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MySQL Crash
Course
This page intentionally left blank
MySQL Crash
Course

Second Edition

Ben Forta
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Pearson’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Pearson is dedicated to creating bias-free content that reflects the diversity of all learners.
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This page intentionally left blank
Contents

1 Understanding SQL 1
Database Basics 1
What Is a Database? 2
Tables 2
Columns and Datatypes 3
Rows 4
Primary Keys 4
What Is SQL? 6
Try It Yourself 6
Summary 7

2 Introducing MySQL 9
What Is MySQL? 9
Client/Server Software 9
MySQL Versions 10
MySQL Tools 11
mysql Command-Line Utility 11
MySQL Workbench 12
Other Tools 13
Summary 13

3 Working with MySQL 15

Using the Command-Line Tool 15
Selecting a Database 16
Learning About Databases and Tables 17
Using MySQL Workbench 20
Getting Started 20
Using MySQL Workbench 21
Selecting a Database 22
Learning About Databases and Tables 22
Executing SQL Statements 23
Next Steps 23
Summary 24

4 Retrieving Data 25
The SELECT Statement 25
Retrieving Individual Columns 25
viii Contents

Retrieving Multiple Columns 27

Retrieving All Columns 29
Retrieving Distinct Rows 29
Limiting Results 31
Using Fully Qualified Table Names 32
Using Comments 33
Summary 34
Challenges 34

5 Sorting Retrieved Data 35

Sorting Data 35
Sorting by Multiple Columns 37
Sorting by Column Position 38
Specifying Sort Direction 39
Summary 41
Challenges 42

6 Filtering Data 43
Using the WHERE Clause 43
WHERE Clause Operators 44
Checking Against a Single Value 45
Checking for Nonmatches 46
Checking for a Range of Values 47
Checking for No Value 48
Summary 49
Challenges 49

7 Advanced Data Filtering 51

Combining WHERE Clauses 51
Using the AND Operator 51
Using the OR Operator 52
Understanding the Order of
Evaluation 53
Using the IN Operator 54
Using the NOT Operator 56
Summary 58
Challenges 58
 Contents ix

8 Using Wildcard Filtering 59

Using the LIKE Operator 59
The Percent Sign (%) Wildcard 60
The Underscore (_) Wildcard 61
Tips for Using Wildcards 63
Summary 63
Challenges 63

9 Searching Using Regular Expressions 65

Understanding Regular Expressions 65
Using MySQL Regular Expressions 66
Basic Character Matching 66
Performing OR Matches 68
Matching One of Several Characters 68
Matching Ranges 70
Matching Special Characters 70
Matching Character Classes 72
Matching Multiple Instances 72
Anchors 74
Summary 75
Challenges 76

10 Creating Calculated Fields 77

Understanding Calculated Fields 77
Concatenating Fields 78
Using Aliases 80
Performing Mathematical Calculations 81
Summary 83
Challenges 83

11 Using Data Manipulation Functions 85

Understanding Functions 85
Using Functions 86
Text Manipulation Functions 86
Date and Time Manipulation
Functions 88
Numeric Manipulation Functions 91
Summary 92
Challenges 92
x Contents

12 Summarizing Data 93
Using Aggregate Functions 93
The Avg() Function 94
The Count() Function 95
The Max() Function 96
The Min() Function 97
The Sum() Function 98
Aggregates on Distinct Values 99
Combining Aggregate Functions 100
Summary 101
Challenges 101

13 Grouping Data 103

Understanding Data Grouping 103
Creating Groups 104
Filtering Groups 105
Grouping and Sorting 107
Combining Grouping and
Data Summarization 109
SELECT Clause Ordering 110
Summary 110
Challenges 110

14 Working with Subqueries 113

Understanding Subqueries 113
Filtering by Subquery 113
Using Subqueries As Calculated Fields 117
Summary 119
Challenges 119

15 Joining Tables 121

Understanding Joins 121
Understanding Relational Tables 121
Why Use Joins? 122
Creating a Join 123
The Importance of the WHERE Clause 124
Inner Joins 127
Joining Multiple Tables 128
Summary 130
Challenges 130
 Contents xi

16 Creating Advanced Joins 133

Using Table Aliases 133
Using Different Join Types 134
Self-Joins 134
Natural Joins 136
Outer Joins 137
Using Joins with Aggregate Functions 138
Using Joins and Join Conditions 139
Summary 140
Challenges 140

17 Combining Queries 141

Understanding Combined Queries 141
Creating Combined Queries 141
Using UNION 141
UNION Rules 143
Including or Eliminating
Duplicate Rows 144
Sorting Combined Query Results 145
Summary 146
Challenges 146

18 Full-Text Searching 147

Understanding Full-Text Searching 147
Using Full-Text Searching 148
Performing Full-Text Searches 148
Using Query Expansion 151
Boolean Text Searches 153
Full-Text Searching Notes 156
Summary 157
Challenges 157

19 Inserting Data 159

Understanding Data Insertion 159
Inserting Complete Rows 159
Inserting Multiple Rows 163
Inserting Retrieved Data 164
Summary 166
Challenges 166
xii Contents

20 Updating and Deleting Data 167

Updating Data 167
Deleting Data 169
Guidelines for Updating and Deleting Data 170
Summary 171
Challenges 171

21 Creating and Manipulating Tables 173

Creating Tables 173
Basic Table Creation 173
Working with NULL Values 175
Primary Keys Revisited 176
Using AUTO_INCREMENT 177
Specifying Default Values 178
Engine Types 179
Updating Tables 180
Deleting Tables 182
Renaming Tables 182
Summary 182
Challenges 182

22 Using Views 183

Understanding Views 183
Why Use Views 184
View Rules and Restrictions 185
Using Views 185
Using Views to Simplify
Complex Joins 185
Using Views to Reformat
Retrieved Data 186
Using Views to Filter Unwanted Data 188
Using Views with Calculated Fields 188
Updating Views 189
Summary 190
Challenges 190

23 Working with Stored Procedures 191

Understanding Stored Procedures 191
Why Use Stored Procedures 192
Using Stored Procedures 193
 Contents xiii

Executing Stored Procedures 193

Creating Stored Procedures 193
The DELIMITER Challenge 194
Dropping Stored Procedures 195
Working with Parameters 195
Building Intelligent Stored
Procedures 199
Inspecting Stored Procedures 201
Summary 202
Challenges 202

24 Using Cursors 203

Understanding Cursors 203
Working with Cursors 204
Creating Cursors 204
Opening and Closing Cursors 205
Using Cursor Data 206
Summary 210

25 Using Triggers 211

Understanding Triggers 211
Creating Triggers 212
Dropping Triggers 213
Using Triggers 213
INSERT Triggers 213
DELETE Triggers 214
UPDATE Triggers 215
More on Triggers 216
Summary 216

26 Managing Transaction Processing 217

Understanding Transaction Processing 217
Controlling Transactions 219
Using ROLLBACK 219
Using COMMIT 220
Using Savepoints 220
Changing the Default Commit
Behavior 221
Summary 222
xiv Contents

27 Globalization and Localization 223

Understanding Character Sets and
Collation Sequences 223
Working with Character Sets and
Collation Sequences 224
Summary 226

28 Managing Security 227

Understanding Access Control 227
Managing Users 228
Creating User Accounts 229
Deleting User Accounts 230
Setting Access Rights 230
Changing Passwords 233
Summary 234

29 Database Maintenance 235

Backing Up Data 235
Performing Database Maintenance 235
Diagnosing Startup Problems 237
Reviewing Log Files 237
Summary 238

30 Improving Performance 239

Improving Performance 239
Summary 240

A Getting Started with MySQL 241

What You Need 241
Obtaining the Software 242
Installing the Software 242
Preparing to Read This Book 242

B The Example Tables 243

Understanding the Example Tables 243
Table Descriptions 244
The vendors Table 244
The products Table 244
The customers Table 245
The orders Table 245
 Contents xv

The orderitems Table 246

The productnotes Table 246
Creating the Sample Tables 247
Using Data Import 247
Using SQL Scripts 248

C MySQL Statement Syntax 249

ALTER TABLE 249
COMMIT 249
CREATE INDEX 250
CREATE PROCEDURE 250
CREATE TABLE 250
CREATE USER 250
CREATE VIEW 251
DELETE 251
DROP 251
INSERT 251
INSERT SELECT 251
ROLLBACK 252
SAVEPOINT 252
SELECT 252
START TRANSACTION 252
UPDATE 252

D MySQL Datatypes 253

String Datatypes 253
Numeric Datatypes 255
Date and Time Datatypes 256
Binary Datatypes 256

E MySQL Reserved Words 257

Index 265
This page intentionally left blank
 Acknowledgments

Thanks to the team at Pearson for all these years of support, dedication, and encourage-
ment. Over the past two and a half decades, we’ve created 40+ books together, but our
little Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes series remains my favorite by far. Thank you
for trusting me with the creative freedom to evolve it as I have seen fit.
Speaking of Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, that title covers MySQL (as it
does all major DBMSs), but it cannot provide in-depth lessons on features that are truly
unique to MySQL. This spinoff book was written in response to numerous requests from
readers for greater MySQL-specific coverage. Thanks for the nudge. I hope this book
lives up to your expectations.
Thanks to the many thousands of readers who provided feedback on prior editions of
these books. Fortunately, most of it was positive; all of it was appreciated. The enhance-
ments and changes in the latest editions are in direct response to your feedback, which
I continue to welcome.
I write because I love to teach. While nothing compares to hands-on in-classroom
instruction, turning those lessons into books that can be read far and wide has gifted
me with expanding my teaching reach. It is thus a source of much gratification to
see hundreds of colleges and universities use these SQL books as part of their IT and
computer science curricula. Being included by professors and teachers in this way is both
rewarding and humbling, and for that trust I am thankful.
And finally, thanks to the almost 1 million of you who bought the previous editions
of these books (in over a dozen languages), making them not just my best-selling series
but also the best-selling books on SQL. Your continued support is the highest compli-
ment an author can ever be paid.
—Ben Forta
This page intentionally left blank
 About the Author

Ben Forta is Adobe’s Senior Director of Education Initiatives and has more than
three decades of experience in the computer industry—in product development,
support, training, and product marketing. He is the author of the best-selling Sams
Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes (as well as spinoff titles like this one and versions on
SQL Server T-SQL, Oracle PL/SQL, and MariaDB), Learning Regular Expressions, and
Captain Code, which teaches Python to younger coders (and those young at heart), Java,
Windows, and more. He has extensive experience in database design and development,
has implemented databases for several highly successful commercial software programs
and websites, and is a frequent lecturer and columnist on application development and
Internet technologies. Ben lives in Oak Park, Michigan, with his wife, Dr. Marcy Forta,
and their children. He welcomes your email at [email protected] and invites you to visit
his website at http://forta.com.
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

MySQL is one of the most popular database management systems in the world. From
small development projects to some of the best-known and most prestigious sites on the
Web, MySQL has proven itself to be a solid, reliable, fast, and trusted solution for all
sorts of data storage needs.
This book is based on my best-selling Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes. That
book has become one of the most-used SQL tutorials in the world, with an emphasis on
teaching what you really need to know—methodically, systematically, and simply. But as
popular and as successful as that book is, it does have some limitations:
Q In covering all of the major database management systems (DBMSs), coverage of
DBMS-specific features and functionality had to be kept to a minimum.
Q To simplify the SQL taught, the lowest common denominator had to be found—
SQL statements that would (as much as possible) work with all major DBMSs.
This requirement necessitated that better DBMS-specific solutions not be covered.
Q Although basic SQL tends to be rather portable between DBMSs, more advanced
SQL most definitely is not. As such, that book could not cover advanced topics,
such as triggers, cursors, stored procedures, access control, and transactions, in any
real detail.
And that is where this book comes in. MySQL Crash Course builds on the proven
tutorials and structure of Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes without getting bogged
down with anything except MySQL. Starting with simple data retrieval and working on
to more complex topics, including the use of joins, subqueries, regular expression and
full text-based searches, stored procedures, cursors, triggers, table constraints, and much
more, you’ll learn what you need to know methodically, systematically, and simply—in
highly focused chapters designed to make you immediately and effortlessly productive.
When you turn to Chapter 1 and get to work, you’ll be taking advantage of all
MySQL has to offer in no time at all.

Who Is This Book For?

This book is for you if:
Q You are new to SQL.
Q You are just getting started with MySQL and want to hit the ground running.
Q You want to quickly learn how to get the most out of MySQL.
Q You want to learn how to use MySQL in your own application development.
Q You want to be productive quickly and easily using MySQL without having to call
someone for help.
xxii Introduction

Companion Website
This book has a companion website online at http://forta.com/books/9780138223021/.
At this website, you’ll find:
Q The files used to create the example tables used throughout this book
Q Answers to the questions in the “Challenges” section at the end of each chapter
Q Online errata

Conventions Used in This Book

This book uses different typefaces to differentiate between code and regular English and
also to help you identify important concepts.
Text that you type and text that should appear on your screen is presented in monospace
type. It looks like this to mimic the way text looks on your screen.
Placeholders for variables and expressions appear in monospace italic font. You
should replace a placeholder with the specific value it represents.

Note
A Note presents an interesting piece of information related to the surrounding discussion.

Tip
A Tip offers advice or teaches an easier way to do something.

Caution
A Caution advises you about potential problems and helps you steer clear of disaster.

New Term
A New Term box provides a clear definition of a new essential term.

Figure Credits
Figures 3.1-3.5: Oracle Corporation
 Introduction xxiii

Input

The Input icon identifies code that you can type in yourself. It usually appears next
to a listing.
Output

The Output icon highlights the output produced by running MySQL code. It usually
appears after input and next to output.
Analysis

The Analysis icon alerts you to the line-by-line analysis of input or output.
This page intentionally left blank
 1
Understanding SQL

In this chapter, you’ll learn about databases and SQL, which are prerequisites to learning
MySQL.

Database Basics
The fact that you are reading this book indicates that you, somehow, need to interact
with databases, and MySQL specifically. And so, before diving into MySQL and its
implementation of the SQL language, it is important that you understand some basic
concepts about databases and database technologies.
Whether you are aware of it or not, you use databases all the time. Each time you
select a name from your email address book, you are using a database. When you browse
contacts on your phone, you are using a database. If you conduct a search on an Internet
search site, you are using a database. When you log in to your network at work, you
are validating your name and password against a database. Even when you use your
ATM card at a cash machine, you are using databases for PIN verification and balance
checking.
But even though we all use databases all the time, there remains much confusion over
what exactly a database is. This is especially true because different people use the same
database terms to mean different things. Therefore, a good place to start our study is
with a list and explanation of the most important database terms.

Tip
Reviewing Basic Concepts What follows is a very brief overview of some basic
database concepts. It is intended to either jolt your memory if you already have some
database experience or to provide you with the absolute basics if you are new to data-
bases. Understanding databases is an important part of mastering MySQL, and you
might want to find a good book on database fundamentals to brush up on the subject,
if needed.
2 Chapter 1 Understanding SQL

What Is a Database?
The term database is used in many different ways, but for our purposes in this book, a
database is a collection of data stored in some organized fashion. The simplest way to
think of it is to imagine a database as a filing cabinet. The filing cabinet is simply a
physical location to store data, regardless of what that data is or how it is organized.

New Term
Database A container (usually a file or set of files) for storing organized data.

Caution
Misuse Causes Confusion People often use the term database to refer to the database
software they are running. This is incorrect, and it is a source of much confusion. Database
software is actually called a database management system (or DBMS). A database is a container
created and manipulated via a DBMS. A database might or might not be a file stored on a
hard drive. And for the most part, this is not even significant as you never access a database
directly anyway; you always use the DBMS, and it accesses the database for you.

Tables
When you store information in a filing cabinet, you don’t just toss it in a drawer. Rather,
you create files within the filing cabinet, and then you store related data in specific files.
In the database world, a file is called a table. A table is a structured file that can store
data of a specific type. A table might contain a list of customers, a product catalog, or
any other list of information.

New Term
Table A structured list of data of a specific type.

The key here is that the data stored in the table is one type of data or one list. You
would never store a list of customers and a list of orders in the same database table.
Doing so would make subsequent retrieval and access difficult. Rather, you’d create two
tables, one for each list.
Every table in a database has a name that identifies it. That name is always unique—
meaning no other table in that database can have the same name.

Note
Table Names What makes a table name unique is actually a combination of several
things, including the database name and table name. While you cannot use the same
table name twice in the same database, you definitely can reuse table names in different
databases.
 Database Basics 3

Tables have characteristics and properties that define how data is stored in them.
These include information about what data may be stored, how it is broken up, how
individual pieces of information are named, and much more. The set of information
that describes a table is known as a schema, and a schema can be used to describe specific
tables within a database, as well as an entire database (and the relationship between tables
in a database, if any).

New Term
Schema Information about database and table layout and properties.

Note
Schema or Database? Occasionally the term schema is used as a synonym for database
(and schemata as a synonym for databases). While unfortunate and frequently confusing,
it is usually clear from the context which meaning of schema is intended. In this book,
schema is used as defined here.

Columns and Datatypes

Tables are made up of columns. A column contains a particular piece of information
within a table.

New Term
Column A single field in a table. Every table is made up of one or more columns.

The best way to understand this is to envision database tables as grids, somewhat like
spreadsheets. Each column in the grid contains a particular piece of information. In a
customer table, for example, the customer number is stored in one column, the customer
name is stored in another, and the address, city, state, and zip code are all stored in their
own columns.

Tip
Breaking Up Data It is extremely important to break data into multiple columns
correctly. For example, city, state, and zip code should always be stored in separate columns.
By breaking these out, it becomes possible to sort or filter data by specific columns (for
example, to find all customers in a particular state or in a particular city). If city and state
are combined into one column, it would be extremely difficult to sort or filter by state.

Each column in a database has an associated datatype. A datatype defines what type of
data the column can contain. For example, if a column is to contain a number (perhaps
the number of items in an order), it would be associated with the numeric datatype.
4 Chapter 1 Understanding SQL

Columns that contain dates, text, notes, currency amounts, and so on would use the
appropriate datatypes.

New Term
Datatype A type of allowed data. Every table column has an associated datatype that
restricts (or allows) specific data in that column.

Datatypes restrict the type of data that can be stored in a column (for example,
preventing the entry of alphabetical characters into a numeric field). Datatypes also help
sort data correctly and play an important role in optimizing disk usage. As such, special
attention must be given to picking the right datatype when tables are created.

Rows
Data in a table is stored in rows; each record saved is stored in its own row. Again, if you
envision a table as a spreadsheet-style grid, the vertical columns in the grid are the table
columns, and the horizontal rows are the table rows.
For example, a customers table might store one customer per row. The number of
rows in the table is the number of records in the table.

New Term
Row A record in a table.

Note
Records or Rows? You might hear users refer to database records when referring to
rows. For the most part, the two terms are used interchangeably, but row is technically the
correct term.

Primary Keys
Every row in a table should have some column (or set of columns) that uniquely
identifies it. A table containing customers might use a customer number column for
this purpose, whereas a table containing orders might use the order ID. Similarly, an
employee list table might use an employee ID column.

New Term
Primary Key A column (or set of columns) whose values uniquely identify every row
in a table.
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his purpose, and advanced against Turin, whilst Moreau at the same
moment had resolved to retire to Turin and the crests of the
Apennines, in order to preserve his communications with France. On
the 27th of May, Vukassovitch, who commanded the advance guard
of the Russians, surprised Turin, and forced the French to take
refuge in the citadel, leaving in the hands of the victors nearly three
hundred pieces of artillery, sixty thousand muskets, and an
enormous quantity of ammunition and military stores. Moreau’s
army, thus deprived of all its resources, was saved from destruction
only by the extraordinary ability of its commander, who led it safely
towards Genoa by a mountain path, which was rendered practicable
for artillery, in four days. With the exception of a few fortresses,
nothing now remained to the French of all Napoleon’s conquests in
northern Italy; they had been lost in less time than it had taken to
make them.
Exulting in the brilliant success of his arms,
[1799 a.d.] Paul bestowed another surname, Italienski, or
the Italian, on his victorious general, and
ordered by an express ukase that Suvarov should be universally
regarded as the greatest commander that had ever appeared.
Meanwhile the results of his skill and vigour were neutralised by the
selfish policy of the Austrian court, which had become by the Treaty
of Campo Formio, and the acquisition of Venice, in some degree an
actual accomplice with the aggressors against whom it was in arms.
Suvarov was compelled to submit to the dictation of the emperor
Francis I, and deeply disgusted he declared that he was no longer of
any use in Italy, and that he desired nothing so ardently as to be
recalled.
The disasters of the French in upper Italy were fatal to their
ascendancy in the south, and Macdonald received orders to abandon
the Parthenopean Republic, and unite his forces with those of
Moreau. His retreat was exposed to great dangers by the universal
insurrection of the peasants; but he accomplished it with great
rapidity and skill. The two French commanders then concerted
measures to dislodge the allies from their conquests—a project
which seemed not unlikely to be fulfilled, so obstinately had the Aulic
council adhered to the old system of dispersing the troops all over
the territory which they occupied. Though the allies had above a
hundred thousand men in the field, they could hardly assemble thirty
thousand at any one point; and Macdonald might easily have
destroyed them in detail could he have fallen upon them at once;
but the time he spent in reorganising his army in Tuscany, and in
concerting measures with Moreau, was well employed by Suvarov in
promptly concentrating his forces. Macdonald advanced against him
with an army of thirty-seven thousand men, taking Modena on his
way, and driving Hohenzollern out of it after a bloody engagement.
The two armies met on the Trebbia, where a first and indecisive
action took place on the 17th of June; it was renewed on each of the
two following days, and victory finally remained with the Russians.
In this terrible battle of three days, the most obstinately contested
and bloody that had occurred since the beginning of the war, the
loss on both sides was excessive; that of the French was above
twelve thousand in killed and wounded, and that of the allies not
much less. But nearly equal losses told with very unequal severity on
the respective combatants; those of the allies would speedily be
retrieved by large reinforcements, but the republicans had expended
their last resources, were cut off from Moreau, and had no second
army to fall back upon. Macdonald with infinite difficulty regained
the positions he had occupied before the advance to the Trebbia,
after losing an immense number of prisoners.
The fall of the citadel of Turin on the 20th of June was of great
importance to the allies; for besides disengaging their besieging
force it put into their hands one of the strongest fortresses in
Piedmont, and an immense quantity of artillery and ammunition.
This event, and Suvarov’s victory on the Trebbia, checked the
successful operations of Moreau, and compelled him to fall back to
his former defensive position on the Apennines. Again, contrary to
Suvarov’s wishes, the allied forces were divided for the purpose of
reducing Mantua and Alexandria, and occupying Tuscany. After the
fall of those two fortresses, Suvarov laid siege to Tortona, when
Joubert, who had meanwhile superseded Moreau, marched against
him at the head of the combined forces of the French. On the 15th
of August, another desperate battle was fought at Novi, in which
Joubert was killed, but from which neither side derived any particular
advantage. The French returned to their former positions, and the
Italian campaign was ended.
Suvarov now received orders to join his forces with those under
Korsakov, who was on the Upper Rhine with thirty thousand men.
The archduke Charles might, even without this fresh reinforcement,
have already annihilated Massena had he not remained for three
months, from June to August, in complete inactivity; at the very
moment of Suvarov’s expected arrival, he allowed the important
passes of the St. Gotthard to be again carried by a coup-de-main by
the French, under General Lecourbe, who drove the Austrians from
the Simplon, the Furka, the Grimsel, and the Devil’s Bridge. The
archduke, after an unsuccessful attempt to push across the Aar at
Dettingen, suddenly quitted the scene of war and advanced down
the Rhine for the purpose of supporting the English expedition under
the duke of York against Holland. This unexpected turn in affairs
proceeded from Vienna. The Viennese cabinet was jealous of Russia.
Suvarov played the master in Italy, favoured Sardinia at the expense
of the house of Habsburg, and deprived the Austrians of the laurels
and the advantages they had won. The archduke, accordingly,
received orders to remain inactive, to abandon the Russians, and
finally to withdraw to the north; by this movement Suvarov’s
triumphant progress was checked, he was compelled to cross the
Alps to the aid of Korsakov, and to involve himself in a mountain
warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.
Korsakov, whom Bavaria had been bribed with Russian gold to
furnish with a corps one thousand strong, was supported solely by
Kray and Hotze with twenty thousand men. Massena, taking
advantage of the departure of the archduke and the non-arrival of
Suvarov, crossed the Limmat at Dietikon and shut Korsakov, who had
imprudently stationed himself with his whole army in Zurich, so
closely in that, after an engagement that lasted two days, from the
15th to the 17th of September, the Russian general was compelled
to abandon his artillery and to force his way through the enemy. Ten
thousand men were all that escaped. Hotze, who had advanced from
the Grisons to Schwyz to Suvarov’s rencontre, was, at the same
time, defeated and killed at Schanis. Suvarov, although aware that
the road across the St. Gotthard was blocked by the Lake of
Lucerne, on which there were no boats, had the temerity to attempt
the passage. In Airolo, he was obstinately opposed by the French
under Lecourbe, and, although Shveikovski contrived to turn this
strong position by scaling the pathless rocks, numbers of the men
were, owing to Suvarov’s impatience, sacrificed before it.
On the 24th of September, 1799, he at length climbed the St.
Gotthard, and a bloody engagement, in which the French were
worsted, took place on the Oberalpsee. Lecourbe blew up the Devil’s
Bridge, but, leaving the Urnerloch open, the Russians pushed
through that rocky gorge, and, dashing through the foaming Reuss,
scaled the opposite rocks and drove the French from their position
behind the Devil’s Bridge. Altorf on the lake was reached in safety by
the Russian general, who was compelled, owing to the want of
boats, to seek his way through the valleys of Schächen and Muotta,
across the almost impassable rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains
rendered the undertaking still more arduous; the Russians, owing to
the badness of the road, were speedily barefoot; the provisions were
also exhausted. In this wretched state they reached Muotta on the
29th of September and learned the discouraging news of Korsakov’s
defeat. Massena had already set off in the hope of cutting off
Suvarov, but had missed his way. He reached Altorr, where he joined
Lecourbe on the 29th, when Suvarov was already at Muotta, whence
Massena found on his arrival that he had again retired across the
Bragelburg, through the Klönthal. He was opposed on the lake of
Klönthal by Molitor, who was, however, forced to retire by
Auffenberg, who had joined Suvarov at Altorf and formed his
advanced guard, Rosen, at the same time, beating off Massena with
the rearguard, taking five cannon and one thousand of his men
prisoners. On the 1st of October, Suvarov entered Glarus, where he
rested until the 4th, when he crossed the Panixer Mountains through
snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine, which he reached on
the 10th, after losing the whole of his beasts of burden and two
hundred of his men down the precipices; and here ended his
extraordinary march, which had cost him the whole of his artillery,
almost all his horses, and a third of his men.
The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where he had
taken Philippsburg and Mannheim, but had been unable to prevent
the defeat of the English expedition under the duke of York by
General Brune at Bergen, on the 19th of September. The archduke
now, for the first time, made a retrograde movement, and
approached Korsakov and Suvarov. The different leaders, however,
did nothing but find fault with each other, and the czar, perceiving
his project frustrated, suddenly recalled his troops, and the
campaign came to a close.
Paul’s anger fell without measure or reason on his armies and
their chiefs. All the officers who were missing, that is to say who
were prisoners in France, were broken as deserters, and Suvarov,
instead of being well received with well merited honours, was
deprived of his command and not suffered to see the emperor’s
face. This unjust severity broke the veteran’s heart. He died soon
after his return to St. Petersburg; and no Russian courtier, nor any
member of the diplomatic body except the English ambassador,
followed his remains to the grave.

PAUL RECONCILED WITH FRANCE (1800 A.D.)

Frustrated in the objects for which he had

[1800 a.d.] engaged in war, Paul was now in a mood easily
to be moved to turn his arms against the allies
who had deceived his hopes. He had fought for the re-establishment
of monarchy in France, and of the old status quo in Europe; and the
only result had been the aggrandisement of Austria, his own
immediate neighbour, of whom he had much more reason to be
jealous than of the remote power of France. The rapid steps, too,
which Bonaparte was taking for the restoration of monarchical forms
in that country were especially calculated to conciliate Paul’s good-
will towards the first consul. The latter and his able ministers
promptly availed themselves of this favourable disposition through
the connections they had made in St. Petersburg. Fouché had such
confidential correspondence even with ladies in the Russian capital,
that he afterwards received the earliest and most correct intelligence
of the emperor’s murder. Two persons at the court of St. Petersburg
were next gained over to France, or rather to Bonaparte’s rising
empire; these were the minister Rostoptchin, and the emperor’s
favourite, the Turk Kutaisov, who had risen with unusual rapidity
from the situation of the emperor’s barber to the rank of one of the
first Russian nobles. He was also nearly connected by relationship
with Rostoptchin.
Rostoptchin first found means to send away General Dumourier
from St. Petersburg, whither he had come for the purpose of
carrying on his intrigues in favour of the Bourbons. He next sought
to bring Louis Cobenzl also into discredit with the emperor, and he
succeeded in this, shortly before the opening of the campaign in
Italy in 1800, when the cabinet of Vienna was called upon to give a
plain and direct answer to the questions peremptorily put by the
emperor of Russia. Paul required that the cabinet should answer,
without if or but, without circumlocution or reserve, whether or not
Austria would, according to the terms of the treaty, restore the pope
and the king to their dominions and sovereignty. Cobenzl was
obliged to reply that if Austria were to give back Piedmont to the
king of Sardinia it must still retain Tortona and Alessandria; and that
it never would restore the three legations and Ancona. The measure
of the emperor’s indignation was now full; he forbade Count Cobenzl
the court, and at a later period not only ordered him to leave the
country, but would not even allow an embassy or chargé-d’affaires
to remain.
The emperor proceeded more deliberately with regard to the
English. At first he acted as if he had no desire to break with them;
and he even allowed the Russians, whom they had hired for the
expedition against Holland, to remain in Guernsey under Viomesnil’s
command, in order to assist their employers in an expedition against
Brittany. The English government, however, at length provoked him
to extremities. They refused to redeem the Russians who had been
made prisoners in their service, by giving in exchange for them an
equal number of French, of whom their prisons were full; they
refused to listen to any arrangements respecting the grand
mastership of the knights of Malta, or even as to the protectorate of
the order, and gave the clearest intimations that they meant to keep
the island for themselves. Bonaparte seized upon this favourable
moment for flattering the emperor, by acting as if he had really more
respect for Paul than the two powers for whom he had made such
magnanimous sacrifices. Whilst the English refused to redeem the
Russians made prisoners in their service by exchange, Bonaparte set
them free without either exchange or ransom.
The emperor of Germany had broken his word, and neither
restored the pope nor the king of Sardinia, whilst Bonaparte
voluntarily offered to restore the one and give compensation to the
other. He assailed the emperor in a masterly manner on his weak
side, causing the six or seven thousand Russians, whom the English
refused to exchange, to be provided with new clothing and arms,
and he wrote a letter to Panin, the Russian minister, in which he said
that he was unwilling to suffer such brave soldiers as these Russians
were to remain longer away from their native land on account of the
English. In the same letter he paid another compliment to the
emperor, and threw an apple of mortal strife between him and
England. Knowing as he did that his garrison in Malta could not hold
out much longer, he offered to place the island in the hands of the
emperor Paul, as a third party. This was precisely what the emperor
desired; and Sprengporten, who was sent to France to bring away
the Russians, and to thank the first consul, was to occupy Malta with
them. The Russians were either to be conveyed thither by Nelson,
who up to this time had kept the island closely blockaded, and was
daily expecting its surrender, or at least he was to be ordered to let
them pass; but both he and the English haughtily rejected the
Russian mediation.
Paul now came to a complete breach with England. First of all he
recalled his Russian troops from Guernsey, but on this occasion he
was again baffled. It was of great importance to the English cabinet
that Bonaparte should not immediately hear of the decided breach
which had taken place between them and the emperor, and they
therefore prevailed upon Viomesnil, an émigré, who had the
command of the Russians in Guernsey, to remain some weeks
longer, in opposition to the emperor’s will. Paul was vehemently
indignant at this conduct; Viomesnil, however, entered the English
service, and was provided for by the English government in Portugal.
Lord Whitworth was next obliged to leave Russia, as Count
Cobenzl had previously been. Paul recalled his ambassadors from the
courts of Vienna and London, and forthwith sent Count Kalitchev to
Paris to enter into friendly negotiations with Bonaparte. In the
meantime, the English had recourse to some new subterfuges, and
promised, that in case Malta capitulated, they would consent to
allow the island to be administered, till the conclusion of a peace, by
commissioners appointed by Russia, England, and Naples. Paul had
already named Bailli de la Ferrette for this purpose; but the English
refused to acknowledge his nominee, and even to receive the
Neapolitans in Malta. Before this took place, however, the emperor
had come to issue with England on a totally different question.
The idea of a union among the neutral powers, in opposition to
the right alleged by England, when at war with any power
whatsoever, to subject the ships of all neutral powers to search, had
been relinquished by the empress Catherine in 1781, to please the
English ambassador at her court; Paul now resumed the idea.
Bonaparte intimated his concurrence, and Paul followed up the
matter with great energy and zeal, as in this way he had an
opportunity of exhibiting himself in the character of an imperial
protector of the weak, a defender of justice and right, and as the
head of a general alliance of the European powers. Prussia also now
appeared to do homage to him, for the weak king was made to
believe, that by a close alliance between Russia and France, he
might be helped to an extension of territory and an increase of
subjects, without danger or cost to himself, or without war, which he
abhorred beyond everything else. The first foundation, therefore, for
an alliance between Russia and France, was laid in Berlin, where
Beurnonville, the French ambassador, was commissioned to enter
into negotiations with the Russian minister Von Krüderer.
Beurnonville promised, in Bonaparte’s name, that the Russian
mediation in favour of Naples and Sardinia would be accepted, and
that, in the question of compensations for the German princes
particular regard would be had to the cases of Baden and
Würtemberg.

THE ARMED NEUTRALITY (1800 A.D.)

As to the armed neutrality by sea against England, Prussia could

easily consent to join this alliance, because she had in fact no navy;
but it was much more difficult for Sweden and Denmark, whose
merchant ships were always accompanied by frigates. In case,
therefore, the neutral powers came to an understanding that no
merchant vessels which were accompanied by a ship of war should
be compelled to submit to a search, this might at any time involve
them in hostilities with England. In addition to Denmark, Sweden,
and Prussia, which, under Paul’s protectorate, were to conclude an
alliance for the protection of trading vessels belonging to neutral
powers against the arrogant claims of England, Bonaparte
endeavoured to prevail upon the North Americans to join the
alliance. They were the only parties who, by a specific treaty in
1794, had acknowledged as a positive right what the others only
submitted to as an unfounded pretension on the part of England. On
that occasion the Americans had broken with the French Republic on
the subject of his treaty, and Barras and Talleyrand had been
shameless enough to propose that the Americans should pay a
gratuity, in order to effect a renewal of their old friendship with
France, which proposal, however, the Americans treated with
contempt.
On the 30th of September, 1800, their ambassadors concluded an
agreement at Bonaparte’s country seat of Morfontaine, which
referred especially to the resistance which all the neutral powers
under the protectorate of the emperor of Russia were desirous of
making to the pretensions and claims of England. The Americans
first of all declared that neutral flags should make a neutral cargo,
except in cases where the ship was actually laden with goods
contraband of war. It was afterwards precisely defined what were to
be considered goods contraband of war. By the fourth article it was
determined that neutral ships must submit to be detained, but that
the ships of war so detaining a merchantman with a view to search
should remain at least at the distance of a cannon-shot, and only be
allowed to send a boat with three men to examine the ship’s papers
and cargo; and that in all cases in which a merchantman should be
under convoy of a ship of war, no right of search should exist,
because the presence of the convoy should be regarded as a
sufficient guarantee against contraband. Inasmuch as England and
Denmark were at open issue concerning this last point, the
Americans would have been inevitably involved in the dispute had
they immediately ratified the treaty of Morfontaine: they were,
however, far too cunning to fall into this difficulty; and they did not
therefore ratify the treaty till the Russian confederation had been
dissolved.
Sweden and Denmark had come to issue with England concerning
the right of search in 1798 and 1799, when four frigates, two
Swedish and two Danish, were captured and brought into English
ports. True, they were afterwards given up, but without any
satisfaction, for the English still insisted upon the right of search.
The dispute became most vehement in the case of the Danish
frigate Freya, which, together with the merchantmen under her
convoy, were brought into an English port, after a sharp engagement
on the 25th of July, 1800; and the English, aware of the hostile
negotiations which were going on in the north, at once despatched
an expedition against Denmark.
Sixteen English ships of war suddenly appeared before
Copenhagen, and most unexpectedly threatened the harbour and
city with a destructive bombardment, if Denmark did not at once
acknowledge England’s right of search at sea. Had this
acknowledgment been made, Bonaparte’s and the emperor’s plan
would have been frustrated in its very origin; but Denmark had the
good fortune to possess, in its minister Bernstorff, the greatest
diplomatist of the whole revolutionary era, who contrived for that
time to save Copenhagen without the surrender of any rights. It was
quite impossible to resist by force, but he refused to enter upon the
question of right or wrong; and in the agreement which he signed
with Lord Whitworth on the 25th of August, 1800, he consented that
in the meantime all occasion for dispute should be avoided, and thus
the difficulty be postponed or removed. Denmark bound herself no
longer to send her merchantmen under convoy—whereupon the
Freya, and the vessels by which she was accompanied, were set at
liberty. On this occasion the emperor Paul offered himself as
arbitrator; and when Lord Whitworth rejected his interference or
arbitration, he immediately laid an embargo on all the English ships
in Russian ports.
The news of the agreement entered into at Copenhagen, however,
no sooner reached St. Petersburg, than this first embargo was
removed, and the dispute carried on merely in a diplomatic manner.
At last the emperor Paul put an end to this paper war, when Vaubois,
who had defended Malta since July, 1798, against the English,
Russians, Neapolitans, and sometimes also the Portuguese, at length
capitulated, on the 5th of September, 1800. The island was taken
military possession of by the English without any reference whatever
to the order, to Naples, to the promise which they had made to the
emperor, or to Bailli de la Ferrette, whom Paul had named as the
representative of the order. As soon as this news reached St.
Petersburg, Paul’s rage and indignation knew no bounds. On the 7th
of November, he not only laid an embargo upon three hundred
English ships then in his ports, but sent the whole of their crews into
the interior of Russia, and allowed them only a few kopecks a day
for their support.
Lord Carysfort, the English ambassador in Berlin, was unable for
six weeks to obtain any answer from the Prussian government with
respect to its connection with the northern confederation, although
he insisted strongly upon it; and yet Stedingk, the Swedish minister,
and Rosenkranz, the Danish minister, had signed the agreement for
an armed neutrality in the form of that of 1780 as early as the 17th
of December, 1800, in St. Petersburg, and the Prussian minister, Von
Luft, in the name of his king, had signified his acceptance of the
alliance on the 18th. When Lord Carysfort at length obtained an
answer on the 12th of February to his demands, so long and
repeatedly urged in vain, Haugwitz had drawn it up equivocally both
in form and contents. The emperor of Russia was so indignant at the
ambiguity that he not only expressed his feelings on the subject
warmly, but also took some hostile measures against Prussia.
On the other hand, the emperor invited Gustavus IV to St.
Petersburg where he was received with the greatest splendour. He
arrived at St. Petersburg at Christmas, 1800, and immediately, as if
to insult the English, a grand meeting of the order of Malta was
held; the king himself was loaded with marks of honour of every
possible description, and at the end of December he signed a new
agreement, by which the objects of that of the 16th of the same
month were greatly enlarged. In the former alliance defensive
operations alone were contemplated; but now offensive measures
were also agreed upon, with the reservation, indeed, if they should
become necessary. Paul took measures to refit his fleet, and an army
was equipped which was to be placed under the commands of
Soltikov, Pahlen, and Kutusov; the Danish fleet was in good
condition; the Russian minister in Paris appeared to regard the
circumstances as very favourable for gaining Hanover to his master
without danger or risk; and Pitt himself considered the state of
affairs so unfavourable, that he seriously contemplated the propriety
of retiring and making way for a new ministry, in order to render a
peace possible. This close confederacy against England was,
however, dissolved at the very moment in which the first consul
appeared to be disposed to favour Naples and Sardinia, in order to
gratify the wishes of the emperor of Russia.

ASSASSINATION OF PAUL (1801 A.D.)

The catastrophe in St. Petersburg is easily

[1801 a.d.] explained by the continually changing humours
of the emperor, by his mental derangement,
which had been constantly on the increase for several months
previous to his murder, by the acts of violence and injustice which he
suffered himself to commit, and by the dreadful apprehension which
prevailed among all classes of society, from the empress and the
grand duke down to the very lowest citizen. The emperor’s sober
and rational intervals became progressively rarer, so that no man
was sure for an instant either of his place or his life; thousands of
persons completely innocent were sent to Siberia, and yet goodness
and mildness alternated with cruel severity. The emperor one while
exhibited the most striking magnanimity, at another the meanest
vindictiveness.
The beautiful and virtuous empress had patiently submitted to her
husband’s preference for the plain Nelidov, who at least treated her
with honour and respect; but she was obliged also to submit to his
attachment to Lopukhin, who continually provoked strife. She
endured these things patiently, lived on good terms with the
emperor, slept immediately under his chambers, and yet neither she
nor her sons, Alexander and Constantine, were able to escape the
suspicions of his morbid mind. It was whispered, by persons in the
confidence of the court, that the emperor had said he would send
the empress to Kalamagan, in the government of Astrakhan,
Alexander to Shlüsselburg, and Constantine to the citadel of St.
Petersburg. It is not worth while to inquire what truth there may
have been in these reports; everyone felt that the time had arrived
to have recourse to the only means which can be employed in
despotic kingdoms for effecting a complete change in the measures
of government. This means is the murder of the despot, which in
such circumstances was usually effected in the Roman Empire by the
Pretorians, in Constantinople by the Janizaries, or by a clamorous
and infuriated mob, in St. Petersburg by a number of confederated
nobles; and in all these cases was regarded as a sort of necessary
appendage to the existing constitution.
Rostoptchin, the minister, who had long possessed the emperor’s
confidence, was dismissed and in disgrace; and Count Pahlen, who
was at the head of the emperor’s dreadful police, was suddenly and
excessively favoured. He, too, observed, when he had reached the
highest pinnacle, that he began to be suspected. The count was an
Esthonian by birth, a man of a cold, deep, and faithless disposition,
and the instrument of all the cruelties and severities which had been
exercised by the emperor. He was also commander-in-chief of all the
troops in the capital, and since the 10th of March had become a
member of the ministry for foreign affairs. Up to this period he had
been successful in discovering and frustrating all the real or
pretended attempts at dethroning the emperor, but he now formed a
conspiracy against him, because he knew that Paul had called to his
aid two formidable assistants, to use them against himself in case of
necessity. The emperor had previously sent away from St.
Petersburg and now recalled Lindner and Araktcheiev, two of his
most dreadful instruments of violence, the latter of whom played a
fearful part in Russia even during the reign of the mild and clement
emperor Alexander. Pahlen had previously taken his measures in
such a manner that a number of those to whom the murder of an
emperor was no novelty were at that time collected in St.
Petersburg, and only waited for a hint, either with or without Pahlen,
to fall upon the emperor, who had personally given them mortal
offence.
Valerian, Nicholas, and Plato Zubov had first been publicly
affronted by the emperor like the Orlovs, and afterwards dismissed;
they remained under compulsory absence in Germany till they found
a medium for securing the favour of the only person who had any
influence over the emperor. This medium was the French actress,
Chevalier, who ruled the Turk Kutaisov (formerly a valet de chambre,
but now adorned with all possible titles, honours, and orders, with
the broad ribbon and stars of Europe), and through him ruled the
emperor. Chevalier obtained permission for the Zubovs to return to
the court, and Plato held Kutaisov bound by his expressed intention
of marrying the Turk’s daughter. Plato had been previously
commander-in-chief of the army, and could, in case of need, reckon
upon it with the greater certainty, as it had been made discontented
by the gross and ridiculous treatment of the generals of the whole
army, and even of such a man as Suvarov.
Participators in a plan for setting aside the emperor were easily
found among the nobles, as soon as it became certain that there
was nothing to fear. It was necessary, however, to obtain the
consent of the two eldest grand dukes; but not a word was said of
the murder, but merely of the removal of their father from the
government. Alexander was not easily prevailed upon to acquiesce in
the deposition of his father, as, however numerous Alexander’s
failings in other respects may have been, both he and his mother
were persons of gentle hearts. Pahlen undertook the business of
persuading the prince, for which he was by far the best fitted,
inasmuch as he knew all the secrets of the court, and combined all
power in himself; he therefore succeeded in convincing the imperial
family of the dangers with which they themselves were threatened,
and of the necessity of deposing the emperor. He appears to have
prevailed with Alexander by showing that he could only guard
against a greater evil by consenting to his father’s dethronement.
Certain it is at least, that Alexander signed the proclamation,
announcing his own assumption of the reins of government, two
hours before the execution of the deed by the conspirators.
The emperor with his family lived in the Mikhailov palace; the 23rd
of March, 1801, was chosen for the accomplishment of the deed, for
on that day the Semenovski battalion of guards was on duty at the
palace. The most distinguished men among the conspirators were
the Zubov, General Count Benningsen, a Hanoverian, who had
distinguished himself in the Polish wars under Catherine,
Tchitchakov, Tartarinov, Tolstoi, Iashvel, Iesselovitch, and Uvarov,
together with Count Pahlen himself, who did not accompany the
others into the emperor’s bedchamber, but had taken his measures
so skilfully that, if the enterprise failed, he might appear as his
deliverer. Very shortly before the execution of the deed, Pahlen
communicated the design to General Talitzin, colonel of the regiment
of Preobrajenski guards, to General Deporadevitch, colonel of the
Semonovski guards, together with some fifty other officers whom he
entertained on the night on which the murder was committed.
On the evening before his death Paul received, when sitting at
supper with his mistress, a note from Prince Mechereki, warning him
of his danger, and revealing the names of the conspirators. He
handed it unopened to Kutaisov, saying he would read it on the
morrow. Kutaisov put it in his pocket, and left it there when he
changed his dress next day to dine with the emperor. He turned to
get it, but Paul growing impatient sent for him in a hurry, and the
trembling courtier came back without the letter on which so much
depended. On the night of the 3rd Paul went early to bed; soon
afterwards the conspirators repaired to his apartment, the outer
door of which was opened to them in compliance with the demand
of Argamakov, an aide-de-camp, who pretended that he was come
to make his report to the emperor. A Cossack who guarded the door
of the bedroom offered resistance and was cut down. The
conspirators rushed in and found the bed empty. “He has escaped
us,” cried some of them. “That he has not,” said Benningsen. “No
weakness, or I will put you all to death.” Putting his hand on the
bed-clothes and feeling them warm, he observed that the emperor
could not be far off, and presently he discovered him crouching
behind a screen. The conspirators required him to sign his
abdication. He refused, a conflict ensued; a sash was passed round
his neck, and he was strangled after a desperate resistance.
Alexander was seized with the most passionate grief when he
learned at what a price he had acquired the crown. He had supped
with his father at nine o’clock, and at eleven he took possession of
the empire, by a document which had been drawn up and signed
two hours and a half previously. The most dreadful thing of all,
however, was that he was obliged not only to suffer the two chief
conspirators, Zubov and Pahlen, to remain about his person, but to
allow them to share the administration of the empire between them.
It was a piece of good fortune that those two thoroughly wicked
men were of very different views, by which means he was first
enabled to remove Pahlen, and afterwards Zubov also. Their
associates, however, remained, and at a later period we shall find
Count Benningsen at the head of the army which was to deliver
Prussia after the battle of Jena.
Paul was twice married: by his first wife, Nathalie Alexeievna,
princess of Hesse Darmstadt, who died in 1776, he had no family; by
his second, Marie Feodorovna, princess of Würtemberg, who died in
1828, he had ten children, the eldest of whom, Alexander by name,
now succeeded to the imperial throne.

THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER I (1801 A.D.); HIS EARLY

REFORMS

The accession of Alexander was hailed with sincere and universal

delight, not only as an escape from the wretched and extravagant
reign of Paul, but as the opening fulfilment of the expectations which
had long been anxiously fixed on his heir. The new monarch was
twenty-five years of age, of majestic figure and noble countenance,
though his features were not perfectly regular. He possessed an
acute mind, a generous heart, and a most winning grace of manner.
“Still,” says M. Thiers, “there might be discerned in him traces of
hereditary infirmity. His mind, lively, changeable, and susceptible,
was continually impressed with the most contrary ideas. But this
remarkable prince was not always led away by such momentary
impulses; he united with his extensive and versatile comprehension
a profound secretiveness which baffled the closest observation. He
was well-meaning, and a dissembler at the same time.” Napoleon
said of him at St. Helena, “The emperor of Russia possesses abilities,
grace, and information; he is fascinating, but one cannot trust him;
he is a true Greek of the Lower Empire; he is, or pretends to be, a
metaphysician; his faults are those of his education, or of his
preceptor. What discussions have I not had with him! He maintained
that hereditary right was an abuse, and I had to expend all my
eloquence and logic during a full hour to prove that hereditary right
maintains the repose and happiness of nations. Perhaps he wished
to mystify me; for he is cunning, false, and skilful.”
In the beginning of Alexander’s reign reform succeeded reform,
and all Europe applauded. He quickly put a stop to the system of
terror and to the absurd vexations which Paul had introduced. He
disgraced the instruments who had worked out the will of that poor
maniac; he repaired the crying injustice which had been committed;
he once more abolished the terrible secret inquisition, but, as we
already said, it was again established by his successor. He instituted
a permanent council, and contemplated the complete reorganisation
of the administration of the interior. He relaxed the rigour of the
censorship of the press, and granted permission to introduce foreign
works. He reduced the taxes and the expenditure of the court; and
in the first year of his reign he abstained from exacting the recruits
for his army, an exaction odious to those whom it affects, and
therefore often accompanied with fearful violences.
He applied himself most diligently to affairs, and laboured almost
as much as his grandmother, who had devoted three hours to the
concerns of the state when her ministers came to confer with her.
He required detailed reports from all the higher officers of state; and
having examined them, caused them to be published, a thing never
before heard of in Russia. He abolished punishment by torture;
forbade the confiscation of hereditary property; solemnly declared
that he would not endure the habit of making grants of peasants, a
practice till then common with the autocrats, and forbade the
announcement in public journals of sales of human beings. He
applied himself to the reform of the tribunals; established pecuniary
fines for magistrates convicted of evading or violating their duties;
constituted the senate a high court of justice, and divided it into
seven departments in order to provide against the slowness of law
proceedings; and re-established the commission which had been
appointed by Catherine for the compilation of a code. He applied
himself to the protection of commerce; made regulations for the
benefit of navigation, and extended and improved the
communication in the interior of his empire. He did much to promote
general education, and established several new universities with
large numbers of subsidiary schools. He permitted every subject of
his empire to choose his own avocation in life, regardless of
restraints formerly imposed with respect to rank, and removed the
prohibition on foreign travel which had been enacted in the last
reign. He permitted his nobles to sell to their serfs, along with their
personal freedom, portions of land which should thus become the
bona fide property of the serf purchaser—a measure by which he
fondly hoped to lay the basis of a class of free cultivators. It was
under his auspices that his mother, Marie Feodorovna, founded many
hospitals and educational institutes, both for nobles and burghers,
which will immortalise her name.
One of the first acts of Alexander’s reign was to give orders that
the British sailors who had been taken from the ships laid under
sequestration, and marched into the interior, should be set at liberty
and carefully conducted at the public expense to the ports from
which they had been severally taken. At the same time all
prohibitions against the export of corn were removed—a measure of
no small importance to the famishing population of the British Isles,
and hardly less material to the gorged proprietors of Russian
produce. The young emperor shortly after wrote a letter with his
own hand to the king of England, expressing in the warmest terms
his desire to re-establish the amicable relations of the two empires;
a declaration which was received with no less joy in London than in
St. Petersburg. The British cabinet immediately sent Lord St. Helens
to the Russian capital, and on the 17th of June a treaty was
concluded, which limited and defined the right of search, and which
Napoleon denounced as “an ignominious treaty, equivalent to an
admission of the sovereignty of the seas in the British parliament,
and the slavery of all other states.” In the same year (October 4-8)
Alexander also concluded treaties of peace with France and Spain;
for between Russia and the former power there had previously
existed only a cessation of hostilities, without any written
convention.

THE INCORPORATION OF GEORGIA

The incorporation of Georgia with the empire, an event long

prepared by the insidious means habitually employed by Russia, was
consummated in this year. The people of Georgia have always had a
high reputation for valour, but at the end of the seventeenth century
they suffered immensely from the Tatars and the Lesghians. Russia
supported Georgia, not sufficiently indeed to prevent the enemy
from destroying Tiflis, but quite enough to prove to the country that,
once under the Russian rule, it would be safe from the Mussulmans.
Alexander’s manifesto of the 12th of September, 1801, says that he
accepts the weight of the Georgian throne, not for the sake of
extending the empire, already so large, but only from humanity!
Even in Russia very few could believe that the Georgians
surrendered themselves to the czar from a spontaneous
acknowledgment of the superiority of the Russian rule, and of its
ability to make the people happy; to disabuse themselves of any
such notion, they had but to look at the queen of Georgia, Maria,
who was detained at St. Petersburg, in the Tauric palace—a name
that might well remind her of the treacherous acquisition of another
kingdom. She rode through the streets in one of the court carriages,
and her features expressed great affliction. The covering which she
wore on her head, as usual in Georgia, prevented the people from
seeing the scars of the sabre wounds she had received before she
quitted the country. Her consort, George XIII, had bequeathed the
kingdom to the Russians, but she protested against the act; and
when the Russian colonel Lazarev came to carry her away to St.
Petersburg, she refused to go with him. He was about to use
violence, but the queen took out a poniard from her bosom and
stabbed him. The interpreter drew his sabre and gave her several
cuts on the head, so that she fell down insensible.

RUSSIA JOINS THE THIRD COALITION

Concurrently with his domestic reforms,

[1803 a.d.] Alexander occupied himself in an extensive
series of negotiations, having for their object
the general settlement of Europe upon such new bases as the
results of the last war had rendered necessary. In particular, he was
engaged as joint arbiter with Bonaparte in the matter of the
indemnifications to be made to those princes who had lost a part or
the whole of their possessions by the cession of the left bank of the
Rhine. Alexander was secretly dissatisfied with the part he was made
to play in these transactions, for the authority which he shared in
appearance with Bonaparte, was in reality monopolised by the latter.
He abstained, however, from remonstrating, contenting himself for
the present with the outward show of respect paid to his empire,
and with a precedent which, added to that of Teschen, established in
future the right of Russia to mix itself up in the affairs of Germany.
The Peace of Amiens between France and England was broken, and
a war was declared on the 18th of May, 1803, between the two
powers, which was ultimately to involve the whole of Europe.
Meanwhile, many cases were arising to increase Alexander’s
displeasure against Bonaparte.
The relations between Russia and France were at this time of such
a nature that the Russian chancellor, Vorontzov, said plainly, in a
note of the 18th of July, that if the war were to be prolonged
between France and England, Russia would be compelled finally to
take part in it. Before this declaration on the part of Russia,
Bonaparte had a scene with Markov, which alone might well have
caused a rupture. He addressed the Russian ambassador, in a public
audience, so rudely and violently that even Bignon, who is disposed
to worship Bonaparte as a demi-god, is obliged to confess that his
hero entirely lost his dignity, and forgot his position.
 When
[1803-1805 a.d.] Markov
withdrew in
November, he left his secretary
of legation, D’Oubril, as acting
ambassador in his place.
Everyone, however, foresaw a
breach at no very distant period;
and Russia had already, in the
autumn of 1803, when nothing
was to be done with Prussia,
entered into a closer connection
with England. Negotiations were
also commenced with Austria,
and a union with Sweden and
Denmark, for the purpose of Alexander I
liberating Hanover, was spoken (1777-1825)
of. This was the state of affairs
at the beginning of 1804: the
murder of the duke d’Enghien brought matters to a crisis. The
mother of the Russian emperor had been all along hostile to
everything proceeding from Bonaparte; and the mild and gentle
spirit of the emperor, like that of all persons of good feeling in
Europe, was deeply wounded by the fate of the duke. From the
beginning of 1804, he had no further political reasons for keeping up
a friendly relation with France; he therefore gave himself up entirely
to his natural feelings on hearing of the catastrophe at Vincennes.
By the declarations interchanged between the courts of St.
Petersburg and Berlin (May 3rd and 24th, 1805), it was agreed that
they should not allow the French troops in Germany to go beyond
the frontier of Hanover; and that should this happen, each of the
two powers should employ 40,000 men to repel such an attempt. A
convention was also signed between Russia and Austria before the
end of the year, and they agreed to set on foot an army of 350,000
men. England, under the administration of William Pitt, added her
strength to these combinations, and united the several powers in a
third coalition for the purpose of wresting from France the countries
subdued by it since 1792, reducing that kingdom within its ancient
limits, and finally introducing into Europe a general system of public
right. The plan was the same as that which ten years afterwards was
executed by the Grand Alliance; it failed in 1805, because the
participation of Prussia, on which the allies had reckoned, was, from
the most ignoble motives withheld.
The negotiations of the several treaties connected with the
coalition, occupied the greater part of the year 1805. By the Treaty
of St. Petersburg (August 11th), between Great Britain and Russia, it
was agreed that Alexander should make another attempt for
arranging matters with Bonaparte, so as to prevent the war. The
Russian minister Novosiltzov was sent to Paris by way of Berlin,
where he received the passports procured for him from the French
cabinet by that of Prussia; but at the same time, orders reached him
from St. Petersburg, countermanding his journey. The annexation of
the Ligurian Republic to France, at the moment when the allies were
making conciliatory overtures to Napoleon, appeared to the emperor
too serious an outrage to allow of his prosecuting further
negotiations. War was consequently resolved on.

THE CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ (1805 A.D.)

Napoleon seemed to be wholly intent on his

[1805 a.d.] design of invading England. Part of his troops
had already embarked (August 27th), when on
a sudden the camp of Boulogne was broken up, and the army put in
march towards the Rhine, which river it passed within a month after.
Austria had set on foot three armies. The archduke Charles
commanded that of Italy; his brother John was stationed with the
second army on the Tyrol; and the third was commanded nominally
by the archduke Frederick, the emperor’s cousin, but in reality by
General Mack. The first Russian army under Kutusov had arrived in
Galicia, and was continuing its march in all haste. It was followed by
another under Michelson. The Russian troops in Dalmatia were to
attempt a landing in Italy.
Mack having crossed the Inn (September 8th), and entered
Swabia, Napoleon’s plan was to cut him off from the army of
Kutusov, which was marching through Austria. In this he succeeded
by a violation of the Prussian territory. Marmont, who had marched
by way of Mainz, and Bernadotte, who had conducted an army into
Franconia, where they were joined by the Bavarians, traversed the
country of Anspach, and thus came on the rear of the Austrian army
(October 6th). From that date, scarcely a day passed without a
battle favourable to the French. Several Austrian divisions were
forced to lay down their arms. Mack, who had thrown himself into
Ulm, lost all resolution, and capitulated with 25,000 men (October
19th). Mack’s army was thus totally dissipated, except 6000 cavalry,
with which the archduke Ferdinand had opened himself a passage
through Franconia, and 20,000 men, with whom Kienmayer had
retired to Braunau, where he was met by the vanguard of Kutusov.
The two generals continued their retreat. The Russians repassed the
Danube near Grein (November 9th), and directed their march
towards Moravia. A few days after (November 13th), Vienna fell into
the hands of the French. The Austrians had renounced the design of
defending their capital, but decided that the passage of the river
should be disputed.
Vienna is situated at some distance from the Danube, which flows
to the right of the city between wooded islands. The Austrians had
placed explosive materials under the floorings of the wooden bridge
which crosses the several arms of the river, and were ready to blow
it up the moment the French should show themselves. They kept
themselves in readiness on the left bank, with their artillery pointed,
and a corps of 7000 or 8000 men, commanded by Count Auersberg.
The French, nevertheless, got possession of the bridge by
stratagem. Murat, Lannes, Belliard, and their staff, leaving their
troops behind them, crossed the bridge, told the Austrians that an
armistice was agreed on, and asked to see their general. He was
sent for. Meanwhile, the French officers kept the Austrian gunners in
conversation, and gave time for a column of French grenadiers to
come up unseen, under cover of the woods, seize the cannon, and
disarm the artillerymen. The Austrian commander who had come to
the spot just at the critical moment, fell completely into the trap. He
himself led the French column over the bridge, and ordered the
Austrian troops to be drawn up on parade to receive them as
friends. The possession of the bridge afforded the French troops the
means of reaching Znaim sooner than Kutusov, and thus preventing
his junction with Buxhövden.
Meanwhile, Alexander had gone to Berlin, to exert his personal
influence over the timorous king, and prevail on him to abandon his
wretched neutral policy, in which there was neither honour, honesty,
nor safety. Alexander was warmly seconded by the beautiful queen
of Prussia, and by the archduke Anthony, who arrived at the same
time on a special mission from Vienna. French influence rapidly
declined in Berlin; Duroc left it on the 2nd of November, without
having been able to obtain an audience, for some days previously,
either from the king or the emperor; and on the following day a
secret convention was signed between the two monarchs for the
regulation of the affairs of Europe, and the erection of a barrier
against the ambition of the French emperor.
The Prussian minister Haugwitz, who had signed this convention
only to gain time, and with a secret determination to elude its
provisions, was to be entrusted with the notification of it to
Napoleon, with authority, in case of its acceptance, to offer a
renewal of the former friendship and alliance of the Prussian nation;
but in case of refusal, to declare war, with an intimation that
hostilities would begin on the 15th of December—when they would
be too late. Before that day came, Prussia relapsed into her old
temporising habits; her armies made no forward movement towards
the Danube, and Napoleon was permitted to continue without
interruption his advance to Vienna, while 80,000 disciplined veterans
remained inactive in Silesia; a force amply sufficient to have thrown
him back with disgrace and disaster to the Rhine.
 A characteristic scene took place at Potsdam during Alexander’s
visit. The king, the queen, and the emperor went one night by
torchlight into the vault where lay the coffin of Frederick the Great.
They knelt before it. Alexander’s face was bathed in tears; he
pressed his friend’s hands, he clasped him in his arms, and together
they swore eternal amity: never would they separate their cause or
their fortunes. Tilsit soon showed what was the value of this oath,
which probably was sincere for the moment when it was taken.
During the retreat of the Austrians and Russians under Kienmayer
and Kutusov from Passau to Krems, the imprudence of Mortier, who
had crossed to the left bank of the Danube at Linz, gave occasion to
engagements at Stein and Dirnstein, in which the French lost more
men than they ever acknowledged. Mortier’s army of 30,000 men
consisted of three divisions, under Generals Gazan, Dupont, and
Dumonceau. This army had positive orders to keep always near to
the main body, which was pursuing its march along the right bank,
and never to advance beyond it. Kutusov had long retreated on the
right bank; but on the 9th of November he crossed to the left at
Grein, as before mentioned, and lay in the neighbourhood of Krems,
when Mortier’s troops advanced. The French divisions maintained
the distance of a whole day’s march one from another, because they
thought they were following a fleeing army; but between Dirnstein
and Stein they fell in with the whole Russian army, 20,000 strong, at
a place where the French were obliged to pass through a frightful
ravine. On the 11th of November, Mortier ventured to make an
attack with Gazan’s division alone; but near Dirnstein (twenty hours
from Vienna), he got into a narrow way, enclosed on both sides by a
line of lofty walls, and there suffered a dreadful loss. When the
French, about noon, at length supposed themselves to have gained
some advantage, the Russians received reinforcements, outflanked
the French, cut them off, and would have annihilated the whole
division, had not Dupont’s come up at the decisive moment. The
latter division had also suffered severely on the same day. Whilst
Kutusov was sharply engaged with Mortier, whose numbers were
being rapidly diminished, and his cannon taken, the Austrian general
Schmidt attacked Dupont at Stein, where the contest was as
murderous as at Dirnstein, till Schmidt fell, and the French forced
their way out.
Kutusov, on his march to Znaim, was overtaken by the van of the
French, under Belliard, near Hollabrunn; and everything depended
on detaining the latter so long as might enable Kutusov to gain time
for getting in advance. For this purpose, Bagration, with about six
thousand men, took up a position in the rear of the main body.
Nostitz served under Bagration, and had some thousand Austrians
and a number of Russians under his immediate command. He
occupied the village of Schöngraben, in the rear of the Russians, and
in the very centre of their line of march. Belliard ought to have
attacked him first; but as his corps was not superior in number to
that of Bagration, he had again recourse to the expedient which he
had already tried, with such signal success, at the bridge of Vienna.
He entered into a parley; declared that peace with Austria was
already concluded, or as good as concluded; assured them that
hostilities henceforth affected the Russians alone; and by such
means induced Nostitz to be guilty of a piece of treachery
unparalleled in war. Nostitz, with his Austrians, forsook the Russians,
even those whom he had under his own command; and they being
unable to maintain the village of Schöngraben, it was taken
possession of without a shot; and Bagration and Kutusov seemed
lost, for Murat’s whole army was advancing upon them.
In the meantime the Russians at Hollabrunn extricated themselves
from their difficulty; for they were not so stupidly credulous as the
Austrians, but knew how to deceive the Gascons, by whom they
were pursued, as Belliard had deceived the Austrians. For this
purpose, they availed themselves of the presence in Kutusov’s camp
of Count von Winzingerode, the adjutant-general of the emperor of
Russia, who had been employed in all the last diplomatic military
negotiations in Berlin. Murat having sent his adjutant to call upon
Kutusov, whose line of march had come into the power of the
enemy, in consequence of Nostitz’s treachery in capitulating, the
Russian general assumed the appearance of being desirous to
negotiate, and Winzingerode betook himself to the French camp.
Belliard and Murat, without taking the trouble to inquire what
powers the count and Kutusov had to conclude a treaty which
should be generally binding, came to an agreement with
Winzingerode, by virtue of which all the Russians, within a certain
number of days, were to evacuate every part of the Austrian
territory. This capitulation was to be sent to the emperor Napoleon,
at Schönbrunn, for confirmation; and to this condition there was
necessarily attached another, for the sake of which Kutusov had
commenced the whole affair. There was to be a suspension of
hostilities till the arrival of Napoleon’s answer; and it was agreed that
in the meantime both parties should remain in their then positions.
Bagration, with seven or eight thousand Russians, complied with
this condition, and remained in his position at Hollabrunn, because
he could be observed by the French; but Kutusov, with all the rest of
the army, which lay at a greater distance, quietly continued his route
to Znaim; and this, with a full knowledge of the danger of Bagration
being afterwards overwhelmed by a superior force. On being made
acquainted with the capitulation, Napoleon was enraged, for he
immediately perceived how grievously his brother-in-law had
suffered himself to be deceived; and he ordered an immediate
attack. This was indeed made; but eighteen hours had been
irreparably lost, and Kutusov gained two marches on Murat; the
whole French army, above thirty thousand strong, therefore fell upon
Bagration.
Bagration, who had still with him the Austrian regiment of hussars
of the crown-prince of Homburg, commanded by Baron von Mohr,
offered a vigorous resistance to the whole French army with his
seven or eight thousand men. The Russian bombs set fire to the
village in which was stationed the corps which was to fall upon
Bagration’s flank; the consequence was, that this corps was thrown
into confusion, and the Russians opened up a way for themselves at
the point of the bayonet. The Russian general, it is true, was obliged
to leave his cannon in the hands of his enemy, and lost the half of
his force; it must, however, always be regarded as one of the most
glorious deeds of the whole campaign, that, after three days’
continued fighting, he succeeded in joining the main body under
Kutusov, at his headquarters at Wischau, between Brünn and
Olmütz, and, to the astonishment of all, with one-half of his little
army. Even the French admit that the Russians behaved nobly, that
they themselves lost a great number of men, and that, among
others, Oudinot was severely wounded.
On the same day on which Bagration arrived in Wischau, a
junction had been formed by Buxhövden’s army, with which the
emperor Alexander was present, with the troops under Kutusov, who
thenceforward assumed the chief command of the whole. Napoleon
himself came to Brünn, and collected his whole army around him,
well knowing that nothing but a decisive engagement could bring
him safely out of the situation in which he then was, and which was
the more dangerous the more splendid and victorious it outwardly
appeared to be. It is beyond a doubt that the precipitation and
haughtiness of the Russians, who were eager for a decisive
engagement, combined with the miserable policy of the Prussian
cabinet and the cowardice of the king, as well as the fears and
irresolution of the poor emperor Francis, and the want of spirit
among his advisers, contributed more to the success of Napoleon’s
plans respecting Prussia, Germany, and Italy, than his victories in the
field.
A glance at the situation of affairs at the time of the battle of
Austerlitz will show at once how easily he might have been stopped
in his career. There was nothing Napoleon feared more than that the
Russians should march either to Hungary or to Upper Silesia, and
avoid a decisive engagement; he therefore took means to ascertain
the characters and views of the personal attendants and advisers of
the emperor Alexander; and when he had learned that young men
of foolhardy dispositions had the preponderance in his councils, he
formed his plans accordingly. He first advanced from Brünn to
Wischau, and afterwards retired again into the neighbourhood of
Brünn, as if afraid to venture upon an attack. The emperor of
Germany, as well as Napoleon, appeared seriously desirous of a
peace; but the former was obliged to propose conditions which the
latter could not possibly accept; and Napoleon wished first
completely to set the emperor Francis free from the Russians, his
allies and from Prussia, before he came to an agreement with him.
As Count Stadion, who came to the headquarters of the French on
the 27th of November, with Giulay, as ambassadors to treat for
peace, was a sworn enemy of Napoleon, and remained so till 1813,
and had, moreover, been very instrumental in founding the whole
coalition, and in maturing their plans, his appearance on this
occasion was of itself no good omen for the favourable issue of the
mission.
The proposals made as the basis of a peace were the same as had
been contemplated in the event of a victory on the part of the allies
—the French were to evacuate Germany and Italy. When Napoleon
sent Savary (afterwards duke of Rovigo), the head of his
gendarmerie police, under pretence of complimenting the emperor
Alexander, it was indisputably a great part of this envoy’s object, as
appears from the 30th bulletin, to make himself thoroughly
acquainted with the prevailing opinions and the leading characters
during the three days of his sojourn in the emperor’s camp. Savary
was very well received, and sent away with every courtly attention
by Alexander; but it was intimated that it was intended to make
common cause with Prussia, and that it was expected that
Novosiltzov, whom the emperor Alexander wished to send to
Napoleon, would meet Haugwitz in Brünn. The hint was sufficient to
induce Savary to decline the company of Novosiltzov.
When Savary informed the emperor of the illusion of the Russian
generals, and of their belief that fears were entertained of the
Russians, and that on this account embassies were sent to seek for
peace—Napoleon very cunningly took care to strengthen the fools in
their folly. Savary was sent again to the enemy’s camp to propose an
interview between Napoleon and the emperor of Russia. The
interview was declined; but Prince Dolgoruki was sent to propose
conditions to Napoleon. The latter did not allow him to come into his
camp, but received him at the outposts.
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