Progress and present position of Russia in the East : an historical summary

Front matter

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WySifSp'r:

PROGRESS OF RUSSIA IN THE EAST.

Preface

Caspian and the Black Sea, with the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles — to extend her dominions beyond the Caucasus — to domineer in Persia with a view to open the road to India ; and history perhaps furnishes no other example of equal pertinacity in prosecuting, per fas et nefas, a predetermined course of aggrandizement. Her crown has frequently been transferred, by open violence or by secret crime, from one head or one family to another, but each successive sovereign, with hardly an exception, has made some progress towards the attainment of those objects, and she continues to prosecute them with unabated avidity.

Her caution has hitherto been equal to her pertinacity. She has never pushed her successes in the East so far as to involve her in a contest with any of the great powers of Europe ; but as soon as that danger appeared to be imminent she has suspended her progress, always claiming, and often receiving, credit for her magnanimity and moderation while she was abiding a more favourable opportunity again to advance.

Not less remarkable than her pertinacity and caution has been the uniformity of the means by which her acquisitions have been obtained. The process has almost been reduced to a regular formula. — It invariably commences with disorganization, by means of corruption and secret agency, pushed to the extent of disorder and civil contention. Next in order comes military occupation to restore tranquillity ; and in every instance the result has been protection, followed by INCORPORATION. Such have been the means by which Poland — the two Kabardas — the Krimea —

PREFACE.

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Georgia — Imeretia — and Mingrelia have been added to the Russian dominions.

The policy bequeathed by Peter I. has so long been pursued with success and impunity, that Russia now begins to assume a sort of prescriptive right to carry it out ; and affects to regard as unreasonable and presumptuous the resolution of other powers not to permit her to violate justice, the public law of Europe, and the treaties that protect the weaker nations — nor to trample upon their own acknowledged interests — in her lawless attempts at aggrandizement. Civilized nations can afford to smile at the barbarian arrogance of her tone when she tells England and France to mind their own business, and not to interfere with her projects in Turkey ; or when, with more refined derision, she proposes, in deference to their wishes, to conclude an amicable arrangement, on conditions that would secure to her all the advantages she could hope to derive from a successful war. But when she puts forth, in justification of her outrageous policy, manifestoes, every statement in which is contradicted by ascertained facts known to all the world, and closes them with appeals to Heaven, we are forced to consider the possibility of again confiding in the moral rectitude or the good faith, however solemnly pledged, of a government that, with pretensions so lofty, can descend to actions so mean. That these documents cannot deceive any one out of Russia is no palliation of the offence ; but there surely must have been some very urgent necessity for misrepresenting the circumstances in Russia, or such a man as the Emperor Nicholas could never have been induced to give the

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sanction of his name to such a document. And if there be such a necessity it implies a condition of things in the interior of the empire not the most favourable to the maintenance of exorbitant pretensions. But many of Russia’s negotiations show that to raise her pretensions, when she is least in a condition to enforce them, is the approved mode of cloaking her deficiencies and extricating herself from difficulties. This game has been successfully played on many occasions, and especially at Adrianople.

It is plain, however, that, be the internal condition of Russia what it may, the time has arrived when Europe must either submit to her dictation, or must arrest her in a course, the tendency and objects of which are proved, by the history of the past and by the experience of the present, to be incompatible with the principles or the laws which have been adopted and established for the maintenance of peace and justice. Either she must recede or we must give way before her ; for she has rejected every admissible form of pacific arrangement that has been proposed. How far her present perseverance in wrong ought to be regarded as ultimately disadvantageous to the rest of Europe may be questioned ; for her history inculcates no lesson more clearly than this, — that to return now to the state of things as they stood before her last unprovoked invasion of the Turkish territories would be only to postpone the contest until she should find a more favourable opportunity for renewing it. Europe must not be left exposed to the continual danger of being disturbed by her projects, or of being demoralized by her example and influence. The example

PREFACE.

IX of a sovereign making an unprovoked aggression upon a weaker neighbour, and setting both the public law and the unanimous public opinion of Europe at defiance with impunity, would be one of the most demoralizing and dangerous that could be held up to the imitation of the world. But good may come out of evil. If the other nations of Europe are now convinced of the danger to which this contemptuous disregard of principle exposes them, they must combine to vindicate the supremacy of public law and justice, and to enforce upon the delinquent a due respect for both. Russia, by producing the necessity and furnishing the occasion for such a combination, may have conferred a benefit when she contemplated inflicting an injury, and may be the means of ultimately consolidating the peace she has disturbed. The feeling that they have embarked in the same just cause — that they have interests common to them all to defend against the same inveterate disturber of the public peace — may do more than even the peaceful intercourse of quieter times could do to clear away the prejudices, and to confirm the mutual confidence and esteem of nations.

It is true that we may have to fight for peace, and that the evils of war are great and manifold ; hut there are evils worse than war, and, if it must he encountered, it is better far to face it at once than to patch up a hollow, and perhaps not very creditable, truce, with the prospect of having war forced upon us a year or two hence, in circumstances, probably, less advantageous to us, and more advantageous to Russia. Turkey is still erect and stout of heart, with a better army — a better administration — a more energetic and

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PEEFACE.

yet calmer, wiser, and more liberal and comprehensive spirit of nationality than those who have not seen — or seeing, have seen and have not understood her — could be induced to believe. But the drain upon her resources is great ; and to force her to accept an arrangement which gave no sufficient security against renewed aggression would compel her to maintain for an indefinite time an attitude of preparation that would injure her finances, and thus cripple her means of defence when the real struggle came.

France — at whom the stroke was first aimed by Russia through the side of Turkey, and who sees combinations prepared with a view to disturb her internal tranquillity, and to use her crown as a make-weight in the adjustment of the balance in Turkey — is hearty in the good cause, and eager to throw her sword instead of her crown into the scale.

Austria, with shattered finances, and relying upon the compressive power of Russia, rather than upon a more generous system, for the means of holding together the heterogeneous nationalities that compose her empire, has not yet had the courage to forbid the encroachments that threaten to extinguish what remains of her independence. Believing that peace is necessary to her, she has not yet dared to take the only course that could have secured it. Seeking shelter in neutrality, she seems to lean towards the side that she thinks would be the least scrupulous in respecting it. But she cannot desire to increase the power of the giant who is already stifling her with his embraces ; and when she can do so with safety, she will act upon the instinct of self-preservation.

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XI

Prussia, connected by family ties with the Ozar, and touched, like Austria, with the taint of that original political sin which Russia tempted them both to commit with her in Poland, hesitates to declare herself. Russia already presses upon her with a weight which is more than she can well sustain. On the other hand, her Rhenish provinces would be endangered by a rupture with France, and, balancing between opposite difficulties, she, too, takes shelter in neutrality.

Has it never occurred to these two great powers that the neutrality in which they now hope for safety could afford them no protection if the principles on which Russia is acting were allowed to prevail ? Neutrality is respected, because the public law of Europe recognises its claims. But if Russia can violate that law with impunity, neutrality can afford no security. It is only because other powers are prepared to defend the recognised international laws against the attempt which Russia has made to set them aside that these powers can find in neutrality the refuge they seek. Is it manly — nay, more, is it prudent — in them to stand by and see those principles put at peril in a contest which they could certainly prevent by ranging themselves on the side of those who are prepared to defend the laws on which they rely ?

Belgium, Hanover, Saxony, and the other minor states must see in the aggression of Russia upon Turkey a precedent for assailing their own integrity and independence. Are we to understand that Austria and Prussia acquiesce in such aggressions? or only that they are not independent enough to express their real sentiments? Or is it the remembrance of 1848

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PREFACE.

and the fear of revolution that, in their eyes, overshadows all other apprehensions ? If it be so, then, assuredly, the position they have taken, and especially every indication of an intention to identify themselves with Eussia, must increase their danger. They permit a war which they could prevent between France and England on the one side and Russia on the other, and they rely upon the aid of Eussia, who will have none to spare, for protection against the revolution which their reliance upon her is certain to provoke if the war should be protracted.

Chapter I. Page

Extension of the Eiissian frontier since the reign of Peter the Great — First Naval efforts of Russia — War with Sweden and Turkey — Endeavours to establish an Oriental Commerce — Embassies to Khiva and Persia — Weakness and Invasion of Persia — Alarm of Turkey — Treaty of Ismael Beg — Death of Peter I. — Partition of Persia by Russia and Turkey — Russia concludes a Treaty with the Affghans —

Rise of Nadir Shah — Treaty of Belgrade — Failure of Russian schemes — Maritime inferiority in the Caspian . . . . 1

Chapter II

Tribes of the Caucasus — Russian intercourse with Georgia and other Persian dependencies — Intrigues in Poland — War with Turkey — Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardgi — Critical position of Russia — Extended alliances — Abortive attempt to extend her dominion on the Western shores of the Caspian — Aga-Mahmed 17

Chapter III

Catharine declares the Sovereignty of the Krimea elective — Russia and the Emperor prepare for war — Revolution in the Krimea — Seizure of the peninsula by the Russians — Annexation of the Krimea to the Russian empire — Successful negotiations with Georgia, Imeretia, and Mingrelia — Convention with the Porte — Immense acquisition of territory — Turkey declares war — Treaty of Yassy — Project for disturbing the British empire in India — Second partition of Poland — Relations between Russia and Turkey since the reign of Catharine . 30

Chapter IV

Ultimate policy of Russia in seeking to extend her frontier on the side of Persia — Affairs of Persia — Accession of Paul — Annexation of Georgia — Accession of Alexander — War with Persia — Connexion of Persia with Great Britain and with France — Her influence in European politics — Treaty of peace concluded at Goolistan between Persia and Russia .42

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CONTENTS.

Chapter V. Page

Acquisitions from Persia — Submission of Northern Khans to Russia — Oppressive government of her dependencies — State of Southern Caucasian provinces — War in the mountains — Question of boundary between Russia and Persia — Seizure of Gokcheh — Accession of Nicholas — Recommencement of war . . . . . .55

Chapter VI

War between Russia and Turkey — Interposition of Napoleon — Bad faith of Alexander — Congress of Vienna — Greek rebellion fomented by Russia — Treaty of London — Battle of Navarino — Treaty of Turcomanchai — Encroachments of Russia on Persia — Renewal of war with Turkey — Treaty of Adrianople — Separation of Greece — Projects of future conquest — Rebellion of Mahomed Ali — Treaty of Unkiar Skellessi — Russia’s “ protecting ” policy — Danger to British commerce by Russian aggrandisement . . . . .72

Chapter VII

Policy of Russia in regard to Persia and Turkey — Interest of Great Britain in their preservation — Question of a Russian invasion of British India — Effects of British power over Russian commerce —

Our duty to India — Importance of protecting Persia . . . .100

Conclusion 110

SUPPLEMENTAL.— CHAPTER I.

Russian intrigues in Persia and Affghanistan — The Shah’s expedition against Herat — Russian duplicity — Interference of Great Britain — Constant hostility of Russia towards British interests — Her designs upon India — Her treacherous conduct — Proceedings of Mahomed Ali — Treaties of London — Reforms in Turkey — Infamous policy of Russia in Bulgaria. . . , . . . . . .117

CHAPTER II.

Occupation by Russia of Wallachia and Moldavia — Her attempts to destroy their commerce — Her invasion of Finland — Remonstrance of the King of Sweden — Interference of Russia in Servia — Her unfounded claim to be Protector of the Greek religion in Turkey — Treaty of Kainarji — Russia’s hypocritical inculcation of good faith — The “ Holy Places ” — Count Nesselrode’s reasoning — Probable motive of the desire of Russia to fetter the hands of the Sultan with reference to his Christian subjects — “ Pan-Sclavism ” — Mischiefs arising from the encroachments of Russia — Duty of the Western Powers ............ 145

PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION

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RUSSIA IN THE EAST.

Chapter I

Extension of the Russian Frontier since the Reign of Peter the Great — First Naval efforts of Russia — War with Sweden and Turkey — Endeavours to establish an Oriental Commerce — Embassies to Khiva and Persia — Weakness and Invasion of Persia— Alarm of Turkey— Treaty of Ismael Beg— Death of Peter I.— Partition of Persia by Russia and Turkey— Russia concludes a Treaty with the Affghans— Rise of Nadir Shah— Treaty of Belgrade— Failure of Russian Schemes— Maritime inferiority in the Caspian.

Peter the Great, eleven years after the battle of Pnltava, established a line of posts from the Volga to the Don, to protect his country from the incursions of I the unsubdued tribes to the south. The Russian frontier posts are now on the banks of the Araxes and beyond it, seven hundred miles in advance of the position they then occupied.

, As a question of general history, it might be interesting to inquire by what means Russia has been enabled, besides her acquisitions in Europe, — including Finland, Ingria, Estonia, Livonia, Courland, Lithuania, and the most important part of the remainder of Poland, the southern Ukraine, the Crimea, Bessarabia, &c. &c.

I — to acquire at the same time an extension of her south- 3rn frontier, including a territory equal to France or Spain. But the inquiry becomes infinitely more interesting, when it is regarded with reference to the political consequences of her aggrandizement in Asia, and to the light which may be thrown on her views and the

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RUSSIA IN THE EAST.

Chap. I

principles of lier policy by an examination of the course she has pursued where her proceedings were least exposed to the scrutiny or controlled by the influence of European nations. It is there that the genius of her policy assumes the fewest disguises ; that the veil which has concealed the deformity of its features from the eyes of Europe is most transparent, and adjusted with least care.

When Peter mounted the throne of Russia, in 1689, she had no commercial sea-port excepting Archangel. His own genius, aided by an intercourse with Europeans, led him early to appreciate the vast importance of commerce ; and as the trade with India had ever been regarded as a certain source of wealth to the nations which in different ages had enjoyed it, his first military enterprise was an attempt, in 1695, to possess himself of a port on the sea of Asoph, for the avowed purpose of drawing back into one of its ancient channels^ what, in the deflciency of more precise knowledge, was in general terms designated the commerce of the East. Taganrog was destined to become the emporium of a traffic which was to enrich his empire ; and two small vessels built at Yoronege, and floated down the Don to the sea, constituted the first naval effort of the Czar.

His journey into Europe opened to him other views ; and teaching him the value of European as well as Oriental commerce, led him to desire an establishment on the Baltic. Even at this period he seems to have contemplated the acquisition of Livonia, to which Russia pretended to have some antiquated claim. His successes against the Swedes put him in possession of a

' * The Greeks, while their empire flourished — the Kings of Pontus,' before

— and the Genoese, after that era, made the Crimea an emporium for the commerce of India, which was partly carried by the Persian Gulf through Persia to Georgia and Imeretia, and partly through Herat to the Caspian, and up the river Kur to Georgia, whence it was in like manner transported to the Phasis and the Crimea.

Chap. I.

EAGERNESS FOR ORIENTAL COMMERCE.

port on that northern sea ; and when the victory of Pultava had relieved him from all apprehension of the military power of Charles the Twelfth, and established the reputation of his own army, he turned towards Turkey, whose power was even then supposed to be tottering, whose Christian subjects were believed to be ripe for revolt, and on whose ruins it was not doubted that the conqueror of Charles could exalt his own power.

Keferring to a treaty which Peter had concluded with the Chinese, M. de Voltaire observes, “ II ne fut pas si aise d’ avoir la paix avec les Turcs : le terns meme

The disastrous campaign of 1711 dispelled for a time the delusion as to the weakness and speedy dissolution of the Ottoman empire, as well as the belief in the discontent of her Christian subjects ; and the treaty of Falksen^^ which stipulated the surrender of Taganrog and Asoph, annihilated the commercial projects of Peter on that sea. But stability of purpose was one of the elements of his power, and the intention to establish an Oriental commerce never deserted him. Neither his successes in the north, nor his defeat in Turkey, diverted or deterred him from pursuing the scheme. Having failed to turn one extremity of the Caucasus, he directed his attention to the other, and abandoned the sea of Asoph to occupy himself more intently on the Caspian. Such was his avidity to accomplish this favourite object, that all regard to faith and honour seemed to abandon him when a respect for either appeared to impede its execution. The man, who,

* A village on the Pruth, where the treaty was signed in July, 1711, that saved the Emperor, the Empress, and the Russian army, which was surrounded, enfeebled, and starving.

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RUSSIA IN THE EAST.

Chap. I.

when he was in a most perilous position, declared he would rather surrender to the Turks a large portion of his dominions than tarnish his honour by delivering up the rebel Cantemir to his master, was not induced to fulfil the stipulations of the treaty which saved him from destruction, till a threat of war and the intervention of foreign powers forced him at length, after nearly two j years of evasion, to put the Porte in possession of Asoph and Taganrog.

In 1717 he sent Prince Alexander Bekevitch on an : embassy to the Khan of Khiva ; and providing his representative, who professed to be advancing on a friendly mission, with an escort of several thousand men, directed him to seize, in the country of the prince to whose court he was accredited, the gold-mines which it was erroneously supposed to contain. A baser act of treachery, or one more sordid, could not have been contemplated ; and the deceit by which so atrocious ; a violation of faith and honour was rendered abortive i can scarcely — if we suppose the design to have been , ascertained' — be considered a crime. The Khivans, too * weak to offer open resistance, dissembled their feelings, and professing their inability to furnish subsistence to ’ so large a body in one place, prevailed on the diplo- ; matic invader to divide his army into small parties, { which were quartered for the winter in detached vil- ! lages. The inhabitants, on a preconcerted signal, fell ^ upon them and cut them off, except a few who re- v mained slaves for life.

The following year he sent an embassy to Persia, the ostensible object of which was the improvement of his commercial relations with that country, and the establishment of a trade with India. An arrangement was entered into, by which the whole of the silk exported from Persia was to be sent to Russia ; but the attempt to open a communication with India was

Chap. I.

EMBASSY TO PERSIA.

unsuccessful, though, forty years before this time, a Russian agent had penetrated to the court of Aurungzehe : and in the early part of the reign of Peter, Russian traders were settled in India.

Meer Weis, the governor of Kandahar — who afterwards led the Affghans to the conquest of Persia — encountered this embassy at Ispahan ; and probably finding him disgusted with the abuses and follies of Shah Sultan Hoossein’s government, the Russian ambassador established an intercourse with him. The impressions the Meer received from his communications with that functionary, were such as led him to express, without reserve, his alarm at the ambitious scheme of Eastern conquest which this people even then entertained. He was himself, in the sequel, the cause of furnishing them with a pretext for passing the great natural barrier which appeared to cut them off from the countries to the south.

The last sovereigns of the Sophy dynasty, which ruled Persia for about three centuries, were weak and degenerate princes, to whom the nation submitted from habits of attachment and religious regard to the race, hut who had permitted all its institutions to fall into decay, and whose authority was not sufficient j to protect the productive classes from the oppression I of the petty tyrants, whose extortions are at all times [restrained only by the vigorous exercise of superior ; power.

j In Mahommedan countries, generally, the crown and I the people have for the most part been allied to a certain extent against the local governors and the exe- 'cutive officers of the state. The sovereign trusts to the mass of the people for the means to check the ambition of the nobles ; and the people look to the throne for protection against their oppressions. An Immediate effect of weakness and inefficiency in the

RUSSIA IN THE EAST.

Chap. I.

prince, and one of the greatest evils attendant on his reign, is the impunity it confers on the arbitrary exactors of the people’s substance, by destroying the value of the peasant’s right of appeal. Left without any protection hut the physical means of resistance, to which he is slow to have recourse, he rarely takes up arms in his own defence till he has nothing left to defend. The holder then addict themselves to plunder ; the more timid submit, and pray for better times.

Such was the state of Shah Sultan Hoossein’s empire, which extended from Derhend to Kandahar. Turkey, taking advantage of the weakness of Persia, had seized all her western provinces from the base of the Caucasus to the hanks of the Passitigris, and occupied the country as far as Hamadan and Ardebil. As early as 1712 twenty thousand Lesguis had descended from the eastern extremity of the Caucasian mountains to ravage the plains of Sheerwan, and exact from its peaceful inhabitants an indemnification for the yearly donations with which the Shah had been in the habit of purchasing their forbearance, but of which the indigence of the sovereign or the corruption of his servants had for some time deprived them. These savage mountaineers laid waste the country with fire and sword, slaughtering indiscriminately all who opposed them. The inhabitants of Shamakhi, amongst whom were three hundred Eussian subjects, were massacred ; and Eussian property, amounting, it is pretended,^ to four millions of silver roubles, became the booty of their murderers. The Afghans, a few years after these events, rose in the south-eastern extremity of the empire, and, led by Meer Weis, marched from Kandahar to besiege the Shah in Ispahan.

* Four millions of silver roubles are equal to 640,000?., a sum far exceeding the annual amount of the whole Russian trade with Persia at that time.

Chap. I.

INVASION OF PERSIA.

Peter vainly demanded redress for the injury he had suffered from the Lesguis. The unfortunate Shah was not in a condition to afford it, and was protracting an almost hopeless resistance to the rebels, while he implored the assistance of the Czar. That monarch had his own views to serve, and his own objects to accomplish. The conjuncture was favourable, and he determined to profit by it. On the pretext of punishing the Lesguis (after a lapse of ten years), and of carrying succours to the Shah, he prepared to seize as large a portion as possible of that prince’s territories.

« Pierre,” says his historian and eulogist, “ re'solut de se faire justice lui-meme, et de projiter des desordres de la Perser

‘‘ Nous verrons,” says the same author, “ comment le Sha, ou Empereur Persan, Hussein, persecute par des rebelles, implora I’assistance de Pierre, et comment Pierre, apres avoir soutenu des guerres si difficiles centre les Turcs et centre les Suedois, alia conquerir trois provinces de Perse.”

The thirst for eastern commerce and conquest was ever too strong for his sense of justice or good faith. Having signally failed in the attempt to raise himself on the ruins of Turkey, he bequeathed that enterprise to his successors, and availed himself of the more dilapidated condition of the Persian empire, which held out a promise of speedier and more certain success.

Having prepared a great armament at Astrachan, he published, on the 15th of June, 1722, a manifesto,

RUSSIA IN THE EAST.

Chap. I.

the terms of which are strangely contrasted with his real design. It is altogether a remarkable document — full of professions of attachment to the Shah whose territories he was about to seize, and whose inability to afford him redress against the Lesguis he acknowledges. He calls him his “ old good friend, the Shah” — his ‘‘great friend and neighbour,” — his “dear friend :” promises to the subjects of Persia and Turkey security and protection if they afford no assistance to the Lesguis, and remain in their houses — hut threatens them with plunder and death, fire and sword, if they desert their habitations ; and profanely adds, “ You, and you alone, will be to blame for this, and will have to answer for it at the second coming of the Lord our God.” So early did this nation begin to cloak its most questionable acts with appeals to Heaven.

In the course of the next month he set out on his expedition to Persia, accompanied by the Empress and an army of above fifty thousand men. Twenty-two thousand infantry, and three thousand sailors, trained to act on shore, crossed the Caspian in four hundred and forty-two vessels ; the cavalry proceeded by land. The enterprise was not without some appearance of danger ; the passes were narrow and easily defensible, “ mais dans I’anarchie ©ii etait la Perse on pouvait tout tenter.” * An attack from a detached tribe of the Lesguis was easily repulsed, and the echoes of the Caucasian straits resounded for the first time the thunder of Russian cannon and the victorious shouts of her armies. Derbend was occupied without opposition, and the silver keysf of the town and citadel delivered to

* Voltaire.

+ These keys, like those of Tahreez, sent by General Paskevitch to the Emperor, were most probably made for the occasion, for the locks used on Asiatic fortresses could not be unscrewed with a key of silver. The keys of Tahreez, it is ascertained, were not only made for the purpose of being sent to Russia, but were put into strong acid to corrode the surface and give them an appearance of antiquity.