Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Karl Marx (ч. 3)

“The Defensive Treaty Concluded in the year 1700, between his Late Majesty, King William, of Ever-Glorious memory, and His present Swedish Majesty, King Charles XII. Published at the Earnest Desire of several Members of both Houses of Parliament.^[86]

‘Nec rumpite foedera pacis,

Nec regnis praeferte fidem.’

Silius. Lib. II

[Neither break peace treaties, nor prefer allegiance to kingdoms]

London

“Article I. Establishes between the Kings of Sweden and England ‘a sincere and constant friendship for ever, a league and good correspondence, so that they shall never mutually or separately molest one another’s kingdoms, provinces, colonies, or subjects, wheresoever situated, nor shall they suffer or agree that this should be done by others, etc.’

“Article II. ‘Moreover, each of the Allies, his heirs and successors, shall be obliged to take care of, and promote, as much as in him lies, the profit and honour of the other, to detect and give notice to his other ally (as soon as it shall come to his own knowledge) of all imminent dangers, conspiracies, and hostile designs formed against him, to withstand them as much as possible, and to prevent them both by advice and assistance; and therefore it shall not be lawful for either of the Allies, either by themselves or any other whatsoever, to act, treat, or endeavour anything to the prejudice or loss of the other, his lands or dominions whatsoever or wheresoever, whether by land or sea; that one shall in no wise favour the other’s foes, either rebels or enemies, to the prejudice of his Ally,’ etc.

“Query I. How the words marked in italics agree with our present conduct, when our fleet acts in conduction with the enemies of Sweden, the Czar commands our fleet, our Admiral, enters into Councils of War, and is not only privy to all their designs, but together with our own Minister at Copenhagen (as the King of Denmark, has himself owned it in a public declaration), pushed on the Northern Confederates to an enterprise entirely destructive to our Ally Sweden, I mean the descent designed last summer upon Schonen?

“Query II. In what manner we also must explain that passage in the first article by which it is stipulated that one Ally shall not either by themselves or any other whatsoever, act, treat, or endeavour anything to the loss of the other’s lands and dominions; to justify in particular our leaving in the year 1715, even when the season was so far advanced as no longer to admit of our usual pretence of convoying and protecting our trade, which was then got already safe home, eight men-of-war in the Baltic, with orders to join in one line of battle with the Danes, whereby we made them so much superior in number to the Swedish fleet, that it could not come to the relief of Stralsund, and whereby we chiefly occasioned Sweden’s entirely losing its German Provinces, and even the extreme danger his Swedish Majesty ran, in his own person, in crossing the sea, before the surrender of the town.

“Article III. By a special defensive treaty, the Kings of Sweden and England mutually oblige themselves, ‘in a strict alliance, to defend one another mutually, as well as their kingdoms, territories, provinces, states, subjects, possessions, as their rights and liberties of navigation and commerce, as well in the Northern, Deucalidonian, Western, and Britannic Sea. commonly called the Channel, the Baltic, the Sound; as also of the. privileges and prerogatives of each of the Allies belonging to them, by virtue of treaties and agreements, as well as by received customs, the laws of nations, hereditary right, against any aggressors or invaders and molesters in Europe by sea or land, etc.’

“Query. It being by the law of nations an indisputable right and prerogative of any king or people, in case of a great necessity, or threatening ruin, to use all such means they themselves shall judge most necessary for their preservation; it having moreover been a constant prerogative and practice of the Swedes, for these several hundred years, in case of a war with their most dreadful enemies the Muscovites, to hinder all trade with them in the Baltic; and since it is also stipulated in this article that amongst other things, one Ally ought to defend the prerogatives belonging to the other, even by received customs, and the law of nations: how come we now, the King of Sweden stands more than ever in need of using that prerogative, not only to dispute it, but also to take thereof a pretence for an open hostility against him?

“Articles IV., V., VI., and VII, fix the strength of the auxiliary forces, England and Sweden are to send each other in case the territory of either of these powers should be invaded, or its navigation ‘molested or hindered’ in one of the seas enumerated in Article III. The invasion of the German provinces of Sweden is expressly included as a casus foederis.

“Article VIII. Stipulates that that Ally who is not attacked shall first act the part of a pacific mediator; but, the mediation having proved a failure, ‘the aforesaid forces shall be sent without delay; nor shall the confederates desist before the injured party shall be satisfied in all things.’

“Article IX. That Ally that requires the stipulated help, has to choose whether he will have the above-named army either all or any [part of it], either in soldiers, ships, ammunition. or money.’

“Article X. Ships and armies serve under ‘the command of him that required them.’

“Article XI. ‘But if it should happen that the above-mentioned forces should not be proportionable to the danger, as supposing that perhaps the aggressor should be assisted by the forces of some other confederates of his, then one of the Allies, after previous request, shall be obliged to help the other that is injured, with greater forces, such as he shall be able to raise with safety and convenience, both by sea and land....’

“Article XII. ‘It shall be lawful for either of the Allies and their subjects to bring their men-of-war into one another’s harbours, and to winter there.’ Peculiar negotiations about this point shall take place at Stockholm, but ‘in the meanwhile, the articles of treaty concluded at London, 1661, relating to the navigation and commerce shall remain, in their full force, as much as if they were inserted here word for word.’

“Article XIII. ‘... The subjects of either of the Allies ... shall no way, either by sea or land, serve them (the enemies of either of the Allies), either as mariners or soldiers, and therefore it shall be forbid them upon severe penalty.’

“Article XVI. ‘If it happens that either of the confederate kings ... should be engaged in a war against a common enemy, or be molested by any other neighbouring king ... in his own kingdoms or provinces ... to the hindering of which, he that requires help, may by the force of this treaty, himself be obliged to send help: then that Ally so molested, shall not be obliged to send the promised help...’

“Query I. Whether in our conscience we don’t think the King of Sweden most unjustly attacked by all his enemies; whether consequently we are not convinced that we owe him the assistance stipulated in these Articles; whether he has not demanded the same from us, and why it has hitherto been refused him?

“Query II. These articles, setting forth in the most expressing terms, in what manner Great Britain and Sweden ought to assist one another, can either of these two Allies take upon him to prescribe to the other who requires his assistance, a way of lending him it, not expressed in the treaty; and if that other Ally does not think it for his interest to accept of the same, but still insists upon the performance of the treaty, can he from thence take a pretence, not only to withhold the stipulated assistance, but also to use his Ally in a hostile way, and to join with his enemies against him;’ If this is not justifiable, as even common sense tells us it is not, how can the reason stand good, which we allege amongst others, for using the King of Sweden as we do, id est, that demanding a literal performance of his alliance with us, he would not accept the treaty of neutrality for his German provinces, which we proposed to him some years ago, a treaty which, not to mention its partiality in favour of the enemies of Sweden, and that it was calculated only for our own interest, and for to prevent all disturbance in the empire, whilst we were engaged in a war against France,^[87] the King of Sweden had so much less reason to rely upon, as he was to conclude it with those very enemies, that had every one of them broken several treaties in beginning the present war against him, and as it was to be guaranteed by those powers, who were also every one of them guarantees of the broken treaties, without having performed their guaranteed.

“Query III. How can we make the words in the 8th Article, that in assisting our injured Allv we shall not desist before he shall be satisfied in all things, agree with our endeavouring, to the contrary, to help the enemies of that Prince, though all unjust aggressors, not only to take one province after the other from him, but also to remain undisturbed possessors thereof, blaming all along the King of Sweden for not tamely submitting thereunto?

“Query IV. The treaty concluded in the year 1661, between Great Britain and Sweden, being in the 12th Article confirmed, and the said treaty forbidding expressly one of the confederates either himself or his subjects to lend or to sell to the other’s enemies, men-of-war or ships of defence; the 13th Article of this present treaty forbidding also expressly the subjects of either of the Allies to help any ways the enemies of the other, to the inconvenience and loss of such an Ally; should we not have accused the Swedes of the most notorious breach of this treaty, had they, during our late war with the French, lent them their own fleet, the better to execute any design of theirs against user had they, notwithstanding our representations to the contrary, suffered their subjects to furnish the French with ships of 50, 60, and 70 guns! Now, if we turn the tables, and remember upon how many occasions our fleet has of late been entirely subservient to the designs of the enemies of Sweden, even in most critical times, and that the Czar of Muscovy has actually above a dozen English-built ships in his fleet, will it not be very difficult for us to excuse in ourselves what we should most certainly have blamed, if done by others?

“Article XVII. The obligation shall not be so far extended, as that all friendship and mutual commerce with the enemies of that Ally (that requires the help) shall be taken away; for supposing that one of the confederates should send his auxiliaries, and should not he engaged in the war himself, it shall then be lawful for the subjects to trade and commerce with that enemy of that Ally that is engaged in the war, also directly and safely to merchandise with such enemies, for all goods not expressly forbid and called contraband, as in a special treaty of commerce hereafter shall be appointed.

“Query I. This Article being the only one out of twenty-two whose performance we have now occasion to insist upon from the Swedes, the question will be whether we ourselves, in regard to Sweden, have performed all the other articles as it was our part to do, and whether in demanding of the King of Sweden the executing of this Article, we have promised that we would also do our duty as to all the rest; if not, may not the Swedes say that we complain unjustly of the breach of one single Article, when we ourselves may perhaps be found guilty of having in the most material points, either not executed, or even acted against the whole treaty?

“Query II. Whether the liberty of commerce one Ally is, by virtue of this Article, to enjoy with the other’s enemies, ought to have no limitation at all, neither as to time nor place; in short, whether it ought even to be extended so far as to destroy the very end of this Treaty, which is the promoting the safety and security of one another’s kingdoms?

“Query III. Whether in case the French had in the late wars made themselves masters of Ireland or Scotland, and either in new-made seaports, or the old ones, endeavoured by trade still more firmly to establish themselves in their new conquests, we, in such a case, should have thought the Swedes our true allies and friends, had they insisted upon this Article to trade with the French in the said seaports taken from us, and to furnish them there with several necessaries of war, nay, even with armed ships, whereby the French might the easier have annoyed us here in England?

“Query IV. Whether, if we had gone about to hinder a trade, so prejudicial to us, and in order thereunto, brought up all Swedish ships going to the said seaports, we should not highly have exclaimed against the Swedes, had they taken from thence a pretence to join their fleet with the French, to occasion the losing of any of our dominions and even to encourage the invasion upon us, have their fleet at hand to promote the same?

“Query V. Whether upon an impartial examination, this would not have been a case exactly parallel to that we insist upon, as to a Free Trade to the seaports the Czar has taken from Sweden, and to our present behaviour, upon the King of Sweden’s hindering the same?

“Query VI. Whether we have not ever since Oliver Cromwell’s time, till 1710, in all our wars with France and Holland, without any urgent necessity at all, brought up and confiscated Swedish ships, though not going to any prohibited ports, and that to a far greater number and value, than all those the Swedes have now taken from us, and whether the Swedes have ever taken a pretence from thence, to join with our enemies, and to send whole squadrons of ships to their assistance?

“Query VII. Whether, if we inquire narrowly into the state of commerce, as it has been carried on for these many years, we shall not find that the trade of the above-mentioned places was not so very necessary to us, at least not so far as to be put into the balance with the preservation of a Protestant confederate nation, much less to give us a just reason to make war against that nation, which, though not declared, has done it more harm than the united efforts of all its enemies?

“Query VIII. Whether, if it happened two years ago, that this trade became something more necessary to us than formerly, it is not easily proved, that it was occasioned only by the Czar’s forcing us out of our old channel of trade to Archangel, and bringing us to Petersburg, and our complying therewith. So that all the inconveniences we laboured under upon that account, ought to have been laid to the Czar’s door, and not to the King of Sweden’s?

“Query IX. Whether the Czar did not in the very beginning of 1715 again permit us to trade our old way to Archangel, and whether our ministers had not notice thereof a great while before our fleet was sent that year to protect our trade to Petersburg, which by this alteration in the Czar’s resolution was become as unnecessary for us as before?

“Query X. Whether the King of Sweden had not declared, that if we would forbear trading to Petersburg, etc., which he looked upon as ruinous to his kingdom, he would in no manner disturb our trade, neither in the Baltic nor anywhere else; but that in case we would not give him this slight proof of our friendship, he should he excused if the innocent came to suffer with the guilty?

“Query XI. Whether, by our insisting upon the trade to the ports prohibited by the King of Sweden, which besides its being unnecessary to us, hardly makes one part in ten of that we carry on in the Baltic, we have not drawn upon us the hazards that our trade has run all this while, been ourselves the occasion of our great expenses in fitting out fleets for its protection, and by our joining with the enemies of Sweden, fully justified his Swedish Majesty’s resentment; had it ever gone so far as to seize and confiscate without distinction all our ships and effects, wheresoever he found them, either within or without his kingdoms?

“Query XII. If we were so tender of our trade to the northern ports in general, ought we not in policy rather to have considered the hazard that trade runs by the approaching ruin of Sweden, and by the Czar’s becoming the whole and sole master of the Baltic, and all the naval stores we want from thence? Have we not also suffered greater hardships and losses in the said trade from the Czar, than that amounting only to sixty odd thousand pounds (whereof, by the way, two parts in three may perhaps be disputable), which provoked us first to send twenty men-of-war in the Baltic with order to attack the Swedes wherever they met them? And yet, did not this very Czar, this very aspiring and dangerous prince, last summer command the whole confederate fleet, as it was called, of which our men-of-war made the most considerable part? ‘The first instance that ever was of a Foreign Potentate having the command given him of the English fleet, the bulwark of our nation; and did not our said men-of-war afterwards convey his” (the Czar’s) “transport ships and troops on board of them, in their return from Zealand, protecting them ]ram the Swedish fleet, which else would have made a considerable havoc amongst them.

“Query XIII. Suppose now, we had on the contrary taken hold of the great and many complaints our merchants have made, of the ill-usage they meet from the Czar, to have sent our fleet to show our resentment against that prince, to prevent his great and pernicious designs even to us, to assist Sweden pursuant to this Treaty, and effectually to restore the peace in the North, would not that have been more for our interest, more necessary, more honourable and just, and more according to our Treaty; and would not the several 100,000 pounds these our Northern expeditions have cost the nation, have been thus better employed?

“Query XIV. If the preserving and securing our trade against the Swedes, had been the only and real object of all our measures, as to the Northern affairs, how came we the year before the last to leave eight men-of-war in the Baltic and at Copenhagen, when we had no more trade there to protect, and how came Admiral Norris last summer, although he and the Dutch together made up the number of twenty-six men-of-war, and consequently were too strong for the Swedes, to attempt anything against our trade under their convoy; yet to lay above two whole months of the best season in the Sound, without convoying our and the Dutch merchantmen to the several ports they were bound for, whereby they were kept in the Baltic so late that their return could not but be very hazardous, as it even proved, both to them and our men-of-war themselves’, Will not the world be apt to think that the hopes of forcing the King of Sweden to an inglorious and disadvantageous peace, by which the Duchies of Bremen and Verden ought to be added to the Hanover dominions, or that some other such view, foreign, if not contrary, to the true and old interest of Great Britain, had then a greater influence upon all these our proceedings than the pretended care of our trade?

“Article XVIII. ‘For as much as it seems convenient for the preservation, of the liberty of navigation and commerce in the Baltic Sea, that a firm and exact friendship should be kept between the Kings of Sweden and Denmark and whereas the former Kings of Sweden and Denmark, did oblige themselves mutually, not only by the public Articles of Peace made in the camp of Copenhagen, on the 27th of May, 1660 and by the ratifications of the agreement interchanged on both sides, sacredly and inviolably to observe all and every one of the clauses comprehended in the said agreement, but also declared together to ... Charles If., King of Great Britain ... a little before the treaty concluded between England and Sweden in the year 1665, that they would stand sincerely ... to all ... of the Articles of the said peace ... whereupon Charles If., with the approbation and consent of both the forementioned Kings of Sweden and Denmark, took upon himself a little after the Treaty concluded between England and Sweden, lst March, 1665, to wit 9th October, 1665, guarantee of the same agreements... Whereas an instrument of peace between ... the Kings of Sweden and Denmark happened to be soon after these concluded at Lunden in Schonen, in 1679, which contains an express transaction, and repetition, and confirmation of the Treaties concluded at Roskild, Copenhagen, and Westphalia^[88]; therefore ... the King of Great Britain binds himself by the force of this Treaty... that if either of the Kings of Sweden and Denmark shall consent to the violation, either of all the agreements, or of one or more articles comprehended in them, and consequently if either of the Kings shall to the prejudice of the person, provinces, territories, islands, goods, dominions and rights of the other, which by the force of the agreements so often repeated, and made in the camp of Copenhagen, on the 27th of May, 1660, as also of those made in the ... peace at Lunden in Schonen, in 1679, were attributed to every one that was interested and comprehended in the words of the peace, should either by himself or by others, presume, or secretly design or attempt, or by open molestations, or by any injury, or by any violence of arms, attempt anything; that then the ... King of Great Britain ... shall first of all, by his interposition, perform all the offices of a friend and princely ally, which may serve towards the keeping inviolable all the frequently mentioned agreements, and of every article comprehended in them, and consequently towards the preservation of peace between both kings; that afterwards if the King who is the beginner of such prejudice, or any molestation or injury, contrary to all agreements, and contrary to any Article comprehended in them, shall refuse after being admonished ... then the King of Great Britain ... shall ... assist him that is injured, as by the present agreements between the Kings of Great Britain and Sweden, in such cases is determined and agreed.’

“Query. Does not this article expressly tell us, how to remedy the disturbances our trade in the Baltic might suffer, in case of a misunderstanding betwixt the Kings of Sweden and Denmark, by obliging both these Princes to keep all the Treaties of Peace, that have been concluded between them from 1660-79, and in case either of them in an hostile manner act against the said Treaties, by assisting the other, against the aggressor? How comes it then, that we don’t make use of so just a remedy against an evil we are so great sufferers by? Can anybody though ever so partial deny, but the King of Denmark, though seemingly a sincere friend to the King of Sweden,’ from the peace of Travendahl,^[89] till he went out of Saxony against the Muscovites, fell very unjustly upon him immediately after, taking ungenerously advantage of the fatal battle of Pultava^[90] Is not then the King of Denmark the violator of all the above-mentioned Treaties, and consequently the true author of the disturbances our trade meets with in the Baltic? Why in God’s name don’t we according to this article assist Sweden against him, and why do we on the contrary declare openly against the injured King of Sweden, send hectoring and threatening memorials to him, upon the least advantage he has over his enemies, as we did last summer upon his entering Norway, and even order our fleets to act openly against him in conjunction with the Danes?

“Article XIX. There shall be ‘stricter confederacy and union between the above-mentioned kings of Great Britain and Sweden, for the future, for the defence and preservation of the Protestant, Evangelic, and reformed religion.’

“Query I. How do we, according to this article, join with Sweden, to assert, protect, and preserve the Protestant religion? Don’t we suffer that nation, which has always been a bulwark to the said religion, most unmercifully to be torn to pieces? ... Don’t we ourselves give a helping hand towards its destruction? And why all this? Because our merchants have lost their ships to the value of sixty odd thousand pounds. For this loss and nothing else was the pretended reason why in the year 1715 we sent our fleet in the Baltic, at the expense of £200,000, and as to what our merchants have suffered since, suppose we attribute it to our threatening memorials as well as open hostilities against the King of Sweden, must we not even then own that that Prince’s resentment has been very moderate?

“Query II. How can other Princes, and especially our fellow Protestants, think us sincere, in what we have made them believe as to our zeal in spending millions of lives and money for to secure the Protestant interest only in one single branch of it, I mean the Protestant succession here,^[91] when they see that that succession has hardly taken place, before we only for sixty odd thousand pounds (for let us always remember, that this paltry sum was the first pretence for our quarrelling with Sweden), go about to undermine the very foundation of that interest in general, by helping as we do entirely to sacrifice Sweden, the old and sincere protector of the Protestants, to its neighbours, of which some are professed Papists, some worse, and some at best but lukewarm Protestants?

“Article XX. ‘Therefore that a reciprocal faith of the Allies and their perseverance in this agreement may appear ... both the fore-mentioned kings mutually oblige themselves and declare that ... they will not depart a tittle from the genuine- and common sense of all and every article of this treaty under any pretences of friend — ship, profit, former treaty, agreement and promise, or upon any colour whatsoever: but that they will most fully and readily either by themselves or Ministers, or subjects, put in execution whatsoever they have promised in this treaty ... without any hesitation, exception, or excuse....’

“Query I. In as much as this article sets forth that at the time of concluding of the treaty, we were under no engagement contrary to it, and that it were highly unjust, should we afterwards, and while this treaty is in force, which is eighteen years after the day it was signed, have entered into any such engagements, how can we justify to the world our late proceedings against the King of Sweden, which naturally seem the consequences of a treaty either of our own making with the enemies of that Prince, or of some Court or other that at present influences our measures?

“Query II. The words in this article... how in the name of honour, faith, and justice, do they agree with the little and pitiful pretences we now make use of, not only for not assisting Sweden, pursuant to this treaty, but even for going about so heartily as we do to destroy it?

“Article XXI. ‘This defensive treaty shall last for eighteen years, before the end of which the confederate kings may ... again treat.’

“Ratification of the abovesaid treaty. — We having seen and considered this treaty have approved and confirmed the same in all and every particular article and clause as by the present. We do approve the same for us, our heirs, and successors; assuring and promising, on our princely word, that we shall perform and observe sincerely and in good earnest all those things that are therein contained, for the better confirmation whereof we have ordered our grand seal of England to be put to these presents, which were given at our palace at Kensington, 25th of February, in the year of our Lord 1700, and in the 11th year of our reign (Gulielmus Rex).

[The Treaty was concluded at The Hague on the 6th and 16th of January, 1700 and ratified by William III, n February 5th, 1700]

“Query. How can anyone of us that declares himself for the late happy revolutions and that is a true and grateful lover of King William’s for ever-glorious memory ... yet bear with the least patience, that the said treaty should (that I may again use the words of the 20th article), be departed from, under any pretence of profit, or upon. any colour whatsoever, especially so insignificant and trifling a one, as that which has been made use of for two years together to employ our ships, our men, and our money, to accomplish the ruin of Sweden, that same Sweden whose defence and preservation this great and wise monarch of ours, has so solemnly promised, and which he always looked upon- to be of the utmost necessity for to secure the Protestant interest in Europe?”

Chapter IV

Before entering upon an analysis of the pamphlet headed, Truth is but truth, as it is timed, with which we shall conclude the Introduction to the Diplomatic Revelations, some preliminary remarks on the general history of Russian politics appear opportune.

The overwhelming influence of Russia has taken Europe at different epochs by surprise, startled the peoples of the West, and been submitted to as a fatality, or resisted only by convulsions. But alongside the fascination exercised by Russia, there runs an ever-reviving scepticism, dogging her like a shadow, growing with her growth, mingling shrill notes of irony with the cries of agonising peoples, and mocking her very grandeur as a histrionic attitude taken up to dazzle and to cheat. Other empires have met with similar doubts in their infancy; Russia has become a colossus without outliving them. She affords the only instance in history of an immense empire, the very existence of whose power, even after world-wide achievements, has never ceased to be treated like a matter of faith rather than like a matter of fact. From the outset of the eighteenth century to our days, no author, whether he intended to exalt or to check Russia, thought it possible to dispense with first proving her existence.

But whether we be spiritualists or materialists with respect to Russia — whether we consider her power as a palpable fact, or as the mere vision of the guilt-stricken consciences of the European peoples-the question remains the same: “How did this power, or this phantom of a power, contrive to assume such dimensions as to rouse on the one side the passionate assertion, and on the other the angry denial of its threatening the world with a rehearsal of Universal Monarchy?” At the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia was regarded as a mushroom creation extemporised by the genius of Peter the Great. Schloezer thought it a discovery to have found out that she possessed a past; and in modern times, writers, like Fallmerayer, unconsciously following in the track beaten by Russian historians, have deliberately asserted that the northern spectre which frightens the Europe -of the nineteenth century already overshadowed the Europe of the ninth century. With them the policy of Russia begins with the first Ruriks, and has, with some interruptions indeed, been systematically continued to the present hour.

Ancient maps of Russia are unfolded before us, displaying even larger European dimensions than she can boast of now: her perpetual movement of aggrandisement from the ninth to the eleventh century is anxiously pointed out; we are shown Oleg launching 88,000 men against Byzantium, fixing his shield as a trophy on the gate of that capital, and dictating an ignominious treaty to the Lower Empire; Igor making it tributary^[94]; Svyataslav glorying,

“the Greeks supply me with gold, costly stuffs, rice, fruits and wine; Hungary furnishes cattle and horses; from Russia 1 draw honey, wax, furs, and men”;

Vladimir conquering the Crimea and Livonia, extorting a daughter’ from the Greek Emperor,’ as Napoleon did from the German Emperor, blending the military sway of a. northern conqueror with the theocratic despotism of the Porphyrogeniti,^[95] and becoming at once the master of his subjects on earth, and their protector in heaven.

Yet, in spite of the plausible parallelism suggested by these reminiscences, the policy of the first Ruriks differs fundamentally from that of modern Russia.^[96] It was nothing more nor less than the policy of the German barbarians inundating Europe — the history of the modern nations beginning only after the deluge has passed away. The Gothic period of Russia in particular forms but a chapter of the Norman conquests. As the empire of Charlemagne precedes the foundation of modern France, Germany, and Italy, so the empire of the Ruriks precedes the foundation of Poland, Lithuania, the Baltic Settlements, Turkey and Muscovy itself. The rapid movement of aggrandisement was not the result of deep-laid schemes, but the natural offspring of the primitive organisation of Norman conquest — vassalship without fiefs, or fiefs consisting only in tributes — the necessity of fresh conquests being kept alive by the uninterrupted influx of new Varangian adventurers, panting for glory and plunder. The chiefs, becoming anxious for repose, were compelled by the Faithful Band to move on, and in Russian, as in French Normandy, there arrived the moment when the chiefs despatched on new predatory excursions their uncontrollable and insatiable companions-in-arms with the single view to get rid of them. Warfare and organisation of conquest on the part of the first Ruriks differ in no point from those of the Normans in the rest of Europe. If Slavonian tribes were subjected not only by the sword, but also by mutual convention, this singularity is due to the exceptional position of those tribes, placed between a northern and eastern invasion, and embracing the former as a protection from the latter. The same magic charm which attracted other northern barbarians to the Rome of the West, attracted the Varangians to the Rome of the East a The very migration of the Russian capital — Rurik fixing it at Novgorod, Oleg removing it to Kiev, and Svyataslav attempting to establish it in Bulgaria — proves beyond doubt that the invader was only feeling his way, and considered Russia as a mere halting-place from which to wander on in search of an empire in the South. If modern Russia covets the possession of Constantinople to establish her dominion over the world, the Ruriks were, on the contrary, forced by the resistance of’ Byzantium, under Zimiskes, definitively to establish their dominion in Russia.

It may be objected that victors and vanquished amalgamated more quickly in Russia than in any other conquest of the northern barbarians, that the chiefs soon commingled themselves with the Slavonians — as shown by their marriages and their names. But then, it should be recollected that the Faithful Band, which formed at once their guard and their privy council, remained exclusively composed of Varangians; that Vladimir, who marks the summit, and Yaroslav, who marks the commencing decline of Gothic Russia, were seated on her throne by the arms of the Varangians. If any Slavonian influence is to be acknowledged in this epoch, it is that of Novgorod, a Slavonian State, the traditions, policy and tendencies of which were so antagonistic to those of modern Russia that the one could found her existence only on the ruins of the other. Under Yaroslav the supremacy of the Varangians is broken, but simultaneously with it disappears the conquering tendency of the first period, and the decline of Gothic Russia begins. The history of that decline, more still than that of the conquest and formation, proves the exclusively Gothic character of the Empire of the Ruriks.

The incongruous, unwieldy, and precocious Empire heaped together by the Ruriks, like the other empires of similar growth, is broken up into appanages, divided and sub-divided among the descendants of the conquerors, dilacerated by feudal wars, rent to pieces by the intervention of foreign peoples. The paramount authority of the Grand Prince vanishes before the rival claims of seventy princes of the blood. The attempt of Andrew of Susdal at recomposing some large limbs of the empire by the removal of the capital from Kiev to Vladimir proves successful only in propagating the decomposition from the South to the centre. Andrew’s third successor resigns even the last shadow of supremacy, the title of Grand Prince, and the, merely nominal homage still offered him.^[97] The appanages to the South and to the West become by turns Lithuanian, Polish, Hungarian, Livonian, Swedish. Kiev itself, the ancient capital, follows destinies of its own, after having dwindled down from a seat of the Grand Princedom to the territory of a city. Thus, the Russia of the Normans completely disappears from the stage, and the few weak reminiscences in which it still outlived itself, dissolve before the terrible apparition of Genghis Khan. The bloody mire of Mongolian slavery, not the rude glory of the Norman epoch, forms the cradle of Muscovy, and modern Russia is but a metamorphosis of Muscovy.

The Tartar yoke lasted from 1237 to 1462 — more than two centuries^[98]; a yoke not only crushing, but dishonouring and withering the very soul of the people that fell its prey. The Mongol Tartars established a rule of systematic terror, devastation and wholesale massacre forming its institutions. Their numbers being scanty in proportion to their enormous conquests, they wanted to magnify them by a halo of consternation, and to thin, by wholesale slaughter, the populations which might rise in their rear. In their creations of desert they were, besides, led by the same economical principle which has depopulated the Highlands of Scotland and the Campagna di Roma — the conversion of men into sheep, and of fertile lands and populous abodes into pasturage.

The Tartar yoke had already lasted a hundred years before Muscovy emerged front its obscurity.^[99] To entertain discord among the Russian princes, and secure their servile submission, the Mongols had restored the dignity of the Grand Princedom. The strife among the Russian princes for this dignity was, as a modern author has it,

“an abject strife, the strife of slaves, whose chief weapon was calumny, and who were always ready to denounce each other to their cruel rulers; wrangling for a degraded throne, whence they could not move but with plundering, parricidal hands, hands filled with gold, and stained with gore; which they dared not ascend without grovelling, nor retain but on their knees, prostrate and trembling beneath the scimitar of a Tartar, always ready to roll under his feet those servile crowns, and the heads by which they were worn.”

It was in this infamous strife that the Moscow branch won at last the race. In 1328 the crown of the Grand Princedom,^[100] wrested from the branch of Tver^[101] by dint of denunciation and assassination, was picked up at the feet of Usbeck Khan by Yury, the elder brother of Ivan Kalita. Ivan I Kalita, and Ivan III surnamed the Great, personate Muscovy rising by means of the Tartar yoke, and Muscovy getting an independent power by the disappearance of the Tartar rule. The whole policy of Muscovy, from its first entrance into the historical arena, is resumed in the history of these two individuals.

The policy of Ivan Kalita was simply this: to play t1W abject tool of the Khan, thus to borrow his power, and then to turn it round upon his princely rivals and his own subjects. To attain this end, he had to insinuate himself with the Tartars by dint of cynical adulation, by frequent journeys to the Golden Horde, by humble prayers for the hand of Mongol princesses, by a display of unabounded zeal for the Khan’s interest, by the unscrupulous execution of his orders, by atrocious calumnies against his own kinsfolk, by blending in himself the characters of the Tartar’s hangman, sycophant, and slave-in-chief. He perplexed the Khan by continuous revelations of secret plots. Whenever the branch of Tver betrayed a velleity of national independence, he hurried to the Horde to denounce it. Wherever he met with resistance, he introduced the Tartar to trample it down. But it was not sufficient to act a character; to make it acceptable, gold was required. Perpetual bribery of the Khan and his grandees was the only sure foundation upon which to raise his fabric of deception and usurpation. But how was the slave to get the money wherewith to bribe the master? He persuaded the Khan to instal him his tax-gatherer throughout all the Russian appanages. Once invested with this function, he extorted money under false pretences. The wealth accumulated by the dread held out of the Tartar name, he used to corrupt the Tartars themselves. By a bribe he induced the primate to transfer his episcopal seat from Vladimir to Moscow,^[102] thus making the latter the capital of the empire, because the religious capital, and coupling the power of the Church with that of his throne. By a bribe he allured the boyards of the rival princes into treason against their chiefs, and attracted them to himself as their centre. By the joint influence of the Mahometan Tartar, the Greek Church, and the boyards, he unites the princes holding appanages into a crusade against the most dangerous of them, the prince of Tvera; and then having driven his recent allies by bold attempts at usurpation into resistance against himself, into a war for the public good, he draws not the sword but hurries to the Khan. By bribes and delusion again, he seduces him into assassinating his kindred rivals under the most cruel torments. It was the traditional policy of the Tartar to check the Russian princes the one by the other, to feed their dissensions, to cause their forces to equiponderate and to allow none to consolidate himself. Ivan Kalita converts the Khan into the tool by which he rids himself of his most dangerous competitors, and weighs down every obstacle to his own usurping march. He does not conquer the appanages, but surreptitiously turns the rights of the Tartar conquest to his exclusive profit. He secures the succession of his son through the same means by which he had raised the Grand Princedom of Muscovy, that strange compound of princedom and serfdom. During his whole reign he swerves not once from the line of policy he had traced to himself; clinging to it with a tenacious firriiness, and executing it with methodical boldness. Thus he becomes the founder of the Muscovite power, and characteristically his people call him Kalita — that is, the purse, because it was the purse and not the sword with which he cut his way. The very period of his reign witnesses the sudden growth of the Lithuanian power which dismembers the Russian appanages from the West, while the Tartar squeezes them into one mass from the East. Ivan, while he dared not repulse the one disgrace, seemed anxious to exaggerate the other. He was not to be seduced from following up his ends by the allurements of glory, the pangs of conscience, or the lassitude of humiliation. His whole system may be expressed in a few words: the Machiavellism of the usurping slave. His own weakness — his slavery — he turned into the mainspring of his strength.

The policy traced by Ivan I Kalita is that of his successors; they had only to enlarge the circle of its application. They followed it up laboriously, gradually, inflexibly. From Ivan I Kalita, we may, therefore, pass at once to Ivan III, surnamed the Great.

At the commencement of his reign (1462-1505) Ivan III was still a tributary to the Tartars; his authority was still contested by the princes holding appanages; Novgorod, the head of the Russian republics, reigned over the north of Russia; Poland-Lithuania was striving for the conquest of Muscovy; lastly, the Livonian knights were not yet disarmed. At the end of his reign we behold Ivan III seated on an independent throne, at his side the daughter of the last emperor of Byzantium, at his feet Kasan, and the remnant of the Golden Horde flocking to his court; Novgorod and the other Russian republics enslaved — Lithuania diminished, and its king a tool in Ivan’s hands — the Livonian knights vanquished. Astonished Europe, at the commencement of Ivan’s reign, hardly aware of the existence of Muscovy, hemmed in between the Tartar and the Lithuanian, was dazzled by the sudden appearance of an immense empire on its eastern confines, and Sultan Bajazet himself, before whom Europe trembled, heard for the first time the haughty language of the Muscovite.^[103] How, then, did Ivan accomplish these high deeds? Was he a hero? The Russian historians themselves show him up a confessed coward.

Let us shortly survey his principal contests, in the sequence in which he undertook and concluded them — his contests with the Tartars, with Novgorod, with the princes holding appanages, and lastly with Lithuania-Poland.

Ivan rescued Muscovy from the Tartar yoke, not by one bold stroke, but by the patient labour of about twenty years. He did not break the yoke, but disengaged himself by stealth. Its overthrow, accordingly, has more the look of the work of nature than the deed of man. When the Tartar monster expired at last, Ivan appeared at its deathbed like a physician, who prognosticated and speculated on death rather than like a warrior who imparted it. The character of every people enlarges with its enfranchisement from a foreign yoke; that of Muscovy in the hands of Ivan seems to diminish. Compare only Spain in its struggles against the Arabs with Muscovy in its struggles against the Tartars.

At the period of Ivan’s accession to the throne, the Golden Horde had long since been weakened, internally by fierce feuds, externally by the separation from them of the Nogay Tartars,^[104] the eruption of Timour Tamerlane,^[105] the rise of the Cossacks,^[106] and the hostility of the Crimean Tartars.^[107] Muscovy, on the contrary, by steadily pursuing the policy traced by Ivan Kalita, had grown to a mighty mass, crushed, but at the same time compactly united by the Tartar chain. The Khans, as if struck by a charm, had continued to remain instruments of Muscovite aggrandisement and concentration. By, calculation they had added to the power of the Greek Church, which, in the hand of the Muscovite grand princes, proved the deadliest weapon against them.

In rising against the Horde, the Muscovite had not to invent but only to imitate the Tartars themselves. But Ivan did not rise. He humbly acknowledged himself a slave of the Golden Horde. By bribing a Tartar woman he seduced the Khan into commanding the withdrawal from Muscovy of the Mongol residents. By similar imperceptible and surreptitious steps he duped the Khan into successive concessions, all ruinous to his sway. He thus did not conquer, but filch strength. He does not drive, but manoeuvre his enemy out of his strongholds. Still continuing to prostrate himself before the Khan’s envoys, and to proclaim himself his tributary, he eludes the payment of the tribute under false pretences,^[108] employing all the stratagems of a fugitive slave who dare not front his owner, but only steal out of big reach. At last the Mongol awakes from his torpor, and the hour of battle sounds. Ivan, trembling at the mere semblance of an armed encounter, attempts to hide himself behind his own fear, and to disarm the fury of his enemy by withdrawing the object upon which to wreak his vengeance. He is only saved by the intervention of the Crimean Tartars, his allies. Against a second invasion of the Horde, he ostentatiously gathers together such disproportionate forces that the mere rumour of their number parries the attack. At the third invasion, from the midst of 200,000 men, he absconds a disgraced deserter. Reluctantly dragged back, he attempts to haggle for conditions of slavery, and, at last pouring into his army his own servile fear, he involves it in a , general and disorderly flight. Muscovy was then anxiously awaiting its irretrievable doom, when it suddenly hears that by an attack on their capital made by the Crimean Khan, the Golden Horde has been forced to withdraw, and has, on its retreat, been destroyed by the Cossacks and Nogay Tartars.^[109] Thus defeat was turned into success, and Ivan had overthrown the Golden Horde, not by fighting it himself, but by challenging it through a feigned desire of combat into offensive movements, which exhausted its remnants of vitality and exposed it to the fatal blows of the tribes of its own race whom he had managed to turn into his allies. He caught one Tartar with another Tartar. As the immense danger he had himself summoned proved unable to betray him into one single trait of manhood, so his miraculous triumph did not infatuate him even for one moment. With cautious circumspection he dared not incorporate Kasan with Muscovy, but made it over to sovereigns belonging to the family of Menghi-Ghirei, his Crimean ally, to hold it, as it were, in trust for Muscovy. With the spoils of the vanquished Tartar, he enchained the victorious Tartar. But if too prudent to assume, with the eye-witnesses of his disgrace, the airs of a conqueror, this imposter did fully understand how the downfall of the Tartar empire must dazzle at a distance — with what halo of glory it would encircle him, and how it would facilitate a magnificent entry among the European powers. Accordingly he assumed abroad the theatrical attitude of the conqueror, and, indeed, succeeded in hiding under a mask of proud susceptibility and irritable haughtiness the obtrusiveness of the Mongol serf, who still remembered kissing the stirrup of the Khan’s meanest envoy. He aped in more subdued tone the voice of his old masters, which terrified his soul. Some standing phrases of modern Russian diplomacy, such as the magnanimity, the wounded dignity of the master, are borrowed from the diplomatic instructions of Ivan III.

After the surrender of Kasan, he set out on a long-planned expedition against Novgorod, the head of the Russian republics. If the overthrow of the Tartar yoke was, in his eyes, the first condition of Muscovite greatness, the overthrow of Russian freedom was the second. As the republic of Vyatka had declared itself neutral between Muscovy and the Horde,^[110] and the republic of Pskov, with its twelve cities, had shown symptoms of disaffection,^[111] Ivan flattered the latter and affected to forget the former, meanwhile concentrating all his forces against Novgorod the Great, with the doom of which he knew the fate of the rest of the Russian republics to be sealed. By the prospect of sharing in this rich booty, he drew after him the princes holding appanages, while he inveigled the boyards by working upon their blind hatred of Novgorodian democracy. Thus he contrived to march three armies upon Novgorod and to overwhelm it by disproportionate force.^[112] But then, in order not to keep his word to the princes, not to forfeit his immutable “Vos non vobis” [to have the use of you not to your advantage], at the same time apprehensive, lest Novgorod should not yet have become digestible from the want of preparatory treatment, he thought fit to exhibit a sudden moderation; to content himself with a ransom and the acknowledgment of his suzerainty; but into the act of submission of the republic he smuggled some ambiguous words which made him its supreme judge and legislator. Then he fomented the dissensions between the patricians and plebeians raging as well in Novgorod as at Florence. Of some complaints of the plebeians he took occasion to introduce himself again into the city, to have its nobles, whom he knew to be hostile to himself, sent to Moscow loaded with chains, and to break the ancient law of the republic that

“none of its citizens should ever be tried or punished out of the limits of its own territory.” b

From that moment he became supreme arbiter.

“Never,” say the annalists, “never since Rurik had such an event happened; never had the grand princes of Kiev and Vladimir seen the Novgorodians come and submit to them as their judges. Ivan alone could reduce Novgorod to that degree of humiliation.”

Seven years were employed by Ivan to corrupt the republic by the exercise of his judicial authority.^[113]’ Then, when he found its strength worn out, he thought the moment ripe for declaring himself. To doff his own mask of moderation, he wanted, on the part of Novgorod, a breach of the peace. As he had simulated calm endurance, so he simulated now a sudden burst of passion. Having bribed an envoy of the republic to address him during a public audience with the name of sovereign, he claimed, at once, all the rights of a despot-the self-annihilation of the republic.’ As he had foreseen, Novgorod answered his usurpation with an insurrection, with a massacre of the nobles, and the surrender to Lithuania. Then this Muscovite contemporary of Machiavelli complained with the accent and the gesture of moral indignation.

“It was the Novgorodians who sought him for their sovereign; and when, yielding to their wishes, he had at last assumed that title, they disavowed him, they had the impudence to give him the lie formally in the face of all Russia; they had dared to shed the blood of their compatriots who remained faithful, and to betray heaven and the holy land of the Russians by calling into its limits a foreign religion and domination.”

As he had, after his first attack on Novgorod, openly allied himself with the plebeians against the patricians, so he now entered into a secret conspiracy with the patricians against the plebeians. He marched the united forces of Muscovy and its feudatories against the republic. On its refusal of unconditional submission, he recurred to the Tartar reminiscence of vanquishing by consternation. During a whole month he drew straighter and straighter around Novgorod a circle of fire and devastation, holding the sword all the while in suspense, and quietly watching till the republic, torn by factions, had run through all the-phases of wild despair, sullen despondency, and resigned impotence. Novgorod was enslaved.^[114] So were the other Russian republics. It is curious to see how Ivan caught the very moment of victory to forge weapons against the instruments of that victory. By the union of the domains of the Novgorod clergy with the crown, he secured himself the means of buying off the boyards, henceforth to be played off against the princes, and of endowing the followers of the boyards, henceforth to be played off against the boyards. It is still worthy of notice what exquisite pains were always taken by Muscovy as well as by modern Russia to execute republics. Novgorod and its colonies lead the dance; the republic of the Cossacks^[115] follows; Poland closes it. To understand the Russian mastication of Poland, one must study the execution of Novgorod, lasting from 1478 till 1528.

Ivan seemed to have snatched the chain with which the Mongols .crushed Muscovy only to bind with it the Russian republics. He seemed to enslave these republics only to republicanise the Russian princes. During twenty-three years he had recognised their independence, borne with their petulance,’ and stooped even to their outrages. Now, by the overthrow of the Golden Horde, and by the downfall of the republics, he had grown so strong, and the princes, on the other hand, had grown so weak by the influence which the Muscovite wielded over their boyards, that the mere display of force on the part of Ivan sufficed to decide the contest. Still,. at the outset, he did not depart from his method of circumspection. He singled out the prince of Tver, the mightiest of the Russian feudatories, to be the first object of his operations. He began by driving him to the offensive and into an alliance with Lithuania, then denounced him as a traitor, then terrified him into successive concessions destructive of the prince’s means of defence, then played upon the false position in which these concessions placed him with respect to his own subjects, and then left this system to work out its consequences. It ended in the abandonment of the contest by the prince of Tver and his flight into Lithuania. Tver united with Muscovy ^[116] — lvan pushed forward with terrible vigour in the execution of his long-meditated plan. The other princes underwent their degradation into simple governors almost without resistance. There remained still two brothers of Ivan. The one was persuaded to renounce his appanage; the other, enticed to the Court and put off his guard by hypocritical demonstrations of fraternal love, was assassinated.^[117]

We have now arrived at Ivan’s last great contest — that with Lithuania. Beginning with his accession to the throne, it ended only some years before his death. During thirty years he confined this contest to a war of diplomacy, fomenting and improving the internal dissensions between Lithuania and Poland, drawing over disaffected Russian feudatories of Lithuania, and paralysing his foe by stirring up foes against him; Maximilian of Austria, Mathias Corvinus of Hungary; and above all, Stephen, the hospodar of Moldavia, whom he had attached to himself by marriage; lastly, Menghi-Ghirei, who proved as powerful a tool against Lithuania as against the Golden Horde. On the death of king Casimir, however, and the accession of the weak Alexander, when the thrones of Lithuania and Poland became temporarily disjoined; ^[118] when those two countries had crippled each other’s forces in mutual strife; when the Polish nobility, lost in its efforts to weaken the royal power on the one hand, and to degrade the kmetons and citizens on the other, deserted Lithuania, and suffered it to recede before the simultaneous incursions of Stephen of Moldavia and of Menghi-Ghirei; when thus the weakness of Lithuania had become palpable; then Ivan understood the opportunity had ripened for putting out his strength, and that conditions exuberated for a successful explosion on his part. Still he did not go beyond a theatrical demonstration of war-the assemblage of overwhelming forces. As he had completely foreseen, the feigned desire of combat did now suffice to make Lithuania capitulate. He extorted the acknowledgment by treaty of the encroachments, surreptitiously made in king Casimir’s time, and plagued Alexander at the same time with his alliance and with his daughter.^[119] The alliance he employed to forbid Alexander the defence against attacks instigated by the father-in-law, and the daughter to kindle a religious war between the intolerant Catholic king and his persecuted subjects of the Greek confession. Amidst this turmoil he ventured at last to draw the sword, and seized the Russian appanages under Lithuanian sway as far as Kiev and Smolensk.^[120]