Part 14

The growing power of Napoleon induced Alexander to enter into a new coalition with England, Prussia, and Sweden. Russia bore the brunt of the war, after Prussia had been rendered harmless after the battles of Jena and Auerstadt. The Russians withdrew from Prussian Poland; they suddenly left their winter quarters and attacked the French. On the 8th of February, one of the bloodiest battles was fought at Eylau; the French claimed the victory, but it was barren of results.

Napoleon dreaded Russia. He persuaded the Sultan of Turkey and the Shah of Persia to declare war, so as to occupy Alexander elsewhere. The czar, however, was loyal to his allies until, on the 14th of June, his army was almost annihilated at Friedland. This loss compelled him to enter into negotiations. On June 25, 1807, the two emperors met on a raft at Tilsit. Napoleon was prepared to do almost anything that would induce Alexander to cease interfering in Europe. An offensive-defensive alliance was concluded, whereby Napoleon agreed not to oppose the expulsion of the Turk or Russia's conquest of Constantinople. The czar meant to carry out the treaty in letter and in spirit, but he soon saw that Napoleon's ambition was limitless, and that he was playing with his ally. This was evident by the proposed partition of Turkey: nothing came of it. Still he accepted Napoleon's invitation to a conference at Erfurt, where he was received by the French Emperor amid a court composed of sovereigns and princes. A convention was signed on the 12th of October, 1808, whereby Alexander promised Napoleon a free hand, in return for the annexation by (p. 200) Russia of Finland and the Turkish provinces on the Danube.

This led to a war with Great Britain, Sweden, and Austria, not including Turkey and Persia. Russia acquired Finland, when Alexander, after convoking the Diet, guaranteed its constitution, privileges, and university. In 1809, war again broke out between Austria and France. By the terms of the alliance, Russia had agreed to furnish troops, but they showed that they did not relish fighting with the French. There were two engagements; in one of these, the casualties were one Russian killed and two wounded. By an oversight of Napoleon the Poles serving under him were to cooperate with the Russians, and, far from doing so, they often came to blows. The Russian general constantly sent complaints to the czar. Napoleon made a great effort to appease Alexander by assigning to Russia Eastern Gallicia with a population of 400,000. Alexander declined to be represented in the peace negotiations at Vienna. Napoleon's creation of the Grand Dukedom of Warsaw was a constant menace to Russia.

Meanwhile the Russians were uniformly victorious in Turkey; the czar concluded peace only when it was evident that war with France was unavoidable, and that Russia would need every man. It was on this account that he gave easy terms to the hard-pressed Sultan. Russia annexed Bessarabia, part of Roumania, Ismail, and Kilia on the Lower Danube.

The time for the momentous struggle had arrived. Napoleon, the master of Continental Europe, thought that he was more than a match for serf-ridden Russia. He reckoned upon the echo which the words (p. 201) liberty, equality, and fraternity, would awaken in the hearts of the moujik, and forgot that they were abstract ideas which to the serf, struggling for enough black bread to allay the cravings of hunger, were so many empty sounds. He tried to arouse Europe's suspicions of Russia's designs, not thinking that any yoke, even that of the Tartars, would be a welcome relief to nations mourning for the slaughter of their sons.

Napoleon left Paris for Dresden on the 9th of May, 1812; on the first of June an army of 678,000 men, including 60,000 Poles, stood ready to invade Russia. Alexander had only 150,000 men under Bagration and Barclay de Tolly, 90,000 posted on the Niemen, and 60,000 on the Vistula; but he issued a proclamation announcing a Holy War. "Rise all of you!" he urged, "With the Cross in your hearts and arms in your hands, no human force can prevail against you!"

Napoleon advanced clutching shadows. After his army left Wilna, leaving dead desolation in its wake, the time soon came when retreat was no longer possible. Russian patriotism clamored for battle and Russian prudence had to give way to it. All of Koutouzof's remarkable influence was required to restrain his men under the retreat which foretold victory, because every step forward sealed Napoleon's doom. The Corsican knew it but, with the superstition born in him, trusted to his star. Finally he drew near Moscow, the Holy City, where Count Rostopchine, the governor, was preparing the grand climax of the drama, while pacifying Russian patriotism by a series of hardy falsehoods. "I have resolved," he explained, "at every disagreeable piece of (p. 202) news to raise doubts as to its truth; by this means, I shall weaken the first impression, and before there is time to verify it, others will come which will require investigation." The people implicitly believed his most daring inventions. When he evacuated Moscow, he ordered all prisons to be opened, and the guns in the arsenal to be distributed among the people; he also had the pumps removed and finally gave instructions to set fire to the stores of vodka and the boats loaded with alcohol.

Napoleon arrived at the Kremlin on the 14th of September. Short as was his sojourn, it was with difficulty that he escaped through the flames and found refuge in a park. Why did he waste thirty-five days in the charred capital? Was it belief in his star, or was it despair at the ruin of his prospects? On the 13th of October, the remnant of the Grand Army started on its long journey over the desert it had left behind, because all other roads were closed to it. The retreat has been described by many writers; but what pen shall do justice to the suffering caused by the unusually severe winter, the snow, the ice, the hunger, and the thirst? And how many hearts were rent, when the news came of the dead, the wounded, and the missing? Napoleon's campaign in Russia was the most impressive sermon against war, but it fell upon heedless ears.

After the Battle of the Berezina, Napoleon left the army and hurried home. All his thoughts were on the effect of the disastrous defeat,—not upon the hundred thousand desolate homes, but upon his own fortunes. He arrived in Paris where he gathered 450,000 men, many of them mere youths, to support him with their blood. But (p. 203) Europe was weary of slaughter. Kings might tremble for their crowns, it was the people, aroused to frenzy, that impelled them to action. On Napoleon's heels, besides, there was a bloodhound whom nobler instincts than mere self-preservation inspired to ceaseless pursuit. Alexander I, at this time, earned and deserved the glorious surname of The Well-beloved. Not a thought of self-glory or personal aggrandizement sullied the relentless chase. Emperors and kings dreading the awakened conscience of the people would have made peace, and they could have done so with security for themselves, but Alexander said, "No!" Under fire at the four days' battle of Leipzig, he personally directed reenforcements where they were required. And when, at last, the host of invaders stepped on the soil whose people during twenty years had committed outrages in almost every known country of Europe, they were noble words which the Autocrat addressed to his troops whom he had brought so far away from home. "By invading our empire," he says, "the enemy has done us much harm, and has therefore been subjected to a terrible chastisement. The anger of God has overthrown him. Do not let us imitate him. The merciful God does not love cruel and inhuman men. Let us forget the evil he has wrought; let us carry to our foes, not vengeance and hate, but friendship, and a hand extended in peace."

These were not mere words; Alexander the Well-beloved was sincere. But it was he who refused to receive Napoleon's envoy at Freiburg, and it was he who, when Napoleon, fighting like a tiger at bay, was defeating the separated armies, so that the British envoy urged to (p. 204) come to terms with him, answered, "It would not be a peace but a truce. I cannot come four hundred leagues to your assistance every day. No peace, so long as Napoleon is on the throne!" By his direction the united armies rolled like an avalanche upon Paris,—and Napoleon gave up the struggle by abdicating.

Again it was Alexander the Well-beloved who intervened when other powers would have overwhelmed the fallen colossus. It was Alexander who procured for his enemy the sovereignty of the island of Elba, and commissioned Count Schouvalof to escort him. "I confide to you a great mission;" he said; "you will answer to me with your head for a single hair which falls from the head of Napoleon."

At the Congress of Vienna assembled the statesmen to dispose of nations and peoples, as their own ambition prompted. Alexander desired to unite Poland to his crown, but separate from Russia; but was opposed by Austria, Great Britain, and France, who entered into a secret alliance against him. Had Napoleon waited two hundred days instead of half that time, who knows that he might not yet have been the arbiter of Europe? His descent united all factions, and Alexander declared that he would pursue Napoleon "down to his last man and his last ruble."

Once again armies were set in motion, and once again Napoleon resorted to his well-known tactics of destroying his enemies one by one. He failed at Waterloo. (June 17, 1815.) Again the allies re-entered Paris, the Prussians first but closely followed by the czar and his army.

"Justice, but no revenge!" proclaimed Alexander when Bluecher would (p. 205) have followed Napoleon's example of robbing a country of its works of art. The czar stood the friend of France when Prussia demanded a frontier which would render her safe from French invasion; but he said frankly that he "wished to allow some danger to exist on that side, so that Germany, having need of Russia, might remain dependent," He was in favor of allowing the French to select their own government, but was overruled. At last the allies came to an understanding, and Poland was joined to the Russian Crown.

The Polish soldiers who had fought so bravely under Napoleon, placed themselves at the czar's service, hoping and trusting that their country would revive under a Russian king. Alexander's promises at Vienna had been vague, but recent events had made a deep impression upon him. In this frame of mind, he directed that Poland be restored. This was announced on the 21st of June, at Warsaw amid the roar of cannon. Constantine, Alexander's brother, was made King, and a legislative body, composed of a senate and house of representatives, was formed under a constitution which also guaranteed the freedom of the press.

Thus Alexander returned to Russia. Soon after that he gave evidence that strong emotions were required to subdue the inborn prejudice in favor of autocracy. Russia, of necessity, had acquired an overwhelming influence in Europe. This showed at the several Congresses, at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, at Carlsbad in 1819, at Troppau in 1820, and at Verona in 1822. The crowned heads of Europe appeared unable to comprehend that the French revolution, with its orgies of blood (p. 206) and tears, had produced an impassable abyss between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They wished to return to the conditions prevailing before the revolution, which caused the success of that upheaval; but the people, the masses, had quaffed of the cup of liberty, and the taste lingered. The Holy Alliance with its unholy aims might ordain what it pleased, the people obstinately refused to resume the place of beasts of burden for the benefit of the State. Thus a spirit of unrest was perceptible, and when Alexander learned that his "I, the czar, will it!" was not able to restore quiet, he joined the other crowned heads in their struggle against more liberal ideas. From that time his conduct changed.

There was evidence of this in the events occurring in the south. The majority of the inhabitants of the Balkan provinces of Turkey belonged to the Greek Church, and looked to Alexander for relief from the oppressive Mahomedan yoke. The Servians took up arms, the people of Greece did the same. On Easter day, 1821, the Patriarch of the Greek Church at Constantinople was seized at the altar, and hung in his vestment at the door of the church. Three metropolitans and eight bishops were also murdered. The news caused deep indignation in Russia, but Alexander moved not. He believed in the theory that no people should be encouraged in rising against its ordained masters. In Russia all liberal ideas were rigidly suppressed.

In 1825, Alexander left St. Petersburg for the south where he intended to spend some time. He was full of gloomy forebodings and gave further evidence of an unsound mind by having a mass for the dead sung in (p. 207) his presence in broad daylight. While in the Crimea he was heard to repeat: "They may say what they like of me, but I have lived and will die a republican." He died on the 19th of November, 1825, while on his journey.

He left no sons. His brother Constantine had renounced the crown when he became King of Poland, and in 1823, Alexander had made his next brother Nicholas his successor. Alexander's reign marked a new era for Russia inasmuch as it was brought into closer contact with Europe, and promised to change in thought and impulse, from an Asiatic into a European nation. The necessity of securing the help of the masses against Napoleon's invasion created newspapers, and writers of unusual ability expressed their patriotic thoughts in prose and poetry. In 1814, the Imperial Library was opened to the public at St. Petersburg. It contained at that time 242,000 volumes, and about 10,000 manuscripts.

In 1803, Captains Krusenstern and Lisianski made the first Russian voyage around the world in the Nadejda (the Hope), and the Neva. It was on this occasion that Russia entered into relations with the United States.

XXIII—AN EVENTFUL PERIOD. (p. 208)

Alexander's will came as a surprise upon Nicholas, but Constantine was loyal to his promise and after a brief but generous contest, Nicholas was crowned at Moscow. Twenty-three days had elapsed since Alexander's death, long enough to show that the spirit of unrest had penetrated into Russia. On the 26th of December there were some disturbances at Moscow, but they were suppressed without great trouble. The secret police hunted down the leaders, many of whom were known in art or literature, but they suffered death. Nicholas, a man of colossal stature, commanding appearance, iron will, passion for a military life, of simple and correct habits, was a true champion of the right divine of kings. He had neither sympathy nor patience with any movement tending toward greater liberty for the people. Nevertheless Nicholas was much more popular than Alexander had been, because he was the type of the Russian czars, who had increased Russia's power and territory.

Not many days after his coronation, Nicholas became involved in a quarrel with the Shah of Persia. In vain did the shah call upon Great Britain for help; the Persians were twice defeated in 1826, and the Russians were on the road to Teheran when the shah preferred to (p. 209) save his capital by ceding two provinces, and paying a heavy indemnity in 1828. The following year, the Russian Minister at Teheran was murdered, but Persia escaped with a humble apology.

Turkey, too, was made to feel Nicholas' heavy hand; urged by other powers the sultan submitted to the loss of territory in Asia, which had been in dispute, and permitted the free passage of Russian vessels between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. (Convention of Akkerman, Oct. 8, 1826.) The czar, after this, took up the Greek question, and entered into an agreement with England and France. In vain did the sultan offer the plea which had been successful with Alexander, that the Greeks "violated the passive obedience owed by subjects to their legitimate sovereigns." Nicholas wanted Turkey for himself, and proposed to leave no stone unturned to secure possession of Constantinople.

After the battle of Navarino, on the 20th of October, 1827, where the allied forces destroyed the Turkish fleet. England withdrew, suspicious of Nicholas' schemes; but France and Russia continued the war until by the Peace of Adrianople, the sultan recognized the independence of Greece,—and ceded to Russia four fortresses in Asia and the islands in the delta of the Danube. Russia was thus in possession of the whole southern slope of the Caucasus, besides holding part of its northern front. The czar began war upon the tribes dwelling in the mountains, but found that he had engaged in a very difficult enterprise. A soldier-priest named Schamyl defied the power of Russia for a quarter of a century. It cost Nicholas more in men (p. 210) and money to subdue the liberty-loving mountaineer, than all the wars he waged in Asia.

The year 1830, was one of great unrest in Europe. Nicholas was deeply angered when his friend Charles X of France was expelled. The revolution in Paris was the signal for a similar movement in the capital of Poland. Owing to the independent expression of opinion in the Diet, Alexander had adjourned that body indefinitely in 1822. At the same time the liberty of the press was revoked and the police assumed a power in defiance of the law. The Grand Duke Constantine was really a friend of Poland, but he was eccentric and impetuous and often unconsciously gave offense. In 1830, Nicholas came to Warsaw to open the Diet, when its members made demands which he could not grant. Both sides were angry when Nicholas returned to St. Petersburg.

As soon as the French tricolor was raised above the consulate at Warsaw, the trouble commenced. Taken unprepared, Constantine withdrew with his troops. Again the Poles were divided; the patriots advised reconciliation with Russia, while hotheads demanded the abdication of the Romanofs. The first party sent a deputation to St. Petersburg and another to Paris and London, to secure mediation. The czar's answer was decisive; he absolutely refused to "make concessions (to the revolutionists), as the price of their crimes." Again, too, there was discord among the leaders as they entered upon a life or death struggle. Poland appealed to Europe. The people were sympathetic, but the governments, rejoicing at seeing a revolutionary movement suppressed, refused to interfere.

In February, 1831, a Russian army of 130,000 men invaded Poland. (p. 211) The Poles showed a heroism which appealed to the people of Europe, but more than sympathy was needed to arrest the irresistible Russian advance upon Warsaw. Constantine and the Russian commander-in-chief fell the victims of cholera, but an epidemic of discord struck Poland and sealed its fate. On the 6th of September, Warsaw was invested. The capital was forced to surrender. "Warsaw is at your feet," wrote the commander-in-chief to the czar, who lost no time in trampling upon the conquered. The constitution was abrogated, the Diet, a thing of the past. Poland was no more. Where it had stood, was a Russian province. Russian officials introduced Russian taxes, Russian coinage, and Russian justice such as it was. The Poles saw samples of it when thousands were arrested without process of law, and were sent to prison or to Siberia, while other thousands lost their property by confiscation. In White Russia and Lithuania the use of the Polish language was prohibited and the Catholic Clergy were forced to "ask" admittance to the bosom of the Greek Church. It must be admitted that the Polish peasants benefited by the change. With a view of reducing the influence of the nobles, the government issued regulations protecting the laborer against the landowner.

The Polish revolution caused the reorganization of European policies. Austria and Prussia, each in possession of territory that formerly belonged to Poland, entered into friendly relations with Russia, whereas England and France, where public opinion could not be ignored, drew more closely together. Nicholas was posing as the arbiter of (p. 212) Europe and the champion of kings. He assumed the right to command, but would soon find his will contested.

This was brought home to him in 1832, when trouble broke out between Turkey and Egypt. The Egyptian army was victorious and threatened Constantinople, when the sultan appealed to the powers. Russia responded at once by sending two armies, but a strong protest from England and France caused the withdrawal of the troops of Russia as well as those of Egypt. Baffled, Nicholas on June 3, 1833, entered into an offensive-defensive alliance with the sultan, which really placed Turkey and with it Constantinople in Russia's power. Another sharp protest from England and France prevented the consummation of the alliance.