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MARKET
DEVELOPMENT
AND POLICY
FOR ONE BELT
ONE ROAD
This page intentionally left blank
MARKET
DEVELOPMENT
AND POLICY
FOR ONE BELT
ONE ROAD
Series Volume Editor

ACHIM I. CZERNY
Associate Professor, Department of Logistics and Maritime
Studies (LMS), Faculty of Business, The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

XIAOWEN FU
Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems
Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hong Kong, China

PAUL TAE-WOO LEE

Professor and Director, Maritime Logistics and Free
Trade Islands Research Center, Ocean College,
Zhejiang University, Zhoushan, Zhejiang, China
Elsevier
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ISBN: 978-0-12-815971-2

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Contents

Contributors ix

1. An introductory overview of the Belt and Road Initiative

studies 1
Achim I. Czerny, Xiaowen Fu, and Paul Tae-Woo Lee

2. China's Belt and Road Initiative: Quantifying the causal

relationship between maritime connectivity and
global trade 9
Tsz Leung Yip, Eve Man Hin Chan, and Danny Chi Kuen Ho
1. The Belt and Road Initiative's role in improving transport
connectivity and trade 9
2. Literature review 11
3. Extended gravity model for B&R countries’ exports 13
4. Data analysis and results 16
5. Discussion and policy implications 18
6. Conclusions for market development 23
Acknowledgments 24
References 24

3. China's recent railway developments and policy reforms 27

Kun Wang, Wenyi Xia, and Anming Zhang

1. Introduction 27
2. Recent railway developments in China 28
3. China's HSR developments 41
4. Conclusions and future research 55
References 57

4. Effects of the “Belt and Road” initiative on the cruise

industry 59
Yui-yip Lau, Meihua Xu, Xiaodong Sun, and Adolf K.Y. Ng
1. Introduction 59
2. Overview of BRI 61

v
vi Contents

3. Cruise policy in BRI 62

4. Exploring the cruise market along BRI 66
5. Identifying and evaluating the possible cruise itinerary along BRI 68
6. Conclusion 74
References 75

5. The investment efficiency of overseas ports: Three

macroscopic factors 77
Dong Yang and Lu Li

1. Introduction 77
2. Overview of Chinese overseas port investment 78
3. Three port case studies 83
4. Conclusion 95
References 95

6. Impacts of air transport subsidies on landlocked developing

countries’ connectivity under the “One Belt One Road”
initiative 99
Kan Wai Hong Tsui and Hanjun Wu

1. Introduction 99
2. The One Belt, One Road initiative: An overview 100
3. Landlocked developing countries and definitions of landlockedness 102
4. Key problems and challenges among LLDCs 104
5. Obligation to support LLDCs’ air connectivity: Five key reasons 106
6. Air transport improves connectivity and eradicates landlockedness 109
7. Rationale for supporting the essential air services of in small communities
through air transport subsidies 112
8. A “win-win” outcome for LLDCs and partner countries benefiting from
improved air connectivity resulting from air transport subsidies 115
9. Conclusion 118
Acknowledgments 119
References 119

7. Collusive pricing detection in ocean container transport:

A case study of Maritime Silk Road 125
Gang Dong, Jin Li, and Paul Tae-Woo Lee

1. Introduction 125
2. Literature review 127
 Contents vii

3. Collusion detection model 130

4. Analysis of the collusive pricing solutions 139
5. Case study 141
6. Discussion and policy implications 145
7. Conclusion 145
Appendix A 146
Appendix B 148
Acknowledgments 151
References 151

8. An infrastructure investment game: Or, why the belt

and road initiative can represent an equilibrium
outcome 155
Achim I. Czerny and Se-Il Mun
1. Introduction 155
2. The model 157
3. Investment behaviors 158
4. Oligopoly and import taxes 163
5. Conclusions 168
References 169
Further reading 169

9. High-speed rail and air transport integration in

hub-and-spoke networks: The role of airports 171
Alessandro Avenali, Tiziana D’Alfonso, Alberto Nastasi,
and Pierfrancesco Reverberi
1. Introduction 171
2. Literature review 173
3. Incentives to intermodal cooperation 175
4. The model 180
5. Benchmark case: No agreement 182
6. Air-rail cooperation 183
7. The role of airports 189
8. Discussion and concluding remarks 190
Appendix 193
References 193
viii Contents

10. On impacts of Pakistan Railways Main Line 1 on “North China-EU”

export transit—Taking export transit between Beijing
and UK as an example 197
Ying-En Ge, Mingfeng Mo, Fangwei Zhang, Muhammad Arsalan Khalid,
Mengmei Yu, Guanke Liu, and Wenqian Lu
1. Introduction 197
2. Research tools 200
3. Probability distribution model and parameter analysis of
North China-Europe export channel 201
4. Empirical analysis of the probability distribution model of
the North China-Europe export channel 204
5. Conclusions and emerging directions 217
Acknowledgments 219
References 219

Index 221
Contributors

Alessandro Avenali
Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti,
Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Eve Man Hin Chan
Faculty of Design and Environment, Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong
Kong, Hong Kong, China
Achim I. Czerny
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies (LMS), Faculty of Business, The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Tiziana D’Alfonso
Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti,
Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Gang Dong
School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China
Xiaowen Fu
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hong Kong, China
Ying-En Ge
College of Transportation Engineering, Chang’an University, Xi’an, China
Danny Chi Kuen Ho
Department of Supply Chain and Information Management, The Hang Seng University of
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Muhammad Arsalan Khalid
School of Business, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Yui-yip Lau
Division of Business and Hospitality Management, College of Professional and Continuing
Education, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Paul Tae-Woo Lee
Maritime Logistics and Free Trade Islands Research Center, Ocean College, Zhejiang
University, Zhoushan, Zhejiang, China
Jin Li
School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China
Lu Li
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies (LMS), The Hong Kong Polytechnic Uni-
versity, Hong Kong, China
Guanke Liu
School of Business, National University of Singapore, Singapore

ix
x Contributors

Wenqian Lu
Tilburg School of Economics and Management, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands
Mingfeng Mo
College of Transport & Communications, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China
Se-Il Mun
Graduate School of Economics, Faculty of Economics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Alberto Nastasi
Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti,
Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Adolf K.Y. Ng
Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Management, BNU-HKBU United
International College, Zhuhai, China
Pierfrancesco Reverberi
Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti,
Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Xiaodong Sun
School of Business Administration, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Kan Wai Hong Tsui
School of Aviation, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Kun Wang
School of International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and
Economics, Beijing, China
Hanjun Wu
School of Aviation, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Wenyi Xia
Department of Logistics and Operations Management, HEC Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Meihua Xu
School of Business Administration, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Dong Yang
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies (LMS), The Hong Kong Polytechnic Uni-
versity, Hong Kong, China
Tsz Leung Yip
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies (LMS), The Hong Kong Polytechnic Uni-
versity, Hong Kong, China
Mengmei Yu
College of Transport & Communications, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China
Anming Zhang
Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Fangwei Zhang
College of Transport & Communications, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China
CHAPTER 1

An introductory overview
of the Belt and Road Initiative
studies
Achim
a
I. Czernya, Xiaowen Fub, and Paul Tae-Woo Leec
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies (LMS), Faculty of Business, The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hong Kong, China
b
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong,
China
c
Maritime Logistics and Free Trade Islands Research Center, Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Zhoushan,
Zhejiang, China

Since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) first proposed by the Chinese gov-
ernment in 2013, significant changes have taken place along the Asia-Middle
East-Europe region. In addition to the investments directly associated with
the BRI, the initiative has also triggered policy changes in the affected coun-
tries and regions, firms’ perspectives of future developments, and thus their
operations and strategic planning. Unlike common foreign direct invest-
ments (FDIs), the Chinese government’s support behind the BRI has led
to some concerns and even potential political conflicts. These complications
have introduced more challenges in assessing the initiative’s consequences,
future developments, and interactions with the existing market mechanisms.
Although there are many different views concerning the BRI, either
positive or negative, it is generally agreed that such an extremely large pro-
ject is expected to bring long-lasting changes to the industries and markets
affected. The initiative encourages policy coordination, trade facilitation,
financial integration, and transport connectivity. It covers countries across
Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, involving at least 70% of the
global population, 75% of world energy reserves, and 55% of world gross
national product. There is a need for policy makers, industry players, and
academic researchers to obtain a good understanding of the BRI in a timely
manner. Although many papers and studies are now available publicly, they
have discussed a wide range of topics and sectors. Among these, the transport
and logistics sector is of particular importance to the initiative: it not only
directly contributes to the production of transport and logistics services
but also provides essential inputs to other sectors such as tourism, trade,

Market Development and Policy for One Belt One Road Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815971-2.00003-7 All rights reserved. 1
2 Market development and policy for one belt one road

infrastructure investment, and management, which are the core targets of

the initiative. Therefore, it is important to more carefully examine the impli-
cations of the BRI to the transport and logistics sectors in the region, the best
strategies and operation practices that the industry can pursue, and the right
government policies that should be implemented in relation to the initiative.
To facilitate timely studies of the transport and logistics sectors along the
BRI regions, this book engaged researchers to examine the development
and performance in multiple countries. Even though not every chapter is
dedicated to the implications of the BRI, all of them have analyzed the trans-
port and logistics sectors along the BRI region and thus facilitate further
studies more directly or exclusively to BRI. Both theoretical and empirical
studies have been included as we believe that in-depth analysis of this impor-
tant issue needs advancements in both areas in the long term. These chapters’
main contributions and conclusions are summarized as below.
In Chapter 2, Tsz Leung Yip, Eve Man Hin Chan, and Danny Chi Kuen
Ho conducted an analysis of the BRI’s influences by examining the causal
relationship between maritime connectivity and global trade. A number of
studies have investigated the effects of improved transport connectivity in
promoting international trade. This chapter contributes by considering trade
beyond the BRI region. The authors develop an extended gravity model to
study textile exports of 16 Asian countries or regions in BRI to United
States, with the incorporation of the Liner Shipping Bilateral Connectivity
Index (LSBCI) and Logistics Performance Index (LPI). Their analysis sug-
gests that LSBCI and LPI play important roles in textile trade, which dem-
onstrates the changing sectoral trade patterns between BRI and non-BRI
economies. Their analysis provides insights into the importance of enhanc-
ing both international maritime connectivity and domestic logistics perfor-
mance for trade facilitation.
The recommendation of improving domestic logistics performance to
promote international trade is echoed in the analysis in Chapter 3, where
Kun Wang, Wenyi Xia, and Anming Zhang discuss China’s recent railway
developments and policy reforms. The authors first review China’s recent
developments and policy reforms in its rail sector and then further discuss
the implications of BRI. The policy discussions in the context of market
performance and outcome allow the authors to draw a number of important
conclusions. The authors concluded that China has been promoting dereg-
ulation in its rail sector, which introduces more changes facilitating the
emergence of a more market-oriented rail industry. These changes brought
various benefits and significant changes in terms of operational efficiency and
 An introductory overview of BRI studies 3

network structure. The deregulation and changing pricing decisions of the

rail sector will further facilitate China’s trade by rail with BRI countries.
These findings are apparently consistent with the key conclusions in
Chapter 2 on the maritime sector. The authors further used the China-Euro
Railway Express as an example for promoting transport connectivity and
trade linking China, BRI countries in Central Asia, and Europe. Further dis-
cussions on China’s domestic operations of high-speed rail (HSR) are also
provided. Although HSR has mostly affected the passenger transport market,
it has long-lasting effects on the rail industry’s service provision, involve-
ments of private capital, and positive effects on regional developments.
Indeed, passenger operation and service are important to the transport’s
growth per se, in addition to their roles in facilitating trades, tourism, and
regional development. In Chapter 4, Yui-yip Lau, Meihua Xu, Xiaodong
Sun, and Adolf Ng examined the effects of the BRI on the cruise industry.
Currently, the cruise industry is still at its early stage of market penetration in
most of the BRI countries, and most previous studies have examined the
cruise market in North America and Europe, which are much larger cruise
markets. However, with its huge population and fast-expanding economy,
many scholars believe the cruise market in the Asia-Pacific region will have a
bright future in the coming decades, with more emerging destinations added
and fast-growing passenger volumes. There are however many issues to be
solved before the industry can achieve sustained growth. For example, the
availability and smooth operations of cruise terminals need to be solved. The
industry also needs to better understand the opportunities and challenges of
developing the cruise market along the BRI region. To fill these gaps in
research, the authors first provide a review of the related policy and industry
development in the context of the BRI market. They further examine the
promising cruise itinerary in the region and how they could lead and facil-
itate sector growth in the region.
No transport sector can perform well without sufficient and efficient
infrastructure invested. In the case of cruise operations, cruise terminal
can be essential for high customer satisfaction. For terminal and port oper-
ations in general, sufficient investments in infrastructure are of critical
importance for the efficient operations of the whole supply chain. Because
port investments are often lumpy and significant, efficient port operation is
itself an important research topic. In Chapter 5, Dong Yang examined over-
seas investment efficiency using three port case studies. Such a study aims to
identify the factors influencing Chinese enterprises’ investment effectiveness
in ports along the BRI region. Specifically, in the case of the Port of Piraeus,
4 Market development and policy for one belt one road

the effects of the Greece debt crisis in 2009 and COSCO Shipping’s efforts
in exploiting its supply chain integration power are examined. Political sta-
bility and existing investments are studied for the case of Hambantota Port,
together with the operation experience of port operators. For the case of
Gwadar port, the favorable geopolitical opportunity is also discussed.
The last empirical study was carried out by Kan Tsui Wai Hong and
Hanjun Wu in Chapter 6, which focused on the effects of air transport sub-
sidies on landlocked developing countries’ (LLDCs) connectivity under the
BRI. Because LLDCs lack maritime connectivity, which is often one of the
most important trade facilitators, there is more pressing need for them to
improve air connectivity. However, the relatively high cost of air transport
can be one major challenge to developing countries with a relatively low
income. As a result, many countries have resorted to aviation subsidy.
The authors examine the effects of air connectivity to landlocked developing
countries in terms of trade and economic development, flows of goods and
people, and tourism, in the context of the BRI. They argued that the lack of
funding is a major obstacle for the growth of air transport. Although subsidy
can be an efficient policy, a clear set of subsidy policies should be secured for
LLDCs first. Such an effort can help identify the rationale and justifications
for air subsidies to LLDCs too. To achieve this objective, the authors tried to
draw lessons from the provision of essential air services to small and remote
communities, a practice commonly used in many countries. Based on their
analysis, the authors argued that improved air connectivity is expected to
bring a “win-win” outcome for both LLDCs and partner countries, facili-
tating economic development and trade in goods and services and people
movements between LLDCs and global markets.
Both empirical and modeling works have their distinctive advantages and
limitations. Chapter 7 combines both approaches. The study, carried out by
Gang Dong, Jin Li, and Paul Tae-Woo Lee, offers a case study of collusive
pricing detection in ocean container transport along the Maritime Silk Road
(MSR). The authors first develop a non-cooperative game theoretic model
to detect the collusive pricing solutions between liner shipping companies
and the corresponding container terminals. According to the game equilib-
rium results, a direct and applicable indicator is proposed, that is, the ratio of
freight rates between the liner shipping companies, by testing 24 liner routes
from the Far East to the Mediterranean region along the MSR. The collusive
pricing solution is independent of designed capacity under one pair of col-
ludes, whereas there is positive correlation with designed capacity in double
collusion. The finding reveals that the collusive pricing solution would be
Another random document with
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his purpose, and advanced against Turin, whilst Moreau at the same
moment had resolved to retire to Turin and the crests of the
Apennines, in order to preserve his communications with France. On
the 27th of May, Vukassovitch, who commanded the advance guard
of the Russians, surprised Turin, and forced the French to take
refuge in the citadel, leaving in the hands of the victors nearly three
hundred pieces of artillery, sixty thousand muskets, and an
enormous quantity of ammunition and military stores. Moreau’s
army, thus deprived of all its resources, was saved from destruction
only by the extraordinary ability of its commander, who led it safely
towards Genoa by a mountain path, which was rendered practicable
for artillery, in four days. With the exception of a few fortresses,
nothing now remained to the French of all Napoleon’s conquests in
northern Italy; they had been lost in less time than it had taken to
make them.
Exulting in the brilliant success of his arms,
[1799 a.d.] Paul bestowed another surname, Italienski, or
the Italian, on his victorious general, and
ordered by an express ukase that Suvarov should be universally
regarded as the greatest commander that had ever appeared.
Meanwhile the results of his skill and vigour were neutralised by the
selfish policy of the Austrian court, which had become by the Treaty
of Campo Formio, and the acquisition of Venice, in some degree an
actual accomplice with the aggressors against whom it was in arms.
Suvarov was compelled to submit to the dictation of the emperor
Francis I, and deeply disgusted he declared that he was no longer of
any use in Italy, and that he desired nothing so ardently as to be
recalled.
The disasters of the French in upper Italy were fatal to their
ascendancy in the south, and Macdonald received orders to abandon
the Parthenopean Republic, and unite his forces with those of
Moreau. His retreat was exposed to great dangers by the universal
insurrection of the peasants; but he accomplished it with great
rapidity and skill. The two French commanders then concerted
measures to dislodge the allies from their conquests—a project
which seemed not unlikely to be fulfilled, so obstinately had the Aulic
council adhered to the old system of dispersing the troops all over
the territory which they occupied. Though the allies had above a
hundred thousand men in the field, they could hardly assemble thirty
thousand at any one point; and Macdonald might easily have
destroyed them in detail could he have fallen upon them at once;
but the time he spent in reorganising his army in Tuscany, and in
concerting measures with Moreau, was well employed by Suvarov in
promptly concentrating his forces. Macdonald advanced against him
with an army of thirty-seven thousand men, taking Modena on his
way, and driving Hohenzollern out of it after a bloody engagement.
The two armies met on the Trebbia, where a first and indecisive
action took place on the 17th of June; it was renewed on each of the
two following days, and victory finally remained with the Russians.
In this terrible battle of three days, the most obstinately contested
and bloody that had occurred since the beginning of the war, the
loss on both sides was excessive; that of the French was above
twelve thousand in killed and wounded, and that of the allies not
much less. But nearly equal losses told with very unequal severity on
the respective combatants; those of the allies would speedily be
retrieved by large reinforcements, but the republicans had expended
their last resources, were cut off from Moreau, and had no second
army to fall back upon. Macdonald with infinite difficulty regained
the positions he had occupied before the advance to the Trebbia,
after losing an immense number of prisoners.
The fall of the citadel of Turin on the 20th of June was of great
importance to the allies; for besides disengaging their besieging
force it put into their hands one of the strongest fortresses in
Piedmont, and an immense quantity of artillery and ammunition.
This event, and Suvarov’s victory on the Trebbia, checked the
successful operations of Moreau, and compelled him to fall back to
his former defensive position on the Apennines. Again, contrary to
Suvarov’s wishes, the allied forces were divided for the purpose of
reducing Mantua and Alexandria, and occupying Tuscany. After the
fall of those two fortresses, Suvarov laid siege to Tortona, when
Joubert, who had meanwhile superseded Moreau, marched against
him at the head of the combined forces of the French. On the 15th
of August, another desperate battle was fought at Novi, in which
Joubert was killed, but from which neither side derived any particular
advantage. The French returned to their former positions, and the
Italian campaign was ended.
Suvarov now received orders to join his forces with those under
Korsakov, who was on the Upper Rhine with thirty thousand men.
The archduke Charles might, even without this fresh reinforcement,
have already annihilated Massena had he not remained for three
months, from June to August, in complete inactivity; at the very
moment of Suvarov’s expected arrival, he allowed the important
passes of the St. Gotthard to be again carried by a coup-de-main by
the French, under General Lecourbe, who drove the Austrians from
the Simplon, the Furka, the Grimsel, and the Devil’s Bridge. The
archduke, after an unsuccessful attempt to push across the Aar at
Dettingen, suddenly quitted the scene of war and advanced down
the Rhine for the purpose of supporting the English expedition under
the duke of York against Holland. This unexpected turn in affairs
proceeded from Vienna. The Viennese cabinet was jealous of Russia.
Suvarov played the master in Italy, favoured Sardinia at the expense
of the house of Habsburg, and deprived the Austrians of the laurels
and the advantages they had won. The archduke, accordingly,
received orders to remain inactive, to abandon the Russians, and
finally to withdraw to the north; by this movement Suvarov’s
triumphant progress was checked, he was compelled to cross the
Alps to the aid of Korsakov, and to involve himself in a mountain
warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.
Korsakov, whom Bavaria had been bribed with Russian gold to
furnish with a corps one thousand strong, was supported solely by
Kray and Hotze with twenty thousand men. Massena, taking
advantage of the departure of the archduke and the non-arrival of
Suvarov, crossed the Limmat at Dietikon and shut Korsakov, who had
imprudently stationed himself with his whole army in Zurich, so
closely in that, after an engagement that lasted two days, from the
15th to the 17th of September, the Russian general was compelled
to abandon his artillery and to force his way through the enemy. Ten
thousand men were all that escaped. Hotze, who had advanced from
the Grisons to Schwyz to Suvarov’s rencontre, was, at the same
time, defeated and killed at Schanis. Suvarov, although aware that
the road across the St. Gotthard was blocked by the Lake of
Lucerne, on which there were no boats, had the temerity to attempt
the passage. In Airolo, he was obstinately opposed by the French
under Lecourbe, and, although Shveikovski contrived to turn this
strong position by scaling the pathless rocks, numbers of the men
were, owing to Suvarov’s impatience, sacrificed before it.
On the 24th of September, 1799, he at length climbed the St.
Gotthard, and a bloody engagement, in which the French were
worsted, took place on the Oberalpsee. Lecourbe blew up the Devil’s
Bridge, but, leaving the Urnerloch open, the Russians pushed
through that rocky gorge, and, dashing through the foaming Reuss,
scaled the opposite rocks and drove the French from their position
behind the Devil’s Bridge. Altorf on the lake was reached in safety by
the Russian general, who was compelled, owing to the want of
boats, to seek his way through the valleys of Schächen and Muotta,
across the almost impassable rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains
rendered the undertaking still more arduous; the Russians, owing to
the badness of the road, were speedily barefoot; the provisions were
also exhausted. In this wretched state they reached Muotta on the
29th of September and learned the discouraging news of Korsakov’s
defeat. Massena had already set off in the hope of cutting off
Suvarov, but had missed his way. He reached Altorr, where he joined
Lecourbe on the 29th, when Suvarov was already at Muotta, whence
Massena found on his arrival that he had again retired across the
Bragelburg, through the Klönthal. He was opposed on the lake of
Klönthal by Molitor, who was, however, forced to retire by
Auffenberg, who had joined Suvarov at Altorf and formed his
advanced guard, Rosen, at the same time, beating off Massena with
the rearguard, taking five cannon and one thousand of his men
prisoners. On the 1st of October, Suvarov entered Glarus, where he
rested until the 4th, when he crossed the Panixer Mountains through
snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine, which he reached on
the 10th, after losing the whole of his beasts of burden and two
hundred of his men down the precipices; and here ended his
extraordinary march, which had cost him the whole of his artillery,
almost all his horses, and a third of his men.
The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where he had
taken Philippsburg and Mannheim, but had been unable to prevent
the defeat of the English expedition under the duke of York by
General Brune at Bergen, on the 19th of September. The archduke
now, for the first time, made a retrograde movement, and
approached Korsakov and Suvarov. The different leaders, however,
did nothing but find fault with each other, and the czar, perceiving
his project frustrated, suddenly recalled his troops, and the
campaign came to a close.
Paul’s anger fell without measure or reason on his armies and
their chiefs. All the officers who were missing, that is to say who
were prisoners in France, were broken as deserters, and Suvarov,
instead of being well received with well merited honours, was
deprived of his command and not suffered to see the emperor’s
face. This unjust severity broke the veteran’s heart. He died soon
after his return to St. Petersburg; and no Russian courtier, nor any
member of the diplomatic body except the English ambassador,
followed his remains to the grave.

PAUL RECONCILED WITH FRANCE (1800 A.D.)

Frustrated in the objects for which he had

[1800 a.d.] engaged in war, Paul was now in a mood easily
to be moved to turn his arms against the allies
who had deceived his hopes. He had fought for the re-establishment
of monarchy in France, and of the old status quo in Europe; and the
only result had been the aggrandisement of Austria, his own
immediate neighbour, of whom he had much more reason to be
jealous than of the remote power of France. The rapid steps, too,
which Bonaparte was taking for the restoration of monarchical forms
in that country were especially calculated to conciliate Paul’s good-
will towards the first consul. The latter and his able ministers
promptly availed themselves of this favourable disposition through
the connections they had made in St. Petersburg. Fouché had such
confidential correspondence even with ladies in the Russian capital,
that he afterwards received the earliest and most correct intelligence
of the emperor’s murder. Two persons at the court of St. Petersburg
were next gained over to France, or rather to Bonaparte’s rising
empire; these were the minister Rostoptchin, and the emperor’s
favourite, the Turk Kutaisov, who had risen with unusual rapidity
from the situation of the emperor’s barber to the rank of one of the
first Russian nobles. He was also nearly connected by relationship
with Rostoptchin.
Rostoptchin first found means to send away General Dumourier
from St. Petersburg, whither he had come for the purpose of
carrying on his intrigues in favour of the Bourbons. He next sought
to bring Louis Cobenzl also into discredit with the emperor, and he
succeeded in this, shortly before the opening of the campaign in
Italy in 1800, when the cabinet of Vienna was called upon to give a
plain and direct answer to the questions peremptorily put by the
emperor of Russia. Paul required that the cabinet should answer,
without if or but, without circumlocution or reserve, whether or not
Austria would, according to the terms of the treaty, restore the pope
and the king to their dominions and sovereignty. Cobenzl was
obliged to reply that if Austria were to give back Piedmont to the
king of Sardinia it must still retain Tortona and Alessandria; and that
it never would restore the three legations and Ancona. The measure
of the emperor’s indignation was now full; he forbade Count Cobenzl
the court, and at a later period not only ordered him to leave the
country, but would not even allow an embassy or chargé-d’affaires
to remain.
The emperor proceeded more deliberately with regard to the
English. At first he acted as if he had no desire to break with them;
and he even allowed the Russians, whom they had hired for the
expedition against Holland, to remain in Guernsey under Viomesnil’s
command, in order to assist their employers in an expedition against
Brittany. The English government, however, at length provoked him
to extremities. They refused to redeem the Russians who had been
made prisoners in their service, by giving in exchange for them an
equal number of French, of whom their prisons were full; they
refused to listen to any arrangements respecting the grand
mastership of the knights of Malta, or even as to the protectorate of
the order, and gave the clearest intimations that they meant to keep
the island for themselves. Bonaparte seized upon this favourable
moment for flattering the emperor, by acting as if he had really more
respect for Paul than the two powers for whom he had made such
magnanimous sacrifices. Whilst the English refused to redeem the
Russians made prisoners in their service by exchange, Bonaparte set
them free without either exchange or ransom.
The emperor of Germany had broken his word, and neither
restored the pope nor the king of Sardinia, whilst Bonaparte
voluntarily offered to restore the one and give compensation to the
other. He assailed the emperor in a masterly manner on his weak
side, causing the six or seven thousand Russians, whom the English
refused to exchange, to be provided with new clothing and arms,
and he wrote a letter to Panin, the Russian minister, in which he said
that he was unwilling to suffer such brave soldiers as these Russians
were to remain longer away from their native land on account of the
English. In the same letter he paid another compliment to the
emperor, and threw an apple of mortal strife between him and
England. Knowing as he did that his garrison in Malta could not hold
out much longer, he offered to place the island in the hands of the
emperor Paul, as a third party. This was precisely what the emperor
desired; and Sprengporten, who was sent to France to bring away
the Russians, and to thank the first consul, was to occupy Malta with
them. The Russians were either to be conveyed thither by Nelson,
who up to this time had kept the island closely blockaded, and was
daily expecting its surrender, or at least he was to be ordered to let
them pass; but both he and the English haughtily rejected the
Russian mediation.
Paul now came to a complete breach with England. First of all he
recalled his Russian troops from Guernsey, but on this occasion he
was again baffled. It was of great importance to the English cabinet
that Bonaparte should not immediately hear of the decided breach
which had taken place between them and the emperor, and they
therefore prevailed upon Viomesnil, an émigré, who had the
command of the Russians in Guernsey, to remain some weeks
longer, in opposition to the emperor’s will. Paul was vehemently
indignant at this conduct; Viomesnil, however, entered the English
service, and was provided for by the English government in Portugal.
Lord Whitworth was next obliged to leave Russia, as Count
Cobenzl had previously been. Paul recalled his ambassadors from the
courts of Vienna and London, and forthwith sent Count Kalitchev to
Paris to enter into friendly negotiations with Bonaparte. In the
meantime, the English had recourse to some new subterfuges, and
promised, that in case Malta capitulated, they would consent to
allow the island to be administered, till the conclusion of a peace, by
commissioners appointed by Russia, England, and Naples. Paul had
already named Bailli de la Ferrette for this purpose; but the English
refused to acknowledge his nominee, and even to receive the
Neapolitans in Malta. Before this took place, however, the emperor
had come to issue with England on a totally different question.
The idea of a union among the neutral powers, in opposition to
the right alleged by England, when at war with any power
whatsoever, to subject the ships of all neutral powers to search, had
been relinquished by the empress Catherine in 1781, to please the
English ambassador at her court; Paul now resumed the idea.
Bonaparte intimated his concurrence, and Paul followed up the
matter with great energy and zeal, as in this way he had an
opportunity of exhibiting himself in the character of an imperial
protector of the weak, a defender of justice and right, and as the
head of a general alliance of the European powers. Prussia also now
appeared to do homage to him, for the weak king was made to
believe, that by a close alliance between Russia and France, he
might be helped to an extension of territory and an increase of
subjects, without danger or cost to himself, or without war, which he
abhorred beyond everything else. The first foundation, therefore, for
an alliance between Russia and France, was laid in Berlin, where
Beurnonville, the French ambassador, was commissioned to enter
into negotiations with the Russian minister Von Krüderer.
Beurnonville promised, in Bonaparte’s name, that the Russian
mediation in favour of Naples and Sardinia would be accepted, and
that, in the question of compensations for the German princes
particular regard would be had to the cases of Baden and
Würtemberg.

THE ARMED NEUTRALITY (1800 A.D.)

As to the armed neutrality by sea against England, Prussia could

easily consent to join this alliance, because she had in fact no navy;
but it was much more difficult for Sweden and Denmark, whose
merchant ships were always accompanied by frigates. In case,
therefore, the neutral powers came to an understanding that no
merchant vessels which were accompanied by a ship of war should
be compelled to submit to a search, this might at any time involve
them in hostilities with England. In addition to Denmark, Sweden,
and Prussia, which, under Paul’s protectorate, were to conclude an
alliance for the protection of trading vessels belonging to neutral
powers against the arrogant claims of England, Bonaparte
endeavoured to prevail upon the North Americans to join the
alliance. They were the only parties who, by a specific treaty in
1794, had acknowledged as a positive right what the others only
submitted to as an unfounded pretension on the part of England. On
that occasion the Americans had broken with the French Republic on
the subject of his treaty, and Barras and Talleyrand had been
shameless enough to propose that the Americans should pay a
gratuity, in order to effect a renewal of their old friendship with
France, which proposal, however, the Americans treated with
contempt.
On the 30th of September, 1800, their ambassadors concluded an
agreement at Bonaparte’s country seat of Morfontaine, which
referred especially to the resistance which all the neutral powers
under the protectorate of the emperor of Russia were desirous of
making to the pretensions and claims of England. The Americans
first of all declared that neutral flags should make a neutral cargo,
except in cases where the ship was actually laden with goods
contraband of war. It was afterwards precisely defined what were to
be considered goods contraband of war. By the fourth article it was
determined that neutral ships must submit to be detained, but that
the ships of war so detaining a merchantman with a view to search
should remain at least at the distance of a cannon-shot, and only be
allowed to send a boat with three men to examine the ship’s papers
and cargo; and that in all cases in which a merchantman should be
under convoy of a ship of war, no right of search should exist,
because the presence of the convoy should be regarded as a
sufficient guarantee against contraband. Inasmuch as England and
Denmark were at open issue concerning this last point, the
Americans would have been inevitably involved in the dispute had
they immediately ratified the treaty of Morfontaine: they were,
however, far too cunning to fall into this difficulty; and they did not
therefore ratify the treaty till the Russian confederation had been
dissolved.
Sweden and Denmark had come to issue with England concerning
the right of search in 1798 and 1799, when four frigates, two
Swedish and two Danish, were captured and brought into English
ports. True, they were afterwards given up, but without any
satisfaction, for the English still insisted upon the right of search.
The dispute became most vehement in the case of the Danish
frigate Freya, which, together with the merchantmen under her
convoy, were brought into an English port, after a sharp engagement
on the 25th of July, 1800; and the English, aware of the hostile
negotiations which were going on in the north, at once despatched
an expedition against Denmark.
Sixteen English ships of war suddenly appeared before
Copenhagen, and most unexpectedly threatened the harbour and
city with a destructive bombardment, if Denmark did not at once
acknowledge England’s right of search at sea. Had this
acknowledgment been made, Bonaparte’s and the emperor’s plan
would have been frustrated in its very origin; but Denmark had the
good fortune to possess, in its minister Bernstorff, the greatest
diplomatist of the whole revolutionary era, who contrived for that
time to save Copenhagen without the surrender of any rights. It was
quite impossible to resist by force, but he refused to enter upon the
question of right or wrong; and in the agreement which he signed
with Lord Whitworth on the 25th of August, 1800, he consented that
in the meantime all occasion for dispute should be avoided, and thus
the difficulty be postponed or removed. Denmark bound herself no
longer to send her merchantmen under convoy—whereupon the
Freya, and the vessels by which she was accompanied, were set at
liberty. On this occasion the emperor Paul offered himself as
arbitrator; and when Lord Whitworth rejected his interference or
arbitration, he immediately laid an embargo on all the English ships
in Russian ports.
The news of the agreement entered into at Copenhagen, however,
no sooner reached St. Petersburg, than this first embargo was
removed, and the dispute carried on merely in a diplomatic manner.
At last the emperor Paul put an end to this paper war, when Vaubois,
who had defended Malta since July, 1798, against the English,
Russians, Neapolitans, and sometimes also the Portuguese, at length
capitulated, on the 5th of September, 1800. The island was taken
military possession of by the English without any reference whatever
to the order, to Naples, to the promise which they had made to the
emperor, or to Bailli de la Ferrette, whom Paul had named as the
representative of the order. As soon as this news reached St.
Petersburg, Paul’s rage and indignation knew no bounds. On the 7th
of November, he not only laid an embargo upon three hundred
English ships then in his ports, but sent the whole of their crews into
the interior of Russia, and allowed them only a few kopecks a day
for their support.
Lord Carysfort, the English ambassador in Berlin, was unable for
six weeks to obtain any answer from the Prussian government with
respect to its connection with the northern confederation, although
he insisted strongly upon it; and yet Stedingk, the Swedish minister,
and Rosenkranz, the Danish minister, had signed the agreement for
an armed neutrality in the form of that of 1780 as early as the 17th
of December, 1800, in St. Petersburg, and the Prussian minister, Von
Luft, in the name of his king, had signified his acceptance of the
alliance on the 18th. When Lord Carysfort at length obtained an
answer on the 12th of February to his demands, so long and
repeatedly urged in vain, Haugwitz had drawn it up equivocally both
in form and contents. The emperor of Russia was so indignant at the
ambiguity that he not only expressed his feelings on the subject
warmly, but also took some hostile measures against Prussia.
On the other hand, the emperor invited Gustavus IV to St.
Petersburg where he was received with the greatest splendour. He
arrived at St. Petersburg at Christmas, 1800, and immediately, as if
to insult the English, a grand meeting of the order of Malta was
held; the king himself was loaded with marks of honour of every
possible description, and at the end of December he signed a new
agreement, by which the objects of that of the 16th of the same
month were greatly enlarged. In the former alliance defensive
operations alone were contemplated; but now offensive measures
were also agreed upon, with the reservation, indeed, if they should
become necessary. Paul took measures to refit his fleet, and an army
was equipped which was to be placed under the commands of
Soltikov, Pahlen, and Kutusov; the Danish fleet was in good
condition; the Russian minister in Paris appeared to regard the
circumstances as very favourable for gaining Hanover to his master
without danger or risk; and Pitt himself considered the state of
affairs so unfavourable, that he seriously contemplated the propriety
of retiring and making way for a new ministry, in order to render a
peace possible. This close confederacy against England was,
however, dissolved at the very moment in which the first consul
appeared to be disposed to favour Naples and Sardinia, in order to
gratify the wishes of the emperor of Russia.

ASSASSINATION OF PAUL (1801 A.D.)

The catastrophe in St. Petersburg is easily

[1801 a.d.] explained by the continually changing humours
of the emperor, by his mental derangement,
which had been constantly on the increase for several months
previous to his murder, by the acts of violence and injustice which he
suffered himself to commit, and by the dreadful apprehension which
prevailed among all classes of society, from the empress and the
grand duke down to the very lowest citizen. The emperor’s sober
and rational intervals became progressively rarer, so that no man
was sure for an instant either of his place or his life; thousands of
persons completely innocent were sent to Siberia, and yet goodness
and mildness alternated with cruel severity. The emperor one while
exhibited the most striking magnanimity, at another the meanest
vindictiveness.
The beautiful and virtuous empress had patiently submitted to her
husband’s preference for the plain Nelidov, who at least treated her
with honour and respect; but she was obliged also to submit to his
attachment to Lopukhin, who continually provoked strife. She
endured these things patiently, lived on good terms with the
emperor, slept immediately under his chambers, and yet neither she
nor her sons, Alexander and Constantine, were able to escape the
suspicions of his morbid mind. It was whispered, by persons in the
confidence of the court, that the emperor had said he would send
the empress to Kalamagan, in the government of Astrakhan,
Alexander to Shlüsselburg, and Constantine to the citadel of St.
Petersburg. It is not worth while to inquire what truth there may
have been in these reports; everyone felt that the time had arrived
to have recourse to the only means which can be employed in
despotic kingdoms for effecting a complete change in the measures
of government. This means is the murder of the despot, which in
such circumstances was usually effected in the Roman Empire by the
Pretorians, in Constantinople by the Janizaries, or by a clamorous
and infuriated mob, in St. Petersburg by a number of confederated
nobles; and in all these cases was regarded as a sort of necessary
appendage to the existing constitution.
Rostoptchin, the minister, who had long possessed the emperor’s
confidence, was dismissed and in disgrace; and Count Pahlen, who
was at the head of the emperor’s dreadful police, was suddenly and
excessively favoured. He, too, observed, when he had reached the
highest pinnacle, that he began to be suspected. The count was an
Esthonian by birth, a man of a cold, deep, and faithless disposition,
and the instrument of all the cruelties and severities which had been
exercised by the emperor. He was also commander-in-chief of all the
troops in the capital, and since the 10th of March had become a
member of the ministry for foreign affairs. Up to this period he had
been successful in discovering and frustrating all the real or
pretended attempts at dethroning the emperor, but he now formed a
conspiracy against him, because he knew that Paul had called to his
aid two formidable assistants, to use them against himself in case of
necessity. The emperor had previously sent away from St.
Petersburg and now recalled Lindner and Araktcheiev, two of his
most dreadful instruments of violence, the latter of whom played a
fearful part in Russia even during the reign of the mild and clement
emperor Alexander. Pahlen had previously taken his measures in
such a manner that a number of those to whom the murder of an
emperor was no novelty were at that time collected in St.
Petersburg, and only waited for a hint, either with or without Pahlen,
to fall upon the emperor, who had personally given them mortal
offence.
Valerian, Nicholas, and Plato Zubov had first been publicly
affronted by the emperor like the Orlovs, and afterwards dismissed;
they remained under compulsory absence in Germany till they found
a medium for securing the favour of the only person who had any
influence over the emperor. This medium was the French actress,
Chevalier, who ruled the Turk Kutaisov (formerly a valet de chambre,
but now adorned with all possible titles, honours, and orders, with
the broad ribbon and stars of Europe), and through him ruled the
emperor. Chevalier obtained permission for the Zubovs to return to
the court, and Plato held Kutaisov bound by his expressed intention
of marrying the Turk’s daughter. Plato had been previously
commander-in-chief of the army, and could, in case of need, reckon
upon it with the greater certainty, as it had been made discontented
by the gross and ridiculous treatment of the generals of the whole
army, and even of such a man as Suvarov.
Participators in a plan for setting aside the emperor were easily
found among the nobles, as soon as it became certain that there
was nothing to fear. It was necessary, however, to obtain the
consent of the two eldest grand dukes; but not a word was said of
the murder, but merely of the removal of their father from the
government. Alexander was not easily prevailed upon to acquiesce in
the deposition of his father, as, however numerous Alexander’s
failings in other respects may have been, both he and his mother
were persons of gentle hearts. Pahlen undertook the business of
persuading the prince, for which he was by far the best fitted,
inasmuch as he knew all the secrets of the court, and combined all
power in himself; he therefore succeeded in convincing the imperial
family of the dangers with which they themselves were threatened,
and of the necessity of deposing the emperor. He appears to have
prevailed with Alexander by showing that he could only guard
against a greater evil by consenting to his father’s dethronement.
Certain it is at least, that Alexander signed the proclamation,
announcing his own assumption of the reins of government, two
hours before the execution of the deed by the conspirators.
The emperor with his family lived in the Mikhailov palace; the 23rd
of March, 1801, was chosen for the accomplishment of the deed, for
on that day the Semenovski battalion of guards was on duty at the
palace. The most distinguished men among the conspirators were
the Zubov, General Count Benningsen, a Hanoverian, who had
distinguished himself in the Polish wars under Catherine,
Tchitchakov, Tartarinov, Tolstoi, Iashvel, Iesselovitch, and Uvarov,
together with Count Pahlen himself, who did not accompany the
others into the emperor’s bedchamber, but had taken his measures
so skilfully that, if the enterprise failed, he might appear as his
deliverer. Very shortly before the execution of the deed, Pahlen
communicated the design to General Talitzin, colonel of the regiment
of Preobrajenski guards, to General Deporadevitch, colonel of the
Semonovski guards, together with some fifty other officers whom he
entertained on the night on which the murder was committed.
On the evening before his death Paul received, when sitting at
supper with his mistress, a note from Prince Mechereki, warning him
of his danger, and revealing the names of the conspirators. He
handed it unopened to Kutaisov, saying he would read it on the
morrow. Kutaisov put it in his pocket, and left it there when he
changed his dress next day to dine with the emperor. He turned to
get it, but Paul growing impatient sent for him in a hurry, and the
trembling courtier came back without the letter on which so much
depended. On the night of the 3rd Paul went early to bed; soon
afterwards the conspirators repaired to his apartment, the outer
door of which was opened to them in compliance with the demand
of Argamakov, an aide-de-camp, who pretended that he was come
to make his report to the emperor. A Cossack who guarded the door
of the bedroom offered resistance and was cut down. The
conspirators rushed in and found the bed empty. “He has escaped
us,” cried some of them. “That he has not,” said Benningsen. “No
weakness, or I will put you all to death.” Putting his hand on the
bed-clothes and feeling them warm, he observed that the emperor
could not be far off, and presently he discovered him crouching
behind a screen. The conspirators required him to sign his
abdication. He refused, a conflict ensued; a sash was passed round
his neck, and he was strangled after a desperate resistance.
Alexander was seized with the most passionate grief when he
learned at what a price he had acquired the crown. He had supped
with his father at nine o’clock, and at eleven he took possession of
the empire, by a document which had been drawn up and signed
two hours and a half previously. The most dreadful thing of all,
however, was that he was obliged not only to suffer the two chief
conspirators, Zubov and Pahlen, to remain about his person, but to
allow them to share the administration of the empire between them.
It was a piece of good fortune that those two thoroughly wicked
men were of very different views, by which means he was first
enabled to remove Pahlen, and afterwards Zubov also. Their
associates, however, remained, and at a later period we shall find
Count Benningsen at the head of the army which was to deliver
Prussia after the battle of Jena.
Paul was twice married: by his first wife, Nathalie Alexeievna,
princess of Hesse Darmstadt, who died in 1776, he had no family; by
his second, Marie Feodorovna, princess of Würtemberg, who died in
1828, he had ten children, the eldest of whom, Alexander by name,
now succeeded to the imperial throne.

THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER I (1801 A.D.); HIS EARLY

REFORMS

The accession of Alexander was hailed with sincere and universal

delight, not only as an escape from the wretched and extravagant
reign of Paul, but as the opening fulfilment of the expectations which
had long been anxiously fixed on his heir. The new monarch was
twenty-five years of age, of majestic figure and noble countenance,
though his features were not perfectly regular. He possessed an
acute mind, a generous heart, and a most winning grace of manner.
“Still,” says M. Thiers, “there might be discerned in him traces of
hereditary infirmity. His mind, lively, changeable, and susceptible,
was continually impressed with the most contrary ideas. But this
remarkable prince was not always led away by such momentary
impulses; he united with his extensive and versatile comprehension
a profound secretiveness which baffled the closest observation. He
was well-meaning, and a dissembler at the same time.” Napoleon
said of him at St. Helena, “The emperor of Russia possesses abilities,
grace, and information; he is fascinating, but one cannot trust him;
he is a true Greek of the Lower Empire; he is, or pretends to be, a
metaphysician; his faults are those of his education, or of his
preceptor. What discussions have I not had with him! He maintained
that hereditary right was an abuse, and I had to expend all my
eloquence and logic during a full hour to prove that hereditary right
maintains the repose and happiness of nations. Perhaps he wished
to mystify me; for he is cunning, false, and skilful.”
In the beginning of Alexander’s reign reform succeeded reform,
and all Europe applauded. He quickly put a stop to the system of
terror and to the absurd vexations which Paul had introduced. He
disgraced the instruments who had worked out the will of that poor
maniac; he repaired the crying injustice which had been committed;
he once more abolished the terrible secret inquisition, but, as we
already said, it was again established by his successor. He instituted
a permanent council, and contemplated the complete reorganisation
of the administration of the interior. He relaxed the rigour of the
censorship of the press, and granted permission to introduce foreign
works. He reduced the taxes and the expenditure of the court; and
in the first year of his reign he abstained from exacting the recruits
for his army, an exaction odious to those whom it affects, and
therefore often accompanied with fearful violences.
He applied himself most diligently to affairs, and laboured almost
as much as his grandmother, who had devoted three hours to the
concerns of the state when her ministers came to confer with her.
He required detailed reports from all the higher officers of state; and
having examined them, caused them to be published, a thing never
before heard of in Russia. He abolished punishment by torture;
forbade the confiscation of hereditary property; solemnly declared
that he would not endure the habit of making grants of peasants, a
practice till then common with the autocrats, and forbade the
announcement in public journals of sales of human beings. He
applied himself to the reform of the tribunals; established pecuniary
fines for magistrates convicted of evading or violating their duties;
constituted the senate a high court of justice, and divided it into
seven departments in order to provide against the slowness of law
proceedings; and re-established the commission which had been
appointed by Catherine for the compilation of a code. He applied
himself to the protection of commerce; made regulations for the
benefit of navigation, and extended and improved the
communication in the interior of his empire. He did much to promote
general education, and established several new universities with
large numbers of subsidiary schools. He permitted every subject of
his empire to choose his own avocation in life, regardless of
restraints formerly imposed with respect to rank, and removed the
prohibition on foreign travel which had been enacted in the last
reign. He permitted his nobles to sell to their serfs, along with their
personal freedom, portions of land which should thus become the
bona fide property of the serf purchaser—a measure by which he
fondly hoped to lay the basis of a class of free cultivators. It was
under his auspices that his mother, Marie Feodorovna, founded many
hospitals and educational institutes, both for nobles and burghers,
which will immortalise her name.
One of the first acts of Alexander’s reign was to give orders that
the British sailors who had been taken from the ships laid under
sequestration, and marched into the interior, should be set at liberty
and carefully conducted at the public expense to the ports from
which they had been severally taken. At the same time all
prohibitions against the export of corn were removed—a measure of
no small importance to the famishing population of the British Isles,
and hardly less material to the gorged proprietors of Russian
produce. The young emperor shortly after wrote a letter with his
own hand to the king of England, expressing in the warmest terms
his desire to re-establish the amicable relations of the two empires;
a declaration which was received with no less joy in London than in
St. Petersburg. The British cabinet immediately sent Lord St. Helens
to the Russian capital, and on the 17th of June a treaty was
concluded, which limited and defined the right of search, and which
Napoleon denounced as “an ignominious treaty, equivalent to an
admission of the sovereignty of the seas in the British parliament,
and the slavery of all other states.” In the same year (October 4-8)
Alexander also concluded treaties of peace with France and Spain;
for between Russia and the former power there had previously
existed only a cessation of hostilities, without any written
convention.

THE INCORPORATION OF GEORGIA

The incorporation of Georgia with the empire, an event long

prepared by the insidious means habitually employed by Russia, was
consummated in this year. The people of Georgia have always had a
high reputation for valour, but at the end of the seventeenth century
they suffered immensely from the Tatars and the Lesghians. Russia
supported Georgia, not sufficiently indeed to prevent the enemy
from destroying Tiflis, but quite enough to prove to the country that,
once under the Russian rule, it would be safe from the Mussulmans.
Alexander’s manifesto of the 12th of September, 1801, says that he
accepts the weight of the Georgian throne, not for the sake of
extending the empire, already so large, but only from humanity!
Even in Russia very few could believe that the Georgians
surrendered themselves to the czar from a spontaneous
acknowledgment of the superiority of the Russian rule, and of its
ability to make the people happy; to disabuse themselves of any
such notion, they had but to look at the queen of Georgia, Maria,
who was detained at St. Petersburg, in the Tauric palace—a name
that might well remind her of the treacherous acquisition of another
kingdom. She rode through the streets in one of the court carriages,
and her features expressed great affliction. The covering which she
wore on her head, as usual in Georgia, prevented the people from
seeing the scars of the sabre wounds she had received before she
quitted the country. Her consort, George XIII, had bequeathed the
kingdom to the Russians, but she protested against the act; and
when the Russian colonel Lazarev came to carry her away to St.
Petersburg, she refused to go with him. He was about to use
violence, but the queen took out a poniard from her bosom and
stabbed him. The interpreter drew his sabre and gave her several
cuts on the head, so that she fell down insensible.

RUSSIA JOINS THE THIRD COALITION

Concurrently with his domestic reforms,

[1803 a.d.] Alexander occupied himself in an extensive
series of negotiations, having for their object
the general settlement of Europe upon such new bases as the
results of the last war had rendered necessary. In particular, he was
engaged as joint arbiter with Bonaparte in the matter of the
indemnifications to be made to those princes who had lost a part or
the whole of their possessions by the cession of the left bank of the
Rhine. Alexander was secretly dissatisfied with the part he was made
to play in these transactions, for the authority which he shared in
appearance with Bonaparte, was in reality monopolised by the latter.
He abstained, however, from remonstrating, contenting himself for
the present with the outward show of respect paid to his empire,
and with a precedent which, added to that of Teschen, established in
future the right of Russia to mix itself up in the affairs of Germany.
The Peace of Amiens between France and England was broken, and
a war was declared on the 18th of May, 1803, between the two
powers, which was ultimately to involve the whole of Europe.
Meanwhile, many cases were arising to increase Alexander’s
displeasure against Bonaparte.
The relations between Russia and France were at this time of such
a nature that the Russian chancellor, Vorontzov, said plainly, in a
note of the 18th of July, that if the war were to be prolonged
between France and England, Russia would be compelled finally to
take part in it. Before this declaration on the part of Russia,
Bonaparte had a scene with Markov, which alone might well have
caused a rupture. He addressed the Russian ambassador, in a public
audience, so rudely and violently that even Bignon, who is disposed
to worship Bonaparte as a demi-god, is obliged to confess that his
hero entirely lost his dignity, and forgot his position.
 When
[1803-1805 a.d.] Markov
withdrew in
November, he left his secretary
of legation, D’Oubril, as acting
ambassador in his place.
Everyone, however, foresaw a
breach at no very distant period;
and Russia had already, in the
autumn of 1803, when nothing
was to be done with Prussia,
entered into a closer connection
with England. Negotiations were
also commenced with Austria,
and a union with Sweden and
Denmark, for the purpose of Alexander I
liberating Hanover, was spoken (1777-1825)
of. This was the state of affairs
at the beginning of 1804: the
murder of the duke d’Enghien brought matters to a crisis. The
mother of the Russian emperor had been all along hostile to
everything proceeding from Bonaparte; and the mild and gentle
spirit of the emperor, like that of all persons of good feeling in
Europe, was deeply wounded by the fate of the duke. From the
beginning of 1804, he had no further political reasons for keeping up
a friendly relation with France; he therefore gave himself up entirely
to his natural feelings on hearing of the catastrophe at Vincennes.
By the declarations interchanged between the courts of St.
Petersburg and Berlin (May 3rd and 24th, 1805), it was agreed that
they should not allow the French troops in Germany to go beyond
the frontier of Hanover; and that should this happen, each of the
two powers should employ 40,000 men to repel such an attempt. A
convention was also signed between Russia and Austria before the
end of the year, and they agreed to set on foot an army of 350,000
men. England, under the administration of William Pitt, added her
strength to these combinations, and united the several powers in a
third coalition for the purpose of wresting from France the countries
subdued by it since 1792, reducing that kingdom within its ancient
limits, and finally introducing into Europe a general system of public
right. The plan was the same as that which ten years afterwards was
executed by the Grand Alliance; it failed in 1805, because the
participation of Prussia, on which the allies had reckoned, was, from
the most ignoble motives withheld.
The negotiations of the several treaties connected with the
coalition, occupied the greater part of the year 1805. By the Treaty
of St. Petersburg (August 11th), between Great Britain and Russia, it
was agreed that Alexander should make another attempt for
arranging matters with Bonaparte, so as to prevent the war. The
Russian minister Novosiltzov was sent to Paris by way of Berlin,
where he received the passports procured for him from the French
cabinet by that of Prussia; but at the same time, orders reached him
from St. Petersburg, countermanding his journey. The annexation of
the Ligurian Republic to France, at the moment when the allies were
making conciliatory overtures to Napoleon, appeared to the emperor
too serious an outrage to allow of his prosecuting further
negotiations. War was consequently resolved on.

THE CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ (1805 A.D.)

Napoleon seemed to be wholly intent on his

[1805 a.d.] design of invading England. Part of his troops
had already embarked (August 27th), when on
a sudden the camp of Boulogne was broken up, and the army put in
march towards the Rhine, which river it passed within a month after.
Austria had set on foot three armies. The archduke Charles
commanded that of Italy; his brother John was stationed with the
second army on the Tyrol; and the third was commanded nominally
by the archduke Frederick, the emperor’s cousin, but in reality by
General Mack. The first Russian army under Kutusov had arrived in
Galicia, and was continuing its march in all haste. It was followed by
another under Michelson. The Russian troops in Dalmatia were to
attempt a landing in Italy.
Mack having crossed the Inn (September 8th), and entered
Swabia, Napoleon’s plan was to cut him off from the army of
Kutusov, which was marching through Austria. In this he succeeded
by a violation of the Prussian territory. Marmont, who had marched
by way of Mainz, and Bernadotte, who had conducted an army into
Franconia, where they were joined by the Bavarians, traversed the
country of Anspach, and thus came on the rear of the Austrian army
(October 6th). From that date, scarcely a day passed without a
battle favourable to the French. Several Austrian divisions were
forced to lay down their arms. Mack, who had thrown himself into
Ulm, lost all resolution, and capitulated with 25,000 men (October
19th). Mack’s army was thus totally dissipated, except 6000 cavalry,
with which the archduke Ferdinand had opened himself a passage
through Franconia, and 20,000 men, with whom Kienmayer had
retired to Braunau, where he was met by the vanguard of Kutusov.
The two generals continued their retreat. The Russians repassed the
Danube near Grein (November 9th), and directed their march
towards Moravia. A few days after (November 13th), Vienna fell into
the hands of the French. The Austrians had renounced the design of
defending their capital, but decided that the passage of the river
should be disputed.
Vienna is situated at some distance from the Danube, which flows
to the right of the city between wooded islands. The Austrians had
placed explosive materials under the floorings of the wooden bridge
which crosses the several arms of the river, and were ready to blow
it up the moment the French should show themselves. They kept
themselves in readiness on the left bank, with their artillery pointed,
and a corps of 7000 or 8000 men, commanded by Count Auersberg.
The French, nevertheless, got possession of the bridge by
stratagem. Murat, Lannes, Belliard, and their staff, leaving their
troops behind them, crossed the bridge, told the Austrians that an
armistice was agreed on, and asked to see their general. He was
sent for. Meanwhile, the French officers kept the Austrian gunners in
conversation, and gave time for a column of French grenadiers to
come up unseen, under cover of the woods, seize the cannon, and
disarm the artillerymen. The Austrian commander who had come to
the spot just at the critical moment, fell completely into the trap. He
himself led the French column over the bridge, and ordered the
Austrian troops to be drawn up on parade to receive them as
friends. The possession of the bridge afforded the French troops the
means of reaching Znaim sooner than Kutusov, and thus preventing
his junction with Buxhövden.
Meanwhile, Alexander had gone to Berlin, to exert his personal
influence over the timorous king, and prevail on him to abandon his
wretched neutral policy, in which there was neither honour, honesty,
nor safety. Alexander was warmly seconded by the beautiful queen
of Prussia, and by the archduke Anthony, who arrived at the same
time on a special mission from Vienna. French influence rapidly
declined in Berlin; Duroc left it on the 2nd of November, without
having been able to obtain an audience, for some days previously,
either from the king or the emperor; and on the following day a
secret convention was signed between the two monarchs for the
regulation of the affairs of Europe, and the erection of a barrier
against the ambition of the French emperor.
The Prussian minister Haugwitz, who had signed this convention
only to gain time, and with a secret determination to elude its
provisions, was to be entrusted with the notification of it to
Napoleon, with authority, in case of its acceptance, to offer a
renewal of the former friendship and alliance of the Prussian nation;
but in case of refusal, to declare war, with an intimation that
hostilities would begin on the 15th of December—when they would
be too late. Before that day came, Prussia relapsed into her old
temporising habits; her armies made no forward movement towards
the Danube, and Napoleon was permitted to continue without
interruption his advance to Vienna, while 80,000 disciplined veterans
remained inactive in Silesia; a force amply sufficient to have thrown
him back with disgrace and disaster to the Rhine.
 A characteristic scene took place at Potsdam during Alexander’s
visit. The king, the queen, and the emperor went one night by
torchlight into the vault where lay the coffin of Frederick the Great.
They knelt before it. Alexander’s face was bathed in tears; he
pressed his friend’s hands, he clasped him in his arms, and together
they swore eternal amity: never would they separate their cause or
their fortunes. Tilsit soon showed what was the value of this oath,
which probably was sincere for the moment when it was taken.
During the retreat of the Austrians and Russians under Kienmayer
and Kutusov from Passau to Krems, the imprudence of Mortier, who
had crossed to the left bank of the Danube at Linz, gave occasion to
engagements at Stein and Dirnstein, in which the French lost more
men than they ever acknowledged. Mortier’s army of 30,000 men
consisted of three divisions, under Generals Gazan, Dupont, and
Dumonceau. This army had positive orders to keep always near to
the main body, which was pursuing its march along the right bank,
and never to advance beyond it. Kutusov had long retreated on the
right bank; but on the 9th of November he crossed to the left at
Grein, as before mentioned, and lay in the neighbourhood of Krems,
when Mortier’s troops advanced. The French divisions maintained
the distance of a whole day’s march one from another, because they
thought they were following a fleeing army; but between Dirnstein
and Stein they fell in with the whole Russian army, 20,000 strong, at
a place where the French were obliged to pass through a frightful
ravine. On the 11th of November, Mortier ventured to make an
attack with Gazan’s division alone; but near Dirnstein (twenty hours
from Vienna), he got into a narrow way, enclosed on both sides by a
line of lofty walls, and there suffered a dreadful loss. When the
French, about noon, at length supposed themselves to have gained
some advantage, the Russians received reinforcements, outflanked
the French, cut them off, and would have annihilated the whole
division, had not Dupont’s come up at the decisive moment. The
latter division had also suffered severely on the same day. Whilst
Kutusov was sharply engaged with Mortier, whose numbers were
being rapidly diminished, and his cannon taken, the Austrian general
Schmidt attacked Dupont at Stein, where the contest was as
murderous as at Dirnstein, till Schmidt fell, and the French forced
their way out.
Kutusov, on his march to Znaim, was overtaken by the van of the
French, under Belliard, near Hollabrunn; and everything depended
on detaining the latter so long as might enable Kutusov to gain time
for getting in advance. For this purpose, Bagration, with about six
thousand men, took up a position in the rear of the main body.
Nostitz served under Bagration, and had some thousand Austrians
and a number of Russians under his immediate command. He
occupied the village of Schöngraben, in the rear of the Russians, and
in the very centre of their line of march. Belliard ought to have
attacked him first; but as his corps was not superior in number to
that of Bagration, he had again recourse to the expedient which he
had already tried, with such signal success, at the bridge of Vienna.
He entered into a parley; declared that peace with Austria was
already concluded, or as good as concluded; assured them that
hostilities henceforth affected the Russians alone; and by such
means induced Nostitz to be guilty of a piece of treachery
unparalleled in war. Nostitz, with his Austrians, forsook the Russians,
even those whom he had under his own command; and they being
unable to maintain the village of Schöngraben, it was taken
possession of without a shot; and Bagration and Kutusov seemed
lost, for Murat’s whole army was advancing upon them.
In the meantime the Russians at Hollabrunn extricated themselves
from their difficulty; for they were not so stupidly credulous as the
Austrians, but knew how to deceive the Gascons, by whom they
were pursued, as Belliard had deceived the Austrians. For this
purpose, they availed themselves of the presence in Kutusov’s camp
of Count von Winzingerode, the adjutant-general of the emperor of
Russia, who had been employed in all the last diplomatic military
negotiations in Berlin. Murat having sent his adjutant to call upon
Kutusov, whose line of march had come into the power of the
enemy, in consequence of Nostitz’s treachery in capitulating, the
Russian general assumed the appearance of being desirous to
negotiate, and Winzingerode betook himself to the French camp.
Belliard and Murat, without taking the trouble to inquire what
powers the count and Kutusov had to conclude a treaty which
should be generally binding, came to an agreement with
Winzingerode, by virtue of which all the Russians, within a certain
number of days, were to evacuate every part of the Austrian
territory. This capitulation was to be sent to the emperor Napoleon,
at Schönbrunn, for confirmation; and to this condition there was
necessarily attached another, for the sake of which Kutusov had
commenced the whole affair. There was to be a suspension of
hostilities till the arrival of Napoleon’s answer; and it was agreed that
in the meantime both parties should remain in their then positions.
Bagration, with seven or eight thousand Russians, complied with
this condition, and remained in his position at Hollabrunn, because
he could be observed by the French; but Kutusov, with all the rest of
the army, which lay at a greater distance, quietly continued his route
to Znaim; and this, with a full knowledge of the danger of Bagration
being afterwards overwhelmed by a superior force. On being made
acquainted with the capitulation, Napoleon was enraged, for he
immediately perceived how grievously his brother-in-law had
suffered himself to be deceived; and he ordered an immediate
attack. This was indeed made; but eighteen hours had been
irreparably lost, and Kutusov gained two marches on Murat; the
whole French army, above thirty thousand strong, therefore fell upon
Bagration.
Bagration, who had still with him the Austrian regiment of hussars
of the crown-prince of Homburg, commanded by Baron von Mohr,
offered a vigorous resistance to the whole French army with his
seven or eight thousand men. The Russian bombs set fire to the
village in which was stationed the corps which was to fall upon
Bagration’s flank; the consequence was, that this corps was thrown
into confusion, and the Russians opened up a way for themselves at
the point of the bayonet. The Russian general, it is true, was obliged
to leave his cannon in the hands of his enemy, and lost the half of
his force; it must, however, always be regarded as one of the most
glorious deeds of the whole campaign, that, after three days’
continued fighting, he succeeded in joining the main body under
Kutusov, at his headquarters at Wischau, between Brünn and
Olmütz, and, to the astonishment of all, with one-half of his little
army. Even the French admit that the Russians behaved nobly, that
they themselves lost a great number of men, and that, among
others, Oudinot was severely wounded.
On the same day on which Bagration arrived in Wischau, a
junction had been formed by Buxhövden’s army, with which the
emperor Alexander was present, with the troops under Kutusov, who
thenceforward assumed the chief command of the whole. Napoleon
himself came to Brünn, and collected his whole army around him,
well knowing that nothing but a decisive engagement could bring
him safely out of the situation in which he then was, and which was
the more dangerous the more splendid and victorious it outwardly
appeared to be. It is beyond a doubt that the precipitation and
haughtiness of the Russians, who were eager for a decisive
engagement, combined with the miserable policy of the Prussian
cabinet and the cowardice of the king, as well as the fears and
irresolution of the poor emperor Francis, and the want of spirit
among his advisers, contributed more to the success of Napoleon’s
plans respecting Prussia, Germany, and Italy, than his victories in the
field.
A glance at the situation of affairs at the time of the battle of
Austerlitz will show at once how easily he might have been stopped
in his career. There was nothing Napoleon feared more than that the
Russians should march either to Hungary or to Upper Silesia, and
avoid a decisive engagement; he therefore took means to ascertain
the characters and views of the personal attendants and advisers of
the emperor Alexander; and when he had learned that young men
of foolhardy dispositions had the preponderance in his councils, he
formed his plans accordingly. He first advanced from Brünn to
Wischau, and afterwards retired again into the neighbourhood of
Brünn, as if afraid to venture upon an attack. The emperor of
Germany, as well as Napoleon, appeared seriously desirous of a
peace; but the former was obliged to propose conditions which the
latter could not possibly accept; and Napoleon wished first
completely to set the emperor Francis free from the Russians, his
allies and from Prussia, before he came to an agreement with him.
As Count Stadion, who came to the headquarters of the French on
the 27th of November, with Giulay, as ambassadors to treat for
peace, was a sworn enemy of Napoleon, and remained so till 1813,
and had, moreover, been very instrumental in founding the whole
coalition, and in maturing their plans, his appearance on this
occasion was of itself no good omen for the favourable issue of the
mission.
The proposals made as the basis of a peace were the same as had
been contemplated in the event of a victory on the part of the allies
—the French were to evacuate Germany and Italy. When Napoleon
sent Savary (afterwards duke of Rovigo), the head of his
gendarmerie police, under pretence of complimenting the emperor
Alexander, it was indisputably a great part of this envoy’s object, as
appears from the 30th bulletin, to make himself thoroughly
acquainted with the prevailing opinions and the leading characters
during the three days of his sojourn in the emperor’s camp. Savary
was very well received, and sent away with every courtly attention
by Alexander; but it was intimated that it was intended to make
common cause with Prussia, and that it was expected that
Novosiltzov, whom the emperor Alexander wished to send to
Napoleon, would meet Haugwitz in Brünn. The hint was sufficient to
induce Savary to decline the company of Novosiltzov.
When Savary informed the emperor of the illusion of the Russian
generals, and of their belief that fears were entertained of the
Russians, and that on this account embassies were sent to seek for
peace—Napoleon very cunningly took care to strengthen the fools in
their folly. Savary was sent again to the enemy’s camp to propose an
interview between Napoleon and the emperor of Russia. The
interview was declined; but Prince Dolgoruki was sent to propose
conditions to Napoleon. The latter did not allow him to come into his
camp, but received him at the outposts.