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cahnBackground: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-06 02:05 pm (UTC)For an alliance system that was supposed to lead to peace, the Russians weren't expecting almost immediate war on two fronts.
But here they are.
Map comparisons
This is where we're going to take a compare-and-contrast look at two maps. I'm sorry I don't have one of 1774, because the difference between 1740 and 1783 includes two sets of changes that affect us here, but I'll talk you through it.
Here's 1740:
Here's the 1783-1792 map I've been showing you in the last few posts (which is slightly inaccurate for the Turkish borders during the 1768-1772 period):
Differences between 1740 and 1774:
* Fritz has Silesia.
* Fritz has his land bridge to East Prussia (First Polish Partition).
* Austria-Hungary has Galicia (First Polish Partition).
* The border between Russia and Poland is a bit farther west (First Polish Partition).
Differences between 1774 and 1789:
Check out the south of Russia: Taurida and Crimea. That change happened in two steps, the Russo-Turkish War that we're talking about now, and some follow-up conquests in the 1780s.
At the end of the Russo-Turkish war in 1774, Russia gets a bit of territory, some ports, and the right to sail the Black Sea, which had been denied to them in the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739 (the war where FS was supposed to demonstrate his military prowess and instead demonstrated that you should probably keep him far away from waging a campaign).
Russia does *not* get Wallachia and Moldavia, despite having conquered and occupied these territories, because Austria freaked out and the First Polish Partition happened instead, as described elsewhere in this write-up. But Russia retains the right to interfere in the provinces (as Poland shows, the ability to interfere in another country is almost more valuable than annexing the country, because people will start war with you when you annex territory. Fritz: tell me about it).
Similarly, the region of Crimea goes from being Ottoman territory to a nominally independent territory that is de facto under the control of Russia, but then in 1783 gets annexed.
History of Russian involvement in Crimea
Peter the Great had conquered some Crimean territory, most importantly the port of Asov, back in 1696, but he wasn't able to hold it. The Ottomans won it back. Among Peter's number one goals in life was building up the Russian navy. He was one of the most navally inclined rulers Europe saw in this period (as you will know if you've gotten that far in Massie,
Remember that the Great Northern War was fought by Russia to gain access to the Baltic sea via the territory of Livonia, which had been conquered by Sweden in the 17th century. Peter's attempt to take Asov was the same deal: Black Sea access. No ports, no navy, no trade empire.
Catherine has the same goals: she wants Russia to control the Black Sea. Thanks to the peace terms of 1774, she's mostly got it. The Turks still "control" it, but with a much diminished navy. No Russian warships are allowed to sail there, but commercial ships can carry guns. They Russians are allowed to construct a battle fleet in port. So Catherine succeeded at Peter's goals here. As the epic rap battle says, "Pickin' up where Peter the Great left off."
Then in 1783, she decides that having a nominally independent Crimea is more trouble than it's worth, and Russia just annexes the whole thing.
A few years later, in 1787, there's the legendary trip down the Dnieper, in which Catherine and Joseph go to inspect what Potemkin has done with the newly conquered territory. This is the trip that gives rise to the term "Potemkin villages", the idea that Potemkin swindled Catherine into thinking he'd actually populated and economically stimulated the area, because western Europe couldn't/didn't want to believe what he'd accomplished in such a short time. But they were very much real; Joseph didn't want it either, but he was there and he was a close observer who would have noticed if it was all fake.
The Crimean peninsula will remain in Russian hands until 1914, and Russia will invade it again in 2014. Then we all know what happens with further Ukraine invasions. The idea that this territory belongs to Russia goes back to the 1774 conquest and 1783 annexation.
Russo-Turkish War
Meanwhile, back in 1768-1774, Catherine wants to conquer Constantinople. She named her second grandson Constantine for this reason, in hopes that he could be the new emperor there.
Alexei Orlov, brother of her lover Grigory, (this is the end of Grigory's tenure and just before the start of Potemkin's) also wants to get the Greeks as allies and start a revolt. After leading the Russian navy around the Baltic, down to Portugal, across the Mediterranean, and east to Turkey, he attempts to coordinate an uprising in Greece. As the Russians don't speak the language or understand the locals, and look down on them a lot, the locals are not super into being "liberated" by this obnoxious superpower and decline to help. Orlov concludes the Greeks are too stupid to be useful.
Mildred: Yes, I'm sure that attitude was super helpful in trying to inspire the Greeks to help you out, Russians.
The good news (for the Russians) is that in 1770, they manage to destroy the Ottoman fleet. Partly in pitched battle, but mostly by setting it on fire and watching the flames spread. This was the battle of Chesme, and it freaked Europe out a bit. It was supposed to be good that two major powers were duking it out, that was supposed to weaken them both and distract them from [insert your own country here], but instead one of them is winning too easily!!
The Russians also win other major battles that year. They're basically on a 1770 stampede through Ottoman territory, and it freaks Europe out. Fritz and the Austrian triumvirate (MT/Joseph/Kaunitz) start pushing Catherine to make peace, give up some of her conquests, agree to moderate terms, and let Prussia and Austria help mediate in the negotiations. (This may sound generous, btw, but throughout this period, mediating between other warring powers is a thing that gives you major political capital with your neighbors. It means you're powerful enough to be taken seriously and have the ability to help enforce the agreement. Fritz is thus constantly offering to mediate, because it's a political step up for Prussia from "insignificant power" up through F1 to "growing" under FW to "We MADE it!" under Fritz.)
Catherine, though, as we'll see, is drunk on victory and doesn't want to make concessions or moderate peace terms. That's part of the reason Prussia and Austria are like, "...Maybe we should just partition Poland to distract her from conquering THE ENTIRE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. Because that seems worse."
We'll get into that in more detail; stay tuned!
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-06 07:12 pm (UTC)Wow, talk about having ambitions! What happened to him later?
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-07 11:20 am (UTC)Professionally, Constantine got seen as a brave fighter in the Napoleonic wars but a terrible Governor of Poland thereafter, driving the Poles into the latest revolt. The most disturbing thing about him, though, is that according to his English wiki entry he had a woman gang raped with his pals when she refused to become his mistress, then killed her for good measure.
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-07 11:26 am (UTC)Terrible husband to first wife:
"The brutal Constantine treated his consort like a slave. So far did he forget all good manners and decency that, in the presence of his rough officers, he made demands on her, as his property, which will hardly bear being hinted of." Due to his violent treatment and suffering health problems as a result, Juliane separated from Konstantin in 1799; she eventually settled in Switzerland. An attempt by Konstantin in 1814 to convince her to return broke down in the face of her firm opposition.
Gang-rape:
Konstantin's violent behaviour continued unabated. In 1802, he asked a close friend, General Karl Baur, to hand over his mistress, the wife of a Portuguese businessman, Madame Araujo. Baur agreed but Araujo refused to sleep with the Grand Duke. In retaliation, he had her kidnapped and brought to his Marble Palace where “he and his aides beat and gang-raped her, starting with generals, then officers and finally servants and guardsmen, breaking her legs and arms. She died soon afterwards.” Emperor Alexander I attempted to cover up the crime then, when General Kutuzov insisted on investigating, “announced a special commission which outrageously declared that Madame Araujo had died of a stroke”.
Yikes.
and even went as far as withdrawing from the succession in order to be able to do so.
Also according to Wiki, there was an attempt to put him on the throne after Alexander died, but he was all "DNW! DNW! They strangled my father, they will strangle me."
Given that both his father (Paul) and his grandfather (Peter III) were assassinated, I can see why he didn't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.
Finally, I want to remind everyone that Voltaire was in favor of the Greek project. He wrote to Catherine:
It's all very well to say that the Mohammadanian religion should pose a counterweight to the Greek religion and the Greek religion to the Catholic one. I'd love for you to be the counterweight. I'm always aggrieved at the idea that the feet of some pasha should walk through the ashes of Themistocles and of Alcibiades. This image makes me want to throw up as much as the one of Cardinals petting their doves at the tombs of Marcus Aurelius does.
Seriously, I don't understand why the Empress-Queen doesn't sell her household goods and equips her son, the Emperor, your friend - in as much as people of your rank can have friends - with her last Taler so he can go at the head of an army to Adrianopel and await Cathereine there. This enterprise strikes me as so natural, so easy, so beautiful that I can't understand why it has not yet been accomplished; of course your majesty would have received a good glass of wine out of this deal. Everyone has their chimera; this is mine.
To which
(Voltaire, you don't want to know how "liberating" Muslim nations "for their own good" works out; you truly don't. Incidentally, Joseph and Catherine did fight the Ottomans together at a later point, post MT's death. This did not go well for Joseph.)]
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-07 11:33 am (UTC)Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-08 11:24 am (UTC)Well, thanks for the reply, anyway!
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-07 11:31 am (UTC)Reminder that Voltaire was all for it and thought that Fritz should help her doing it. Mainly because he saw the Ottoman Empire as the worst in terms of human rights (especially for women), beating out Russia, France and the Vatican combined.
Re: the naming, calling her oldest grandchild "Alexander" doesn't speak of humble ambitions, either. (Especially as he was the first Alexander on the Russian throne, this was not going back to a tradition.)
BTW ,it's something you can quiz not just foreign tourists but Germans with: whom is the Alexanderplatz in Berlin named after? (Because there obviously was no Prussian king called Alexander, and while there were some German Dukes like Goethe's bff who had Alexander as one of their names - i.e. Carl Alexander - they couldn't be the naming reason, either, or else the full name would have been used. And said square is, in fact, named after Catherine's grandson, Czar Alexander, for his help to Prussia in the Napoleonic wars.
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-07 11:34 am (UTC)Haha, salon hive mind is strong today; you and I are typing up the same posts at the same time! :D
Re: the naming, calling her oldest grandchild "Alexander" doesn't speak of humble ambitions, either. (Especially as he was the first Alexander on the Russian throne, this was not going back to a tradition.
Very true.
nd while there were some German Dukes like Goethe's bff who had Alexander as one of their names - i.e. Carl Alexander
I thought it was Carl August?
And said square is, in fact, named after Catherine's grandson, Czar Alexander, for his help to Prussia in the Napoleonic wars.
Cool, I had been to the Alexanderplatz but did not know who it was named after!
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-07 11:36 am (UTC)Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774
Date: 2024-01-07 10:42 pm (UTC)Oof. Thanks for the history.
As the Russians don't speak the language or understand the locals, and look down on them a lot, the locals are not super into being "liberated" by this obnoxious superpower and decline to help. Orlov concludes the Greeks are too stupid to be useful.
Lololol. Yes, the natural conclusion to draw.
That's part of the reason Prussia and Austria are like, "...Maybe we should just partition Poland to distract her from conquering THE ENTIRE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. Because that seems worse."
Heh. Right, I'll tune in!