CHAPTER X.

RUSSIA UNDER ANNE AND ELIZABETH.

Courland, Siberia, and the Ukraine. A special department of State looked after his brood mares and stallions. His riding-school was one of the sights of the Russian capital. The magnificence of his plate astonished the French ambassador, and the diamonds of his Duchess (a Fräulein von Treiden) were the envy of princes. The climax of this wondrous elevation was reached when, in the course of 1737, the Estates of Courland, under considerable pressure, elected Ernst Johann their reigning Duke. Henceforth his Most Serene Highness received all the honours due to sovereigns and, together with his consort, took his seat at the imperial table.

Another Livonian, Carl Gustaf Löwenwolde, was created a Count and made Grand Marshal of her Majesty's household; while his brother, Reinhold, a few months later, was (September 30) nominated Colonel of the newly raised regiment of foot-guards, consisting of 2000 gentlemen, mostly Livonians, henceforth known as the Ismailovski regiment, from Ismailovo, the Empress' favourite summer residence near Moscow. The all-important post of Commander-in-chief was (in 1732) bestowed upon yet another foreigner, the great engineer and contractor of the famous Ladoga canal, Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, who had entered the service of Peter the Great in 1721 and became, in rapid succession, War Minister, Field-Marshal, a Count, and Governor of St Petersburg. Foreign affairs remained in the capable hands of a fifth German, Count Osterman, whom everyone now regarded as indispensable.

Anne, it must also be added, for all her vindictiveness towards individuals, seems really to have endeavoured to do her duty towards her subjects in the mass. She was, as a rule at any rate, prudent, careful, and conscientious. She had a natural turn for business; loved order and method ; took some pains to get at the truth of matters ; and was always ready to consult people more experienced in affairs than herself, notably Osterman and Munnich, both of them men of extraordinary talent, who-even the patriots could not deny this- devoted all their energy to promote the honour and glory of their adopted country. At the very beginning of the reign, shortly after the restoration of the Administrative Senate, Osterman persuaded Anne to establish an inner Council, or Cabinet, of three persons only (the Grand Chancellor, Count Golovkin, Prince Alexis Cherkaski, both of them nonentities, and Osterman himself), which was presided over by the Empress and acted as the sole intermediary between her Majesty and all the Departments of State. Established ostensibly for the prompter despatch of business, it enabled Osterman, at the same time, to shake off troublesome rivals, and certainly gave him a free hand in his own special Department of Foreign Affairs, which he thoroughly understood.

Bug, the Dnieper, the Don, and the Kuban-that drain southern Russia and, consequently, could control, and even suspend at will, no inconsiderable portion of her neighbour's commerce. The most powerful vassal of the Sultan in these parts was the Khan of the Crimea, who, from his capital at Bagchaserai, ruled over all the scattered Tartar hordes from the Dnieper to the Don. The Crimea at this time was very rich. The Steppes poured the inexhaustible wealth of their flocks and herds into it, and the trade between the peninsula and Turkey was enormous. Kosloff, the chief port on its western side, exported 200,000 head of cattle and an incalculable quantity of grain to Stambul every year, while the still more prosperous Kaff'a on the east coast was, perhaps, the largest slave-mart in the world. Hitherto the Crimea had been generally regarded as impregnable. On the land side the lines of Perekop, a deep trench, five-and-twenty fathoms broad, defended by an earthen wall eight fathoms high, and nearly five English miles long, protected the narrow isthmus which united the peninsula to the mainland, while the fortress of Azoff, at the head of the sea of the same name, commanded the Delta of the Don, and was thought a sufficient defence against any attack from the north-east. In order to keep out the Tartars from Central Russia, and, at the same time, to form a base for future operations against them, Peter the Great had conceived the gigantic project of connecting the rivers Dnieper and Donetz by a chain of fortifications a hundred leagues in length, to which he proposed to give the name of the lines of the Ukraine. The work began in 1731, six years after the Emperor's death, and, completed in 1738, only partially fulfilled its double purpose. The ground covered was too extensive to be adequately guarded. The forts were placed so far apart that the Tartars were able to pass and repass the lines continually, despite all the efforts of the Russians. Nevertheless, this system of fortification was to prove an invaluable point d'appui for armies operating against the Turks ; and here, in the early autumn of 1735, Marshal Münnich arrived for the purpose of collecting his forces.

On May 15, Munnich arrived at the lines of Perekop. On the evening of May 19 its central fortress, Or-Kapi, feebly defended by Janizaries and other Turkish regulars, was captured by assault, and the wealthy town of Perekop behind it was abandoned to pillage. From Perekop the Russians, who now began to suffer severely from dysentery and other diseases, advanced upon Kosloff, which was abandoned by 'the enemy on their approach (June 5). On the 17th the Crimean capital, Bagchaserai, was captured by the Cossacks, after a sharp fight which cost them 300 men. Münnich's further progress was arrested by a dangerous mutiny in his own army, which compelled him to return first to Perekop and thence to the lines of the Ukraine. Lacy, meanwhile, had been equally successful before Azoff, though there he had encountered a far stouter resistance than his brother Marshal had met with anywhere in the Crimea. The garrison consisted of picked men ; and the Seraskier inflicted so much damage upon the besiegers that, after a seven weeks' siege, they allowed him and his garrison to march out with all the honours of war (June 30). Then, on hearing that Munnich had already quitted the Crimea for the Ukraine, Lacy followed his example.

The campaign of 1736 had been very costly to the Russians. Munnich alone had lost no fewer than 30,000 men out of a total of 57,000, and of these not more than 2000 had fallen in action. At Court, people naturally began to ask what was the use of a campaign in which half the army had been thrown away for next to nothing. Nevertheless, dissatisfied as she was with Munnich, the Empress could not afford to lose him ; and, glad as the Russian Ministers would have been to see an honourable end put to the war (especially in view of the consistent ill-success of their Austrian ally on the Danube), they were, to quote the English envoy at St Petersburg, Claudius Rondeau, " ashamed to own it after all the great things they had proposed to do." Their hopes, too, were revived by the assurances of the new Russian resident at Stambul, Vishnyakoff, that everything in Turkey was in the utmost confusion, and that the slightest disaster would bring the crumbling edifice to the ground.

A Peace Congress, which assembled (1737-8) at the little frontier town of Nemiroff, having proved abortive, owing, chiefly, to the exorbitance of the Russian demands, the war had to be resumed. The campaign of 1738 was entirely barren. Munnich had intended to invade the Danubian Principalities ; but an outbreak of plague paralysed his operations. Indeed, in this campaign, he lost more men, horses and bullocks than in any other. Lacy was, from similar causes, equally unfortunate in the Crimea.

The Empress Anne had been more perturbed than her Ministers by the Swedish complication, as Peterhof, where she resided during the summer of 1740, was within easy reach of a Swedish fleet. But all her alarms were forgotten when, in August of the same year, she held in her arms at the font the eagerly expected heir to the throne. This little Prince was the first-born of the Princess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the Empress' niece, whom on the death of the girl's mother (her own favourite sister Catharine Ivanovna) she had adopted. From the first, Anne had determined that this young Princess (who, in 1733, was received into the Greek Church, changing her German name of Elizabeth Catharine Christina to that of Anna Leopoldovna) should be the mother of the future Tsar ; and in July, 1739, Anna Leopoldovna was married to the youthful Prince Antony Ulric of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, who was brought to Russia for that express purpose and educated there at the Empress' cost. Only six weeks after the birth of the child the Empress (October 16), while at table, had a fit of apoplexy and was removed insensible to her own room. On her death-bed, at Biren's urgent request, though greatly against her own better judgment, she appointed him Regent during the minority of her great-nephew, who was proclaimed immediately after her death as Ivan VI.

Anne died on October 17, 1740. Three weeks later the ex-Regent was on his way to Siberia in consequence of a smart little coup d'état organised by Marshal Munnich, who thereupon proclaimed the mother of the baby Emperor Regent, while he assumed all real power with the title of " Premier-Minister." By the ukase of February 8,1741, Osterman, who had been ousted by Munnich, was reinstated in the direction of foreign affairs by the Regent, who had begun to dread the restlessness of the Marshal. Munnich, in great dudgeon, and believing himself to be indispensable, hereupon sent in his resignation (March 14), which, to his chagrin, was accepted on the same afternoon. " Count Osterman," wrote La Chétardie to his Court shortly afterwards, "has never been so great or so powerful as he is now. It is not too much to say that he is Tsar of all Russia."

Petrovna had been raised to her father's throne on the shoulders of the Preobrazhensk Grenadiers.

Thus, at the age of three and thirty, this naturally indolent and self-indulgent woman, with little knowledge and no previous training or experience of affairs, was suddenly placed at the head of a vast empire at one of the most critical periods of its existence. La Chétardie had already expressed his conviction that Elizabeth, once on the throne, would banish all foreigners, however able, give her entire confidence to necessarily ignorant Russians, retire to her well-beloved Moscow, let the fleet rot, and utterly neglect St Petersburg and "the conquered provinces," as the Baltic seaboard was still called. Unfortunately for his calculations, La Chétardie, while exaggerating the defects, had ignored the good qualities, of the new Empress. For, with all her short-comings, Elizabeth was no ordinary woman. Her possession of the sovereign gift of choosing and using able counsellors, her unusually sound and keen judgment, and her bluff but essentially business-like joviality, again and again recall Peter the Great. What to her impatient contemporaries often seemed irresolution or sluggishness, was, generally, suspense of judgment in exceptionally difficult circumstances, and her ultimate decision was generally correct. If to this it is added that the welfare of her beloved country always lay nearest to her heart, and that she was ever ready to sacrifice the prejudices of the woman to the duties of the sovereign, we shall recognise, at once, that Russia did well at this crisis to place her destinies in the hands of Elizabeth Petrovna.

The best justification of Elizabeth for thus abruptly extinguishing the illustrious foreigners who had done so much to build up the Russian Empire was that she placed at the head of affairs a native Russian statesman whom, personally, she greatly disliked, but whose genius and experience she rightly judged to be indispensable to Russia at that particular moment. This was Alexis Bestuzheff", the youngest and most precocious of Peter the Great's " fledglings," who had begun his diplomatic career at the early age of nineteen, when he served as second Russian plenipotentiary at the Congress of Utrecht. From 1717 to 1720 he had occupied the honourable but peculiar post of Hanoverian Minister at St Petersburg, subsequently representing Russia at Copenhagen from 1721 till the death of Peter I. For the next fifteen years, for some inexplicable reason, he fell into the background. Towards the end of the reign of Anne, however, Biren recalled him to Russia to counterbalance the influence of Osterman ; but he fell with his patron, and only reemerged from the obscurity of disgrace on the accession of Elizabeth. He drew up the first ukase of the new Empress, and at the end of the year 1741 was made Vice-Chancellor.

It is difficult to diagnose the character of this sinister and elusive statesman. He seems to have been a moody, taciturn hypochondriac, full of wiles and ruses, preferring to work silently and subterraneously. Inordinate love of power was certainly his ruling passion, and he hugged it the more closely as he had had to bide his time till he was nearly fifty. He was a man who remorselessly crushed his innumerable enemies ; yet, in justice, it must be added that his enemies were also, for the most part, those of his country, and that nothing could turn him a hair's breadth from the policy which he considered to be best suited to the interests of the State. This true policy he alone, for a long time, of all his contemporaries, had the wisdom to discern and the courage to pursue. BestuzhefF's most serious fault as a diplomatist was that he put far too much temper and obstinacy into his undertakings. His prejudices were always invincible. On the other hand, he was quite fearless and absolutely incorruptible.

Russia, Austria, Great Britain and Saxony. Here, however, he was on dangerously slippery ground, where a single stumble might mean irretrievable ruin ; for the representatives of the three Powers whom he wished to bring into line with Russia had all been active and ardent supporters of Anna Leopoldovna, and as such had done their best to keep Elizabeth from the throne altogether. Of this the Empress was, by this time, well aware. Her antipathies, therefore, were very naturally directed against those Powers which had been her adversaries while she was only Tsesarevna ; and it required some courage on the part of Bestu/heff to defend a policy which, indispensable as it might be, was abhorrent to his sovereign for strong personal reasons. Moreover, the intimate personal friends of the Empress, headed by Lestocq, all of them extremely jealous of the superior talents and rising influence of Bestuzheff, were now in the pay of France and Prussia, and ready, at the bidding of the French chargé d'affaires, d'Allion, to embark in any project for overthrowing the philo-Austrian Vice-Chancellor. The expedient finally adopted was a bogus conspiracy alleged to be on foot for the purpose of replacing on the throne Prince Ivan (who, since the revolution, had been detained, provisionally, with his parents, at the fortress of Dunamunde)-a conspiracy which, very ingeniously, was made to include most of Elizabeth's former rivals at her cousin's Court, such as Natalia Lopukhina and the Countess Anna Garielevna, consort of Michael Bestuzheff, the Vice-Chancellor's elder brother. The former Austrian ambassador, Marquis de Botta, was alleged to be the chief promoter of the affair. This trumped-up conspiracy was "miraculously discovered" by Lestocq and burst upon the Empress in August, 1743. After a rigid inquisition of twenty-five days, during which every variety of torture was freely employed against the accused, " the terrible plot," says the new English Minister, Sir Cyril Wych, "was found to be little more than the ill-considered discourses of a couple of spiteful passionate women." Nevertheless, the two ladies principally concerned had their tongues publicly torn out before being sent to Siberia ; and the Russian ambassador at Vienna was instructed to demand Botta's condign punishment. This was done at a special audience ; whereupon Maria Theresa, with her usual spirit, declared that she would never admit the validity of extorted evidence, and issued a manifesto to all the Great Powers defending Botta and accusing the Russian Court of rank injustice.

In the extremity of her distress, Maria Theresa sent a special envoy, Count Rosenberg, to St Petersburg, to express her horror at Botta's alleged misconduct, and placed herself and her fortunes unreservedly in the hands of her imperial sister. For two months Elizabeth hesitated while the anti-Bestuzheff clique did all in its power to prevent any assistance being sent to the distressed Queen of Hungary. But Bestuzheff was now growing stronger and stronger every day. By the aid of his secretary, Goldbach, he had succeeded in unravelling La Chetardie's cipher correspondence and furnished the Empress with extracts alluding in the most disparaging terms to herself. These Bestuzheff accompanied by elucidatory comments. Furious at the treachery of the ever gallant and deferential Marquis, the Empress immediately dictated to Bestuzheff a memorandum commanding La Chétardie to quit her capital within 24 hours. On June 17,1744, he was escorted to the frontier. Six weeks later Elizabeth identified herself emphatically with the anti-French policy of her Minister by promoting him to the rank of Grand Chancellor. Bestuzheff now energetically represented to the Empress the necessity of interfering in the quarrel between Frederick II and the Queen of Hungary. He described the King of Prussia as a restless agitator, whose character was made up of fraud and violence. He had violated the Treaty of Breslau ; he was secretly stirring up Turkey against Russia ; he had impudently used neutral Saxon territory as a stepping-stone to Bohemia ; he had procured the dissolution of the Grodno Diet to prevent the discovery of his anti-Russian intrigues, thus aiming a direct blow at the supremacy which Russia had enjoyed in Poland ever since the days of Peter the Great. The balance of power in Europe should be restored instantly, and at any cost, by reducing Frederick to his proper place.

Bestuzheff had been unable to prevent the conclusion of the Peace of Dresden, December 25, 1745 ; yet the menacing attitude of the Russian Chancellor had contributed to make the King of Prussia, despite his recent victories, moderate his demands. Moreover, Frederick now played into Bestuzheff's hands by indulging in one of those foolish jests for which he had so often to pay dear. Before departing for Saxony, he had requested the mediation of both Russia and Turkey, at the same time remarking with a sneer, at a public reception, that, in his opinion, the mediation of a Turk was every whit as good as the mediation of a Greek. Elizabeth, promptly informed of this, was wounded in her tenderest point. That she, the devout mother of all the Orthodox, should be placed in the same category with the successor of the False Prophet revolted her, and her sentiments towards "the Nadir Shah of Berlin," as she called the King of Prussia, completely changed. Henceforth political antagonism and private pique combined to make her the most determined adversary of Frederick II.

Never yet had Russia stood so high in the estimation of Europe as in the autumn of 1748 ; and she owed her commanding position entirely to the tenacity of purpose of the Grand Chancellor. In the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles, Bestuzheff had honourably extracted his country from the Swedish imbroglio; reconciled his imperial mistress with the Courts of London and Vienna ; reestablished friendly relations with these Powers ; freed Russia from the yoke of foreign influence ; compelled both Prussia and France to abate their pretensions in the very hour of their victory; and, finally, isolated the restless, perturbing King of Prussia by environing him with hostile alliances.

The seven years which succeeded the War of the Austrian Succession were little more than an armed truce between apprehensive and dissatisfied adversaries-an indispensable breathing-space between a past contest which everyone felt to have been inconclusive, and a future contest which everyone knew to be inevitable. Both the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle and that of Breslau had been forced from without upon active belligerents. In the first case, the unexpected intervention of Russia had arrested the triumphal progress of the French armies; in the second, the sudden desertion of England had compelled Austria to surrender Silesia to the King of Prussia. The consequences of these prematurely suppressed hostilities were an unnatural tension between the various European Powers, a loosening of time-honoured alliances, and a cautious groping after newer and surer combinations. But Frederick was uneasy in the midst of his triumphs, and, far from diminishing his armaments after the war was over, prudently increased them. He had, indeed, nothing to fear at present from exhausted Austria; but the attitude of Russia continued as menacing as ever. In the autumn of 1750, Frederick, incensed beyond measure by an imperial rescript issued by Bestuzheff ordering all Russian subjects natives of the Baltic Provinces actually in the Prussian service to return to their homes, deliberately insulted the Russian resident at Berlin, Gross, who was thereupon recalled (October 25), and diplomatic intercourse between the two countries was suspended.

Frederick had been beforehand with his adversaries. Recognising the fact that decadent France could no longer be profitable to him, and alarmed by the rumours of the impending negotiations between Great Britain and Russia, he calculated that the chances, on the whole, were in favour of the superior usefulness of an English alliance, and (January 16, 1756) signed the Treaty of Westminster with Great Britain, whereby the two contracting Powers agreed to unite their forces to oppose the entry into or the passage through Germany, of the troops of any other foreign Power. The Treaty of Westminster precipitated the conclusion of the Franco-Austrian rapprochement which the Austrian Chancellor Kaunitz had been long preparing. On May 1, 1756, a defensive alliance, directed against Prussia, was formed at Versailles between the French and Austrian Governments. To this treaty Russia, Sweden, and Saxony were to be invited to accede.

The course of events in Russia demonstrated that his influence was already gone. At the second sitting (February 22, 1756) of the newly established "Ministerial Conference," a permanent and paramount Department of State formed early in 1756, to advise the Empress on all matters relating to foreign affairs, Elizabeth decided that England's treaty with Prussia had nullified all the existing Anglo-Russian conventions. At its third session (March 14), the Conference determined to invite the Courts of Versailles, Vienna and Stockholm to cooperate with Russia " to reduce the King of Prussia within proper limits so that he might no longer be a danger to the German Empire," thus anticipating by nearly two months the Treaty of Versailles. It then decreed that the army should be mobilised forthwith, so as to spur Austria on to more rapid action. The Austrian ambassador at St Petersburg was, at the same time, instructed to inform his Court that the Russian Empress was ready to conclude a definite treaty with France whenever invited to do so. After this the inclusion of Russia in the grand alliance against Prussia was only a matter of time.

On December 31,1756, the Russian Empress formally acceded to the Treaty of Versailles, at the same time binding herself, by a secret article, to assist France if attacked by England in Europe ; France at the same time contracting a corresponding secret obligation to give Russia pecuniary assistance in the event of her being attacked by Turkey. The secret articles of the Versailles Treaty of May 1, as between France and Austria, were not, however, communicated to the Court of St Petersburg.

It is certain that at this crisis of his life the King of Prussia was by no means so well-informed as usual. Not till towards the end of June did he suspect the existence of the Franco-Russian understanding, and, till the end of August, he flattered himself that British influence would prove stronger than Austrian at St Petersburg. He was also mistaken, or misinformed, as to the relative attitudes of Russia and Austria. He was, for instance, under the false impression that Austria was urging on Russia against him, but that the latter Power was not prepared and would postpone an invasion till the following spring ; whereas, in reality, it was Russia who was urging on dilatory and timorous Austria. At the beginning of June Frederick learnt from the Hague that Russia had definitely renounced her obligations towards England. Early in July he told Mitchell, the English envoy at Berlin, that Russia was lost to them ; and on August 29, 1756, he invaded Saxony. The Seven Years' War had begun. It is beyond the scope of the present chapter to enter into the details of the struggle. Here only the salient facts, so far as they affected the policy of Russia and the general situation, can be very briefly adumbrated.

The great political event of the year 1757 was the resumption of diplomatic relations between Russia and France. In the middle of June Michael Bestuzheff, the elder brother of the Russian Chancellor, was accredited to Paris ; and, simultaneously, the new French ambassador, Paul de l'Hôpital, Marquis de Châteauneuf, arrived at St Petersburg at the head of an extremely brilliant suite. His charming manners, ready wit, and truly patrician liberality made him a persona gratïssïma at the Russian Court ; and, in conjunction with the new Austrian ambassador, Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, he carried everything before him. It was through their influence that Aprakin and his friend the Chancellor Bestuzheff were arrested, early in 1758, on a charge of conspiring with the Grand Duchess Catharine and her friends to recall the army from the field and hold it in readiness to support a projected coup d'état in case of the death of the Empress, who on September 19, 1757, had had a slight apoplectic fit after attending mass at the parish church of Tsarskoe Selo. BestuzhefF's enemies had instantly connected the illness of the Empress with the almost simultaneous retreat of the army ; though we now know for certain that the two events were totally unconnected. The retreat of the army had been ordered by an unanimous council of war, held a full fortnight previously to the Empress' seizure ; while it is obvious that the Chancellor, especially in his own very critical position, had no object whatever in saving his old enemy the King of Prussia. BestuzhefF succeeded in clearing himself completely of all the charges brought against him ; but the Empress, while accepting his innocence and refusing to allow him to be put to torture, showed she had lost all confidence in him by depriving him of all his offices and dignities and expelling him from the Court. He was succeeded as Grand Chancellor by Michael Vorontsoff. an honest man of excellent intentions but mediocre abilities.

The campaign of 1758 was a repetition of the campaign of 1757. After occupying the whole of East Prussia, Aprakin's successor, General Count William Fermor, a pupil of Miinnich and Lacy, on August 25, defeated Frederick at Zorndorf, one of the most murderous engagements of modern times. But Fermor was incapable of making any use of his victory, even after being strongly reinforced ; and at the beginning of October, he retired behind the Vistula.

Towards the end of the year, the hands of the Russian Empress were strengthened by the accession to power in France of a new and vigorous Minister of Foreign Affairs who fully shared her sentiments in the person of the Duc de Choiseul. The first act of the new Minister was to notify Michael Bestuzheff that pacific overtures had been made to Great Britain through the Danish Court with the object of isolating the King of Prussia, but that the English Ministers had steadily refused to separate their cause from his. Choiseul further informed the Russian ambassador that Louis XV had given his solemn word never to make peace without the consent of his Allies. Alexis Galitsin's despatches from London were, naturally, less satisfactory than Michael BestuzhefTs from Versailles. He reported "a fanatical enthusiasm of the whole nation for the King of Prussia," and a determination on the part of the English Ministers to make Prussia the leading German Power on the Continent instead of Austria. The damage done by Frederick II to the French monarchy was, no doubt, at the bottom of England's respect for him.

Although suddenly pitted against the most redoubtable captain of the age without having ever before commanded an army in the field, Soltikoff seems to have accepted his tremendous responsibilities without the slightest hesitation. On July 9, he reached headquarters ; on July 23, he defeated, near Kay, the Prussian general Wedell, who had attempted to prevent his junction with the Austrians; early in August he united with Laudon at Frankfort on Oder ; and, on August 12, the allies annihilated the army of the King of Prussia at Kunersdorf. Frederick was only saved from death or captivity, in the general stampede, by the devotion of Rittmeister Prittwitz and forty hussars. Late the same evening, 3000 repentant fugitives rallied to his standard, the sole remnant of a host of 48,000 men. Mortal indeed had been the hug of the " bears of the Holy Roman Empire," as he himself dubbed the Russians at the end of the year, when he had in a measure recovered from the shock of " that horrible catastrophe."

Frederick was, indeed, only saved from instant destruction by the violent dissensions between Soltikoff and the Austrian Commander-in-chief, Count Daun, who refused to take orders from each other, and thus wasted all the fruits of Kunersdorf. Moreover, Soltikoff was so elated by his astounding victories that he even refused to submit to the behests of his own Court. In spite of repeated and urgent orders to follow up his successes without delay, he absolutely refused to remain in Silesia a day longer than October 15, "as the preservation of my army ought to be my primary consideration." At the beginning of November he deliberately marched off to his magazines at Posen.

Frederick himself has told us that in 1760 the Russians had only to step forward in order to give him the coup de grâce. Elizabeth was equally well aware of this, and the New Year was not three days old when she summoned Soltikoff to the capital to draw up a plan of campaign. The plan he finally submitted was simplicity itself. It may best be described as an ingenious method of avoiding a general engagement at all hazards, and keeping out of harm's way as much as possible. He was curtly informed that Russia's obligations to her allies demanded a more aggressive, adventurous strategy, and reminded that after the experience of Kunersdorf there was no longer any reason to be afraid " of hazarding our army in an engagement with the King of Prussia, however desperate and bloody." Elizabeth's own plan was that Soltikoff should proceed at once to Silesia to cooperate there with Laudon, who had, at her particular request, been appointed to an independent command on the Oder, and was there holding Prince Henry of Prussia in check, while Daun, with another Austrian army, stood face to face with Frederick in Saxony. Before quitting Posen for Silesia Soltikoff was also instructed to detach 15,000 men, to besiege for the second time the maritime fortress of Kolberg, as a first step towards conquering Pomerania. Soltikoff set out for the army early in the spring ; and nothing but captious criticisms, dolorous grumblings, and perplexing accounts of insignificant skirmishes, was heard of or from him for the next three months. His absurd caution more than neutralised the victories of Laudon at Landshut and Glatz, and the mere intelligence of the battle of Liegnitz drove him back into Polish territory. Simultaneous reports from General Chernuisheff informed the Empress that the whole army was in an anarchical condition and that the Commander-in-chief could do nothing but wring his hands and shed tears. It was now evident that Soltikoff's mind had become unhinged by his responsibilities. He was accordingly superseded, in the beginning of September, by the senior officer in the service, Field-Marshal Alexander Buturlin, who led the army back behind the Vistula. The closing incidents of this campaign were the occupation of Berlin (October 9-12) by Chernuisheff and Todtleben, which caused great rejoicings at St Petersburg and helped to refill the depleted Russian Treasury, the contributions levied amounting to 1,000,000 thalers, and the second siege of Kolberg, which proved to be an expensive failure.

The principal transparency represented a winged genius (the New Year) with a gift in his hand, in the shape of a laurel wreath intertwined with an olive-branch, standing upon captured standards, cannon, and other military trophies, with the keys of Berlin in front of him. The contemporary Russian gazettes also emphasised the rumour that " Our most gracious Sovereign has expressly stated that the sole object of the glorious triumph of her arms is the restoration and the maintenance of peace." But peace was only obtainable by fresh exertions; these required plenty of money ; and where was the money to come from ? The new Commander-in-chief had demanded a minimum of 2,031,000 roubles (about J?457,000) for putting the army on a war footing, but only about three-quarters of that amount was available.

And there was yet another difficulty. The allies of Russia were fast approaching the limits of their endurance, and were becoming clamorous for peace. On January 22, 1761, the new French ambassador at St Petersburg, the Baron de Breteuil, presented a despatch to the Russian Chancellor to the effect that the King of France, by reason of the condition of his dominions, absolutely desired peace, especially as the King of Prussia, being at the end of his resources, would now doubtless listen to any reasonable propositions. On the following day the Austrian ambassador delivered a memorandum to the same effect. In her reply of February 12, Elizabeth declared that she would not consent to any pacific overtures until the original object of the League, " the essential and permanent crippling of the King of Prussia," had been accomplished. Even if Austria could not get back all she had a right to, she should at least retain possession of her actual conquests in Silesia. The King of Poland should also be compensated for the inhuman devastation of his lands by the duchy of Magdeburg and all the Prussian possessions in Lusatia. Sweden's Pomeranian frontier should also be "advantageously rectified." Russia demanded nothing for herself besides Ducal Prussia, or, in default thereof, adequate compensation elsewhere " from her loyal allies." This reply was accompanied by a letter from Elizabeth to Maria Theresa rebuking the Court of Vienna for its want of candour in negotiating with France behind the back of Russia, and threatening, in case of any repetition of such a violation of treaties, to treat with the King of Prussia directly and independently. Elizabeth declared, however, that she was not averse from a peace congress sitting while the war still went on, though she was firmly opposed to anything like a truce as being likely to be " extremely useful to the King of Prussia." To these propositions the allies yielded after some debate. A fresh Russian note, at the beginning of May, laid it down as an imperative necessity that France should leave America and the Indies alone for a time and concentrate all her efforts on the Continent. Thus Russia was assuming the lead in continental affairs, not only in arms but in diplomacy also.