Conquests in Persia.
The situation of Russia is such, as necessarily obliges her to keep up
certain connexions with all the nations that lie in the fifth degree of
north latitude. When under a bad administration, she was a prey by turns
to the Tartars, the Swedes, and the Poles; but when governed by a
resolute and vigorous prince, she became formidable to all her
neighbours. Peter began his reign by an advantageous treaty with the
Chinese. He had waged war at one and the same time against the Swedes
and the Turks, and now prepared to lead his victorious armies into
Persia.
At this time Persia began to fall into that deplorable state, in which
we now behold her. Let us figure to ourselves the thirty years' war in
Germany, the times of the league, those of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and the reigns of Charles VI. and of king John in France,
the civil wars in England, the long and horrible ravages of the whole
Russian empire by the Tartars, or their invasion of China; and then we
shall have some slight conception of the miseries under which the
Persian empire has so long groaned.
A weak and indolent prince, and a powerful and enterprising subject, are
sufficient to plunge a whole nation into such an abyss of disasters.
Hussein, sha, shaic, or sophi of Persia, a descendant of the great sha
Abbas, who sat at this time on the throne of Persia, had given himself
wholly up to luxury and effeminacy: his prime minister committed acts of
the greatest violence and injustice, which this great prince winked at,
and this gave rise to forty years' desolation and bloodshed.
Persia, like Turkey, has several provinces, all governed in a different
manner; she has subjects immediately under her dominion, vassals,
tributary princes, and even nations, to whom the court was wont to pay a
tribute, under the name of subsidies; for instance, the people of
Daghestan, who inhabit the branches of mount Caucasus, to the westward
of the Caspian Sea, which was formerly a part of the ancient Albania;
for all nations have changed their appellation and their limits. These
are now called Lesgians, and are mountaineers, who are rather under the
protection, than the dominion, of Persia; to these the government paid
subsidies for defending the frontiers.
At the other extremity of the empire, towards the Indies, was the prince
of Candahar, who commanded a kind of martial militia, called Aghwans.
This prince of Candahar was a vassal of the Persian, as the hospodars of
Walachia and Moldavia are of the Turkish empire: this vassalage was not
hereditary, but exactly the same with the ancient feudal tenures
established throughout Europe, by that race of Tartars who overthrew the
Roman empire. The Aghwan militia, of which the prince of Candahar was
the head, was the same with the Albanians on the coasts of the Caspian
Sea, in the neighbourhood of Daghestan, and a mixture of Circassians and
Georgians, like the ancient Mamelucks who enslaved Egypt. The name of
Aghwans is a corruption; Timur, whom we call Tamerlane, had led these
people into India, and they remained settled in the province of
Candahar, which sometimes belonged to the Mogul empire, and sometimes to
that of Persia. It was these Aghwans and Lesgians who began the
revolution.
Mir-Weis, or Meriwitz, intendant of the province, whose office was only
to collect the tributes, assassinated the prince of Candahar, armed the
militia, and continued master of the province till his death, which
happened in 1717. His brother came quietly to the succession, by paying
a slight tribute to the Persian court. But the son of Mir-Weis, who
inherited the ambition of his father, assassinated his uncle, and began
to erect himself into a conqueror. This young man was called
Mir-Mahmoud, but he was known in Europe only by the name of his father,
who had begun the rebellion. Mahmoud reinforced his Aghwans, by adding
to them all the Guebres he could get together. These Guebres were an
ancient race of Persians, who had been dispersed by the caliph Omar, and
who still continued attached to the religion of the Magi (formerly
flourished in the reign of Cyrus), and were always secret enemies to the
new Persians. Having assembled his forces, Mahmoud marched into the
heart of Persia, at the head of a hundred thousand men.
At the same time the Lesgians or Albanians, who, on account of the
troublesome times, had not received their subsidies from the court of
Persia, came down from their mountains with an armed force, so that the
flames of civil war were lighted up at both ends of the empire, and
extended themselves even to the capital.
These Lesgians ravaged all that country which stretches along the
western borders of the Caspian Sea, as far as Derbent, or the Iron Gate.
In this country is situated the city of Shamache, about fifteen leagues
distant from the sea, and is said to have been the ancient residence of
Cyrus, and by the Greeks called Cyropolis, for we know nothing of the
situation or names of these countries, but what we have from the Greeks;
but as the Persians never had a prince called Cyrus, much less had they
any city called Cyropolis. It is much in the same manner that the Jews,
who commenced authors when they were settled in Alexandria, framed a
notion of a city called Scythopolis, which, said they, was built by the
Scythians in the neighbourhood of Judea, as if either Scythians or
ancient Jews could have given Greek names to their towns.
The city of Shamache was very rich. The Armenians, who inhabit in the
neighbourhood of this part of the Persian empire, carried on an immense
traffic there, and Peter had lately established a company of Russian
merchants at his own expense, which company became very flourishing. The
Lesgians made themselves masters of this city by surprise, plundered it,
and put to death all the Russians who traded there under the protection
of shah Hussein, after having stripped all their warehouses. The loss on
this occasion was said to amount to four millions of rubles.
Peter upon this sent to demand satisfaction of the emperor Hussein, who
was then disputing the throne with the rebel Mahmoud, who had usurped
it, and likewise of Mahmoud himself. The former of these was willing to
do the czar justice, the other refused it; Peter therefore resolved to
right himself, and take advantage of the distractions in the Persian
empire.
Mir-Mahmoud still pushed his conquests in Persia. The sophi hearing that
the emperor of Russia was preparing to enter the Caspian Sea, in order
to revenge the murder of his subjects at Shamache, made private
application to him, by means of an Armenian, to take upon him at the
same time the defence of Persia.
Peter had for a considerable time formed a project to make himself
master of the Caspian Sea, by means of a powerful naval force, and to
turn the tide of commerce from Persia and a part of India through his
own dominions. He had caused several parts of this sea to be sounded,
the coasts to be surveyed, and exact charts made of the whole. He then
set sail for the coast of Persia the 15th day of May, 1722. Catherine
accompanied him in this voyage, as she had done in the former. They
sailed down the Wolga as far as the city of Astracan. From thence he
hastened to forward the canals which were to join the Caspian, the
Baltic, and the Euxine seas, a work which has been since executed in
part under the reign of his grandson.
While he was directing these works, the necessary provisions for his
expedition were arrived in the Caspian Sea. He was to take with him
twenty-two thousand foot, nine thousand dragoons, fifteen thousand
Cossacks, and three thousand seamen, who were to work the ships, and
occasionally assist the soldiery in making descents on the coast. The
horse were to march over land through deserts where there was frequently
no water to be had, and afterwards to pass over the mountains of
Caucasus, where three hundred men are sufficient to stop the progress of
a whole army; but the distracted condition in which Persia then was,
warranted the most hazardous enterprises.
The czar sailed about a hundred leagues to the southward of Astracan,
till he came to the little town of Andrewhoff. It may appear
extraordinary to hear of the name of Andrew on the coasts of the
Hyrcanian Sea; but some Georgians, who were formerly a sect of
Christians, had built this town, which the Persians afterwards
fortified; but it fell an easy prey to the czar's arms. From thence he
continued advancing by land into the province of Daghestan, and caused
manifestoes to be circulated in the Turkish and Persian languages.[115]
It was necessary to keep fair with the Ottoman Porte, who reckoned among
its subjects, not only the Circassians and Georgians, who border upon
this country, but also several powerful vassals, who had of late put
themselves under the protection of the grand seignior.
Among others there was one very powerful, named Mahmoud d'Utmich, who
took the title of sultan, and had the courage to attack the czar's
troops, by which he was totally defeated, and the story says, that his
whole country was made a bonfire on the occasion.
Sept. 14, 1722.] In a short time afterwards Peter arrived at the city of
Derbent, by the Persians and Turks called Demir Capi, that is, the Iron
Gate, and so named from having formerly had an iron gate at the south
entrance. The city is long and narrow, its upper part joins to a rocky
branch of Mount Caucasus, and the walls of the lower part are washed by
the sea, which in violent storms make a breach over them. These walls
might pass for one of the wonders of antiquity, being forty feet in
height, and six in breadth, defended with square towers at the distance
of every fifty feet. The whole work seems one uniform piece, and is
built of a sort of brown free-stone mixed with pounded shells, which
served as mortar, so that the whole forms a mass harder than marble. The
city lies open from the sea, but part of it next the land appears
impregnable. There are still some ruins of an old wall like that of
China, which must have been built in the earliest times of antiquity,
and stretched from the borders of the Caspian Sea to the Pontus Euxinus;
and this was probably a rampart raised by the ancient kings of Persia
against those swarms of barbarians which dwelt between those two seas.
According to the Persian tradition, the city of Derbent was partly
repaired and fortified by Alexander the Great. Arrian and Quintus
Curtius tell us, that Alexander absolutely rebuilt this city. They say
indeed that it was on the banks of the Tanais or Don, but then in their
time the Greeks gave the name of Tanais to the river Cyrus, which runs
by the city. It would be a contradiction to suppose that Alexander
should build a harbour in the Caspian Sea, on a river that opens into
the Black Sea.
There were formerly three or four other ports in different parts of the
Caspian Sea, all which were probably built with the same view; for the
several nations inhabiting to the west, east, and north of that sea,
have in all times been barbarians, who had rendered themselves
formidable to the rest of the world, and from hence principally issued
those swarms of conquerors who subjugated Asia and Europe.
And here I must beg leave to remark, how much pleasure authors in all
ages have taken to impose upon mankind, and how much they have preferred
a vain show of eloquence to matter of fact. Quintus Curtius puts into
the mouths of Scythians an admirable speech full of moderation and
philosophy, as if the Tartars of those regions had been all so many
sages, and that Alexander had not been the general nominated by the
Greeks against the king of Persia, sovereign of the greatest part of
southern Scythia and the Indies. Other rhetoricians, thinking to imitate
Quintus Curtius, have studied to make us look upon those savages of
Caucacus and its dreary deserts, who lived wholly upon rapine and
bloodshed, as the people in the world most remarkable for austere virtue
and justice, and have painted Alexander, the avenger of Greece, and the
conqueror of those who would have enslaved him and his country, as a
public robber, who had ravaged the world without justice or reason.
Such writers do not consider, that these Tartars were never other than
destroyers, and that Alexander built towns in the very country which
they inhabited; and in this respect I may venture to compare Peter the
Great to Alexander; like him he was assiduous and indefatigable in his
pursuits, a lover and friend of the useful arts; he surpassed him as a
lawgiver, and like him endeavoured to change the tide of commerce in the
world, and built and repaired at least as many towns as that celebrated
hero of antiquity.
On the approach of the Russian army, the governor of Derbent resolved
not to sustain a siege, whether he thought he was not able to defend the
place, or that he preferred the czar's protection to that of the tyrant
Mahmoud; brought the keys of the town and citadel (which were silver)
and presented them to Peter, whose army peaceably entered the city, and
then encamped on the sea-shore.
The usurper, Mahmoud, already master of great part of Persia, in vain
endeavoured to prevent the czar from taking possession of Derbent: he
stirred up the neighbouring Tartars, and marched into Persia to the
relief of the place; but, too late, for Derbent was already in the hands
of the conqueror.
Peter however was not in a condition to push his successes any further
at this time. The vessels which were bringing him a fresh supply of
provisions, horses, and recruits, had been cast away near Astracan, and
the season was far spent. He therefore returned to Moscow, Jan. 5. which
he entered in triumph; and after his arrival (according to custom) gave
a strict account of his expedition to the vice-czar Romadanowski, thus
keeping up this extraordinary farce, which, says his eulogium,
pronounced in the academy of sciences at Paris, ought to have been
performed before all the monarchs of the earth.
The empire of Persia continued to be divided between Hussein and the
usurper Mahmoud. The first of these thought to find a protector in the
czar, and the other dreaded him as an avenger, who was come to snatch
the fruits of his rebellion out of his hands. Mahmoud exerted all his
endeavours to stir up the Ottoman Porte against Peter, and for this
purpose sent an embassy to Constantinople, while the princes of
Daghestan, who were under the protection of the grand seignior, and had
been stript of their territories by the victorious army of Peter, cried
aloud for vengeance. The divan was now alarmed for the safety of
Georgia, which the Turks reckon in the number of their dominions.
The grand seignior was on the point of declaring war against the czar,
but was prevented by the courts of Vienna and Paris. The emperor of
Germany at the same time declared, that if Russia should be attacked by
the Turks, he must be obliged to defend it. The marquis de Bonac, the
French ambassador at Constantinople, made a dextrous use of the menaces
of the imperial court, and at the same time insinuated, that it was
contrary to the true interest of the Turkish empire, to suffer a rebel
and an usurper to set the example of dethroning sovereigns, and that the
czar had done no more than what the grand seignior himself ought to have
done.
During these delicate negotiations, Mir Mahmoud was advanced to the
gates of Derbent, and had laid waste all the neighbouring country in
order to cut off all means of subsistence from the Russian army. That
part of ancient Hyrcania, now called Ghilan, was reduced to a desert,
and the inhabitants threw themselves under the protection of the
Russians, whom they looked upon as their deliverers.
In this they followed the example of the sophi himself. That unfortunate
prince sent a formal embassy to Peter the Great, to request his
assistance; but the ambassador was hardly departed, when the rebel, Mir
Mahmoud, seized on Ispahan and the person of his master.
Thamaseb, the son of the dethroned sophi, who was taken prisoner, found
means to escape out of the tyrant's hands, and got together a body of
troops, with which he gave the usurper battle. He seconded his father's
entreaties to Peter the Great for his protection, and sent to the
ambassador the same instructions which Shah Hussein had given him.
This ambassador, whose name was Ishmael Beg, found that his negotiations
had proved successful, even before he arrived in person; for, on landing
at Astracan, he learnt that general Matufkin was going to set out with
fresh recruits to reinforce the army in Daghestan. The dey of Baku or
Bachu, which with the Persians gives to the Caspian Sea the name of the
Sea of Bacou, was not yet taken. The ambassador therefore gave the
Russian general a letter for the inhabitants, in which he exhorted them
in his master's name to submit to the emperor of Russia. The ambassador
then proceeded to Petersburg, and general Matufkin departed to lay siege
to the city of Bachu. (Aug. 1723.) The Persian ambassador arrived at the
czar's court the very day that tidings were brought of the reduction of
that city.
Baku is situate near Shamache, but is neither so well peopled, nor so
rich as the latter. It is chiefly remarkable for the naptha, with which
it furnishes all Persia. Never was treaty so speedily concluded as that
of Ishmael Beg. (Sept. 1723.) Czar Peter promised to march with his
forces into Persia, in order to revenge the death of his subjects, and
to succour Thamaseb against the usurper of his crown, and the new sophi
in return was to cede to him, not only the towns of Bachu and Derbent,
but likewise the provinces of Ghilan, Mazanderan, and Asterabath.
Ghilan is, as we have already observed, the ancient South Hyrcania;
Mazanderan, which joins to it, is the country of the Mardi, or Mardians;
and Asterabath borders upon Mazanderan. These were the three principal
provinces of the ancient Median kings; so that Peter beheld himself, by
the means of arms and treaties, in possession of the original kingdom of
Cyrus.
It may not be foreign to our subject to observe, that by the articles of
this convention, the prices of necessaries to be furnished to the army
were settled. A camel was to cost only sixty franks (about twelve
rubles) a pound of bread no more than five farthings, the same weight of
beef about six. These prices furnish a convincing proof of the plenty
he found in these countries, that possessions in land are of the most
intrinsic value, and that money, which is only of nominal worth, was at
that time very scarce.
Such was the deplorable state to which Persia was then reduced, that the
unfortunate sophi Thamaseb, a wanderer in his own kingdom, and flying
before the face of the rebel, Mahmoud, who had dipt his hands in the
blood of his father and his brothers, was necessitated to entreat the
court of Russia and the Turkish divan to accept of one part of his
dominions to preserve for him the rest.
It was agreed then, between czar Peter, sultan Achmet III. and the sophi
Thamaseb, that the first of these should keep the three provinces
above-named, and that the Porte should have Casbin, Tauris, and Erivan,
besides what she had already taken from the usurper. Thus was this noble
kingdom dismembered at once by the Russians, the Turks, and the Persians
themselves.
And now the emperor Peter might be said to extend his dominions from the
furthest part of the Baltic Sea, beyond the southern limits of the
Caspian. Persia still continued a prey to violations and devastations,
and its natives, till then opulent and polite, were now sunk in poverty
and barbarism, while the Russian people had arisen from indigence and
ignorance to a state of riches and learning. One single man, by a
resolute and enterprising genius, had brought his country out of
obscurity; and another, by his weakness and indolence, had brought
destruction upon his.
Hitherto we know very little of the private calamities which for so long
a time spread desolation over the face of the Persian empire. It is
said, that shah Hussein was so pusillanimous as to place with his own
hands the tiara or crown of Persia on the head of the usurper Mahmoud,
and also that this Mahmoud afterwards went mad. Thus the lives of so
many thousands of men depend on the caprice of a madman or a fool. They
add furthermore, that Mahmoud, in one of his fits of frenzy, put to
death with his own hand all the sons and nephews of the shah Hussein to
the number of a hundred; and that he caused the gospel of St. John to be
read upon his head, in order to purify himself, and to receive a cure
for his disorder. These and such like Persian fables have been
circulated by our monks, and afterwards printed in Paris.
The tyrant, after having murdered his uncle, was in his turn put to
death by his nephew Eshreff, who was as cruel and bloody a tyrant as
Mahmoud himself.
Shah Thamaseb still continued imploring the assistance of Russia. This
Thamaseb or shah Thomas, was assisted and afterwards replaced on the
throne by the famous Kouli Khan, and was again dethroned by the same
Kouli Khan.
The revolutions and wars which Russia had afterwards to encounter
against the Turks, and in which she proved victorious, the evacuating
the three provinces in Persia, which cost Russia more to keep than they
were worth, are events which do not concern Peter the Great, as they did
not happen till several years after his death; it may suffice to
observe, that he finished his military career by adding three provinces
to his empire on the part next to Persia, after having just before added
the same number on that side next to Sweden.