4.32 Europe: a.d. 1801 to 1900  (Page 26/27)

Russia

Czar Alexander I (1801-1825), although implicated in the murder of his father Paul, started rule with a true humanitarian ideology and a desire to liberate his serfs and establish a constitutional government, but the mechanics of that were difficult and blocked by his ministers and senate. Before anything could be initiated, he became entangled in European politics and diplomacy, first as an all y of France and then as an enemy. As Napoleon invaded Poland, Russia retreated but then hostilities ceased temporarily with the Treaty of Tilsit, where there was much exchange of territory and Russia gained Finland from Sweden. Of course, the Russian army in Finland had helped to promote that. Napoleon sought to keep Russia happy and thus free his hand in the west against England. But apparently changing his mind by June, 1812, Napoleon again started for Russia with 600,000 men. As we have noted in an earlier section, Bonaparte's army reached an evacuated Moscow, started to freeze and starve and finally retreated. The Russians cut them down until only 1/5 of the French army remained alive. McNeill (279) surmises that the Russian troops were supplied by barge and river boats in summer and sleighs in winter, allowing great weights to be moved easily and relatively rapidly, in contrast to the French land carts. It has been estimated that there were about 400,000 burlake , or hauliers, who pulled or propelled boats along the Volga in about 1815. (Ref. 292 ) Czar Alexander I followed his troops into central Europe and then Paris, as Napoleon abdicated. The czar was then influential in the final peace at Vienna and the subsequent formation of the Holy Alliance of European monarchs.

Under Czar Nicholas I (1825-55) Russia aggressively added Persian Armenia to its empire and tried to take over the Balkans, but was thwarted there by the British. The great Russian army was used during Nicholas' reign on many diverse fronts; in central Asia (1839-43 and 1847-53); in the Caucasus (1829-64); against Persia and Turkey (1826-29); against Polish rebels 1830-311 and 1863); and against Magyar revolts in 1849. It is of interest that as early as the 1830s the astute Alexis de Tocqueville (Ref. 217 ) recognized that even then the two greatest nations in the world were Russia and the United States, although the former centered all the authority of society in a single arm while the latter relied on the strength and common sense of the people. The population of Russia increased proportionately more rapidly in the early century than any other country in the world.

Britain felt that Turkey must be kept independent of Russia and in 1841 an International Straits Convention closed the Bosphorus to Russian warships. In spite of that, in 1851 Russians invaded Turkey's Danubian provinces and in 1853 sank the Turkish fleet, gaining control of the Black Sea. In reprisal, France and Britain declared war on Russia in 1854 and invaded the Crimea. In this Crimean War the greatest battle took place at Sevastopol, where Russia sank her antiquated navy to block the bay, putting the ships' guns on the shore. But the western powers finally took the great naval base, anyway, humiliating Russia. Long supply lines