In the spring of the year 1787 the ablest potentate in Europe set out on a State progress to the newly annexed provinces in the South of her Empire. It was carried out with an energy and splendour which illustrated the union of the forethought of the West with the barbaric splendour of the East. A great flotilla of galleys bore the Sovereign, her chief courtiers, the ambassadors of Great Britain, Austria, and France, and numerous attendants down the course of the Dnieper to the city of Kherson near its mouth. By day the banks were fringed with throngs of the peasants of Little Russia, brought up to order, while ever and anon the shouts of Cossacks, Calmucks, and Circassians impressed the beholders with a sense of the boundless resources of that realm. By night the welkin flared with illuminations; and the extent of the resting-places, which had arisen like exhalations at the bidding of her favourite, Prince Potemkin, promised the speedy inroad of civilization into the lands over which the Turk still held sway. In truth, far more impressive to the mind’s eye was the imperious will of which these marvels were the manifestation, the will of Catharine II.782

At her invitation there joined her near Potemkin’s creation, the city of Ekaterinoslav, another monarch of romantic and adventurous character. Joseph II of Austria, head of the Holy Roman Empire, now reluctantly turned towards the eastern conquests to which she had long beckoned him. Together they proceeded on the progress southwards to Kherson, which they entered under a triumphal arch bearing the inscription in Greek, “The way to Byzantium.” A still more impressive proof of the activity of her masterful favourite awaited them. Potemkin had pushed on the work of the new dockyard at Kherson; and as a result they witnessed the launch of three warships. The largest, of 80 guns, was christened by Catharine herself, “Joseph II.”783

Thence the imperial procession wended its way to the much-prized acquisition, the Crimea. In that Tartar Khanate the fertile brain and forceful personality of Potemkin had wrought wonders. It was but four years since the Empress, in her joy at the annexation of that vantage-ground, had pointed on the map to the little township of Akhtiar, re-named it Sevastopol, and ordered the construction of a dockyard and navy. Now, in June 1787, as the allied sovereigns topped the hills which command that port, the Hapsburg ruler uttered a cry of surprise and admiration. For there below lay a squadron of warships, ready, as it seemed, to set sail and plant the cross on the dome of St. Sophia at Constantinople.

Hitherto Joseph II had not shown the amount of zeal befitting an ally and an admirer. True, he had not openly belied the terms of the compact of the year 1781, which had been his sheet-anchor amid the storms of his reign. But that alliance had been the prelude to vast schemes productive at once of longing and distrust. They aimed at nothing less than the partition of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. The glorious days of Prince Eugène were to be recalled, and, on the expulsion of the Tartar horde over the Bosphorus, Austria was to acquire the Turkish lands which that warrior had gained for her by the Peace of Passarowitz (1718), namely, the Banat of Temesvar, the northern half of Servia, and the districts of Wallachia as far as the River Aluta. The only direct gain to Catharine was to be the Tartar territory north of the Black Sea as far as the Dniester. As for Moldavia and Wallachia, they were to form an independent kingdom under a Christian Prince (a plan finally realized in 1858); and the remainder of the Balkan Peninsula was to be ruled by the favourite grandson of the Empress, Prince Constantine.

Outwardly this partition seemed to offer a fair share to Austria. But it was soon clear that the grasping genius of Muscovy would transform the nominally independent kingdoms of Constantinople and Roumania into feudatories and bar to Austria the way to the Lower Danube, the Aegean, and the Lower Adriatic. Not yet were the lessons of the first partition of Poland forgotten at Vienna.784 Then, too, the Austro-Russian compact had but slightly advanced the interests of Joseph II in Germany. Catharine had done little to further his pet scheme of the Belgic-Bavarian Exchange; and, apart from feminine fumings, she had not seriously counteracted the formation of the League of German Princes whereby Frederick the Great had thwarted that almost revolutionary proposal (1785). Probably this accounts for the reluctance of Joseph to give rein to the southward impulses of the Czarina in that year. At its close Sir Robert Murray Keith, British Ambassador at Vienna, reported that the Czarina’s tour to Kherson was postponed, and four days later he recorded a remarkable conversation in the course of which the Emperor revealed his dislike of the dangerous schemes then mooted for the partition of the Turkish Empire. “I can tell you for certain,” he said, “que si jamais tous les coquins se rompent avec l’Empire Ottoman, France is firmly determined to strike a bold stroke by making herself mistress of Egypt. This I know with certainty from more quarters than one; and M. Tott himself told me at Paris that he had travelled through all Egypt by order of his Court to explore that country in a military light and to lay down a plan for the conquest of it.”785

In these words we have probably the reason for the deferring of the Russian schemes against Turkey. They are also noteworthy, as they must have tended to deepen the distrust which Pitt and Carmarthen felt for France. Her chief Minister, Vergennes, figured as the protector of Turkey against Russia, recalling thereby the policy of Louis XV’s reign, which in 1739 availed to tear away from Austria the conquests of Prince Eugène and restore them to the Sublime Porte. But under this show of championship there seems to have lain an alternative policy, that of furthering the partition of Turkey, provided that France acquired Egypt, and some other vantage posts in the Levant. As we have already seen, France was busy in Egypt and the Orient with schemes which probably would have startled the world had she rivetted her hold on the Dutch Netherlands in the year 1787.

The accession of the facile and dissolute Frederick William to the Prussian throne in 1786, and the preoccupation of England and France in the Dutch crisis which followed, now left Joseph free to comply with the request of the Czarina that he would join her in the journey to the Crimea. After long hesitations he reluctantly gave his assent. His aged Chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, the champion of the connection with Russia and France, advised him to direct the imperial conferences towards the Bavarian Exchange and the dissolution of the Fürstenbund. Catharine willed otherwise. Under her influence the views of Joseph underwent a notable orientation. He came back to Vienna virtually pledged to a war for the partition of Turkey.

The change in Joseph’s policy was a tribute to the potency of the Czarina’s will. In her personality, as we have already seen, there were singular powers of fascination and command. Her vivacity and charm, varied by moods of petulance or fury, made up a character feminine in its impulsiveness and of masculine strength. The erstwhile Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, who by a series of audacious intrigues, and probably by the murder of her consort Peter III, had become the greatest autocrat of the century, still retained the intellectual freshness of youth. Her character and career present a series of bizarre contrasts. The poverty of her upbringing, the dissolute adventures of her early life, and the outrageous crimes of her womanhood would have utterly tainted a personality less remarkable and attractive. But in the loose society of St. Petersburg it had long been customary to gloze over lapses of virtue by easy descriptions, like that which the stately rhetoric of Burke applied to the chivalry of Versailles, that “vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.”

Certainly the intellectual keenness and social witcheries of the sorceress threw a charm over her rout. French and German philosophers praised her learning and wit, but innate shrewdness kept her from more than a passing dalliance with the unsettling theories which were to work havoc in France. Here as in her amours she observed some measure of worldly prudence; so that no favourite could count on a long reign of pillage. Thus, whether by whim or by design, she kept devotion and hope ever on the stretch; and one might almost apply to her, even at the age of fifty-nine, Shakespeare’s description of Cleopatra:

Like the “serpent of old Nile,” Catharine had many weaknesses; and they might have worked her ruin in the more strenuous age which followed; but fortune brought her to the front at a time when Frederick the Great desired the friendship of Russia, and when Hapsburg policy vacillated between the conservatism of Maria Theresa and the viewiness of her son Joseph. Thus the Czarina could work her will on the decaying Powers, Turkey and Poland, and raised the prestige of her Empire to unimagined heights.

A few shrewd observers were not dazzled by this splendour. Sir James Harris, who went as British envoy to Russia in 1778 to cultivate the friendship, and if possible the alliance, of Catharine, rightly probed the inner weakness of her position. It lay in the suddenness of her rise, the barbarousness of her people, the unblushing peculations of Ministers and officials, and the shiftiness of Muscovite policy. This last defect he traced to the peculiarities of the Empress herself, which he thus summed up: “She has a masculine force of mind, obstinacy in adhering to a plan, and intrepidity in the execution of it; but she wants the more manly virtues of deliberation, forbearance in prosperity, and accuracy of judgment, while she possesses in a high degree the weaknesses vulgarly attributed to her sex—love of flattery and its inseparable companion, vanity; [and] an inattention to unpleasant but salutary advice.” Six years later he sharpened his criticism and described her as led by her passions, not by reason and argument; her prejudices, though easily formed, were immovable; her good opinion was liable to constant fluctuations and whims; and her resolves might carry her to any lengths.786 Such, too, was the opinion of the Comte de Ségur, the French ambassador, who wrote about the Turkish schemes renewed in 1787: “We are so accustomed to see Russia throw herself offhand into the most risky affairs, and Fortune has so persistently helped her, that there is no accounting for the actions of this Power on the rules of a scientific policy.”787

This peculiarity was far from repelling Joseph II. While pluming himself on the application of reason to politics, that crowned philosopher forgot to take counsel of her twin-sister, prudence. On his polyglot Empire, which already felt the first stirrings of the principle of nationality, he imposed centralizing laws, agrarian, social, and religious, which speedily aroused the hostility of those whom he meant to uplift. Along with all this he pushed on schemes which unsettled Germany, Belgium, and Poland; and now, as if all this were not enough, he was drawn into the vortex of the Turkish enterprises of Catharine.

It is a mistake to assume that Joseph had no practical aims in view. He hoped to acquire from Turkey territories which would open up trade on the Adriatic and the Lower Danube, and he counted on strengthening the Russian alliance to which he trusted for the furtherance of his aims in Germany and Belgium. Yet rarely has a monarch formed a resolution more fraught with peril. In truth it resulted from the mastery gained by an abler and more determined nature over one that was generous but ill-compacted, daring but unsteady. Had the Emperor surveyed the situation with care, he must have seen that it favoured Catharine rather than himself. She was beset by no troubles at home; while his lands, especially the Pays Bas, heaved with disloyal excitement. She had appeased the Turcophile feelings of France by granting a favourable commercial treaty; and Montmorin, the successor of Vergennes, was weaker in himself and less able to support the Sultan. In short, Catharine had her hands free, while Joseph had them full.788

The alliance between Russia and Poland at this time acquired new vitality. During her triumphal tour Catharine received the homage of her former lover, Stanislaus, King of Poland, and received from him the promise of the help of 100,000 Polish troops for the Turkish war, and “likewise for any other contest”—a phrase aimed against Prussia, if she dared to intervene. The value of the promise soon became open to doubt. The monarch in Poland had long been a figure-head, while the real power lay with the powerful and ambitious nobility, which, under the lead of the Czartoryski and Potocki families, ever chafed at Muscovite ascendancy, and now declined to help Catharine in humbling their natural ally, the Sultan. In 1790 their views were to prevail; but, for the present, the resources of Poland seemed at her beck and call.

The prospects of Catharine therefore were brilliant in the extreme. But for once Fortune played her false. After the departure of the Emperor from the Crimea, and while she still fondly surveyed the warlike preparations at its new dockyard, there came news of the alarming prospects for the harvest in Russia. “The Empress,” wrote Fitzherbert on 24th July, “almost immediately after leaving the Crimea fell under a great and visible depression of spirits, accompanied at times with violent gusts of ill humour; and in this state remained with very little intermission till our arrival here [Czarko-zelo].” He ascribed these moody humours to the failure of the corn crop, which necessitated the immediate purchase of 5,000,000 roubles’ worth of foreign grain, and the distribution of Potemkin’s army in widespread cantonments.

To wage a great campaign while bread stood at famine prices was impossible. In this predicament the Empress decided to hide her retirement by a parade of diplomatic bluster. She despatched to Constantinople a special envoy, Bulgakoff, to lay claim to the Principality of Georgia, and to submit this and other matters in dispute to the mediation of France and Austria. The move was dexterous; but in such a case the success of a game of bluff depends on the adversary not perceiving the weakness of which it is the screen. Now, the Sublime Porte, though usually inert, divined the secret, and resolved to withstand these endless affronts. During thirteen years orthodox Moslems had writhed under the humiliations of the Treaty of Kainardji (1774), which acknowledged the complete independence of the Tartar Khans of the Crimea and the Kuban valley, and in vague terms admitted the Czarina to be the protectress of the Christian subjects of the Porte. In 1783, thanks to Austrian support, Catharine seized the Crimea; and now she laid claim to Georgia. The cup of humiliation was full; and the pride of Moslems scorned to drink it.

The despatches of Sir Robert Ainslie, British ambassador at Constantinople, show clearly enough the motives that prompted that Government to strike an unexpected blow. On 25th June 1787 he reported to Carmarthen that the Porte looked on the journey of the Czarina and her warlike preparations as designed to wear out the patience and the resources of the Turks, who already were said to have 240,000 men ready near the Danube, and others in Asia. If, he added, she did not explain her present conduct, “I am afraid they will commence hostilities,” and “strike a home blow in the Crimea.” On 10th July he stated that there could be no solid peace so long as Russia held the Crimea in defiance of the Treaty of Kainardji. “The honour of the Sultan, the security of this Empire, the interest of the Mahometan religion, and those [sic] of justice all require that ... the independence of the Crimea should be re-established. It is true, the Porte agreed to the cession; but that act, torn from her weakness, was involuntary and unjust. In short, it can only be binding until a good opportunity offers to cancel its effect. This, my Lord, seems the opinion of the Cabinet and the motive of their extensive preparations, but they are diffident of success and afraid to attack unless Russia herself furnishes pretext.” He adds that the Turkish Ministers believed Bulgakoff’s mission to be designed to “spin out the summer”; but that the Turkish levies could scarcely be kept together.789

As for the temporizing offers of mediation from France and Austria, the Porte would have none of them, and refused to accept any in which Great Britain had no share. The Grand Vizier cherished the hope that Austria and Russia were not really united by treaty, and seemed to desire, rather than to avoid, a rupture. On 30th July the Reis Effendi asked our ambassador what England would do in case of a Russo-Turkish War. Ainslie replied that she would “keep strict neutrality,” and strongly urged the need of peace. “Never will we purchase peace on the dishonourable terms held out by Russia,” replied the Turkish Minister, and he added with oriental subtlety that, unless she gave way, war must come “before many months are elapsed.” Ainslie thought that this portended war in the spring of 1788.790

But on 16th August the Sultan struck swiftly and hard. Doubtless he had heard news of the famine in Russia and the dispersion of Potemkin’s forces. It was clear that for a time the would-be aggressor was reduced to the defensive. Was it not well, then, to deliver the blow rather than wait for it to fall in the next year, and perhaps from both Austria and Russia? True, the Turks were not ready—they never were so. But their recent successes over the Mameluke Beys in Egypt and the rebellious Mahmoud Pacha in Albania emboldened them to take a step which completely surprised all the Cabinets of Europe. On 16th August, after a long conference with the Grand Vizier, Bulgakoff and five members of his suite were apprehended and marched off to the Seven Towers, there to be kept in close custody. This was the Turkish way of declaring war to the knife. The Porte defended it on the ground of outrages to its flag at Kinburn and Sevastopol;791 but the incident added rancour to the hatred of Catharine, and she swore to glut her revenge upon the insolent infidels. Her rage was all the greater because for once she was outwitted. Fitzherbert, on hearing of the novel declaration of war by the Turks, stated to Carmarthen792 that it must have upset all her calculations, for he knew that the blustering language used by Bulgakoff “was in fact intended to produce the contrary effect.”793

These events were destined potently to influence the career of Pitt. In one respect they affect his reputation; for Catharine in her fury accused him of inciting the Turks to attack her.794 The charge was not unnatural. She had long shown her spleen against England in bitter words and hostile deeds. More than once she thrust aside Pitt’s overtures for an alliance; and she rejected his proposals for a commercial treaty while she granted that boon to France (January 1787). Further, the outbreak of war in the East came very opportunely for Great Britain and Prussia at the crisis of the Dutch embroglio and enabled the Court of Berlin confidently to launch its troops against the Patriots in Holland. The tilt given from Constantinople to the delicately poised kaleidoscope of diplomacy had startling results. The mobile Powers—Russia, Austria, and France—were fixed fast, while the hitherto stationary States, Prussia and England, were set free for swift action.

Nevertheless it is untrue that the tilt came from Pitt and Carmarthen. They still clung to the traditional British policy of befriending Russia, which Fox had enthusiastically supported. Our Government instructed Fraser at St. Petersburg to express regret at the outbreak of war and to offer, conjointly with Prussia, our good services for the restoration of peace. Pitt also informed Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador in London, of his desire for a good understanding with Russia, and stated that he would not oppose acquisitions of Turkish territory. All the evidence tends to prove that he strove to prevent hostilities, which must upset the existing order in the East and probably end in a general war. As the concern of Prussia was equally great (it being certain by the end of 1787 that Austria would join in the war) the two Protestant Powers drew together for joint action though not, as yet, for actual alliance.795

In fact, we find here the reason of the coyness of Pitt in framing that compact. He still preferred to have Russia, rather than Prussia, as an ally. But his advances to Catharine ended with the impossible retort that he must recall Ainslie from Constantinople. Nevertheless it was not till the middle of March 1788 that Pitt took a step displeasing to her by forbidding her agents to hire Russian transports in England.796 The Empress showed her annoyance at these strict notions of neutrality by publicly receiving the famous American privateer, Paul Jones.797

Pitt’s attitude towards Austria was at first equally friendly. On 14th September 1787 Carmarthen sent to Vienna assurances that the Russo-Turkish War would make no difference to the friendship of George III for Austria, and that we should maintain “the determined system of this country to contribute as far as possible to the continuance of the public tranquillity, or to its speedy restoration if unhappily it should be interrupted.” By these and other proposals Pitt and Carmarthen vainly sought to detach Austria from Russia, and also to conjure away the spectre of a Triple Alliance between France, Russia, and Austria, which long haunted the courts of Whitehall. Early in 1788, that ghost was laid by the Austrian attack upon the Turks, which France had striven to avert, and Pitt felt free to accept the proffered alliance of Prussia which, as we saw in Chapter XVI, finally came about in August 1788.798

The campaign of that year is devoid of interest. Scarcity of bread on the Russian side and the usual unpreparedness of the Turks clogged the operations, which led to a sharp conflict only at one point. The fortress of Kinburn, recently acquired by the Russians, commanded the estuary formed by the converging Rivers Dnieper and Bug. It stood opposite the Turkish fortress, Oczakoff, which was deemed the chief bulwark of the Ottomans in the East. Early in October 1788 they made an attempt to seize Kinburn as a prelude to the hoped-for conquest of the Crimea. But in that fortress was a wizened little veteran, who ate bread with the soldiers, startled them at dawn by his cock crows, and summarized his ideas on tactics by the inspiriting words: “At them with the cold steel.” The personality of Suvóroff was worth an army corps, for it was bound up with triumph. He now waited within the walls of Kinburn until the Turkish fleet landed 5,000 choice Janissaries below the town. Then by a furious sally, flanked by a charge of ten squadrons of horse on the wings, he broke up that fanatical band and drove it into the sea. Only 700 Turks survived. The affair was not of the first importance, but it heartened the Russians for the greater enterprises of the next year.

Meanwhile Catharine, fuming at the sorry beginning of her war of conquest, upbraided her ally with his tardiness in coming to her help. But Joseph was in a difficult situation. The ferment in the Netherlands and Hungary was increasing. The close union of England and Prussia in Dutch affairs caused him much concern; and, as we have seen in Chapter XIV, the French Ministry was fain to huddle up the disputes in Holland, partly in order to be free to support the Sultan. Montmorin resolved to thwart the partition of the Turkish Empire and brought pressure to bear upon Kaunitz, who ever looked askance on oriental adventures.799 Nevertheless, by the month of November Joseph had decided on war. The Austrians made a discreditable attempt to surprise Belgrade; and in February 1788 war was declared.

The ensuing campaign was fertile in surprises. As often happens, the Allies waited for one another to start the campaign, and thus lost the early part of the summer. The Russians, owing to the armament of the Swedes and the incapacity of Potemkin, did far less than was expected; and the brunt of the Ottoman onset finally fell upon the Austrians. Joseph was compelled to fall back towards Temesvar on the night of 20th September; and a panic seized the Imperialists. That motley host, mistaking the shouts of its diverse races for the war cry of the Turks, fired wildly upon the supposed pursuers; and the Ottomans, hearing the babel din, finally pressed on the rout and captured 4,000 men and a large part of the artillery and stores. Pestilence completed the work begun by the Moslems; and thus it came about that the efforts of 200,000 Austrians effected nothing more than the surrender of Chotzim and three other frontier strongholds of the second rank. The disgrace dimmed the lustre of their arms, undermined the health of the Emperor, and gave new heart to Hertzberg and the numerous enemies of the Hapsburg realm.

The chief cause of this ignominious failure is ultimately traceable to an influence that had long been at work far away, namely, the restless ambition of Gustavus III of Sweden. In the summer of the year 1788 that monarch suddenly drew the sword against Catharine, and from the vantage ground of his Finnish province marched towards St. Petersburg. This threatening move compelled the Empress to recall part of her forces, condemned the rest of them to the defensive, and thus exposed the Austrians to the spirited attack above described.

Seeing that Pitt was held to be ultimately responsible for these events, we must pause here to sketch the character and career of Gustavus III. Of the three monarchs dealt with in this chapter he is not the least interesting. Rivalling Catharine in intellectual keenness and moody waywardness, he excelled her in generosity, virtue, and chivalry. There is in him the strain of romance which refines the schemes, and adds pathos to the failures, of Joseph II; but the Swede excelled the Hapsburg alike in grit, fighting power, charm, and versatility. He was a bundle of startling opposites. Slight of figure, naturally delicate and pensive, he threw himself eagerly into feats of daring and hardihood. By turns poet and humourist, playwright and warrior, devout but an incorrigible intriguer, he lured, enthralled, browbeat, or outwitted the Swedish people as no one had done since the days of Charles XII. In truth he seemed a re-incarnation of that ill-starred ruler, especially in his power of calling forth the utmost from his people, and leading them on to feats beyond their strength. From the midsummer day of 1771 on which the young King opened his Estates with a speech from the throne, it was clear that his iron will and captivating address might regain for the Crown the power torn from it some years before by the Caps, the faction of the opposing nobles and burghers. Fourteen months later Gustavus struck his blow. Despite the Russian gold poured in for the support of the Caps, the King gained the people and the army to his side, locked the recalcitrant Senate in their Chamber, overthrew the usurped authority of the Riksdag, and thenceforth governed in the interests of his people. It was characteristic of him that he prefaced his coup d’état by the first performance of a Swedish opera, the libretto of which he had himself revised.800

Thenceforth “the royal charmer” governed at will, and Sweden regained much of her old prestige. The traditional alliance with France was renewed; and for a time the jealous Catharine seemed to acquiesce in the new order of things at Stockholm. In reality she never ceased to intrigue there, as also at Warsaw, seeking to recall the days of schism and weakness. The extravagance of Gustavus played into her hands. Little by little the factions regained lost ground; the Riksdag of 1786 threw out all but one of the royal measures; and the King was fain to govern more absolutely.

The Russo-Turkish War now gave him the chance for which his restless spirit longed, namely, to attempt to recover part at least of the trans-Baltic lands ceded to Russia, and to dissolve a secret Russo-Danish alliance which aimed at the overthrow of the present régime in Sweden. He therefore allied himself with the Sultan on condition of receiving a yearly subsidy of 1,000,000 piastres. He further sounded the Courts of Berlin, Warsaw, and Paris, but received no encouragement. At London, as we have seen, his overtures at Christmas 1787 were set aside. They were renewed in the spring of 1788, and received more attention, it being then the aim of Pitt to bring some of the secondary States into the projected Triple Alliance. But the ardent spirit of Gustavus far outleaped the mark. His demands for money were suspiciously large. “Sweden,” so Carmarthen wrote to Harris on 20th June 1788, “has a most voracious appetite for subsidies, but from the enormous extravagance of her demand has put it out of our power to proceed further at present on that head.”801

This was fortunate; for Gustavus was then preparing to throw down the gauntlet to Russia. Early in July he set sail for Helsingfors, and launched at Catharine a furious ultimatum, bidding her cede Carelia and Livonia to the Swedes, and restore the Crimea to the Sultan. On the receipt of that astonishing missive the imperial virago raged, wept, and swore by turns. The crisis was indeed serious. In and near St. Petersburg were only 6,000 troops.

Nevertheless she acted with her wonted vigour. She called up the Militia; and her fleet, commanded by Admiral Greig and officered largely by Britons, prepared to dispute with Gustavus the mastery of the Gulf of Finland.802 In this it succeeded. It dealt the smaller naval force of the Swedes a severe check, and soon cooped it up in Sveaborg. Meanwhile the advance of the Swedes from their Finnish province on the Russian capital was stopped by a mutiny of the officers, which soon spread to the rank and file. The causes of this event are still obscure. The admirers of Gustavus ascribed it to the factiousness of nobles and the bribes of Catharine. The Swedish Opposition, and also Charles Keene, British envoy at Stockholm, explained it as the natural outcome of the extravagance and ambition of the monarch who, not content with violating the constitution and ruining the finances of his realm, wantonly plunged it into a struggle for which he had not prepared. Consequently, when his ill-clad and ill-fed militia found that the Russian raids into Finland were a myth, and that the only enemies were royal ambition and famine, they at once thwarted the former by constituting the army as a “confederation,” and declaring their resolve for peace. If there must be war with Russia, let it be declared legally by a freely elected Diet at Stockholm.803 The Swedish crews at Sveaborg, where food and warlike munitions were alike wanting, partly joined in the movement; and the universality of the discontent, which compelled Gustavus to return helplessly to Stockholm, is perhaps sufficient proof that influences were at work more widespread than party spirit and more potent than foreign gold.

However the fact may be explained, it is certain that the Swedes, when almost within striking distance of the Russian capital, halted, sent offers of an armistice, and then retreated into Finland. Catharine was saved; but after the capture of Oczakoff from the Turks she vented her spleen in one of her icily brilliant mots: “As Mr. Pitt wishes to chase me from St. Petersburg, I hope he will allow me to take refuge at Constantinople.”

It was natural for the Empress to suspect England and Prussia of complicity in the Swedish enterprise; for she herself in a similar case would have egged on Gustavus. But the evidence in the British archives proves that neither George III nor Frederick William, Pitt nor Hertzberg, had a hand in the matter. George III and Pitt loved peace because it was economical. Through the spring and summer they were trying to effect a pacification. On 16th May 1788 the Foreign Office sent off a despatch to Ainslie urging him to co-operate with Dietz, the Prussian Minister at the Porte, in order, if possible, to pave the way for a joint mediation of England and Prussia with a view to a pacification in the East; but he was to beware of entering into other plans that the Court of Berlin might have in view, a hint against the ambitious scheme of exchanges now forming in Hertzberg’s brain. On Swedish affairs the despatch continued thus: “The Swedish armament causes much speculation both in Russia and elsewhere: the avowed purpose is the necessity of having a respectable force in that Kingdom while Russia is fitting out so formidable a fleet.”804 From this and other signs it is clear that Pitt and Carmarthen, far from expecting war in the Baltic, were intent on plans for stopping it on the Danube and Black Sea.

As for Frederick William, he did not desire war in the North, because it must curtail his pleasures; and Hertzberg, because peace would leave him free to weave his plans more systematically. Ewart, our active and zealous envoy at Berlin, who knew Hertzberg thoroughly, informed Carmarthen on 19th June that Prussia was very cautious as to forming any connection with Sweden.805 Nine days later he reported that Gustavus had made an alliance with Turkey, but probably would not attack Catharine unless she sent a fleet from Cronstadt round to the Mediterranean. On 25th July, after referring to the Swedish declaration of war against Russia, he added that the Court of Stockholm hoped for the support of Prussia only so far as to keep Denmark quiet. As for himself, he had rebuked the Swedish envoy.806

In truth the action of Gustavus annoyed both England and Prussia. They expressed to him their disapproval of his conduct in strong terms. On 29th August Carmarthen wrote to Ewart censuring the action of Gustavus, but adding that the Allies must intervene to stop the war in the Baltic.807 Pitt also, on hearing of the Danish armament, resolved to save Gustavus from utter ruin. On 1st September he wrote as follows to Grenville (not, be it noted, to Carmarthen): “We had before written to Berlin with power to Ewart to send an offer of our joint mediation if the King of Prussia agreed, and this seems now the more necessary. Our intervention may prevent his [Gustavus] becoming totally insignificant, or dependent upon Russia, and it seems to me an essential point.”808 Eight days later Carmarthen assured the Prussian Court of his satisfaction that it would join in the proposed mediation.809

The crisis was indeed most urgent. Catharine was thinking far less of flitting to Constantinople than of ousting Gustavus from Stockholm. Her treaty with Denmark contained secret clauses which bound that Court to alliance with her in case of a Russo-Swedish war; and the young Prince Royal of Denmark, though by marriage a nephew to Gustavus, was only too eager for a campaign which promised to lead to the partition of the Swedish kingdom. The excellent navy of the Danes, and their possession of Norway, gave them great facilities for the invasion of the open country near the important city of Gothenburg; and, that once taken, they could easily master the South, and leave the factions at Stockholm to complete their work.

Fortunately there was at Copenhagen one of the ablest of British envoys. Hugh Elliot, brother of Sir Gilbert Elliot, was a man of spirit and resource. His demeanour and habits of mind were as much those of a soldier as of a diplomatist; and nature had endowed him with the stately air and melodramatic arts which avail much at a crisis.810 For some time past he had suspected the ambitious views of the Prince Royal of Denmark, who despite his minority, ruled the land through the all-powerful Minister, Count Bernstorff. Their conduct was now sinister. Ostensibly they regretted that their treaty with Russia compelled them to attack Sweden, and welcomed Elliot’s suggestion of British mediation as a means of preventing such a calamity.811 Possibly this was Bernstorff’s real conviction; for Elliot found out later that the Russian party had sworn to ruin him unless he favoured a warlike policy.

Certain it is that Bernstorff had instructed Schönborn, the Danish envoy in London, to use honeyed words to Carmarthen, which virtually invited England’s friendly mediation. In reply Carmarthen “told him that the King lamented extremely the rupture which had taken place between Russia and Sweden, and assured him of His Majesty’s earnest desire to contribute as far as possible to the restoration of the tranquillity of the North.” Carmarthen sent off a special messenger to Elliot to enable him to propose immediately the mediation of England, Prussia, and Holland between Denmark and Sweden.812 Bernstorff received this offer on 25th August in the friendliest manner, and promised to check the warlike ardour of the Prince Royal. Four days later Elliot had an interview with the Prince in the hope of refuting the persistent rumours that England had incited both the Sultan and the King of Sweden to attack Russia. The Prince accepted his denials, but assured him that the Danes must fulfil their treaty obligations to Russia.

This serious news led Pitt once again directly to intervene in diplomatic affairs, and to draft the despatch of 9th September to Elliot. He there stated that the instructions already sent off to him, and to Ewart at Berlin, manifested the earnest desire of the British Government for the ending of hostilities in the Baltic, “which might be injurious to the balance of power in that part of the world.” He deplored the aggressive intentions of the Danish Court, as being alike opposed to its real interests and certain “to extend the mischiefs of the present war in a manner which cannot fail to excite the most serious attention, and to have a great effect on the conduct, of all those Courts who are interested in the relative situation of the different Powers of the Baltic.”813

Pitt, then, deeply regretted the outbreak of war in the North, but none the less resolved to prevent the threatened dismemberment of Sweden. The Prussian Court held even stronger views on the subject, and expressed its indignation at the Danish inroad into Sweden “after the repeated assurances given by the Danish Minister of pacific and moderate dispositions.”814 So keen was the annoyance at Berlin that Frederick William resolved to draw up a Declaration that, if Denmark attacked Gustavus, 16,000 Prussians would forthwith invade the Danish Duchy of Holstein. Ewart at once informed Elliot of the entire concurrence of Prussia with England, and thus enabled him to play a daring game. On the evening of 17th September, acting on the advice of Ewart, he resolved to take boat for the Swedish shore, and proceed to the headquarters of Gustavus. The news which finally prompted this decision was that the Swedish monarch had decided to accept the proffered mediation not of the Allies, but of France.815 Elliot hoped to reverse this decision and to secure the triumph of British and Prussian influence at the Swedish Court. He had not, it appears, received Pitt’s despatch cited above, or even the special Instructions sent a little earlier; but he knew enough to warrant his speaking in lofty tones, which were destined to dash the hopes of Catharine and the Prince Royal of Denmark.

We left Gustavus at Stockholm. There he did his best to quell the discontent of the burghers; but it is probable that a Revolution would have broken out but for the threat of a Danish invasion and the impending loss of Gothenburg. The national danger tended to still the strife of parties; and the King, commending his queen and children to his people, rode away to Dalecarlia in order to arouse the loyal miners and peasants of that region against the invaders. Though he harangued them on the spot where Gustavus Vasa made his memorable appeals, their response was doubtful; but, having raised a small band, he proceeded towards the threatened city.816

On his way he met the British envoy at the town of Carlstadt. For eleven days Elliot had searched for the King, and now found him without troops, without attendants, and with a small following of ill-armed peasants (29th September, 1788). Bitterly the monarch exclaimed that, like James II, he must leave his kingdom, a victim to the ambition of Russia, the treachery of Denmark, the factious treason of his nobles, and his own mistakes. Thereupon Elliot replied: “Sire, give me your Crown; I will return it to you with added lustre.” He then told him of the offer of mediation by England and Prussia on his behalf. At first, mindful of his engagements to France, Gustavus hesitated to accept it. Had he known that Elliot was acting without official instructions he might have slighted the offer. In truth, Elliot was acting only on the general direction, that he was “to prevent by every means any change in the relative situation of the Northern nations.” If this formula was vague, it was wide; and it sufficed, along with the more definite support from Berlin, to decide the fate of Sweden. Gustavus at once resolved to place himself wholly in Elliot’s hands. The latter therefore made his way to the Danish headquarters; while the King proceeded to Gothenburg.817 At that fortress the spirit of the defenders was as scanty as the means of defence. But affairs took on a new aspect when, at nightfall of 3rd October, a drenched and weary horseman sought admittance at their gate. A tumult of joy arose in the town when it was known that Gustavus was in their midst, the precursor of succouring bands. Now there was no thought of surrender.

Nevertheless, things would have gone hard with the burghers had the Danes pushed their attack home. This they seemed about to do. Elliot in his interview at their headquarters made little impression on the Prince Royal and the Commander-in-Chief, the Prince of Hesse. Their kinship to Gustavus seemed but to embitter their hostility; and they undoubtedly hoped, after the reduction of Gothenburg, to dismember the Swedish realm, and aggrandise the closely related houses of Russia and Denmark. They pressed on to Gothenburg and made ready for an assault. But in the meantime Gustavus, receiving help from seamen on British vessels in the harbour, encouraged the citizens to make ready and man the guns. So firm a front did the defenders present that the Danes on 9th October assented to Elliot’s offer of an armistice of eight days. Within that time the Prussian Declaration reached their headquarters, and lust of conquest now gave way to fear of a Prussian invasion of Jutland. Again therefore Elliot succeeded in prolonging the armistice, which finally was extended to six months (13th November–13th May 1789).

It is clear, then, that the initiative boldly taken by Ewart and Elliot, backed by the threats from Berlin, saved Sweden from a position of acute danger. The King of Sweden himself confessed in a letter to Armfelt that Elliot’s grand coup in effecting an armistice had saved his kingdom, had restored the balance of Europe, and covered England with glory. Erskine, British Consul at Gothenburg, also declared that but for “the spirited and unremitted exertions of Mr. Elliot, there is not a doubt but this city and province would have fallen into the hands of the enemy on their first advancing.”818 Elliot also described his achievements in flamboyant terms, which were called forth by an unmerited rebuke of our Foreign Office, that his instructions were to restore peace, not to threaten the Danes with war.819 His reply of 15th November ran as follows: “The success of my efforts has been almost miraculous.... Had I arrived at Carlstadt twenty-four hours later than I did; had I negotiated with less energy or success at Gothenburg than what has drawn upon me the resentment of Russia and the abettors of the boundless ambition of that Court, the Revolution in Sweden was compleated, and a combination formed in the North equally hostile to England and Prussia.” He then charged Bernstorff with duplicity in expressing a desire for peace, “while the Danes were marching on an almost defenceless town, the capture of which decided irrevocably the fate of Sweden and the Baltic.”... “Six weeks after my arrival in Sweden a victorious army of 12,000 men, animated by the presence of their Prince, in sight of a most brilliant conquest, were checked in their progress by my single efforts; were induced to evacuate the Swedish territories, and consented to a truce of six months.... Perhaps in the annals of history there is not to be found a more striking testimony of deference paid by a foreign prince to a King of England than what the Prince Royal of Denmark manifested upon this trying occasion.” He then stated that the efforts of the Prussian envoy were of no avail owing to the dislike in which he was held; and that only his [Elliot’s] influence availed to undo the harm caused by a violent action of Gustavus III in the middle of October.

It would be interesting to know what Pitt thought of this bombast; but on 5th December Carmarthen guardedly commended the magniloquent envoy, and urged him to gain over Denmark to the Triple Alliance; for, as Catharine had now declined the mediation of the Allies, while Gustavus had accepted it, Denmark could justly refuse her demands for help in the next campaign. Ostensibly Denmark refused; but, owing to the profuse expenditure of the Russian Embassy at Copenhagen (estimated by our chargé d’affaires, Johnstone, at £500 a day820), Catharine gained permission to have fifteen warships from the White Sea repaired in that dockyard.

Gustavus III no sooner found himself safe than he laid his plans for humbling his enemies both at home and abroad. He summoned a Diet, and proceeded to educate the electors in their duties by drawing up a list of the ten deputies whom the men of Stockholm should choose. They held other opinions, and sent up six declared opponents of the King.821 On the whole, however, the Estates were with him, and he imposed a constitution on the recalcitrant Order of the Nobles, whereby he gained absolute control of foreign policy. This triumph for autocracy took place at the end of April 1789, only a week before the assembly of the States-General at Versailles, which sounded the knell of the House of Bourbon. Gustavus informed Elliot of his resolve to keep at peace with Denmark, because a war with her “would turn me from my great aim—the safety of the Ottomans and the abasement of Russia.” He therefore begged Elliot to assure the prolongation of the Danish armistice for six months. That envoy had now come to see that the chief danger of Sweden lay in “the romantic projects of glory and aggrandisement formed by the Sovereign himself”; and he pointed out the need for the Allies to prescribe the terms of peace before he succumbed to the superior forces of Russia.822 Already Catharine had announced her resolve in the words—“When Gustavus has had his say to his Diet, I will have my say to him.”

With Elliot’s view of things Pitt and the Duke of Leeds (formerly Marquis of Carmarthen) were in complete accord. On 24th June they informed him that Gustavus must not expect the Allies to make peace for him on his own terms, but only on that of the status quo ante bellum. In this effort England would cordially join in order to keep the balance of power in the Baltic. “I cannot,” continued Leeds, “too often repeat the earnest desire of this Government to conciliate the Court of Denmark in the first instance; nor do we lose sight of another material object—I mean, a cordial and permanent connection with Russia.” Above all, England would not go to war unless the balance of the Baltic Powers were seriously endangered, to the detriment of the commercial States.823

Here, then, we have another proof of the peaceful and cautious character of Pitt’s policy. He distrusted the crowned Don Quixote of the North, was resolved to save him only on England’s terms, viz., the status quo, and hoped that the pacification might lead up to an alliance with Denmark and finally with Russia. In fact, he kept in view the Northern System which had guided British statesmen of the earlier generation. His aims were frustrated by the shifty policy of Denmark and the vindictiveness of Catharine. “Hamlet” and “Semiramis,” as Harris once termed them, thought lightly of England and longed for the partition of Sweden. Accordingly the Danish fleet convoyed the fifteen Russian men-of-war, long refitting at Copenhagen, into the Baltic, until they joined the Cronstadt squadron of twenty-six ships near Bornholm, and thereby secured for it a superiority in that sea. The Duke of Leeds sent a sharp protest to Copenhagen, with the hint that furthur actions of this kind might entail disagreeable consequences for Denmark.824 Even with this unfair help accorded to Russia, the Swedes sustained no serious reverse either by land or sea. Gustavus summed up the results of the campaign in the words: “After fighting like madmen about every other day for two months, here we are at the same point at which we started.” Nevertheless he had clogged the efforts of Catharine against the Turks, and thus enabled his allies to prolong the unequal struggle against two great empires. Neither the loss of Oczakoff, nor the accession of the less capable Sultan, Selim III, daunted the resolve of the Ottomans to continue a war which was for them an affair of religious zeal and national honour.