India. By the end of the seventh century the Arabs were forcing their
way to Cabul 664 A.D. At the beginning of the next century Sindh was
overrun and Multan was captured; nevertheless, no extended conquest was
as yet attempted. After the reign of the Calif Harun al Raschid at
Bagdad the Eastern rulers fell upon evil days. Towards the end of the
tenth century a satrapy was established at Ghazni and in the year 1001
Mahmud of Ghazni, having declared his independence, began his series of
invasions. On his fourth expedition Mahmud met with a determined
resistance from a confederacy of Hindu princes. A desperate battle was
fought and won by him near Peshawer. Mahmud made twelve expeditions into
India altogether, on one of which he carried off the famous gates of
Somnat; but he was content to leave subordinate governors in the Punjab
and at Guzerat and never sought to organise an empire. During his life
Mahmud was incomparably the greatest ruler in Asia.
After his death the rulers of Ghazni were unable to maintain a
consistent supremacy. It was finally overthrown by Ala ud din of Ghor.
His nephew, Shahab ud din, was the real founder of the Mahometan Empire
in India. The princes of the house of Ghazni who had taken refuge in the
Punjab and Guzarat were overthrown and thus the only Mahometan rivals
were removed. On his first advance against the Rajput kingdom of Delhi,
he was routed; but a second invasion was successful, and a third carried
his arms to Behar and even Bengal.
On the death of Shahab ud din, his new and vast Indian dominion became
independent under his general Kutb ud din, who had begun life as a
slave. The dynasty was carried on by another slave Altamish. Very soon
after this the Mongol Chief Chengiz Khan devastated half the world, but
left India comparatively untouched. Altamish established the Mahometan
rule of Delhi over all Hindustan. This series of rulers, known as the
slave kings, was brought to an end after eighty-two years by the
establishment of the Khilji dynasty in 1288 by the already aged Jelal ud
din. His nephew and chief Captain Ala ud din opened a career of
conquest, invading the Deckan even before he secured the throne for
himself by assassinating his uncle. In fact, he extended his dominion
over almost the whole of India in spite of frequent rebellions and
sundry Mongol incursions all successfully repressed or dispersed. In
1321 the Khilji dynasty was overthrown by the House of Tughlak.
The second prince of this house, Mahomet Tughlak, was a very remarkable
character. Possessed of extraordinary accomplishments, learned,
temperate, and brave, he plunged upon wholly irrational and
inpracticable schemes of conquest which were disastrous in themselves
and also from the methods to which the monarch was driven to procure the
means for his wild attempts. One portion after another of the vast
empire broke into revolt and at the end of the century the dynasty was
overturned and the empire shattered by the terrific invasion of
Tamerlane the Tartar. It was not till the middle of the seventeenth
century that the Lodi dynasty established itself at Delhi and ruled not
without credit for nearly seventy years. The last ruler of this house
was Ibrahim, a man who lacked the worthy qualities of his predecessors.
And in 1526 Ibrahim fell before the conquering arms of the mighty Baber,
the founder of the Mogul dynasty.
_III.--Baber and Aber_
Baber was a descendant of Tamerlane. He himself was a Turk, but his
mother was a Mongol; hence the familiar title of the dynasty known as
the Moguls. Succeeding to the throne of Ferghana at the age of twelve
the great conqueror's youth was full of romantic vicissitudes, of sharp
reverses and brilliant achievements. He was only four and twenty when he
succeeded in making himself master of Cabul. He was forty-four, when
with a force of twelve thousand men he shattered the huge armies of
Ibrahim at Panipat and made himself master of Delhi. His conquests were
conducted on what might almost be called principles of knight errantry.
His greatest victories were won against overwhelming odds, at the head
of followers who were resolved to conquer or die. And in three years he
had conquered all Hindustan. His figure stands out with an extraordinary
fascination, as an Oriental counterpart of the Western ideal of
chivalry; and his autobiography is an absolutely unique record
presenting the almost sole specimen of real history in Asia.
But Baber died before he could organise his empire and his son Humayun
was unable to hold what had been won. An exceedingly able Mahometan
Chief, Shir Khan, raised the standard of revolt, made himself master of
Behar and Bengal, drove Humayun out of Hindustan, and established
himself under the title of Shir Shah. His reign was one of conspicuous
ability. It was not till he had been dead for many years that Humayun
was able to recover his father's dominion. Indeed, he himself fell
before victory was achieved. The restoration was effected in the name of
his young son Akber, a boy of thirteen, by the able general and
minister, Bairam Khan, at the victory of Panipat in 1556. The long reign
of Akber initiates a new era.
Two hundred years before this time the Deckan had broken free from the
Delhi dominion. But no unity and no supremacy was permanently
established in the southern half of India where, on the whole, Mahometan
dynasties now held the ascendancy. Rajputana on the other hand, which
the Delhi monarchs had never succeeded in bringing into complete
subjection, remained purely Hindu under the dominion of a variety of
rajahs.
The victory of Panipat was decisive. Naturally enough, Bairam assumed
complete control of the State. His rule was able, but harsh and
arrogant. After three years the boy king of a sudden coup d'état assumed
the reins of Government. Perhaps it was fortunate for both that the
fallen minister was assassinated by a personal enemy.
Of all the dynasties that had ruled in India that of Baber was the most
insecure in its foundations. It was without any means of support
throughout the great dominion which stretched from Cabul to Bengal. The
boy of eighteen had a tremendous task before him. Perhaps it was this
very weakness which suggested to Akber the idea of giving his power a
new foundation by setting himself at the head of an Indian nation, and
forming the inhabitants of his vast dominion, without distinction of
race or religion, into a single community. Swift and sudden in action,
the young monarch broke down one after another the attempts of
subordinates to free themselves from his authority. By the time that he
was twenty-five he had already crushed his adversaries by his vigour or
attached them by his clemency. The next steps were the reduction of
Rajputana, Ghuzerat and Bengal; and when this was accomplished Akber's
sway extended over the whole of India north of the Deckan, to which was
added Kashmir and what we now call Afghanistan. Akber had been on the
throne for fifty years before he was able to intervene actively in the
Deckan and to bring a great part of it under his sway.
But the great glory of Akber lies not in the conquests which made the
Mogul Empire the greatest hitherto known in India, but in that empire's
organisation and administration. Akber Mahometanism was of the most
latitudinarian type. His toleration was complete. He had practically no
regard for dogma, while deeply imbued with the spirit of religion. In
accordance with his liberal principles Hinduism was no bar to the
highest offices. In theory his philosophy was not new, though it was so
in practical application.
None of his reforms are more notable than the revenue system carried out
by his Hindu minister, Todar Mal, itself a development of a system
initiated by Shir Shah. His empire was divided into fifteen provinces,
each under a viceroy under the control of the king himself. Great as a
warrior and great as an administrator Akber always enjoyed abundant
leisure for study and amusement. He excelled in all exercises of
strength and skill; his history is filled with instances of romantic
courage, and he had a positive enjoyment of danger. Yet he had no
fondness for war, which he neither sought nor continued without good
reason.
_IV.--The Mogul Empire_
Akber died in 1605 and was succeeded by his son Selim, who took the
title of Jehan Gir. The Deckan, hardly subdued, achieved something like
independence under a great soldier and administrator of Abyssinian
origin, named Malik Amber. In the sixth year of his reign Jehan Gir
married the beautiful Nur Jehan, by whose influence the emperor's
natural brutality was greatly modified in practice. His son, Prince
Khurram, later known as Shah Jehan, distinguished himself in war with
the Rajputs, displaying a character not unworthy of his grandfather. In
1616 the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe from James I visited the Court of the
Great Mogul. Sir Thomas was received with great honour, and is full of
admiration of Jehan Gir's splendour. It is clear, however, that the high
standards set up by Akber were fast losing their efficacy.
Jehan Gir died in 1627 and was succeeded by Shah Jehan. Much of his
reign was largely occupied with wars in the Deckan and beyond the
northwest frontier on which the emperor's son Aurangzib was employed.
Most of the Deckan was brought into subjection, but Candahar was finally
lost. Shah Jehan was the most magnificent of all the Moguls. In spite of
his wars, Hindustan itself enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity, and on
the whole, a good Government. It was he who constructed the fabulously
magnificent peacock throne, built Delhi anew, and raised the most
exquisite of all Indian buildings, the Taj Mahal or Pearl Mosque, at
Agre. After a reign of thirty years he was deposed by his son Aurangzib,
known also as Alam Gir.
Aurangzib had considerable difficulty in securing his position by the
suppression of rivals; but our interest now centres in the Deckan, where
the Maratta people were organised into a new power by the redoubtable
Sivaji. Though some of the Marattas claim Rajput descent, they are of
low caste. They have none of the pride or dignity of the Rajput, and
they care nothing for the point of honour; but they are active, hardy,
persevering, and cunning. Sivaji was the son of a distinguished soldier
named Shahji, in the service of the King of Bijapur. By various
artifices young Sivaji brought a large area under his control. Then he
revolted against Bijapur, posing as a Hindu leader. He wrung for himself
a sort of independence from Bijapur. His proceedings attracted the
attention of Aurangzib, who, however, did not immediately realise how
dangerous the Maratta was to become. Himself occupied in other parts of
the empire, Aurangzib left lieutenants to deal with Sivaji; and since he
never trusted a lieutenant, the forces at their disposal were
insufficient or were divided under commanders who were engaged as much
in thwarting each other as in endeavouring to crush the common foe.
Hence the vigorous Sivaji was enabled persistently to consolidate his
organisation.
At the same time Aurangzib was departing from the traditions of his
house and acting as a bigoted champion of Islam; differentiating between
his Mussulman subjects and the Hindus so as completely to destroy that
national unity which it had been the aim of his predecessors to
establish. The result was a Rajput revolt and the permanent alienation
of the Rajputs from the Mogul Government.
In spite of these difficulties Aurangzib renewed operations against
Sivaji, to which the Maratta retorted by raiding expeditions in
Hindustan; whereby he hoped to impress on the Mogul the advisability of
leaving him alone; his object being to organise a great dominion in the
Deckan--a dominion largely based on his championship of Hinduism as
against Mahometanism. When Sivaji died, in 1680, his son Sambaji proved
a much less competent successor; but the Maratta power was already
established. Aurangzib directed his arms not so much against the
Marattas as to the overthrow of the great kingdoms of the Deckan. When
he turned against the Marattas, they met his operations by the adoption
of guerrilla tactics, to which the Maratta country was eminently
adapted. Most of Aurangzib's last years were occupied in these
campaigns. The now aged emperor's industry and determination were
indefatigable, but he was hopelessly hampered by his constitutional
inability to trust in the most loyal of his servants. He had deposed his
own father and lived in dread that his son Moazzim would treat him in
the same fashion. He died in 1707 in the eighty-ninth year of his life
and the fiftieth of his reign. In the eyes of Mahometans this fanatical
Mahometan was the greatest of his house. But his rule, in fact,
initiated the disintegration of the Mogul Empire. He had failed to
consolidate the Mogul supremacy in the Deckan, and he had revived the
old religious antagonism between Mahometans and Hindus.
Prince Moazzim succeeded under the title of Bahadur Shah. Dissensions
among the Marattas enabled him to leave the Deckan in comparative peace
to the charge of Daud Khan. He hastened also to make peace with the
Rajputs; but he was obliged to move against a new power which had arisen
in the northwest, that of the Sikhs. Primarily a sort of reformed sect
of the Hindus the Sikhs were converted by persecution into a sort of
religious and military brotherhood under their Guru or prophet, Govind.
They were too few to make head against the power of the empire, but they
could only be scattered, not destroyed; and in later days were to assume
a great prominence in Indian affairs. A detailed account of the
incompetent successors of Bahadur Shah would be superfluous. The
outstanding features of the period was the disintegration of the central
Government and the development in the south of two powers; that of the
Marattas and that of Asaf Jah, the successor of Daud Khan, and the first
of the Nizams of the Deckan. The supremacy among the Marattas passed to
the Peshwas, the Bramin Ministers of the successors of Sivaji, who
established a dynasty very much like that of the Mayors of the Palace in
the Frankish Kingdom of the Merovingians. But the final blow to the
power of the Moguls was struck by the tremendous invasion of Nadir Shah
the Persian, in 1739, when Delhi was sacked and its richest treasures
carried away; though the Persian departed still leaving the emperor
nominal Suzerian of India. Before twenty years were past the greatest of
all revolutions in India affairs had taken place; and Robert Clive had
made himself master of Bengal in the name of the British East India
Company.
* * * * *
VOLTAIRE
Russia Under Peter the Great
François Marie Arouet, known to the world by the assumed name
of Voltaire (supposed to be an anagram of Arou[v]et l[e]
j[eun]), was born in Paris on November 21, 1694. Before he was
twenty-two, his caustic pen had got him into trouble. At
thirty-one, when he was already famous for his drama,
"OEdipe," as well as for audacious lampoons, he was obliged to
retreat to England, where he remained some three years.
Various publications during the years following his return
placed him among the foremost French writers of the day. From
1750 to 1753 he was with Frederick the Great in Prussia. When
the two quarrelled, Voltaire settled in Switzerland and in
1758 established himself at Ferney, about the time when he
published "Candide." His "Siècle de Louis Quatorze" (see
_ante_) had appeared some years earlier. In 1762 he began a
series of attacks on the Church and Christianity; and he
continued to reign, a sort of king of literature, till his
death, in Paris on May 30, 1778. An admirable criticism of him
is to be found in Morley's "Voltaire"; but the great biography
is that of Desnoiresterres. His "Russia under Peter the Great"
was written after Voltaire took up his residence at Ferney in
1758. This epitome is prepared from the French text.
_I.--All the Russias_
When, about the beginning of the present century, the Tsar Peter laid
the foundations of Petersburg, or, rather, of his empire, no one foresaw
his success. Anyone who then imagined that a Russian sovereign would be
able to send victorious fleets to the Dardanelles, to subjugate the
Crimea, to clear the Turks out of four great provinces, to dominate the
Black Sea, to set up the most brilliant court in Europe, and to make all
the arts flourish in the midst of war--anyone expressing such an idea
would have passed for a mere dreamer. Peter the Great built the Russian
Empire on a foundation firm and lasting.
That empire is the most extensive in our hemisphere. Poland, the Arctic
Ocean, Sweden, and China lie on its boundaries. It is so vast that when
it is mid-day at its western extremity it is nearly midnight at the
eastern. It is larger than all the rest of Europe, than the Roman
Empire, than the empire of Darius which Alexander conquered. But it will
take centuries, and many more such Tsars as Peter, to render that
territory populous, productive, and covered with cities, like the
northern lands of Europe.
The province nearest to our own realms is Livonia, long a heathen
region. Tsar Peter conquered it from the Swedes.
To the north is the province of Revel and Esthonia, also conquered from
the Swedes by Peter. The Gulf of Finland borders Esthonia; and here at
this junction of the Neva and Lake Ladoga is the city of Petersburg, the
youngest and the fairest of the cities of the empire, built by Peter in
spite of a mass of obstacles. Northward, again, is Archangel, which the
English discovered in 1533, with the result that the commerce fell
entirely into their hands and those of the Dutch. On the west of
Archangel is Russian Lapland. Then, ascending the Dwina from the coast,
we arrive at the territories of Moscow, long the centre of the empire. A
century ago Moscow was without the ordinary amenities of civilisation,
though it could display an Oriental profusion on state occasions.
West of Moscow is Smolensk, recovered from the Poles by Peter's father
Alexis. Between Petersburg and Smolensk is Novgorod; south of Smolensk
is Kiev or Little Russia; and Red Russia, or the Ukraine, watered by the
Dnieper, the Borysthenes of the Greeks--the country of the Cossacks.
Between the Dnieper and the Don northwards is Belgorod; then Nischgorod,
then Astrakan, the march of Asia and Europe with Kazan, recovered from
the Tartar empire of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane by Ivan Vasilovitch.
Siberia is peopled by Samoeides and Ostiaks, and its southern regions by
hordes of Tartars--like the Turks and Mongols, descendants of the
ancient Scythians. At the limit of Siberia is Kamschatka.
Throughout this vast but thinly populated empire the manners and customs
are Asiatic rather than European. As the Janissaries control the Turkish
government, so the Strelitz Guards used to dispose of the throne.
Christianity was not established till late in the tenth century, in the
Greek form, and liberated from the control of the Greek Patriarch, a
subject of the Grand Turk, in 1588.
Before Peter's day, Russia had neither the power, the cultivated
territories, the subjects, nor the revenues which she now enjoys. She
had no foothold in Livonia or Finland, little or no control over the
Cossacks or in Astrakan. The White, Black, Baltic, and Caspian seas were
of no use to a nation which had not even a name for a fleet. She had to
place herself on a level with the cultivated nations, though she was
without knowledge of the science of war by land or sea, and almost of
the rudiments of manufacture and agriculture, to say nothing of the fine
arts. Her sons were even forbidden to learn by travel; she seemed to
have condemned herself to eternal ignorance. Then Peter was born, and
Russia was created.
_II.--At the School of Europe_
It was owing to a series of dynastic revolutions and usurpations that
young Michael Romanoff, Peter's grandfather, was chosen Tsar at the age
of fifteen, in 1613. He was succeeded in 1645 by his son, Alexis
Michaelovitch. Alexis, in his wars with Poland, recovered from her
Smolensk, Kiev, and the Ukraine. He waged war with the Turk in aid of
Poland, introduced manufactures, and codified the laws, proving himself
a worthy sire for Peter the Great; but he died in 1677 too soon--he was
but forty-six--to complete the work he had begun. He was succeeded by
his eldest son, Feodor. There was a second, Ivan; and Peter, not five
years old, the child of his second marriage. Dying five years later,
Feodor named Peter his successor. An elder sister, Sophia, intrigued to
place the incapable Ivan on the throne instead, as her own puppet, by
the aid of the turbulent Strelitz Guard. After a series of murders, the
Strelitz proclaimed Ivan and Peter joint sovereigns, associating Sophia
with them as co-regent.
Sophia ruled with the aid of an able minister, Gallitzin. But she formed
a conspiracy against Peter, who, however, made his escape, rallied his
supporters, crushed the conspiracy, and secured his position as Autocrat
of the Russias, being then in his seventeenth year (1689).
Peter not only set himself to repair his neglected education by the
study of German and Dutch, and an instinctive horror of water by
resolutely plunging himself into it; he developed an immediate interest
in boats and shipping, and promptly set about organising a disciplined
force, destined for use against the Strelitz. The nucleus was his
personal regiment, called the Preobazinsky. He had already a corps of
foreigners, under the command of a Scot named Gordon. Another foreigner,
Le Fort, on whom he relied, raised and disciplined another corps, and
was made admiral of the infant fleet which he began to construct on the
Don for use against the Crim Tartars.
His first political measure was to effect a treaty with China, his next
an expedition for the subjugation of the Tartars of Azov. Gordon and Le
Fort, with their two corps and other forces, marched on Azov in 1695.
Peter accompanied, but did not command, the army. Unsuccessful at first,
his purpose was effected in 1696; Azov was conquered, and a fleet placed
on its sea. He celebrated a triumph in Roman fashion at Moscow; and
then, not content with despatching a number of young men to Italy and
elsewhere to collect knowledge, he started on his travels himself.
As one of the suite of an embassy he passed through Livonia and Germany
till he arrived at Amsterdam, where he worked as a hand at shipbuilding.
He also studied surgery at this time, and incidentally paid a visit to
William of Orange at The Hague. Early next year he visited England,
formally, lodging at Deptford, and continuing his training in naval
construction. Thence, and from Holland, he collected mathematicians,
engineers, and skilled workmen. Finally, he returned to Russia by way of
Vienna, to establish satisfactory relations with the emperor, his
natural and necessary ally against the Turk.
Peter had made his arrangements for Russia during his absence. Gordon
with his corps was at Moscow; the Strelitz were distributed in Astrakan
and Azov, where some successful operations were carried out.
Nevertheless, sedition raised its head. Insurrection was checked by
Gordon, but disaffection remained. Reappearing unexpectedly, he punished
the mutinous Strelitz mercilessly, and that body was entirely done away
with. New regiments were created on the German model; and he then set
about reorganising the finances, reforming the political position of the
Church, destroying the power of the higher clergy, and generally
introducing more enlightened customs from western Europe.
_III.--War with Sweden_
In 1699, the sultan was obliged to conclude a peace at Carlovitz, to the
advantage of all the powers with whom he had been at war. This set Peter
free on the side of Sweden. The youth of Charles XII. tempted Peter to
the recovery of the Baltic provinces. He set about the siege of Riga and
Narva. But Charles, in a series of marvellous operations, raised the
siege of Riga, and dispersed or captured the very much greater force
before Narva in November 1700.
The continued successes of Charles did not check Peter's determination
to maintain Augustus of Saxony and Poland against him. It was during the
subsequent operations against Charles's lieutenants in Livonia that
Catherine--afterwards to become Peter's empress--was taken prisoner.