A history of Russia

by Riazanovsky

  The result was another tragedy for Poland. The Polish constitution of 1815 was replaced by the Organic Statute of 1832 that made Poland "an indivisible part" of the Russian Empire. The Statute itself, with its promises of civil liberties, separate systems of law and local government, and widespread use of the Polish language, remained in abeyance while Poland was administered in a brutal and authoritarian manner by its conqueror, the new Prince of Warsaw and Nicholas's viceroy, Marshal Paskevich. The monarch himself carefully directed and supervised his work. The estates of the insurgents were confiscated; Polish institutions of higher learning were closed; the lands of the Catholic Church were secularized and the clergy given fixed salaries. At the same time, Poland was forced more and more into the Russian mold in legal, administrative, educational, and economic matters. The most striking steps in that direction included the subordination of the Warsaw school region to the Russian Ministry of Education in 1839, the abolition of the Polish State Council in 1841, and the abrogation of the customs barrier between Russia and Poland in 1850. The Russian language reigned in the secondary schools as well as in the administration, while a stringent censorship banned the works of most of the leading Polish authors as subversive.

  A Russification more thorough than in Poland developed in the western and southwestern provinces, with their White Russian and Ukrainian peasant population and Polonized landlord class. Even prior to the insurrection of 1830-31 the government of Nicholas I had moved toward bringing that territory into closer association with Russia proper, a process connected with the emperor's general penchant for centralization and standardization. After the suppression of the revolution, assimilation proceeded swiftly under the direction of a special committee. Rebels from Lithuanian, White Russian, and Ukrainian provinces were denied the amnesty offered to those from Poland. It was in this territory that the Orthodox Church scored its greatest gain when, in 1839, the Uniates severed their connection

  with Rome and came into its fold. In 1840 the Lithuanian Statute was repealed in favor of Russian law. Because the landlords represented the Polish element, Nicholas I and his assistants changed the usual policy to legislate against their interests. They went so far as to introduce in some provinces "inventories" which defined and regularized the obligations of the serfs to their masters, and in 1851 to establish compulsory state service for the gentry of the western region. Thousands of poor or destitute families of the petty gentry were reclassified as peasants or townspeople, some of them being transferred to the Caucasus.

  But while the Russian government fought against Polish influence, it showed equal hostility to budding Ukrainian nationalism, as indicated by the destruction of the Brotherhood of Cyril and Methodius and the cruel punishment of its members, including the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.

  Relative stabilization in Europe was followed by new troubles in the Near East. Denied Syria as his reward for help given to the sultan of Turkey in the Greek war, Mohammed Ali of Egypt rebelled against his nominal suzerain and, during the year of 1832, sent an army which conquered Syria and invaded Anatolia, smashing Turkish forces. The sultan's desperate appeals for help produced no tangible results in European capitals, with the exception of St. Petersburg. Nicholas I's eagerness to aid the Porte in its hour of need found ample justification in the political advantages that Russia could derive from this important intervention. But such action also corresponded perfectly to the legitimist convictions of the Russian autocrat, who regarded Mohammed Ali as yet another major rebel, and it supported the Russian decision of 1829 favoring the preservation of Turkey. On February 20, 1833, a Russian naval squadron arrived at Constantinople and, several weeks later, some ten thousand Russian troops were landed on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus - the only appearance of Russian armed forces at the Straits in history. Extremely worried by this unexpected development, the great powers acted in concert to bring Turkey and Egypt together, arranging the Convention of Kutahia between the two combatants and inducing the sultan to agree to its provisions. The Russians withdrew immediately after Orlov had signed a pact with Turkey, the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, on July 8, 1833. That agreement, concluded for eight years, contained broad provisions for mutual consultation and aid in case of attack by any third party; a secret article at the same time exempted Turkey from helping Russia in exchange for keeping the Dardanelles closed to all foreign warships. Although, contrary to widespread supposition at the time and since, the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi did not provide for the passage of Russian men-of-war through the Straits - a point established by Mosely - it did represent a signal victory for

  Russia: the empire of the tsars became the special ally and, to a degree, protector of its ancient, decaying enemy, thereby acquiring important means to interfere in its affairs and influence its future.

  The events of 1830-31 in Europe, and to a lesser extent recurrent conflicts in the Near East, impressed on Nicholas I the necessity for close co-operation and joint action of the conservative powers. Austria and in a certain measure Prussia felt the same need, with the result that the three eastern European monarchies drew together by the end of 1833. Agreements were concluded at a meeting at Munchengratz, attended by the emperors of Russia and Austria and the crown prince of Prussia, and at a meeting soon after in Berlin. Russia came to a thorough understanding with the Hapsburg empire, especially regarding their common struggle against nationalism and their desire to maintain Turkish rule in the Near East. Similarly, the Russian agreement with Prussia stressed joint policies in relation to partitioned Poland. More far-reaching in its provisions and its implications was the Convention of Berlin signed by all three powers on October 15, 1833:

  Their Majesties… recognize that each independent Sovereign has the right to call to his aid, in case of internal troubles as well as in case of an external threat to his country, every other independent Sovereign… In the event that the material help of one of the three Courts, the Austrian, the Prussian, and the Russian, is requested, and if any power would want to oppose this by the force of arms, these three Courts would consider as directed against each one of them every hostile action undertaken with this goal in view.

  The agreements of 1,833 were thus meant to protect not only the immediate interests of the signatory powers, but also the entire conservative order in Europe. Nicholas I in particular proved eager to police the continent. It was the Russian army that moved quickly in 1846 to occupy the city of Cracow and suppress the uprising there, and it was the Russian emperor who insisted to the somewhat slow and reluctant Austrian government that this remnant of free Poland must become a part of the Hapsburg state, as had been previously arranged among the eastern European monarchies. The revolution of February 1848 in France opened a new chapter in the struggle between the old order and the rising forces of the modern world in nineteenth-century Europe. While the famous story of Nicholas I telling his guests at a ball to saddle their horses because a republic had just been proclaimed in France is not exact, the Russian autocrat did react immediately and violently to the news from Paris. Although delighted by the fall of Louis-Philippe whom he hated as a usurper and traitor to legitimism, the tsar could not tolerate a revolution, so he broke diplomatic relations with France and assembled three or four hundred thousand troops in west-

  ern Russia in preparation for a march to the Rhine. But rebellion spread faster than the Russian sovereign's countermeasures: in less than a month Prussia and Austria were engulfed in the conflagration, and the entire established order on the continent began rapidly to crumble into dust.

  In the trying months that followed, Nicholas I rose to his full stature as the defender of legitimism in Europe. The remarkable ultimate failures of the initially successful revolutions of 1848 and 1849 can best be explained in terms of the specific political, social, and economic conditions of the different countries involved. Still, the Russian monarch certainly did what he could to tip the balance in favor of reaction. Following a strange and thunderous manifesto against rev
olution, he proceeded to exercise all his influence to oppose the numerous uprisings that had gripped the continent. For example, the Russian government supplied Austria with a loan of six million rubles and pointed out to Great Britain that, if an outside power were to support an Italian state against the Hapsburgs, Russia would join Austria as a full-fledged combatant. The first Russian military intervention to suppress revolution occurred in July 1848 in the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, where Russia acted for itself and for Turkey to defeat the Rumanian national movement. The most important action took place in the summer of 1849, when Nicholas I heeded the Austrian appeal, on the basis of the agreements of 1833, to help combat the revolt in Hungary, assigning Paskevich and almost two hundred thousand troops for the campaign. The successful Russian intervention in Hungary - which earned the undying hatred of the Hungarians - was directed in part against the Polish danger, as Polish revolutionaries were fighting on the Hungarian side. But its chief rationale lay in the Russian autocrat's determination to preserve the existing order in Europe, for the Austrian empire was one of the main supports of that order. Russia also sided with Austria in the Austrian dispute with Prussia over hegemony in Germany and thus helped the Hapsburgs to score a major diplomatic victory in the Punctation of Olmiitz of November 29, 1850, when the Prussians abandoned their attempt to seize the initiative in Germany and accepted a return to the status quo and Austrian leadership in that area.

  The impressive and in certain ways dominant position which Russia gained with the collapse of the revolutions of 1848-49 on the continent failed to last. In fact, the international standing of the "gendarme of Europe" and the country he ruled was much stronger in appearance than in reality: liberalism and nationalism, although defeated, were by no means dead, and they carried European public opinion from Poland and Hungary to France and England; even the countries usually friendly to the tsar complained of his interference with their interests, as in the case of Prussia, or at least resented his overbearing solicitude, as was true of Austria. On the other hand, Nicholas I himself - in the opinion of some specialists - re-

  acted to his success by becoming more blunt, uncompromising, doctrinaire, and domineering than ever before. The stage was set for a debacle.

  The Crimean War

  However, when the debacle did come, the accompanying circumstances proved to be exceedingly complex, and they were related especially to issues in the Near East. There the resumption of hostilities between Turkey and Egypt in 1839-40 undid the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. European powers acted together to impose a settlement upon the combatants, under terms of the Treaty of London of July 15, 1840, and they also signed the Straits Convention of July 13, 1841. The Convention, in which Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and France participated, reaffirmed the closure of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles to all foreign warships in time of peace, substituting an international guarantee of the five signatories for the separate treaty between Russia and Turkey. Nicholas I proved willing to co-operate with the other states, and, in the same spirit, made a particular effort during the years following to come to a thorough understanding with Great Britain. In the summer of 1844 he personally traveled to England and discussed the Near Eastern situation and prospects with Lord Aberdeen, the foreign secretary. The results of these conversations were summarized in an official Russian memorandum, prepared by Nesselrode, which the British government accepted as accurate. According to its provisions, Russia and Great Britain were to maintain the Turkish state as long as possible, and, in case of its impending dissolution, the two parties were to come in advance to an understanding concerning the re-partitioning of the territories involved and other problems.

  Although the crucial Russo-British relations in the decades preceding the Crimean War have been variously explicated and assessed by different scholars, such as Puryear who saw the picture from the Russian side and Temperley who observed it from the British side, several elements in the situation stand out clearly. Nicholas I's apparently successful agreement with Great Britain had an illusory and indeed a dangerous character. The two main points of the understanding - the preservation and the partitioning of Turkey - were, in a sense, contradictory, and the entire agreement was, therefore, especially dependent on identical, or at least very similar, interpretation by both partners of developments in the Near East, a degree of harmony never to be achieved. Moreover, the form of the agreement also contributed to a certain ambivalence and difference of opinion: while Nicholas I and his associates considered it to be a firm arrangement of fundamental importance, the British apparently thought of it more as a secret exchange of opinions not binding on the subsequent premiers and foreign ministers of Her Majesty's government. The Russian emperor's

  talks in January and February of 1853 with Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British ambassador, when the tsar dwelt on the imminent collapse of the Ottoman Empire and offered a plan of partition, served only to emphasize the gulf between the two states. The complex and unfortunate entanglement with Great Britain was one of the chief bases for Nicholas I's mistaken belief that his Near Eastern policy had strong backing in Europe.

  In 1850 a dispute began in the Holy Land between Catholics and Orthodox in regard to certain rights connected with some of the most sacred shrines of Christendom. Countering Napoleon Ill's championing of the Catholic cause, Nicholas I acted in his usual direct and forceful manner by sending Prince Alexander Menshikov, in February 1853, with an ultimatum to the Turks: the Holy Land controversy was to be settled in favor of the Orthodox, and the Porte was to recognize explicitly the rights of the vast Orthodox population of its empire. When Turkey accepted the first series of demands, but would not endorse Russian interference on behalf of the Orthodox subjects of the Porte, considering it to be an infringement of Turkish sovereignty, Menshikov terminated the discussion and left Constantinople. Russian occupation of the Danubian principalities as "material guarantees" added fuel to the fire. There is little doubt that the rash actions of Nicholas I precipitated war, although it is probable that he wanted to avoid a conflict. After the first phases of the controversy described above, the Russian government acted in a conciliatory manner, accepting the so-called Vienna Note as a compromise settlement, evacuating the principalities, and repeatedly seeking peace even after the outbreak of hostilities. The war guilt at this later stage should be divided principally among Turkey, France, Great Britain, and even Austria, who pressed increasingly exacting demands on Russia. In any case, after fighting between Russia and Turkey started in October 1853, and the Russians destroyed a Turkish fleet and transports off Sinope on November 30, Great Britain and France joined the Porte in March 1854, and Sardinia intervened the next year. Austria stopped just short of hostilities against Russia, exercising strong diplomatic pressure on the side of the allies. Nicholas I found his country fighting alone against a European coalition.

  The Russian emperor's Near Eastern policy, which culminated in the Crimean War, has received various interpretations. Many historians have emphasized Russian aggressiveness toward Turkey, explaining it by the economic requirements of Russia, such as the need to protect grain trade through the Black Sea or to obtain markets in the Near East, by the strategic imperative to control the Straits, or simply by a grand design of political expansion more or less in the footsteps of Catherine the Great. Yet, as we had occasion to observe, the tsar's attitude toward the Ottomans long retained the earmarks of his basic belief in legitimism. Even his ultimate decision to partition the Turkish Empire can be construed as a

  result of the conviction that the Porte could not survive in the modern world, and that therefore the leading European states had to arrange for a proper redistribution of possessions and power in the Balkans and the Near East in order to avoid anarchy, revolution, and war. In other words, Nicholas's approach to Great Britain can be considered sincere, and the ensuing misunderstanding thus all the more tragic. However, one other factor must also be weighed in an appreciation of Nicholas I's N
ear Eastern policy: Orthodoxy. Obviously, the Crimean War was provoked partially by religious conflicts. And the tsar himself retained throughout his reign a certain ambivalence toward the sultan. He repeatedly granted the legitimacy of the sultan's rule in the Ottoman Empire, but remained, nevertheless, uneasy about the sprawling Moslem state which believed in the Koran and oppressed its numerous Orthodox subjects. Once the conflict began, Nicholas I readily proclaimed himself the champion of the Cross against the infidels.

  Although the Crimean War involved several major states, its front was narrowly restricted. After Austrian troops occupied Moldavia and Wallachia separating the Russians from the Turks in the Balkans, the combatants possessed only one common border, the Russo-Turkish frontier in the Caucasus, and that distant area with its extremely difficult terrain was unsuited for major operations. The allies controlled the sea and staged a number of naval demonstrations and minor attacks on the Russian coasts from the Black, the Baltic, and the White seas to the Bering Sea. Then, in search of a decisive front, they landed in the Crimea in September 1854. The war became centered on the allied effort to capture the Crimean naval base of Sevastopol. Except for the Crimea, the fighting went on only in the Caucasus, where the Russians proved rather successful and even seized the important Turkish fortress of Kars. Sevastopol held out for eleven and a half months against the repeated bombardments and assaults of French, British, Turkish, and Sardinian forces with their superior weapons. While the Russian supply service broke down and the high command showed little initiative, the soldiers and the sailors of the Black Sea fleet, led by such dedicated officers as the admirals Paul Nakhimov and Vladimir Kornilov - both, incidentally, killed in combat - fought desperately for their city. Colonel Count Edward Todtleben, the chief Russian military engineer at Sevastopol, proved to be a great improviser of defenses, who did more than any other man to delay the allied advance. The hell and the heroism of the Crimean War were best related by Leo Tolstoy, himself an artillery officer in the besieged city, in his Sevastopol Tales. In English literature the War inspired Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," a poetic description of an episode in the battle of Balaklava. It might be added that this conflict, which is considered by many scholars as unnecessary and a result of misunderstandings, was the more tragic since typhus