540 The return of Alexis [1717-8 The unfortunate Tsarevich knew, instinctively, that he was fighting for his life. At first, however, relying on the Emperor's solemn promise of protection, he stood firm and refused to depart. But the most villainous expedients, remorselessly employed, compelled him at last to surrender. He promised to return to Russia with Tolstoi, but only on two conditions: his father was to allow him to marry Afrosina and retire into private life. To these terms Tolstoi agreed, and Peter himself solemnly confirmed them in a letter to his son in which he swore, "before God and His judgment seat," that, if Alexis came back, he should not be punished in the least, but be cherished as a son. On January 31, 1718, Alexis reached Moscow. On February 19 the names of his accomplices were extorted from him. His wretched confederates, torn from their hiding-places and dragged to the torturechamber, supplied the prosecution with evidence which would not be accepted in any modern Court of justice. On the conclusion of the "Moscow Process," as it was called, the most salient feature of which was the trial and condemnation of the ex-Tsaritsa Eudoxia for adultery, the impalement of her alleged paramour, and the degradation of many of her friends, including Dositheus, Bishop of Rostoff, there was a lull in the prosecution of the Tsarevich's affair. Alexis, on the supposition that something was now due to one who had unhesitatingly confessed everything required of him, bent all his efforts to obtain the fulfilment of his father's promise that he should marry Afrosina. The girl arrived at St Petersburg in April, 1718; but, instead of being taken to the arms of her lover, as she had expected, she was suddenly brought before the Tsar's inquisitors. As the mistress and confidante of Alexis, she was the chosen depository of his secrets; and those secrets the prosecution, which so far had failed to establish a charge of conspiracy, was determined to get hold of. The helpless woman's revelations did not amount to much, but were sufficient to destroy Alexis. He had told her that, when he was Tsar, he would order things very differently. He would live at Moscow and let St Petersburg remain a mere provincial town. He would have no ships, and keep the army solely for defensive purposes. He predicted that, on the death of his father, a civil war would break out between his own partisans and those of his little brother, in which he would ultimately prevail, because the Russian people would not endure the government of women. Immediately after this "confession" had been obtained, Peter sent for Alexis, confronted him with it, and reproached him for concealing material facts and thereby forfeiting his pardon. To save the miserable remnant of life which his tormentors might allow him to call his own, Alexis now said "yes" to everything. He had wished for his father's death; he had rejoiced when he heard plots against his father; he had been ready to accept his father's throne from rebels and regicides. All had now been said. The worst was known at last. True, there were no 1718] The trial and condemnation of Alexis 541 facts to go upon. The Tsarevich had, so far, done nothing, whatever he might have intended to do. Nevertheless, Peter henceforth regarded his son as a self-convicted and most dangerous traitor. His life was forfeited, the future welfare of Russia imperatively demanded his extinction. But now a case for casuists arose; and Peter himself was casuist enough to recognise that it was a case of unusual and peculiar difficulty. Even if Alexis deserved a thousand deaths, his father had sworn by the most solemn of oaths to pardon him and let him live in peace, if he returned to Russia; and it was only on these conditions that Alexis (very foolishly, in the opinion of his friends) had placed himself once more in his father's hands. The question whether the enormity of the Tsarevich's crime absolved the Tsar from the oath which he had taken to spare the life of this prodigal son, was solemnly submitted to a grand council of prelates, senators, ministers, generals and other dignitaries, on June 13, 1718. Five days later, the clergy presented their memorial. It is a cautious, non-committal document, plainly inspired by fear, but unmistakably inclining to mercy, and finally leaving the matter entirely in the Tsar's hands. But the clergy entirely passed over the strongest, the most irrefragable argument in favour of Alexis, namely, the Tsar's solemn promise of forgiveness to his son, although Peter had explicitly exhorted them to relieve his conscience on this very point. He was now in a dilemma. There can be little doubt that he had at last determined to rid himself of his detested son; but he certainly shrank from a public execution, the scandal of which would have been enormous and its consequences incalculable. The temporal members of the council helped him out of his difficulty by expressing a desire to be quite convinced that Alexis had actually meditated rebellion against his father. This seems to have been a pretext for bringing the Tsarevich to the torture-chamber, where he might very easily expire, as if by accident, under legal process. The most ordinary mode of administering the question extraordinary was by the knout, and there were few instances of anyone surviving thirty strokes of this terrible punishment as then administered. On June 19, Alexis, never very robust and severely reduced by mental suffering and prolonged anxiety, received five-and-twenty strokes with the knout, and betrayed the confidences of his confessor, Ignateff, who was also savagely tortured. On June 24, Alexis received fifteen more strokes; but even the knout could now extract nothing but feeble protests from the mangled wretch. The same day the Senate condemned the Tsarevich to death for "imagining rebellion against his father, and for "hoping for " the co-operation of the common people, and the armed intervention of his brother-in-law, the Emperor. The solemn promise of the Tsar, which the clergy had ignored, was sophistically explained away by the Senators. He had, they said, promised his son forgiveness only if he returned willingly; he had returned unwillingly, and had therefore forfeited the promise. 542 Death of Alexis. Peter proclaimed Emperor [1718-24 This shameful document, the outcome of mingled terror and obsequiousness, was signed by all the Senators and Ministers, and by three hundred persons of lesser degree. Two days later, June 26, 1718, the Tsarevich died in the Trubetskoi guard-house of the citadel of St Petersburg. The precise manner of his death is still something of an enigma, most of the existing documents relating to it being apocryphal; but a careful exami nation and comparison of the only two extant contemporaneous and genuine Russian documents, seems to warrant the following conclusion. At eight o'clock in the morning of June 26, 1718, the Tsar, accompanied by some of the chief dignitaries of the Empire, proceeded to the fortress; and Alexis was produced and placed before them within a zastyenok (partition). His death-sentence was then, suddenly, read to him. The shock, acting on an enfeebled frame, and crushing the last hope of life with which the poor wretch had hugged himself in the midst of his awful sufferings, brought on a swoon which lasted some hours. On his recovery, he was carried into the close-adjoining Trubetskoi guard-room, where he died. Abominable, unnatural as was Peter's conduct to his unhappy son, there is no reason to suppose that he ever regretted it. He argued that a single worthless life stood in the way of the regeneration of Russia, and was therefore forfeit to the common weal. But, however its foundations had been cemented, the Russian Empire was now an established and imposing fact. Its official birthday dates from October 22, 1721, when, after a solemn thanksgiving-service for the Peace of Nystad, in the Troitsa cathedral at St Petersburg, the Tsar proceeded to the Senate and was there acclaimed: "Father of the Fatherland, Peter the Great, and Emperor of All Russia." Some would have preferred to proclaim him Emperor of the East; but Peter himself adopted the more patriotic title. Prussia, the new ally, and the United Provinces, the oldest friend of the Tsar, were the earliest among the European States to recognise Peter's imperial title; but in other quarters the novelty was received with disfavour, especially at Vienna, where the emergence of a second Empire which threatened to overshadow the Holy Roman Empire gave great offence. Curiously enough, the friendship of Prussia, which might have counterbalanced the hostility of the Emperor, was imperilled by Peter's withdrawal from Berlin of the gigantic grenadiers whom he had previously lent, or given, to Frederick William I. Peter in consequence contracted an offensive and defensive alliance, for twelve years, with his ancient enemy Sweden, which, under the pacific administration of Count Arvid Horn, was being gradually nursed into political convalescence. By the Treaty of Stockholm (Feburary 22, 1724) Russia contracted to assist Sweden, in case of need, with 12,000 infantry, 4000 cavalry, nine ships of the line, and three frigates; while Sweden undertook to assist Russia, in similar circumstances, with 8000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, six liners and two frigates. 1722-4] Russia, France, and Great Britain 543 The relations between France and Russia had also become much more cordial than heretofore. It was a favourite ambition of the Tsar to marry his second surviving daughter, the Tsesarevna Elizabeth, to the young King of France, Louis XV. But Bourbon pride proved an insurmountable obstacle; and equally abortive were the efforts of successive French Ministers to bring about a better understanding between Great Britain and Russia. For some years after the termination of the War of the Spanish Succession Great Britain was, indisputably, the dominant Power of Europe. To prevent a renewal of the Anglo-Austrian alliance, and to isolate the Emperor, were now the chief aims of the French Ministers, especially in view of the break-up of the Austrian dominions in the event of the death of the sonless Charles VI, who, by the Pragmatic Sanction, had settled the succession on his daughter, Maria Theresa, now a child of eight. France, moreover, was anxious to keep Russia free from complications elsewhere; so that her troops might be available against Maria Theresa at the proper time, and a reconciliation between Great Britain and Russia was considered at Versailles to be the best way of steadying and restraining Peter. But such a reconciliation was extremely difficult. George I had an ancient grudge against the Russian Emperor; Peter's supposed friendship for the Jacobites was an additional obstacle. But Fleury, still at the height of his authority in France, believed himself capable of performing successfully the part of political peace-maker. He assured Prince Kurakin that the best thing for Russia at the present time was reconciliation with England; indeed he made an Anglo-Russian reconciliation the condition precedent of a FrancoRussian alliance. Peter himself was anxious to come to terms with England; but, on the other hand, he did not want to quarrel with the Tories; indeed, the extreme Tories, or Jacobites, now hailed him as their prospective deliverer, and expected more from him than from any other European potentate. In April, 1722, the Pretender's agent, Thomas Gordon, informed the Tsar that the English nation was ready to rise for its lawful King, if only they had 6000 men and arms for 20,000 more. In June of the same year, the Old Pretender wrote to Peter expressing his gratitude for the sympathy of his Imperial Majesty, and transmitting a plan for the invasion of England. But, as Peter would not embark on so vast an enterprise without the co-operation of France, and as France desired to unite England and Russia instead of dividing them, the Jacobite project never had the remotest chance of success, even if the Persian campaigns of Peter had not, at this very time, engrossed his attention. It should also not be forgotten that the Tsar had now obtained all he wanted in Europe; for, from first to last, he had aimed solely at the conquest of the Baltic Provinces. During the last four years of his reign, his policy was predominantly Oriental. Well aware that Russia was the natural commercial intermediary 544 Russia and the Near East [1716-22 between the East and the West, Peter never lost sight of the necessity of establishing and extending his influence in Asia. In 1719 Captain Lev Izmailoff of the Guards was sent to Pekin as the first Russian envoy extraordinary; but he was not allowed to establish an embassy or consulates, nor could he even obtain a commercial treaty. The first Russian expeditions into Central Asia were disastrous failures owing to the ignorance or incapacity of their leaders. In 1716 Colonel Buchholtz was sent to build a fortress on Lake Yamuish, but was driven back by 12,000 Calmucks. In the same year Prince Alexander Cherkasky set out to explore the mouths of the Amu Daria and the shores of the Sea of Aral, to win over the Khans of Khiva and Bokhara to the Russian interest, and to attempt to open up a way to India. In February, 1717, he returned to Astrakhan, after planting a few forts in unsuitable places. This expedition excited a general rising of Tartars, Bokharans, and Khivans, and, in attempting to suppress it, in 1717, Cherkasky was defeated and slain. In the vast plain lying between the Euxine and the Caspian Russia, Turkey and Persia were equally interested. The beginning of the Russian influence in these parts dates from the appointment of the capable Artamon Voluinsky as Russian Minister at Ispahan, in 1715. It is clear from his instructions, written by Peter's own hand, that he was sent rather as a pioneer than as a diplomatist. He was to find out which rivers fell into the Caspian "and to which places on these rivers we can get by sea, and whether there are any rivers flowing into this sea which rise in India." He was also to take note of Gilyan and the other Caspian Provinces, and, if possible, with the assistance of the Armenians, divert the raw-silk trade from Turkey to Russia through Persia. Voluinsky quitted Ispahan in September, 1717, after concluding a commercial treaty with the Shah very advantageous to Russia. On his return journey he wintered at Shemak, where he had excellent opportunity for still further spying out the nakedness of the land. Voluinsky persistently urged Peter to invade Persia, and events played into his hands. In September, 1721, two Lesghian princes revolted against the Shah, seized Shemak and plundered Russian merchandise in the bazaar to the value of 500,000 roubles. In the beginning of 1722 the state of affairs in Persia became still more favourable for Russian intervention; for the Afghans invaded the devastated land, defeated the Persian troops in two pitched battles, seized Ispahan, and dethroned the Shah in favour of his third son Tokmash. Peter hesitated no longer. On May 3, the Guards left Moscow. On July 18, Peter sailed from Astrakhan to Derbent with an army of 22,000 infantry, 9000 cavalry, 20,000 Cossacks, 20,000 Calmucks, 30,000 Tartars and 5000 sailors. On September 3, the Governor of Derbent delivered up the silver keys of the city to the Russian Emperor. Owing, however, to difficulties of transport, and the persistence of a fierce north wind which wrecked half the transports on the |