22. Things are getting messy
“He who defends everything, defends nothing.”
“Diplomacy without arms is like a concert without a score”
“The people say what they like and then I do what I like”
Frederick the Great
“I have no fear, I have only ambition, and I want mine to be the greatest empire in the world.”
“I am one of those who never take no for an answer.”
“A wise ruler knows when to delegate and when to take charge.”
Catherine II
“Everyone was offending mice in the forest. Finally, they came to the wise owl for advice on what to do. The owl advised: "Turn from mice into the hedgehogs." - "But how do you do it?" the surprised mice asked. To which the owl replied: "You have to figure this out on you own. I'm not a tactician, I'm a strategist."
“A very basic strategy — if your enemies know where you are, then don't be there.”
The mess in the PLC kept going on without any visible results to a great degree due to the Catherine’s and Panin’s policy of being a little bit pregnant and not committing any serious force there. As a result, the successful military actions mattered little and both internal and external players were getting time and opportunities for strengthening their positions and inventing their own plans. It was more or less clear even to the confederates that their chances to win on their own are quite slim and their hope was upon help from one of the Great Powers. So far France was just making the vague promises and Austria was sympathetic but extremely reluctant to get committed to any action so the only remaining options were the Ottomans. Which was somewhat ironic for the self-declared protectors of the Catholic Faith. The Ottoman Empire had been for a while quite reluctant to get into the war but the Bar Confederates, as befitting the true patriots, promised to the Ottomans Podolia and Volyn thus creating a huge incentive. Now the Porte was just looking for a plausible excuse and it was found.
The Powder Keg.
In the right bank Ukraine religious situation was much more explosive than in the Poland proper. There were Catholics (Poles - all landowners and administration), Uniates (Ukrainians), Orthodox Christians (Ukrainians), Old Believers (Ukrainians) and Jews. Unlike other regions, the Orthodox Church was quite strong and directly linked to one on the Russian left bank. Besides a purely spiritual aspect, there also was a material one: local military class, the Cossacks, both on state and private service, were overwhelmingly Orthodox and so was the “wild card”, Zaporizhians. While being a reasonably privileged category, the Cossacks often had been treated with contempt by szlachta, which under the circumstances was not a smart attitude.
In the 1768 there was a perfect storm. On the Orthodox side the overly zealous Orthodox priests spread a forged manifesto from CII inciting peasants to rebel and kill their landowners, uniates and Jews while at the same time the local administration started squeezing additional money to equip the troops it was raising for the Bar Confederacy.
Predictably, there was an unrest and detachment of the
Cossacks had been sent to suppress it [1] but they went on the other side and the s—t hit the fan. For a couple months the rebels had been killing the Catholics, Uniates and Jews and when they took town of Uman they were also killing the Orthodox Christians suspected in sympathies toward the Catholics (total numbers of killed there are assessed between 12 and 20,000).
Of course, from Catherine’s perspective, they were just rebellious serfs raised against their owners so the Russian troops had been ordered to suppress them and this was the only case when the Polish crown troops under Branicki really participated in the action. To Branicki’s credit, he was resisting the demands to completely exterminate the whole villages implicated in the rebellion but, being under the pressure, proposed to the king a much more moderate plan of actions: “
I intend to do this: I will order some Haidamaks to be executed for the pleasure of the landlords, while I will send the rest (and there will be more than a thousand of them) to perform servitude and urban works in Kamyanets, Lviv and your royal residence in Uyazdov.” To which the enlightened monarch replied that he liked an idea but there are no money to guard and feed these workers and proposed an alternative solution: “
The idea of turning captives to the performance of public and my private works is beautiful, but it is possible under more favorable circumstances, not now... if you come across prisoners from rebellious peasants, then order to one of the ten to cut off one leg and one hand and let everyone free. This measure will intimidate them more than the death penalty; as proof of its usefulness, there are examples in the past.” Eventually, Branicki released many of his prisoners stated that he think it unjust to execute people just because the state is short of money. He even went as far as ordering to scale down execution of a captured rebels leader: instead of initially planned 14 days it would last only 3 days.
Anyway, one of the bands of the rebellious Cossacks had been chasing confederates, who fled across the border to the Ottoman town of Balta, and looted it. The Russian excuse was that these people were either not the Russian subjects or the people not in the Russian service. The captured Russian subjects had been punished (but not executed) on a border in presence of the Ottoman representatives but it was too late: the Ottoman military machine already started moving and could not stop.
Declaration of war. Russian ambassador was arrested and placed into Yedikule Hisari, which was the standard Ottoman way to declare the war.
After this happened, France moved from words to actions. Bishop Krasinsky, who came to Versailles to "throw Poland into the arms of France," as he put it, went to Saxony, having received 200,000 livres from the French court and a promise that in winter this amount would be increased to three million. Krasinsky, without entering Poland, had to help through his emissaries to overthrow of King Stanislav, create the general confederation, choose Prince Condé or the Saxon Prince Albert as king, and the newly elected king should marry the Austrian Archduchess. In France, officers were recruited to go to various Polish confederations to train the rebels in military art. This Grand Plan was more than a little bit on a fantastic side because it was based upon three rather questionable assumptions:
- That the Russians would be either beaten by the Ottomans or at least forced to concentrate all their resources against the Porte.
- That the confederacy will be able to grow up into a comprehensive military force.
- That as a result King Stanislaw-August is going to be overthrown, an idea which even Maria-Theresa was not supporting: removal of a legitimate king could be a very bad precedent.
On a positive side, the active French engagement on the Ottoman side and their activities in Sweden and Denmark automatically resulted in warming up of the Russian-British relations. The Brits were still reluctant to pay subsidies to Sweden, to prevent pro-French party from prevailing, but they were not against some kind of a cooperation with Russia, providing it would not get them directly involved in a war.
Preparing for war. At the news about the Ottoman declaration of war Catherine wrote: “
The Turks and the French desired to wake up the cat that was sleeping; I am this cat who promises to let them know the consequences, so that the memory will not disappear soon.”
Catherine’s first step was
seemingly in the right direction but implementation was really stupid. Following example of Elizabeth and her Conference she decided to create a military Council, which looked as a reasonable thing to do (her definitely being ignorant in a warfare) but during the 7YW the Conference was micromanaging all military operations depriving the commanders of a freedom of actions and issuing the orders which usually were plain stupid or too late. So far, this style of handling operations in the PLC proved to be a total failure and now she wanted to introduce it for a much more serious conflict. And, to make things even more interesting, she asked Panin’s opinion regarding the Council’s composition. Panin was true to himself starting with a statement that such a council may not even be necessary, at least for an year, but then naming Zakhar Chernyshov (de facto Minister of war), the generals who could get command of the armies, Prosecutor-General Prince Vyazemsky because he was overseeing finances, himself, vice-chancellor Prince Golitsyn, general Golitsyn and Razumovsky because he was a fieldmarshal (without any military experience). Catherine added to the list general Peter Panin and, probably in a hope that he will be useful at least for something, her former favorite Grigory Orlov (or perhaps it was expected that he is going to communicate some ideas of his brother Alexey who was on medical leave in Italy). As a result, majority of the Council were people with zero or close to zero military experience and those who had, with the exception of Chernishov, never held a serious independent command. The two most prominent figures of the 7YW, fieldmarshal Saltykov and general Rumyantsev, were not invited.
Man in charge. Now, the most military prominent out of that rather pathetic lot was Chernishov who, besides having experience of commanding a separate course, was President of the Military Collegium. In this capacity he accomplished some improvements in the military administration and creation of the General Staff as a permanent institution. But the good news ended there. The General Staff was a small group of the officers from a former quartermaster service who were given the much greater tasks to which they were not prepared either by education or experience.
As President of the Military Collegium Chernyshov was responsible for issuing the military charters, which he did. Under the leadership of Chernyshev, a new field charter was issued in 1763. This charter almost completely confirmed the provision of the previous Shuvalov Charter of 1755. The same linear combat orders, the same one-sided fascination with "fire production", the bayonet charges are forgotten, the same Prussian style in all forms and manifestations... The experience of the seven-Year War just passed away in vain. Fortunately, in 1764 Rumyantsev was invited back to the service and issued regimental instructions for the infantry in 1764 and cavalry in 1765. Which, did not produce the warm feelings between these two and one of the Chernyshov’s top priority tasks was to move Rumyantsev aside as much as possible.
The next problem was that, due to his position, he was expected to produce a plan for the war and this was a task well above and beyond his strategic abilities. While there was no danger from the friendly Sweden and it would be enough just to keep the garrisons in the fortresses along Finnish border, he wanted to keep additional few regiments there plus at least two regiments in Estonia, fire regiments in Livonia, five in Smolensk, etc. On October 1768, it was ordered to raise one recruit from 300 souls from all over the state; on November 14, a decree was made to make the second recruitment call on the same base. It was also necessary to take unoccupied sons of clergy and clerics as soldiers.
There was a general agreement to Panin’s statement that the war has to be carried in an offensive manner and that for this purpose the Russian forces have to be concentrated but his …er… “strategic insight” (one more military genius) was rather enigmatic: “
It is necessary to try, to exhaust the enemy army and thereby force it, so that it would produce the same action in the capital towards peace as it required war.” To everybody’s surprise Grigory Orlov made an absolutely reasonable statement that, as the first step, it is necessary to define a purpose of the war. An idea was so novel that nobody could immediately come with a meaningful formula and it was decided to discuss it on a latter session after all other important issues are clarified.
They divided the army into three parts: an offensive corps of up to 80,000 people; a defensive, or Ukrainian, up to 40,000 and an observation corps from 12 to 15,000.
At the end of the meeting, Orlov, surprising everybody, proposed to send several ships to the Mediterranean Sea and from there to sabotage the enemy, but that this should be done with the consent of the English court. This proposal was left until future reasoning.
The next meeting was more productive in formulating a strategy. Which, of course, did not mean that this strategy was a good one. In a contradiction to the first session’s decision that the war must be an offensive one, the initiative was left to the enemy:
- If the Ottomans will join with the confederates and invade the PLC then commander of the Russian offensive corps would have to avoid a decisive battle and concentrate upon protection of the Russian borders and parts of Poland and Lithuania to both preserve his strength and provide security of the Russian friends; he would have to keep enemy exhausted by the marches (disregarding destruction caused to the part of Poland), impeding his ability to get the supplies and, when the time comes, use his exhausted condition.
- If the Ottomans will not immediately invade Poland, took Kamenets fortress, establish magazines there and remain near it. If the Ottoman force will be small, advance and take Khotin.
The 1st (offensive) Army was concentrating near Kiev, the 2nd (defensive) army was to protect the southern borders of Russia from Tatar invasions and was located near Poltava and Bakhmut; the third (observation) army - at Lutsk, was appointed as the vanguard of the main army; why there was a need to make it into a separate army and what it was expected to “observe” remains a mystery.
Only at that point Catherine proposed to discuss an issue regarding an intended purpose and desirable results. The agreement was that it will be good to get a freedom of sailing on the Black Sea and establish such borders with Poland that the peace would be guaranteed.
The commanders had been appointed: the 1st Army - Prince A.M.Golicyn, 2nd - Count P.A. Rumyantsev, 3rd - general Olitz. In this appointment, Golitsyn was seen as the triumph of Chernyshev, who thus managed to remove the unloved generals: Peter Iv. Panin at all, and Rumyantsev in the background.
The issue of a Mediterranean expedition was brought up again with the overly optimistic expectations that at the sight of the Russian ships the Greeks will revolt and perform, based upon the written assurances of the agents secretly sent there in 1763, all types of not clearly identified military miracles that will clear the whole Morea of the Ottoman presence. Catherine went from a skepticism into an excessive enthusiasm and wrote to Ivan Chernishov (the naval one) “
I have a fleet in excellent care now, and I will truly use it like that, if God commands, as it has not yet been; and I have already prepared to send it, I will not say where…” It is rather strange that she tells the top honcho in the navy (after her son) that the fleet is in a good condition when he was supposed to know that this is not the case and even stranger that she was playing “
grand coquette” not telling a person responsible for preparation of the naval operations about destination of the expedition.
So far, one unquestionably good byproduct of these preparations was that, with the army troops leaving the major cities, finally started creation of the police forces, financed by wealthy residents.
Another was of an equal or probably even greater significance: Catherine established order of St. George for the military feats. It was rather unique because it could be awarded only for performing beyond the call of duty.
“Neither the high birth nor the wounds received before the enemy, give the right to be granted this order: but it is given to those who not only performed their position in everything required by oath, honor and their duty, but moreover distinguished themselves with a special courageous act, or the wise, and for our military service useful advice... This order should never be removed: for the merits are acquired.”
There was also an opportunity to get the lowest, 4th, degree for 25 years of service as an army officer or 18 campaigns (with at least one battle) in the navy but these awards looked differently.
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[1] Impaling was seemingly the most popular method of a persuasion. The lucky ones could get away with simply being hanged but sometimes those in charge were getting creative and, time and means permitting, could go for cutting skin off the back, breaking on the wheel, mutilations, etc. So it should not come as a big surprise that the local peasants felt certain dislike of their Polish masters.