Alfred Thayer Mahan - The Influence of sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol I

Oczakow was taken by the Russians on the 17th of December, 1788, and during the following year the Eastern war raged violently both in the Baltic and in southeastern Europe. Turkey was everywhere worsted. Belgrade was taken on the 8th of October by the Austrians, who afterwards occupied Bucharest and advanced as far as Orsova. The Russians reduced Galatz, Bender, and other places. Besides losing territory, the Turks were defeated in several pitched battles. The conduct of the war on their part was much affected by the death of the reigning sultan.

The Swedish war was in its results unimportant, except as a diversion in favor of Turkey. To keep it up as such, subsidies were sent from Constantinople to Stockholm. Great Britain and Prussia were obliged again to threaten Denmark, in 1789, to keep her from aiding Russia. The British minister, speaking for both States, expressed their fixed determination to maintain the balance of power in the North. A defensive alliance was then formed between Russia and Austria on the one hand, and France and Spain on the other. The Bourbon kingdoms pledged themselves to a strict neutrality in the Eastern War as it then existed; but if Russia or Austria were attacked by any other State, they were to be helped,—Austria, by an army of sixty thousand men; Russia, by a fleet of sixteen ships-of-the-line and twelve frigates. The latter provision shows both the kind of attack feared by Russia and the direction of her ambition.

On the 4th of May of this year, 1789, the States General met at Versailles, and the French Revolution thenceforth went on apace. The Bastille was stormed July 14th. In October the royal family were brought forcibly from Versailles to Paris by the mob. The earlier events of the Revolution will hereafter be summarily related by themselves, before going on with the war to which they led. It will here be enough to say that the voice of France was now silent outside her own borders.

In 1790 the Eastern War was practically brought to an end. On the 31st of January a very close treaty of alliance was made between Prussia and the Porte,—the king binding himself to declare war at a set time against both Russia and Austria. The emperor died in February, and was succeeded by his brother Leopold, who was disposed to peace. A convention was soon after held, at which sat ministers of Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, and the United Provinces; the two latter acting as mediators because Prussia had taken such a pronounced attitude of hostility to Austria. A treaty was signed July 27, by which the emperor renounced his alliance with Russia. On September 20, he agreed to an armistice with Turkey; which, after long negotiation, was followed by a definitive peace, concluded August 4, 1791.

The Russian conflict with Turkey languished during the summer of 1790. Active operations began in October, and continued during a season whose severities the Russian could bear better than the Turk. The final blow of the campaign and of the war was the taking of Ismail by Suwarrow, a deed of arms so tremendous and full of horrors that a brief account of its circumstances is allowable even to our subject.

The town, which was looked on as the key of the lower Danube, was surrounded by three lines of wall, each with its proper ditch, and contained a garrison of thirteen thousand. Its population, besides the troops, was about thirty thousand. Owing to the season, December, Suwarrow determined not to attempt a regular siege, but to carry the place by assault, at any cost of life. Batteries were consequently put up in every available place, and as rapidly as possible, in order to prepare for and cover the attack. At five o'clock Christmas morning they all opened together, and, after a furious cannonade of two hours, the Russians moved forward in eight columns. After a three hours struggle the assailants were forced back; but Suwarrow, whose influence over his soldiers was unbounded, ran to the front, and, planting a Russian flag on one of the enemy's works, asked his men if they would leave it behind them. Through his efforts and those of the officers, the troops returned to the charge. The conflict, which must have resolved itself into a multitude of hand-to-hand encounters, lasted till midnight, when, after an eighteen hours fight, the third line of defence was carried and resistance ceased, though bloodshed continued through the night. It was computed at the time that thirty thousand Turks, including women and children, and some twenty thousand Russian soldiers died violent deaths during that Christmas day of 1790. Warlike operations continued during the spring, but preliminaries of peace between Russia and Turkey were signed at Galatz on the 11th of August, 1791.

This put an end to hostilities throughout the East, peace having been made between Russia and Sweden a year before, on August 11, 1790. The time of attack had been well chosen by the Swedish king, and had public opinion in Great Britain approached unanimity, a powerful lever would have been put in her hands to break down the Russian attack on Turkey by supporting the diversion in the North. The Russian and Swedish fleets were so evenly balanced that a small British division would have turned the scale, controlled the Baltic, and kept open the Swedish communications from Finland to their own coast. So far, however, was the nation from being of one mind that, as we have seen, the minister's majority steadily fell, and he probably knew that among those who voted straight, many were far from hearty in his support. Prussia also did not back Sweden as she should have done, after definitely embracing that policy, though she was both disconcerted and angered at the peace for which she had not looked. This irresolution on the part of the allied States limited their action to interposing between Sweden and Denmark, and prevented the results which might reasonably have been expected in the north, and yet more in the east of Europe; but it does not take from the significance of their attitude, nor hide the revolution in British statesmanship which marks the ten years now being treated.

The tendency thus indicated was suddenly, though only temporarily, checked by the Revolution in France. The troubles that had been so long fomenting in that country had, after a short and delusive period of seeming repose, begun again at nearly the very moment that the Eastern War was ending. This will be seen by bringing together the dates at which were happening these weighty events in the East and West.

It was on the 6th of October, 1789, that the king and royal family were brought from Versailles to Paris, unwilling but constrained. After this outbreak of popular feeling, comparative quiet continued through the last months of 1789 and all of 1790, during which were fought in the East the most important battles of the war, both in the Baltic and on the Danube, including the bloody assault of Ismail. During this time, however, Louis XVI. underwent many bitter mortifications, either intended as such, or else unavoidably humiliating to his sense of position. In June, 1791, he fled with his family from Paris to put himself in the care of part of the army stationed in eastern France under the Marquis de Bouillé and believed to be thoroughly trustworthy. Before reaching his destination he was recognized, and brought back to Paris a prisoner. The greeting of the royal family was significant of the change that had passed over the people within a few years, and which their unsuccessful flight had intensified. They were met by perfect silence, while some distance ahead of them rode an officer commanding the bystanders not to uncover. Despite the distrust it felt, the Constituent Assembly went on with the work of framing a constitution in which the king still had a recognized position, and which he formally accepted on the 14th of September, 1791. During that summer, peace was signed between Russia and Turkey, and a meeting was had at Pilnitz between the emperor and the king of Prussia, after which they put out their joint declaration that the situation in which the king of France found himself was an object of common concern to all the rulers of Europe; that "they hoped this common concern would lead them to employ, in conjunction with the two declaring sovereigns, the most efficacious means, relative to their forces, in order to enable the king of France to consolidate in the most perfect liberty, the basis of a monarchical government equally suitable to the rights of sovereigns and the welfare of the French nation." The two princes ended by stating their own readiness to join in such united action with the force necessary to obtain the common end proposed, and that they would, meanwhile, give orders to their troops to be ready to put themselves in a state of activity.