Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Against this same Tshetshen fortress of Dargo, Count Woronzoff's expedition (already referred to) was made, in July 1845. A capital account of the affair is given in a letter from a Russian officer engaged, printed in Dr Wagner's book. Dargo had become an important place. Chamyl had established large stores there, and had built a mosque, to which came pilgrims from the remotest villages of Daghestan and Lesghistan, partly to pray, partly to see the dreaded chief--equally renowned as warrior and priest--and to give him information concerning the state of the country, and the movements of the Russians. Less vigorously opposed than Grabbe, and his measures better taken, Woronzoff reached Dargo with moderate loss. "The village," says the Russian officer: "was situated on the slope of a mountain, at the brink of a ravine, and consisted of sixty to seventy small stone-houses, and of a few larger buildings, where the stones were joined with mortar, instead of being merely superimposed, as is usually the case in Caucasian dwellings. One of these buildings had several irregular towers, of some apparent antiquity. When we approached, a thick smoke burst from them. Chamyl had ordered everything to be set on fire that could not be carried away. One must confess that, in this fierce determination of the enemy to refuse submission--to defend, foot by foot, the territory of his forefathers, and to leave to the Russians no other trophies than ashes and smoking ruins--there is a certain wild grandeur which extorts admiration, even though the hostile chief be no better than a fanatical barbarian." This reminds us of the words of the Circassian chief Mansour:--"When Turkey and England abandon us," he said, to Bell of the 'Vixen,'--"when all our powers of resistance are exhausted, we will burn our houses,and our goods, strangle our wives and our children, and retreat to our highest rocks, there to die, fighting to the very last man." "The greatest difficulty," said General Neidhardt to Dr Wagner, who was a frequent visitor at the house of that distinguished officer, "with which we have to contend, is the unappeasable, deep-rooted, ineradicable hatred cherished by all the mountaineers against the Russians. For this we know no cure; every form of severity and of kindness has been tried in turn, with equal ill-success." Valour and patriotism are nearly the only good qualities the Caucasians can boast. They are cruel, and for the most part faithless, especially the Tshetshens, and Dr Wagner warns us against crediting the exaggerated accounts frequently given of their many virtues. The Circassians are said to respect their plighted word, but there are many exceptions. General Neidhardt told Dr Wagner an anecdote of a Circassian, who presented himself before the commandant of one of the Black Sea fortresses, and offered to communicate most important intelligence, on condition of a certain reward. The reward was promised. Then said the Circassian,--"To-morrow after sunset, your fort will be assailed by thousands of my countrymen." The informer was retained, whilst Cossacks and riflemen were sent out, and it proved that he had spoken the truth. The enemy, finding the garrison on their guard, retired after a short skirmish. The Circassian received his recompense, which he took without a word of thanks, and left the fortress. Without the walls, he met an unarmed soldier; hatred of the Russians, and thirst of blood, again got the ascendency: he shot the soldier dead, and scampered off to the mountains.

Chamyl did not long remain indebted to the Russians for their visit to Dargo. His reputation of sanctity and valour enabled him to unite under his orders many tribes habitually hostile to each other, and which previously had fought each "on its own hook." Of these tribes he formed a powerful league; and in May 1846 he burst into Cabardia at the head of twenty thousand mountaineers, four thousand of whom were horsemen. Formidable though this force was, the venture was one of extreme temerity. He left behind him a double line of Russian camps and forts, and two rivers, then at the flood, and difficult to pass. With an undisciplined and heterogeneous army, without artillery or regular commissariat, this daring chief threw himself into a flat country, unfavourable to guerilla warfare; slipping through the Russian posts, marching more than four hundred miles, and utterly disregarding the danger he was in from a well-equipped army of upwards of seventy thousand men, to say nothing of the numerous military population of the Cossack settlements on the Terek and Sundscha, and of the fact that the Cabardians, long submissive to Russia, were more likely to arm in defence of their rulers than to favour the mountaineers. Shepherds and dwellers in the plain, and far less warlike than the other Circassian tribes, they never were able to make head against the Russians; and had remained indifferent to all the incentives of Tshetshen fanatics and propagandists. For years past, Chamyl had threatened them with a visit; but nevertheless, his sudden appearance greatly surprised and confounded both them and the Russian general, who had just concentrated all his movable columns, with a view to an expedition, relying overmuch upon his lines of forts and blockhouses. The Tshetshen raid was more daring, and at least as successful, as Abd-el-Kader's celebrated foray in the Metidja, in the year 1839. Chamyl addressed to the Cabardians a thundering proclamation, full of quotations from the Koran, and denouncing vengeance on them if they did not flock to the banner of the Prophet. The unlucky keepers of sheep found themselves between the devil and the deep sea. From terror rather than sympathy, a large number of villages declared for Chamyl, whose wild hordes burned and plundered the property of all who adhered to the Russians; leaving, like a swarm of locusts, desolation in their track. When the Cossacks began to gather, and the Russian generals to manœuvre, Chamyl, who knew he could not contend in the plain with disciplined and superior forces, and whose retreat by the road he came was already cut off, traversed Great and Little Cabardia, burning and destroying as he went; dashed through the Cossack colonies to the south of Ekaterinograd, and regained his mountains in safety--dragging with him booty, prisoners, and Cabardian recruits. These latter, who had joined through fear of Chamyl, remained with him through fear of the Russians. By this foray, whose apparent great rashness was justified by its complete success, Chamyl enriched his people, strengthened his army, and greatly weakened the confidence of the tribes of the plain in the efficacy of Russian protection. As usual, in cases of disaster, the Russians kept the affair as quiet as they could; but the truth could not be concealed from those most concerned, and murmurs of dismay ran along the exposed line fringing the Muscovite and Circassian territories.

The Russian army of the Caucasus reckoned, in 1843, about eighty thousand men, exclusive of thirty-five thousand who had little to do with the war, but were more especially employed in watching the extensive line of Turkish and Persian frontier, and in endeavouring to exclude contraband goods and Asiatic epidemics. But the severe fighting that occurred in 1842 and 1843, showed the necessity of an increase of force. Subsequent events have not admitted of a reduction in the Caucasian establishment; and we are probably very near the mark, in estimating the troops occupying the various forts and camps on the Black Sea, and the lines of the rivers, (Terek, Kuban, Koisu, &c.,) at about one hundred thousand men--not at all too many to guard so extensive a line, against so active and enterprising a foe. The Russian ranks are constantly thinned by destructive fevers, which, in bad years, have been known to carry off as much as a sixth of the Caucasian army. At a review at Vladikawkas, Dr Wagner was struck by the powerful build of the Russian foot-soldiers--broad-shouldered, broad-faced Slavonians, with enormous mustaches, drilled to automatical perfection. In point of bone and limb, every man of them was a grenadier. In a bayonet charge, such infantry are formidable opponents. Ségur mentions that, on the battle-field of Borodino, the nation of the stripped bodies was easily known--the muscle and size of the Russians contrasting with the slighter frames of French and Germans. "You may kill the Russians, but you will hardly make them run," was a saying of Frederick the Great; and certainly Seidlitz, who scattered the French so briskly at Rossbach, had to sweat blood before he overcame the Russians at Zorndorf. Those survivors of Napoleon's famous Guard who fought in the drawn battle of Eylau, will bear witness to the stubborn resistance and bull-dog qualities of the Muscovite. But the grenadier stature, and the immobility under fire--admirable qualities on a plain, and against regular troops--avail little in the Caucasus. The burly Russian pants and perspires up the hills, which the light-footed chamois-like Circassians and Tshetshens ascend at a run. The mountaineers understand their advantages, and decline standing still in the plain to be charged by a line of bayonets. They dance round the heavy Russian, who, with his well-stuffed knapsack and long greatcoat, can barely turn on his heel fast enough to face them. They catch him out skirmishing, and slaughter him in detail. "One might suppose," said a foreigner in the Russian service to Dr Wagner, "that the musket and bayonet of the Russian soldier would be too much, in single combat, for the sabre and dagger of the Tshetshen. The contrary is the case. Amongst the dead, slain in hand-to-hand encounter, there are usually a third more Russians than Caucasians. Strange to say, too, the Russian soldier, who in the serried ranks of his battalion meets death with wonderful firmness, and who has shown the utmost valour in contests with European, Turkish, and Persian armies, often betrays timidity in the Caucasian war, and retreats from the outposts to the column, in spite of the heavy punishment he thereby incurs. I myself was exposed, during the murderous fight near Ischkeri (Dargo,) in 1842, to considerable danger, because, having gone to the assistance of a skirmisher, who was sharply engaged with a Tshetshen, the skirmisher ran, leaving me to fight it out alone." This shyness of Russian soldiers in single fight and irregular warfare, is not inexplicable. They have no chance of promotion, no honourable stimulus: food and brandy, discipline and dread of the lash, convert them from serfs into soldiers. As bits of a machine, they are admirable when united, but asunder they are mere screws and bolts. Fanatic zeal, bitter hatred, and thirst of blood, animate the Caucasian, who, trained to arms from his boyhood, and ignorant of drill, relies only upon his keen shaska, and upon the Prophet's protection.

Presuming Dr Wagner's statement of Russian rations to be correct, it is a puzzle how the soldier preserves the condition of his thews and sinews. The daily allowance consists of three pounds of bread, black as a coal; a water-soup, in which three pounds of bacon are cut up for every two hundred and fifty men; a ration of _wodka_, or bad brandy, and once a-week a small piece of meat. The pay is nine rubles a-year, (about one-third of a penny _per diem_,) out of which the unfortunate private has to purchase his stock, cap, soap, blacking, salt, &c., &c. Any surplus he is allowed to expend upon his amusement. "Our soldiers are obliged to steal a little," said a German officer in the Russian service to Dr Wagner; "their pay will not purchase soap and blacking; and if their shirts are not clean, and their shoes polished, the stick is their portion." "Stealing a little," in one way or other, is no uncommon practice in Russia, even amongst more highly placed personages than the soldiers. Officials of all kinds, both civil and military, particularly those of the middle and lower ranks, are prone to peculation. Dr Wagner was deafened with the complaints that from all sides met his ear. "Ah! if the emperor knew it!" was the usual cry. The subjects of Nicholas have strong faith in his justice. It is well remembered in the Caucasus, especially by the army, how one day, at Teflis, the emperor, upon parade, in full view of mob and soldiers, tore, with his own hand, the golden insignia of a general's rank from the coat of Prince Dadian, denounced to him as enriching himself at his men's expense. For several years afterwards, the prince carried the musket, and wore the coarse gray coat of a private sentinel. The officers pitied him, although his condemnation was just. "_Il faut profiter d'une bonne place_," is their current maxim. The soldiers rejoiced; but in secret; for such rejoicings are not always safe. A sentence often recoils unpleasantly upon the accuser. Dr Wagner gives sundry examples. A major in Sewastopol fell in love with a sergeant's wife; and as she disregarded his addresses, he persecuted her and her husband at every opportunity. In despair, the sergeant at last complained to the general commanding. He was listened to; an investigation ensued; the major was superseded; and from his successor the sergeant received five hundred lashes, under pretence of his having left his regiment without permission when he went to lodge his charge. Corporal punishment, of frequent application, at the mere caprice of their superiors, to Russian serfs and soldiers, is inflicted with sticks or rods, the knout being reserved for very grave offences, such as murder, rebellion, &c., and preceding banishment to Siberia, should the sufferer survive. Dr Wagner's description of this dreadful punishment is horribly vivid. Few criminals are sentenced to more than twenty-five lashes, and less than twenty often kill. Running the gauntlet through three thousand men is the usual punishment of deserters; and this would usually be a sentence of death but for the compassion of the officers, who hint to their companies to strike lightly. If the sufferer faints, and is declared by the surgeon unable to receive all his punishment, he gets the remainder at some future time. "Take him down" is a phrase unknown in the Russian service, until the offender has received the last lash of his sentence.

Severity is doubtless necessary in an army composed like that of Russia. Two-thirds of the soldiers are serfs, whose masters, being allowed to send what men they please--so long as they make up their quota--naturally contribute the greatest scamps and idlers upon their estates. The army in Russia is what the galleys are in France, and the hulks in England--a punishment for an infinity of offences. An official embezzles funds--to the army with him; a Jew is caught smuggling--off with him to the ranks; a Tartar cattle-stealer, a vagrant gipsy, an Armenian trader convicted of fraud, a Petersburg coachman who has run over a pedestrian--all food for powder--gray coats and bayonets for them all. Jews abound in the Russian army, being subjected to a severe conscription in Poland and southern Russia. They submit with exemplary patience to the hardships of the service, and to the taunts of their Russian comrades. Poles are of course numerous in the ranks, but they are less enduring than the Israelite, and often desert to the Circassians, who make them work as servants, or sell them as slaves to the Turks. No race are too unmilitary in their nature to be ground into soldiers by the mill of Russian discipline. Besides Jews, gipsies and Armenians figure on the muster-roll. It must have been a queer day for the ragged Zingaro, when the Russian sergeant first stepped into his smoky tent, bade him clip his elf locks, wash his grimy countenance, and follow to the field. For him the pomp of war had no seductions; he would far rather have stuck to his den and vermin, and to his meal of roast rats and hedgehogs. But military discipline works miracles. The slouching filthy vagabond of yesterday now stands erect as if he had swallowed his ramrod, his shoes a brilliant jet, his buttons sparkling in the sun--a soldier from toe to top-knot.

The right bank of the Kuban, from the Sea of Azov to the mouth of the Laba, (a tributary of the former stream,) is peopled with Tchernamortsy Cossacks, who furnish ten regiments, each of a thousand horsemen, for the defence of their lands and families. These cavalry carry a musket, slung on the back, and a long red lance: their dress is a sheepskin jacket, except on state occasions, when they sport uniform. They are much less feared by the Circassians than are the Cossacks of the Line, who wear the Circassian dress, carry sabres instead of lances, and are more valiant, active and skilful, than their Tchernamortsy neighbours. The Cossacks of the Caucasian Line dwell on the banks of the Kuban and Terek, form a military colony of about fifty thousand souls, and keep six thousand horsemen ready for the field. There is a mixture of Circassian blood in their veins, and they are first-rate fighting men. Their villages are exposed to frequent attacks from the mountaineers; but when these are not exceedingly rapid in collecting their booty, and effecting their retreat, the Cossacks assemble, and a desperate fight ensues. When the combatants are numerically matched, the equality of arms, horses, and skill renders the issue very doubtful. The Tchernamortsies and Don Cossacks are less able to cope with the Circassians. In a _mêlée_ their lances are inferior to the shaska. The rival claims of lance and sabre have often been discussed; many trials of their respective merits have been made in English, French, and German riding-schools; and much ink has been shed on the subject. Unquestionably the lance has done good service, and in certain circumstances is a terrible arm. "At the battle of Dresden," Marshal Marmont tells us, "the Austrian infantry were repeatedly assailed by the French cuirassiers, whom they as often beat back, although the rain prevented their firing, and the bayonet was their sole defence. But fifty lancers of Latour-Maubourg's escort at once broke their ranks." Had the cuirassiers had lances, their first charge, Marmont plausibly enough asserts, would have sufficed. This leads to another question, often mooted--whether the lance be properly a light or a heavy cavalry weapon. When used to break infantry, weight of man and horse might be an advantage; but in pursuit, where--especially in rugged and mountainous countries--the lance is found particularly useful, the preference is obviously for the swift steed and light cavalier. In the irregular cavalry combats on the Caucasian line, the sabre carries the day. Unless the Don Cossack's first lance-thrust settles his adversary, (which is rarely the case,) the next instant the adroit Circassian is within his guard, and then the betting is ten to one on Caucasus. Moreover, the Don Cossacks, brought from afar to wage a perilous and profitless war, are unwilling combatants. They find blows more plentiful than booty, and approve themselves arrant thieves and shy fighters. Relieved every two or three years, they have scarcely time to get broken in to the peculiar mode of warfare. The Cossacks of the Line are the flower of the hundred thousand wild warriors scattered over the steppes of Southern Russia, and ready, at one man's word, to vault into the saddle. Their gallant feats are numerous. In 1843, during Dr Wagner's visit, three thousand Circassians dashed across the Kuban, near the fortified village of Ustlaba. A dense fog hid them from the Russian vedettes. Suddenly fifty Cossacks of the Line, the escort of a gun, found themselves face to face with the mountaineers. The mist was so thick that the horses' heads almost touched before either party perceived the other. Flight was impossible, but the Cossacks fought like fiends. Forty-seven met a soldier's death; only three were captured, and accompanied the cannon across the river, by which road the Circassians at once retreated, having taken the brave detachment for the advanced guard of a strong force.

The word Kasak, Kosak, or Kossack, variously interpreted by Klaproth and other etymologists as robber, volunteer, daredevil, &c., conveys to civilised ears rude and inelegant associations. Paris has not yet forgotten the uncouth hordes, wrapped in sheepskins and overrun with vermin, who, in the hour of her humiliation, startled her streets, and made her dandies shriek for their smelling-bottles. Not that Paris saw the worst of them. Some of the Uralian bears, centaurs of the steppes, Calibans on horseback, were never allowed to pass the Russian frontier. Their emperor appreciated their good qualities, but left them at home. Since then, a change has occured. Civilisation has made huge strides north-eastward. Near Fanagoria, Dr Wagner passed a pleasant evening with a Cossack officer, a prime fellow, with all unquenchable thirst for toddy, and an inexhaustible store of information. He had made the campaigns against the French; had evidently been bred a savage, or little better; but had acquired, during his long military career, knowledge of the world and a certain degree of polish. Amongst other interesting matters, he gave a sketch of his grandfather, a bloodthirsty old warrior and image-worshipper, the scourge of his Nogay neighbours, and a great slayer of the Turk; who in 1812, at the mature age of ninety, had responded to Czar Alexander's summons to fight for "faith and fatherland," and had taken the field under Platoff, at the head of thirteen sons and threescore grandsons. Whilst the Cossack major told the history of the "Demon of the Steppes," as his ferocious ancestor was called, his son, a gay lieutenant in the Cossacks of the Guard, entered the apartment. This young gentleman, slender, handsome, with well-cut uniform, graceful manners, and well-waxed mustaches, declined the punch, "having got used at St Petersburg to tea and champagne." He brought intelligence of promotions and decorations, of high play at Tcherkask, (the capital of the Don-Cossacks' country,) and of the establishment at Toganrog of a French _restaurateur_, who retailed _Veuve Clicquot's_ genuine champagne at four silver rubles a bottle. He was fascinated by the French actresses at St Petersburg, and enthusiastic in praise of Taglioni, then displaying her legs and graces in the Russian metropolis. Dr Wagner left the symposium with a vivid impression of the contrast between the bearded barbarian of 1812 and the dapper guardsman of thirty years later; and with the full conviction that the next Russian emperor who makes an inroad into civilised Europe, will have no occasion to be ashamed of his Cossacks, even though his route should lead him to the polite capital of the French republic.

THE CAXTONS.--PART X.