Alexander I: Tsar of War and Peace

by Alan Palmer

  There was indeed much in Alexander’s behaviour during the three years following his sister’s death to tax the patience of even the most loyal among his civil servants. For months at a time he was absent from the capital, sometimes travelling in the provinces of the Empire or in his Polish Kingdom but on other occasions crossing the frontier and attending the international Congresses which were a feature of the diplomatic system in this period. Elizabeth once explained to her mother that he found all this travelling inside Russia tedious but essential if he were to keep in touch with the mood of his people.17 Certainly in the first part of his reign he had tended to identify St Petersburg with Russia as a whole and it was therefore sensible for him to see what was happening in distant regions of the Empire. In June 1819, for example, he travelled north to Archangel and then returned by way of Finland, seeing a country where conditions were totally different from the plains and steppes with which he was familiar. He felt, too, that it was necessary for him to attend in person the annual sessions of the Polish Diet in Warsaw, not least because of the growing unpopularity of Constantine. Yet it is questionable whether he gained much from these long journeys. Too often he travelled at the madcap pace which he had always affected in moments of worry and tension. What could the racing wheels of a carriage teach him of the real problems of his peoples? Moreover it was as difficult to govern an autocracy with a peripatetic sovereign in time of peace as it had been when he was leading his armies across Europe. There were delays in tackling the problems of other parts of the Empire, and in answering despatches from ambassadors abroad. ‘At present’, Prince Viazemsky complained, ‘Russia is governed from the seat of a post chaise.’18

  The Tsar’s restlessness, his utter inability to stay for any length of time in one place, could not be rationalized, however much Elizabeth might try to make it sound as if he were travelling in search of knowledge. He was tired and bored, interested in religion but in little else. During the summer of 1819 (apparently before setting out for Archangel) he visited Krasnoe Selo, where his brother Nicholas’s brigade was in camp. After inspecting the Ismailovsky Regiment the Tsar dined with Nicholas and the Grand Duchess Alexandra and suddenly informed them ‘that he was doubly pleased to see Nicholas carry out his duties well because on him would fall one day a heavy weight of responsibility’. Alexandra has left a record of the Tsar’s further remarks that evening:

  He looked on him [Nicholas] as the person who would replace him; and this would happen much sooner than anyone imagined, since it would occur while he himself was still alive. We sat there like two statues, open-eyed and dumb. The Emperor went on: ‘You seem astonished, but let me tell you that my brother, Constantine, who has never bothered about the throne, is more than ever determined to renounce it formally and to pass on his rights to his brother Nicholas and his descendants. As for myself I have decided to free myself of my functions and to retire from the world … I am no longer the man I was, and I think it is my duty to retire in good time’ … Seeing us on the verge of tears he tried to comfort us and reassure us by saying that this was not going to happen at once, that some years must pass before he carried out his plan, then he left us alone, and it can be imagined in what sort of state of mind we were.19

  Some of these phrases are familiar; they echo words from his youth, a longing to escape from responsibility both during the last years of Catherine and after his father’s accession. Although there is no other account of Alexander’s table-talk, the whole tone of his sister-in-law’s narrative corresponds so closely with this earlier desire to renounce his rights and withdraw from the public eye that there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of her story.

  There were other occasions when the Tsar suggested, obliquely in conversation, that he might abdicate.20 He refused, however, to make any public pronouncement over the succession, nor did he give any indication when he was thinking of handing over the crown or where he would reside during his successor’s reign. This is hardly surprising. There was no precedent for a voluntary renunciation of the Imperial prerogatives in Russian history, although sovereigns in other lands had abdicated in this way, especially when moved by a desire for spiritual meditation in monastic seclusion. The Emperor Charles V, for example, divested himself of his crowns and retired to the cloisters of Yuste at the age of fifty-five, rendered prematurely old by the strain of war and the sin of gluttony; but, at the time of his conversation with Nicholas and Alexandra, Tsar Alexander was a mere forty-one years old. He was rapidly becoming so deaf and so short-sighted that he believed people were mocking him behind his back,21 and he limped at times when tiredness tensed the muscles of his injured leg. Some people said that he looked far older than his years but, as his ministers complained, he was still extraordinarily active; not one, it would seem, who wished as yet to seek monastic sanctuary from temporal affairs. Were the remarks he made at Nicholas’s private dinner-party as earnest as the Grand Duchess maintained? Was he, as at other moments of boredom, speaking his thoughts aloud, vaguely giving substance to a dream of escape which comforted him when his day-to-day existence seemed tedious? He undoubtedly believed that Nicholas, rather than Constantine, should be his successor, but it is unlikely he was as yet so resolved on abdicating as the young Grand Duchess assumed.

  Some three months after Alexander’s visit to Krasnoe Selo he met Baroness von Krüdener for the first time since those heady religious sessions in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The Baroness had long been seeking an opportunity to talk once more to ‘the young hero’ (as she still called Alexander in correspondence with her daughter)22 and he had himself mentioned her, on several occasions, to Prince Golitsyn. It was arranged the meeting should take place on the morning of 21 September at Petchory, a small town between the ancient city of Pskov and the marshes of Estonia, a convenient staging-post for Alexander on his way to Warsaw. There, beneath the golden cupolas of a conventual church, he listened while Julie von Krüdener poured out to him the latest revelations vouchsafed to her by the Almighty; the King of Prussia’s life was in danger, she insisted, and it was essential for Alexander to urge him to give himself without reserve to God and entrust the Prussian Kingdom to His protection; the Holy Alliance must be built up, integrated more closely against those who were seeking to overturn the kingdoms of this world.23 How much of Julie’s ravings Alexander accepted as genuine inspiration is open to doubt. He spoke encouragingly to her but when next day she sought a second meeting with him she was told he had already left for Warsaw. As at other times in their strange relationship, Julie’s words were a mixture of Sibylline warnings and nonsense. Although Alexander took no apparent notice of her messages, he did not break off contact with her. She remained in touch with both Golitsyn and Koshelev, the two unofficial custodians of Alexander’s spiritual conscience. On his return from Warsaw he seems, momentarily, to have favoured a pocket prophetess from Marseilles, a Madame Bouche, who had been inspired to travel to the Russian capital. Her influence was, however, short-lived for it was in the interests of both Julie von Krüdener and Prince Golitsyn to expose her as a charlatan: could a Marseillaise arise as a true prophet in such times?24

  The Tsar Goes to Troppau

  The year 1820 seemed, in one respect, to confirm Baroness von Krüdener’s warnings. Half the continent wrapped itself in conspiracy against the conservative doctrines of the Holy Alliance. In the Italian peninsula the Carbonari put forward holy principles of their own, binding themselves with fearsome oaths and dramatic symbolism to drive out foreign rulers and establish governments based on written constitutions. The unrest spread to Spain, where in March insurgents forced King Ferdinand VII to restore the liberal constitution of 1812, setting an example which the people of Naples sought to emulate in July. By the end of the summer there was a splutter of revolt across Europe from Portugal to Sicily. Nor was unrest confined to the southern extremities of the continent. In February Thistlewood’s conspirators in London’s Cato Street planned to liquidate the British cabinet, and fail
ed; while in Paris the radical fanatic Louvel plotted to murder Louis XVIII’s nephew, the Duc de Berri, and succeeded. Alexander was alarmed at the succession of bad news. It was impossible for any champion of order to stand aside and watch governments overthrown by men whose ideas ‘were formed in the school of popular despotism during the French Revolution’.25

  The Spanish emergency stirred him to action. For the past four years the Russian ambassador in Madrid, Dmitri Tatischev, had enjoyed a privileged position at Ferdinand’s Court, giving him something of the influence and patronage Caulaincourt had exercised in Petersburg after Tilsit. Tatischev represented the Spanish liberals to the Tsar as dangerous neo-Jacobins and his warnings were reiterated from Paris by Pozzo di Borgo. Accordingly when he heard the insurgents had secured a constitution from the King, Alexander insisted it was the duty of the five allies of Aix to intervene, so as to stamp out the flames of revolution before they menaced the whole of Europe. At the end of April he instructed Capodistrias to propose collective measures aimed at freeing Ferdinand from all restraint.26 As yet Alexander was thinking of a joint remonstrance rather than of military intervention, but it was clear he did not rule out the possibility of sending troops to coerce the Spanish liberals if they continued to defy the will of the Great Powers.

  The Russian response to events so far distant from their frontiers aroused suspicion in London and embarrassed Metternich. Nobody wished to see Alexander send a punitive expedition across the continent, nor indeed to assemble troops for a new Peninsular Campaign themselves. The British were already alarmed at Tatischev’s activities in Madrid and suspected a Russian design to establish naval bases in Spain in order to maintain a Mediterranean fleet. Metternich disliked the way in which the Russians were seeking to take the diplomatic initiative although he was gratified that Alexander was now associating himself with the anti-liberal cause rather than with the constitutionalists. The British were so resolutely opposed to intervention in Spanish affairs that Castlereagh had little difficulty in convincing the Allies of the folly of the Tsar’s proposals.27 As a compromise, however, Metternich suggested a meeting between Alexander and the Emperor Francis at which the Russians and Austrians could discuss ways of countering revolutionary conspiracy on a grand scale. It was agreed that Alexander and Francis should meet in the autumn in Troppau (Opava), the capital of Austrian Silesia.28

  In mid-July a liberal revolution, similar in character to the rising in Spain, broke out in Naples. The Austrians were far more alarmed at finding the spirit of revolt active in Italy than they had been over the troubles of Spain. Metternich did not want to tie up Austrian forces in police operations throughout Italy while leaving Russia and Prussia a free hand in central Europe and the German States. He therefore proposed a conference of ambassadors which he hoped would result in agreement on a common policy over European affairs in general while leaving punitive measures to the Austrians alone. Alexander, however, wanted to keep the strings of policy in his own hands, and in September he suggested that the Troppau meeting should be transformed into a full Congress, attended by Frederick William of Prussia and representatives of France and Britain. But so strong was the feeling in London against involvement in continental affairs that Castlereagh would send only an observer to Troppau, and the French (who wished to pursue an independent policy over Naples) followed the British example.29 By the beginning of October it was clear the forthcoming conference would be primarily a gathering of the three east European autocrats and their advisers rather than a full Congress, another Teplitz and not another Aix-la-Chapelle. Metternich intended to use the opportunity to convince Alexander of the need for close Austro-Russian collaboration, his first objective being the dismissal of Capodistrias, whom the Austrians profoundly distrusted. Alexander’s aims were more confused: he still believed that if you growled fiercely enough, rebel governments would quail; but he was prepared to despatch troops to restore erring states ‘to the bosom of the Alliance’ if other methods failed. Though conscious of the strain on Russia’s resources, he was willing to offer Emperor Francis 100,000 men to help keep order in southern Italy.30 Nobody bothered any longer about distant Spain.

  Alexander left St Petersburg on 21 July 1820, expecting he would be away for three or four months. He intended to spend the early autumn in Warsaw, so as to dispose of the problems of the Diet, and then continue southwards to Troppau for the Congress.31 But the diplomatic situation deteriorated so rapidly in the late summer and autumn that it was impossible to complete the work of the Congress as swiftly as at Aix, and Alexander did not return to his capital for a whole year. This prolonged absence imposed a considerable strain on the Russian administration. Elizabeth herself complained, in a letter to her mother, that uncertainty over Alexander’s movements was a serious blow to the government, not least because, once winter had come to central Europe, it took a month for despatches and documents to be sent from St Petersburg to Troppau and back with the sovereign’s comments.32 Moreover for much of the winter Alexander insisted on having the Grand Duke Nicholas with him in Troppau, introducing him to the problems of diplomacy by congress. With Constantine in Warsaw and Nicholas with the Tsar in Silesia, the ceremonies of state devolved upon Marie Feodorovna and Elizabeth. Inevitably effective control of internal policy was left to Arakcheev. The disillusionment of the younger generation was complete.

  Mutiny in the Semeonovsky Regiment (October 1820)

  The Tsar reached Troppau on 20 October. Within hours of his arrival, he was closeted with Metternich. If the Austrian’s account of the conversation is correct, Alexander was already in a mood of abject apology for his earlier sympathy with constitutionalism, while Capodistrias too was prepared to agree with everything Metternich said to him.33 Neither wished to prolong the Troppau Congress. By flattering the Austrian Foreign Minister there was a good prospect of securing that general statement condemning revolution, on which the Tsar appeared to lay such stress. Once that business was settled, it only remained to agree over the movement of troops from Poland to Italy and the appointment of a joint commander. These were tiresome but familiar topics; they need not long detain the sovereigns. Unlike Vienna or Aix, Troppau was a town in which there was no good reason for lingering, especially in the depths of winter.

  To Alexander’s surprise, however, Metternich was reluctant to approve a general statement on the rights of a Great Power to intervene in the affairs of another state. The Austrian attitude was more sophisticated than the Russians had anticipated. Metternich argued that only a Power whose security was threatened by a foreign rebellion had a right to intervene in the internal affairs of another state. He implied that Austria had an obligation to cleanse Italy of the revolutionary contagion before the disease spread to the provinces of the Empire itself, but Prussia and Russia were too distant to be menaced by what went on in the peninsula and therefore possessed no right to intervene. This was a difficult argument to refute, especially as Frederick William and Hardenberg publicly associated themselves with the Austrians.34 But in the first days of November Capodistrias, with Alexander’s warm support, put forward a different set of general principles. He did his best to reconcile a belief in repression with support for constitutionalism: the Great Powers, he argued, had accepted responsibility for upholding the 1815 Treaties and therefore collectively they had a duty to intervene once that settlement was in danger; but it would be wrong for them to impose alien rule or methods of government on a people and therefore intervention should be preceded by a joint declaration that, once the revolutionary movement was suppressed, it would be succeeded by a government based upon the ‘dual freedoms’: national independence and political liberty.35 This was an ingenious exercise in political theory which left Metternich momentarily ‘out of spirits’, and the Austrians were forced to fall back on the old game of playing off Nesselrode against Capodistrias.

  By the end of the second week in November it became possible for Metternich to excite Alexander’s fear of unrest sufficiently for him t
o disown the Corfiote’s basic principles. For on 9 November the Tsar received news which disturbed him more than any event since Napoleon’s escape from Elba: an officer arrived with messages from Arakcheev and the military commandant of St Petersburg informing him that, on the night of 28 October, soldiers in the Semeonovsky Regiment had mutinied, demanding the dismissal of their commanding officer, Colonel Schwarz. Alexander was overwhelmed by the news: he regarded the Semeonovsky as his personal Guard Regiment, and he saw the incident as far more serious than the troubles at Chuguev, a sign that evil doctrines were eating away the loyalty of his most trusted troops. In reality, the mutiny was an isolated episode, sparked off by resentment at the cruelty of a non-Russian officer who had ordered veteran war heroes to be flogged for trifling offences.36 The Empress Elizabeth played down the episode, even admitting to her mother privately that the men had a just grievance;37 but Alexander insisted on severe punishment, although he agreed that Colonel Schwarz should be dismissed from the service for allowing the situation to get out of hand. To Metternich’s surprise, the news of the mutiny convinced Alexander that there was an international radical conspiracy eager to frustrate the efforts of the ‘Holy Allies’ at Troppau.38 It was this theory which Alexander developed in an extraordinary letter to Arakcheev on 17 November: