Humble riot civil unrest
Victory in war had strengthened those who upheld the established order, serfdom and all. While he was thus preoccupied with diplomacy and religion, Russia was ruled by conservatives and reactionaries, among whom the brutal but honest Gen. After 1815 Alexander was mainly concerned with grandiose plans for international peace his motivation was not merely political but also religious-not to say mystical-for the years of war and national danger had aroused in him an interest in matters of faith to which, as a pupil of the 18th-century Enlightenment, he had previously been indifferent. Both periods produced some valuable administrative innovations, but neither initiated any basic reform. In the period from 1807 to 1812, he had as his chief adviser the liberal Mikhail Speransky. During the first, from 1801 to 1803, the tsar took counsel with four intimate friends, who formed his so-called Unofficial Committee, with the intention of drafting ambitious reforms. The early years of his reign saw two short periods of attempted reform. Russia’s abundant manpower and scanty financial resources were both consumed in war. His hopes were disappointed, partly by the sheer inertia, backwardness, and vastness of his domains, partly perhaps because of defects of his own character, but also because Napoleon’s aggressive enterprises diverted Alexander’s attention to diplomacy and defense. Courtesy of Hillwood, Washington, D.C.Īlexander I as a young man had longed to reform his empire and benefit his subjects. Merriweather Post, Hillwood, Washington, D.C. Nicholas I, detail of a watercolour by Christina Robertson, 1840 in the collection of Mrs. Nicholas died in the bitter knowledge of general failure. The vast empire was unable to mobilize, equip, and transport enough troops to defeat the medium-size French and English forces under very mediocre command. But the Crimean War (1853–56) showed that this giant had feet of clay. To the upper classes in central Europe, Nicholas I was the stern defender of monarchical legitimacy to democrats all over the world, he was “the gendarme of Europe” and the chief enemy of liberty. Russia was not loved, but it was admired and feared. When Europe was convulsed by revolution in 1848 ( see Revolutions of 1848), Russia and Great Britain alone among the great powers were unaffected, and in the summer of 1849 the tsar sent troops to crush the Hungarians in Transylvania. During this period, Russian armies fought only against weaker enemies: Persia in 1826, Turkey in 1828–29, Poland in 1830–31, and the mountaineers of the Caucasus during the 1830s and ’40s. The immense prestige achieved in these campaigns was maintained until mid-century. From the westward advance of its arms in the next two years of heavy fighting, Russia emerged as Europe’s greatest land power and the first among the continental victors over Napoleon. After the Treaty of Tilsit (1807), there were five years of peace, ended by Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Defeated at Austerlitz in December 1805, the Russian armies fought Napoleon in Poland in 18, with Prussia as an ineffective ally. His hope that he would then be able to concentrate on internal reform was frustrated by the reopening of war with Napoleon in 1805. The new emperor quickly made peace with both France and Britain and restored normal relations with Austria. When Alexander I came to the throne in March 1801, Russia was in a state of hostility with most of Europe, though its armies were not actually fighting its only ally was its traditional enemy, Turkey. Russia from 1801 to 1917 The reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I General survey
The reign of Peter I (the Great 1689–1725).
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