I.

of his son Alexis, in which it must be said with sorrow Peter seemed lost to all the feelings of a father. Alexis had undoubtedly given him great cause for dislike by identifying himself in every way with the retrogressive party. The unfortunate young man probably died under the infliction of torture. In 1721 Peter promulgated the celebrated ukaze (afterwards abrogated by Paul) that the sovereign had the right of naming his successor. On January 28, 1725, the great reformer was dead. An attempt to estimate his character has been made in the separate article assigned to him.

On the death of Peter the country was divided into two factions. The old reactionary party, the Golitzins, Dolgorukis, and others, were eager to proclaim Peter the son of Alexis, but those who had identified themselves with the Catherine reforms of the late sovereign were anxious that Catherine his widow, who had been crowned empress, should succeed. Menshikoff, the favourite of the late czar, who is said when a boy to have sold cakes in the streets of Moscow, became all-powerful at this period, and the reforms of Peter continued to be carried out. Catherine died in 1727; she appears to have been an indolent, good-natured woman, with but little capacity for government, and accordingly, throughout her short reign, was entirely controlled by Peter II. others. She designated as her successor Peter the son of Alexis, and, in default of Peter and his issue, Anna, who had married the duke of Holstein, and Elizabeth, her daughters. The regency was exercised by a council consisting of the two daughters, the duke of Holstein, Menshikoff, and seven or eight of the chief dignitaries of the empire. Menshikoff was still all-important; he had obtained from Catherine her consent to a marriage between his daughter and the youthful czar. But his authority was gradually undermined by the Dolgorukis. The favourite of Peter the Great was first banished to his estates, and afterwards to Berezoff in Siberia, where he died in 1729. The Dolgorukis were now in the ascendency, and the czar was betrothed to Natalia, one of that family. He showed every inclination to undo his grandfather's work, and the court was removed to Moscow. Soon afterwards, however, in January 1730, the young prince died of smallpox. His last words as he lay on his death-bed were, "Get ready the sledge; I want to go to my sister,"alluding to the Princess Natalia, the other child of Alexis, who had died three years previously. The only foreign event of importance in this reign was the attempt of Maurice of Saxony to get possession of Courland, by marrying the duchess Anna, then a widow. sented to the union, and the states of the province elected him, but Menshikoff sent a body of troops who forced him to quit it. On the death of Peter at the age of fifteen, various claimants of the throne were put forward. The great czar had left two daughters, Elizabeth, and Anna, duchess of Holstein, who had a son, afterwards Peter III. Two daughters were also surviving of his eldest brother Ivan, Anna, the duchess of Courland, and Catherine, duchess of Mecklenburg. Alexis Dolgoruki even had an idea of claiming the crown for his daughter, because she had been betrothed to the young emperor. This proposal, however, was treated with derision, and the High Secret Council resolved to call to the throne Anna of Courland, thinking that, as she was so much more remote by birth than the daughters of Peter, she would more willingly submit to their terms. In fact, they had prepared for her signature something like the pacta conventa of Poland. The following were the terms: (1) the High Council was always to be composed of eight members, to be renewed by co-option, and the czarina must consult it on state affairs; (2) without its consent she could neither make peace nor declare war, could not impose any tax,

Anna.

She con

alienate any crown lands, or appoint to any office above that of a colonel; (3) she could not cause to be condemned or executed any member of the nobility, nor confiscate the goods of any noble before he had a regular trial; (4) sho could not marry nor choose a successor without the consent of the council. In case she broke any of these stipu lations she was to forfeit the crown (see Rambaud, p. 425), Anna assented to these terms and made her entry into Moscow, which was now to be the capital. But the empress was soon informed how universally unpopular these pacta conventa were, which in reality put Russia into the hands of a few powerful families, chiefly the Dolgorukis and Golitzins. She accordingly convened her supporters, and publicly tore the document to pieces, and thus ended the last attempt to give Russia a constitution. The new empress was a cold, repulsive woman, whose temper had been soured by indignities endured in her youth; she took vengeance upon her opponents, and threw herself almost entirely into the hands of German advisers, espe cially Biren, a Courlander of low origin. This is the period called by the Russians the Bironovstchina. The country was now thoroughly exploited by the Germans; some of the leading Russians were executed, and others banished to Siberia. Among the former was the able minister Volînski, beheaded with two others in 1740. He had fallen under the wrath of the implacable Biren. One of the most important enactments of this reign was the abolition of the right of primogeniture introduced by Peter the Great, which had never been popular in the country. On the crown of Poland falling vacant in 1733, an attempt was again made to place Stanislaus Leszczynski on the throne, but it failed through the opposition of Russia, and Stanislaus escaped with difficulty from Dantzic. Upon this followed a war with Turkey, which lasted four years (1735-1739), in conjunction with Austria. This was not very successful, but the Russian generals gained possession of a few towns, and were indignant when the Austrians signed the treaty of Belgrade with the Turks (1739), and the campaign came to an end. In 1740 the empress Anna died; she had reigned exactly ten years. She left the crown to Ivan, the son of her niece Anna, daughter of her sister Catherine, duchess of Mecklenburg. During the minority of this child Biren was to be regent. By a revolution de palais, however, the German adventurer was hurled from power and sent to Pelîm in Siberia. But matters did not rest here; taking advantage of the general unpopularity of the German faction, the partisans of Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, were resolved to work their overthrow, and place her upon the throne. They consisted of Alexander and Peter Shuvaloff, Michael Vorontzoff, Razumovski, Schwarz, and a French surgeon named Lestocq. Elizabeth ingratiated herself into the favour of the soldiers, by whom the name of Peter the Great was still so much cherished. Anna Leopoldovna, as she was called, her husband Anthony Ulrich, the infant emperor, Munich, Ostermann, and the whole German faction were arrested in the night, and Elizabeth Elizabet ascended the throne. Ivan VI. was imprisoned in the fortress of Schlüsselburg; Anna, with her husband and children, was banished to Kholmogorî near Archangel, where she died in 1746. Ostermann was banished to Berezoff, and Munich to Pelîm; they had both been previously sentenced to death. Biren and his family were now recalled and allowed to live at Yaroslavl. Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1762) inaugurated the return of Russian influence in opposition to the Germans, from whom the country had suffered so much during the reign of Anna. The people were weary of them, yet they were, as we shall see, to have one German emperor more. On ascending the throne she summoned to her court the son of her sister

Anna and the duke of Holstein, who took the name of Peter Feodorovich on assuming the Greek religion, and was declared heir to the throne. In 1744 he married the Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, who by her baptism in the Orthodox Church became Catherine. Thus the line of descent was secured to the direct heirs of Peter the Great. In 1743, the armies of Elizabeth having gained some victories over the Swedes, the treaty of Åbo was signed, by which Russia acquired the southern part of Finland, as far as the river Kiumen. The next event of importance is the war between Russia and Frederick the Great (17561762). In 1757 Apraksin crossed the frontier with 85,000 Russians, occupied Eastern Prussia, and defeated Lewald at Gross-Jägersdorf; but, instead of taking advantage of the victory, he soon afterwards retired behind the Niemen, having been tampered with by the grand-duchess Catherine and the chancellor Bestuzbeff-Riumin. In 1758 Fermor, the Russian general, was completely defeated by Frederick at Zorndorf, but he was allowed to retreat without molestation. In 1759 Saltîkoff beat the Prussians at Paltzig, and in the same year Frederick was obliged to submit to a greater defeat at Künersdorf, where he lost eight thousand nien and one hundred and seventy-two cannon. It was on the loss of this battle that he meditated committing suicide. In 1760 the Russians entered Berlin, where they committed great havoc and destruction. "We have to do," said Frederick, "with barbarians, who are digging the grave of humanity." In the following year they took Pomerania. The cause of Frederick seemed on the verge of ruin, he was saved by the death of Elizabeth in December 1761. The empress was an idle, superstitious woman of lax morals, who was greatly under the influence of favourites. Since the reign of Peter I. no successor had appeared worthy of him. Still Russia made more progress under Elizabeth than it had made under Anna. In 1755 the university of Moscow, the oldest in the country, was founded through the influence of Ivan Shuvaloff. Literature made great advances, as will be seen below.

Elizabeth was succeeded by her nephew Peter, son, of her sister Anna and Charles Frederick, duke of HolsteinGottorp. He was suspected of German leanings, but his first measures made him very popular. In February 1762 he published an ukaze by which the nobility were freed from the necessity of entering upon any state employment, and he abolished the secret chancery. On the other hand he acted in some matters injudiciously, and offended the prejudices of the Russians, as the false Demetrius bad done a century and a half previously. He ridiculed some of the ceremonics of tho Orthodox Church, and showed a fondness for the Lutheran. He introduced many German tactics into the army, and evinced a great preference for his German corps of Holsteiners. His personal habits were very coarse he was constantly seen drunk. Morcover Je sent out of the country many of the talented Frenchmen who had during the reign of Elizabeth been helping Russia to get rid of her barbarism. Frederick II. of Prussia, who was at his lowest depths after the battle of Künersdorf, now saw to bis delight a complete change in the Russian policy. Peter was an ardent admirer of the Prussian sovereign; in order to ensure peace, Frederick would have ceded Eastern Prussia; but Peter dreamed of nothing of the kind; he restored all the Russian conquests and formed an alliance with him, offensive and defensive. He lived very unhappily with his wife Catherine, and meditated divorcing her and imprisoning her for the rest of her life in a convent. The condition in which she passed her time may be seen from her memoirs, first published by Herzen, the authenticity of which there seems to be no reason to donbt. She, however, quictly waited her time, and a conspiracy was concocted in which she was assisted by the

Orloffs, Potemkin, the princess Dashkoff, and others (see PETER III.). Leaving her residence at Peterhof, Catherine boldly put herself at the head of twenty thousand men. The miserable emperor abdicated without a struggle, and was soon afterwards secretly assassinated at Ropcha, near St Petersburg. Many of the details of this catastrophe are given in the interesting memoirs of the Princess Dashkoff, which were published by an English lady, Mrs W. Bradford, in 1840, having been taken down from her dictation. Thus had a German woman, by adroitly flattering the Catherine prejudices of the Russians, succeeded in making herself II. head of this vast empire. Two years afterwards Ivan VI., who is said to have become an idiot from his long confinement at Schlüsselburg, was murdered by his guards on account of the attempt of a certain Lieutenant Mirovich to set him free. Whether Mirovich was incited to this adventure by secret promises of the Government, so that there might be an excuse for the murder of Ivan, has never been clearly shown. He expiated his crime by public execution, and is said to have expected a reprieve till the last moment. The Seven Years' War was now over, and the next great European complications were to be concerned with the partition of Poland, throughout the struggles of which country the Russians were constantly interfering; but for a fuller discussion of this subject the reader must be referred to the article POLAND. In 1767 Turkey, urged on by France, declared war against Russia; the object was to aid the Poles by creating a diversion. The Russian general Golitzin attacked the grand vizier, took the town of Khotin (1769), and in the following year Rumantzoff defcated the khan of the Crimea, the Turkish feudatory and ally, and in 1770 won the great victory of Kagul. In 1771 Dolgoruki overran the Crimea, and Alexis Orloff defeated the Turks in a naval engagement at Chesme, on the coast of Asia Minor. In their naval expeditions the Russians were at this time greatly assisted by the number of Englishmen in their service. In 1774 was signed the peace of Kutchuk-Kainardji, whereby the sultan acknowledged the independence of the Mongols of the Crimea. The Russians thus detached this province from the sultan's dominions, and after exercising a kind of protectorate over it added it to their own. He also ceded Azoff on the Don, Kinburn at the mouth of the Dniester, and all the fortified places of the Crimea. The Greeks, who had been induced to rise, were abandoned to the vengeance of the Turks.

In 1771 the plague broke out at Moscow, and many of the inhabitants perished. The archbishop Ambrose was massacred in a popular tumult, while endeavouring to carry out some measures which were necessary for the preservation of the public health. Soon afterwards occurred the rebellion of Pugatcheff, a Cossack of the Don, who declared himself to be the emperor Peter III. The czar, he alleged, had escaped from the hands of his wouldbe murderers, and would soon regain his throne. A large band of disaffected peasants and Raskolniks gathered round him, and he was joined by many of the Mongol races, who were inimical to the Russian rule. At first the generals sent against him were defeated. The rebel's path was everywhere marked with bloodshed and pillage; he even got possession of several towns, including Kazan. Had he been something more than a vulgar assassin he might have made Catherine tremble on her throne, but his cruelties estranged his more moderate followers. He was afterwards beaten by Bibikoff and others, and finally surrendered by his accomplices to Suwaroff. He was taken to Moscow in an iron cage and there publicly executed in 1775, together with four of his principal followers. In the same year the empress put an end to the republic, as it was called, of the Zaporogiau Cossacks. A great codification of the laws took place under Catherine, which may bo

styled the sixth great period of Russian legislation. The serfs, however, were not benefited by these changes. In 1767 an ukaze forbade them to bring any complaints against their masters. The latter had the power of sending their serfs to Siberia as a punishment, or handing them over to be enlisted in the army. The public sale of serfs was not put an end to till the reign of Alexander I. The country was now divided into governments for the better administration of justice, each government being subdivided into uiezdi or districts. Catherine also took away from the monasteries their lands and serfs, and allotted them payments according to their importance from the state revenues. The plans of Peter I. were thus fully carried out, and the church became entirely dependent upon the state. In 1783 the Crimea was annexed to Russia. A second war with Turkey broke out in 1787; the Ottoman power had many grounds of complaint, but its suspicions were particularly aroused by the tour of Catherine through the southern provinces of Russia and her interviews with the emperor Joseph II. Turkey declared war that same year; and, to increase the embarrassed position of the empress, Sweden did the same, requiring from Russia the cession of the southern part of Finland which had been taken from her. But King Gustavus III., in spite of some petty successes, was unable to carry on the war, and soon signed the peace of Verela on the footing of status quo ante bellum. The empress met with equal good fortune in the south; Potemkin took Otchakoff and Suwaroff Khotin. In 1789 the latter general won the battles of Fokshani and Kîmnik; and in 1790 after a sanguinary engagement he took Ismail. By the treaty of Jassy in 1792 Catherine kept possession of Otchakoff, and the shore between the Bug and Dniester. She was next occupied with the affairs of Poland, which have been described under that heading. In consequence of the demands of the confederates of Targovica,-men who were prepared to ruin their country for their own private ends, eighty thousand Russians and twenty thousand Cossacks entered the Ukraine to undo the work of the confederates of Bar. In 1794 Suwaroff stormed Warsaw, and the inhabitants were massacred. In the following year Stanislaus Poniatowski laid down his crown, the third division of Poland took place, and the independence of that country was at an end. In spite of her correspondence and affected sympathies with Voltaire, Diderot, and many of the advanced French thinkers, Catherine showed great opposition to the principles of the French Revolution, and the policy of the latter part of her reign was reactionary. She died suddenly on November 17, 1796. Her character has been amply discussed by foreign writers. It may suffice to say here that, whatever her private vices may have been, she was unquestionably a woman of great genius, and the only sovereign worthy of Russia who had appeared since the days of Peter the Great. Hence the veneration with which her memory is regarded by the Russians to this day.

Paul, who had lived in retirement during the life of his mother, was an object of aversion to her. We are told that she had prepared a will by which he would be disinherited, and the succession conferred upon his son Alexander, but his friend Kurakin got hold of it immediately upon the death of the empress and destroyed it. The events of the reign of PAUL (q.v.) can be only briefly discussed here. He concluded an alliance with Turkey, and entered into a coalition against the French republic, which he regarded with horror. Suwaroff took the command of the united Russian and Austrian troops at Verona. In 1799 he 'defeated the French general Moreau on the banks of the Adda, and made a triumphant entry into Milan. After this he won another_victory over Macdonald on the Trebbia,

and later the same year that of Novi over Joubert. He then crossed the Alps for the purpose of driving the French out of Switzerland, but he was everywhere hampered by the Austrians, and, after fighting his way over the Alps and suffering great losses, he reached his winter quarters between the Iller and the Lech, and soon afterwards he was recalled in disgrace. Paul now completely changed his tactics. Accusing England and Austria of having acted treacherously towards him, he threw himself into the arms of Bonaparte, who had won him over by skilful diplomacy, and, among other pieces of flattery, sent back the Russian prisoners newly clothed and armed. Paul then meditated joining him in a plan for conquering India; but in the night between the 23d and 24th of March 1801 he was assassinated. The chief agents in this catastrophe were Plato Zuboff, Benningsen, and Pahlen. The rule of Paul had become intolerable, and he was fast bringing on a national bankruptcy.

L

He was succeeded by his eldest son, Alexander I. Alexande (1801-1825). One of the first acts of the new emperor was to make peace with England and France. He, however, soon changed his policy, and in 1805 joined the third coalition against France, to which Austria and England were parties. Events which belong to general European history, and are well known, need only be described briefly here. On December 2d of that year took place the battle of Austerlitz, in which the Russians lost 21,000 men, 133 guns, and 30 flags. They accused their Austrian allies of treachery. The war was soon ended by the treaty of Pressburg. We now come to the fourth coalition against France (1806-7). In 1807 Napoleon engaged the Russian general Benningsen at Eylau. The battle was protracted and sanguinary, but not decisive; both parties abandoned the field and retired into winter quarters. A defeat at Friedland in the same year was followed by the peace of Tilsit. By this treaty the Prussian king, Frederick William III., lost half his dominions. Nearly all his Polish possessions were to go to the king of Saxony under the name of the grand-duchy of Warsaw. By a secret treaty, it seemed as if Alexander and Napoleon almost aspired to divide the world, or at least Europe, between them. The terms, however, were received by a large party in Russia with disgust. The next important event in the reign of Alexander was the conquest of Finland. By the treaty of Frederikshamn, September 17, 1809, Sweden surrendered Finland, with the whole of East Bothnia, and a part of West Bothnia lying eastward of the river Torneå. The Finns were allowed a kind of autonomy, which they have preserved to this day. The annexation of Georgia to Russia was consolidated at the beginning of this reign, having been long in preparation. It led to a war with Persia, which resulted in the incorporation of the province of Shirvan with the Russian empire in 1806.

În 1809 commenced the fifth coalition against Napoleon. Alexander, who was obliged by treaty to furnish assistance to the French emperor, did all that he could to prevent the war. A quarrel with Turkey led to its invasion by a Russian army under Michelsen. This war was terminated. by a congress held at Bucharest in 1812. Russia gave up Moldavia and Wallachia, which she had occupied, but kept Bessarabia, with the fortresses of Khotin and Bender.. Gradually an estrangement took place between Alexander and Napoleon, not only on account of the creation of the grand-duchy of Warsaw, but because Russia was suffering greatly from the Continental blockade, to which Alexander had been forced to give his adhesion. This led to the great invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812.1

1 This has been fully described in the pages of Eugène Labaume and Sir Robert Wilson. In the recent volumes of the excellent review, Russki Arkhiv, edited by M. Bartenieff, will be found some most interesting details based upon Russian family papers and traditions.

On May 9, 1812, Napoleon left Paris for Dresden, and the Russian and French ambassadors received their passports. The grand army comprised 678,000 men, 356,000 of them being French; and, to oppose them, the Russians assembled 372,000 men. Napoleon crossed the Niemen and advanced by forced marches to Smolensk. Here he defeated the Russians, and again at the terrible battle of Borodino, and then entered Moscow, which had been abandoned by most of the inhabitants; soon afterwards a fire broke out (probably caused by the order of Rostopchin the governor), which raged six days and destroyed the greater part of the city. Notwithstanding this disaster, Napoleon lingered five weeks among the ruins, endeavouring to negotiate a peace, which he seemed to think Alexander would be sure to grant; but he had mistaken the spirit of the emperor and his people. On the 18th of October Napoleon reluctantly commenced his backward march. The weather was unusually severe, and the country all round had been devastated by the French on their march. With their ranks continually thinned by cold, hunger, and the skirmishes of the Cossacks who hung upon their rear, the French reached the Beresina, which they crossed near Studianka on the 26th-29th of November with great loss. The struggle on the banks of this river forms one of the most terrible pictures in history. At Smorgoni, between Vilna and Minsk, Napoleon left the army and hurried to Paris. Finally the wreck of the grande armée under Ney crossed the Niemen. Not more than eighty thousand of the whole army are said to have returned.

Frederick William III. of Prussia now issued a manifesto, and concluded an alliance with Russia for the reestablishment of the Prussian monarchy. In 1813 took place the battle of Dresden, and the so-called Battle of the Nations at Leipsic on October 16 and the two following days. In 1814 the Russians invaded France with the allies, and lost many men in the assault upon Paris. After the battle of Waterloo, and the conveyance of Napoleon to the island of St Helena, it fell to the Russian forces to occupy Champagne and Lorraine. In the same year Poland was re-established in a mutilated form, with a constitution which Alexander, who was crowned king, swore to observe. In 1825 the emperor died suddenly at Taganrog at the mouth of the Don, while visiting the southern provinces of his empire He had added to the Russian dominions Finland Poland, Bessarabia, and that part of the Caucasus which includes Daghestan, Shirvan, Mingrelia, and Imeretia. Much was done in this reign to improve the condition of the serfs. The Raskolniks were better treated; many efforts were made to improve public education, and the universities of Kazan, Kharkoff, and St Petersburg were founded. One of the chief agents of these reforms was the minister Speranski, who for some time enjoyed the favour of the emperor, but he attacked so many interests by his measures that a coalition was formed against him He was denounced as a traitor, and his enemies succeeded in getting him removed and sent as governor to NijniNovgorod. In 1819, when the storm raised against him had somewhat abated, he was appointed to the important post of governor of Siberia. In 1821 he returned to St Petersburg, but he never regained his former power. To the mild influence of Speranski succeeded that of Shishkoff, Novosiltzeff, and Arakcheeff. The last of these men made himself universally detested in Russia. He rose to great influence in the time of Paul, and managed to continue in favour under his son. Besides many other pernicious measures, it was to him that Russia owed the military colonies which were so unpopular and led to serious riots. The censorship of the press became much stricter, and

many professors of liberal tendencies were dismissed from their chairs in the universities. The country was now filled with secret societies, and the emperor became gloomy and suspicious. In this condition of mind he died, a man thoroughly disenchanted and weary of life. He has been judged harshly by some authors; readers will remember that Napoleon said of him that he was false as a Byzantine Greek. To us he appears as a well-intentioned man, utterly unable to cope with the discordant elements around him. He had discovered that his life was a failure. The heir to the throne according to the principles of succession recognized in Russia was Constantine, the second son of the emperor Paul, since Alexander left no children. But he had of his own free will secretly renounced his claim in 1822, having espoused a Roman Catholic, the Polish princess Julia Grudzinska. In consequence of this change in the devolution of the sovereign's authority, the conspiracy of the Dekabrists1 broke out at the end of the year, their object being to take advantage of the confusion caused by the alteration of the succession to get constitutional government in Russia. Their efforts failed, but the rebellion was not put down without great bloodshed.' Five of the conspirators were executed, and a great many sent to Siberia. Some of the men implicated were among the most remarkable of their time in Russia, but the whole country had been long honeycombed with secret societies, and many of the Russian officers had learned liberal ideas while engaged in the campaign against Napoleon. So ignorant, however, were the common people of the most ordinary political terms that when told to shout for Constantine and the constitution (constitutzia) they naively asked if the latter was Constantine's wife. The new emperor, Nicholas, the next brother in succession, Nicholas. showed throughout his reign reactionary tendencies; all liberalism was sternly repressed. In 1830 appeared the Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire, which Nicholas had caused to be codified. He partly restored the right of primogeniture which had been taken away by the empress Anna as contrary to Russian usages, allowing a father to make his eldest son his sole heir. spite of the increased severity of the censorship of the press, literature made great progress in his reign. From 1826 to 1828 Nicholas was engaged in a war with Persia, in which the Russians were completely victorious, having beaten the enemy at Elizabetpol, and again under Paskewitch at Javan Bulak. The war was terminated by the peace of Turkmantchai (February 22, 1828), by which Persia ceded to Russia the provinces of Erivan and Nakhitchevan, and paid twenty millions of roubles as an indemnity. The next foreign enemy was-Turkey. Nicholas had sympa thized with the Greeks in their struggle for independence, in opposition to the policy of Alexander; he had also a part to play as protector of the Orthodox Christians, who formed a large number of the sultan's subjects. In consequence of the sanguinary war which the Turks were carrying on against the Greeks and the utter collapse of the latter, England, France, and Russia signed the treaty of London in 1827, by which they forced themselves upon the belligerents as mediators. From this union resulted the battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827), in which the Turkish fleet was annihilated by that of the allies. Nicholas now pursued the war with Turkey on his own account; in Asia Paskewitch defeated two Turkish armies, and conquered Erzeroum, and in Europe Diebitsch defeated the grand vizier. The Russians crossed the Balkans and advanced to Adrianople, where a treaty was signed in 1829 very disadvantageous to Turkey.

In

In 1831 broke out the Polish insurrection, of which a 1 Literally, the men of December, the month in which Alexander died.