What consequences did the Prut campaign have? Prut hike.

Prut campaign- a campaign in Moldova in the summer of 1711 by the Russian army under the leadership of Peter I against the Ottoman Empire during the Russian-Turkish war of 1710-1713.

With the army, led by Field Marshal Sheremetev, Tsar Peter I personally went to Moldova. On the Prut River, about 75 km south of Yassy, ​​the 38,000-strong Russian army was pushed to the right bank by the allied 120,000-strong Turkish army and 70,000-strong cavalry of the Crimean Tatars. The decisive resistance of the Russians forced the Turkish commander to conclude a peace agreement, according to which the Russian army escaped from a hopeless encirclement at the cost of a concession to Turkey of the Azov and the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov, which had been previously conquered in the year.

Background

The route of the Russian troops was a line from Kiev through the Soroki fortress (on the Dniester) to the Moldavian Yassy through the territory of friendly Poland (part of modern Ukraine) with the crossing of the Prut.

Due to food difficulties, the Russian army during June 1711 concentrated on the Dniester - the border of the Commonwealth with Moldova. Field Marshal Sheremetev with his cavalry was supposed to cross the Dniester in early June and then rush directly to the Danube in order to take the places of possible crossings for the Turks, create food stores to provide the main army, and also involve Wallachia in the uprising against the Ottoman Empire. However, the field marshal faced problems in supplying the cavalry with fodder and provisions, did not find sufficient military support on the ground and remained in Moldova, turning to Iasi.

July 20

Brigadier Moro de Brazet, who was not at all treated kindly in the Russian service, nevertheless left such a comment on the behavior of Peter I at a critical moment in the battle:

« I can testify that the king did not take care of himself any more, as did the bravest of his soldiers. He carried himself everywhere, spoke to generals, officers and privates in a gentle and friendly manner, often questioning them about what was happening at their posts.»

At night, the Turks made sorties twice, but were repulsed. The losses of the Russians as a result of the fighting amounted to 2,680 people (750 killed, 1,200 wounded, 730 prisoners and missing); the Turks lost 7-8 thousand according to the report of the British ambassador in Constantinople and the testimony of the brigadier Moro de Brazet (the Turks themselves admitted the losses to him).

21 July

At the morning military council, Peter I and the generals decided to offer peace to the Turkish Sultan; in case of refusal to burn the train and break through " not on the stomach, but on death, without mercy on anyone and not asking for mercy". A trumpeter was sent to the Turks with a proposal for peace. Vizier Baltadzhi Mehmed Pasha, not responding to the Russian proposal, ordered the Janissaries to resume their attacks. However, those, having suffered great losses on this and the previous day, became agitated and raised a murmur that the sultan wanted peace, and the vizier was sending janissaries to slaughter against his will.

Sheremetev sent the second letter to the vizier, in which, in addition to a repeated proposal for peace, there was a threat to go into a decisive battle in a few hours if there was no answer. The vizier, having discussed the situation with his military leaders, agreed to conclude a truce for 48 hours and enter into negotiations.

To the Turks from the besieged army, they appointed Vice-Chancellor Shafirov, endowed with broad powers, with translators and assistants. Negotiations have begun.

Conclusion of the Prut Peace Treaty

The hopeless position of the Russian army can be judged by the conditions to which Peter I agreed, and which he outlined to Shafirov in the instructions:

• Give Azov and all previously conquered cities on their lands to the Turks.
• Give Livland and other lands to the Swedes, except Ingria (where Petersburg was built). Give back for Ingria Pskov.
• Agree to Leszczynski, the protege of the Swedes, as the Polish king.

These conditions coincided with those put forward by the Sultan when declaring war on Russia. To bribe the vizier, 150 thousand rubles were allocated from the treasury, smaller amounts were intended for other Turkish chiefs and even secretaries. According to legend, Peter's wife Ekaterina Alekseevna donated all her jewelry for bribery, but the Danish envoy Yust Yul, who was with the Russian army after it left the encirclement, does not report such an act of Catherine, but says that the tsarina distributed her jewelry to the officers and then, after the conclusion of peace, she gathered them back.

On July 25, the Russian cavalry corps of General Rennes with the attached Moldovan cavalry, not yet knowing about the armistice concluded, captured Brailov, which had to be left after 2 days.

On August 13, the Russian army, leaving Moldova, crossed the Dniester in Mogilev, ending the Prut campaign. According to the recollections of the Dane Rasmus Erebo (secretary of Yu. Yul) about the Russian troops on the approach to the Dniester:

« The soldiers were black with thirst and hunger. Blackened and dying of hunger people lay in multitudes along the road, and no one could help their neighbor or save him, since everyone had an equal share, that is, no one had anything.»

The vizier was never able to receive the bribe promised to him by Peter. On the night of July 26, the money was brought to the Turkish camp, but the vizier did not accept it, fearing his ally, the Crimean Khan. Then he was afraid to take them because of the suspicions raised by Charles XII against the vizier. In November, thanks to the intrigues of Charles XII through English and French diplomacy, the vizier Mehmed Pasha was removed by the Sultan and, according to rumors, was soon executed.

Results of the Prut campaign

During his stay in the camp beyond the Dniester in Podolia, Peter I ordered each brigadier to submit a detailed inventory of his brigade, determining its state on the first day of entry into Moldova and the one in which it was on the day of the order given. The will of the tsarist majesty was fulfilled: according to the brigadier Moro de Brazet, out of 79,800 people who were present when they entered Moldova, there were only 37,515, and the Rennes division had not yet joined the army (5 thousand on

In the winter of 1710 - 1711. Russian regiments set out from the Neva to the Dniester.

Peter secured the alliance of the rulers of Moldova - Cantemir and Wallachia - Brankovan, as well as the assistance of Poland. Kantemir pledged to send 10 thousand troops, Brankovan - 50 thousand (of which 20 thousand were Serbs).

August sent 30 thousand people to northern Bulgaria, to reinforce which Dolgorukov's Russian corps (12 thousand people) was sent.

In total, Peter had about 50 thousand people. With a hundred thousand, promised by the allies, auxiliary troops, this should have constituted an impressive force - "more than sufficient to hold our victory" - in the words of the king himself.

In addition to this main army, two more were formed: one - Count Apraksin, consisting of 20 thousand regular troops, 40 thousand Cossacks and 20 thousand Kalmyks - was supposed to go by the Muravsky Way to the Crimea, the other - Prince Golitsyn (15 thousand regular troops, 30 thousand Cossacks ) from Chigirin moved to Ochakov.

Thus, for the war with Turkey, Russia deployed up to 90 thousand regular troops, 80 thousand Cossacks and 20 thousand Kalmyks - with the forces promised by the allies, this will amount to up to 300 thousand troops.

At the end of May 1711, the Russian army approached the Dniester. Sheremetev's vanguard reached the Prut, where it united with Kantemir.

Here the Russians learned that there were no stocks in Moldova, and the recruitment of the Moldavian army was difficult: there were no more than seven thousand people in 17 regiments, organized according to the Russian model; Carts with food for the army, coming from Kiev, were intercepted in Podolia by the Tatars.

The situation was getting serious.

Crossing the Dniester near the town of Soroki, Peter called a military council on June 20, at which it was decided to move forward. Only General Galard noticed that the Russian army was in the same position that Charles XII was in when he entered the Ukraine.

Experiencing great difficulty due to lack of supplies, overcoming intense heat, the Russian army entered Bessarabia. Hoping for allies - Poles and Vlachs, Peter boldly walked forward.

However, the Polish army and Dolgoruky's corps, having reached the Moldavian border, stopped in Bukovina and took a wait-and-see attitude.

Meanwhile, the Grand Vizier Baltaji Pasha approached the Danube with 300 thousand troops and five hundred guns.

Overestimating the strength of the Russian tsar, he hesitated at Isakchi.

The Sultan, fearing a general uprising of Christians, offered Peter peace through the mediation of the Patriarch of Jerusalem and Brankovan (who went over to the side of the Turks).

Turkey offered Russia all the lands up to the Danube: Novorossia with Ochakov, Bessarabia, Moldavia and Wallachia.

Peter I refused, having committed the greatest mistake of his reign. Having occupied Iasi, Peter moved on the right bank of the Prut to the Danube, detaching the advance guard of General Rennes, where almost all the cavalry entered, and ordered him to capture Brailov.

Renne quickly moved to Wallachia, took Brailov and started buying food and forming the Wallachian troops. However, his report was intercepted, and Peter never found out about the capture of Brailov.

The Grand Vizier, crossing the Danube with. main forces, quickly moved up the Prut to Yassy.

July, his first clash with the Russian-Moldavian vanguard took place, and the Moldovans fled. At night, the entire Russian army retreated to link up with Repnin's rearguard, adding extra weight to the fire. The Turks did not pursue. July, the Russian army united in Stanileshty and began to strengthen the camp, but the Turks launched a fierce attack and captured part of the carts that did not have time to enter the camp. This attack, as well as the next two, were repulsed with. great damage to the Turks. Russians were 38 thousand with 122 guns, Turks - 170 thousand and 479 guns. The damage of the Russians amounted to 2,882 people, the Turks left up to 7 thousand people.

Nevertheless, the position of the Russian army became desperate: its position was a quadrangle, the rear face of which rested against the river.

The Turks, having installed artillery at the command heights, could destroy the Russian camp with impunity. The masses of Turkish riflemen made it even impossible to use the water.

The army was surrounded by a five times superior enemy. The fate of Russia was in the hands of the grand vizier that day. Even if the Russians managed to break through the ring of enemies, the retreat would turn into a disaster for them - all the crossings across the Prut were in the hands of the Turks. The remnants of the army would find themselves in Moldova, like in a mousetrap, and they would have suffered the same fate as the Swedes at Perevolochna.

According to Anton Kersnovsky, Peter's greatness manifested itself in these tragic moments in full splendor.

Preparing for the last battle, he prepared a decree for the Senate: "in case of his capture by the sovereign, do not count and do not carry out his orders from captivity." But God kept Russia. Vizier Baltaci agreed to negotiations and did not use his exceptional strategic position.

The vizier's compliance is explained in different ways: some believe it to be a consequence of the ransom (Catherine's jewelry), others explain it as a revolt of the janissaries. The latter hypothesis is much more plausible. In addition, the vizier was supposed to be impressed by the steadfastness of the Russian troops in the battle on July 9 and the sensible losses in the best Turkish troops.

The interests of Sweden and its restless king did not touch the phlegmatic Asian, who decided to make peace, since he was offered on terms acceptable and even beneficial for Turkey. Negotiations were conducted slowly (in order to warn Charles XII, who rode to the Turkish camp with a demand not to yield) and on July 11 led to the Prut Treaty.

Russia returned Azov to Turkey with its district, and pledged to tear down the fortifications on the Dnieper and Don, as well as the Taganrog fortress. In addition, Peter pledged not to interfere in Polish affairs and gave Karl XII gtskhlgusk to Sweden.

It is difficult to imagine, says Anton Kersnovsky, what would happen to Russia if Peter died on the Prut ... With the unfortunate Alexei Petrovich, she would have to go through a new time of troubles. All efforts and achievements of Peter would have been wasted.

In general, the Prut campaign is a war of missed opportunities. If Peter had agreed to the Sultan's proposal, then the Russian border would have followed the Danube. The dream of Svyatoslav would have been fulfilled ... There would be no need to shed streams of blood near Ochakov, Izmail, Ruschuk, in Silistria, and wage five wars in a hundred years. However, Baltaji Pasha made a mistake of about the same order. We owe a lot to this vizier.

Prut campaign in 1711. was the main event Russian-Turkish war 1710-1714 The Russian army, which was nominally commanded by B.P. Sheremetev, and in fact Tsar Peter himself, found himself in a difficult situation, being surrounded by a numerically superior Turkish-Tatar army led by the Grand Vizier and the Crimean Khan on the banks of the Prut River.

These dramatic events in the memoirs of the participants in the campaign and other contemporaries are reflected inconsistently and inaccurately; legends have formed around them, which are still uncritically presented by historians. They write that the Russian army, surrounded by Turks and Tatars, was in danger of complete extermination; that before the conclusion of peace, Peter wrote to the Senate that in the event of his capture, the senators would choose a new tsar from among their ranks (despite the presence of Tsarevich Alexei); that negotiations with the Turks were unsuccessful, and then the future Empress Catherine I, without asking her husband's permission, convened a council of war and persuaded Peter to send another letter to the vizier asking for peace; that she secretly from the king sent all her jewels to the vizier with this letter; that the bribed vizier, seduced by the brilliance of the diamonds, agreed to make peace; that one of the reasons for the consent of the vizier was the capture of Brailov by General Rennes, etc. Questions about why the Russian army was caught by the Turks on the march are bypassed; why there were no conditions in favor of Sweden in the Prut Peace Treaty, although Karl XII, who took refuge in Turkey, made a lot of efforts to induce the Sultan to start a war with Russia, and also why two official versions of the treaty were published.
I critically studied published and archival materials: decrees and correspondence of Peter I, reports of Russian and foreign diplomats, generals and secret agents, memoirs of participants in the campaign, works of historians and tried to restore the course of events by day and hour. Briefly the results of this work were presented by me in the comments to the text of "Letters and Papers of Emperor Peter the Great" (T. XI, issue 1), in a review of an article by the Turkish historian Kurat and in an article about the campaign in one of the provincial collections 1, but, apparently, they went unnoticed, since legends and inaccuracies are repeated in reference books, works of popular science historians. Therefore, it seems to me useful to give my own, generalized and supplemented, in comparison with published works, version of events and the occurrence of legends.

There is still only one special work on the Prut campaign - a 2-volume study by A.N. Kurata "The Prut Campaign and Peace", published in 1951-1952. in Turkish. Its main provisions were stated by him in 1962 in an article in German 2. Kurat's research is fundamental: he used a lot of sources, including published and unpublished reports of diplomats, materials from the Turkish archives (from the funds of the grand viziers, a participant in the campaign of the official of the state treasury Ahmed bin Mahmud, etc.), the work of Turkish, Russian, German, Swedish and Polish historians. Kurat's work contains important conclusions about the goal that the Turks were striving for when starting the war, about the development of peace conditions, about the number of Turkish-Tatar troops, etc. But Kurat remained unknown to many sources, especially from those stored in the Russian archives and published after the publication of his works, and he himself admitted (in his article) that much here remains unexplained. In particular, Kurat was unable to explain some of the contradictions and perplexities that arise when reading official documents, letters and memoirs of contemporaries and works of historians; incorrectly conveyed the conditions of peace put forward by the Turks; believed that the Turks had missed a favorable moment because of their greed, and although he did not say directly about the decisive role of bribery of the vizier, he still emphasized its great importance. He also erroneously reported that the jewels for the vizier arrived in the Turkish camp before the conclusion of the peace; repeated the legend about the decisive role of Catherine; did not explain why the text of the Prut Peace Treaty was published in two versions, etc. Despite the listed shortcomings, to date this is the most complete and detailed work on the history of the Prut campaign, the author of which not only introduced new information from previously unknown sources into scientific circulation, but also made valuable observations and conclusions.
In addition, the history of the campaign is briefly highlighted in the relevant sections of generalizing works, in works that deal with related problems, in the biographies of Peter and other figures of the era. The best description of it so far is the section in the work of S.F. Oreshkova on Russian-Turkish relations at the beginning of the 18th century, based on the study of a wide range of sources, including Turkish 3. However, she and other researchers do not explain the contradictions in the sources and repeat old legends.

The scope of the article makes it necessary to confine oneself to clarifying only the most significant questions: 1) Was Peter really so confused, once surrounded, that Catherine herself had to convene a council of war, reach a decision on it to propose peace and send Sub-Chancellor P.P. Shafirov, having provided him with his own jewelry to bribe the Grand Vizier, and if not, how, when and why the legend about the role of Catherine arose? 2) Was bribery the main reason that the Grand Vizier agreed to make peace and did not put forward conditions in favor of Charles XII, and if not, what were these reasons and how, when and where did the legend about the decisive role of bribery of the Grand Vizier arise? 3) Is the so-called "letter from Peter the Great from the banks of the Prut", in which he ordered the Senate, in the event of his capture by the Turks, to elect a new tsar from among the senators, and if so, who forged him and why?
Brief answers will be given to the following questions, indicating the sources that allow them to substantiate them in detail: 1) Why was the Russian army caught by the Turks on the march? 2) Why do the sources indicate different numbers of the Turkish-Tatar army: a) 120 thousand Turks and 20-30 thousand Tatars and b) 270 thousand Turks and Tatars taken together? What was the true number, and where did the false one come from? 3) Did the capture by the Russian detachment of the Brailov fortress on the Danube in the rear of the Turks influenced the Grand Vizier's consent to conclude peace and its terms? 4) Which of the two significantly different versions of the text of the Prut Peace Treaty is genuine, why did the second appear?

Why was the Russian army caught on the march and what was the size of the armies of both sides?

Peter had already negotiated for a long time with the rulers of Moldova D. Cantemir and Wallachia K. Brankovan about their transfer to the side of Russia. When the Russian army at the end of June 1711. approached Yassy, ​​Kantemir came to the Russian camp, but brought with him only 6 thousand people, poorly armed and untrained 4. In this situation, Peter could act in two ways: wait for the Turks on the Dniester, giving them the opportunity to defeat the Wallachian militia in the event of his opposition to them, or go to meet the enemy in the hope of joining Brankovan with troops and food. Peter chose the second option, not realizing the difficulties of marching through the devastated locust country 5, and even with active actions by the significantly superior forces of the Turkish-Tatar cavalry. The main army set out on a campaign along the right (northern) bank of the Prut, and a cavalry detachment of General K. Renne was sent to Wallachia to the Brailov fortress on the Danube to induce Brankovan to go over to the side of Russia. The detachment included 5,600 people (half of the Russian cavalry) 6. But since the Turkish army had already approached the borders of Wallachia, Brankovan remained on the side of the Turks. Subsequently, Peter himself admitted that "this march" was "very desperately committed to hopeful of the Multian ruler" 7.
Having received information about the movement of the Turks along the left (southern) bank of the Prut, on July 7, Peter ordered General Janus von Eberstedt, who commanded the cavalry, to move forward and prevent the Turks from crossing the Prut: it was important to gain time so that Renne took Brailov and prompted Brancovan to oppose the Turks in their rear. As Moreau writes, “after listening to the order and understanding it well, we proceeded to carry it out, although the general and I, not without laughing, saw that dragoons and cavalry were used to attack the fortified bridges” 8. After a few miles, the detachment unexpectedly stumbled upon a bridgehead. Instead of attacking, Janus, violating Peter's orders, ordered a retreat. The Turkish cavalry and Tatars immediately rushed into the attack, the detachment had to line up in squares and slowly retreat, repelling their attacks. Petru Janus reported that he was being attacked by janissaries with artillery (which was not true), in the evening he sent another letter, and Peter sent an infantry division 9 to help him.

Meanwhile, the bridges seen on July 7 by Janus and Moreau were false: the real ones were built only the next day, and the vizier, out of caution on the 8th, ferried the cavalry (the Tatars crossed by swimming) and only on the 9th - the infantry (Janissaries), and all the artillery crossed the river only on the night of 10 July 10. As a result, the Russian army was caught on the march and, having lost part of the convoy, was forced to retreat, undergoing continuous attacks by the enemy cavalry. On July 9, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, from fatigue, she had to stop at an uncomfortable position on the bank of the Prut.
Peter's order, which made Janus and Moreau laugh, was real. This is evidenced by the actions of General Rennes: he besieged and took by storm not some bridgehead, but the Brailov fortress on the Danube. True, Rennes had already served under Peter's command for a long time and, obviously, had assimilated the new and advanced military ideas of the Russian commander for that time. In any case, the "use" of dragoons to take the fortress did not seem strange to him. Therefore, Peter had every reason to hope that Janus would be able to delay the crossing of the Turks. Subsequently, he wrote that “then the Turks had not yet crossed, but they were on the other side, and of course Janus could have detained them if he had done so [how] kind person should be ”11.
The Russian army found itself in a difficult situation: it was surrounded by the Turkish-Tatar cavalry, which carried out incessant attacks, in the valley on the banks of the Prut. In addition, on the hill on the opposite bank, the enemy placed cannons, which, however, could not inflict damage 12. The Russian army had 38 thousand people and 122 guns, the enemy, according to Kurat's calculations, had about 100-120 thousand Turks and 20-30 thousand Tatars, and the number of guns reached 255-407 13. The number of Turks and Tatars in 270 thousand people, indicated in the Daily note, was reported to Peter Shafirov from the words of the Turks 14. It is clear that it was profitable for the latter to overestimate it. But the most dangerous thing was that out of 6.6 thousand Russian cavalry there were 57.8 thousand Turkish, not counting the Tatars. Considering that the Russian cavalry no longer had fodder, the pasture was eaten, and the supply routes were cut off by the Tatars, then the situation that had developed through the fault of General Janus could not but be recognized as critical.

The legend about the decisive role of Catherine in the conclusion of peace

On the evening of July 9, the Janissaries attacked the Russian camp three times and all three times were repulsed. But Peter did not dare to counterattack out of fear that the Turkish-Tatar cavalry would capture the convoy with food and ammunition. The Janissaries showed extraordinary courage, but their commanders lacked military knowledge: the attack was carried out on one section of the Russian camp, which Peter reinforced with people and cannons as needed. But people and horses did not rest for three days in a row, the wagon train with provisions, which was going to the Russian army, was intercepted by the Tatars, the army was surrounded on all sides, many horses fell, and those who survived for several days ate only leaves and bark of trees. But discipline among the soldiers did not shake, and the army continued to be a formidable force 15.
At nightfall, the Janissaries stopped their attacks 16. Peter again convened a council of war, which decided to attack the Turks at night, but almost immediately the king canceled it for the same reason as the counterattack earlier.
There was nothing surprising in the fact that Peter, realizing that he, the conqueror of Charles XII, could be defeated and even captured with his wife, for some time lost his composure. A few days later he wrote that “as soon as he went to serve, they were not in such a desperate manner” 17. Apparently, he had a nervous breakdown, which the French agent La Motreuil, who was in the Turkish army, and the Danish ambassador to Russia Yust Yul, who came to Peter in the army that left Moldova after the conclusion of peace, learned from various sources. La Motreuil writes that he talked with Swedish officers who entered the Russian service after Poltava and on July 10 deserted to the Turks. The Swedes told him the following: in the evening of July 9, “Peter was confused and, saying:“ I found myself in the same difficult situation as my brother Karl near Poltava, ”he retired to his tent ..., forbidding anyone to enter it. He either had an ordinary (according to them) seizure, or he feigned it ”18. Yust Yul wrote in his diary: “As I was told, the tsar, being surrounded by the Turkish army, came to such despair that he ran up and down the camp like a madman, beat his chest and could not utter a word. The majority thought it was a blow with him ”19.
Peter was indeed prone to seizures in which only Catherine could calm him. But I don't think it was a seizure in this case. Simply, having lost his composure for some time, Peter quickly came to his senses and went into the tent to think about what to do under the circumstances. About what happened after that, sources report conflicting information. Summarizing them, A.S. Pushkin, in his preparatory texts for the "History of Peter", after extracts about sending a letter to the vizier with a proposal to conclude peace, placed the following entry: "According to other news: Peter summoned the generals to him, ordered them to attack the enemy the next day, and he himself went to his tent , commanding the sentries not to let anyone in. Then Catherine gathered advice and offered to interpret about the world. - She entered his tent - etc. Then the non-commissioned officer Shepelev was sent, and the queen sent (secretly from Peter) money and diamonds as a gift to the vizier and kegai, his governor. " After that, Pushkin wrote: "All this nonsense" 20. Kurat was unable to clarify this issue and was forced to declare: “One thing is clear - Catherine played a certain role, but she should not be overestimated” 21.
Let's turn to the sources. La Motreuil, after the above account of the Swedish defectors, continues: “They added that after [Peter's] departure, the generals gathered for a council of war and came to the conclusion that the janissaries were afraid of the Russians, since they did not resume their attacks, as was the case the night before. ... Therefore, the generals decided to attack the Turks themselves, and even if they did not succeed in winning, then perhaps the enemy's confusion would facilitate the retreat. Shafirov objected that this would be a desperate attempt, which could be the last chance for salvation, and that he would offer to enter into negotiations with the vizier to end the bloodshed for an agreement. His advice was accepted, and since the queen was the only one who was not affected by the king's prohibition [to enter his tent], a wish was expressed that it was she who conveyed the proposal to the king, which she successfully fulfilled. Apparently, it took a lot of persistence to get the order from the tsar to Field Marshal Sheremetev to write a letter to the vizier "22. In the second book of his memoirs, La Motreuil outlined the given version of the Swedish officers with a clarification: “The queen ... brought his advisers to the tent where the king was, who did not want to see anyone, and used her influence to get him to agree to hand over to Shafirov the authority to conclude peace ". Immediately in a note, he emphasized: "All that the queen did ... was brought to him in a tent, where he was alone, advisers."
But there is direct evidence of a military council, at which it was decided to enter into negotiations with the Turks. The invited Janus took with him Moreau, who told about him: on July 10, “at about nine o'clock in the morning ... the sovereign, General Janus, Lieutenant General Osten and Field Marshal held a long secret meeting. Then they all approached General Baron Alart, who was lying in the carriage because of the wound he received, and then ... it was supposed that the field marshal would write to the grand vizier, asking him for a truce in order to safely proceed with the reconciliation of the two sovereigns. General Janus's trumpeter departed with a letter, and we
expected an answer, each at his post "24 - Moro's story is confirmed by Alart, who cited in his diary published by Kurat the decision of this council of war:" To offer the Grand Vizier a truce in order to negotiate an eternal peace with the Sultan. If the vizier does not agree to this, then burn and destroy the carts, build a Wagenburg out of a few carts and place the Volokhs and Cossacks in it, reinforcing them with several thousand infantry. With the army ... attack the enemy "25.

In addition, La Motrei has news confirming the reports of Moro and Alart. He writes that in order to ensure the fulfillment of the conditions of the Prut Peace Treaty, the Turks demanded that the Russian ambassadors go to Istanbul as hostages. Peter gave them a guard of Russian officers. La Motreuil got to know them and told them about the Swedish version. Russian officers, he writes, “who, according to them, were in the presence of the tsar ... affairs, assumed full power and summoned the generals to a military council under his chairmanship, at which it was decided that Field Marshal Sheremetev would write a letter to the vizier proposing acceptable conditions for peace. The letter was sent with the trumpet player General Janus ”26.
Thus, there is no doubt that the reports of Moro, Alart and Russian officers at La Motrei are reliable, and they do not mention Yekaterina and Shafirov, although it is strange that the responsible decision to switch from military operations to diplomacy was made without the participation of Chancellor Golovkin and Sub-Chancellor Shafirov. So, it can be considered established that Peter went to his tent. Most likely, Catherine was already there or went there after him to calm him down. Further, on the one hand, it is reported that after Peter went to the tent, i.e. on the evening of July 9, Catherine convened a council, at which she or Shafirov made a proposal to enter into negotiations, and the council decided to offer the Turks peace, write a letter on behalf of Sheremetev and entrust the negotiations to Shafirov, after which Catherine brought the generals and Shafirov to Peter's tent for approval of this decision. On the other hand, it was established that: a) in the morning of July 10, a military council was held, held by Peter himself, at which there were no Russian generals, except for Sheremetev, or Ekaterina and Shafirov, but at which it was decided to send a parliamentarian with a letter from Sheremetev to the vizier containing a proposal to enter into negotiations, and b) July 9, i.e. on the eve of this advice, Shafirov received instructions on how to conduct negotiations (a draft with Peter's own handwritten revision has been preserved) 27.
A comparison of these data suggests the conclusion that two military councils took place, the first on the evening of July 9, and the second on the morning of July 10. We know about the second tip from Moreau. On the first, there is Alart's record, which mentions Peter's secret council with generals and ministers, at which it was decided to send Shafirov to the Turks. It is, however, placed after the above information about the decision of the military council to enter into negotiations and send a trumpeter to the vizier, but this is clearly a different advice, with a different composition of participants 28. In addition, in the report of the French ambassador to Russia, de Baluza, on September 11, it is reported: “They assure ... that the tsar kept a military council in his camp, to which General Janus was not invited, him in order to find out his opinion in private ”29. The latter, as we know from Moro's story, is incorrect, which means that this information does not come from Moro (who, we see, did not know about the first advice, without Janus). In addition, Baluz announced his meeting with Moro on September 30, therefore, they did not see each other until the 11th.
Let's try to restore the course of events. So, Peter went into the tent and decided (perhaps on the advice of Catherine) to enter into negotiations with the Turks, and first discuss at the council the possible conditions of the Turks and the candidacy of the ambassador. The draft of the instruction to Shafirov is dated July 9, therefore, the council was convened immediately, on the evening of July 9. The composition of its participants is directly indicated by Alart: generals and ministers. Indirect confirmation: the absence of ministers and Russian generals at the council on the morning of July 10 (Sheremetev does not count: he is the commander-in-chief), testifying that in the evening, July 9, a council was held, which was attended only by ministers and Russian generals. This is quite natural: of course, before contacting the mercenaries, it was necessary to discuss such an important issue with their own.
Alart called it a secret council, perhaps because it was convened secretly from foreign generals (including from Alart), whom Peter had assembled on the morning of July 10, after he had made a decision and appointed Shafirov as envoy, and this second advice was also approved. But the advisers had to be invited to the tent, and Peter, apparently, instructed Catherine to bring them. The Swedish defectors could see how Catherine, leaving the tent, ordered to find the ministers and Russian generals. The appearance of the generals at the tent suggests a council of war. Hence the version that it was Catherine who convened a military council, at which she (or Shafirov) proposed to enter into negotiations with the Turks.
It is known that Peter appreciated the behavior of Catherine in the Prut campaign so highly that in 1714, specifically for her reward, he established a new Russian order of liberation, soon renaming it the Order of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine (according to the charter, only women could be awarded this order). At the same time, Peter said that the order was "commemorated when Her Majesty was in the battle with the Turks near the Prut, where at such a dangerous time, not like a wife, but like a man's person, was visible to everyone." This is confirmed by the order itself: it depicts St. Catherine with a cross, on which the first letters of the words: "G [redeem], s [pasi] ts [area]", and on the reverse side the Latin inscription: "By labor is compared with a spouse" 32 ... In addition, in the manifesto on November 15, 1723, about the coronation of Catherine, Peter mentioned that Catherine helped him in the Northern War and in the Battle of Prut and “acted masculine, not feminine,” 33.

However, maybe Peter was really so confused that Catherine had to take the initiative: call the advisers to the tent, come up with a proposal to start negotiations and induce her husband to send Shafirov to the Turks? Undoubtedly, Catherine had a certain (and considerable) influence on Peter, but nothing indicates that she had a state mind. On the contrary: after becoming an empress after the death of Peter, Catherine was an obedient instrument in the hands of Menshikov. And yet, being an uneducated woman, she undoubtedly possessed a sound mind and understood people - otherwise she would not have been able to live for so long with such a complex and extraordinary person as Peter was, and enjoy his respect. Peter, for all his shortcomings, undoubtedly, was not afraid to take responsibility for his actions. Therefore, it is impossible to imagine that in the presence of Peter, Catherine could make any independent decision. Everything that we know about their characters and relationships does not correspond to the version about the decisive role of Catherine in the decision to offer the Turks to make peace. It was accepted, of course, by Peter himself, and the council supported this decision. An instruction was immediately drawn up to Shafirov (taking into account the requirements of the Turks sent in November 1710) and, probably, a letter from Sheremetev to the vizier.

Why did the Turks agree to make peace?

The Turks went to war with reluctance and fear of the Russian troops. Starting it, they counted on the help of the Swedish corps stationed in Pomerania (northern Germany). The Turks attached such great importance to this that in the demands they sent to Peter in November 1710, i.e. on the eve of the declaration of war, there were a number of points in favor of the Swedes: “To completely dissolve the alliance concluded with Augustus, to recognize Stanislav as King of Poland; to return all of Livonia and, in general, everything conquered by the Russians, to the Swedish king, and to ravage and raze Petersburg to the ground1; to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with the kings Karl and Stanislav against Augustus and oppose him if he renews his claims to the Polish throne, which he ceded to Stanislav Leshchinsky; return in kind "whether otherwise, everything that the Swedish king lost through the Battle of Poltava" 34.
But the Swedes did not manage to replenish their small Pomeranian corps, and they did not dare to break through the Russian troops that blocked their way. There were also rumors that Karl had promised the janissaries payment and deceived them. Personal enmity between the vizier and the king was added to the violation of the royal promises: Charles demanded command over the Turkish army, he, of course, was politely refused, but was invited to accompany the vizier on the campaign. Karl rejected this proposal and sent in his place his representative - General Sparre and the representative of the Polish king S. Deshchinsky (appointed by Charles XII) - General Poniatowski. Then the vizier was offended and, according to Ponyatovsky, told the Crimean khan that he was sure that the Swedish king, "this arrogant wicked", would never show the Turks such an honor - to accompany them personally. Thus, counting on Karl's help, the Turks did not want to fight for his interests at all. The Swedes 'failure to fulfill their obligations, the Turks' fear of the Russian army and the fear of an uprising of the Balkan peoples were the reasons that the Sultan gave the Grand Vizier the authority to conclude peace on terms beneficial only to the Turks. And the purpose of the war on their part, at least in 1711 before the start of the campaign, was the return of Azov and the destruction of newly built fortresses in the Black Sea region. Therefore, Kurat's conclusion that the Turks, starting hostilities, had no serious intention to support Karl KP and wanted to get rid of him, seems to be quite reasonable 38.
The British ambassador to Turkey R. Sutton reported on June 14 (25): “I am assured that they [the Turks] have already begun to defect in significant numbers ... In addition, the soldiers are very unhappy and are suspected of the possibility of mutiny” 39. One of Peter's secret informants in Turkey, Luca Barka, wrote on June 22: “The Asian army, read it, everything came here, only two pashas remained there. And for great shame the Turks lament themselves to see such an army, for the people are bad, stripped, without a gun, and tired from the long journey, and then they go to war without a heart ... Although the Turkish army is numerous, however, hastily, irregularly, without heads [chiefs] clever, which the army has no fear of either the vizier or other officers ”40. On July 9, when the Turks surrounded the Russian army, shortly before sunset, Sutton wrote, “a Janissary came to the vizier’s tent and began to shout:“ Will we lie here until we die of disease in adversity? Let all true Muslims come after me to fight with the infidels! " He grabbed one of the banners standing by the tent and ran forward. Others immediately followed him, seizing other banners, and ... having gathered together, with the usual shouts in disorder, they rushed at the enemy. Seeing such a mess, the vizier sent a kegai, with whom he was talking at that moment and from whom I learned these details, to lead them. " General S. Poniatovskiy adds in his memoirs: “Emitting wild cries, calling out to God, according to their custom, with repeated shouts of“ Alla, Alla ”, they rushed to the enemy with sabers in their hands, and, of course, would have broken through the front if not for the slingshots that the enemy threw in front of them ... Strong fire almost at point-blank range not only cooled the ardor of the Janissaries, but also threw them into confusion and forced a hasty retreat. Kegaya [deputy grand vizier] and the chief of the janissaries cut the fugitives with sabers and tried to stop them and put them in order. The bravest ones resumed their shouts and attacked a second time. The second attack was not as strong as the first, and the Turks were again forced to retreat. " The third attack was also repulsed and then kegaya said to Ponyatovsky: "We risk being defeated, and this will inevitably happen."
The Janissaries and the Turkish command were seized by panic. Sutton wrote that “each time they [the Turks] fled back in disarray. After the third attack, their confusion and frustration were so great that one can certainly assume that if the Russians counterattacked them, they would have fled without any resistance. " The chief of the Janissaries later said to the Sultan: “And if Moscow were advancing, then they [the Turks] would never have been able to hold their seats ... the Turks in the rear would have begun to flee, and if the Muscovites had emerged from the lagar, the Turks would have left the guns and ammunition ". This is also confirmed by La Motrei, who was in the Turkish army: “It was so frightening of them [the Janissaries] that their courage left them” 41. And yet, at dawn on July 10, when the artillery approached, they again attacked the Russian camp and were again repulsed. On the order to repeat the attack of the Janissaries, according to Luca Barka, "everyone refused that they did not want to attack and could not stand against Moscow fire." Sutton wrote: "The resistance given by the Russians shook the courage of the Turks so much that they also did not want to attack again, as the Russians did not want to be attacked."
Having received a letter with a proposal to enter into peace negotiations, the grand vizier and his entourage, being confident in the strength of the Russian army, considered it a military trick and did not respond. Peter later wrote: “Then, when the answer hesitated, then they sent them to speak to them, so that the ambulance would give a short rebuke, whether they wanted the world or not, for we cannot wait any longer. Then, when the rebuke hesitated even on that parcel, then they ordered the regiments to set out. And when this happened, and our several dozen fathoms set out, then they immediately sent from the Turks so that they would not go, because they accept this world, and for this purpose to commit the seizure of weapons, and so that they would send with whom to interpret about this world ”43. Moreau writes that he asked one of the Turkish pashas sent to the Russian camp to protect the leaving army from the attacks of the Tatars: “For what reason and on what conditions did they make peace? He replied that our firmness amazed them, that they did not think to find such terrible opponents in us that, judging by the situation in which we were, and by the retreat we made, they saw that our life would cost them dearly, and decided, without wasting time, to accept our proposal for an armistice in order to remove us ... and that they acted prudently, concluding peace on terms honorable for the Sultan and beneficial for his people ”44.

Moreover, apparently, the Turks did not have hostile feelings towards the Russians: Alart writes that “the Turks began to be very friendly towards our people, rode around us on horseback, even approached the slingshots themselves and talked with our people, so that in the end I had to put sentries ... The Turks gave these sentries with tobacco and biscuits, and in return they supplied them with water, for which the Turks had a long way to go. " In the course of the negotiations, the activity of ordinary Turks increased: La Motrei says that the Janissaries, “without waiting for the announcement of the conclusion of peace, without permission rushed to the Russian camp to sell provisions, calling the Russians the word“ Kardash ”, that is, brothers. " This is confirmed by Sutton 45. There was one more reason for fear of defeat: when Poniatovsky tried to give advice to kegai, he answered him, “if they have the misfortune of being defeated, following a new way of fighting, then the blame for this misfortune will fall on them, and both of them will have their heads cut off : to him, kegay - for acting, and Ponyatovsky - for advising him. " Thus, the Turks entered into negotiations because they were afraid of losing the battle, and for this they had good reasons. Many contemporaries understood this. For example, Daniel Defoe (the famous author of "Robinson Crusoe" and less known as one of the organizers of British intelligence) in the book published in 1723 "The Impartial History of the Life and Deeds of Peter Alekseevich, the Present Tsar of Muscovy", talking about the Prut campaign, wrote that the vizier, appreciating the courage of the Russians, realized that the battle could end in the defeat of the Turks, and decided to find out whether it was possible to take advantage of the prevailing report. A profitable peace could prevent bloodshed now and in the future, as well as further military costs.

The legend that the bribery of the Grand Vizier influenced the peace conditions presented by the Turks

The terms of peace were discussed at a council of war called by the vizier. Did this happen before or after Shafirov's arrival, and was he accepted after the council had worked out the conditions? Here is how Poniatovsky describes Shafirov's reception: “It was announced that the tsar's plenipotentiary ministers had arrived. It was agreed with Count Ponyatovsky that the vizier would not accept them and that they would be escorted to the tent of his secretary, Umera Effendi. The tent was specially erected for this purpose ... But the plenipotentiary ministers, instead of going down in front of him, went down in front of the grand vizier's tent and were led there ... When they appeared, instead of a harsh meeting, stools were required to seat them ... Naturally , they themselves had to state the purpose of their mission, but the grand vizier got ahead of them with his very kind greeting and that he ordered them to be seated. Then the vizier ... ordered to ask the plenipotentiary ministers why they came to the state of the Sultan ”47. Actually, there was one plenipotentiary minister, Shafirov, and the rest - three translators (including A.I. Osterman), a clerk and two couriers (one of them was D.P. did not delve into. However, it did not escape him that the Russians were "amazed at such a gentleness and such a reception that they did not expect."
Three important details should be noted here: firstly, Shafirov did not wait for the reception - he was immediately received by the grand vizier himself; secondly, they were seated, i.e. according to Turkish custom they were received with honor; thirdly, the vizier greeted them graciously and addressed them first. Shafirov knew the intricacies of Eastern etiquette and realized that the Turks were interested in making peace. The curious gathered around the tent, of course. Among them was La Motreuil, who saw the gifts that were brought in after Shafirov, as it was due to diplomatic etiquette of that time. The gifts, of course, were not from the tsar, but from Field Marshal Sheremetev, on whose behalf negotiations were offered. According to Sheremetev's Journal, the vizier was sent "2 good gilded squeaks, 2 pairs of good pistols, 40 sables worth 400 rubles." 49 Gifts were sent not only to the vizier, but also to his entourage. According to La Motreuil, they consisted of sable and silver fox furs, as well as gold, but apparently not for a very large amount: “One of the pashas,” writes La Motreuil, “who was in the tent, told me that Osman [kegaya] received no more than 13 thousand gold ducats ”50.
Then the vizier immediately expressed the demands of the Turks. Let me emphasize that they were not formulated by the vizier alone, but were discussed and adopted at a council with the participation of the Crimean Khan and the Sultan's personal representative, as reported by various sources. Shafirov wrote to Peter on August 17 from the Turkish camp: "He sent him, the vizier, to us ... and ordered to announce that ... he de facto made peace with us publicly and with the advice of the Crimean Khan and Kube-viziers and others". Sutton reports that the vizier began negotiations and made peace with the consent of "the pasha and the officers." Moreau, according to the Turkish Pasha, writes: the vizier told Karl KHP, who had come to him with reproaches for the peace conditions, that "he did nothing without the consent of one minister in the camp and his military council." Finally, the Turkish report said that to the appeal of the Russians, “the grand vizier and other ministers responded with an agreement to conclude peace” 51.
Kurat 52 also came to the conclusion that the conditions of the Turks were not personal proposals of the Grand Vizier, but were worked out on council. True, he believes that the council took place after Shafirov's arrival, but this contradicts Poniatovsky's assertion that the Russians “descended in front of the grand vizier’s tent and were brought there” and that the vizier immediately presented conditions, that is, Shafirov did not wait for the Turks to work out them. ... But Ponyatovsky was at the same time, and he does not mention that the Turks discussed among themselves the conditions put forward by them, while Kurat writes that there was a discussion and that the Crimean Khan was against the negotiations, but said that peace can be accepted only if the Russians give up Azov, Taganrog and other fortresses built by them will not interfere in the affairs of the Zaporozhye Cossacks and will leave Poland 53. Looking ahead, I will say that it was these conditions that became the main ones. Therefore, it can be assumed with good reason that the council was convened not after Shafirov's arrival, but after the vizier received the first letter from Sheremetev, and the second letter was received when the discussion of the terms of peace had already begun. In any case, they were formulated before the arrival of Shafirov, and not by the vizier alone, but by advice. The vizier spoke about this to Karl XII and Shafirov 54. I managed to find in the archive a record marked "The first demands from the Turkish side near the Prut, which did not take place." Here they are: “With the help of God and the power of all-above, according to a peaceful accord so that Azov with all the fortresses belonging to them, as before, would be surrendered to Taganrog, Kamennaya Zaton and at the mouth of Samara the new fortification would be completely ruined. And henceforth, the Cossacks, and the Cossacks, and the Poles should not be disturbed. And all the seats that were previously to be given up to the Porte. Thanks to Volosky and Sava [Raguzinsky], as traitors, subjects, in order to give, so that henceforth our friendship will be inviolable. A tribute that the Volos land pays for one year, and until that Volos land will return to its former state, so that those money will also be given for three years. And besides the merchants, there would be no ambassador in Constantinople. And all the ammunition and guns would have been given to us. And before the king of Sweden came under the protection of the Holy Ports, and so that there would be no hostility from both sides for the friendship of the Ottoman Ports. And henceforth, as our subjects, from [the word cannot be understood] no loss or disagreement has been repaired [the word is lost]. And if the uchinitsa is in the above-mentioned conditions, the vizier will ask the Majesty Saltanov, so that those enemy actions can be consigned to oblivion. And by the above measure, so that the British and Galanians were guarantees. And then there are two copies on both sides ”55. The main thing in these conditions is the return of Azov and the destruction of the newly built fortresses. And nothing in favor of the Swedes.

Let us now return to Poniatovsky's story. According to him, Shafirov replied “that they lived in Moldova on their own money; that the Tatars' invasion of their state last winter prompted them to take revenge; that in order to preserve friendship with the Sultan, the tsar will return Azov and demolish Taganrog, but that they need Kamenny Zaton to hide from the raids of the Tatars. Since they [the Russians] were afraid, they said, to forget something of the vizier's demands, they asked him to put everything in writing. After that, the vizier sent them to the secretary's tent. " While the conditions were being discussed in the secretary's tent, in the vizier's tent Poniatovsky, as he wrote in his Notes, in the presence of the assembled dignitaries began to reproach the vizier with fervor, saying that “with all the advantages that God gave him over his enemies, he was able to demand and get other conditions. " The vizier, amazed and enraged by his insolence, "used very insulting words and threats in relation to Count Poniatovsky, who answered him in the same tone and left." But he remained nearby and returned to the tent after Shafirov.
There is no information about how the discussion took place in the secretary's tent, but one curious circumstance is connected with it. In the text of Poniatovsky's letter to Leshchinsky describing the negotiations, published in the appendix to the first book of La Motreya in English, there is the following phrase: “The vizier and his favorites, bribed during the negotiations in another tent, agreed to everything [what Shafirov wanted]” 56. But this phrase is not in the French text of the letter, although Poniatovsky wrote to Leszczynski either in French or in Polish, but certainly not in English. Most likely in French, since such letters were intended at that time to spread the information they contained. La Motreuil, in the preface to his second book (published in 1732), wrote: “In the editions of my book in English and French English translators and various additions and insertions were made by the Hague publishers in my absence and without my knowledge ”57. Why this was done is unknown. It can be assumed that for opportunistic political reasons. But it is quite plausible that it was in the secretary’s tent that Shafirov promised large gifts to Turkish dignitaries, as was customary among the Turks. Of course, not for the fact that they put forward conditions acceptable to Russia, because they have already been presented. No, we could only talk about creating a friendly atmosphere for negotiations. True, the Turks were interested in Russia accepting their terms, but Shafirov's observance of the custom of making gifts and Peter's generosity had a certain meaning. But there is no reason to talk about bribery of the grand vizier.
After the translation of the text of the conditions in the secretary's tent, the actual peace negotiations with the Grand Vizier were to begin. Entering his tent, Shafirov gave an answer to the demands made by the Turks. According to Poniatovskiy, Shafirov said that although Azov had passed to Russia forever under the old treaty, the tsar would return it to the Port out of friendship; that Taganrog, Kamenny Zaton and Samara (newly built fortresses in the Black Sea region) will be demolished; that the Russians would cease to deal with the affairs of Poland, in which they would not have intervened if the Swedish king had not intervened in them (the vizier remained silent on this); that the Zaporozhye Cossacks, at the request of the Port, will use their former freedom; that the Russians received nothing from Moldova, where they hounded their money, and they have nothing to return; that the Moldovan ruler could not be extradited, since he had already fled for 3 days; that Savva is unknown to them. During the negotiations, the vizier withdrew the unimportant for the Turks demands for the extradition of Cantemir and Savva Raguzinsky and agreed to take guns from Azov instead of army artillery. But he put forward new demands: about the free admission of the Swedish king to his army, about the resumption of the annual payment of "commemoration" (tribute) to the Crimean khan and about the stay of Shafirov and the son of Field Marshal Sheremetev, Colonel Mikhail Petrovich Sheremetev, in Turkey as hostages until the conditions are met. peace treaty.
Regarding the payment of tribute to the Crimean Khan, Sutton reported on August 10 that “the tsar undertook in a separate article, which at his request was not included in the text of the treaty, in order to hide the dishonor, to pay the usual old tribute to the Khan in the amount of 40,000 ducats annually, from which he was released according to the last world "58. But this is inaccurate: "a separate article", i.e. there was no written commitment, and the amount during the negotiations was not determined. This can be seen from Shafirov's letter to Peter dated October 16, 1711: “If, sir, it comes to the point that the need will persuade the khan, so that he is not disgusted, then we will we were told. And although I fought back then, so as not to write it into an agreement, but in words was forced to promise that you would deign to send him gifts, if he wasted the world ”59. Apparently, a rumor reached the diplomats that the Crimean Khan intended to demand exactly this amount. The vizier also did not withdraw another requirement, important for the prestige of Russia: that Russia should not have an ambassador in Istanbul and should communicate with the Turkish government through the Crimean Khan. The terms were agreed on the same day, July 10th. The List of Articles notes that Shafirov "spent the night in the tour's wagon train." Consequently, the entire evening of July 10 and, probably, even at night and in the morning of July 11, the final text of the treaty was formulated and translated for presentation to Peter. The compiler of the collection of Peter's letters to Sheremetev, published in 1774, writes: “The Turkish treatise was written on July 21/10 ... And so, when Shafirov came to him in the evening, he did not hesitate to write the treatise that very night. .. It was required to translate it into some familiar language, translate from it and into Russian ... The first translation was made in Greek on July 11 ..., as precisely explained in it ”60.

Peter was nervous: the favorable time for the attack was running out, the provisions ran out, the hungry horses were losing strength. “Our army,” writes Moreau, “did not have provisions; on the fifth day, most of the officers did not eat bread; all the more, the soldiers who enjoy less comfort ... the horses licked the ground and were so exhausted that when they had to use them in business, they did not know whether to saddle, harness them, or not ”61. The military council convened by Peter on the evening of July 10 made the following decision: “At the very least, the entire generals and ministers were put on the council. If the enemy does not want to be satisfied in those conditions, but wants us to surrender to their discretion and put our guns, then everyone advised in agreement that we should go to the side near the river. " It is not surprising that on the morning of July 11, Pyotr wrote a desperate letter to Shafirov: “My lord. From the words sent, I realized that the Turks, although inclined, are slow to come to the world, for the sake of all repair according to their own reasoning, as God instructs you, and if they truly talk about the world, then bet with them on everything they want. except for the school. And let us know, of course, today, so that your dispersed path could, with the help of God, begin. If it is true that the Yavitsa is genuinely inclined to the world, and today they cannot end the agreement, then at least today they can do it in order to mow behind and for the tranchement. In the rest of the verbal is ordered. Peter. From Lagorou, 11 d [nya] July 1711 "63" But the terms were already agreed. Shafirov returned from the Turks in the afternoon with the text of the treaty and, having received Peter's consent, went back to formalize it. 64 In the evening, Mikhail B. Sheremetev, granted the rank of major general "for the greatest respect" 65. On July 12, the treaty was signed, sent to Peter, and on the same day at 6 pm the Russian army set out on its way back.
Thus ended the battle on the Prut. In general, the Russian army lost about 3 thousand people killed and wounded. But these are only losses in the battle, and losses from exhaustion should also be taken into account. Sutton reported that “even before meeting with the Turkish army, they [the Russians] lost, according to some, 5,000 people, according to others, more from hunger and disease” 66. One of the correspondents of Prince Eugene of Savoy, according to an unknown Swede, wrote that in the Russian army leaving after the Battle of Prut, soldiers could not go more than two hours a day, and 400-500 people died every day 67. This is probably an exaggeration, but it reflects the impression of a contemporary. There is no exact information about the losses of the Turks, they range from 2 to 9 thousand killed and the same number of wounded 68. The Turkish army also had non-combat losses: Sutton reported that "during the Turks' stay on the Danube, dysentery was rampant among the troops and 300 or 400 people died every day" 69. The vizier sent food to the king: according to La Motreya, 4000 quintals of bread (quintal - 100 pounds), 2000 quintals of rice and 1000 approx coffee (approx - 3 pounds); according to Sutton, 1200 wagons with bread and rice and 500 approx. coffee. The Turkish report on the campaign reported that food had been sent for 11 days 70. Poniatowski wrote to Leshchinsky that the tsar left his camp with all the marks of honor, supplied with his new friends with everything that he lacked to feed his frustrated army.
Karl KHP, who was informed of the peace negotiations, rushed to the Turkish camp an hour after the performance of the Russian army, but got nothing from the vizier, and the next day Shafirov in his next letter to Peter said: “Nothing was remembered about the Swedish king today, and I’m they spat on him ”72.

The Legend of the Bribery of the Vizier and Catherine's Jewels

To begin with, giving gifts to officials in Turkey was a widely practiced system. Moreover, in the 17th century. there was even a special institution that took into account bribes received by officials and allocated a certain percentage to the treasury 73. Therefore, the money promised to the vizier and his assistants were traditional gifts, not bribery at all.
On July 12, after the signing of the contract, Shafirov, having sent Peter a letter of congratulation, reported in a special encrypted “tsedula” (note): “I inform you that it was promised: the vizier had a genuine date and did not dare to appoint; keg 50,000 levkov; chaush-pasha 5000 chervonnoe; kegainu brother 1000 chervonny and 3 sable furs; for the equestrian 1000 chervonny; translator 500 chervonny; the secretary, to whom the treatise was written, 1000 chervonny; on other offices 1000. This number, your majesty, if you please order to send immediately. And I promised, and they will ask me. And only 3,700 chervonets have been released to me, and I truly do not know what to do. And it is difficult to send, so as not to disappear, and it will be announced. And I don’t see any other way, so that they deigned to send three thousand efimk and chervonny, until they had moved away, with a good escort, and ordered to send promissory notes from Moscow for a sufficient number ”74.
On July 13, Shafirov wrote to Golovkin about his conversation with the secretary of the vizier: “The same secretary told me from the vizier that he was extremely inclined towards his imperial majesty and wanted to send peace to him, as well as to generals and ministers, as gifts of good argamaks, but take care of the Swedish king, so that he does not inflict saltan on him ... And I said that ... the royal majesty is extremely grateful for the Vizier's friendship ... and intends to send the Vizier at the conclusion of the peace a noble gift, namely for [space] thousands but time there was no such thing, and even now that money is ready, if they want to send a convoy along them to carry it out. Then, after listening with great desire, he said: better then I would call them my things and told them to bring them in, however, he would report this to the Yazyar, and so that it would be very secret ... Right now I received an answer from the kegai, so that I but to send money and things at your own expense and order them to bring them ... Excuse me, your high-profile Excellency, for God, let go of that money: first, for the vizier 150 thousand rubles, kegay 50, and for the rest of the distribution, according to my promise, fifty thousand ”75 - Here, for the first time, the amount promised to the vizier was announced in writing - 150 thousand rubles. and the total amount is 250 thousand rubles.

It was impossible to conceal the fact of sending money with the Turkish convoy, and it was probably Moro who first reported this in print in his "Notes" 76. The money was Russian and not gold, but silver, and this, of course, gave the ambassadors difficulties. On July 28, Shafirov and M.B. Sheremetev informed Golovkin: “The sent eleven forty sables for 5 thousand rubles have been accepted. And we regret that only a few of these have been sent, for ... everyone is running away from Russian money, and they dare not accept it, and they are so cheap that they buy a levok of our money for 40 altins. By this number, no one still takes them, they fear that someone does not recognize. And the vizier ordered his promised message to us to Sakchia. " In 1872, an act of checking a part of the amount sent was published, from which it is clear that the money being checked was collected in Moscow from the townspeople of different settlements during the collection of the salt tax in 1709 and the customs tax in 1710. 77 Thus, Peter sent Russian money to Shafirov from the army treasury, from which operating expenses were made.
Sutton reported that on July 23, the grand vizier's kegai Osman-aga brought the signed agreement, on the 23rd the sultan sent the equestrian to the vizier with the approval of the agreement, and on the 24th, Mirza arrived from the Crimean khan with "a lengthy protest against the grand vizier's behavior." “Under the influence of the khan, the sultan expressed dissatisfaction with the vizier’s moderation, but he was supported by the mufti and ulema, Ali Pasha (the sultan’s favorite), Kizlyar-aga (chief eunuch), the chief of the janissaries and all the officers” 78. Note that the khan has not yet raised the issue of bribery of the vizier. Shafirov and M.B. Sheremetev wrote to Golovkin on August 4: “Sent to the vizier ... from the saltan the letter of the king of Sweden, which he wrote against him with a complaint that he [the vizier], having our army in his hands, let us deceive himself, made peace without calling evo in the council and not including in it [the world] evo. And under that letter from the saltan it is only signed that his extreme vizier will give him an answer. And the de Vizier sent that letter ... to him, the king, with his letter, in which he wrote to him that he should go immediately out of their land. ”79. The absence of charges of bribery of the vizier in Karl's complaint indicates that the Swedes have not yet dawned on the idea of ​​presenting the traditional gift as bribery. I note that the complaint was sent for consideration to the one who was complained about - the vizier, which speaks of the Sultan's confidence in him.
But the accusation of bribery of the vizier appeared in the same August. Having received back his letter to the sultan and a letter from the vizier demanding to leave Turkey, Charles realized that he could only influence the sultan by defaming the vizier. The latter's position was difficult. The return of Azov was the main goal of the war. The peace was signed, the Russian army left, but Azov is still not surrendered. Why? How to explain this to the Sultan? Peter did not give Azov away, arguing that the Swedish king had not yet been expelled, but in the Treaty the return of Azov was not conditioned by the expulsion of the king. And then Karl sent the Sultan a drawing of the location of the Russian and Turkish troops on the banks of the Prut, where he clearly showed that if the vizier wanted, he could have taken the entire Russian army prisoner "80

The explanation that the vizier had been bribed was self-evident. This was discussed in August. This is what Sutton wrote in a dispatch dated September 4: the vizier's behavior “is approved completely and in every detail by the Sultan and all the people, in spite of everything that was accused of him, and in spite of the intrigues of the Swedish king and khan. The vizier is supported not only by the sultan and his ministers, but also by the ulema, the largest and best part of the people, the chief of the janissaries and in general all the military leaders and officers, in accordance with whose advice he acted ... Only a few of the rabble listen to the words of the Swedes and Tatars .. . that the vizier was generously bribed by the king in order to make peace and give the opportunity to safely withdraw the army ”81. The fact that it was Karl who made this accusation, supported by the Crimean Khan, was also confirmed by the secretary of the Dutch ambassador V. Teils in his memoirs, published in 1722. According to him, Karl wrote a letter to the Sultan, where he accused the vizier and his kegay of being having in their hands the tsar "taking the amount of money, he was released, change the honor and true interests of the Ottoman Empire into a love of money" 82.
The legend that Catherine bribed the vizier with her jewelry was closely intertwined with the version of bribery and gained wide circulation among historians. Consider its origin 83. Yust Yul reports that on the morning of July 10, during the confusion that engulfed the Russian convoy, “the tsarina gave away all her precious stones and jewelry to the first servants and officers she came across, and upon the conclusion of peace, she took these things back from them, announcing that they had been given to them only to save "84. The publisher of the notes Yulia, in a note to this place, quite correctly put the question: "Was not this incident the basis for the well-known story that Catherine gave her jewelry and personally collected money from the soldiers in order to bribe the Supreme Vizier?" This is likely. Of course, those who received them were silent about the gifts of the queen, but when she began to take them back, naturally, many were disappointed and unhappy, and it became impossible to avoid publicity. The rumor about the bribery of the vizier was spread throughout Europe by the Swedes and by foreign officers dismissed after the campaign, including Moreau. It was natural to associate it with the story that Catherine played a decisive role in Peter's decision to enter into negotiations and that it was her jewelry that persuaded the vizier to conclude peace. In 1712, they tried to reinforce it with a rumor that Osman's property was allegedly found in the property of the executed kegai of the queen. [85] But who in Turkey could have known her jewels so well to recognize him? So this is, of course, just a rumor. But here's what is interesting: neither Moreau in his book, published in 1716, nor La Motreuil in the first book, published in 1723, do not report Catherine's jewelry.

In January 1725, after the death of Peter, the guards elevated Catherine to the throne. In the same year, a biography of Peter, written by the German Rabener, was published in Leipzig. In it, the legend of Catherine's jewelry is transmitted as a rumor: “They say,” writes Rabener, “that even before the armistice was concluded, the vizier received all the officers' cash and the jewelry of their wives ... floor, their finest decorations ”86. In 1726 the book "Notes on the reign of Peter the Great" was published, the author of which hid under the pseudonym "Baron Ivan Nestesuranoy", and in 1728 - the anonymous "Notes on the reign of Catherine" 87. Both books, as it was established later, were written by the French writer Rousse de Missy, commissioned by the Russian government. In them, the literary processed and embellished legend of Catherine is presented as a completely reliable event. In 1732 Voltaire, in his book about Charles XII, repeated the legend, but La Motreuil objected: in the “Remarks” to Voltaire's book and in his second book of travels, published in the same year, he strongly denied that Catherine had sent her jewelry. then empress, had very few jewelry, [and] that she did not collect any silver for the vizier. ”88 The second book said: the public loves everything extraordinary, and they say,“ Thu o the queen could not have saved the king if she had donated all her jewels and other gifts to the vizier. But I was there and I know for sure that the vizier did not receive a single jewel or a single penny. ”89 In the same place, in a special note about Shafirov, La Motrei emphasized that “only thanks to his abilities, and not at all the imaginary gifts of the queen, the tsar owes his deliverance on the Prut. As I said elsewhere, about all the gifts made to the vizier after the conclusion of the peace treaty, I was very well informed (I repeat this again) not only by the Pasha, with whom I was then, but by many other Turks, even the enemies of this vizier " 90.

However, Voltaire's book became widely known, and the legend, overgrown with details, continued its triumphant march through the pages of books by other authors. So, for example, A. Gordon, who was then serving in Russia, but did not participate in the campaign, reported in 1755 that the merit of concluding the peace belongs entirely to Catherine, who gave her jewelry to the vizier 91. And the participant of the campaign, Captain P. Bruce, a relative of Ya.V. Bruce, wrote (published in 1782) that Catherine not only collected a debt of jewelry, money, but also gold and silver dishes and sent all this to the vizier 92. Because of its drama, the legend was widely disseminated in the memoirs of the 18th century, in the scientific, reference and artistic literature XIX-XX centuries and survived safely to this day.
Thus, the assertion about the decisive influence of the bribery of the grand vizier on the conditions of peace was put forward by the Swedes in August 1711 and taken up by the opponents of the vizier, surrounded by the sultan, and it was first expressed in print, apparently in 1716 in the anonymously published notes of Moreau ... The terms of the peace treaty were worked out collectively at the council even before Shafirov's arrival and before the gift was promised. Catherine, I think, influenced Peter's decision to enter into negotiations with the Turks. It is even possible that the initiative came from her. We will never know how it really was, but it doesn't matter. It is important that the decision on this was made by Peter himself - after all, it is not the one who gives the advice, but the one who decides whether to accept it or not.

The legend about "the letter of Peter I from the banks of the Prut"

In 1735, a native of the German city of Meiningen, Jacob von Stehlin (1712-1785), was invited to the Russian Academy of Sciences "for verbal sciences and allegorical inventions for fireworks, illuminations and medals". In 1738 he was appointed professor of eloquent (eloquence - Ya.V.) and poetry and a member of the Academy of Sciences. When he arrived in Russia, his contemporaries still vividly remembered the legendary emperor. Shtelin began to collect stories about him, not trying to separate truth from fiction, reliable from rumors. He published the collected stories in 1785 in Leipzig in German under the title "True Tales of Peter the Great." The book contains the recommendation of the book. MM. Shcherbatov (dated 1780), which says that "all these anecdotes are confirmed by the testimony of eyewitnesses from whom you (Shtelin. - Ya.V.) received these anecdotes." This is expressed in the indication after each story from whom Stehlin heard it. The book was published in Russia in 1786 in Moscow in St. Petersburg 93.
Among other "anecdotes", Peter's letter to the Senate was printed, where it was said: "I hereby inform you that I, with all my army, without fault and error on our part, but only on the basis of false news received, I am so surrounded by four times the strongest Turkish force that all the ways to get food are cut off, and without God's special help I cannot foresee anything other than a complete defeat, or that I will fall into Turkish captivity. If this last happens, then you should not regard me as your king and sovereign and do not fulfill anything that I, at least by my own handwritten command, required of you, until I myself appear among you in my person. But if I perish, and you receive the correct news of my death, then choose the most worthy one among you as my heirs. ”94 There is no appeal, signature, date or place of writing in the letter.
Before the text of the letter, Shtelin put a story about how Peter, having been surrounded with the army on the banks of the Prut, called a trusted officer and gave him this letter.The officer managed to get through the Turkish-Tatar army that surrounded the Russian camp and after 9 days delivered the letter to the senators in St. Petersburg. But the story of lies is similar, first of all, to the fact that the Senate was still in Moscow, and not in St. Petersburg, and the indicated delivery time was too short. "The original of the letter introduced here," wrote Shtelin, "is in the office of Peter the Great at the St. Petersburg Imperial Court, between many other handwritten letters of this Monarch and was shown to many noble persons from the overseer assigned to this office, Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Shcherbatov." Under Peter's letter, he indicated that "this is known from Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Shcherbatov, Chamberlain and Herald Master of the Governing Senate." Peter's letter in 1830 was published in the official publication The Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire (PSZ). The publishers supplied him with the address "Lord Senate" and the date of July 10, but they printed the letter not in the text, but in a footnote with an explanation: "In the text and under a special number, this decree does not fit because the original was not found in the manuscripts of Emperor Peter I" 96.
In the PSZ and some historians the text of the letter differs somewhat from the text of Shtelin: instead of “four times” it is printed: “seven times”. This amendment was made by I.I. Golikov, having published a letter in his "Acts of Peter the Great, the wise transformer of Russia" 97. Here is how he explained his insolence in a footnote: “In the original it costs four krats, but I put it seven times, following the Journal; for this letter was written at a time when the exact number of enemies was not yet known. " Let me remind you that in the Journal (Daily note) the number of the Turkish-Tatar army is indicated at 270 thousand people, i.e. 7 times more than in the Relation about the Prut campaign, but this very overestimated number, as already mentioned, was told to Peter by Shafirov from the words of the Turks.
In the XIX century. historians had doubts about the authenticity of the letter, and controversy ensued. The first to doubt was, apparently, A.S. Pushkin: in 1832 he began collecting materials for the "History of Peter the Great" and under 1711 wrote that "Stellin assures that the glorious letter to the Senate is kept in the office of His Majesty at imperial palace... But, unfortunately, the anecdote seems to have been invented by himself. At least the letter has not been found ”98. In 1962 E.P. Podyapolskaya studied the text of the letter, examined the arguments of historians and came to the conclusion that the letter was still genuine 99. At her insistence, it was included in the publication "Letters and Papers of Emperor Peter the Great" among Peter's letters, but by the decision of the editors it was published with the subtitle: "Letter attributed to Peter I" 100. N.I. Pavlenko believes that the letter was forged by Shtelin. However, it only relies on logical reasoning 101.
The answer to the question about the authenticity or forgery of the letter (and in this case about the author of the forgery) can be threefold: the letter is genuine, the letter was forged by Shcherbatov, the letter was forged by Shtelin with the knowledge and consent of Shcherbatov (and, perhaps, with his direct help), since Shcherbatov confirmed its authenticity and, therefore, became a participant in the forgery and Shtelin's accomplice. As pointed out by Podyapolskaya, “M.M. Shcherbatov ..., during whose life several editions of Shtelin's "Anecdotes" were published in three languages, did not refute Shtelin's references to his name and thereby confirmed his involvement in the anecdote about the Prut campaign ”102. Moreover, Shcherbatov did not refute Shtelin's reports that he, Shcherbatov, showed the original letter to "many noble persons."

SM Soloviev believed that the original could be destroyed. Podyapolskaya supported and developed his statement: “The motives for the destruction of the original could have been, according to Solovyov, from the side of Peter's successors. Let us add that this kind of motivation could have been from Peter himself, since the letter of July 10 spoke of a "terrible moment" on the banks of the Prut, which Peter I was not interested in recalling. " But both Soloviev and Podyapolskaya lost sight of the fact that Shcherbatov, as Shtelin wrote, showed “many noble persons” exactly the original (and Shcherbatov did not refute this). This means that neither Peter nor his successors are innocent in the disappearance of the letter, and the original (if it existed at all, of course) disappeared after its publication.
The absence of the original and a copy of the letter and mention of it in the office work, correspondence and memoirs of Peter's contemporaries is not evidence of its falsity: firstly, not all documents of the era have reached us, and secondly, if it had been, it would have been highly secret ... But if Shcherbatov really showed him, then why did none of his contemporaries even mention it in passing? According to Podyapolskaya and Pavlenko, according to the style and description of the furnishings, the letter could have been written by Peter. But, firstly, it is impossible to judge with certainty about the authorship of Peter by the language, style and content of the letter: a German text is placed in Shtelin's book, which means that it is a translation, and then, when preparing Russian editions, translations were made from German into Russian; secondly, the archive contains many letters from Peter, from which it was possible to study his style, and the Relation about the Prut campaign, the Daily note, memoirs of the participants in the campaign and his contemporaries, vividly describing the situation, were published before the publication of Shtelin's book.
Thus, the analysis of the content of the letter and the clarification of the purpose of its possible forgery are of decisive importance. An analysis of the content, as already noted in the literature, poses two questions for the researcher: why is the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei, deprived of the right to inherit the throne of his father, and why does Peter command only the Senate to elect a new tsar and only from senators? Some historians point out that Peter had long threatened to deprive his son of the right to inherit the throne, and that although in 1711 the relationship between father and son was not openly hostile, in 1715 Peter also expressed such a threat. This means that he could have had this idea in 1711. But all these are only assumptions.
Podyapolskaya tried to substantiate the assumption that Peter was cooled to Alexei by the fact that in the draft of the marriage contract drawn up by representatives of the prince's bride, Princess Charlotte of Wolfenbüttel (the contract was concluded in the spring of 1711), it was said that she would conduct "blessed marriage and statehood" with the prince. but Peter crossed out the word "statehood". Podyapolskaya concluded that by this Peter "reduced the chances for the" statehood "of Alexei and his wife," and considered this proof of Peter's cooling to Alexei 103. But the word "statehood" means "reign", therefore, during the life of Peter, the tsarevich could only lead a blessed marriage with Charlotte, since the state was still led by Peter himself. It is quite understandable that Peter deleted this word from the marriage contract. And if he “cooled off” to Alexei to the point that he internally ceased to consider him his heir (although he was hiding it for the time being), why then did he even bother about his marriage, which, especially in the case of an heir appearance, strengthened Alexei's position? But even if Peter on the Prut wanted to remove the tsarevich, then why does the letter not say directly that the tsarevich is deprived of the right to inherit the throne? It was clear, after all, that Alexei and his supporters would not calmly look at the election of a new tsar, and the struggle for the throne in the conditions of the war with Sweden and Turkey did not bode well for Russia. Peter could not fail to understand this? Therefore, in my opinion, it is incredible that in such a letter Peter would keep silent about the removal of Alexei.

And why did the Senate have to elect a tsar, and even only from among its members? The Senate was created by Peter's decree of February 22, 1711 to resolve current affairs due to the fact that the tsar was absent from the capital for months and, busy with important military and political affairs, could not pay much attention to the current affairs of internal government. Senators were appointed: N.P. Melnitsky- Head of the Military Order, G.A. Nephews- Head of the Admiralty Order, V.A. Apukhtin- General Quartermaster, MM. Samarin- General-Tsalmeister, Count I.A. Musin-Pushkin- Head of the Monastyrskiy Prikaz, Prince P.A. Golitsyn- Arkhangelsk Governor Prince, G. I. Volkonsky- Chief Commandant of the Yaroslavl Province, T.N. Streshnev- former head of the discharge order, prince M.V. Dolgoruky- room, steward. Their fate is interesting. They ceased to be senators: Melnitsky - in 1712, Golitsyn - in 1713 (appointed governor of Riga), Nephews - in 1714, Apukhtin and Volkonsky - in 1715 (convicted of embezzlement), Dolgoruky - in 1718 (accused in the case of Tsarevich Alexei, but in 1724 he was appointed Siberian governor), Samarin - in 1719 (appointed head of the Local Order), Streshnev died in 1718, and only Musin-Pushkin remained a senator during the entire reign of Peter 104.
IN. Klyuchevsky emphasized that the Senate had "an administrative and supervisory character of an institution without deliberative significance and legislative authority." “Peter,” he wrote, “needed ... a simple government board of the few smart businessmen, capable of guessing the will, catching the tsar’s obscure thought hidden in the laconic charade of a hastily sketched personal decree, developing it into an understandable and executable order and powerfully overseeing its execution ... The majority of the Senate was made up of businessmen who were far from the primary bureaucratic nobility ... Such people understood the war economy, the most important subject of Senate jurisdiction ... and they could have stolen probably less than Menshikov ”105. In general, the composition of the Senate was to a certain extent random. Why did Peter limit the circle of candidates for the throne and voters only to these "businessmen"? And in general, given the character of Peter and his attitude towards Russia, can one imagine him withdrawing from the appointment of his successor and giving his consent in advance to the election of a certain Plemyannikov, Samarin, Apukhtin, Melnitsky as tsar of all Russia? Didn't Peter really take into account how the relatives of the Romanov dynasty would react to this? And the representatives of other noble families? Didn't he understand that this order would inevitably unleash civil war? And Peter could not forget that in Russia there is an experience of transferring the throne by electing the tsar by the All-Russian Zemsky Sobor (this is how Boris Godunov and Peter's great-grandfather, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich were elected). Therefore, his order, like the default to remove Alexei, is also incredible. Thus, the content of the letter seems to me to be completely inconsistent with the character of Peter, who was always aware of his responsibility before God for the fate of Russia entrusted to him.

Who could have forged the letter? Obviously, only those who studied the language and style of Peter were well acquainted with the Tsar's letters, documents on the history of the campaign and the memoirs of its participants, and - most importantly - who needed it for some purpose. The main suspects are Shtelin and Shcherbatov. Podyapolskaya believed that both of them could not forge the letter, since "both, especially Shtelin, were unable to compose a letter that fully corresponded to the historical situation." But at the disposal of both were archival documents, the Journal or the Daily Note of Peter, the memoirs of the participants and contemporaries of the campaign (Poniatovsky, La Motreya, Moreau, Peter Bruce, Gordon), Voltaire's book about Charles XII and the works of other authors. Why, having such sources, was it "beyond the power" of either Shtelin or Shcherbatov to describe the situation on the Prut? Both were highly educated people, both were accustomed to working with documents, both easily expressed their thoughts on paper. Of course, Shcherbatov, who was sorting out Peter's papers, was much better acquainted with Shtelin's style and manner of writing and with the situation on the Prut. Yet both of them might well have forged the letter.
N.I. Pavlenko believes that Shcherbatov could not do it because he had vocational training a historian for whom such a forgery would be too crude. Pavlenko sees the "rudeness" of the forgery in the fact that Peter's order to the Senate not to reckon with his letters from captivity if he finds himself in it, and to elect a new tsar from among its members in the event of his death, is implausible. But it was Shcherbatov who passed that document off as a genuine letter from the tsar. If he knew it was Stehlin's forgery, why didn't he correct it and make it more believable? And since he did not do this, it means that he considered the letter plausible and, therefore, could have forged it himself.

But which of them benefited from it? Pavlenko believes that the letter was forged by Shtelin, who, although "he did not derive direct benefits ..., could simply find pleasure in making legends." Let us assume that this is so. Indeed, perhaps it was the dream of his entire life: to publish a forgery of the royal letter and secretly revel in the surprise of those around him, who could not but be struck by its content. It is understandable then why he secured Shcherbatov's statement that it was he, and not Shtelin, who found the letter: firstly, Shcherbatov had uncontrolled access to Peter's papers, and not he, and secondly, it was one thing to forge a literary work, for example, some ancient bard or scribe, and quite another - a letter from the tsar, and even with a political content, which certainly could not please Catherine II.
Wasn't it too dangerous for a simple professor to fake political document directed against the empress? Was the pleasure of making legends so intense that it outweighed fears of exposure and subsequent punishment? Where is the guarantee that Catherine would not have ordered a search: how did you get into the tsar's archive? Why rummaged through the royal papers? Indeed, at that time, even a frank confession did not save from torture - the investigators had to make sure of its truthfulness. Didn't Shtelin, who had lived for 50 (!) Years in Russia (and what years! Bironovism, coups ...), did not understand this?
It is impossible to believe that Stehlin would have dared to do such an act. But could Shcherbatov decide on him and why he might need it? What is main idea letters? To prove that Peter allegedly attached great importance to the Senate: from the letter it follows that only the Senate, as the highest authority in the state, can decide who will take the throne, and, moreover, can even elect a king from among its members. And who needed to raise the importance of the Senate like that? Under Catherine II, this was necessary for a part of the nobility, which had projects to limit the rights of the monarch in favor of the Senate. Shcherbatov also belonged to her (but not Shtelin!). He highly disapproved of the unrestrained luxury of the royal court and the tsarina's enthusiasm for favorites, who acquired a decisive influence on the course of state affairs. In this situation, the letter of the legendary reformer of Russia, whose direct successor in spirit Catherine II considered herself, the letter, where Peter the Great himself pointed out the exceptional position of the Senate in the state, could be of considerable importance. Such a letter from Peter could be viewed by Shcherbatov and his associates as a weighty argument in favor of expanding the rights of the Senate. This explains the silence in the letter about Tsarevich Alexei and other possible candidates outside the Senate. For Shcherbatov, its content was of great political importance, especially since it was practically impossible to convict him of a forgery: at the behest of the empress, he brought along the archive of the tsar-reformer and found a letter. Yes, and the attitude to the noble knight was not at all the same as to the homeless foreigner mercenary. As we would say now, the letter could serve as a good agitation tool. Shcherbatov used it in this way: first he showed it to “many noble persons,” then printed it in Shtelin's book.
True, according to Podyapolskaya, "Prince Shcherbatov would hardly have allowed himself to forge the tsar's letter." But I think that since the letter did not give him any personal benefit, he could decide on this forgery "in the interests of the Fatherland." But the loyal Stehlin might well consider this an "insult to the majesty" and be afraid of the associated risk. All this, of course, is only logical reasoning, but there is one more circumstance that has not yet been noticed by historians. In 1790, after a short Russo-Swedish war, peace was concluded. It was marked by a celebration in St. Petersburg, at which the Chief Prosecutor of the Senate made a speech. Shcherbatov was dissatisfied with her and wrote “The answer of a citizen to the speech spoken by E. and. v. Chief Prosecutor of the Senate Neklyudov, due to the triumph of the Swedish peace, 1790 September 5th ". In it Shcherbatov, after a series of critical remarks, writes: “I do not approve of his printed letter in Anecdotes, which, at least, has the form of truth; his heroic spirit, showing that he was fighting not for himself, but for the fatherland, made him instruct his Senate, so that, in case of failure, his captivity would not cause any harm to Russia, to elect anyone from among himself to the Russian Monarchs ”106.

What do the words mean: "I do not approve of his printed letter in the Anecdotes, which at least has the form of truth"? They can only mean that although the letter looks authentic (“it has the appearance of truth”), Shcherbatov does not claim that it is genuine, that is, admits that it may be fictitious. But after all, Shcherbatov himself, as Shtelin wrote, showed this letter to "many noble persons" and gave it for publication precisely as a genuine letter from Peter, kept in his Cabinet, and after publication Shcherbatov did not refute this information. So when did he lie: in 1785, presenting the letter as genuine, or in 1790, expressing doubt about its authenticity? Of course, he could have made such a reservation out of caution, realizing that the letter was unpleasant for Catherine, but after all, it was possible not to mention it at all. And was he really telling Shtelin when he claimed that he had shown this letter to “noble persons”, and even “many”? And was not afraid of Catherine's anger? There is no mention of this in the published memoirs of contemporaries and the reports of diplomats, and the letter is a sensation. And the book of Shtelin "noble persons" might not have read - how many of them were interested in tales about Peter?
In my opinion, the letter is still fake, and Shcherbatov forged it. But he either did not show it to anyone, or showed it to a few under strict secrecy, and by 1790, when some of Catherine's liberalism disappeared under the influence of the Great French Revolution (this can be seen in the empress's anger at Radishchev), he began to fear her possible reaction to the letter and in "Answer" he was careful. It is not yet clear whether Shcherbatov made it public or not. In the same year he died, so most likely the "Answer" remained unknown to his contemporaries. As for the story of the delivery of the letter, professional historians also make mistakes. Or maybe they were admitted on purpose? In order, if something happens, to refer to them as proof that the letter, like the story, is also just a bike!

When was Brailov taken?

Surprisingly enough, most researchers did not pay attention to the fact that the report on the Prut campaign, which was published in Peter's Vedomosti in the same 1711 and was reprinted several times, included an abbreviated text of the report to Renne Sheremetev with the date capture of Brailov - July 14, two days after the conclusion of the Prut Peace 107. Rennes' report was not intercepted by the Turks, as some historians thought. But even if this were so, the vizier would still receive it only a few days after the signing of the treaty. Therefore, the capture of Brailov could not be one of the reasons for the consent of the Turks to conclude peace and influence its conditions. However, the very raid of the Rennes detachment into the Turkish rear, undoubtedly, inspired the Turks with apprehension and could influence both their decision to enter into negotiations and their position when discussing peace conditions.

Why did the variant of the Prut Peace Treaty appear?

The text of the Prut Peace Treaty was changed by Peter himself. I was able to find a copy of the contract with his own handwritten corrections 108. In the first article, the indication that the proposal to start peace negotiations came from the Russians, and the words that the tsar promises to do this and that, are replaced by: "It is required to make peace" and " ". The second article refers to the obligation of Russia not to interfere in the affairs of Poland. The wording has been changed so that the commitment is reciprocal. In the third, the ban on having an ambassador to Turkey was struck out, in the sixth, the condition on leaving Ambassadors Shafirov and Sheremet in Turkey hostages until the conditions of the peace treaty were fulfilled. In general, conditions humiliating for the prestige of Russia were excluded from the text naked and the wording was softened.
But why did the text change? It was also possible to establish this: on one of the copies of the corrected text there was a note: "This treatise is not genuine, but forwarded for inclusion" 109. Consequently, the text revised by Peter, from which conditions and formulations humiliating for Russia and for him personally were excluded, was intended for the governments of the Western European powers. Indeed, the collection of diplomatic documents published in 1731 contains this very text, translated into Latin, with a note that this copy, "as they say," was given by the Russian ambassador to the Dutch government 110.
The copy of the treaty, to which Peter amended, has the title: “Treatise given from the Russian side. Black "and a note:" From this a copy was sent to the secret expedition on June 17, 1736 "111. Probably, when the text of the Prut Peace Treaty was needed in 1736, this document, with Peter's own amendments, was considered a draft of the original treaty. This, apparently, also misled the compilers of the PSZ, who published it as the text of a genuine treaty, but out of caution placed after it a Russian translation of the original written in Turkish 112.
* * *

Let's summarize. The Russian army found itself on the Prut in a difficult situation, but it was not hopeless. The courage and discipline of the Russian regular troops and the disinterest (let's say) in the war of ordinary Turks made the outcome of the general battle doubtful for the Turks, even with their undeniable courage. The battle was interrupted. It would be wrong to call it a military defeat for the Russian army. Peter could risk and win, but with a shortage of cavalry, this risk was too great. As befits a wise ruler, he chose not to risk it. His decision to achieve peace even by making concessions to Sweden was strategically correct, since by this he saved the army for further struggle. The capture of Brailov was an undoubted victory, and, from the point of view of military art, it was the victory of Peter's ideas, new to the military science of that time. Thus, although in 1711 the outlet to the Sea of ​​Azov was lost - Azov and the surrounding territory - and Russia was forced to make certain political concessions, but in the context of the main task that Peter was solving at that time - the destruction of Sweden, the return of the lands seized by it and providing access to the Baltic Sea - it was a relatively small price.

1 Vodarsky Ya.E. Concerning the work of the Turkish historian on the Prut campaign of 1711 // History of the USSR. No. 6.1963. S. 207-212 (further references: Vodarsky. Review); its the same. On some events of the Prut campaign of Peter I (1711) // New pages of the history of the Fatherland. Penza, 1992.S. 82-95.
2 Ksh-at A.-N. Prut seferi ve barisi 1123 (1711). Ankara. 1951-1953. In 2 volumes (hereinafter referred to as Kurat-1 and Kurat-2); Jurat A.-N. Der Prutfeldzug und der Prutfrieden von 1711 // Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas. Keue Folge. Bi 10. Heft 1. April 1962 (further references: Kurat. Article).
3 Oreshkova S.F. Russian-Turkish relations at the beginning of the 18th century M., 1971 (further references: Oreshkhova).
4 Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great. T. X. M., 1956 (further references: PB X). P. 549.
5 . Memoires politiques, amusants et satiriques de messier N.d.B.c.de Lion, colonel du regiment de dragons de Casanski et brigadier des armies de sa m. czarienne, a Veritopolischez Jean Disant-vrai. 3 volumes. Vol. I-III. Veritopolies. 1716. The description of the Prut campaign was translated, published and commented on by A.S. Pushkin (Pushkin A.S. Collected works. In 6 volumes. T. 6. M., 1950. S. 600-652 (hereinafter references: to Notes of Moreau in the translation of Pushkin - Moreau, to the commentary of Pushkin - Pushkin S. 624 ; Yul'Yust. Notes of Yust Yul, Danish envoy under Peter the Great (1709-1711). M., 1899 (hereinafter referred to as Yul). S. 459-460; Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great. Vol. XI. Issue 1. M., 1962 (further references: PB KhM) S. 286-288, 546-548.
6 PB X. S. 558; Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great. T. XI. Issue 2.M., 1964 (hereinafter referred to as PB XI-2). P. 38.
7 Essays on the history of the USSR. The period of feudalism. Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century. Transformations of Peter I M., 1954, p. 533.
8 Moreau. P. 630.
9 PB XI-1. S. 310, 564, 573; Kur at-1. S. 451-452; Kurat-2. S. 798; Extract from the journal of Alexander Andreyanovich Yakovlev, who was under Emperor Peter the Great during the Battle of the Prut in 1711 // Otechestvennye zapiski, ed. P. Pigs. Ch. XIX. No. 51. July. SPb., 1824.S. 15-24 (hereinafter referred to as Yakovlev). P. 18; M about r about. S. 634-635; S u 11 o n R. The Despatches of Sir Robert Sutton, Ambassador in Constantinople (1710-1714). London, 1953 (hereinafter: Sutton). P. 65.
10 Teils V. Izvestia serving the history of Charles XII ... M., 1789 (hereinafter referred to as Teils). P. 19; Central Bank XI-1. P. 564; Sutton. S. 58, 65; Hurmuzaki E. Documente privitore de la istoria Romanilor. Vol. VI gu_ curesci. 1878 (further references: Khurmuzaki). S. 84-85, 87, 115; La Motgey, A. de. Voyages en Anglois et en Francois ... en diverses Provinces et Places de la Prusse Ducale et Roiale, de la Russie, de la Pologne ... A la Haye, 1732 (hereinafter referred to as La Motreuil-2). P. 25; Kurat-2. P. 767.
11 PB HY.S. 564.
12 Kurat. Article. S. 43, 45. M about r about. P. 639.
13 PB XI-2. S. 34-38, 353, 371; Kurat-1. S. 423-425; Kurat. Article. S. 42-43; Sutton. S. 62.76; Hurmuzaki. P. 646; Moreau. S. 634-635; RG ADA, Relations with Turkey, op. 1. 1711, No. 6, fol. 3839.
14 PB XI-2. P. 372.
15 Jul. P. 372; PB XI-1. P. 569; N.G. Peter the Great on the banks of the Prut // Journal of the Ministry of Public Education. 1847. February. Dept. 2. S. 98-99; RGADA, Cabinet of Peter I, section I. kn. 13, fol. 99 about. (further links: Alart. History).
16 Kurat-1. P. 478.
17 PB XI-2. P. 12.
18 La Motrey, A. de. Travels through Europe, Asia and into part of Africa. Vol. 2. London. 1723 (hereinafter referred to as La Motreuil-1).
19 Jul. P. 371.
20 Pushkin. P. 437.
21 Kurat. Article. P. 62.
22 La Motreuil-1. S. 11-12.
23 La Motreuil-2. P. 234 and footnote.
24 Moreau. S. 639-640.
25 PB HY.S. 314.
26 La Motreuil-1. S. 11-12.
27 PB HY.S. 313.
28 RGADA, f. 9, op. 6, l. 8 vol.
Sat 29 RIO. T. 34.SPb., 1881.S. 81.
30 Ibid. P. 89.
31 Anisimov E.A. Ekaterina! // The Romanovs. Historical portraits. 1613-1762. Mikhail Fedorovich-Peter Sh.M., 1997.S. 353.
32 Vsevolodov I.V. Conversations about faleristics. From the history of reward systems. M., 1990.S. 70.
33 Voskresensky N.A. Legislative acts of Peter I. T. 1. M .; L., 1945.S. 180.
34 Moreau. S. 608-609.
35 Myshlaevsky A.Z. War with Turkey in 1711 (Prut operation). Materials // Collection of military-historical materials. Issue XII. SPb., 1898 (further references: Sat. VIM). S. 330-331.
36 Poniatowski S. Remarques M. le Comte Poniatowski, seigneur polonais, lientenant-general ci- devant au cervice de Suede et actuellement au cervice de Pologne, zur l "Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suede, par M. de Voltaire. A la Haye, 1741 (hereinafter referred to as Ponyatovsky), p. 97.
37 Sutton. S. 48, 54, 62-63; La Motreuil-1. P. 5; PB XM. P. 577.
38 Sutton. Foreword. P. 5.
39 Ibid. P. 55.
40 PB XI-1. P. 570.
41 Ibid. S. 568-569; S u t about n. S. 61, 76; La Motrei-2. P. 10.
42 PB X-1.S. 569; Sutton. S. 71. See also: C ant emir. The History of Growth and Decoy of the Othman. London. 1734; I am a lev. S. 15-24.
43 PB X-1. S. 570-571.
44 Moreau. S. 646-647.
45 Jul. P. 368; La Motreuil-1. P. 12; Sutton. P. 65.
46 Defoe D. An Impartial History of the Life and Actions of Peter Alexowitz, the Present Czar of Muscovy. London., 723. P. 330.
47 Ponyatovsky. S. 117-124.
48 PB XI-1. P. 580.
49 Cit. by: Oreshkova. P. 134.
50 La Motreu A. de Remarques historiques et critiques sur l "Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suede, par M. de Voltaire-Pour servir de supplement a cet ouvrage. A Londres. 1732 (hereinafter referred to as La Motreuil. Remarks). P. 44.
51 PB XI-2. P. 391; Moreau. S. 648; Sutton. S. 61, 69; Persimmon for k and. P. 117.
52 PB XI-1. P. 578.
53 Kurat-2. S. 496-504; Kurat. Article. P. 48.
54 Moreau. P. 648.
55 RGADA, f. 89, op. 3. 1711. No. 17, fol. 12 and vol. Printed: Vodarsky. Review. P. 210.
56 La Motreuil-1. Appendix. P. 9.
57 La Motreuil-2. Foreword.
58 Sutton, pp. 64-65. See also: Khurmuz a k i. P. 95; Voltaire. Histoiie de Charles XII, roi de Suede. And Basle. 1732. P. 246.
59 PB XI-2. From 580.
60 Letters from Peter the Great, written to General-Field Marshal Count Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, mostly by the sovereign's own hand, and others from the originals, M., 1774. S. XLVI.
61 Moreau. P. 642.
62 PB HY.S. 316.
63 PB XI-1. P. 317.
64 Jul. P. 368.
65 PB X-1. S. 580-581.
66 Sutton. S. 65. See also: Yul. P. 461.
67 Khurmuzaki. S. 88. See also: Sutton. P. 66.
68 Moreau. S. 642, 647; Sutton. S. 59, 66, 67, 69.
69 Sutton. S. 68-69.
70 PB X-1. S. 578; Sutton. P. 61.
71 PB X-1. S. 583-584.
72 Ibid. P. 354.
73 Sat RIO. T. 66. SPb., 1889. p. 74; Oreshkova. P. 132.
74 PB Xb2. P. 351.
75 Ibid. S. 352-353.
76 Moreau. S. 642-643, 648; Hurmuzaki. S. 109, 103; PB XI-2. P. 18.
77 PB XI-2. S. 365, 939-940.
78 Sutton. S. 58, 62.67.
79 PB XI-2. S. 375-376.
80 Ibid. P. 453.
81 Sutton. C71.
82 Theils. S. 25-26. See also: Barka's letter (RGADA, Relations with Turkey, 13, 49-50); Alart. History, l. 97.
83 See: Vodarsky. Review. S. 207-211.
84 Jul. P. 373.
85 Valishevsky K. Peter the Great. Case. M., 1990 (Reprint). P. 74.
86 Rabener J.G. Leben Petri des Ersten und Grossen, Czaars von Russlands. Leipzig. 1725, S. 217.
87 Nestesuranoi Iwan, par m.le b. Memoires du regne de Pierre le Grande ... A la Haye. Amsterdam. Vol. 3. P. 362; Memoires du regne de Catherine, imperatrice ... A la Haye. 1728. P. 29-32.
88 La Motreuil. Remarks. S. 43-44.
89 La Motreuil-2. S. 155-156.
90 Ibid. P. 234 and footnote.
91 Gordon of Achintoul A. The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia. Vol. II. Aberdeen, 1755. 28-31.
92 Bruce P H. Memoirs of Peter Henry Bruce ... London, 1782. C 44.
93 Stahlin, Jacob von. Original Anekdoten von Peter dem Grossen Von Jacob von Stahlin. Leipzig,
1785. S. 382. Quoted from: Pod'yapolskaya E.P. The question of the reliability of the letter of Peter I from the banks of the Prut // Research on domestic source studies. Sat. articles. M .; L., 1964 (hereinafter: Podyapolskaya). P. 316. Translations into Russian. lang .: Curious and memorable legends about Emperor Peter the Great ... SPb. SPb., 1786. Genuine anecdotes of Peter the Great ... M., 1786.
94 Cit. by: PB HY. S. 314-315.
95 Genuine anecdotes about Peter the Great ... p. 79.
96 PSZ. T. IV. SPb., 1830.S. 712, note 2.
97 Golikov I.I. Acts of Peter the Great, the wise reformer of Russia, collected from reliable sources and arranged over the years. Part III. M., 1788.S. 378-379.
98 Pushkin. S. 438.
99 Podyapolskaya. P. 316.
100 PB HY. S. 314-315.
101 Pavlenko N I. Peter I. M., 2003.S. 197.
102 Podyapol'skaya. P. 316.
103 PB XI-1. P. 574 (commentary written by E.P. Podyapolskaya).
104 PB Kh. S. 72,382-383.
105 Klyuchevsky VO Works. T. 4.M., 1958.S. 164-165.
106 Shcherbatov M, M. The answer of a citizen to a speech spoken by him and [imperial] in [the greatness] by the chief prosecutor of the Senate Neklyudov because of the triumph of the Swedish peace, 1790 September 5th // Readings in the imp. Society of Russian History and Antiquities. 1860. Book. 5. Section V. S. 46-47.
107 See: PB XI-2. C, 37-38. For the full text of Rennes's report, see: RGADA, Cabinet of Peter the Great, Section 1, Vol. 30, l. 45-46.
108 PB XI-1. S. 322-326.
109 RGADA, Relations with Turkey, op. 1. 1711, No. 8. p. 3 vol .; PB XI-1. P. 326.
110 Du Mont. Corps universel diplomatique. T. VIII. Part I. P. 275-276; PB XI-1. C 326. See also: Sat RIO. T-34. P. 81.
111 PB XI-1. P. 326.
112 PSZ. No. 2398.

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Of all the wars between Russia and Turkey, the war of 1711, known as the Prut campaign of Peter I, was the most unfortunate for Russia. Among the most important reasons for the defeat were the consequences of the conflict between the Russian state and the Cossacks and, as a result, the insignificant participation of the Cossacks in this war on the side of Russia.

It was the Cossacks who had the experience of constant and at times very successful struggle against Turkey. The Donets in 1641 fought back in Azov from the 250,000-strong Turkish-Tatar army. The Zaporozhian Cossacks, along with the Don people (surpassing them by an order of magnitude at that time), constantly made sea raids on the shores of the Crimea and Turkey. These raids were even called the "Bosphorus War".

But an attempt to catch fugitives among the Don Cossacks and enroll them (as recruits) in the standing army being created led to the well-known Bulavinsky uprising of 1708 and the brutal suppression of the freemen. "For this saryn," as Peter I wrote, "apart from being cruel, cannot be calm." And yet, in the spring of 1709, 2,000 Cossacks were sent from the Don Army to serve near Smolensk to join the detachment of B.S. Korsak.

Peter I left for the Russian army stationed in Ukraine. Even before Peter I finally "pacified" the Don army, hetman Mazepa came out against the emperor. On October 24, 1708, he crossed the Desna and himself arrived at the Swedish outposts. Since the treason was being prepared in secret, he took about 2,000 people with him.

On November 6, Colonel Skoropadsky was elected the new hetman of Ukraine in Glukhov. On November 12, Mazepa was anathematized in Moscow at the Assumption Cathedral. Only the Cossacks provided support to Mazepa. And Peter sent A.D. Menshikov decree to take and destroy the Sich. Most of the defenders were killed, 300 people were captured.

On June 27, in the battle near Poltava, the Swedes suffered a terrible defeat. Late in the evening of June 30, the wounded Charles XII crossed the Dnieper. Mazepa crossed with the king and soon died on September 22, 1709 in Varnitsa near Bender.

The whole of 1710 was especially successful for Peter's achievements in the Baltics. Riga surrendered on 4 July. Participation in the siege of Riga is the only specific event of the Don people, noted by the first Don historian, Rigelman. About others he speaks sparingly and vaguely: “And in addition to this, many during the entire ongoing war against the Swedes in many places and in Finland itself were used with utility, also in 711 with the Tsar against the Turks in Moldavia at the Prut River. And on the Don, leave with the Kalmyks under the leadership of General-Admiral Count Feodor Matveyevich Apraksin to protect the Tatar and Turkish attacks on the Russian borders. "

One of the consequences of the victory at Poltava was an unwanted war with Turkey. Naturally, there were forces in the Ottoman Empire that were striving for war against Russia, primarily the Tatars. The observance of peace between Russia and Turkey deprived them of their most important source of income - the capture of prisoners and the slave trade. As soon as Peter, before leaving for Poltava, appeared on the Don and in Azov, the Tatar population became agitated, calling on the Turkish authorities to war with the Russians.

In October 1710, Peter demanded that the Swedish king be removed from Turkish territory and threatened with war, but on November 20, at a ceremonial meeting of the sofa, the Turks themselves decided to start a war. The march of their troops, led by the Grand Vizier, was supposed to be in the spring of 1711. The Crimean Tatars were the first to start military operations. The Turks have been waiting for them for a long time. After the end of the Azov campaign and the conclusion of peace between the Sultan and the Russian Tsar, the Turkish authorities forbade the Crimeans to attack the Russian lands.

In December 1710, the initiator of the war, the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey, met in Bendery with the Swedish King Karl XII and the hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine Philip Orlik. We calculated the forces. In addition to the Crimeans and the Nogai vassals to the Crimea, the parties had the registered Philip Orlik who fled with Mazepa and the Cossacks driven out of the Sich by Menshikov, and Poles hostile to Tsar Peter and King August II were expected from the west.

After conferring, the khan, the king and the hetman decided to strike at the Right-Bank Ukraine with the combined forces of the khan's son Mehmed-Girey with the Orlik and Poles and at the same time in the Left-Bank Ukraine with the forces of the Crimean Khan himself with the Cossacks.

The Russians expected such a foray. Lieutenant General, Prince M.M. Golitsyn, the brother of the Kiev governor, reported from Yaroslav on December 26: "And their intention is very, as their rivers will become, in order for them to go: to the Khan and Orlik to the Ukraine, and to the Turks themselves with the Swedish king and with their forces through Kamenets Podolsky to Polsha."

And on the very first day of the new year of 1711, Peter decided to distract the Tatars, organize a campaign from the Volga and from the Don through the steppe to the Kuban. For this, a corps was deployed near Voronezh under the command of Admiral F.M. Apraksin, having subordinated him to cash in the service of the Don Cossacks in the amount of 5 thousand people. In Russia, until the war was declared, the troops from Livonia to the south moved. Lieutenant General M.M. Golitsyn advanced to the Moldavian border with ten dragoon regiments.

On Epiphany, January 6, 1711, the Krymchaks crossed Perekop and poured into Ukraine in two streams. The khan's son Mehmed-Girey, at the head of 40,000 Tatars and 7,000-8,000 Orlik Cossacks, moved along the right bank of the Dnieper. He was backed up by 700 Swedes Colonel Zülich and 400 Janissaries. The Budjak Tatars and 3,000-5,000 Poles hostile to Tsar Peter, who crossed the Dniester at Bendery, were moving towards Mehmed-Girey. Khan Devlet-Girey himself, with the same number of Tatars and from 2000 Cossacks, went along the left bank, 40 Swedish officers consisted of his advisers.

The raid was opposed by a small number of troops covering the Right-Bank Ukraine (formally - Polish territory). Prince Volkonsky with four dragoon regiments stood "at the border of the Voloskoy and with him the Cossack and Volosky regiments stand, and Major-General Widman with 4 regiments was placed in the vicinity of him, Volkonsky."

Major General F.V. Shydlovsky stood on the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kharkov region. For a battle in the field, these troops were clearly not enough, and the Russians had the hope of defending themselves in the fortresses until the tsar himself came up to help with the troops from the north.

On the Russian left-bank side, the khan managed to capture the Novosergievsky fortress (in the upper reaches of the Samara River), the population of which, mostly former Cossacks, surrendered without a fight. Then the troops of Devlet-Girey went in the direction of Kharkov and Izyum, but, faced with the Belgorod and Izyum fortress defensive lines, they were repulsed. The Khan counted on the help of the Nogai from the Kuban, but the Nogais did not approach, and the Tatars turned to the Crimea in early March. Devlet-Girey left a garrison in the Novosergievskaya fortress - 1,500 Cossacks and Tatars under the general command of the Zaporozhye Colonel Nestuley.

On the right bank, the campaign went on with varying success. In the first half of February 1711, the Tatars easily captured Bratslav, Boguslav, Nemirov. The garrisons there were small and did not offer much resistance to the Tatars.

Orlik began to distribute generalists, so that local registries would join him and begin the fight against "Moscow bondage".

But on March 25, the Tatars of Mehmed-Girey and the Cossacks of Orlik (over 30,000 people in total) approached Belaya Tserkov and here, trying to storm the city, were defeated. On the Left Bank, the detachment of F.V. Shydlovsky, with a sudden blow, returned the Novosergievsk fortress, thus clearing the left bank of the Dnieper from the Tatars and Zaporozhians. After these failures, the Tatar detachments, feeling that they would soon be returning to the Crimea, abandoned the pretense and began to plunder and seize civilians.

The commander-in-chief of the Russian forces in Ukraine, General M.M. Golitsyn assessed the situation in time, gathered 9 dragoon and 2 infantry regiments and put pressure on the heavily laden Krymchaks. Mehmed-Girey, saving his prey, began to go to Bendery, to the Ottoman possessions. Orlik naturally began to leave with him. On April 15, 1711, near Boguslav, Golitsyn overtook part of the Crimeans and recaptured over 7,000 captured prisoners. The raid is over.

Now the Russians were to pay the Tatars and Ottomans a return visit.
Formally, the manifesto on the war with Turkey was read out in the Kremlin's Assumption Cathedral in the presence of Tsar Peter on February 25, 1711. But the war plan was drawn up long before its declaration. For the first time, the plan involved the conduct of hostilities in three theaters - the Danube, Crimean and Caucasian. And this later became a kind of tradition in the wars of Russia against Turkey.

The main blow was planned to be delivered at the Danube Theater. Peter I, hoping for help from the rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia, decided to raise local Christians, vassals of the Ottoman Empire, on both banks of the Danube to fight the Turks.

On April 12, a military council was held in Slutsk. Peter conferred with Field Marshal B.G. Sheremetev and General L.N. Allart, as well as Chancellor G.I. Golovkin and the Russian ambassador to the Commonwealth G.F. Dolgorukov. At the council, they decided to approach the Danube before the Turks and seize the crossings. It was planned to concentrate the troops for the campaign on the banks of the Dniester, in the Polish part of Ukraine. The advance units of the Russian army were supposed to reach the Dniester by 15 May. Sheremetev with the infantry was supposed to go there no later than May 20, having a three-month supply of food. The troops reached the Dniester, but Peter himself was late for them, since he was negotiating with the Polish king and the Saxon elector Augustus II.

Due to the absence of Peter and food difficulties, Sheremetev with his troops crossed the Dniester on May 30, 10 days later than planned. But then it became known that the Turks had already crossed the Danube, that they could not be intercepted and held on the crossings, and Sheremetev turned to Yassy. So, at the Danube Theater, initially everything did not go according to plan, and, as you know, ended in defeat.

At the Crimean theater, the campaign was led by General-in-Chief Ivan Ivanovich Buturlin and Hetman Skoropadsky himself. Russian troops consisted of 7 infantry regiments and 1 dragoon regiment (7178 people), with the hetman there were 20,000 Cossacks. Anticipating the Russian offensive in Crimea, Nuraddin Bakhti-Girey launched an attack on Thor and Bakhmut. The Tatar raid was repulsed, but the campaign was delayed.

Finally, on May 30, day after day with Sheremetev, Buturlin and Skoropadsky set out from Perevolochna and, weighed down by a bulky wagon train, trudged towards the Crimea. On June 7, they reached the Novoboroditskaya fortress. "Languages" informed them that 30,000 Tatars of Bakhti-Girey were standing in the upper reaches of the Samara River and awaiting the Russian offensive. To go further to the Crimea means to leave them behind. But Buturlin was not embarrassed by this. Leaving part of his forces to protect communications, he slowly moved through the Dnieper rapids. The Dnieper covered itself from the Yedikul horde and from the Dzhambuylutsk, and by Inguls - from the Edisan.

On the left flank, in the Caucasian theater, movement also began. Even in winter, the Russians signed with the Kabardian rulers, convincing them to oppose the Tatars. The Kabardians replied that they had a great unfriendliness with the Kuban Tatars and until our death there will never be friendship between us.

Later, 20,000 Kalmyks from Taishi Ayuki approached. All this army with the steppe and the Don moved to Azov to strengthen the Azov garrison.

On June 30, Prince Alexander Bekovich Cherkassky wrote to Peter from Kabarda that he had agreed with the local rulers: how the boyar Apraksin with the Russian army and Kalmyks would go against the Kuban Tatars, the Kabardians would also immediately oppose the Kubanians. Distances and primitive communications prevented the Russians from striking at all three theaters at the same time.

On July 2, Buturlin's troops arrived at Kamenny Zaton. This fortress was at one time built on the banks of the Dnieper in order to prevent the Zaporozhye Cossacks from going out to sea along the Dnieper without the tsar's will, to quarrel the sultan with the tsar. The Kamenny Zaton was guarded by the Russian garrison - the infantry regiments of Gulitsa and Yankovsky. From here it was a stone's throw to the Crimea, and the hetman and Buturlin were already making plans on how to land troops on the Crimean coast.

On July 7, intelligence reported about the withdrawal of the main forces of the Tatars from Perekop. The movement of the Russian troops was stopped, they were waiting for the Tatar attack. Only four battalions of Captain Postelnikov were sent forward, who burned the deserted smokers of the New Zaporizhzhya Sich and took four cannons there. There were no Zaporozhian Cossacks in Novaya Sich, at that time they fought over the Dniester with the army of Tsar Peter himself.

The position of Buturlin's troops was extremely difficult. They haven't crossed their border yet, and the supplies have already been used up. And it’s not tricky - for a whole month they were marking time practically in one place. Hunger began, I had to eat horse meat. The soldiers and Cossacks began to flee little by little. The horde loomed over the Dnieper not far away, distracting. Meanwhile, 15,000 Tatars of Bakhti-Girey moved to Slobodskaya Ukraine, to the Donets, Mirgorod, Bakhmut and Tor were under threat.

On July 23, Buturlin and Skoropadsky gave their troops the order to retreat. Thus, the trip to the Crimea was unsuccessful. As it became known, the day before the troops of Tsar Peter himself, having signed an agreement with the Turks, began to ferry back across the Prut. On August 1-3, the Russians crossed the Dniester.

But the Kuban campaign, which had been preparing for so long, entered its decisive stage. On August 17, Apraksin, who did not receive information that the war was over and peace was signed, with 9,000 soldiers left Azov and moved south. The Kalmyk horde also reached there.

On August 26, according to the victorious report of Apraksin, the rate of Nureddin Bakhti-Girey - Kopyl was ruined.

Meeting of the winners of the Battle of Poltava in Moscow

The tsar spent the winter of 1709 trying to organize the triumphant entry of the heroes of Poltava into Moscow. Peter attached great importance to this event and began preparations for it back in October. Captured Swedes, stationed in different cities of the country, were taken to Mozhaisk and Serpukhov by tsarist decree. Finally, Peter reported to the "prince-Caesar" Romodanovsky about the concentration of 22,085 Swedes captured at Lesnaya and Poltava.

Muscovites have already gotten used to this kind of celebrations, but they have never seen such a spectacle. It was hardly possible to surprise with triumphal arches, music, choirs, regiments marching under the battle banners - the parades of the winners trace their history back to the second Azov campaign. The new thing was to show the deeds of the winners - huge amount prisoners and trophies.

At first, trumpeters and timpani in beautiful decoration appeared to the eyes of the crowds along the streets of the capital. They were followed by a battalion of the Semenovsky regiment, which distinguished itself in the battle at Lesnaya. It was led by the regiment commander, Lieutenant General M. M. Golitsyn. For the guardsmen they carried trophies taken from Lesnaya: guns, banners, standards. Swedish officers captured in the same battle followed the trophies. The second battalion of the Semenovsky regiment closed the procession dedicated to Lesnaya.

The scenario of the celebration, developed, as always, by the tsar, provided for a comic moment that hurt the vanity of the vanquished. In a sleigh pulled by reindeer rode the mad Frenchman Vimeny. A contemporary spoke about this Frenchman as follows: "He sometimes spoke so intelligently that a subtle observation was expressed in his speech, which was not inferior in amusement to the conversation of the most intelligent person." Peter begged for this Vimeny from the Polish king and appointed the "king" of the Nenets. 19 Nenets sleighs, dressed in reindeer skins with the wool facing out, drove behind Vimeni's sleigh.

The comic king and his retinue, anticipating the Poltava part of the celebration, according to the king's plan, were to emphasize the extravagant goal of the real king, who was trying to accomplish the unrealizable: to conquer Russia, divide it into principalities, overthrow him, Peter, from the throne.

The Poltava part of the procession was opened by the Preobrazhensky regiment, then the officers' ranks, captured near Poltava, walked. Between the columns of lower and higher officers, they carried artillery and banners taken from the Swedes. Among the trophies were a stretcher used by the Swedish king near Poltava. The main trophy of the Poltava battle - the first field minister Karl Count Pieper - closed the ranks of the prisoners.

The last riding on the very horse on which he participated in the Battle of Poltava was the commander who won a brilliant victory - Peter.

For the new year, 1710, met, as always, with a solemn prayer service in the Assumption Cathedral and noisy feasts, Peter pinned many joyful hopes. The defeated enemy could no longer regain his strength and, therefore, had to look for ways to peace, which the tsar had long sought. In the evening, a grandiose fireworks display was lit. It was not just a colorful show, but a "fiery action" with a sharp political plot, a genuine theatrical performance that took place in the open air, where the auditorium was squares and streets filled with many thousands of people.

Peter, who composed it, gave the New Year's fireworks the character of a parody of a medal, knocked out at the behest of the Swedish king immediately after the conclusion of the Altranstadt Peace Treaty. The medal depicted a Swedish lion in the middle of two columns topped with crowns. The lion broke one column at the very base, and the crown fell. It was an allusion to the fate of Poland and its unlucky king. The lion only tilted the second column, but its fate is a foregone conclusion. The second column meant Russia.

Peter used the plot of the medal in the fireworks, but he portrayed the events not as they were presented to the Swedes, but as they happened in reality. Both crowned columns lit up and lit up with bright lights. The lion moved to one of the columns and overturned it. But as soon as he went to another, a rocket flew out of the burning eagle, which symbolized Russia, and struck the lion to death.

The spring and summer of the new year were encouraging. Never before has the sky of Moscow been lit up with fireworks so often as in 1710. One success followed another, and each seemed to bring the day of the conclusion of a victorious peace nearer.

Pleasant news was received from the capital of Russia's southern neighbor, Constantinople. The Russian ambassador Pyotr Tolstoy reported to the tsar that in early January the sultan had ratified a treaty that confirmed the previous peace concluded by Ukraintsev back in 1700. New in this treaty was the question of the king's stay in Turkish possessions, which worried the king. At first, Tolstoy sought to extradite Karl XII to Russia, but to no avail. “I’m asking,” he reported, “that the king of Sweden and Mazepa should be given to the side of the royal majesty, but I don’t have tea about the king, that they should not be given away at all, unless they send him out of their area; his ultimate misfortune, he didn’t get stuck; and if he does this, then they will not give it up according to their own law. "

Tolstoy made demands with a request. But in the treaty of 1710, Turkey nevertheless made concessions. She pledged to drive Charles XII out of her possessions, and to the Polish borders he was to be accompanied by an escort of Turks of 500 Janissaries, and through Poland - the same number of Russian troops.

"Now we have our eyes and thoughts in one direction," Peter responded to the news from Constantinople and ordered to celebrate it in the same way as he celebrated victorious battles - with prayer and cannon fire. Calm in the south made it possible to concentrate forces in the north.

Russian capture of fortresses Elbing, Vyborg, Riga, Dynamind, Pernov, Revel (Tallinn), Kexholm

Russian troops captured a number of fortresses. The first to fall as a result of a swift assault was the small fortress of Elbing. The siege of Vyborg began in March. The plan to take possession of this powerful fortress was developed by Peter. In May, he led a flotilla that brought reinforcements, food and artillery to the besieging Russian troops. The sea had not yet been free of ice, and the cruise of 250 transport ships proceeded in extremely difficult conditions.

How to enter the harbor, the passage to which was fired upon by fortress artillery? Peter deceived the commandant of the fortress: Swedish flags were raised on Russian ships, and the sailors were dressed in Swedish uniforms.

For two days Peter carefully examined the fortress. An eyewitness wrote: "A drummer was again sent to Vyborg so that the tsar could safely inspect and explore the fortress from the land side, as he examined it yesterday from the sea." On May 25, Peter gave the order to Apraksin: "How gaps and other things will be ready in my disposition, and from which it is necessary to shoot for at least a week and storm them." The matter did not come to the assault - negotiations began on the surrender.

On the eve of the surrender, Peter arrived at Vyborg. On June 14, he entered the fortress at the head of the Preobrazhensky regiment and studied its structures for three days. The victory was celebrated twice - in Vyborg itself, and then in St. Petersburg, where the guardsmen, led by their colonel, carried Swedish banners through the city streets.

The siege of Riga lasted the longest. It began in October 1709, in November Peter arrived at the troops, he himself fired three shots at the city, which marked the beginning of its bombardment, studied the fortifications and left Field Marshal Sheremetev with an order: , the first, that the time was late, the second, that the garrison in it was great, and the fortress has a strong defense, third, that there was no danger from the Swedes and it was impossible to wait for a sikurs ".

The blockade was complete - from land and sea. The garrison was forced to surrender. During the siege, Russian troops suffered significant losses, but not from military operations, but from the plague raging here: the epidemic claimed about 10 thousand soldiers and officers.

Following Riga, the fortresses of Dynamind, Pernov, Revel (Tallinn) and Kexholm surrendered - old Russian city Korela.

The success of the 1710 summer campaign was overwhelming. Peter summed up the joyful results of the hostilities: "And so Livonia and Estonia were very much cleared of the enemy, and with a single word say that the enemy is on the left side of this East Sea not exactly cities, but below the level of the earth it does not have. "In St. Petersburg, on this occasion, for three days they rang the bells, fired cannons, on the Neva stood illuminated ships.

The year 1710 was drawing to a close. Nothing seemed to foreshadow complications, and the king was thinking about a "good peace" with Sweden. However, in December a courier delivered a report from Constantinople. Tolstoy reported that Turkey has declared war on Russia. Soon another report came - the Crimean Tatars reached Bila Tserkva and Kharkov and although they were driven away by local garrisons, they still managed to ravage the region.

Turkey's declaration of war on Russia in 1710

Turkey's declaration of war is one of those paradoxes in history that defy explanation from the point of view of common sense and the logic of events. In fact, the most advantageous moment for the attack in Turkey's interests was left behind - the Turks, together with the Crimeans, could invade the territory of Ukraine in the months when Charles XII, who was there, with his elite army had not yet been defeated. But Turkey went to a military conflict a year and a half later, recklessly deciding to deal with the army, fanned with the glory of the Poltava Victoria and who managed to brilliantly conduct summer campaign 1710.

However, neither for Peter, nor for his diplomats, Turkey's intentions were not a secret. The shrewd Tolstoy asked not to be surprised that "when the Swedish king was in great power," then he, Tolstoy, informed about the peacefulness of the Port, and now, when the Swedes are defeated, he expects aggressive actions from Turkey. The tsar had reliable information that preparations for war were under way in Turkey: they called in the militia, concentrated the regiments of the Janissaries, and put the fleet on alert to attack Azov. The Swedish king, who had recently taken refuge in Turkish possessions, spent a lot of eloquent words to encourage Turkey to go to war with Russia. He frightened the Sultan by the fact that Peter, having crushed Sweden, would not hesitate to seize the Crimea and then lead his victorious troops to Constantinople. Karl did not skimp on territorial concessions, especially since the Swedish king intended to make these generous concessions at the expense of not his own, but Polish lands: Turkey was promised several provinces, the Kamenets fortress, as well as 4 million annual tribute. The goal of Charles XII's efforts was frankly selfish: Russia will be dragged into the war in the south, therefore, weaken the pressure in the north, Sweden, in the meantime, will recover from defeats. The incitement of hostile actions on the part of Turkey was also facilitated by British diplomacy, which sought to tie the hands of Russia in the south and thereby prevent its intervention in the conflict that was raging in Europe between France and the maritime powers.

All these efforts of those who like to rake in the heat with someone else's hands, of course, would have remained fruitless if Turkey itself did not have a strong desire to return Azov and the lands lost under the Treaty of Constantinople, confirmed just a few months ago.

How did Peter react to the news he received? The war on two fronts did not please him. If the previously achieved military and diplomatic successes in the conflict with the northern neighbor could portend a close peace, now the end of the Northern War was postponed for an indefinite future. A grueling struggle, costing a tremendous effort of the people's forces, lay ahead with two opponents. Peter makes attempts to avoid a war on frontline affairs. He appeals to the Turkish Sultan with a proposal to restore peace, and also resorts to the mediation of England and Holland to conclude peace with Sweden on the following conditions: for Russia there were only lands "inherited to the Russian crown from ancient times", that is, Ingria and Korela, as well as Narva ... Sweden received compensation for part of Finland. Livonia with Riga was transferred to an ally of Russia - Poland. However, neither one nor the other initiative of Peter met with support.

As always, Peter, the more difficult and dangerous the situation became, the more energetic and assertive he acted. He closely followed the movement of troops to the new theater of military operations, took care of the supply of provisions and equipment, was busy with the replenishment of the army with recruits and their training. From Petersburg, where Peter was at that time, couriers hurry one after another to Sheremetev, Golitsyn, Apraksin. The tsar proposes to the Azov governor Apraksin to bring the fleet to combat readiness, to make planes and boats for the Don Cossacks, instructs to attract Kalmyks and Kuban Murzas to repel Crimean Tatars... Field Marshal Sheremetev was ordered to move with troops from the Baltic to the area of ​​Slutsk and Minsk, and from there to the south. Knowing the slowness of Sheremetev, Peter now and then urges him on, demands quickness, convinces: "Go with haste"; "so that you immediately send the regiments on the march to the designated places"; "And it is very necessary to march, even if the infantry does not keep pace and the enemy attacks one cavalry, it is not without Belikov's fear." The tsar draws the attention of the commanders that one should "teach the dragoons with fire both horse and foot, and give the broadswords peace, for it is necessary to fight the Turks very differently, and more with the infantry of an assertive with slingshots."

When the preparations were largely complete and there was no hope of settling the conflict, Peter issued a manifesto declaring war on Turkey. The manifesto was read in the presence of the tsar on February 25 at the Assumption Cathedral. After the prayer service, Peter, as a colonel of the Preobrazhensky regiment, having drawn his sword, led this regiment himself, saluting the noblemen who passed by. On the same day, both Guards regiments set out to join the army on its way to Wallachia.

The tsar left Moscow to join the army on March 6. This was preceded by two important events- one is of national importance, the other is personal.

Creation of the 1st Senate by Peter

By decree on March 2, 1711, Peter established the Senate, the highest government institution, one of his most enduring administrative endeavors. The Senate existed for over two centuries, but when creating it, Peter, apparently, did not intend to use the services of this institution for a long time.

The Senate was created in a hurry, without a clear understanding of its rights and responsibilities. This is evidenced by the sequence of decrees issued by the king. First, back in February, a decree on the composition of the Senate was promulgated. The decree was written by the tsar himself, the document was distinguished by the same brevity as well as ambiguity. The very first phrase of the decree causes disputes that continue to this day among historians about which institution the Senate was presented to the tsar: temporary or permanent. With a nervous handwriting, which only a few historians can now disassemble, Peter wrote: "The Governing Senate was appointed to be for the absences of our government." The following is a list of persons included in the newly formed institution. Two weeks later, Peter again takes up the pen to define the responsibilities of the Senate: "Let everyone of their decrees be obedient as we do, under severe punishment or death, depending on our fault." Even decrees that were detrimental to the state had to be carried out unconditionally, "until our return."

Senators were responsible only to the king. They, like all state officials, took an oath "of loyalty to the sovereign and the entire state."

At the same time, Peter drew up a decree listing instructions to the Senate during his absence. Three editions of this decree have survived - the tsar made additions, rearranged points, nominated those of them that he attached great importance to among the first.

In the final version of the decree, Peter charged the Senate with overseeing justice and the economy of spending money. Here is repeated the catch phrase, once used by Peter in a letter to Zotov: "Money is the artery of war." Further, there were listed the ways to increase cash receipts to the treasury. According to Peter, it was necessary to streamline the purchase, "begging" to increase profits from the sale of salt, to expand trade with China and Persia.

Attention is drawn to Peter's handwritten addition, made by him below his signature on a white paper copy of the decree. In one phrase: "To punish the fiscal in all sorts of things, but what to do with them, the news came" - the tsar introduced the hitherto unknown institute of fiscal in the country.

The promised "news" was sent three days later, on March 5, on the eve of departure. It listed the duties of the fiscal, unheard of even at that time: "But his business is the essence: he must secretly supervise all affairs and see about the right court, also in the collection of the treasury and other things. And whoever perpetrates a lie must summon him before the Senate ( no matter how high it is) and incriminate him there.

Fiscal, therefore, had to exercise covert supervision over everything and everyone. His duty is not to prevent a crime, but to register it and report it immediately when it is committed.

Fiscal did not receive a salary, his zeal was encouraged by the issuance of half the fine levied on the culprit. Moreover, the fiscal was given another advantage. By the hand of Peter, the decree was written: "If he will not convict (that is, he will not prove guilty), by no means blame the fiscal, annoy him lower under severe punishment and the destruction of the entire estate." Fishing fiscal gave him the opportunity to make good money, and no trouble lay in wait for him, even if he clearly slandered. Putting on guard of legality and justice, the fiscal himself trampled on justice.

The fiscal people enjoyed a dismal reputation in all walks of life. The Ustyug fiscal people complained about one posad man that he reviled them in every possible way and called them whistles instead of fiscals. And here is the opinion about the fiscal of two senators - Yakov Dolgoruky and Grigory Plemyannikov. In a collective complaint to Peter, the fiscals wrote that both senators were showing them all mercy. "... Nephews calls us street judges, and Prince Yakov Fedorovich calls us antichrists and rogues."

The clergy were also not in favor of the fiscal. The locum tenens of the patriarchal throne Stefan Yavorsky used the pulpit of the Assumption Cathedral to publicly condemn the impunity of the fiscal, which, incidentally, provoked the tsar's anger: Whoever wants to be dishonored, but he will dishonor; slander to lay down on a neighbor's judge - at his discretion. This is not how it befits to be: he looked for my head, laid slander on me, and did not bring (that is, did not prove) - let him lay his head. " The locum tenens for this speech later had to make excuses before the king.

However, the atrocities of the fiscal were so outrageous, and the irritation against their slander was so great that the tsar three years later was forced to issue a decree establishing the fiscal for false denunciation of punishment that would have happened to the accused if the accusation had been proven. The institution of fiscal was a form of control over the activities of officials and individuals in an absolutist state, where the people were silent and public initiative was absent.

The creation of the Senate and the introduction of the fiscal opened the reform of the central apparatus. The Senate replaced the Boyar Duma. The composition of the Senate, like the Boyar Duma, was determined by the tsar. But when appointing to the Duma, the tsar was guided by the custom of granting the sons of boyars and okolnichy to the Duma ranks. The circle of persons from whom the Duma was recruited was thus limited, and the Duma rank to a certain extent was, as it were, hereditary.

The Boyar Duma was a cumbersome and crowded institution. In 1678-1679 it had 97 people, then its membership reached 190 people, and at the end of the 17th century there were about a hundred members in the Duma. In fact, a third, or even a fifth, of the Duma participated in the work - many of its members were appointed as voivods or carried out diplomatic assignments, that is, they were far from Moscow. The tsar renounced any boyar from participating in the work of the Duma, sending him into an honorable exile, but he could not deprive him of his boyar rank, since he had been complaining about this rank for life.

When appointed to the Senate, Peter was guided not by an aristocratic, but by a bureaucratic principle, the ability of the appointed person to fulfill the duties listed in the oath: to be loyal to the sovereign "and to the whole state", to mend a fair trial and to be diligent "in the collection of the treasury and people and everything else." The tsar appointed only nine people to the Senate, and the senator turned out to be an official person, and he could lose his post at any time. The senator, therefore, was in the position of an official completely dependent on the royal power. Thus, the establishment of the Senate acquired the significance of an important milestone in the strengthening of autocracy - the unlimited power of the tsar.

Another action taken by Peter on the day of his departure from Moscow concerned his family affairs - on March 6 it was announced that he had a legal wife, Ekaterina Alekseevna.

The real name of Ekaterina Alekseevna is Marta. During the siege of Marienburg by Russian troops in 1702 Martha, a servant of Pastor Gluck, was captured. For some time she was the mistress of a non-commissioned officer, Field Marshal Sheremetev noticed her, and Menshikov liked her. Menshikov called her Ekaterina Trubcheva, Katerina Vasilevskaya. She received her patronymic Alekseevna in 1708, when Tsarevich Alexei acted as godfather at her baptism.

Peter met Catherine in 1703 at Menshikov's. Fate prepared for the former servant the role of a concubine, and then the wife of an extraordinary person. Beautiful, charming and courteous, she quickly won the heart of Peter.

The fate of Anna Mons

What happened to Anna Mons? The tsar's relationship with her lasted more than 10 years and ended not through his fault - the favorite got herself a lover. When it became known to Peter, he said: "in order to love a king, you had to have a king in your head," and ordered to keep her under house arrest.

In 1711, Keyserling still managed to marry Anna Mons, but he died six months later. The former favorite tried to get married again, but death from consumption prevented this.

From Anna Mons, Catherine was distinguished by her good health, which allowed her to easily endure a grueling camp life and, at the first call of Peter, overcome many hundreds of miles of off-road. Catherine, moreover, possessed extraordinary physical strength. Kamer-junker Berholz described how the tsar once joked with one of his orderlies, with young Buturlin, whom he ordered to raise his large marshal's baton at his outstretched hand. He could not do this. “Then His Majesty, knowing how strong the Empress’s hand was, gave her his rod across the table. She stood up and, with extraordinary dexterity, raised it several times over the table with her straight hand, which surprised us all a lot.”

Peter I's wife Ekaterina Alekseevna

Catherine became necessary to Peter, and the Tsar's letters to her quite eloquently reflect the growth of his affection and respect. “Come to Kiev without hesitation,” the tsar addressed to Catherine from Zhovkva in January 1707. "For God, come quickly, and if something is impossible to be soon, write it down, it’s not without sadness that I neither hear nor see you," he writes from St. Petersburg. The tsar takes care of Catherine and his illegitimate daughter Anna. "If what happens to me by the will of God," he gives a written order at the beginning of 1708 before leaving for the army, "then three thousand rubles, which are now in the courtyard of Prince Menshikov, should be given to Katerina Vasilevskaya and the girl."

A new stage in the relationship between Peter and Catherine begins after she became his wife. In letters after 1711, the familiarly rude "hello, mother!" is replaced by a gentle one: "Katerinushka, my friend, hello." Not only the form of appeal is changing, but also the tonality of the notes: to replace laconic letters -
orders, similar to the command of an officer to his subordinates, such as "how this informer will come to you, go here without hesitating", letters come with the expression of tender feelings to to a loved one... In one of his letters, Peter advises to be careful when traveling to him: “for God, drive carefully and don’t leave the battalions for a hundred yards.” Her husband gives her joy with an expensive gift or overseas delicacies.

Preserved 170 letters of Peter to Catherine. Only a very few of them are of a business nature. However, in them, the king did not burden his wife with instructions to do something or check the fulfillment of the task by someone else, or with a request for advice, he only informed about what had happened - about the battles won, about his health. "I finished the course yesterday, the waters, thank God, acted very well; how will it be after?" - he wrote from Carlsbad, or: "Katerinushka, my friend, hello! I hear that you are bored, and I am not bored either, but we can judge that there is no need to change things for boredom."

In a word, Catherine enjoyed the love and respect of Peter. Combining marriage with an unknown captive and neglecting the brides of a boyar family or princesses of Western European courts was a challenge to customs, a rejection of time-honored traditions. But Peter allowed himself not such challenges. Announcing Catherine as his wife, Peter also thought about the future of his daughters, Anna and Elizabeth, who lived with her: "I have to commit a hedgehog for this unknown path, so that, if the orphans are left behind, they could have a better life of their own."

Catherine was endowed with inner tact, a subtle understanding of the character of her hot-tempered husband. When the king was in a state of rage, no one dared to approach him. It seems that she alone possessed the secret to soothe the king, without fear to look into his eyes distorted by anger.

The brilliance of the courtyard did not overshadow the memories of her origins in her memory. "The Tsar," wrote a contemporary, "could not marvel at her ability and ability to transform, as he put it, into an empress, not forgetting that she was not born by her. They often traveled together, but always in separate trains, distinguished - one by the majesty of their simplicity , another for his luxury. He loved to see her everywhere. There was no military review, launching of a ship, ceremony or holiday, at which she would not appear. " Another foreign diplomat also had the opportunity to observe Peter's manifestation of attentiveness and warmth towards his wife: "After dinner, the tsar and tsarina opened a ball, which lasted about three hours; the tsar often danced with the tsarina and little princesses and kissed them many times; tenderness to the queen, and it can be said in fairness that despite the uncertainty of her family, she is quite worthy of the mercy of such a great monarch. " Further, the diplomat gives the only description of Catherine's appearance that has come down to us, which coincides with her portrait image: "At the present moment (1715) she has a pleasant fullness; her complexion is very white with an admixture of natural, somewhat bright blush, her eyes are black, small, the hair of the same color is long and thick, the neck and arms are beautiful, the expression on the face is gentle and very pleasant. "

Catherine really did not forget about her past. In one of her letters to her husband, we read: "although there are, for tea, you have new portomoys, however, the old one does not forget" - so she jokingly reminded that at one time she was a washerwoman. In general, she coped with the role of the king's wife easily and naturally, as if she had been taught this role from childhood.

"His Majesty loved the female sex," said one of his contemporaries. The same contemporary wrote down the tsar's reasoning: "It is unforgivable to forget the service for the sake of a woman. Being a prisoner of a mistress is worse than being a prisoner in a war; an enemy may rather have freedom, and a woman is long-lasting shackles."

Catherine was condescending to her husband's fleeting connections and even supplied him with "metresishek" herself. Once, while abroad, Peter sent a reply to Catherine's letter, in which she jokingly reproached him for having intimate relationships with other women. "And why joke about fun, and we do not have it, we are old people and not like that." "Ponezh," the tsar wrote to his wife in 1717, "while drinking the waters of domestic fun, doctors are forbidden to use, for that sake I let my metresa go to you." Catherine's answer was composed in the same spirit: "And I think more that you (metresishka) deigned to send this (metresishka) for her illness, in which she still remains, and for treatment I deigned to go to Gaga; and I would not wish, from what God forbid that the galan of that metresishka should come as healthy as she is. "

Greed and passion for Menshikov's money

Peter went to the Prut campaign with his wife. Menshikov was left in St. Petersburg to guard the "Paradise" and the newly conquered cities in the Baltic states. On the day of departure between the patron and his favorite, there was the first spat recorded by sources. The reason for this was Menshikov's insatiable greed. Deprived of noble ancestors, he strove with feverish haste to fill the gap in his lineage. What ranks and titles he did not pick up! Having quenched his inordinate thirst for fame, he began to satisfy the thirst for money. Menshikov took without a twinge of conscience everything that lay badly. The Danish ambassador Yust Yul noted that Menshikov "in everything that relates to honors and to profit, is the most insatiable creature ever born to a woman." Menshikov's assessment of the Danish ambassador coincides with that which Peter often expressed to Catherine: "Menshikov was conceived in lawlessness, and his mother gave birth to sins, and in trickery he would die his belly."

At the beginning of his career, Menshikov still allowed himself to demonstrate honesty and incorruptibility to the tsar. In 1703, the Russified Dutchman, the son of the founder of the first ironworks in Russia, Andrei Vinius, was threatened with dismissal from the lucrative post of the head of the Siberian order. The latter gave Menshikov a large bribe, in return for which he received a letter from him to the Tsar, withdrawing all charges. Having sent Vishgus out, Menshikov immediately sent another letter to Peter through a courier, in which he informed him of the attempt to bribe him and of his indignation: "I'm really surprised that those people don't know themselves and want to buy me money for your mercy." Vinius's career ended there.

Later Menshikov completely freed himself from such scrupulousness. And since everyone, from noble nobles forced to suppress their arrogance in front of an upstart, and ending with people of the same as himself, of an ignoble origin, fawned upon the omnipotent favorite, there was no shortage of excuses for extortion. The well-known profit-maker Alexei Kurbatov, who enjoyed the patronage of the prince, once in a letter to Peter attested his patron "a vessel chosen by God, the only person who has no blemish before the king." In reality, the Most Serene Highness was gifted with no less than talents. Chief among them - greed - more than once put the prince's career in jeopardy. Menshikov repeated the age-old mistake of the overwhelming majority of favorites - instead of remaining in the shadows, he demonstrated his strength and influence, and most importantly, he used this influence for personal gain.

On March 6, Peter sent a letter to Menshikov from Preobrazhensky. The prince, who did not know how to read and write, made the orderly read once again a phrase that was pleasant for him: "Now I am sending to your grace a caftan of the local cloth as a present; God forbid to wear it for health." Taking a quick glance at the gift, Menshikov found that the cloth was inferior to overseas. The cloth yard, where it was made, was only recently started up, production was still getting better. However, he was still pleased with the gift - it testified to the king's disposition towards him. Meanwhile, on the same day, March 6, 1711, Peter arrived in Moscow, where he had to listen to the complaint of the son of the widow of the former great Lithuanian hetman Oginsky about Menshikov's atrocities. The prince, during his stay in Poland in 1709, took advantage of Oginsky's financial difficulties and bought from him a huge Jezerskoe eldership for absolutely nothing. In pursuit of what was previously written, the tsar sent a letter to Menshikov reproaching him for an act that did not contribute to the normalization of relations with the upper circles of the society of allied Poland. Having extinguished the outburst of anger, the tsar only slightly chided the prince: "And I would not expect that from you, even though what a debt they had."

The stream of complaints about Menshikov's illegal acquisitions grew as the tsar approached the Polish border. The victims of his greed were both the Polish magnates and the small gentry, he bought up, extorted and simply seized, first of all, large holdings, but did not disdain small ones either. On March 11, from Gorki, the tsar sent another message to the prince, this time with a stern warning that made the addressee a lot of anxiety: “What is my great request that you do not lose your fame and credit with such small profits. the first scolding is better than the last one, but I, being in such sorrows, have already come to my senses and they will not pity anyone. "

For almost a month, Peter did not honor Menshikov with letters, but the daily intercessions of Catherine, who was nearby, did their job. Traces of a spat are no longer in the letter sent from Slutsk on April 9. In the business tone of the message, words are embedded that testify to the restoration of the previous trusting relationship between the author and his correspondent - the tsar informs in more detail than anyone else about the serious illness he had suffered. And a few months later, the roles changed, the prince became dangerously ill, the disease caused tuberculosis, and on November 11 Peter wrote to him from Elbing: “Oh, I don’t have anything to answer, only God grant you healthy to see, for which I ask you by God: don’t go and meet me , do not spoil yourself after such a cruel illness, but wait in Peterburg. "

What did Peter do during his long journey from Moscow to the active army, between March 6 and June 12, when he arrived at the camp of the Russian troops? These were months of intense work, the intensity of which did not diminish in the least from the fact that it proceeded in the conditions of a field life. Even in the days of a serious illness, Peter did not interrupt his usual activities, and if it were not for his own testimony that he was unwell, then from the stream of orders, decrees, advice and diplomatic assignments, it is difficult to guess that these very days the illness confined him to bed. and he was so weak that he had to learn to walk. Menshikov was close to the truth when, having received news of the Tsar's illness, he expressed a judgment about its causes: “I really think about this illness of yours, that it’s not because of anything else, but only from your former labors, and for this I diligently ask you to please in that to keep and, if where the need itself does not require you, so that you do not deign to use yourself here. "

Military actions of Peter 1 in 1711

Peter's energy during these months was focused on many things. The primary task was to concentrate troops on the two flanks of the forthcoming theater of military operations: at Azov in the east and at the Dniester in the west. The Baltics also demanded attention, weakened by the withdrawal of the most combat-ready units of the Russian army to the south. Here it was necessary to replenish the thinned garrisons of the Baltic cities with recruits. It was necessary, further, to strengthen relations with the allies - Poland and Denmark - seeking from them a more significant contribution to the war with the Swedes.

The plan for the campaign in the western sector was based on the tsar's ideas about the high combat training of the Russian army, which had passed the school of Lesnaya and Poltava and was able to keep the initiative in its hands. It was assumed that the Russian troops, having overcome the Dniester, Bug and Danube, deployed fighting on foreign territory and there they will inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy.

It seems that nothing occupied Peter so much during these weeks as the desire to concentrate his army near the Dniester in the shortest possible time and reach the Danube as quickly as possible. From Smolensk, Lutsk, Yavorov, Yaroslavl, Peter sent messengers one after another with the order to accelerate the movement of troops. The meaning of the decrees is the same: "to fulfill everything, without losing time, for if we delay, we will lose everything"; "we confirm that you work as quickly as possible with the infantry divisions to hurry to the indicated place, for the need requires it"; "move with all haste."

The old field marshal, although he was aware that sluggishness was destructive, did not move as fast as Peter demanded: the spring thaw and its inherent slowness interfered.

Where and why was Peter in a hurry? What need demanded it? We find the answers to these questions in the Tsar's decrees: it was necessary to reach the Danube before the Turks. In this case, the Wallachian ruler Brankovan and the Moldavian ruler Cantemir will join the Russian troops. The army will receive armed assistance, and most importantly, food, which the troops so needed. The further course of events was presented to Peter as follows: "The Serbs (from whom we have the same petition and promise), also the Bulgarians and other Christian peoples will rise up against the Turk, and these will mate to our troops, others will indignant inside their Turks regions, that when he saw the Tours' vizier across the Danube, he would not dare to venture, and most of his troops would scatter, and it may be that a riot will be perpetrated. "

Such bright prospects, the opportunity to win a relatively easy victory, were worth hurrying and moving forward. Peter, who was slowly recovering from his illness, had a cheerful mood in May. True, he wrote to Menshikov on May 21 that he was "not without sadness, for he was deprived of both fleets," but Peter knew how to sacrifice all his hobbies in the interests of the cause.

The help of the Wallachian and Moldavian rulers, on which Peter pinned so many hopes, turned out to be largely ephemeral. True, the Moldavian ruler Cantemir organized a friendly meeting with the troops of Sheremetev in Yassy and went over to the side of Russia, but his real contribution to the fight against the Turks was much more modest than what the king had hoped for. The detachments he brought were not fully equipped, but the main thing is that Kantemir did not organize food stores in Yassy. As for the Wallachian ruler Brankovan, he not only did not fulfill his obligations, but also treacherously betrayed Russia, giving all the plans of the campaign to the Turkish vizier.

The liberation struggle of the Slavic peoples against Turkish rule did not take on such a grandiose scale that could have a significant impact on the course of the campaign. The deployment of this struggle was in direct proportion to the presence of Russian troops on the Danube, but Sheremetev lost time. "I am very surprised about your slowing down," Peter reprimanded to the field marshal. On June 12, the Turkish army had already built bridges across the Danube and was ready to cross the river in order to meet the Russian troops, who were just beginning to build a crossing over the Dniester.

Hunger in the troops during the march to Turkey

Already at this time, the Russian troops were experiencing a shortage of food. Peter writes to Sheremetev in Yassy: "... Alart has already had 5 days of neither bread nor meat ... Let us know for sure: when we get to you, will the soldiers eat?" But Sheremetev's food is no better: "Here, in my command, impoverishment for the sake of bread, they began to eat meat." True, Kantemir promised to deliver 10 thousand oxen and cows, 15 - 20 thousand sheep, but there was no bread in Moldova either.

What was to be done? Return with nothing or continue the hike? Most of the members of the military council spoke in favor of moving towards the Prut. They counted on food, which was generously promised by Bronkovan, who by that time had already secretly entered into treacherous ties with the Turks. They hoped to take possession of the food stores of the Turks themselves. The determination to move forward and seek a meeting with the enemy was influenced by the rumor launched by Brankovan that the vizier had instructions from the sultan to enter into negotiations with the Russians. Since the enemy seeks a truce, therefore, he is weak. Peter, deciding to move to the Prut, was confident in the successful outcome of the operation.

The exhausting transition from the Dniester to the Prut began. Ahead lay the waterless steppe, incinerated by the sun. The locusts did what the stinging rays of the sun didn’t get tired of. Clouds of gluttonous insects left behind a desert and deprived the horses of food. But the main suffering of the army was not from a lack of provisions, but from an almost complete lack of water. “The Tsar told me,” the Danish diplomat wrote down, “that he himself saw how the soldiers from the action of thirst from the nose, eyes and ears were bleeding, how many, having reached the water, drank themselves on it and died like others, languishing with thirst and hunger took their own lives. "

At the end of June, the army crossed the Prut and slowly, with long stops, moved down the right beret. The first skirmishes with the enemy took place on July 7, and the Turks, together with the Tatars, turned out not to be 60 - 70 thousand, as Peter believed, but $ 1 0 thousand people. They managed to encircle the Russian army, which numbered about 40 thousand soldiers and officers. General Ponyatovsky, a military adviser to the Turks, left a description of the battle that took place on July 9: “The Janissaries ... continued to advance, not waiting for orders. against the enemy with sabers in hand and, of course, would have broken through the front in this first powerful attack, if not for the slingshots that the enemy threw in front of them. Confusion and forced a hasty retreat.Kegaya (that is, the assistant to the grand vizier) and the chief of the janissaries cut the fugitives with sabers and tried to stop them and put them in order. The bravest resumed their shouts and attacked a second time. The second attack was not as strong as the first. and the Turks of the word were forced to retreat. "

Indeed, the Turks, more than four times superior to the Russian troops, could do absolutely nothing with the skillfully defended army. The battle, which lasted for three hours, cost the Turks 7 thousand people killed. Especially great devastation in the ranks of the Turks was caused by Russian artillery. There was a moment during the battle when the Russians could win. In the "Hysteria of the Northern War," we read: "and if they were followed at least a little, then they could get full Victoria; therefore, they could not do it, so that there was no time to dig in the convoy." The risk was that the enemy cavalry could break into the baggage train, and then the Turks could already triumph.

Peace talks with the Turks

In the early morning of July 10, a trumpeter went to the Turks' camp with a letter from Sheremetev to the vizier. "To your Excellency," Sheremetev wrote, of course, with the approval of Peter, "that this war is not at the request of the Tsar's Majesty, like tea, and not by the inclination of the Sultan's Majesty, but by extraneous quarrels." Sheremetev proposed "to end this war by resuming the former peace, which may be beneficial to both countries and in good condition. If you do not incite this inclination, then we are ready for something else, and God will demand that bloodshed on the one who is the reason, and We hope that God will help the unwilling person in this. To this we will expect a response and a speedy return sent to you. "

Several hours of anxious waiting passed, but there was still no answer - there were heated disputes in the tent of the Vyazir. The Crimean Khan took an irreconcilable position - no negotiations, only an attack. It seemed to him that the Russian camp, located on a hill and therefore visible at a glance, would become an object of easy prey. He had already figured out how much he would help out for trophies and prisoners. Khan was supported by Count Poniatowski, a military adviser to the vizier who represented the interests of the Swedish king.

Meanwhile, every hour spent in the encirclement did not strengthen, but weakened the Russian troops: the army was left without food, horses - without food. There was a shortage of water in the camp, because the approaches to the river were being shot at by the Tatars and Swedes on the opposite bank. Ahead, as far as the eye could see, the smoke of enemy fires, herds of horses. The advance units of the enemy were only a few hundred paces away: the figures of the Janissaries were visible, fragments of unfamiliar speech were heard.

For the second day in the Russian camp, neither the soldiers nor the generals closed their eyes. Even Peter's iron nerves could not withstand the enormous strain. “As eyewitnesses told me,” the Danish ambassador wrote in his diary, “the tsar, being surrounded by the Turkish army, became so desperate that he ran up and down the camp like a madman, hitting his chest and could not utter a word. Most of those around him thought that with him a blow. The officers' wives, which were many, howled and wept endlessly. " Screams were heard among the court ladies of Catherine. On June 9, Peter suggested that she leave the army and go to Poland, where it was possible to wait in safety and not tolerating hardships for the end of the campaign, but Catherine flatly refused to do this.

The second envoy went to the vizier's camp. Sheremetev was waiting for an "early resolution."

Peace Treaty of Petr Shafirov with Turkey

The vizier agreed to conduct peace negotiations, and on the same day Sub-Chancellor Pyotr Shafirov appeared in the Turkish camp, accompanied by a driver, three translators and two liaison officers. Contrary to expectations, the vizier showed neither arrogance nor arrogance. Experienced diplomat Shafirov drew attention to a seemingly insignificant detail: the vizier, sitting as usual on the pillows, invited him to sit too. As you know, Turkish officials were not distinguished by courtesy. With an observant gaze, Shafirov saw in this gesture a willingness to negotiate. The rest was a matter of diplomatic technique. Here the obese Shafirov showed his inherent dexterity.

It took less than two days to complete the peace treaty. His conditions and the haste with which he was imprisoned caused gossip among his contemporaries, who found it difficult to answer how Shafirov managed to conclude peace with minimal concessions. Some associated the successful completion of the negotiations with Shafirov's talents, dexterity and insight, others attributed the success to diamonds and other jewelry to Catherine, who seemed to meekly donated them to bribe the vizier, others combined the diplomatic abilities of the sub-chancellor with the generosity of the future empress.

The veil of mystery was dispelled a little later, when it became possible to compare the situation in both camps. The parties involved in the negotiations had information about what was happening in their own camp, and were not aware of the situation in the enemy's camp.

The vizier, when formulating the peace terms, of course, did not suspect that in Shafirov's pocket there was an instruction drawn up by the tsar, authorizing the sub-chancellor to make far-reaching concessions. For the sake of concluding peace, Peter agreed to return all the conquered territories not only to the Turks, but also to the Swedes. Moreover, the tsar was ready to concede even Pskov to the Swedes, and "if that was not enough, then give up other provinces as well."

This instruction was given to Shafirov on July 10, that is, on the eve of his departure to the Turkish camp. The next day, when the vizier and Shafirov had not yet put their signatures under the agreement, the messenger delivered to the sub-chancellor a new order from Peter, testifying to the extremely difficult situation of the Russian army: schooling "(that is, surrender). To avoid captivity, the tsar agreed to return all acquisitions: Azov, Taganrog, the coast of the Baltic Sea - all the lands that cost the country two Azov campaigns, two Narva, Lesnoy and Poltava. Even Ingria with "Paradise", which was so dear to Peter, was sacrificed.

The vizier did not know all this. If he had information that the tsar was ready to make huge territorial concessions, his requests would not have been so modest, and he would not in any way be content with the return of Azov and Taganrog.

But the vizier did not know one more circumstance, which, if he knew it, would certainly moderate his claims: is the Russian army trapped in a mousetrap demoralized or will it make a desperate attempt to break out of the encirclement? During the hours of negotiations in the Russian camp, feverish preparations were going on to get out of the encirclement. During July 9-11, the tsar convened several military councils, and none of them ruled on surrender. If the vizier did not agree to an armistice, we read in the decision of the military council on July 10, then it was necessary to “burn and destroy the carts, build a wagenburg out of a few carts (that is, a fortification of carts) and place the Volokhs and Cossacks in it, reinforcing them with several thousand infantry. With the army ... attack the enemy. " Another military council, which was attended by all the generals and ministers, spoke in the same spirit.

Finally, on July 11, before the signing of the peace treaty, the military council developed a detailed plan for breaking through the encirclement: it was decided to get rid of all that was superfluous that hampered the mobility of the army and its battle formations, "for the meagerness of bullets, cut iron into a shot", "take good artillery horses with you, and thin not only the artillery, but all - to beat and cook meat or bake ", divide the available provisions equally. All decisions of military councils, made in the presence of the tsar and sanctioned by him, characterize Peter quite definitely: he preferred battle to surrender, and death in battle to captivity.

The king's awareness of what was happening in the Turkish camp was also incomplete. In the Russian camp, they only guessed, but did not have whiter or less accurate data about the huge devastation of the ranks of the Turkish troops, produced by the Russian artillery. The British ambassador in Constantinople, Sutton, reported to London that three repeated attempts by the Janissaries to attack the Russians cost them 8 thousand people. "Eyewitnesses of this battle said," the ambassador continued, "that if the Russians knew about the horror and stupor that gripped the Turks, and could take advantage of their advantages, continuing the shelling and making a sortie, the Turks would, of course, be defeated." One Turkish Pasha, when asked why the Turks rushed to conclude peace, replied that they were tortured by the "firmness" of the Russian troops, that they did not expect to meet "terrible opponents" in their faces, and that, finally, they preferred to get rid of the neighborhood with the Russians, the battle with whom "it will cost them many lives." The Russian camp also did not know that the janissaries, having received an order from the vizier to resume hostilities on the morning of July 10, refused to carry it out, saying that "they do not want to advance and cannot stand against Moscow fire." The Janissaries demanded from the vizier the quickest conclusion of peace.

Unfortunately, it so happened that Peter did not have comprehensive information about the military operations of his own army. The fact is that the cavalry corps of General Rennes, who was entrusted with taking possession of Brailov, successfully coped with the task. The communications of the Turkish army were cut, and the threat of encirclement hung over the Turks. However, the dispatch of Rennes was intercepted by the Turks and did not go to Peter, but to the vizier.

The Swedish king received word of peace after the signing of the treaty. Immediately he jumped on his horse, rushed to the Turkish camp and without any ceremony burst into the vizier's tent, where a dialogue took place between the inflamed king and the Turk who had not lost his calmness, reminiscent of a quarrel, "Why did you make peace without him with his royal majesty?" - asked the angry Karl. Without giving time for an answer, the king suggested that the vizier allocate 20-30 thousand elite troops at his disposal, and he, the king, would bring the general Russian tsar to the Turkish camp.

The vizier parried Karl's reproaches with a reminder of the battle that took place near Poltava: "You have already tasted them, and we have seen them too; if you want to, attack, and I will not break what was decreed with them to the world."

The parting was as unexpected as the meeting. The enraged king, without saying goodbye, ran out of the vizier's tent and galloped to the Crimean khan to persuade him to resume hostilities. The khan, however, did not dare to violate the orders of the vizier.

The rage of the Swedish king is understandable. He believed that he had missed the last chance to take revenge and here, on the Prut, to regain his reputation as an invincible commander, lost near Poltava, and much, if not all, of what Sweden had lost during more than ten years of war. The hopes are illusory, for it was futile to rely on the irregular troops of the Turks, whose battle formations resembled the movement of a crowd of armed people, if he could not achieve what he wanted with the forces of the superbly trained and tested Swedish army in many battles.

The anger of the Swedish king is easily explained also because his personal interests, like those of Sweden, were taken into account to a minimum extent by the peace treaty. Under the terms of the Prut Peace Treaty, Russia returned Azov to Turkey in such a condition "in which it was taken from his Majesty's Saltan" in 1696. The newly built cities (Taganrog, Kamenny Zaton) were subject to ruin and were not supposed to be populated by the subjects of both countries. Russia pledged not to interfere in Polish affairs, and also to ensure the safe passage of Charles XII to Sweden.

End of the Prut campaign of the Russian troops

The agreement, as we were convinced, reflected the real situation on the Prut. The brilliance of the diamonds, perhaps, seduced the greedy eyes of the vizier, making him more complaisant, but the decisive word belonged to the army, whose fighting spirit was not broken by ordeals.

The Prut campaign ended in failure. Peter was deeply worried about the outcome of the campaign. On sleepless nights, he reproduced in his memory all the vicissitudes of the ill-fated campaign. At what stage was the miscalculation made when it was necessary to interrupt the campaign, return to their borders in order to resume it next year, using the time for more thorough preparation? The further the king indulged in thought, the more convinced he was that he had made the only correct decision by going south. The Swedes were by that time expelled from the Baltic states, and offensive operations in the north, they could be undertaken only if there was a strong fleet, but its creation was only in full swing, and the Russian squadrons had not yet risked meeting with Swedish ships that plowed the waters of the Baltic with impunity.

Other questions arose: was it necessary to pin so many hopes on Cantemir and Brankovan? How did it happen that he, the tsar, and his generals had no idea either of the number of enemy troops to be fought with, or of his approach; whether it was worth weakening the main army by sending the Rennes corps to carry out an independent task; Was not the mistake of Charles XII repeated in this campaign, who recklessly threw his army into the Ukraine, relying on Mazepa's military and food aid? He recalled his own thoughts, which he instilled in his generals: "the everlasting luck led many people to destruction," or: "the search for a general battle is extremely dangerous, because in one hour the whole thing can be refuted."

Perhaps the tsar, alone with himself, gave answers to all the questions, but preferred not to express them aloud. Only once, in a conversation with the Danish ambassador, he remarked in passing that “if he had not sent General Rennes with 9,000 cavalry on a campaign in Muntiany or Moldavia, he would never have entered into negotiations with the enemy, but having about 30,000 man and almost devoid of cavalry, did not dare to give battle to the Turks, of whom there were more than 100,000, mainly cavalry. "

Leaving the vizier of the sub-chancellor Shafirov and Mikhail Borisovich Sheremetev, the son of the field marshal, as hostages of fulfilling the terms of the treaty, the army crossed the Prut and moved to the border. Yust Yul wrote in his diary: "As soon as the entire army crossed the Dniester, the tsar ordered a thanksgiving prayer service and salute salutes to celebrate his miraculous deliverance on the Prut, arranged by God." On the same day, July 14, Peter went to Carlsbad for treatment, and then went to Torgana for a wedding: Tsarevich Alexei married the sister-in-law of the Austrian emperor Charlotte.

Instead of a victorious report, Peter had to send instructions from the banks of the Prut on the fulfillment of the terms of the contract. The tsar ordered the Azov governor to prepare for the surrender of the Azov, to destroy Taganrog, and the Kiev governor was ordered to raze Kamenny Zaton to the ground. He did not advertise his failure, but he did not hide it either. "Although I would like to nicholas," the tsar informed the senators about what had happened on the Prut, "to write to you about such matter, about which she is now compelled, however, before the will of God was so pleased and Christian sins did not allow." Mentioning the battles with the superior forces of the Turks that took place on July 8 and 9, the tsar announced the conclusion of a peace treaty. The final phrase of the notification emanated optimism and a sober assessment of what had happened: "This is a matter, although not without sadness, that to lose those places where so much work and losses have been laid, however, by this deprivation the other side is a great strengthening, which is incomparably profit to us." By "the other side" Peter meant the Northern War, for the completion of which it was possible to concentrate all the forces freed from the southern theater.

There is no doubt, however, that the result of the Prut campaign left the tsar with unpleasant memories for the rest of his life. In the "History of the Northern War" it is said that "this march against the Turks was extremely desperate." There is also a recognition "that this incident is extremely disastrous and sad", but a strange logic is embedded in the reasoning that if the Russian troops won a victory on the Prut, then this victory would bring new hardships: "if we got victoria over the enemy, then they would have gone even further and would have believed the previously mentioned Judas, and this, no doubt, was more evil. " Judas here meant Brankovan, who promised Peter a lot of help, but went over to the side of the Turks.

Testament of Peter in the Prut campaign

Another mysterious event is connected with Peter's campaign on the Prut, the secret of which will hardly ever be penetrated. We are talking about the will of Peter, allegedly drawn up by him on July 10, that is, on the culminating day of the Prut epic: four times the strongest Turkish force is so surrounded that all the ways to obtain food are cut off, and that, without God's special help, I can not foresee anything other than a complete defeat, or that I will fall into Turkish captivity. to regard me as your sovereign and not to do anything that I, at least by my own command, demanded of you, until I myself appear among you in my person. then choose among yourselves the one most worthy to be my heirs. "

The original letter of will has not survived. It was first published in German in 1785 by the well-known collector of legends and stories about Peter (in the 18th century they were called anecdotes) Jacob Shtelin. In Russian, the will appeared in print in 1786.

The absence of the original has stirred up controversy among historians that continues to this day. Some considered the letter a forgery, referring to some, in their opinion, inconsistencies in its content. The famous historian of the last century N.G. Ustryalov drew attention to the fact that Peter could not instruct the Senate to elect a successor in the event of his death, because he had a direct heir - Tsarevich Alexei, relations with whom had not yet reached such a sharpness by 1711. for the king to remove him from the throne.

Major historian pre-revolutionary Russia SM Soloviev did not agree with Ustryalov's arguments and believed that there was no reason to "resolutely reject" the authenticity of the will. A well-known connoisseur of the Petrine time of our days, E.P. Podyapolskaya resolutely sided with those who consider the letter reliable.

The dispute can go on indefinitely, and it is possible to confirm the opinion that the author of the letter was Peter only if the original is found, because every logical argument in favor of the reliability of the letter can be opposed by the same logical argument in favor of its falsity.

We can only confine ourselves to posing to a certain extent a rhetorical question: could Peter have written (we do not know exactly whether he wrote) such a testament, does the content of the letter correspond to his views and representatives about the role of the sovereign in the state? The answer can only be given in the affirmative. From Peter, who repeated many times that fleeing from the battlefield puts the coward out of society, repeatedly emphasizing that he, the tsar, bears the burden of service on an equal basis with others and does not spare his "belly", declaring that "his life is inexpensive for him, if only lived Russia ", such a letter could be expected. Ignoring the interests of Alexei is also permissible - Ustryalov was not aware of some documents indicating that by this time the relationship between the tsar and the tsarevich, as we will see later, was not distinguished by warmth.