Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/246

Rh 234 Russia. In the meantime, Peter, all unaware of what was going on, was busy drilling his favourite German guards at Oranienbaum. On proceeding to Peterhof he found that Catherine had vanished, and suspected the truth. He was urged to fight, but all his fortitude forsook him. Next day he abdicated, expecting freedom to retire to Holstein ; but he was compelled to proceed to Ropscha, where on the 17th, the Orloffs, after an unsuccessful attempt to poison him, strangled him with their own hands in the most revolting manner. Of this part of the proceedings Catherine seems to have had no knowledge. Thus easily, and apparently to the satisfaction of those concerned, was a revolution effected, by which a beau tiful and ambitious woman, a foreigner, ascended the Russian throne, to the exclusion of the rightful occupants. For some time, however, Catherine did not feel quite secure, and had to trust to the influence of her admirers in suppressing discontent. The soldiery at Moscow were disposed to resent the liberties taken by their compeers in the disposal of the crown, and even among the guards at St Petersburg doubtful symptoms appeared. But, eventually, they were all bribed or threatened into acquies cence. A conspiracy formed to place on the throne Ivan (a descendant of a brother of Peter the Great), who had already been emperor a few months in 1740, also proved abortive, and cost that unfortunate prince his life. Ten years later (1773), a Cossack, Pugatcheff, who gave himself out for the dethroned Peter, raised an insurrection in the Volga region, which, being supported by many of the extreme orthodox party and by the peasantry, threatened to prove formidable. But the undisciplined bravery of his troops was of no avail against the forces of Catherine ; he was defeated, taken, and executed at Moscow. Her son Paul, whom she disliked and neglected, was placed under the strictest surveillance to the end of her reign. As soon as she was securely seated upon the throne, Catherine began to attend to the foreign interests of her empire. Here she zealously observed the traditions of Russia. Debarred in so many ways from the free development of their resources, and surrounded in almost every direction by weak and semi-barbarous neighbours, the Muscovites had been constantly aiming at the extension of their frontiers especially towards the sea. This policy Catherine took up, and no native Russian could have better carried it out in its calculating steadiness and unscrupulous- ness. One of her first steps (1763) vas to expel the Saxon duke of Courland, and to put Biron, a creature of her own, in his place ; and by ceaseless intrigue she so managed things in Courland, that it was eventually glad to be in corporated with the Russian empire (1795). Towards Frederick she took a threatening attitude at the beginning of her reign ; but finding nothing offensive to herself in the correspondence of the king with her late husband, and seeing that great profit might be derived from the good-will of Prussia, she concluded with it an offensive and defen sive alliance, which continued to the end of Frederick s reign. It was chiefly with a view to Poland that this treaty of alliance was made. The first result of it was the advance of a Russian army to the Vistula to compel the election of Poniatowski, an old lover of Catherine, to the throne of Poland (17G3). But this was only the beginning of troubles. The old question of the toleration of dis senters soon turned up ; one confederation, that of Radom, was formed by a party of Polish nobles to enforce, and another, that of Bar, to resist toleration. Catherine supported the former. The confederation of Bar was defeated and broken up, and its members fled over the frontiers to Turkey and Austria (1768). The Turks, alarmed and incensed at the progress of Russia on Polish CATHERINE [OF RUSSIA. ground, fanatically rushed into a war (17G8--1774) for which they were not prepared, and were disgracefully beaten both by land arid sea. The Russian arms marched victoriously through Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia to the banks of the Danube ; while a fleet, led chiefly by English seamen, sailed from Cronstadt round the coasts of Western Europe into the Mediterranean, and after sweeping the Levant burned the Turkish fleet in Tchesme Bay (1770). After the Turks had been so thoroughly disabled, Catherine had leisure once more to attend to the state of Poland. The liberum veto, the freedom of confederation, the want of a middle class, the want of union and of a healthy public spirit, the oppression and brutalizing of the peasantry, and many other causes, had reduced Poland to a state of incurable disease which it is impossible to describe. During the Seven Years War the Russian armies had incessantly marched unchallenged over the Polish terri tory ; that splendid opportunity for shaking off the northern incubus was allowed to pass away. Lately, famine and pesti lence had so ravaged the country that pigs and dogs devoured the unburied bodies of men ; a loaf of bread could not be had for a hundred ducats. But it was from no bene volent feelings towards Poland that Catherine wished to interfere with its territory ; instead of favouring the efforts made towards political improvement, her aim was simply to prolong the state of anarchy till she was ready to enter upon as large a share of it as possible. Frederick was the first to suggest a partial partition of Poland as the best way out of many existing difficulties. The project was dropped for a time, till Catherine took it up, and invited Prussia and Austria to join in it. An agreement was at last come to (1772) ; and a common fund was raised to bribe the Polish diet, which gave its consent the following year. Catherine, in this and the two ensuing partitions, seized the lion s share, in all about two-thirds of the Polish territory. By the peace of Kainardschi with the Turks (1774), who resigned all pretensions of supremacy over the Tartars in Southern Russia, Catherine was free to occupy all the northern shore of the Black Sea. One Tartar khan was expelled, and another was induced to abdicate ; the Tartars were massa cred, and a flourishing country reduced to a wilderness. The Crimea, Kuban, and Tainan were finally annexed to the Russian empire (1783). Towards 1787 Catherine began to entertain still more magnificent schemes of conquest. She made a progress as far as Kherson through the midst of flourishing towns, villages, and farms, by fine roads, amidst festivals and illuminations, all of which Potemkin had artificially extem porized in the wilderness, in order to convince her how flourishing the recent conquests were. One of the gates of Kherson bore the inscription, &quot; This is the way to By zantium,&quot; Catherine was going to fulfil the dreams of her French flatterers by chasing the Turk from Europe, and restoring the Byzantine empire. The Turks were accord ingly provoked into a new war (1787-92), and were again beaten everywhere. Important events in Poland, however, arrested the progress of Catherine on the Danube, and in duced her to make a peace with Turkey (Jassy, 1792), by which the Dniester became the boundary between the two countries. England and Prussia had been taking a hostile attitude to Russia. Under the furtherance of Hertzberg, the Prus sian minister, many reforms had been introduced into Poland, and a constitutional hereditary monarchy estab lished (1792). But a confederation of nobles, opposed to these salutary changes, invoked the aid of Catherine, who was only too glad of an opportunity to interfere ; and as the progress of the French Revolution began to upset all existing political combinations, and to discredit everything