Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/527

Rh NICHOLAS 485 Acclamation, to the influence of the excommunicated emperor Louis the German, on whose head he placed the crown after his own enthronement. After spending four months in Rome he withdrew along with Louis to Viterbo Ghibellinism, he was compelled to throw himself on the mercy of John. Carried to Avignon, on making full con fession and abjuration of his heresies and impieties {September 6, 1 330), he was kept in honourable imprison ment in the papal palace until his death in 1334. NICHOLAS I. (1796-1855), czar of Russia, third son of Paul L, was born at Tsarkoe-Selo on the 25th June 1796. His elder brothers were Alexander and Constantino, of whom the former was twenty years his senior. Their father was murdered in 1801, and Alexander then became emperor. The education of Nicholas was conducted under the care of his mother, a pious but narrow-minded woman. He had not, like his eldest brother, whose education was directed by the empress Catherine, the advantage of associating in early life with men of culture and of modern ideas. Nor was he early introduced either to military or to political life. He was brought up in retirement, and even during the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812 die was not permitted to serve in the army. His tastes, however, were all military, and his favourite studies mathematics and fortification. During the campaign of 1814 in France he was allowed to come to the allied head quarters, but not to take part in any engagement. He was present during the occupation of Paris in 1815, and In the following year was sent to travel on the Continent and to visit England, where his striking personal appear ance excited the admiration of Sir Walter Scott. He married in 1817 Louise Charlotte, daughter of Frederick William III., king of Prussia, and this union had for half a century an important effect on the history of Prussia and Germany at large. After his marriage he received a military command from his brother, and from this time forward he gave his utmost attention to the mechanical part of military affairs, rejoicing in the occupations of a drill-sergeant, and identifying himself so completely with his soldiers that civil costume became insupportable to him, even when on visits to sovereigns who, like Queen Victoria, would have preferred to see him in less warlike ..guise. Alexander having no sons, Constantine was heir to the throne. This brutal and ignorant prince had, however, the sense to recognize his own unfitness for the task of governing an empire, and by a secret agreement with the reigning sovereign he renounced his rights in favour of Nicholas. Alexander died on December 1, 1825. Con stantine, who was in Poland, showed no inclination to prefer his claims; the edict of the late emperor appointing Nicholas his successor was opened, and the younger brother was called by the highest authorities of Russia to assume the crown. He nevertheless refused, and, as it would seem, in perfect sincerity, until Constantine had formally con firmed his renunciation. The delay led to serious conse quences. Conspiracies against the late emperor and in favour of a freer government had been formed in the army and among the nobles ; and when the troops at St Peters burg were called upon to take the oath to Nicholas, revolt broke out. The young czar showed great nerve and courage, but the mutiny was not put down without blood shed, and the impression which it left on his mind never passed away. Despotic by nature, trained in the midst of the monarchical reaction that followed the French wars, and accustomed to hear the earlier liberal tendencies of his brother Alexander spoken of as mere vagaries that had happily been abandoned, Nicholas saw in the outbreak of liis soldiers in 1825 a warning never to relax the grasp of authority. The maintenance of despotic power was a duty to which he devoted himself with the deepest religious conviction. At the accession of Nicholas, Russia had been for some years on the brink of war with the Porte. Greece was in insurrection, and Russia had its own specific causes of complaint in consequence of the alleged infraction of the privileges of the Danubian pro vinces guaranteed by the treaty of Bucharest. It had long been the effort of European diplomatists to dissuade Alexander from interfering on behalf of Greece, and to find a peaceful solution for the difficulties in which Russia was more directly concerned. The Greek cause had, however, at length excited so much sympathy that the British Government took advantage of the accession of Nicholas to send the duke of Wellington to St Petersburg to propose some joint action on behalf of Greece. The attempt succeeded : England and Russia undertook to tender their mediation, requiring the sultan to grant the Greeks a modified independence, and the concert was subsequently joined by France. The result of this combination, and of Ottoman obstinacy, was the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino by the allied squadrons, and the establish ment of Greek independence. This, however, did not terminate the contentions between Turkey and Russia. The. Porte itself challenged war, and in 1828 hostilities broke out. Nicholas took part in the first and unsuccess ful campaign of 1828, but allowed his generals to act by themselves in 1829 ; and the march of Diebitsch over the Balkans was followed by the peace of Adrianople. A Persian war had already been successfully concluded, and Russia had gained thereby two provinces in the east. The peace of Adrianople gave it only an improved frontier on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. In 1830 the fall of the Bourbons made an end of the friendship which existed between France and Russia, and restored the union between the three despotic courts of St Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin, which had been framed in 1814 and inter rupted by the course of Eastern affairs. Nicholas did not refuse to recognize Louis Philippe, but he would never accord him the usual title of Mon Frere, and he lost no opportunity of treating him with contempt. The insurrec tion of Poland soon followed. Alexander had received the grand-duchy of Warsaw from the congress of Vienna as a separate kingdom, united with Russia only in the person of its ruler ; and he had fulfilled his promise of granting it a constitution, and treating it as a distinct nationality. The violation of these rights by the grand-duke Constan tine, who was governor of Poland, and the virtual establishment of dictatorial rule, caused the insurrection against Nicholas. The Polish leaders sent their demands to St Petersburg ; Nicholas replied that he would only answer them with cannon. The diet now pronounced his dethronement as king of Poland, and the armed struggle began. It was a long and doubtful one, for Poland had a regular army of its own ; but the victory was at length won by Nicholas, and he showed no mercy to his conquered enemy. Poland was made a Russian province ; its liberties were utterly extinguished; its defenders were sent by thousands to Siberia. During the years that followed, the struggle between the sultan and his vassal, Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, brought the Eastern question again to the front of European affairs. The treaty of ITnkiar-Skelessi seemed for a moment to have placed Turkey in absolute dependence upon the czar, who guaranteed it his protec tion against all internal and external enemies ; but France and England now made their influence felt, and the ultimate settlement was the work of all Europe. Nicholas visited England in 1844, and tried, but unsuccessfully, to frame some plan of joint action with that country in view of the possible collapse of the Ottoman empire. The revolutionary spirit which the czar so passionately abhorred
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