Chapter XXI: The Schemes of Catharine II

I came to Russia poor; but I will not die in debt to the
Empire; for I shall leave her the Crimea and Poland as my
portion.--CATHARINE II.

In the spring of the year 1787 the ablest potentate in Europe set out on a State progress to the newly annexed provinces in the South of her Empire. It was carried out with an energy and splendour which illustrated the union of the forethought of the West with the barbaric splendour of the East. A great flotilla of galleys bore the Sovereign, her chief courtiers, the ambassadors of Great Britain, Austria, and France, and numerous attendants down the course of the Dnieper to the city of Kherson near its mouth. By day the banks were fringed with throngs of the peasants of Little Russia, brought up to order, while ever and anon the shouts of Cossacks, Calmucks, and Circassians impressed the beholders with a sense of the boundless resources of that realm. By night the welkin flared with illuminations; and the extent of the resting-places, which had arisen like exhalations at the bidding of her favourite, Prince Potemkin, promised the speedy inroad of civilization into the lands over which the Turk still held sway. In truth, far more impressive to the mind’s eye was the imperious will of which these marvels were the manifestation, the will of Catharine II.[782]

At her invitation there joined her near Potemkin’s creation, the city of Ekaterinoslav, another monarch of romantic and adventurous character. Joseph II of Austria, head of the Holy Roman Empire, now reluctantly turned towards the eastern conquests to which she had long beckoned him. Together they proceeded on the progress southwards to Kherson, which they entered under a triumphal arch bearing the inscription in Greek, “The way to Byzantium.” A still more impressive proof of the activity of her masterful favourite awaited them. Potemkin had pushed on the work of the new dockyard at Kherson; and as a result they witnessed the launch of three warships. The largest, of 80 guns, was christened by Catharine herself, “Joseph II.”[783]

Thence the imperial procession wended its way to the much-prized acquisition, the Crimea. In that Tartar Khanate the fertile brain and forceful personality of Potemkin had wrought wonders. It was but four years since the Empress, in her joy at the annexation of that vantage-ground, had pointed on the map to the little township of Akhtiar, re-named it Sevastopol, and ordered the construction of a dockyard and navy. Now, in June 1787, as the allied sovereigns topped the hills which command that port, the Hapsburg ruler uttered a cry of surprise and admiration. For there below lay a squadron of warships, ready, as it seemed, to set sail and plant the cross on the dome of St. Sophia at Constantinople.

Hitherto Joseph II had not shown the amount of zeal befitting an ally and an admirer. True, he had not openly belied the terms of the compact of the year 1781, which had been his sheet-anchor amid the storms of his reign. But that alliance had been the prelude to vast schemes productive at once of longing and distrust. They aimed at nothing less than the partition of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. The glorious days of Prince Eugène were to be recalled, and, on the expulsion of the Tartar horde over the Bosphorus, Austria was to acquire the Turkish lands which that warrior had gained for her by the Peace of Passarowitz (1718), namely, the Banat of Temesvar, the northern half of Servia, and the districts of Wallachia as far as the River Aluta. The only direct gain to Catharine was to be the Tartar territory north of the Black Sea as far as the Dniester. As for Moldavia and Wallachia, they were to form an independent kingdom under a Christian Prince (a plan finally realized in 1858); and the remainder of the Balkan Peninsula was to be ruled by the favourite grandson of the Empress, Prince Constantine.

Outwardly this partition seemed to offer a fair share to Austria. But it was soon clear that the grasping genius of Muscovy would transform the nominally independent kingdoms of Constantinople and Roumania into feudatories and bar to Austria the way to the Lower Danube, the Aegean, and the Lower Adriatic. Not yet were the lessons of the first partition of Poland forgotten at Vienna.[784] Then, too, the Austro-Russian compact had but slightly advanced the interests of Joseph II in Germany. Catharine had done little to further his pet scheme of the Belgic-Bavarian Exchange; and, apart from feminine fumings, she had not seriously counteracted the formation of the League of German Princes whereby Frederick the Great had thwarted that almost revolutionary proposal (1785). Probably this accounts for the reluctance of Joseph to give rein to the southward impulses of the Czarina in that year. At its close Sir Robert Murray Keith, British Ambassador at Vienna, reported that the Czarina’s tour to Kherson was postponed, and four days later he recorded a remarkable conversation in the course of which the Emperor revealed his dislike of the dangerous schemes then mooted for the partition of the Turkish Empire. “I can tell you for certain,” he said, “_que si jamais tous les coquins se rompent avec l’Empire Ottoman_, France is firmly determined to strike a bold stroke by making herself mistress of Egypt. This I know with certainty from more quarters than one; and M. Tott himself told me at Paris that he had travelled through all Egypt by order of his Court to explore that country in a military light and to lay down a plan for the conquest of it.”[785]

In these words we have probably the reason for the deferring of the Russian schemes against Turkey. They are also noteworthy, as they must have tended to deepen the distrust which Pitt and Carmarthen felt for France. Her chief Minister, Vergennes, figured as the protector of Turkey against Russia, recalling thereby the policy of Louis XV’s reign, which in 1739 availed to tear away from Austria the conquests of Prince Eugène and restore them to the Sublime Porte. But under this show of championship there seems to have lain an alternative policy, that of furthering the partition of Turkey, provided that France acquired Egypt, and some other vantage posts in the Levant. As we have already seen, France was busy in Egypt and the Orient with schemes which probably would have startled the world had she rivetted her hold on the Dutch Netherlands in the year 1787.

The accession of the facile and dissolute Frederick William to the Prussian throne in 1786, and the preoccupation of England and France in the Dutch crisis which followed, now left Joseph free to comply with the request of the Czarina that he would join her in the journey to the Crimea. After long hesitations he reluctantly gave his assent. His aged Chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, the champion of the connection with Russia and France, advised him to direct the imperial conferences towards the Bavarian Exchange and the dissolution of the Fürstenbund. Catharine willed otherwise. Under her influence the views of Joseph underwent a notable orientation. He came back to Vienna virtually pledged to a war for the partition of Turkey.

The change in Joseph’s policy was a tribute to the potency of the Czarina’s will. In her personality, as we have already seen, there were singular powers of fascination and command. Her vivacity and charm, varied by moods of petulance or fury, made up a character feminine in its impulsiveness and of masculine strength. The erstwhile Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, who by a series of audacious intrigues, and probably by the murder of her consort Peter III, had become the greatest autocrat of the century, still retained the intellectual freshness of youth. Her character and career present a series of bizarre contrasts. The poverty of her upbringing, the dissolute adventures of her early life, and the outrageous crimes of her womanhood would have utterly tainted a personality less remarkable and attractive. But in the loose society of St. Petersburg it had long been customary to gloze over lapses of virtue by easy descriptions, like that which the stately rhetoric of Burke applied to the chivalry of Versailles, that “vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.”

Certainly the intellectual keenness and social witcheries of the sorceress threw a charm over her rout. French and German philosophers praised her learning and wit, but innate shrewdness kept her from more than a passing dalliance with the unsettling theories which were to work havoc in France. Here as in her amours she observed some measure of worldly prudence; so that no favourite could count on a long reign of pillage. Thus, whether by whim or by design, she kept devotion and hope ever on the stretch; and one might almost apply to her, even at the age of fifty-nine, Shakespeare’s description of Cleopatra:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.

Like the “serpent of old Nile,” Catharine had many weaknesses; and they might have worked her ruin in the more strenuous age which followed; but fortune brought her to the front at a time when Frederick the Great desired the friendship of Russia, and when Hapsburg policy vacillated between the conservatism of Maria Theresa and the viewiness of her son Joseph. Thus the Czarina could work her will on the decaying Powers, Turkey and Poland, and raised the prestige of her Empire to unimagined heights.

A few shrewd observers were not dazzled by this splendour. Sir James Harris, who went as British envoy to Russia in 1778 to cultivate the friendship, and if possible the alliance, of Catharine, rightly probed the inner weakness of her position. It lay in the suddenness of her rise, the barbarousness of her people, the unblushing peculations of Ministers and officials, and the shiftiness of Muscovite policy. This last defect he traced to the peculiarities of the Empress herself, which he thus summed up: “She has a masculine force of mind, obstinacy in adhering to a plan, and intrepidity in the execution of it; but she wants the more manly virtues of deliberation, forbearance in prosperity, and accuracy of judgment, while she possesses in a high degree the weaknesses vulgarly attributed to her sex--love of flattery and its inseparable companion, vanity; [and] an inattention to unpleasant but salutary advice.” Six years later he sharpened his criticism and described her as led by her passions, not by reason and argument; her prejudices, though easily formed, were immovable; her good opinion was liable to constant fluctuations and whims; and her resolves might carry her to any lengths.[786] Such, too, was the opinion of the Comte de Ségur, the French ambassador, who wrote about the Turkish schemes renewed in 1787: “We are so accustomed to see Russia throw herself offhand into the most risky affairs, and Fortune has so persistently helped her, that there is no accounting for the actions of this Power on the rules of a scientific policy.”[787]

This peculiarity was far from repelling Joseph II. While pluming himself on the application of reason to politics, that crowned philosopher forgot to take counsel of her twin-sister, prudence. On his polyglot Empire, which already felt the first stirrings of the principle of nationality, he imposed centralizing laws, agrarian, social, and religious, which speedily aroused the hostility of those whom he meant to uplift. Along with all this he pushed on schemes which unsettled Germany, Belgium, and Poland; and now, as if all this were not enough, he was drawn into the vortex of the Turkish enterprises of Catharine.

It is a mistake to assume that Joseph had no practical aims in view. He hoped to acquire from Turkey territories which would open up trade on the Adriatic and the Lower Danube, and he counted on strengthening the Russian alliance to which he trusted for the furtherance of his aims in Germany and Belgium. Yet rarely has a monarch formed a resolution more fraught with peril. In truth it resulted from the mastery gained by an abler and more determined nature over one that was generous but ill-compacted, daring but unsteady. Had the Emperor surveyed the situation with care, he must have seen that it favoured Catharine rather than himself. She was beset by no troubles at home; while his lands, especially the _Pays Bas_, heaved with disloyal excitement. She had appeased the Turcophile feelings of France by granting a favourable commercial treaty; and Montmorin, the successor of Vergennes, was weaker in himself and less able to support the Sultan. In short, Catharine had her hands free, while Joseph had them full.[788]

The alliance between Russia and Poland at this time acquired new vitality. During her triumphal tour Catharine received the homage of her former lover, Stanislaus, King of Poland, and received from him the promise of the help of 100,000 Polish troops for the Turkish war, and “likewise for any other contest”--a phrase aimed against Prussia, if she dared to intervene. The value of the promise soon became open to doubt. The monarch in Poland had long been a figure-head, while the real power lay with the powerful and ambitious nobility, which, under the lead of the Czartoryski and Potocki families, ever chafed at Muscovite ascendancy, and now declined to help Catharine in humbling their natural ally, the Sultan. In 1790 their views were to prevail; but, for the present, the resources of Poland seemed at her beck and call.

The prospects of Catharine therefore were brilliant in the extreme. But for once Fortune played her false. After the departure of the Emperor from the Crimea, and while she still fondly surveyed the warlike preparations at its new dockyard, there came news of the alarming prospects for the harvest in Russia. “The Empress,” wrote Fitzherbert on 24th July, “almost immediately after leaving the Crimea fell under a great and visible depression of spirits, accompanied at times with violent gusts of ill humour; and in this state remained with very little intermission till our arrival here [Czarko-zelo].” He ascribed these moody humours to the failure of the corn crop, which necessitated the immediate purchase of 5,000,000 roubles’ worth of foreign grain, and the distribution of Potemkin’s army in widespread cantonments.

To wage a great campaign while bread stood at famine prices was impossible. In this predicament the Empress decided to hide her retirement by a parade of diplomatic bluster. She despatched to Constantinople a special envoy, Bulgakoff, to lay claim to the Principality of Georgia, and to submit this and other matters in dispute to the mediation of France and Austria. The move was dexterous; but in such a case the success of a game of bluff depends on the adversary not perceiving the weakness of which it is the screen. Now, the Sublime Porte, though usually inert, divined the secret, and resolved to withstand these endless affronts. During thirteen years orthodox Moslems had writhed under the humiliations of the Treaty of Kainardji (1774), which acknowledged the complete independence of the Tartar Khans of the Crimea and the Kuban valley, and in vague terms admitted the Czarina to be the protectress of the Christian subjects of the Porte. In 1783, thanks to Austrian support, Catharine seized the Crimea; and now she laid claim to Georgia. The cup of humiliation was full; and the pride of Moslems scorned to drink it.

The despatches of Sir Robert Ainslie, British ambassador at Constantinople, show clearly enough the motives that prompted that Government to strike an unexpected blow. On 25th June 1787 he reported to Carmarthen that the Porte looked on the journey of the Czarina and her warlike preparations as designed to wear out the patience and the resources of the Turks, who already were said to have 240,000 men ready near the Danube, and others in Asia. If, he added, she did not explain her present conduct, “I am afraid they will commence hostilities,” and “strike a home blow in the Crimea.” On 10th July he stated that there could be no solid peace so long as Russia held the Crimea in defiance of the Treaty of Kainardji. “The honour of the Sultan, the security of this Empire, the interest of the Mahometan religion, and those [_sic_] of justice all require that ... the independence of the Crimea should be re-established. It is true, the Porte agreed to the cession; but that act, torn from her weakness, was involuntary and unjust. In short, it can only be binding until a good opportunity offers to cancel its effect. This, my Lord, seems the opinion of the Cabinet and the motive of their extensive preparations, but they are diffident of success and afraid to attack unless Russia herself furnishes pretext.” He adds that the Turkish Ministers believed Bulgakoff’s mission to be designed to “spin out the summer”; but that the Turkish levies could scarcely be kept together.[789]

As for the temporizing offers of mediation from France and Austria, the Porte would have none of them, and refused to accept any in which Great Britain had no share. The Grand Vizier cherished the hope that Austria and Russia were not really united by treaty, and seemed to desire, rather than to avoid, a rupture. On 30th July the Reis Effendi asked our ambassador what England would do in case of a Russo-Turkish War. Ainslie replied that she would “keep strict neutrality,” and strongly urged the need of peace. “Never will we purchase peace on the dishonourable terms held out by Russia,” replied the Turkish Minister, and he added with oriental subtlety that, unless she gave way, war must come “before many months are elapsed.” Ainslie thought that this portended war in the spring of 1788.[790]

But on 16th August the Sultan struck swiftly and hard. Doubtless he had heard news of the famine in Russia and the dispersion of Potemkin’s forces. It was clear that for a time the would-be aggressor was reduced to the defensive. Was it not well, then, to deliver the blow rather than wait for it to fall in the next year, and perhaps from both Austria and Russia? True, the Turks were not ready--they never were so. But their recent successes over the Mameluke Beys in Egypt and the rebellious Mahmoud Pacha in Albania emboldened them to take a step which completely surprised all the Cabinets of Europe. On 16th August, after a long conference with the Grand Vizier, Bulgakoff and five members of his suite were apprehended and marched off to the Seven Towers, there to be kept in close custody. This was the Turkish way of declaring war to the knife. The Porte defended it on the ground of outrages to its flag at Kinburn and Sevastopol;[791] but the incident added rancour to the hatred of Catharine, and she swore to glut her revenge upon the insolent infidels. Her rage was all the greater because for once she was outwitted. Fitzherbert, on hearing of the novel declaration of war by the Turks, stated to Carmarthen[792] that it must have upset all her calculations, for he knew that the blustering language used by Bulgakoff “was in fact intended to produce the contrary effect.”[793]

* * * * *

These events were destined potently to influence the career of Pitt. In one respect they affect his reputation; for Catharine in her fury accused him of inciting the Turks to attack her.[794] The charge was not unnatural. She had long shown her spleen against England in bitter words and hostile deeds. More than once she thrust aside Pitt’s overtures for an alliance; and she rejected his proposals for a commercial treaty while she granted that boon to France (January 1787). Further, the outbreak of war in the East came very opportunely for Great Britain and Prussia at the crisis of the Dutch embroglio and enabled the Court of Berlin confidently to launch its troops against the Patriots in Holland. The tilt given from Constantinople to the delicately poised kaleidoscope of diplomacy had startling results. The mobile Powers--Russia, Austria, and France--were fixed fast, while the hitherto stationary States, Prussia and England, were set free for swift action.

Nevertheless it is untrue that the tilt came from Pitt and Carmarthen. They still clung to the traditional British policy of befriending Russia, which Fox had enthusiastically supported. Our Government instructed Fraser at St. Petersburg to express regret at the outbreak of war and to offer, conjointly with Prussia, our good services for the restoration of peace. Pitt also informed Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador in London, of his desire for a good understanding with Russia, and stated that he would not oppose acquisitions of Turkish territory. All the evidence tends to prove that he strove to prevent hostilities, which must upset the existing order in the East and probably end in a general war. As the concern of Prussia was equally great (it being certain by the end of 1787 that Austria would join in the war) the two Protestant Powers drew together for joint action though not, as yet, for actual alliance.[795]

In fact, we find here the reason of the coyness of Pitt in framing that compact. He still preferred to have Russia, rather than Prussia, as an ally. But his advances to Catharine ended with the impossible retort that he must recall Ainslie from Constantinople. Nevertheless it was not till the middle of March 1788 that Pitt took a step displeasing to her by forbidding her agents to hire Russian transports in England.[796] The Empress showed her annoyance at these strict notions of neutrality by publicly receiving the famous American privateer, Paul Jones.[797]

Pitt’s attitude towards Austria was at first equally friendly. On 14th September 1787 Carmarthen sent to Vienna assurances that the Russo-Turkish War would make no difference to the friendship of George III for Austria, and that we should maintain “the determined system of this country to contribute as far as possible to the continuance of the public tranquillity, or to its speedy restoration if unhappily it should be interrupted.” By these and other proposals Pitt and Carmarthen vainly sought to detach Austria from Russia, and also to conjure away the spectre of a Triple Alliance between France, Russia, and Austria, which long haunted the courts of Whitehall. Early in 1788, that ghost was laid by the Austrian attack upon the Turks, which France had striven to avert, and Pitt felt free to accept the proffered alliance of Prussia which, as we saw in Chapter XVI, finally came about in August 1788.[798]

The campaign of that year is devoid of interest. Scarcity of bread on the Russian side and the usual unpreparedness of the Turks clogged the operations, which led to a sharp conflict only at one point. The fortress of Kinburn, recently acquired by the Russians, commanded the estuary formed by the converging Rivers Dnieper and Bug. It stood opposite the Turkish fortress, Oczakoff, which was deemed the chief bulwark of the Ottomans in the East. Early in October 1788 they made an attempt to seize Kinburn as a prelude to the hoped-for conquest of the Crimea. But in that fortress was a wizened little veteran, who ate bread with the soldiers, startled them at dawn by his cock crows, and summarized his ideas on tactics by the inspiriting words: “At them with the cold steel.” The personality of Suvóroff was worth an army corps, for it was bound up with triumph. He now waited within the walls of Kinburn until the Turkish fleet landed 5,000 choice Janissaries below the town. Then by a furious sally, flanked by a charge of ten squadrons of horse on the wings, he broke up that fanatical band and drove it into the sea. Only 700 Turks survived. The affair was not of the first importance, but it heartened the Russians for the greater enterprises of the next year.

Meanwhile Catharine, fuming at the sorry beginning of her war of conquest, upbraided her ally with his tardiness in coming to her help. But Joseph was in a difficult situation. The ferment in the Netherlands and Hungary was increasing. The close union of England and Prussia in Dutch affairs caused him much concern; and, as we have seen in