Russia (25 page)

The rout of the once all-victorious Swedish army has often been attributed to bad luck - not least by Charles’s chief apologist, his chamberlain Gustavus Adlerfelt. But the Russian strategy of attrition had served to wear the Swedish troops down. True, the co-ordination of the Swedish battle would have been better had not Charles been
hors de combat
having received a stray bullet in the leg two days earlier. On the other hand the Russian command, having analysed their initial failure at Narva and their other encounters with the Swedes, had set the scene to suit themselves. They had built redoubts to block certain approaches to the enemy and divert them from their main objective, the Russian encampment at Poltava. And this time when the Swedes attacked the shock was absorbed. Charles’s troops were slowed, then stopped, and finally turned. That day Charles lost nearly 10,000 men dead or taken prisoner. Of the prisoners, the rank and file were put to work on useful projects, and several of the officers, educated men, were to find useful employment in the Russian service, in Siberia and elsewhere.

Charles had set out with high hopes and twenty regiments. According to Adlerfelt, ‘Sweden never saw so considerable a force, nor could … [it] have been conducted with more prudence good council and wisdom.’ There was never a braver leader, claimed Adlerfelt, nor more loyal and disciplined troops. Defeat when it came was unbelievable, and Adlerfelt tried to deny it: ‘If the Muscovites had gained so complete a victory as they pretended, why did they not immediately follow the remains of the army?’
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The answer was that there was no point. What remained of that famous army, 17,000 strong, had had its sting drawn, and most of its troops soon capitulated. Only Charles and Mazepa with their staffs and some close retainers fled into Ottoman territory, where they were accorded political asylum.

The victory at Poltava raised Russia’s profile in the consciousness of Western powers, though even before this England had begun trying to lure Russia into an alliance. It also seems to have marked shifts in Russia’s military policy, both to more open forms of warfare and to preferring Russian over foreign generals in appointments to top commands. Furthermore, since Charles, even in exile, refused to make peace, Sweden had to be forced to come to terms. This required a build-up of Russian naval power in the north, involving the expansion of shipyards at Onega and Ladoga to give them a capacity to build both frigates for deep waters and galleys to negotiate the shallow Baltic. The fruit was Russia’s first significant victory at sea, when, off Hango in 1714, a flotilla of Russian galleys defeated a Swedish force, capturing a frigate and over 100 guns.

This feat was enough to give Peter command of the shallow seas off Finland, and made even the Swedish heartland vulnerable to attack. Since Russian forces had by then occupied Livonia and Estonia - taking Riga, Pernau, Reval, Viborg, Kexholm and most other Swedish holdings on the southern and eastern shorelines of the Baltic — Sweden had virtually no negotiating cards left to play. But Charles was as obstinate as he had been headstrong. He rejected further overtures in 1718, when he was offered the return of Finland, Estonia and Livonia if only he would cede Ingria, Narva and Viborg. He was even offered help to conquer Norway. His death later that year allowed negotiations to proceed, but it was only under pressure of further military operations in the Baltic and Russia’s threat to support the pretensions of the Duke of Holstein to the throne of Sweden that peace was eventually concluded at Nystad in I721.
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At last the fireworks could be fired over the Neva and Peter could accept a new title.

Sweden had been the chief focus of Peter’s attentions for the preceding twenty years and more, but it had not been the only one. There was intense diplomatic activity in central Europe, where a policy of dynastic imperialism was promoted. A series of political liaisons marked the progress of this policy. He married his half-cousin Anna to the Duke of Courland, her sister to the Duke of Mecklenberg-Schwerin, and her daughter to the Prince of Brunswick-Bevern. His son Alexis was married to a princess of
Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, his daughter by his second wife, Catherine, to the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. In this fashion Peter’s kin and progeny came to be included in that talisman of aristocratic respectability the
Almanack de Gotha,
family ties were created with several strategically placed territories in central Europe, and precedents were laid for the intermarriage of Romanovs and some of the grandest crowned heads of Europe.
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The defeat of Sweden, with its breakthrough to the Baltic, was Peter’s most famous achievement. It was associated with his creation of St Petersburg, which he made his capital in 1713, despite the fact that (or perhaps because) the plague, introduced by Swedish troops, had taken a heavy toll of life among the urban population and of the Russian forces in the Baltic area. This step, designed to entrench his hold on the Baltic, served to reorient the Empire towards the West, distancing decision-making from Russia’s other frontiers.

Yet, paradoxically, the successes in the Baltic region had the effect of promping new Russian lunges in other directions. Russian observers had noted that Holland, Britain, even Portugal had been growing immensely rich thanks to their colonies and trade in India and south-east Asia. The Russians had long since secured access to Persian silks and the gemstones of India. The acquisition of Baltic ports was, as expected, a stimulus to trade. Projects to establish colonies in Madagascar and the Molucca Islands were mooted before being sensibly rejected.
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Finally it was decided that commerce with the West could be made much more profitable if Russia exploited its central position in the Eurasian land mass by establishing itself as the intermediary for trade with the East.

But access to the Mediterranean would be better. The Turks blocked the way. However, with the help of an uprising by the Orthodox population of the Balkans, who were sympathetic to Russia, an expeditionary force might force a way through. A campaign into the Ottoman Balkans with this purpose in view had been mounted in 1711, and it marks the origin of the ‘Eastern Question’ over which British statesmen were to agonize in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Turks were at war with Russia - hoping to regain Azov and to shore up their position in south-eastern Europe - when prominent Romanians, Serbs and other Orthdox peoples subject to the Turks became excited at the prospect of a Russian victory. In a Romanian parallel to Mazepa’s fatal switch of allegiance from Russia to Sweden (and for similar reasons of personal advancement), the hospodar of Moldavia, Dmitrie Cantemir, only recently installed by the Turks, declared for Russia.

The Russians responded by trying to rouse the Orthodox population in other parts of the Balkans too, but for formal and diplomatic reasons the call went out from the Patriarch of Moscow rather than from the Tsar himself:

To all faithful Metropolitans, Governors, Sirdars, Haiduk, Captains, Palikaris and all Christians [whether] Romanians, Serbs, Croats, Albanians, Bosnians, Montenegrins, and to all [others] who love God and are friendly to Christians:

You know how the Turks have trodden our faith into the mud, seized all [our] holy places by treachery, ravaged and destroyed many churches and monasteries … and what misery they have caused and how many widows and orphans they have seized … as wolves seize on sheep. But now I am coming to your aid … Shake off fear, and let us fight for the faith and for the Church to the last drop of our blood.
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In effect, Peter had revived the Orthodox version of the crusader tradition which had died in the fifteenth century. But though this generated some excitement among the Balkan Christian elite, there was a disastrous failure to co-ordinate operations with the invading force. As a result, Peter was trapped by Turkish and Tatar forces on the river Pruth, and was forced to conclude a humiliating peace. Among the concessions he was called upon to make were to return Azov, Russia’s gateway into the Black Sea, to the Turks and to withdraw his troops from Poland (though on this he dragged his feet).

This latest failure against the Turks turned Peter’s attention further east. On the Central Asian front ambition was also to exceed capability in the short term. The chief impediment was not the opposition of rival powers, because Russia had a monopoly of access from the north, and was minded to keep it, but distance and keeping communications secure from local predators. It took a caravan about forty-five days to journey from Astrakhan to Bukhara, and another two weeks to reach Tashkent. In 1717 Peter ordered a reconnaissance in strength to be mounted along the famous Silk Road to Khiva. A force of 2,000 cavalry, including many Cossacks from the Terek, set out under the command of a Kabardinian prince who had been Russianized, Aleksandr Bekovich-Cherkasskii. But having survived a long and perilous journey across the desert, they were inveigled into a trap by the Khan of Khiva, and the entire force was slaughtered or taken as slaves.
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And if the Central Asia khans were wily, the steppe nomads were as ravenous as ever, both for booty and for slaves.

In 1720 a group of over 100 Yaik Cossacks and Russians taking salt and fish to market on the Volga was intercepted by a much larger raiding party.
A Cossack called Mikhail Andreyev was among those taken. He managed to escape, taking two horses with him, but then fell foul of a small group of rampaging Bashkirs, who kept him for two months trying to sell him. Fortunately for him a Russian tribute-collector came to his rescue, ransoming him for a silver-trimmed bridle, a pair of boots and a fur hat.
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The ever lurking presence of such steppe bandits, who sometimes rode in large parties, constituted a serious deterrent to commercial investment in the oriental trade overland.

The arrival of the Jungarian Kalmyks posed a problem, for they mounted raids into the province of Kazan. So did the Kazakhs, who blocked Russian approaches to Sinkiang and Mongolia. The fact that the Bashkirs, despite their nominal subjection to Russia, threw off their traces from time to time and went on wild, destructive rampages compounded the problem of order on the steppe. It was to contain the threat of the Kazakhs and Kalmyks in particular that Peter ordered the construction of a defensive line in southern Siberia east of the Iaik (Ural) river. This so-called Orenburg Line, begun in 1716, consisted of forts interspersed with redoubts, with beacons at regular intervals which were to be lit to give warning of approaching raiders.
¹¹
These forts became information gathering points concerned with the movement and mood of steppe peoples not only locally but over all inner Asia. The security of the caravan route to China became important from 1719, after a splendid embassy led by Lev Izmailov with attendant gentlemen and secretaries and a cohort of interpreters, clerks, valets and footmen, besides an escort of smart dragoons, a military band and a Scottish doctor,
¹²
made its way to Beijing to gain some valuable commercial concessions. These advantages were to be reinforced eight years later when China agreed to accept triennial Russian caravans of up to 200 traders and to pay their expenses during their stay.
¹³
Yet Peter seems to have been more interested in trade with Persia and India than with China.

Peter’s instructions to Artamon Volynskii, whom he had appointed envoy to Persia in 1715, suggest as much. They focused particularly on Persia’s trade and its communications with India. At the same time, watchful Russian eyes were trained on the Caucasus. Peter had in mind the creation of an emporium somewhere in this mountainous and treacherous region to serve as Russia’s base for trade with Persia, India and beyond. And in 1721 an opportunity arose when the chief of the Lezghians asked for Russian support against Persia. Peter decided not to let the opportunity slip, and ordered substantial forces to muster at Astrakhan the following spring. At that point it was learned that the Afghans had also rebelled against the
Shah. When the Safavid dynasty crumbled, Russian intervention became urgent, since the crisis in Persia would certainly bring the Turks in to exploit it. Peter himself travelled with the expedition to the Caspian.

The coastal town of Derbent surrendered without a fight, but Baku resisted and Peter turned back. At one point on this expedition an officer suggested to him that it would be much easier, and cheaper, to get to India via the river system of Siberia and the Pacific. Peter replied that the distance was too great. Then, pointing south towards Astrabad in the southeastern corner of the Caspian, he remarked that from Astrabad ‘to Balkh and Badakshan with pack camels takes only twelve days. On that road to India no one can interfere with us.’
¹⁴
In this Peter revealed his chief motive in going to war with Persia — a war which would continue until 1735.

Meanwhile Russia involved itself in the politics of the Central Asian steppe. In 1723 the Kalmyks began to move into the valley of the Syr-Darya and towards Tashkent, forcing the Kazakhs west and north, and in 1725 some Kazakhs approached the Russian government with a request to be taken under its protection. The Russians set out to gain control of the northern part
of
the desert steppe, in order both to protect west Siberia and to trade with the Kazakhs. Mutual need promoted co-operation, but Russia soon became the dominant partner — thanks to its trading position rather than force. Thereafter it was to be a matter of negotiating and renegotiating terms as the local situation and the aims of Russian strategy changed. Before long Kazakhs were helping to guard the Orenburg area, which soon became a focus for Kazakh trade. Thenceforth St Petersburg was able to control the Kazakhs by offering economic incentives and controlling the prices of the goods they needed and wanted to sell.
¹⁵
On the Central Asian front ambition might have exceeded capability in the short term, but Peter’s aims were to be pursued with vigour in the two decades following his death in 1725.