Expedition to the Palus Mæotis; conquest of Azoph.--The czar sends
young gentlemen into foreign countries for improvement.
It was not so easy to have peace with the Turks, and indeed, the time
seemed come for the Russians to rise upon their ruins. The republic of
Venice, that had long groaned under their yoke, began now to rouse
itself. The Doge Morosini, the same who had surrendered Candy to the
Turks, afterwards took from them the Peloponnesus, which conquest got
him the title of Peloponnesian, an honour which revived the memory of
the Roman republic. Leopold, emperor of Germany, had proved successful
against the Ottoman power in Hungary; and the Poles made shift to check
the incursions of the Crim Tartars.
Peter took advantage of these circumstances, to discipline his troops,
and to procure himself the empire of the Black Sea. General Gordon
marched along the Tanais, towards Azoph, with his numerous regiment of
five thousand men, followed by general Le Fort, with his regiment of
twelve thousand; by a body of Strelitzes, under the command of Sheremeto
and Schein, natives of Prussia; by a body of Cossacks, and by a large
train of artillery: in a word, every thing was ready for this
expedition.
1694.] This grand army began its march under the command of marshal
Sheremeto, or Scheremetoff, in the beginning of the summer of 1695, to
attack the town of Azoph, at the mouth of the Tanais, and at the
extremity of the Palus Mæotis, now called the Zaback Sea. The czar
himself was with the army, but only in quality of a volunteer, being
determined to learn, some time before he took upon him to command.
During their march, they stormed two forts which the Turks had built on
the banks of the river.
This expedition was attended with some considerable difficulties. The
place was well fortified, and defended by a numerous garrison. A number
of barcolongos, resembling the Turkish saicks, and built by Venetians,
with two small Dutch ships of war, that were to sail out of the
Woronitz, could not be got ready soon enough to enter the sea of Azoph.
All beginnings meet with obstacles. The Russians had never yet made a
regular siege; and the first attempt did not meet with all the success
that could be desired.
One Jacob, a native of Dantzic, had the direction of the artillery,
under the command of general Schein; for as yet they had none but
foreign officers belonging to the train, and none but foreign engineers
and pilots. This Jacob had been condemned to the bastinade, or _knout_,
by Schein, the Russian general. At that time rigorous discipline was
thought to be the only method of strengthening command; and the Russians
quietly submitted to it, notwithstanding their natural bent to sedition;
and after the punishment, did their duty as usual. But the Dane thought
in a different manner, and resolved to be revenged for the treatment he
had received, and thereupon nailed up the cannon, deserted to the Turks,
turned Mahometan, and defended Azoph, with great success, against his
former masters. This instance shews, that the lenity which is now
practised in Russia, is much preferable to the former severities; and is
better calculated to retain those in their duty, who by a good
education, have a proper sense of honour. It was absolutely necessary at
that time, to use the utmost rigour towards the common people; but since
their manners have been changed, the empress Elizabeth[39] has
completed, by clemency, the work her father begun, by the authority of
the laws. This lenity has even been carried, by this princess, to a
degree unexampled, in the history of any nation. She has promised, that,
during her reign, no person shall be punished with death, and she has
kept her word. She is the first sovereign who ever shewed so much regard
for the lives of men. By an institution, equally prudent and humane,
malefactors are now condemned to serve in the mines, and other public
works: by which means their very punishments prove of service to the
state. In other countries, they know only how to put a criminal to
death, with all the apparatus of execution, without being able to
prevent the perpetration of crimes. The apprehension of death makes,
perhaps, less impression on those miscreants, who are, for the most
part, bred up in idleness, than the fear of punishment and hard labour,
renewed every day.
To return to the siege of Azoph, which place was now defended by the
same person who had before directed the attacks against it; the
Russians, in vain, attempted to take it by storm; and after losing a
great number of men, were obliged to raise the siege.
Perseverance in his undertakings, was the distinguishing character of
Peter the Great. In the spring of 1696, he brought a still more
considerable army before Azoph. About this time died czar John, his
brother, who though he had not, while living, been the least curb to
Peter's authority, having enjoyed only the bare title of czar, yet he
had been some restraint upon him in regard to appearances. The money
which had been appropriated to the support of John's dignity and
household, were now applied to the maintenance of the army. This proved
no small help to a government, whose revenues were not near so great as
they are at present. Peter wrote to the emperor Leopold, to the
states-general, and to the elector of Brandenburg, to obtain engineers,
gunners, and seamen. He likewise took some Calmucks into his pay, whose
light horse are very useful against the Crim Tartars.
The most agreeable of the czar's successes, was that of his little
fleet, which was at length completed, and well commanded. It defeated
the Turkish saicks, sent from Constantinople, and took some of them. The
siege was carried on regularly by trenches, but not altogether in our
method; the trenches being three times deeper than ours, with parapets
as high as ramparts. At length the garrison surrendered, the 28th of
July, 1696. N. S. without being allowed the honours of war, or to carry
out with them either arms or ammunition: they were likewise obliged to
deliver up the renegade, Jacob, to the conquerors.
The czar immediately set about fortifying Azoph, built strong forts to
protect it, and made a harbour capable of holding large vessels, with a
design to make himself master of the Streights of Caffa, or the
Cimmerian Bosphorus, which commands the entrance into the Pontus
Euxinus, or Black Sea; places famous in ancient times, by the naval
armaments of Mithridates. He left thirty-two armed saicks before
Azoph,[40] and made all the necessary preparations for fitting out a
fleet against the Turks, to consist of nine ships of sixty guns, and of
forty-one, from thirty to fifty. He obliged his principal nobles, and
the richer merchants, to contribute towards this armament; and thinking
that the estates of the clergy ought to help towards the common cause,
he obliged the patriarch, the bishops, and principal clergy, to pay down
a sum of ready money to forward this expedition, in honour of their
country, and the advantage of the Christian faith. The Cossacks were
employed in building a number of those light boats in use amongst them,
and which were excellent for the purpose of cruising on the coast of
Crim Tartary. The Ottoman empire was alarmed at this powerful armament;
the first that had ever been attempted on the Palus Mæotis. The czar's
scheme was to drive the Turks and the Tartars for ever out of the
Taurica Chersonesus, and afterwards to establish a free and easy
commerce with Persia through Georgia. This is the very trade which the
Greeks formerly carried on to Colchos, and to this peninsula of Crim
Tartary, which Peter now seemed on the point of conquering.
Having subdued the Turks and the Tartars, he was willing to accustom his
people to splendid shows as well as to military labour. He made his
army to enter into Moscow, under triumphal arches, in the midst of
superb fire-works, and every thing that could add to the lustre of the
festival. The soldiers who had fought on board the Venetian saicks
against the Turks, and who were a distinct corps of themselves, marched
first. Marshal Sheremeto, the generals Gordon and Schein, admiral Le
Fort, and the other general officers, all took the precedence of their
monarch in this procession, who declared he had no rank in the army,
being desirous to convince the nobility, by his example, that the only
way to acquire military preferment, was to deserve it.[41]
This triumphal entry seemed somewhat a-kin to those of the ancient
Romans, in which the conquerors were wont to expose the prisoners they
had taken, to public view, and sometimes put them to death: in like
manner, the slaves, taken in this expedition, follow the army; and the
deserter Jacob, who had betrayed them, was drawn in an open cart, in
which was a gibbet, to which his body was fastened after he had been
broke upon the wheel.
On this occasion was struck the first medal in Russia, with this
remarkable legend, in the language of the country. 'Peter the First,
august emperor of Muscovy.' On the reverse was the city of Azoph, with
these words; 'Victorious by Fire and Water.'
Peter felt a sensible concern in the midst of all these successes, that
his ships and gallies in the sea of Azoph, had been built entirely by
the hands of foreigners; and wished as earnestly to have a harbour in
the Baltic Sea, as upon the Pontus Euxinus.
Accordingly, in the month of March 1677, he sent threescore young
Russians of Le Fort's regiment, into Italy, most of them to Venice, and
the rest to Leghorn, to instruct themselves in the naval art, and the
manner of constructing gallies. He likewise sent forty others into
Holland,[42] to learn the method of building and working large ships:
and others likewise into Germany, to serve in the land forces, and
instruct themselves in the military discipline of that nation. At length
he took a resolution to absent himself for a few years from his own
dominions, in order to learn how to govern them the better. He had an
irresistible inclination to improve himself by his own observation and
practice in the knowledge of naval affairs, and of the several arts
which he was so desirous to establish in his own country. He proposed to
travel _incognito_ through Denmark, Brandenburg, Holland, Vienna,
Venice, and Rome. France and Spain were the only countries he did not
take into his plan; Spain, because the arts he was in quest of, were too
much neglected there; and France, because in that kingdom they reigned
with too much ostentation, and that the parade and state of Lewis XIV.
which had disgusted so many crowned heads, ill agreed with the private
manner in which he proposed to travel. Moreover, he was in alliance
with most of the powers, whose dominions he intended to visit, except
those of France and Rome. He likewise remembered, with some degree of
resentment, the little respect shewn by Lewis XIV. to his embassy in
1687, which had proved more famous than successful; and lastly he
already began to espouse the cause of Augustus, elector of Saxony, with
whom the prince of Conti had lately entered into a competition for the
crown of Poland.