Peter Goes to War

Peter shared the sentiments of his people, and had the enthusiasm of a crusader against the infidel.

Continuing Peter the Great Suppresses the Streltsi,
our selection from History of Russia by Alfred Rambaud published in 1878. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Peter the Great Suppresses the Streltsi.

Time: 1689
Place: Moscow

The first use the Czar made of his liberty was to hasten to Archangel. There, deaf to the advice and prayers of his mother, who was astounded at this unexpected taste for salt water, he gazed on that sea which no czar had ever looked on. He ate with the merchants and the officers of foreign navies; he breathed the air which had come from the West. He established a dockyard, built boats, dared the angry waves of this unknown ocean, and almost perished in a storm, which did not prevent the “skipper Peter Alexeievitch” from again putting to sea, and bringing the Dutch vessels back to the Holy Cape. Unhappily, the White Sea, by which, since the time of Ivan IV, the English had entered Russia, is frost-bound in winter. In order to open permanent communications with the West, with civilized countries, it was necessary for Peter to establish himself on the Baltic or the Black Sea. Now the first belonged to the Swedes, and the second to the Turks, as the Caspian did to the Persians. Who was first to be attacked? The treaties concluded with Poland and Austria, as well as policy and religion, urged the Czar against the Turks, and Constantinople has always been the point of attraction for orthodox Russia.

Peter shared the sentiments of his people, and had the enthusiasm of a crusader against the infidel. Notwithstanding his ardent wish to travel in the West, he took the resolution not to appear in foreign lands till he could appear as a victor. Twice had Galitsyne failed against the Crimea; Peter determined to attack the barbarians by the Don, and besiege Azov. The army was commanded by three generals, Golovine, Gordon, and Lefort, who were to act with the “bombardier of the Preobrajenski regiment, Peter Alexeievitch.” This regiment, as well as three others which had sprung from the “amusements” of Preobrajenskoe — the Semenovski, the Botousitski, and the regiment of Lefort — were the heart of the expedition. It failed because the Czar had no fleet with which to invest Azov by sea, because the new army and its chiefs wanted experience, and because Jansen, the German engineer, ill-treated by Peter, passed over to the enemy. After two assaults the siege was raised. This check appeared the more grave because the Czar himself was with the army, because the first attempt to turn from the “amusements” of Preobrajenskoe to serious warfare had failed, and because this failure would furnish arms against innovations, against the Germans and the heretics, against the new tactics. It might even compromise, in the eyes of the people, the work of regeneration (1695).

Although Peter had followed the example of Galitsyne, and entered Moscow in triumph, he felt he needed revenge. He sent for good officers from foreign countries. Artillerymen arrived from Holland and Austria, engineers from Prussia, and Admiral Lima from Venice. Peter hurried on the creation of a fleet with feverish impatience. He built of green wood twenty-two galleys, a hundred rafts, and seventeen hundred boats or barks. All the small ports of the Don were metamorphosed into dock-yards; twenty-six thousand workmen were assembled there from all parts of the empire. It was like the camp of Boulogne. No misfortune — neither the desertion of the laborers, the burnings of the dock-yards, nor even his own illness — could lessen his activity. Peter was able to write that, “following the advice God gave to Adam, he earned his bread by the sweat of his brow.” At last the “marine caravan,” the Russian armada, descended the Don. From the slopes of Azov he wrote to his sister Natalia[1]: “In obedience to thy counsels, I do not go to meet the shells and balls; it is they who approach me, but tolerably courteously.”

[1: His mother died in 1694, his brother Ivan in 1696.]

Azov was blockaded by sea and land, and a breach was opened by the engineers. Preparations were being made for a general assault, when the place capitulated. The joy in Russia was great, and the streltsi’s jealousy of the success of foreign tactics gave place to their enthusiasm as Christians for this victory over Islamism, which recalled those of Kazan and Astrakhan. The effect produced on Europe was considerable. At Warsaw the people shouted, “Long live the Czar!” The army entered Moscow under triumphal arches, on which were represented Hercules trampling a pacha and two Turks under foot, and Mars throwing to the earth a mirza and two Tartars. Admiral Lefort and Schein the generalissimo took part in the cortège, seated on magnificent sledges; while Peter, promoted to the rank of captain, followed on foot. Jansen, destined to the gibbet, marched among the prisoners (1696).

Peter wished to profit by this great success to found the naval power of Russia. By the decision of the douma three thousand families were established at Azov, besides four hundred Kalmucks, and a garrison of Moscow streltsi. The patriarch, the prelates, and the monasteries taxed themselves for the construction of one vessel to every eight thousand serfs. The nobles, the officials, and the merchants were seized with the fever of this holy war, and brought their contributions toward the infant navy. It was proposed to unite the Don and the Volga by means of a canal. A new appeal was made to the artisans and sailors of Europe. Fifty young nobles of the court were sent to Venice, England, and the Low Countries to learn seamanship and shipbuilding. But it was necessary that the Czar himself should be able to judge of the science of his subjects; he must counteract Russian indolence and prejudice by the force of a great example; and Peter, after having begun his career in the navy at the rank of “skipper,” and in the army at that of bombardier, was to become a carpenter of Saardam. He allowed himself, as a reward for his success at Azov, the much-longed-for journey to the West.

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