No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)

[alexmilman]

88. Little victorious war? (cont 1)

“Haste is needed only for catching fleas”
Russian proverb
“Artillerymen believe the world consist of two types of people; other Artillerymen and targets.”
Unknown
“CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.”
Ambrose Bierce
“A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.”
Steven Pressfield
​

A double defeat at Barkul and a loss of the whole army was a serious but not critical blow to the Qing and, with the details being unknown, the Emperor and the court tended to consider it as a fluke: the Dzungars managed to get an upper-hand in a border encounter, happened more than once in the earlier conflicts and after this the victors had been losing a sense of reality and advance deep into Khalka Mongolia with their tiny army exposing themselves to the superior Qing numbers with a resulting annihilation of their army, as did happen with Galdan Boshugtu Khan in 1696. Kangxi Emperor demonstrated how this can be done: just have two armies, approximately 30 - 40,000 each, with couple hundreds pieces of a camel artillery.

One army would advance to the Kherlen River and another would march to the North of the Ordos Desert (South from the 1st army) to cut off the retreat route. The Dzungars by that time are going to be overburdened with a cattle looted in Khalka and slow on their move. If necessary, the Qing can pretend that they are ready to have talks and delay the Dzungar retreat. This did work before and why wouldn't it work now? After all, the Dzungars are barbarians (and so are their Russian allies) and are too dumb to learn on their mistakes.

So the only things needed were to mobilize the armies and have them ready on a border of Outer Mongolia to set the trap. Of course, the Khalka Mongols will suffer in a process but what would it matter for the grand strategy? Perhaps they’ll even manage to kill some Dzungars in a process.

The Emperor, unlike his predecessor, was not going to participate in the campaign so the Northern Army would be led by Yue Zhongqi who already conquered Tibet during the previous war with the Dzungars and now served as Minister of War and Viceroy of Chuan-Shaan (with jurisdiction over Shaanxi and Gansu provinces as well as western Inner Mongolia). His deputy was general Bandi, a Borjigit from Mongol Plain Yellow Banner.

Commander of the Southern Army was going to be general Bo Huang, a member of the Chinese Bordered White Banner and governor of Jiangxi [1]. The deputy was Hailancha, a Solon from Manchu Bordered Yellow Banner.

The troops were mobilized, the huge supply trains assembled, the commanders appointed. Now “you have to sit and wait until corps of your enemy will flow down the river.” … Now, there was a problem: a potential corps was stubbornly refusing to go anywhere close to the proverbial river: Galdan Tseren was seemingly quite happy staying within his territory and refusing to ride to his extermination, which was extremely naughty of him.

Actually, immediately after the victory at Barkal Galdan Tseren was itching for an offensive action to subdue the Khalka Mongols and it took Munnich all his charm and newly-acquired prestige to convince him not to do so. Besides the fact that at this stage such an offensive was going to be a fool-hardy adventure (as was demonstrated by Galdan Boshugtu Khan) and another obvious fact that the Russian troops would not be able to move with the same speed as Dzungar cavalry thus eliminating a speed advantage or allowing the Qing to deal with the invaders piecemeal, there was one more consideration, which was not spelled out: Emperor Alexey did not want to have an excessively powerful vassal (which Galdan Tseren is going to be after conquest of Khalka) who may at any point to decide that he does not need Russian protection. The looting raid would be fine but only as a pursuit of the defeated Qing to whom the area will be returned. Peace with the Qing had to be made and the Dzungars will be needed for the conquest of the CA khanates.

Eventually, Galdan Tseren agreed to the arguments: now it was obvious that if the Russians withdraw their support, the Qing will make a complete destruction of the Dzungar a matter of principle and it was definitely better to be a live Khan of a prospering vassal state than a dead ruler of the exterminated people. [2]

As a result, both sides had been sitting tight waiting for the opponent to stick his neck.

There was a steady growth of the Russian troops along the Shilka River on Chita - Nerchinsk line and Munnich got a number of the Russian troops in Dzungaria up to desirable 40,000 following his favorite principle of being rather safe than sorry. The supply depots had been created and a massive number of camels mobilized to be used to carry supplies if and when the war will enter into pursuit stage and construction of the new fortified border line started. There was absolutely no reason for any rush action.

So far, Munnich’s reports to Moscow got a warm reception and a story about destruction of Barkul, grossly exaggerated as it was in the terms of numbers and strength of the Qing fortifications, earned him an Order of St. Alexander. The trouble in the PLC was seemingly averted by flexibility of the future August III who endorsed the Pragmatic Sanction in exchange for the Hapsburg collaboration, the Ottomans and Persian had been busily fighting each other with no end in sight, so there were plenty of resources to be channeled to the East, if necessary.

Rather untypicaly, the Qing lost the patience first: maintenance of the field armies had been hitting the treasury hard and could not last forever.

_____________
[1] The person really existed and was still around (1660-1737) but was seemingly mostly administrator. Simply taken from “Eminent Chinese of Qing period”. The same goes for both deputy commanders (with the reasonable allowances for the dates). 😜
[2] In OTL the Qing exterminated 80-90% of the Dzungar population.

​

 

[alexmilman]

89. Little victorious war? (cont 2)

“Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.”
Clausewitz

“An action committed in anger is an action doomed to failure”
Genghis Khan​

1731. Battle at Khoton Lake. Yongzheng Emperor was extremely irritated when he received reports saying that the Dzungars are stubbornly refusing to cooperate with the strategic plan designed under his personal guidance [1]. After all, there should be some rules of war [2], which even the barbarians have to follow. Actually, especially the barbarians because it was their tradition to launch the raids after winning a victory in a battle. Emperor’s irritation had been fully shared by his military advisors most of whom had been the highly-educated people, admittedly with a very little to none fighting experience, but with a very good knowledge of history, philosophy and poetry. Some of them even started their careers serving in the banner units of Peking garrison and, surely, knew everything one needs to know about the military issues.

Well, one had to face the facts and if the Dzungars were not coming to the Qing then the Qing will come to the Dzungars. The orders had been issued to the commanders of the Northern and Southern armies to prepare for the long march and start marching to the West ASAP. Each army has to be provided with 1,000 carts loaded with grain and confiscate all necessary horses, camels and whatever else is necessary from the region in which it was positioned. After this, the Northern army will march Westward to the North of the Gobi desert and the Southern army will do the same marching in a corridor between Gobi and Ordos deserts. The Northern Army, already 40,000 strong with 100 camel guns, will mobilize additional banner troops of the Khalka Mongols and Solons and act as the main striking force. The Southern Army of 35,000 with 100 camel guns should be strong enough as a secondary force hitting the Dzungars in a rear. Each army had to march approximately 500-600 km to the Dzungar border.

Whatever doubts Yue Zhongqi and Bo Huang may had about the new plan, they wisely preferred to keep them to themselves and did not share them even with their second in command: a report regarding such doubts could find its way to the imperial court with the very unpleasant consequences. So the armies had been steadily marching along the prescribed routes carrying with them the huge supply trains and confiscating the cattle, horses and camels from the locals: the precious grain supplies may be needed for campaign inside Dzungaria.

By mid-summer the Northern Army reached the Khoton Lake [3] close to the Dzungar border. Yue Zhongqi was planning to stay there for few days to let his long column to assemble and to give the troops and horses a few days rest before the invasion.

The camp was set on the Western shore of the lake in a valley protected by the lake on the North-East and the hills on the South-West with enough of the grazing space to the East of the camp. The camp itself was protecting a road in a narrowest place of the valley and a strong detachment of Solon light cavalry had been placed 10 kilometers ahead of the camp at the Western entrance into the valley to guard against unexpected Dzungar attack. Slopes of the hills stretching along the South-Western border of the valley, while not being too high, had the slopes steep and uneven enough to prevent a massive attack of a heavy cavalry. A rearguard detachment had been placed between the Khoton and Khurgan lakes to prevent a possible attack from the North.

In addition to the natural security, the camp was surrounded by a combination of a wagenburg and chevaux de frise, which was routinely carried by the Qing troops as a protection of their infantry against the cavalry charges. The camel cannons had been taken off the camels and placed on the ground at the Western side of a camp [4]. “Emergency reserve” of the horses had been held in a camp to guarantee a fast reaction in the case of Dzungar attack through the valley. Everything had been taken care of.

At 5 in the morning of the next day Russian artillery general Eropkin, who was watching the Qing camp from the hills South of the camp, commented to Munnich who stood nearby: “Give my guys one more hour to bring all guns into a position and in one more hour I’ll have their defenses smashed and camp on fire”. During the night 96 unicorns had been pulled up the hills and installed just behind the top of the hilly ridge [5]. The infantry brigades had been amassing further down the slopes and the Cossacks further to the East behind the hills facing the grazing area.

As promised, at 6AM a massive bombardment of the Qing camp started causing a terrible havoc because the enemy’s guns were nowhere in sight and the explosive grenade notwithstanding their low efficiency, had a much higher physical and moral effect than the solid shot would have.

Slopes of the hills were, indeed, ill-suited for the massive charge of a heavy cavalry in the dense formations but they were just fine for the Cossacks riding in their “lava” style in anticipation of one of their favorite occupations, stealing the horses. Few hundred Manchu and Mongols guarding the pasture had been smashed by a grossly numerically superior opponent who immediately got himself busy with herding some of the horses away from the camp while forcing most of the rest to go into the camp in panic. Thousands of the scared horses galloping into already chaotic camp with a mess aggravated by the numerous explodes and the carts and tents being on fire.

Munnich was quite satisfied with the results and ordered his infantry to advance. Of course, it was impossible to preserve the ideal formations going down the steep hills but the battalion columns did not require perfection so the infantry was arriving into the valley ready for an immediate attack. Of course, even without the horses the Qing soldiers had their hand weapons but continued barrage of a far end of their camp was preventing them from organizing the proper formations.

Fighting in the camp was still going on when a rider galloped from the advance post to report that the Dzungar cavalry is arriving at the Westward entry into the valley. The Solons guarding the entry, being a light cavalry, were not supposed to provide more than a delaying action and under the normal circumstances there should be enough time to put enough troops in a position at the Western side of a camp and artillery placed there would be an additional factor strengthening the defense until the rest of of the Northern Army joins the fight. However, now camp of the Northern army already was under artillery barrage and attack by more than 30,000 of the enemy’s infantry and few thousands Cossacks with the thousands of the scared to death horses and camels smashing their way through the already chaotic camp. Most of the dismounted camel horses never fired and a salvo from the rest did close to nothing to prevent the heavy Dzungar cavalry from riding directly into the camp. Yue Zhongqi managed to assemble few thousands cavalrymen and make their escape through the space between the Khoton and Khurgan lakes. They were intended to ride along the same route they arrived keeping North of the Gobi Desert and passing through the areas where some food could be obtained. But at Urga they were intercepted by the Russian troops, which advanced from Kyakhta. In the following encounter the Qing troops had been forced to make a wide detour South through the Gobi Desert losing most horses and people.

Most of the Northern Army had been pinned with their backs to the lake and surrendered. Contrary to the tradition of killing the prisoners, they had been spared: Galdan Tseren had been told by Munnich that “Russia needs people to work in the mines”. Survivors of the battle had been marched all the way to the Russian Siberia with a very little chance to ever return home.

Bandi was captured. After being interrogated and disclosing everything he knew about Qing’s military plans, he was sent to Moscow together with the captured Qing standards and what could pass for the valuable tokens of the glorious victory. Needless to say that in a report the Qing numbers grew all the way to 100,000. (😜) Galan Tseren got most of the captured Qing armor and weaponry and the horses, camels and grain had been divided to a mutual satisfaction. Of course, the lesser personages helped themselves with various smaller items.

Now, it was time to march South and meet the Southern army carelessly marching to its annihilation [6].



_____________
[1] To avoid the terminological confusion, China did have the Ministry of War as one of Six Ministries under the Department of State Affairs in imperial China. However, functions of this institution seemingly did not involve the military operations or planning. “The Ministry of War had control over appointments, promotions, and demotions of military officers; the maintenance of military installations, equipment, and weapons; and administration over the imperial Chinese post or courier network.”
[2] Louis XIV suffered from the same illusion.
[3] “freshwater lake in Altai Tavan Bogd National Park in Bayan-Ölgii Province, western Mongolia.” On a map above it is at the upper left corner.
[4] Judging by the painting above and some other paintings, these camel cannons were routinely unloaded a used to fire without any carriages. No comments about efficiency of their fire. It is not quite clear to me if they were used as a “classic” zamburak for firing from camel’s back (painting does not show any swivel-like construction) or if the camels were just a mean of a transportation (but zamburaks are being mentioned in the Qing wars of that period) but they were seemingly of a small caliber. There were also bigger guns (see painting below) but if they had been carried only by two horses, they also had to be really light or not intended for being transported too far. Anyway, IITL the invading Qing armies have only the camel guns to improve mobility.

[5] Unlike a conventional cannon, the unicorn, which was an improved field howitzer, could fire at a high angle.
[6] Less than 35,000, exhausted by a ling march, with a hundred of light cannons vs. 60-70,000 thousands with over 200 heavy guns and grossly superior tactics…. Of course, the miracles happen from time to time but….

 

[alexmilman]

90. Little victorious war? (cont. 3)

“A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets”
Sherman
“If you don’t have enough artillery, quit.”
General Richard Cavasos​

Intermission. On the map below a piece of the Dzungar territory in the bottom right corner with “Hami” in its center was, since 1696, the Kumul Khanate. a semi-autonomous feudal Turkic khanate (equivalent to a banner in Mongolia) within the Qing dynasty. The Khans of Kumul were direct descendants of the Khans of the Chagatai Khanate, and thus the last descendant of the Mongol Empire. The Khanate had fought against the Dzungars for the Qing. The title "Jasak Tarkhan" was granted to its rulers later to be upgraded to Qinwang (Prince of the First Rank Chinese: 親王; pinyin: qīn wáng), by the Qing Empire. The Khans were allowed enormous power by the Qing court, with the exception of administering execution, which had to be allowed by a Chinese official posted in Kumul (Hami). The Khans were officially vassals to the Emperor of China, and every six years were required to visit Beijing to be a servant to the Emperor during a period of 40 days. It was also known as the principality of Kumul, and the Chinese called it Hami. The Khans were loyal to Chinese rule and authorities. At the time in question the khanate had been ruled by Emin who in the fifth year of Yongzheng's reign was promoted to Zhenguo Gong (鎮國公) (Duke Who Guards the State) and in the 7th year to Gushan Beizi (固山貝子) (Banner Prince).
Hami officially accepted and converted to Islam in 1513.
Center of the khanate was located in a fertile oasis “favourable for the five types of grain [rice, two kinds of millet, wheat and beans], mulberry trees, hemp, and grapes” and famous for its sweet melons. This, in combination with its position toward Dzungar territories, made the khanate a very important strategic base for the Qing operations.

The Southern Army had been marching toward khanate’s capital Hami along what looks like a yellow corridor on the map above, which allowed a reasonably good supply along the route. At Hami it was expected to get the news about progress of the Northern Army, according to the general strategic plan, to march on Urumqi around which both armies had to met. Presumably, the main Dzungar force will be either destroyed by the Northern Army near the border or will be retreating, in which case it was going to be squeezed between two Qing armies. If it would be running too fast, the North and South armies will be pursuing it further into the Dzungar territory.

Prince Emin should be assigned the task of restoring the Barkol fortress for which task he has to use as many of his subjects as task required. Few Qing who travelled with the Northern Army explicitly for this purpose will be left in Hami to oversee the works . As a just punishment for what happened at Barkol, all Dzungars met on the march has to be exterminated. The orders had been quite clear and general Bo Huang was intended to implement them to the best of his quite considerable abilities.

Unfortunately, at Hami nobody had an idea about the whereabouts of the Northern Army. The last courier brought news that it was marching toward the Khoton Lake but after that there was nothing. This could mean many things but the most probable one was that Yue Zhongqi and Bo Huang managed to destroy the Dzungar army and now are in a hot pursuit killing and looting on their way and having no intention to share the glory (and loot) with the Southern Army [1]. Of course, there was also a remote possibility of them suffering some kind of an offset, which they also could blame upon the tardiness of the Southern Army which left them alone against the overwhelming odds [2].

After discussing situation with his second-in-command [3] Bo Huang sent a report to Peking (co-signed by Hailancha) informing the Emperor about the situation and assuring that, no matter what, the Southern Army is going to perform its duty. After which the Southern Army strengthened by few thousands Kumul troops started march toward Turpan [4].

It was less than 200 km away but this proved to be quite irrelevant because somewhere in between the Southern Army had been attacked by a much bigger Russian-Dzungar force. This was not an unexpected attack as in the case with the Northern Army, the enemy was duly noticed by the scouts and Bo Huang had a time to take a reasonably good defensive position, which would work reasonably well against the Dzungars. But not against the enemy possessing over 200 hundred artillery pieces much heavier than what Bo Huang had in his disposal. A traditional first part of a battle, the shooting match between the opposing infantry lines, started badly for the Qing because the wicker shields proved to be an inadequate defense against the 12- and 20-pound cannonballs and kept getting worse. A desperate counter-attack with the pikes and swords had been met with a grapeshot and musket fire and failed before reaching the enemy’s position. Cavalry of the second line tried to save situation by attacking the slowly advancing enemy columns but was repelled and, in turn, attacked by the Dzungar and Russian cavalry. Suffering heavy losses Bo Huang ordered retreat which soon enough turned into a rout. Leaving a part of the survived infantry in Hami to strengthen defense of the city, he kept retreating with the rest of his army to Anxi.

However, pursuit by the enemy forced him to retreat even further, all the way to Xining. Out of the initial 35,000 less than 15,000 had been left. All artillery and most if the supply train had been lost. The only consolation was that, as Bo Huang now had the chance to find out, that comparing to the Northern Army he did reasonably well.

Defense of Hami lasted for a week after which the city capitulated. Prince Emin was captured and sent to Moscow and the Khanate was declared a part of Dzungaria. The Chinese engineers sent to Barkol had been captured. Galdan Tseren wanted to do to them something really creative to make it clear that if he destroyed the fortress, it should remained destroyed. However, Munnich persuaded him to leave them alive: he wanted to get as much information about the Chinese fortifications as possible. Besides, being an engineer himself, he was quite curious about state of this art in China.

Now, with the second Chinese offensive repelled, there was a time for a little excursion into their territory.

Other events of notice: Ulrike of Sweden is 18 [5] so, by a popular demand, she married Federick of Prussia.

______________
[1] Judging by what little I managed to learn on the subject, a backstabbing was one of the main occupations of the Qing officials of all ranks. Of course, them being the highly cultured Chinese, the main instrument was writing the detailed reports regarding somebody else’s misdeed to which an accused person was supposed to write a rebuttal, etc. It would be well within the framework of the system for the victorious Northern commanders to accuse the Southern leadership in procrastination, which forced them to fulfill the will of Son of the Heaven alone, blahblahblah.
[2] See [1] with a little bit different tune. 😜
[3] Of course, Hailancha was a Solon and as such almost a barbarian but he spent most of his career at Qing court and was civilized enough both to understand a potential danger coming from the Northern Army and to blame everything on his commender if things go bad and he is left out of the loop and can claim ignorance. See [1]
[4] Famous for its raisins. Not that it has anything to do with the subject. 😉
[5] Disclaimer. I have absolutely nothing to do with her birth: it was @Kriss who had been around at the critical moment. Ditto for her marriage: he did all arrangements. One may only guess about the reason for such an interest in her fate. 😂😂😂

 

[alexmilman]

91. Little victorious war? (cont. 4)

“Let all your wishes come true”
Chinese curse
“-He’s learned an important lesson.
- It won’t do him much good now where he’s gone.”
Pratchett Interesting times​

“The art of war is a science in which nothing is possible but what has been calculated and thought out.”

Napoleon
​

Intermission. The Khalkha Mongols in Outer Mongolia joined the Qing in 1691 when their defeat by the Dzungars left them without a chance to remain independent. Not that they got such a chance under the Qing. After defeating the Dzungar Khan Galdan Kangxi Emperor organized a congress of the rulers of Khalkha and Inner Mongolia in Duolun, at which the Khalkha khans formally declared allegiance to him. The war against Galdan essentially brought the Khalkhas to the empire, and the three khans of the Khalkha were formally inducted into the inner circles of the Qing aristocracy by 1694. Thus, by the end of the 17th century the Qing dynasty had put both Inner and Outer Mongolia under its control. The Khalka Mongols were forbidden by the Qing from crossing the borders of their banners, even into other Mongol Banners and from crossing into neidi (the Han Chinese 18 provinces) and were given serious punishments if they did in order to keep the Mongols divided against each other to benefit the Qing. Mongol pilgrims wanting to leave their banner's borders for religious reasons such as pilgrimage had to apply for passports to give them permission. For the administration of Mongol regions, a bureau of Mongol affairs was founded and the entire territory was technically under the jurisdiction of the military governor of Uliastai, a post only held by Qing bannermen: governor in Urga

had general supervision over the eastern part of the region while the western part was under the supervision of the governor at Uliastai.

The Qing government administered both Inner and Outer Mongolia in accordance with the Collected Statutes of the Qing dynasty (Da Qing Hui Dian) and their precedents. Only in internal disputes the Outer Mongols or the Khalkhas were permitted to settle their differences in accordance with the traditional Khalkha Code. To the Manchus, the Mongol link was martial and military. Originally as "privileged subjects", the Mongols were obligated to assist the Qing court in conquest and suppression of rebellion throughout the empire. Indeed, during much of the dynasty the Qing military power structure drew heavily on Mongol forces to police and expand the empire.

The Mongolian society consisted essentially of two classes, the nobles and the commoners. Every member of the Mongolian nobility held a rank in the Qing aristocracy, and there were ten ranks in total, while only the banner princes ruled with temporal power.

In acknowledgement of their subordination to the Qing dynasty, the banner princes annually presented tributes consisting of specified items to the Emperor. In return, they would receive imperial gifts intended to be at least equal in value to the tribute, and thus the Qing court did not consider the presentation of tribute to be an economic burden to the tributaries. The Mongolian commoners, on the other hand, were for the most part banner subjects who owed tax and service obligations to their banner princes as well as the Qing government. The banner subjects each belonged to a given banner, which they could not legally leave without the permission of the banner princes, who assigned pasturage rights to his subjects as he saw fit, in proportion to the number of adult males rather than in proportion to the amount of livestock that to graze.

Militarily, they remained predominantly the horse archers with no artillery and very few firearms.

The battle of what exactly? Now, practically all of the above was rather secondary when Munnich and Galdan Tseren had been choosing a target for their next campaign because taking Khalka Mongolia from the Qing was not in the plans. Two main factors were:
1. As a war theater the region was well-known o the Dzungars (and promised a good looting).
2. The region’s name. As far a Munnich was concerned a victorious campaign in Khalka could be presented in Russia as a historic revenge for the Battle at Kalka [1]. 😉 Well, of course it also had an advantage of being reasonably close to the Russian border so that the reinforcements could be brought, if necessary, with a relative ease. Soon after defeat of the Northern Army the Russian detachment left Urga and returned to Kjakhta but it could be called back into the theater.

Taking into an account that the main anticipated opponent was going to be a cavalry, speed was of a primary importance. All Russian infantry assigned for the campaign had been provided with the horses and artillery was provided with the spare teams. Of course, opponent’s light cavalry would be able to outrun them but the herds could not move with the speed of a light cavalry and neither could the nomadic camps so sooner rather than later the Khalka would have to stand and fight. And there was numerous Dzungar cavalry, the Cossacks and Russian regular cavalry to pin them down. Most probably the Qing will manage to bring some banner troops from Inner Mongolia but after the loss of three armies within few months they hardly had too many bannermen in the region.

So a strong force had been left at Hami as a protection against very unlikely attack from the South and most of the rest started their ride in Urga direction. Initially, the campaign was more or less something of a leisure walk because the western Khalka princes had been fleeing East with their bands and as much cattle as they could take with them without a risk of being intercepted. Most of the commoners were rather passive as soon as they figured out that the invaders are not planning a wholesale killing or even excessive looting. The first serious encounter happened when the Russian-Dzungar army reached the Orkhon River. On its other bank was Khalka army and few thousands of the Manchu banner troops with 20 “heavy” artillery pieces and 30 camel guns. Total up to 40,000 troops. Behind their backs was Erdene Zuu, a highly respected Buddhist monastery.

The monastery was damaged in 1688 during one of the many wars between Dzungars and Khalkha Mongols. Locals dismantled the wooden fortifications of the abandoned monastery. It was rebuilt in 1706 and had a full 62 temples and housed up to 1000 monks. On a hill outside the monastery sits a stone phallus called Kharkhorin Rock. [3]

The phallus is said to restrain the sexual impulses of the monks and ensure their good behavior. There is also a stone tortoise, a leftover of Karakorum (monastery is located close to the site of the old Mongolian imperial capital).

Combination of the river at their front and a holy place at their back presumably had to provide the defenders with a miraculous victory [4] but it did not happen. The powerful Russian batteries secured the cavalry crossings on the flanks. The infantry columns followed and the battle was over. Except for the couple thousands Manchu bannermen who were surrounded and surrendered, the losses on both sides had been relatively small. However, the battle itself and an energetic pursuit broke the Khalka spirit. They simply did not want to fight anymore. Neither did the Manchu bannermen. Munnich occupied Urga and the Dzungars stretched all the way to the Kerulen River.

One of the captured Manchu commanders had been sent to Beijing with a proposal to start talks. Yongzheng Emperor was facing a dilemma: to continue the very expensive and so far disastrous hostilities or to try to save face, start talks and minimize the losses.



___________
[1] where in 1223 Jebe and Subutai defeated the Russians.
[2] Overwhelming majority of the soldiers had been former peasants so they had at least some riding skills.
[3] Could not find anything about its effectiveness but they erected (no pun intended) a more modern version in addition to the old one.
[4] At least in all fantasy movies and books being outnumbered, outgunned and outgeneralled is a sure recipe for a smashing victory.

 

[alexmilman]

92. Importance of being polite

“nothing is as cheap and valuable as courtesy”
A proverb
“Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.”
Bismarck
“It seems: having good manners is false, boring, unnecessary. A person by good manners can really cover up bad deeds.”
Author Unknown
“agreement is the product of non-resistance on both sides”
Aphorism
“If it is a trivial matter, do not just simply neglect the issue because it seems insignificant. If it is a complex matter, do not just simply conceal away the issue because it could become a challenge.”
Emperor Youngzheng
​

1732. The little victorious war had been coming to its logical conclusion, at least as far as Munnich had been concerned. Both the Dzungars and Qing had been given an impressive lesson regarding the Russian military strength and now it was a good time to wrap things up by making a formal peace with Qing. Preferably fast because staying forever in the East was not in Munnich’s plans and a prolonged resource-consuming conflict could actually damage his career: the first victories could be eventually forgotten and constant calls for more resources became annoying to the court. After all, while he was given extremely wide powers, his mission was not vague. He had to secure the Dzungar territory for Russia: the Dzungars had to take the Russian overlordship seriously and the Qing to accept that the Dzungar territory is a part of the Russian Empire and to resume the trade. The “extras” were optional, not very important, and should not negatively impact the negotiations and future relations. It was not spelled out but if the program above is implemented successfully (and fast), he could expect St. George First class and fieldmarshal’s baton plus some other awards immediately and in the future. But success and a reasonably fast return to Moscow were the keys: someone who stayed too long far away from the center of power could be losing him connections and risked that even his success could be used against him (as was the case with Prince Gagarin).

But to make a peace the Qing’s agreement was necessary and, taking into an account the Chinese imperial ambitions and superiority attitudes, there were seemingly two options:
1. To march all the way to Peking, take it and be ready to go and fight further into China finally forcing its emperor to acknowledge a defeat. Taking into an account the forces in Munnich's and Chinese disposal, distances, logistics, etc. this was a pure fantasy worthy of a drunken hussar lieutenant.
2. To allow Qing Emperor to save face by playing down scope of the whole war and lowering it to a level of a border incident caused by the over-enthusiastic Qing commanders. This option looked much more promising and while the Peter’s and then Alexey’s court in which Munnich was making his career could be not as sophisticated as one of the Qing Empire, one was not successfully climbing up to social ladder by being a simpleton.

The message sent to the Qing Emperor was a complaint on most probably unsanctioned activities of the Qing regional commanders who are either by confusion or by an ill-adviced enthusiasm had been invading the territory under protection of the Russian Emperor with a resulting need to repel them and a rather unfortunate need to pursue them to the territory of the vassals of his Majesty Emperor Yongzheng because the said vassals took an active part in the above-mentioned invasions. On which territory the Russian army is presently temporarily positioned awaiting arrival of the Qing representatives empowered to resolve the whole misunderstanding to the mutual satisfaction, etc.

Emperor Yongzheng was anything but an idiot. Actually, he was a very intelligent statesman. And he was currently busy conducting a fundamental administrative reform intended to get away from the old system of the monthly selection in which the candidates waiting for the promotion were assigned to different posts by drawing lots on a monthly basis [1] .
“In the new appointment system, local jurisdictions first were classified into two groups according to governance difficulties. More specifically, to prioritize local jurisdictions and allocate appointment power accordingly, the governability of each jurisdiction was decomposed into four elements, or four "characters": Chong, Fan, Pi, and Nan. "Chong" (thoroughfare) referred to places at busy highways and was designed to capture the characteristics of commercial potential or military significance. “Fan” (troublesome) stood for places with a great deal of onerous official business. “Pi” (wearisome) was the area having difficulty collecting taxes. “Nan” (difficult) referred to the places with crime-prone subjects and recurring violent engagement. Moreover, posts of jurisdictions containing all four elements would be ranked as very important positions and posts of places with three elements would be rated as important posts, whereas posts of places having less than two elements would be tagged as middle-level positions (two elements) or easy posts (one-zero element) respectively.
In this way, the post designation (Chong, Fan, Pi, and Nan) was linked to the importance rating system hand in hand. The appointment power then was allocated based on the importance rating system; posts marked as very important and important were subject to the discretionary appointment by the emperor or provincial leaders, whereas other less important posts still were assigned by drawing lots. As a result, the high-quality officials were matched to the important positions and in turn promoted local governance”. [2]

Obviously, the border nuisance, besides being costly, and while the treasury's income increased from 32,622,421 taels (1 tael = 50 grams of silver) in 1721 to about 60 million taels in 1730, the fighting increased military budget well above the intended 10 million taels a year depleted half the treasury, leaving 33.95 million taels. So the peace was needed but without a loss of face. A message from the Russian commander seemingly provided a convenient loophole, especially taking into an account that both unlucky army commanders and a deputy commander of the Southern Army already had been ordered to commit suicide and hardly could do any finger-pointing so, yes, they were at fault (of what exactly, it was absolutely immaterial) and already punished.

The delegation had been officially led by Yunti, formally known as Prince Xun of the Second Rank, a Manchu prince (the 14th son of the Kangxi Emperor) and a general whose army in 1720 captured Lhasa and installed pro-Qing Seventh Dalai Lama.

The Yongzheng Emperor perceived Yunti as a potential threat to his throne, so he stripped Yunti of his title in 1725 and placed him under house arrest at Shouhuang Palace.

Appointing him a figurehead of the diplomatic mission was something of an improvement of his situation but also a slap on the face taking into an account an official insignificance of the event. It was also made clear that, except for the purely ceremonial occasions, he is supposed to be either absent or at least to keep his mouth shut.

Ji Zengyun, Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent, Grand Secretary, and president of the Board of Civil Office (who was appointed to conduct the negotiations) [3] was appointed as a deputy head of a delegation, which was speedily dispatched to Urga, where Munnich established his headquarters.

On their entry to Urga they had been presented with a massive demonstration of a military might: 30,000 regular Russian troops (the force beefed up with the troops brought from the Russian side of a border for the purpose of making a point) had been lined on the plain with the big numbers of the Russian Cossacks and Dzungars prancing around to increase the effect. Huge herds of the horses and camels further on the plain had been indicating readiness for the further action.

Munnich was accompanied by Sava Raguzinsky, an experienced diplomat who negotiated the Kyakhta Treaty, and as Galdan Tseren’s representative, one of his commanders, Baghatur Sayin Bolek [4] - an official level of the discussion would be below the dignity of a head of state, even if this is a vassal state. His main function was to look dashing and ready to trample anyone with his cavalry.

Both sides had been extremely polite at the first meeting but then the head of the delegations left to Raguzinsky, Ji Zengyun and their secretaries to haggle about the most important thing, the agenda. This, seemingly straightforward, thing took two days to iron down after which the real discussions started. For a while the bargaining was along the lines:
- Why should we concede on this issue?
- Because it is our camp on your land and not other way around. [5]
However, soon enough the bickering ended and conversation became more productive. Within a week a consensus on all main items had been reached:
1. The Qing officially recognized Dzungar Khanate in its present borders as a vassal of the Russian Empire.
2. Kumul Khanate (Hama) is being transferred directly to the Russian Empire as a “gift” to compensate for the expenses and losses suffered due to the “incident”.
3. The Qing Empire is going to pay the Russian Empire 100,000 taels to be transferred to Galdan Tseren as a compensation for his losses. As soon as this sum is delivered at Urga, the Russian (and Dzungar) troops will start withdrawal from the Qing territory and should fully accomplish it within a month.
4. The prisoners of war are going to be exchanged without a ransom (unless they voluntarily express a wish to become, correspondingly, Russian or Qing subjects).
5. Barkol fortress should not be restored and no new fortresses on Qing-Dzungar border has to be built by either side within two days of a horse ride.
6. The members of the Russian religion mission in Peking are to be released and building of the mission restored with compensation for the lost property [6].
7. The merchants captured by both sides are to be released. All existing trade arrangements are confirmed.
8. Both sides are taking responsibility for preventing the Dzungar and Khalka raids across the border.
9. Both sides promise to return the rebels and criminals fleeing across the border.
10. Navigation on the Amur should be free for all its length to both sides.
11. Unchartered territory North of the lower Amur left out of the Nerchinsk and Kyakhta Treaties goes to the Russian Empire.
12. A bi-lateral commission will immediately start marking the Qing-Dzungar border.

The treaty was satisfactory for all sides involved:

• Qing gave away only a tiny Kumul Khanate (and even this as a free gift) and a territory on the lower Amur in which it did not have any foothold. Firmly established Dzungar border guaranteed the end of the Dzungar attempts to conquer Khalka and Tibet. One time payment of the 100,000 taels was a relatively small potato and nobody in Peking cared a bit about the Khalka’s herds captured by the Dzungars during the war. Freedom of navigation along Amur was not very important economically (most of the trade was through Kyakhta) but can be presented as a gain. Weakening of the Khalka Mongols allowed to increase the Qing control over their territory.
• Galdan Tseren got 5 tons of silver from the Qing, huge numbers of cattle from the Khalka Mongols and a considerable amount of all types of things, from weapons to the clothes, from the defeated Qing armies. Plus, a guaranteed security from the future Qing invasions.
• Russia - speedy completion of a war with an addition of a big vassal territory and a rich oasis as a direct possession, which would help to control the new vassals. Navigation on the Amur may prove to be useful in a near future. Not insignificant numbers of a captured livestock was welcomed in the Eastern Siberia. Logistical for the future advance into the CA khanate was almost complete and the new Dzungar vassals got an experience of the joined operations with the Russian troops. Munnich was recalled to Moscow to get the hero welcome, fieldmarshal’s baton, St. George First Class, estate near Moscow and a big “arenda”. Now, he was in the top tier of the Russian military and could expect to get on the very top taking into an account a failing health of Michael Golitsyn.
  • Edit: In a process of the joint operations the Russians started getting the Dzungars used to bread as a part of their rations. Which was, as had been already demonstrated by the Kazakhs, a very important tool for strengthening Dzungar’s link to Russia. Obviously, the nomads were not growing grain themselves and the bread consumption meant a need of the increasing trade with Russia and then even a permission to the Russian peasants (grain producers) to start settling on Dzungar lands.

__________
[1] An idea of a specialization (as in deep knowledge of some specific area) seemingly was not there, yet.
[2] Looks to me as a very complicated way to allow the emperor and the governors to appoint their personal proteges to the most “visible” positions while preserving some appearance of a fairness. ☺️
[3] Just picked up the high-ranking officials who were alive at that time. This being a “minor border incident”, presence of a Prince of the First Rank would not be warranted.
[4] Actually, this personage is from the next generation but I needed some Oirat name. Portrait is not his (and not necessary of any real person) but it’ll do as long as it is dashing enough. 😉
[5] Stolen from “Inquisitor”.
[6] The mission was spectacularly unsuccessful in its religious activities but it was providing a wealth of the useful information about China.

 

[alexmilman]

93. Series of the unfortunate events

“There's always a crook near a fool”
Balzac
“A fool always finds a bigger fool who surprises him.”
N. Boileau
​

1732 started badly.

A bridge, which fieldmarshal Michael Golitsyn was crossing in his carriage, collapsed burying under the debris the best and most popular Russian general [1].

Fieldmarshal’s funeral was not forgotten by Moscow for a long time, and some memoirists preserved their details. The regiment was walking with banners rolled up. Thirty court carriages, empty and filled, swayed from behind. That's what the emperor wanted. Orders were carried on pillows.
A wife followed a black heavy coffin, and she cried. When the procession passed by Alexey Petrovich, he slowly raised a naked sword.
- My best people are dying. [2]

Situation on the West kept getting more and more complicated. The Favorite Pet, August II, was seemingly loosing not just his health but his marbles as well. He started the secret (whom was he kidding?) negotiations with France. On October 2 (13) 1728 Augustus II concluded the Versailles Pact: in case of Louis XV's war with Emperor Charles, King Augustus promised to remain neutral and not to let Russian troops pass through the PLC to help the Austrians against the French, in response, France provided the king with the payment of subsidies. This was fine with Alexey because neither he nor his brother-in-law Charles had been planning to get involved into the Franco-Austrian confrontation and if August is trying to squeeze some money from the French for the services he is not going to grant, good luck to him. However, August did not stop there and tried to make an agreement with Prussia by which he offered Friedrich-Wilhelm Polish Prussia and part of Greater Poland, the rest of the lands would became the hereditary kingdom. This proposal went nowhere because Frederich-Wilhelm had a strong suspicion that its implementation would mean a war with Russia and Sweden, an experience which he did not want to repeat.

So far both Charles and Alexey had been pretty much neglecting the Polish affairs, each of them being busy with the domestic affairs. As a result, they were willing to overlook the seemingly minor problems. The weakness of the central power of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the sovereignty of the aristocracy and the arbitrariness of the petty nobility made this state a restless neighbor. Small bands of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility attacked border villages, took away peasants and stole cattle, burned fields and houses. The Polish Catholic majority persecuted the “dissidents”, both Orthodox and Lutheran and things had been getting worse. Not surprisingly, this became a problem for the Hapsburgs as well. The emperor was the guarantor of the rights of religious minorities in the empire, and the surges of Catholic fanaticism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth caused the activity of the Jesuits in Silesia and Hungary, where there were also many Lutherans. In addition, it caused démarches from the Protestant princes of the Empire, who were supported by England and Sweden. If initially the Hapsburgs had been in favor of a native Polish candidate, it was getting more and more clear that under such a candidate situation with the dissidents will deteriorate even further warranting a foreign intervention. As a result, Charles VI found it prudent to side with the Swedish and Russian candidate, Friedrich August of Saxony, providing he is willing to sign Pragmatic Sanction.

In July-August 1730, the Russian court informed Vienna that negotiations with the French were underway in Warsaw and Dresden. This did not mean a conclusion of a formal alliance between the Baltic League and the Hapsburgs but they were definitely getting closer.

In 1731, Polish-Lithuanian raids on the borders and persecution of Orthodox Christians intensified. These events prompted Russia to take active action. Lieutenant General Count Karl Löwenwolde went to Berlin with a task to coordinate actions on the Polish issue with King Frederick William I.

On December 14 (25) 1731, the imperial ambassador in Moscow count von Vratislav presented a draft treaty providing for the guarantee of the Polish "republic", the formation of the Prussian-Swedish-Russian-Austrian Council for Polish Affairs and the nomination of a candidate who "contained all Polish freedoms and would live in peace with all border countries." It was not a part of the draft but unofficially von Vratislav expressed Hapsburg’s willingness to accept the Saxon candidate. The draft had been viewed favorably in Moscow, Stockholm and Berlin but no immediate steps to formalize it had been taken. The things did not look bad enough to warrant an immediate action and at least Russia and Sweden did not want to get involved in the French-Austrian military confrontation which may be triggered by the succession issue. To minimize unnecessary complications, Frederich August was discretely recommended by Sweden and Russia to sign Pragmatic Sanction when his father will kick the bucket.

On the opposite side of the equation, France could not remain uninvolved because pro-French PLC would be helpful for the seemingly inevitable clash with Austria. Pacte de Famille was not yet formally concluded but work in this direction had been going on strengthening French position for war in Italy. The PLC may be a valuable addition on the North (French government had somewhat optimistic view regarding the Polish military might) and the Ottomans (who should be looking for revenge after defeat in a war of 1716-18) on the South and East. Taking into an account a practical impossibility to provide PLC with the French candidate, Cardinal Fleury found a suitable Polish magnate, Stanisław Leszczyński, voivode of Poznań Voivodeship. Well-educated, highly aristocratic, attractively looking, good speaker quite popular among the Polish nobility [2] , always out of money (aka, is going to be heavily dependent upon his French paymasters), a devout Catholic.

What was even more important, he was highly favored by count Theodor Andrzej Potocki, Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland and as such interrex in the case of August’s death.

The interrex would represent the country on the international scene and oversee the internal administration until a new king was elected. In special circumstances he could declare war and negotiate peace. He summoned and presided over the convocation sejm and the election sejm, the gathering of nobility that elected the king. He also announced the election of the king.

Theodor Andrzej Potocki. Born in Moscow in 1664. His father was Pavel Stefanovich Potocki, his mother - Elena Petrovna, née Saltykova - both enjoyed the great favor of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who himself volunteered to be the godfather of their son and ordered to perform the sacrament of baptism to Patriarch Nikon. After his parents moved to Poland, Fyodor Potocki began to attend Jesuit schools, then studied at German and Italian universities. In 1683, he was ordained to the priesthood and soon appointed a Krakow canon. Called to the royal court, Potocki won the sympathy of the royal family and took the post of chancellor of the wife of King's son James. With the election of Augustus II to the throne, Fyodor Potocki, on the proposal of Felix Potocki, received the Bishopric of Hill, although his confirmation as bishop took place only two years after his election: his birth from the Orthodox and baptism by the Orthodox Patriarch aroused intrigue against him. After that, Potocki was appointed senator and member of the State Council of the Kingdom of Poland.

He treated Russia's proposals in 1729 quite favorably , during negotiations between them and the envoy of Russia, Prince S. G. Dolgoruky on the approval of Arseny Berlo, elected bishop of Belarus: having achieved the promise of the Russian ambassador, that if any violence is done during the election of the king, Russia will be along with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Potocki began to express his sympathy for Russia and generally lean towards its interests. This mood, however, was short-lived and he opted for Leszczyński as a matter of principle: freedom of the election has to be of the primary importance. Due to his position he had an enormous influence among the Polish nobility and also was controlling the election process.

So France had a suitable candidate. The only problem was that it will be extremely difficult for France to back him up with a military force. To get to it by the sea, France would need a cooperation or at least friendly neutrality of Christian VI of Denmark. He was approached by the French but refused to get involved in any schema which was not going to be supported by his brothers-in-law, Charles and Alexey. An attempt to convince Charles to side with France on the succession issue was not productive either: Charles did not see any reason for letting France into what was an exclusive Russian-Swedish backyard and the same happened to the attempt to get Alexey on board.

Which left Prussia. But if FWI was unmoved by a proposal of August, who was “offering” him a big chunk of Poland, was even less inclined to get himself sucked into the French machinations which did not involve any realistic bonus but definitely meant a very unpleasant war with almost guaranteed negative outcome for him personally.

As a result, Fleury opted for a rather nasty schema (the moral principles in the politics? what a nonsense!).

France is going to support Leszczyński’s candidacy with the money and promise of a military support coming from the sea. The Poles will have to be assured that King Christian VI secretly agreed to allow the French fleet to pass through the Sound but can’t reveal this agreement until the last moment out of the fear of Sweden and Russia. The Poles, with their usual enthusiasm and optimism, will elect King Stanislaw and if Russia and Sweden and, what is more important, Emperor Charles VI, decide to oppose him militarily, this will further weaken the Hapsburg positions on the Rhine and Italy, which are already rather weak due to the unwillingness to spend money on the military. The Poles are numerous and bellicose and are going to held for a while in a hope for the French reinforcements allowing the French (hopefully with the Spanish help) to beat the Hapsburg forces elsewhere. Their main “strategic factor”, Prince Eugene is already old and ailing and can do little without an adequate army in his disposal.
If, OTOH, Sweden and Russia will accept the Polish choice peacefully, a new king, with the help of the French money, will be easily able to organize a series of the “unofficial” raids into Silesia forcing Austria to stretch its resources and perhaps triggering a negative reaction of the German Protestants. In both cases this will be a win-win situation for France.

With all these things and plans going on, the only component was missing: August II was still alive. But not for too long. Augustus II died on February 1, 1733 in Warsaw. His last words were: "My whole life was a single continuous sin."

In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, executive power passed into the hands of Primate, Archbishop Count Fyodor Potocki of Gniezno. By its first decrees, the primate expelled 1,200 Saxons from the country, disbanded two regiments of the Cavalry Guard and accepted Augustus II's favorite regiment, Grand Musketer, to the Polish service. The Russian ambassador to Warsaw, Count Friedrich Levenwolde, found out in conversations with the primate that he was a strong supporter of Leszczyński. For Russia, Leszczyński's support by the Potocki family did not bode well, as the Potocki controlled the border voivodeships with Russia and Count Józef Potocki was the Warden of Warsaw. The relatives of the Potocki were the Russian voivode August Czartoryski, Yablonovsky, the subscarbia Grand Crown Count František Ossolinsky, the crown regimentary Count Stanislav Poniatowski.

The support for Russia, Sweden and Austria was the Lithuanian nobility opposed to Leszczyński - the regimentary of Lithuanian Prince Mikhail Vishnevetsky, Prince Mikhail-Kazimir Radziwill. Voiovode Prince Fyodor Lubomirski and the castellan Prince Jan Vishnevetsky of Krakow were pre-Austrian. By February 12 (23), 1733, they had organized a confederation in Krakow and seized salt mines, but did not receive military assistance from Austria, the Confederates soon obeyed the primate.

On April 27, 1733, a convocational Sejm was opened, preceding the electoral Sejm, at which it was decided that only a natural Pole and a Catholic who does not have his own army or hereditary power and is married to a Catholic can be elected king. This decision explicitly excluded both the Saxon Elector and any other foreign prince from the list of candidates for the throne. However, when it was necessary to sign these articles, some electors refused to do so, after which they appealed to the Russian court for help.

The election Sejm began on August 25. His work was marked by quarrels. Already on August 29, the regimentary of Lithuanian Prince Vishnevetsky moved with his adherents in the amount of 3,000 people to the right bank of the Vistula to Prague, followed by the Krakow voivode Prince Lubomirski.

On September 11, when the primate was supposed to collect votes, the lords standing on the right bank of the Vistula sent a protest against Stanislav's candidacy, but the primate announced that only the protest made on the election field was considered legitimate. According to Stanislav's opponents, when collecting votes, Primate acted unfairly, quickly passing by suspicious banners, and his retinue shouted at the sound of trumpets and horns: "Long live Stanislav!" Nevertheless, by the evening, the majority clearly spoke in favor of Leszczynski, while the minority went to Prague at night.

On September 12, 1733, the primate proclaimed the election of Stanisław Leszczyński as Polish king. Meanwhile, the minority, having published a manifesto complaining about the destruction of the liberum veto, retreated to Hungary. On September 22, Leszczyński, accompanied by his main supporters, as well as French ambassador, went to Danzig, where he intended to wait for French help.

Even before the election happened, 20,000 Russian troops under the command of P. P. Lassi crossed the border on July 31, 1733 and appeared near Warsaw on September 20. Alexey was, generally, a mild man rather reluctant to use military force. But, after growing up with a dominating father, he really disliked when somebody openly disrespected him. And election of the New Favorite Pet contrary to his wishes strongly looked as a show of disrespect aggravated by an extreme stupidity, which was absolutely intolerable.

Immediately after the news of election reached Stockholm Charles ordered 3,000 Swedish troops to sail to Elblag. If needed, more will follow and the Swedish squadron should sail to start blockade of Danzig.

Frederick William conducted a major military review at Potsdam and ordered his generals to be ready to march at any moment (among other considerations, he expected that a military experience would do good to his loafer of a son). A Saxon corps of 1,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry was already marching to the Polish border.

Part of the nobility on September 24 (October 5) 1733, half a mile from Prague, in the Grochove tract, under the protection of Russian troops, elected Frederick Augustus to the throne. Four days later, Polish troops who supported Leszczynski left Warsaw without resistance and went to Krakow.


_______________
[1] In OTL, he died in 1730 and reports about his death are varying from “death from grief” to him being an unintended victim of a failed attempt on life of Empress Anne (carriage falling into a hidden hole on a road). The collapsed bridge is something in between and, taking into an account the general condition of the bridges in XVIII - XIX centuries Russia is seemingly more realistic. 😜
[2] Shamelessly stolen from «Подпоручик Киже» by Tynianov.
[3] During the LNW his tendency to make the long speeches about nothing (he was a member of the Polish delegation to Charles XII) was irritating Charles enormously but made him quite popular in the PLC where such “eloquence” had been valued well above the meaningful actions.

 

[alexmilman]

94. Misnamed war

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country”
George S. Patton [1]
“You never need to trust politicians”
an axiom
“gdy się panowie za łby biorą, to poddanym włosy trzeszczą“ [2]
Polish proverb

​

This was a start of what had been called “War of the Polish Succession” and which had very little to do with the name assigned to it because fight over the succession issue was just a minor and rather short episode of the whole war. Generally, the Polish component of the war consisted of two parts:
1. Siege of Danzig
2. Chasing disorganized groups of Stanislav’s supporters.

Siege of Danzig.

The French show of a military support amounted to sending a small naval squadron with a little hope that it will ever reach its intended destination. Leaving Brest on August 20 (31), 1733, the squadron under the command of Count César Antoine de la Luserne, consisting of 9 ships of the line, 3 frigates and a corvette on September 9 (20) arrived to the vicinity of Copenhagen. Of course, breaking through the Danish coastal defenses and much greater navy would be an absurd idea so Count de Luserne got engaged in a new round of talks with the Danish government to receive the same polite answer: Denmark is neutral in that war but can’t allow penetration into the Baltic Sea the warships which could be detremental to the interests of the Danish allies, Russia and Sweden. The French admiral and his officers are welcomed to visit Copenhagen and if the squadron needs to replenish its food and water supplies for the trip back home, purchase of these supplies can be arranged. But any warship trying to penetrate the Sound is going to be sunk or captured. No hard feelings, just business.

Even if the French commander was considering a mad dash through the Sound ignoring the shore batteries (which he did not and which would be contrary to his instructions), sight of 20 Danish ships of the line would make such an idea absolutely suicidal and even if some miracle happened, the French squadron did not have the pilots with knowledge of the Baltic waters and did not have the landing troops (which made the whole expedition pretty much absurd to start with). When the squadron stood on the raid in Copenhagen, it was visited by French ambassador to Denmark, Count Louis Robert Hippolyte de Brean de Plelot, who reported that Leszczyński had already been elected king. On September 27 (October 8), Lucerne was ordered to return to Brest and on October 22 (November 2), the squadron went back.

However, Fleury managed to sent considerable amounts of money, which reached Danzig and was used by Commandant Major General von Steinflicht, who was responsible for the defense of Danzig, to strengthen the defense of the city. Numerous supporters of Stanislav Leszczynski and local militia joined the soldiers of the permanent garrison stationed in the city. In total, there were 24,445 people in the garrison: 5 city regiments, 7,800 city policemen, 1,279 guards policemen, 2,150 mounted Polish guardsmen and 1,200 dragoons of Monti regiment. The city was well equipped with artillery, ammunition and food. The regiments blocked in the city were regular, the soldiers were well trained. The troops of the garrison could also count on the help of numerous detachments of Leszczynski's supporters in the area. For example, Chirsky's castellan in Stargard had 1,100 dragoons, 1,000 regular infantry and 6,000 gentry and "comrades".

Russian troops under the command of General-in-Chief Peter Lassi by the time it reached Danzig numbered 15,744 people in regular regiments (9 dragoon and 9 infantry), 91 Serbian hussars, 1,660 Cossacks and Kalmyks. Military Ministry allowed Lassi to give the troops a double salary by confiscating the property of opponents of Augustus III. The Swedish contingent of 3,000 landed in Elblag and marched to join Lassi. This force was adequate for establishing blockade of the city but for a proper siege it had been lacking a heavy artillery. The Saxon troops had been carrying the heavy cannons with them and more had been assembled in St. Petersburg to be sent by the sea.

The corps of General-General Peter Lassi moved to Danzig on November 29, 1733 and arrived in Neshava on January 3, 1734. On January 4, 800 Russian dragoons defeated 36 banners of the regimentar Sokolnitsky and occupied Thorn. On January 20, three days after the coronation of August To blockade the city, Lassi divided the corps into 5 detachments: the detachment of Lassi himself (4 regiments) stood from the village of Proust, the detachment of Major General Karl Biron (2 regiments) - from St. Albrecht, the detachment of Lieutenant General Prince Ivan Baryatinsky and Major General Artemy Volynsky (5 regiments) - from Oliva. The Swedes under general von Wrangel marched from Elblag and crossed the Vistula at Dworek-Kiezmark providing connection with the Lassi troops. From Elblag the Swedes brought 7 heavy fortress cannons.

General Lassi began the siege of the city on February 22, 1734, but winter conditions and lack of forces did not allow him to take active action. His task was complicated by constant sorties of Leszczyński's detachments. Russian detachments in the field successfully waged this "small war", defeating the "Stanislavchiks" formations. Thus, on February 28, 400 Cossacks under the command of Major General Johann Luberas defeated the Miromirsky and Lubomyrsky dragoon regiments.

Meanwhile, meetings of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Generalitat were held in Moscow in the presence of Emperor Alexey, at which Field Marshal Burchard Minnich, “hero of Dzungaria”, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Siege Army. The Emperor pointed out to the Field Marshal: "You can announce to this city that it has done unworthy of our answer by many obvious enemy actions, and that, however, to get rid of its extreme destruction, the method itself has in its hands, that is, the speedy submission to the righteous legitimate king Augustus and expelled our obvious enemies and his enemies. And if it doesn't do it, you'll act with the enemy in the city without any regret and you won't leave all the ways to force it, which are necessary according to military custom." [3]

On March 5, 1734, Field Marshal Minich arrived at the siege army and took command. On March 7-9, Munnich’s army built redoubts and batteries on Mount Tsygankenberg, and on the night of March 10, a team of the regiments of Major General Biron (Trinitskaya, Narva, Tobolsk, Archangelgorod and Ladoga Guards Companies) captured the suburb of Scotland. In a 6-hour battle, the Russians captured 4 guns and 24 prisoners. On March 11, the Jesuit Monastery and the Danzig Haupt redoubt were taken, but the besieged continued to surpass the besieger army in artillery. Until March 23, the Russian-Swedish army fired 67 half-pood bombs and 668 cannonballs at the city, and the garrison of the city hit the besieging army with 807 bombs and 1,055 cannonballs.

In early April, detachments of "Stanislavchiks" tried to lift the blockade from the city. The largest detachment that tried to rescue the besieged was the corps under the command of Count Tarlo of Lubel and Chirsky's castellan. The corps consisted of about 8,000 people: 48 hussar banners, 400 dragoons, infantry regiments of Bukovsky and Frenek. They crossed the Vistula and moved to Danzig. A detachment of Lieutenant General Zagryazhsky and Major General Biron with two thousand dragoons and a thousand Cossacks was first sent to intercept this corps. This detachment met Chirsky's corps (2,000 infantry, 3,000 horsemen) near the city of Shvets, and was shelled by Poles. Then on April 6 (17), a detachment under the command of Peter Lassi (2300 dragoons and 600 Cossacks) was sent. At dusk on April 9 (20), a 2-hour battle took place near the village of Vyshchechy, a mile from the Prussian border. The Poles repulsed the Cossack attack, but the dragoons broke their formation. As a result of the battle, Polish units retreated, losing 354 people killed, including Colonel Bukovsky. The winner got 30 prisoners, 2 banners and 4 pairs of litavres. Losses of Lassi's detachment were 1 killed and 14 wounded.

The besieged city had a connection with the sea at the sleeve of the Vistula (Dead Vistula), where Fort Weichselmünde was at the confluence of the river into the sea. To cut the city supply by the sea the Swedish troops crossed Vistula and laid siege on this fort while Munnich ordered attack on Sommer-Schanz redoubt located half way between Danzig and Weichselmünde. The redoubt had been taken on April 26 (May 7) but much stronger fort kept holding.

On May 10 additional 2,000 Swedish troops with 10 mortars landed at Elblag and marched to join the besiegers of Weichselmünde.

On May 20 to Danzing finally arrived the Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Thomas Gordon.It brought an additional siege park. Gordon delivered 40 heavy guns, 14 five- and nine-pound mortars and 20 six-pound mortars, 20,321 cannonballs, 1,018 grapeshot charges, 4,600 bombs and 20,865 grenades to the army. The ships of the line had a draft of 5 meters, and the depths near the shore were 2-4 meters, which forced the squadron to stay at a distance. The ships of the line had a draft of 5 meters, and the depths near the shore were 2-4 meters, which forced the squadron to stay at a distance but the fleet included 2 bomber ships which could be effectively used.

From the end of May, having received artillery, Field Marshal Munnich began to carry out intensive bombardments of the city while the Russian and Swedish ships started intensive bombardment of the Fort Weichselmünde. On June 5 (16), as a result of the bombing, there were explosions of gunpowder magazines in Danzig and Weichselmünde.

On June 9 (20), the bomber ships were preparing to resume bombing, but at 6 o'clock a drummer arrived from Weichselmünde, who asked not to open fire, as the garrison began negotiations. On June 10 (21), Gordon's squadron returned to the Danzig harbor. Fearing that small enemy ships could leave the fortress, Gordon sent the shnyava "Favorite" and the packagebot "Courier" with soldiers with the assignment of "no ships, both from the Vistula and from the canal to pass". On June 12 (23), Commandant Weichselmünde sent officers to negotiate surrender and on June 13, the garrison raised a white flag. Even before this happened Leszczyński escaped the city and made his way to France.

On June 26 (July 7), 1734, the unconditional surrender of Danzig was signed, two days later the garrison opened the gate. The townspeople issued Minich French agents, Primate Count Fyodor Potocki and Count Stanislav Poniatowski. An indemnity of 2 million thalers was imposed on the city.

“Cleaning up” The main task of the Polish campaign was fulfilled - Leszczyński was expelled from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The new goal was the elimination of detachments of "Stanislav agents" in Lithuania and the south-eastern voivodeships and the reconciliation of warring parties on the basis of the recognition of Augustus III.

This part of an operation presented the “loyal” Polish magnates with the convenient opportunity to deal with their opponents which they performed with a great enthusiasm. One of the most active figures was Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł Rybeńko.

After the death of King Augustus II, Michael Casimir opposed Stanisław Leszczyński, one of the organizers of the Krakow Confederation and one of the authors of the "Declaration of Goodwill" - an appeal to the Russian government for "protection of liberties and the constitution", which became an official reason for interference in the affairs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the war for the Polish Succession, he fought with Russian troops and commanded a corps consisting of the Ivangorod Dragoon Regiment and 3,000 Don Cossacks. As a reward, he was made in 1735 Hetman polny litewski (a deputy commander of the Lithuanian army).

Now, both August III and Alexey had to settle some scores with Potocki family. Quite predictably, Alexey ordered confiscation of all family estates on the Russian territory.

Primas Potocki was extradited to the Saxon Elector (oops, King August III and the new Favorite Pet) and detained, but continued to persist, did not succumb to bribery until his seven-month imprisonment undermined his senile forces. Liberated, he came to Warsaw in July 1735 and introduced himself to the king, whom he asked to withdraw at least part of the foreign troops, that ravaged the state, from Poland and give this mercy to the exhausted inhabitants of the kingdom. The king answered the primate with assurances of his unchanging mercy and disposition, but Potocki wrote a letter to the Russian Emperor with deep "adoration", in which he thanked for the mercy shown to the "sad and unhappy old man", who would use the rest of his life to pray for long-term and "prosperous statehood and will be obedient to his commands in everything." The Russian envoy, Count Keyserling, wrote that he would try to keep the primate in such good sentiments and advised the Emperor to send a diamond cross to the primate. Indeed, he managed to maintain good relations with Potocki and persuade him to the side of Russia.

Potocki received an annual pension of 3,166 rubles from the Russian government and not only stopped being an active opponent of Russian intentions, but even kept his relative, Hetman Józef Potocki, from doing so. Sympathy for Russia did not prevent him, however, from remaining hostile to the Saxon court and King Augustus for the rest of his life.

Count Potocki died on November 12, 1738, at the age of 75.

The misnamed war kept going all the way to 1735 in Italy and on the Rhine far away from Poland and for the purposes which had very little to do with Poland except that by the final peace Leszczyński renounced the Polish throne, but retained the title of king and lifelong possession of Lorraine, which after his death was to be ceded to France. Instead of Lorraine, the Duke of Lorraine received Tuscany with the title of Grand Duke (and a big pension); Charles III was recognized as king of both Sicilies; Parma and Piacenza remained with Austria; the Sardinian king received western Lombardy, and France fully recognized the Pragmatic Sanction.


_________
[1] There is a certain controversy regarding precise text and it seems that in 1883 “The United Service: A Monthly Review of Military and Naval Affairs” printed a passage that shared some points of similarity with the words ascribed to Patton: “It is always glorious for the other man to die for his country,—at least the survivor says so”.
[2] when the rulers fight the subjects are suffering.
[3] From OTL instruction to Munnich by Empress Anne.

 

[alexmilman]

95. Things imperial

“The state is a reasonable non-freedom that Poles will never accept... “
Alexander II
“Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc” [1]
Addams family
“I wonder what the poor people are doing…”
Al Bundy
“I look at human life as a service, as everyone must serve.”
Nicholas I

​

Polish Affair. Strictly speaking, neither Alexey nor Charles had been excited about the candidacy of Frederick August and, as far as Alexey personally was involved, putting him on the PLC throne was a waste of time and effort. However, for the Baltic League this was a matter of prestige. On a personal level, for Charles this was a matter of a given promise (and even in his fifties Charles stuck to the principles of a personal honor and honesty, which most of the European monarchs would consider either obsolete or plain ridiculous) and for Alexey this was a part of his father’s legacy which could not be easily abandoned. So, both of them started with the very low expectations and August III not just lived to these expectations but almost immediately proved that they were quite optimistic. One of his most meaningful acts in the PLC was ordering a new set of the Polish Royal Regalia.

To be fair, he also supported financially an orphanage in Warsaw founded in 1732 by a French priest. In his personal life, Augustus was a devoted husband to Maria Josepha, with whom he had sixteen children. Unlike his father who was a notorious womanizer, he was never unfaithful and enjoyed spending time with his spouse. [3]

After the Pacification Sejm in 1736 de facto confirmed Augustus III as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania he made it his purpose to spend as little time in the PLC as was practically possible and while he was forced to be there to spend as much time hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha [2] as he could. To be fair, while in Saxony he was also mostly focusing on hunting, the opera, and the collection of artwork at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. Affairs of the Commonwealth had been delegated to Heinrich von Brühl, who served in effect as the viceroy of Poland. Brühl in turn left the politics in Poland to the most powerful magnates and nobles, which resulted in widespread corruption. Political feuding between the House of Czartoryski and the Potocki paralyzed the Sejm (Liberum veto), fostering internal political anarchy and weakening the Commonwealth

Brühl was a skillful diplomat and strategist; Augustus could only be reached through him if an important political feud arose. He was also the head of the Saxon court in Dresden and was fond of collectibles, such as gadgets, jewellery and Meissen porcelain, the most famous being the Swan Service composed of 2,200 individual pieces made between 1737 and 1741. It has been described as possibly "the finest table service ever produced". He also owned the largest collections of watches, vests, wigs and hats in Europe, though this cannot be accurately assessed. Brühl was depicted by his rivals as a nouveau-riche materialist, who used his wealth to gain support. His lavish spending was immortalized by Augustus' reported question to the viceroy "Brühl, do I have money?"

Under their join leadership, the Saxon army kept deteriorating due to a permanent shortage of the funds and its size dwindled to less than 18,000 of a dubious quality. Saxony’s usefulness as anything besides being a major supplier of a fine porcelain had been speedily dwindling.

Consequences of such a (mis)rule spread beyond the PLC borders. While Sweden was pretty much isolated due to the short and easily controlled border, Russia was in a much worse situation because the bands pf the Polish szlachta had been regularly crossing the border. Usually, not by a political reason and not even necessarily for the loot but as a show of some drunken bravery or to settle the family feuds with the neighbors who after the LNW ended on the other side of a border. Of course, there were also the cases of a revenge for the estates lost in that war. These were, of course, the pinpricks and the Russian troops felt themselves totally free to cross the border for the punishing expeditions, but this was a permanent annoyance economically damaging the border regions. The voices at the imperial court demanding the drastic measures were not, yet, loud but they were heard.
On a balance, Charles’ reluctance to commit what he considered an “unjust act” and Alexey’s hesitance to disturb the regional situation to a degree which could impede his plans for Asia had been winning the day. For a while.

On the East. In October 1735 Yongzheng Emperor died suddenly at the age of 56.
It is generally accepted that he died while reading court documents, and it is likely that his death was the result of elixir poisoning from an overdose of the elixir of immortality he was consuming in the belief that it would prolong his life. According to Zhang Tingyu, Yongzheng on his deathbed exhibited symptoms of poisoning, and in the wake of his death, his successor the Qianlong emperor evicted all Taoist priests from the palace, possibly as punishment for this incident. The Yongzheng Emperor was interred in the Western Qing tombs 120 kilometres (75 mi) southwest of Beijing, in the Tai (泰) mausoleum complex (known in Manchu as the Elhe Munggan).

To prevent a succession crisis like he had faced, the Yongzheng Emperor was said to have ordered his third son Hongshi (an ally of Yinsi) to commit suicide. His fourth son Hongli, then still known as "Prince Bao (of the First Rank)", succeeded him as the Qianlong Emperor.

Upon the accession Qianlong faced the weakening of the immediate support of the dynasty - the military class of the "bannered" Manchus. The gradual landlessness and devastation of soldiers and junior officers of the "banner" troops continued. The latter mostly did not have the opportunity or did not want to acquire from the treasury its former lands that it had bought from private owners since 1729. In an effort to restore the former economic situation of the "banners" class, Qianlong decided to create new agricultural "banner" settlements in Southern Manchuria for ruined soldiers and officers, relocating several thousand Manchu families there from Beijing. The program required money and the treasury was already short of them due to the military expenses of the previous reign so the “obvious” solution was to raise taxes.

Arbitrary overstatement of tax rates caused the Miao uprising in 1735 in eastern Guizhou. The rebels captured a number of districts and counties. Troops from Sichuan, Yunnan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces were thrown against them, but all of them were defeated. The non-resisting part of the miao was subjected to repress. Among those executed, there were more than thirty foremen who showed submission. However, this not only did not intimidate the miao, but also increased their resistance. [4] In 1736, the suppression of the uprising was entrusted to the extraordinary commissioner of these provinces Zhang Guangsi. With promises and threats, he inclined some of the rebels to submission, and threw punitive troops against the rest. In eight directions, they moved to the mountains, putting everything to fire and sword. The government troops killed 10,000 people, more than 400 thousand died from hunger and cold in the mountains. Then Zhang Guangxi ordered to deal with those who had previously succumbed to his persuasion and stopped the fight. In this action, up to 16,000 people were executed and 1,224 villages were burned. Nevertheless, the Miao continued to fight. They retreated to the western regions of Hunan and resisted until 1739. A new Miao uprising broke out in 1740 in the border areas of Hunan and Guangxi provinces. Here they were joined by the Yao and Dong peoples. Zhang Guangsi, at the head of a 13,000-strong army, drowned the main hotbeds of resistance in blood. The rest was completed by detachments of rural militia and "volunteers" recruited by local officials, landlords and shenshi [5] from among Chinese paupers and lumpen. Fearing to provoke Miao again to fight, the Qing authorities exempted them from taxes and restored traditional legal proceedings in Guizhou.

Which was, indeed, an interesting way to raise the state revenues and it told a lot about modus operandi of the new emperor. It was seemingly a matter of time when he is going to try to “review” the terms of Urga Treaty, at least regarding the Dzungar lands, so the Russian position there has to be upgraded both by channeling more resources into Siberia and by strengthening the Dzungar ties to the Russian Empire.

On a positive side, the events in Guizhou proved to be quite “educational” for Galdan Tseren and he did not waver in his cooperation with the Russian authorities. On a negative side, conquest of the CA khanates had to be postponed until the Russian control over the Kazakh and Dzungar territories is strengthened to a degree which excludes a serious opposition and the military presence (with a necessary “economic backup”) increased to a degree allowing to conduct a new conquest while having a reserve adequate for repelling a potential Qing attack.

It was also unclear how things are going to turn on the South where Nader just won a war against the Ottomans, kicking them out of the Iranian Caucasus and, while he was willing to stick to the Russian-Persian Treaty of Resht (which defined border by the Kura River), it was anything but clear what would be his next ambition and Russia had to be ready for any eventuality.

Which meant that dealing with the Polish “issue” has to be postponed until unidentified future.

Back at home. When Peter “upgraded” Russian status by proclaiming it an empire, he had neither time nor inclination to deal with the “imperial trappings” of his court. Partially because Peter himself disliked the official ceremonies and had rather simple (to put it mildly) tastes or because he considered epatage as being an useful part of his own image, or because he just did not give a damn, the Russian imperial court was a rather bizarre mixture of the western and Russian features with the Russian component tending to gravitate toward the “bottom of the hill” cultural level and the western one being a confusing combination of the upper-class dress code and luxury items with the low-middle class habits and entertainment.

While being heir to the throne, Alexey, just as his father, more than once travelled to the West but thanks to his lower status he did not have to spend most of his time on the military and diplomatic issues and, thanks to the better education (and personal inclinations), he was more than his father interested in the “social” subjects.

On the top of all of the above, a proper organization of a major royal/imperial court was a complicated task requiring a meticulous attention to the details, something that Peter openly hated.

Now Alexey was on his own and backed both by his wife and the widowed empress in his idea to make things right and to have a court which is going to be treated by the rest of Europe with a respect rather than curiosity. The main principles had to be borrowed from France with the useful ideas, especially regarding nomenclature of the court positions, picked from Austria, Prussia and elsewhere. The jesters and dwarfs had been gone but the court “araps” (the black servants) had been retained and gained an official position of “Arap of the Imperial Court”.

The first step had to be organization of a proper financing. Peter had quite relaxed attitude toward the finance issues considering treasury a single pool of money from which he could take whatever he needed for whichever purpose he had in mind. This attitude had to go. From now on the imperial court was going to have its own budget composed out of the income from the personal lands of imperial family and a certain amount of money allocated from the general state budget.

Newly-established Ministry of the Imperial Court had to take care of supporting all aspects of the court’s functioning. The Ministry united all parts of the court outside the control of the Senate or any other higher institution. It was headed by the Minister of the Court, who was under the direct jurisdiction of the sovereign. The Minister of the Imperial Court received all orders directly from the sovereign and in cases requiring the highest permission, he also had the right to enter with the report directly to the sovereign. This position of the Ministry of the Imperial Court was explained by the fact that the subjects of its activities were not of a national nature, but concerned exclusively the imperial house.

The most important part was the Hofmarshal part, which was in the management of palaces, contentment and organization of ceremonies. It was also fully engaged in servicing the imperial table, and other tables of three classes. First class: Hofmarshal (or cavaliers) table for officials on duty and guests of the court, table of Ober-Hofmeisterine for court ladies, table of the chiefs of Guards companies. Second grade: tables for guard officers on duty, adjutants on duty, pages, etc. The third grade was intended for senior servants of the court.

The second part was the Stallmeister, which was in control of stables and palace crews.

The emperor also had yachts listed under the naval department.

The Royal Hunt was in charge of the Ober-Jägermeister Office.

In addition, there were also palace offices in major cities of the empire (e.g., the Moscow Palace Office, which was in charge of the palaces and museums of the Kremlin, the St. Petersburg Palace office, which was in charge of the imperial residencies on the Baltic coast, etc. ), the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty (which managed the personal property of the emperor) and the Department of Estates.

Court ranks make up a separate section in Peter's Table of Ranks. The bulk of court ranks were in I-III classes, equated to general ranks, and were appointed directly by the emperor. The main way to reach these ranks was other careers of the Table of Ranks - civil or military. A distinct privilege of the court officials, even those assigned to the lower classes of the Table of Ranks, was the right to be admitted to the court.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the pages held at court, which could be the sons and grandchildren of the people having ranks of the first three classes of the Table of Ranks. They studied in the privileged Page Corps, and the best received the ranks of chamber pages, and were distributed for duty under the emperor and ladies of the royal family.

A separate system of ranks (also related to the Table of Ranks) was intended for women who served at court (ober-Hofmeisterina, Hofmeisterina, State lady, chamber lady and lady-in-waiting).

Below this group (comprised exclusively from the nobility) there were numerous servants of the court who also were divided into the lower and upper ranks.

As a result, while a total number of the courtiers during the reign of Peter I amounted to few dozen, it immediately jumped to over two hundred and, because many of the court positions were the purely honorific ones not bearing any real functions and not requiring a permanent presence at the court (but giving a right to be present at court events), this number was doomed to grow.

The court ceremonies evolved into the elaborate affairs with the strict ceremonial, rules of precedence and dress code.

As a very prestigious carrot, merchants who constantly supplied goods to the court received the right to be called "Supplier of the Court of His Imperial Majesty". To obtain such a title, which in itself meant serious advertising, it was necessary to comply with a number of conditions: conscientious supply to the yard "at relatively low prices" of goods or works of its own production for 8-10 years, absence of complaints from consumers, etc. The title of Court Supplier was awarded not to the enterprise, but to the owner personally, in case of change of ownership, the new owner or heir was required to receive the title again.

The Guards had been renamed into the Life Guard with the addition of the Cavalry Life-Guards regiment

and Cavalerguards regiment.

To sum it up, until it becomes a major nuisance, the PLC could keep going its own way.

_________________
[1] “We gladly feast on those who would subdue us” The Addams Family's motto.
[2] A huge forest in the Belorussian part of the PLC (Brest-Grodno area) with a lot of a wild life including a large population of European bison.
[3] Needless to say that both Louis XVI and Nicholas II also were the devoted family men, which did not make them good monarchs.
[4] I’m obviously missing something fundamental in the logic of Chinese statesmanship of that period. Execution of the loyalists to scare the disloyal subjects… Perhaps, somebody can write TL about the American Revolution in which the Brits are implementing such an idea? 😂
[5] Families whose heads or offspring passed state exams and thus received state (community) positions.
[6] “Drunken Synod”, cruel practical pranks, court jesters and dwarfs, etc.

 

[alexmilman]

96. Alexey goes East

“There are many misunderstandings between Russia and China: Mongolia..”
Unknown Author
“I love Asia very much and the Asian principle: you can't be offended by God.”
Jean Reno
“Who really knows people well will not finally rely on anyone, but will not refuse anyone either.”
Eötvös von Vásárosnamény József
v​

1736. Just for change, “Europe” was (as far as Russia and the Baltic League in general were involved) reasonably quiet so everybody could attend to their own business.
Denmark.

• Enthusiastic Lutheran missionary, Hans Egede, was trying to convert the Inuits of Greenland into Christianity and in 1733 the German missionaries had been permitted to establish their own settlement there so, at least spiritually, Greenland was on its way to be civilized. 😉
• Vestindisk kompagni was busily engaged in the triangular trade with St. Croix being added to its possessions in 1733 and making Denmark a noticeable player in a sugar market.

• Asiatisk Kompagni (re)established in 1730 opened trade with Qing China at Canton and continued trade with Ondia through Tranquebar.

Sweden. Svenska Ostindiska Companiet (SOIC) was founded in 1731 and started sending its ships to the East. The first ship was seized by the Dutch and the second was destroyed by the British and the French. This fueled the opposition against the trade in Sweden and the SOIC started a massive PR-campaign about the benefits of trading with the East Indies. They also agreed to make certain concessions about what goods to import from China. To avoid confrontations with the other trading countries, the company refrained from seeking trade with India and focused on China instead. The first vessel arrived safely in Canton (now known as Guangzhou), the trading port for foreigners in China at that time, in September 1732. Various spices were the primary commodity along with tea, silk and miscellaneous luxury items, but on later voyages, porcelain and tea made up the bulk of the trade to meet the demand for such goods back in Europe. The vessel returned to Gothenburg on 27 August 1733. The expedition was a huge economic success, the auction bringing in some 900,000 Swedish riksdaler. The dividend paid was 75% of the capital invested. According to the ledgers of the Gothenburg Main Customs Cambers for Sea Trade in 1733 to 1734, goods for 518,972 riksdaler were exported; the rest stayed in Sweden.

Grand Duchy of Gottorp was adjusting itself to leaving in peace while its Grand Duke had been busily trying to figure out how to put under his control the numerous semi-independent landowners (inherited from the land swap with Denmark) without causing too much of the international and domestic problems [1].

Duchy of Mecklenburg. Except for a newly-created mini-army there was nothing worthy of mentioning. The Duke enjoyed the military parades and (through his wife) was regularly asking for the small subsidies from the Russian court. With its estates subdued, the Duchy remained a peaceful quiet backwater.

Prussia. FWI “was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life” [2]. In his never-ending care about well-being of his subjects he personally dictated the manual of Regulations for State Officials, containing 35 chapters and 297 paragraphs in which every public servant in Prussia could find his duties precisely set out. As a result, the Prussian state had no alternative to flourishing both economically and militarily. (😉) However, his eldest surviving son, Frederick, was a major disappointment.

Frederick William ordered Fritz to undergo a minimal education, live a simple Protestant lifestyle, and focus on the Army and statesmanship as he had. However, the intellectual Fritz was more interested in music, books and French culture, which were forbidden by his father as decadent and unmanly. [3] After the prince attempted to flee to England, he was imprisoned in the Fortress of Küstrin from 2 September to 19 November 1731 and exiled from court until February 1732, during which time he was rigorously schooled in matters of state. After Frederick’s marriage FWI grudgingly allowed him to indulge in his musical and literary interests again. He also gifted him a stud farm in East Prussia, and Rheinsberg Palace.

Russian Empire.

With no immediate troubles in Europe and at home [4], Alexey and his government could concentrate on strengthening Russian position in Dzungaria. With the military and state adventures of a new Qing emperor still going on and probably more following in a near future triggered both by his administrative and expansionist ideas, there were probably years and, perhaps, even couple decades before he starts getting ideas regarding Dzungaria and that time must be spent efficiently.

Now, how the situation looked geographically? Roughly speaking, the Dzungar Khanate at that time consisted of two parts separated by the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range.

The Western part (map below), with the Khanate capital Gulja on the River Ili, was stretching to the Balkhash Lake on the West and Irtysh River and Uus Nuur Lake on the North and predominantly Muslim Kashgar and Khotan on the South.

It was separated from the Eastern part by the Dzungarian Gate, the windswept valley of the Dzungarian Gate, 6 mi (10 km) wide at its narrowest, located between Lake Alakol to the northwest and Ebinur Lake to the southeast. At its lowest, the floor of the valley lies at about 1,500 feet (450m) elevation, while the surrounding peaks of the Dzungarian Alatau range reach about 10,000 feet (3,000m) to the northeast and 15,000 feet (4,500m) to the southwest.

“The Dzungarian Gate is a defile about six miles wide at its narrowest point, and forty-six miles long, connecting Southern Siberia with Dzungaria. It forms a natural pathway from the plateau of Mongolia to the great plain of North-western Asia, and is the one and only gateway in the mountain-wall which stretches from Manchuria to Afghanistan, over a distance of three thousand miles. On the west, the Ala-tau drops suddenly from peaks above snow-line to the level of the floor of the depression, 700 feet above the level of the ocean,—the lowest altitude in the inland basins of Central Asia, with the exception of the Turfan depression, which is actually below sea-level.”

The Eastern part (map below), Dzungarian valley, is mostly a desert (actually, three deserts) and only on the Southern and South-Western edges it is suitable for the agriculture and there are strategically important points at Urumtchi and Usi. Even if it contains big deposits of iron, coal and gold, their extraction and transportation are not practical even now, not to mention the XVIII century.

In other words, the most (and only) strategically important thing for all conquerors always had been the Dzungarian Gate, which opens the way to the territories all the way to Balkhash Lake and beyond, to the Kazakh territories while also cutting an access to the Western (the most important) part of the Khanate from the North.

Additionally, there was a need to strengthen defenses of the former Kumul Khanate, which now became “Kumul gubernia” [5] of the Russian Empire. This would require to secure the Usi - Urumtchi - Hami line in the Eastern part of the Khanate. Possible approach from the South (used by the Southern Army in the previous war) also has to be prevented.

To get to the Dzungarian Gate, a potential invader could use a Northern route along the Urungu River then turning South-West at the Lake Ulungur, going to Karamay and reaching the Gate by going North of the Ebinur lake. But this route would be short of grass for the horses and food for the people making a Southern route along the slopes of the Tienschan not only shorter but easier in the terms of logistics.

Intercepting enemy on the Eastern side of the deserts was simply impractical and neither was building fortifications there. But building reasonably modern fortifications around the major cities on a Southern route was quite realistic and the same goes for fortifying Karamay on the Northern route.

However, the consensus was that a purely defensive strategy is of a limited value because, with enough dedication, the enemy will either take or bypass the fortresses on his way. So the key would be to have a strong mobile force capable to react fast and encounter the enemy on either route, pretty much as had been done during the last war. An additional element of that strategy was to have a strong military presence near Baikal Lake (in Irkutsk gubernia) to be able to invade the Khalka territory and, depending upon the circumstances, either attack enemy at Urga preventing his further actions or to cut his communications and cause a general devastation of the Khalka territory, which would inevitably cause mass desertions among Khalka troops.

All of the above meant that there is a need for increased Russian presence both in the Eastern Siberia and in Dzungaria. To sweeten a potential pill, the usual tools had been deployed. Galdan Tseren had been given a rank of the “Svetleishy Knyaz” (a highest possible rank for someone not of the imperial blood) and Order of St.Andrew with the diamonds [6]. The lesser personages also got various ranks of the Russian nobility and corresponding levels of the awards. For the time being, activities of the Russian merchants had been kept under the tight control preventing them from the excessive looting of the locals. Construction of the modern fortifications (to be garrisoned by the Russian troops) started and general Eropkin, who acted as a military “advisor” of the Khan and commander of the Russian troops in the Khanate, was allowed to recruit and train the Dzungarian volunteers as a regular force paid by the Russian government and led by the Russian officers.

In Kashgar region, which was formally a part of the Khanate but in a reality was pretty much independent Muslim area ruled by a somewhat confusing combination of the local aristocrats and religious authorities, situation was much more familiar (but not necessarily simple). For the starters, the main cities got the Russian garrisons with the Russian governor in Kashgar being established as a top regional secular (and military) authority. The local rulers, secular and religious, were, for a while, left with most of their rights but they were required to provide work force and materials for the new fortifications and food supplies for the garrisons. Their own military bands were not, so far, touched but this was just a matter if time: there was no need in alienating the local rulers with a pending danger of the Qing attack.

After being reminded about his father’s wish, Alexey sent two expeditions to research the Russian Pacific coast:

• The first expedition had to travel to Okhotsk, build the ships there and to sail North along the coast exploring the coast and, in a process, finding if there is a land bridge between Asia and America.
• Second expedition had to sail down the Amur river, mapping it in a process, and finding if there is a suitable site for a port at its mouth or on a nearby cost. In the case of success, a fort should be built on the site and information communicated to Irkutsk so that more resources would be assigned to establishing a port and perhaps making it into a replacement of Okhotsk.

_________
[1] Did we married him to somebody relevant? I lost trace of all these matrimonial links. 😢
[2] “The importance of being Earnest”
[3] Objectively, FWI was right, in general: as a result of the rotten French influence Young Fritz did not smoke and dislike beer. How could he be a descent Prussian officer? However, his judgement was not without a fault: Fritz was fond of playing a flute, which could be considered a military musical instrument. A more attentive parent would just guide his son to playing the right tunes. 😂
[4] Grand Duke Peter, probably under influence of his wife (or perhaps because he became a father and began feeling some responsibility), started paying attention to the state affairs so the major worry of his parents was over.
[5] A proposal to name it “Hami gubernia” («Хамская губерния») was considered for a short while but mostly as a joke: it would mean “gubernia populated by the low class people”. 😂
[6] This was a special “upgrade” of the award granted on individual basis.

 

[alexmilman]

97. Nader Shah

„Once, when Nadir was told that there was no war in paradise, he was reported to have asked: "How can there be any delights there?"“

“Nadir Shah is said to have written to the emperor ‘My coming to Cabul and possessing myself thereof was purely out of zeal for Islam and friendship for you...my stay on this side of the Attock is with a view that when those infidels (the Marathas) move towards Hindustan, | may send an army of the victorious Kizzilbash to drive them to the abyss of hell’.”
Satish Chandra​

1739. While the Russian operations on the East had been going on, another power had been on a raise, Nader Shah of Persia.

As a result of the successful wars and long negotiations, Nader forced the Ottoman Empire to return the captured Safavid lands. According to the agreement signed in March 1736, the Ottoman-Sefydian borderles established by the treaty of 1639 were restored. And at the same time, in March 1736, on the Kurultai in Mugan, Nader, who by that time had become a de facto ruler of the country, overthrew the Safavids and proclaimed himself Shah.

Nader Shah was not satisfied only with the restoration of the former borders of the Safavid state and soon embarked on the path of their expansion. Nader Shah Afshar's imperial ambitions are evidenced by an inscription minted on a coin in honor of his accession to the throne: "May the whole world know about the accession of Nader, the future conqueror of the universe." In the winter of 1738, he began a campaign to India, which ended in March 1739 with the capture of the capital of the Mughal Empire Delhi. In general, by 1739, Nader Shah had reached the peak of his power.

By this time, the Ottomans had been expelled from all former Safavid authorities, Khiva and Bukhara had been conquered, and the Mughal emperor accused of helping the Afghans had been utterly defeated at the battle of Karnal. Nader's forces defeated the army of Muhammad Shah within three hours, paving the way for the Iranian sack of Delhi. The engagement is considered the crowning jewel in Nader's military career as well as a tactical masterpiece.

13 December saw the Mughal army march out of Delhi to confront the invading forces to the north. The enormity of its size was such that the length of the column was 25 kilometres and the width was 3 kilometres. Muhammad Shah himself joined this army. Due to the cumbersome size of the Mughal army, Muhammad Shah could not take his forces any further than Karnal, approximately 120 kilometres north of Delhi.

In total, Muhammad Shah commanded a war-camp of 300,000 troops including the non-combatants equipped with 3,000 guns along with 2,000 war elephants. Out these the force deployed on the field were numbered at 75,000.[26][27]Despite the large numbers at the Mughal's disposal they suffered from obsolescent war material and antiquated tactical systems. Almost all of the guns in the army (see painting below) were far too large in calibre to be considered field artillery as they were practically impossible to manoeuvre during battle and took such a long time to reload that they would have minimal effect even in cases of correct utilisation.

In contrast most of Nader's artillery was lighter and much more manoeuvrable than their Mughal counterparts, as well as the zamburaks which provided extra mobile fire power. In contrast to the Mughal army's infantry, all of the 20,000 Persian musketeers (jazyarechi) were uniformed, drilled and homogeneously organised. Although the 50,000 cavalry contingent in the Mughal army was of excellent quality there was nothing to suggest a common and cohesive underlying military structure set out for their deployment and use. The Persian cavalry was composed of two parts. The troops of the state which were trained and drilled via a uniform system, and the auxiliary troops which were recruited into the Imperial army after the conquest of their homeland.

The Mughals suffered from an absence of a discipline and started an attack in a piecemeal fashion by initiative of one of their commanders while another commander rode with his troops to the rear to repel a diversionary attack on his column’s baggage train.
The Persian centre was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Mughals with loaded muskets and guns. As they came into musketry range, the screening force of mounted troops fell away to reveal a line of jazayerchi [1] with levelled muskets. A uniform volley was fired into the upcoming enemy. A great testament to the bravery of Sa'adat Khan's men, the Mughals braced and took the punishing fire from the Persian line. They were even able to close with the centre and a general melee ensued bringing great pressure on the Persian centre.

Further to the south, where the Persian left flank was positioned at Kanjpura, Khan Dowran played right into Nader's hands as his pursuit suddenly marched right into a bloody ambush. The sudden appearance of Persian troops from the environs of Kanjpura paralysed the Mughals. The sheer volume of fire from the Jazāyerchi and zamburaks raked incredible destruction on the unfortunate Mughal soldiers caught in the bewildering mayhem Nader had concocted. The Persian right flank began wrapping his forces around the Moghuls’ left flank from the north. Their commander had been captured and surrendered. Many other Mughal soldiers followed suit whilst others broke and fled west.
The Persians engaged in an organised pursuit with Nader halting his forces just out of range of the Mughal battle line drawn up behind the river. Unwilling to engage the Mughals on disadvantageous ground Nader re-established his lines in the valley to the east. The large array of Mughal soldiers deployed behind the river under Nizam-il-Mulk's command could do very little in terms of contributing to the outcome of the battle which had been so disastrous for them. Nader later sent troops around the periphery of the Mughal encampment to form a blockade by cutting the logistical lines leading into Muhammad Shah's camp. This, together with the news about capture and death of the leaders and massive losses, caused a collapse in the morale of the Mughal army. The loss of hope led to mutiny in some cases and groups of soldiers began plundering the camp. 26 February saw the Mughal Emperor travel to meet with his Persian counterpart amongst much pomp and circumstance. Nader paid Muhammad Shah the respect worthy of an Emperor and conversed with him in Turkic. After the conclusion of the negotiations the Mughal party returned to their encampment west of Alimardan river.

In an act of mercy, Nader allowed the Mughal soldiers still in their camp to leave with their mounts and livestock, and he also gave an advance payment to all of his own soldiers in addition to the Persian camp followers.
Nader entered Delhi with Mohammed Shah as his vassal on 20 March 1739. The person of the Shah was accompanied by 20,000 Savaran-e Saltanati (royal guard), and 100 war elephants mounted by his Jazāyerchi. As the conqueror of Delhi entered, the city's fortification fired their guns in salute. The Persians received a sumptuous welcome in Muhammad Shah's palace.
Rumours began spreading amongst the populace of Delhi that a gratuitous levy was imminent. There were also tales of Muhammad Shah seizing Nader and or having him killed one way or another. The rumors triggered an uprising, which started with some Persian soldiers being killed by the mob. In a retaliation Nader Shah ordered mass executions and sack of the city.

On sack of Delhi:
“Afterwards Nadir Shah himself, with the Emperor of Hindustan, entered the fort of Delhi. It is said that he appointed a place on one side in the fort for the residence of Muhammad Shah and his dependents, and on the other side he chose the Diwan-i Khas, or, as some say, the Garden of Hayat Bakhsh, for his own accommodation. He sent to the Emperor of Hindustan, as to a prisoner, some food and wine from his own table. One Friday his own name was read in the khutba, but on the next he ordered Muhammad Shah's name to be read. It is related that one day a rumour spread in the city that Nadir Shah had been slain in the fort. This produced a general confusion, and the people of the city destroyed five thousand1 men of his camp. On hearing of this, Nadir Shah came of the fort, sat in the golden masjid which was built by Rashanu-d daula, and gave orders for a general massacre. For nine hours an indiscriminate slaughter of all and of every degree was committed. It is said that the number of those who were slain amounted to one hundred thousand. The losses and calamities of the people of Delhi were exceedingly great….
After this violence and cruelty, Nadir Shah collected immense riches, which he began to send to his country laden on elephants and camels….

All the regal jewels and property and the contents of the treasury were seized by the Persian conqueror in the citadel. He thus became possessed of treasure to the amount of sixty lacs of rupees and several thousand ashrafis... plate of gold to the value of one kror of rupees, and the jewels, many of which were unrivalled in beauty by any in the world, were valued at about fifty krors. The peacock throne alone, constructed at great pains in the reign of Shah Jahan, had cost one kror of rupees. Elephants, horses, and precious stuffs, whatever pleased .the conqueror’s eye, more indeed than can be enumerated, became his spoil. In short, the accumulated wealth of 348 years changed masters in a moment.

In his campaign of India Nader killed some 200,000 people and returned with a huge quantity of booty and a large number of slaves, including a few thousand beautiful girls.”

The trophies included the famous Peacock throne, and the Koh-i-Noor ("Mountain of Light", 105.6 carats) and Darya-ye Noor ("Sea of Light", 182 carats) diamonds. Sum total of the loot was roughly the equivalent to £90 million sterling at the time, or £8.2 billion sterling in the early 21st century.

After the Mughals had been deal with, in the fall of 1739 Nader sent the impressive embassies to the Ottoman and Russia empires to inform about his conquest of India.

He wanted to demonstrate his power to Russia and thus prevent potential invasions of the South Caucasus from the north. Nader Shah's instructions to ambassadors included an order to get the ship masters to equip and develop their own shipbuilding and navigation in the Caspian Sea. Initial size of the embassy was 16,000 people with 20 cannons. At the border it was stooped by the governor of Astrakhan and, after negotiations, its size had been scaled down to something less similar to the invasion army: the final size was “only” 2,000 people and 14 elephants. Its baggage required 800 carts.

In July 1740 the embassy reached Moscow:
“At Danilov's monastery, they were met by troops, clerical servants, equestrian Moscow merchants and a crowded choir of trumpeters. The procession moved in this order: A grenadier team was ahead of the procession. The merchants were riding on a horseback followed by officials and ceremonial carriages. Company of the Guards of the Semenovsky Regiment. Peoples of General Apraksin [2]. Elephants. Ambassadorial music. Embassy horses, Ambassadorial bailiffs. The real state councilor Prince Golitsyn, who was assigned to the Ambassador. Ambassador Hussein Khan himself. Afshar banner with assistants and Afshar military detachment. All Persians numbered 2,128 people and as soon as the ambassador arrived at his apartment, the Moscow Commander-in-Chief immediately came to visit him.” [3]
Procession for the official reception was even more pompous:
“Horse Guard. 14 elephants of 2 in a row. Afshar music. Ambassadorial carriage. Imperial stables horses with unter-stalmaster and bereitors. Generals, staff- and ober-officers. Princes Dolgoruky and Shakhovskoy. Count Saltykov and Hussein Khan in a court carriage. They had grooms, footmen, gaiduks and speedwalkers. At the end of the procession, the Afshar banner was carried.” [3]

At the end of the ambassador's speech, the solemn presentation of Shah's gifts began. "Anna Leopoldovna, the Emperor, Empress and Elizabeth Petrovna were presented with pieces of the richest brocade, diamond belts, gold cups with diamonds, a rich table, 3 feathers for decorateing hats, rings, boxes... At the same time, Hussein Khan announced that the lord of the world indicated the release of all Russian prisoners..." (11) A total of 22 items, 15 rings and 14 elephants were sent. Among the gifts there was a gold ring decorated with rubies, emeralds and a large diamond belonging to Ja Khan Shah (1627-1658), one of the powerful rulers of India from the Mughal dynasty.

Everything was nice and entertaining but the Russians had been somewhat confused regarding the purpose of this embassy.

• Some expressed an opinion that initial goal was to capture Astrakhan and, if the Russian borders look vulnerable, to conquer some territory. Hence 20,000 with the artillery.
• Spelled out official goal was no less confusing. Nader Shah (who was already 60) was asking for the hand of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Petrovna promising to introduce Christianity in his lands. This was rather hard to believe.

As a result, the list of ambassador’s complaints looked as following:
“1) the Shah wanted to establish a family relation with Russia, it was denied (i.e. the hand of Princess Elizabeth Petrovna);
2) at the request of the Shah's Afshar prisoners and also Georgians and Armenians were not returned;
3) Nogais to the Afshar side were not cededed;
4) ship masters for making ships in Persia were not given;
5) Kapellmeisters were not sent to teach music,
6) masters who are making wall wool wallpaper not given,
7) Afshar merchants are not permitted to trade duty-free."

The embassy stayed in Moscow until November 1741 and returned with the friendly letter and the gifts, among which the main place was occupied by wines and various types of vodka. The political results were negative and starting from 1742 there were military conflicts on a border. Nader Shah threatened to conquer Russia, as Kalushkin, a Russian resident in Iran, reported. Due to the deterioration of relations, Alexey sent a reinforced corps to the border under the command of Lieutenant General Tarakanov. Another cause of tension seems to be Russia's reluctance to have another strong Muslim state next door, along with the Ottoman Empires. In any case, all Russia's subsequent policy in the region was aimed at undermining the power of the Afshar state.
________
[1] Soldiers armed with the heavy Persian muskets.
[2] Major-general Apraksin was embassy’s guide on a route.
[3] From the official reports.

 

[alexmilman]

98. Domestic problems

“For the next 50 years this area will be quiet.”
General Skobelev after the sack of Geok Tepe

​

The Bashkirs. In 1735 - 40 Russian Empire faced a series of the Bashkir uprisings caused by the activities of Orenburg Expedition (later renamed to Orenburg Commission and then Chancellery of Orenburg Gubernia).

Formally, this was a state institution that was responsible for organizing trade with the peoples of Central and Central Asia and their further accession to Russia. Its first action was the foundation of the fortress of Orenburg (later - Orsk) on the border of Bashkiria and the Kazakh steppes at the confluence of the Ori River with Yaik. In total, the commission founded 53 fortresses and about 40 redoubts and outposts. It was created in 1734 on proposal of the Ober-Secretary of the Senate, Kirilov, who had a very vague (if any) idea regarding the regional specifics and was envisioning the whole enterprise as just a tool for the further penetration into the Central Asia.

“Kirilov's plan, drawn up speculatively, on the basis of some theories, in fact was not so easy to implement. In a reality one had not to dream of arranging a flotilla on the Aral Sea, not to think about equipping trade caravans from Orenburg through the Kyrgyz steppe into fertile India rich in gold, spices, precious stones and thin fabrics - no, one had to wage a stubborn bloody struggle for every step, for every piece of land.”

The organization of the expedition also led to a change in the policy of the tsarist administration towards the indigenous population. After the mass seizure of the Bashkir “votchina lands” [1] in favor of the state treasury, nobles, officials, officers, soldiers and other settlers by the middle of the XVIII century, the Bashkirs had lost about half of their fiefdoms. In addition, taxes and duties have increased. Tsarist officials established control over the activities of the Muslim clergy, imposed a ban on the construction of mosques and launched a policy of forced Christianization. Local self-government was also limited: the role of the yiyyns [2] decreased and the elected chiefs of the parishes were replaced by foremen appointed by the authorities. Bashkirs were forbidden to present the emperor with the complaint on behalf of all the people [3], buy and sell firearms, engage in blacksmithing and manufacture of weapons outside the borders of cities, freely moving from one area to another, etc.

The Bashkirs learned about the preparation of the Orenburg expedition in 1734 from a letter sent from Moscow by the Bashkir foreman and mullah Tokchura Almyakov, addressed to Kilmyak Nurushev - a prominent biy of the Nogai road. At the end of 1734 and spring 1735, representatives of all 4 roads moved to Kurultai in the Aziev Mosque (now the territory of the Kirov district of Ufa). For fear of depriving their lands and freedom, the Bashkirs made a decision to resist construction of Orenburg.

In late May - early June 1735, the Bashkirs gathered near Ufa under the leadership of Kilmyak Nurushev and Akai Kusyumov sent to I. K Kirilov two representatives demanding the cancellation of the decision to build Orenburg. The messengers were interrogated and tortured, one of them died. The signal to the uprising was the advance of Kirilov's expedition on June 15, 1735 from Ufa to the Or River. The first clashes occurred on July 1-6: 3,000 Bashkirs led by Nurushev attacked the companies of the Vologda regiment following the expedition in order to protect it. In the summer of 1735, the mass movement of the Bashkirs covered the entire European part of Bashkiria. The Bashkir Affairs Commission was established to combat it. Lieutenant General A. Rumyantsev was appointed to Bashkiria at its head and as the chief commander of the armed forces in Bashkiria on August 13, 1735.

He received 3 regular regiments, 500 Yaik Cossacks, 3,000 Kalmyks. A number of punitive expeditions were conducted against the rebels. Eventually, total number of punitive detachments exceeded 20,000 people and by massive repressions the first wave of the uprising had been crushed.
But the very cruelty of a suppression resulted in the second wave, which started in 1737. The Bashkirs launched series of attack on various Russian fortresses and settlements. The punishing expeditions in the summer-autumn of 1738 had more than 30 villages were ruined and burned, about 900 people were killed. After the region was surrounded by the Russian troops the leaders of the rebels sued for peace and in September 1738 the second uprising was over.

A new head of the Orenburg Expedition, V.N.Tatischev reported: “.. The two most dangerous - Kazan and Nogai - roads are so ruined that barely half remain, and other - Osinskaya and Siberian roads - although not so much destroyed, but all horses and cattle disappeared, the villages were burned, and without food, many starved to death."

The third uprising started in 1739 and had been caused by intention of the Russian administration to conduct a census. The census was perceived as a means of imposing new taxes, in particular poll taxes, which would mean abolishment of the traditional “yasak” and pretty much elimination of the special social class status. The rebels looked for help from Kazakhs and Dzungars but their appeals were rejected. At the last stage, the struggle between the rebels and "faithful Bashkirs" who fought on the side of Russian troops escalated, the rebels retreated into the Kazakh steppes beyond the Yaik River. The operation to destroy rebels hiding in mountains and forests continued until the end of September 1740 and ended up by a massive and cruel execution of the captured leaders.

In total, during the uprising of 1735-1740, more than 40,000 people were killed, executed or exiled to hard labor (according to V. N. Tatishchev, about 60 thousand) Bashkirs out of approximately 100,000 of the initial population. Some of them fled to the Kalmyk and Kazakh lands. Most of them were captured and became slaves of local feudal lords.

More than 30,000 Bashkirs of the approximately 100,000 living in these lands were killed or exiled. During this uprising, many of the hereditary lands of the Bashkirs were taken away and transferred to the service Mescheryaks.


________________
[1] Bashkirs-votchinniks (or Bashkirs-asaba) had historically established rights to own, dispose of and use their lands. The fiefdom law of the Bashkirs regulated land relations within Bashkir society, between Bashkirs-votchinniks and the state, between Bashkirs-votchinniks and various categories of the immigrant population of the region. The Bashkir community was the collective owner of the land, while each community member formally had equal rights to use communal (domestic, volost) land. The terms of the fiefdom law were yasak, the payment of which the Bashkirs considered a guarantee of their land rights, and military service. Taking into an account that in the XVII-XVIII centuries the number of Bashkirs-votchinniks increased due to the addition of immigrants from the Middle Volga region (mainly yasak Tatars, as well as Mordovians, Chuvash, Maris and Udmurts), the ethnic content of the term "Bashkirs" in the northwestern part of the Southern Urals is gradually being replaced by class meaning: this group represented a formally defined social class within the Russian Empire regardless its ethnic composition. Quite understandably, the members of that class had been unhappy with an open infringement on their rights and confiscation of the lands they legally owned. (sorry for a long-winded explanation)
[2] Traditional people’s assembly (jien) called to solve political and social issues, as well as the body of self-government of the tribe or family.
[3] To be fair, the group complaints were forbidden to all subjects of the Russian Empire by Peter I under a fear of the death sentence.

 

[alexmilman]

99. Domestic problems (cont. 1)

“By the efforts of its own rulers the country was brought in such a state that before looting its population would need at least to provide it with the clothes”
History of Ogogondia

“The Russians will soon go to the Nile to occupy Egypt. Let's remember that the gates to India are already open.”
William Pitt the Younger

“Better protest of the well-fed than a riot of the hungry.”
General observation
​

1744. Kashgar

Kashgar Khanate also known as Yarkent Khanate (by the name of its capital) existed as an independent state from 1514 till 1705 when it became vassal of the Dzungars. The Khanate was predominantly Uyghur/Turki; some of its most populated cities were Hotan, Yarkent, Kashgar, Yangihissar, Aksu, Uchturpan, Kucha, Karashar, Turpan and Kumul.

In the first half of the XVI century, handicraft production revived in the country in connection with the development of the mining industry and metallurgy. The centers of mining and metallurgy were the cities of Kashgar, Yarkend, Aksu, Khotan, Bugr. Gold, silver, copper, iron, mercury, ammonia, salt, jade were mined here. The textile industry has become widespread. The perfection of looms was important for the development of this type of industry. The development of productive forces has become one of the main reasons for specialization of production. The Khotan district was famous for the production and processing of jade, carpets, and the sophistication of jewelry was distinguished by the masters of Kashgar and Yarkend.

The development of handicraft production and agriculture has led to a revival of domestic and foreign trade. To develop trade relations, roads were built and repaired and new bridges were built. Numerous cities and shopping centers have appeared. The development of trade and commodity and monetary relations led to the emergence of large mints, gold, silver and copper dirhams began to be minted. Trade between different regions of the country has intensified, and the volume of foreign trade with neighboring countries has increased. If earlier shopping centers were located in large villages and villages, now, with the development of handicraft production, trade in cities has intensified. Craftsmen, builders, architects, traders, scientists, literary and artists lived in large cities. At that time, the main centers of trade were Kashgar, Yarkend, Khotan, Aksu, Kumul.

Jesuit Bento de Góis wrote:
“Hiarkhan [Yarkend], the capital of the Kaskar kingdom, is a very prominent market, both for a large crowd of traders and for a variety of goods. In this capital, a caravan of Kabul merchants reaches its final point, and a new caravan is being formed to travel to Katai. The command of this caravan is sold by the king, who gives the leaders a kind of royal power over merchants for the duration of the journey. However, it took about twelve months before a new company was formed, because the path is long and dangerous, and the caravan is not formed every year, but only when a large number of people join it and when it becomes known that they will be allowed to enter Katai…. No item is more valuable or more accepted as an investment for this trip than pieces of a certain transparent type of marble called "jusce" (jade) by the Chinese. They take them to Emperor Katai, attracted by high prices, which he considers mandatory for his dignity to give; and such items that the emperor does not believe that they can freely dispose of individuals.”

Of course, political situation was far from an idyl: there were usual wars, court intrigues, changes of the rulers. The new component had been added in late XVI century when the followers of Sheikh Mahmudi Azam split into two hostile religious groups calling themselves “white mountain” (aktaglyk) and “black mountain” (karataglyk) Sufis. Besides fighting with each other, the leaders of these groups (khojas) had been overthrowing the local rulers putting on the throne their own candidates and creating enough of a turmoil to make khanate an easy prey for its neighbors. In 1680 the khanate was invaded by the Dzungars of Galdan Boshigt (invited by the “whites”). Twice the Khanate had been paying tribute to the Qing, then the Dzungars invaded again, all this with the change of the rulers, revolts of the local feudals, etc.

Since 1680, the Dzungars ruled the Tarim Depression as overlords, using the Chagataids as puppet rulers for another 16 years. The Dzungars used the hostage treaty to rule the khanate, holding either the sons of rulers, such as Khojas and Khans, or the rulers themselves as hostages in the Ili region. Although the culture and religion of the Uighurs were left alone, the Dzungars exploited them significantly economically.

The Kashgar army, even by the standards of the Middle Ages, was distinguished by exceptional diversity. It included units of Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Oirats, Tajiks, Kashgarians and Yarkands themselves, as well as militias of numerous nomadic and sedentary tribes that inhabited East Turkestan. However, these troops were not particularly reliable. The most loyal to the Khan's power were units of armored cavalry and the horsemen of khan’s personal guard. Of course, rulers of the cities, religious leaders and the local feudals had their own military forces . Technically, it was lagging well behind the Dzungars and Qing.

By 1743 the central power had been under control of the “aktaglyk" Khojas led by Burkhan al-Din (who was made a khan) and his brother Khan Khoja. Considering themselves strong enough to get rid of the Russian presence they started an uprising declaring a war for faith and besieged Kucha.

Intermission. Administratively, Dzungaria (with Kashgar) had been a part of the General-Governorship of Eastern Siberia and Turkestan created in 1743, governor of which was Count A. Rumyantsev (who got a title and promotion into a full general after dealing with Bashkir Uprising). Among count’s subordinates was his own son Peter [1] who had been something of an embarrassment. In 1734 he was appointed to the diplomatic service and enlisted in the Russian Embassy in Berlin [4]. Once abroad, he began to lead a rampant lifestyle, so in 1735 he was recalled for "motovism, laziness and bullyness" and sent to Bashkiria with a rank of a second lieutenant. Here he distinguished himself enough to become a major by 1740. When back in capital he was, again, up to his “merry life” and made himself such a nuisance that the Military Minister, Fieldmarshal Munnich found it prudent to send him, promoted to lieutenant-colonel, to serve under a watchful eye of his father in Turkestan. Neither father nor son had been happy with this arrangement but what could they do? Rumyantsev Jr. had been posted in Illibaliq, on a border between the Senior Juz and Kashgar.

Governor-general planned a three-prong attack on the rebels. One column would advance from Hami toward Turpan and Qocho to met with the second column, the Dzungars coming from the North, and advance toward Yarkent, held by the Russian garrison, while the 3rd column would march to Kashgar (city) from the Senior Juz.

It will take some time to assemble the troops and allied contingents and to have them on a move so lieutenant-colonel Rumyantsev will march immediately to relieve the siege of Kucha with 2 infantry battalions, 2 squadrons dragoons, 300 Kazakhs and 16 guns (taking into an account that the units were routinely understrength, this would amount to approximately 2,000), which was pretty much all immediately available in the area.

On February 3 1744 Rumyantsev’s column marching along the right bank of the Ili river was attacked by over 5,000 enemy cavalry led by Burhān al-Dīn personally. The Uyghur cavalry had been stopped by the intensive fire and then counter-attacked by the Russian cavalry and Kazakhs and fled. Rumyantsev marched to Kucha unopposed and, after adding part of its garrison to his troops, kept pushing deeper into the country. Burhān al-Dīn tried to attack him once more on Tarim river and his army of 10,000 suffered a crushing defeat and pretty much disintegrated. Rumyantsev felt himself free to march toward Yarkent with his column being joined by the loyalist beks and by those who found it prudent to change the sides before it is too late.

The last attempt of Burhān al-Dīn to stop the enemy failed and he fled with Khan Khoja and their small army of supporters to Badakhshan where the local Sultan captured and imprisoned them.

By the time the main columns entered Kashgar territory, they were left with a task of mopping up the disjoined rebels bands.

The hero of the mini-war, after being privately reprimanded by his father for conducting excessively risky operation and getting an acknowledgement that finally he ceased to be a shame if the family, had been sent to Moscow with a report about the victory. Taking into an account that as a governor-general Rumyantsev Sr. was reporting directly to the emperor, the messenger got an audience and was immediately promoted to major-general and awarded St.George 3rd class.

Kashgar was placed under a direct control of the Russian administration (with the continued payment of the tribute to Dzungars). Territory was divided into 6 regions (uezds) controlled by the Russian officials subordinated to the governor-general. The loyal beks got their territories as the hereditary lands but had been controlled by the Russian officials (and the garrisons placed in the cities).





______________
[1] IITL he was born in 1720, 5 years ahead of the OTL.
[4] In OTL he really was sent to Berlin when he was 14.

 

[alexmilman]

100. The bad year

“I am ready to meet my Maker.  Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Epitaph to Winston Churchill written by himself
“I knew if I waited around long enough something like this would happen.”
G. B. Shaw
“Corruption is a chronic and incurable disease of any state apparatus of all time and of all peoples”
Unknown author​

[With the Russian domestic affairs I neglected the foreign affairs so we are getting back to 1740 (for a while)]

Year 1740 was considered a bad year because during this year three very important deaths happened [1]:

• 31 May - Frederich William I of Prussia died to be succeeded by his son Frederick II​

• July 1 - Charles XII of Sweden died to be succeeded by his son Charles XIII Frederick​

• October 20 - Emperor Charles VI died to be succeeded … well, there was a BIG Problem. He wanted to be succeeded in his Hapsburg capacity (as in “ownership of the Hapsburg hereditary lands”) by his daughter Maria-Theresa but there were competing claim from Bavaria (backed by France, especially in the imperial claim) and Saxony (just as a matter of principle). And this left an issue of the imperial crown widely open.​

The first surprise came from Frederick of Prussia who decided to end his father’s policy of a neutrality and invaded Austrian Silesia trying to do so before Augustus of Saxony and Poland could pre-empt him (which hardly could happen anyway, taking into an account a sorry state of the Saxon army). His Russian and Swedish relatives had been informed post factum.

With a population of 16 million, Austria had an authorised standing force of 157,000, although financial restraints meant its true size was considerably less than that in 1740. Since they had a much greater area to defend, their army with its “cordon strategy” was more of "a sieve" than a shield against foreign invasion. In contrast, the Prussian army of 80,000 was better trained and led than its opponents.

In early December 1740, the Prussian army assembled along the Oder river and on 16 December, invaded Silesia without a formal declaration of war. Austrian military resources were concentrated in Hungary and Italy, and they had fewer than 3,000 troops in Silesia, although this was increased to 7,000 shortly before the invasion. They held onto the fortresses of Glogau, Breslau, and Brieg, but abandoned the rest of the province and withdrew into Moravia, and both sides went into winter quarters. This campaign gave Prussia control of most of the richest province in the Habsburg Empire, containing a population of over one million, the commercial centre of Breslau, along with mining, weaving and dyeing industries. However, Frederick underestimated Maria Theresa's determination to reverse her loss, while the retention of Austrian fortresses in Southern Silesia meant a quick victory could not be achieved.

With the hostilities starting without a warning it was necessary for Sweden and Russia to figure out their own attitude to this new war. After a short diplomatic exchange it was found that both are of opinion that, unless something totally unexpected happens, the neutrality is the best policy and should be abandoned only if Frederick of Prussia suffers a severe defeat which endangers existence of his state.

Of course, Charles XII could consider excessive strengthening of Prussia as a potential danger to the Swedish possessions in Germany and both Russia and Sweden could consider such a strengthening as a potential danger to their interests in the PLC. OTOH, even Charles may have serious doubts about siding with the Catholic Hapsburgs against a friendly Protestant Prussia (and his own son-in-law).

Anyway, as far as the PLC was involved, its security was now something of the legacy from the previous generation, glorious but gone. Lesser in the Swedish and more in the Russian case this anarchic state was becoming a nuisance rather than an asset so perhaps the whole schema would need to be reviewed in a not too remote future.

Sweden. Young Charles Frederick of Sweden was not inclined to get into the fight in which Sweden hardly could gain anything of a substance. The continental quarrel had little or nothing to do with the interests of the Baltic League (of which Prussia was, of course, a member). Swedish economy was booming and a coming war probably meant the greater demand for the Swedish iron, tar and other exports. He was quite happy to concentrate on finishing the royal palace, support of the newly-created Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien)

and continued construction of the Sweden's Blue Ribbon (Sveriges Blå Band) started when his father built the Göta Canal. With the exception of a short period of the War of Polish Succession, in which Swedish participation was minimal, he lived in the peaceful state and the stories about the great military exploits of his father and Swedish army sounded almost as a legend. To him and to most of the nation Charles was more familiar as a “father king” figure traveling incognito to check how the state officials are working, talking to the simple folks, etc. The veterans would be telling the stories about a hero king personally leading the charges in the old battles won far away (or not too far away in the case of Scania) and everybody was proud of the old glory but prosperity was here and now.

Of course, the army and navy had to be kept in a proper shape to live, if need arises, up to their glorious reputation but this specific war did not look as such a case. The Swedish officers were permitted to join whatever side they wanted as the volunteers but Sweden was going to stay neutral, at least for now.


Russia. Both economic and political considerations were pretty much the same but in Moscow situation was slightly different because the “Young court” was openly and loudly pro-Prussian, which was quite understandable taking into an account that the Grand Duchess was sister of the King of Prussia. However, getting into a major European war for no obvious reason when the troops could be needed in Asia at any moment did not look as a smart idea. Nonetheless, the French ambassador on one side and Austrian and British ambassadors on another had been quite active trying to convince Russia to commit its troops on their corresponding sides. Fortunately, Alexey had as his Foreign Minister just a right man for the job.

Count Alexey Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin [1] was a very intelligent and well-educated man who served in the Netherlands, Hanover, Britain and Denmark. By personal inclination he was rather pro-British and anti-French which meant that in this specific case he would also be pro-Austrian and anti-Prussian. But. as had been said, he was very intelligent and understood that such a policy, if he would try to insist on it, would make him extremely unpopular with the Young Court and most probably with the imperial court as well: so far, Alexey made it quite clear that he wants Russia to remain neutral and to have free hands in the case of a crisis in Asia. However, just in case, neither side should be openly discouraged either, just in case. The ways to achieve this were left to Bestuzev’s discretion. Domestically, Bestuzev should keep the Young Court off the emperor’s back because their enthusiasm became quite annoying.

Now, there was one more (or two?) important thing to know about Bestuzev: he managed to maintain simultaneously reputation(s) of a man of the strong principles and of the most corrupt Russian minister. How? Actually, this was quite simple. He never promised something that he could not deliver and was taking the (huge) bribes only for the things that he promised.

Bribe was not considered to be something criminal (except for the cases when it was expedient to think otherwise), especially if it was not for something not detrimental to the interests of the state so now Bestuzev hit a jackpot. Of course, not too much could be expected from the Prussian ambassador (as a relative, the Young Fritz was expecting to get benefits either for free or for peanuts) but Austria and especially France and Britain were a different story and, after getting Alexey’s blessing, Bestuzev got to work.

The British Ambassador was assured that His Imperial Majesty is rather inclined to send military help to the King of Prussia. Besides the fact that he is a family member, Prussia did recognize the Russian imperial status while neither Britain nor the Hapsburgs did, which His Imperial Majesty Alexey I considers quite offensive, especially in a view of the traditional close trade relations with Britain. He, Bestuzev, is not going to promise the Russian military intervention on behalf of Maria-Theresa but can try to persuade his master to remain neutral if the title issue is promptly and satisfactory addressed.

Communication with the French ambassador was along the same lines (the imperial title was not recognized by France as well) but in the opposite direction (old relations with Britain, British and Austrian promise to address the title issue, French hostile intrigues in the Ottoman Empire). However, nothing is being lost, yet, and His Majesty may be persuaded not to intervene against brother of his daughter-in-law.

There was no need to mention a personal reward for the services granted, it was going by default and Bestuzev did quite well. Even the Young Fritz presented him with a team of the 6 beautiful carriage horses from his own stud farm.

The Cesarevich and his wife Bestuzev discretely informed that the Emperor was quite upset with the fact that Frederick did not inform him about his plans and and that any open interference on his behalf may invoke the Emperor’s wrath. However, he is going to try to calm his down and convince to forget the insult. In few days the young couple was informed that the Emperor promised not to act against the King of Prussia but in any case they will be well-advised to exercise some restrain in their behavior.

Everybody was happy and Bestuzev’s reputation as a powerful and honest statesman was confirmed. 😉

As far as the war was involved, Frederick proved to be quite quite capable of dealing with the opponents on his own.

_________________
[1] It can be argued in each specific case if a royal death should be considered a good or bad thing but in this case the result was a major European war with the loss of few hundred thousands lives and a serious hit to the existing “balance of power”.
[2] Actually, portrait below is of Prince Frederick Adolf, Duke of Östergötland but where am I supposed to get a portrait of a non-existent monarch? 😢
[1] His enemies spread the rumor that initially the family founder was not «Бестужев» but «Бестыжев» (“Shameless”). Hard to say one way or another because the family origins are rather murky.

 

[alexmilman]

d101. A new course?

“Allies are enemies who have a common enemy”
Unknown author
“Anyone who has allies is no longer completely independent”
Truman
“The great powers do not sacrifice themselves for the sake of their allies.”
Kissinger
“The Eurasian ideal is simple and constructive: relations between peoples should be built not on wars and strands, but on peace and harmony.”
Lev Gumilev

​

1740 - 1748. The ongoing war of the Austrian Succession created a serious problem for the Baltic League. While activities of the new King of Prussia did not (so far) impact the economic foundation of the League, the very fact that the League members were not informed beforehand thus preventing development of a common political strategy was inconvenient, to put it mildly. Frederick of Prussia clearly not giving a damn about his Baltic allies and a complicated system of the “Baltic marriages” promoted by the founders of the League proved to be pretty much worthless and even counter-productive because it was restricting Swedish and Russian freedom of a political orientation.

Decision to remain neutral was suitable for the current situation but would it always be applicable? There was a realistic chance for Sweden and Russia to be dragged into the future conflicts contrary to their interests, just due to the pressures within the ruling families and if Charles XIII [1] could ignore his far away sister, Queen of Prussia, in Moscow the Grand Duchess had a much greater influence on her husband. On a bright side, the Grand Duchess Sophia was quite intelligent woman (which was more than Alexey could say about his own son 😉) so the best policy seemingly was to convince her that as a wife of the heir to the throne she has to put interests of the Russian Empire ahead of those of Prussia.

To Alexey’s pleasant surprise this approach worked. Grand Duchess Sophia visibly appreciated being taken seriously and getting informed about the Russian domestic and foreign affairs while her husband was considered these issues more or less along the lines of the necessary but rather boring duties. Gradually, her unconditional love of her brother evolved into a more measured approach in which it was balanced by the interests of her adopted motherland and her acting as Frederick’s eyes and ears at the Russian court took a much more restricted form dwindling to something slightly above an ordinary social chat. To at least some degree this had a cooling effect upon Grand Duke Peter who, with his main interests being in hunting, dancing and drinking, tended to adopt the political views of his wife.

But, a purely domestic aspect of a problem aside, Alexey and his government clearly faced a need to define the Russian foreign policies within a clearly changing framework of the European politics. The options were numerous.

1. Concentrate on the affairs in Asia limiting European involvements to the existing trade and maintenance of the existing defensive agreements with Sweden, Denmark, Mecklenburg and Gottorp. This sounded nice, as a general approach, but was leaving some questions. For example, what if Prussia attacks the allied possessions in Germany? Frederick was ambitious and seemingly unpredictable and if too much of the Russian military resources are being shifted to the East, who knows what may come to his mind. It also was leaving open a question regarding the Russian naval policies on the Baltic and Black Sea/Med: How strong should be the Russian navy, should it be venturing outside these seas, etc.​
2. Use the existing problems with the PLC for getting the rest of Ukraine. To simplify this task, make a full-scale military alliance with Prussia helping Frederick to weaken Austria to such a degree that it ceases to be a serious obstacle and cut the Ukrainian slice of a pie allowing Prussia and Sweden to get their own pieces as well (this part was a little bit vague in the Swedish part; should it be a piece of Lithuania adjacent to Curland or some land swap with Prussia). Minimizing the PLC-related nuisances would be good but there was a clear possibility of Frederick dragging Russia into his less other adventures making it a hostage of his foreign policies.​
3. Try to preserve status quo in the Baltic region by siding with Austria to prevent further Prussian expansion. Austria as a military ally sounded as a very unattractive option because such an alliance could easily led to the war with the Ottomans (which Russia did not want) and, judging by the Austrian performance in the ongoing war, as an ally it could be a burden.​

As the wild card in all these scenarios were relations with Britain, the main customer of the Russian goods. It was more or less assumed that the trade should continue under any scenario but who could predict the British politics?

Another wild card was France. Of course, it was far away and not too important as a trade partner but its influence in Constantinople can’t be ignored and there always was some kind of a revenge party at the Sultan’s court. So how should relations with France be balanced within each of these schemas?

Each of these options had its own adherents and opponents. Alexey was somewhat in a favor of the “Asiatic” option because until the Russian grasp at least on Dzungaria (and Kashgar) is solidified beyond a reasonable challenge, any border conflict in the region could led to a major war for which Russia needed to provide a strong logistic foundation far away from its European territories. However, just ignoring events in Europe also was not a plausible option because Russia may end up lagging behind the main European powers militarily and if the Baltic League crumbles, how hard would this impact the Russian economy? Buildup in Siberia was not cheap, after all.

Pro-Prussian scenario had its merits if the Russian involvement could be limited to getting a profitable piece of the PLC territory after which the dear Prussian relative could be left to his own devices. Obviously, the written treaties regarding the mutual military support would mean little for either side (in practical terms, Prussia may ask for the Russian support but other way around sounded unrealistic) but still this would need a serious thinking and precise definitions. Well, with the Young Fritz openly preaching and demonstrating an extreme cynicism (or practicality) in his actions, perhaps a simple “we are truly sorry” would work just fine.

Pro-Austrian “party” was formally led by Bestuzev who was actually much more pro-British (as long as the Brits kept bribing him for preventing Russia from siding with Prussia and France) than he was pro-Austrian and in a reality was just producing a potentially useful diplomatic option, just in case. And in his encounters with the Young court he always was quite sympathetic to Prussia.

As a result, the discussions regarding a future course had been going on and so was the diplomatic exchange with the Baltic allies. With Frederick of Prussia the relations remained visibly sincere but noncommittal.

_____________
[1] BTW, did we already married him to somebody? 🤭

 

[alexmilman]

102. Trouble in Asia?

“You, guys, see a problem, I see a potential”
My Blue Heaven

«Плоха была услуга,
А дети, видя то,
Давай тузить друг друга:
Кто как и чем во что!»
А.К. Толстой «История государства Российского…» [1]

“The expansion of the empire is the only way to prevent stagnation.”
R. Murdoch

​

1745. “Galdan Tseren died”. This message brought to Moscow meant a lot because priority immediately shifted to the “Asiatic theater”. Quite a few things had to be done to keep situation under control.

While Galdan Tseren was alive, the appearances of the suzerain-vassal relations had to be carefully preserved with the Russian administrative and military presence had been carefully weighted not to interfere excessively with the native Dzungar administration and being able to rely upon a whole-hearted support of the Khan in the case of war.

Intermission. The Khanate was, indeed, a nomadic state but this does not mean that it did not have an administrative apparatus. In general, the system of officials in the Dzungarian Khanate looked like this:

• Tushimel - Solving general political issues of Khanate management;
• Zarguchi - Judicial functions;
• Demotsi - Management of taisha courtyards, collection of taxes from dependent territories, reception of ambassadors and diplomatic negotiations;
• Demotsi assistants - Distribution of duties and tax collection;
• Albachi-zaisan - Collection of taxes from the dzungar;
• Albanians - Assistants of Albanians-zaisans;
• Kutuchiner - Management of territories dependent on the Dzungarian Khanate;
• Ulut - Head of blacksmithing and foundry;
• Buchiner - Head of muskets and cannons;
• Bunchin - Head of cannons;
• Altachin - Management of the production of religious objects and gold mining, its storage;
• Zakhchin - Border protection.

Thanks to the assistance of Russian and Central Asian masters, Dzungaria established its own production of the matchlock muskets [2] and ammunition. A serious contribution to the development of Dzungarian artillery was made by Johan Gustaf Renat, a Swede who, as a member of Buchgoltz expedition, found himself in Dzungarian captivity and even after release served to the khans . Thousands of local and foreign craftsmen and ordinary nomads worked in large production weapons centers. As a result, firearms have become widespread even among ordinary Dzungarian soldiers.
The Dzungarian army of the late XVII - early XVIII centuries consisted of the military bands of huntaji and Oirat feudal lords, people's militia, squads of vasals and allies of the khanate. All Oirats, except for children, decrepit old people and lamas, were considered liable for military service and conscription. When the enemy approach was teported, all men to be drafted had to immediately arrive at the headquarters of the local feudal owner. Thanks to the relatively compact settlement of most of the Oirats, the Dzungarian rulers managed to mobilize the necessary number of soldiers quite quickly. According to Russian diplomats, the maximum number of the Dzungarian army in the first third of the XVIII century reached 100,000 people.

Death of Galdan Tseren, in an absence of any succession laws, left his three sons, Lama Dorji, Tsewang Dorji Namjal and Tsewang Dashi competing for the throne. Well, strictly speaking, he had designated his second son Tsewang Dorji Namjal to succeed him (his eldest son was from Khoit wife) but this meant little.

Plus, there was son of his daughter, Amursana, who also had some ideas on that account even if his mother was married to a Khoit prince which was making him inferior to a true Dzungar.

And there also was a top aristocrat Dawachi who claimed the throne by a right of his illustrious lineage going back directly to Erdeni Batur (died 1635), the founder of the Dzungar Khanate.

Taking into an account that the sons pf late Khan also hated each other, situation in Dzungaria was ready to deteriorate into a major bloody (literally) mess and this was the last thing that the Russian Empire needed. Fortunately (from the Russia perspective, because each of the contenders may not see it this way 😂), the governor-general of the Eastern Siberia and Turkestan was a no-nonsense person and his earlier experience with the Bashkir revolt was not encouraging for those who would want to oppose him. Even before the instructions came from Moscow, he had troops in the Khanate itself, Kasghar and Eastern Siberia mobilized and on the move, which immediately discouraged most of the local feudals from assembling their bands and sticking the necks by supporting a potentially wrong candidate.

However, the Russian troops did not move fast enough to prevent Lama Dorji from making his own move: he conspired with the husband of his sister Ulam Bayar, the Baghatur Sayin Bolek and other saisans or high officials, to kill Tsewang Dorji Namjal while he was on a hunting trip. During an abortive attack on the plotters, Tsewang Dorji Namjal was captured and blinded then sent as a prisoner to Aqsu along with his brother, Tsewang Dashi.

This, in theory, made Lama Dorji a ruling khan and he was quite sure that the Russians will confirm him in this capacity. But upon arrival to Gulja he was immediately arrested together with the co-conspirators. The lesser figures, after a short trial, were found guilty of a high treason and had been hanged while Lama Dorji was sent to Irkutsk and placed into a prison to wait for the instructions from Moscow. Unfortunately, this did not help to his brothers who “mysteriously” died on their way to Aqsu.

Count Alexander Rumyantsev was left to deal with two lesser figures. Dabachi with 7,000 troops took refuge in a fortification near Lake Khashin, where he was attacked and retreated to the Kazakh border. From there, Dabachi with the shrinking number of followers fought his way to the Altai Mountains, then turned to Kashgaria, where he was captured in Kucha, handed over to the Russian command and also ended up in Irkutsk prison.

Amursana was defeated and fled through Teletskoye Lake, Kobdo and Ulang to Khalkha with 5,000 followers. He was invited to Peking and He awarded a conversation with Bogdykhn Qianlun. Russian request to deliver it as a rebel as per Urga Treaty was ignored, which did not bode well for the future relations with Qing.

In a meantime, the major reforms had been conducted in the Khanate. Dzungaria was declared a part of the Russian Empire with the Emperor adding one more title to his already long list of the possessions. Governor-general was promoted into vice-roy (наместник) in a full control of the territory. The former Khanate was divided into the “uezds” but its administrative structure had been incorporated into the Russian imperial bureaucracy as a “special case”. It was expected that gradually the local bureaucrats (probably those of the next generation) would learn Russian and adopt the Russian laws to the local specifics. Few schools had been open for this purpose to teach the Russian language, the laws, geography, etc. (but not religion).

The local feudals preserved most of their power but a military system changed. Already created regular troops under the Russian command had been expanded on a volunteer basis (for a while) and the numbers of the males called to military service in the case of a military emergency were scaled down by providing the feudal leaders with the relatively modest quotas.

To increase popularity of the new administration among the locals, the taxes paid by the Oirats had been significantly lowered while the local feudals had been added to the list of the Russian nobility, which made them tax-exempt.

As a rather nasty but efficient way of endearing the tribal leaders to the Russian rule, an abundant supply of the hard liquor was made available to the “upper classes” (the flavored vodkas proved to be most popular): having the quarrelsome high-born imbeciles in a semi-drunken state made “civilizing mission” much easier. 😉

The weapons production had been placed under the Russian control with its nomenclature now being upgraded to the modern weaponry: different status meant different attitudes.




______________
[1] “The idea was bad,
And the children, seeing that
Started kicking each other
In all ways possible!”
A.K. Tolstoy “History of the Russian state…”
[2] The Dzungars had to be on the equal terms with the Qing army but not the Russian one (😉).
[3] In OTL captured at Poltava but the rest is true. With the direct participation of Renat, artillery, weapons and mining plants were built in the Khanate and in a recognition of his services he was released from the captivity but remained in the khanate for few more years and later returned to Stockholm (seemingly, as a rich man).

 

[alexmilman]

103. Irreconcilable differences

“The world is not created for the smart. It is designed for the stubborn and stubborn who do not keep more than one thought in mind at the same time.”
Mary Rinehart
“Stubbornness is a weakness that has the form of force; it comes from a violation of balance in the union of will with reason.”
Zhukovsky
“I don't have megalomania. Great people don't suffer from it.“
Yankovsky

​

Very early in his reign Qianlong Emperor formulated his vision of the Qing Empire as following: "there exists a view of China according to which non-Han people cannot become China's subjects and their land cannot be integrated into the territory of China. This does not represent our dynasty's understanding of China, but is instead that of the earlier Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties." Of course, this was a statement of the principle and, as such a theoretical view of the policy. In its practical implementation the stress had to be upon the “territory” rather than the “subjects”: the territory could be cleaned of its indigenous population and repopulated with the Qing subjects who, indeed, could be of a various ethnic background (Manchu, Solons, Uighurs, etc.).

After Qianlong dealt with his own Miao subjects, Dzungaria was the 1st item on his list because it was going to provide a launching pad to the conquest of much more profitable Kashgar. The Treaty of Urga meant little: who cares about the promises his father was willing to give to the insignificant vassal state like Russia?

A prolonged bloody fight over the Dzungarian throne, which Qianlong was discretely trying to encourage, did not happen. The whole affair was, indeed, bloody: the heads of few dozens high-ranking “rebels” had been displayed on the pikes in Gulja’s market square and Baghatur Sayin Bolek, as a leader of the plot, got a questionable privilege of being hung by the ribs on the same square [1]. Ulam Bayar was, allegedly, quietly strangled (at least she was not seen or heard about). There were much more numerous “punishments” of the rebels’ followers and family members but the whole thing took only few months instead of the expected years. Confiscated property most probably included tens thousands taels which Qianlong sent to keep the fighting going. Most probably, captured Lama Dorji and Dawachi already spilled the beans regarding the Qing involvement and at least some of the Qing’s emissaries probably had been captured (and interrogated) as well. It would be only reasonable to expect that the Russians are readying themselves for a retaliation.

So far the only “bonus” Qianlong got for the money spent was Amursana with his few thousands followers and few other noble escapees. Well, better something than nothing. The Qing authorities generously gifted each defector, initially providing tax and other benefits, awarding representatives of the nobility and officials with various magnificent titles and honorary court positions. At the same time, the Qing government began to prepare for a new war, expecting that with the aggravation of internal contradictions under the new administration, the Dzungarian Khanate will no longer be able to provide effective resistance.

1746 - 1747. In 1746 , preparations for the war intensified. In Khalkh, an order was received for a universal inspection and a census of all men fit for military service and their weapons without exception. A review of the Khalkha troops was scheduled for the summer of 1746 in the Erdeni-Zu area. [2]

A fortress was built here, from the walls of which a chain of posts and outposts stretched to the Dzungar border, where the troops of the Khalkha princes were used. Since the spring of 1746, new units of the Qing army, equipped with artillery, significant supplies of weapons, equipment and food, began to be pulled to the Dzungarian border. The army intended to invade the former Dzungarian Khanate, along with Manchu warriors, began to involve the Chinese (Khan Chinese), southern Mongols and Khalkha Mongols, who were to fight under the command of the Manchus.

The winter of 1746 in the Qing Empire was filled with grandiose mobilizations to complete preparations for the invasion of Dzungaria before the early spring of 1747. The Qing command decided to put all the soldiers on horses, which caused a new wave of mass forced requisitions of the available horse stock. The authorities, without hesitation, took horses and camels from border guards guarding the Russian-Chinese border in Transbaikalia, stopped merchant caravans on the way, took away horses and camels from them, abandoning merchants to their fate. Everything was subordinated to the preparation for a decisive offensive. Each warrior was armed with a sword, a spear, a bow with 40 arrows; the army also had strong artillery [3] and numerous troops with the matchlocks.

Local Manchurian civil and military authorities, spurred by the angry emperor, began to take away the last horses and the remains of cattle from the population of Khalkha free of charge. It came to the point that on the Kyakhta-Urga tract, post stations were left without replaceable horses, so that officials, merchants, diplomatic couriers passing along the tract did not have the opportunity to replace tired horses with fresh ones, which by law and custom always had to be in sufficient numbers at stations. A natural disaster was added to the military extortion - the unfavorable winter of 1746-47, accompanied by severe frosts and deep snow, which caused mass fall of livestock. Those who dared to resist had been punished in a variety of the very unpleasant ways.

By the spring of 1747 the Qing invasion army was ready for the campaign. It consisted of not only Manchu, but also Chinese troops, detachments of southern Mongols and Khalkhas. The army was divided into two parts. [4]

One of them formed a northern detachment under the command of Manchurian General Bundi [5]. The detachment, assembled three hundred kilometers to the West of Urga, was assigned to march through the Ulyasutaya district (on the Zavkhan River, approximately 500 km to the West from Urga) and move to the valley of the Borotala River, crossing the Bulugun, Chingil rivers, Lake Airik-nor. The southern detachment located, under the command of Manchu General Yunhan, around Bayansair on the Buuntsagaan Lake (approximately 450 km to the South West from Urga) was ordered to march toward the Bortala Valley on the Barkul-Urumqi road.

Each detachment had strong avant-gardes commanded by the Oirat princes, who fled to the side of the Qing dynasty. The vanguard of the northern detachment was commanded by Amursan.

The armies were supposed to meet at Ebi-nuur and them march all the way to the Ili River and beyond.

Total strength of two armies on paper was up to 200,000 but in a reality close to 90,000 - 120,000 combatants of various quality and eagerness. The schema was not too different from one of the previous campaign. An idea of a possible counter-attack was not even considered as incompatible with the imperial dignity. For most of the march, columns would be widely separated from each other by 300-500 km of the Gobi Desert and mountains but this is how things had been traditionally done and it would rather bizarre to assume that the Dzungars or the Russian barbarians, who claimed to be their masters, would dare to go far away from their territory to attack one of the columns.

The Northern column did not went too far when a panicky dispatch came from the top Qing administrator in Urga that a big Russian army crossed the border at Kjakhta and marches South toward Urga. Due to the complete mobilization of the horses, a messenger from the border arrived to Urga just a little bit ahead of the Russian avant-guard, giving the Manchu officials very little time to get the Hell out of the Khalka capital. There was no way to organize any resistance because practically all able-bodied men, except for the officials’ personal guards, had been hundreds kilometers away. The same goes for assessment of the enemy’s force: the locals, who would usually provide the necessary information, had not been inclined to volunteer services for the government which robbed them and, anyway, it was not that they could do much of a scouting without the horses. So the dispatch was saying that the enemy’s army was big without any specifics. Bundi was facing a dilemma: disobeying the imperial orders without a very serious reason was a high crime but, OTOH, a high risk of losing Khalka surely was such a reason and, anyway, advance into Dzungaria with a big enemy’s army marching behind him, most probably would ruin the whole campaign, anyway, even if the enemy would not manage to catch up with before he meets the Southern Army, would destroy plan of the whole campaign. The invader must be dealt with after which the further steps will be defined: the Emperor is going to be immediately informed about the situation and the same goes for commander of the Southern army: mistake of the previous war must be avoided at all cost. A huge column turned back and slowly advanced toward Urga. Some Khalka detachments had been sent forward to collect as much information about the enemy’s strength and movements as possible. Soon enough they saw the Russian scouting parties but those had been retreating avoiding contacts. This was encouraging and report had been sent to general Bundi that the enemy is seemingly afraid of the Emperor’s troops. Unfortunately, no information about the numbers but it does not look like its main force crossed the Orkhon River.

It looked like the enemy was waiting for the reinforcements before attacking the Qing army and if so then the time of of the essence. Bundi left his huge baggage train under protection of 2,000 Manchu bannermen and with the rest of his army marched eastward with the utmost speed possible.

The Russian army was on the right bank of the Orkhon with the monastery at their back so the positions of a previous war’s battle were reversed. Bundi had over 50,000 troops with a hundred camel guns and 200 zamburaks and expected that they’ll provide enough of a firepower to break enemy’s resistance. It was hard to tell the enemy’s numbers because the barbarians did not line their troops along the river bank. Their artillery pieces had been hidden behind the earthworks, which made it difficult to figure out their numbers and size but also indicated that probably they are too few and the barbarians are trying to protect them.

A thick black smoke raising behind the Russian position indicated that most probably they put the monastery on fire and this made the Khalka contingents quite eager to protect one of their holiest places. After his artillery did some shooting at the earthworks, Bundi permitted attack of the 10,000 Khalka troops positioned on his right flank.

To the credit of their bravery, the Khalka tried to cross the river three times. Their brain power hardly deserved the high estimate because a cavalry charge across the river right on a battery of the 60 field howitzers and five infantry battalions placed behind the earthworks and chevaux de frise was purely suicidal with a very little chance to cause enemy any noticeable damage. When they were at the end of their third charge, commander of the Russian Baikal Army, lieutenant-general Rumyantsev, ordered counter-attack by two cuirassier and 3 dragoon regiments followed by 2,000 Cossacks. The Khalka fled, exposing the flank and rear of the Qing army: their infantry lined along the river in the standard quasi-linear formation with the field defenses at the front was ill-protected against a cavalry charge on its flank and rear.

The camel guns firing from a ground without the carriages were of a little use. Zamburaks could provide some protection against the cavalry and so could the pikemen but the Russian cavalry was closely followed by the infantry columns bringing up the battalion guns across the river. A counter-attack of the Manchu cavalry on the crossing was repelled and more troops, including the heavy Dzungar cavalry, making it on the left bank of the Orkhon.

All this, combined with a numerous artillery shooting across the river, was too much and the Qing army started retreat being actively pursued till the end of a day.

The night did not provide a rest because, to quote from Hugo, it is very distressing to fall asleep under the stars and wake up under a grapeshot. The orderly retreat was gradually turning into a panicky flight with the Khalka Mongols using an opportunity to desert, leaving Bundi mostly with the Manchu and Han troops. On the third day of a pursuit, the fleeing and pursuing armies reached the baggage train of the Northern Army and Bundi decided to make a stand with the troops he still have with him by hastily organizing supply carts into some kind of a wagenburg. Not a very effective idea when the enemy has a strong artillery shooting explosives and you just the zamburaks (most of the camel guns had been lost). However, the Manchu and Han troops put a stubborn resistance which ended only after the enemy launched the bayonet charges through the gaps in broken defenses. It took Rumyantsev some time and effort to stop a wholesale massacre. Eventually, the combatants had been sorted out from the noncombatants.

The Khalka noncombatants and even soldiers had been allowed to leave and even given some horses, camels and food to make it to their homes: the Khalka Mongols may be of some use in a near future, at least as long as the fighting in Mongolia s going on. The higher commanders, under the Russian guard had been sent to Urga. The captured low rank Han and Manchu were a different matter. They were assembled divided into the manageable groups and sent toward the Russian border guarded by the irregulars of Rumyantsev’s army. Who just happened to be mostly the Oirats from Dzungaria with the addition of some Transbaikal Cossacks. None of them had any sympathy toward these prisoners and never heard about the “civilized war” (and never saw anything of the kind in their encounters with the Qing). When asked by the convoy commanders about instructions, Rumyantsev answered “march them toward Russia” - “and then?” - “get back fast… and don’t ask stupid questions”. These people were not stupid and the message was clear.

The general was not a cruel person but the earlier experience of fighting in the region and the earlier participation in crushing the Bashkirs taught him that the Western “rules of the warfare” are not applicable: the kindness is going to be taken for weakness and cruelty demands respect. The captured soldiers would be executed by their own government for cowardice, anyway. The commanders were of some value as the source of strategic information, and that’s it.

The surviving groups of the Manchu and Han soldiers had been fleeing to the East and South. Southern direction was across the Gobi desert while Eastern required crossing most of Khalka territory where the looted population was not uniformly friendly.





____________
[1] Some of the leaders of Bashkir uprising had been executed this way in OTL.
[2] Buddhist monastery in Mongolia on the right bank of Orkhon river. Mentioned earlier.
[3] “Strong” in the terms of the numbers: these cannons were the same “camel cannons” and zamburaks as in the previous war. The technological miracles tended not to happen just by the click of the ruler’s fingers.
[4] It seems that the Qing had some kind of an obsession with the two-prong offensives.
[5] To distinguish from Bandi whom I already (mis)used in the previous war. Any relation to the Bundy family (from “Married with children”) is a mere coincidence. 😉

​

 

[alexmilman]

104. Irreconcilable differences?

“The energy of the donkey manifests itself in full measure only when it does not move”
Unknown author
«Что не примет через голову то приимет через зад» [1]
Y. Kim​

Commander of the Southern Army, general Yunhan, got the message from the Northern Army almost simultaneously with a report from the scouts informing him that a big army, marching to intercept him, is crossing the Altay Mountains. Regardless an outcome of the Northern Army’s encounter with its opponent, this meant that the whole campaign plan is going down the tubes. The most prudent strategy was seemingly to join forces with the Northern Army and then to act according to the situation. Yunhan ordered retreat in the East expecting to join forces with Bundi either on Selenga or on Orkhon River but while on the road he got news about Bundi’s defeat and made a bold decision to march on Urga, which would position him to the East of both Russian armies allowing to defend Eastern Khalka and, by the mere fact of the presence of his army there, prevent Russian invasion into Inner Mongolia.

The plan worked out. Rumyantsev was busy destroying the leftovers of the Northern Army and commander of the Army of Dzungaria, Prince A.M.Golitsyn, was advancing with a great caution.

A.M.Golitsyn, son of the illustrious fieldmarshal, was an intelligent and personally brave man but as an independent commander he tended to be on a cautious side putting more stress upon security of his troops than on destruction of the enemy. When forced to act by the circumstances, he could be victorious but this was pretty much an extent of his aggressiveness. Probably he was a much better administrator than a military commander, which he demonstrated later as a governor-general of Moscow: he completely reorganized capital’s police, ordered construction of the big stone warehouses for the Military Ministry

and founded a new city hospital.

Rumyantsev was married to his sister but their relations with Rumyantsev were somewhat ambivalent, especially in a military sphere. OTOH, he was a personal friend (just friend) of the Grand Duchess Sophia.

As a result, the strategic situation looked as following:

• Yunhan reached Urga finding it mostly abandoned (some of the residents fled from the Russians and quite a few from the approaching Southern Army from which they did not expect anything good) except for the residence of the Head of the Khalhi Buddhist church, Bogdo-gegen. Strugglers from the Northern Army who managed to get it to the East and reached Urga, had been severely punished for their “cowardice” and those who lived through the beating allowed to join the Southern Army. Altogether Yunhan had under his command up to 60,000, mostly Manchu and Han troops.
• Small Russian garrison of Urga retreated to Kyakhta. Garrisons of the border forts had been put on a high alert and Governor-General Rumyantsev, started concentrating available troops near Irkutsk.
• Rumyantsev with 45,000 was taking position on the left bank of the Orkhon waiting for Golitsyn.
• Golitsyn with 70,000 (50,000 Russian and Dzungar regulars and 20,000 traditional Dzungar cavalry) was reaching Bayanhongor.
• Amursana, who left Bundi soon after his defeat at Orkhon, was riding with couple thousands loyalists to Dzungaria in a rather optimistic hope to trigger a massive revolt against the new rulers and to make himself a Khan. The schema did not work but for quite a while he was riding across Dzungaria with its shrinking band being chased by the Russian and local troops. Eventually, few remaining followers delivered him to the authorities thus saving their own lives. He was placed into Irkutsk prison.

Qianlong, upon receiving reports about the situation, ordered a new mobilization but the ambitious plan to raise and march 300,000 troops to Mongolia proved to be unrealistic. With Khalka being almost completely dried of all types of the resources, even a prolonged maintenance of the Southern army in the region looked very problematic. The Manchu banner resources had been very seriously depleted and marching the big numbers of the Green Banner Hans on foot across Gobi Desert was not practical. Plus, a big army would require a massive requisition of the supplies in the border Manchu and Inner Mongolia territories and they were already seriously depleted by the mobilization of 1746. Then, an inherited surplus of the 33.95 million silver taels was seriously depleted and while the administrative reforms helped to increase the state revenue, the military expenses still had been huge.

As a result, Qianlong settled for a less ambitious plan. The Southern Army should get reinforcements which would bring its size to over 100,000 (it looked like approximately 40,000 were more or less immediately available in Manchuria). With these numbers Yunhan would have to defeat the invading barbarians, kick them out of Mongolia and then proceed to Dzungaria: system of two armies clearly did not work so a single big army would do the trick. Dzungaria proper must be completely cleansed to deal with the Oirats once and forever. In a meantime contingents of the Green Banner will be gradually mobilized and moved toward Kashgar.

The main problem with the plan was that it assumed a complete passivity pf the enemy. Golitsyn could be cautious and slow but he was not inept and his army was steadily marching Eastward cutting Yunhan from Inner Mongolia while Rumyantsev crossed the Orhon marching directly toward Urga. Yunhan was neither stupid nor suicidal so he retreated beyond the Herlen River expecting to keep a retreat line through Undurhaan - Baruun Urt. But, in a rather untypical show of a cooperation, the Russian commanders switched their routes of advance: Rumyantsev with 10,000 of the Dzungar cavalry “borrowed” from Golitsyn, went South toward Undurhaan while Golitsyn marched directly to the Herlen. This was leaving Yunhan with two options: either to try to break through or to keep retreating eastward into a very narrow corridor between Hu Iun Ch’in lake and Hailar (Argun) River where he could easily be caught. He choose a breakthrough trying to deceive Rumyantsev about the point where he was planning to cross the river. This was not easy and the days passed with both sides maneuvering on the opposite banks of the river providing Golitsyn with an ample time for crossing it upstream and marching toward the Qing army. Seeing that the time is running out, Yunhan launched a desperate attempt to cross the river in the full view of Rumyantsev’s army with the predictable results and before he could rally his troops after the failed attempt Golitsyn was at his rear. The leftovers pf his army fled East with the Russian and Dzungar cavalry in a hot pursuit. The Southern Army ceased to exist as a fighting force and the reinforcements marching from Manchuria hastily retreated before even getting close to the Mongolian border.

With more than 100,000 enemies in the Outer Mongolia Qianlong had to start thinking about security of his own capital rather than the ambitious conquests. It was also possible that, if his armies are going to suffer the new beatings, the princes of Khalka may change their allegiance and even security of Tibet may be put into a question. Grudgingly, Qianlong decided to cut his losses or, to be honest, just to restrict his ambitions.

A messenger had been sent to offer an armistice and to start the diplomatic talks. The negotiations had been started near the Russian camp at the Herlen (to “soften” the Qing representatives by a sight of the arriving reinforcements) and, to the Qing’s surprise, had been reasonably easy. Russian side demanded three main items:

• Confirmation of the Russian sovereignty over Dzungaria and of the pre-war trade agreements
• Border by the Argun-Amur
• Indemnity

Khalka will remain in the Qing possession, which was an important face-saving gesture allowing to declare the war one of Qialong’s Great Campaigns: with his censorship system, all potentially critical writings regarding the past war had been destroyed and the official story was about the brave Qing troops successfully defending empire against invasions of the Northern Barbarians.

On the other side of a border, both army commanders were promoted into the full generals and governor-general became a fieldmarshal [2]. He died in 1749.

_____________________
[1] “What he won't learn through his head will learn through his ass” (aka, by being beaten).
[2] In OTL he remained a full general.

 

[alexmilman]

105. Kokand (part 1).

«Это вы поспешили. Ну да раз взяли, так уж и быть. Не обратно же ее отдавать»
М. Булгаков «Иван Васильевич» [1]
«Мы были свободны, но страсть к завоеваниям не умирала»
Салтыков-Щедрин [2]
“The object of war is victory, the object of victory is conquest, and the object of conquest is occupation.”
Napoleon​

1748. The war with China was over, the border was secure and a continued keeping of more than 100,000 troops in the region was both meaningless and expensive. So, most of of former armies of Baikal and Dzungaria (minus the locally raised troops and garrisons) had to start marching back to the European part of the Empire.

It looked reasonable, while the troops were passing through the region, to settle some old and recent scores. Of course, most of these contingents will keep marching by the “Northern route” but a part of them was going to march through Dzungaria and Southern Kazakhstan, which would bring them to the Khanates of Central Asia.


As a part of the Russian expansion to the East, a border line with outposts along the Yaik River from Uralsk to Guryev with the center in Orenburg was created to protect against nomadic raids, the fortress of which will be the main operating base of Russian troops throughout the region for a long time. To protect their own citizens and new "faithful" subjects, as well as to punish those who betrayed Russian patronage and “treacherously” opposed Russia later, detachments were regularly sent to the steppe, new settlements, border strongholds, redans, ramparts, etc. were built. With the help of such rolling lines of fortifications in pursuit of calm and peace on its borders, Russia moved deep into the steppe. Nevertheless, for a century, raids and robberies by Kyrgyz and Turkmens did not stop. Up to two hundred Russian residents of the border outskirts were captured and sold in the markets of Khiva, Bukhara, Kokand per year, and even the military were sold into slavery along with civilians.

The main culprit, by a virtue of having the longest common border, was Kokand Khanate (red on the map above), which split from the Khanate of Bukhara in 1709 and since 1734 its khan was Abdul Kharim Bey, the third ruler from the powerful Uzbek Ming tribe. Almost from its creation, the Khanate was at odds with the Dzungars and policies of Abdul Kharim Bey toward Russia were not friendly as well. In the khanate a militant anti-Russian party was quite influential and as a result the Russian merchants were oppressed in every possible way by the Kokand administration, which often caused them financial losses. In addition, Kokand began to claim supremacy in the Kazakh villages of the Middle Zhuz, whose residents swore allegiance to the Russian Empire and this was really bad. To start conquest of the whole region was not in the plans but Kokand has to be dealt with either by making it into the Russian vassal (with a meaningful “trimming” of its territory) or by a complete annexation. Any of these scenarios would put enough pressure upon two other Khanates to convince them to adopt a more friendly course.

Ongoing undeclared “small war” had one more specific: it was extremely cruel. For the locals, a part of any military activity was cutting the enemy’s head to be presented to the authorities as a demonstration of a bravery (with a following award).

So they would routinely decapitate not only the dead but the wounded prisoners as well.

Small wonder that the other side developed a similar attitude and a prevailing view was that the only thing that the natives do understand is an extreme cruelty, preferably, Tumur-style (painting below).

So far, Russian strategy in the region was shaped mostly by a shortage of the available resources but in a long run “doing things cheap” proved to be quite costly.

Finally, the resources were there. In addition to the troops fighting the big wars in and around Dzungaria there were already quite a few junior- and middle-rank officers who had been posted on the khanates border for years, knew the opponent quite well and, in addition to all other considerations, justifiably considered a big war as a much better chance for the promotion than the obscure skirmishes in a middle of a nowhere. Also, years of the border fighting provided them with a very valuable thing, “a notion of invincibility” [3]: few hundreds Russian troops would inevitably defeat 7 - 10,000 Kokand troops with the minimal losses for themselves. The only vulnerable situation were really small isolated detachments but even those, if led properly, could break through against seemingly overwhelming odds. But even victorious small-scale operations could provide very limited successes and gaining the small pieces of territory meant a very long war.

One more important thing was adopting to the local conditions. The standard uniforms in the hot climate were more dangerous than the enemy so the troops fighting in the region had been given a much lighter uniform: the white shirts and white headgear. Similar uniforms had been distributed to the troops arriving to the theater.

Russian strategy was to attack from three directions:

• From the East (territory of the Junior Zhuz) a column under command of the Orenburg governor, major-general Perovsky, was going to march on Ak-Mosque (Ак-Мечеть), [4] take it and, after establishing it as a base for the further operations, advance further toward Turkestan (Туркестан). Perovsky would have in his disposal only his own limited forces.​
• From the North (territory of the Middle Zhuz) column under command of major-general Chernyaev would march to the South. He would get, besides the “local” troops garrisoning the border, some of the contingents marching from the East.​
• From the East (Kashgar) , the Russian-Dzungar army under command of Peter Rumyantsev, who was in overall command of all operation, was going to march Westward toward Kokand (capital of the Khanate).​

Situation within the khanate favored the invasion. The struggle between nomad Kipchaks and sedentary sarts, which was constantly smoldering in the Kokand Khanate, grew into a real war in 1746. In October of that year, a battle took place in the Bylkyllam tract between the armies of the leader of the "Kipchak party" Muslimulmankul and the government’s troops under command of Mall-bey. The battle was very chaotic, both sides retreated after the first clash, but in the end the victory remained with the government troops. In Kokand itself, the Sarts staged a terrible massacre of the Kipchaks. Such atrocities, of course, did not contribute to the consolidation of Kokandans and weakened the external position of the state.

Capture of Ak-Mosque

The fortress of Ak-Mosque was founded in 1735 on the left bank of Syrdarya as an outpost in the Kazakh steppes and a stronghold for raids, and a year later it was moved to the right bank of the river. The fortress was a base for the looting bands which raided the Russian borders and it also allowed to extract tribute from the neighboring Kazakh lands. Located at the intersection of caravan routes - from Tashkent, Bukhara and Khiva through Atbasar to Western Siberia, through Turgai to Troitsk and Orenburg - it was of great strategic importance, locking all roads to Central Asia near the Aral Sea, and was considered impregnable by the Central Asian peoples. The previous governor of Orenburg insisted upon a need to take it to prevent the further incursions into the Russian territories and Perovsky fully supported this plan. Moreover, in a report addressed to Emperor Alexey I, Perovsky insisted on the destruction of all Kokand and Khivan fortresses on both banks of Syrdarya.

The Ak-Moscetic fortress was located on a huge depression surrounded on all sides by reeds and shrub thickets. This depression was called Bekaly-Koga and during the flood was filled with the waters of Syrdarya through Karaozek.

The fortifications of Ak-Mosque, as is often the case in medieval cities, formed two lines: the outer and the fortress itself, which was surrounded by a moat with water and had clay walls about 9 meters high with towers at the corners and in the middle of the faces, which had more than 50 fathoms (100 m.) length each. Internal walls were erected much higher than the outer walls, creating a multi-tiered composition functionally determined by the requirements of fortification. The loess loam, which is widespread in Central Asia and southern Kazakhstan, was used for the construction of fortresses and has good elasticity. According to the memoirs of one of the campaign participants, "artillery of that time could not make large gaps in the thick Asian walls." The ducts of Syrdarya also served as additional protection for the city. Inside the fortress there were three freshwater wells, two mosques, madrasas and about 50 adobe houses. The garrison consisted of 300 soldiers with 3 guns.

Expedition of 1746. In the spring of 1746 1,500 Kokand troops under the command of Yakub bey, then commandant of Ak-Mosque, invaded Russian possessions, but was discovered and fled from the Russian detachment in time, abandoning cattle looted from the Kazakhs. After that, it became clear that defensive actions alone could not do and the issue should be resolved radically by taking possession of Ak-Mosque. Perovsky ordered the corps chief quartermaster Blaramberg to go to Aralsk, form a detachment there and, unexpectedly appearing under the Ak-mosque, take it and destroy it. A detachment of 470 people managed to occupy the outer fence of the fortress, but it was not possible to take the citadel - it turned out that their assault ladders were too short. Having lost 20 people killed and 52 wounded, the detachment retreated. On the way back, 3 fortifications abandoned by Kokand were destroyed: Kumysh-kurgan, Chim-kurgan and Kosh-kurgan.

Expedition of 1748. Now, it was decided to repeat the attack with a bigger force.
The detachment consisted of: three companies of the 4th Orenburg Line Battalion, 5 and a half hundred Ural, 2 hundred Orenburg Cossacks and 5 hundred Bashkir-Meshcheryak troops, servants to 36 guns (which were taken from breaching fortifications), and a sapper team. The entire detachment consisted of 2,168 servicemen, including 89 officers and officials (3 generals, 12 staff officers, 50 ober officers, 10 ordinary officers, 14 officials of different departments), with 12 guns and 5 mortars, as well as 500 Kazakh volunteers who served as scouts and goods.

Having passed 410 km in 18 days, the head echelons of Perovsky's detachment arrived at the enemy fortress on July 3 1748. The last echelons tightened two days later. By the night of July 8, the besiegers had erected five batteries. Almost immediately after the end of the siege work, there was a shootout between the Russians and the fortress, and the Kokandians threw homemade grenades from the walls.
But the artillery fire was ineffective: Russian shells did not penetrate the adobe walls of the fortress more than 8 m thick, only sometimes knocked down pieces of battlements from them, and the besieged responded with quite accurate fire from rifles. On July 11, the besiegers managed to break the eastern tower with artillery fire. After this success, all 12 guns were concentrated in this place, which broke through a big gap in the fortress walls. It was not possible to take advantage of the success achieved - the assault did not start immediately, and on the night of July 13, the Kokandians sealed the gap.
It was decided to bring approaches to the fortress and lay a mine under one of the towers. On the night of July 28 (August 10 in the new style), 25 days after the beginning of the siege, a general assault was appointed.
The work was difficult because it was excavated in an area indented by irrigation canals, so it took 21 days to get to the fortress moat. The garrison tried in every possible way to complicate the siege, but the sappers, who worked tirelessly day and night, dug a covered passage through the moat, built a mine chamber and blew up the wall (40 poods of gunpowder were laid). The grapeshot fire of the batteries was immediately directed into the resulting gap of 40 fathoms wide, but the withdrawal before the explosion of troops was diverted 500 meters from the wall allowed the defenders to recover from the first fright and successfully repel the attack of the gap twice, only after the third attack the attackers occupied the collapse and walls, from where they opened fire on the inside of the fortress. Interestingly, along with the sapper work of the besiegers, the Kokand defenders also tried to bring their mine under the trenches of the Russians, but the Russian sappers were ahead of them and brought down the Kokand trench with hand grenades. Infantry and dismounted Cossacks occupied the walls and towers of the fortress, and an hour later, by 4.30 a.m., the fortress was taken. Commandant of Ak-Mosque Muhammad-Wali died in a fight.

Perovsky immediately ordered reconstruction of the fortifications but before they were completed Kokand army of 12,000 people, consisting mainly of cavalry, approached the fort with 17 bronze guns. In the ensuing battle the Kokand troops tried to attack the Russian advance-guard of 450 from the rear weakening their own center and exposing their camp and artillery. Commander of the advance-guard immediately took advantage of this: leaving only 3 infantry platoons (110 people) and one hundred Cossacks in position, with the remaining 6 platoons (up to 230 people) and one hundred Cossacks, he rushed forward, overturned enemy shooters and captured all 17 guns and the entire camp. At the same time, two small sorties of 80 people arrived to help the remaining platoons in the position. They attacked the Kokands, who were in the midst of their bypassing maneuver, at the rear and the battle was won before the main Russian force managed to join the fight. Kokand lost up to 2,000 killed and wounded, 7 banners, 17 guns and 130 poods of gunpowder. The Russians lost 18 killed and 49 wounded. Commander of the Russian advance-guard got St. George 4th class.

In the military sphere, the undoubted achievement was that the Russian command overcame a frivolous, biased and disparaging view of the enemy. The siege of Ak-Mosque was carried out according to all the rules of military art, with the use of engineering structuresand quite numerous artillery. In field battles, great discipline and training of Russian soldiers and, especially, superiority in firepower were skillfully used.

____________________
[1] “You rushed it. Well, once you took it, so be it. Don't give it back.” M.Bulgakov “Ivan Vasilievich”
[2] “We were free, but the passion for conquest did not die”
[3] In OTL this notion was described by Count Segur, the French ambassador at the court of CII during the Russoan-Ottoman War of 1787-92. In his opinion, the Russians had been consistently winning because “knew” that they’ll defeat the Ottomans regardless the numeric odds.
[4] In OTL the fortress was built only in 1817 but IITL we are well ahead of the schedule. 😉

 

[alexmilman]

106. Kokand (part 2)

“The first column is marching…, the second column is marching…”
Franz von Weyrother’s disposition for Austerlitz
«Не спрашивай: какой там редут,
А иди куда ведут.
…..
Что все твои одеколоны когда идешь позади колонны»
Ф. К. Прутков «Военные афоризмы» [1] ​

Semirechye (Семиречье) The name "Semirechye" ("Seven Rivers") itself is the direct Russian translation of the historical region of Jetysu [2]. In the modern terms, it includes pieces of Kazakhstan, China and Kyrgyzstan. In the 1740s it was a Northern part of the Kokand Khanate. Seven main rivers from which the name of the region originated: Ili, Karatal, Bien, Aksu, Lepsi (Lepsy, Lepsa), Baskan, Sarkand. Semirechye is bordered in the north by lakes Balkhash, Sasykol and Alakol; in the east by the Dzungarian Alatau ridge; in the south by the ridges of the northern Tien Shan, Terskey Ala-Too and Kyrgyz; in the west by the Karabalta, Chu and Lake Balkhash. However, these boundaries are conditional.

In 1745 on the Siberian line at the foot of the Zailiysky Alatau mountain range, the Verny (Верный) fortress was founded to protect the Senior Zhuz against attacks from Kokand.

The next year the Kokand Khan decided to counterattack Russian positions in order to restore control over Semirechye. In October 1746, a 20,000-strong Kokand army invaded the Trans-Ili region. In two detachments (from Tashkent and Kokand), the Kokand army moved to the fortification of Verny. The head of the Alatav district, having learned about the enemy's movement, assembled a detachment and came out to meet the Kokand people. The number of the Russian detachment was about one thousand people formed from Cossacks and light Kazakh cavalry. 60 km from Verny near the fort of Kastek (near Uzun-Agach), a three-day battle ensued, during which the Russian army repulsed the onslaught of the Kokandans. The reported losses were 1 killed, 26 wounded and 6 concussed vs. 1,500 of the enemy [3]. Since then, Kokand raids on the lands of the Senior Zhuz have stopped and a Northern part of the region was firmly in the Russian possession. Chernyaev’s “column” was going to operate from Verny.

1747. Colonel N. A. Verevkin advancing from Verny attacked Turkestan with a detachment of 2,000 men (5 infantry companies and 2 hundred Cossacks) and took it. This time, there was no serious siege, commandant with all his troops fled to Tashkent. Chernyaev took Chimkent (town half way between Turkestan and Tashkent) but an attempt by a detachment of 1,550 people to immediately take Tashkent failed. Russian artillery destroyed the city gate, but the defenders of the city showed fierce resistance inside the city. 18 Russian soldiers and officers were killed in the battle. Seeing the futility of further onslaught, the Russian detachment retreated to Chimkent.

1748. Without waiting for the approval of his superiors and the arrival of reserves, Chernyaev organized the second Tashkent campaign. On April 29, he stormed a small fortress Niyazbek, who defended the hydraulic structures of the Tashkent water pipelines. On May 9, seven kilometers from Tashkent on the Kara-su tract, he defeated the army of the Kokand general Alimkul, who died of his wounds soon after the battle. Advancing further, Chernyaev, after a three-day assault (June 15-17), took Tashkent, losing 25 people killed and 117 wounded; the losses of the Kokand people were very significant.

The conquest of Tashkent strengthened Russia's position in Asia and naturally led to a clash of interests with Bukhara, whose Emir Muhammad Abd al-Mumin, after putting Russian diplomatic mission [4] under arrest, invaded and began to prepare for war against Russia. He had in his disposal an army of approximately 30,000 which included Kyzylbashi, Lezgins, Ottoman Turks and Pashtuns, as well as artillery - 30 guns.

By that time the main Russian army finally was ready for action and marched from Kashgar and its advance-guard met Emir’s forces at Irjar, near Khojent.

The numeric odds had been rather typical for the similar encounters: 3 thousand Russian soldiers, including 14 infantry companies, 5 hundred Cossacks with 20 guns, agains 40 thousand soldiers, including 5 thousand Sarbazas (infantry, some of which had the matchlocks).

and 35 thousand horsemen.

At the end of the first step of the march to the wells of Murza Rabat, when there were still about 20 versts left before Irjar, the Cossacks forced to retreat the first groups of Bukhara cavalry at dawn; Russian artillery also began to operate and did not stop fire from that moment until the very end of the battle. On May 8 (May 20), cavalry of the Bukhara army attacked Russian detachment: disorderly mounted crowds of Bukhara and Kyrgyz surrounded it from all sides but the Russians kept advancing. Closer to the position of Bukhara infantry the Russian detachment was met with strong cannon fire from the trenches. However, the Russian columns were able to pave their way through the cluster of Bukhara cavalry, which kept attacking. About an hour later, the pressure of the Bukharas weakened, and the Russian columns counterattacked the enemy’s center in two columns. The 1st column of 6 companies with the artillery moved to the field defenses and took them within half an hour. The second column which consisted of the Cossacks with the artillery also proved itself quickly occupying one enemy position after another. During the battle, the Bukhara army was defeated and after unsuccessful attempts to launch a counteroffensive, fled to its possessions, while suffering significant losses. Those Bukhara soldiers who tried to go to the right bank of Syrdarya were hit by a detachment marching in parallel to the main advance-guard. Emir fled to Samarkand. The Russians got a huge camp of Bukhara together with all the property. The next day, the Russians took another camp - the Emir's headquarters - where their trophies were carpets, sofas, khan's cuisine and the report of the Samarkand bey from the front line that "the Russians are already surrounded and soon everyone will be captured." (below a contemporary painting of the abandoned Emir’s camp).

Bukhara troops suffered losses of approximately 1,000 with all supplies and artillery vs. 12 wounded. The victory at Ijar opened the way for the Russian army to the Khojent, the fortress of Nau, Jizzakh, which were taken after the Irjar victory:

• On May 24, 1748, the Russians took Khoject. In defending the city, the Kokandians lost up to 3,500 people killed, whose corpses were then buried for a whole week, while Russian troops - 137 killed and wounded.
• From Khujand, Russian troops moved to Ura-Tube, which was taken in July.
• In October, Jizzakh fell, the strongest fortress in Turkestan, which covered the Tamerlane Gate - the only convenient way from Tashkent to the Zeravshan Valley.

Conquest of Kokand was over. In 1749, the Turkestan region was transformed into the Turkestan Governor-General with two regions: Semirechensk (city of Verny) and Syrdaryinskaya (c. Tashkent).




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[1] “Don't ask: what kind of redoubt, just go where they lead you
…..
All your colognes are useless when you are marching at the end of a column” F.K.Prutkov “Military Aphorisms”
[2] In OTL the name appeared only in 1840’s when the detachments of the Siberian Cossack army arrived in this region. The version associated with the seven largest rivers of the region, which Russian troops had to overcome when moving from northeast to south, is the most common. Therefore, there is no Chu River in this version. This is explained by the fact that Russian troops reached it much later, and initially Semirechye called the area only to the Ili River. There is also a version related to the “lucky seven” and one that it is just an imprecise translation of the Kazakh name Jetysu. Not that any of the above really relevant to this TL. The important thing was that, unlike the dry steppes pf the Southern Kazakhstan, this region had plenty of water and, as such, good for the colonization.
[3] According to the Russian proverb, the paper is extremely tolerant so it is entirely up to you to believe or not to believe all these numbers. 😉
[4] Sent by Chernyaev on his own initiative without any authorization or consulting with the superiors. Actions like this, while intended to promote his career, had quite opposite effect providing him with a well-deserved reputation of a loose cannon. He was the best/worst case scenario of a “Turkestan officer” trying to get a name recognition by the spectacular actions not caring too much about their consequences or subordination.

 

[alexmilman]

107. Bukhara (part 1)



[Actually, at that time Bukhara was still a khanate, it became an emirate only in 1785 when after the death of Atalyk Daniyal-biya and a puppet khan Abulgazi, the country began to be ruled by Atalyk’s eldest son, Shahmurad, who assumed this title.]

General background. Battle of Irjar was the first military confrontation with Bukhara. Prior to this relations had been relatively peaceful and while the rulers of Bukhara were quite reluctant to allow the Russian (or any other “infidel”) merchants on their territory, this did not apply to the Muslim subject of the Russian Empire. In turn, the merchants from Bukhara had been permitted to trade on the Russian territory and even maintained a big karavan-saray in Orenburg.

Bukhara has established ties with India, Afghanistan, Iran, China. Trade caravans loaded with goods of Bukhara production were sent to these states: cotton fabrics, plush, paper, horse saddles, weapons, fruits. Some caravans consisted of several hundred heads of camels. Foreign merchants came to the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. There were even separate mahallas in Bukhara where merchants from India lived. They traded in fabrics, paints, spices, medicines and sugar.

The Turkmens had been selling their famous Akhal-Teke “golden” horse called Argamaks (divine or Sacred Horses) by the Russians and heavenly horses in ancient China.

Trade was also conducted with the population of the Russian vassals in the Kazakh steppes, which supplied Bukhara residents with the cattle and livestock products, and production of the local artisans, especially clothes made of a dyed sheepskin which were the most popular in the Bukhara markets.

However, the trade relations were only a part of the whole picture and another part was religion. Population of the Emirate was quite religious, both Bukhara and Samarkand had numerous medreses and the ulema played a very important role, hence a prohibition for the “infidels” to enter “The Noble Bukhara” and other restrictive measures for the non-Muslims.

Appearance of the “infidels” so close to the Emirate’s borders triggered a wave of the religious enthusiasm, which forced Emir to arrest the Russian diplomatic mission (well, to be fair, being sent by an obscure general, this mission had been lacking any diplomatic credentials) and then to march into the Kokand territory.

When the Emir arrived to Bukhara after the battle of Irjar, he was met by a hostile crowd accusing him of defeat. The Ulemas demanded to start a war, but the Emir hesitated and did not dare to do so. Then at the general council, the Ulemas opposed the Emir openly and declared him unworthy to occupy the throne of "great Tamerlane". Having left the capital, the Emir hoped to find support among the people, but this did not happen and in the end he had no choice but to declare a gazavat alone (Khiva and Afghanistan refused to fight against the Russian Empire and Kokand was on the last stages of its existence). He demanded from Russia evacuation of the conquered territory (historically, Kokand was a part of the Khanate of Bukhara), confiscated the property of the “Russian” merchants living in Bukhara (Muslim subjects of the Russian Empire) and kept under arrest the Russian mission sent for negotiations to Bukhara (of course, after this had been done, the Russians chose to consider the “mission” sent by Chernyaev as being a legitimate diplomatic mission).

This course of actions was considered by the Russian authorities as an extreme arrogance which could not be let unpunished.

Intermission. After Kokand had been dealt with, Rumyantsev had been recalled to Moscow. He was promoted to fieldmarshal and appointed governor-general of Malorossia [1] where he inherited the huge estates. Most of the troops initially engaged in the Dzungar wars and then in conquest of Kokand continued their march to the European Russia: it did not look like the regional military affairs are warranting a major Russian military presence. Operational leadership of the remaining troops had been assigned to Adjutant-General Nikolai Andreevich Kryzhanovsky who was also made governor-general of Orenburg (Perovsky, after his successful campaign in Kokand, was promoted to a full general and made a member of the Council of the State [2] ).

Taking of Ura-Tube. The Russian troops were ordered to concentrate Khojent, and the Bukhara ambassador was ordered to pay an indemnity within 10 days (which did not happen). On September 20 1748, the detachment marched from Khojent to the Bukhara fortress of Ura-Tube. This fortress, located on the northern slope of the Kashgar-Davan snow ridge, was a key point of defense of the Bukhara emirate in the valley of the Syr-Darya River.

The detachment that marched to Ura-tube had 20.5 infantry companies, 5 hundred Cossacks, 24 guns, and 4 mortars - a total of about 4,000 people. The head of the detachment was General Romanovsky supervised by Kryzhanovsky who recently arrived from Orenburg [3].

The siege started on September 27 1748. From the detachment two infantry companies had been blocking the road to Jizzakh and two more had been securing the road to Khojent.

It was planned to lay trenches and breach the walls by artillery fire on the night of September 29-30. On the 30th, the planners expected to break through the gaps, and storm the city at dawn on October 1. To attack the fortress walls from the south, at the suggestion of supporters of the assault ladders, two columns of two companies each were formed; the third column, also of two companies, with artillery, was to storm the city from the northeast, through a breach in the wall. All three columns were ordered to move to the assault at the same time, at the signal of the head of the third column, not before the artillery penetration.

The first two columns met a very strong resistance but the column that attacked the breach met almost none. Ot passed through the gap without losses and overturned the enemy units that met her behind the wall. Its commander sent part of his troops to the second breach and the rest along the western face of the wall where they captured 4 guns. As a result, in half an hour all three columns seized the walls and entered the city. After them, reserve troops entered the city. Residents stubbornly defended themselves on the streets, shooting and hand-to-hand combat in tight space threatened the Russians with heavy losses.
However, part of the reserves formed a separate column and when the main attack started, it broke the wall with a fire of its artillery and its sappers leveled the breach allowing to move the light artillery into the city and attack the defenders from the rear. [4] The Ura-Tube garrison fled, and the cavalry was sent to pursue it. The cavalry managed to block the path of retreat and cut down the bulk of the Bukhara.

The trophies during the capture consisted of: 4 banners, 16 guns (including one two-pood mortar), 16 pack guns, many muskets, large stocks of gunpowder and other ammunition. The losses on the part of Bukhara were large: there were at least 2,000 bodies left in the city and its environs.

The losses of the Russians were: 3 officers and 14 lower ranks were killed; wounded: 1 officer and 102 lower ranks; concussed: 6 officers, 101 lower ranks. A total of 10 officers and 217 lower ranks. [5]

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[1] This was the name of his official position in OTL so if somebody, based upon the modern history, is unhappy all complaints should be addressed to Catherine II. 😜
[2] As in OTL.
[3] The whole command structure looks weird because from a detailed description of the operation it is anything but clear who was responsible for what except that Romanovsky got credit for taking the fortress.
[4] In a report the attacking columns are multiplying as the rabbits: the plan mentions 3 of them, then one more appears out of a nowhere (one attacking at the rear) and then there is one more taking the Northern gates (this one I skipped). How the forth column managed to break the walls by starting shooting when the main attack began I have no clue: a spirit of general Kryzhanovsky refused to comment on wiki’s text (not that I blame him). 😜
[5] How could this happen in a fight involving a hand-to-hand combat and various nasty things being thrown from the walls I have no idea.