The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia

The famous vizier, Achmet Couprougli, the same who took the island of Candia, under Mahomet IV., insulted the son of the French ambassador, and even carried his brutality so far as to strike him, and afterwards to confine him in prison, without Lewis XIV., proud and lofty as he was, daring to resent it, otherwise than by sending another minister to the Porte. The Christian princes, who are so remarkably delicate on the point of honour amongst themselves, and have even made it a part of the law of nations, seem to be utterly insensible on this head in regard to the Turks.

Never did a crowned head suffer greater affronts in the persons of his ministers, than czar Peter. In the space of a few years, his ambassador at the court of London was thrown into jail for debt, his plenipotentiary at the courts of Poland and Saxony was broke upon the wheel, by order of the king of Sweden; and now his minister at the Ottoman Porte was seized and thrown into a dungeon at Constantinople, like a common felon.84

We have already observed, in the first part of this history, that he received satisfaction from queen Anne, of England, for the insult offered to his ambassador at London. The horrible affront he suffered, in the person of Patkul, was washed away in the blood of the Swedes slain at the battle of Pultowa; but fortune permitted the violation of the law of nations by the Turks to pass unpunished.

Jan. 1711.] The czar now found himself obliged to quit the theatre of war in the west, and march towards the frontiers of Turkey. He began by causing ten regiments, which he had in Poland, to advance towards Moldavia.85 He then ordered marshal Sheremeto to set out from Livonia, with his body of forces; and, leaving prince Menzikoff at the head of affairs at Petersburg, he returned to Moscow, to give orders for opening the ensuing campaign.

Jan. 18.] He now establishes a senate of regency: the regiment of guards begin their march, he issues orders for all the young nobility to follow him to the field, to learn the art of war, and places some of them in the station of cadets, and others in that of subaltern officers. Admiral Apraxin goes to Azoph to take the command by sea and land. These several measures being taken, the czar publishes an ordonnance in Moscow for acknowledging a new empress. This was the person who had been taken prisoner in Marienburg, in the year 1702. Peter had, in 1696, repudiated his wife Eudoxia Lopoukin (or Lapouchin) by whom he had two children. The laws of his church allow of no divorces; but, had they not, Peter would have enacted a new law to permit them.

The fair captive of Marienburg, who had taken the name of Catherine, had a soul superior to her sex and her misfortunes. She rendered herself so agreeable to the czar, that this prince would have her always near his person. She accompanied him in all his excursions, and most fatiguing campaigns: sharing in his toils, and softening his uneasiness by her natural gaiety, and the great attention she shewed to oblige him on all occasions, and the indifference she expressed for the luxury, dress, and other indulgences, of which the generality of her sex are, in other countries, wont to make real necessities. She frequently softened the passionate temper of the czar, and, by making him more clement and merciful, rendered him more truly great. In a word, she became so necessary to him, that he married her privately, in 1707. He had already two daughters by her, and the following year she bore him a third, who was afterwards married to the duke of Holstein.86

March 17, 1711.] The czar made this private marriage known the very day he set out with her to try the fortune of his arms against the Turks. The several dispositions he had made seemed to promise a successful issue. The hetman of the Cossacks was to keep the Tartars in awe, who had already began to commit ravages in the Ukraine. The main body of the Russian army was advancing towards Niester, and another body of troops, under prince Galitzin, were in full march through Poland. Every thing went on favourably at the beginning: for Galitzin having met with a numerous body of Tartars near Kiow, who had been joined by some Cossacks and some Poles of king Stanislaus' party, as also a few Swedes, he defeated them entirely, and killed near five thousand men. These Tartars had, in their march through the open country, made about ten thousand prisoners. It has been the custom of the Tartars, time immemorial, to carry with them a much greater number of cords than scimitars, in order to bind the unhappy wretches they surprise. The captives were all set free, and those who had made them prisoners were put to the sword. The whole Russian army, if it had been assembled together, would have amounted to sixty thousand men. It was to have been farther augmented by the troops belonging to the king of Poland. This prince, who owed every thing to the czar, came to pay him a visit at Jaroslaw, on the river Sana, the 3d of June, 1714, and promised him powerful succours. War was now declared against the Turks, in the name of these two monarchs: but the Polish diet, not willing to break with the Ottoman Porte, refused to ratify the engagement their king had entered into. It was the fate of the czar to have, in the king of Poland, an ally who could never be of any service to him. He entertained the same hopes of assistance from the princes of Moldavia and Walachia, and was, in the like manner, disappointed.

These two provinces ought to have taken this opportunity to shake off the Turkish yoke. These countries were those of the ancient Daci, who, together with the Gepidi, with whom they were intermixed, did, for a long time, disturb the Roman empire. They were at length subdued by the emperor Trajan, and Constantine the First made them embrace the Christian religion. Dacia was one of the provinces of the eastern empire; but shortly after these very people contributed to the ruin of that of the west, by serving under the Odoacers and Theodorics.

They afterwards continued to be subject to the Greek empire; and when the Turks made themselves masters of Constantinople, were governed and oppressed by particular princes; at length they were totally subjected by the Padisha, or Turkish emperor, who now granted them an investiture. The Hospodar, or Waiwod, chosen by the Ottoman Porte to govern these provinces, is always a Christian of the Greek church. The Turks, by this choice, give a proof of their toleration, while our ignorant declaimers are accusing them of persecution. The prince, nominated by the Porte, is tributary to, or rather farms these countries of the grand seignior; this dignity being always conferred on the best bidder, or him who makes the greatest presents to the vizier, in like manner as the Greek patriarch, at Constantinople. Sometimes this government is bestowed on a dragoman, that is to say, the interpreter to the divan. These provinces are seldom under the government of the same Waiwod, the Porte choosing to divide them, in order to be more sure of retaining them in subjection. Demetrius Cantemir was at this time Waiwod of Moldavia. This prince was said to be descended from Tamerlane, because Tamerlane's true name was Timur, and Timur was a Tartarian khan; and so, from the name Tamurkan, say they, came the family of Cantemir.

Bassaraba Brancovan had been invested with the principality of Walachia, but had not found any genealogist to deduce his pedigree from the Tartarian conqueror. Cantemir thought the time now come to shake off the Turkish yoke, and render himself independent by means of the czar's protection. In this view he acted in the very same manner with Peter as Mazeppa had done with Charles XII. He even engaged Bassaraba for the present to join him in the conspiracy, of which he hoped to reap all the benefit himself: his plan being to make himself master of both provinces. The bishop of Jerusalem, who was at that time at Walachia, was the soul of this conspiracy. Cantemir promised the czar to furnish him with men and provisions, as Mazeppa did the king of Sweden, and kept his word no better than he had done.

General Sheremeto advanced towards Jassi, the capital of Moldavia, to inspect and occasionally assist the execution of these great projects. Cantemir came thither to meet him, and was received with all the honours due to a prince: but he acted as a prince in no one circumstance, but that of publishing a manifesto against the Turkish empire. The hospodar of Walachia, who soon discovered the ambitious views of his colleague, quitted his party, and returned to his duty. The bishop of Jerusalem dreading, with reason, the punishment due to his perfidy, fled and concealed himself: the people of Walachia and Moldavia continued faithful to the Ottoman Porte, and those, who were to have furnished provisions for the Russian army, carried them to the Turks.

The vizier, Baltagi Mahomet had already crossed the Danube, at the head of one hundred thousand men, and was advancing towards Jassi, along the banks of the river Pruth (formerly the Hierasus), which falls into the Danube, and which is nearly the boundary of Moldavia and Bessarabia. He then dispatched count Poniatowsky,87 a Polish gentleman, attached to the fortunes of the king of Sweden, to desire that prince to make him a visit, and see his army. Charles, whose pride always got the better of his interest, would not consent to this proposal: he insisted that the grand vizier should make him the first visit, in his asylum near Bender. When Poniatowsky returned to the Ottoman camp, and endeavoured to excuse this refusal of his master, the vizier, turning to the khan of the Tartars, said, 'This is the very behaviour I expected from this proud pagan.' This mutual pride, which never fails of alienating the minds of those in power from each other, did no service to the king of Sweden's affairs; and indeed that prince might have easily perceived, from the beginning, that the Turks were not acting for his interest, but for their own.

While the Turkish army was passing the Danube, the czar advanced by the frontiers of Poland, and passed the Boristhenes, in order to relieve marshal Sheremeto, who was then on the banks of the Pruth, to the southward of Jassi, and in danger of being daily surrounded by an army of ten thousand Turks, and an army of Tartars. Peter, before he passed the Boristhenes, was in doubt whether he should expose his beloved Catherine to these dangers, which seemed to increase every day; but Catherine, on her side, looked upon this solicitude of the czar, for her ease and safety, as an affront offered to her love and courage; and pressed her consort so strongly on this head, that he found himself under a necessity to consent that she should pass the river with him. The army beheld her with eyes of joy and admiration, marching on horseback at the head of the troops, for she rarely made use of a carriage. After passing the Boristhenes, they had a tract of desert country to pass through, and then to cross the Bog, and afterwards the river Tiras, now called the Niester, and then another desert to traverse, before they came to the banks of the Pruth. Catherine, during this fatiguing march, animated the whole army by her cheerfulness and affability. She sent refreshments to such of the officers who were sick, and extended her care even to the meanest soldier.

July 4, 1711.] At length the czar brought his army in sight of Jassi. Here he was to establish his magazine. Bassaraba, the hospodar of Walachia, who had again embraced the interest of the Ottoman Porte, but still, in appearance, continued a friend to the czar, proposed to that prince to make peace with the Turks, although he had received no commission from the grand vizier for that purpose. His deceit, however, was soon discovered; and the czar contented himself with demanding only provisions for his army, which Bassaraba neither could nor would furnish. It was very difficult to procure any supplies from Poland; and these, which prince Cantemir had promised, and which he vainly hoped to procure from Walachia, could not be brought from thence. These disappointments rendered the situation of the Russian army very disagreeable; and, as an addition to their afflictions, they were infested with an immense swarm of grasshoppers, that covered the face of the whole country, and devoured, or spoiled, every thing where they alighted. They were likewise frequently in want of water during their march through sandy deserts, and beneath a scorching sun: what little they could procure, they were obliged to have brought in vessels to the camp, from a considerable distance.

During this dangerous and fatiguing march, the czar, by a singular fatality, found himself in the neighbourhood of his rival and competitor, Charles; Bender not being above twenty-five leagues from the place where the Russian army was encamped, near Jassi. Some parties of Cossacks made excursions even to the place of that unfortunate monarch's retreat; but the Crim Tartars, who hovered round that part of the country, sufficiently secured him from any attempt that might be made to seize his person; and Charles waited in his camp with impatience, and did not fear the issue of the war.

Peter, as soon as he had established some magazines, marched in haste with his army to the right of the river Pruth. His essential object was to prevent the Turks, who were posted to the left, and towards the head of the river, from crossing it, and marching towards him. This effected, he would then be master of Moldavia and Walachia: with this view, he dispatched general Janus, with the vanguard of the army, to oppose the passage of the Turks; but the general did not arrive till they had already began to cross the river upon their bridges; upon which he was obliged to retreat, and his infantry was closely pursued by the Turks, till the czar came up in person to his assistance.

The grand vizier now marched directly along the river towards the czar. The two armies were very unequal in point of numbers: that of the Turks, which had been reinforced by the Tartarian troops, consisted of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand men, while that of the Russians hardly amounted to thirty-five thousand. There was indeed a considerable body of troops, headed by general Renne, on their march from the other side of the Moldavian mountains; but the Turks had cut off all communication with those parts.

The czar's army now began to be in want of provisions, nor could, without the greatest difficulty, procure water, though encamped at a very small distance from the river; being exposed to a furious discharge from the batteries, which the grand vizier had caused to be erected on the left side of the river, under the care of a body of troops, that kept up a constant fire against the Russians. By this relation, which is strictly circumstantial and true, it appears that Baltagi Mahomet, the Turkish vizier, far from being the pusillanimous, or weak commander, which the Swedes have represented him, gave proofs, on this occasion, that he perfectly well understood his business. The passing the Pruth in the sight of the enemy, obliging him to retreat, and harassing him in that retreat; the cutting off all communication between the czar's army, and a body of cavalry that was marching to reinforce it; the hemming in this army, without the least probability of a retreat; and the cutting off all supplies of water and provisions, by keeping it constantly under the check of the batteries on the opposite side of the river, were manœuvres that in no ways bespoke the unexperienced or indolent general.

Peter now saw himself in a situation even worse than that to which he had reduced his rival, Charles XII. at Pultowa; being, like him, surrounded by a superior army, and in greater want of provisions; and, like him, having confided in the promises of a prince, too powerful to be bound by those promises, he resolved upon a retreat; and endeavoured to return towards Jassi, in order to choose a more advantageous situation for his camp.

July 20, 1711.] He accordingly decamped under favour of the night; but his army had scarcely begun its march, when, at break of day, the Turks fell upon his rear: but the Preobrazinski regiment turning about, and standing firm, did, for a considerable time, check the fury of their onset. The Russians then formed themselves, and made a line of intrenchments with their waggons and baggage. The same day (July 21.) the Turks returned again to the attack, with the whole body of their army; and, as a proof that the Russians knew how to defend themselves, let what will be alleged to the contrary, they also made head against this very superior force for a considerable time, killed a great number of their enemies, who in vain endeavoured to break in upon them.

There were in the Ottoman army two officers belonging to the king of Sweden, namely, count Poniatowsky and the count of Sparre, who had the command of a body of Cossacks in that prince's interest. My papers inform me, that these two generals advised the grand vizier to avoid coming to action with the Russians, and content himself with depriving them of supplies of water and provisions, which would oblige them either to surrender prisoners of war, or to perish with famine. Other memoirs pretend, on the contrary, that these officers would have persuaded Mahomet to fall upon this feeble and half-starved army, in a weak and distressed condition, and put all to the sword. The first of these seems to be the most prudent and circumspect; but the second is more agreeable to the character of generals who had been trained up under Charles XII.

The real fact is, that the grand vizier fell upon the rear of the Russian army, at the dawn of day, which was thrown into confusion, and there remained only a line of four hundred men to confront the Turks. This small body formed itself with amazing quickness, under the orders of a German general, named Alard, who, to his immortal honour, made such rapid and excellent dispositions on this occasion, that the Russians withstood, for upwards of three hours, the repeated attack of the whole Ottoman army, without losing a foot of ground.

The czar now found himself amply repaid for the immense pains he had taken to inure his troops to strict discipline. At the battle of Narva, sixty thousand men were defeated by only eight thousand, because the former were undisciplined; and here we behold a rear-guard, consisting of only eight thousand Russians, sustaining the efforts of one hundred and fifty thousand Turks, killing seven thousand of them, and obliging the rest to return back.

After this sharp engagement, both armies intrenched themselves for that night: but the Russians still continued enclosed, and deprived of all provisions, even water; for notwithstanding they were so near the river Pruth, yet they did not dare approach its banks; for as soon as any parties were sent out to find water, a body of Turks, posted on the opposite shore, drove them back by a furious discharge from their cannon, loaded with chain shot: and the body of the Turkish army, which had attacked that of the czar the day before, continued to play upon them from another quarter, with the whole force of their artillery.

The Russian army appeared now to be lost beyond resource, by its position, by the inequality of numbers, and by the want of provisions. The skirmishes on both sides were frequent and bloody: the Russian cavalry being almost all dismounted, could no longer be of any service, unless by fighting on foot: in a word, the situation of affairs was desperate. It was out of their power to retreat, they had nothing left but to gain a complete victory; to perish to the last man, or to be made slaves by the infidels.

All the accounts and memoirs of those times unanimously agree, that the czar, divided within himself, whether or not he should expose his wife, his army, his empire, and the fruits of all his labours, to almost inevitable destruction; retired to his tent, oppressed with grief, and seized with violent convulsions, to which he was naturally subject, and which the present desperate situation of his affairs brought upon him with redoubled violence. In this condition he remained alone in his tent, having given positive orders, that no one should be admitted to be a witness to the distraction of his mind. But Catherine, hearing of his disorders, forced her way in to him; and, on this occasion, Peter found how happy it was for him that he had permitted his wife to accompany him in this expedition.

A wife, who, like her, had faced death in its most horrible shapes, and had exposed her person, like the meanest soldier, to the fire of the Turkish artillery, had an undoubted right to speak to her husband, and to be heard. The czar accordingly listened to what she had to say, and in the end suffered himself to be persuaded to try and send to the vizier with proposals of peace.

It has been a custom, from time immemorial, throughout the East, that when any people apply for an audience of the sovereign, or his representative, they must not presume to approach them without a present. On this occasion, therefore, Catherine mustered the few jewels that she had brought with her, on this military tour, in which no magnificence or luxury were admitted; to these she added two black foxes' skins, and what ready money she could collect; the latter was designed for a present to the kiaia. She made choice herself of an officer, on whose fidelity and understanding she thought she could depend, who, accompanied with two servants, was to carry the presents to the grand vizier, and afterwards to deliver the money intended for the kiaia into his own hand. This officer was likewise charged with a letter from marshal Sheremeto to the grand vizier. The memoirs of czar Peter mentions this letter, but they take no notice of the other particulars of Catherine's conduct in this business; however, they are sufficiently confirmed by the declaration issued by Peter himself, in 1723, when he caused Catherine to be crowned empress, wherein we find these words: – 'She has been of the greatest assistance to us in all our dangers, and particularly in the battle of Pruth, when our army was reduced to twenty-two thousand men.' If the czar had then indeed no more men capable of bearing arms, the service which Catherine did him, on that occasion, was fully equivalent to the honours and dignities conferred upon her. The MS. journal of Peter the Great observes, that on the day of the bloody battle (on the 20th July), he had thirty-one thousand five hundred and fifty-four foot, and six thousand six hundred and ninety-two horse, the latter almost all dismounted; he must then have lost sixteen thousand two hundred and forty-six men in that engagement. The same memoirs affirm, the loss sustained by the Turks greatly exceeded that of the Russians; for as the former rushed upon the czar's troops pell-mell, and without observing any order, hardly a single fire of the latter missed its effect. If this is fact, the affair of the 20th and 21st of July, was one of the most bloody that had been known for many ages.

We must either suspect Peter the Great of having been mistaken, in his declaration at the crowning of the empress, when he acknowledges 'his obligations to her of having saved his army, which was reduced to twenty-two thousand men,' or accuse him of a falsity in his journal, wherein he says, that the day on which the above battle was fought, his army, exclusive of the succours he expected from the other side the Moldavian mountains, amounted to thirty-one thousand five hundred and fifty-four foot, and six thousand six hundred and ninety-two horse. According to this calculation, the battle of Pruth must have been by far more terrible than the historians or memorials have represented on either side. There must certainly be some mistake here, which is no uncommon thing in the relation of campaigns, especially when the writer enters into a minute detail of circumstances. The surest method, therefore, on these occasions, is to confine ourselves to the principal events, the victory and the defeat; as we can very seldom know, with any degree of certainty, the exact loss on either side.

But however here the Russian army might be reduced in point of numbers, there were still hopes that the grand vizier, deceived by their vigorous and obstinate resistance, might be induced to grant them peace, upon such terms as might be honourable to his master's arms, and at the same time not absolutely disgraceful to those of the czar. It was the great merit of Catherine to have perceived this possibility, at a time when her consort and his generals expected nothing less than inevitable destruction.