the exceptions
rather than the rule. Verres in Sicily, and John
of Cappodocia at Constantinople, under Justinian,
were honest administrators of finance compared
with these insatiate bloodsuckers. Here is a true
and satisfactory solution of the supineness of the
Russian leaders in Wallachia, who cannot concen-
trate strength sufficient to drive the Turks from
Kalafat, or attempt the permanent passage of the
Danube. They poured into the undefended Prin-
cipalities more than nine months ago; time was
everything to them, that they might have the
chance of crushing Turkey before her allies could
come to the rescue; and yet they have been beaten
in every encounter with the troops of Omar Pacha,
and have looked for a long time on the Turkish
lines without venturing a decisive assault. If they
do not endeavour to strike a great blow before the
French and English auxiliaries arrive, their inac-
tivity is a confession of weakness more damaging
than a total defeat. In fact, they have neither
the forces they would wish the world to suppose,
nor generals capable of handling them, if they
were ready to march up to the Turkish intrench-
ments,
In a war with maritime nations, how can Russia
avail herself of her only two commercial outlets,
a
32'
POINTS FOR BLOCKADE.
the Sound and the Bosphorus, within which she
will be hermetically sealed by the overwhelming
fleets of France and England ? It is difficult to
answer this question, unless it be true, as Sir
Francis Head told us in 1851, on the authority of
the Hon. Captain Plunket, R.N., that Russia
could send thirty sail of the line to sea, before
England could send three. Our readers will start,
but they have no occasion to be under any appre-
hension. Matters are mended since that alarm
trumpet blew such a foreboding blast, and the
Liverpool merchants may rest assured that a
Russian squadron will not lay the Mersey under
contribution, seize the defenceless shipping, and
pillage their well-stored warehouses. The Musco-
vite nobility are luxurious as well as rich, but
their revenues are principally derived from kind,
nor can they easily convert their hides and tallow
into specie, if the ordinary channels of commercial
egress are impeded by a fleet of screw steamers.
There will soon ensue a paralysis of the body,
unless a timely cure is applied to the head. Be-
yond all doubt the Emperor Nicholas is indivi-
dually and solely responsible for the impending
storm which will soon burst in thunder on his
country; the feeling of all the world which is not
his, is against him, and not even the autocrat of
half that world, and the arbitrator of countless
PROSPECTS OF EUROPE.
33
millions can stand up before the battery of public
opinion, so heavily and so unanimously erected to
oppose his wild pretensions. Sooner or later the
crisis must have arrived, and most fortunate is it
that he has brought it on when we are well pre-
pared, and when an unexpected coalition between
former rivals has linked them together in a bond
of confiding amity. We may now fathom the
secret of his obstinacy. He has excited revolt and
revolution in Turkey, relying on his power to
coerce Austria, and to neutralize Prussia; but he
dreamed not of the possibility that France and Eng-
land would join the flags in friendship, which for so
many centuries had waved in opposition. Neither
did the first Napoleon believe in this, when from
his island prison he prophesied that Russia would
never pause until she held the destinies of Europe
in her grasp, and that there was no opposing
power strong enough to prevent this consummation.
We have already quoted from M. Schnitzler;
we must add a passage from his preface, empha-
tically important, and which should never be lost
sight of, until the impending war has satisfactorily
solved the problem. “The position which Russia
“
is to hold in Europe, is the greatest question
perhaps for the future to unravel; its solution will
be of vital consequence to France, and still more
so to Germany, on which country the empire of
D
34
INCREASE OF POPULATION.
the Czars will press with all its mighty power as
soon as Poland shall no longer oppose an obstacle.
(To Poland he might have added Turkey.) As
regards France, the question is one of preponde-
rance, of influence, of equilibrium; but for Ger-
1
many, it is one of life or death, of independence,
even of nationality. It is high time to awake to
the perception of this menacing future which has
recently been so strikingly pointed out by Thiers
and De Lamartine; it is now incumbent on all to
study an empire, the position of which is calculated
to awaken such fears.
“The territory, once a desert, is now covered
with inhabitants, and in no part of the globe is
population more rapid. At the accession of Peter
the Great, only a century and a half ago, Russia
possessed but sixteen millions of souls; now she
has more than sixty millions! It is not chiefly
by conquest that she has gained this prodigious
increase ; for during that interval the superficies
of the empire has only augmented to the extent
of a fourth. It is to the proportional overplus of
births over deaths that this immense addition of
population is to be mainly attributed; a fact
worthy of the serious consideration of all Europe.
The same multiplying ratio may be remarked in
the resources of the empire.
“At the death of the great reforming Czar, the
INCREASE OF REVENUE.
35
entire revenue scarcely exceeded two millions and
a half sterling; at the commencement of the
present century it had amounted to fourteen
millions, and at the present date it cannot be
computed at less than twenty millions. Nor need
we point to the gold mines of the Ural and the
Altai, to explain this mighty increase.”
It may perhaps better be accounted for by the
constantly augmenting trade with England, and
the value of exports. All points connected with
the government of Russia are profound enigmas,
and the war, amongst other discoveries, will pro-
bably bring to a more reasonable level, the produce
of their boasted gold mines. If his treasury was
full, the Czar would hardly be compelled to have
recourse to an unpopular loan at the very outset
of a contest, for which he was so well prepared
with the vital sinews. It is ascertained, that he
has lately withdrawn all his money invested in
the French and English funds, and this, perhaps,
furnishes his chief capital for the coming struggle.
The Russian empire is of modern growth, although
of ancient origin; it was little known or felt in
Europe previous to the accession of Peter the
Great, in 1768. The sovereigns were first called
grand dukes, then czars, or kings, in the Sclavo-
nian dialect; and in 1721, only four years pre-
ceding his death, Peter assumed the title of empe-
D 2
36
MILITARY DEVELOPMENT.
>
1
ror, or autocrat. Such civilization as his coun-
try possessed before his reign, emanated from a
very unpromising source—the Greeks of the Lower
Empire, a degenerate race, who had outlived
their courage, patriotism, nationality, and pro-
ficiency in the arts and sciences; with whom
religion had lost her regenerating power, yielding
to the control of despotism, and never daring to
assert an independent influence. Peter himself
had found it necessary to make the express decla-
ration, in his commission of laws, that “Russia
is a European power.” The battle of Pultowa
established and obtained currency for a fact,
which until that momentous event, was scarcely
admitted. Russia rose progressively on the de-
cline of Sweden, who since that hour has subsided
from the lofty eminence on which she had been
placed by the victories of Gustavus Adolphus,
his generals and successors, down to the condi-
tion of a third-rate power, while the advanced
posts of her enemy look into her very capital,
from her ancient appanages of Finland, and the
islands of the Gulf of Bothnia. Finland was
wrested from Sweden by the late Emperor Alex-
ander, in 1808, under the specious plea of protec-
tion, and to compel the King of Sweden to with-
draw himself from the close connection with
England (so essential to the interests of his
SEIZURE OF FINLAND.
37
country) and which power the Russian dictator
was pleased to denominate “the common enemy,
and disturber of the tranquillity of Europe.”
Not many months before, he was receiving our
subsidies, and brought his armies up to Eylau
and Friedland with English money. At that
time he was fascinated by the genius of Napoleon,
and being bribed by the secret conditions of the
treaty of Tilsit, expected to divide the empire of
the world with France. His apologists have said
that he had no choice, and was compelled to
succumb to measures which he secretly disap-
proved; but the statement is unsupported by
evidence. The position of his affairs was far from
being desperate, and though defeated, he was not
shivered, as Austria and Prussia had been in 1805
and 1806. The plain fact appears to be, that he
coveted Finland to complete his northern fron-
tier; he was determined to obtain the province
which was now offered to his grasp, and although
his commerce was certain to be annihilated for
a time, by a war with England, and the revenue
of his empire seriously diminished, he calculated
on retrieving that mischief at some future oppor-
tunity. Equally as unscrupulous as his prede-
cessors and successor, he cared little for solemn
obligations, the faith of treaties, or personal cha-
racter, where monarchical ambition intervened.
ވާ
38
THE HOUSE OF ROMANOFF.
Chateaubriand has said of him (Congrès de Vienne,
vol. i. p. 180), “Sincere as a man, in all that
concerned humanity, Alexander was cunning as
a demi-Greek in all that related to politics."
Napoleon went beyond this at St. Helena, and
pronounced him “a consummate Greek of the
a
Lower Empire.” Napoleon was no worshipper of
truth, the very child of passion, and slave of
prejudice; but in this instance, he has not de-
parted from justice in summing up the character
of his former friend. And what compensation
did Sweden receive from the allied sovereigns in
the sequel ? Norway was wrested from Denmark,
to punish her for unswerving honesty, and added
to the Scandinavian kingdom, as a counterpoise
for her most valuable, indigenous, and loyal
province,—an act of legalized dismemberment,
almost as iniquitous as the passive consent to the
partition of Poland, and quite as fatal a mistake
in the re-organization of the map of Europe.
The reigning family of Russia, the house of
Romanoff, as it is usually called (Holstein-Got-
torp would be the more correct designation), is of
comparatively recent origin, and dates from
Michael Fedorovitch, who was elected to the
sovereignty on the extinction of the ancient line
of Ruric, which occurred in 1598, after that race
had governed for seven centuries. A troubled
>
RUSSIAN GENEALOGIES.
39
no
on
interval of fifteen years had been occupied by civil
commotions, foreign intrigues, impostors and
usurpers, who appeared and disappeared as
rapidly as the characters in a melodrama. The
Romanoffs were more than distinguished
nobles, distantly connected the female
side with the dynasty of Ruric; in the earlier
documents and chronicles they are scarcely no-
ticed. All that is known of their genealogy, has
been summed up by Müller, a great Russian
antiquarian, in the following passage (quoted by
M. Schnitzler), placed at the head of his life of
Field Marshal Chérémétieff, whose family, as well
as those of Kolytcheff, Jakovleff, Konovnitsyn,
and Neplonièff, had a common origin with the
house of Romanoff.
“ The genealogical books, which from very an-
cient times have been compiled, little by little, with
the object of proving the high origin of the most
illustrious Russian families, give the Romanoffs
and the Chérémétieffs the same founder; whom
they sometimes call a Verèque, sometimes a
Prussian, and sometimes a German; names, all
of which anciently designated one and the same
people. They place his arrival in Russia, under
the reign of the Grand-Prince John Danilovitch
Kalita (the Purse), or of his son the Grand-
Prince Simeon Joannovitch Gordiè (the Proud);
40
MICHAEL ROMANOFF.
an unimportant difference, since the former
ascended the throne in 1328, and the latter died
in 1353. It is recorded that at that period, a
man of distinction, Andrew Joannovitch, sur-
named Kobyla, came to Moscow to serve under
the Grand Prince. On account of this surname,
his prosterity figure in the genealogical books,
under the name of Kobylin. As at that time the
crusading brothers were making war in Livonia,
in order to spread the christian religion, and to
advance their own fortune; and as Russia, at the
same time being pressed hard by the Tartars,
promised considerable rewards to men of proved
valour, it is permissible to represent the ancestor
of the Romanoffs and Chérémétieffs, as a knight,
who, a native of Germany, went first to Livonia,
and from thence to Russia to conquer the infidels.”
From this knight of the fourteenth century,
lineally descended Michael Romanoff (Fedor-
ovitch), who was the son of a boyar, and owed the
crown to which he was called in 1613, to the
best of all titles, a free, unbought, and unpre-
judiced election. It was not personal ambition,
or the overwhelming influence of family con-
nections, that made him Czar; but the desire of a
nation—the same voice of millions, which has given
to Napoleon the Third the legitimacy he so ably
vindicates by a wise and patriotic government.
a
2
ORIGIN OF HIS HOUSE.
41
The genealogical tree of the house of
Romanoff has little pretension to antiquity in
the estimate of those desperate archæologists
(and they are not few in number), who consider
the Norman Conquest an event of yesterday, and
in the enthusiasm of their researches, would get
behind the Deluge, and with the advocate in
Racine's comedy, travel back to a starting-point,
avant le commencement du monde.”
The members of this dynasty succeeded to the
throne in early youth. Michael was seventeen at
the period of his election. He reigned thirty-
two years, and died in 1645, aged forty-nine.
His son and successor, Alexis, was at that time
fifteen. His reign extended over thirty-one
years, and at his death in 1676, he was only a
few months more than forty-seven.
Theodore the Third, John the Fifth, and Peter
Alexiovitch (the Great), were each sovereigns at
the respective ages of nineteen, sixteen, and ten.
Theodore died in 1682, after a short rule of six
years, and still under twenty-five. John, in
feeble health and endowed with limited faculties,
reigned nominally with his younger brother
Peter; until his death in 1696, in his thirtieth
year, left to that great monarch the sole care of
consolidating, or we may almost say, of forming
the most extended empire the world had ever
His sons,
42
PETER THE GREAT,
seen. He was then twenty-five, in the fullest
vigour of mind and body, with an iron constitu-
tion, an active enterprising mind, a thirst after
knowledge, and an indomitable perseverance.
Previous to his reign, Russia had been little
thought of in the councils of Europe, was hardly
recognized, and ridiculed rather than feared.
With him therefore begins the historical and
political importance of his country. Her earlier
annals may occupy or amuse the idly curious, but
will not repay the time and labour of investiga-
tion.
Peter the Great, as is well known, worked as
a labouring shipwright and in disguise, in the
dockyards of Holland, and at Deptford, in Eng-
land. So deeply was he impressed with the
power of the English marine, that he was heard
to say, “If I were not Emperor of Russia, I
would desire above all things to be a British
admiral.” He was the great benefactor and re-
former of his nation, although unable to civilize
himself—a rare instance of profitable ambition,
all centred in the advancement of Russia, which
he steadily pursued and most successfully accom-
plished. In his public capacity, the title of
Great has seldom been more justly merited.
Peter governed alone after the death of John,
twenty-nine years, and died at fifty-three. His
HIS VIEWS.
43
reign and life, in duration, activity, and utility, may
be paralleled with that of our own Alfred. But
though living at a much later period, his mind
lacked the high moral refinement, the clear sense
of right and wrong, which marked the Saxon
monarch. He deemed that happiness, strength,
and prosperity, were concentrated in power; and
that wealth was the only solid basis on which
power
could be erected. He cared for ends more
than the means by which they were accomplished.
Moral improvement he made secondary to na-
tional interest, and when the second was looked
to, he began to think of the first. Alfred sought
to consolidate and improve a small kingdom,
by equal laws and an impartial administration
of justice; Peter incessantly laboured to extend
and enrich a large one, by encroachments on his
neighbours, and by inspiring his people with the
restless activity of commerce. The command of
outlets, rivers and ports, was the constant object
of his thoughts and enterprises. “The plan of
his general policy was grand and comprehensive.
To profit fully by the mighty streams of his
country; to govern the Baltic, and turn it to
account; to confine the Swedes to their pe-
ninsula; to enfeeble Poland by fomenting its
divisions; to draw the largest possible profit from
the decline of the Ottoman Empire; to bring
44
RUSSIA AND SWEDEN
under the sphere of his own predominance, the
christians of Europe and Asia, who wore the
yoke of the Turks or Persians; to spread his
influence, and to extend his future commerce to
those regions which with a lengthened line joined
his own dominions, and even to go beyond them;
to gain for himself weight and consideration in
the affairs of the West—such were the projects of
the great Alexis Romanoff, embarrassed and
increased by all the difficulties which his passion
for reform had heaped up around him."*
As much of this system, so deeply organised,
as circumstances permitted, he carried steadily out
during the time that was allotted to him; the rest
he bequeathed to his successors, and subsequent
history has shown how pertinaciously they have
trod in his footsteps, and on what regular pro-
gression these great plans have advanced to ful-
filment, though occasionally checked by the
want of ability to understand, the absence of will
to execute, or the temporary intervention of some
counteracting agency.
Russia has been twice saved by invasions which
threatened to destroy her. The real danger was
more imminent the first than the second time.
Had Charles the Twelfth advanced to the trium-
phant occupation of Moscow in 1709, Russia was
* See Schnitzler's Secret History of Russia, vol. i., p. 16.
IN OPPOSITION.
45
gone, and the fortunes of Sweden would have
remained high in the ascendant: a strong, united,
antagonistic race, predominant in the north, might
have limited the Sclavonian tribes to their deserts
and steppes. The empire of Peter and the future
fate of Russia hung suspended in the balance at
Pultowa, which has been justly classed by Pro-
fessor Creasy amongst the “Decisive Battles of
the World.” When Charles the Twelfth, who had
never yet known defeat, advanced to his projected
conquest at the head of a numerous army glittering
with gold and silver, and enriched with the spoils
of Poland and Saxony, Europe looked on, and, as
Voltaire observes, fully expected that he would
dethrone the Czar. To overtures of peace he
replied haughtily, “I will treat at Moscow.” . “My
brother Charles,” said Peter, “affects to play the
Alexander, but I trust he will not find in me a
Darius.” He had said before, after the sanguinary
defeat of Narva, “The Swedes will teach us how
to beat them at last.” He waited his time patiently
and the prediction was accomplished. On that
fatal 8th of July, 1709, “the power and glory of
the war" passed from Sweden to Russia, for ever,
and Peter triumphantly exclaimed, that the foun-
dations of St. Petersburgh at length stood firm.
It is useless now to speculate as to how the map
of Europe would have been arranged in 1854, had
>
46
PETER THE GREAT.
the result of this great trial of strength been
reversed; but most assuredly we should have seen
a different division of the north, and many states
would have been spared the practical misfortune
of having a neighbouring protector at hand, ready
for any emergency, and eager to step in as arbi- .
trator in ordinary, whenever a bone of contention
foments domestic squabbles.
Peter succeeded to an empire which has been
incessantly increasing in extent, wealth, population,
and importance, and owes all these advantages
almost exclusively to him. He appeared at the very
moment when his character and rare abilities had
the fullest scope for their development, and were
particularly suited to the country over which he
ruled. A more humanized individual could
scarcely have adopted the measures necessary to
humanize his people. He and they were made
for each other, and what was personally unamiable
in the man became a valuable ingredient in the
monarch. Had he isolated himself on the throne,
surrounded by the outward pomp of barbaric
greatness, his people might still have fallen down
and worshipped him with blind or pagan idolatry;
he might have held them in the same abject ser-
vitude, but he could not have reformed their evil
customs, have instructed them in agriculture, arts,
navigation, war, and have exalted them from mere
a
HE SERVES AS A SAILOR.
47
animals endowed with instinct, into reasoning
men. He taught them discipline by the force of
example, more convincingly than by precept. He
worked as an artizan in the dock-yards of foreign
states; served as a common sailor in his own fleets,
as a private soldier in his own armies; raised him-
self by regular steps and degrees of promotion, up
to the highest command, which he only assumed
when qualified by practical experience. By a
system so new, and at the same time so thoroughly
intelligible, he induced his more than semi-bar-
barous nobility to learn and feel the value of
subordination, administered in a lesson bitterly
repugnant to their pride, and which they would
have refused to receive from any other master or
through any other method of instruction. He
re-created his people, although he was unable to
correct his own intemperate passions. Yet with
all his moral obliquity, his habitual drunkenness,
savage temper, and unbridled passions, he never
committed such an act of deliberate atrocity as
the revocation of the edict of Nantes, which sig-
nalised the reign of his refined and hypocritical
contemporary, Louis the Fourteenth. The trial,
condemnation, and secret execution of his only
son Alexis (which rests confirmed by proof beyond
dispute), is not to be justified; yet even in this
dark transaction, he had more than the provocation
48
ABOLITION OF THE STRELITZES.
.
of Constantine, and ten times beyond that of the
gloomy bigot, Philip of Spain, under similar
circumstances.
One of the boldest measures of reform adopted
by Peter, but at the same time, one which for the
moment increased his difficulties, was the abolition
of the old regular troops of the empire, the
Strelitzes. Like the Prætorian bands of ancient
Rome, the Janizaries of Turkey, and the Mame-
lukes of Egypt, these formidable cohorts exercised
an imperium in imperio, superior to that of the
sovereign, and could at any time depose or murder
the reigning monarch, although they never con-
templated the introduction of a new dynasty.
Peter set them aside with the strong hand, but
the new levies with which he supplied their places
were officered chiefly by foreigners, disciplined
after an unaccustomed plan, and little to be relied
on until repeated defeats had inured them to the
trade of war. Finally they triumphed, attesting
their martial qualities in a succession of hard-
fought battles; often victorious, never surrendering
a field without a stubborn contest, and now rank-
ing high in the scale of European soldiers, about
to measure themselves for the first time with the
united chivalry of France and England. The
result will show whether they have been overrated,
or are entitled to their reputation.
THE EMPRESS CATHERINE.
49
Peter the Great was twice married. By his
first wife, Eudocia Lapoukhin, the daughter of a
Russian boyar, he had two children; the unfortu-
nate Czarovitch Alexis, born in 1690, and myste-
riously executed in 1718; and Alexander, born in
1691, who died in the following year. Alexis
married in 1711, the Princess Charlotte Christina
Sophia of Wolfenbüttel, by whom he left issue, a
daughter, Natalie, who died in 1729, and a son,
born in 1715, who under the title of Peter the
Second, reigned from 1727 to 1730, the year of
his death. The second wife of Peter was the
celebrated Catherine the First, who succeeded
him. By her he had many children, of whom
several were born prior to their marriage. With
the exception of a single son, Peter, who died
before he had completed his fourth year, they were
all females. One of them became afterwards, the
Empress Elizabeth.
Catherine, the second wife of Peter the Great,
whatever might be her other recommendations,
had little claim to the virtue of chastity. Her
origin was low, as she was the illegitimate daugh-
ter of a Livonian peasant. With no opportunity
of education, she lived for some years in a menial
capacity in the household of a clergyman, when
she married a Swedish dragoon, who shortly after-
wards went with his regiment on a distant expe-
a
B
50
MICHAEL FEDOROVITCH.
tion, and never returned. She then resided with
the Russian general Bauer, either as servant or
paramour, a delicate question which remains
involved in obscurity. Prince Menzikoff acci-
dentally saw her, became enamoured of her
charms, and received her from his brother soldier.
While living with the prince, Peter noticed her,
the obsequious vassal surrendered his prize, who
thus became the mistress, and after some years,
the empress of the great reforming Czar, over
whom she retained her influence to the hour of
his death, when she was proclaimed his successor,
in utter violation of the solemn agreement by
which the house of Romanoff had been placed on
the throne.
Michael Fedorovitch, who by the unbiassed
choice of the principal members of the clergy,
nobility, and commonalty, had been preferred
to the princes of the house of Rurik, in 1613,
received the crown on the express condition that
it should descend hereditarily by right of primo-
geniture. Peter the Great, while yet writhing
under the disobedience of his son, and in a mo-
ment when arbitrary passion subdued his cooler
reason, by an ukase of the 16th February, 1722,
disturbed the order of succession. He decreed
that the reigning sovereign should retain the
right of nominating his successor, without any
INTERNAL DISTURBANCES.
51
the grave.
exclusive clause in favour of the Imperial family;
an act of folly by a wise man, almost amounting
to an aberration of reason. His infant grandson
was alive, and there existed no just reason why
the child should be deprived of his inheritance,
thus pursuing the father with vengeance beyond
From this fatal mistake originated
the long series of disorders, conspiracies, and
crimes, which signalised the Russian annals
during the eighteenth century, when revolution
was perpetually stirred up by plots within the
palace, and the crown became the prize of the
most subtle intrigue or the most audacious
violence. Catherine survived Peter, and en-
joyed her single sovereignty only two years.
She died in 1727; aged forty-one. Her de
cease was hastened by an immoderate indulgence
in intoxicating liquors, the love of which she
probably acquired from her husband. The same
sympathy of taste existed between our own Queen
Anne, of glorious memory, and her spouse Prince
George of Denmark, but in no other respect did
they resemble their Russian contemporaries.
Whatever may have been the early irregularities
of Catherine's life, she devoted herself to her impe-
rial husband, often soothed him in his wildest
fits of passion, and extricated him by her skilful
E 2
52
HOUSE OF HOLSTEIN-GOTTORP.
advice and influence, when he appeared irretriev-
ably lost on the banks of the Pruth.
On the death of Catherine the First, the son
of the Czarovitch Alexis, then only in his twelfth
year, was elevated to the throne, under the title
of Peter the Second. He reigned for three years,
from 1727 to 1730, when he died suddenly, de-
posed and murdered. This youthful monarch was
the last heir male of the younger branch of the
house of Romanoff. To him succeeded Anna
Joannovna, daughter of John the Fifth, the elder
brother and coadjutor of Peter the Great, on the
death of their father Alexis. She was born in
1693, and in 1710 married Duke Frederick Wil-
liam of Courland, but had no children. She
reigned from 1730 to 1740. On her death, the
crown passed for a short interval of a year to her
infant nephew, Ivan Antonovitch, but was then
wrested from him by his cousin, Elizabeth
Petrovna, fourth daughter of Peter the Great and
Catherine, who reigned in great prosperity from
1741 to 1761. With her the direct younger
branch of the line of Romanoff became extinct,
and the collateral house of Holstein-Gottorp
assumed their place in the person of Peter the
Third. This Ivan, we have here named, passed a
miserable life of imprisonment, in various places,
ANNA PETROVNA.
53
and perished in 1764, during the reign of Cathe-
rine the Second, in the fortress of Schlusselburg,
on the occasion of the rebellion of Mirovitch, who
tried to deliver him. He was a Romanoff of the
elder branch by the maternal side; his father
belonged to the house of Brunswick.
The mother of Peter the Third was Anna
Petrovna, elder sister of the Empress Elizabeth;
his father was the Duke Charles Frederic of Hol-
stein-Gottorp. He was thus the grandson of
Peter the First by the female line, first cousin of
Peter the Second, and with him commences the
collateral branch of the lineage of Peter the
Great. This unfortunate monarch was born at
Kiel, in Germany, and gave great disgust to his
subjects and the influential nobility of the old
school, by calling himself a German, and repudiat-
ing the title of Russian. In early youth, he was
married to Catherine, daughter of the Prince
of Anhalt-Zerbst, who had then scarcely com-
pleted her sixteenth year. They soon began to
hate each other with mortal antipathy; no two
dispositions were ever more thoroughly uncon-
genial. She possessed a bold, undaunted spirit,
with a masculine understanding.
Peter was
coarse, grovelling, and mean, with no spark of
royalty in his composition. He gave himself up
to low society and to the most scandalous excesses
a
54
DEATH OF PETER.
Catherine, even in her early youth, was by no
means remarkable for her virtue, but had not
yet reached that excess of impurity, which
obtained for her in her imperial licence, the name
of the modern Messalina. With the inconsistency
usual in such cases, each party reproached the
other. Catherine, stung by her husband's bruta-
lity, became still more openly indecorous in her
conduct, and Peter indulged in habitual drunken-
ness and debauchery to such an extent, that he
must have been deranged. He at length became
so infatuated by his disgust for Catherine and his
passion for one of his mistresses, the Countess
Woronzoff, that he had determined to divorce and
imprison the former, and raise the latter lawfully
to his throne and bed. Informed of his designs,
Catherine promptly took the initiative, and car-
ried a grand coup d'état. She caused her hus-
band to be seized, and sent as a prisoner to a
small palace about twenty miles from St. Peters-
burgh, where Prince Alexis Orloff speedily dis-
patched him, with the connivance, if not at the
positive command of the empress. This explosion
and catastrophe occurred in July, 1762, a little
more than one year after they had ascended the
throne; and in the course of the next month,
Catherine was solemnly crowned Empress of all
the Russias. Loud hosannas pealed to heaven in
CATHERINE EMPRESS.
55
pious gratitude from the mouths of millions,
thanking providence for the blessing bestowed on
them in such a sovereign-mother; and ambas-
sadors from every potentate in Europe knelt in
congratulation before the throne polluted by lust,
intemperance, and murder. Yet she ruled well
and wisely, following firmly in the footsteps of
Peter the Great, with measureless schemes of
ambition in one hand, and endless projects of
improvement and civilization in the other. She
patronized learning, encouraged education, affected
philosophy, composed moral tales for the use of
children, translated a code of original laws into
German, wrote some dramatic pieces, discoursed
with apparent unction on religious subjects, ob-
served all the outward forms of piety, ordered a
Te Deum when Suvaroff butchered thirty thou-
sand Turks at Ismail, and converted each of her
palaces into a monster seraglio. Immersed in
pleasure, she never neglected business, and died
with perfect composure and a tranquil conscience,
surrounded by the great officers of state, the
ministers of the church, and the familiar asso-
ciates of her domestic orgies. Such was Cathe-
rine the Second, called by the Prince de Ligne,
her biographer and eulogist, “Catherine the
Great;" the grandmother of the late Emperor
Alexander, and of the living autocrat Nicholas.
56
CATHERINE EMPRESS.
He gave
Many years after Catherine had reigned in
undisturbed possession of the sovereign power, a
representative of her late husband arose in the
person of the celebrated impostor Pugatscheff,
who bearing a strong personal resemblance to the
deceased emperor, was in 1773, encouraged to
pass himself for that monarch. He had served in
the Austrian and Prussian armies, and possessed
daring courage with very considerable abilities.
At first his partisans were few, but they soon
increased to a formidable number.
battle to the troops of the empress, defeated them
several times, captured Kazan, the ancient capital
of the empire, and gave ample employment to
Catherine, her ministers and armies, for two
years. At length, when apparently at the height
of success, and threatening Moscow itself, he was
betrayed by some of his own followers, made
prisoner, tried, and executed, with many rebel
leaders, in 1775. The adventures of this Russian
Perkin Warbeck are little known, but highly
interesting. They have lately been described
from authentic sources, and form a most valuable
portion of an agreeable work, written by Mr. G.T.
Turnerelli, entitled, “Historical, Picturesque, and
Descriptive Sketches of Kazan, the ancient capi-
tal of the Tartar Khans.” In that work is con-
tained an animated account of the rebellion of
>
PRINCE POTEMKIN.
57
no
Pugatscheff, together with much information
respecting people, places, and events, as little
familiar to the general reader, as the early annals
of China, before the age of Confucius.
There are not wanting to this day, many in
Russia, who contend that Pugatscheff was
impostor, but really the man he pretended to be.
But the idea is an idle chimera, and is maintained
by mere visionaries, in the face of the most con-
clusive evidence to the contrary.
Catherine reigned thirty-four years, and died in
1796, at the ripe age of sixty-seven. The list
of her personal favourites is innumerable. They
were generally chosen from their stature and
muscular proportions, without much reference
to mental capacity. Of these, Prince Potemkin
exercised the longest sway, and enjoyed the
greatest power. He was one of the most remark-
able men that Russia produced, and exercised a
mighty influence over the fortunes of his country.
But he was personally unpopular, although his
measures were successful. Perhaps the richest
subject in Europe, with wealth exceeding that of
many sovereigns, he died (by accident) in a ditch,
into which he was lifted for ease, from his car-
riage, and placed under a tree by the road side,
when seized with the pangs of death in the pro-
gress of a journey. Sejanus, Wolsey, and Buck-
.
58
PRINCE POTEMKIN.
ignham, never revelled in the plenitude of impe-
rial favouritism, to the extent, or for the time, that
Potemkin did. Russia belonged more to him
than to his Empress. His character was a jum-
a .
ble of inconsistency, a mass of antithises, without
solid foundation or a definite object. Count
Ségur, who knew him intimately, has sketched
this extraordinary individual with a graphic
pencil,
“In the person of Prince Potemkin were
collected the most opposite defects and advan-
tages of every kind. He was avaricious and
ostentatious, despotic and obliging, politic and
confiding, licentious and superstitious, bold and
timid, ambitious and indiscreet, lavish of his
bounties to his relations, his mistresses, and his
favourites, yet frequently paying neither his
household nor his creditors. His consequence
always depended on a woman, and he was always
unfaithful to her. Nothing could equal the
activity of his mind, nor the indolence of his
body. No dangers could appal his courage, no
difficulties force him to abandon his projects.
But the success of an enterprise always brought
on disgust. Every thing with him was desultory
-business, pleasure, temper, courage. His pre-
sence was a restraint on every company,
He
was morose to all that stood in awe of him, and
HIS CHARACTER.
59
a
caressed all such as accosted him with familiarity.
None had read less than he; few people were
better informed. One while he formed the pro-
ject of becoming Duke of Courland; at another,
he thought of bestowing on himself the crown of
Poland. He frequently talked of making him-
self a bishop, or even a simple monk. He built
a superb palace, and wanted to sell it before it
was finished.
In his youth he had pleased:
Catherine by the ardour of his passion, by his
valour, and by his masculine beauty. Become
the rival of Orloff, he performed for his sovereign
whatever the most romantic passion could inspire.
He put out an eye to free it from a blemish that
diminished its beauty. Banished by his rival, he
ran to meet death in battle, and returned with
glory. He died in 1791, at the age of fifty-two.”
The character is a duplicate of Dryden's Zimri-
“ A man so various that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.”
Invested with absolute power, for inscrutable
purposes, we may readily suppose that such an
ill regulated mind proved a widely extended in-
strument of mischief, and added a heavy burden
to the weight of human calamity. Potemkin lives
in history, but no respect attaches to his name,
He
is notorious rather than celebrated, a
destroyer, not a benefactor. His immortality is
.
60
DIVISION OF POLAND
It was
а
the unenviable fame of Erostratus, and has no
particle of the pure renown of Aristides. He
was buried at Cherson; but Paul, on his acces-
sion, ordered the body to be exhumed, and cast
into the first hole that might be found.
accordingly taken up and thrown into the ditch
of the fortress, with as little ceremony as if it had
been that of a dead dog.
During the reign of Catherine the Second
was conceived, digested, and perpetrated, the most
atrocious political enormity which sullies the
pages of European history; we mean the dis-
memberment of Poland. As Talleyrand said
afterwards, on another lamentable occasion, the
mistake was, if possible, greater than the crime.
France and England could have prevented this
foul act; but blind to the rights of humanity and
their own transparent interests, these two great
nations closed their eyes in fatal supineness, while
an ancient, gallant, independent nation was swept
from the map of Europe, without an assigned
cause, or even a plausible pretext. The idea
was first suggested by the Machiavelian brain of
Frederick the Great. The tigress of the North
responded to it with a convulsive spring; and the
gentle Maria Theresa, after a little hesitation,
consented to share in the anticipated plunder.
For a century before, the balance of power had
BETWEEN THE THREE CROWNS.
61
a
been the great watchword in the mouths of the
leading politicians of Europe, and the first article
in their acknowledged creeds; but now the phrase
and the principle were equally cast aside. Austria
and Prussia had long been deadly enemies, and
both hated Russia even beyond the detestation
they cherished for each other, Yet they made
common cause, conspired against a country they
were each pledged to protect, and with shameless
profligacy became leagued in a scheme of robbery
on a scale of unprecedented grandeur, consum-
mated by the sacrifice of half-a-million of lives.
On the part of Austria, too, there was the addi-
tional sin of heavy ingratitude; for not more
than eighty years had elapsed since John Sobieski
and his valiant Poles responded to her cry of
despair, and saved her capital from the belea-
guering Turks, and the impending horrors of an
assault. This act alone should have covered
Poland with a protecting ægis, and least of all,
had she a right to expect a deadly wound from
the nation she had preserved. Russia, too, might
have remembered that Sigismund the Second
once gave away her crown in Moscow, antici-
pating a march which met with less success two
centuries later; and Prussia, unless she falsified
her annals, would find there that her dukes had
long been subject to the Jagellon kings of
62
DIVISION OF POLAND.
Poland, and bowed before them with submissive
inferiority. But the circling wheel of time had
placed weak nations in the posts formerly occu-
pied by strong ones; and Poland had gone down,
while Austria, Prussia, and Russia had risen on
her decline. The growing evils engendered by
an elective monarchy, a lawless nobility, and an
enslaved population, were about to be illustrated
by a memorable example. If any human being
could be imagined less fettered by scruples of any
kind, political, moral, or religious, where personal
ambition was concerned, than Catherine of Russia,
that respectable individual was the far-famed
Prussian monarch, the great warrior, legislator,
philosopher, essayist, historian, poet, musician,
and free-thinker; compared to whom Richelieu
was a timid novice in applying the doctrine that
the end sanctified the means, and who was ready
at any moment for a partition treaty with Satan
himself, provided an increase of territory was to
be obtained for his own kingdom. Maria Theresa
was less eager, and some diplomatic ingenuity
became necessary before she suffered herself to
be warmly drawn in as a party to the nefarious
project.
After the first division of 1772, when Poland
was deprived of all her vigorous limbs, a miserable
torso remained, with a nominal king, a shadow of
KOSCIUSKO.
63
independence, and the guarantee of protection
from the spoliators. At the end of eighteen
years, this remnant of what had once been a
flourishing kingdom, began to think that internal
reform might yet bring back decaying strength,
and ventured the experiment of a new constitu-
tion. The object was exclusively domestic, and
aimed at no change in the existing state of
foreign relations. The Prussian monarch had
treacherously encouraged the Poles, and promised
help in case of Russian hostility. The latter
power at once denounced the Polish reform as a
declaration of war, and marched an overwhelming
force into the devoted territory. Stanislaus, the
king of Poland, was cowardly in mind and body;
but Kosciusko became his country's champion,
and although he could not save, he encircled her
expiring brows with a chaplet of immortal glory.
On the fatal field of Maciovice (Oct. 1794), he
was wounded and taken prisoner; and Suvaroff,
after butchering in cold blood 30,000 Poles, of
all ages and conditions, subsequent to the capture
of Warsaw, on the 8th Nov. in the same year,
extinguished further opposition, and Poland finally
disappeared from the list of nations. Frederick
and Maria Theresa had long been dead, but
the Empress Catherine still survived, and wit-
>
64
PONIATOWSKI.
nessed the full consummation of her long-
cherished plans.
Twelve years passed over, and with them many
stirring events and many changes in the arrange-
ment of the states of Europe. On the 18th of
Nov., 1806, a French army, flushed with the
victory of Jena, and the utter annihilation of
Prussia, entered in triumph the ancient capital
of Poland, and displayed their standards and
eagles on the ramparts of Warsaw. A general
cry of exultation resounded through the land, the
heart of Poland throbbed with anxious hope, and
her resuscitation appeared almost certain. Napoleon
hesitated, paused in the intention he had delibe-
rately formed, and was induced to lay it aside
altogether. Friedland enabled him to dictate his
own terms; but the Treaty of Tilsit, signed on
the 7th of July, 1807, contained no article an-
nouncing that a native Sobieski, a Poniatowski,
or even the chivalrous French soldier Murat, was
to number amongst the sovereigns of Europe as
king of ancient Sarmatia. The great conqueror
lost a great opportunity; to lose it again a second
time, when the fortune of war a second time
courted him to accept it. It was not that he was
blind, ungenerous, or insensible to the devotion
which the Poles exhibited towards his person, or
POLICY OF NAPOLEON.
65
the strong reliance they placed on his invincible
strength. But he suffered other political con-
siderations to sway him, and they all tended in a
perverse direction.
His paramount object for
the moment was to cripple the commerce of
England; he had lately issued his famous Berlin
decrees, and he accorded easy terms to the
Russian emperor, to induce him to co-operate
warmly in carrying them out. He therefore
contented himself with the erection of the grand
duchy of Warsaw as an appanage of Saxony,
instead of re-organizing the independent king-
dom of Poland. Alexander, by a secret article,
obtained leave to seize on Finland, although
Constantinople was denied to him, at which he
plainly indicated his dissatisfaction, observing
that every man ought to possess the gates of his
own house.
Five years rolled on in the unerring course
of time, and the summer of 1812 saw four hun-
dred thousand French warriors on the banks of
the Niemen, preparing to throw themselves into
the heart of Russia, and expecting to dictate the
terms of peace at Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Liberated Poland stretched out her hands behind
them, and her hardy soldiers filled their ranks
with comrades eager to partake their glory. That
moment was the crisis of Napoleon's fate; and he
F
66
THE RUSSIAN INVASION.
suffered it to escape. Had he paused on the
frontier, instead of madly rushing into inter-
minable wastes, where he could establish neither a
sound base of operations, nor flanks to sustain it;
had he proclaimed the restoration of Poland in
its full integrity, promised Sweden to co-operate
in the restoration of Finland to her dominion,
and kept alive the Turkish war with money, men,
and military supplies, instead of suffering Russian
diplomacy to out-maneuvre and defeat him in
that all-important quarter (and it is difficult to
understand why he, who saw so clearly, should
suddenly become blind); had this been his course,
it appears almost certain that complete success
would have attended the enterprise, which ended
in his ruin. So long as Russia was crippled and
brought to her knees, it mattered little whether
the treaty of peace was signed at Moscow or
Warsaw; but, for the empty vanity of dating
from the Kremlin, he sacrified fifteen years of
unchequered victory, and surrendered sober judg-
ment to the influence of fatality. Above every
thing else, it was madness beyond the cure of all
the hellebore in the three Anticyræ, to leave what
Talleyrand called the Spanish ulcer in active viru-
lence behind him. But argument was at an end,
when, in reply to the remonstrances of the Abbé
de Pradt, he led him to a window, and, pointing
ERROR OF NAPOLEON.
67
to the heavens, exclaimed, "Do you see that
star?” In the words of Lord Byron, “never had
mortal man such opportunity, or abused it more.”
Since authentic history has recorded human trans-
actions, the same power has never been placed
within a single grasp. He had no necessity to
hurry, time was before him; he was in the full
vigour of manhood, not more than forty-three
years of age; his empire was firmly consolidated,
his allies faithful, for as yet they had no temp-
tation to drop from him to the stronger side.
If the first Napoleon had re-established Poland
in 1812, instead of rushing into the jaws of an
enemy he might easily have evaded—the climate
of Russia more death-dealing than her warriors-
and leading his matchless host to perish in the
snow,
the chances are, that he would have died
in the Tuilleries, and not on the rock of
St. Helena—the sanguinary struggle for Polish
independence in 1830 would never have occurred,
and the tyranny exercised by Nicholas over that
devoted country would not be reckoned amongst
the political misdeeds for which we may hope he
is now called upon to atone.
Paul succeeded to the throne of Russia on the
death of Catherine the Second. At that time,
the empire had increased to eighteen millions
of square miles, comprising thirty-three millions
F 2
68
DESCENDANTS OF PAUL.
of inhabitants. The latter had more than doubled
since the accession of Peter the Great, during the
lapse of a century. Paul was born on the 1st of
October, 1754, and consequently was forty-two
at his accession. His parents had but one other
child, a daughter named Anne, who died in early
infancy. He was twice married. By his first
wife, Nathalie, Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt (who
died 1776), he had no family. By his second,
Maria, Princess of Wurtemburg (who died in
1828), he had ten children, four sons and six
daughters. They are as follow :
Alexander, late emperor, born 1777; died 1825.
,
Constantine, born 1779; died 1831.
Alexandrina, born 1783; married to Joseph,
Palatine of Hungary; died 1801.
Helena, born 1784; married to Frederick, Prince
of Meklenburg-Strelitz; died 1816.
Maria, born 1786; married to Charles, Duke
of Saxe-Weimar.
Catherine, born 1788; married first to Prince
George of Holstein-Oldenburgh, secondly to Wil-
liam the First, King of Wurtemburg; died 1819.
Olga, born 1792; died in 1795.
Anne, born 1795 ; married William the Second,
King of Holland.
Nicholas, the present emperor, born 1796.
Michael, born 1798.
HE MOUNTS THE THRONE.
69
do so.
Paul disliked and feared his mother. The
reminiscences attached to her actions were too
painful to allow of love or esteem.
His temper
was always wayward and violent, and soured by
degrees into the intolerable extravagance and mad-
ness which led to his death. Long before he suc-
ceeded to the throne, he counteracted and opposed
the policy of Catherine wherever he was allowed to
One of his earliest acts, when he became
emperor, was dictated by sound judgment. He
re-established the succession by hereditary descent
in the male line, abrogating the decree of Peter
the Great; and only on the extinction of every
male heir, was the crown to devolve to a woman.
In such case, the throne was to belong to that
princess who, at the time of the decease of the
last emperor, was his nearest relation; and, in
default of direct heirs from her, the other prin-
cesses of the imperial house were to follow in the
order of their relationship. Had Paul died imme-
diately after issuing this decree, he would have
done some good in his generation, his memory
would have been tolerably respectable for a Russian
emperor, and his subjects would have been spared
the necessity of limiting his tyranny by strangu-
lation.
Paul was eager for war. The doctrines of the
French Revolution disgusted him; as a genuine
a
70
SUVAROFF.
autocrat, he held democratic principles in abhor-
rence; and had no sympathy for freedom of
thought or action in any but himself. When
the Emperor Francis appealed to his assistance,
he very willingly despatched Suvaroff with
twenty-five thousand men to sweep like a simoom
across the north of Italy, while, at the same time,
he lent eighteen thousand more to co-operate
with the English in their projected expedition to
Holland in 1799. He held the soldiers of Western
Europe in little estimation; and thought with
Cæsar, that his Russians had only to come, see,
and conquer.
Suvaroff was nearly as mad as his imperial mas-
ter; but he possessed a military genius peculiar
to himself alone, and quite beyond the reach of
ordinary criticism. He soared above all known
rules, and succeeded, while common capacities
sinned against them, and failed. His predominant
fault was his utter carelessness of human life.
So that he carried his object, he heeded not at
what sacrifice; but he did carry it in the face of
all opposition; and, with intuitive quickness, he
seized opportunities as they arose in the heat of
battle, and turned them to account with the
rapidity of lightning. If he was not a great
master in the science of war, he was a terrible
instrument in practice, and struck with appalling
"HIS ENERGY,
71
:
energy. Parma, Trebbia, and Novi taught the
French that they had no longer to deal with the
heavy tactics of Austria, or with a general who
regulated his movements by the measured scale of
an Aulic Council. Moreau taunted Napoleon with
being a conqueror at the rate of ten thousand
men a-day: he might have applied the sarcasm
to Suvaroff with superior justice.
The Russian chief affected inspiration to inflame
the fanaticism of his soldiers, and thus bound them
to him by the double tie of personal regard and
religious devotion. When forced to fall back by
the disaster of Korsakoff, who had been signally
defeated by Massena at Zurich, Suvaroff flung
himself in frantic passion on the ground, and
implored his men to trample him to pieces, rather
than give way before the enemy; but they took
him up in their arms and continued the retreat.
The veterans who served under Suvaroff used
afterwards to boast, that their favourite leader
was never cold, afraid, or defeated.
For his victories in the marvellous campaign
of 1799, he was created a prince, with the hono-
rary cognomen of Italisky, meaning the “
runner of Italy;" as Diebitsch was afterwards deno-
minated Zabalkansky, or “the Balkan passer ;"
and Paskievitch Erivansky, or
" the taker of
Erivan.” The Russians appear to have adopted
over-
2
72
SINGULAR DESPATCH.
1
this mode of rewarding services in imitation of
the ancient Romans, who gave surnames to their
victorious generals from the countries they sub-
dued.
In the sequel, Paul treated his hero with
signal ingratitude, which preyed on his spirits,
and caused him to die of vexation in 1800. We
should think more highly of Suvaroff as a mili-
tary chieftain, if we could expunge from his
history the sanguinary leaf which records the
butcheries of Ismail and Warsaw, on each of
which occasions thirty thousand helpless beings
were slaughtered in cold blood, when all resist-
ance had ceased. His despatch, announcing the
taking of Ismail, is the shortest on record, and
was couched in a couplet, for he was a poet as
well as a conqueror. The literal translation runs
thus :
“ Glory to God and to the Empress !
Ismail's ours;" — a volume of blasphemy and
carnage compressed into nine short words. Ano..
ther rhyming translation has been given as fol-
lows:-
“ Glory to God, and glory unto you !
The fort is taken, and I am in it too !"
A rhyme seems to be no unusual formula in
Russian official communications. When the well-
known Admiral Puke (an Englishman) retired in
1
SUVAROFF'S CATECHISM.
73
disgust, he thus announced his intention to the
Secretary of the Admiralty :
“ I am sick of the service, so tell the Grand Duke,
I've thrown up my commission—your servant,
JOHN PUKE.”
Suvaroff was created to be a Russian general.
His character may be traced more clearly, in the
extraordinary manual he composed for the in-
struction of his soldiers, than in a folio of studied
description. This document he termed his
“ Catechism.” A literal translation is given by
Dr. Clarke, in the appendix to his Travels, from
which we have selected the following extract :
" A Discourse under the Trigger.” (The general
is supposed to be inspecting the line and address-
ing the troops.)
“Heels close!-knees straight!—a soldier must
stand like a dart !—I see the fourth—the fifth I
don't see ! A soldier's step is twenty-eight
inches—in wheeling, half as much again. Keep
your distances well. Soldiers, join elbows in front.
First rank three steps from the second-in march-
ing, two. Give the drum room! Keep your ball
three days, it may happen for a whole campaign,
when lead cannot be had. Fire seldom, but fire
Push hard with the bayonet-the ball
will lose its way, the bayonet never.
The ball is
sure.
74
-SUVAROFF'S CATECHISM.
a fool, the bayonet a hero! Stab once, and off
with the Turk from the bayonet. Even when
he's dead beware of him, you may get a scratch
from his sabre. If the sabre be near your neck,
dodge back one step, and push on again. Stab
the second, stab the third! A hero will stab half-
-a-dozen. Be sure your ball's in your gun.
If
three attack you, stab the first, fire on the second,
and bayonet the third—this seldom happens.
(Very seldom indeed, and is much easier said
than done.) When you fire, take aim at their
guts, and fire about twenty balls. Buy lead from
your economy. (The treasury of the mess. The
Russian soldiers buy their own lead.) It costs
little. We fire sure—we lose not one ball in
-thirty; in the light and heavy artillery, not one
in ten. If you see the match upon a gun, run
up to it instantly; the ball will fly over your
head. The guns are yours, the people are yours !
.
down with 'em upon the spot, pursue 'em, stab
'em! Die for the honour of the Virgin Mary,
for your mother, (the Empress Catherine--your
father, if an emperor), for all the royal family.
The church prays for those that die; and those
who survive have honour and reward. Offend
not the peaceable inhabitant, he gives us meat
and drink—the soldier is not a robber. Booty
is a holy thing! If you take a camp, it is all
66 I DON'T KNOW." I
75
a
yours. If you take a fortress, it is all yours. At
Ismail, besides other things, the soldiers shared
gold and silver by handfuls, and so in other
places; but wait for orders, before you fall to
booty!"
His instructions with regard to diet are
delicious. “Have a dread of the hospital. German
.
physic stinks from afar, and is good for nothing.
For the health, drink, air, and food; for the sick
food, air, and drink. For him who neglects his
men, if an officer, arrest; if a sub-officer, lashes;
and for the private who neglects himself, more
lashes. Brothers, the enemy trembles at you !
But there is another enemy greater than the
hospital—the d-n'd I don't know. From the half-
confessing, the guessing, lying, deceitful, the
palavering equivocation, squeamishness, and non-
sense of don't know,' many disasters originate.'
Suvaroff had such an intense aversion to any
person's saying “I don't know,” in answer to his
questions, that he became almost frantic with
passion. His officers and soldiers were so well
aware of this singularity, that they would hazard
any reply instantly, accurate or not, rather than
venture to incur his displeasure by professing
ignorance.
This synopsis of instruction is a most original
compound of buffoonery, madness, and sound
76
RUSSIAN GENERALSHIP.
sense, admirably adapted to the comprehension of
the catechumens for whom it was drawn up.
Suvaroff had as much tact as O'Connell, in
suiting his harangues to the quality of his audi-
tors. He winds up with good practical philo-
sophy. “One wise man is worth three fools; and
even three are little, give six; and even six are
little, give ten! one clever fellow will beat them
all, overthrow them, and take them prisoners !”
The ill-digested campaign of Holland in 1799,
beheld English and Russian troops, for the first
time, acting in concert. The fraternization mixed
up badly, and both parties soon entertained
mutual dislike, mistrust, and contempt. The
Russians were clumsily commanded, and went
headlong on like blind bull-dogs, without plan,
concert, or support, until beaten back again, when
they plundered and burnt all that fell in their
way, people, animals, and habitations, on the
right and left, in the front and rear. They
resembled the Free Companions of the middle
ages, in courage, license, and ferocity.
It was difficult to form any opinion of their
generals, who appeared to concentrate all their
notions of strategy in a rush and a “Hoorah !"
Hermann was taken prisoner in the first engage-
ment, and Essen, his successor, said little and did
less. The combined force was under the nominal
THE FLEMISH EXPEDITION.
77
control of the Duke of York; but by the sapient
ordination of the ministry, and as if to show that
they had no confidence in their own selection, he
was forbidden to venture on any movement of
importance, without the previous sanction of a
council of war; the most improved method of
reducing a commander-in-chief to a cypher, and
of augmenting the probabilities of failure.
To the British Cabinet, therefore, and their
council of war, must be attributed the ill-fortune
which attended all the operations after the suc-
cessful landing at the Helder, and the capture of
the Dutch fleet in the Texel. Our government
had persuaded themselves, without any evidence
much stronger than their own desires, that the
inhabitants of the Seven Provinces were tired of
French oppression, and panting for liberty. It
appeared that they were more tired of the House
of Orange, and judging by their conduct to our
troops when they retreated through Holland to
Westphalia, in 1795, it was an idle notion to
suppose they would welcome the English as
deliverers. On the contrary they received them at
the point of the bayonet, and made common cause
with the French, on whom they placed the greater
reliance.
Many of our previous continental
expeditions had shown that we were migratory
birds of passage, who came and went according
78
THE ENGLISH IN HOLLAND.
to perpetually shifting circumstances. In this
abortive attempt to win back Holland, the force
employed, although of discordant materials, was
adequate to the purpose, and the opposing
generals, Brune and Vandamme, were not men of
first-rate pretensions. There was nothing in their
names or reputation equal to solid legions on the
day of battle. Yet a campaign in which thirty-
eight thousand troops took the field against
twenty-five thousand, terminated in three months,
by the former entering into a capitulation to
evacuate, by å given day, the country they ought
to have conquered; and the military character of
England, as far as regarded her capability of con-
ducting war on the grand scale, received a shock,
'which a long succession of triumphs, from Alex-
andria to Waterloo, with difficulty retrieved.
This is a distasteful reminiscence, but there is
little wisdom in an attempt to disguise or “burke”
the truth. The lessons taught by defeat, if
properly applied, are often more valuable than
those derived from victory.
The Russian emperor, vexed and disappointed
at the result of affairs in Italy and Holland, in the
wayward restlessness of insanity, imagined, as
madmen usually do, that he was betrayed by his
friends. Accordingly, he veered round, beginning
now to admire the French in proportion as he had
ECCENTRICITY OF PAUL.
79
formerly detested them. Perhaps his actual aber-
ration of mind was greatly increased by these
unexpected disasters. Be that as it may, England
now became the perpetual nightmare which dis-
turbed his dreams, and the object of his waking
antipathy. The French government was not slow
to profit by this sudden change in the sentiments
of the unsteady autocrat, and strenuously pro-
moted the Northern Confederacy, which Paul
openly joined, and placed himself at the head of,
in November 1800, having previously laid an em-
bargo on British property in Russia. His mind
seemed for the moment to be concentrated on
devising petty schemes of annoyance against the
English residents at the capital. From these,
even the ambassador, Sir Charles (afterwards Lord).
Whitworth, was not exempt. The sledge of Count
Razumousky, who had offended him, was, by the
Emperor's order, broken into small pieces, while
he stood by and directed the work. It happened
to be of a blue colour, and the count's servants
wore red liveries. Upon which an ukase was im-
mediately published, prohibiting throughout the
empire of all the Russias, the use of blue in orna-
menting sledges, and of red liveries. In conse-
quence of this sage decree, the British Ambas-
sador and many others were compelled to change
their equipages. One evening, at his theatre in
80
ECCENTRICITY OF PAUL.
the palace of the Hermitage, a French piece was
performed, in which the story of the English gun-
powder plot was introduced. The Emperor was
observed to listen to it with earnest attention, and
as soon as it was over he ordered all the vaults
beneath the palace to be searched.
His wild eccentricities would have been some-
times amusing, but that they were never divested
of cruelty or mischief. Coming down the street
called the Perspective, he perceived a nobleman
who was taking his walk, and had stopped to look
at some workmen who were planting trees by the
monarch's order. “What are you doing?” said
the Emperor, “Merely seeing the men work,"
replied the nobleman ; " Oh, is that your employ-
ment ? Take off his pelisse and give him a spade!
There, now work yourself !”
The present Emperor Nicholas, some time since,
driving along in his droshky, observed an English
gentleman move down another street, apparently,
as he thought, to avoid him. He sent an officer
to ask why he had done so when the emperor was
coming. The answer was,
" that he did not see
his Imperial Majesty.” “Then desire him to
wear spectacles in future," was the immediate
command, with which the delinquent was forced
to comply during the remainder of his residence
in St. Petersburgh, much to his own annoyance
IMPERIAL FREAKS.
81
and the amusement of his friends, for he was
a remarkably well-looking man, and piqued him-
self on his clear sight.
Paul was perhaps the ugliest specimen of huma-
nity that had ever been seen, which was the more
singular, as his children, with the exception of
the Grand Duke Constantine, were all eminently
handsome. His wife, the Princess of Wirtem-
burg, was a woman of great beauty, highly en-
dowed in qualities of mind. The present Emperor
has always been accounted the finest looking man
in Europe, and Alexander excited much admira-
tion from his prepossessing exterior when he
visited England, in 1814. Their sister also, the
Duchess of Oldenburgh, was approved of even by
the fastidious taste of George the Fourth. The
Calmucks are a hideous race, but the physiognomy
of Paul far exceeded ordinary Calmuck ferocity
and brutish expression. When enraged, he lost
all command of himself, which occasionally gave
rise to ludicrous scenes. The courtiers knew
very well when the storm was gathering, by a
trick the Emperor had in those moments, of blow-
ing from his under-lip against the end of his short
nose. In the rare intervals of better temper his
good humour was betrayed by an uncouth way of
swinging his legs and feet about in walking. Upon
these occasions his conversation was silly, and too
.
82
POLICE TYRANNY.
1
grossly indecent to be listened to by ears polite,
If women were present his language became more
offensive than ever. Everybody throughout the
.
empire was under surveillance, and “suspected of
being suspicious.” A request to leave the country
entailed banishment to Siberia or to the mines.
If any family received visitors of an evening; if
four people were seen walking together; if
any
one spoke too loud, or whistled, or sang, or looked
inquisitive, or examined any public building with
attention, or appeared thoughtful, or stopped to
gaze round him, or stood still in the streets, or
walked too fast or too slow, he was liable to be cross
questioned as to his motives, to be reprimanded
and insulted by the authorities. The dress of
Englishmen in particular was regulated by the
police. They were ordered to wear a three-cor-
nered hat, or, as a substitute, a round hat pinned
up with three corners; a long queue measured to
the eighth of an inch, with a curl at the end ; а
single-breasted coat and waistcoat; buckles at the
knees, and in the shoes instead of strings. Orders
were given to arrest any person who should be
found wearing pantaloons. An English servant
was dragged from behind a sledge and caned in
the streets, for having too thick a neckcloth, and
if it had been too thin, that pretext would have
been used for a similar punishment. After every
a
THE HAT-UKASE.
83
a
a
precaution, the dress when put on, never satisfied
the police or the Emperoreither the hat was
not put on straight, or the hair was too short, or
the coat was not cut square enough. A lady at
court wore her hair rather lower on the neck than
was consistent with the ukase, whereupon she was
ordered into close confinement to be fed on bread
and water. A gentleman's hair fell a little over his
forehead while dancing at a ball, upon which a
policeman with loud abuse told him, that if he did
not instantly cut his hair he would find a soldier
who should shave his head.
When the ukase first appeared concerning the
form of the hat, the son of an English merchant,
with a view to baffle the police, appeared in the
streets of St. Petersburgh, having on his head an
English hunting cap, at sight of which the autho-
rities were puzzled. What could this mysterious
integument be? “It was not a cocked hat,” they
”
said, “ neither was it a round hat." In their em-
barrassment they reported the affair to the Em-
peror, who was as much confounded as his officials.
A new ukase became indispensable. Accordingly
a fresh ordinance was promulgated and levelled
at the hunting cap; but not knowing how to de-
scribe the anomaly, the decree announced, that no
person on pain of death should appear in public
with the thing on his head worn by the merchant's
G 2
84
POLICE TYRANNY.
son. An order against wearing boots with coloured
tops was most rigorously enforced. The police
officers stopped a foreigner driving through the
streets in a pair of English top boots. This gentle-
man expostulated with them, saying that he had
no others, and certainly would not cut off the tops
of his boots. Upon which, the officers, each seizing
a leg as he sat in his droshky, fell to work and drew
off his boots, leaving him to go barefooted home.*
All letters were opened, and if they contained any
unintelligible or difficult passage, it was imme-
diately construed into direct treason, and the
writer hurried to Siberia without examination.
It was impossible that this state of affairs could
last long. On the 2nd of April, 1801, Lord Nelson
shook the Northern Confederacy to its basis, by
the bombardment of Copenhagen and the cap-
ture of the Danish fleet; but before he could
arrive to repeat the lesson at Cronstadt, the Rus-
sians had taken matters into their own hands and
strangled their Emperor. No one was surprised,
for the event had long been anticipated. If it was
ever lawful to bring about good by unholy means,
this instance furnishes the exception. The resto-
ration of peace with England followed as a matter
of course.
The death of the Emperor Paul stands boldly
* See Clarke's Travels.
MME. CHEVALIER.
87
out as a prominent and characteristic episode in
the history of Russia. The event furnishes a
salutary warning to his successors, and a subject
of profitable study for autocrats in general. The
circumstances are not commonly remembered at
present, it may therefore be considered neither
uninteresting nor superfluous to introduce a short
summary of them, derived from sources which
have been relied on as authentic.
It is only necessary to glance at the intrigues
of the French politicians, Messrs. Otto, Sieyes,
and Talleyrand, who at that time formed a dip-
lomatic trio, or rather were spies, at the court of
St. Petersburgh. Under their directions, a cap-
tivating French actress, Madame Chevalier, was
employed to estrange the Emperor from his
family, and to create a temporary and terrible
change in the affairs of Europe. He saw and
became enamoured of the syren, who speedily
established herself as the sole idol of his shattered
mind, which she moved according to the direction
of her secret principals, until Paul withdrew from
his alliance with Austria, recalled Suvaroff and
his all-conquering army, crowded the roads to
Siberia with British subjects, and filled with
terror and consternation the exchange of the
British empire.
The conspirators were few in number, but reso-
86
THE CONSPIRACY.
lute in purpose; they were men of rank and
influence, actuated by no other motive than to
prevent the final ruin of their country, and for
this purpose they hesitated not to place in peril
their lives and fortunes. In their conferences,
which were managed with admirable discretion,
it was resolved that Paul should die: and like
Cæsar, it was also destined that he should perish
in the ides of March, on the day of the festival
called Maslaintza. The Emperor, from the aver-
sion which he had taken to those palaces which
formed the favourite residences of his mother,
resolved upon building a new one for himself.
The gorgeous magnificence of the Zarsko Zelo,
and of the Winter Palace, and all the oriental
voluptuousness of the Hermitage, were hateful
to him. Indeed, to such a height had his abhor-
rence of these places attained, that he had deter-
mined to reduce them to the dust, that only
“The blackness of ashes should mark were they stood.”
His fate, which was fast approaching, prevented
the accomplishment of this irretrievable act of
delirium. The Emperor and his family resided,
at the time when the confederacy had resolved
upon his removal, in the new palace of St. Michael.
This is an enormous quadrangular pile, of red
Dutch brick, rising from a massive basement of
ITS. GRADUAL ADVANCE.
87
hewn granite; it stands at the bottom of the
summer gardens, and the lofty spire of its Greek
chapel, richly gilded with ducat gold, rising
above the trees, has a beautiful appearance. .
As Paul was anxious to inhabit this palace as
soon after he was crowned as possible, the masons,
the carpenters, and various artificers, toiled with
incredible labour by day and by torch-light under
the sultry sun of the summer, and in all the
severity of a polar winter, so that in three years
this enormous and magnificent fabric was com-
pleted. The whole is moated round, and when
the stranger surveys its bastions of granite and
numerous drawbridges, he is naturally led to
conclude that it was intended as the last asylum
of a prince at war with his subjects. Those who
have seen its solid walls, and the capaciousness
and variety of its chambers, will easily admit that
an act of violence might be committed in one
room, and not be heard by those who occupy the
adjoining one; and that a massacre might be
perpetrated at one end and not known at the
other.
Paul took possession of this palace as a place
of strength, and beheld it with rapture, because
his imperial mother had never seen it.
Whilst his family were here, by every act of
tenderness, endeavouring to soothe the terrible
88
THE CONSPIRACY.
perturbation of his mind, there were not wanting
those who exerted many stratagems to inflame
and increase it. These people were constantly
insinuating that every hand was armed against
him. With this impression, which added fuel to
his burning brain, he ordered a secret staircase
to be constructed, which, leading from his own
chamber, passed under a false stove in the ante-
room, and led by a small door to the terrace.
It was the custom of the Emperor to sleep in
an outer apartment, next to the Empress's, upon
a sofa, in his regimentals and boots, whilst the
Grand Duke and Duchess, and the rest of the
Imperial family, were lodged at various distances,
in apartments below the story which he occupied.
On the 23rd day of March, N.s., 1801, the day
preceding the fatal night, (whether Paul's appre-
hension, or anonymous information, suggested
the idea, is not known, but conceiving that a
storm was ready to burst upon him) he sent to
Count - the governor of the city, one of
P-
the noblemen who had resolved on his destruc-
tion: “I am informed, P-," said the Emperor,
“ that there is a conspiracy on foot against me,
do you think it necessary to take any precaution?”
The Count, without betraying the least emotion,
replied, “Sire, do not suffer such apprehensions
to haupt your mind; if there were any combi-
ITS EXECUTION.
89
nations forming against your Majesty's person,
I am sure I should be acquainted with them.”
“ Then I am satisfied,” said the Emperor; and
the governor withdrew.
Before Paul retired to rest, he unexpectedly
expressed the most tender solicitude for the
Empress and his children, kissed them with all
the warmth of farewell fondness, and remained
with them longer than usual; and after he had
visited the sentinels at their different posts, he
retired to his chamber, where he had not long
remained, before, under some colourable pretext
that satisfied the men, the guard was changed by
officers who had the command for the night, and
were engaged in the confederacy. An hussar,
whom the Emperor had particularly honoured by
his notice and attention, always at night slept at
his bed-room door, in the ante-room. It was im-
possible to remove this faithful soldier by any
fair means.
At this momentous period silence reigned
throughout the palace, except where it was dis-
turbed by the pacing of the sentinels, and only
a few lights were to be seen distantly and irregu-
larly gleaming through the windows of this dark,
colossal abode. In the dead of the night Z-
and his friends, amounting to eight or nine
persons, passed the drawbridge, easily ascended
90
DEATH OF THE EMPEROR.
the staircase which led to Paul's chamber, and
met with no resistance till they reached the ante-
room, when the faithful hussar, awakened by the
noise, challenged them, and presented his piece.
Much as they must all have admired the brave
fidelity of the guard, neither time nor circum-
stances would admit of an act of generosity,
which might have endangered the whole plan.
2- drew his sabre, and cut the poor fellow
down. Paul, awakened by the noise, sprang
from his sofa. At this moment the whole party
rushed into the room. The unhappy sovereign,
anticipating their design, at first endeavoured
to intrench himself with the chairs and tables ;
then recovering, he assumed a high tone, told
them they were his prisoners, and called upon
them to surrender. Finding that they fixed
their eyes steadily and firmly upon him, and
continued advancing towards him, he implored
them to spare his life; declared his consent
instantly to relinquish the sceptre, and to accept
of any terms which they would dictate. In his
raving he offered to make them princes, and to
give them estates, and titles, and orders without
end. They now began to press more closely
upon him, when he made a convulsive effort to
reach the window. In the attempt he failed,
and indeed, so high was it from the ground that
THE CONSPIRATORS.
91
had he succeeded, the expedient would only have
put a more instantaneous period to his misery.
In the effort he' severely cut his hand with the
glass, and as they drew him back he grasped a
chair, with which he felled one of the assailants,
and a desperate resistance took place. So great
was the noise, that notwithstanding the massy
walls and thick double folding-doors which divided
the apartments, the Empress was disturbed, and
began to cry for help, when a voice whispered in
her ear, and imperatively told her to remain
quiet, otherwise, if she uttered another word, she
should be put to instant death. Whilst the
Emperor was thus making a last struggle, the
prince Y—- struck him on one of his temples
with his fist, and laid him upon the floor. Paul,
recovering from the blow, again implored his life.
At this moment the heart of P-
Z re-
lented, and upon being observed to tremble and
hesitate, a young Hanoverian resolutely exclaimed,
“ We have passed the Rubicon, if we spare his
life, before the setting of to-morrow's sun we shall
be victims!” Upon which he took off his sash,
turned it twice round the naked neck of the
Emperor, and giving one end to and
Z-
holding the other himself, they pulled for a con-
siderable time with all their force, until their
miserable sovereign was no more.
They then
3
92
JOY OF THE RUSSIANS
retired from the palace without the least moles-
tation, and returned to their respective homes.
What occurred after their departure can be
better conceived than depicted. Medical aid was
resorted to, but in vain; and upon the breathless
body of the Emperor fell the tears of his widowed
Empress, and children, and domestics. The sun
shone upon a new order of things. At seven
o'clock the intelligence of the decease of Paul
spread through the capital. The interval of time
from its first communication to its diffusion over
every part of Petersburgh, was scarcely percept-
ible. Joy and confidence, which had long been
strangers, mantled upon every face. At the
parade Alexander presented himself on horseback,
when the troops hailed him with loud and cordial
acclamations.
What followed is of a very subordinate consi-
deration; but perhaps it will be eagerly asked to
what extremity did the avenging arm of Justice
pursue the perpetration of the deed? A convic-
tion that the reigning motive was the salvation of
the empire, restrained her from being vindictive.
P-zwas ordered not to approach the
imperial residence, and the governor of St. Peters-
burgh was transferred to Riga. When did regicides
ever escape so easily? As soon as Madame Che-
valier was informed of the death of her imperial
AT THE DEATH OF PAUL.
93
a
patron, she prepared, under the protection of her
brother, a dancer, for flight, with a booty of nearly
a million of roubles. A police officer was sent to
inspect and report upon her property. Amongst
a pile of valuable articles, he discovered a diamond
cross of no great intrinsic value, which had been
given by Peter the First to a branch of the impe-
rial family, and on that account much esteemed.
It was to recover this that the officer was sent,
who obtained it, after the most indecent and un-
principled resistance on her part. Passports were
then granted to Madame Chevalier and her brother,
and thus terminated this extraordinary and impres-
sive tragedy.
The details of the murder of the emperor Paul
bore some resemblance to those which attended
the similar catastrophe of the Marquis Monaldeschi,
who was assassinated in the palace of Fontaine-
bleau by order of Queen Christina of Sweden.
But the one was an act of private vengeance arising
from woman's jealousy; the other a deed of public
retribution excited by the sufferings of an enraged
nation.
On the death of Paul, his eldest son Alexander
succeeded to the throne amidst the universal
rejoicings and congratulations of his subjects.
Even with the conspirators there was no question
a
94
THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER.
а
of changing the dynasty: their only object was to
get rid of the tyrant. Born on the 22nd December,
1777, Alexander had only completed his twenty-
fourth year. Although personally brave, he was
constitutionally a lover of peace, and had a natural
dislike to war and bloodshed. Educated by Casar
Laharpe, a republican, and a sort of latitudinarian
philosopher, he had acquired respectable humanity
without imbibing much regard for religion.
The burning of Moscow, and the result of the
campaign of 1812, began to impress his mind with
sincere piety, which was afterwards strengthened
and confirmed by many conversations with the
strange visionary Madame-Krudener: At one time
a brilliant leader of fashion in Paris, this singular
woman merged into a fanatical devotee, and wan-
dered about the world preaching and prophesying.
After announcing the millennium to the Swiss
mountaineers, she was hunted by the police from
one State to another, and finally died in the Crimea,
in 1824. The emperor declined inviting her to
Moscow or St. Petersburgh to revive their subli-
mated lucubrations.
Alexander had many requisites to command and
retain popularity; his manners were polished, his
mind cultivated, and his personal appearance im-
posing. Everything seemed to predict to him a
a
HIS SUPPOSED COMPLICTY.
95
long life-rent of the temporal glory he reached
when young, and from which he was suddenly
removed at the early age of forty-eight.
Many attempts have been made to implicate
him in the murder of his father, as it has often
been said that he was assassinated himself. The
two inferences are equally without foundation.
Napoleon, at St. Helena, accused him of direct
participation in the death of Paul, and produced
in evidence the fact that he placed on his personal
staff, one of the most active conspirators, and
treated him with unusual confidence. The truth
appears to be, that Alexander was cognizant of
what was intended, but utterly unable to prevent
it. Interference on his part, without saving his
father, would have entailed his own destruction
and the ruin of the family. His feelings as a son
and a man, revolted from the manner of the deed,
although reason must have forced him to admit
that it was politically inevitable. Whether he can
be justly charged with moral obliquity, or indirect
connivance, is an open question which has been
freely discussed.
When Charles the First was brought to trial,
his son, then Prince of Wales, remitted to the
parliament a blank paper with his signature
attached, and bound himself under a solemn pro-
mise to abide by any conditions they might please
94
THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH.
a
to insert as regarded himself, provided only the
life of his father was spared. Here was a flourish
of magnanimity which reads well as an anecdote.
Alexander certainly did not follow the example,
but submitted to circumstances without useless
remonstrance. In this critical moment of his life,
he evinced little disposition to a personal sacrifice,
but the cases are scarcely parallel, and in a general
estimate of either public or private character, it
would be a libel on the memory of the Russian
monarch to reduce him to a level with the restored
Stuart. Paul was disposed of, and Russia, with all
Europe, were gainers by the exchange
“ No matter how—he slept among the dead,
And Alexander reigned in his stead.”-
Alexander was married at sixteen to the Princess
Louise-Marie-Auguste of Bavaria, who had not
completed her fifteenth year. At the nuptials, which
took place on the 9th of October, 1793, she was
required to change the form of her religion, from
the Romish to the Greek church; and on the
ceremony of renunciation, received, with the holy
ointment, the name of Elizabeth Alexeiovna, by
which she was afterwards known and universally
revered. They had two daughters who died
young and left them childless. Alexander, who
was of inconstant temperament, deserted his lovely
"*
* Churchill.
CHARACTER OF ALEXANDER.
97
and accomplished wife, for the variety of a suc-
cession of mistresses, by one of whom he had three
children, who also preceded him to the grave.
His intrigues, although sufficient to render the
empress unhappy, occasioned little public scandal,
as they were not unblushingly paraded, but carried
on in profound secrecy. Hence he obtained a
reputation for moral propriety and domestic virtue
without much claim, and in the reality of which
his brother Nicholas is infinitely his superior. At
the commencement of his reign, he dedicated his
thoughts to peace and the internal improvement
of his vast empire. In 1803, he offered his medi-
-ation between France and England, but without
effect. Turkey obtained a respite, but not a
release. The designs of Russia in the east were
suspended rather than abandoned, and the ominous
finger-post, erected by Catherine the Second at
Cherson, still remained with the inscription “The
way to Constantinople.” His coronation at Mos-
cow. was signalised by acts of amnesty, which
contrasted well with the tyranny of Paul. He
diminished taxes, liberated debtors, prohibited
prosecutions for the recovery of fines, and granted
a free pardon to all deserters from the army. But
.
one giant grievance he left untouched, and lacked
the firmness to grapple with—public corruption.
In every office of the state, from the prime minister
H
98
POLICY OF ALEXANDER.
down to the lackeys of the clerks, he checked
cruelty, but he shrank from reform. On this
point a well informed author,* who describes what
he saw with his own eyes, thus expresses himself,
and his words may be depended on.
peror Alexander, whose character presented a
singular compound of liberal views, benevolent
intentions, and clear-sighted shrewdness, with an
indolent weakness, which allowed him, and con-
sequently his empire, to be entirely governed by his
confidants, was perfectly conscious of this rotten-
ness of the social system. As no flattery could
make him believe that he was either a Peter the
Great or a Napoleon, he never dreamed of under-
taking a reform, perhaps the most difficult that
had ever been attempted. He was perfectly aware
that to have any chance of success, he must begin
by raising ten-fold the salaries of his officers,
which the finances of the state would not have
allowed him, and establishing an unlimited freedom
of the
press,
“ The em-
which his ministers would have con-
sidered as the mad act of a political Frankenstein.
As he wanted the energy to dispute the matter
with his advisers, even when he felt their conduct
to be cruel and foresaw it to be impolitic, he never
dreamed of removing this mountain of social ini-
quity; but he at least saw it exactly as it was; and
* Revelations of Russia, Vol. I.
OFFICIAL VENALITY.
99
>
perfectly aware that unless the evil was cured at
the root, any severity would prove utterly useless,
-a mere film over the ulcer, he allowed corruption
to walk barefaced, instead of obliging it, as Nicholas
has done, merely to veil itself from the public view.
He avenged himself for the public robberies of his
servants by a quiet jest, and allowed his ministers
to discover, to prove, and to punish. He plainly
observed of his Russian subjects: “If they only
knew where to warehouse them, they would pur-
loin my line-of-battle ships; if they could do it
without waking me, they would steal my teeth
while I slept."
Count Stanislaus Plater has endorsed this
opinion even more strongly, in a political pam-
phlet of high reputation.* He says, “There does
“
not exist in Europe, a more immoral system of
government; one which, based upon the most
shameless venality, has reduced it to a tacit con-
ventional system and habit, which has ceased to
shock, and has reached such a pitch, that many
persons in Russia cannot conceive it possible for
an employé to be an honest man. This conviction
overwhelmed the last days of the Emperor Alex-
ander with grief and melancholy.
“It was this which excited the imagination of
the conspirators in 1825, who, penetrated with the
* Les Polonais au Tribunal de l'Europe.
1
a
H 2
100
PRINCE ARAKTCHEIEFF.
sense of the necessity of reform, and dreaming of
a better order of things, thought the most frightful
overthrow of government preferable to this orga-
nised system of corruption.
Wherever the
Russian government has been introduced, venality
has taken root."
Alexander's principal favourite was Count
Araktcheieff, a name little known in Europe,
but remembered in Russia through every depart-
ment of the empire. He was not quite as wicked
as Potemkin, but he was fully as rapacious.
Where his predecessor inflicted the knout, he levied
a fine, and instead of banishing political delin-
quents to Siberia, he squeezed their pockets and
kept them at home to fatten up for future exac-
tions. Alexander, who was gentle to weakness,
who loved to discuss the rights of humanity, and
wept over a tale of sorrow, allowed an unscru-
pulous minister to tarnish his name by the exer-
cise of oppressions, repugnant to his own nature
and foreign to his practice. His constitutional
indolence became responsible for the crimes of his
delegate. This man, who governed the emperor,
and through him the empire, was himself go-
verned by a mistress, a demon in human form,
who led him into the most unaccountable ex-
cesses, until her career was cut short by assas-
sination at the hand of one of her own slaves.
HOSTILITIES WITH FRANCE.
101
On the death of Alexander, Araktcheieff fell into
disgrace, and retreated on benevolence and reli- .
gion when he could no longer exercise political
power. He had been faithful to his master, per-
sonally unostentatious in his favouritism, and
died in 1834, in the odour of sanctity, with his
eyes fixed on the portrait of Alexander, suspended
in front of his bed,
In 1805, Russia, alarmed at the progress of
Napoleon, responded to the cry of Austria in her
hour of extremity and came to her assistance-
but too late. The capitulation of Ulm, and the
surrender of Vienna, were followed up by the
crowning disaster of Austerlitz. Alexander was
here under fire for the first time. His personal
bravery was as conspicuous as the valour of his
troops, but he had no Suvaroff to direct their
energies, and the Austrian quartermaster-gene-
ral, Weyrother, who had already lost Rivoli and
Hohenlinden by erroneous dispositions, was
allowed a third and more decisive opportunity of
evincing his incapacity. Koutousoff, the nominal
commander-in-chief, fell asleep at the council of
and had nothing to do with the ill-judged
movements which ruined his army. It suited the
policy of Napoleon to allow the wrecks of that
army to retreat unmolested when they were com-
pletely in his power. A second time, Alexander
war,
102
WAR WITH ENGLAND,
came on to assist Prussia, but again—too late.
Prussia was subdued before the armies of the
Czar were able to take the field. In the mean.
time, Russia and Turkey had resumed their old
hostilities, and the English government, always
intent on the death-struggle with France, with the
view of liberating the Russian troops engaged in
the East, sought a pretext to quarrel with our old
ally the Turk, and sent a fleet up the Dardanelles,
under Sir John Duckworth, and an expedi-
tion against Alexandria under General Fraser-
instances of the “ little wars so detrimental to
the credit of a great nation, in which the short-
hitting policy of our ministers frequently involved
Both these armaments came back again
with loss and discomfiture. In the meantime
Russia maintained a stout campaign in Poland,
fought at Pultusk and Eylau with a pertinacity
which raised high expectations of a triumphant
issue, sank under the genius of Napoleon at
Friedland, and was bribed into utter submission
at Tilsit, when only half defeated. Alexander
then delared war against England, while the
balance of her subsidies was yet in his trea-
sury, and he had no other immediate fund from
whence to support his armies. History does not
present a more flagrant instance of political
treachery.
us.
TREATY OF TILSIT.
103
The Treaty of Tilsit was concluded on the 7th
July, 1807. The eighth Article provided that
"If, in consequence of the recent changes that
have occurred at Constantinople (the deposition of
Sultan Selim, replaced by Mustapha), the Porte
shall not accept the mediation of France, or if,
having accepted it, it shall happen that during
the course of three months the negotiations are
not brought to a satisfactory conclusion, France
will make common cause with Russia against the
Ottoman Porte, and the two high contracting
powers will concert measures to withdraw all the
provinces of the Ottoman empire in Europe
(Constantinople and the province of Roumelia
excepted) from the yoke and vexations of the
Turk."
This is plain speaking, divested of circum-
locution, but Napoleon soon discovered that if he
suffered this project to be literally carried out,
the advantages were not on his side. Eventually
Russia was permitted to take possession of Fin-
land, as an immediate compromise, and the
partition of Turkey was postponed to a more
convenient opportunity. The secret stipulations
of Tilsit, which purchased the honour of Russia,
and tempted the Czar to infringe solemn engage-
ments on flimsy pretexts, never have been and
never will be authentically developed in all their
104
TREATY OF TILSIT.
details; but enough has transpired to show that
the general summary circulated by the English
government at the time, was derived from sources
to be relied on, and not much exaggerated in
design, although few will admit that it was pos-
sible of execution. Here follow the leading
stipulations of this most comprehensive and
conscientious treaty.*
Article 1. Russia shall take possession of
European Turkey, and shall extend her con-
quests into Asia as far as she may deem
proper.
Art. II. The Bourbon dynasty in Spain, and
the House of Braganza in Portugal, shall cease to
reign. Princes of the family of Napoleon shall
succeed to both crowns.
Art. III. The temporal supremacy of the Pope
shall cease. Rome and her dependencies shall be
re-united to the kingdom of Italy.
Art. IV. Russia shall afford France the assist-
ance of her navy to re-conquer Gibraltar.
Art. V. France shall take possession of such
cities in Africa as Tunis and Algiers, and at the
general peace all the conquests made by France
* Bignon, in his “ History of French Diplomacy,” composed
by order of Napoleon, admits the general correctness of this
statement; the articles are also given in the “ Biographie
Universelle" of Michaud.
TREATY OF TILSIT.
105
in Africa shall be given as indemnities to the
Kings of Sardinia and Sicily.
Art. VI. Malta shall be held by France, and
no peace shall be granted to England till she sur-
renders that island.
Art. VII. The French shall occupy Egypt.
Art. VIII. The navigation of the Mediter-
ranean shall be confined exclusively to French,
Russian, Spanish, and Italian vessels.
Art. IX. Denmark shall have as an indemnity
in the north of Europe, the Hanseatic towns,
provided she surrenders her squadrons to France.*
Art. X. Their Majesties the Emperors of
France and Russia shall draw up regulations by
which no power shall navigate merchant-ships
unless possessed of a certain number of vessels of
war.
Such a treaty, supposing it could be carried to
a consummation, amounts to a division of the
world between the two contracting parties. There
would not only have been an end of our Indian
empire in a year or two, but England would have
disappeared from the map of Europe, as an inde-
pendent nation, within a quarter of a century.
* This clause was anticipated by the British expedition to
Copenhagen in Sept., 1807, when the entire Danish fleet was
taken and carri•d to England. This time it was not a "little
war,” but the wisest measure of precaution ever adopted under
peculiar circumstances. O si sic omnia !
"
106
TREATY OF TILSIT.
Napoleon was too sagacious to believe in this, but
he wanted to impel Alexander into the Conti-
nental system, and mystified him accordingly, to
render him a subservient instrument. As far as
the French Emperor was concerned we had
nothing to complain of. It was war to the knife
between the two governments, war undisguised
and declared, and each had an undoubted right
to use every possible means to cripple the oppos-
ing enemy. As Conrad the Corsair
As Conrad the Corsair says of Seyd
the Pacha:-
“He was mine enemy, and swept my band
From earth with ruthless, but with open hand,
And therefore came I in my bark of war
To smite the smiter with the scimitar.”
It was not so in the practice of Alexander of
Russia. When he lent himself to this secret
negotiation, this modern duumvirate, he was at
peace with England, without an excuse for com-
plaint or remonstrance, receiving aid and supplies
from the power he thus secretly conspired to
destroy. The Treaty of Tilsit, with the unpub-
lished codicils, was concluded on the 7th of July;
it was not until the 26th of October following
that the Emperor of Russia began to talk of
reviving the principles of the armed neutrality,
threatened to break off communications with
England unless the Danish navy should be
NAPOLEON'S INVASION.
107
ex-
restored, and the empire of the seas renounced;
and finally declared war on the 1st of December.
Retribution fell on him before the close of a year.
His trade was speedily annihilated by the English
cruisers, he was enclosed within the gates of the
Baltic, and his squadron in the Tagus, surrender-
ing to Sir C. Cotton, shifted their quarters to
England, where they remained until the close of
the war, rotting in undisturbed neglect under the
old walls of Porchester Castle.
In 1812 we forgot all this, and when Russia
was threatened with invasion, once more
tended to her the right hand of friendship, and
again poured forth our subsidies to keep her
armies in the field. As usual, she was late,
even in her own defence, and when Napoleon
crossed the Niemen, had no adequate force to
face and retard him. Much has been said and
written on the organized plan of retreat to draw
the enemy on into the interior, and to insulate
him from his base of operations. 'Lord Welling-
ton's successful defence of Portugal and the lines
of Torres Vedras, were said to have furnished the
Russian generals with their plan of campaign, of
which the burning of Moscow was a pre-calculated
episode. These are opinions delivered after the
event, and contrived to make causes and conse-
quences cohere, rather than the result of deep-
108
BATTLE OF BORODINO.
laid schemes by which the event was produced.
To the astonishment of all Europe, Russia was at
this most momentous crisis later and more ill-
prepared than usual. She retreated because she
had not sufficient force to make a stand; and
when she finally fought at Borodino, did it to
save her capital, which fell as a result of the
battle. The Emperor Alexander, suddenly smit-
ten with the thirst of military glory, so opposite
to his natural temperament, had determined to
take the active command of his own armies, and
was with difficulty dissuaded from this ruinous
intention. Then the commanding generals were
hastily appointed, had no confidence in each
other, and no longer time to arrange connected
operations, even if they had possessed the expe-
rience and capacity which the crisis demanded.
The Emperor Nicholas has lately, on more than
one occasion, indecently set forward the triumph
of Russia over the legions of Napoleon in 1812,
which he loudly vaunts as the result of national
prowess
and inexhaustible resources. The assump-
tion is merely offensive, without convincing the
most careless reasoners, or the most superficial
observers. It is true, that the result saw Russian
armies marching through the streets of Paris;
but they were brought there by English money.
The two hundred thousand gallant Frenchmen,
TREATY OF BUCHAREST.
109
whose bones whitened on the steppes of Russia,
were victims of the climate rather than the con-
queror's sword; the obstinacy of Napoleon created
his own disasters; and the active diplomacy of
England, seconding Russian intrigues, enabled
the Emperor Alexander to make an advantageous
peace with Turkey, and to set at liberty a large
well-disciplined army at the moment, and in the
position where they were most available. The
blindness of Turkey in yielding, when the tide
was beginning to turn in her favour, is one of
those unaccountable events in the history of
nations which we pause on and ponder over with-
out being able to comprehend. But the Turks
were probably discouraged by repeated defeats,
had no longer the means of continuing an active
war, and were still further weakened by treachery
in their own cabinet. We have already seen
that Bessarabia was swindled from them under
false pretences.
By the treaty of Bucharest in 1812, Russia
advanced her frontier towards Constantinople
from the Dniester to the Pruth, a point behind
which she has never since receded. She secured
for her vessels of war the right of ascending as
far as the mouth of the Pruth, and the entire
navigation of the Danube for her merchant
110
ANAPA AND POTI.
ships. She obtained an amnesty for the Servians
whom she had excited to rebellion against their
lawful suzerain; stipulated for the demolition of
the Turkish fortresses in Servia ; and bound the
Porte to mediate a peace with Persia, Russia
not being for the moment at liberty to prosecute
that war.
The emperor of Russia, on his part, agreed to
surrender Anapa, and certain other fortified places
on the Asiatic coast of the Black Sea, which had
been captured during the war; but the stipula-
tion was not fulfilled; and the bad faith displayed
in evading it, became one of the causes of dis-
sension which, in the end, led to another contest.*
All the struggles between Russia and Turkey,
since the reign of Peter the Great, have ended in
the loss of power and territory to the latter;
and, in all, she has been unjustly attacked with-
out provocation. Yet the integrity of Turkish
independence has been always admitted as indis-
pensable to the balance of power, while the
leading cabinets, who proclaim the principle, have
seldom interfered except to overthrow it. Nava-
rino and the kingdom of Greece are evidences
to attest this paradox. But it is never too late
* See “ Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East,"
p. 74.
DEATH OF ALEXANDER.
111
to amend an error, or to prevent the Sultan from
crying again, with justice, Save me from my
friends!
On the 1st of December, 1824, the Emperor of
all the Russias died at Taganrog, on the Sea of
Azof. He had gone there for the recovery of
the empress, little expecting that he was destined
to precede her to the tomb. Not many months
before, General Diebitsch discovered a conspiracy,
which had been brooding for years, involving in
its contemplated object the assassination of the
monarch, the subversion of the government, and
the total revolution of the empire. It began by
the establishment of secret societies in the army,
spread rapidly amongst the nobility, and even
infected the lower classes. Alexander had created
great discontent by his indolence in allowing peti-
tions to accumulate in heaps in his cabinet, with-
out even breaking their seals. It was strange,
that in a country, where a foreign visitor cannot
change his shirt or his coat, or pull off his boots
and put on a pair of shoes, without every trifling
movement being made the subject of a police
report, a plot of many ramifications, and in which
thousands were implicated, should remain for
years without notice or suspicion ; that no trea-
chery should betray, and no loyalty fathom, the
impending mischief. The first hint of its exist-
112
CONCERTED PLOT.
ence came from an inferior officer of Lancers named
Sherwood, and of English origin. He received
for recompense the honour of hereditary nobility,
with the surname of “ Vernei," the Faithful; but
he did not long enjoy the distinctions conferred
upon him.
him. At the first opening of the campaign
on the Danube in 1828, a ball terminated his
career; but whether from a Russian or a Turkish
musquet is a question which can never be decided.
The knowledge of this plot deeply affected the
mind and spirits of the emperor, already much
depressed by the successive deaths of his children,
legitimate and illegitimate. He knew that he was
marked out for the assassin's dagger; that all the
parts in the tragic drama were assigned; and that
the period of the catastrophe was determined.
His wife appeared to be dying before his eyes;
and, in that moment of depression, all his long
neglect was forgotten, his early affection returned
in full force, and he resolved to devote his life
to her for the future. A chronic malady of the
chest rendered a milder climate absolutely neces-
sary for her recovery. The physicians recom-
mended her native air; but she refused peremp:
torily to comply with this advice, urging in reply
to all representations, that the wife of the Empe-
ror of Russia should die nowhere else than in
his dominions. The Crimea was at first proposed;
DEATH OF ALEXANDER.
113
but Taganrog was finally fixed upon; and Alex-
ander declared that he would accompany her.
He was suffering under a recent attack of erysi-
pelas; but neither he nor his physicians imagined
that any danger threatened him, or that the
exertion of a journey would bring back his com-
plaint. When assailed by typhus fever, he
rejected the proposed remedies, and trusted to
the strength of his constitution.
The unex-
pected suddenness of his death, the great distance
from the capital at which it occurred, the explo-
sion of the conspiracy almost immediately after,
the certainty that his assassination was intended,
and would have taken place had he not been
removed in the course of nature, the popular
belief that Emperors of Russia seldom die in their
beds,-these, and other cohering circumstances,
occasioned a general impression through Europe,
that Alexander had shared the fate of his father,
his grandfather, and of other princes of his
dynasty. The evidences to the contrary are too
convincing to be disputed. The published report
of his physician, Sir James Wylie, the letter of
the Empress to his mother, and the documents
collected by M. Schnitzler in his “Secret His-
tory,” are more than sufficient to convince all,
except those stubborn disputants who are prede-
termined to reject conviction on the most unde-
1
-
114
THE GRAND DUKE
-
niable proof. The Empress Elizabeth followed her
husband to thegrave at the expiration of fivemonths.
On the decease of Alexander, the crown be-
longed incontestably to the Grand Duke Con-
stantine, his next brother, although he had never
been publicly designated as heir - presumptive.
The question had never arisen during the reign
of the late monarch. In the event of the death
of the Empress Elizabeth, Alexander might marry
again, and give a direct heir to the throne. But
now he was dead, and that was no longer possible.
The act of Paul, regulating the succession, had
been confirmed by Alexander in 1807 and again
in 1820. In this last, he also decreed that the
issue of marriages recognized and authorized by
the reigning emperor, and who should themselves
contract marriages recognized and authorised by
him, should alone enjoy that right of succession
to the throne which had been established by Paul.
Nothing could be more complete, more rational,
or more clear than this law. It existed, more-
over, in full force and vigour. Constantine was uni-
versally unpopular. A gallant soldier from his
early youth, he had fought in many battles, and
had invariably distinguished himself by the most
daring valour. He received the title of Czarovitch
from his father Paul for his bravery in Italy
with Suvaroff, while yet under twenty-one
,
CONSTANTINE.
115
years of age. At Austerlitz, in 1805, he led the
Imperial Guard into the thickest of the fight, and
had two horses shot under him. At Pultusk,
Eylau, and Friedland, he was equally distinguished;
but still the army, though they admired his
courage and followed him to death, had no respect
for his person, no attachment to the individual
He was feared and obeyed, from instinct
and habit—not from impulse or affection. He
was known to possess an ungovernable temper, a
cruel disposition, a memory tenacious of wrongs,
and a heart incapable of friendship. In aspect he
was, if possible, more forbidding than his father,
with the same Calmuck features, the stunted nose,
the shaggy eyebrows, and the protruding lip.
When men looked on him, they felt as if they
saw an ogre or a ghoul. When he looked on men,
they shrank as if under the influence of the “evil
eye,” and endured a sickness of the heart until
the glance wandered away to settle on another
object. He was even more repulsive in mirth
than in anger. While describing an imaginary
being, the poet has typified him in these expres-
sive lines :-
man.
“ There was a laughing devil in his sneer,
That raised emotions both of rage and fear;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope withering fled, and mercy sigh'd farewell !” *
* Lord Byron's “Corsair,” Canto I
I 2
116
FEAR OF THE PEOPLE.
mourners.
The multitude entertained no doubt that at the
death of Alexander the imperial crown would be
worn by Constantine, and the pulse of fifty-eight
millions trembled with apprehension. The miseries
of the reign of Paul rose again before them in
visions of fearful anticipation.
Yet Constantine
has found his panegyrists, as Nero had his
They have said that although his
temper was diabolical, his heart was good; and
that as often as he committed fearful outrages
under the influence of passion, he repented when
he became cool. This sort of posthumous atone-
ment was of little value to the victims he had
sacrificed, and no security to the survivors, who
hourly expected a repetition of the wrong, but
were by no means so confident in the accompany-
ing apology
When Alexander was supposed to be seriously
ill in 1824, Constantine suddenly appeared in St.
Petersburgh. The inhabitants were unable to
disguise the terror with which they looked forward
to his probable accession, and nothing could
exceed the joy of all classes, on the temporary
recovery of their beloved sovereign. During the
last illness of Alexander, bulletins of his health
were sent direct from Taganrog to the Grand
Duke Constantine at Warsaw, with as much dili-
gence as those to the Empress-Mother at St.
FAMILY OF CONSTANTINE.
117
Petersburgh, and he received the first information
of the event which threw the empire into mourn-
ing. The brother or the heir might have equally
expected these communications, yet the constant
despatch of couriers confirmed the general belief
with regard to the intended succession. Constan-
tine had no children by his first wife, the Princess
Julienne of Saxe - Cobourg, sister of Leopold,
King of Belgium. They separated by mutual
consent at the end of four
years.
After
many
scruples and much delay, Alexander connived at
his second marriage with Jeanne Gudzinska, a
Polish lady, of whom he was deeply enamoured,
and who retained her magical influence over his
savage temper until the hour of his death. What-
ever he might have been to others, to her he was
kind and affectionate, and her society became
necessary to his existence. The union was what
is termed in courtly phraseology, morganatic or
left-handed. The parties were united in wedlock,
but their posterity (if they had any) could have
no claim to the succession.
Nicholas was many years younger than Constan-
tine, and it appeared highly probable that he would
ultimately be emperor, but only after the demise
of his elder brother, whose personal right had in
no way been compromised by his first divorce or
his second marriage. Jeanne Gudzinska, created
118
RESIGNATION OF CONSTANTINE.
Princess of Lowicz by Alexander, deserves to be
mentioned with respect. The woman who could
soften and almost transform a character so fero-
cious and ungovernable as that of Constantine,
must have been herself truly amiable. Her in-
fluence principally prevailed on him to renounce
the throne, his occupation of which would have
produced the misery of millions, ending in san-
guinary revolution; and by personal ascendancy
she taught him self-control, and obtained from
him the tenderness of a ver to the hour of his
death. She survived him only a few months, and
died at St. Petersburgh on the 29th of November,
1831.
As soon as the news of the death of Alexander
arrived at St. Petersburgh, the Grand Duke
Nicholas repaired to the senate to take the oath
of fidelity to his brother Constantine (then at
Warsaw), as "the legitimate heir to the empire
by right of primogeniture," and to issue a com-
mand to the whole empire to follow his example.
But a document had been deposited with the
senate, on which was written in Alexander's hand,
In the event of my death, this packet to be
opened at an extraordinary sitting, before pro-
ceeding to any other business.” The packet was
opened, and found to contain the voluntary renun-
ciation of his right to the succession by Constan-
ACCESSION OF NICHOLAS.
119
a
tine, dated 26th of January, 1822, ratified by
Alexander on the 14th of February following,
and a declaration that the Grand Duke Nicholas,
his second brother, was thenceforward to be con-
sidered as his heir. It appears certain, on a com-
parison of evidence, and weighing all the circum-
stances of the case, that Nicholas was quite aware
of the existence of this document, and of the
abdication of Constantine ;—that his first public
act was one of intentional, studied duplicity, the
reasons for which he will never explain until
summoned to answer before the awful tribunal
to which earthly sovereigns are alone respon-
sible.
The high council of the state, in obedience to
the commands of Alexander, proceeded to take
the oath of fidelity to the hereditary emperor he
had named; but Nicholas declined receiving the
proffered homage, and refused to assume the
sovereign power, unless his elder brother per-
sisted in the renunciation of his rights. Was he
sincere, or was he acting a part, having previously
calculated the certain result ? An obstinate
altercation ensued between the bashful autocrat
and the council. At last the latter extricated
themselves by a compromise.
" You are our
Emperor," they said; “we owe you absolute
obedience. If you order us to recognize the
120
THE INTERREGNUM.
Grand Duke Constantine as our legitimate sove-
reign, our course is to obey your commands."
Constantine was then proclaimed; the ministers
of the Church assented; the army cried, "Glory
to God !” and the people looked on, knowing
there was a change, and not caring much about
the matter. The motives by which Nicholas may
have been actuated were many and various, ac-
cording to the interpretations given by himself,
his friends, and his enemies. These must be
weighed, and a decision formed according to their
comparative value.
Constantine, by the act of Nicholas, was vir-
tually Emperor, and a dangerous interregnum
ensued, which might very easily have led to a
revolution. There was everywhere the ominous
silence of suspense, the journals were mute,
people looked on each other without speaking,
and grief for the death of Alexander seemed to
be the prevailing sentiment: the future was un-
heeded in the present. Constantine settled the
difficulty, and relieved the embarrassment of all
concerned by peremptorily refusing the crown,
and adhering to the tenor of his renunciation.
There was now no reason for further delay or
hesitation.
An interregnum of three weeks terminated on
the 24th of December, and Nicholas ascended the
A NEW CONSPIRACY.
121
throne, which he knew to be his, from the moment
that the death of Alexander was announced. He
dates his accession from the 1st of December,
1825, the day on which Alexander died; but his
reign did not in reality commence until the 24th,
when the manifesto was signed, though not made
public. The act was short, clear, and drawn up
with remarkable ability.
The advent of Nicholas to the throne was the
signal for the breaking-out of the long organized
conspiracy, the heads of which in St. Petersburgh
were Sergius, Prince Troubetskoi; Eugene, Prince
Nolenski; and Conrad Ryleieff. The latter, less
rich, lower in rank, and inferior in influence, pos-
sessed the superior qualities of firmness and pru-
dence. He was a poet, an enthusiast, a democrat,
and a man of theories. They had long determined
to get rid of Alexander, and subvert the govern-
ment. The succession of Nicholas hastened their
plans to the moment of decisive action. On the
25th of December, Christmas Day, the conspira-
tors met for the last time at the house of Ryleieff,
to concert their final measures. It is said that
the police were apprised of this meeting, and gave
information of it to the Governor-General of
St. Petersburgh, Count Miloradovitch, who only
laughed, crying “Bah! they are a set of dreamers,
met to read bad verses !” Nicholas had been
122
THE CONSPIRACY,
uncer-
made acquainted with the existence of the con-
spiracy, but seemed to treat it as a thing of nought.
The conspirators, in the meantime, had been mis-
led by an assurance, that in the second army one
hundred thousand men were ready to declare for
them. The revolt broke out in the regiment of
Moscow, and when Nicholas issued from the
Winter Palace to suppress it, he was
tain what battalions were faithful, or what would
declare against him. Many cried “Long live
·
Constantine !” but he soon found himself sur-
rounded by soldiers and generals constant in
fidelity, and more numerous than their oppo-
nents.
In this momentous crisis, and at the very open-
ing of his reign, he was suddenly called upon to
exhibit himself worthy of the throne by courage
and moderation, and it must be admitted that he
displayed both in admirably blended proportions.
His faithful friend Miloradovitch, who had escaped
from fifty-six battles with foreign enemies without
a wound, and who had been called the Murat
of the Russian army, fell by his side, and by the
hand of one of his own soldiers. The mob, assem-
bled in large numbers, began to take part with
the armed rebels. The Emperor, deeply grieved by
the fall of Miloradovitch, was now sufficiently re-
inforced, but still he hesitated before he wielded the
AND ITS SUPPRESSION.
123
vast power in his hands, and issued orders to shed
the blood of his subjects. He tried exhortations,
but they refused to listen. The pontiff Seraphim
appeared and appealed to them in the name of
their religion, but they received his discourse with
scoffs, and stifled his voice by the rolling of the
drums. It was now absolutely necessary to act.
The cavalry charged, but the rebels resisted stoutly,
and the short winter's day had nearly closed in
darkness before the conflict was decided. Field-
pieces were at length brought into action, and a
general rout took place. The exact loss has never
been ascertained. The bodies were hastily col-
lected and thrown into the Neva, through open-
ings hewn for the purpose in the ice. There might
have been in all some two hundred killed, and from
seven to eight hundred taken prisoners. At six
o'clock all was quiet. The Emperor hastened to re-
assure the Empress, and then hurried to the dying
bed of Miloradovitch, to receive his last wishes, and
thank him for the final service he had rendered to
his country at the price of his blood. The con-
spiracy was over, and the leaders who had excited
it were found wanting in the hour of danger.
True to the traditional character of demagogues,
they had brought their excited dupes to the field
and left them there to perish. But they were
hunted out by the police, and cast into prison.
124
CLEMENCY OF THE EMPEROR.
The subsequent executions were few,* and the
clemency of Nicholas raised the most exalted
hopes of his future justice in the administration of
the great empire which had submitted unani-
mously and cheerfully to his rule. Why have
the consummate prudence and admirable mode-
ration which marked the conduct of Nicholas in
the early vigour of life, so signally deserted him
in its decline, and when advancing years should
bring with them increasing wisdom? We cannot
solve the enigma, but we see in the present con-
duct of the Russian Emperor another instance of
the strange inconsistency which so often mars
the characters of sovereigns, who have been
quoted up to a certain point as models of political
experience and practical wisdom. We have beheld
a memorable instance in the fall of Louis Philippe,
and perhaps Nicholas is destined to furnish a
* Troubetskoi, who deserved compound execution for his
blended treason, cowardice, and ignorance; who talked of
Brutus and Riego, but confessed that he knew not who those
patriots were— Troubetskoi was spared, and banished to
Siberia for life. Ryleieff and four others were hanged. The
platform was withdrawn before its time, and the noose slid
over the head of Ryleieff, with two of his companions, precipi-
tating them into the hole beneath the scaffold. When they
were once more brought under the gibbet, Ryleieff exclaimed
with undaunted courage : “ Accursed country, where they
neither know how to plot, to judge, or to hang !” Such a high-
souled spirit should have fallen by a bullet on the day of the
insurrection, instead of surviving to perish ignominiously by
the halter.
OUTBREAK OF AMBITION.
125
second, and if possible a more impressive illustra-
tion. Ambition is usually an accompaniment of
youth and hot blood, a desire which grows with
indulgence, and becomes stunted by restraint.
In him, after long forbearance, this overwhelming
influence bursts forth in the autumn of life, at
the mature age of fifty-eight, a period when the
active, stormy passions are usually exhausted by
indulgence and sobered by reflection. He has gone
through a long series of difficulty and trial, and
severe discipline has been administered to him in
his greatness. His reign was inaugurated by blood-
shed, and seven years later he was induced to put
down the revolt of Poland by sanguinary retali-
ation. His cities have been destroyed by fire,
famine and the cholera have decimated his pro-
vinces, his domestic circle has been reached by
the keen arrows of death, and now he stands alone
unnecessarily braving the indignation of the world,
rushing madly into an unequal contest which
he has most unnecessarily provoked, and from
which it is not humanly probable that he can
escape without signal disaster and humilia-
tion.
From the close of the great war in 1815 to the
accession of the Emperor Nicholas, only ten
years had elapsed; during which time, Russia,
in common with the other nations, was occupied
126
SULTAN MAHMOUD.
a
in recruiting her exhausted strength. She was
in no state for immediate aggression, but had
contrived to take good care of herself at the
settlement of states by the Congress of Vienna.
France lost her conquests, England resigned
many
colonies and desirable outports, but Russia
was called upon to give up nothing. Finland, all
her acquisitions in Turkey and Persia, were
recognized as hers, and a proposition to restore
Poland was peremptorily negatived by the plun-
dering partitioners. Turkey was passed over as
of no moment, although the necessity of pre-
serving her independence was admitted as a
maxim in all arguments and negotiations. Russia
in a short time began to stir, and having excited
the revolt in the Morea, offered her aid to the
Porte to put it down. She had previously signed
a treaty in conjunction with France and England,
binding her to unite with the Western Powers in
settling the affairs of Greece; and some months
after entered into another convention with Turkey,
by which she expressly agreed to abstain from all
interference. By some flagrant political mistakes
of his own, and more by a long tissue of political
double-dealing on the part of his supposed friends,
but actual enemies, the unfortunate Sultan Mah-
moud found himself driven into a war with the
three most powerful nations of the world, and
THE PRINCIPALITIES.
127
without an ally except his then loyal vassal of
Egypt.
As soon as Nicholas was firmly seated on his
throne, a short time sufficed to put down plots,
to dissipate intended insurrections, and to restore
public tranquillity through the vast provinces of
the Russian Empire. Early in 1828 he was
ready to resume the suspended march to Con-
stantinople, and accordingly his armies once
more inundated the frontier principalities, those
unhappy debatable lands, which Russia alter-
nately seizes and abandons to seize again, and
which the northern bear never fails to pounce
upon just as they are beginning to recover blood
and sinew, and to swell a little from the last
merciless squeezing. Unhappy is the destiny of
small states, geographically placed between
greater ones who are always quarrelling, and
have no other highway by which to rush into
mutual conflict. If they look to the right, they
find plunder and protection; if to the left, pro-
tection and plunder. They are worse off than
the border lands of England and Scotland under
the old feudal quarrels, when the Douglas and
the Percy were perpetually exercising their rival
chivalry, or a penniless chieftain found it neces-
sary to replenish his larder or his wine-cellar.
The ostensible Russian pretext against Turkey,
128
WAR WITH TURKEY.
was then, as now, the religious obligation by
which the Emperor felt himself imperatively
called upon to rescue his suffering brothers in
the faith. The Sultan was worse prepared than
ever ;
Greece was in
open rebellion, and on the
verge of independence; by a fatal mistake we
had destroyed his fleet, and that of his Egyptian
ally at Navarino; and he himself had extirpated
the old indigenous soldiers of the empire, the
janissaries, while his new levies, modelled on a
foreign plan, were raw and ineffective. The
fiery, enthusiastic valour of Asia had been driven
out, but the sustained discipline of Europe was
not yet imported. Nevertheless he made a
gallant resistance against the leviathan, and at
the end of the first year his adversaries had little
to boast of. They had taken Ibraila by capitula-
tion, and Varna by treachery, but retreated from
before the lines of Schumla, and raised the siege
of Silistria. In the mean time, Paskievitch
pressed rapidly on the Asiatic side; took Erivan
and Erzeroum, threatened Trebizond, and ad.
vanced into Anatolia. The Sultan left his
capital, bearing the sacred standard, but the
last appeal failed to excite the national enthu-
siasm that was expected. Diebitsch crossed the
Balkan with forty thousand men, abandoned his
base of operations, and entered Adrianople.
.
TREATY OF ADRIANOPLE.
129
Then the Sultan Mahmoud was terrified into
peace, which he concluded on the 14th of Sep-
tember, 1829, on terms almost amounting to
the dismemberment of his empire.
The suc-
cesses of Paskievitch alarmed him as much as
the advance of Diebitsch. When we remember
the overwhelming odds against which he obsti-
nately fought, it is marvellous that he was enabled
to resist so long
"By this Treaty of Adrianople,” says the
author of "Russia in the East," "the Emperor
“
Nicholas, who in deference to the jealousy of
Europe had publicly disclaimed all intentions to
aggrandize his dominions, acquired Anapa and
Poti, with a considerable extent of coast on the
Black Sea, a portion of the pashalic of Akhilska,
with the two fortresses of Akhilska and Akhil-
killak, and the virtual possession of the islands
formed by the mouths of the Danube; stipulated
for the destruction of the Turkish fortress of
Giurgevo, and the abandonment by Turkey of
the right bank of the St. George's branch of the
Danube, to the distance of several miles from that
river; attempted a virtual separation of Mol-
davia and Wallachia from Turkey, by sanitary
regulations intended to connect them with Russia;
stipulated that the Porte should confirm the in-
ternal regulations for the government of those
к
130
THE GREEK KINGDOM.
provinces which Russia had established while she
occupied them; removed, partly by force and
partly by the influence of the priesthood, many
thousand families of Armenians from the Turkish
provinces in Asia to his own territories, as he had
already moved nearly an equal number from Persia,
leaving whole districts depopulated, and sacri-
ficing, by the fatigues and privations of the com-
pulsory march, the aged and infirm, the weak
and the helpless."
As another result of this disastrous war, Greece
was declared to be an independent state, under
the protection of the great powers of Europe.
At the commencement of the struggle it had
been proposed to the Sultan that, as in the cases
of Moldavia and Wallachia, he should still retain
the suzerainty, with a yearly tribute; but he
rejected those terms with indignation, and Greece
was finally severed from his empire.
Count Capo D'Istria, (a native of Corfu, and
the son of a physician,) who had been a Russian
minister, was placed at the head of the govern-
ment with the title of President. He was not
long permitted to enjoy his elevation, being assas-
sinated on November 9th, 1831, by the brother
and son of Mavromichaelis, a Mainote chief, whom
he had imprisoned. Resolved to be classical in
all their procedings, the authorities revived for the
ز
PRINCE LEOPOLD.
131
special punishment of these criminals, the old
Boeotian mode of execution by burying alive; a
barbarity exercised by Creon in the case of his
niece Antigone, sister of Polynices, s.c. 1225.
They were sentenced to be immured within
brick walls built around them up to their chins,
and to be scantily supplied with food under this
species of slow torture, until they died. It was
then determined to change the new republic into
a monarchy; but the throne of Greece had
become an unpromising investment, and was
some time in the market before a customer could
be found.
It has been said that it was seriously offered
to the Duke of Wellington, who laughed at the
proposal, considering it as an amusing jest; but
recommended Prince Leopold, who was then
unprovided for, and supposed to be on the look-
out for a vacant sovereignty. Leopold coquetted
a little, as if tempted by the bauble, but finally
proved himself a wise man in his generation, and
declined. The snug little kingdom of Belgium
which soon afterwards fell in,* though less bril-
liantly furnished with heroic reminiscences, is
more secure, and through his sagacious govern-
ment, has stood unmoved while continental Europe
>
* The Duke de Nemours was elected king of Belgium in the
first instance, but his father, King Louis Philippe, refused his
consent.
K 2
132
OTHO OF BAVARIA.
was convulsed with revolutions. It had besides,
in those unsettled days, the additional advantage
of being nearer Claremont in case of accidents.
Otho of Bavaria was declared King of Greece,
January 25th, 1833, and has ever been a mere
puppet in the hands of subtle Russian diplo-
matists. Like many wiser men, he is entirely
under the influence of his wife, who, it must be
remembered, is a princess of the Russian house
of Oldenburg. They have no children; and
although the succession is fixed is the Bavarian
line, the Queen expects to alter it.
The Greeks have their eyes on Constantinople,
and undervalue the narrow strip to which they are
at present circumscribed. They indulge in a dream
that sooner or later the whole Hellenic race will be
united into one kingdom ; an anticipation of the
future cherished under the name of Panhellenism,
and firmly believed in throughout the length and
breadth of the land. Russia encourages this idea
for deep purposes of her own, but has no inten-
tion of aiding in its fulfilment, or that Constan-
tinople shall ever be the capital of an independent
Greek empire. Her gaze is incessantly fixed on
the tempting aspect of the Golden Horn, but she
would rather her ancient enemy, the decrepid
Ottoman, should remain tenant in possession, on
sufferance, of what she has long considered her
a
JEALOUSY OF RUSSIA.
133
destined property, than that a new compact state,
rising in youthful vigour, and professing the same
creed with herself, should step into his place, and
thus protract the conquest sine die. On the
other hand, France and England, while bent on
preserving a barrier against the encroachments
of Russia, are not likely to unite in thrusting
Greece into the slippers of Turkey, although
Greece may be anxious enough to figure in them.
The independence of Turkey is essential to the
political existence of Greece, their commercial
relations are reciprocally advantageous, and a
good understanding between the two powers will
strengthen both. But Russian intrigue will not
allow the government of Greece to see this,
and is perpetually at work to check the progress of
any opinion that tends to extirpate old jealou-
sies, or to promote the oblivion of exaggerated
wrongs.
Another heavy burden was imposed on the
exhausted finances of Turkey, in 1829, by the
imposition of an enormous indemnity, to make
good the expenses of the war, and the commercial
losses of Russia. The sum was not likely to be
liquidated before the lapse of many years, and
until payment was completed, Moldavia, Wal-
lachia, and the fortress of Silistria were to remain
as pledges in the hands of the conqueror. But
134
FEARFUL LOSSES.
a
the Sultan did contrive to discharge this heavy
obligation, and within the stipulated time.
During the Turkish war of 1828, 1829, the
Emperor Nicholas took the field in person, accom-
panied by his brother, the Grand Duke Michael.
Both were present in many engagements; but it
has never been pretended that either exhibited
the slightest military skill, or the talents of a
general. Russia, as we have seen, obtained
advantages almost amounting to absolute con-
quest. These advantages cost her the lives of
nearly 200,000 men, on which the Emperor never
bestowed a second thought. The sword destroyed
many, and famine and pestilence more, and one
half at least fell victims to the total want of hos-
pital accommodation. The survivors had scarcely
reached their own frontiers, when the Polish
Revolution broke out on November 29th, 1830,
and once more that oppressed nation rose in
determined energy to make a last desperate strug-
gle for emancipation. Had this attempt been
organized a year or two sooner, while Russia was
still engaged in the Turkish war, the result might
have been different. Skrzynecki and Dwernicki
proved themselves worthy successors of Kosciusko.
They won many battles, and always against supe-
rior numbers. Growchow, Wawre, Seroczyn,
Seidletz, Zelicho, Ostrolenka, and Wilna, are not
DEATH OF DIE BITSCH, .
135
names which the Russian regiments will inscribe
on their standards, or commemorate over their
flowing cups if they are ever permitted to indulge
in hilarious potations. Diebitsch, “the Balkan-
passer,” saw his star turn pale on the plains of
Poland. He died suddenly June 10th, 1831,
whether from poison, chagrin, or fever, has never
been clearly determined. Twelve days later, the
Grand Duke Constantine followed him, under
the same suspicious circumstances. Up to this
period the Russian army had been chiefly led by
foreigners, in accordance with the well-known
bias of the Emperor; but now Paskievitch, an
ultra-Russian, assumed the command, and brought
the war to a successful conclusion. The Poles,
like Pyrrhus of old, had been ruined by their
victories : they had no reserves; their resources
were exhausted; they became disunited and mis-
trustful of their leaders; another desperate en-
counter at Winsk, and a final defeat at Warsaw
on the 9th of September, and the struggle was
at an end. Overwhelming numbers again pre-
vailed against courage and patriotism. Poland
was extinguished, but Russia triumphed without
glory.
On the 26th of July, 1832, Nicholas issued an
ukase, decreeing that the kingdom of Poland
should thenceforward form an integral portion
136
CRUELTIES IN POLAND.
si
any circum-
of the Russian Empire. The sanguinary conduct
of the war, and the severities exercised when it
was ended, he justified to his conscience, as the
legitimate exercise of sovereign power over rebel-
lious vassals ; he stood alone in his opinions, and
found no sympathy beyond the narrow circle of his
immediate flatterers and sycophants. That the
restoration of Poland in its full integrity would be
an effectual barrier against the present encroach-
ments of Russia, and a guarantee for the future,
cannot be disputed. Whether, under
stances likely to arise out of the impending war,
that is still practicable, is a very doubtful and
momentous question for the Western nations to
consider.
The Poles have been so long subdued and
divided that their nationality is supposed to be
extinct. Perhaps it only slumbers : 1854 is not
as far from 1830, as the latter date was from
1794 ; a people who twice looked up towards
victory when fighting alone, may grapple it at
last if powerfully supported. There are over-
grown states, with less claims, which may be
stripped of unlawful spoils to secure the inde-
pendence of Europe, and to consummate an act
of retributive justice. The material point is to
watch and combine the time and opportunity,
which sometimes arise when least expected. The
TURKEY AND EGYPT.
137
idea may be scouted as chimerical, but many solid
realities of the present day were much more
imaginative and improbable five years ago. We
live in an age of miracles, and have witnessed
with our own eyes the accomplishment of events,
which exceed the wildest flights of romantic
fiction.
Long before Turkey could recover from the
prostrate state to which she had been reduced by
the treaty of Adrianople, fresh blows were struck
from an unexpected quarter. Mehemet Ali re-
nounced his allegiance, erected Egypt and Syria
into an independent kingdom, and advanced
boldly to attack and dethrone his lawful sovereign
and master. Europe looked on, saw this storm
gathering, but neither appreciated the conse-
quences nor the necessity of anticipating them.
This principle of fomenting external discord and
domestic rebellion was originally promoted by
Russia in 1772; it failed then from the avowed
arrogance of Alexis Orloff, the favourite of Cathe-
rine, but had never been lost sight of, and at length
approached consummation in 1832. Ibrahim
Pacha, after a series of successes, in which the
superiority of the Egyptian troops over those of
the Sultan was invariably established, marched
on to within eighty leagues of Constantinople;
and there no longer existed any opposing force
138
MEHEMET ALI.
to stay his progress until he dictated terms oppo-
site to the walls of the Seraglio. In this cam-
paign the son of Mehemet Ali proved himself a
good general, and conducted his operations with
prudence, sagacity, and vigour. On the other
hand the Turkish commanders opposed to him
were utterly ignorant of their business, and knew
not how to handle troops in action. These troops
were bad, but the Egyptians were not much
better; it was a contest between the one-eyed
and the blind, as Frederick the Great said of the
early battles between the Turks and Russians.
Ibrahim was fortunate in an able second : Suliman
Pacha (otherwise Colonel Selves), who held the
important post of chief of the Egyptian staff, or
as we may call him, quartermaster-general, had
been a field officer in the French army, and
aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney, during the brilliant
wars of the Empire. Marshal Marmont has said,
that although he then filled merely a subordinate
station, he had acquired as thorough a knowledge
of the great principles of the art of war as if he
had served in the highest rank.
In his last extremity the Sultan Mahmoud
applied for foreign aid against his revolted vassal.
It is quite certain that his first appeal was made
to England, his second to France; but neither of
these countries was at that moment disposed or
TREATY OF UNKIAR-SKELESSI.
139
prepared to respond. In despair, and most re-
luctantly, he threw himself into the arms of
Russia, who eagerly embraced the opportunity
which she had assisted to create, came down
at once with a powerful fleet and army, and
Ibrahim Pacha was compelled to retire.
To the astonishment of all the world, Russia
also retired when her friendly mission was accom-
plished, and apparently without asking any fee or
reward for the timely rescue. She even restored
Silistria to the Sultan unasked, and as a graceful
tribute of acknowledgment for his punctilious
observance of the treaty of Adrianople. But it
soon transpired that a new treaty had been signed
at Unkiar-Skelessi, containing a secret article,
which virtually accomplished the long-cherished
schemes of Russia, and reduced the Porte to the
condition of a tributary.
The general stipulations of this treaty engage
the two contracting parties to afford mutual aid
against mutual enemies; but by the secret article,
Turkey, in place of military assistance to Russia,
bound herself to close the Bosphorus and the
Dardanelles, when called upon to do so by her
ally, against the ships of war of all other nations,
The right of Turkey to exercise this exclusion
as a common principle, without reserve, had never
been questioned, neither were the maritime nations
1
140
SUSPICIONS OF EUROPE.
of Europe desirous to take from her the control
of her own waters; but they never contemplated
or intended to allow the dictatorial usupation of
that privilege by Russia; or that Russia should
command Turkey to exercise it, whenever she
herself might happen to be at war with any naval
power. It was perfectly evident that by this
secret understanding Russia constituted herself
viceroy over the Sultan, and became protector of
the state, which in her regular course of practice
she would proceed to annex with the first con-
venient opportunity. Many steps towards the
ultimate object were gained without any overt
act to excite the immediate suspicion of other
nations, who were at the moment sufficiently
occupied with their own domestic affairs. It
would have been diametrically opposed to the
projects of Russia to suffer Egypt to take the
place of Turkey, or to allow a new Mohammedan
empire to erect itself on the ruins of the old one.
When the conditions of this treaty transpired
in due time, the French and English governments
detected the hidden mischief through the appa-
rent plausibility; they not only expressed at once
their dissatisfaction, but distinctly signified that
they should disregard the stipulation whenever
the course of events might render such a course
desirable. The French Chargé d'Affairs at St.
THE FRENCH PROTEST.
141
1
Petersburgh, M. de Lagrené, addressed an official
note to Count Nesselrode, the Russian Minister
for Foreign Affairs, in which he clearly stated
that the treaty of the 8th July, 1833, in the
opinion of the French monarch, imparted to the
mutual relations of the Ottoman and Russian
empires, a new character, against which all the
powers of Europe had a right to protest. He
also added, in most unequivocal terms, that if
the articles of that treaty were hereafter to bring
on an armed intervention of Russia in the in-
ternal affairs of Turkey, the government of King
Louis Philippe would hold itself wholly at liberty
to adopt such a line of conduct as circumstances
might suggest, acting from that moment as if
the said treaty was a nullity and had no existence;
a plain announcement, which it was impossible to
misunderstand. Count Nesselrode replied, that
as the French government had merely stated
regret and objections to the treaty of Unkiar-
Skelesși, without explaining the motives or nature
of either, he could neither know nor understand
what was intended. The treaty, according to his
interpretation, was exclusively defensive ; it had
been concluded between two independent powers,
exercising their undoubted rights, and containing
nothing prejudicial to the interests of any other
state whatever. If these states were determined
142
TAE FRENCH PROTEST.
to set it aside as of no value, it was clear they
had in view the subversion of an empire which
the treaty was destined to preserve. The act
had indeed changed the nature of the relations
between Russia and the Porte; for it had pro-
duced confidence and close intimacy in place of
long-cherished mistrust, and had moreover given
to the Turkish government a guarantee of stability
with a means of defence calculated to ensure its
preservation. He then concluded, by informing
the French ambassador, that His Majesty the Em-
peror, his august master, was resolved to fulfil faith-
fully, should the occasion present itself, each and
all of the obligations which the treaty of the
8th of July imposed upon him, acting therein as
if the declaration contained in M. de Lagrené's
note did not exist.
In this skirmish of diplomacy the course adopted
by France was prompt and spirited, while the
reply of Count Nesselrode is imperious even to
insolence, and hypocritical to absurdity. The
correspondence means defiance on either side,
and resembles that recorded to have taken place
between two neighbouring kings of old, one of
whom addressed the other thus: “Send me your
tribute, or else;" to which he received for
-
answer, “I owe you no tribute, and if —.”
The remonstrance of the English cabinet, with
DEATH OF MAHMOUD.
143
the corresponding reply, we have not access to,
but, entertaining exactly the same views with
those expressed by France, there can be no doubt
that it was equally explicit, and subsequent events
have shown that both governments disregarded
the empty prohibition, and despatched their fleets
through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus to
the Black Sea, when they deemed it necessary to
to do so, in utter contempt of the autocratic veto,
which exercised no real power beyond the limits
of the parchment on which it was inscribed.
Sultan Mahmoud died on the 27th June, 1839;
his death being supposed to be accelerated by
indulgences not in strict accordance with the
tenets of the Koran. After his decease, the
cellars of the imperial palace were found to be
well stored with claret, champagne, and (proh
pudor!) even with brandy, which his successor,
with holy abhorrence, banished from their un-
seemly resting-places. The Turks had a super-
stitious conviction that Mahmoud was destined
to be the last of their emperors that should reign
in Europe. The conquest obtained by his an-
cestor they believed destined to be lost again by
a descendant of the same name, and in him the
realization of the prophecy was expected. In
like manner the Russians expect that as a Con-
stantine was the last Christian monarch of the
144
SONS OF THE EMPEROR.
«
eastern empire, a Constantine is to be the next;
and point to the Grand Duke, the second son of
the Emperor Nicholas, as the destined restorer.
This young prince, born on the 21st September,
1827, and grand-admiral of Russia, is said to
possess energetic ability, and the characteristic
ambition of his race. His elder brother, Alex-
ander, heir-presumptive to the throne, has been
described as mild in disposition, limited in talent,
and fearful of responsibility. “What makes you
so serious ?” said Constantine, one day, observing
him in profound meditation, with a desponding
aspect. “I am thinking of what may be reserved
for me in future," replied Alexander; "the
charge of ruling an enormous empire is heavy
indeed.” The younger brother quickly rejoined,
“ If there is nothing else to torment you, speak
the word, and I will instantly relieve you of that
same charge.'
The Grand Duke Alexander was born in 1818;
he is consequently now in his thirty-sixth year.
In 1839, he married a princess of Hesse-Darm-
stadt, and has several children. Constantine es-
poused, in 1848, a daughter of the Duke of Saxe-
Altenberg, and has also a young family; there
are two more brothers, Nicholas and Michael.
It will be observed, that the sons of the reigning
See Schnitzler's “Secret History."
»*
1
THE SULTAN ABD-UL-MEDJID.
145
emperor have received the same names as the
sons of Paul, and in the same order. The line of
Romanoff is at present well represented by male
descendants, although accruing through the
female branch, and is in no danger of extinction
from natural decay. Russian aggrandizement
has seldom exhibited itself in ambitious alliances.
The present Empress, sister of the King of Prus-
sia, is more highly connected than any of her
predecessors on the throne.
The Sultan Mahmoud was the most unfortu.
nate of reformers. Far in advance of his people,
he endeavoured to bring them up to his own
standard, but his efforts were beyond his re-
sources, and recoiled on himself. They shook
his tottering empire to the verge of dissolution.
Mehemet Ali of Egypt, another eminent reformer,
more unscrupulous than Mahmoud, with limited
means and unpromising materials to work with,
met with greater success, and contrived to
erect a strong kingdom out of a weak vice-
royalty. The death of Mahmoud left the throne
to his son Abd-ul-Medjid, the present Sultan, at
that time a mere youth, of undeveloped character,
a sickly constitution, and the last male represen-
tative of the line of Othman. The opportunity
was tempting, and once more the Egyptian vassal
thought to trample on his master. The Turkish
146
DEFEAT OF THE EGYPTIANS.
fleet sent from Constantinople to coerce him, was
treacherously delivered into his hands, and Ibra-
him Pacha prepared confidently to repeat the
marches and victories of 1832, with a more deci-
sive result. In this fresh danger, the Porte was
again saved, principally by the active interference
of England : France, being offended, stood aloof.
Russian armies were not called in, and Austria
acted as a nominal ally, with two or three small
ships to represent her pretensions as a naval
power. The capture of Sidon, the defeat at Bey-
rout, and the destruction of Acre, followed in
rapid succession, and convinced Ibrahim and his
father, that their dream of sitting on the throne of
the Ottomans was dissipated for ever. After much
expostulation, the Sultan was finally prevailed upon
by the four powers, England, Austria, Russia,
and Prussia to declare the pachalic of Egypt
hereditary in the family of Mehemet Ali, who
then evacuated Syria, and restored the Turkish
fleet. France was conciliated by this result,
which promised peace to the East, and seemed to
reassure the continuance of Turkey amongst the
great independent nations of Europe. Much
diplomatic chicanery was put in practice by Rus-
sia, to preserve the undue ascendancy she had
acquired by the surreptitious treaty of Unkiar
Skelessi. The English government, who thc-
THE TREATY OF LONDON.
147
was
roughly fathomed the designs of the Czar,
determined not to be imposed on. The success
of Admiral Stopford and Commodore Napier had
laid bare the real weakness of Mehemet Ali, and
the moral superiority of the Sultan, whose autho-
rity had been vindicated for once, without
appealing to the active interposition of Russia.
Russia felt that France totally disbelieved, and
England mistrusted her. She therefore made a
merit of yielding what she found it impossible
to retain, and regained for the moment the con-
fidence of England, while France was pushed out
of the negotiation, in which she had never desired
to be a participator, and declined signing the new
treaty of London, concluded on the 15th July,
1840.
By this treaty, the four contracting powers,
animated by the desire of maintaining the inte-
grity and independence of the Ottoman Empire,
as a security for the peace of Europe," engaged to
compel Mehemet Ali, by force of arms, to confine
himself for the future within his pachalic of
Egypt. The forces they might employ, were to be
sent on the demand of the Sultan, and to be
withdrawn when he no longer required their
presence. The ancient privilege of Turkey to
refuse entrance into the Dardanelles and Bospho-
rus, to the ships of war of foreign nations, was
L 2
148
OPENING OF THE BOSPHORUS.
recognized and solemnly pledged to be main-
tained. The Sultan, on his part, undertook to
act on this principle, as the established rule of
the empire, as long as the Porte is at peace. The
command of the straits was thus distinctly re-
stored to Turkey, the secret article of Unkiar
Skelessi was nullified, and the friendly alliance
of the four powers substituted for the insidious
and exclusive protection of Russia.
The cause of offence given by Russia to France
was one not likely to be soon forgotten by a high-
spirited people. The northern autocrat detested
the revolution of 1830, and looked with personal
contempt on the citizen-king, whom the French
people had chosen to place upon their throne.
The Emperor Nicholas talked idly of interposi-
tion by force of arms, to restore the exiled
dynasty, while he used the safer weapons of
intrigue with ready activity. England, taking
a sounder view of the policy by which the civili-
zation of the world is to be advanced, regretted
the estrangement of France, on a question so im-
portant as the affairs of the East. The British
government therefore, admitting and acting to
the fullest extent on the doctrine, that all nations
have an undoubted right to settle their domestic
arrangements, without consulting the feelings or
opinions of foreign powers, laboured incessantly
FRANCE JOINS THE TREATY.
149
a
to bring France within the circle of the new con-
vention. The designs of Russia, with which all the
world were fully impressed, could never be effec-
tually controlled, while a great military state
remained undecided in her intentions.
On the 13th July, 1841, the existing impedi-
ments were removed, the efforts of the English
ministers were crowned with success; and a fresh
treaty announced, that France had joined with
the other leading powers of Europe, in acknow-
ledging the sovereign rights of the Sultan, and in
a solemn league and covenant, to assist him in
consolidating the repose of his Empire. Unless
·
it could be proved that Turkey cancelled this
engagement by an act of suicidal aggression, any
attempt on the part of one of the contracting
guardians of peace, to trench upon the rights
which all were equally bound to maintain, was to
be considered as a manifest breach of faith, and a
direct violation of the existing compact. That
Russia, without the slightest justification, has
thrust herself into this predicament, is transparent
to the eyes and understanding of collected Europe;
nor can the hypocritical plausibilities of the Czar,
communicated through his pliant mouth-piece,
Count Nesselrode, impose upon the shallowest
understanding, or gain for him a single advocate
150
ADVANCE OF TURKEY.
in the course which besotted ambition or blind
fanaticism is prompting him to follow.
Turkey has made vast strides during the four-
teen years of peace which she has been permitted
to enjoy. Perhaps no country in Europe has
advanced so rapidly. Her navy is respectable,
her army well-disciplined and numerous; her old
prejudices are giving way to the influence of
education and inereasing intercourse with other
nations; her resources have multiplied, her com-
merce has increased; her religious toleration
extends to the utmost limits which Moham-
medanism allows; her Christian subjects are satis-
fied with their condition and not desirous of
change; schools of instruction in literature,
science, and arts, are established in all her pro-
vinces; her domestic legislation is impartially
administered, nor is there any despotic govern.
ment under which the vice of corruption is so
little encouraged. Turkey has, in fact, astonished
both her friends and enemies by her marvellous
resuscitation, which those who spoke and wrote
of her as “a galvanized corpse," are now very
slow to believe, notwithstanding her manly efforts
in self-defence, and single-handed, since the last
invasion of the Principalities. But although
Russia during these fourteen years has been com-
RUSSIAN INTRIGUE.
151
pelled to abstain from declared hostility, she has
propagated her subverting doctrines through a
thousand insidious channels, and has instilled
them into the inmost arteries of the Turkish
empire. It is indeed difficult to comprehend how
reform can have advanced so rapidly, and national
strength have been enabled to consolidate itself,
in despite of these paralyzing checks. On this
important topic, the author of “The Frontier
Lands of the Christian and the Turk,” (an evi.
dence whose value is extensively admitted,) has
put on record some observations which may be
relied on as conveying the truth, and may be
studied with advantage by those blind diplomatists
who still believe, or affect to put faith, in the
honesty of a Russian manifesto. He says—“The
agent of the Danish company at Widdin received
me with great politeness, and after some conver-
sation on the days of sailing, he treated me to a
narrative of the last insurrection, with all its
circumstances; but his hostility to the Turks was
so evident in everything he said, that I could not
hear it without considerable distrust. This steam-
boat agent is also the Vice-consul of Austria.
Russia has her secret emissaries; but England
has no one to watch the intrigues of these two
powers in this quarter, which is so important to
Turkey, and consequently interesting to Great
152
IMPORTANCE OF WIDDIN.
Britain. A mistaken system of economy may
sometimes prove prejudicial to the general policy
of a cabinet which thus deprives itself, from the
most laudable motives no doubt, of information
which might guide it in critical circumstances.
Here was an insurrection, for instance, which
Russia and Austria made much of, and England
possessed no means of gaining accurate intel.
ligence about it. All the trade of Upper Bul-
garia comes to Widdin ; Ionian subjects are much
engaged in it, as well as in the general navigation
of the Danube, for which this town is one of the
principal stations, and for want of a British
consular flag to protect them they seek patronage
from Austria; and not only do these evils arise
from a wish to save a few hundreds per annum,
but the general tendency of one of the richest
and most influential provinces in European Turkey
is consequently ignored by our government, which
should know it and guide it also; for I am free
to say that in Downing Street there is not the
most remote idea of the existence of a compre-
hensive establishment for the Russianizing of
Bulgaria; and yet the Foreign Office can well
appreciate the great importance of such a fact.
It is by education that this deep-laid scheme is
in a course of active execution; no less than
twenty-one schools have been instituted of late in
THE HETAIRIA.
153
the different towns for this purpose; the teachers
have all come from Kiew in Russia. Hatred to
the Sultan and attachment to the Czar, are assi-
duously taught; and their catechism in the Scla-
vonian tongue, which was translated to me, is
more practical than religious, while it openly
alludes to the incorporation of Bulgaria in the
Russian Empire. Besides this, the propaganda
of the Pan-Sclavonian Hetairia, and the agency
of this political interest, opposed to those of
Turkey, are efficiently represented by skilful
apostles in Bulgaria.”
The insurrectionary movements in the different
provinces of the Ottoman empire, instead of being
produced by Turkish oppression, which has no
existence, are invariably fomented by Russian
intrigues, which never slumber, and are always on
the alert to take advantage of any colourable pre-
text that may occur. The peasants of Bulgaria,
who have been subject to the Turks for five
hundred years, are infinitely better off in every
respect, in diet, clothing, lodging, and in the
produce derived from their agricultural labour,
than any of the Sclavonic race, be they of what
creed they may, who are doomed to drag on their
existence under the iron domination of Russia.
The Sultan is accused of intolerance, whereas it
is his very tolerant and unsuspecting system of
154
THE MUSCOVITE CATECHISM:
government which gives the opportunity to the
secret agents of Russia, of sowing the seeds of
discontent amongst the two great sections of his
subjects; and of urging them into rebellion, when
all are disposed to be happy, loyal, and indus-
trious. The catechism taught in the schools of
Bulgaria, by these Muscovite Jesuits, is un-
doubtedly a duplicate of the scriptural doctrine
instilled into the rising generation of Poland,
under terror of the knout; and by order of the
government. The following extract* may serve
as a sample of the whole.
“Qu. 1.—How is the authority of the Emperor
to be considered in reference to the spirit of
Christianity ?
“Ans.—As proceeding immediately from God.
“Qu. 17.-What are the supernaturally re-
vealed motives for this worship of the Em-
peror?
-
“Ans.—The supernaturally revealed motives
are: that the Emperor is the vicegerent and
minister of God, to execute the divine commands;
and consequently disobedience to the Emperor
is identified with disobedience to God himself;
that God will reward us in the world, for the
worship and obedience we render the Emperor,
* Quoted in the " Progress and Present Position of Russia
in the East.”
ITS IMPIOUS DOCTRINES.
155
>
and punish us severely to all eternity, should we
disobey or neglect to worship him. Moreover,
God commands us to love and obey from the
inmost recesses of the heart, every authority, and
particularly the Emperor; not from worldly con-
siderations, but from apprehensions of the final
judgment."
Such bold blasphemy has never been approached
since the days of pagan darkness, when kings and
conquerors voted themselves into the synod of
Olympus, decreed their own immortality, and
issued edicts announcing their special deification.
And this precious document emanates from the
authority of a man, who provokes war “in the
name of the Most Holy Trinity," who, with
religion on his tongue, remorseless ambition at
his heart, and a destroying sword in his hand,
imagines himself a semi-deity upon earth, the
delegated instrument of omnipotence, and the
destined uprooter of the faith of Islam, which
with all its errors, is nearer to a reflection of the
truth, than his unmitigated bigotry.
The believers in Russian moderation and good
faith, if any yet exist, will, we should think, be
sufficiently converted by the startling documents
which were lately laid before the Houses of Par-
liament, and have been copied at full length into
the public papers. The Emperor Nicholas does
156
RUSSIA PROPOSES
a
not here, as Benedict says of Claudio, turn ortho-
grapher, and cook his words into a fantastical
banquet, but he speaks plainly and to the purpose,
without circumlocution or disguise. As far back
as 1844, when he did us the honour of a visit,
he anticipated the immediate dissolution of the
Turkish empire, and proposed to the English
government to divide the inheritance of the dying
patient they were mutually pledged to keep in
health as long as they could. But Turkey pos-
sesses as many lives as a cat, and has rallied several
times when given over by the physicians. Finding
his overture ill received, the Czar changes his
tactics, and says, "let us wait the course of events,
and in the meantime forbear to press the Porte
by overbearing demands, supported in a manner
humiliating to its dignity and independence ! ”
He then proceeds to put in practise the course he
repudiates, as we have seen a bailiff in a barrack
square brought under a pump, when particular
orders were given to take great care of him.
In 1853, the Czar's patience is exhausted, for
the Sultan is not yet in articulo mortis. He and
his empire are as tenacious of life as the Reverend
Mr. Blandy, under the homeopathic doses of his
affectionate daughter. The Muscovite Machi.
avelli again presses the English government. “We
have here,” says he, "on our hands, a sick man-
TO DIVIDE TURKEY.
157
a very sick man; one of these days we shall see
him slip through our fingers suddenly, before we
have disposed of his property, and then others
will expect a share : let us be beforehand with
them. If you and I agree, a fig for the rest—the
treaties of 1840 and 1841 may go into the fire as
so much waste paper. Austria cannot move but
by my bidding; Prussia I despise; and France I
defy. If France dares to despatch an army to
the East, I will send it back quicker than it came.
Constantinople shall remain provisionally under
my protection until I take it to myself—I will
incorporate with my own empire, Wallachia,
Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Servia, while you shall
take possession of Egypt and Candia. My terri-
tory I admit is too large already, and my power
suspicious as well as dangerous to my neighbours :
but notwithstanding, I must have a little addition
to both, with which I shall be contented for the
present.” This is the sum and substance, the
condensed epitome of a long preamble; and, as
Lord Ogleby says: “If this isn't plain the devil's
in it." Comment on such unparalleled effrontery
and double dealing is superfluous. The tone of
insolence adopted towards France is too extrava-
gant to excite anything but a smile. A great
nation, conscious of its strength, may indulge in
contempt, where anger would be undignified.
Prussia is wholly passed over as a petty German
a
158
CONTEMPT OF RUSSIA
principality, which can scarcely be discovered on
the map without spectacles; while Austria is
treated as a dependent province. “The policy of
“
Russia and of Austria," says the dictator, “is one
and the same. When I speak of the one country,
I mean the other. Austria shall not walk, nor
talk, nor move, nor think but as I please.”
Unless Austria is as false as himself, a very
short time will show how far he has overrated his
influence.
The correspondence now published, is a manifesto
to the world, which will be translated into many
languages and perused by millions of intelligent
readers. It will furnish valuable material to the
future historian, who, while he dilates with honest
indignation on the selfish hypocrisy of the Czar,
will record with corresponding eulogy the conduct
of the English ministers, who were too clear-
sighted to be cajoled, too honourable to be tempted,
and who disentangled themselves from a labyrinth
of “delicate” negotiation, without losing their own
credit, or compromising the character and moral
ascendency of the sovereign and nation they
represented.
The Russian Emperor affects the gallant bearing
of Francis the First, and says: “Trust me on the
honour of a gentleman, if you doubt my assurance
as a monarch. I propose to you great advantages,
why will you not accept them frankly?” We
FOR THE CONTINENT.
159
reply with Capys the Trojan, when he hurled his
javelin against the wooden horse: “Timeo Danaos
et dona ferentes," —we are on our guard against a
Greek, particular when he proffers kindness.
The Emperor Nicholas is approaching sixty
years of age, and has entered on the twenty-ninth
of his reign, a long occupation of the throne, in
a country where sovereigns are seldom suffered
to exhale in the course of nature. If he ever
ponders over the annals of his house, he must
observe that few of his predecessors have enjoyed
such a protracted exercise of absolute power.
The ambition which he restrained in manhood
he reserves as a solace for his decline. There
is a strong similarity between ambition and
avarice, although the first has been generally
attributed as a quality of great minds, the latter
of base ones. Both proceed from a desire of
having what we have not, and can very well do
without. Some peace advocates have persuaded
themselves, that the Czar intends only to retain
permanent possession of the Principalities; and
has no design of marching on Constantinople, or of
subverting the Turkish empire. It has been also
thought that if the French and English fleets had
moved into the Black Sea on his first threat of
crossing the Pruth, in case his demands were
rejected by the Porte, that he would not then
160
NECESSITY FOR VIGOUR.
have carried his threat into execution. The latter
opinion can never now be more than conjectural;
the former will soon be brought to issue. In the
meanwhile Turkey has gained time, confidence,
and powerful allies. Her enemy is either “infirm
of purpose," or has miscalculated his means of
carrying that purpose into effect.
The western nations having been drawn into
the war most unwillingly, nothing now remains
but to put forth all their strength, and to make
the struggle, short, sharp, and decisive. Europe
cannot bear a protracted fever of excitement, nor
submit to perpetual irritations of alarm; neither
can the progress of civilized improvement again
be checked by an unprovoked ebullition of bar-
barism. It matters little whether a dangerous
madman be demented by hereditary insanity,
superstitious fanaticism, or vulgar drunkenness.
In either case he becomes a social pestilence
which requires immediate removal. France
and England have well remembered the advice
of Polonius to Laertes, “beware of entrance to
a quarrel,” but “ being in,” we may be well
'
assured they will so bear themselves, that the
opposer will rue the hour when he provoked the
coalition, which bids fair to drive him back to his
deserts, and to keep his hordes within their
natural barriers, from whence they ought never
MARSHAL MARMONT.
161
to have been encouraged to emerge. The peace
of Europe has trembled in the balance, ever since
Cossacks of the Don and Bashkir Tartars found
themselves lounging along the boulevards of Paris,
and gloating over the refined luxuries of the
Palais Royal. There was prospective danger in
stimulating the appetite of the wolf, by a glimpse
of the prey he was not permitted to devour.
Out of evil springs good; and but for the blind
obstinacy of the Russian autocrat, the present
cordial co-operation between France and England
might never have taken place. The rivalry of
the two great nations in friendship, will surpass
their former efforts when arrayed against each
other in enmity. The leading questions that
present themselves are, which are the most
obvious points to strike against, and what are the
eligible modes of attack. We need not doubt
that these considerations will be well weighed,
and that ample means will be directed by adequate
judgment. The warning of our great departed
chief has been remembered ; and all the prepara-
tions indicate that England is not now going to
fritter away strength in “a little war.”
In 1836, Marshal Marmont published his views
on the defence of Turkey, supposing the Ottoman
Empire to be, as it now is, threatened by Russia
from the Black Sea and the Danubian Princi-
M
162
MARMONT ON THE DEFENCE
а
palities. This work assumes a revived interest
at the present crisis. It was well translated by
Colonel Sir Frederick Smith, of the Engineers,
who has added original observations of his own,
which considerably increase its value. These
notes bear directly on the existing aspect of
affairs, and the entente cordiale so happily estab-
lished between France and England. We need
scarcely remind our readers, that Marmont,
although he shared the fate of greater generals
than himself when he encountered a mighty
master in the art of war, was nevertheless reputed
to be a skilful strategist: he had been trained as
an artillery officer by a regular education, and
had practically studied, in all its degrees, the
science of attack and defence.
He was not par-
ticularly distinguished by readiness in handling
troops on a field of battle.
In that prominent
quality, Moreau, Massena, Ney, and Soult, were
infinitely his superiors. He could arrange a plan
of campaign, although he wanted the inspiration
which seized and grappled with a lucky accident.
His mancuvres, previous to Salamanca, were
showy and imposing; but, in the battle itself,
he made a false step, and was fixed on the
instant, as by a thunderbolt. He was unfor-
tunate in the Peninsula in 1812, unfortunate at
Montmartre in 1814, and, if possible, even more
OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
163
unfortunate for Charles the Tenth, at Paris, in
1830.
An impression of ill-luck attaches to his
memory, and has dimmed his reputation; but
his opinions on the "trade of war" are able and
deserving of respect. He points to Adrianople
as the central position from whence Turkey is to
be defended, supposing the line of the Balkan
to be forced or turned. Portugal and Torres
Vedras attest that a country is not conquered,
although the frontier is no longer tenable. But
the French marshal's conclusions are all based
on the supposition that Russia will take the
initiative with her Black Sea fleet, as well as with
her army in the Principalities; and will forestall
England or France, or both, in the passage of the
Bosphorus and the command of the Dardanelles.
Here is evidently the vulnerable flank of Constan-
tinople; and had the Russian emperor, at the
same moment when he crossed the Pruth and
poured his legions into Moldavia and Wallachia,
sent his fleet, with twenty thousand picked troops
on board, straight down to the eastern capital,
it would be difficult to gainsay that he might
have produced a revolution in Turkey, and have
realized his long-meditated projects by the sud-
denness of the blow. The Turkish fleet, unaided,
could have offered no adequate resistance. The
M 2
164
THE DANUBE :
breach of faith, the violation of existing treaties,
was already committed; a second step, following
the first, would have been counted as a trifling
aggravation. From weakness of head, and not
from any wavering of the heart or scruples of
conscience, he has let this opportunity slip
through his fingers, which he can never retrieve.
He could searcely have sacrificed more character
by throwing off the mask at once, and recklessly
playing the part of Attila or Gengis, than by
halting half-way, and having recourse to the
shuffling chicanery of Castruccio Castrucani. Col-
lected Europe has fathomed his duplicity, and
traced it to its source. His half-measures are
the result of deficiency in executive power, rather
than the consequences of a change of inclination.
The giant of brass has betrayed the feet of clay.
Russia, by strict engagement and a recorded
treaty, to which the other powers are parties, is
bound to keep clear the Sulina mouth of the
Danube, so that there are always sixteen feet of
water clear above the bar. This depth has been suf-
fered, by studied and intentional neglect, to dimi-
nish to nine, and will rapidly become less with
every succeeding year under such faithless guar.
dianship. The Danube is not a Russian stream;
it flows through no Russian territory, and the
Russians ought never to have been permitted to
ITS IMPORTANCE TO EUROPE.
165
exercise the power of obstructing its mouths.
Let it be remembered, that while this important
care, under an earlier convention, was confided
to Turkey, the prescribed conditions were most
punctiliously fulfilled. No power in the Euro-
pean confederacy is more scrupulous in the obser-
vance of treaties than the Ottoman Porte. Russia,
too, imposes à code of uncalled for sanitary
restrictions, equally expensive and harassing,
which clog the wheels of commerce, and render
them almost stationary. The object is to throw,
if possible, the whole trade of the Danube into
her own hands; or, failing this, to obstruct it alto-
gether, and to close up what ought to be an open
river. The two other outlets of St. George and
Kilia are also within the line of the Russian
boundary.
England, France, and more especially Austria
and Turkey, are vitally interested in preventing
this destructive monopoly of a river which, by the
Treaty of Vienna, in 1815, was declared a common
highway for the whole world. Turkey has long
felt and groaned under the heavy grievance; but
Austria, blind to her own interest, or silenced by
dependence and gratitude, aids and abets in a
course of selfish policy which she ought to be
the first to oppose.
The exports of corn from Odessa supply a most
a
166
IMPORTANCE OF THE CRIMEA.
important source of Russian revenue. As these
'exports rise and fall, the commercial pulse of the
southern provinces quickens, or stagnates.
If
Russia can block out the produce of Sclavonia, the
Bannat, Bosnia, Servia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria,
or drive it northward into her own ports, before
it can find vent to the Mediterranean and Western
Europe, through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles,
her own returns will augment in the same pro-
portion that those of the other countries dete-
riorate. The power that commands the Black
Sea, commands, at the same time, the Danube,
with all its numerous arteries teeming with life
and incalculable wealth.
It is unsafe to leave this common property a
moment longer in the hands of a trustee who
has betrayed his duty. The interests of Europe
call for an immediate transfer. In order to put
an end to the baleful influence which has pre-
vailed too long, and to establish an advanced
citadel, a central post, as a guarantee for the ob-
servance of treaties, the CRIMEA must be wrested
from the wholesale plunderers who obtained this
valuable territory under false pretences. The
Black Sea controls the Danube, and the Crimea
governs the Black Sea.
France and England
seek no territorial acquisitions for themselves.
The Emperor Napoleon has emphatically said,
ITS INHABITANTS.
167
“The days of conquest are passed away for ever;"
but restitution is very different from conquest,
and restitution is necessary for the establish-
ment of a just balance, for the future security of
the Sultan, and as a first instalment for the
massacre of Sinope.
The inhabitants of the Crimea, Tartar in origin,
and but little changed since they passed under
the dominion of Russia, have no feelings in unison
with their present rulers, and would gladly hail
the hour of deliverance. This peninsula, the ancient
Taurica Chersonesus, barren and flat towards the
north, is in the southern portion one of the most
beautiful districts in the world, rich in fer-
tility and natural resources. The valleys are
astonishingly productive, and the climate extremely
mild, from the exclusion of those violent winds by
which the northern division is frequently incom-
moded. The lower hills extending from Caffa to
the eastern extremity, are principally used in gar-
dening, and produce a great variety of excellent
fruit. The principal articles of export are corn,
salt, honey, female slaves brought from Circassia,
wax, butter, horses, hides, and furs, especially the
Tauric lambskins, which are held in high esteem.
Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the
Genoese settled in this country, but were expelled
by the Crim Tartars in 1474. There are many
168
THE CHERSONESUS.
interesting remains of antiquity, mines, caverns,
and objects of natural curiosity. The present
population might be quadrupled under good
government, with reasonable security for life and
property: at present it falls below 300,000.
The superficial area of the land is equal to the
Morea, and about one-third less than that of the
modern kingdom of Greece, without reckoning
the islands in the Archipelago. The Isthmus of
Perekop, which connects the Crimea with the
main-land, is strongly fortified, and extends about
four miles and a half across from sea to sea. It
would not be difficult to insulate it entirely, and
to strengthen the lines so as to render them im-
pregnable. It seems likely that the ancient
Taurida was an island when the waters of the
Black Sea were also higher than at present, as
appears from various historical passages of ancient
writers. Pliny, in the fourth book of his Natural
History (chapter 26) expresses himself very clearly
to this effect.* A full description of the Crimea,
its ancient and modern history, races, antiquities,
productions, and natural features, is to be found
in Pallas's and Clarke's travels. Few countries
are more full of noteworthy vestiges, or more
* “Sed a Carcinate Taurica incipit, quondam mari circum-
fusa; et ipsa, quo nunc jacent campi, deinde vastis attollitur
jugis."
SEBASTOPOL.
169
deserving of study, independent of the interest
with which this locality is now invested by the
political citcumstances of the hour. The inhabi-
tants, in a period of internal discord, sought the
protection of the Empress Catherine, and soon
passed under the inevitable yoke which all who
have ever been tempted to throw themselves on
the tender mercies of Russia are doomed to bear.
The southern district of the Crimea, which we
have already named as inviting, has been eulo-
gized by Bishop Heber as an earthly paradise.
Dr. Clarke gives a most animated and heartrend-
ing account of the cruelties and wanton butchery
perpetrated by Potemkin and Suvaroff during the
early occupation, and the misery brought upon a
land which, like Poland, had committed no error,
and was guilty only of being defenceless. The sea-
ward fortifications of the great Russian naval
emporium and arsenal, Sebastopol, are formidable,
as far as regards the number of guns and the posi.
tion of the batteries. Colonel Chesney, no mean
authority, is decidedly of opinion that Sebastopol
is safe against an attack by the combined fleets
According to a plan just published from a Russian
survey of 1836, enlarged by Mr. J. C. Jones,
second master of H.M.S. Retribution, there are
722 guns of heavy calibre in forts and batteries,
with reckoning the broadsides of the men-of-war,
170
SEBASTOPOL BY SEA
which could all be so placed as to be brought to
bear on the entrance of the harbour. This mouth,
where the Retribution first anchored, is little
more than half a mile in breadth. Marshal Mar-
mont and Mr. Oliphant differ materially in their
estimate of the extent of the fortifications of Sebas-
topol; and although in the abstract, a military
opinion is to be preferred on a purely military
point, the English traveller having visited the
place very recently, while the inspection of the
French Marshal dates back nearly twenty years,
we must compare the two accounts cæteris paribus,
and judge accordingly.
Mr. Oliphant says: “Nothing can be more for-
midable than the appearance of Sebastopol from
the seaward. Upon a future occasion we visited
it in a steamer, and found that at one point we
were commanded by twelve hundred pieces of
artillery ; fortunately for a hostile fleet, we after-
wards heard that these could not be discharged
without bringing down the rotten batteries upon
which they are placed, and which are so badly
constructed, that they look as if they had been
run up by contract. Four of the forts consist of
three tiers of batteries. We were, of course, un-
able to take a very general survey of these cele-
brated fortifications, and therefore cannot vouch
for the truth of the assertion, that the rooms in
a
AND BY LAND.
171
which the guns are worked, are so narrow and ill
ventilated, that the artillery-men would be inevi-
tably stifled in the attempt to discharge their
guns and their duty; but of one fact there was
no doubt, that however well fortified may be the
approaches to Sebastopol by sea, there is nothing
whatever to prevent any number of troops landing
a few miles to the south of the town, in one of the
six convenient bays with which the coast, as far as
Cape Kherson, is indented, and marching down the
main street (provided they are strong enough to
defeat any military force that might be opposed
to them in the open field), sack the town, and
burn the fleet."
It would be neither safe nor wise to act on the
supposed insufficiency of the batteries of Sebas-
topol. The experiment might end in the disa-
greeable result of " catching a Tartar." There is
not the slightest occasion to be in a hurry, to
damage our ships or to run them heedlessly against
stone walls. A few weeks will place at our dis-
posal ample means to invest Sebastopol by land,
when four-and-twenty hours will settle the busi-
>
ness.
Many signal instances may be appealed to
in which ships have engaged and silenced formi-
dable batteries ; as at Copenhagen, Algiers, Acre,
and St. Juan de Ulloa. But history presents us
172
NAVAL ATTACKS
a
with as many more, in which they have either
failed or been crippled to a ruinous extent.
At Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe, on the 20th April,
1657, Admiral Blake ran in and destroyed a fleet
of sixteen Spanish men-of-war, moored under the
protection of the castle and batteries. The place
was so strong, that all who knew it wondered
how any man, in his sober senses, could under-
take such a desperate enterprise. Had not the
wind changed exactly at the critical moment,
and enabled him to carry his ships back again
when the work was done, all the skill and courage
in the world would have been insufficient to get
him out of the scrape. His great victory would
have ended in a disaster more calamitous than
that which befel Nelson in his unsuccessful attack
on the same place, one hundred and forty years
later.
At Carthagena (in South America) in 1740,
Admiral Vernon was so roughly handled, that
although he took several of the forts, he aban-
doned the attempt, and with difficulty saved his
disabled ships. On the great combined attack
against the British garrison by the Spanish
floating batteries and fleet (13th September,
1782) at Gibraltar, the efficacy of stone-walls,
when manned by resolute gunners, was most
triumphantly exhibited,
NOT ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL.
173
Another remarkable illustration, on a small
scale, occurred to that hare-brained warrior, Sir
Sidney Smith, when cruizing on the coast of
Naples in 1806, which proved, that although he
revelled in the smell of gunpowder, and was ever
full of fight to overflowing, he sometimes lacked
the better part of valour-discretion; and was not
always, as Lord Randolph says of Norval, “as
wise as brave.” In the Pompée, an eighty-gun
ship, he ran close in-shore at Point Licosa, and
gave battle to an old round tower, with a single
traversing-gun mounted on the top. After blazing
away broadside after broadside without effect,
until he had lost a lieutenant, two midshipmen,
eight seamen killed, and thirty-four wounded, he
hauled off, and concluded as he ought to have
begun, by manning the boats, which pulled in
rapidly, and landed the crews with a party of
marines, who got round behind ; whereupon the
bold defender of the tower hoisted the white flag
and surrendered, saying that he was very sorry for
what had happened, which entirely arose from
the mistake of not sending him a civil summons
before the firing commenced.
English sailors can do anything; and, in all
human probability, would force their way into
the inner harbour of Sebastopol, and destroy the
Russian fleet at anchor; but two or three ships
>
174
CIRCASSSA AND GEORGIA
might be sunk, others disabled, and many valuable
lives would certainly be thrown away in fighting
against chances which we should thus volunteer
to throw into the opposite scale. Twenty thou-
.
sand men landed at Balaclava, within a short
march, attended by a train of artillery and a
sufficient supply of siege implements, not forget-
ting a few rockets (while the fleet blockades the
mouth of the harbour), would reduce the business
to a calculation of hours, without sending our
brave tars to run the gauntlet through an enfi-
lade of batteries, before they can get within arm's
length of enemies, who will think many times
before they dare to face them in open combat.
The most satisfactory triumph is that which
achieves the greatest result with the smallest
amount of loss. The Crimea can be taken in the
regular way; and once in our possession, the teeth
of Russia are effectually drawn. We are not now
pushed for time, but our foe is. Every hour
adds to the strength of the allies and the confi-
dence of Turkey. If the Russian armies in Walla-
chia and Moldavia cannot cross the Danube in force,
and strike an important blow before the French and
English troops arrive, what is there before them but
a disastrous retreat immediately after? Neither is
their position on the Asiatic side likely to improve
by delay. Circassia is panting to retaliate on her
;
WAITING TO RISE.
175
a
invaders, and Georgia is ready to assist. The
passing hours are worth their weight in gold to
Russia, yet they glide on and she does nothing.
Again, we repeat, she is colossal in an ukase,
gigantic in a bulletin, but of very ordinary dimen-
sions in an actual campaign, when resolutely
opposed. What has she gained in nine months
against Turkey, fighting alone, and without the
forces of France and England, now steaming
rapidly to the rescue ? Nothing beyond the igno-
miny of Sinope, and the undisguised wishes of
the whole world for her speedy humiliation. The
Turks have held their ground, beaten them in
every encounter, and the frowning lines of Kalafat
are still unassailed. Potemkin issued his orders
to Suvaroff, to take Ismail at any cost
and he did it; Nicholas has said the same to
Gortchakoff with regard to Kalafat—and he has
not done it. The memory of Suvaroff will not
supply his rare talent and unconquerable daring.
It is still believed by many that the Russian
Emperor will succumb at the twelfth hour, and
offer to negotiate before he tries the last chance
of battle. If his madness be the fanaticism of
what he fancies to be a religious obligation, there
is no hope of this; but circumstances may con-
trol even a Russian autocrat, and bend him to
submission, without his being allowed a voice in
176
VIGOROUS MEASURES
the matter. The northern confederacy of 1801
was broken up by the violent catastrophe we have
already touched upon, and which assuredly the
son of Paul has not forgotten. Under any con-
tingency, it is devoutly to be hoped that while we
disclaim conquest, we should remain deaf as
adders to compromise or treaty, without ample
indemnity for the past and certain security for the
future. The snake must be killed, not scotch'd.
We have ample experience to refer to, showing
how often we have suffered from ill-timed gene-
rosity, and given up all, when all was in our
power. Spare your enemy when he asks for
quarter, but take from him the means of being
mischievous a second time.
The English people are quite reconciled to a
temporary visitation of the augmented income tax,
and will pay-it cheerfully ; but the prospect of a
permanent one, or a protracted contest, will
make them close up their breeches-pockets, and
betake themselves to their old trade of grumb-
ling. Russia not only fights with the open wea-
pons of war, but uses the secret agencies of
intrigue in a thousand ramifications. Her emis-
saries are at work in Paris and in London at this
moment. They are in the ports of the United
States, endeavouring to promote the equipment
of American privateers under the Russian flag.
REQUIRED AT PRESENT.
177
They are in Greece, in Albania, in Bosnia, in
Servia, in Bulgaria, in Roumelia. They are in
Constantinople, and are possibly in the Sultan's
cabinet. They are in the fortresses, the camps,
the cities, the villages, the mountains, and the
plains. Money will buy treason everywhere, and
money will not be spared as long as it lasts. Let
King Otho take good care that he is not impli-
cated. He too is under protection, but the powers
that made, can unmake, if they see cause. His
rickety kingdom stands on a weak foundation,
and is to all intents and purposes, a moral and
political failure; a thorn in the side of Turkey, an
excrescence without wholesome vitality; a mere
Russian outpost, and a convenient focus for Rus.
sian intrigue. The establishment of that mock
independence was a philanthropical blunder, a
yielding-up of sound policy to classical recol-
lections, a school-boy tenderness for the memo-
ries of Solon and Lycurgus, of Pericles and
Leonidas ; a practical mistake, as fatal as was
the “untoward event of Navarino." What has
Greece yet done, collectively or individually, to
prove herself worthy of the attempt at regene-
rating a people who will not co-operate in rege-
nerating themselves? They still exhibit the
Pyrrhic dance, the ancient costume, the lan-
guage, and the proverbial duplicity; but of the
N
>
178
THE GREEK FEVER.
patriotic virtue, the hardy valour which won
Salamis and consecrated Thermopylæ, which scat-
tered the hosts of Xerxes and carried the Ten
Thousand over six hundred leagues through count-
dangers, from Assyria to the courts of Ionia, they
retain nothing save the imperishable records of
Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.
A quarter of a century ago, Philhellenism was a
raging epidemic in England. The genius and
early death of Lord Byron enveloped the struggle
for Grecian freedom with a halo of glory and
expectation, Time the purifier has sobered
enthusiasm down to reality, and dissipated the
dreams of romance. A country has much to
learn in the common rudiments of moral instruc-
tion, of which a conscientious traveller writes :*
“The ministry allege that even the very chairs
and tables in the ministerial hotels are not safe
e;
the Queen declines going to the theatre, because
the furniture of her box was stolen ; and there are
villages in Acarnania where one day in the year
is consecrated to theft."
The doubt so long entertained that Austria
would exert or side with Russia, may now be
looked upon as removed by her late positive
declaration. Her geographical position gives her
* The Rev. H. Christmas's “ Shores and Islands of the
Mediterranean."
DOUBTS AS TO PRUSSIA.
179
an importance beyond her actual strength, and
her course has been wisely chosen with a view to
her own future security. The King of Prussia is
still hesitating, his people are dissatisfied, and
their position is critical. He is attached to the
Emperor of Russia by personal intimacy, con-
genial habits, and matrimonial alliance; but states
acknowledge no private ties, although sovereigns
are frequently biassed by them. Prussia is the
smallest of the great powers. Her territory is
compact, her coast-line well defined, her revenue
sufficient, her army numerous and of first-rate
quality ; but her population does not exceed six-
teen millions, and she lies within reach of the
devouring Maelstrom, which swallows up all that
comes within its vortex. But Prussia, as a lead-
ing member of the German confederacy, has a
double interest in opposing a barrier to the
encroachments of her dangerous neighbour, and
should make common cause with Sweden and
Denmark, in the event of an attempt to coerce
her decision.
With a view to repelling the aggressions of
Russia, and to prevent their recurrence in future,
our efforts naturally direct themselves to the
East and the Black Sea. For the just retaliation
which she has loudly demanded, we turn towards
the North and the Baltic. In the first quarter,
N 2
180
NELSON'S MAXIM.
Russia may strike with a chance of success, if she
is prompt and powerful; in the latter, she can
only look for heavy blows without the probability
of a return. It may be taken for granted that
her fleets will avoid an action with ours in the
open sea.
If they are rash enough to risk one,
they are not likely to return to the harbours from
whence they sailed. Their naval qualities have
never yet been proved, except in combat with the
Turks, and once in an action with a very superior
force against the Swedes. Their experience is
principally confined to waters which are not
navigable during half the year; long voyages
round the world, doubling Cape Horn and the
Cape of Good Hope, are beyond the limits of
their ordinary practice. Lord Nelson had not
a very exalted opinion of Russian seamanship.
He studied the characteristics of every enemy
he was likely to encounter, as minutely as a pilot
examines his charts, or a steersman watches the
motion of the compass. He used to say, “close
with a Frenchman or a Spaniard, but dodge a
Russian.” His meaning was, that, being inexpert
in the handling of ships, complicated movements
would confound and place them at the mercy of
a more active opponent. Steam will entirely
change the features of naval warfare, and must
leave the chances of battle more dependent on
STEAM IN WARFARE.
181
a
the skill of the admiral, who, through such a
controlling engine, wields a power which renders
him independent of winds, calms, or currents.
The consequences of this novel agency have as
yet only been calculated on surmise; no oppor-
tunity has occurred of testing them by experiment.
Formerly, as the great authority named above
observed, when delivering instructions to his
officers, “no captain of a British man-of-war could
be far wrong, who lays his ship close alongside
his enemy.” But steam, and above all the screw
propeller, enables him now to come into action
exactly after the manner and in the position
chosen by himself. If he is out-manouvred, the
fault is entirely his own.
Battles will be shorter
and more decisive than they used to be, and the
comparative loss on either side will depend in a
much greater degree on the ability of the respective
commanders, whose responsibility is increased
in a similar proportion. A close-broadside com-
bat between two vessels carrying such a tremen-
dous weight of metal as our modern three-
deckers, could not possibly last for many minutes
without the certain annihilation of both.
The destruction of the arsenal and ships at
Cronstadt might possibly be accomplished by
the combined attack of a naval and military
expedition, in the face of any defensive prepara-
182
BLOCKADE OF THE BALTIC.
tions. We are not prepared to say whether this
advantage would not be too dearly purchased by
the loss of lives, and probable damage to our
vessels, at which sacrifice the result would be
obtained. The entire command of the Baltic,
which our naval superiority will ensure, as it has
already done of the Euxine, will as effectuaily
cripple the profitable strength of Russia, as the
mere destruction of ships which she is unable
to use. Her fleet becomes a nominal display
when it cannot liberate her commerce, or open
the only mouth through which that commerce
permeates into the ordinary channels. If this
outlet is permanently sealed up by the cruisers of
France and England, the unwieldy empire
becomes an inert, putrescent body, deprived of the
limbs which give it life and healthy action. Much
of the influence of Russia is derived from the
opinion which has been pertinaciously disseminated
of her invincible strength, her myriads of soldiers,
and her unbounded resources; an opinion that
will rapidly subside if the two former are ex-
hausted, and the springs of the latter dried up,
There can be no doubt that the united power of
France and England can produce this revolution,
which will teach the Emperor of Russia a con-
vincing lesson, that enormous masses of men,
moved like machines, must stop when they reach
CLAIMS OF SWEDEN.
183
the sea-shore, and are not the only elements of
national strength.
Next to Poland, there is no country which has
been so ill-treated as Finland, and none to which
Russia has so little claim. It was treacherously
won, and has been cruelly trampled on, The
inhabitants remember their long incorporation
with Sweden, the happiness they enjoyed under
her rule, the military reputation which they
materially assisted her to acquire, and the com-
merce which formerly flowed into their ports.
They participated in the glories of Leipzig,
Lutzen, and Narva, and recruited the ranks of
Gustavus Adolphus and Charles the Twelfth, with
brave and loyal soldiers. They are the only real
mariners the Russians can find to man their ships,
and are compelled to fight reluctantly under the
claws of the eagle, while their eyes are turned
with the sickness of hope deferred to the Swedish
cross. They would rise to a man and do battle
to the death, to escape from the protection of
Russia, and return back to their ancient nation.
ality.
When Buxhowden, in 1808, under the orders
of the Emperor Alexander, wrested Finland from
Sweden, he issued a proclamation, expressing
the deep regret of bis master that he was com-
pelled to invade a peaceful country for the
184
RUSSIAN CRUELTIES
purpose of obtaining a guarantee that the King
of Sweden would submit to whatever terms he
might please to dictate. At the same time he
promised not to interfere with their internal legis-
lation, to leave them the full exercise of their
laws, statutes, and customs, and to pay and feed
his troops entirely at his own expense. A few
months later, the Swedish monarch addressed a
letter to the Emperor of Russia, which speaks
eloquently for the manner in which this procla-
mation was observed. “Honour and humanity,"
he says, “require me to make strong represen-
tations against the innumerable horrors and vexa-
tions which the Russian armies have permitted
themselves in Swedish Finland. The blood of
the innocent victims calls for vengeance upon
those who authorized such cruelties. Can it be
made a crime in my Finnish subjects not to have
wished to let themselves be seduced by promises
which are as fallacious as the principles on which
they are founded are erroneous? Is it worthy
of a sovereign to make it in them a crime? I
conjure your Imperial Majesty to put an end to
the calamities and the horrors of a war which
ought to call down on your person and your
.
empire the malediction of Divine Providence.”
It must be remembered that this remonstrance
was called forth long after resistance in the field
IN FINLAND.
185
had ceased, and Sweden had bowed under the
loss of the province she was too feeble to retain.
Russian rule is more detested in Finland than
in any other appanage of the empire. Sweden
has been unjustly plundered of a larger territory
than she has been suffered to retain, and weakened
down to a third-rate power, when sound policy
dictated her restoration to the rank she formerly
maintained. Russia at present controls the Baltic
with overwbelming superiority. If Finland were
restored to Sweden, the balance would be re-
established, and a better security obtained for the
future than the capture of a few ships, which are
easily replaced, or the destruction of dockyards
and fortresses, which rise rapidly from their ruins.
The point is one deserving of profound consider-
ation, and the consequences involved are of the
first importance. It would be unjust to encourage
the Finlanders to take up arms on a delusive
prospect, unless it was quite determined to support
them to the end, and enforce their emancipation.
And now the formalities of the tournament are
complete, the knights are in the lists, with vizors
closed and lances in rest. The marshal of the
field has proclaimed the signal, “ Laissez aller!”
and the combatants are eager to engage. In a
few weeks, perhaps days, the thunder of artillery
will re-echo from the shores of the Baltic and
186
CHANCES OF WAR.
the Black Sea. The issue is in the hand of
heaven, and no human intelligence can say whether
the impending conflict will be long or short, or
how the fluctuating tide of success may direct its
course. France and England have done all that
is consistent with the duties of the two foremost
nations of the globe to preserve peace, as long as
peace was compatible with safety and existing
treaties. Compelled at last to have recourse to
the ratio ultima regum, the final arbitrement of
bullet and bayonet, we enter into the struggle
with a conviction that arms were never appealed
to in a sounder cause, and with a prestige of
victory, grounded on the extent of the provocation.
War having once commenced, two courses are
open to the enemy; a vigorous attack, or a pro-
tracted defence. He may push boldly on, and
attempt to force his way to Constantinople, in
despite of rivers, frontier fortresses, mountain
passes, and opposing armies; or he may retire,
like a tortoise, within his shell, and wait in
defiance of reprisal. If he adopts the former plan
the chances in our favour are manifestly increased;
if he selects the latter, and pursues the Fabian
systern of delay, he may harass and worry the
allies until some unforeseen accident affords him
an opening; but to do this he must possess inter-
minable supplies of treasure; his nobles must
THE FABIAN SYSTEM.
187
second him with enthusiastic loyalty and submit
to the total suspension of their annual incomes;
the mass of his people must resign themselves to
endure without murmuring the privations that a
long war will entail upon them; and his ranks,
;
thinned by the sword, disease, and neglect,
must be recruited by miracle, as warriors sprang
in full equipment from the dragon's teeth of
Cadmus.
If he can encounter and surmount all these
impediments, if he is prepared to subdue so many
obstacles, the result becomes a very different
calculation; but as honest Touchstone says,
“ there is much virtue in an if;" and in this case,
the intervening conjunction is more imperatively
indispensable than in the deadly quarrel on the
seventh cause which a bench of magistrates was
unable to adjust.
In venturing these observations, which have
been hastily thrown together, there is no dispo-
sition to fall into the error of undervaluing a
formidable opponent. The object is, to bring
down a fabulous Titan to the common standard,
by which he ought in truth to be measured, and
to reduce the inflated spectre of the Hartz Moun-
tains to the reasonable dimensions of an ordin
bugbear.
Our warriors have departed for their distant
188
ENGLAND AND ST. GEORGE !
scene of action greeted by the acclamations of
assembled thousands, and animated by the pre-
sence of the Queen. They need no stirring words,
no eloquent appeal, to rouse their inherent valour
to exertion, but if we turn to the universal pages
of Shakspeare, we find a ready apostrophe, as if
composed for the occasion.
“On! on! you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof !
Fathers, that like so many Alexanders,
Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war !- and you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, shew us here
The metal of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not:
For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge,
Cry-God for · Victoria, England, and St. George !"
6
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