by J. F. Bright (1897) in the "Foreign Statesmen" Series, and a great
standard German biography by Alfred von Arneth, _Geschichte Maria
Theresias_, 10 vols. (1863-1879). See also A. Wolf and Hans von
Zwiedineck-Südenhorst, _Österreich unter Maria Theresia_ (1884).
THE RISE OF PRUSSIA. _History of All Nations_, Vol. XV, _The Age
of Frederick the Great_, Eng. trans. of a well-known German history
by Martin Philippson; Herbert Tuttle, _History of Prussia to the
Accession of Frederick the Great_ (1884), and, by the same author,
_History of Prussia under Frederick the Great_, 3 vols., coming
down to 1757 (1888-1896), primarily constitutional and political;
Reinhold Koser, _Geschichte der brandenburgisch-preussischen
Politik_, Vol. I (1914), from earliest times through the Thirty
Years' War, by the late general director of the Prussian State
Archives, an eminent authority on the history of his country; J. G.
Droysen, _Geschichte der preussischen Politik_, 14 vols. (1868-
1876), the most elaborate history of Prussia down to 1756 by a famous
national historian; Ernst Berner, _Geschichte des preussischen
Staates_ (1891), a briefer, popular account, richly illustrated;
Hans von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst, _Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitraum der
Gründung des preussischen Königtums_, 2 vols. (1890-1894), an
enthusiastic German appreciation; Albert Waddington, _Histoire de
Prusse_, Vol. I (1911), from the origins of the state to the death
of the Great Elector, an able French presentation. There is an
admirable old German biography of Frederick the Great's father, with
copious extracts from the sources, by F. C. Forster, _Friedrich
Wilhelm I König von Preussen_, 3 vols. (1834-1835). On Frederick the
Great: F. W. Longman, _Frederick the Great and the Seven Years'
War_, 2d ed. (1886), a good summary in English; W. F. Reddaway,
_Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia_ (1904) in the
"Heroes of the Nations" Series; Thomas Carlyle, _Frederick the
Great_, an English classic in many editions, sympathetic and in
spots inaccurate; Reinhold Koser, _Geschichte Friedrichs des
Grossen_, 5th ed., 4 vols. (1912-1914), a most thorough and
authoritative biography; _Politische Korrespondenz Friedrichs des
Grossen_, ed. by Reinhold Koser and others, in many volumes,
constitutes the most valuable original source for the reign of
Frederick the Great.
THE WARS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. G. M. Priest, _Germany since 1740_
(1915), ch. i-iii, a useful outline; D. J. Hill, _History of Diplomacy
in the International Development of Europe_, Vol. III (1914), ch. vi-
viii, valuable for diplomatic relations; Richard Waddington, _La guerre
de sept ans: histoire diplomatique et militaire_, 5 vols. (1899-1914),
the best history of the Seven Years' War; A. D. Schaefer, _Geschichte
des siebenjährigen Kriegs_, 2 vols. in 3 (1867-1874), a careful German
account; Wilhelm Oncken, _Das Zeitalter Friedrichs des Grossen_, 2
vols. (1881-1882), an important work on Frederick's reign, in the
imposing Oncken Series. See also A. W. Ward, _Great Britain and
Hanover, Some Aspects of their Personal Union_ (1899).
CHAPTER XII
THE RISE OF RUSSIA AND THE DECLINE OF TURKEY, SWEDEN, AND POLAND
RUSSIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
How the backward, Oriental tsardom of Muscovy has been transformed into
the huge empire of Russia, now comprising one-sixth of the land surface
and one-twelfth of the population of the earth, is one of the most
fascinating phases of the history of modern times. It was not until the
eighteenth century that Russia came into close contact with the
commerce and culture of western Christendom; not until then did she
become a great power in the European family of nations.
[Sidenote: Russian Expansion]
Several occurrences during the two centuries which separated the reign
of the Tsar Ivan the Great from that of Peter the Great paved the way
for the subsequent, almost startling rise of the powerful empire of
northern and eastern Europe. The first in importance was the expansion
of the Russian race and dominion. Throughout the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries the farming folk of the region about Moscow were
emigrating south and east and establishing themselves in the fertile
plains of the Don, the Volga, and the Irtysh. [Footnote: Armies of the
tsar backed up the colonists: they occupied Kazan in 1552 and
Astrakhan, near the Caspian Sea, in 1554.] A glance at the map of
Russia will show how the network of rivers combined with the level
character of the country to facilitate this process of racial
expansion. The gentle southerly flowing Dnieper, Don, and Volga,
radiating from the same central region, and connected by way of the
Kama with the headwaters of the Dwina, which empties into the White Sea
in the extreme north, became chief channels of trade and migration, and
contributed much more to the elaboration of national unity than any
political institutions. Boats could be conveyed over flat and easy
portages from one river-basin to another, and these portages with a
relatively small amount of labor were gradually changed into navigable
channels, so that even now the canals are more important than many of
the railways as arteries of commerce.
[Sidenote: The Cossacks]
As the emigrants threaded their way along the river courses and over
the broad plains they had to be constantly on the alert against attacks
of troublesome natives, and they accordingly organized themselves in
semi-military fashion. Those in the vanguard of territorial expansion
constituted a peculiar class known as Cossacks, who, like frontiersmen
of other times and places, for example, like those that gained for the
United States its vast western domain, lived a wild life in which
agricultural and pastoral pursuits were intermingled with hunting and
fighting. In the basins of the southern rivers, the Cossacks formed
semi-independent military communities: those of the Volga and the Don
professed allegiance to the tsar of Muscovy, while those of the Dnieper
usually recognized the sovereignty of the king of Poland.
[Sidenote: Eastword Expansion into Asia]
Nor was the migration of the Russian race restricted to Europe. The
division between Europe and Asia is largely imaginary, as another
glance at the map will prove,--the low-lying Urals are a barrier only
toward the north, while southward the plains of Russia stretch on
interminably above the Caspian until they are merged in the steppes of
Siberia. Across these plains moved a steady stream of Cossacks and
peasants and adventurers, carrying with them the habits and traditions
of their Russian homes. Ever eastward wended the emigrants. They
founded Tobolsk in 1587 and Tomsk in 1604; they established Yakutsk on
the Lena River in 1632, and Irkutsk on Lake Baikal in 1652; in 1638
they reached the Sea of Okhotsk, and, by the close of the seventeenth
century, they occupied the peninsula of Kamchatka and looked upon the
broad Pacific. Thus at the time when the Spaniards were extending their
speech and laws throughout South America and the English were laying
the foundations for the predominance of their institutions in North
America, the Russians were appropriating northern Asia and
demonstrating that, with them at least, the course of empire takes its
way eastward.
Ivan the Great had already been described in church service as "the
ruler and autocrat of all Russia, the new Tsar Constantine [Footnote:
The last Cæsar of the Græco-Roman Empire, Constantine XI, had perished
in 1453 in vain defense of Constantinople against the Turks. It was a
significant fact that the Russian rulers, who owed their Christianity
and their nation's culture to the Greeks, should now revive the title
of Caesar (Russian form, tsar or czar).] in the new city of
Constantine, Moscow." His successors invariably had themselves crowned
as tsars and autocrats of all Russia. By military might they maintained
their control over the ever-widening territories of the Russian people;
with racial pride and religious fervor, the distant emigrants regarded
their royal family at Moscow. The power of the tsars kept pace with the
expansion of the state.
[Sidenote: Oriental Characteristics of Russia]
Yet this greater Russia remained essentially Oriental. Its form of
Christianity was derived from the East rather than from the West. Its
social customs savored more of Asia than of Europe. Its nobles and even
its tsars were rated by western Christendom as little better than
barbarians. In fact, the Russian state was looked upon in the
seventeenth century in much the same way as China was regarded in the
nineteenth century.
The reasons for this relative backwardness are not hard to ascertain.
In the first place, the religion of the state was a direct heritage of
the expiring Eastern Empire and was different from either the
Catholicism or the Protestantism of western Europe. Secondly, long and
close contact with the conquering Mongols or Tatars of Asia had
saturated the Russian people with Oriental customs and
habits.[Footnote: See above, pp. 21 f.] Thirdly, the nature of the
country tended to exalt agriculture and to discourage industry and
foreign commerce, and at the same time to turn emigration and expansion
eastward rather than westward. Finally, so long as the neighboring
western states of Sweden, Poland, and Turkey remained powerful and
retained the entire coast of the Baltic and Black seas, Russia was
deprived of seaports that would enable her to engage in traffic with
western Europe and thus to partake of the common culture of
Christendom.
Not until Russia was modernized and westernized, and had made
considerable headway against one or all of her western neighbors, could
she hope to become a European Power. Not until the accession of the
Romanov dynasty did she enter seriously upon this twofold policy.
[Sidenote: The "Troublous Times"]
The direct line of Ivan the Great had died out at the close of the
sixteenth century, and there ensued what in Russian history are known
as "the troublous times." Disputes over the succession led to a series
of civil wars, and the consequent anarchy invited foreign intervention.
For a time the Poles harassed the country and even occupied the
Kremlin, or citadel, of Moscow. The Swedes, also, took advantage of the
troublous times in Russia to enlarge their conquests on the eastern
shore of the Baltic and to seize the important trading center of
Novgorod. In the south, the Turks warred with the Cossacks and brought
many of the Crimean principalities under their control.
[Sidenote: The Accession of the Romanovs, 1613]
Under these discouraging circumstances a great national assembly met at
Moscow in 1613 to elect a tsar, and their choice fell upon one of their
own number, a certain Michael Romanov, whose family had been connected
by marriage ties with the ancient royal line. It is an interesting fact
that the present autocrat of Russia is a lineal descendant of the
Romanov who was thus popularly elected to supreme authority in 1613.
Michael Romanov proved an excellent choice. Accepted by all classes, he
reestablished order and security throughout the country and
successfully resisted foreign encroachments. He founded several
fortified towns in the south against the Tatars and the Turks. He
recovered Novgorod from the Swedes. During the reign of his son, Polish
depredations were stopped and the Dnieper River was fixed upon
[Footnote: Treaty of Andrussovo (1667), in accordance with which Poland
ceded to Russia Kiev, Smolensk, and eastern Ukraine.] as the general
dividing line between Poland and Russia.
PETER THE GREAT
[Sidenote: His Accession and Early Travels]
The grandson of Michael Romanov was the celebrated Peter the Great, who
may rightfully be designated as the father of modern Russia. His older
brothers, with whom during his youth he was nominally associated in the
government, died in turn without leaving direct heirs, and Peter became
sole ruler in 1696. From the outset he showed an insatiable curiosity
about the arts and sciences of western Europe, the authority of its
kings and the organization of its armies and fleets. To an intense
curiosity, Peter added an indomitable will. He was resolved to satisfy
his every curiosity and to utilize whatever he learned or found.
From childhood, Peter had displayed an aptitude for mechanical tools
and inventions and especially for boat-making. Shipbuilding and ship-
sailing became his favorite pastimes. When he was barely twenty-one, he
launched at Archangel, on the ice-bound White Sea, a ship which he had
built with his own hands. Now in 1696, being sole tsar at the age of
twenty-four, he fitted out a fleet which defeated the Turks on the
Black Sea and allowed him to capture the valuable port of Azov. No
other successes were gained, however, in this Turkish War; and the
young tsar began to perceive that if he were to succeed in his
cherished project he would have to obtain Western aid. In 1697,
therefore, a special commission left Moscow for the purpose of
soliciting the cooperation of the principal Powers against Turkey, and
to this commission the young tsar attached himself as a volunteer
sailor, "Peter Mikhailov," in order that he might incidentally learn
much about ship-building and other technical sciences.
In its primary purpose, the Russian commission failed signally. Western
Europe was on the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession, and all the
European sovereigns seemed to be engrossed in the distractions of
dynastic politics. No help against the Turks was forthcoming. But
personally Peter learned many useful things. In Holland he studied
ship-building as well as anatomy and engraving. In England he
investigated industry and commerce. He closely scrutinized the military
establishment of Prussia. In all places which he visited he collected
artisans, sailors, engineers, or other workmen, whom he sent back to
Russia to instruct his people.
[Sidenote: Suppression of the Streltsi]
While he was on his way from Vienna to Venice, news reached him that
the royal bodyguard, called the _streltsi_, had taken advantage of
his absence of a year and a half and had mutinied at Moscow. In hot
haste he hurried home and wreaked dire vengeance upon the mutineers.
Two thousand were hung or broken on the wheel, five thousand were
beheaded, and Peter for many days amused himself and edified his court
by the wonderful dexterity he displayed in slicing off the heads of
_streltsi_ with his own royal arm.
The severe punishment of the rebellious _streltsi_ and the
immediate abolition of their military organization was clear evidence
that Peter was fully determined both to break with the past traditions
of his country and to compel all the Russian people to do likewise.
[Sidenote: Military Reform]
His first care was the reconstruction of the army on the Prussian
model. Officered and disciplined by foreigners dependent entirely upon
the tsar, the new army replaced the _streltsi_ and proved a potent
factor in furthering the domestic and foreign policies of Peter the
Great.
[Sidenote: Introduction of Occidental Customs]
The young reformer next turned his attention to the customs of his
people--their clothing and manners--which he would transform from
Oriental to Occidental. Edict followed edict with amazing rapidity. The
chief potentates of the empire were solemnly assembled so that Peter
with his own hand might deliberately clip off their long beards and
flowing mustaches. A heavy tax was imposed on such as persisted in
wearing beards. French or German clothes were to be substituted, under
penalty of large fines, for the traditional Russian costume. The use of
tobacco was made compulsory. The Oriental semi-seclusion of women was
prohibited. Both sexes were to mingle freely in the festivities of the
court. These innovations were largely superficial: they partially
permeated the nobility and clergy, but made little impression on the
mass of the population. Peter had begun a work, however, which was
certain of great results in the future.
[Sidenote: Development of Autocracy]
The reign of Peter the Great is notable for the removal of serious
checks upon the power of the tsar and the definitive establishment of
that form of absolutism which in Russia is called "autocracy." By sheer
ability and will-power, the tsar was qualified to play the role of
divine-right monarch, and his observation of the centralized government
of Louis XIV, as well as the appreciation of his country's needs,
convinced him that that kind of government was the most suitable for
Russia.
[Sidenote: Subordination of the Orthodox Church to the Russian State]
[Sidenote: The Holy Synod]
We have already observed how Peter replaced the independent, turbulent
_streltsi_ with a thoroughly devoted and orderly standing army.
That was one important step in the direction of autocracy. The next was
the subordination of the Church to the state. The tsar understood the
very great influence which the Holy Orthodox Church exerted over the
Russian people and the danger to his policies that ecclesiastical
opposition might create. He was naturally anxious that the Church
should become the ally, not the enemy, of autocracy. He, therefore,
took such steps as would exalt the Church in the opinion of his
countrymen and at the same time would render it a serviceable agent of
the government. Professing the warmest faith in its religious tenets,
he deprived the patriarch [Footnote: Until late in the sixteenth
century, the metropolitan of Moscow was in theory under the authority
of the patriarch of Constantinople; thereafter, through Boris Godunov,
he became independent with full consent and approval of the whole Greek
Orthodox Church and was styled the patriarch of Moscow.] of Moscow of
his privilege of controlling the ecclesiastical organization and vested
all powers of church government in a body, called the Holy Synod, whose
members were bishops and whose chief was a layman, all chosen by the
tsar himself. No appointment to ecclesiastical office could henceforth
be made without the approval of the Holy Synod; no sermon could be
preached and no book could be published unless it had received the
sanction of that august body. The authority which the tsar thereby
obtained over the Russian Church was as complete and far-reaching as
that which Henry VIII had acquired, two centuries earlier, over the
Anglican Church. The results have been in keeping with Peter's fondest
expectations, for the Orthodox Church in Russia has been from his time
to the present the right-hand support of absolutism. The tsars have
exalted the Church as the fountain of order and holiness; as a
veritable ark of the covenant have the clergy magnified and extolled
the autocracy.
[Sidenote: Secular Power of the Tsar]
A remodeling of the secular government of Russia along autocratic lines
was another achievement of Peter the Great which long endured. At the
head of the state was the tsar or emperor, possessing absolute,
unlimited powers. An ancient assembly, or Duma, of nobles, which had
formerly exercised vague legislative rights, was practically abolished,
its place being taken by an advisory Council of State whose members,
usually noblemen, were selected by the tsar. All traces of local self-
government were similarly swept away, and the country was henceforth
administered by the tsar's personal agents. To enforce his autocratic
will, a system of police was organized on a militia basis, its chiefs
being made dependent on the central authority. In these, as in all his
other reforms, the tsar encountered a good deal of opposition, and for
a while was obliged to rely largely on foreigners to carry them out. As
soon as possible, however, Peter employed natives, for it was a
cardinal point in his policy that the Russians themselves must manage
their own state without foreign interference or help.
[Sidenote: Attempted Social Reforms of Peter the Great]
Like his contemporaries in western Europe, Peter gave considerable
attention to the economic condition of the monarchy. He strove, though
often in a bungling manner, to promote agriculture and to improve the
lot of the peasantry, who still constituted the overwhelming bulk of
forms of the population. He certainly deprived the nobles of many of
their former privileges and sought to rest political power and social
position on ability rather than on birth. He understood that Russia
grievously lacked a numerous and prosperous middle class, and he aimed
to create one by encouraging trade and industries. His almost constant
participation in wars, however, prevented him from bringing many of his
economic and social plans to fruition.
[Sidenote: Ambitious Foreign Policy of Peter the Great]
Internal reforms were but one-half of Peter's ambitious program. To him
Russia owes not only the abolition of the _streltsi_, the loss of
the independence of the Church, the Europeanization of manners and
customs, and the firm establishment of autocracy, but also the
pronouncement and enforcement of an elaborate scheme of foreign
aggrandizement. On one hand, the tsar showed a lively interest in the
exploration and colonization of Siberia and in the extension of Russian
dominion around the Caspian Sea and towards the Persian Empire. On the
other hand,--and this, for our purposes, is far more important,--he was
resolved to make the cultural and commercial connection between Russia
and Europe strong and intimate, to open a way to the west by gaining
outlets on both the Black and Baltic seas--"windows" to the west, as he
termed them.
On the Baltic Sea, Sweden blocked him; toward the Black Sea, the
Ottoman power hemmed him in. It was, therefore, against Sweden and
Turkey that Peter the Great waged war. It seemed to him a matter of
dire necessity for the preservation of European civilization in Russia
that he should defeat one or both of these states. Against the Turks,
as events proved, he made little headway; against the Swedes he fared
better.
In order that we may understand the nature of the momentous conflict
between Russia and Sweden in the first quarter of the eighteenth
century, it will be necessary at this point to notice the parallel
development of Sweden.
SWEDEN AND THE CAREER OF CHARLES XII
[Sidenote: Sweden a Great Power in the Seventeenth Century]
It will be recalled that a century before Peter the Great, the
remarkable Gustavus Adolphus had aimed to make the Baltic a Swedish
lake. To his own kingdom, lying along the western shore of that sea,
and to the dependency of Finland, he had added by conquest the eastern
provinces of Karelia, Ingria, Esthonia, and Livonia [Footnote: Livonia,
occupied by Gustavus Adolphus during the Polish War of 1621-1629, was
not formally relinquished by Poland until 1660. Esthonia had been
conquered by the Swedes in 1561, but Russia did not renounce her
pretensions to this province until 1617.], and his successful
interference in the Thirty Years' War had given Sweden possession of
western Pomerania and the mouths of the Elbe, Oder, and Weser rivers
and a considerable influence in German affairs. For many years after
the death of Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden was the recognized leader of
continental Protestantism, and her trade on the Baltic grew and
thrived. The exports of Russia and Poland found a convenient outlet
through the Swedish port of Riga, and those of the northern Germanics
were frequently dispatched on Swedish vessels from Stettin or
Stralsund.
Repeated efforts were made by Denmark, Poland, and Brandenburg to break
the commercial monopoly which Sweden enjoyed upon the Baltic and to
deprive her of her conquests, but for a long time in vain. Victory
continued to attend Swedish arms and a general treaty in 1660 confirmed
her dominion. At that time Sweden was not only a military power of the
first magnitude but also one of the largest states of Europe,
possessing about twice as much area as present-day Sweden. Her area
embraced a land-surface 7000 square miles larger than the modern German
Empire. All the islands and the greater part of the coast of the Baltic
belonged to her. Stockholm, the capital, lay in the very center of the
empire, whose second city was Riga, on the other side of the sea. In
politics, in religion, and in trade, Sweden was feared and respected.
[Sidenote: Elements of Weakness in Sweden's Position]
Yet the greatness of Sweden in the seventeenth century was more
apparent than real. Her commerce provoked the jealousy of all her
neighbors. Her dependencies across the Baltic were difficult to hold:
peopled by Finns, Russians, Poles, Germans, and Danes, their bond with
Sweden was essentially artificial, and they usually sympathized,
naturally enough, with their sovereign's enemies. They, therefore,
imposed on the mother country the duty of remaining a military
monarchy, armed from head to foot for every possible emergency. For
such a tremendous destiny Sweden was quite unfitted. Her wide territory
was very sparsely populated, and her peasantry were very poor. Only the
French alliance gave her solid backing in the Germanies, and, with the
decline of the fortunes of Louis XIV and the rise of Prussia and
Russia, she was bound to lose her leadership in the North.
To the fate of Sweden, her rulers in the seventeenth century
contributed no small share. Nearly all of them were born fighters and
nearly all of them were neglectful of home interests and of the works
of peace. The military instincts of the Swedish kings not only
sacrificed thousands of lives that were urgently needed in building up
their country and cost the kingdom enormous sums of money but likewise
impaired commerce, surrounded the empire with a broad belt of desolated
territory, and implanted an ineradicable hatred in every adjacent
state. Then, too, the extravagance and negligence of the sovereigns led
to chaos in domestic government. Taxes were heavy and badly
apportioned. The nobles recovered many of their political privileges.
The royal power steadily dwindled away at the very time when it was
most needed; and a selfish, grasping aristocracy hastened their
country's ruin. [Footnote: A reaction appeared under the capable
Charles XI (1660-1697), but its fruits were completely lost by his son
and successor, Charles XII.]
[Sidenote: Coalition against Charles XII]
At length, in 1697, when Charles XII, a boy of fifteen years, ascended
the throne of Sweden, the neighboring Powers thought the time had
arrived to partition his territories among themselves. Tsar Peter,
while returning home the following year from his travels abroad, had
discussed with Augustus II, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, a
plan which the latter had formed for the dismemberment of the Swedish
Empire: Poland was to recover Livonia and annex Esthonia; Russia was to
obtain Ingria and Karelia and thereby a port on the Baltic; Brandenburg
was to occupy western Pomerania; and Denmark was to take possession of
Holstein and the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. Charles XII was to
retain only his kingdom in the Scandinavian peninsula and the grand
duchy of Finland. At the last moment Brandenburg balked, but Saxony,
Denmark, and Russia signed the nefarious alliance in 1699. The allies
expected quick and decisive victory. All western and southern Europe
was on the verge of a great struggle for the Spanish inheritance and
would clearly be unable to prevent them from despoiling Sweden.
[Sidenote: Military Exploits of Charles XII]
But the allies grossly underrated their foe. Charles XII was a mere
boy, but precocious, gloomy, and sensitive, and endowed with all the
martial determination and heroism of his ancestors. He desired nothing
better than to fight against overwhelming odds, and the fury of the
youthful commander soon earned him the sobriquet of the "madman of the
North." The alliance of 1699 precipitated the Great Northern War which
was to last until 1721 and slowly, but no less inevitably, lower Sweden
to the position of a third-rate power. It was amid the most spectacular
exploits of the boy-king that the ruin of Sweden was accomplished. It
was a grander but more tragic fate than in the same period befell
Spain.
Charles XII did not give the allies time to unite. Hurriedly crossing
the straits, he invaded Denmark, whose terrified king promptly signed a
treaty with him (1700), paying a large indemnity and engaging to keep
the peace in future.
Thence Charles hastened across the Baltic to Esthonia in order to deal
with the invading Russians. At Narva he met and annihilated their army.
Then he turned southward, clearing Livonia and Lithuania of Poles,
Saxons, and Russians.
Into the very heart of Poland he carried the war, possessing himself of
both Warsaw and Cracow. He obliged the Polish Diet to dethrone Augustus
and to accept a king of his own choice in the person of a certain
Stanislaus Leszczynski (1704).
All these things had been done by a young man between the age of
seventeen and twenty--two. It was quite natural that he should be
puffed up with pride in his ability and successes. It was almost as
natural that, hardened at an early age to the horrors of war, he should
become increasingly callous and cruel. Many instructions the impulsive
youth sent out over conquered districts in Russia, Poland, and Saxony
"to slay, burn, and destroy." "Better that the innocent suffer than
that the guilty escape" was his favorite adage.
Small wonder, then, that neither Peter the Great nor the Elector
Augustus would abandon the struggle. While Charles was overrunning
Poland, Peter was reorganizing his army and occupying Karelia and
Ingria; and when the Swedish king returned to engage the Russians,
Augustus drove out Stanislaus and regained the crown of Poland. Yet
Charles, with an unreasoning stubbornness, would not perceive that the
time had arrived for terminating the conflict with a few concessions.
Russia at that time asked only a port on the Gulf of Finland as the
price of an alliance against Poland.
[Sidenote: Battle of Poltava (1709): Defeat of Charles XII]
To all entreaties for peace, Charles XII turned a deaf ear, and pressed
the war in Russia. Unable to take Moscow, he turned southward in order
to effect a juncture with some rebellious Cossacks, but met the army of
Peter the Great at Poltava (1709). Poltava marks the decisive triumph
of Russia over Sweden. The Swedish army was destroyed, only a small
number being able to accompany the flight of their king across the
southern Russian frontier into Turkish territory.
Then Charles stirred up the Turks to attack the tsar, but from the new
contest he was himself unable to profit. Peter bought peace with the
Ottoman government by re-ceding the town of Azov, and the latter
gradually tired of their guest's continual and frantic clamor for war.
After a sojourn of over five years in Ottoman lands, Charles suddenly
and unexpectedly appeared, with but a single attendant, at Stralsund,
which by that time was all that remained to him outside of Sweden and
Finland.
[Sidenote: Obstinacy and Death of Charles XII]
Still, however, the war dragged on. The allies grew in numbers and in
demands. Peter the Great and Augustus were again joined by the Danish
king. Great Britain, Hanover, and Prussia, all covetous of Swedish
trade or Swedish territory, were now members of the coalition. Charles
XII stood like adamant: he would retain all or he would lose all. So he
stood until the last. It was while he was directing an invasion of
Norway that the brilliant but ill-balanced Charles lost his life
(1718), being then but thirty-six years of age.
[Sidenote: Decline of Sweden]
Peace which had been impossible during the lifetime of Charles, became
a reality soon after his death. It certainly came none too soon for the
exhausted and enfeebled condition of Sweden. By the treaties of
Stockholm (1719 and 1720), Sweden resigned all her German holdings
except a small district of western Pomerania including the town of
Stralsund. Denmark received Holstein and a money indemnity. Hanover
gained the mouths of the Elbe and Weser; Prussia, the mouth of the Oder
and the important city of Stettin. Augustus was restored to the Polish
throne, though without territorial gain. Great Britain, Denmark, and
Prussia became the principal commercial heirs of Sweden.
[Sidenote: Treaty of Nystad (1721): Russia on the Baltic]
[Sidenote: Petrograd]
The treaty of Nystad (1721) was the turning point for Russia, for
thereby she acquired from Sweden full sovereignty over not only Karelia
and Ingria but the important Baltic provinces of Esthonia and Livonia
and a narrow strip of southern Finland including the strong fortress of
Viborg. Peter the Great had realized his ambition of affording his
country a "window to the west." On the waste marshes of the Neva he
succeeded with enormous effort and sacrifice of life in building a
great city which might be a center of commerce and a bond of connection
between Russia and the western world. He named his new city St.
Petersburg [Footnote: Known generally in the Teutonic form "St.
Petersburg" from its foundation until the War of the Nations in 1914,
when the Slavic form of "Petrograd" was substituted.] and to it he
transferred his government from Moscow. Russia supplanted Sweden in the
leadership of the Baltic and assumed a place among the Powers of
Europe.
Peter the Great did not realize his other ambition of securing a
Russian port on the Black Sea. Although he captured and held Azov for a
time, he was obliged to relinquish it, as we have seen, in order to
prevent the Turks from joining hands with Charles XII.
[Sidenote: Character of Peter the Great]
Nevertheless, when Peter died in 1725, he left his empire a compact
state, well-organized, and well-administered, westernized at least
superficially, and ready to play a conspicuous role in the
international politics of Europe. The man who succeeded in doing all
these things has been variously estimated. By some he has been
represented as a monster of cruelty and a murderer, [Footnote: Peter
had his son and heir, the Grand Duke Alexius, put to death because he
did not sympathize with his reforms. The tsar's other punishments often
assumed a most revolting and disgusting character.] by others as a
demon of the grossest sensuality, by still others as a great national
hero. Probably he merited all such opinions. But, above all, he was a
genius of fierce energy and will, who toiled always for what he
considered to be the welfare of his country.
CATHERINE THE GREAT: THE DEFEAT OF TURKEY AND THE DISMEMBERMENT OF
POLAND
It is hardly possible to feel much respect for the character of the
Russian rulers who succeeded Peter the Great in the eighteenth century.
Most of them were women with loose morals and ugly manners. But they
had little to fear from Sweden, which, utterly exhausted, was now on a
steady decline; and domestic difficulties both in Poland and in Turkey
removed any apprehension of attacks from those countries. In policies
of internal government, Peter had blazed a trail so clear and
unmistakable that one would have difficulty in losing it.
[Sidenote: Character of the Tsarina Catherine II]
Of those female sovereigns of the Russian Empire, the most notable was
Catherine II, usually called Catherine the Great (1762-1796). By birth
she was not even a Russian, but a princess of Protestant Germany, whom
dynastic considerations made the wife of the heir to the Russian crown.
[Footnote: The marriage was arranged by Frederick the Great in order to
minimize Austrian influence at Petrograd.]
No sooner was she in her adopted country than she set to work to
ingratiate herself with its people. She learned the Russian language.
She outwardly conformed to the Orthodox Church. She slighted her German
relatives and surrounded herself with Russians. She established a
reputation for quick wit and lofty patriotism. So great was her success
that when her half-insane husband ascended the throne as Peter III in
1762, the people looked to her rather than to him as the real ruler,
and before the year was over she had managed to make away with him and
to become sovereign in name as well as in fact. For thirty-four years
Catherine was tsarina of Russia. Immoral to the last, without
conscience or scruple, she ruled the country with a firm hand and
consummated the work of Peter the Great.
[Sidenote: Her Administration]
In the administrative system Catherine introduced the "governments" and
"districts," divisions and subdivisions of Russia, over which were
placed respectively governors and vice-governors, all appointed by the
central authority. To the ecclesiastical alterations of Peter, she
added the secularization of church property, thereby making the clergy
distinctly dependent upon her bounty and strengthening the autocracy.
[Sidenote: Her Patronage of Learning]
The tsarina had some personal interest in the literary and scientific
progress of the eighteenth century and was determined to make Russia
appear cultured in the eyes of western Europe. She corresponded with
Voltaire and many other philosophers and learned men of the time. She
pensioned Diderot, the author of the great Encyclopædia, and invited
scholars to her court. She posed as the friend of higher education.
[Sidenote: Her Foreign Policy]
Of the three foreign countries which in the eighteenth century blocked
the western expansion of Russia, Sweden had been humbled by Peter in
the Great Northern War and the treaty of Nystad. Poland and Turkey
remained to be dealt with by Catherine the Great. Let us see what had
lately transpired to render this task comparatively easy for the
tsarina.
[Sidenote: Poland in the Eighteenth Century]
Poland in the first half of the eighteenth century was geographically a
large state, but a variety of circumstances contributed to render it
weak and unstable. In the first place, it was without natural
boundaries or adequate means of defense. To the west it was separated
from Prussia and Austria by an artificial line drawn through level
plains or over low-lying hills. To the south a fluctuating frontier,
fixed usually along the Dniester River, set it off from the Ottoman
Empire. The fertile valleys of the Dnieper, to the east, and of the
Dona, to the north, were shared by Russia and Poland. No chains of
mountains and no strongly fortified places protected the Polish people
from Germans, Turks, or Russians.
Nor was this wide, but indefensible, territory inhabited by a single
homogeneous people. The Poles themselves, centering in the western
cities of Warsaw and Cracow, constituted a majority of the population,
but the Lithuanians, a kindred Slavic folk, covered the east-central
part of the kingdom and a large number of Cossacks and "Little
Russians" [Footnote: Ruthenians.] lived in the extreme east, while
along the northern and western borders were settlements of Germans and
Swedes. Between the Poles and the Lithuanians existed a long-standing
feud, and the Germans regarded all the Slavs with ill-disguised
contempt.
Religion added its share to the dissension created by race and language
within Poland. The Poles and most of the Lithuanians were stanch Roman
Catholics. Other Lithuanians--especially the great nobles--together
with the Russians and Cossacks adhered to the Greek Orthodox faith,
while Lutheran Protestantism was upheld by the western settlements of
Swedes and Germans. The Dissenters, as the Orthodox and Protestants
were called, demanded from the Catholic majority a toleration and a
freedom of worship which at that time existed in no other country of
Europe. When it was not forthcoming, they appealed to foreign Powers--
the Lutherans to Prussia, the Orthodox to Russia.
[Sidenote: Wretched Social Conditions in Poland]
Worst of all were the social conditions in Poland. By the eighteenth
century, the towns had sunk into relative insignificance, leaving
Poland without a numerous or wealthy middle class. Of the other
classes, the great nobles or magnates owned the land, lived in luxury,
selfishly looked out for their own interests, and jealously played
politics, while the mass of the nation were degraded into a state of
serfdom and wretchedness that would be difficult to parallel elsewhere
in Europe. With a grasping, haughty nobility on one hand, and an
oppressed, ignorant peasantry on the other, social solidarity, the best
guarantee of political independence, was entirely lacking.
[Sidenote: Weakness of Polish Political Institutions]
An enlightened progressive government might have done something to
remedy the social ills, but of all governments that the world has ever
seen, the most ineffectual and pernicious was the Polish. Since the
sixteenth century, the monarchy had been elective, with the result that
the reign of every sovereign was disfigured by foreign intrigues and
domestic squabbles over the choice of his successor, and also that the
noble electors were able not only to secure liberal bribes but to wring
from the elect such concessions as gradually reduced the kingship to an
ornamental figurehead. Most of the later kings were foreigners who used
what little power was left to them in furtherance of their native
interests rather than of the welfare of Poland. Thus the kings in the
first half of the eighteenth century were German electors of Saxony,
who owed their new position to the interested friendship of Austria,
Prussia, or Russia, and to the large sums of money which they lavished
upon the Polish magnates; these same Saxon rulers cheerfully applied
the Polish resources to their German policies.
Another absurdity of the Polish constitution was the famous "_liberum
veto_," a kind of gentlemen's agreement among the magnates, whereby
no law whatsoever could be enacted by the Diet if a single member felt
it was prejudicial to his interests, and objected. In the course of the
seventeenth century the principle of the _liberum veto_ had been
so far extended as to recognize the lawful right of any one of the ten
thousand noblemen of Poland to refuse to obey a law which he had not
approved. This amounted to anarchism. And anarchism, however beautiful
it might appear as an ideal, was hardly a trustworthy weapon with which
to oppose the greedy, hard-hearted, despotic monarchs who governed all
the surrounding countries.
[Sidenote: Steady Decline of Ottoman Power during Seventeenth Century]
The Ottoman Empire was not in such sore straits as Poland, but its
power and prestige were obviously waning. In another place we have
reviewed the achievements of the Turks in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries--how they overran the Balkan peninsula, captured
Constantinople, put an end to the ancient Græco-Roman Empire and under
Suleiman the Magnificent extended their conquests along the northern
coast of Africa and in Europe across the Danube into the very heart of
Hungary. Although the sea-power of the Turks suffered a serious reverse
at Lepanto (1571), their continued land advances provoked in
Christendom the liveliest apprehension throughout the seventeenth
century. After a twenty-five-years conflict they took Crete from
Venice. They subjugated to their dominion the Tatars and Russians
immediately north of the Black Sea. They exacted homage from the
princes of Rumania and Transylvania. They annexed Hungary. For a time
they received tribute from the king of Poland. In 1683 they laid siege
to the city of Vienna and would have taken it had not the patriotic
Polish monarch, John Sobieski, brought timely aid to the beleaguered
Austrians. That was the high-water mark of the Mohammedan advance in
Europe.
Thenceforth the Turkish boundaries gradually receded. An alliance of
Venice, Poland, the pope, and Austria waged long and arduous warfare
with the Ottomans, and the resulting treaty of Karlowitz, signed at the
very close of the seventeenth century, gave the greater part of
Hungary, including Transylvania, to the Austrian Habsburgs, extended
the southern boundary of Poland to the Dniester River, and surrendered
important trading centers on the Dalmatian and Greek coasts to the
Venetians. Two subsequent wars between the sultan and the Habsburgs
definitely freed the whole of Hungary from the Ottoman yoke. The
reasons for the wane of Turkey's power are scarcely to be sought in the
inherent strength of her neighbors, for, with the possible exception of
Austria and Russia, they were notoriously weak and had seldom been able
or willing to work together in behalf of any common cause. The real
reasons lay rather in the character and nature of the Turkish power
itself. Domestic, not foreign, difficulties prepared the way for future
disasters.
[Sidenote: Nature of the Turkish Conquests]
It should be borne in mind that the Turks never constituted a majority
of the population of their European possessions. They were a mere body
of conquerors, who in frenzies of religious or martial enthusiasm,
inspired with the idea that Divine Providence was using them as agents
for the spread of Mohammedanism, had fought valiantly with the sword or
cunningly taken advantage of their enemies' quarrels to plant over wide
areas the crescent in place of the cross. In the conquered regions, the
native Christian peoples were reduced to serfdom, and the Turkish
conquerors became great landholders and the official class. To extend,
even to maintain, such an artificial order of things, the Turks would
be obliged to keep their military organization always at the highest
pitch of excellence and to preserve their government from weakness and
corruption. In neither of these respects did the Turks ultimately
succeed.
[Sidenote: Corruption In the Turkish Government]
The sultans of the eighteenth century were not of the stuff of which a
Suleiman the Magnificent had been made. To the grim risks of battle
they preferred the cushioned ease of the palace, and all their powers
of administration and government were quite consumed in the management
of the household and the harem. Actual authority was gradually
transferred to the Divan, or board of ministers, whose appointments or
dismissals were the results of palace intrigues, sometimes petty but
more often bloody. Corruption ate its way through the entire office-
holding element of the Ottoman state: positions were bought and sold
from the Divan down to the obscure village, and office was held to
exist primarily for financial profit and secondarily as a means of
oppressing the subject people.
The army, on which so much in the Turkish state depended, naturally
reflected the demoralized condition of the government. While Peter the
Great was organizing a powerful army in Russia, and Frederick the Great
was perfecting the Prussian military machine, the Ottoman army steadily
declined. It failed to keep pace with the development of tactics and of
firearms in western Europe, and fell behind the times. The all-
prevalent corruption ruined its discipline, and its regularly organized
portion--the "janissaries"--became the masters rather than the servants
of the sultans and of the whole Turkish government.
It was the fortune of the Russian tsarina--Catherine the Great--to
appreciate the real weakness of both Turkey and Poland and to turn her
neighbors' distress to the profit of her own country.
[Sidenote: Catherine's Interference in Poland]
No sooner had Catherine secured the Russian crown and by her inactivity
permitted Frederick the Great to bring the Seven Years' War to a
successful issue, than the death of Augustus III, elector of Saxony and
king of Poland, gave her an opportunity to interfere in Polish affairs.
She was not content with the Saxon line which was more or less under
Austrian influence, and, with the astute aid of Frederick, she induced
the Polish nobles to elect one of her own courtiers and favorites,
Stanislaus Poniatowski, who thus in 1764 became the last king of an
independent Poland.
With the accession of Stanislaus, the predominance of Russia was fully
established in Poland. Russia entered into an execrable agreement with
Prussia and Austria to uphold the anarchical constitution of the
unhappy and victimized country. When patriotic Poles made efforts--as
they now frequently did--to reform their government, to abolish the
_liberum veto_, and to strengthen the state, they found their
attempts thwarted by the allies either by force of arms or by bribes of
money. The racial animosities and the religious differences within
Poland afforded sufficient pretexts for the intervention of the
neighboring Powers, especially Prussia and Russia.
A popular insurrection of Polish Catholics against the intolerable
meddling of foreigners was crushed by the troops of Catherine, with the
single result that the Russians, in pursuing some fleeing insurgents
across the southern frontier, violated Turkish territory and
precipitated a war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
[Sidenote: Catherine's War with the Turks, 1768-1774]
This Turkish War lasted from 1768 to 1774. The Ottoman government was
profoundly alarmed by the Russian foreign policy, believing that the
intrigues in Poland would end in the annexation of that state to Russia
and the consequent upsetting of the balance of power in the East, and
that, Poland once being disposed of, the turn of Turkey would come
next. The Turks, moreover, were egged on by the French government,
which, anxious also to preserve the balance of power and to defend the
liberties of Poland, was too financially embarrassed itself to
undertake a great war against Prussia and Russia.
This war between Russia and Turkey fully confirmed the belief that the
power of the latter was waning. The Ottoman troops, badly armed and
badly led, suffered a series of reverses. The Russians again occupied
Azov, which Peter the Great had been compelled to relinquish; they
overran Moldavia and Wallachia; they seized Bucharest; and they seemed
likely to cross the Danube. Catherine went so far as to fan a revolt
among the Greek subjects of the sultan.
[Sidenote: Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji (1774): Russia on the Black Sea]
At length, in 1774, the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji was concluded between
the belligerents. It was most important in marking the southern
extension of Russia. By its provisions, (1) Turkey formally ceded Azov
and adjacent territory to Russia and renounced sovereignty over all
land north of the Black Sea; (2) Turkey recovered Wallachia, Moldavia,
and Greece, on condition that they should be better governed; (3)
Russia obtained the right of free navigation for her merchant ships in
Turkish waters; and (4) Russia was recognized as the protector of
certain churches in the city of Constantinople.
Within a few years after the signature of the treaty of Kuchuk
Kainarji, Catherine established Russian control over the various Tatar
principalities north of the Black Sea, whose sovereignty Turkey had
renounced, and by a supplementary agreement in 1792, the Dniester River
was fixed upon as the boundary between the Russian and Ottoman empires.
The Turkish policy of Catherine the Great bore three significant
results. In the first place, Russia acquired a natural boundary in
southern Europe, and became the chief Power on the Black Sea, whence
her ships might pass freely through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles
out into the Mediterranean to trade with western Europe. Russia's
second "window to the west" was gained. Then, in the second place,
Russia was henceforth looked upon as the natural ally and friend of
oppressed nationalities within the Turkish Empire. Finally, the special
clause conferring on Russia the protectorate of certain churches in
Constantinople afforded her a pretext for a later claim to protect
Christians throughout the Ottoman state and consequently to interfere
incessantly in Turkish affairs. Since the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji,
Turkey has declined with ever-increasing rapidity, and Russia has
become an eager candidate for a liberal share of the spoils.
[Sidenote: Catherine and the Partition of Poland]
[Sidenote: First Partition, 1772]
Even while the Turkish War was in progress, Catherine the Great had not
lost sight of her Polish policy. Frederick of Prussia had doubtless
hoped that she would, in order that he might have a free rein to direct
a distribution of territory entirely satisfactory to himself and to
Prussia But the wily tsarina was never so immersed in other matters
that she neglected Russian interests in Poland. In 1772, therefore, she
joined with Frederick and with Maria Theresa of Austria in making the
first partition of Poland. Russia took all the country which lay east
of the Dona and Dnieper rivers. Prussia took West Prussia except the
town of Danzig. Austria took Galicia and the city of Cracow. In all,
Poland was deprived of about a fourth of her territory.
[Sidenote: Second Partition, 1793]
[Sidenote: Third and Last Partition, 1795]
The partition of 1772 sobered the Polish people and brought them to a
full realizing sense of the necessity of radical political reform. But
the shameful and hypocritical attitude of the neighboring sovereigns
continued to render their every effort abortive. For another twenty-one
years the wretched country struggled on, a victim of selfish foreign
tutelage. Although both Frederick and Maria Theresa died in the
interval, their successors proved themselves quite as willing to
coöperate with the implacable tsarina. In 1793 Russia and Prussia
effected the second partition of Poland, and in 1795, following a last
desperate attempt of the Poles to establish a new government, they
admitted Austria to a share in the final dismemberment of the unhappy
country. Desperately did the brave Kosciuszko try to stem the tide of
invasion which poured in from all sides. His few forces, in spite of
great valor, were no match for the veteran allies, and the defense was
vain. "Freedom shrieked when Kosciuszko fell." King Stanislaus
Poniatowski resigned his crown and betook himself to Petrograd. Poland
ceased to exist as an independent state.
By the partitions of 1793 and 1795, Austria obtained the upper valley
of the Vistula, and Prussia the lower, including the city of Warsaw,
while the rest--the major share--went to Russia. Little Russia
(Ruthenia) and approximately all of Lithuania thus passed into the
hands of the tsarina. Russia thenceforth bordered immediately on
Prussia and Austria and became geographically a vital member of the
European family of nations.
Catherine the Great survived the third and final partition of Poland
but a year, dying in 1796. If it can be said of Peter that he made
Russia a European Power, it can be affirmed with equal truth that
Catherine made Russia a Great Power. The eighteenth century had
witnessed a marvelous growth of Russia in Europe. She had acquired
territory and a capital on the Baltic. She had secured valuable ports
on the Black Sea. She had pushed her boundaries westward into the very
center of the Continent.
The rise of Russia was at the expense of her neighbors. Sweden had
surrendered her eastern provinces and lost her control of the Baltic.
Turkey had abandoned her monopoly of the shores and trade of the Black
Sea. Poland had disappeared from the map.
[Illustration: THE ROMANOV FAMILY: RUSSIAN SOVEREIGNS (1613-1915)]
ADDITIONAL READING
THE RISE OF RUSSIA. Elementary sketches: J. H. Robinson and C. A.
Beard, _The Development of Modern Europe_, Vol. I (1907), ch. iv;
H. O. Wakeman, _The Ascendancy of France, 1598-1715_ (1894), ch.
viii, xii, xiii; Arthur Hassall, _The Balance of Power, 1715-1789_
(1896), ch. v, xi; A. H. Johnson, _The Age of the Enlightened Despot,
1660-1789_ (1910), ch. iv, v; H. T. Dyer, _A History of Modern
Europe from the Fall of Constantinople_, 3d ed. rev. by Arthur
Hassall, 6 vols. (1901), ch. xxxvi, xxxviii, xli, xlix, 1. More
detailed histories: _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. V (1908), ch.
xvi-xix, and Vol. VI (1909), ch. x, xix; _Histoire générale_, Vol.
V, ch. xvi-xviii, xx, Vol. VI, ch. xvii-xix, xxi, xxii, Vol. VII, ch.
viii, ix, excellent chapters in French by such eminent scholars as
Louis Leger and Alfred Rambaud; V. 0. Kliuchevsky, _A History of
Russia_, Eng. trans. by C. J. Hogarth, 3 vols. (1911-1913),
authoritative on the early history of Russia, but comes down only to
1610; Alfred Rambaud, _Histoire de la Russie depuis les origines
jusqu'à nos jours_, 6th ed. (1914), ch. xiv-xxxii,--an earlier
edition of this standard work was translated into English by Leonora B.
Lang and published in two volumes, of which the larger part treats of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; James Mayor, _Economic
History of Russia_, Vol. I (1914), Book I, ch. iv-vii, especially
useful for the economic and social reforms of Peter the Great. On the
Russian sovereigns: R. N. Bain, _The First Romanovs, 1613-1725_
(1905), and, by the same author, _Pupils of Peter the Great: a
History of the Russian Court and Empire from 1697 to 1740_ (1897);
Eugene Schuyler, _Peter the Great_, 2 vols. (1884), a scholarly
work; Kazimierz Waliszewski, _Peter the Great_, an admirable study
trans. from the French by Lady Mary Loyd (1900), and, by the same
author, though not as yet translated, _L'héritage de Pierre le Grand:
règne des femmes, gouvernement des favoris, 1725-1741_ (1900) and
_La dernière des Romanov, Elisabeth R_ (1902); Alexander Bruckner,
_Peter der Grosse_ (1879), and, by the same author, _Katharina
die Zweite_ (1883), important German works, in the Oncken Series; E.
A. B. Hodgetts, _The Life of Catherine the Great of Russia_
(1914), a recent fair-minded treatment in English. On the expansion of
the Russian people: Alfred Rambaud, _The Expansion of Russia_, 2d
ed. (1904); F. A. Golder, _Russian Expansion on the Pacific, 1641-
1850_; Hans Übersberger, _Russlands Orientpolitik in den letzten
zwei Jahrhunderten_, Vol. I, down to 1792 (1913).
THE DECLINE OF SWEDEN, TURKEY, AND POLAND. On Sweden: R. N. Bain,
_Scandinavia, a Political History of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,
1513-1900_ (1905), and, by the same author, _Charles XII_
(1899) in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series. On Turkey: Stanley Lane-
Poole, _Turkey_ (1889), in the "Story of the Nations" Series, and
E. A. Freeman, _The Ottoman Power in Europe, its Nature, its Growth,
and its Decline_ (1877), suggestive outlines by eminent English
historians; Nicolae Jorga, _Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches_, 5
vols. (1908-1913), particularly Vols. III, IV, the best and most up-to-
date history of the Ottoman Empire; Joseph von Hammer, _Geschichte
des osmanischen Reiches_, 10 vols. (1827-1835), an old work, very
detailed and still famous, of which Vols. VI-VIII treat of the
eighteenth century prior to 1774. On Poland: W. A. Phillips,
_Poland_ (1915), ch. i-vi, a convenient volume in the "Home
University Library"; R. N. Bain, _Slavonic Europe: a Political
History of Poland and Russia from 1447 to 1796_ (1908), ch. v-xix;
_Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VIII (1904), ch. xvii; W. R. A.
Morfill, _Poland_ (1893), in the "Story of the Nations" Series; R.
H. Lord, _The Second Partition of Poland: a Study in Diplomatic
History_ (1915), scholarly and well-written; R. N. Bain, _The Last
King of Poland and his Contemporaries_ (1909); U. L. Lehtonen,
_Die polnischen Provinzen Russlands unter Katharina II in den Jahren
1772-1782_ (1907), a German translation of an important Finnish
work. An excellent French account of international relations in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, affecting Russia, Sweden, Poland,
and Turkey, is Émile Bourgeois, _Manuel historique de politique
étrangère_, 4th ed., Vol. I (1906), ch. viii, x, xiii.
PART III
"LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY"
Our narrative of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries thus far has
been full of intrigue, dynastic rivalry, and colonial competition. We
have sat with red-robed cardinals in council to exalt the monarch of
France; we have witnessed the worldwide wars by which Great Britain won
and lost vast imperial domains; we have followed the thundering march
of Frederick's armies through the Germanies, wasted with war; but we
have been blind indeed if the glare of bright helmets and the glamour
of courtly diplomacy have hidden from our eyes a phenomenon more
momentous than even the growth of Russia or the conquest of New France.
It is the rise of the bourgeoisie.
Driven on by insatiable ambition, not content to be lords of the world
of business, with ships and warehouses for castles and with clerks for
retainers, the bourgeoisie have placed their lawyers in the royal
service, their learned men in the academies, their economists at the
king's elbow, and with restless energy they push on to shape state and
society to their own ends. In England they have already helped to
dethrone kings and have secured some hold on Parliament, but on the
Continent their power and place is less advanced.
For the eighteenth century is still the grand age of monarchs, who take
Louis XIV as the pattern of princely power and pomp. "Benevolent
despots" they are, these monarchs meaning well to govern their people
with fatherly kindness. But their plans go wrong and their reforms fall
flat, while the bourgeoisie become self-conscious and self-reliant, and
rise up against the throne of the sixteenth Louis in France. It is the
bourgeoisie that start the revolutionary cry of "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity," and it is this cry in the throats of the masses which
sends terror to the hearts of nobles and kings. Desperately the old
order--the old régime--defends itself. First France, then all Europe,
is affected. Revolutionary wars convulse the Continent. Never had the
world witnessed wars so disastrous, so bloody.
Yet the triumph of the bourgeoisie is not assured. The Revolution has
been but one battle in the long war between the rival aristocracies of
birth and of business--a war in which peasants and artisans now give
their lives for illusory dreams of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," now
fight their feudal lords, and now turn on their pretended liberators,
the bourgeoisie. For already it begins to dawn on the dull masses that
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" are chiefly for their masters.
The old regime, its decay, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the
disappointment of the common people,--these are the bold landmarks on
which the student must fix his attention, while in the following
chapters we sketch the condition of Europe in the eighteenth century,
and trace the course of the French Revolution, the career of Napoleon,
and the restoration of "law and order" under Metternich.
CHAPTER XIII
EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
AGRICULTURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: General Backwardness]
If some "Rip Van Winkle" of the sixteenth century could have slept for
two centuries to awake in 1750, he would have found far less to marvel
at in the common life of the people than would one of us. Much of the
farming, even of the weaving, buying, and selling, was done just as it
had been done centuries before; and the great changes that were to
revolutionize the life and work of the people were as yet hardly
dreamed of. In fact, there was so much in common between the sixteenth
and eighteenth centuries, that the reader who has already made himself
familiar with the manor and the gild, as described in Chapter II, will
find himself quite at home in the "old regime," as the order of things
in the eighteenth century is now termed.
One might still see the countless little agricultural villages and
manor houses nestling among the hills or dotting the plains, surrounded
by green fields and fringed with forest or wasteland. The simple
villagers still cultivated their strips in the common fields in the
time-honored way, working hard for meager returns. A third of the land
stood idle every year; it often took a whole day merely to scratch the
surface of a single acre with the rude wooden plow then in use; cattle
were killed off in the autumn for want of good hay; fertilizers were
only crudely applied, if at all; many a humble peasant was content if
his bushel of seed brought him three bushels of grain, and was proud if
his fatted ox weighed over four hundred pounds, though a modern farmer
would grumble at results three or four times as good.
[Sidenote: "Gentlemen Farmers" and "Husbandry"]
[Sidenote: "Rotation of Crops"]
There were some enterprising and prosperous landowners who used newer
and better methods, and even wrote books about "husbandry," as
agriculture was called. The Dutch, especially, learned to cultivate
their narrow territory carefully, and from them English farmers
learned many secrets of tillage. They grew clover and "artificial
grasses"--such as rye--for their cattle, cultivated turnips for winter
fodder, tilled the soil more thoroughly, used fertilizers more
diligently, and even learned how to shift their crops from field to
field according to a regular plan, so that the soil would not lose its
fertility and would not have to be left idle or "fallow" every third
year.
[Sidenote: Survival of Primitive Methods]
These new methods were all very fine for "gentlemen farmers," but for
the average peasant the old "open-field" system was an effective
barrier to progress. He could not plant new crops on his strips in the
grain fields, for custom forbade it; he could not breed his cows
scientifically, while they ran in with the rest of the village cattle.
At best he could only work hard and pray that his cows would not catch
contagion from the rest, and that the weeds from his neighbor's wheat-
patch might not spread into his own, for between such patches there was
neither wall nor fence.
[Sidenote: Survival of Serfdom]
[Sidenote: Sorry Condition of the Peasantry]
Primitive methods were not the only survivals of manorial life. Actual
serfdom still prevailed in most of the countries of Europe except
France [Footnote: Even in France, some serfdom still survived.] and
England, and even in these countries nominal freedom lifted the
peasantry but little above the common lot. It is true, indeed, that
countless differences in the degree and conditions of servitude existed
between Russians and Frenchmen, and even between peasants in the same
country or village. The English or French plowman, perhaps, might not
be sold to fight for other countries like the Hessians, nor could he be
commanded to marry an undesired bride, as were of the tenants of a
Russian nobleman. But in a general way we may say that all the peasants
of Europe suffered from much the same causes. With no voice in making
the laws, they were liable to heavy fines or capital punishment for
breaking the laws. Their advice was not asked when taxes were levied or
apportioned, but upon them fell the heaviest burdens of the state.
It was vexatious to pay outrageous fees for the use of a lord's mill,
bridge, oven, or wine-press, to be haled to court for an imaginary
offense, or to be called from one's fields to war, or to work on the
roads without pay. It was hard for the hungry serf to see the fat deer
venturing into his very dooryard, and to remember that the master of
the mansion house was so fond of the chase that he would not allow his
game to be killed for food for vulgar plowmen.
But these and similar vexations sank into insignificance in comparison
with the burdens of the taxes paid to lord, to church, and to king. In
every country of Europe the peasants were taxed, directly or
indirectly, for the support of the three pillars of the "old regime."
The form of such taxation in England differed widely from that in
Hungary; in Sweden, from that in Spain. But beneath discrepancies of
form, the system was essentially the same. Some idea of the triple
taxation that everywhere bore so heavily upon the peasantry may be
obtained from a brief resume of the financial obligations of an
ordinary French peasant to his king, his Church, and his lord.
[Sidenote: Peasant Obligations to Landlord]
To the lord the serf owed often three days' labor a week, in addition
to stated portions of grain and poultry. In place of servile work the
freeman paid a "quit-rent," that is, a sum of money instead of the
services which were considered to accompany the occupation of land.
Double rent was paid on the death of the peasant, and, if the farm was
sold, one-fifth of the price went to the lord. Sometimes, however, a
freeman held his land without quit-rent, but still had numerous
obligations which had survived from medieval times, such as the annual
sum paid for a "military protection" which he neither demanded nor
received.
[Sidenote: Peasant Obligation to Church]
The second obligation was to the church--the tithe or tenth, which
usually amounted every year to a twelfth or a fifteenth of the gross
produce of the peasant's land.
[Sidenote: Peasant Obligations to King and State]
Heaviest of all were the taxes levied by the king. The _taille_,
or land tax, was the most important. The amount was not fixed, but was
supposed to be proportional to the value of the peasant's land and
dwelling. In practice the tax-collectors often took as much as they
could get. and a shrewd peasant would let his house go to pieces and
pretend to be utterly destitute in order that the assessors might not
increase the valuation of his property.
The other direct taxes were the poll tax, _i.e._, a certain sum
which everybody alike must pay, and the income tax, usually a twentieth
part of the income. Finally, there were indirect taxes, such as the
salt _gabelle_. Thus, in certain provinces every person had to buy
seven pounds of salt a year from the government salt-works at a price
ten times its real value. Road-making, too, was the duty of the
peasant, and the _corvée_, or labor on roads, often took several
weeks in a year.
[Sidenote: Burden of Taxation on Peasants]
All these burdens--dues to the lord, tithes to the church, taxes to the
king--left the peasant but little for himself. It is so difficult to
get exact figures that we can put no trust in the estimate of a famous
writer that dues, tithes, and taxes absorbed over four-fifths of the
French peasant's produce: nevertheless, we may be sure that the burden
was very great. In a few favored districts of France and England
farmers were able to pay their taxes and still live comfortably. But
elsewhere the misery of the people was such as can hardly be imagined.
With the best of harvests they could barely provide for their families,
and a dry summer or long winter would bring them to want. There was
only the coarsest of bread--and little of that; meat was a luxury; and
delicacies were for the rich. We read how starving peasants in France
tried to appease their hunger with roots and herbs, and in hard times
succumbed by thousands to famine. One-roomed mud huts with leaky
thatched roofs, bare and windowless, were good enough dwellings for
these tillers of the soil. In the dark corners of the dirt-floors
lurked germs of pestilence and death. Fuel was expensive, and the
bitter winter nights must have found many a peasant shivering
supperless on his bed of straw.
True, the gloom of such conditions was relieved here and there by a
prosperous village or a well-to-do peasant. But, speaking in a general
way, the sufferings of the poorer European peasants and serfs can
hardly be exaggerated. It was they who in large part had paid for the
wars, theaters, palaces, and pleasures of the courts of Europe.
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: Growth of Towns]
Let us now turn our eyes from the country to the city, for in the towns
are to be found the bourgeoisie, the class in which we are most
interested. The steady expansion of commerce and industry during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had been attended by a remarkable
development of town life. Little villages had grown, until in 1787
there were 78 towns of over 10,000 inhabitants each. London, the
greatest city in Europe, had increased in population from about half a
million in 1685 to over a million in 1800. Paris was at least half as
large; Amsterdam was a great city; and several German towns like
Hamburg, Bremen, and Frankfort were important trading centers.
The towns had begun to lose some of their medieval characteristics.
They had spread out beyond their cramping walls; roomy streets and
pleasant squares made the newer sections more attractive. The old
fortifications, no longer needed for protection, served now as
promenades. City thoroughfares were kept cleaner, sometimes well paved
with cobbles; and at night the feeble but cheerful glow of oil street-
lamps lessened the terrors of the belated burgher who had been at the
theater or listened to protracted debates at the great town hall.
[Sidenote: Industry Gild Regulation]
The life of the town was nourished by industry and commerce. Industry
in the eighteenth century meant far more than baking bread, making
clothes, cobbling shoes, and fashioning furniture for use in the town;
it meant the production on a large scale of goods to sell in distant
places,--cloth, clocks, shoes, beads, dishes, hats, buttons, and what
not. Many of these articles were still manufactured under the
regulations of the old craft gilds. For although the gild system was
pretty well broken up in England, it still maintained its hold on the
Continent. In France the division of crafts had become so complicated
that innumerable bickerings arose between cobblers' gilds and
shoemakers' gilds, between watch-makers and clock-makers. In Germany
conditions were worse. The gilds, now aristocratic and practically
hereditary corporations, used their power to prevent all competition,
to keep their apprentices and journeymen working for little or nothing,
to insure high profits, and to prevent any technical improvements which
might conceivably injure them. "A hatter who improved his wares by
mixing silk with the wool was attacked by all the other hatters; the
inventor of sheet lead was opposed by the plumbers; a man who had made
a success in print-cloths was forced to return to antiquated methods by
the dyers."
[Sidenote: Government Regulation of Industry: Mercantilism]
To gild regulation was added government regulation. It will be
remembered that many seventeenth-century statesmen had urged their
kings to make laws for the greater prosperity of industry, and that
Colbert had given the classic expression in France to the mercantilist
idea that wealth could be cultivated by regulating and encouraging
manufactures. In order that French dyers might acquire a reputation for
thorough work, he issued over three hundred articles of instruction for
the better conduct of the dyeing business. In an age when unscrupulous
English merchants were hurting the market with poorly woven fabrics,
French weavers were given careful orders about the quality of the
thread, the breadth of the cloth, and the fineness of the weave. It is
said that in 1787 the regulations for French manufactures filled eight
volumes in quarto; and other governments, while less thorough, were
equally convinced of the wisdom of such a policy.
The mercantilist was not content with making rules for established
industries. In justice to him it should be explained that he was
anxious to plant new trades. Privileges, titles of nobility, exemption
from taxation, generous grants of money, and other favors were accorded
to enterprising business men who undertook to introduce new branches of
manufacture.
In general, however, the efforts of such mercantilists as Colbert have
been adversely criticized by economists. The regulations caused much
inconvenience and loss to many manufacturers, and the privileges
granted to new enterprises often favored unstable and unsuitable
industries at the expense of more natural and valuable trades. It is
impossible to estimate the value to France of Colbert's pet industries,
and equally impossible to see what would have happened had industry
been allowed free rein. But we must not entirely condemn the system
simply because its faults are so obvious and its benefits so hard to
ascertain.
[Sidenote: Restrictions on Commerce]
Commerce, like industry, was subject to restrictions and impeded by
antiquated customs. Merchants traversing the country were hindered by
poor roads; at frequent intervals they must pay toll before passing a
knight's castle, a bridge, or a town gate. Customs duties were levied
on commerce between the provinces of a single kingdom. And the cost of
transportation was thus made so high that the price of a cask of wine
passing from the Orléanais to Normandy--two provinces in northwestern
France--increased twenty-fold.
From our past study of the commercial and colonial wars of the
eighteenth century, especially those between France and Great Britain,
we have already learned that mercantilist ideas were still dominant in
foreign commerce. We have noted the heavy protective tariffs which were
designed to shut out foreign competition. We have discussed the
Navigation Acts, by means of which England encouraged her ship-owners.
We have also mentioned the absorption, by specially chartered
companies, of the profits of the lucrative European trade with the
Indies. The East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Dutch
East India Company, and the French _Compagnie des Indes_ were but
a few famous examples of the chartered companies which still
practically monopolized the trade of most non-European countries.
[Sidenote: Great Growth of Commerce]
Customs and companies may have been injurious in many respects, but
commerce grew out of all bounds. The New World gave furs, timber,
tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, dyes, gold, and
silver, in return for negro slaves, manufactures, and Oriental wares;
and the broad Atlantic highways were traversed by many hundreds of
heavily laden ships. The spices, jewels, tea, and textiles of the Far
East made rich cargoes for well-built East Indiamen. Important, too,
was the traffic which occupied English and Dutch merchant fleets in the
Baltic; and the flags of many nations were carried by traders coastwise
along all the shores of Europe. Great Britain at the opening of the
eighteenth century possessed a foreign commerce estimated at
$60,000,000, and that of France was at least two-thirds as great.
During the century the volume of commerce was probably more than
quadrupled.
It is difficult to realize the tremendous importance of this expansion
of commerce and industry. It had erected colonial empires, caused wars,
lured millions of peasants from their farms, and built populous cities.
But most important of all--it had given strength to the bourgeoisie.
[Sidenote: Rise of the Bourgeoisie]
Merchants, bankers, wholesalers, rich gild-masters, and even less
opulent shopkeepers, formed a distinct "middle class," between the
privileged clergy and nobility on the one hand, and the oppressed
peasant and artisan, or manual laborer, on the other. The middle class,
often called by the French word _bourgeoisie_ because it dwelt in
towns or _bourgs_, was strongest in England, the foremost
commercial nation of Europe, was somewhat weaker in France, and very
much weaker in less commercial countries, such as Germany, Austria, and
Russia.
If the bourgeoisie was all-powerful in the world of business, it was
influential in other spheres. Lawyers came almost exclusively from
commercial families. Judges, local magistrates, keepers of prisons,
government secretaries, intendants, all the world of officialdom was
thronged with scions of bourgeois families. The better and older
middle-class families prided themselves on their wealth, influence, and
culture. They read the latest books on science and philosophy; they
sometimes criticized the religious ideas of the past; and they eagerly
discussed questions of constitutional law and political economy.
[Sidenote: Ambition of the Bourgeoisie]
Ambition came quite naturally with wealth and learning. The bourgeoisie
wanted power and privilege commensurate with their place in business
and administration. It seemed unbearable that a foppish noble whose
only claims to respect were a moldy castle and a worm-eaten patent of
nobility should everywhere take precedence over men of means and
brains. Why should the highest social distinctions, the richest
sinecures, and the posts of greatest honor in the army and at court be
closed to men of ignoble birth, as if a man were any better for the
possession of a high-sounding title?
Moreover, the bourgeoisie desired a more direct say in politics. In
England, to be sure, the sons of rich merchants were frequently
admitted to the nobility, and commercial interests were pretty well
represented in Parliament. In France, however, the feudal nobility was
more arrogant and exclusive, and the government less in harmony with
middle-class notions. The extravagant and wasteful administration of
royal money was censured by every good business man. It was argued that
if France might only have bourgeois representation in a national
parliament to regulate finance and to see that customs duties, trade-
laws, and foreign relations were managed in accordance with business
interests, then all would be well.
THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES
Thus far, in analyzing social and economic conditions in the eighteenth
century, we have concerned ourselves with the lowest class, the
peasants and day laborers, and with the middle class or bourgeoisie--
the "Third Estate" of France and the "Commons" of Great Britain. All of
these were technically unprivileged or ignoble classes. The highest
place in society was reserved for the classes of the privileged, the
clergy and the nobility, constituting the First and the Second Estates,
respectively. And it is to these that we must now direct our attention.
[Sidenote: Small Number of "Privileged"]
The privileged classes formed a very small minority of the population.
Of the 25,000,000 inhabitants of France, probably less than 150,000
were nobles and 130,000 clerics; about one out of every hundred of the
people was therefore privileged.
[Sidenote: Large Number of "Privileges"]
This small upper class was distinguished from the common herd by rank,
possessions, and privileges. The person of noble birth, _i.e._,
the son of a noble, was esteemed to be inherently finer and better than
other men; so much so that he would disdain to marry a person of the
lower class. He was addressed in terms of respect--"my lord," "your
Grace"; common men saluted him as their superior. His clothes were more
gorgeous than those of the plain people; on his breast glittered the
badges of honorary societies, and his coach was proudly decorated with
an ancestral coat of arms. His "gentle" birth admitted him to the
polite society of the court and enabled him to seek preferment in
church or army.
More substantial than marks of honor were the actual possessions of
nobles and clergy. Each noble bequeathed to his eldest son a castle or
a mansion with more or less territory from which to collect rents or
feudal dues. Bishops, abbots, and archbishops received their office by
election or appointment rather than by inheritance, and, being
unmarried, could not transmit their stations to children. But in
countries where the wealth of the Church had not been confiscated by
Protestants, the "prince of the Church" often enjoyed during his
lifetime magnificent possessions. The bishop of Strassburg had an
annual income approximating 500,000 francs. Castles, cathedrals,
palaces, rich vestments, invaluable pictures, golden chalices, rentals
from broad lands, tithes from the people,--these were the property of
the clergy. It is estimated that the clergy and nobility each owned
one-fifth of France, and that one-third of all the land of Europe, one-
half the revenue, and two-thirds the capital, were in the hands of
Christian churches.
The noble families, possessing thousands of acres, and monopolizing the
higher offices of church and army, were further enriched, especially in
France, by presents of money from the king, by pensions, by grants of
monopolies, and by high-salaried positions which entailed little or no
work. "One young man was given a salary of $3600 for an office whose
sole duty consisted in signing his name twice a year."
[Sidenote: Exemption from Taxation]
With all their wealth the first two orders contributed almost nothing
to lighten the financial burdens of the state. [Footnote: Exemption
from taxation was often and similarly granted to bourgeois incumbents
of government offices.] The Church in France claimed exemption from
taxation, but made annual gifts to the king of several hundred thousand
dollars, though such grants represented less than one per cent of its
income. The nobles, too, considered the payment of direct taxes a
disgrace to their gentle blood, and did not hesitate by trickery to
evade indirect taxation, leaving the chief burdens to fall upon the
lower classes, and most of all upon the peasantry.
[Sidenote: Failure of the Privileged to Perform Real Services]
[Sidenote: The Higher Nobility]
All these advantages, privileges, and immunities might be looked upon
as a fitting reward which medieval Europe had given to her nobles for
protecting peaceable plowmen from the marauding bands then so common,
and which she had bestowed upon her clergy for preserving education,
for encouraging agriculture, for fostering the arts, for tending the
poor, the sick, and the traveler, and for performing the offices of
religion. But long before the eighteenth century the protective
functions of feudal nobles had been transferred to the royal
government. No longer useful, the hereditary nobility was merely
burdensome, and ornamental. Such as could afford it, spent their lives
in the cities or at the royal court where they rarely did anything
worth while, unless it were to invent an unusually delicate compliment
or to fashion a flawless sonnet. Their morals were not of the best--it
was almost fashionable to be vicious--but their manners were perfect.
Meanwhile, the landed estates of these absentee lords were in charge of
flint-hearted agents, whose sole mission was to squeeze money from the
peasants, to make them pay well for mill, bridge, and oven, to press to
the uttermost every claim which might give the absent master a larger
revenue.
[Sidenote: The Country Gentry]
The poorer noble, the "country gentleman," was hardly able to live so
extravagant a life, and accordingly remained at home, sometimes making
friends of the villagers, standing god-father to peasant-children, or
inviting heavy-booted but light-hearted plowmen to dance in the castle
courtyard. But often his life was dull enough, with rents hard to
collect, and only hunting, drinking, and gossip to pass the time away.
[Sidenote: The Clergy]
A similar and sharper contrast was observable between the higher and
lower clergy, in England as well as in Roman Catholic countries. Very
frequently dissipated young nobles were nominated bishops or abbots:
they looked upon their office as a source of revenue, but never dreamed
of discharging any spiritual duties. While a Cardinal de Rohan with
2,500,000 livres a year astonished the court of France with his
magnificence and luxury, many a shabby but faithful country curate,
with an uncertain income of less than $150 a year, was doing his best
to make both ends meet, with a little to spare for charity.
RELIGIOUS AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]
The great ecclesiastical organization that had dominated the middle
ages was no longer the one church of Europe, but was still the most
impressive. Although the Protestant Revolt of the sixteenth century had
established independent denominations in the countries of northern
Europe, as we have seen in Chapter IV, Roman Catholic Christianity
remained the state religion of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria,
the Austrian Netherlands, Bavaria, Poland, and several of the Swiss
Cantons. Moreover, large sections of the population of Ireland,
Bohemia, Hungary, Asia, and America professed Catholic Christianity.
Orthodox Roman Catholics held fast to their faith in dogmas and
sacraments and looked for spiritual guidance, correction, and comfort
to the regular and secular clergy of their Church. The "secular"
hierarchy of pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and
deacons, did not cease its pious labor "in the world"; nor was there
lack of zealous souls willing to forego the pleasures of this world,
that they might live holier lives as monks, nuns, or begging friars,--
the "regular" clergy.
[Sidenote: Relations of the Catholic Church with Lay States]
In its relations with lay states, the Roman Catholic Church had changed
more than in its internal organization. Many Protestant rulers now
recognized the pope merely as an Italian prince, [Footnote: The pope,
it will be remembered, ruled the central part of Italy as a temporal
prince.] and head of an undesirable religious sect--Roman Catholics
were either persecuted, or, as in Great Britain, deprived of political
and civil rights. The Pope, on the other hand, could hardly regard as
friends those who had denied the spiritual mission and confiscated the
temporal possessions of the Church.
In Roman Catholic countries, too, the power of the pope had been
lessened. The old dispute whether pope or king should control the
appointment of bishops, abbots, and other high church officers had at
last been settled in favor of the king. The pope consented to recognize
royal appointees, provided they were "godly and suitable" men; in
return he usually received a fee ("annate") from the newly appointed
prelate. Other taxes the pope rarely ventured to levy; but good Roman
Catholics continued to pay "Peter's Pence" as a free-will offering, and
the bishops occasionally taxed themselves for his benefit. In other
ways, also, the power of the Church was curtailed. Royal courts now
took cognizance of the greater part of those cases which had once been
within the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts;[Footnote: Blasphemy,
contempt of religion, and heresy were, however, still matters for
church courts.] the right of appeal to the Roman Curia was limited;
and the lower clergy might be tried in civil courts. Finally, papal
edicts were no longer published in a country without the sanction of
the king. These curtailments of papal privilege were doubtless
important, but they meant little or nothing to the millions of peasants
and humble workmen who heard Mass, were confessed, and received the
sacraments as their fathers had done before them.
[Sidenote: Surviving Privileges of the Church]
Besides their incalculable influence over the souls of men, the clergy
were an important factor in the civil life of Roman Catholic countries.
Education was mostly under their auspices; they conducted the hospitals
and relieved the poor. Marriages were void unless solemnized in the
orthodox manner, and, in the eye of the law, children born outside of
Christian wedlock might not inherit property. Heretics who died
unshriven, were denied the privilege of burial in Catholic cemeteries.
Of the exemption of the clergy from taxation, and of the wealth of the
Church, we have already spoken, as well as of the high social rank of
its prelates--a rank more in keeping with that of wealthy worldly
noblemen than with that of devout "servants of the Lord." But we have
yet to mention the influence of the Church in suppressing heresy.
In theory the Roman Catholic religion was still obligatory in Catholic
states. Uniformity of faith was still considered essential to political
unity. Kings still promised at coronation faithfully to extirpate
heretical sects. In Spain, during the first half of the eighteenth
century hundreds of heretics were condemned by the Inquisition and
burned at the stake; only toward the close of the century was there an
abatement of religious intolerance. In France, King Louis XIV had
revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and in the eighteenth century one
might have found laws on the French statute-books directing that men
who attended Protestant services should be made galley-slaves, that
medical aid should be withheld from impenitent heretics, and that
writers of irreligious books should suffer death. Such laws were very
poorly enforced, however, and active religious persecution was dying
out in France in the second half of the eighteenth century. But
toleration did not mean equality; full civil and political rights were
still denied the several hundred thousand Huguenots in France.
[Sidenote: Summary of Weaknesses in the Catholic Church]
The strength of the Roman Catholic Church in the eighteenth century was
impaired by four circumstances: (1) the existence of bitterly
antagonistic Protestant sects; (2) the growth of royal power and of the
sentiment of nationalism, at the expense of papal power and of
internationalism; (3) the indolence and worldliness of some of the
prelates; and (4) the presence of internal dissensions. The first three
circumstances should be clear from what has already been said, but a
word of explanation is necessary about the fourth.
[Sidenote: Jansenism]
The first of these dissensions arose concerning the teachings of a
certain Flemish bishop by the name of Cornelius Janssen (1585-1638),
[Footnote: Janssen is commonly cited by the Latin version of his name--
Jansenius.] whose followers, known as Jansenists, had possessed
themselves of a sort of hermitage and nunnery at Port-Royal in the
vicinity of Paris. Jansenism found a number of earnest disciples and
able exponents, whose educational work and reforming zeal brought them
into conflict with the Jesuits. The Jesuits accused the Jansenists of
heresy, affirming that Janssen's doctrine of conversion-by-the-will-of-
God was in last analysis practically Calvin's predestination. For some
years the controversy raged. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a famous
mathematician and experimenter in physics, defended the Jansenists
eloquently and learnedly, but Jesuits had the ear of Louis XIV and
broke up the little colony at Port-Royal. Four years later the pope
issued a famous bull, called "Unigenitus" (1713), definitively
condemning Jansenist doctrines as heretical; but the sect still lived
on, especially in Holland, and "Unigenitus" was disliked by many
orthodox Roman Catholics, who thought its condemnations too sweeping
and too severe.
[Sidenote: Febronianism]
A second dispute, questioning the authority of the papacy, centered in
a German theologian [Footnote: Johann Nikolaus von Hoatheim, auxiliary
bishop of Trier. His famous work was published in 1763.] who wrote
under the Latin name of Febronius. Febronianism was an attempted
revival of the conciliar movement of the fifteenth century and closely
resembled "Gallicanism," as the movement in favor of the "Liberties of
the Gallican Church" was called. These "Liberties" had been formulated
in a French declaration of 1682 and involved two major claims: (1) that
the pope had no right to depose or otherwise to interfere with temporal
monarchs, and (2) that in spiritual affairs the general council of
bishops (cumenical council) was superior to the sovereign pontiff.
This twofold movement towards nationalism and representative church
government was most strongly controverted by the Jesuits, who took
their stand on the assertion that the pope was supreme in all things.
By the opponents of the Jesuits, this looking "beyond the mountains" to
the Roman Curia for ultimate authority was called Ultramontanism
(beyond-the-mountainism). In almost every Catholic country of Europe
the struggle between Ultramontanism and Febronianism aroused
controversy, and the nature of papal supremacy remained a mooted point
well into the nineteenth century.
[Sidenote: Suppression of the Jesuit Order]
Towards the close of the eighteenth century Ultramontanism received a
serious though temporary setback by the suppression of the Jesuits
(1773). For over two centuries members of the Society of Jesus had been
famed as schoolmasters, preachers, controversialists, and missionaries;
but in the eighteenth century the order became increasingly involved in
temporal business; its power and wealth were abused; its political
entanglements incurred the resentment of reforming royal ministers; and
some of its missionaries became scandalously lax in their doctrines.
The result was the suppression of the order, first in Portugal (1759),
then in other countries, and finally altogether by a papal decree of
1773. [Footnote: In Russia, where the order of suppression was not
enforced, the Jesuits kept their corporate organization. Subsequently,
on 7 August, 1814, the entire society was restored by papal bull, and
is now in a flourishing condition in many countries.]
[Sidenote: The Anglican Church]
We shall next consider the Anglican Church, whose complete independence
from the papacy, it will be remembered, was established by Henry VIII
of England, and whose doctrinal position had been defined in the
Thirty-nine Articles of Elizabeth's reign. It was the state Church of
England, Ireland, and Wales, and had scattering adherents in Scotland
and in the British colonies. Like the Roman Catholic Church in France,
the Anglican Church enjoyed in the British Isles, excepting Scotland,
special privileges, great wealth, and the collection of tithes from
Anglicans and non-Anglicans alike. It was intensely national,
independent of papal control or other foreign influence, and patriotic
in spirit. It retained a hierarchical government similar to that of the
Roman Catholics. As in France, the bishops were inclined to use the
emoluments without doing the work of their office, while the country
curates were very poor.