XXVI ALEXANDER III, THE PEASANTS' FRIEND.

Previous

The atrocious death of The Liberator gave the throne to his son, who succeeded as Alexander III. The new czar was thirty-six years old. Nicholas, the eldest son of Alexander II, had died of consumption in 1865, and, since he had been the heir, his younger brother had not received any special training. His principal tutor had been PobiÉdonostzeff, a man who believed in autocracy. He had imbued his pupil with a deeply religious feeling, and imparted to him a thorough knowledge of Russia's history. Alexander III was of powerful build and possessed unusual strength. He was loyal to his word, and tenacious in his likes and dislikes. Married to Princess Dagmar of Denmark, he was a model husband and father. His education made him a firm believer in autocracy.

The sudden and tragic death of his father moved him so deeply that he gave orders that the last wishes of the late czar should be respected. "Change nothing in my father's orders;" he said to Melikof; "they are his last will and testament." He issued two proclamations; in the first he announced that he would strengthen the bond with Poland and Finland, and thus gained the support of the Slavophils; and in the second, he reminded the peasants of the freedom given to them by his father, and ordered them to swear allegiance to himself and his heir. Six men and a woman implicated in the murder of the late czar were arrested, tried, condemned to death, and, with the exception of the woman, they were executed on April 15. The czar appointed his former tutor as Procurator of the Holy Synod. PobiÉdonostzeff persuaded his pupil that this was not the time to make concessions. On the 11th of May, 1881, Alexander issued a proclamation in which he declared his intention to maintain the absolute power. Melikof resigned as Minister of the Interior and was replaced by Ignatieff, the former Russian Minister at Constantinople.

Shortly after his succession to the throne, Alexander made a journey to Moscow, and was everywhere received with unmistakable tokens of loyalty and affection. This confirmed his opinion that the great bulk of the population was satisfied with the form of government, and strengthened his determination to defend it.

In 1881, an anti-semitic movement was felt in Germany; that is, an outburst of hatred for the Jews broke out, which spread to Russia. It is not generally known that of all the Jews in the world, four fifths live in Russia in the southwest, in an area of 356,681 square miles. This is sometimes mentioned as the Jewish territory. Few of these people engage in agriculture; they are sometimes mechanics, but more often peddlers, storekeepers, bankers and moneylenders. The principal objection to them was that they succeed where others fail. In May, 1881, there were anti-Jewish riots at Kief and other places. PobiÉdonostzeff's motto was, "One Russia, One Religion, One Czar;" prompted by him, Alexander did not take any energetic measures to suppress the disorder, for he, too, disliked to see in Russia a people differing in religion, language, and outward appearance. Ignatieff began a system of persecution by removing the Jews who had profited by the late czar's permission to settle anywhere, and when the act which recalled the Middle Ages was hotly condemned by the foreign press, even the Slavophils said that Ignatieff had gone too far. The persecution died out until 1884, when the Jews were deprived of their civil rights, and an attempt was made to compel them to enter the Greek Church. But the Jew is steadfast under persecution, and the only result was that some of them heartily joined the nihilists.

The public condemnation which followed these acts, induced Ignatieff to advise the czar to adopt Melikof's scheme of a constitution. Alexander did not understand this change of views and when de Giers was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ignatieff resigned. He was succeeded by D. TolstoÏ.

Misunderstandings and the clashing of interests were dissolving the triple alliance of Russia, Austria, and Germany. This was apparent in the Balkan States which had been formed after the last Russo-Turkish war. Charles I, King of Roumania, was a German prince who mistrusted Russia's schemes. In March, 1882, Prince Milan Obrenovitch of Servia assumed the title of king, and the czar offered no objection. The ruler of Bulgaria was Alexander of Battenberg who was a relative of the czar and had served in the Russian army, which may have been the reason of his appointment. The Russian Minister at his court was evidently of the opinion that his word, as representative of the czar, was law, and when he found out that his orders were set at naught, he withdrew from his post, whereupon the Russian officers serving in the Bulgarian army, were dismissed. This gave grave offense at St. Petersburg, but the affair was arranged, and the Russian Minister returned. In September, 1885, there was a revolution in Sofia, the capital of Eastern Roumelia, when the crown was offered to Alexander of Battenberg, who accepted. He hastened to inform the czar, who was too angry to pay any attention to letters or telegrams.

Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, although united under one prince, sent deputations to St. Petersburg to appease the czar, but were informed that their future would be decided by the great powers. Soon after Servia declared war against Bulgaria; after a few unimportant skirmishes, they were driven back by Prince Alexander, who would have captured the capital Belgrad, if he had not been stopped by Austria's intervention. Alexander, after another fruitless attempt to mollify the czar, applied to the sultan, who appointed him as Governor-general over Eastern Roumelia for five years. The czar protested and invited the powers to a conference which was held at Constantinople on April 5, 1886. To the infinite disgust of the czar, the dispute was decided in favor of Prince Alexander.

Russia, however, had a pro-Russian party in Bulgaria. On August 21, 1886, Prince Alexander was kidnaped and carried across the Danube, after being compelled to abdicate. At Lemberg, in Austrian territory he was set free. The Bulgarians rallied under the President of the National Assembly and forced the pro-Russians to flee, after which Prince Alexander returned on the 3d of September. Once more he made an attempt to pacify the czar, but when his telegram remained unanswered, he abdicated three days later, rather than involve the country in a war with Russia. He left on the same day, to the sorrow of the people.

The czar was angry. He knew that Austria would not have dared oppose him unless assured of the support of Germany. The feeling in Russia grew more bitter when the election in Bulgaria showed a total defeat of the pro-Russian party, and the crown was offered to Prince Waldemar of Denmark, who declined at the instance of the czar. The Bulgarians then made an offer to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who accepted, and in August made his formal entry in Tirnova. Alexander once more protested to the powers, but it passed unheeded and he urged the sultan to expel Ferdinand. Abdul Hamid declined with thanks, preferring to have as neighbor a small independent country to Russia. Alexander then demanded payment of the war indemnity due since the Treaty of San Stefano, but could obtain nothing except a profusion of excuses and apologies. Soon after the sultan had trouble in Armenia, which was Russia's latest resort to arouse public opinion against the Turk.

This is the age of colossal enterprises and combinations in every direction, in politics as well as in other branches of human activity. In Russia Slavophilism, gave way to Panslavism, that is, the scheme to unite all Slav nations. Germany was quick to respond with Pan Germanism, that is, to bring all German-speaking nations under one scepter. The czar, obeying this impulse, made every effort to convert the Baltic provinces,—which Germany called the German Provinces,—into Slavs by making the Russian language the only language that was taught in the schools; and Germany retaliated in the Polish provinces. Under these circumstances friendship ceased. Russia established a protective tariff, which was a rude blow to Germany's commerce; and that country replied by refusing to loan Russia any more money. The czar's government applied to France which responded with unexpected generosity. From that time Russia's internal improvements have been made with French capital.

Prudent as he was, Alexander allowed his anger and dislike to master him, when Prince Alexander of Battenberg was accepted as suitor to a daughter of Queen Victoria. Troops were hurried from the Caucasus into Poland, but Germany averted war by having the match broken off. When the present German emperor, William II, succeeded to the throne, he attempted to make friends with the czar by dismissing Prince Bismarck, in 1890, but Alexander could neither forgive nor forget. It was chiefly owing to this that Russia and France drew closer together until it ended in an alliance.

Strong, self-willed, and masterful, Alexander did love his people in his own way. In January, 1884, he ordered the poll-tax to be abolished, and thereby relieved the peasants of a heavy burden; he also compelled the landowners to sell to their former serfs the land cultivated by them. Since the price was payable in installments and the owners needed the money, the government assumed the position of creditor, but Alexander reduced the total indebtedness by 12,000,000 rubles, and granted 5,000,000 rubles for the relief of overburdened villages. He calculated that the land would be paid for in 1930, when the title will be vested in the mir,—unless one of his successors should please to appropriate the past payments for other purposes.

In the black earth belt the allotments had been according to the needs of the population, but the increase among the people rendered them too small and several severe famines followed. The government tried to induce the surplus population to emigrate to Siberia, but the Russian peasant lacks education and has been held in tutelage so long that he is not fit for the life of a pioneer settler. Transportation facilities increased by the aid of French capital, and added to the prosperity of merchants and speculators, but did not help the moujik who did not know how to profit by them.

Alexander, as autocrat of all the Russias, did not suffer any authority but his own. The zemstvos, volosts, and mirs, were all placed under officials appointed by him. Every shadow of self-government was destroyed. This demanded a reorganization of the army, which was increased by 900,000 men. The reserves were called out once a year, and drilled as in actual war. Strategic railways were built for the speedy transportation of troops. Coast defenses were constructed and the navy was increased. In 1884, Batoum was closed as a port and converted into a naval base, and when England protested, claiming that this was in violation of the Treaty of Berlin,—as it was,—Russia, referring to the changes in the Balkan, inquired if the duty of observing the treaties was reserved exclusively for Russia.

Alexander's reign was especially discouraging for the Poles who still hoped for the revival of their country. Poles were made into Russians; but Panslavism demanded that the German should be banished. In 1887, Alexander ordered that, when a foreign landowner in Poland died, his estate must be sold unless his heirs had been residents of Poland before this order was published. Germany, suffering from Pan-Germanism, collected several thousand Russian Poles who had settled in Germany, and put them across the frontier. Russia replied by making a law in the Baltic provinces that nothing but Russian could be taught in any school, and that no more Lutheran churches could be built without the permission of the Holy Synod.

Then came Finland's turn. In 1890, Russian money, Russian stamps, and worse than that, Russian taxes were introduced. There were loud protests, which received courteous answers, but the process continued. In 1891, the Finnish Committee at St. Petersburg, which had directed the affairs of Finland, was abolished, and Russian censorship abolished the free press. The Russian language was made obligatory, and the Finns who could afford it emigrated to the United States and settled in the northwest.

In 1890, Alexander ordered the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, of which more will be said in the chapter on Asiatic Russia.

All these years Alexander had battled with nihilism and revolution. His policy neither gave nor asked for quarter. In May, 1888, an army officer named Timovief made an attempt upon the czar's life. On October 29th of the same year, as he was traveling in southern Russia an accident occurred in which twenty-one were killed and many injured; it was ascribed to nihilists, but may have been caused by defects. Be that as it may, Alexander never recovered from the shock. In March, 1890, another plot against his life was discovered. In November, 1891, the secret police came on the scent of a conspiracy at Moscow, and in April, 1894, they learned of one at St. Petersburg. In constant fear of assassination, Alexander resided at Gatschina, twenty-five miles south of St. Petersburg, as in an armed fortress. The never-ceasing tension wore out the strong man. He caught cold and suffering from inflammation of the kidneys he went south, but experienced no relief. He died on the 1st of November, 1894.

In his private life he was essentially a good man; as czar, he acted according to his convictions. He gave much thought to the welfare of the peasants and as such deserved the surname of The Peasants' Friend.

Nicholas II

XXVII—RUSSIA UNDER THE PRESENT CZAR.

NICHOLAS II.

"Neglect nothing that can make my son truly a man!" This was the instruction given by Alexander to the tutors of his son. Consequently, Nicholas in his youth was allowed to indulge in manly exercises and sports, while special tutors taught him mathematics, natural philosophy, history, political economy, English, French, and German, besides his native language. Destined for the throne, he began his military career at the age of thirteen as hetman of the Cossacks, and passed successively through the different grades. In 1889, at the age of twenty-one, he was appointed president of a committee to prepare plans for the Trans-Siberian railway, and the following year he made a tour in the Far East, visiting China and Japan. In the last-named country he was attacked and wounded by a police officer who had been brooding over the wrongs which his country had suffered at the hands of Russia. Nicholas recovered and proceeded to Vladivostok, where he initiated the building of the great continental line. He returned to St. Petersburg by way of Siberia and Moscow, and was the first czar who had ever visited his Asiatic empire.

Born on May 18, 1868, he was twenty-six years old when he was called to the throne. He announced that he would "promote the progress and peaceful glory of our beloved Russia, and the happiness of all our faithful subjects." On the 26th of November, 1894, the czar married Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who, on entering the Greek Church, received the name of Alexandra Feodorofna. The czar retained his father's ministers, except that Prince Khilkof, who had learned practical railroading in the United States, was appointed Minister of Public Works. PobiÉdonostzeff continued as Procurator of the Holy Synod.

Nicholas showed greater leniency toward Poland and Finland than his father had done. He revoked several of his father's ukases and seemed to be willing to treat them fairly. Finland's forests are a source of great prosperity and the Russian officials have long been anxious to secure a share. When the Secretary of State for Finland resigned, General Kuropatkin became Minister of War, and he wished to introduce Russia's military system. General Bobrikof, a brusque and haughty man, was appointed Governor-general with instructions to proceed with the conversion of the Finns into Slavs. He convoked an extraordinary session of the Diet, January 24, 1899, and submitted Kuropatkin's scheme, with a strong hint that it must pass. The Diet ignored the hint and rejected the scheme, whereupon Bobrikof ignored the Diet and published it as a law to go into effect in 1903. An imperial ukase of February 15, 1899, reorganized the Diet according to a plan drawn up by PobiÉdonostzeff. Bobrikof increased the rigor of the press censorship, but the Finns remained within the law. A petition was circulated which in ten days secured 500,000 signatures, and a delegation was sent to St. Petersburg to present it. The delegation was not admitted.

In January, 1895, the czar received a deputation of all classes of his subjects who hinted that the zemstvos might be used as the germ of a constitutional government. He replied that he believed in autocracy and that he intended to maintain it as his predecessors had done. On the 26th of May, 1896, he was crowned at Moscow with more than usual splendor, and in the same year he and the czarina made a tour through Europe. After visiting the German Emperor and Queen Victoria, they went to Paris where the czar, after reviewing 100,000 soldiers declared that the Empire and the Republic were united in indissoluble friendship. The visit was returned by the President of the French Republic, M. Faure, in August, 1897. On this occasion the world received notice that an alliance existed between the two powers, and that, if one of them was attacked by more than one power, the other would assist with the whole of its military and naval strength, and peace could be concluded only in concert between the allies.

Two great reforms are noticeable under the present reign. The sale of spirits has greatly decreased since the government took the monopoly of the manufacture and sale of liquor. The French loans made the establishment of the gold standard possible and speculation in Russian paper money ceased.

The completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway aroused great expectation for the future of Russia's commerce. The war with Japan has prevented the possibility of estimating the effect it will have upon oceanic trade. But Russia's manufactures have had a wonderful increase; its effect is shown in the population of the cities. In 1870, Russia contained only six cities with a population of over 100,000; their number was doubled in 1897. Warsaw, the old capital of Poland, had 243,000 inhabitants in 1865; in 1897, they had increased to 615,000. Lotz, also in Poland, rose from 12,000 to 315,000. This cannot fail to exert a powerful influence upon the future of the empire; first, on account of the creation of a middle class which, even at this early day, numbers nine per cent of the population; and next, because the mechanics and factory hands are recruited from among the peasants, who thus are brought into daily contact with more intelligent people, and acquire new ideas and new necessities. The official class is bitterly opposed to this new departure, because it foreshadows the day when the drag upon Russia will be cast off.

Nicholas seems to have reversed his father's policy in the Balkan States. He also acted in concert with Europe in 1896, when trouble arose between Turkey and Greece. It began in Crete, where Turk and Christian could not agree. Stories of massacres infuriated the Greeks and the king had to choose between a revolution and a declaration of war. In April, 1897, an army of 80,000 men under Prince George crossed into Thessaly, but was driven back by a Turkish army of 150,000 men. Prince George had invaded Crete in February, but the powers compelled him to evacuate the island. The czar interceded with the sultan, and the absurd war was ended.

The Slavophils, after their failure in the Balkan provinces had excited the Armenians in the provinces near the Russian Caucasus. They attacked the Kurds, a nomadic tribe of Mussulmans, when the Turks took the side of their co-religionists and treated the Armenians with no soft hand. The Panslavists demanded autonomy for Armenia, but this did not suit Prince Lobanof, who had succeeded de Giers as Minister of Foreign Affairs, because he feared trouble in the Caucasus. In 1895, Russia, France, and England, presented a note to the sultan, suggesting the appointment of a high commissioner, the abolition of torture, and reforms in taxation. Turkey agreed, but Shakir Pasha, the high commissioner, failed to restore order and the disorder threatened to become a revolt. Even in Constantinople a condition of anarchy prevailed.

The atrocities committed by the Turks aroused indignation everywhere, when the Armenians seized the Ottoman Bank, but the conspirators were forced to flee from the building and to seek refuge on an English yacht. The Turks were furious and killed more than 5,000 Armenians. Again the powers remonstrated; but at this time it began to dawn upon the public that the Armenians were a least quite as much to blame as the Turks, and the interest subsided. Russia had discovered that the Armenians are undesirable citizens, and sent back some 40,000 of them who had settled in the Russian Caucasus. Germany, intent upon securing concessions from Turkey, left the sultan a free hand; meanwhile the British public was engrossed by the Boer war, and the Armenians, seeing that they were left to their own devices, subsided.

The civilized world was startled when, on August 24, 1898, Russia issued a note to the powers, declaring that "military and naval budgets attack public prosperity at its very source, and divert national energies from useful aims," and suggesting a conference to discuss the subject of displacing war by an International Court.

The note received generous applause, especially in the United States and Great Britain, the two foremost nations devoted to the arts of peace. The several governments agreed to participate in the proposed conference. The place selected was The Hague, the capital of the Netherlands, where the sessions opened on May 18, 1899.

Of all the great powers, the United States was the only one unreservedly in favor of an arrangement whereby war would be prevented. Most of the other powers looked upon an International Court as visionary, and so far as the ostensible purpose is concerned, the conference was a failure. Still, it bore fruit in defining and adding strength to international law. Among its most important results is the clause that "When a conflict seems imminent, one or several powers shall have the right to offer mediation, and its exercise shall not be regarded as an unfriendly act." A permanent Court of Arbitration was established at The Hague. It is composed of judges selected from a list on which every country is represented. On the 29th of July, the delegates of sixteen nations signed the protocol embodying the conclusions; it was afterwards signed by sixteen more. It remained, however, with the United States, to give vitality to an institution which was looked upon with ill favor by many governments.

Although the reign of terror from the nihilists has passed, political murder is still rampant in Russia, and recent events in the Far East have caused a renewal of the agitation for reforms. In 1904, the Governor-general of Finland was assassinated, and soon afterwards, the hated and dreaded Minister of the Interior de Plehve shared that fate. His successor seems to be anxious to grant greater liberties to the people. The united action of the zemstvos, and the final issue of the war in the Far East, may have important results. Nicholas II, amid all his perplexities, was made glad by the birth of a son and heir, who received the name of Alexis.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Clyx.com


Top of Page
Top of Page