for all men, as the Tzar, the Church, and the landlords taught. Germans, Swiss, French, and English were not slaves but free men, who toiled more for themselves than for others. Alexander I. believed that his people had been infected with the revolutionary contagion. His now morbid mind felt what he deemed their ingratitude to him, their benevolent Tzar. The Holy Alliance was formed, its declared object the government of Christendom on Christian principles, its real intention the mutual insurance of existing dynasties against popular movements in favour of liberal institutions.

And so the later years of Alexander I. belied the promise of the earlier part of his reign. Once more the pendulum swung backwards. All progress, all reforms were stopped, and the people were made to understand that their happiness depended on their ignorance and their blind submission to the will of their Tzar.

75

CHAPTER V.

AN OBJECT-LESSON IN BAD GOVERNMENT.

DESPOTISM OF NICHOLAS I.-CRIMEAN WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES-
ATTEMPTS AT CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS-EMANCIPATION OF THE
SERFS: WHY IT FAILED-HASTY REFORMS-POLITICAL SCHOOLS IN
RUSSIA: NIHILISTS; PAN-SLAVISTS-RUSSO-TURKISH WAR, 1876-78—
AUTOCRACY WEAKENS RUSSIA-RETURN TO DESPOTISM-ALEXANDER
II. MURDERED-RUSSIA UNDER QUASI-MARTIAL LAW-MISERY OF THE
PEOPLE-CHURCH AND GOVERNMENT BRUTALISE THE PEOPLE-THE
PEASANTRY ARE PAGANS-NUMBERS OF DISSENTERS-THE MUZHIK-
FORTUNATE POSITION OF THE NATIVES OF INDIA-RUSSIA CANNOT
USE HER STRENGTH-LESSONS OF THE RUSSO-TURKISH WARS OF
1853-56 AND 1876-78.

I.'s despot

DURING the reign of Nicholas I. (1825-55), the Nicholas late Tzar's younger brother, repressive measures ism. were continued. Intellectual and political development ceased throughout the empire. Popular restiveness under the gagging ordinances of the Tzar now and again broke into rebellion ; but Nicholas was merciless, and neither tolerated ideas. of personal liberty among his own subjects nor amongst those of a neighbour. A national rising of the Poles was extinguished with a brutal thoroughness which gained for the victims the sympathy of Europe. An insurrection in Hungary

The

Crimean

its conse

quences.

was similarly crushed. Nicholas, tall, stern, impassive, was Tzardom incarnate. His idea of good government was "Russia for the Russians, but my will over all." He sought to Russianise all the inhabitants of his empire. The ignorant masses, cowed by his commanding presence and limitless prerogative, venerated him as a god. He felt the incense of their worship, and believed himself infallible. His reason became blinded. He blundered into his second war with Turkey. In his first (1826-29) he had easily induced France and England to join him in championing the cause of Greece. At Navarino the Sultan's fleet was annihilated, and soon after Turkish resistance collapsed. Nicholas expected France and England to be as complacent in 1853 as they had been in 1826, and so he ordered his armies to occupy the Danubian principalities. To his surprise his former allies turned against him, and protected the unspeakable Turk instead of the Turk's oppressed Christian subjects.

The war began with the defeat of the Tzar's war and fellaheen legions by the ragged battalions of the Sultan. That defeat was the precursor of the Crimean war-a war which killed Nicholas, but redeemed the credit of Russia. Her defence of Sevastopol converted the ignominy of the disaster on the Danube-inflicted as it had been by Turkey single-handed—into the glory of having withstood for eighteen months, alone and unaided, the armed strength of France, England, Turkey, and Sardinia,

and the malevolent neutrality of Austria. Creditable though the defence was to the arms of Russia, the invasion of the sacred soil, the beleaguering of the strong city, and the bombardment of the coast towns, was a bitter revelation of failure to Tzar and his people. Even before his death popular faith in the wisdom of Nicholas and his system had begun to grow cold. Under the gathering wrath of the nation Tzar and Tchinovniks were taught humility. A revolution was clearly imminent, when early in 1855 Nicholas opportunely died, and his son Alexander II. reigned in his stead.

towards

tional Gov

ernment.

Tongues and pens were now loosed. The censor- Progress ship was defied; Tchinism derided as synonymous constituwith incompetence and peculation; and the largehearted and bewildered Alexander confused by a hundred schemes of reform, under each of which Russia was to leap at one bound from her state of medieval backwardness to the position of leader of progress amongst the nations of the West. The crisis was acute. The Tzar met it by a series of concessions to the popular demands, which, whether wise or premature, were yet for the moment necessary for the preservation of the imperial system. He made peace with France and England. He took his people into his confidence, and consulted them how best to remedy the ills of the body politic. Popular expectations were high; the hitherto voiceless masses were to have a share in their own government; the Tchinovniks recovered courage and spoke with confidence of the regenera

Emancipa

tion of the serfs.

tion of Russia under a constitution. The contagion
of the reform enthusiasm had now reached the 46
millions of peasants who were all, but in different
degrees, serfs and bondsmen. Of that number,
roundly half were Crown peasants and partially
free;
whilst the other half belonged to private
landlords and were practically slaves. The former
were at once given their personal liberty, but the
emancipation of the latter was complicated by the
difficulty of reconciling the opposing interests of
cultivators and landlords, and of metamorphosing
the former into communities of laborious peasant
proprietors. By emancipation the serfs understood
the free rendition to themselves of land which was
still traditionally their own. In effect, about half
the arable land of the country was perpetually leased
to them, not individually but corporately, as com-
munes, subject to certain payments, dues, or rent to
the late landlords, and taxes to the State and the

commune.

Hitherto the peasantry had lived like the cattle in the field, without thought for the morrow, clothed and fed by the masters for whom they worked. Now they were free men, each with a proprietary share in the land of his commune, but each liable in dues and taxes for a sum in roubles equivalent to about three pounds sterling. To the muzhik's mind, as life was still to be made miserable by hard work and heavy taxation, there was no practical advantage in freedom over slavery. To his late proprietor the change was equally disappointing. Hitherto he