Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII. Peter the Great. At a time when the famous House of Romanov had only recently come into power in Russia, a prince was born in the Kremlin Palace at Moscow, who was destined to become the greatest ruler that the Russian people have ever known. The name of this prince was Peter, and he was the son of the Tsar Alexis. Alexis was a kind-hearted man, but he preferred to leave
the arduous duties of governing the Russian state to his advisors. As he was easily influenced by any favorite who happened to gain his ear, the government was badly run, and the condition of the people was deplorable indeed. When the Empress, or Tsarina, had born her husband two sons and a daughter, she died, and Alexis married a second wife named Natalia Narishkin, who became the mother of the infant Peter in 1672. We are told that there were great festivities at Peter's
christening. Most of the great nobles of Russia were present, and there was feasting and merrymaking. The guests wondered at the great confections of candy and spice that had been made for the celebration, life-size swans all of sugar that looked so natural it seemed as though they could swim in the sea of wine that flowed there, and fortresses of sweetmeats made to resemble the buildings of Moscow. There are many stories, too, of the pomp and luxury in which the future
Tsar was brought up. Peter had his own apartments and his own train of attendants, and he was waited on by a band of dwarfs who were selected for this purpose. When he was three years old, the Tsar gave him a royal carriage of tiny size, drawn by four ponies, and sitting therein, driven and accompanied by his dwarfs, the little prince would appear in the public streets whenever a royal ceremony took place. His father died when Peter was four years old and was succeeded on the
throne by Feodor, who was Peter's half-brother. This prince was not fitted to rule. He was sickly in body and weak in intellect, as indeed were both of the Tsar's son by his first marriage. And the new Tsar spent a large part of his time in bed, while his sister Sophia, who was shrewded and himself, was the actual ruler of Russia. Sophia had planned to make herself empress by the cleverest plotting and intrigue. She nursed Feodor in his illness, and so endeared herself to
him that he allowed her to do whatever she desired. Among the nobility she gained a number of friends by gifts, smiles, and flattery, and she paid particular attention to winning over a body of soldiers that formed the imperial guard and were called the Streltsy, trying to enlist them in her cause by every means in her power. Sophia, it may be said, was base-hearted and treacherous. She did not wish her father to marry again, for she feared there would be more children,
and she desired to come to power after his death by managing the affairs of her two weak brothers. Feodor, as we have seen, was a hopeless invalid, and the other son, Ivan, was weak-minded, almost an idiot, manifestly incapable of ever coming to the throne. But Peter, the son of the second marriage, was a strong and promising child, handsome in body and powerful in mind. He was the hope of the Russian state, and gave every indication that he would someday become a ruler
worthy of his people. And while he was still a young boy, the sickly Feodor died, and Peter became the Tsar much sooner than was expected. Sophia was unwilling to have Peter reign. She knew that under such a ruler as he promised to become, there would be small chance of her keeping her power. So, when Feodor died, she planned a revolt by spreading falsehoods among the nobles and the imperial guard, to the effect that Peter's mother had planned to place her son
on the throne by any means whatever, and had murdered the idiot prince Ivan so that Peter might rule unquestioned. At this, a mob made its way to the Kremlin, determined to take and slay both Peter and his mother, and foremost among the infuriated people were the soldiers of the imperial guard who were influenced by Sophia. The former Tsarina, with Peter in her arms, was compelled to flee for refuge to a monastery, where the soldiers followed her as far as the
altar itself, but feared to use their swords in the house of God. So many of the nobles, however, supported Peter and his mother, that Sophia could not work her wicked will upon them, and at last it was agreed that both Peter and Ivan should reign jointly as Tsars, while Sophia herself was to be regent, with all the power in her hands until they should come of age. Sophia then worked out another plot by which she hoped that Peter would never really rule.
She planned to weaken him in body and will until he should be unfit for his high duties. She took away his instructors and surrounded him with a group of boys to whom she gave every luxury and every opportunity for vice and idleness. They did as they liked from morning to night, and no restraint of any kind or description was placed upon them. Sophia hoped that they would all become worthless and vicious, and that Peter would do the same. Perhaps, she thought, he might
even weaken himself by drinking bouts and riotous orgies, so that he would not even live to claim the actual power of the throne. It was in the company of these boys, however, that Peter gave the first signs that he was not only bright and capable, but possessed the qualities of real greatness. Instead of doing nothing, as Sophia had wickedly hoped, he soon became a natural leader among his companions. Although he had no instructors, he kept up his studies and made his fellows do
likewise, and he organized a group of boys into a military company, which he drilled with the greatest care, teaching them tactics and the theories of soldiering, which he obtained from the officers of the army, and organizing a military school of such excellence that it continued on a practical basis long after he became Tsar. The constant efforts of the young prince to improve himself, his zeal, energy, and ability, soon attracted the attention of the Russian noblemen,
who said to themselves that there was a ruler worth having. Many of them had been Sophia's friends, but now they began to turn toward Peter, and Sophia soon saw that the design she had entertained was a too-edged one, and that she had only injured herself. Peter now was a youth of eighteen, and had a strong party of noblemen ready to support him in his claims to power. His friends and counselors desired that he marry, and soon the princess Eudoxia Lopukhin became his
bride. Sophia, of course, had been unwilling that the marriage take place, but she couldn't prevent it, and from that time onward her power grew less each day. The young prince continued to show every indication of his energy and ability. He worked in the shipyards to learn shipbuilding, and he studied military tactics at every opportunity. He had a company of soldiers formed, who dressed in European uniform, instead of in the Asiatic garb of Russia. He himself had drilled as a private
in this company. He was fond of taking long trips for military purposes, as well as for shipbuilding, and continued to do so after his marriage. At about this time, Russia engaged in an unsuccessful war in the Crimea. The Russian general, Golitsyn, claimed that he had accomplished wonders and ought to be decorated, but Peter's knowledge of military matters had made him thoroughly disgusted with the campaign. He refused to sign the order for the general's medals,
and showed that he knew the war had been a failure, and had failed through faulty strategy and bad leadership. Then there took place another plot to assassinate Peter, and once again Zofia's friends, the imperial guard, were on the foreground. Some of the soldiers, however, were faithful to the young Tsar, and warned him in time to fly for his life, and once again he and his mother took refuge in the monastery that had sheltered him when he was an infant. Noblemen hastened to the place,
to assure Peter that they were loyal to him and devoted to his interests. And while still in the monastery, Peter accused Zofia of having planned the deed. The imperial guard at last went over to him, and the ringleaders of the plot were disclosed and executed. General Golitsyn, who had already been in disfavor on account of his operations in the Crimea, was banished to the desolate reaches of Siberia, and the evil-hearted Zofia was placed in a convent for the good of her soul,
where she remained until her dying day. After this, Peter took on himself the full power of the Tsar, and began the great reforms that have made his name famous and were still working in Russia when the World War commenced in 1914. He ordered that mechanics and craftsmen from all parts of Europe be brought into Russia, to show the Russian people improved methods of trade, building, and manufacture. He made it easy to buy the merchandise of other countries, so the Russians
might learn how to make such things themselves, and he traveled widely in his great empire, supervising industry and introducing new methods. He turned his attention to the army, and had it well and efficiently drilled and dressed in the style of the armies of England and France and other great Western nations. He took long voyages on the sea to learn the craft of sailoring, and made plans for various ports and shipping centers in his country. And for his own amusement, the Tsar
was passionately fond of working with his own hands and making various things that can be seen to the present day. When Peter was 22, his mother died, and soon after this time he ceased to live with his wife, who entered a convent. He had never cared for her, although she had loved him passionately, and his treatment of her was harsh, to say the least. In one way, Peter's early training had done its work, and Sophia had molded his character for the worse. He was reckless and
dissolute, a heavy drinker, and fond of wild orgies that lasted long after daybreak. Unusually strong himself, these excesses did not injure his health to any great extent, but it was hard for those who had to drink with him, for the Tsar expected them to go about their affairs the next day, as though they had spent the night in restful sleep, instead of some wild revel. And it is said that he had no use for a man who would not join in the revels, or who allowed himself to be affected by them on the
following day. When still a young man, there was another attempt to murder him, and to place Sophia on the throne, but the plot was discovered, and all the conspirators were put to death, some of them with barbarous cruelties. In 1695, the Russians went to war against the Turks and the wild Tartars. The war is not an important one in its bearing on history, but Peter won fame through all civilized Europe for the skill with which he handled his army, and the way in which he conducted
the siege of a town called Azov. He then made up his mind to go to Western Europe and visit the great nations he had always admired. He went in great state and pretended that he was bound on a diplomatic mission, but it is thought that the real reason for the trip was his desire to see new forms and methods in the mechanical arts. He visited what is now modern Germany and went to Holland, where for a time he worked in one of the shipyards as a common carpenter, dressed in a workman's
clothes. He was keenly interested in everything, and one of his biographers tells us that he even learned dentistry and practiced his skill on the servants that accompanied him. Peter went to England and was surprised and delighted to see the fine metal coins that were used in that nation, as the Russian money was printed on small bits of leather, and on his return he introduced metal money into Russia. He also visited Vienna and Paris and traveled in disguise as much as possible.
While away on this trip, another revolt broke out against him, and Peter was obliged to hurry home on account of it. The conspirators were treated with the utmost severity and were tortured and killed. There are many ugly stories about the way that Peter behaved in regard to his enemies, although it is true that they had given him ample provocation, and it is said that when he was under the influence of drink, he put to death a number of conspirators with his own hand. Peter, with his
great love of shipbuilding, was always planning to establish a Russian navy and build new seaports. To assure himself control of the Russian seacoast of the Baltic Sea, he went to war with Charles X of Sweden and finally built the city of St. Petersburg that was named in his honor, a name that was changed to Petrograd at the beginning of the World War. The war went against Peter at first, but he trained his soldiers until they could achieve future victory,
and when the Swedes invaded Russia, they found Peter mood and ready for them. With the efficient army that he had built up, the Swedes were badly beaten at the Battle of Poltava and were compelled to withdraw from Russia after sustaining terrible losses. It is not on account of his wars, however, but his reforms, that the name of Peter the Great is so well known today. He was constantly changing and improving the order of things in his country.
He went so far as to require that the Russian civilians abandon the Asiatic dress of their forefathers and cut their beards, and he, more than any other man, transformed Russia from an Eastern into a Western nation. Peter had divorced his wife after the revolt which took place when he was visiting other nations, as he believed, or wished to believe, that she had a share in the plot, and he now married a beautiful woman of low degree named Catherine, who was called Catherine
the First. He had one son by his first wife, who was named Alexis, but the Prince had always given him serious trouble, and finally tried to hatch a revolt against his own father. For this, Alexis was tried and condemned to death, but he fell ill and died before the sentence could be pronounced, asking and receiving forgiveness from Peter on his deathbed. Peter himself died in 1725 after a sudden illness. His funeral was so elaborate that it was six weeks before the
ceremonies were concluded, for he had won a place in the hearts of the Russians that he never lost. He was beyond any doubt the greatest and most famous of the Russian Tsars, and he left Russia in a far better position than when he came to the throne. In addition to introducing all kinds of mechanical reform, he won a seaboard on the Baltic and Black Seas, which Russia had never before possessed. He built great cities and established many political reforms which were
the beginning of the modern Russian nation. He had trained an efficient army and was the father of the Russian Navy. While possessed of many faults and of a savage, ruthless nature, the elements of greatness and of heroism were strong within him.
