READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE PARTITION OF POLAND

DURING the period which elapsed between the Peace of Paris and the first French Revolution, the affairs of Eastern and Western Europe offer but few points of contact and connection. The alliance between France and Austria, and the Bourbon family compact, helped to maintain peace upon the Continent, and thus the only war among the Western nations was a maritime one between France, Spain, and England. The affairs of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, were assuming a high degree of importance, through the wars and intrigues of Russia, now rapidly assuming the dimensions of a colossal Power. We shall, therefore, pursue the affairs of these groups of nations separately in the following chapters.

We have already briefly alluded to the revolution which of placed Catharine II upon the throne of Russia. Peter III owed his downfall to two causes; he had lost the affections both of his subjects and of his wife. Peter was, on the whole, a good-natured well-meaning man, but wholly unfit to govern either a nation or a household. He lost his throne and his life chiefly through his want of tact and knowledge of the world. The slave of passion and caprice, the sport of every impulse to a degree which caused the soundness of his intellect to be suspected, he took no pains to conceal his feelings. He openly displayed his contempt for the manners of the Russians and the creed of their Church; and as he had not that strength of character which had enabled Peter the Great to triumph over the prejudices of his subjects, he became at once both hated and despised. Yet it was no difficult task to govern the Russians. His predecessor Elizabeth had sat securely on her throne, though she utterly neglected all business, and abandoned herself to the most profligate extravagance, and the vilest sensuality. Peter, on the contrary, began his reign with some measures really good in themselves, but unwelcome because they had not the true Russian stamp. Although Elizabeth’s clemency has been praised, she had banished 80,000 persons to languish in Siberia. Most of these, except common criminals, were recalled by Peter, and among them Biron, the former Duke of Courland, Marshal Münnich, and L'Estocq. He forbade the use of torture and abolished the Secret Chancery, a terrible inquisition of police. He enlarged the privileges of the nobles, permitted them to travel, or even to enter foreign service without forfeiting their national rights; and he did away with all monopolies. But it was the reforms which he attempted in the army and the Church which proved most dangerous to himself. He dismissed Elizabeth’s costly body­guard, converted his own Holstein Cuirassiers into a regiment of horse-guards, and ordered that all the rest of the army should be clothed and disciplined after the Prussian fashion. Still more hazardous were his innovations in the Church. A Lutheran himself, he abolished at his Court the observance of the Greek fasts, and openly neglected most of the established usages of that religion. He endeavored to suppress the use of images, candles, and other external rites, and to reform the long, patriarchal beards, and distinctive habits of the clergy. These attacks afforded that Order a handle to excite the populace against him; but Peter’s real offence had been his beneficial attempt to reduce their enormous incomes by confiscating the possessions of the convents.

As he thus estranged from him the affections of his people,  so he had long before alienated those of his wife. The union had never been a happy one. Catharine had lived on ill terms with her husband ever since their marriage, in spite of the attempts of Frederick II to reconcile them. They had each their paramours. Peter’s favorite mistress was Elizabeth Woronzoff. On the anniversary of his birthday, February 21st, 1762, he had insulted his wife by compelling her to decorate Elizabeth with the Order of Catharine. The Empress, on her side, was no model of domestic virtue. Her son, Paul Petrowitsch, the heir of the Russian throne, was, as we have said, undoubtedly the offspring of Soltikoff. Ever since 1755 she had lived apart from her husband. Even during the lifetime of the Empress Elizabeth she had conspired against her husband with the chancellor, Bestuscheff; and after Peter’s accession it seemed unavoidable that one should fall. As he had threatened to dismiss her, Catharine resolved to anticipate him, and her character enabled her to accomplish his ruin.

Catharine was, in many respects, the reverse of her husband. She possessed great talent and many accomplishments; while a certain geniality had, in spite of her profligacy, procured her friends and admirers, not only in Russia, but also in Germany and France. Instead of offending her future subjects by shocking their prejudices, she had striven to conciliate their good-will by conforming to them. She learnt their language, adopted their customs, and scrupulously adhered to all their religious observances. Secure of popularity, she laid the plot of that tragedy of lust and blood which recalls the worst days of the Roman Empire. Her chief instruments were the Princess Dashkoff, sister of Peter’s mistress, and the five brothers Orloff. The princess, then only nineteen years of age, possessed a genius for intrigue equal to that of Catharine herself, whose frivolity and taste for French literature she shared. Gregory Orloff, one of the five brothers engaged in the conspiracy, was distinguished by his handsome person, and had long been Catharine’s lover. Odard, a Piedmontese littérateur, contributed much to the success of the plot, which was also communicated to the Count Panin, subsequently Catharine’s Minister. But one of its most zealous supporters was Setschin, Archbishop of Novgorod; who incited the multitude of popes or priests in his jurisdiction against the “profane” Emperor. The existence of the conspiracy was widely known; even Frederick II had acquainted the Czar with it; but the careless Peter listened to no warnings. Fearful of discovery, Dashkoff and the Orloffs compelled Catharine to give the signal of execution. Peter was then living at Oranienbaum, Catharine at Peterhof, two residences at some distance from St. Petersburg. Early in the morning of July 9th, 1762, Catharine repaired to the capital, and caused the soldiers, who had been bribed, to take an oath of allegiance to her. The Senate followed the example of the soldiery in declaring Peter III deposed, and recognizing Catharine II in his place. She was proclaimed in the principal church by the Archbishop of Novgorod, sole Empress; while her son Paul was recognized only as her successor. Ignorant of all these events, Peter had gone in the morning to Peterhof to celebrate there the festival of Peter and Paul, and expecting to find his wife. When informed by a secret message of the proceedings in the capital, his presence of mind entirely forsook him. At length, by the advice of Marshal Münnich, who, with one or two others, alone remained faithful to him, he embarked on board his yacht, and proceeded to Cronstadt, in the hope of securing that important fortress. But Catharine had anticipated him. The commandant and garrison, who had been gained by the Empress, threatened to fire on the yacht, which so alarmed Peter that he hid himself in the lowest hold of the vessel. Münnich now attempted to persuade him to sail to Revel, go on board a man-of-war, proceed to Pomerania, and place himself at the head of the army, which, as we have said, was preparing to invade Denmark. But Peter had not the courage requisite for such a step. He listened in preference to the advice of his suite, who recommended him to return to Oranienbaum and effect a reconciliation with Catharine. Here he wrote a cowardly and submissive letter to his wife, offering to divide with her the Imperial power; and as it remained unanswered, he dispatched a second, in which he threw himself wholly on her mercy, and begged permission to retire to Holstein. The bearer of the last, Ismailhoff, Peter’s friend and confidant, was bribed by the promise of high honor and rewards to become the betrayer of his unfortunate master. Ismailhoff, on his return, arrested the Tsar; and after persuading, or rather compelling, him to sign a degrading document in which he declared his incompetence to govern, and which he signed only with the title of Duke of Holstein, brought him in his own custody to Peterhof. Catharine entered St. Petersburg in a sort of triumph. Gregory Orloff rode by her side; and it was evident what functions were reserved for him. Apartments were assigned to him in all the Imperial palaces. He was the first of twelve who successively held this post of favorite in the household of the Empress. But the tragedy was not yet complete. The chief criminals had gone too far to allow Peter to live. He was murdered at a country-house near Peterhof, by Alexis Orloff and some confederates, by whom he was strangled, after the failure of an attempt to poison him with some Burgundy (July 17th). It is to be hoped that Catharine was not privy to this last act; yet it is difficult to reconcile her ignorance of it with her refusal to allow her husband to retire to Holstein. When Alexis Orloff came to announce to her husband’s death, she was amusing a select circle with an entertaining anecdote. Alexis called her aside to relate the news, which she affected to deplore; and after giving, with great calmness, the necessary orders she returned to her company, and resumed the anecdote exactly where she had broken off!

Catharine in her public announcement of Peter’s death, attributed it to hemorrhoidal colic; invited all faithful subjects to pray for the repose of his soul, and to regard his unexpected death as the effect of a Divine Providence, pointing out by its unfathomable decrees paths which it alone knew for the good of herself, her throne, and her country. The body of the Tsar lay in state in the convent of Alexander Newski, where the people were admitted to view it. The throat, it was observed, was encircled with a much deeper cravat than the Tsar had been accustomed to wear. In a hypocritical manifesto, dated on the day of her husband’s death, Catharine heaped every possible obloquy on his memory, and charged him with a design to murder herself, and deprive her son of the succession.

Apart from her private life, the administration of Catharine II, like that of Caesar Borgia, was excellent. She introduced an admirable organization both into the Government and the army. Even in the Church she carried through many of those reforms the attempting which had proved her husband’s ruin. Towards the end of the year 1762 the ukase of Peter III was submitted to an ecclesiastical commission, the chief of whom were bribed; the rest were regarded as contemptible. They attempted, in revenge, to excite against the Empress the latent elements of discord. They sought to awaken public sympathy in favor of Ivan VI, the rightful heir of the Russian Crown, who, dethroned in his very cradle, had now been more than twenty years a prisoner. Peter III, naturally kind-hearted, had visited that unfortunate Prince in his wretched dungeon at Schlüsselburg, and had endeavored in some degree to alleviate his misfortunes. The malcontent popes dispersed abroad a manifesto, said to have been drawn up during the last days of Peter III, in which that Sovereign, revealing the guilt of his wife, excluded her son, the Grand Prince Paul, from the succession. The popular discontent began to assume formidable dimensions; the soldiery were infected with it, and everything seemed to promise the outbreak of a fresh revolution. But Catharine was well served by her police. The soldiers of the guard were forbidden to assemble, except at the special command of their officers; some of the most turbulent were arrested, and either punished with the knout or banished to Siberia; fear reduced the remainder to obedience. The secularization of Church property now proceeded without molestation. That measure was even assisted by the Archbishop of Novgorod, although he had delivered a bitter invective against the memory of Peter III shortly after his death, the chief topic of which was the aggressions of that Prince on the property of the Church. But Catharine had bought the time-serving prelate, and soon after she deposed him; in the just confidence that the contempt which he had incurred with his Order would deprive him of all power to hurt her. It was in consequence of these disturbances and some that followed in 1763, that Ivan VI lost his life. Well-informed courtiers whispered that he must die; insecure on her still tottering throne, his name was a tower of strength to Catharine’s enemies. In the summer of 1764 she undertook a journey to Riga, in order, it was suspected, to have an interview with her former favorite, Count Poniatowski; but more probably that she might escape, by her absence, the suspicion of being privy to Ivan’s murder. Before her departure she gave a written order to the two officers who had the custody of Ivan to put him to death in case of any attempt to deliver him from prison. Such an attempt was actually made by Mirowitsch, a lieutenant of the regiment in garrison at Schlüsselburg, and the orders of Catharine were executed. Mirowitsch’s motives for this act are enveloped in mystery; but the evidence seems to point to the conclusion that it had been concerted with the Court. He made no attempt to escape, went through his trial with the greatest composure, and was even observed to laugh upon the scaffold. The police had orders to delay the execution till a certain hour, and Mirowitsch confidently expected a reprieve; but his head fell while the smile was still playing on his lips. The death of the deluded tool was necessary to allay the suspicion excited by the enigmatical death of Ivan.

One of Catharine's first political acts after her accession was to assure Frederick V of Denmark of her peaceful intentions, and to recall from Mecklenburg the Russian troops which Peter had kept in that Duchy with the view of invading the Danish dependencies. Catharine’s project of aggrandizement lay nearer home, and she prepared to reinstate Biron as Duke of Courland. After Biron’s fall the Duchy had long remained without a head, and was entirely governed by Russia. At length, in 1758, Charles, the third son of Augustus III of Poland, was invested with it through the influence of the Empress Elizabeth; but neither Peter III nor Catharine recognized him. Charles defended himself six months against the Russian forces, but was then obliged to yield. Catharine’s motive for deposing him was to bring Courland more directly under Russian influence; and she promised in return to mediate the evacuation of Saxony, still held by the Prussian troops. In vain Augustus represented that the matter belonged to the jurisdiction of the King and Republic of Poland; the presence of 15,000 Russian troops in Courland was an all-sufficing answer to this objection.

This proceeding was a mere prelude to that larger drama which Catharine was preparing to exhibit on the theatre of Poland itself. At the very beginning of her reign, the health of the Polish King, Augustus III, promising him but a short tenure of life, she had prepared to interfere in the affairs of that Kingdom at the next election, and with that view had sent Count Kayserlingk as her ambassador to Warsaw. Augustus, who had not visited Poland after the Peace of Hubertsburg, died at Dresden, October 5th, 1763. He was succeeded in the Saxon Electorate by his son, Frederick Christian, who, however, also died in the following December, leaving a minor son, Frederick Augustus, whose election to the Polish Crown was out of the question. Meanwhile, since the death of Augustus III, Poland had fallen into a state of complete anarchy. Two factions contended for the mastery; on one side the Czartoriskis, Oginskis, and Poniatowskis, supported by Russia; on the other the Radzivills and Braniskis, who relied upon the influence of France. Catharine had resolved to place the Polish Crown on the head of Count Stanislaus Poniatowski, one of her former lovers; a choice, however, not dictated by any recollections of that kind, but by the cool and politic advice of Count Panin, her Foreign Minister, who saw, in the weak character of Stanislaus, all those qualities which would render him the fitting tool of the interested designs of Russia. But as this plan was likely to be opposed by Austria and France, Catharine resolved to support it by a closer alliance with Prussia.

The conduct of Frederick II at this juncture was most important to the future prospects and policy of Europe. He had to choose whether he should aid the rising flood of Russian might, which threatened to overwhelm the surrounding nations, or whether he should endeavor to set a dam to it by forming a close alliance with Poland, and if possible Austria. At the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, Frederick, in a note addressed to the Poles, had declared that the power of the house of Brandenburg and the freedom of the Polish Republic went hand in hand, that the fall of one would certainly draw after it the destruction of the other. The time seemed now to be arrived when the sincerity of this declaration was to be put to the proof. Several of the Polish magnates were inclined to elect Prince Henry of Prussia for their Sovereign, and Frederick was solicited to support their choice. Prince Henry was, however, childless, and his acceptance of the throne of Poland could only have assured the union of the two kingdoms during the remainder of his lifetime. But Frederick’s conduct was probably determined principally by the state of his foreign relations. The election of his brother as King of Poland would, in all probability, involve him in a lengthened war with Russia, and in such a struggle to whom could he look for help? Louis XV opposed him, Maria Theresa hated and suspected him, George III and Lord Bute had deserted him. A Russian alliance, on the contrary, not only assured him the support of that Power, but, by serving to maintain the anarchy of Poland, held out to him the prospect of eventual aggrandizement at the expense of that unhappy country.

The alliance was effected through Frederick’s complaisance Russia in allowing Catharine to dispose of the Polish Throne. On Prussia, April 11th, 1764, a treaty was concluded at St. Petersburg, which, during the greater part of Frederick’s reign, determined the political connection between Russia and Prussia. Ostensibly, it was merely a defensive alliance for a term of eight years, but its real character was determined by certain secret conventions. The Empress and the King engaged by a secret article to prevent Poland from being deprived of its elective right, and rendered an hereditary kingdom, or an absolute government—stipulations which, though agreeable to the majority of the Poles themselves, deprived them of the only chance of maintaining their existence as an independent nation. The contracting Powers also agreed to protect the Polish dissidents, or religious dissenters, against the oppressions of the dominant Catholic Church. By a secret Convention, signed on the same day, it was further arranged that the election should fall on a Piast, or member of one of the native Polish families; the person selected for that honor being Count Stanislaus Poniatowski, Stolnic (dapifer, or seneschal) of Lithuania. The election thus resolved on was finally carried out by force of arms. In the spring of 1764 the Radzivills and Braniski, the crown grand-general, appeared at the head of an army, and expelled the Russians from Graudenz; but the Czartoriskis, uncles of Stanislaus Poniatowski, placing themselves at the head of a Confederation, and assisted by Russian troops, drove the opposing faction from the field, and Stanislaus was then chosen King, September 7th, 1764. To secure his election, 10,000 Russians had marched to Warsaw, while Prussian troops made demonstrations on the frontiers. Only 4,000 electors were present on the plain of Wola, about a twentieth part of those who sometimes appeared; and in order to avoid the liberum veto, the Elective Diet was converted into a Confederation, which was bound by a majority.

The policy pursued by Russia and Prussia in order to destroy Polish nationality resembled that adopted by France and Sweden at the Peace of Westphalia for the destruction of the German Empire. But though the Emperor retained at last little more than an empty title, the German nation survived in its pristine vigour, because two great and powerful monarchies had arisen in the bosom of the Confederation, which were able to assert themselves against the surrounding nations, and even to take their place among the leading Powers of Europe. But a kingdom like Poland, in which were preserved all the abuses of the middle ages, and which possessed no centralized power, could not exist in the neighborhood of several powerful and despotic monarchies. We have already briefly adverted to these abuses, and we shall here add, from the account of a contemporary observer, a few more details respecting the state of Poland immediately before its first dismemberment. A multitude of serfs, estimated at about six millions, formed two-thirds of the nation. They differed but little from the brutes; lived in dirt, misery, and ignorance, possessed no property of their own, and if a single crop failed, died by thousands of starvation. No change of government could render their condition worse than it was. The remaining third of the nation was composed of the clergy, the great lords or magnates, the middling and smaller nobility, the lawyers, the citizens, and the Jews. The clergy were estimated at about 600,000, of whom some thirty had immense revenues; the rest were poorly off, lived in the idleness of convents, were, in general, profoundly ignorant, and employed themselves only in caballing. The magnates or great nobles numbered some 120 persons, of whom four or five might be called dominant families, princes with large revenues, numerous adherents, and even standing armies. The lesser nobility comprised between 20,000 and 30,000 persons, all in tolerable circumstances, who lived retired in their villages. Their only pursuit was to amass money and oppress their peasantry, or serfs; their only ambition to shine in a Diet, or appear among the clients of the great. The small nobility, estimated at 1,300,000 souls, may be said to have composed the real body of the nation—the Polish people. But what were they? A mass of persons without property or profession, of an ignorance amounting to stupidity, the necessary slaves of the great lords, yet claiming the quality of gentlemen from their privilege of pronouncing the veto, of talking about their liberties, and often reduced to mendicancy or to serve their more fortunate equals. The military was composed of only a few thousand brave, but ill-disciplined men. The magistracy and lawyers were also few in number, and had but a very imperfect legal education. The class of citizens, or burgesses, was almost an imaginary one. It consisted of some 400 or 500 merchants, established in the four or five walled towns of the Kingdom, and 40,000 or 50,000 artizans, as tailors, shoe­makers, weavers, etc., dispersed through the towns, or rather hamlets, where they were exposed, almost as much as the peasants, to the brutality of the nobles. Lastly came the Jews, estimated at near a million. A part of these conducted almost the whole traffic of the country, borrowed at a high rate of interest the money of ecclesiastics and nobles, and generally finished by a fraudulent bankruptcy. The remaining portion of this order were keepers of inns, public-houses, etc., and formed the bulk of the population of the towns. The Jews, the clergy, the tiers état, which, as we have seen, was quite insignificant, and foreigners residing in Poland, were alone liable to taxation, from which the nobles claimed the privilege of exemption.

A nation which possessed neither a middle class, nor commerce, nor a fixed revenue, nor a regular army, nor fortresses and artillery; whose National Assembly could be nullified by the veto of a single wrong-headed or designing member, or overawed by a turbulent Confederation; whose King possessed no real power, since the heads of the army, the law, the finances, and the political government of the State—that is, the Grand General of the Crown, the Grand Chancellor, the Grand Treasurer, and the Grand Marshal—were responsible, not to him, but to the anarchical assembly before described, carried in itself all the elements of dissolution. Such a catastrophe had been foretold a century before by John Casimir, the last King of Poland of the House of Vasa, in an address to the Diet in 1661, in which, adverting to the intestine divisions of the Kingdom, he predicted, in a remarkable manner, its future dismemberment by Muscovy, Austria, and the House of Brandenburg. Its anomalous constitution, a union of republican and monarchical forms, was fatal to its existence.

The religious dissensions, too, which prevailed in Poland were not among the least of the causes which contributed to its ruin, and served, indeed, as a pretext for effecting it. Under the name of dissidents were comprised both the members of the Reformed Church and a large number of Greek Christians, inhabiting the Lithuanian provinces, formerly subject to the Russian Empire. Calvinism had rapidly spread among a turbulent and republican nobility, and before the close of the sixteenth century, Poland counted a million Protestants. At first the dissentients had enjoyed an equality of civil rights with their Catholic fellow-countrymen. These rights, however, were gradually restricted; and towards the beginning of the eighteenth century, and especially after the time of Charles XII, who had indiscreetly attempted to render Protestantism the dominant religion, persecution became more vigorous and methodical. A Diet in 1717 ordered the destruction of all Protestant churches built since the Swedish invasion, and forbade the Reformed worship in all places where it had not existed before that event. In 1724 the intolerance of the Jesuits produced a bloody persecution at Thorn, which had nearly involved the Republic in a war with the guarantors of the Peace of Oliva. The decrees of a Diet in 1733, confirmed by another in 1736, excluded Dissenters from all offices and dignities.

The Dissenters availed themselves of the election of Stanislaus Augustus to invoke the protection of the Tsarina. Nothing could be more acceptable to Catharine than such a pretext for meddling in the affairs of Poland. In a note presented by her Ambassador, Count Kayserlingk, and her Minister, Prince Repnin, which was backed by another from Frederick II, she demanded that the dissentients should be allowed the free exercise of their religion, and enjoy the same political rights as Catholics. By thus interfering in favor of liberty of conscience, as well as by helping to maintain the Elective Monarchy, Russia and Prussia seemed to be acting in accordance with the enlightened spirit of the age, when, in fact, their object only was to serve their own purposes by keeping up the anarchy in Poland. Toleration was to be established by 40,000 bayonets. But the Diet assembled in 1765, instead of lending themselves to the views of the Empress, renewed, in a moment of enthusiasm and reaction against Russian domination, all the most objectionable constitutions against Dissenters.

From this moment the events which preceded the partition of Poland followed one another in rapid succession. The King, by his weakness and vacillation, lost the confidence of all parties. He had at first lent himself to the Russian plans in favor of the dissidents; but finding that the carrying of them through the Diet would be incompatible with the schemes which he had formed for extending the power of the Crown, he broke with Prince Repnin, the Russian Minister at Warsaw, and joined his uncles the Czartoriskis. These Princes, after the election of their nephew, had endeavored to introduce some order into the State. They wished to abolish the liberum veto, to establish a regular system of taxation, and to put the army on an adequate footing; and they formed a Confederation to carry out their views; but although Stanislaus Augustus, in the Diet which met in October, 1766, declared himself against the Russian plans in favor of the dissidents, yet the anti-Russian party suspected his sincerity, and refused to give him their confidence. Catharine, on the other hand, enraged that her creature should presume to show any will of his own, resolved, not indeed to dethrone him, but to leave him nothing but an empty title. Defeated in her projects by the Diet above mentioned, she resolved to effect them in another way. Her chief instrument in this work was Prince Charles Radzivill, a man of great authority in Lithuania, whom she had bought. Through his influence, and with the aid of Russian gold, no fewer than 178 Confederations were formed in Poland in 1767. These consisted not only of dissidents, but also of malcontent Catholics, who were led away with the idea that the King was to be deposed; but were perhaps more governed by Russian money than by any political or patriotic views. These Confederations, which are said to have numbered 80,000 members, were united into one at Radom, a town in the Palatinate of Sandomierz, under Prince Radzivill and Brzotowski as Marshals, June 23rd. According to Polish customs, a general Confederation thus formed exercised a sort of irresponsible dictatorship. Laws and magistrates were silent in its presence; the King, the Senate, the holders of the highest offices and dignities, were amenable to its jurisdiction; persons who refused to join it were liable to have their property confiscated. Having effected this object, Prince Repnin now threw off the mask. A manifesto was laid before the general Confederation of quite a different tenour from the propositions made to the separate ones. In these little had been said about the dissidents; but now a complete political equality was demanded for them; and the assembly was still further disgusted by the intimation that they were to request the Russian guarantee to the laws and constitutions which they were to promulgate. As they had also discovered that Russia would not consent to the dethronement of the King, they refused to sign the Act of Confederation; whereupon the Russian Colonel, Oarr, surrounded the assembly with his troops, and would permit nobody to depart till the Act had been signed. To the 178 Marshals of the various Confederations views of self-interest were also held out, and thus partly by force, partly by persuasion, they were induced to take an oath of fidelity to the King, and to invite his accession to the Confederation.

Repnin now ruled despotically. Under his auspices an extraordinary Diet was opened, October 4th, 1767, whose decisions, as it was held under the form of a Confederation, were regulated by a majority. Repnin arranged its proceedings in daily conferences with the Primate, Prince Radzivill, the Grand Treasurer of the Crown, and the King. The Bishops of Cracow and Kioff, the Palatine of Cracow and his son, and a few others who seemed inclined to oppose the proceedings, were seized and carried into the interior of Russia. A delegation or committee of sixty members, and another smaller one of fourteen, were now appointed; and the Diet was prorogued to receive their report. The smaller Delegation was empowered to make binding resolutions by a majority of votes, and thus eight men could decide upon the future fate and constitution of Poland, although by the will of Russia and Prussia the liberum veto—in other words, unanimity in the proceedings of the Diet—was to remain the fundamental principle of the Constitution! Repnin governed all the proceedings of the Delegation, and the report laid before the Diet contained only such matters as had been approved of by him. On March 5th, 1768, the King and the two Marshals of the Confederation signed an Act comprising, in the name of the nation, the resolutions of the Diet, and the Confederation was then dissolved. The result of their deliberations was incorporated in a treaty with Russia, and two separate Conventions, which established the future Constitution of Poland. The treaty confirmed the Peace of Moscow of 1686. By the first separate Act, the Roman Catholic religion was made dominant in Poland. It was provided that the King must be a Papist; that the Queen could not be crowned unless she belonged to the Romish communion; that any Pole who abandoned that creed after the establishment of this Act, should incur the penalty of banishment. But, on the other hand, the Protestant Confederation was recognized as legal; Dissenters were authorized to retain the churches and foundations of which they were in possession; and were to be admitted into the Senate and public offices on the same footing as Papists. The second separate Act contained the cardinal laws of the Republic, as settled with Prince Repnin. The liberum veto was retained, so far as it subserved the purposes of foreign intervention. For though, during the first three weeks of a Diet, during which only economical questions were discussed, a majority of votes was to decide, yet, during the last three weeks, which were devoted to affairs of State policy, it was required that the votes should be unanimous. Some really good regulations were, however, introduced. Thus the willful murder of a serf by a noble was no longer to be redeemable with money, but was to be punished capitally.

These proceedings excited great discontent among the Poles, which was increased by the brutality of Repnin. The nation became convinced that the King had sold himself and them, that he had always been the secret ally of Russia, and that the apparent breach between the Courts of St. Petersburg and Warsaw was a mere sham and delusion. Radzivill received the reward of his treachery in being restored to his Palatinate (from which he had been driven by the Czartoriskis), as well as in large sums of money. The fanaticism of the populace was excited by the priests, who gave out that Russia, in accord with King Stanislaus, intended to abolish the Roman Catholic religion. The discontent was fanned by France. Choiseul, the French Minister, endeavored, but without success, to detach Frederick II from Russia; but he succeeded in raising the Poles, and at length in persuading the Porte to enter into a Russian war. In March, 1768, a Confederation was formed by the Polish Catholics in the town of Bar, in Podolia, a province neighboring on Turkey, for the purpose of dethroning the King, driving out the Russians, and restoring Polish freedom. The principal leaders were Count Krasinsky, who was elected Marshal, Pulmoski, and Potocki—persons of no great consideration. This Confederation gave rise to others in Great and Little Poland and Lithuania. Even Radzivill himself, a fickle, drunken, and despicable character, was for a while carried away by the stream, and joined one of these associations; but surrendered immediately the Russians appeared before his fortress of Nieswicz. The separate Confederations were finally converted into a general one, which, on account of the Russian troops, held its council abroad; first at Eperies in Hungary, and then at Teschen in Silesia. From this place the deputies of the Confederation betook themselves to the little town of Bielitz, close to the Polish frontiers, and separated only by a small stream from the lordship of Biala, belonging to the Sulkowski family, so that the necessary papers could be signed on Polish ground. France assisted the Confederates with a small subsidy till the fall of the Minister Choiseul, and sent to their aid the afterwards noted Colonel Dumouriez, and some other officers. But she never lent them any effectual help. Almost ten years before, the French Cabinet had contemplated the partition of Poland as highly improbable; and even in the event of its occurrence, had decided that it was not likely to interest France. Although want of discipline and subordination among the Poles, and the disunion which prevailed among their leaders, caused them, in spite of their bravery, to be worsted in almost every encounter with the Russians: yet the insurrection was found difficult to suppress, and the fate of Poland was postponed a few years longer by a quarrel between Russia and the Porte.

Turkey had now enjoyed a long interval of tranquility. Sultan Mahmoud I, who reigned above twenty years, though not endowed with great abilities, and entirely governed by his ministers, encouraged the arts of peace. He built numerous mosques, and founded several schools and professorships, as well as four libraries. He encouraged the art of printing, which had been introduced at Constantinople by a Hungarian renegade; but it had many opponents and made but very slow progress. By granting the Janissaries an exemption from import duties, he induced a large number of them to engage in commerce, and thus rendered them anxious for the tranquility of the government. These regulations, however, contributed to break the military spirit of the nation, as was but too manifest in its subsequent struggles with Russia. Mahmoud I died in his fifty-eighth year, December 13th, 1754, while returning from Friday prayers. He was succeeded by his brother, Osman III, whose tranquil reign of two years presents nothing of importance. On his death, December 22nd, 1756, Mustapha III, son of Achmet III, then forty-one years of age, became Sultan and Caliph. Mustapha was an accomplished and energetic Prince, an astrologer and poet, and deeply religious.

The Porte had at first manifested great indifference to the fate of Poland. During the vacancy of the Crown it had contented itself with presenting a moderate note to the Russian Resident, protesting against any interference in the election. When the tumults broke out, Count Vergennes, the French Ambassador to the Porte, endeavored to incite it in favor of the Polish patriots. Catharine II, stimulated by ambition and the desire of aggrandizement, had not confined her views to Poland. She had also cast her eyes on some of the Turkish provinces, and had marked them out as her future prey; but, so long as the affairs of Poland remained unsettled, she wished to remain at peace with the Porte, and with this view she had bought with large sums the votes of some of the most influential members of the Divan. Hence, though Mustapha himself was inclined for war, the counsels of his ministers were long undecided. The progress of the Russian arms was, however, watched with jealousy and alarm. The incursions of Russian troops across the borders in pursuit of the Poles, and especially the burning by the Russians and Saporogue Cossacks, of Balta, a little town on the frontier of Bessarabia, belonging to the Tartar Khan, excited the anger of the Porte in the highest degree; but it was not till after the taking of Cracow by the Russians that an appeal to arms was decided on. The Mufti gave his long expected Fetwa for war; the Grand Vizier, who had been an advocate of peace, was deposed; and, although Catharine had made apologies, and promised satisfaction for the damages committed by her troops, the new Grand Vizier, after upbraiding Obreskoff, the Russian Resident, with the treacherous conduct of his mistress in keeping her troops in Poland, caused him to be confined in the Seven Towers.

Sultan Mustapha now made vigorous preparations for war, and assembled a numerous army. But the time of his declaration had been badly chosen. A great part of the Turkish troops were only bound to serve in the summer, and thus six months were spent in inaction, during which the Russians had time to prepare themselves. The Turkish regular troops were no longer very formidable; but the Tartars who inhabited the Crim, and the desolate regions between the Dnieper and Dniester, and even to the Pruth, were numerous and warlike. The Tartars of the Budziac, and the Nogai Tartars, inhabiting the Crimea, were under a Khan who was subject to the Sultan. The reigning Khan was now deposed, and his predecessor, Krim Girai, who was living in banishment, being a bitter foe to the Russians, was recalled, and commissioned to begin the war with his hordes. (The family of Girai, or Gherai, descended from Zingis Khan, formed a particular dynasty of the Mongols of Kipzak, called the Great Horde, or Golden Horde, which, from 1237 till the end of the fifteenth century, had ruled Russia with a rod of iron). Early in 1769, supported by 10,000 Sipahis and a few hundred Poles, Krim Girai invaded New Serbia, where he committed the most terrible devastations. But soon after his return, this last of the Tartar heroes was poisoned by his Greek physician Siropolo, an emissary of the Prince of Wallachia.

The main Turkish army, under the Grand Vizier Mohammed Emir Pasha, effected little or nothing. The Russians, under Galitzin, were indeed repulsed in two attempts upon Choczim, but Emir Pasha, accused of conducting the war with too little vigour, was recalled and beheaded at Adrianople. His successor, Mustapha Moldawanschi Ali Pasha, was still more unfortunate. After two or three vain attempts to enter Podolia, the Turks were compelled to make a general retreat, and the Russians occupied Moldavia and Wallachia; in which last province a strong Russian party had been formed. An attempt made by a Turkish corps to recover Bucharest, in February, 1770, was frustrated. Romanzoff, who had succeeded Galitzin as commander of the Russians, gained two decisive victories and compelled the Turks to abandon Ismail. By the end of the year the Russians had penetrated into the Crimea. Their arms had also been successful in Asia, where a great part of Armenia, Circassia, and Kabarda had been reduced.

Voltaire was at this time endeavoring to awaken a spirit of Phil-hellenism in Frederick and Catharine; he urged them to partition Turkey, and to restore the Greeks to independence. Frederick, however, avowed that he should prefer the town of Danzig to the Piraeus. His dominions were at too great a distance from Greece to enable him to derive any material advantage from such a project. But with Catharine the case was different. Her views had long been directed towards this quarter, and for some years Russian emissaries had been striving to awaken a spirit of revolt among the Greek Christians in all the Turkish provinces. The conquest of Greece is said to have been suggested by a Venetian noble­man to Count Alexis Orloff; and in 1769 Orloff had concluded a formal treaty with the Mainotes and other tribes of the Morea and of Roumelia. He had engaged to supply them with the necessaries of war, and they had promised to rise so soon as the Russian flag should appear on their coasts. Fleets were prepared at Cronstadt, Archangel, and Revel, which, under his conduct, were to attempt the conquest of Constantinople. The British Ministry of that day approved the project, and even signified to the Cabinets of Versailles and Madrid that it should regard as an act of hostility any attempt to arrest the progress of the Russian fleet into the Mediterranean. Choiseul, on the contrary, endeavored, but without effect, to persuade Louis XV to sink it, as the only method of reviving the credit of France, both with the Porte and Europe. The first division of the Russian fleet, consisting only of three ships of war and a few transports, with about 500 men on board, appeared off Port Vitolo, near Cape Matapan, towards the end of February, 1770. The Mainotes rose, but no plan of a campaign had been arranged, and the whole affair degenerated into a sort of marauding expedition. Navarino alone seemed for a time likely to become a permanent conquest. But after some fruitless attempts on Modon and Coron, the Russians took their departure towards the end of May, abandoning the Greeks to their fate. They suffered dreadfully at the hands of the Turks for their temerity, and the Morea became a scene of the most frightful devastation. The Russian fleet, under Admiral Spiridoff, which originally consisted of twelve ships of the line, and the same number of frigates, besides smaller vessels, remained in the Mediterranean three or four years; but the only action of any importance which it performed was the burning of the Turkish fleet in the Bay of Tchesme, near the Gulf of Smyrna, after defeating it off Chios. This victory (July 5th, 1770) was wholly due to the British officers serving in the Russian fleet, namely, Admiral Elphinstone, Captain Greig, and Lieutenant Dugdale, though all the honors and emoluments fell to Orloff. Elphinstone now wished to force the passage of the Dardanelles, and sail to Constantinople, but Orloff prevented him.

These successes awakened the jealousy and alarm of the European Powers. England now recalled her seamen from the Russian service, and proposed her mediation to the Porte, while France offered to supply the Sultan with men-of-war, in consideration of a subsidy. Austria and Prussia, neither of which desired to see Turkey destroyed, were still more nearly interested in the Russo-Turkish war. The Eastern question formed the chief subject of the conferences between Joseph II, who had now ascended the Imperial throne, and Frederick II of Prussia, in their interviews at Neisse, in Silesia, in August, 1769, and at Neustadt, in Moravia, in September, 1770. The crisis was now serious. If Catharine II attempted to dismember Turkey to any great extent Austria would attack Russia. On the 12th of October, Prince Henry of Prussia arrived at St. Petersburg, and before long a peaceful solution of the situation was found in the partition of Poland. In February, 1767, Austrian troops had taken possession of the Starosties of Zips and Zandek, the salines, or salt works of Bochnia and Wieliczka, whence the King of Poland chiefly drew his revenues, and spread themselves even beyond Cracow. In November these districts were declared reunited with the Kingdom of Hungary; an Austrian government was established in them, the motto of whose official seal purported that they had been lawfully recovered. In the autumn of the same year the King of Prussia, on pretence of forming a cordon against the plague, caused his troops to enter Polish Prussia and other districts. In the anarchy which reigned in Poland, and the devastation which ensued, commerce and agriculture were almost suspended; the peasants sought refuge in the towns, the nobles carried their property into neighboring countries; and the want and famine which followed produced a pestilence. The Prussians, if they did not, like the Austrians, take formal possession of the districts they had invaded, acted at least as if they were the absolute masters of them, and even conducted themselves more arbitrarily than the Russians. Wood, forage, provisions of all sorts, were collected and forwarded into Brandenburg, which were paid for in a base and depreciated currency worth about one-third of its nominal value, and thousands of the inhabitants were carried off as recruits or colonists.

In such a state of things it seems idle to inquire to whom the guilt attaches of first proposing a partition of Poland. The partition, idea probably did not originate with Catharine II, whose two great objects of ambition were, the subjection of Poland and the annihilation of Turkey. Since the time of Peter I Poland had been virtually dependent on the will of Russia, and in the earlier part of her career Catharine was content with a vassal King of Poland; but in process of time she began to entertain the idea of making it a Russian province. The aims of Russia seem first to have been directed to obtain exclusive possession; but for this she was not strong enough; Austria and Prussia stepped in, and Austria was the first Power which actually occupied some of the Polish dominions. Russia, hampered with the Turkish war, was compelled to come to terms with her two rivals. After the misfortunes in the North, and in the Bay of Tchesme, she became more pliable. When Frederick, the Emperor, and Kaunitz were at Neustadt, in September, 1770, a note arrived from the Porte expressing its desire for peace, and begging the mediation of the Courts of Vienna and Berlin. Frederick undertook to acquaint the Tsarina with this wish. His brother, Prince Henry, after a visit to his sister at Stockholm, arrived in St. Petersburg in October, with instructions to come to an understanding with Catharine, both on the Polish and Turkish questions. A scheme for a partition of Poland was first formally broached during this visit. Whether it came from Prince Henry or Catharine is unimportant. Before the Prince quitted St. Petersburg, towards the end of January, 1771, the Tsarina told him that she was prepared to come to an agreement with his brother on the subject. She had overruled the objections of her minister Panin, who opposed the partition, not because it violated international rights, but because he wished not that others should share with Russia what he thought she might obtain alone. Frederick was, or pretended to be, astonished at the overture; but finding that Catharine was in earnest, he undertook to obtain the consent and cooperation of Austria. Kaunitz at first alleged that he feared to propose the scheme to his mistress, Maria Theresa, who either felt or affected aversion to the project; he also apprehended that it might induce Louis XV to break the alliance with Austria, which he regarded as the chef-d'oeuvre of his policy. But after a little display of that diplomacy for which he was so famous, he came to a complete agreement with the Court of St. Petersburg, and succeeded in procuring Maria Theresa’s consent to the scheme, on the ground that it would avoid an effusion of blood. Kaunitz now displayed the greatest zeal and disinterestedness in the cause of Catharine, and even offered to back an ultimatum which she had proposed to the Sultan. Yet at this very time he concluded with the Porte a secret treaty against Russia (July 6th, 1771); not, however, with any real purpose of aiding either the Porte or the Polish Republic; but that he might be able, according to circumstances, to thwart the plans of Russia, and render more secure the participation of Austria in the spoils of Poland. He even assured Prince Galitzin that he was prepared to assist the policy of Russia and Prussia in Poland. And though he pretended that he would not hear of a partition, yet, by refusing to abandon Austria’s pretensions to the County of Zips, he virtually challenged those two Powers to make proposals for such a measure.

However secret was this treaty, it came to the knowledge of Catharine, and its effect was, though from motives of policy she dissembled her acquaintance with it, to hasten the settlement of Poland. An attempt of the Confederate Poles, in November, 1771, to carry off King Stanislaus Augustus, operated in the same direction. Catharine drew from this event a fresh pretext for hostility against the Republic, and the King of Poland was more than ever inclined to throw himself into the arms of Russia. The chief difficulties in the negotiations between the Courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin regarded the towns of Thorn and Danzig, and Catharine’s demand that Frederick should assist her with all his forces in case she became involved in a war with Austria. To this Frederick at last consented, on the condition that, in her peace with the Porte, Russia should relinquish her conquests of Moldavia and Wallachia, and thus obviate all cause of quarrel with Austria. In return for this concession Frederick desisted from claiming Thorn and Danzig, certain that, when once master of the mouth of the Vistula, he should sooner or later obtain those important places. The Convention of St. Petersburg, of February 17th, 1772, between Russia and Prussia, is known only by what Frederick tells us of it. The limits of the partition were determined, the period for taking possession fixed for June, and the Empress-Queen was to be invited to partake the spoil. Russia and Prussia reciprocally guaranteed their possessions, and agreed to assist each other against Austria in case of need.

The Court of Vienna, stimulated by the restless ambition of Joseph II, made the most extravagant demands. Maria Theresa afterwards told Baron Breteuil, the French Ambassador at Vienna, that she had done so in order to break off the whole matter, but to her surprise her claims were granted by Frederick and Catharine. The sincerity of this declaration is somewhat suspicious; at all events, these exaggerated demands were long obstinately insisted on; but this was probably owing to Joseph II and Kaunitz, who appeared to have overruled the more moderate counsels of the Empress-Queen. An armistice had been concluded between Russia and Turkey, May 30th, 1772, and early in August a Congress was opened at Fokchany to treat for a peace, so that the three Powers were at liberty to prosecute their designs on Poland. The Confederates of Bar had hitherto been able to make some resistance, as the Russian troops in Poland, under the command of Suvaroff, did not exceed 10,000 or 12,000 men; but after the armistice they were increased to 30,000. Pulawski, the principal leader of the Confederation, when he heard of the union of the three Powers, retired from a hopeless contest, and exhorted his followers to reserve themselves for better times. After some further negotiations between the three Sovereigns, a triple treaty, assigning to each his respective share of Poland, was signed at St. Petersburg, July 25th, 1772; namely, between Austria and Russia, Russia and Prussia, and Austria and Prussia.

Russia obtained by this act Polish Livonia, the greater part of the Palatinates of Witepsk and Polozk, all the Palatinate of Mstislavl, and the two extremities of that of Minsk. These districts afterwards formed the governments of Polozk and Mohilev. They comprised an area of 2,500 geographical square miles, and a population of about one and a half million souls.

To Austria were assigned the thirteen towns of the County of Zips, which King Sigismund of Hungary had hypothecated to Poland in 1412; about half the Palatinate of Cracovia, a part of that of Sandomierz, the Palatinate of Red Russia, the greater part of that of Belz, Procutia, and a very small portion of Podolia. The towns of the County of Zips were again incorporated with Hungary; the other districts were erected into a separate State, with the title of Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. They were estimated at 1,300 square miles, with a population of about two and a half millions.

Prussia obtained all Pomerelia except Danzig and its territory, together with Great Poland beyond the Netze, extending from the New March to Fordon and Schulitz on the Vistula. Also the rest of Polish Prussia, the Palatinate of Marienburg, Elbing, the Bishopric of Warmia, and the Palatinate of Culm, except Thorn, which, like Danzig, was to remain to the Republic of Poland. These provinces embraced 700 square miles, and had a population of about 800,000 souls. Although the Prussian share was smaller than the others, yet it was very valuable to Frederick, because it joined his Prussian Kingdom to the main body of the monarchy. The population, too, was richer and more commercial. The districts thus confiscated formed about a third part of Poland.

In September the three Powers published Declarations proclaiming and justifying the steps which they had taken. The most odious of these Declarations was the Prussian. Frederick II went back to the thirteenth century to find a colour for part of his usurpations, and claimed the remainder by way of compensation for rights so long withheld from his house. Maria Theresa, more prudently and more honestly, passed lightly over the question of right, and pleaded her engagements with her allies. Catharine II chiefly insisted on the distracted state of Poland, the necessity of restoring peace, and of establishing a natural and more secure boundary between the possessions of the two States. Simultaneously with these Declarations, the combined Powers proceeded to occupy the districts respectively allotted to them. In this they found but little difficulty. The Confederates had been driven from their last strongholds in the spring; and the generals of the allies had declared that they should treat those who combined together, under whatever pretence, as bandits and murderers.

The memoirs of the three Courts were answered by the Polish Government in a counter-declaration, full of truth and force, in which they recalled the treaties which had guaranteed to the Republic the integrity of its possessions; and they justly observed that if titles drawn from remote antiquity, when revolutions were so common and so transient, were to be enforced against Poland, provinces possessed by those very Powers which now urged such titles against her, might also be reunited to that Kingdom; but the admission of them, they remarked, would shake the foundations of all the thrones in the world.

The unfortunate King of Poland, abandoned by all the world, was compelled by the allied Courts to convoke a Diet in order to confirm their usurpations by a Treaty of Cession, and to establish regulations for the pacification and future government of the country. At the same time each Power caused 10,000 men to enter the provinces which they had agreed to leave to Poland; and the three commanders of them were ordered to proceed to Warsaw and to act in concert, and with severity, towards those nobles who should cabal against the novelties introduced. The Diet, which was opened April 19th, 1773, was very small, consisting only of 111 Nuncios. Those nobles whose possessions lay in the confiscated provinces were excluded from it. Nearly all the members accepted bribes. A sum of 200 or 300 ducats was the price of silence; they who took an active part in favor of the allies received more. The national character had, indeed, sunk to the lowest point of degradation. The ruin of Poland was consummated by its own children amidst every kind of luxury and frivolity;—balls, dinners, and gaming tables. To avoid the Veto, the Diet was converted into a Confederation, which the King was forced to recognize by the threat that Russia, Austria, and Prussia would otherwise each send 50,000 men into Poland. After long and turbulent debates, treaties were signed with the three Powers, September 18th, 1773. The whole business, however, was not concluded till March, 1775, by the execution on the part of the Polish King and Republic of seven separate acts or treaties, namely, three with Russia, two with Austria, and two with Prussia. These acts included the cession of the confiscated provinces. A new Constitution was established for Poland, which Russia guaranteed. The Crown was to be perpetually elective, and none but a Piast noble having possessions in the Kingdom was to be eligible. The son or grandson of a deceased King could not be elected till after an interval of two reigns. The Government was to be composed of the King and two estates, the Senate, and the Equestrian Order. A permanent Executive Council was to be established, composed of an equal number of members of the two estates, without, however, either legislative or judicial power. Thus the seal was put to the vicious Constitution of Poland; the King was reduced to a mere puppet, and the ground prepared for the final extinction of the Kingdom.

The first partition of Poland is the most remarkable event of the eighteenth century, before the French Revolution. Breaches of national rights as gross as this have undoubtedly been perpetrated both before and since; but what rendered it particularly odious, and most revolted public opinion in Europe, was the circumstance that three great and powerful Sovereigns should combine together to commit such an act of spoliation. The Cabinets of Europe, however, were either silent or confined themselves to feeble remonstrances. The political effects of the partition were not, indeed, so important as it has been sometimes supposed. Poland itself was of but little weight in the political balance of Europe, and the three great Powers which divided the spoils, by receiving pretty equal shares, remained much in the same position with respect to one another as they had occupied before. Great Britain, engaged in paying court to Catharine II, in order to separate her from the Prussian alliance, took no steps to prevent the partition, and contented itself, in the interests of its commerce, with inciting Catharine not to let Danzig and Thorn fall into Frederick’s hands. With regard to France, the Duc d’Aiguillon, who had succeeded Choiseul in the Ministry, either through his own fault or that of the Cardinal de Rohan, the French Ambassador at Vienna, seems not to have been acquainted with the partition till informed of it at Paris by the Imperial Ambassador. To amend the fault of his improvidence, he tried to persuade Louis XV to attack the Austrian Netherlands; but this proposition was rejected by the majority of the Council, on account of the state of the finances. It was also proposed to England to send a French and English fleet into the Baltic, to prevent the consummation of the dismemberment, but the proposal was coldly received.

While these events were taking place the Russo-Turkish War was being waged without interruption. The Porte had in 1770 accepted the mediation of Austria and Prussia. But Russia rejected the interference of any Power, and put her terms so high, by insisting on occupying Moldavia and Wallachia for a term of twenty-five years, which, of course, meant permanently, that it was impossible to listen to them. Kaunitz, therefore, entered into the treaty with the Porte of July 6th, 1771, already mentioned, by which Austria was to receive 20,000 purses (10,000,000 piastres, or 11,250,000 gulden), on the score of her warlike preparations, and was also to obtain a portion of Wallachia; while she engaged to assist the Porte in recovering all the conquests of the Russians, and to compel them to evacuate Poland. Kaunitz’s secret object in this treaty we have already seen. Russia showed herself so compliant, that the Austrian Minister did not think it necessary to ratify the treaty, although he received a good part of the subsidy.

The campaign of 1771 was unimportant on the Danube; but the Russians, under Dolgorouki, subdued the Crimea, as well as Arabat, Yenikale, Kertsch, Kaffa, and Taman. The Tartars now submitted to Russia, on condition of retaining their ancient customs, and Catharine appointed a new Khan. We have already mentioned the truce of 1772, and the Congress of Fokchany; which, however, like a subsequent one at Bucharest, proved fruitless. The war, when renewed in 1773, went in favor of the Turks. The Russians were compelled to recross the Danube and remain on the defensive.

Sultan Mustapha died towards the end of this year (December 24th). His death had little influence on the course of events. His weak brother and successor, Abdul Hamed, then forty-eight years of age, was in the hands of the war party. The ensuing campaign was opened with great pomp by the Turks in April, 1774, but they were soon so thoroughly beaten as to be glad of a peace on almost any terms. Never was a celebrated treaty concluded in so short a space of time as that dictated in four hours by Count Romanzoff, in his camp at Kutchuk Kainardji (July 16th), where the Turks were almost entirely surrounded. By this peace the Tartars of the Crimea, Kuban, and other places, were declared independent of either empire, and were to enjoy the right of electing their Khan from the family of Zingis; only they were to recognize the Sultan as Caliph and head of their religion. Russia restored to the Tartars her conquests in the Crimea, retaining only Kertsch and Yenikale. She also restored to the Porte Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and the islands in the Archipelago; retaining Kinburn and its territory, Azof, the two Kabardas, but evacuating Georgia and Mingrelia. The Turks, however, abandoned the tribute of young men and women, which they had been accustomed to exact from these countries; and they agreed to pay four million roubles for the costs of the war. Poland, which had caused the breach between the two Empires, was not even named in the treaty. This treaty marks the definite beginning of the modern Eastern Question. A year after this peace, the Porte ceded to Austria the Bukovina, or Red Forest, a district formerly belonging to Transylvania, which connected that country with the newly-acquired Kingdom of Galicia.

During the course of this war (1773), Catharine II was alarmed by the rebellion of a Cossack named Pugachev, who personated the character of Peter III, to which Prince he bore some resemblance. Many thousand discontented Cossacks flocked to his standard, and at one time it was apprehended that Moscow itself would rise in his favor. But the peace put an end to his hopes, and he was shortly afterwards captured and put to death.

CHAPTER L

THE AUSTRO-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE