Terrible tsarinas

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Terrible Tsarinas teamed up with Alexis Bestuzhev. Those two would soon make a mess of all her carefully-laid plans.

This prospect profoundly aggravated the tsarina - then, suddenly, she stopped caring. What difference did it make for her to be concerned with the events of the future, since she presumably would not be there anymore to suffer from them? She was unable to make decisions even concerning the immediate future, and put off the tires ome burden of deciding whether to depose her nephew and hand over the reins of power to her grandson and daughter-in-law, or to allow Peter to accede to the highest seat in the land, at great risk to Russia. She rather hoped that events would take care of themselves.

Precisely at that time, Field Marshal Apraxin fortuitously made up his mind (after she had begged him many times to take action) to launch a vast offensive against the Prussians. In July 1757, Russian troops captured Memel and Tilsitt; in August of the same year, they crushed the enemy at Gross Jaegersdorff. These victories reinvigorated Elizabeth and she celebrated with a Te Deum, while Catherine, to please her, organized festivities in the gardens of Oranienbaum. The only sad face in this rejoicing nation was the Grand Duke Peter’s. Never mind that he was heir to the throne of Russia and that this series of Russian successes should delight him; he could not get over the defeat of his idol, Frederick II.

The devil must have heard his recriminations - at the very moment when the jubilant crowds in St. Petersburg were shouting “On, to Berlin! On, to Berlin!” and demanding that Apraxin continue his conquest until the very destruction of Prussia, news came that transformed the unanimous enthusiasm into utter amazement. Couriers dispatched by the command affirmed that, after a brilliant beginning, the Field Marshal was beating a retreat and that his regiments had abandoned the occupied terrain on the