1832.] [ 313 ] 



^.w-WjLl p KUSSIA IN 1832 ' 



ENGLAND and France have hurled their gauntlets at the powers of 

 the North; they have ratified the Belgian treaty with a straight-for- 

 ward, manly decision, that must command even .the admiration of their 

 political adversaries. The question of peace and war now depends upon 

 the fiat of the Russian Autocrat. Will he, flushed with the conquest of 

 unhappy Poland, brave the concentrated might of the two most power- 

 ful states in the world ? Will he, though backed by Prussia and Austria, 

 tempt the fearful chances of a general war ? Anticipating the march of 

 events, we answer these two questions with a decided negative. 



Previous to the time of Peter the Great the influence of Russia upon 

 the political system of Europe was an absolute nullity ; by her more 

 civilized neighbours she was regarded solely as an Asiatic barbarian 

 power. But the genius of Peter awoke the giant from his slumber, and 

 aroused those energies, physical and moral, to which an uninterrupted 

 succession of great and warlike sovereigns have since given so fearful 

 and rapid a development. With the exception of the United States, the 

 march of empire of this northern power is unprecedented in the annals 

 of the world. Victorious in every war, Russia, from the reign of her 

 great regenerator to the present day, has never made peace without 

 acquiring a vast extension of territory and political influence. The 

 plans of Catharine were of the most gigantic and grasping character, 

 and form the basis of Russian policy. Her son, Paul, meditated the 

 conquest of British India ; the invading army was Already in motion on 

 the eastern frontier, when the untimely fate of that monarch arrested the 

 solution of this great military problem. The plan of campaign and the 

 line of operations of the invading army may be found in the Archives 

 of the Ecole de 1'Etat Major at St. Petersburg. The character of the 

 late emperor, and the extraordinary events of his reign, are too contem- 

 porary not to be generally known. It may be said, however, that under 

 the mask of moderation he concealed the grasping ambition, the deeply- 

 dyed political duplicity of his imperial grandame ; and the aim of his 

 whole political life was to realize her darling and gigantic designs. 



So far back as the year 1793, the ambitious views of Russia were 

 watched with jealousy by the government of this country. In that year 

 Mr. Pitt moved an address to his Majesty, praying the sending of a 

 squadron to the Baltic to protect our ally the King of Sweden, a 

 measure which was at the time successfully opposed by our present 

 premier, Lord Grey. But it was the master-mind of Napoleon that 

 marked with a foreboding eye, the onward roll of the Russian tide that 

 gained ground with every breaker and threatened to submerge the 

 European continent. To roll back this torrent, to " refouler la Russie" 

 (his favourite expression) back on her ancient deserts, were the views of 

 Napoleon, when he undertook the memorable campaign of 1812, a 

 campaign dictated by as sound policy as it was marked by a departure 

 from all sound military principle, and to which only its failure ought to 

 be ascribed. Victorious on every battle-field, the invading army fought 

 its way through every obstacle, and nobly gained the objective point of 

 their plan of campaign Moscow. When the Russian people, with heroic 

 devotion, sacrificed their ancient capital at the shrine of patriotism, where 

 the forward position of the invading army was no longer tenable 

 then it was that the original vice in the plan of campaign became evi- 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XIII. No. 75. Y 



