[1855 A.D.] detachments of sappers and marines were left behind, not to give battle to an already victorious enemy, but to level to the dust the city it was no longer possible to defend. As night fell the work of devastation was begun. Powder-magazines were blown up. The cannon and siege trains that could not be removed were sunk in the bay. All that remained of the North Sea squadron was sunk; even the Empress Marie was not spared, that splendid vessel which was commanded by the glorious Nahkimov at the battle of Sinope. Only the war steamers were saved and taken across to the northern bank. The blowing up of the Paul battery completed the work of destruction. When all was finished the great bridge was broken up. Then the executors of those savage orders departed in boats for the further shore. With them went the generals who up to that moment had remained at Sebastopol to guard the retreat. Of this number was Count Osten-Sacken, governor of the PRINCE A. M. GORTCHAKOV town, who was one of the last to leave, as a captain abandons his burning ship only when all the hands have left. The explosions of that terrible night had kept the allies on the alert in their camp, and had triumphed over their immense fatigue. At daybreak on the 9th of September, Sebastopol, already nearly deserted, appeared to them as an immense heap of ruins from which shot up tongues of flame kindled by the incendiaries. For a long time French and English contemplated with a mixture of joy and horror those ruins which attested the greatness of their triumph and also the tenacity of their enemies. Beyond the roadstead, on the northern heights, appeared the Russians, vanquished but still menacing. On the morrow, September 10th, 1855-after 332 days of siege, three set battles, and three assaults more bloody even than the battles-Pélissier, as marshal of France, in the name of the emperor, planted his country's flag among the smoking ruins.e With the fall of Sebastopol the war was practically at an end. Hostilities continued for some time longer, but neither side won any material advantage. The allies were not in complete accord on the question of the continuance of the war, England being inclined to push matters to a complete overthrow of Russia, while France was ready to talk about terms of peace. Lord Palmerston himself was a strenuous opponent of peace, and declared that Russia had not been sufficiently humbled. At this juncture Prince A. M. Gortchakov, the Russian ambassador at Vienna, taking advantage of the divided councils of the allies, urged Austria to act as peacemaker. The emperor Francis Joseph thereupon took the occasion to press upon Russia an acceptance of the four conditions on which Turkey was prepared to make peace, backing the communication with an implied threat of war in case of denial. On January 16th, 1856, the czar, much against his will, signified his acceptance of Austrian intervention. The preliminaries of peace were signed on February 1st and on the 25th of the same month representatives of the great powers assembled at Paris to settle the details of the peace. Negotiations proceeded [1856 A.D.] for over a month, France and Russia drawing together and Austria insisting upon the maximum of Russian cessions.a Under the Treaty of Paris, March 30th, 1856, the powers bound themselves not to intervene singly in the administration of Turkey, to respect her independence and territorial status, and to treat disputes between any of them and the Porte as matters of general interest. A Hatti-sherif, or ordinance, had been obtained by England from the sultan before the congress opened, which guaranteed equal religious privileges to all his subjects. This was set forth as an article in the treaty. Russia renounced her claims to a protectorate over Turkish Christians. She abandoned similar pretensions with regard to the Danubian principalities, which were in future to be governed by hospodars elected under European control. She surrendered to Moldavia the southern portion of Bessarabia, which had been ceded under the Treaty of Bucharest, retaining however the principal trade-routes southwards and the fortress of Khotin. The navigation of the Danube was declared free to all nations, and placed under an European commission. A clause, through which Russia drew her pen as soon as an opportunity presented itself, declared the Black Sea neutral and closed it to men-of-war of all nations. Russia surrendered Kars to Turkey, but regained the portion of the Crimea in the allies' occupation. By a separate act she undertook not to fortify the Åland Isles or to make them a naval station. Thanks to the astuteness of her diplomacy, she scored a decided success against England in securing the insertion of articles which limited the scope of naval warfare. The Treaty of Paris abolished privateering, and provided that a neutral flag should protect the enemy's goods, while neutral property, even under a hostile flag, was exempted from capture. Contraband of war" was indeed excepted, but no attempt was made to define the meaning of this ambiguous phrase. The recognition of a blockade by neutrals was to be conditional on its effectiveness.g 66 AMELIORATION IN THE CONDITION OF THE SOLDIER On the 26th of August, 1856, the emperor Alexander Nikolaivitch placed on his head, in the cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow, the imperial crown and received the sacrament of anointing with the Holy Chrism. The sacred day of the coronation was one of rejoicing and hitherto unprecedented favours and therefore left the most joyful remembrance in the hearts of the people. When he had taken upon himself the imperial crown, the emperor Alexander II immediately set about the preparation of those great administrative reforms, which were so full of humanity and justice, which made his reign illustrious and which immortalised his name. Solicitous for the welfare of his people, the emperor first of all directed his attention to the improvement of the condition of the soldier and entered upon a series of reforms in the organisation and administration of that army, which was so dear to his heart, with the object of raising the moral spirit of the troops, of arousing the lower ranks to the consciousness of their dignity and in general of placing the military profession upon its proper elevated footing. As the preserver of order in the state during times of peace and the defender of the country in time of war, the soldier is justly proud of his profession; he should not be given cause for mortification by finding beside him in the service men condemned to the ranks as punishment for vicious. [1860 A.D.] behaviour. Yet in previous times men were frequently made soldiers by way of punishment for some crime instead of being banished to the settlements: fugitives, vagabonds, horse stealers, thieves, swindlers, and such vicious persons found a place in the ranks of the army. The emperor Alexander II put an end to this shameful state of things: by the imperial manifesto of 1860 the enrolment of soldiers as a punishment for crimes and offences, an abuse which had attained vast dimensions, was abolished and replaced by other forms of punishment. But the czar's chief care was to bring to fulfilment his most sacred idea, one which he cherished day and night: to give liberty to the peasants who were dependent as serfs upon the landowners; to abolish the law of serfdom. Amongst the great administrative reforms accomplished during the reign of the emperor Alexander II, the liberation of the peasants occupies incontestably the first place and served as the chief foundation for all the reforms that followed. All further changes were directly or indirectly called forth by the abolition of the law of serfdom. glorious accomplishment which gave new life to Russia, which breathed a new soul into the millions of Russian peasantry, was the most important of all the great deeds of the emperor Alexander II, and the brightest jewel in the crown of his glory. This A PEASANT COSTUME THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS (1861 A.D.) The predecessors of Alexander II had already felt all the evils of the law of serfdom and had not unfrequently aimed, if not directly at its abolition, at least at the amelioration of the position of the peasant serfs and their gradual preservation against the arbitrariness of the landowners' authority. But all these beneficent measures were insufficient for the abolition of the firmly established order; they only limited the rights of serfdom, put a certain restraint upon it, but did not abolish the right of the possession of serfs The glory of the complete emancipation of the peasants from the dependency of serfdom, the great and difficult initiative of the entire abolition of the law of serfdom in Russia belongs wholly to the emperor Alexander II. The question of the abolition of the law of serfdom constituted the chief care of the emperor Alexander II during the first years of his reign; all the course of the work in connection with the matter of the peasants testified to what firmness of will, immovable convictions and persistency were brought [1861 A.D.] by the emperor himself into this matter which he regarded as "sacred and most vital" for Russia. The emperor spoke many times in public on the peasant question during the time when the measure was under discussion. The sovereign's speeches all displayed his firm, inflexible intention of bringing the work he had conceived to a successful termination; they had kept up the courage of those labouring for the peasantry reforms, attracted the wavering, kept opponents in check, and thus had an enormous influence both on public opinion and on the course of local and general work in the matter of peasant reforms. The solution of the peasant question, which was of such vital importance to Russia, presented many difficulties. Of course it would have been far easier to master the problem if the emperor had desired to solve it as it had already been solved in some kingdoms of western Europe, where the peasants had been at one time in the same position as the Russian serfs; there the peasants had only been declared individually free, the land remained the property of the landowner. But such was not the will of the emperor Alexander II. He desired that the interests of the landlords should be as far as possible guarded, and also that the emancipated peasants should be endowed with a fixed quantity of land; not converted into homeless, landless labourers. Much labour had to be expended over this great problem before an issue was found for its successful solution. The chief executor of the emperor's preconceived plans in the matter of the peasant question was AdjutantGeneral J. T. Rostovtsev, in whom Alexander found an enlightened and boundlessly devoted assistant. In his turn Rostovtsev found a most zealous and talented collaborator in the person of N. A. Milutin, who warmly took up the cause of the emancipation of the peasants and who, after the death of Rostovtsev in 1860, became the chief director of all the work upon this question. The emperor attentively followed the course of the preparatory labours on the peasant reforms and without giving any serious heed to the wiles and opposition of the obstinate partisans of the law of serfdom, he firmly and unwaveringly directed these labours to the object marked out. But of course it was impossible to accomplish so vast a work at once. Four years passed in the indispensable preparatory work. The thoughts of the sovereign were full of this administrative measure; his heart must have been frequently overwhelmed with anxieties and fears in regard to the successful solution of the peasant question. But the czar's will never weakened, his love for his people was never exhausted, and the great, holy work of the emancipation of the rural population of Russia from the bondage of serfdom, and the organisation of this population into a new form of existence was at last brought to a successful conclusion. On the 19th of February, 1861, in the sixth year of the reign of the emperor Alexander II, all doubts were resolved. On that memorable day, which can never be forgotten in Russia, was accomplished the greatest event in the destinies of the Russian people: the emperor Alexander II, after having fervently prayed in solitude, signed the imperial manifesto for the abolition of the right of serfdom over the peasants living on the landlords' estates and for granting to these peasants the rights of a free agricultural status. Through the initiative and persistent efforts of their czar more than twentytwo million Russian peasants were liberated from the burden of serfdom, which had weighed on them and their forebears for nearly three centuries. They obtained their freedom and together with it the possibility of enjoying the fruits of their free labour, that is, of working for themselves, for their own profit and advantage and of governing themselves and their actions [1861 A.D.] according to their own will and discernment. Freedom was given to the Russian peasant by the emperor Alexander II himself; it was not given under him, but by him; he personally maintained the right of his people to freedom, personally broke the chains of serfdom; the initiative of this great work, its direction and its execution belong wholly to the emperor. We repeat, the laws of serfdom crumbled away at his royal word alone. Together with the imperial manifesto of the 19th of February, 1861, were promulgated in both capitals and afterwards throughout all Russia, laws for the organization of the liberated peasants into the social order, entitled "General regulations concerning the peasants issuing from the dependence of serfdom." Upon the basis of these laws and in particular by virtue of the reforms that followed, the liberated peasants were thus granted personal, social, and individual rights which placed them almost on a footing of equality with the other classes of the state. Laws and Social Rights Granted to the Peasants In conferring upon the liberated peasants the individual rights, common to all citizens of the empire, the czar was solicitous for the establishment of laws actually conducive to the security and amelioration of their condition, indissolubly bound up as it had been with the use and enjoyment of the land. With this object in view it was established that the peasant should have a share in the perpetual enjoyment of the farm settlements and arable land, in accordance with the qualities of the land of each locality and with local requirements. But as the peasants had not means to give the landowner at once all the value due for their share of the land, and on the other hand as the prospect of receiving the sum allotted, in small proportions during a period of thirty to forty years, was not an alluring one for the landowner, the state took upon itself the office of intermediary between the landowners and the liberated peasants and paid the landowner in redeemable paper all the sums due to him and inscribed them as long term debts against the peasants, who were under the obligation of paying them off by yearly instal ments. Together with the reservation of individual and property rights to the emancipated peasants, a special peasant government was established for them. The peasants received the right of disposing independently of their agricultural and public work, and of choosing from amongst themselves the wisest and most reliable persons for conducting their affairs under the direction of peasant assemblies. And as in the life of the Russian peasants many ancient customs and rules are preserved which are esteemed and observed as sacred, being the product of the experience of their forefathers, the emperor granted them also their own district peasant tribunals which decide upon purely local questions and arbitrate according to the conscience and traditions of these communities. The imperial manifesto was, as has already been said, signed on the 19th of February, 1861, but it was universally proclaimed only on the 5th of March of the same year; the news of the emancipation evoked an indescribable enthusiasm, a touching gratitude in the people towards their liberator throughout the whole length of the Russian land, beginning with the capital and finishing with the last poor little hamlet.d Having thus summarised the results achieved by this remarkable manifesto, we give below a literal translation of the full text of the document itself.a |