Chapter IX: Part 9

While diplomacy was at work, and the Estates were gradually turning from France to England, Alexander of Parma, the first general, and one of the ablest statesmen of the age, was pushing on the Spanish cause in the Netherlands. Flagrantly as he was stinted in men and money, a consummate genius guided his operations. The capture of Antwerp was the crucial point; and the condition of capturing Antwerp was to hold the Scheldt below that city, and also to secure the dams, since, if the country were flooded, the Dutch ships could not be controlled in the open waters.

The burghers scoffed at the idea that Parma could bridge the Scheldt, or that his bridge, if built, could resist the ice-blocks that would come down in the winter. But he built his bridge, and it resisted the ice-blocks. An ingenious Italian in Antwerp devised the destruction of the bridge, and the passage of relief-ships, by blowing up the bridge with a sort of floating mines. The explosion was successfully carried out with terrific effect; a thousand Spaniards were blown to pieces; but by sheer blundering the opening was not at once utilised, and Parma was able to rebuild the bridge.

Then, by a fine feat of arms, the patriots captured the Kowenstyn dyke, and cut it; but the loss was brilliantly retrieved, the Kowenstyn was recaptured, and the dyke repaired. After that, Antwerp's chance of escape sank almost to nothing, and its final capitulation was a great triumph for Parma.

The Estates had despaired of French help, and had opened negotiations with England some time before the fall of Antwerp had practically secured the southern half of the Netherlands to Spain. It was unfortunate that the negotiations took the form of hard bargaining on both sides. The Estates wished to give Elizabeth sovereignty, which she did not want; they did not wish to give her hard cash for her assistance, which she did want, as well as to have towns pawned to her as security. Walsingham was anxious for England to give the Estates open support; the queen, as usual, blew hot and cold.

Walsingham and Leicester, however, carried the day. Leicester was appointed to be general, and Philip Sidney was sent to be governor of Flushing, at about the time when Drake was preparing for what is known as the Carthagena Expedition. The direct intervention of the English government in the Netherlands, where hitherto there had been no state action, though many Englishmen were fighting as volunteers, was tantamount to a declaration of war with Spain. But the haggling over terms had made it too late to save Antwerp.

Leicester had definite orders to do nothing contradictory to the queen's explicit refusal of both sovereignty and protectorate. But he was satisfied that a position of supreme authority was necessary; and he had hardly reached his destination when he was formally offered, and accepted, the title of Governor-General (January 1586). The proposal had the full support of young Maurice of Nassau, second son of William the Silent, and destined to succeed his father in the character of Liberator.

Angry as Elizabeth was, she did not withdraw Leicester. In fact, Parma was privately negotiating with her; negotiations in which Burghley and Hatton took part, but which did not wholly escape Walsingham. Parma had no intention of being bound by these negotiations; they were pure dissimulation on his part; and, possibly, but not probably, on Elizabeth's. Parma, in fact, was nervous as to possible French action. But their practical effect was to paralyse Leicester, and their object to facilitate the invasion of England.

_II.--Leicester and the Armada_

In the spring, Parma was actively prosecuting the war. He attacked Grave, which was valorously relieved by Martin Schenk and Sir John Norris; but soon after he took it, to Leicester's surprise and disgust. The capture of Axed by Maurice of Nassau and Sidney served as some balance. Presently Leicester laid siege to Zutphen; but the place was relieved, in spite of the memorable fight of Warnsfeld, where less than six hundred English attacked and drove off a force of six times their number, for reinforcements compelled their retreat. This was the famous battle of Zutphen, where Philip Sidney fell.

But Elizabeth persisted in keeping Leicester in a false position which laid him open to suspicion; while his own conduct kept him on ill terms with the Estates, and the queen's parsimony crippled his activities. In effect, there was soon a strong opposition to Leicester. He was at odds also with stout Sir John Norris, from which evil was to come.

Now, the discovery of Babington's plot made Leicester eager to go back to England, since he was set upon ending the life of Mary Stuart. At the close of November he took ship from Flushing. But while Norris was left in nominal command, his commission was not properly made out; and the important town of Deventer was left under the papist Sir William Stanley, with the adventurer Rowland York at Zutphen, because they were at feud with Norris. Then came disaster; for Stanley and York deliberately introduced Spanish troops by night, and handed over Deventer and Zutphen to the Spaniards, which was all the worse, as Leicester had ample warning that mischief was brewing. Every suspicion ever felt against Leicester, or as to the honesty of English policy, seemed to be confirmed, and there was a wave of angry feeling against all Englishmen. The treachery of Anjou seemed about to be repeated.

The Queen of Scots was on the very verge of her doom, and Elizabeth was entering on that most lamentable episode of her career, in which she displayed all her worst characteristics, when a deputation arrived from the Estates to plead for more effective help. The news of Deventer had not yet arrived, and the queen subjected them to a furious and contumelious harangue, and advised them to make peace with Philip. But on the top of this came a letter from the Estates, with some very plain speaking about Deventer.

Buckhurst, about the best possible ambassador, was despatched to the Estates. He very soon found the evidence of the underhand dealings of certain of Leicester's agents to be irresistible. He appealed vehemently, as did Walsingham at home, for immediate aid, dwelling on the immense importance to England of saving the Netherlands. But Leicester had the queen's ear. Charges of every kind were flying on every hand. Buckhurst's efforts met with the usual reward. The Estates would have nothing to do with counsels of peace. At the moment they were appointing Maurice of Nassau captain-general came the news that Leicester was returning with intolerable claims.

While this was going on, Parma had turned upon Sluys, which, like the rest of the coast harbours, was in the hands of the States. This was the news which had necessitated the appointment of Maurice of Nassau. The Dutch and English in Sluys fought magnificently. But the dissensions of the opposing parties outside prevented any effective relief. Leicester's arrival did not, mend matters. The operations intended to effect a relief were muddled. At last the garrison found themselves with no alternative but capitulation on the most honourable terms. In the meanwhile, however, Drake had effected his brilliant destruction of the fleet and stores preparing in Cadiz harbour; though his proceedings were duly disowned by Elizabeth, now zealously negotiating with Parma.

This game of duplicity went on merrily; Elizabeth was intriguing behind the backs of her own ministers; Parma was deliberately deceiving and hoodwinking her, with no thought of anything but her destruction. In France, civil war practically, between Henry of Navarre and Henry of Guise was raging. In the Netherlands, the hostility between the Estates, led by Barneveld and Leicester continued. When the earl was finally recalled to England, and Willoughby was left in command, it was not due to him that no overwhelming disaster had occurred, and that the splendid qualities shown by other Englishmen had counter-balanced politically his own extreme unpopularity.

The great crisis, however, was now at hand. The Armada was coming to destroy England, and when England was destroyed the fate of the Netherlands would soon be sealed. But in both England and the Netherlands the national spirit ran high. The great fleet came; the Flemish ports were held blockaded by the Dutch. The Spaniards had the worse of the fighting in the Channel; they were scattered out of Calais roads by the fireships, driven to flight in the engagement of Gravelines, and the Armada was finally shattered by storms. Philip received the news cheerfully; but his great project was hopelessly ruined.

Of the events immediately following, the most notable were in France--the murder of Guise, followed by that of Henry III., and the claim of Henry IV. to be king. The actual operations in the Netherlands brought little advantage to either side, and the Anglo-Dutch expedition to Lisbon was a failure. But the grand fact which was to be of vital consequence was this: that Maurice of Nassau was about to assume a new character. The boy was now a man; the sapling had developed into the oak-tree.

_III.--Maurice of Nassau_

The crushing blow, then, had failed completely. But Philip, instead of concentrating on another great effort in the Netherlands, or retrieval of the Armada disaster, had fixed his attention on France. The Catholic League had proclaimed Henry IV.'s uncle, the Cardinal of Bourbon, king as Charles X. Philip, to Parma's despair, meant to claim the succession for his own daughter; and Parma's orders were to devote himself to crushing the Béarnais.

And this was at the moment when Barneveld, the statesman, with young Maurice, the soldier, were becoming decisively recognised as the chiefs of the Dutch. Maurice had realised that the secret of success lay in engineering operations, of which he had made himself a devoted student, and in a reorganisation of the States army and of tactics, in which he was ably seconded by his cousin Lewis William.

While Parma was forced to turn against Henry, who was pressing Paris hard, Breda was captured (March 1590) by a very daring stratagem carried out with extraordinary resolution--an event of slight intrinsic importance, but exceedingly characteristic. During the summer several other places were reduced, but Maurice was planning a great and comprehensive campaign.

The year gave triumphant proof of the genius of Parma as a general, and of the soundness of his views as to Philip's policy. Henry was throttling Paris; by masterly movements Parma evaded the pitched battle, for which Béarnais thirsted, yet compelled his adversary to relinquish the siege. Nevertheless, Henry's activity was hardly checked; and when Parma, in December, returned to the Netherlands, he found the Spanish provinces in a deplorable state, and the Dutch states prospering and progressing; while in France itself Henry's victory had certainly been staved off, but had by no means been made impossible.

Throughout 1591, Maurice's operations were recovering strong places for the States, one after another, from Zutphen and Deventer to Nymegen. Parma was too much hampered by the bonds Philip had imposed on him to meet Maurice effectively. And Henry was prospering in Normandy and Brittany, and was laying siege to Rouen before the year ended.

In the spring Parma succeeded in relieving Rouen. Then Henry manoeuvred him into what seemed a trap; but his genius was equal to the occasion, and he escaped. But while the great general was engaged in France, Maurice went on mining and sapping his way into Netherland fortresses. In the meantime, Philip's grand object was to secure the French crown for his own daughter, whose mother had been a sister of the last three kings of France; the present plan being to marry her to the young Duke of Guise--a scheme not to the liking of Guise's uncle Mayenne, who wanted the crown himself. But Philip's chief danger lay in the prospect of Henry turning Catholic.

Parma's death, in December 1592, deprived Philip of the genius which had for years past been the mainstay of his power. Henry's public announcement of his return to the Holy Catholic Church, in the summer of 1593, deprived the Spanish king of nearly all the support he had hitherto received in France. Before this Maurice had opened his attack on the two great cities which the Spaniards still held in the United Provinces, Gertruydenberg and Groningen. His scientific methods secured the former in June. In similar scientific style he raised the siege of Corwarden. A year after Gertruydenberg, Groningen surrendered.

In 1595, France and Spain were at open war again, and in spite of Henry's apostasy he had drawn into close alliance with the United Provinces. The inefficient Archduke Ernest, who had succeeded Parma, died at the beginning of the year. Fuentes, nephew of Alva, was the new governor, _ad interim_. His operations in Picardy were successfully conducted. The summer gave an extraordinary example of human vigour triumphing, both physically and mentally, over the infirmities of old age. Christopher Mondragon, at the age of ninety-two, marched against Maurice, won a skirmish on the Lippe, and spoilt Maurice's campaign. In January 1596 the governorship was taken over by the Archduke Albert. A disaster both to France and England was the Spaniards' capture of Calais, which Elizabeth might have relieved, but offered to do so only on condition of it being restored to England--an offer flatly declined.

At the same time Henry and Elizabeth negotiated a league, but its ostensible arrangements, intended to bring in the United Provinces and Protestant German States, were very different from the real stipulations, the queen promising very much less than was supposed. At the end of October the Estates signed the articles.

Before winter was over, Maurice, with 800 horse, cut up an army of 5,000 men on the heath of Tiel, killing 2,000 and taking 500 prisoners, with a loss of nine or ten men only. The enemy had comprised the pick of the Spaniards' forces, and their prestige was absolutely wiped out. This was just after Philip had wrecked European finance at large by publicly repudiating the whole of his debts. The year 1697 was further remarkable for the surprise and capture of Amiens by the Spaniards, and its siege and recovery by Henry--a siege conducted on the engineering methods introduced by Maurice. But the relations of the provinces with France were now much strained; uncertainty prevailed as to whether either Henry or Elizabeth, or both, might not make peace with Spain separately.

The Treaty of Vervins did, in fact, end the war between France and Spain. It was followed almost at once by the death of Philip, who, however, had just married the infanta to the archduke, and ceded the sovereignty of the Netherlands to them.

_IV.--Winning Through_

In 1600 the States-General planned the invasion of the Spanish Netherlands, but the scheme proved impracticable, and was abandoned.

Ostend was the one position in Flanders held by the United Provinces, with a very mixed garrison. The archduke besieged Ostend (1601). Maurice did not attack him, but captured the keys of the debatable land of Cleves and Juliers. The siege of Ostend developed into a tremendous affair, and a school in the art of war. Maurice, instead of aiming at a direct relief, continued his operations so as to prevent the archduke from a thorough concentration. In the summer of 1602 he was besieging Grave, and Ostend was kept amply supplied from the sea, where the Dutch had inflicted a tremendous defeat on the enemy. But early in 1603 the Spaniards succeeded in carrying some outworks.

The death of Elizabeth, and the accession of James I. to the throne of England affected the European situation; but Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, was the new king's minister. Nevertheless, no long time had elapsed before James was entering upon alliance with the Spaniard.

A new commander-in-chief was now before Ostend in the person of Ambrose Spinola, an unknown young Italian, who was soon to prove himself a worthy antagonist for Maurice. Spinola continued the siege of Ostend, where the garrison were being driven inch by inch within an ever-narrowing circle. This year, Maurice's counter-stroke was the investment of Sluys, which was reduced in three months, in spite of a skilful but unsuccessful attempt at its relief by Spinola. At length, however, the long resistance of Ostend was finished when there was practically nothing of the place left. The garrison marched out with the honours of war, after a siege of over three years.

The next year was a bad one for Maurice. Spinola was beginning to show his quality. Maurice's troops met with one reverse, when what should have been a victory was turned into a rout by an unaccountable panic. Spinola had learnt his business from Maurice, and was a worthy pupil.

All through 1606 the game of intrigue was going on without any great advance or advantage to anyone. But while the Dutch had been campaigning in the Netherlands, they had also been establishing themselves in the Spice Islands, and in 1607 the rise of the United Provinces as a sea-power received emphatic demonstration in a great fight off Gibraltar. The disparity in size between the Spanish and Dutch vessels was enormous, but the victory was overwhelming. Not a Dutch ship was lost, and the Spanish fleet, which had viewed their approach with laughter, was annihilated. The name of Heemskerk, the Dutch admiral who inspired the battle, and lost his life at its beginning, is enrolled among those of the nation's heroes.

This event had greatly stimulated the desire of the archduke for an armistice, which had been in process of negotiation. With the old king negotiation had been futile, since there was no prospect of his ever conceding the minimum requirements of the provinces. Now, Spain had reached a different position, and Spinola himself required a far heavier expenditure than she was prepared for as the alternative to a peace on the _uti possidetis_ basis. In the provinces, however, Barneveld and Maurice were in antagonism; but an armistice was established and extended, while solemn negotiations went on at The Hague in the beginning of 1608. The proposals accepted next year implied virtually the recognition of the Dutch republic as an independent nation, though nominally there was only a truce for twelve years. The practical effect was to secure not only independence but religious liberty, and the form implied the independence and security of the Indian trade and even of the West Indian trade. So, in 1609 the Dutch republic took its place among the European powers.

* * * * *

MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE

The History of India

Mountstuart Elphinstone was born in October 1779, and joined
the Bengal service in 1795, some three years before the
arrival in India of Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquess
Wellesley. He continued in the Indian service till 1829, and
was offered but refused the Governor Generalship. The last
thirty years of his life he passed in comparative retirement
in England, and died in November, 1859, at Hook Wood. He was
one of the particularly brilliant group of British
administrators in India in the first quarter of the last
century. Like his colleagues, Munro and Malcolm, he was a keen
student of Indian History. And although some of his views
require to be modified in the light of more recent enquiry,
his "History of India" published in 1841 is still the standard
authority from the earliest times to the establishment of the
British as a territorial power.

_I.--The Hindus_

India is crossed from East to West by a chain of mountains called the Vindhyas. The country to the North of this chain is now called Hindustan and that to the South of it the Deckan. Hindustan is in four natural divisions; the valley of the Indus including the Panjab, the basin of the Ganges, Rajputana and Central India. Neither Bengal nor Guzerat is included in Hindustan power. The rainy season lasts from June to October while the South West wind called the Monsoon is blowing.

Every Hindu history must begin with the code of Menu which was probably drawn up in the 9th century B.C. In the society described, the first feature that strikes us is the division into four castes--the sacerdotal, the military, the industrial, and the servile. The Bramin is above all others even kings. In theory he is excluded from the world during three parts of his life. In practice he is the instructor of kings, the interpreter of the military class; the king, his ministers, and the soldiers. Third are the Veisyas who conduct all agricultural and industrial operations; and fourth the Sudras who are outside the pale.

The king stands at the head of the Government with a Bramin for chief Counsellor. Elaborate rules and regulations are laid down in the code as to administration, taxation, foreign policy, and war. Land perhaps but not certainly was generally held in common by village communities.

The king himself administers justice or deputes that work to Bramins. The criminal code is extremely rude; no proportion is observed between the crime and the penalty, and offences against Bramins or religion are excessively penalised. In the civil law the rules of evidence are vitiated by the admission of sundry excuses for perjury. Marriage is indissoluble. The regulations on this subject and on inheritance are elaborate and complicated.

The religion is drawn from the sacred books called the Vedas, compiled in a very early form of Sanskrit. There is one God, the supreme spirit, who created the universe including the inferior deities. The whole creation is re-absorbed and re-born periodically. The heroes of the later Hindu Pantheon do not appear. The religious observances enjoined are infinite; but the eating of flesh is not prohibited. At this date, however, moral duties are still held of higher account than ceremonial.

Immense respect is enjoined for immemorial customs as being the root of all piety. The distinction between the three superior or "Twice Born" classes points to the conclusion that they were a conquering people and that the servile classes were the subdued Aborigines. It remains to be proved, however, that the conquerors were not indigenous. The system might have come into being as a natural growth, without the hypothesis of an external invasion.

The Bramins claim that they alone now have preserved their lineage in its purity. The Rajputs, however, claim to be pure Cshatriyas. In the main the Bramin rules of life have been greatly relaxed. The castes below the Cshatriyas have now become extremely mixed and extremely numerous; a servile caste no longer exists. A man who loses caste is excluded both from all the privileges of citizenship and all the amenities of private life. As a rule, however, the recovery of caste by expiation is an easy matter. The institution of Monastic Orders scarcely seems to be a thousand years old.

Menu's administrative regulations have similarly lost their uniformity. The township or village community, however, has survived. It is a self-governing unit with its own officials, for the most part hereditary. In large parts of India the land within the community is regarded as the property of a group of village landowners, who constitute the township, the rest of the inhabitants being their tenants. The tenants whether they hold from the landowners or from the Government are commonly called Ryots. An immense proportion of the produce, or its equivalent, has to be paid to the State. The Zenindars who bear a superficial likeness to English landlords were primarily the Government officials to whom these rents were farmed. Tenure by military service bearing some resemblance to the European feudal system is found in the Rajput States. The code of Menu is still the basis of the Hindu jurisprudence.

Religion has been greatly modified. Monotheism has been supplanted by a gross Polytheism, by the corruption of symbolism. At the head are the Triad Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva the destroyer. Fourteen more principal deities may be enumerated. To them must be added their female Consorts. Many of the Gods are held to be incarnations of Vishnu or Siva. Further, there is a vast host of spirits and demons, good or evil. By far the most numerous sect is that of the followers of Devi the spouse of Siva. The religions of the Buddhists and the Jains though differing greatly from the Hindu seemed to have the same origin.

The five languages of Hindustan are of Sanscrit origin, belonging to the Indo-European family. Of the Deckan languages, two are mixed, while the other three have no connection with Sanscrit.

From Menu's code it is clear that there was an open trade between the different parts of India. References to the sea seemed to prove that a coasting trade existed. Maritime trade was probably in the hands of the Arabs. The people of the East Coast were more venturesome sailors than those of the West. The Hindus certainly made settlements in Java. There are ten nations in India which differ from each other as much as do the nations of Europe, and also resemble each other in much the same degree. The physical contrast between the Hindustanis and the Bengalis is complete; their languages are as near akin and as mutually unintelligible as English and German, yet in religion, in their notions on Government, in very much of their way of life, they are indistinguishable to the European.

Indian widows sometimes sacrifice themselves on the husband's funeral pile. Such a victim is called Sati. It is uncertain when the custom was first introduced, but, evidently it existed before the Christian era.

A curious feature is that as there are castes for all trades, so there are hereditary thief castes. Hired watchmen generally belong to these castes on a principle which is obvious. The mountaineers of Central India are a different race from the dwellers in the plain. They appear to have been aboriginal inhabitants before the Hindu invasion. The mountaineers of the Himalayas are in race more akin to the Chinese.

Established Hindu chronology is found in the line of Magadha. We can fix the King Ajata Satru, who ruled, in the time of Gotama, in the middle of the sixth century B.C. Some generations later comes Chandragupta--undoubtedly the Sandracottus of Diodorus. The early legend apparently begins to give place to real history with Rama, who certainly invaded the Deckan. He would seem to have been a king in Oudh. The next important event is the war of the Maha Bharata, probably in the fourteenth century B.C. Soon after the main seat of Government seems to have transferred to Delhi. The kingdom of Magadha next assumes a commanding position though its rulers long before Chandragupta were of low caste. Of these kings the greatest is Asoka, three generations after Chandragupta. There was certainly no lord paramount of India at the time of Alexander's invasion. Nothing points to any effective universal Hindu Empire, though such an empire is claimed for various kings at intervals until the beginning of the Mahometan invasions.

_II.--The Mahometan Conquest_

The wave of Mahometan conquest was, in course of time, to sweep into India. By the end of the seventh century the Arabs were forcing their way to Cabul 664 A.D. At the beginning of the next century Sindh was overrun and Multan was captured; nevertheless, no extended conquest was as yet attempted. After the reign of the Calif Harun al Raschid at Bagdad the Eastern rulers fell upon evil days. Towards the end of the tenth century a satrapy was established at Ghazni and in the year 1001 Mahmud of Ghazni, having declared his independence, began his series of invasions. On his fourth expedition Mahmud met with a determined resistance from a confederacy of Hindu princes. A desperate battle was fought and won by him near Peshawer. Mahmud made twelve expeditions into India altogether, on one of which he carried off the famous gates of Somnat; but he was content to leave subordinate governors in the Punjab and at Guzerat and never sought to organise an empire. During his life Mahmud was incomparably the greatest ruler in Asia.

After his death the rulers of Ghazni were unable to maintain a consistent supremacy. It was finally overthrown by Ala ud din of Ghor. His nephew, Shahab ud din, was the real founder of the Mahometan Empire in India. The princes of the house of Ghazni who had taken refuge in the Punjab and Guzarat were overthrown and thus the only Mahometan rivals were removed. On his first advance against the Rajput kingdom of Delhi, he was routed; but a second invasion was successful, and a third carried his arms to Behar and even Bengal.

On the death of Shahab ud din, his new and vast Indian dominion became independent under his general Kutb ud din, who had begun life as a slave. The dynasty was carried on by another slave Altamish. Very soon after this the Mongol Chief Chengiz Khan devastated half the world, but left India comparatively untouched. Altamish established the Mahometan rule of Delhi over all Hindustan. This series of rulers, known as the slave kings, was brought to an end after eighty-two years by the establishment of the Khilji dynasty in 1288 by the already aged Jelal ud din. His nephew and chief Captain Ala ud din opened a career of conquest, invading the Deckan even before he secured the throne for himself by assassinating his uncle. In fact, he extended his dominion over almost the whole of India in spite of frequent rebellions and sundry Mongol incursions all successfully repressed or dispersed. In 1321 the Khilji dynasty was overthrown by the House of Tughlak.

The second prince of this house, Mahomet Tughlak, was a very remarkable character. Possessed of extraordinary accomplishments, learned, temperate, and brave, he plunged upon wholly irrational and inpracticable schemes of conquest which were disastrous in themselves and also from the methods to which the monarch was driven to procure the means for his wild attempts. One portion after another of the vast empire broke into revolt and at the end of the century the dynasty was overturned and the empire shattered by the terrific invasion of Tamerlane the Tartar. It was not till the middle of the seventeenth century that the Lodi dynasty established itself at Delhi and ruled not without credit for nearly seventy years. The last ruler of this house was Ibrahim, a man who lacked the worthy qualities of his predecessors. And in 1526 Ibrahim fell before the conquering arms of the mighty Baber, the founder of the Mogul dynasty.

_III.--Baber and Aber_

Baber was a descendant of Tamerlane. He himself was a Turk, but his mother was a Mongol; hence the familiar title of the dynasty known as the Moguls. Succeeding to the throne of Ferghana at the age of twelve the great conqueror's youth was full of romantic vicissitudes, of sharp reverses and brilliant achievements. He was only four and twenty when he succeeded in making himself master of Cabul. He was forty-four, when with a force of twelve thousand men he shattered the huge armies of Ibrahim at Panipat and made himself master of Delhi. His conquests were conducted on what might almost be called principles of knight errantry. His greatest victories were won against overwhelming odds, at the head of followers who were resolved to conquer or die. And in three years he had conquered all Hindustan. His figure stands out with an extraordinary fascination, as an Oriental counterpart of the Western ideal of chivalry; and his autobiography is an absolutely unique record presenting the almost sole specimen of real history in Asia.

But Baber died before he could organise his empire and his son Humayun was unable to hold what had been won. An exceedingly able Mahometan Chief, Shir Khan, raised the standard of revolt, made himself master of Behar and Bengal, drove Humayun out of Hindustan, and established himself under the title of Shir Shah. His reign was one of conspicuous ability. It was not till he had been dead for many years that Humayun was able to recover his father's dominion. Indeed, he himself fell before victory was achieved. The restoration was effected in the name of his young son Akber, a boy of thirteen, by the able general and minister, Bairam Khan, at the victory of Panipat in 1556. The long reign of Akber initiates a new era.

Two hundred years before this time the Deckan had broken free from the Delhi dominion. But no unity and no supremacy was permanently established in the southern half of India where, on the whole, Mahometan dynasties now held the ascendancy. Rajputana on the other hand, which the Delhi monarchs had never succeeded in bringing into complete subjection, remained purely Hindu under the dominion of a variety of rajahs.

The victory of Panipat was decisive. Naturally enough, Bairam assumed complete control of the State. His rule was able, but harsh and arrogant. After three years the boy king of a sudden coup d'état assumed the reins of Government. Perhaps it was fortunate for both that the fallen minister was assassinated by a personal enemy.

Of all the dynasties that had ruled in India that of Baber was the most insecure in its foundations. It was without any means of support throughout the great dominion which stretched from Cabul to Bengal. The boy of eighteen had a tremendous task before him. Perhaps it was this very weakness which suggested to Akber the idea of giving his power a new foundation by setting himself at the head of an Indian nation, and forming the inhabitants of his vast dominion, without distinction of race or religion, into a single community. Swift and sudden in action, the young monarch broke down one after another the attempts of subordinates to free themselves from his authority. By the time that he was twenty-five he had already crushed his adversaries by his vigour or attached them by his clemency. The next steps were the reduction of Rajputana, Ghuzerat and Bengal; and when this was accomplished Akber's sway extended over the whole of India north of the Deckan, to which was added Kashmir and what we now call Afghanistan. Akber had been on the throne for fifty years before he was able to intervene actively in the Deckan and to bring a great part of it under his sway.

But the great glory of Akber lies not in the conquests which made the Mogul Empire the greatest hitherto known in India, but in that empire's organisation and administration. Akber Mahometanism was of the most latitudinarian type. His toleration was complete. He had practically no regard for dogma, while deeply imbued with the spirit of religion. In accordance with his liberal principles Hinduism was no bar to the highest offices. In theory his philosophy was not new, though it was so in practical application.

None of his reforms are more notable than the revenue system carried out by his Hindu minister, Todar Mal, itself a development of a system initiated by Shir Shah. His empire was divided into fifteen provinces, each under a viceroy under the control of the king himself. Great as a warrior and great as an administrator Akber always enjoyed abundant leisure for study and amusement. He excelled in all exercises of strength and skill; his history is filled with instances of romantic courage, and he had a positive enjoyment of danger. Yet he had no fondness for war, which he neither sought nor continued without good reason.

_IV.--The Mogul Empire_

Akber died in 1605 and was succeeded by his son Selim, who took the title of Jehan Gir. The Deckan, hardly subdued, achieved something like independence under a great soldier and administrator of Abyssinian origin, named Malik Amber. In the sixth year of his reign Jehan Gir married the beautiful Nur Jehan, by whose influence the emperor's natural brutality was greatly modified in practice. His son, Prince Khurram, later known as Shah Jehan, distinguished himself in war with the Rajputs, displaying a character not unworthy of his grandfather. In 1616 the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe from James I visited the Court of the Great Mogul. Sir Thomas was received with great honour, and is full of admiration of Jehan Gir's splendour. It is clear, however, that the high standards set up by Akber were fast losing their efficacy.

Jehan Gir died in 1627 and was succeeded by Shah Jehan. Much of his reign was largely occupied with wars in the Deckan and beyond the northwest frontier on which the emperor's son Aurangzib was employed. Most of the Deckan was brought into subjection, but Candahar was finally lost. Shah Jehan was the most magnificent of all the Moguls. In spite of his wars, Hindustan itself enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity, and on the whole, a good Government. It was he who constructed the fabulously magnificent peacock throne, built Delhi anew, and raised the most exquisite of all Indian buildings, the Taj Mahal or Pearl Mosque, at Agre. After a reign of thirty years he was deposed by his son Aurangzib, known also as Alam Gir.

Aurangzib had considerable difficulty in securing his position by the suppression of rivals; but our interest now centres in the Deckan, where the Maratta people were organised into a new power by the redoubtable Sivaji. Though some of the Marattas claim Rajput descent, they are of low caste. They have none of the pride or dignity of the Rajput, and they care nothing for the point of honour; but they are active, hardy, persevering, and cunning. Sivaji was the son of a distinguished soldier named Shahji, in the service of the King of Bijapur. By various artifices young Sivaji brought a large area under his control. Then he revolted against Bijapur, posing as a Hindu leader. He wrung for himself a sort of independence from Bijapur. His proceedings attracted the attention of Aurangzib, who, however, did not immediately realise how dangerous the Maratta was to become. Himself occupied in other parts of the empire, Aurangzib left lieutenants to deal with Sivaji; and since he never trusted a lieutenant, the forces at their disposal were insufficient or were divided under commanders who were engaged as much in thwarting each other as in endeavouring to crush the common foe. Hence the vigorous Sivaji was enabled persistently to consolidate his organisation.

At the same time Aurangzib was departing from the traditions of his house and acting as a bigoted champion of Islam; differentiating between his Mussulman subjects and the Hindus so as completely to destroy that national unity which it had been the aim of his predecessors to establish. The result was a Rajput revolt and the permanent alienation of the Rajputs from the Mogul Government.

In spite of these difficulties Aurangzib renewed operations against Sivaji, to which the Maratta retorted by raiding expeditions in Hindustan; whereby he hoped to impress on the Mogul the advisability of leaving him alone; his object being to organise a great dominion in the Deckan--a dominion largely based on his championship of Hinduism as against Mahometanism. When Sivaji died, in 1680, his son Sambaji proved a much less competent successor; but the Maratta power was already established. Aurangzib directed his arms not so much against the Marattas as to the overthrow of the great kingdoms of the Deckan. When he turned against the Marattas, they met his operations by the adoption of guerrilla tactics, to which the Maratta country was eminently adapted. Most of Aurangzib's last years were occupied in these campaigns. The now aged emperor's industry and determination were indefatigable, but he was hopelessly hampered by his constitutional inability to trust in the most loyal of his servants. He had deposed his own father and lived in dread that his son Moazzim would treat him in the same fashion. He died in 1707 in the eighty-ninth year of his life and the fiftieth of his reign. In the eyes of Mahometans this fanatical Mahometan was the greatest of his house. But his rule, in fact, initiated the disintegration of the Mogul Empire. He had failed to consolidate the Mogul supremacy in the Deckan, and he had revived the old religious antagonism between Mahometans and Hindus.

Prince Moazzim succeeded under the title of Bahadur Shah. Dissensions among the Marattas enabled him to leave the Deckan in comparative peace to the charge of Daud Khan. He hastened also to make peace with the Rajputs; but he was obliged to move against a new power which had arisen in the northwest, that of the Sikhs. Primarily a sort of reformed sect of the Hindus the Sikhs were converted by persecution into a sort of religious and military brotherhood under their Guru or prophet, Govind. They were too few to make head against the power of the empire, but they could only be scattered, not destroyed; and in later days were to assume a great prominence in Indian affairs. A detailed account of the incompetent successors of Bahadur Shah would be superfluous. The outstanding features of the period was the disintegration of the central Government and the development in the south of two powers; that of the Marattas and that of Asaf Jah, the successor of Daud Khan, and the first of the Nizams of the Deckan. The supremacy among the Marattas passed to the Peshwas, the Bramin Ministers of the successors of Sivaji, who established a dynasty very much like that of the Mayors of the Palace in the Frankish Kingdom of the Merovingians. But the final blow to the power of the Moguls was struck by the tremendous invasion of Nadir Shah the Persian, in 1739, when Delhi was sacked and its richest treasures carried away; though the Persian departed still leaving the emperor nominal Suzerian of India. Before twenty years were past the greatest of all revolutions in India affairs had taken place; and Robert Clive had made himself master of Bengal in the name of the British East India Company.

* * * * *

VOLTAIRE

Russia Under Peter the Great

François Marie Arouet, known to the world by the assumed name
of Voltaire (supposed to be an anagram of Arou[v]et l[e]
j[eun]), was born in Paris on November 21, 1694. Before he was
twenty-two, his caustic pen had got him into trouble. At
thirty-one, when he was already famous for his drama,
"OEdipe," as well as for audacious lampoons, he was obliged to
retreat to England, where he remained some three years.
Various publications during the years following his return
placed him among the foremost French writers of the day. From
1750 to 1753 he was with Frederick the Great in Prussia. When
the two quarrelled, Voltaire settled in Switzerland and in
1758 established himself at Ferney, about the time when he
published "Candide." His "Siècle de Louis Quatorze" (see
_ante_) had appeared some years earlier. In 1762 he began a
series of attacks on the Church and Christianity; and he
continued to reign, a sort of king of literature, till his
death, in Paris on May 30, 1778. An admirable criticism of him
is to be found in Morley's "Voltaire"; but the great biography
is that of Desnoiresterres. His "Russia under Peter the Great"
was written after Voltaire took up his residence at Ferney in
1758. This epitome is prepared from the French text.

_I.--All the Russias_

When, about the beginning of the present century, the Tsar Peter laid the foundations of Petersburg, or, rather, of his empire, no one foresaw his success. Anyone who then imagined that a Russian sovereign would be able to send victorious fleets to the Dardanelles, to subjugate the Crimea, to clear the Turks out of four great provinces, to dominate the Black Sea, to set up the most brilliant court in Europe, and to make all the arts flourish in the midst of war--anyone expressing such an idea would have passed for a mere dreamer. Peter the Great built the Russian Empire on a foundation firm and lasting.

That empire is the most extensive in our hemisphere. Poland, the Arctic Ocean, Sweden, and China lie on its boundaries. It is so vast that when it is mid-day at its western extremity it is nearly midnight at the eastern. It is larger than all the rest of Europe, than the Roman Empire, than the empire of Darius which Alexander conquered. But it will take centuries, and many more such Tsars as Peter, to render that territory populous, productive, and covered with cities, like the northern lands of Europe.

The province nearest to our own realms is Livonia, long a heathen region. Tsar Peter conquered it from the Swedes.

To the north is the province of Revel and Esthonia, also conquered from the Swedes by Peter. The Gulf of Finland borders Esthonia; and here at this junction of the Neva and Lake Ladoga is the city of Petersburg, the youngest and the fairest of the cities of the empire, built by Peter in spite of a mass of obstacles. Northward, again, is Archangel, which the English discovered in 1533, with the result that the commerce fell entirely into their hands and those of the Dutch. On the west of Archangel is Russian Lapland. Then, ascending the Dwina from the coast, we arrive at the territories of Moscow, long the centre of the empire. A century ago Moscow was without the ordinary amenities of civilisation, though it could display an Oriental profusion on state occasions.

West of Moscow is Smolensk, recovered from the Poles by Peter's father Alexis. Between Petersburg and Smolensk is Novgorod; south of Smolensk is Kiev or Little Russia; and Red Russia, or the Ukraine, watered by the Dnieper, the Borysthenes of the Greeks--the country of the Cossacks. Between the Dnieper and the Don northwards is Belgorod; then Nischgorod, then Astrakan, the march of Asia and Europe with Kazan, recovered from the Tartar empire of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane by Ivan Vasilovitch. Siberia is peopled by Samoeides and Ostiaks, and its southern regions by hordes of Tartars--like the Turks and Mongols, descendants of the ancient Scythians. At the limit of Siberia is Kamschatka.

Throughout this vast but thinly populated empire the manners and customs are Asiatic rather than European. As the Janissaries control the Turkish government, so the Strelitz Guards used to dispose of the throne. Christianity was not established till late in the tenth century, in the Greek form, and liberated from the control of the Greek Patriarch, a subject of the Grand Turk, in 1588.

Before Peter's day, Russia had neither the power, the cultivated territories, the subjects, nor the revenues which she now enjoys. She had no foothold in Livonia or Finland, little or no control over the Cossacks or in Astrakan. The White, Black, Baltic, and Caspian seas were of no use to a nation which had not even a name for a fleet. She had to place herself on a level with the cultivated nations, though she was without knowledge of the science of war by land or sea, and almost of the rudiments of manufacture and agriculture, to say nothing of the fine arts. Her sons were even forbidden to learn by travel; she seemed to have condemned herself to eternal ignorance. Then Peter was born, and Russia was created.

_II.--At the School of Europe_

It was owing to a series of dynastic revolutions and usurpations that young Michael Romanoff, Peter's grandfather, was chosen Tsar at the age of fifteen, in 1613. He was succeeded in 1645 by his son, Alexis Michaelovitch. Alexis, in his wars with Poland, recovered from her Smolensk, Kiev, and the Ukraine. He waged war with the Turk in aid of Poland, introduced manufactures, and codified the laws, proving himself a worthy sire for Peter the Great; but he died in 1677 too soon--he was but forty-six--to complete the work he had begun. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Feodor. There was a second, Ivan; and Peter, not five years old, the child of his second marriage. Dying five years later, Feodor named Peter his successor. An elder sister, Sophia, intrigued to place the incapable Ivan on the throne instead, as her own puppet, by the aid of the turbulent Strelitz Guard. After a series of murders, the Strelitz proclaimed Ivan and Peter joint sovereigns, associating Sophia with them as co-regent.

Sophia ruled with the aid of an able minister, Gallitzin. But she formed a conspiracy against Peter, who, however, made his escape, rallied his supporters, crushed the conspiracy, and secured his position as Autocrat of the Russias, being then in his seventeenth year (1689).

Peter not only set himself to repair his neglected education by the study of German and Dutch, and an instinctive horror of water by resolutely plunging himself into it; he developed an immediate interest in boats and shipping, and promptly set about organising a disciplined force, destined for use against the Strelitz. The nucleus was his personal regiment, called the Preobazinsky. He had already a corps of foreigners, under the command of a Scot named Gordon. Another foreigner, Le Fort, on whom he relied, raised and disciplined another corps, and was made admiral of the infant fleet which he began to construct on the Don for use against the Crim Tartars.

His first political measure was to effect a treaty with China, his next an expedition for the subjugation of the Tartars of Azov. Gordon and Le Fort, with their two corps and other forces, marched on Azov in 1695. Peter accompanied, but did not command, the army. Unsuccessful at first, his purpose was effected in 1696; Azov was conquered, and a fleet placed on its sea. He celebrated a triumph in Roman fashion at Moscow; and then, not content with despatching a number of young men to Italy and elsewhere to collect knowledge, he started on his travels himself.

As one of the suite of an embassy he passed through Livonia and Germany till he arrived at Amsterdam, where he worked as a hand at shipbuilding. He also studied surgery at this time, and incidentally paid a visit to William of Orange at The Hague. Early next year he visited England, formally, lodging at Deptford, and continuing his training in naval construction. Thence, and from Holland, he collected mathematicians, engineers, and skilled workmen. Finally, he returned to Russia by way of Vienna, to establish satisfactory relations with the emperor, his natural and necessary ally against the Turk.

Peter had made his arrangements for Russia during his absence. Gordon with his corps was at Moscow; the Strelitz were distributed in Astrakan and Azov, where some successful operations were carried out. Nevertheless, sedition raised its head. Insurrection was checked by Gordon, but disaffection remained. Reappearing unexpectedly, he punished the mutinous Strelitz mercilessly, and that body was entirely done away with. New regiments were created on the German model; and he then set about reorganising the finances, reforming the political position of the Church, destroying the power of the higher clergy, and generally introducing more enlightened customs from western Europe.

_III.--War with Sweden_

In 1699, the sultan was obliged to conclude a peace at Carlovitz, to the advantage of all the powers with whom he had been at war. This set Peter free on the side of Sweden. The youth of Charles XII. tempted Peter to the recovery of the Baltic provinces. He set about the siege of Riga and Narva. But Charles, in a series of marvellous operations, raised the siege of Riga, and dispersed or captured the very much greater force before Narva in November 1700.

The continued successes of Charles did not check Peter's determination to maintain Augustus of Saxony and Poland against him. It was during the subsequent operations against Charles's lieutenants in Livonia that Catherine--afterwards to become Peter's empress--was taken prisoner.

The Tsar continued to press forward his social reforms at Moscow, and his naval and military programmes. His fleet was growing on Lake Ladoga. In its neighbourhood was the important Swedish fortress of Niantz, which he captured in May 1703; after which he resolved to establish the town which became Petersburg, where the Neva flows into the Gulf of Finland; and designed the fortifications of Cronstadt, which were to render it impregnable. The next step was to take Narva, where he had before been foiled. The town fell on August 20, 1704; when Peter, by his personal exertions, checked the violence of his soldiery.

Menzikoff, a man of humble origin, was now made governor of Ingria. In June 1705, a formidable attempt of the Swedes to destroy the rapidly rising Petersburg and Cronstadt was completely repulsed. A Swedish victory, under Lewenhaupt, at Gemavers, in Courland, was neutralised by the capture of Mittau. But Poland was now torn from Augustus, and Charles's nominee, Stanislaus, was king. Denmark had been forced into neutrality; exaggerated reports of the defeat at Gemavers had once more stirred up the remnants of the old Strelitz. Nevertheless, Peter, before the end of the year, was as secure as ever.

In 1706, Augustus was reduced to a formal abdication and recognition of Stanislaus as King of Poland; and Patkul, a Livonian, Peter's ambassador at Dresden, was subsequently delivered to Charles and put to death, to the just wrath of Peter. In October, the Russians, under Menzikoff, won their first pitched battle against the Swedes, a success which did not save Patkul.

In February 1708, Charles himself was once more in Lithuania, at the head of an army. But his advance towards Moscow was disputed at well-selected points, and even his victory at Hollosin was a proof that the Russians had now learned how to fight.