| |
Peter was the son of Tsar
Alexei Mikhailovich and Natal'ia Kirillovna
Naryshkina, born in Moscow on May 30th, 1672. Alexei had five sons and eight
daughters by his first wife, but only two, Fedor and Ivan lived and they were
sickly. Fedor became tsar when Aleksei died in 1676.
He died childless in 1682, leaving the throne to the half-brothers
Ivan and Peter. Each was the child figurehead for a
contending faction centered around their mothers' clans, the Miloslavskii and
Naryshkini, respectively. A regency was declared with their elder
half-sister, Sophia, as regent and control of the
government in the hands of her lover, Prince, V. V. Golitsyn. The young Peter
witnessed the often bloody battles between the clans and riots of the
streltzi guards. But in general his youth was spent in seclusion and
regal privilege. Peter's mother arranged his marriage in 1689 to Evdokiia
Fedorovna Lopukhina. They had a son, Alexei, whom Peter had tried for treason
and executed. Alexei had a son who became Peter II.
Peter divorced Evdokiia and married (Catherine1)
They had two daughters, Elizabeth, who engineered a
palace coup to gain the throne, and Anna, the mother of the future
Peter III. The family is shown on this chart.
During Sophia's regency two major but unsuccessful campaigns were
attempted against the Crimean Tatars, much to Peter's disgust. In 1689 Sophia
attempted to use a streltzi revolt to eliminate Peter and place herself on the
throne. Peter fled to the fortified Trinity-St. Sergius monastery from which he
rallied his forces including the regiments commanded by foreign officers such
as Patrick Gordon. Sophia was placed in a convent and Peter's clan took
control, but Peter himself spent most of his time sailing and organizing his
private regiments along Western lines. He increased recruitment of foreign
military specialists. Recognizing that Crimea was too difficult a target, his
first major military effort was directed against the Turks at Azov. The first
campaign, in 1695, failed utterly, but Peter issued decrees ordering boyars and
merchants to construct ships on the Don and the following year returned to
capture the city. In 1697 he went on a "Grand Embassy" lasting 16
months throughout Western Europe as far as England, Holland and France. His
initial objective was to organize an alliance against the Turks, but failing
this he agreed to the proposals of King Augustus "the Strong" of
Saxony that the time was ripe for a war against Sweden. He was successful in
recruiting thousands of Dutch, English, and other expert artisans and military
specialists to help him establish a modern navy as well as improve the Russian
army. After signing a peace treaty with the Ottomans, he turned his attention
to the main objective, gaining access to the Baltic Sea. Peter conducted secret
mobilization of new regiments during 1698-99 and opened the Great Northern War
in 1700 with a surprise attack to besiege the Swedish border fortress at Narva,
while the Swedish King Charles XII and army were busy fighting in Denmark.
Peter did not reckon with Charles's military genius or audacity. The Swedes
quickly forced Denmark to sue for peace and then rapidly transferred their army
to Livonia. By fall Charles surprised Peter, routing the Russian army and
capturing nearly all its artillery. Peter fled to Moscow, but immediately set
about building a new army and casting new cannon from confiscated church bells.
He expanded state revenues by 300% or more and devoted over 90% of it to the
military.
Charles made a strategic mistake by spending most of 1701-1708 maneuvering
against Augustus in Poland and Saxony while Peter trained his new army by
conducting raids and small-scale attacks in Livonia and Lithuania. Peter
captured the Swedish fortresses on the Neva River, securing his long sought
access to the Baltic, and went on to capture Narva in 1704. In 1708, when
Charles turned again against Russia by shifting his troops into eastern Poland
for a campaign against Moscow, Peter was ready. He executed a "scorched
earth" strategy, blocking Charles' direct path toward Moscow and forcing
him southeast into the expanses of Ukraine. Charles expected major
reinforcements and supplies from the Cossacks ruled by Hetman Mazeppa, but
Peter preempted his by sending a mobile detachment to destroy the Cossack Sech.
He also destroyed a Swedish relief column bringing critical supplies and
artillery at Lesnia. Finally, in 1709, as Charles was attempting to capture the
key supply base at Poltava, Peter appeared in person with his much enlarged and
better trained army. Charles reacted in typical fashion by launching a frontal
assault against the Russian force over twice as large as his and dug in with
field fortifications. Peter's counterattack and subsequent pursuit destroyed
the Swedish army and Charles was forced to flee into Turkey.
For the remainder of the war Peter focused attention on building a navy in
the Baltic capable of wresting control from the Swedes and in gaining control
of the coastline in Finland, Courland and Lithuania. By 1725 he had 44 major
ships in the Baltic and an army of 170,000 or more equipped with Russian made
uniforms and weapons. The transformation of Russian industry made necessary by
this enormous expenditure constituted one of the most profound and lasting
changes of his reign. Charles died in battle in Norway in 1718 and his
successor brought the war to a close with the treaty of Nystadt in 1721.
The military transformation was accompanied by equal or greater changes in
all aspects of society. Peter decreed the adoption of Western methods and
manners in dress, housing construction, education, medicine, city planning,
government administration and much more. He reorganized the control of the
Russian Orthodox Church, placing it under state control. Peter's new capital,
St. Petersburg, became a thoroughly European city in which thousands of
Westerners taught and helped administer the empire. The Russian language itself
gained thousands of Western European words. When he died in 1725, Peter had set
Russia on a course that integrated its artistic and cultural life with that of
Europe and soon brought it to the rank of a major European and world power.
|
|
