Diverge and Conquer (Look to the West Book 1)

by Tom Anderson

  Certainly, one turning point is most beloved of those speculative romantics (most often hailing from across the Øresund) who yearn for a different path for Denmark in the eighteenth century. This is of course the death of Crown Prince Frederik, who would have succeeded King Christian VI as Frederik V, in a riding accident in 1743. Frederik was widely considered to be his father in miniature and his death resulted in the quickening of Christian VI’s own demise in 1745. This plunged Denmark into something of a governmental crisis in the middle of the Second War of Supremacy, but this was not a great problem, as policy under Christian VI’s capable chief minister Adam Moltke was to carefully steer Denmark out of European wars. Although Sweden, Prussia and Russia were by that point engaged in war in Poland, Denmark remained in a state of careful armed neutrality.

  Christian’s second son, of the same name, could not have been more different. Rejecting his father’s unpopular pietism and conservatism, Christian VII would go down in history as a dynamic and effective, if impulsive, ruler. He shocked the Christiansborg Palace court by summarily dismissing Moltke and several more of his father’s experienced ministers, bringing in his own untested favourites. There was method in his madness, however: he wished to bring about a radical shift in Danish foreign policy, and significant changes in domestic policy – and quite correctly suspected that Moltke would block him at every turn.

  As a populist measure, Christian reversed his father’s introduction of adscription—a new form of serfdom by any other name. He then reconvened the Danish Diet, which had lain dormant for over a century since absolutism had come into fashion. Most biographers believe that Christian himself was, in fact, a reflexive believer in absolutism and he did not bring back the Diet for altruistic purposes but rather as a pragmatic divide-and-rule strategy. The Diet’s powers were severely limited and it was intended mainly as a foil for the powerful Danish aristocracy, which had to be curbed at every step for the King to remain an effective ruler. The fate of Poland-Lithuania was a damning example of what happened when this failed.

  Christian VII’s other great early move was one which surprised commentators throughout Europe. Since the War of the British Succession and Great Britain’s Prince Frederick successfully retaking his throne from an American base, a new interest in the Americas had been sparked throughout many European courts. This encouraged the existing colonial powers to take more interest in their colonies – ultimately fatally so in Spain’s case – and those without colonies to consider founding some, for prestige if no other reason. In practice, most of these schemes came to nothing, as the economically useful parts of the eastern seaboard of the Americas was by now almost completely settled by the Spanish, British and French. Nonetheless, eyebrows were raised when Christian VII decided to balk the trend by selling Denmark’s own colonial possessions.

  Denmark and her trading companies retained their profitable trading outposts in India, but the slave depots on the Gold Coast of Africa, along with the Virgin Islands in the West Indies with their plantations, were sold on to the United Netherlands for a considerable sum. Christian and his ministers also previously considered Courland, which was interested in regaining West Indian possessions after the loss of Tobago, but the somewhat impoverished Duchy was unable to match the Dutch bid. Abolitionists then and now praised Christian for this move, even though it was born purely of pragmatic calculation and it is doubtful whether Christian gave two figs for the fate of the slaves in question—who after all probably cared little whether they were suffering on a Dutch slave ship or a Danish one.

  Denmark’s North Atlantic possessions – Greenland, Iceland, and the Faeroes – were sold to Great Britain. Iceland had declined over the past few centuries since its mother country Norway had gone to the Danish crown, for the Icelandic exports of fish and wool were far less valuable to Denmark than they had been to Norway. Danish policy on protectionist trade and absolutism, removing the Icelanders’ cherished right to elect their own assembly, had also contributed to this decline. Britain, under King Frederick I and Prime Minister William Pulteney, annexed the Faeroes to the kingdom (being retroactively considered part of the Scottish islands) while the status of Iceland and Greenland remained constitutionally unclear for some years.

  Despite its small population, Iceland was eventually granted the status of a full kingdom, like Ireland and Hanover (the latter’s royal dignity not being recognised by any other European state thus far). Iceland’s ancient parliament or ‘Thing’ was also restored. The Icelandic economy somewhat recovered thanks to the free-trade policies of the British Patriot and Liberal Whig governments, with Icelandic fish particularly being in demand in Ireland, though Iceland had problems with the North American market thanks to New England’s vast fleet of fishing boats. Greenland was the odd one out: under Christian VI it had been re-explored for the first time in an attempt to find the original lost settlements and convert the natives to Lutheranism. With the decline of Christian VI’s Pietism, this fell in priority and few in Denmark resisted the sale of Greenland to Britain. The British eventually transferred it to the Confederation of New England, which established a few settlements. It was a Nantucketer explorer, George Folger, who gave the natives their modern name of ‘Enwickers’.[154]

  These moves on Christian VII’s part were part of a grander strategy to refocus Danish power in Europe and, more specifically, the Baltic. A Russo-Danish alliance against Sweden was his major goal, but this was not realised in Christian’s lifetime. The major problem with the plan was that Peter III of Russia was also one of the dukes of Holstein-Gottorp, a traditional Danish enemy and Swedish ally. However, it was apparent to many eyes that the current Prusso-Russian policy of buying Swedish neutrality with land was purely a stopgap measure and would have to be reversed eventually. Christian prepared Denmark to take advantage of that eventuality, building up and modernising a Baltic fleet of both galleys and line ships, while retaining his father’s policy of scrupulous neutrality with mainland European wars.

  Christian was also Duke of Oldenburg, though much like his father’s the German state was low down on his list of priorities. Nonetheless, the greater focus on Denmark as a European power naturally meant that Oldenburg made a slightly larger intrusion on royal policy, which would be significant later on.

  Christian VII died at the age of sixty-three in 1787, leaving behind a heavily armed state in which challengers to royal authority had been carefully twisted back onto themselves, with the Diet and the aristocracy squabbling among themselves. He had also restored some of the faith of the Danish peasantry in the monarchy, which had slipped under Christian VI’s adscription and Pietism. He was succeeded by his son, Johannes II, breaking the chain of alternating Frederiks and Christians, and named for the last Danish monarch to rule the Union of Kalmar...

  *

  “My people, before the new century is upon us, I shall make my namesake no more than a forgotten oriental soldier, we shall eclipse all his triumphs!”

  – Aleksandr Grigorovich Potemkin, speech in Moscow’s Red Square, February 15th 1796[155]

  *

  From: “War on the Steppes” by Henry Abikoff (published by Royal Bostonian House, 1948)–

  The Russian Civil War was arguably preordained by Emperor Peter III’s decision in 1772 simply to exile his Empress Consort Catherine for masterminding an attempt on his life, rather than executing her. In retrospect this may have seemed a poor idea, but in practice it was unlikely that Peter would have been able to get away with such a deed. At this stage, Catherine was still very popular with elements of the Russian public and it was all Peter dared to execute Grigory Orlov and those Leib Guards implicated in the conspiracy. Later, Catherine’s exile in Yekaterinburg meant that the fickle Muscovites and Petersburgers may have forgotten her, but Peter still did not act. It fit with his decision to release the deposed Emperor Ivan VI from prison, considering that this poor man who had been locked up and isolated since childhood was no threat. In that case, he turned out to be
right, but in Catherine’s was anything but.

  Peter was fortunate enough to outlive Catherine, who died in 1792, but she had put her twenty years of exile to good use. Catherine brought with her numerous favourites, and other Russian potentates found excuses to travel through the region. Ironically, Peter’s own interest in the colonisation of Siberia, and the Yakutsk-bound missions of Lebedev and Benyovsky, helped disguise the suspiciously increased traffic going eastward from European Russia. Catherine, who remained a powerful presence, took many lovers from among the Russian nobility and plotted a new way to unseat Peter. Several more assassination attempts failed, Peter having replaced the Leib Guards with new forces largely recruited from Prussia, but none were ever traced back to Catherine.

  Catherine’s longest dalliance was with Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, a Leib Guard who had escaped Peter’s purge and had been in on her coup attempt from the start. Potemkin, descended from a family of Muscovite diplomats, followed Catherine into exile and soon became the effective prime minister of Catherine’s Uralic domain. Potemkin played a double game, working his way back into St Petersburg under an assumed name and securing the responsibility for one of Peter’s colonisation projects. He proceeded to ensure that numerous settlers bound for Siberia were redirected to the environs of Yekaterinburg. Towards the end of Peter III’s life, it was questionable whether he truly ruled any of the Russian domains east of the Urals, such was Potemkin’s skill.

  Potemkin himself died in 1791. He was far from Catherine’s only lover, as she had used her incomparable charms to secure the general Sergei Vasilievich Saltykov and many others also, but he was the only man to father children by her (a category including, some tongues wagged, Peter himself). Potemkin’s two sons by Catherine were Aleksandr, born 1773, and Ivan, born 1775. The point that she gave birth in her forties was questioned by some who argued that the boys were not genuinely her sons; historians will doubtless debate this point ad infinitum. Though still in their teens throughout the 1780s and 90s, the boys proved to have inherited much of their parents’ ability – Aleksandr, Catherine’s ruthless ambition, and Ivan, Potemkin’s talent for organisation. After their parents’ deaths, Aleksandr effectively inherited Catherine’s position of authority over many older men: Uralic Russia had truly become its own shadowy state within a state.

  Many people have pondered whether Peter III’s slow death from illness and old age in 1795 was, in fact, the result of a poison plot finally going right for Catherine’s forces. In truth this is probably unlikely – the Potemkin brothers were only twenty-two and twenty years old respectively, and it is likely they would have wanted to wait longer and build up more support, Aleksandr wanting to appear a more realistic contender for the crown. However, events forced their hands. Their father had set up an elaborate spy network, with the result that they learned of Peter’s death only days after Peter’s heir Paul, who was at this point Grand Duke of Lithuania.

  The Lithuanian people and szlachta, on the most part fairly content with the status quo, were alarmed by this development and hushed discussions took place across the Grand Duchy. There was the possibility that Paul would continue as Grand Duke as he took the throne of Russia, neglecting Lithuania as so many other rulers with other domains had, or even create a Russo-Lithuanian union. While the szlachta believed this might be tolerable under Paul and his son Peter the younger (Petras), who had grown up in Lithuania, Peter’s own heir would presumably be raised in Russia and it was probable that, a few decades down the line, a Russian Emperor would try to impose Orthodoxy and Russian law on Lithuania. To avoid this eventuality, the Lithuanians entered into secret talks with the Poles, who were plotting a revolt of their own as soon as Frederick William II of Prussia died. There was talk of restoring the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but there was always the nagging question “Then what?” A shaky, hastily restored Commonwealth could not resist counter-invasions by Prussia and Russia. The Poles argued for an alliance with Austria, but the Lithuanians were dubious about the prospect, and besides, Austria had had no compunctions about annexing Kraków after the War of the Polish Partition.

  In the end, the talks broke down when Paul announced that he was stepping down as Grand Duke Povilas I, in favour of his eighteen-year-old son Peter as Grand Duke Petras I. This was met with much relief throughout Lithuania, as Petras had grown up there, spoke fluent Lithuanian and could be relied upon to defend the Grand Duchy’s interests against those of Russia. The Lithuanian szlachta quietly withdrew their support from the planning of the Polish rebellion, and historians have cited this as the moment when the idea of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth truly breathed its last.

  Paul immediately left for St Petersburg and on January 1st 1796 (Russian calendar) was crowned Pavel I, Emperor of All the Russias and Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. His coronation celebrations, however, were interrupted by shocking reports from the east. The Potemkin brothers had assembled an army under General Saltykov and had marched on Moscow, taking the city and declaring it capital of Russia once more. Aleksandr was crowned Alexander I in St Basil’s Cathedral, and made the claim that Paul was illegitimate. In truth Paul’s own claim to the throne was somewhat shaky thanks to the meandering of the Romanov dynasty throughout the previous century. Despite Aleksandr and Ivan sharing a (German) mother with Paul, it was the boys who first founded the idea of Slavicism in Russia. They used as propaganda the fact that there was not one drop of Slavic blood in Paul, and portrayed his supporters as a German conspiracy – a thread always guaranteed to resonate with the resentful Russian peasantry.

  Of course, Paul was not willing to give up without a fight. He assembled his army, ironically under General Nikolai Saltykov, a distant relative of his opposite number, and marched to meet the Potemkin brothers’ forces at Smolensk.

  The Russian Civil War had begun…

  Chapter 26: Devil’s Bargain

  From: “A New History of the Low Countries” by Dr Jan van der Proost (1977), English translation (1982)—

  The winter of 1795 was a decisive moment in the history of the Jacobin Revolution and what it held for Europe as a whole. Many pro-Austrian commentators have presented the opening stages of the Flemish campaign as a series of victories for Ferdinand IV and reactionary forces, but the truth is far from that rosy image. While the professional Austrian armies had indeed usually defeated the inexperienced and untried French conscripts at most engagements, they had failed to achieve a decisive battle of the type Mozart knew he needed for purposes of morale. General Boulanger’s victory at Lille put paid to even a vague Austrian advance, and as the armies retired to winter quarters, the Austrians were left holding only scraps of northern France.

  The Holy Roman Empire, more unified and effective an organisation than it had been for years, had nonetheless lost its opportunity to strangle the revolution in its cradle. During that fateful winter, Pierre Boulanger was fêted through the streets of Paris in recognition of his decisive victory – the first major one of any Revolutionary force, and now irretrievably linked with Cugnot’s steam technology in the public imagination – and the ideals of the Republic were consolidated. Failed generals were forced to resign, sometimes even executed, more often pensioned off or demoted. The conscript armies were ruthlessly reorganised and trained according to Boulanger’s recommendations. The general was a new Revolutionary hero, an icon who joined Le Diamant and L’Épurateur in the pantheon (literally, under Hébert’s quasi-atheistic new pagan religion) as a symbol. The difference was, he was still alive and talking – and this presented a problem to the paranoid Robespierre, who saw everything as an attempt to undermine him. Not even an assassination of Boulanger and blaming it on the Austrians was politically possible at this stage.

  In truth, Boulanger may actually have caused damage to the French war effort in some areas. He was, after all, of little military experience himself, being one of the Revolution’s children, a baker’s son risen to high command. He had a talent for warfare which, as many Revoluti
onary apologists have pointed out, would doubtless have never been allowed to surface under the ancien régime – but it was a savant’s talent, instinctive rather than learned, difficult or impossible to teach to others. French tactics and infantry training techniques took on an almost artistic air that bought the Revolution some of its intellectual admirers abroad, but may have not been the best use of an inexperienced conscript army.

  It is believed by some historians that Jean de Lisieux first met Boulanger on the direct orders of Robespierre. Lisieux was seen by Robespierre as his natural lieutenant, one of the few as ‘Incorruptible’ as he, one who would send his own brother to the phlogisticateur if the purity of the Revolution demanded it. He was one of very few men who Robespierre never saw as a threat to himself, ironically as it turned out.

  Lisieux and Boulanger first met with Cugnot himself in the Café Procope, away from the usual sounding boards of the Jacobin Club, and the three discussed their ideas for the use of Cugnot’s steam technologies. Lisieux realised how great a propaganda tool they could be if handled correctly, while Boulanger was interested in further military applications. Later they were joined by Robert Surcouf, one of France’s more brilliant sailors and a man who specialised in privateering. Surcouf recognised that France’s navy would always be a secondary force to its army, second in all considerations of training and funding whether under the ancien régime or the new Republic, and could thus never have much hope of defeating Britain’s Royal Navy even before the losses of the Marseilles and Quiberon mutinies. Therefore, he advocated the development of new tactics with small ships, and in discussion with the Boulanger-Cugnot-Lisieux triad, realised that the Cugnot steam technology could also be a new and unpredictable force at sea…