There you can take command of the army. Do this, sire, and within six
weeks St. Petersburg and Russia will be at your feet. I will answer for
this with my head."
But Peter was hopelessly incompetent to act. He would go back to
Oranienbaum. He would negotiate. He arrived there to learn that
Catharine was marching on him at the head of her regiments. On she came,
her cap crowned with oak leaves, her hair floating in the wind. The
soldiers had thrown off their Prussian uniforms and were dressed in
their old garb. They were eager to fight the Holstein foreigners.
No opportunity came for this. A messenger met them with a flag of
truce. Peter had sent an offer to divide the power with Catharine.
Receiving no answer, in an hour he sent an offer to abdicate. He was
brought to Peterhof, where Catharine had halted, and where he cried like
a whipped child on receiving the orders of the new empress and being
forcibly separated from the woman who had ruined him.
A day had changed the fate of an empire. Within little more than six
months from his accession the czar had been hurled from his throne and
his wife had taken his place. Peter was sent under guard to Ropcha, a
lonely spot about twenty miles away, there to stay until accommodations
could be prepared for him in the strong fortress of Schluesselburg.
He was never to reach the latter place. He had abdicated on July 14. On
July 18 Alexis Orlof, covered with sweat and dust, burst into the
dressing-room of the empress. He had a startling story to tell. He had
ridden full speed from Ropcha with the news of the death of Peter III.
The story was that the czar had been found dead in his room. That was
doubtless the case, but that he had been murdered no one had a shadow of
doubt. Yet no one knew, and no one knows to this day, just what had
taken place. Stories of his having been poisoned and strangled have been
told, not without warrant. A detailed account is given of poison being
forced upon him by the Orlofs, who are said to have, on the poison
failing to act, strangled him in a revolting manner by their own hands.
Though this story lacks proof, the body was quite black. "Blood oozed
through the pores, and even through the gloves which covered the hands."
Those who kissed the corpse came away with swollen lips.
That Peter was murdered is almost certain; but that Catharine had
anything to do with it is not so sure. It may have been done by the
conspirators to prevent any reversal of the revolution. Prison-walls
have hidden many a dark event; and we only know that the czar was dead
and Catharine on the throne.
_A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE._
While the armies of Catharine II. were threatening with destruction the
empire of Turkey, and her diplomats were deciding what part of
dismembered Poland should fall to her share, her throne itself was put
in danger of destruction by an aspirant who arose in the east and for
two years kept Russia from end to end in a state of dire alarm. The
summary manner in which Peter III. had been removed from the throne was
not relished by the people. Numerous small revolts broke out, which were
successively put down. St. Petersburg accepted Catharine, but Moscow did
not, and on her visits to the latter city the political atmosphere
proved so frigid that she was glad to get back to the more genial
climate of the city on the Neva.
Years passed before Russia settled down to full acceptance of a reign
begun in violence and sustained by force, and in this interval there
were no fewer than six impostors to be dealt with, each of whom claimed
to be Peter III. Murdered emperors sleep badly in their graves. The
example of the false Dmitris, generations before, remained in men's
minds, and it seemed as if every Russian who bore a resemblance to the
vanished czar was ready to claim his vacated seat.
Of these false Peters, the sixth and most dangerous was a Cossack of
the Don, whose actual name was Pugatchef, but whose face seemed capable
of calling up an army wherever it appeared, and who, if his ability had
been equal to his fortune, might easily have seated himself on the
throne. The impostor proved to be his own worst foe, and defeated
himself by his innate barbarity.
Pugatchef began his career as a common soldier, afterwards becoming an
officer. Deserting the army after a period of service, he made his way
to Poland, where he dwelt with the monks of that country and pretended
to equal the best of them in piety. Here he was told that he bore a
striking resemblance to Peter III. The hint was enough. He returned to
Russia, where he professed sanctity, dressed like a patriarch of the
church, and scattered benedictions freely among the Cossacks of the Don.
He soon gained adherents among the old orthodox party, who were bitter
against the religious looseness of the court. Finally he gave himself
out as Peter III., declaring that the story of his death was false, that
he had escaped from the hands of the assassins, and that he desired to
win the throne, not for himself, but for his infant son Paul.
The first result of this announcement was that the impostor was seized
and taken to Kasan as a prisoner. But the carelessness of his guards
allowed him to escape from his prison cell, and he made his way to the
Volga, near its entrance into the Caspian Sea, where he began to collect
a body of followers among the Cossacks of that region. His first open
declaration was made on September 17, 1773, when he appeared with three
hundred Cossacks at the town of Yaitsk, and published an appeal to
orthodox believers, declaring that he was the czar Peter III. and
calling upon them for support.
His handful of Cossacks soon grew into an army, multitudes of the
tribesmen gathered around him, and in a brief time he found himself at
the head of a large body of the lowest of the people. The man was a
savage at heart, betraying his innate depravity by foolish and useless
cruelties, and in this way preventing the more educated class of the
community from joining his ranks.
Yet he contrived to gather about him an army of several thousand men,
and obtained a considerable number of cannon, with which he soon
afterwards laid siege to the city of Orenburg. Both Yaitsk and Orenburg
defied his efforts, but he had greater success in the field, defeating
two armies in succession. These victories gave him new assurance. He now
caused money to be coined in his name, as though he were the lawful
emperor, and marched northward at the head of a large force to meet the
armies of the state.
His army was destitute of order or discipline and he woefully deficient
in military skill, yet his proclamation of freedom to the people, and
the opportunities he gave them for plunder and outrage, strengthened his
hands, and recruits came in multitudes. The Tartars, Kirghis, and
Bashkirs, who had been brought against their will under the Russian
yoke, flocked to his standard, in the hope of regaining their freedom.
Many of the Poles who had been banished from their country also sought
his ranks, and the people of Moscow and its vicinity, who had from the
first been opposed to Catharine's reign, waited his approach that they
might break out in open rebellion.
The outbreak had thus become serious, and had Pugatchef been skilled as
a leader he might have won the throne. As it was, his followers showed a
fiery valor, and, undisciplined as they were, gave the armies of the
empire no small concern. Bibikof, who had been sent to subdue them,
failed through over-caution, and was slain in the field. His
lieutenants, Galitzin and Michelson, proved more active, and frequently
defeated the impostor, though only to find him rising again with new
armies as often as the old ones were crushed, like the fabulous giant
who sprang up in double form whenever cut in twain.
Prince Galitzin defeated him twice, the last time after a furious battle
six hours in length. Pugatchef, abandoned by his followers, now fled to
the Urals, but soon appeared again with a fresh body of troops. Between
the beginning of March and the end of May, 1774, the rebel chief was
defeated six or seven times by Michelson, in the end being driven as a
fugitive to the Ural Mountains. But he had only to raise his standard
again for fresh armies to spring up as if from the ground, and early
June found him once more in the field. Defeated on June 4, he fled once
more to the hills, but in the beginning of July was facing his foes
again at the head of twenty-two thousand men.
Only the cruelty shown by himself and his followers, and his
ruthlessness in permitting the plunder and burning of churches and
convents, kept back the much greater hosts who would otherwise have
flocked to his ranks. And at this critical moment in his career he
committed the signal error of failing to march on Moscow, the principal
seat of the old Russian faith which he proposed to restore, and where he
would have found an army of partisans. He marched upon Kasan instead,
took the city, but failed to capture the citadel. Here he was making
havoc with fire and sword, when Michelson came up and defeated him in a
long and obstinate fight.
[Illustration: THE CITY OF KASAN.]
He now fled to the Volga, wasting the land as he went, burning the crops
and villages, and leaving desolation in his track. Men came in numbers
to replace those he had lost, and an army of twenty thousand was soon
again under his command. With these he surprised and routed a Russian
force and took several forts on the Volga, while the German colonies of
Moravians which had been established upon that stream, and were among
the most industrious inhabitants of the empire, suffered severely at his
hands. In the town of Saratof he murdered all whom he met.
As an example of the character of this monster in human form, it is
related that hearing that an astronomer from the Imperial Academy of
Sciences of St. Petersburg was near by, engaged in laying out the route
of a canal from the Volga to the Don, he ordered him to be brought
before him. When the peaceful astronomer appeared, the brutal ruffian
bade his men to lift him on their pikes "so that he might be nearer the
stars." Then he ordered him to be cut to pieces.
The end of this carnival of murder came at the siege of Zaritzin. Here
Michelson came up on the 22d of August and forced him to raise the
siege. On the 24th the insurgents were attacked when in the intricate
passes of the mountains and encumbered with baggage-wagons, women, and
camp-followers. Though thus taken at a disadvantage, they defended
themselves vigorously, the mass of them falling in the mountain passes
or being driven over the cliffs and precipices. Pugatchef continued to
fight till his army was destroyed, then made his escape, as so often
before, swimming the Volga and vanishing in the desert. Only about sixty
of his most faithful partisans accompanied him in his flight.
Michelson, failing to reach him in his retreat, took care that he should
not emerge into the cultivated districts. But in the end the Russians
were able to capture him only by treachery. They won over some of their
Cossack prisoners, among them Antizof, the nearest friend of the
fugitive. These were then set free, and sought the desert retreat of
their late leader, where they awaited an opportunity to take him by
surprise.
This they were not able to do until November. Pugatchef was gnawing the
bone of a horse for food when his false friends ran up to him, saying,
"Come, you have long enough been emperor."
Perceiving that treachery was intended, he drew his pistol and fired at
his foes, shattering the arm of the foremost. The others seized and
bound him and conveyed him to Goroduk in the Ural, the locality of
Antizof's tribe. Michelson was still seeking him in the desert when word
came to him that the fugitive had been delivered into Russian hands at
Simbirsk, and was being conveyed to Moscow in an iron cage, like the
beast of prey which he resembled in character.
On the way he sought to starve himself, but was forced to eat by the
soldiers. On reaching Moscow he counterfeited madness. His trial was
conducted without the torture which had formerly been so common a
feature of Russian tribunals. The sentence of the court was that he
should be exhibited to the people with his hands and feet cut off, and
then quartered alive. With unyielding resolution Pugatchef awaited this
cruel death, but the sentence, for some reason, was not executed, he
being first beheaded and then quartered. Four of his principal followers
suffered the same fate, and thus ended one of the most determined
efforts on the part of an impostor to seize the Russian throne that had
ever been known. The undoubted courage of the man was enough to prove
that he was not Peter III. Had he combined military capacity with his
daring he could readily have won the throne.
_THE FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCKS._
On the 5th of January, 1771, began one of the most remarkable events in
the history of the world, the migration of an entire nation, more than
half a million strong, with its women and children, flocks and herds,
and all that it possessed, to a new home four thousand miles away. More
than once--many times, apparently--in the history of the past such
migrations have taken place. But those were warlike movements, with
conquest as their aim. This was a peaceful migration, the only desire of
those concerned being to be let alone. This desire was not granted, and
death and terror marked every step of their frightful journey.
A century and a half earlier the fathers of these people, the Kalmuck
Tartars, had left their homes in the Chinese empire and wandered west,
finding a resting-place at last on the Volga River, in the Russian
realm. Here they would have been well content to remain but for the arts
and designs of one man, Zebek-Dorchi by name, who, ambitious to be made
khan of the tribe, and not being favored in his desires by the Russian
court, determined to remove the whole Kalmuck nation beyond the reach of
Russian control.
This was no easy matter to do. Russia had spread to the east until the
whole width of Asia lay within its broad expanse and its boundary
touched the Pacific waves. To reach China, the mighty Mongolian plain
had to be crossed, largely a desert, swarming with hostile tribes; death
and disaster were likely to haunt every mile of the way; and a general
tomb in the wilderness, rather than a home in a new land, was the most
probable destiny of the migrating horde.
Zebek-Dorchi was confronted with a difficult task. He had to induce the
tribesmen to consent to the new movement, and that so quickly that a
start could be made before the Russians became aware of the scheme.
Otherwise the path would be lined with armies and the movement checked.
Oubacha, the khan of the Kalmucks, was a brave but weak man. The
conspirator controlled him, and through him the people. On a fixed day,
through a false alarm that the Kirghises and Bashkirs had made an inroad
upon the Kalmuck lands, he succeeded in gathering a great Kalmuck horde,
eighty thousand in all, at a point out of reach of Russian ears. Here,
with subtle eloquence, he told them of the oppressions of Russia, of her
insults to the Kalmucks, her contempt for their religion, and her design
to reduce them to slavery, and declared that a plan had been devised to
rob them of their eldest sons. By a skilful mixture of truth and
falsehood he roused their fears and their anger, and at length he
proposed that they should leave their fields and make a rapid march to
the Temba or some other great river, from behind which they could speak
in bolder language to the Russian empress and claim better terms. He
did not venture as yet to hint at his startling plan of a migration to
far-off China.
The simple minded Tartars, made furious by his skilful oratory, accepted
his plan by acclamation, and returned home to push with the utmost haste
the preparations for their stupendous task. The idea of a migration _en
masse_ did not frighten them. They were nomads and the descendants of
nomads, who for ages had been used to fold their tents and flit away.
The Kalmuck villages extended on both sides of the Volga. A large
section of the horde would have to cross that great stream, and this
could be done with sufficient speed only when its surface was bridged
with ice. For this reason midwinter was chosen for the flight, despite
the sufferings which must arise from the bitter Russian cold, and the
5th of January was appointed for religious reasons by the leading Lama
of the tribe. The year had been selected by the Great Lama of Thibet,
the head of the Buddhist faith, to which the Kalmucks belonged, and to
whom the conspirator had appealed.
Despite the secrecy and rapidity of the movement, tidings of it reached
the Russian court. But the Russian envoy who dwelt among the Kalmucks
was quite deceived by their wiles, and sent word to the imperial court
that the rumors were false and nothing resembling an outbreak was in
view. The governor of Astrachan, a man of more sense and discernment,
sent courier after courier, but his warnings were ignored, and the fatal
5th of January came without a preventive step being taken by the
government. Then the governor, learning that the migration had actually
begun, sprang into his sleigh and drove over the Russian snows at the
furious speed of three hundred miles a day, finally rushing into the
imperial presence-chamber at St. Petersburg to announce to the empress
that all his warnings had been true and that the Kalmucks were in full
flight. Other couriers quickly confirmed his words, and the envoy paid
for his blindness by death in a dungeon-cell.
Meanwhile the banks of the Volga had been the locality of a remarkable
event. At early dawn of the selected day the Kalmucks east of the stream
began to assemble in troops and squadrons, gathering in tens of
thousands, a great body of the tribe setting out every half-hour on its
march. Women and children, several hundred thousand in number, were
placed on wagons and camels, and moved off in masses of twenty thousand
at once, with escorts of mounted men. As the march proceeded, outlying
bodies of the horde kept falling in during that and the following day.
From sixty to eighty thousand of the best mounted warriors stayed behind
for work of ruin and revenge. Their first purpose was to destroy their
own dwellings, lest some of the weak-minded might be tempted to return.
Oubacha, the khan, set the example by applying the torch to his own
palace. Before the day was over the villages throughout a district of
ten thousand square miles were in a simultaneous blaze. Nothing was
saved except the portable utensils and such of the wood-work as might be
used in making the long Tartar lances.
This was but part of the destruction proposed. Zebek-Dorchi had it in
view to pillage and destroy all the Russian towns, churches, and
buildings of every kind within the surrounding district, with outrage
and death to their inhabitants,--a frightful scheme, which was
providentially checked. The day of flight had been selected, as has been
said, in the worst season of the year, in order that the tribes west of
the Volga might be able to cross its surface on a thick bridge of ice.
Yet for some reason--possibly because of the weakness of the ice--the
western Kalmucks failed to join their eastern brethren, and fully one
hundred thousand of the Tartars were left behind. It was this that saved
the Russian towns, it being feared by the leaders that such a vengeance
would be repaid upon their brethren left to Russian reprisal. These
western Kalmucks little guessed what horrors they were escaping by being
prevented from joining in the flight.
The migrating horde was not less than six hundred thousand strong, while
a vast number of horses, camels, cattle, goats, and sheep added to the
multitude of living forms. The march was a forced one. Every day gained
was of prime importance, for it was well known that Russian armies would
soon be in hot pursuit, while the tribes on their line of march,
hereditary foes of the Kalmucks, would gather from all sides to oppose
their passage as the news of the flight reached their ears.
The river Jaik, three hundred miles away, must be reached before a day's
rest could be had. The weather was not severely cold, and the journey
might have been accomplished with little distress but for the forced
pace. As it was, the cattle suffered greatly, the sheep died in
multitudes, milk began to fail, and only the great number of camels
saved the children and the infirm.
The first of the subjects of Russia with whom the Kalmucks came into
collision were the Cossacks of the Jaik. At this season most of these
were absent at the fisheries on the Caspian, and the others fled in
crowds to the fortress of Koulagina, which was quickly summoned to
surrender by the Kalmuck khan. The Russian commandant, numerous as were
his foes, refused, knowing that they must soon resume their flight. He
had not long to wait. On the fifth day of the siege, from the walls of
the fort a number of Tartar couriers, mounted on the swift Bactrian
camels, were seen to cross the plains and ride into the Kalmuck camp at
their highest speed.
Immediately a great agitation was visible in the camp, the siege was
raised, and the signal for flight resounded through the host. The news
brought was that an entire Kalmuck division, numbering nine thousand
fighting-men, stationed on a distant flank of the line of march, and
between whom and the Cossacks there was an ancient feud, had been
attacked and virtually exterminated. The exhaustion of their horses and
camels had prevented flight, quarter was not asked or given, and the
battle continued until not a fighting-man was left alive.
The utmost speed was now necessary, for a sufficient reason. The next
safe halting-place of the Kalmucks was on the east bank of the Toorgai
River. Between it and them rose a hilly country, a narrow defile through
which offered the nearest and best route. This lost, the need of
pasturage would require a further sweep of five hundred miles. The
Cossack light horsemen were only about fifty miles more distant from the
pass. If it were to be won, the most rapid march possible must be made.
For a day and a night the flight went on, with renewed suffering and
loss of animals. Then a snowfall, soon too deep to journey through,
checked all progress, and for ten days they had a season of rest,
comfort, and plenty. The cows and oxen had perished in such numbers that
it was resolved to slaughter what remained, feast to their hearts'
content, and salt the remainder for future stores.
At length clear, frosty weather came: the snow ceased to drift, and its
surface froze. It would bear the camels, and the flight was resumed. But
already seventy thousand persons of all ages had perished, in addition
to those slain in battle, and new suffering and death impended, for word
came that the troops of the empire were converging from all parts of
Central Asia upon the fords of the Toorgai, as the best place to cut off
the flight of the tribes, while a powerful army was marching rapidly
upon their rear, though delayed by its artillery.
On the 2d of February Ouchim, the much-desired defile, was reached. The
Cossacks had been out-marched. A considerable body of them, it is true,
had reached the pass some hours before, but they were attacked and so
fiercely dealt with that few of them escaped. The Kalmucks here
obtained revenge for the slaughter of their fellows twenty days before.
The road was now open. How long it would continue open was in doubt.
Word came that a large Russian army, led by General Traubenberg, was
advancing upon the Toorgai. He was to be met on his route by ten
thousand Bashkirs and as many Kirghises, implacable enemies of the
Kalmucks, from whom they had suffered in past years. The only hope now
lay in speed, and onward the Kalmucks pressed, their line of march
marked by the bodies of the dead. The weak, the sick, had to be left
behind; nothing was suffered to impede the rapidity of their flight.