13

 

CHAPTER I

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

The years that divide the two Ottoman-Russian wars, the last of the 18^th century and the first of the 19^th century, are justly considered to be one of the momentous epochs in Modern history. The downfall of ancien régime in France resulted in crucial political changes that both shattered the hitherto existing traditional framework of international relations and shook the international order at the end of the 18^th century. To use the words of H. Kissinger, “under the impact of Napoleon, there disintegrated not only the system of legitimacy of the eighteenth century, but with it the physical safeguards which, to contemporaries at least, seemed the prerequisite of stability”.¹ The French revolution, the French revolutionary wars and later the Napoleonic wars became a crucial factor defining the European politics of the time, and, as relates to the topic of the given research, had also influenced the Ottoman-Russian relations.

 

 

As a result of the changed international situation of the early 1790-s both the Ottomans and the Russians were bound to amend their habitual militant politics pursued towards each other for most of the 18^th century. The Treaty of Jassy (1792) not only put an end to the Ottoman-Russian hostilities, but also marked the beginning

¹ Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the problems of peace, (Boston, 1973), p. 2.

of a new stage in the relations between Istanbul and St. Petersburg. Fresh from the war, the Ottoman Empire and Russia, irrespective of still existing mutual apprehensions, prejudices and distrust, for various reasons simply could not afford further confrontation. The years following the Treaty of Jassy were to witness the Ottomans and Russians being forced to work out a certain mode of peaceful coexistence, and later on even the Ottoman-Russian cooperation in warding off the French aggression in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean.

 

 

The primary concern of this study is to shed new light on and to fill in some white spots in the history of the Ottoman-Russian relations at the turn of the 19^th century by using the original Ottoman and Russian archival documents, along with published and unpublished sources in other languages. Among the particular questions to be researched are foundations and factual implementation of the defensive alliance between the Sublime Porte and St. Petersburg, the activities of the Russian diplomatic representatives in the Ottoman Empire, joint military actions by the Ottomans and Russians within the framework of the second anti-French coalition, various interpretations by both sides of their defensive alliance, the influence of international politics upon the Ottoman-Russian relations at the period.

 

Structurally the study is divided into six chapters followed by a conclusion. Chapter 1 discusses the sources and the existing scholarly literature relating to the subject of this research. Chapter 2 describes the new situation that arose in the Ottoman-Russian relations after the Peace Treaty of Jassy, focusing on the exchange of the extraordinary diplomatic missions of Mustafa Rasih Pasha and M. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov. Chapter 3 covers the years between 1794 and 1798,

examining the Ottoman-Russian relations in the context of the international situation of the period. Chapter 4 explains the first stages of the Mediterranean campaign of the joint squadron of the Russian and the Ottoman warships under Vice Admiral F.

F. Ushakov. It also analyses the circumstances under which the defensive alliance of Russia and the Ottoman Empire became possible and was concluded, its contents and importance for both St. Petersburg and the Porte. Chapter 5 focuses on the Ottoman- Russian military cooperation during the siege of Corfu and in the Italian campaign. Apart from that, it touches upon some circumstances of political reorganisation of the Ionian Islands and their importance for St. Petersburg as the first Russian military base in the Mediterranean. Chapter 6 traces the dynamics of the Ottoman-Russian relations since the conclusion of the allied treaty of 3 January 1799 until the outbreak of the Ottoman-Russian war in December 1806. Among the specific subjects under discussion are the rivalry of the European diplomacies regarding their influence upon the Porte; the problem of the recognition of the imperial title of Napoléon Bonaparte; the renewal of the Ottoman-Russian alliance in September 1805; the gradual drifting of the Ottoman side from its alliance with Russia and the start of the Ottoman- Russian war towards the end of 1806.

 

In view of the existence of voluminous literature dealing usually with the long record of traditional rivalry between the Ottoman and Russian Empires, the time of their short-lived rapprochement as a response to the aggressive advances of the Napoléonic France seems to be under-examined and deserves more analysis. Taking into consideration that normally the history of the Ottoman-Russian relations has been depicted in terms of permanent confrontation, any examples of mutual cooperation, whatever occasional and transient they might be, would always attract

special attention. In this respect, indicating the phenomenon of the Ottoman-Russian diplomatic and military partnership, as well as detailed study of its causes and nature, would allow a fresh look at the history of the Ottoman-Russian relations together with the possibility of more relevant analysis of the long-standing historical narratives still present in contemporary scholarly discourse.

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

 

SOURCES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE SUBJECT

 

Τι δε βλέπεις το κάρφος το εν τω οφθαλµώ του αδελφού σου, την δε εν τω σω οφθαλµώ δοκόν ου κατανοείς;

(Ματθ. 7,3)

 

 

2.1.  Sources

 

The main body of the unpublished archival material used in this study constitute the documents from the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (Архив Внешней Политики Российской Империи) in Moscow. These for the most part consist of the correspondence between the Russian embassy in Constantinople and the central government in St. Petersburg, including the reports of the ambassadors to the Tsar (usually sent twice per month), the instructions of the Tsar and the highest officials of the state sent to the embassy, the secret memorandums of the Foreign ministry officials concerning the conduct of the Russian foreign policy, the copies of the orders to the Commander-in-Chief of the joint Russo-Ottoman squadron F. F. Ushakov, as well as to the authorities of the Russian Black Sea Admiralty, copies of various international treaties, the correspondence of the Russian ambassador V. S. Tomara with F. F. Ushakov and the commanders of the Russian transport ships passing through Constantinople and the minutes of the conferences of the Russian ambassadors with the Ottoman authorities.

Another group of the archival documents is from the Russian State Military Historical Archive (Российский Государственный Военно-Исторический Архив), also in Moscow. The documents from this archive mainly include the reports of the Russian commanders of the troops, which were going to or stationed in the Ionian Republic, addressed to the Emperor. Due to these reports it is possible to trace the time of the departures and the arrivals of the Russian armed forces assigned for the garrison on the Ionian Islands, as well as the names and the strength of the troops.

 

 

As to the Ottoman archival material, I have examined the Hatt-i Hümayun register of the Ottoman Archive of the Prime Ministry (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi) in Istanbul. However, and this remains one of the most important limitations of this study, the Ottoman documents were used here insufficiently. Also, I could use some amount of documents from the Foreign Affairs Archive (Archive des Affaires Étrangères) in Paris, presenting the opinion of some French diplomatic agents in the Ottoman Empire regarding the international situation of the time.

 

 

Among the most important published collections of the documents, used in the given research, first of all should be mentioned the started in 1960-s by the Soviet Foreign Ministry and still continued collection of the Russian diplomatic documents of the 19-early 20th centuries “Foreign Policy of Russia in the 19^th- early 20^th centuries” (Внешняя политика России XIX и начала XX века: документы Российского Министерства иностранных дел). Other materials, published both in the Tsarist and the Soviet times in Russia, consist of numerous volumes of the private and official document collections (The Archive of Prince Vorontsov (Архив князя Воронцова) in 40 volumes, The Archive of Mordvinov Counts’ Family

(Архив графов Мордвиновых) in 10 volumes, Collection of the Imperial Russian Historical Society (Сборник Императорского Российского Исторического Общества) in 148 Volumes, published in the Tsarist times; the collections of private documents of M. I. Kutuzov and F. F. Ushakov, each of them consisting of 3 volumes, which were published in early 1950-s in the Soviet Union).

 

 

The published diaries, letters and memoirs make an additional and extremely valuable source of information. Indispensable for this study was the private correspondence of Catherine II with G. A. Potemkin and Joseph II. During the research there also have been used the diaries of Heinrich Reimers and Johann Struve, two young Russian noblemen who participated in the ambassadorial delegation of M. I. Kutuzov to Constantinople and have recorded their memoirs of this event. Besides, very useful were the memoirs of M. Ogiński, who was the special diplomatic representative of the Polish emigrant circles in Istanbul in 1796. As regards the Ionian and Italian campaigns of the joint Russo-Ottoman forces of Ushakov, a unique and interesting information can be found in the memoirs of the Russian naval officer Ye. Metaxa, who served during the Ushakov’s expedition as an aide on the flagship of the Ottoman squadron of Kadir Bey. The memoirs of the two French officers, J. P. Bellaire and M.-A.-B. Mangourit are also important because they describe the siege of Corfu and Ancona through the eyes of the besieged French defenders of these fortresses.

 

With a view to consult the full texts of the international treaties mentioned in this work, were used the respective collections of Martens (Martens, Georg Friedrich. Recueil des principaux traités d'alliance, de paix, de trêve, de neutralité,

de commerce, de limites, d'echange etc. Göttingen: Dietrich, 1800. Vol. 6), Noradounghian (Noradounghian, Gabriel, ed. Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'Empire Ottoman, 4 vols. Paris: F. Pichon, 1897-1903), Testa (Recueil des Traités de la Porte Ottomane. 11 vols. Paris: Amyot, Editeur des Archives diplomatiques, 1864-1911) and the Full Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire (Полное Собрание Законов Российской Империи). 45 vols., St. Petersburg, 1830.

 

 

2.2.  Historiography

 

It is quite difficult to find specific scholarly works concerning the Ottoman- Russian relations during the short period of 1792-1806. Those existing studies that in one way or another relate to the subject of the present research I thought it possible to arrange into three larger groups, which are the Russian/Soviet/Post-Soviet, the Ottoman/Turkish and the Western historiography.

 

 

Of the Russian/Soviet/Post-Soviet authors, whose monographs and unpublished dissertations were essential for this research, I would point out D. Miliutin¹, A. Stanislavskaia², E. Tarle³, A. Shapiro⁴, A. Miller⁵, I. Elterman⁶ and N. Mun’kov.⁷

 

 

¹ D. Miliutin, Istoriia Voiny 1799 g. mezhdu Rossiyey i Frantsiyey. (3 vols.: St. Petersburg, 1857).

² A. M. Stanislavskaia, Politicheskaia deiatelnost’ F.F. Ushakova v Gretsii, 1798-1800 g.g.. (Moscow, 1983); A.M. Stanislavskaia, Rossiia i Gretsiia v kontse XVIII- nachale XIX veka: Politika Rossii v Ionicheskoi Respublike, 1798-1807 g.g. (Moscow, 1976); A. M. Stanislavskaia, Russko- angliiskiie otnosheniia i problemy Sredizemnomor’ya (1798-1807) (Moscow, 1962).

³ E. V. Tarle, Admiral Ushakov na Sredizemnom more (1798—1800) (Moscow, 1948); E.V. Tarle,

Ekspeditsiia admirala D.N. Seniavina v Sredizemnoiie more (1805-1807) (Moscow, 1954).

⁴ A. L. Shapiro, Kampanii russkogo flota na Sredizemnom more v 1805-1807 g. g. Doctoral Dissertation. [Sine Loco], 1951.

⁵  A.  F.  Miller,  Mustafa  Pasha  Bayraktar:  Ottomanskaia  imperiia  v  nachale  XIX  veka

(Moscow;Leningrad, 1947).

⁶ I. M. Elterman, Posol’stvo Kutuzova v Turtsii v 1793- 1794 g. g. Candidate Dissertation. Moscow State University, Moscow, 1945.

⁷ N. P. Mun’kov. Diplomaticheskaia deiatel’nost’ M. I. Kutuzova (1792-1813 g. g.). Candidate Dissertation. Kazan’ State Pedagogical Institute, Kazan’, 1958.

Very useful were also the articles of G. Kleinman⁸, Z. Arkas⁹, N. Kallistov¹⁰, V. Sirotkin¹¹ and E. Verbitskii.¹² Although all these works touched upon some aspects of the Ottoman-Russian relations at the time under discussion, no special research addressed in detail the problem of the Ottoman-Russian reconciliation in late 18^th- early 19^th centuries in the face of the growing belligerence of France.

 

 

The modest article of Kleinman, which was published in 1945, may probably serve as one of the few exceptions. The author of the article focused exclusively on the problem of the Ottoman-Russian alliance of 1799. First giving a cursory look at the international situation of the Ottoman Empire in 1790-s, the author then evaluates the character of the Ottoman-Russian relations at the same period. She examines what prerequisites were necessary for this alliance to be formed and in the end analyses the contents of the alliance treaty. Kleinman concludes her article arguing that the alliance between St. Petersburg and the Porte could not be durable because the Ottomans were afraid of Russia. In view of Kleinman, it was largely the Russian attempts to interfere in the Ottoman internal affairs, as well as the Russian wish to turn the alliance into a certain kind of protectorate, that was arousing the concerns of

 

 

 

⁸ G. A. Kleinman, Russko-Turetskii soyuz 1799 goda. In Moskovskii Gosudarstvenniy Universitet. Istoricheskii Fakul’tet. Doklady i soobshcheniia. Vol. 3 (Moscow, 1945), pp. 9-23.

⁹ Z. Arkas, Deistviia Chernomorskogo flota s 1798 po 1806 god. Zapiski Odesskogo Obshchestva Istorii i Drevnostei, 5 (1863), pp. 846-901.

10 N. D. Kallistov, Flot v tsarstvovaniie imperatora Pavla I. In Istoriia Rossiiskogo Flota (Moscow,

2007), pp.208-246; Id. Flot v tsarstvovaniie imperatora Aleksandra I In Istoriia Rossiiskogo Flota

(Moscow, 2007), pp. 247-321.

¹¹ V. G. Sirotkin, Iz istorii vneshnei politiki Rossii v Sredizemnomorye v nachale XIX v.

Istoricheskiie zapiski, 67 (1960), pp. 213-233.

¹² E. D. Verbitskii, “K voprosu o blizhnevostochnoi politike Rossii na rubezhe XVIII i XIX vekov (O proekte russko-frantsuzskogo soyuza i razdela Ottomanskoi imperii F. V. Rostopchina). In Kolonial’naia politika i natsional’no-osvoboditel’noie dvizheniie (The colonial politics and national liberation movement). (Kishinev, 1965), pp. 159-193; Id. Peregovory Rossii i Osmanskoi Imperii o vozobnovlenii soyuznogo dogovora 1798 (1799) g. In Rossiia i Iugo-Vostochnaia Ievropa. (Kishinev, 1984), pp. 60-67.

the Porte. The two articles of Sheremet¹³ are also quite useful in that they present a general outline of the relations between Russia and the Ottoman Empire at the time of their alliance. These articles, however, are rather brief and lack many particular details, which could additionally back the author’s line of reasoning. The article of Kudriavtseva¹⁴, also dealing with the Ottoman-Russian relations at the turn of the 18^th- 19^th centuries, is extremely poor, contains many unallowable mistakes, and should be mentioned only due to the attempt of the author to address such a subject. A very qualified account of the Ottoman-Russian negotiations throughout 1805 about the renewal of the alliance treaty, which has been provided by Verbitskii¹⁵, is in its own way a unique study on that topic in the Russian historiography and deserves for special attention.

 

In general, though, the Russian and the Soviet historians never specifically turned their attention to the fact of the Ottoman-Russian rapprochement, cooperation and alliance at the end of the 18^th century. More popular among the Russian/Soviet historians were the topics related to the heroic exploits of the Russian arms and the renowned Russian military and naval commanders like Kutuzov, Suvorov or Ushakov. Only within the framework of such studies it is possible to find some references to the partnership between the Tsar and the Sultan. Thus, the three volumes of the fundamental work of D. Miliutin¹⁶ about the war of 1799 mostly focus on the military activities of Suvorov in the Northern Italy though also describe the Mediterranean campaign of the squadron of Ushakov, and, fragmentarily,

¹³ V. I. Sheremet, Vneshniaia politika Vysokoi Porty: K vremennomu soyuzu s Rossiyey. In Balkanskiie issledovaniia, Vol. 18 (Moscow, 1997), pp. 40-52; Id. Vysokaia Porta vnov’ sblizhayetsia s Frantsiyey. In Balkanskiie issledovaniia, Vol. 18. (Moscow, 1997), pp. 159-168.

¹⁴ Ye. P. Kudriavtseva, Rossiia i Turtsiia na rubezhe XVIII-XIX vekov: ot voyn k soyuznym dogovoram. Noveishaia Istoriia, 6 (1996), pp. 45-59.

¹⁵ Verbitskii, Peregovory Rossii i Osmanskoi Imperii.

¹⁶ General Field marshal D. A. Miliutin was the War Minister of the Russian Empire in 1861-1881. See: Voiennaia Entsyklopediia. Vol. 15. (S. Petersburg, 1914), pp. 293-97.

provides some information on the joint with the Russians activities of the Ottoman ships and soldiers.

 

 

In the same way Z. Arkas, N. Kallistov, E. Tarle and A. Shapiro in their studies, dealing with the Mediterranean campaigns of Ushakov and Seniavin, concentrate on the activities of the Russian naval forces and almost never mention the Ottoman allies of the Russians. It seems that the studies of Elterman and Mun’kov, both about the diplomatic activities of Kutuzov, had also been undertaken not so much in view to shed more light on the history of the Ottoman-Russian relations as to illuminate the diplomatic gifts of the celebrated defeater of Napoléon. Again, Stanislavskaia in her books examines the Russo-Greek connections in the context of the creation of the Seven Islands Republic, calling attention to the diplomatic and political talents of Ushakov. The only completely different in this respect is the work of Miller, which explains the events relating to the specific subject from the Ottoman history, though it largely covers the times after the deposition of Selim III, that is, when the new Ottoman-Russian war was under way and has little to add to the history of the earlier Ottoman-Russian cooperation.

 

The studies regarding the Russian foreign policy at the beginning of the 19^th century, like those of Sirotkin¹⁷, Ievstignieiev¹⁸and Vinogradov¹⁹, despite being quite interesting and detailed, deal with the general European politics of the period and concentrate on relations between Russia, Great Britain and France. In this context the

¹⁷ Sirotkin, Iz istorii vneshnei politiki Rossii.

¹⁸ I. V. Ievstignieiev, ‘K voprosu o tseliakh vneshnei politiki Rossii v 1804-1805 godakh’ Voprosy Istorii, 5 (1962), pp. 203-10.

¹⁹ V. N. Vinogradov, ‘Razriadka v napoleonovskuyu epokhu. Bonapart i russkiie’ In Balkanskiie issledovaniia, Vol. 18 (Moscow, 1997), pp. 77-97; Id. “”Vostochniy roman” generala Bonaparta i balkanskiie griozy imperatora Pavla” Ibidem, pp. 53-64.

Ottoman Empire for the most part remains a blank space, much neglected by the authors. Very important in terms of getting the Russian perspective of the Eastern question, even though through a bird’s eye view, are the classical work of the 19^th century written by Zhigarev²⁰ and the collective study of the Soviet historians published in late 1970-s.²¹

 

 

To sum up, there is no special study in Russian, except for a few articles, which would specifically focus on the subject of the Ottoman-Russian relations during the inter-war period of 1792-1806. All existing Russian (Tsarist/Soviet/Post-Soviet) works which partly touch upon the issues concerning the interaction between the Russian and the Ottoman empires at the given period mostly deal with the Russian military and naval victories under command of Ushakov or Suvorov. The works dealing with the embassy of Kutuzov to the Ottoman Empire in 1793-1794, though are very helpful, also concentrate more than on anything else on the personality of the future victorious Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army during the Napoléonic invasion in Russia. The fact of the alliance between St. Petersburg and the Porte usually plays only a subordinate part in the mentioned studies or can be even not mentioned more than in a few lines. The same holds true for the works on the diplomatic history of the period. The Russian relations with such leading European powers of the period like France, Great Britain or Austria have been more or less investigated by many researchers, while at the same time the Russian relations with the Porte during the same period remain largely unexplored.

 

 

 

²⁰ S. A. Zhigarev, Russkaia politika v Vostochnom voprose (yeyo istoriia v XVI-XIX vekakh, kriticheskaia otsenka i budushchiie zadachi) (2 vols.; Moscow, 1896).

²¹ Vostochniy vopros vo vneshnei politike Rossii, konets XVIII-nach. XX v. (Moscow, 1978).

When it comes to the Turkish historiography of the Ottoman-Russian relations during the time of the French Revolutionary and Napoléonic wars, it is not that rich, not to say that it hardly exists. The book of Kurat²² is rather a general overview of the Ottoman-Russian relations throughout three centuries and does not bring anything specific about the period under discussion. The articles of Inalcık²³ and Uzunçarşılı²⁴ only slightly touch upon some aspects of the Ottoman-Russian relations of the time, yet cannot be considered profound studies on the subject. One can also mention the article of Bilim²⁵, which is, however, not very original, being largely based on the Ottoman publication of Hayreddin Nedim²⁶, describing the embassy of Mustafa Rasih Pasha to Russia in 1793-1794. In general, in all these works Russia has been depicted only as the universal evil, sometimes in a much exaggerated manner. No attempt was ever made to look into any examples of the Ottoman-Russian cooperation, which would be contradicting to the overall discourse of Russia as an eternal enemy.

 

 

Some studies, like the books of Karal²⁷ and Soysal²⁸, as well as the article of Süslü²⁹ have been undertaken in regard to the Ottoman-French relations at the end of the 18^th - early 19^th centuries. There are also a few specific works on the Ottoman

 

²² Akdes Nimet Kurat, Türkiye ve Rusya: XVII.Yüzyıl sonundan Kurtuluş savaşına kadar Türk-Rus ilişkileri 1798-1919 (Ankara, 1970).

²³ Halil Inalcık, ‘Yaş Muahedesinden Sonra Osmanlı-Rus Münasebetleri (Rasih Efendi ve Ceneral Kutuzof elçilikleri’ Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakültesi Dergisi, 4 (1946), pp. 195- 203.

²⁴ Ismail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, ‘Yedi Ada Cumhuriyeti’ Belleten, 1 (1937), pp. 627-639.

²⁵ Cahit Bilim, ‘Mustafa Rasih Paşa’nın Rusya Sefaretnamesi (30.1.1793- 8.2.1794)’ Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi (OTAM), 7 (1996), pp. 15-36.

²⁶Hayreddin Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti. (İstanbul, 1333).

²⁷ Enver Ziya Karal, Fransa-Mısır ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu 1797-1802 (İstanbul, 1938).

²⁸ İsmail Soysal. Fransız ihtilâli ve Türk-Fransız diplomasi münasebetleri (1789-1802). 3^rd ed. (Ankara, 1999).

²⁹ Azmi Süslü, ‘Osmanlı-Fransız Diplomatik İlişkileri, 1798-1807’ Belleten, 47 (1983), pp. 259-279;

Azmi Süslü. ‘Rapports Diplomatiques Ottomano-Français, 1798-1807’ Belleten, 47 (1983), pp. 237-

257.

state apparatus and the Ottoman diplomatic activities at the discussed period³⁰ that contain some information on the Ottoman diplomatic missions abroad. However, the place of Russia in these works is quite insignificant. Possibly the only attempt to change the situation has been made recently by Şakul³¹, whose dissertation, based mainly on the original materials from the Ottoman Archive of the Prime Ministry, observes the time and the circumstances of conclusion of the Ottoman-Russian alliance and the Ottoman-Russian naval expedition in the Mediterranean. However, the vast published sources in Russian, as well as the Russian archival materials were to a great extent underused by the author. In this way, the Turkish historiography still lacks in a great degree the special studies on the relations between the Russian and the Ottoman empires in the years of their rapprochement and alliance in late 18^th- early 19^th centuries, which would be based also on the Russian sources and free from the traditional Ottoman-Turkish discourse of Russia as a declared enemy of the Porte with which any cooperation was impossible in principle.

 

 

As for the Western historiography, despite the seeming abundance of the works dedicated to the European diplomatic history of the time, covering the last decade of the 18^th and the first decade of the 19^th centuries, there are not so many indeed significant studies about the Ottoman and the Russian Empires in the context of their bilateral relations. Among those studies that shed some light on the issue one should mention, first of all, the books of Puryear³², Shupp³³, Saul³⁴, McKnight³⁵, Shaw³⁶, Mouravieff³⁷, Bradisteanu³⁸, Herbette³⁹, Marcère⁴⁰ and Fitzgibbon.⁴¹

³⁰ Ercümend Kuran, Avrupa’da Osmanlı İkamet Elçiliklerinin Kuruluşu ve İlk Elçilerin Siyasî Faâliyetleri, 1793-1821. (Ankara, 1988); Faik Reşit Unat, Osmanlı Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri. (Ankara, 1987).

³¹ Kahraman Şakul. An Ottoman Global Moment: War of Second Coalition in the Levant. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington, 2009.

³² Vernon John Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles. (Berkeley, 1951).

Puryear’s study has been based exclusively on the French and the British archival materials, and closely investigates the Near Eastern policy of France broadly since the proclamation of the Empire until the downfall of Napoléon’s rule and the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in 1815. Being not a special study on the Ottoman-Russian relations, in terms of its chronological scope the book of Puryear only slightly reveals the circumstances of the last years of the Ottoman-Russian alliance. It is important for the present dissertation in terms of providing some information on the diplomatic struggle among the European powers about the recognition of the imperial title of Bonaparte by the Ottoman government and also gives a general account of the renewal of the alliance treaty between St. Petersburg and the Porte.

 

 

The fundamental research of Shupp is a good record of the diplomatic events through 1806-1807, and mainly rests on the British archival materials. The author also worked with the French and the Austrian archives. Of the Russian sources, Shupp used the collections of the documents from the published Archive of Prince Vorontsov⁴² and the published documents from the Collection of the Imperial

³³ P. F. Shupp, The European powers and the Near Eastern question, 1806-1807 (New York, 1966).

³⁴ N.E. Saul, Russia and the Mediterranean 1797-1807 (Chicago, 1970).

³⁵ James Lawrence Mcknight, Admiral Ushakov and the Ionian Republic. The Genesis Of Russia's First Balkan Satellite. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1965.

³⁶ Stanford J. Shaw, Between Old and New: the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III.1789-1807

(Cambridge, 1971).

³⁷ Boris Mouravieff, L’Alliance Russo-Turque au Milleu des Guerres Napoleoniennes (Neuchatel, 1954).

³⁸ Stancu Bradisteanu, Die Beziehungen Russlands und Frankreichs zur Türkei in den Jahren 1806 und 1807. Inaug-diss. Berlin, 1912.

³⁹ Maurice Herbette, Une Ambassade Turque sous le directoire (Paris, 1902).

⁴⁰ Edouard de Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople: la politique orientale de la Révolution française (2 vols.; Paris, 1927).

⁴¹ Fitzgibbon, Edward Michael, Jr. Alexander I and the Near East: The Ottoman Empire in Russia's Foreign Relations, 1801-1807. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. The Ohio State University, 1974.

⁴² Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova.

Russian Historical Society⁴³, but the Russian and the Ottoman archives remained unexamined. Saul and McKnight studied the Russian involvement in the Mediterranean affairs. The former provides a rather detailed outline of the activiries of the Russian naval forces under Ushakov and Seniavin in the Mediterranean, while the latter looks into the circumstances of the formation of the Ionian Seven Islands Republic. Within the framework of their studies Saul and McKnight also necessarily discuss some aspects of the Ottoman-Russian relations. Again, the authors use only the Western European archival collections along with some published Russian materials. The title of Mouravieff’s book, which is supposed to be on the Ottoman- Russian alliance amidst the Napoléonic wars, does not reflect its actual contents. The given study is rather an overview of the European diplomatic history starting from the Egyptian expedition of Napoléon until the Vienna Congress. Fitzgibbon’s dissertation does not use any unpublished archival materials and is more a reference work of the published documents and the secondary sources relating to the topic of the Russian Near Eastern politics during the first years of the reign of Alexander I.

 

 

Quite helpful is Shaw’s profound study of the Ottoman Empire under the reign of Selim III. This book would always be useful for any researcher of the period. This works compares favourably in that the author has exhaustively investigated both the Western and the Ottoman archival materials pertaining to the subject of his work, along with the secondary sources in the main European, Ottoman and Turkish languages. Even though it primarily deals with the reforms of Nizâm-ı Cedîd of Sultan Selim, the study of Shaw also provides very much useful hints to the general situation of the epoch and to the state of the Ottoman-Russian relations in particular.

⁴³ SIRIO

A number of monographs by the French authors such as Driault⁴⁴, Marcère⁴⁵, Herbette⁴⁶, published in the early 20^th century, give the French perspective on the subject. The works of Driault look to be a complete apology to Napoléon and his policy of territorial aggrandizement. Despite the fact of the outright French invasion of Egypt, which brought about the Ottoman-Russian alliance, Driault never sees it as aggression. The essential idea that permeates the monographs of Driault is that Napoléon was a single saviour of the Ottoman Empire, while the true aggressor was Russia, just waiting for an opportunity to destroy the Ottoman Empire and to capture Constantinople. In this sense, the books of Driault clearly suffer from open Russophobia, being rather uncritical and resembling more of a political manifesto than an impartial scholarly investigation. Marcère’s work is important in that it shows the French view of the diplomatic struggle at the Ottoman capital throughout 1790-s, being based on the French archival materials and widely using the excerpts from the French newspapers of the time. Also, one should mention the study of Herbette about the Ottoman embassy of Moralı Seyyid Ali Efendi to France during 1797-1802.

 

Pisani in his article⁴⁷ addresses the topic of the French occupation of the Ionian Islands after the Treaty of Campo Formio, and the consequent hostilities of the French with the Ottoman Empire and Russia, also mentioning the arrests of the French citizens by the Ottomans. As regards the joint Ottoman-Russian expedition of

⁴⁴ E. Driault, La politique orientale de Napoléon. Sebastiani et Gardane (1806-1808) (Paris, 1904); Id. La question d'Orient depuis ses origines jusqu'a nos jours (Paris, 1905).

⁴⁵ Edouard de Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople : la politique orientale de la Révolution française (2 vols.; Paris, 1927).

⁴⁶ Maurice Herbette, Une Ambassade Turque sous le directoire (Paris, 1902).

⁴⁷ P. Pisani, ‘L’expédition Russo-Turque aux îles ioniennes en 1789-1799’ Revue d’Histoire diplomatique, 2 (1888), pp. 190-222.

Ushakov, the article of Pisani explains only the most general facts about the expedition and in this sense makes many references to Miliutin.⁴⁸ The author finishes his article by reviewing the changes in political status of the Ionian Islands after the Ottoman-Russian conquest. The article is of rather informative character and lacks an insightful analysis of the described events. Regarding the French perspective of the rivalry of the European powers at the Porte in early 19^th century, it would be very useful to consult the articles of Coquelle.⁴⁹

 

 

In the western historiography the exchange of the extraordinary embassies between St. Petersburg and the Porte in 1793-1794 has been reflected in a few articles by Clément-Simon⁵⁰, Grunwald⁵¹ and Conermann.⁵² The article of Clément- Simon, being not very original, describes only the external side of the ambassadorial mission of Kutuzov, including the ceremony of the exchange of the embassies, the reception of the embassy in Constantinople, the gifts presented etc. The limitation of the article is that the international politics of the time almost not touched upon. Grunwald’s article, even though quite informative, has no references whatsoever. The article of Conermann about the ambassadorial mission of Mustafa Rasih Pasha to St. Petersburg is remarkable by its extensive bibliography relating to the subject of the Ottoman diplomatic missions abroad. However, it analyses more the Ottoman diplomatic practices, the personality of the Ottoman ambassador to Russia and some

⁴⁸ Miliutin, Istoriia Voiny 1799 g.

⁴⁹ P. Coquelle, ‘L’ambassade du maréchal Brune à Constantinople (1803-1805)’ Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 18 (1904), pp. 53-73; Id. ‘La mission de Sébastiani à Constantinople en 1801’ Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 17 (1903), pp. 438-455; Id. ‘Sébastiani, ambassadeur à Constantinople, 1806-

1808’ Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 18 (1904), pp. 574-611.

⁵⁰ F. Clément-Simon. ‘Un ambassadeur extraordinaire russe à l’époque de Catherine II et de Sélim III’

Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 21 (1907), pp. 25-39.

⁵¹ Constantin de Grunwald. ‘Une Ambassade Russe à Constantinople au XVIII^e Siecle’ Miroir de l'Histoire, 82 (1956), pp. 491-99.

⁵² Stephan Conermann. ‘Das Eigene und das Fremde: der Bericht der Gesandtschaft Musafa Rasihs nach St. Petersburg 1792-1794’ Archivum Ottomanicum, 17 (1999), pp. 249-270.

of the contents of his ambassadorial report (sefâretnâme), yet does not aim to look into the political affairs of the late 18^th century.

 

 

Among the general works on the history of the Ottoman Empire and the history of relations between the Porte and the leading European powers should be mentioned the works of Zinkeisen⁵³, Iorga⁵⁴, Juchereau de Saint-Denys⁵⁵ and Anderson.⁵⁶ Apart from that, the articles of Findley⁵⁷, Naff⁵⁸ and Ragsdale⁵⁹, dealing with the topics related to the present research, should be mentioned.

 

 

In the end, there are some works of the Eastern European authors, including Goşu⁶⁰, Reychman⁶¹ and Stoilova⁶² among others, that were useful for this study. The monograph of the Romanian historian Goşu is one of a few special studies, along with earlier article of Verbitskii⁶³, which is completely dedicated to the issue of the renewal of the alliance treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Based on the materials of the Archive of the Russian Foreign Ministry (AVPRI), the book of Goşu is for sure an indispensable reading for a researcher of the Ottoman-Russian

⁵³ Johann Wilhelm Zinkeisen. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in Europa (Vol. 6, Gotha, 1859; Vol. 7, Gotha, 1863).

⁵⁴ Nicolae Iorga. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches. Nach den Quellen dargestellt. (Vol. 5, Gotha, 1913).

⁵⁵ Antoine de Juchereau de Saint-Denys, baron. Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman depuis 1792 jusqu'en 1844. (4 Vols.; Paris, 1844); Théophile Lavallée, Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman depuis les temps anciens jusq’à nos jours (Paris, 1855).

⁵⁶ M. S. Anderson, The Eastern question, 1774-1923: a study in international relations (London, 1970).

⁵⁷ Carter V. Findley, ‘The Foundation of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry: The Beginnings of Bureaucratic Reform under Selim III and Mahmud II’ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3 (1972), pp. 388-416; Id. ‘The Legacy of Tradition to Reform: Origins of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry’ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1 (1970), pp. 334-357.

⁵⁸ Thomas Naff, ‘Reform and the Conduct of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Selim III, 1789- 1807’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, 83 (1963), pp. 295-315.

⁵⁹ Hugh Ragsdale, ‘Russian Projects of Conquest in the eighteenth century’ In: Hugh Ragsdale, (ed.).

Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (New York, 1993), pp. 75-102.

⁶⁰ Armand Goşu, La troisième coalition antinapoléonienne et la Sublime Porte 1805 (Istanbul, 2003).

⁶¹ Jan Reychman, ‘1794 Polonya İsyanı ve Türkiye’ Belleten, 31 (1967): 85-91.

⁶² Tamara Stoilova, ‘La République Française et les diplomates étrangers à Constantinople 1792- 1794’ Bulgarian Historical Review, 1991 19(4), pp. 64-75.

⁶³ Verbitskii, Peregovory Rossii i Osmanskoi Imperii.

relations at the beginning of the 19th century. I thought it possible to refer to the article of Reychman, even though it has been published in one of the leading Turkish historical journals, as such relating to the Eastern European rather than Turkish, historiography. Being quite small, this article explains some facts of indirect and secret aid by the Porte to the Polish rebels during the time of the Polish uprising of Kościuszko in 1794. Stoilova, relying on the archival materials from AVPRI, made a good analysis of the international situation and the rivalry of the European powers in Constantinople in the first half of the 1790-s.

 

 

What is typical for the Western historiography is that in general the Russian imperial policy has been often looked upon one-sidedly and with a biased disposition, which seems to be a manifestation of traditional, at times quite exaggerated Russophobia. Such a view obviously presents only one side of the coin. Very often in the Western historiography a tendency of the Russian foreign policy towards the Ottoman Empire that was oriented on the protection of the Sultan’s domains  from  encroachments  of  other  European  states  has  been  ignored.

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

REESTABLISHING OF THE DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE PORTE AFTER THE PEACE TREATY OF JASSY (1792-1794)

Nulla salus bello: pacem te poscimus omnes (Publius Vergilius Maro,“Aeneis”,

Liber XI, 362)

 

 

3.1.  Two empires after the Peace Treaty of Jassy

 

The last sanguinary encounter of all those that occurred between the two neighbouring empires throughout the 18^th century could hardly resolve the initial set of long-lived controversies it began with. As regards the future of the Ottoman- Russian relations this war brought about rather more problems than actual solutions. The peace treaty, signed by the representatives of both courts in the capital of Moldavia¹, is notable not so much in itself as for the fact that it once again confirmed all the previous agreements concluded between the Russian government and the Porte² over a period of two preceding decades. It was thus not only some new

¹ The Peace Treaty of Jassy had been signed on 9 January 1792 (29 December 1791). The full text in Russian is available at: Polnoie Sobraniie Zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii (PSZRI). Vol. XXIII, № 17008. (St. Petersburg, 1830), pp. 287-292; the text in French: Gabriel Noradounghian, (ed.) Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'Empire Ottoman (4 vols.; Paris, 1897-1903), Vol. 2, pp. 16-21; the text in German: Treaties Between Turkey and Foreign Powers, 1535-1855 (London, 1855), pp. 510-17.

² The Article 2 of the treaty states, that “Трактат мира 1774 года июля 10, а Эгиры 1188 года 14 дня Луны Джемазиель-Еввеля, изъяснительная Конвенция 1779 года марта 10, а Эгиры 1193 года 20 дня Джемазиель-Ахыра; трактат торговли 10 июня 1783, а Эгиры 1197 года 21 Реджеба, и Акт объясняющий присоединение к Российской Империи Крыма и Тамана, и что границею есть река Кубань, 1783 года декабря 28 дня, а Эгиры 1198 года 15 Сафара, силою сего мирного договора подтверждаются во всех их Статьях, исключая те только, которые сим Трактатом или

territorial acquisitions gained by Russia at the expense of the Ottomans in Jassy, but the recognition of the whole body of earlier international legal acts regulating the new character of relations between the two countries which in their totality marked a profound geopolitical shift towards the Russian domination over the Northern coastline of the Black Sea.

 

 

In this way, at the beginning of 1792, the following major agreements constituted the legal base of contacts between the two empires as well as among their subjects: The peace treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (21 July, 1774)³, the Aynalı Kavak explanatory convention (21 March, 1779)⁴, the Manifesto “On the Annexation of the Crimean peninsula, etc.”(19 April, 1783)⁵, the Commerce treaty of Constantinople (21 June, 1783)⁶, the Constantinople Act on peace, trade and borders (8 January, 1784)⁷, and the already mentioned peace treaty of Jassy (9 January, 1792).

 

 

As for the gist of all these treaties, they step by step confirmed the transfer of vast land areas between the mouths of the Dniester and Kuban Rivers, including the Crimean Peninsula, under the Russian rule. Also, the Russian merchants were guaranteed the privileges of the most favoured nation that were enjoyed heretofore

же и прежними в одном после другого отменены”, PSZRI, Vol. XXIII, № 17008 (St. Petersburg, 1830): 289. (in the original the dates are given according to Julian and Islamic eras).

³ Russian text: PSZRI, Vol. XIX, № 14164 (St. Petersburg, 1830): 957-967; the text in French: Gabriel Noradounghian, (ed.) Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'Empire Ottoman (4 vols.; Paris, 1897-1903), Vol. 1, pp. 319-334; also see: Treaties Between Turkey and Foreign Powers, 1535-1855 (London, 1855), pp. 463-475.

⁴ Russian text: PSZRI, Vol. XX, № 14851 (St. Petersburg, 1830): 800-805; the text in French: Gabriel Noradounghian, (ed.) Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'Empire Ottoman (4 vols.; Paris, 1897-1903), Vol. 1, pp. 338-344; also, Treaties Between Turkey and Foreign Powers, 1535-1855 (London, 1855),

pp. 480-86.

⁵ Russian text: PSZRI, Vol. XXI, № 15708 (St. Petersburg, 1830): 897-98.

⁶ Russian text: PSZRI, Vol. XXI, № 15757 (St. Petersburg, 1830): 939-956; the text in French: Gabriel Noradounghian, (ed.) Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'Empire Ottoman (4 vols.; Paris, 1897-1903), Vol. 1, pp., 351-373; also see: Treaties Between Turkey and Foreign Powers, 1535-1855 (London, 1855), pp. 486-508.

⁷ Russian text: PSZRI, Vol. XXI, № 15901 (St. Petersburg, 1830): 1082-1083. The text in French: Treaties Between Turkey and Foreign Powers, 1535-1855 (London, 1855), pp. 508-509.

by the British and French⁸. It is necessary to point out that the very phenomenon of the Russian Black Sea commerce, which simply could not exist before on a significant scale, had arisen and only became possible in the train of the overall Russian drive to the South. Moreover, in the same year when the Crimea was annexed, St. Petersburg gained another political foothold in the Southern Caucasus, having established its protectorate over the Eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartli- Kakheti in line with the treaty of Georgievsk⁹.

 

 

Peace conditions that were agreed upon in the Moldavian capital considerably strengthened St. Petersburg’s positions in the Black Sea region vis-à-vis its southern neighbour, the Ottoman empire. As mentioned before, the Porte confirmed all of the previously concluded Ottoman-Russian agreements, meaning that in addition to the newly abandoned territories the Ottoman side de iure accepted the Russian annexation of the Crimean Chanate and recognized all changes of the Ottoman- Russian border that took place since the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774). The Sultan’s government was also obliged to protect the Russian merchants from attacks of the corsairs of Barbary; to prevent the possible abuses of its border authorities as regards the territories and inhabitants of the Georgian lands under the Russian protectorate; to keep its previous commitments to St. Petersburg on the subject of the Danube principalities, on whose behalf Russia gained the right to interfere already in 1774. In regard to the trade with the Ottoman dominions the Russian merchants, as mentioned above, received equal rights with those of the British and French, thus enjoying the status of the most favoured nation.

⁸ The Article 11 of the Küçük Kaynarca treaty; The Article 6 of the Aynalı Kavak explanatory convention; The Articles 17, 20, 29, 30, 52, 77 and 81 of the Ottoman-Russian commerce treaty.

⁹ The Treaty of Georgievsk had been signed on 4 August (24 July) 1783. The full text in Russian is available at: PSZRI, Vol. XXI, № 15835 (St. Petersburg, 1830), pp. 1013-1017.

The Jassy peace treaty, in brief, just completed the picture of quite a new geopolitical reality on the northern coasts of the Black Sea. Within barely a couple of decades the regional status quo changed dramatically. The formerly “Ottoman lake”, as the Black Sea used to be described, witnessed the Russian soldiers, merchants and diplomats coming to the areas not long ago considered as the sphere of exclusive Ottoman influence.

 

 

In such an extremely short span of time, within a single generation, it was hard for both sides to readjust their bilateral relations in accordance with the new political landscape in the Black Sea basin. On the one hand, the lightning speed, with which the events marking the Ottoman-Russian confrontation were unfolding, could not yet make the Ottomans to forget their recent losses and still kept alive their hopes one day somehow to take back everything that had been lost. On the other hand, though, the dashing advance of the Russian forces across the Northern Black Sea plains, along with the acquisition of the Crimea, whetted in St. Petersburg further appetites and fed far-reaching ambitions to drive the Ottomans out of the Balkans¹⁰. Consequently, the outcome of the war of 1787-1792, though they were in general more than satisfactory for Russia, in some points could possibly not even completely please the Russian Empress, to say nothing of the Ottomans. At the same time both states, each for its own reasons, and witnessing the sparked by the French Revolution dramatic changes in European politics, preferred to negotiate a peace treaty to end this war. The peace treaty, signed in Jassy, was to become a new point of departure in relations between the two countries.

¹⁰ The “Greek Project” of early 1780-s provides an illustrative example of the strategic schemes designed at the discussed period by the Russian ruling elite as a quite real, even though too pretentious, political program.

Insofar as the Russian Empire is concerned, it ended the war with certain undisputed and quite real gains. First, Russia obtained vast territorial acquisitions; second, due to these the Russian empire became an established Black Sea power, there were founded new cities and ports in the northern Black Sea region, and there had been laid the foundations of Russian Black Sea commerce; third, St. Petersburg got more possibilities to exercise its influence on the adjoining parts of the Ottoman Empire, and even received the official right to interfere into the internal affairs of the Ottoman state on behalf of the Danube principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.

 

 

Thus, returning to the gargantuan designs of the early 1780-s known in historical literature as the “Greek project”¹¹, this remains only a matter of pure speculation what kind of ultimate aims about the fate of the Ottoman Empire might exist in the heads of some leading figures of the Russian state, including the Empress herself. Whatever the plan to oust the Ottomans from Europe could be, the idea was not a new one; it existed well before both in West European and Russian political thinking.¹² “La Grand entreprise”¹³ of Catherine, considering its indeed boundless

¹¹ The essence of this plan was outlined by Catherine in her letter to Joseph dated by September 21/10, 1782. She shares here with the Austrian Emperor her ideas about what might be done in regard to the Ottoman state, which is in obvious decline. Catherine proposes, should the war with the Ottoman Empire happen, to make the Russian border with the Ottoman empire the Northern coastline of the Black Sea; to create in place of the Ottoman vassal Danube principalities a permanently neutral buffer-state Dacia, whose borders would be Dniester, Danube and the Black Sea; to expel, may it be possible, the “enemy of Christian name” from Constantinople and restore the Byzantine empire with Catherine’s grandson Constantine at the head. It is known, that somewhat earlier similar ideas were already mentioned in a memo prepared by A. A. Bezborodko, at that time the secretary of Catherine. See: SIRIO, vol. 26: 385.

¹² T.G. Djuvara, Cent projets de partage de la Turquie (1281-1913) (Paris, 1914); S. A. Zhigarev, Russkaia politika v Vostochnom voprosie (yeyo istoriia v XVI-XIX vekakh, kriticheskaia otsenka I budushchiie zadachi) (2 vols.; Мoscow, 1896).

¹³ The term “Greek project” was not specifically used at the time and is the product of later researchers of the subject, as one of the core objects of this scheme was the restoration of the Greek state. Catherine in her correspondence with the Austrian Emperor Joseph II rather refers to her plan as the “great enterprise”. See: Catherine II to Joseph II, September 21/10, 1782. A. R von Arneth, (ed.) Joseph II und Katharina von Russland. Ihr Briefwechsel (Wien, 1869), p. 156.

ambitions and the current overall situation in Europe at the beginning of the 1790-s, stayed, however, to be an unrealized ideal scheme much exciting the minds of later historians.¹⁴ At the time nothing tangible came out of its vast program.

 

 

Even if Catherine and her key statesmen might be nurturing some larger than life ambitions about the future of the Ottoman Balkan dominions, the war, declared by the Ottomans, who had been alarmed of the Russian expansion, came somewhat untimely for Russia, and in 1787 Russia was in no position to fulfil the great designs of the Greek project. For a number of objective reasons St. Petersburg was seeking to finish this war, which it entered without being fully prepared¹⁵ and which it had to fight on two fronts, as Sweden also unfolded the banner of war in the Baltics one year later. Catherine’s own words may serve perhaps the best testimony of her intention to conclude peace at the point after three years since the beginning of the military operations. While writing to General-Field Marshal G. A. Potiomkin, her celebrated favourite and, according to some accounts, her secret husband and a de- facto co-ruler, the Empress refers to the Peace Treaty of Värälä (14 August 1790) with Sweden in the following terms: “By God’s will one paw has been pulled out from a swampy place... Now I pray God to help you to do the same with the

14 One of the most detailed analyses of prehistory, sources and historiography of the question appears in: Edgar Hösch, ‘Das sogenannte "griechische Projekt" Katharinas II’ Jahrbucher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 12 (1964), pp. 168-206; also see: Hugh Ragsdale, Russian Projects of Conquest in the eighteenth century. In: Imperial Russian Foreign Policy. Ed. and trans. Hugh Ragsdale. Woodrow Wilson Center Series. (New York, 1993), pp. 75-102; O. P. Markova, ‘O proishozhdenii tak nazyvayemogo grecheskogo proekta (80-e gody XVIII v.)’ Istoriia SSSR, 1958 (4), pp. 52-78; P. V. Stegnii, ‘Yeshche raz o grecheskom proekte Iekateriny II. Noviye dokumenty iz AVPRI MID Rossii’ Noveishaia istoriia, 4 (2002), the same article, published in German: Piotr V. Stegni, ‘Noch Einmal Über das Griechische Projekt Katharinas II’ Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs, 50 (2003), pp. 87-111; M. A. Petrova, ‘Formirovaniie avstro-rossiiskogo soyuza v pravlenie Iosifa II (1780-1790)’ Istoricheskiie zapiski, 128 (2007), pp. 116-138.

¹⁵ ‘Letter of Catherine II to G. A. Potiomkin, 4 December (23 November) 1787’. Catherine says here that Austria was not more militarily prepared than Russia, and similarly did not expect war. Published in: Yekaterina II i G. A. Potemkin. Lichnaia perepiska. 1769-1791 (Moscow, 1997), pp. 254-55; SIRIO, Vol. 27: 453-55.

Turks”.¹⁶ This peace, Catherine continues, “saved men and money”.¹⁷ And a few days later almost in the same terms: “We pulled out of the mire one paw. As soon as we will pull out the other one, then we will sing Hallelujah”.¹⁸

 

 

In sum, despite the existing bold projects to drive the Ottomans out of Europe, Catherine for the moment wished peace. The difficult overall financial situation, the expenses of wars in the North, South, and West, which lasted for several decades, the repercussions of the Pugachov uprising, the French Revolution, and the strained situation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Constitution (May 3, 1791) had been proclaimed by the Sejm – all these made Russian Empress to speak about the wars with Sweden and the Ottoman Empire as of quagmire, and prefer to seek fast peace with the Sultan. On the other hand, so long as Catherine II stayed on the throne, there was always a possibility of reconsideration of the objectives of the Russian foreign policy and returning to the Greek project program, provided that a more favourable political situation turns up.

 

 

In the meantime the questions the Ottoman government, and particularly the new Sultan Selim III, had to deal with were incomparably more distressing. The ship of the Ottoman state seemed to be increasingly falling apart and taking on ever more water in the heavy storms of the late 18^th century. Two ill-fated wars with Russia and the shocking first ever loss of predominantly Muslim-populated territories just reflected the urging necessity to save the empire from the oncoming catastrophe.

¹⁶ “Велел Бог одну лапу высвободить из вязкого места… Теперь молю Бога чтобы помог тебе сделать то же и с турками”. ‘Letter of Catherine II to G. A. Potiomkin, 16/5 August 1790’. Ibidem, p. 425.

¹⁷ Ibidem

¹⁸ “Одну лапу из грязи мы вытащили. Как вытащим другую, то пропоем Аллилуйя”. ‘Letter of Catherine II to G. A. Potiomkin, 20/9 August 1790’. Ibidem, p. 426.

What became apparent, even if not instantly and only for some narrow group of the leading Ottoman statesmen, was that the military defeats were merely the most visible outward manifestation of a deeper complex crisis of the whole state system. It was hardly an exaggeration when Selim III, while trying in war conditions to find some additional sources of financing for the army, asked the Kaymakam Paşa¹⁹ of sharing thoughts on this issue and wrote bitterly that they were about to lose the state (devlet elden gidiyor).²⁰ By the end of the 18^th century the domains of the Sultan turned into a scene of growing disorder, anarchy, immense corruption and the lack of effective control by the central authorities in virtually all spheres of life.

 

 

What was clear to Selim was probably even clearer to others, including the Russian Empress. Obviously it was the critical situation of the Ottoman state which to a great extent influenced the direction of Catherine’s thought concerning the fate of the Ottoman European possessions and the Black Sea straits. In that very letter to Joseph II, which laid the foundations of what is known as the Greek project, she provided a description of the domestic situation within the Sultan’s domains. The special importance of this description is that it belongs personally to Catherine, who was not only a contemporary of the events she wrote about, but also the head of the state most directly involved and most carefully watching the political developments within the Ottoman Empire.

 

¹⁹ Sadaret kaymakamı, or Kaymakam Paşa –an official, appointed to perform temporarily the duties of the Sadrazam, in case of the latter's absence from the central government (because of leading a warfare, or for some other reason). While at his post, the Kaymakam Paşa could exercise all powers and authority pertaining to the office of the Sadrazam. More detailed information concerning the office of Kaymakam Paşa is available at: Mehmet Zeki Pakalın, Osmanlı Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sözlüğü (3 vols.; İstanbul, 1983-1993), Vol. 2, pp. 219-222.

²⁰ Selim wrote also, that he is personally ready to live on dry bread only, if necessary: “Devletin irad ve masrafı ve zait sefaheti cümlenizin malûmudur. Eğer bana şimdilik kuru ekmeğe kani ol deseniz ben razıyım... Siz bana beyan edin Allah aşkına devlet elden gidiyor sonra faide vermez”. Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları (Ankara, 1999), p. 32.

So, evaluating the situation from the point of view of her own country, the Russian Empress called the attention of the Austrian monarch to the following circumstances: the lack of firm state’s control in the Ottoman provinces, with local pashas and magnates staying loyal to the centre only in word; aggravation of the existing separatist tendencies, that had been influenced by the methods of arbitrary confiscations of private properties, often practiced by the Ottoman authorities in order to fill the state treasury; the discontent of the majority of the Ottoman Christian subjects²¹; the reign of terror in the countryside, created by the marauding gangs; the flight of the rural population to the big cities, which had only increased the cost of life and added to the general chaos in the urban areas as well; the widespread lack of the discipline in the army and fleet, together with the concomitant notorious commercial involvements of the Janissaries; at last, the very Ottoman government, the Divan, each year being refilled with people, that were able only in illegal amassing of money rather than in looking for the remedies to save their country from the present critical situation.²² On the whole, a fairly coherent account by the ruler of neighbouring state of what was going on in the once-powerful Ottoman Empire.²³ By then the Ottoman state, ironically, no longer fitted in fact its official name, Memâlik-i mahrusa (which literally means “well protected domains”), as the overall positions of the Sultan government grew more and more precarious. In the five years term (the quoted Catherine’s letter was written in September 1782) in addition to all of the

²¹ The Russian Empress also provides here an assertion that of the Ottoman subjects the Christians are “at least five-six times more than the Turks”. While this claim sounds rather irrelevant, it obviously had to support Catherine II’s overall argument.

²² ‘Catherine II to Joseph II, September 21/10, 1782’. A. R von Arneth, (ed.) Joseph II und Katharina von Russland. Ihr Briefwechsel (Wien, 1869), pp. 152-53.

²³ For special studies dealing with the period and the question of the Ottoman domestic crisis, among others, see: Stanford J. Shaw, Between Old and New: the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III.1789-1807 (Cambridge, 1971); Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları (Ankara, 1999); Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları. Nizam-i Cedit, 1789-1807 (Ankara, 1988); Fikret Sarıcaoğlu, Kendi Kaleminden bir Padişahın Portresi: Sultan I. Abdülhamid (1774-1789) (İstanbul, 2001); Yücel Özkaya, 18. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Toplumu (İstanbul, 2007).

abovementioned problems, the Ottomans witnessed the Crimean Khanate annexed by Russia and found themselves engaged in yet another devastating war on their Northern borders.

 

 

Selim III thus inherited, apart from other dilemmas and accumulated deep troubles, also the war with Russia. Abdülhamid I, Selim’s uncle and predecessor, got paralyzed under the influence of the news about the loss in December 1788 of Ochakov (Ottom. Özi) fortress²⁴ and died of brain insult some three months later, on 7 April 1789/ 11 Receb 1203.²⁵ On the same day, Selim became the new Sultan. Should one pay attention to this date, it is easy to call to mind an event, which happened almost at the same time on the other side of the European continent. On 5 May 1789 the Estates General were convened in Versailles. What no one could know at that point was that Europe came to the verge of momentous changes.

 

At the outset of his reign, the young Sultan (when he ascended to the throne, Selim was 28 years of age) was determined to proceed with the war until the victorious end. Winning the war was important not only for the country, but also for the Sultan’s personal prestige, since “in the Ottoman Empire a defeated Sultan meant a doomed Sultan”.²⁶ Notwithstanding with the demands of several commanders on the field who were certain about the weakness of the army and who insisted on seeking immediate peace, Selim still hoped to retake the Crimea with the help of Sweden and Prussia. Very meaningful were his words that “I would not give up the

²⁴ Abdülhamid I commented on the loss of Ochakov (Özi) and following massacre of its locals: “İşbu takrîr Alîm-Allâh ve kefâ-bihi beni yeniden mükedder eyledi. Bu kadar ehl-i İslâm’ın ricâl ve nisâ, kebir ve sağîrleri kefere elinde esir olmak…Yâ Rab senden niyâz-i âcizânem kal’a-i mezbûru yine dest-i a’dâdan dest-i İslâma nasîb ettiğin günleri göster…”. Quoted in: Fikret Sarıcaoğlu, Kendi Kaleminden bir Padişahın Portresi: Sultan I. Abdülhamid (1774-1789) (İstanbul, 2001), p. 35.

²⁵ About some additional circumstances of the death of Abdülhamid I see: Sarıcaoğlu, Kendi Kaleminden, pp. 34-37.

²⁶ Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları. Nizam-i Cedit, 1789-1807, p. 156.

fight against the Muscovites until the Crimea, with God’s help, will be conquered. I would give my consent to the peace negotiations jointly with Prussia and Sweden only if [the Muscovites], under the mediation of Prussia, would return without fight the Crimea”²⁷, or “there is no peace with Russians, who are the principal enemies of the Ottoman state, as long as the Crimea will not be taken”.²⁸

 

 

However, the campaigns of 1789-1790 proved to be a complete disaster for the Ottomans, who lost the cities and fortresses in Moldavia and Dobruja one after another as the Russian forces appeared victorious in 1789 at Galatz (Galaţi), Focşani, Rymnik, Akkerman and Bender. In 1790, the Ottomans continued their unhappy series of defeats by surrendering to the Russians Kilia, Tulcea (Tulça), Isaccea (İsakçı), İsmail. On the Eastern front in the Caucasus, in summer 1791, the Ottomans lost Anapa²⁹, the last Ottoman stronghold on the Northern shores of the Black Sea. The war on the sea was in the same degree disappointing for Bâb-i Âli and ended in the domination of the Russian fleet in the area after the victories at Fidonisi, Kerch Strait, Tendra and Cape of Kaliakra. In addition, having concluded peace with Sweden (14 August, 1790), St. Petersburg got opportunity to concentrate more resources for war in the South. Another Ottoman ally, Prussia was not as much anti- Russian as it was anti-Austrian, and having made sure that the Austrians would quit this war without any substantial gains it had no reason to support the Ottomans and upset for the sake of the Porte its relations with Russia. Moreover, because of the revolutionary events in France no one, neither Prussia nor England or some other

²⁷ “Ben dahi Kırımı avn-i Hakla teshir edinciyedek Moskoflu cenginden fâriğ olmam. Eğer Kırımı Prusya tavassutu ile cenksiz verirse Prusya ve İsveç beraber olarak müsalâhaya olvakit ruhsat veririm”. Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları (Ankara, 1999), p. 42.

²⁸ “... Kırım alınmadıkça Devleti Âliyenin asıl düşmanı olan Rusyalu ile sulh yoktur”. Ibid. p. 43.

²⁹ According to the Jassy peace treaty was given back to the Ottomans, eventually taken over by Russia in 1829.

country could render the Porte at this time any effective assistance. Thus, Selim’s wishes to make peace with Austria and to use all remaining forces of the Empire and its allies against the Russians ended in nothing. It was clear that the Ottoman state needed a breathing space to pull itself together, to cut war expenses and to use that money for the critical internal reforms conceived by the Sultan. What is more, the discipline in the Ottoman troops had fallen so low that the Janissaries were fleeing from the battlefield, and then were telling fantastic stories of their own exceptional bravery in Istanbul coffee-houses.³⁰ Finally, Selim III himself became convinced in the fruitlessness of further fighting, and realized that recovering the Crimea in the present situation was beyond his powers. Thus, he sought for urgent peace before the massive desertion of Janissaries from the front would destroy the remains of the Ottoman army.³¹

 

 

Consequently, the ensuing Ottoman-Russian negotiations led to the signing of the peace treaty in Jassy on 9 January 1792. Though Russia got new territorial acquisitions and commercial advantages for its merchants, it was far from being able to realize the boundless geopolitical schemes designed by the Russian and Austrian monarchs in the early 1780-s. As for the Ottomans, they, apart from failing to achieve their primary aim in the war, which was to get the Crimea back, suffered even further territorial losses and another serious blow to their state prestige.

 

It was not only the Ottomans who were willing to conclude peace. For Catherine the current war, even if victorious, was rather untimely, and the Russian Empress was also interested in ending the conflict for all the practical reasons cited

³⁰ Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları (Ankara, 1999), pp. 44-45.

³¹ “Bari askerin cümlesi dağılmadan musalâhayı bir gün evvel akdetmeğe çalışasın”. Ibid., p. 46.

above. As soon as the peace of Jassy was signed, the former belligerents faced the new task to build up relations with each other based rather on the sober demands of the present moment, and not on the chimerical, albeit desirable, massive political projects. For this reason the statesmen of both empires were well aware of the necessity to work out a new modus vivendi for the time being acceptable for each party involved.

 

 

3.2.    Extraordinary Embassies of Mustafa Rasih Pasha and M.I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov

3.2.1. General observations

Following the stipulations of the 10^th article of the Jassy peace treaty both the Tsar’s and the Sultan’s courts had to send their extraordinary representatives reciprocally, to exchange ratifications of the treaty and “to confirm the peace and true friendship between the two empires”. In order to get an idea of what could be the tasks of the ambassadors, it is fundamental to look once again at the driving motives behind the politics of the both states following the peace of Jassy.

 

 

As it has been already said, neither side wished to continue the war at the moment. Regarding the Porte, it simply faced a defeat. The Ottoman traditional military organisation proved extremely inefficient in the battlefields against the Russian standing army that was trained, organised and commanded along the European lines. It refers equally to the organisation of the navy, the modern naval battle tactics and the superiority of the skills of the Russian Sea officers. The overall condition of the Ottoman military was only a reflection of the deep crisis of the entire Ottoman state, which literally was on the verge of survival. Therefore, instead of

continuing the costly and pernicious war, Selim III needed peace to have a time to engage in his long-before planned reforms known as Nizâm-i Cedîd.

 

 

Catherine II for the time being was likewise in need of peace on her southern borders, not only in view of the damaging impact inflicted upon the Russian economy by the incessant wars (including the Pugachev uprising) that Russia had been waging for several decades³², but also by taking into consideration the dramatically changed state of international affairs. While the developments of the French Revolution arrested the attention of the whole Europe, for Russia no less important were also the affairs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. While the Russian government was preoccupied with the war against the Ottomans, the Sejm of the united Polish-Lithuanian state succeeded in adopting the Constitution of 3 May, 1791, which threatened to diminish the heretofore unlimited Russian influence in the Commonwealth. Having finished the war in the South, Catherine would “get her hands untied”³³ to interfere in the Polish-Lithuanian affairs and again to take control over the situation in the country. By the end of 1791, at the point of concluding the peace with the Sultan, the Russian Empress already planned to march her army of about 130.000 men from the Ottoman front into the Commonwealth territories in the right-bank Ukraine³⁴ to suppress the May 3^rd Constitution. Correspondingly, it was much important for Russia that at the moment the Ottomans would be keeping peace. Very revealing in this respect were the words of V. P. Kochubey, who wrote to S. R.

³² According to Veidemeier, the war of 1787-1792 did cost Russia over 60 million roubles, while the expenses made during the first Catherine’s war with the Ottomans (1768-1774) are estimated at about 7 million roubles. See: A. Veidemeier, Dvor I zamechatelniie liudi v Rossii vo vtoroi polovinie XVIII veka (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1846), p. 98.

³³ Emanuel Rostworowski, Obalenie dzeła Sejmu czteroletniego przez Targowicę i interwencję carską. Drugi Rozbiór (1792-1793) In: Stefan Kienewicz and Witold Kula (Eds). Historia Polski (Warsaw, 1958), Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 297.

³⁴ Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Polska w czasie trzech rozbiorów 1772-1799 (Warsaw, 1903) Vol. 3, p. 104.

Vorontsov, Russia’s decades-long ambassador in London: “Vis-à-vis de la Turquie nous désirons sincèrement de conserver la tranquillité, et toutes nos actions démontrent la sincérité de nos intentions”.³⁵

 

 

In accordance with the aforesaid concerns of both states, their peace aspirations were very much real and yet, paradoxically enough, this alone could not guarantee a firm peace between them. Each party had well-founded reasons not to trust the other and as a result felt insecure. No one could make the Ottomans to ignore the potential danger of a Russian attack and the numerous apparent manifestations of Catherine’s grande entreprise. In the same way, Russia could never be sure that the Ottomans, supported by some European power, would not decide to unfold the Holy Banner of the Prophet (Sancağ-i Şerif) once again, at the most undesirable moment. Such a situation, quite in line with the classical maxim si vis pacem para bellum, necessarily required from the statesmen of both countries that they still should be prepared for war even while contemplating the peace negotiations.

 

 

It appears from this, that probably the most important task for the extraordinary envoys, which were to set off on a long journey, would be to reassure the other side of the peaceful and amicable intentions of their sovereigns. The envoys and their entourages, enjoying the status of the “legal spies”, would also clearly perform intelligence tasks so that to collect as much information as possible on the country of their stay. Apart from that, many practical questions relating to the recent war, like the fate of the prisoners of war, restitution of the arrested property of the Russian merchants, the new Trade Tariff etc. were to be dealt with. To represent their

³⁵ ‘V. P. Kochubey to S. R. Vorontsov, 14 / 3 October, 1792’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 59.

countries in the capacity of extraordinary envoys at the foreign courts were chosen Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov and Mustafa Rasih Pasha.

 

 

3.2.2. The Envoy of the Russian Empire

The Russian court first planned in February 1792 to send to Constantinople Count Alexander Nikolaievich Samoylov, a nephew of all-powerful Potiomkin. Owing to Samoylov’s later appointment in September³⁶ to the office of General- Prosecutor (General-prokuror) of the Senate³⁷ it was decided to assign the ambassadorial mission to M. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a prominent General and a hero of two previous Russo-Ottoman wars.³⁸ The official orders in that respect had been issued on November 5, 1792.³⁹

 

 

The Russian representative at the High Porte, Poruchik General⁴⁰ M. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov was 47 years of age by the time of his appointment, having spent his entire life in the Russian military service and making a brilliant soldier career. At the age of twelve Kutuzov had been enlisted in the Artillery and Engineering School in St. Petersburg, then in 1761, being a 15 years old teenager,

³⁶ ‘V. P. Kochubey to S. R. Vorontsov, 17 / 6 September, 1792’ Ibidem, p. 47.

³⁷ General- Prokuror was the highest office in the central administration of imperial Russia, established by Peter the Great in January 1722. The General-Prokuror had a seat in the Senate, acting there as the “tsar’s eye”, to supervise all activities. After the establishment of the ministries in 1802 the minister of justice was entrusted with the duties of the general-prokuror. See: Sergei G. Pushkarev, Dictionary of Russian Historical Terms from the Eleventh century to 1917 (New Haven; London, 1970), p. 19; Entry ‘General-Prokuror’ In: Sovetskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopediia (16 Vols.; Moscow, 1961-1976), Vol. 4, columns 192-93.

³⁸ The personality of M. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov is probably the most known for his successful command of the Russian military forces at the point of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812.

³⁹ I. M. El’terman. Posol’stvo kutuzova v Turtsii v 1793-1794 g.g. Dissertatsiia na soiskaniie uchenoi stepeni kandidata istoricheskikh nauk. Moscow State University, 1945. [El’terman gives the date of Kutuzov’s appointment according to Julian calendar (October 25), though throughout her work she never specifies which system of reckoning, Julian or Gregorian, she uses; See also the letter of V. P. Kochubey to S. R. Vorontsov, dated November 7 (October 27), 1792. Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, pp. 65-66.

⁴⁰ Генерал-поручик – A military rank existing in Russian army since 1730 through 1798, which corresponded to that of Lieutenant General.

started his service in the regular army. Gradually growing in ranks, Kutuzov took part in military operations against the Polish confederates. On several occasions before and right after the annexation of the Crimea, he took part in suppressing the Crimean Tatar uprisings in the peninsula, and also participated in both wars against the Ottoman Empire under Catherine II.

 

 

During these wars Kutuzov was twice heavily wounded in the head and each time miraculously survived. First wound happened on 4 August, 1774 (by then the Küçük Kaynarca Peace Treaty (21 July) had been already signed and the war in fact ended, though the news did not reach the troops yet), in the middle of the pursuit of the Ottoman detachment, which two days earlier landed on the Crimean coast near Alushta. The bullet ran through Kutuzov’s head entering at the left temple, went behind his eyes, and came out at his right temple. Everyone expected Kutuzov to die in a few days, but he, though lost his right eye, survived. The second wound, got by Kutuzov at the siege of Ochakov (Özi) on 29 August, 1788, was almost identical to the first one. Again bullet passed behind the eyes, by some unexplainable miracle leaving the brain and the eye nerves untouched. Kutuzov, already a General, was still able to continue his service in the army and distinguished himself in December 1790 at the assault on the Ottoman fortress of Izmail (Ismail).⁴¹ Immediately after the peace of Jassy Kutuzov was ordered to enter the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

 

 

 

 

 

 

⁴¹ P. A. Geisman, Golienishchev-Kutuzov-Smolienskii Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ (25 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1903), Volume 9 ‘Knappe-Kiukhel’becker’, pp. 628-695; Entry ‘Kutuzov’ In: Sovietskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopediia (16 Vols.; Moscow, 1961-1976), Vol. 8, columns 335-337; some general information is also available at: ‘Kutuzov, Mikhail Illarionovich, Prince’ The New Encyclopedia Britannica. Micropaedia. 15th edition. 1995. Volume 7, p. 49.

and throughout the summer of 1792 he fought against the Polish insurgents to suppress the May 3 Constitution.⁴²

 

 

What is striking about the Russian extraordinary envoy is that Kutuzov was a very skilled soldier rather than a professional diplomat. For many even in St. Petersburg such an appointment was somewhat unexpected.⁴³ On the other hand, an experienced officer could far better evaluate the military potential of the Ottomans. As it had been said earlier, along with the peace negotiations it was as much important for both sides to get intelligence on each other’s strength, dispositions and plans. The language of Catherine’s secret instruction was quite explicit and gives a good clue to why Kutuzov had been chosen:

We had also considered that, due to Your skills in the art of war, You will not miss to make all those surveillances, which at the proper time can be useful and necessary to us (italics are mine; V. M.), as regards the location of the places, the roads, the population, the fortifications, the troops dispositions, the ammunition reserves and all that relates to the ground and sea forces.⁴⁴

 

Thus by entrusting the ambassadorial mission to Kutuzov, the Russian Empress first of all was relying on his immense military experience in order to sound the ground about the Ottoman fighting potential and whether and to what extent the Ottomans would be able to attack the Russian borders in the near future. Second, as one can see from the quote above, despite her obvious need for peace Catherine II still was

 

 

⁴² Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Polska w czasie trzech rozbiorów 1772-1799 (Warsaw, 1903), Vol. 3, pp. 176-77.

⁴³ V. P. Kochubey to S. R. Vorontsov, 7 November (27 October), 1792. Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova

(Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, pp. 65-66.

⁴⁴ “Имели мы и то уважение, что по искусству Вашему в ремесле военном не упустите сделать все те наблюдения, кои в свое время для нас полезны и нужны быть могут о положении мест, о дорогах, о населениях, укреплениях, расположении войск, запасах военных и о всем к воинской части сухопутной и морской принадлежащем”. Directive of Catherine II to M.

I. Kutuzov, with a secret instruction “On political matters”. 4 March (21 February), 1793. In: L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich. Dokumenty (Moscow, 1950), p. 199.

leaving open the possibility of further fighting with the Ottomans, this time in all likelihood in the Balkans.

 

 

3.2.3. The Envoy of the Sublime Porte

Just like his Russian counterpart, the extraordinary envoy of the High Porte to the Tsarist court Mustafa Rasih Pasha⁴⁵ was not a professional qualified diplomat. What makes a huge difference between the two embassies is that the Russian side at this point had already had opened its mission in Istanbul again, headed by chargé d'affaires ad interim, Colonel Alexander Khvostov. In this way, upon his arrival Kutuzov could easily get acquainted with the overall situation in the Ottoman capital and would have at his disposal the trained diplomatic personnel of the Russian embassy. Moreover, even though Kutuzov was not a career diplomat, he could be quite useful as an experienced soldier, and Catherine’s instructions leave no doubts about the advisability of Kutuzov’s appointment. In case of Rasih Mustafa Pasha, he purely and simply lacked both the necessary diplomatic skills and experience, and did not have all the advantages that were at the disposal of his Russian colleague. In view of the then existing Ottoman diplomatic practices it could not, in fact, be otherwise.

 

 

⁴⁵ Mustafa Rasih normally had the title of Efendi. For the time of his special ambassadorial mission in Russia Rasih was conferred the rank of Rumeli Beylerbeyi, with the title of Pasha. See:

Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî yâhûd Tezkire-i meşāhir-i 'Osmāniyye (4 vols.; Istanbul, 1311), Vol. 2, p. 348; Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1278), Vol. 5, p. 274.

Upon his return to the High Porte, Mustafa Rasih continued his service using again the title of Efendi and is mentioned by Mehmed Süreyya in “Sicil-i Osmanî”, well-known compendium of biographies of the celebrated Ottoman statesmen, as Rasih Mustafa Efendi:

Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî yâhûd Tezkire-i meşāhir-i 'Osmāniyye (4 vols.; Istanbul, 1311), Vol. 2, pp. 347-48.

A biography of Mustafa Rasih has been also given at “Halifetü-r Rüesa”, a collection of brief life accounts of the Ottomans, who at different times were performing the duties of Reis-ül-Küttab, an Ottoman vague semblance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Ahmed Resmî, Halifetü'r-Rüesâ veya Sefinetü'r-Rüesâ (İstanbul, 1269), pp. 140-41.

For long centuries, the Ottomans never troubled themselves with establishing permanent diplomatic missions abroad. More than that, they were not much interested in what was going outside the vast, mighty and majestic domains of the Sultan, the abode of the most magnificent civilization and the only true religion. Convinced in their own a priori cultural superiority over all other states and peoples, especially the Christian infidels, the Ottomans considered their state absolutely self- sufficient. To use the mot juste of Norman Itzkowitz and Max Mote, to the Ottomans even in the second half of the 18^th century “the world of Islam was still the world”.⁴⁶ In other words, such a worldview was based on the premise that the others may need and seek support, good will and generosity of the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottoman Empire does not need anyone. Consequently, little value was attached to the diplomatic art, which resulted in the fact that the Ottoman statesmen knew almost nothing about the outer world neither did they possess any understanding of the fundamentals and practices of European diplomacy. Under the given circumstances, all practical issues concerning the relations of the Porte with other states were always discussed and settled in Istanbul, in an environment of constant intrigues and conspiracies, bred by contending parties of European ambassadors and those of the Ottoman statesmen alike.

 

By the end of the 18^th century, however, it was growing more evident that the Ottoman government could no longer afford the attitudes it used to display a few centuries before and happily ignore the later developments in European politics. Within a wide-ranging set of reforms conceived by Selim III, some fundamental changes were to be made as well in the heretofore completely disregarded field of

46 Norman Itzkowitz and Max Mote. Mubadele: an Ottoman-Russian exchange of ambassadors

(Chicago, 1970), p. 13.

diplomacy.⁴⁷ Yet, at the moment, the Ottomans did have neither their own abroad embassies nor trained and skilled diplomats.⁴⁸

 

 

In this context, the Ottoman envoy to Russia could not be something other than what he was: bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the bureaucratic system of the Ottoman state. Appointed to be the Sultan’s extraordinary and plenipotentiary representative at the court of the Russian Empress in the end of May 1792⁴⁹, Mustafa Rasih Efendi was about the same age as his Russian fellow ambassador, or a couple of years older.⁵⁰ Unlike Kutuzov, Rasih made his career not on the battlefields but serving and getting experience in the chanceries of the Ottoman central state apparatus. Starting as a junior clerk at the Chancery of the Grand Vizier, and apparently owing to his marriage with daughter of Âtıfzade Ömer Vahid Efendi, a very influential high-standing bureaucrat during 1760-1770-s⁵¹, Rasih could easier

 

47 For Ottoman traditional diplomatic practices and reforms consult: Thomas Naff, ‘Reform and the Conduct of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Selim III, 1789-1807’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, 83 (1963), pp. 295-315; J. C. Hurewitz, ‘The Europeanization of the Ottoman Diplomacy: The Conversion from Unilateralism to Reciprocity in the Nineteenth Century’ Belleten, XXV (1961), pp. 455-66; Carter V. Findley, ‘The Foundation of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry: The Beginnings of Bureaucratic Reform under Selim III and Mahmud II’ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3 (1972): 388-416; Idem, ‘The Legacy of Tradition to Reform: Origins of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry’ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1 (1970), pp. 334-357; Faik Reşit Unat, Osmanlı Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri (Ankara, 1987); Ercümend Kuran, Avrupa’da Osmanlı İkamet Elçiliklerinin Kuruluşu ve İlk Elçilerin Siyasi Faâliyetleri, 1793-1821 (Ankara, 1988); Hasan Korkut, Osmanlı Elçileri Gözü ile Avrupa (İstanbul, 2007); Chapters in books: ‘Window to the West’, in: Stanford Shaw, Between Old and New: the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III.1789-1807 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 180-99; ‘Diplomasi Alanında Islahat’, in: Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün Hatt-ı Hümayunları. Nizam-i Cedit, 1789-1807 (Ankara, 1988), pp. 163-86.

⁴⁸ The only exception in this case could be Phanariotes, the subjects of the Sultan originating from the wealthy Greek Orthodox families, traditionally very much influential in the Ottoman administration, who also composed the majority of the dragomans at the Porte and at the foreign missions in Istanbul. ⁴⁹ Faik Reşit Unat, Osmanlı Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri (Ankara, 1987), p. 164.

⁵⁰ The year of Kutuzov’s birth, given in most of his biographies, is 1745. The age of Mustafa Rasih can be guessed from the data provided in his official biography by Mehmed Süreyya. It is stated there, that Rasih died on 14 Cemâziyelevvel, 1218 / 1 September, 1803, being sixty years old:

Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî yâhûd Tezkire-i meşāhir-i 'Osmāniyye (4 vols.; Istanbul, 1311), Vol. 2, p. 348. Thus, according to this information, Mustafa Rasih must have been born around 1743. ⁵¹ Mustafa Rasih’s father-in-law, among his other state offices, at different times occupied the posts of Tersane emini (Supervisor of the Naval Arsenal), Reis-ül-küttap (Director of Foreign affairs), Defterdar-i şıkk-i evvel (First Treasurer). For biographies of Ömer Vahid Efendi see:

get his further promotions as Topçu kâtibi (Scribe in the Artillery corps), Süratçı nâzırı (Superintendent in the Rapid-fire rifle corps), Tezkire-i sani (Second secretary of the Grand Vizier) (1787-1788), Tezkire-i evvel (1788-1789) (First Secretary of the Grand Vizier) and Rikâb-i hümâyûn kethüdası (Chief Attendant of the Sultan’s retinue) (1790-1792), Rasih’s last post before being appointed ambassador. Having received on 28 January, 1793⁵² in the audience at the Sultan’s court the Royal letter (Nâme-i Hümâyûn) of Selim III to the Russian Empress, Mustafa Rasih set out on his journey two days later, on 30 January, 1793.⁵³

 

 

Conermann argues that in view of the high offices held by Mustafa Rasih, it is also possible to consider him a person who belonged to the narrow circle of the reformers of Selim III. He reinforces this argument by drawing attention to the fact that Mustafa Rasih was among the limited number of those higher officials, which upon the special request of the Sultan presented at the Imperial Council their own reform proposals (lâyiha) to launch the Nizâm-ı Cedîd reforms.⁵⁴ Though not taking an active part in the reforms, Rasih obviously was closely connected with the key figures of the Nizâm-ı Cedîd, including the Sultan himself. Being thus at least to some extent a confidant of the Ottoman reformers’ circle with Selim III at the head, Rasih was expected, apart from the declared official purposes of his mission, to

Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî yâhûd Tezkire-i meşāhir-i 'Osmāniyye (4 vols.; Istanbul, 1311), Vol. 3, pp. 594-95; Ahmed Resmî, Halifetü'r-Rüesâ veya Sefinetü'r-Rüesâ (İstanbul, 1269), pp. 116-

18.

⁵² Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1278), Vol. 5, p. 274; Hayreddin Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti. (İstanbul, 1333), p. 10.

⁵³ Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1278), Vol. 5, p. 274.

⁵⁴ Stephan Conermann, ‘Das Eigene und das Fremde: der Bericht der Gesandtschaft Musafa Rasihs nach St. Petersburg 1792-1794’, Archivum Ottomanicum, 17 (1999), p. 263. More detailed account on the personalities of the Nizâm-i Cedîd reformers and their reform proposals has been given by Stanford Shaw, in chapter ‘The Reformers’ of his book: Stanford Shaw, Between Old and New: the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III.1789-1807 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 86-111. The texts of lâyihas have been published in: Enver Ziya Karal, Nizâm-i Cedid’e dair lâyihalar Tarih vesikaları, 1 (1941- 1942), pp. 414-25; Tarih vesikaları, 2 (1942-1943), pp. 104-11, 342-51, 424-32. The

propositions made by Mustafa Rasih are also available here, at: Enver Ziya Karal, Nizâm-i Cedid’e dair lâyihalar. Tarih vesikaları, 2 (1942-1943), pp. 107-8, 425-7.

provide the Porte in as much as he could with his observations on all the spheres of life in the country of his stay.

 

 

It should come then as no surprise that Rasih’s official ambassadorial report (sefâretnâme)⁵⁵ presented to the Porte upon his return includes very detailed intelligence information on Russia. It is a rather extensive description of the Russian economy, society, army and state, and is far different from usual Ottoman sefâretnâmes, which were normally concentrated on ambassadors’ technical tasks, diplomatic ceremonial procedures, many smaller formalities of protocol and how the ambassadors were doing their best to defend the honour of their monarchs. What is remarkable, the sefâretnâme of Mustafa Rasih touches not only upon the current affairs, but also upon the events of the Russian relatively recent history, telling about the all-encompassing reforms of Peter the Great and their beneficial effect on the results of the Northern war Russia waged at the Peter’s time against Sweden.⁵⁶ These recordings of the Ottoman official, no doubt, are in close connection with the new reform movement of Selim III, giving an idea how Russia at the dawn of the 18^th century managed to cope successfully with the problems similar to those the

⁵⁵ The Sefâretnâme of Mustafa Rasih Pasha’s embassy was actually written not by the envoy himself, but by Seyyid Abdullah Efendi, a scribe at the mission: Faik Reşit Unat, Osmanlı Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri (Ankara, 1987), p. 163. The Latin transcription of the given sefâretnâme’s original Ottoman text is available at: Uğur İyigünler, Mustafa Rasih Efendi’nin Rusya Sefareti ve Sefaretnamesi. MA thes., Kırıkkale University, 1998. The author of this MA thesis for the most part has only transcribed the Ottoman manuscript into its more easily readable, rendered in printed Latin characters, verbatim version. No attempt of some analytical evaluation of its contents has been made, though.

⁵⁶ “Kral-i mesfûr [Peter the Great; V. M.] … imparatorluğa nasb ve intihâb olunduğu helâlde Rusya’nın her hâlde fünûn ve harf ve sanâyi'i nâkıs ve nâ-tamâm ve bi’l- cümle idâre-i umûr-i mülkiyye ve askeriyyesi bî-râbıta ve intizâm memleketin nizâmı… ancak bi'n-nefs Avrupa memâlikini geşt ü güzar ile… ahâli ve asâkire lâzım ve mühimm olan hâlât ve keyfiyyâtı mu'âyene ve tedkîk husûsuna muhtâc olduğunu mülâhaza itmeğle… kadîmden makarr-i devletinde müstakarr olan merâsim ve kavâ'idin ekserâsını tağyîr ve tebdîl ve emr-i ticâreti tervîc ve tekmîl ve ma'tûf-i askeriyyesin tertîb ve fünûn-i harbiyyeyi tefhîm ve ta'lîm ve edevât ve levâzım-i beriyye ve merâkib-i bahriyyesini tanzîm ve ahâlî-i diyârînin ziyy ve libâsların deşiğdirmek îkâ' iderek vaktinde İsveç Devletile âğâz-i muhâsama ve muhârebe eyledikde kendünün verdiği nizâma ve râbıtadan küllî intifâ' eylediğinden ihlâfı dahi eserine iktifâyı iltizâm itmişlerdir”. Uğur İyigünler, Mustafa Rasih Efendi’nin Rusya Sefareti, pp. 6-7.

Ottomans were trying to solve presently. Among other things, special attention in Rasih’s report was paid to the organization of the Russian army along the European patterns.⁵⁷ It can be said without any risk of exaggeration that, actually, one of the most tangible results achieved by the mission of Mustafa Rasih to Russia in 1793- 1794 was that it gave the Ottoman government certainly by no means an exhaustive, but more or less detailed first-hand account of the Russian society.

 

 

At the same time, the capacities of the Ottoman embassy were quite limited from the very beginning. Mustafa Rasih, a high-standing bureaucrat going on a foreign mission, was supposed only to discuss the fate of the Ottoman prisoners of war. Neither having any diplomatic experience or knowing Western languages he likewise hardly could and in fact did not contact other European ambassadors at the Russian court.⁵⁸ The actual diplomatic game as regards the line and preferences of the Ottoman foreign policy, with participation of the diplomatic representatives of the main European powers, was traditionally going on at Istanbul.

 

 

3.2.4. Exchange of Embassies

It was not for the first time when under much the same circumstances the extraordinary embassies were reciprocally exchanged between the Ottoman and Russian states. A couple of decades earlier, in compliance with the Küçük Kaynarca peace treaty (1774) provisions, Abdülkerim Efendi (like Mustafa Rasih granted for a term of his mission the title of Pasha) on the part of Bâb-i Âli and General in Chief Prince Nikolai Vasil’evich Repnin on the part of the Russian court visited each

⁵⁷ İyigünler, Mustafa Rasih Efendi’nin, pp. 27, 29, 31, 49.

⁵⁸ At least, as Hayreddin Nedim reasonably points out, should Mustafa Rasih have some meetings with other foreign ambassadors it would certainly be reflected in the Seafaretname and his letters to the Bâb-i Âli. However, any evidences of this kind are missing:

Hayreddin Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti. (İstanbul, 1333), p. 107.

other’s countries in 1775 as extraordinary and plenipotentiary representatives of their monarchs.⁵⁹ The similar exchange of embassies took place even earlier, in 1740, when after the Belgrade peace treaty (1739) Mehmed Emin Efendi and General in Chief Alexander Ivanovich Rumiantsev were sent to Russia and the Ottoman Empire respectively.⁶⁰ So, in terms of the ceremonial procedures to be held at the exchange of embassies, the sides had already the set precedents to follow.

 

 

The large trains⁶¹ of both embassies left their capitals in winter-early spring of 1793, and, with many rest stops on their way, moved at a slow pace towards the border dividing two countries. It took a few months for each embassy to reach the borderland areas of their empires. By the month of April the Ottoman plenipotentiary and his entourage encamped in the Moldovan town of Bender, situated on the right bank of the Dniester River that served as a boundary between the Ottoman and Russian domains. The Russian ambassador’s headquarters were established in Elisabethgrad (nowadays- Kirovohrad, Ukraine), a town, only recently founded amidst the vast plains on the former Cossack-Tatar border and called to be the centre of the Southern steppe region newly acquired by Russia. At this point, as the distance between the embassies grew less, their correspondence became more intense.⁶² The sides were preparing for the official ceremony of exchange, though at the same time

⁵⁹ A detailed account on both these embassies, Ottoman and Russian, is available at: Norman Itzkowitz and Max Mote, Mubadele: an Ottoman-Russian exchange of ambassadors (Chicago, 1970).

⁶⁰ P. A. Geisman, Rumiantsov Aleksandr Ivanovich. Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ (25 Vols.; Petrograd, 1918), Volume 17 “Romanova-Riasovskii”, p. 471.

⁶¹ The Russian embassy, for example, consisted of 476 only officially appointed members, not counting all kinds of lackeys and servants. Suffice it to say, that the team of musicians and the choir singers alone included 98 men. For the full list of the Russian embassy see: Personale des Gefolges der nach Constantinopel gehenden Gesandtschaft, in: Heinrich Christoph von Reimers, Reise der Russisch-Kaiserlichen Ausserordentlichen Gesandtschaft an die Othomanische Pforte im Jahr 1793. (St. Petersburg, 1803), Vol. 1, pp. 7-11. El’terman provides the figure of more than 650 people being enrolled with the Russian delegation: I. M. El’terman, Posol’stvo Kutuzova, p. 70.

⁶² The questions concerning the time and place of the exchange ceremony, as well as on which side’s raft (the exchange was to be made in the middle of the Dniester River) it should take place, became the centrepiece of the given correspondence:

Hayreddin Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti. (İstanbul, 1333), pp. 14-27.

some strange rumours about a possible break-up between the empires were floating in the air.⁶³ However trustworthy or not these rumours could be, in view of the officially declared intentions of both governments, they do clearly indicate that the fear of a new war was still widely shared by many people.

 

 

April and May passed in final preparations of all the necessary equipment and in waiting when the roads would dry out from the spring rains.⁶⁴ Meanwhile the place and the date of the prerequisite exchange ceremony were also being discussed. It was finally decided, in accordance with the request of the Russian side, that the exchange should be made in the vicinity of Dubossary,⁶⁵ a small border town situated on the left bank of the Dniester and only one year before, by virtue of the Jassy peace treaty, incorporated into the dominions of the Russian Empire. As for the date, the Russians at first proposed to chose 14 June. Considering that this day was falling on Friday (the day of obligatory public worship in Islam) it was agreed that the exchange ceremony would take place on the next day, that is, on Saturday, 15 June, 1793 / 6 Zilkade, 1207.⁶⁶

⁶³ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 41.

⁶⁴ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 43.

⁶⁵ Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II on the designation of the place for the “exchange” of the Russian and the Ottoman ambassadors. 8 May (27 April) 1793. In: L. G. Beskrovnyi, (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich. Dokumenty (Moscow, 1950), p. 207-8; ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II on the agreement about the place of the “exchange” of ambassadors. 21 / 10 May, 1793’. Ibidem, pp. 208-9.

⁶⁶ Ibidem, p. 57; ‘Letter of M. I. Kutuzov to A. S. Khvostov (Russian Charge d’Affaires in Constantinople). 10 June (30 May), 1793’. In: L. G. Beskrovnyi, (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich. Dokumenty (Moscow, 1950), p. 211; ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II about the designation of the place for the “exchange” of the ambassadors. 12/1 June, 1793’. Ibidem, p. 211-12; Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1278), Vol. 5, p. 306.

It is amazing, but the vast majority of the authors, who were writing on this topic (See: F. Clément- Simon, ‘Un ambassadeur extraordinaire russe à l’époque de Catherine II et de Sélim III’ Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 21 (1907), pp. 25-39; Halil İnalcık, ‘Yaş Muahedesinden Sonra Osmanlı-Rus Münasebetleri (Rasih Efendi ve Ceneral Kutuzof elçilikleri)’ Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih- Cografya Fakültesi Dergisi, 4 (1946), pp. 195-203; I. M. El’terman, Posol’stvo Kutuzova v Turtsii v 1793-1794 g. g.. Dissertatsiia na soiskanie uchenoi stepeni kandidata istoricheskikh nauk. Moscow State University, 1945. N. P. Mun’kov, Diplomaticheskaia deyatel’nost’ M. I. Kutuzova (1792-1813 g.g.) Kazan’ State University, 1958) went along rather uncritically with the issue of dates, and the repeated wrong, or rather unclear, dates are simply passing from one article to another. This problem

The exchange of the two embassies has been described by many authors, but probably one of the most exhaustive and original accounts belongs to Heinrich Christoph von Reimers, a 25 years old Russian nobleman, who was then a member of the Russian delegation.⁶⁷ Another young Russian official employed at the embassy, Johann Christian von Struve, has also left a very informative and important written description of his travels with the Russian ambassadorial train, where among other things he tells about what he saw on 15 June 1793 on the banks of the Dniester near Dubossary.⁶⁸ The most comprehensive Ottoman account of the exchange ceremony is given in the work of Hayreddin Nedim, published in 1914/1915 and thoroughly based upon the Ottoman documentary materials, and in the first place upon the sefâretnâme of Mustafa Rasih’s embassy.⁶⁹

 

 

As far as the ceremony proper is concerned, it replicated the one held in 1775 down to the smallest detail.⁷⁰ It seems that both the Ottoman and the Russian courts

is, unfortunately, quite typical when it comes to the Russian history and the Russian sources. In many cases even the Russian historians forget that it was the Julian calendar that remained in use in Russia up until 1918, and that it a little differs from the Gregorian one. For that reason, the dates in sources are usually given according to the Julian system of time reckoning (though at times the dates provided can be Gregorian as well). Thus it is advisable to check any specific data, so that not to mix the Julian and the Gregorian calendar systems. Sometimes a comparison with the Hijri dates, if available, is very helpful.

67 Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, 1803, pp. 58-64. This is, in the strict sense, a collection of letters written

throughout the embassy journey to an unknown friend in St. Petersburg. The French article of Clément-Simon in its part, which describes the exchange of the ambassadors, is obviously largely based on Reimers’ evidence, and as well as in many other places it looks to be very close to the text of Reimers, even to the point of uncritical repetition of the Julian dates used by Russian official: F. Clément-Simon, ‘Un ambassadeur extraordinaire russe à l’époque de Catherine II et de Sélim III’ Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 21 (1907): 25-39.

⁶⁸ Johann Christian von Struve, [published anonymously]. Travels in the Crimea; a History of the Embassy from Petersburg to Constantinople in 1793, including Their Journey through Krementschuck, Oczakow, Walachia & Moldavia with their Reception at the Court of Selim the Third. (London, 1802), pp. 74-6.

⁶⁹ The Ottoman description of the exchange ceremony is available at: Hayreddin Nedim, Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti. (İstanbul, 1333), pp. 28-9.

⁷⁰ ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II about the “exchange” between him and the Turkish ambassador. 18 / 7 June, 1793’ In: L. G. Beskrovnyi, (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich. Dokumenty (Moscow, 1950), pp. 212-13.

in this case, like in many others, never spared money for their imperial prestige. The splendour and magnificence of the ceremony must have been indeed amazing. In this respect an observation of Reimers looks interesting and deserves to be mentioned. A young Russian says, that throughout his life he was an eyewitness of many remarkable ceremonies, including the Betrothal of the Doge of Venice to the Adriatic Sea in 1788, the address of the Pope to about 26 thousand of believers gathered on the St. Peter’s Square in Vatican and the Opening session of the Estates-General on 5 May 1789 in Versailles, though still the Exchange of the Ottoman and the Russian embassies on the Dniester in terms of its grandeur surpassed everything he had seen before.⁷¹

 

 

After the two delegations in dazzling pomp arrived at their sides of the Dniester, the ceremony of the exchange began. It was started with a cannon shot from the Russian bank that was immediately answered from the Ottoman territory.⁷² The ambassadors, slowly moving with their entourages to the banks, were again greeted by ten cannon rounds fired on each side of the border. Mustafa Rasih Pasha and Kutuzov, accompanied by the exchange commissars and interpreters, at the same time took off from the opposing banks of the river and simultaneously disembarked at the big raft fixed in the very middle of the Dniester, on the invisible yet real border line between the two empires.

 

The ambassadors, two men of almost the same age, sat down in the armchairs prepared for them on the raft since the early morning. A weathered soldier, father of five little daughters, and a practised bureaucrat, father of three sons, two of whom

⁷¹ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, pp. 58-9.

⁷² Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 60; Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 28.

were following him on his foreign mission⁷³, met in this way on the edge of the vast expanses of their countries. They greeted each other through the interpreters, and for a short time had a formal conversation. Then, again synchronously, Mustafa Rasih and Kutuzov stood up, and, each taken by the hand by their own commissars⁷⁴, were handed over to the commissar of the opposite side.⁷⁵ After that the Russian envoy and his entourage proceeded to the Ottoman bank, while his Ottoman colleague crossed the river in the opposite direction and stepped on the Russian territory.

 

 

Upon crossing the Dniester the ambassadorial trains stayed in their camps for another ten days, the Ottoman on the Russian side and vice versa, so that some curious young folks from the Russian embassy had even the time to visit the Ottoman camp. A French renegade in the Ottoman service, who was a physician of the ambassador, showed them the camp.⁷⁶ Finally, on 25 June 1793 each embassy set off to continue their journeys. Kutuzov’s delegation moved in the direction of the Sultan’s capital, and that one of Mustafa Rasih took the road through Yelizavetgrad, Kharkov and Moscow to St. Petersburg.⁷⁷

 

 

3.3.  Ottoman Embassy in the Russian Empire

 

As to the duties of Mustafa Rasih’s embassy, they were very much formal and had been confined to the delivering of the Sultan’s Imperial letter to the Empress,

⁷³ Two sons of Mustafa Rasih, Mehmed Nuri Efendi and Ibrahim Edhem Efendi were members of the Ottoman ambassadorial delegation: Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 11.

⁷⁴ The commissars at the ceremony of the ambassadorial exchange were the Commandant of the Bender Fortress (Bender Muhafızı) Hasan Pasha on the Ottoman side, and the Governor General of Belorussia, General in Chief Piotr Bogdanovich Passek on the Russian side.

⁷⁵ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 64; Mun’kov, Diplomaticheskaia deyatel’nost’, pp. 44-5; For description of the previous similar exchange of the extraordinary ambassadors that took place in 1775 see: Norman Itzkowitz and Max Mote, Mubadele: an Ottoman-Russian exchange of ambassadors (Chicago, 1970), pp. 125-9.

⁷⁶ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 72.

⁷⁷ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 75.

along with the presents for Catherine II and her courtiers. In accomplishing the norms of the ceremonial protocol, the Ottoman envoy was once again to confirm before the Russian government the peaceful intentions of the Porte. In addition, Mustafa Rasih had to discuss the issue about those Ottoman war prisoners that were still staying in Russia and apparently to gather more information on various Russian state and social institutions, which could be of interest for the Sultan and his circle of Nizâm-i Cedîd reformers. In view of the traditional attitudes towards the diplomatic art held for centuries at the Porte, the Ottoman extraordinary envoy to Russia was not supposed to conduct complicated political negotiations. According to the usual practice, as the Ottomans never had their own regular diplomatic representatives at other European courts, the matters concerning the foreign policy of the Porte were discussed in Istanbul at the conferences with the European ambassadors residing in the Ottoman capital.

 

Mustafa Rasih had been appointed to his ambassadorial mission to Russia in May 1792⁷⁸, though due to the fact that the Russian side finally decided upon the appointment of its own envoy only in autumn⁷⁹, the actual preparations for Mustafa Rasih’s departure started at the beginning of 1793. On January 23, 1793 the Ottoman envoy received the presents he would deliver to the Russian Empress and other Russian state officials. The presents included very precious aigrette (چ.JCY-"), gemstones, gilded belt, carpet (طl....,) , the horse harnesses gilded and studded with gemstones, stirrups, three gilded tea-services ()lط 0:زر �lط), Chinese silks, various ointments and fragrances, with rose oil and balm from Mecca among these, and a huge costly nomad tent made of muslin and embroidered with a gold thread and

⁷⁸ Faik Reşit Unat, Osmanlı Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri (Ankara, 1987), p. 164.

⁷⁹ Kutuzov was assigned to his post on November 5, 1792.

pearls.⁸⁰ It took ten four-horse carriages in order to carry all of the presents.⁸¹ The overall importance attached by the Ottomans to their diplomatic mission that was to be sent for St. Petersburg could also be seen in a single fact that the High Porte had spent for it, despite its grave financial situation, more than 600,000 guruş.⁸² On January 28 Mustafa Rasih was given the Royal Letter (Nâme-i Hümayun) of the Sultan to Catherine II, and departed from Istanbul on January 30, 1793.⁸³

 

 

Upon the exchange ceremony that took place in the middle of the Dniester River in the vicinity of the city of Dubossary on 15 June, 1793 Mustafa Rasih Pasha entered the Russian soil. On the Russian side of the Dniester a special tent was already prepared for the Ottoman ambassador, wherein he proceeded in the company of the Commissar at the Exchange ceremony General in Chief Piotr Passek and the Guiding Officer (Mihmandar- Ottom.; Pristav- Russ.) Major General Il’ya Bezborodko, brother of the Russian Foreign Minister Aleksandr Bezborodko. Inside the tent all of the guests were served coffee, fruits and sweets.⁸⁴ Both the Ottoman and the Russian embassies stayed for another ten days on the opposing banks of the Dniester, and then on the same day, 25 June 1793, embarked on their further journeys across the foreign lands.⁸⁵

 

The road of the Ottoman delegation was going through Elizavetgrad, Aleksopol (nowadays Tsarychanka village in Dnipropetrovs’k region, Ukraine), Kremenchuk,

 

⁸⁰ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 10.

⁸¹ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 11.

⁸² Thomas Naff, ‘Reform and the Conduct of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Selim III, 1789- 1807’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, 83 (1963), p. 304.

⁸³ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 10-11.

⁸⁴ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 31.

⁸⁵ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 75.

Poltava, Kharkov, Kursk⁸⁶ and then Tula and Moscow towards St. Petersburg. All the way the envoy of the Sultan and his mission due to their status were rendered special attention by local authorities. Whenever the embassy happened to pass by the Russian fortresses the latter honoured the Ottoman ambassador with artillery rounds and fireworks.⁸⁷

 

 

As the delegation proceeded on its way, from time to time it was approached by the Muslim prisoners of war, men and women, who applied for protection at the embassy. Apparently, the first and foremost question Mustafa Rasih asked his guides as soon as he crossed the Russian border was the situation with those Ottoman prisoners of war, which still stayed in the Russian captivity. Much to his regret, the envoy of Selim III could not get any satisfactory answer as the Russian guiding officers refused to talk about this matter saying that they did not know anything about it and that the whole issue was not in their responsibility.88 Mustafa Rasih put all his complaints on paper, largely exaggerating the grievances he suffered, in his opinion, from the Russian side. The Sultan himself noted that his ambassador was unnecessarily making things more complicated than they actually were.89 Be that as it may, Mustafa Rasih during the whole term of his stay in Russia still had that serious problem of the Muslim prisoners, those he gave refuge at the embassy and those which remained in Russia as ostensibly newly baptized Orthodox Christians. In this respect the ambassador experienced continuous quarrels with his guiding officers, both en route and after arrival at St. Petersburg.

⁸⁶ P. Kititsyn, ‘Turetskoie posol’stvo v 1793 godu’ Kievskaia starina, 23 (1888), № 10, pp. 26-9; Idem., ‘Proiezd chrez Yekaterinoslavskoie namestnichestvo turetskogo posol’stva, v 1793 godu’ Zapiski Odesskogo Obshchestva Istorii i Drevnostei (ZOOID), 10 (1877), pp. 504-6.

⁸⁷ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 31.

⁸⁸ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 33.

⁸⁹ Upon one of Mustafa Rasih’s reports Selim III wrote: “Rasih Paşa ama çok hadis yazmış”. Nedim.

Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 33.

On the way to the Russian capital among the most remarkable places visited by the embassy were Tula, traditional centre of Russian “military-industrial complex” since the times of Peter the Great, and Moscow, the ancient capital of the Muscovite principality. As the Ottoman delegation came in late July to the town of Tula, the ambassador and other members of his entourage (two sons of Rasih, Hazinedar (treasurer) of the embassy, the author of embassy’s sefâretnâme Abdullah Efendi, and some other persons from the mission) were shown eight Tula arms factories (alât-i harbiye kârhaneleri), which were working on the energy of moving water and produced rifles, pistols, sabres and all kinds of ironware. The Ottoman guests noted the industrial specialization of the factory workers and the high quality of the manufactured products.⁹⁰ Following this visit the ambassador was presented with a gift of two skilfully made pistols, a pen-case, and a polished steel rosary. For other visiting members of the Ottoman delegation there were given two pairs of pistols and three double-barrelled rifles. Then Mustafa Rasih and his companions were shown the Arsenal (cebhane) situated in the centre of the town.⁹¹ Apparently, such a display of modern weaponry manufacture, apart from reasons of usual hospitality, would pursue the objective to proudly show the Ottoman side the successes of Russian modernization.

 

Mustafa Rasih’s embassy departed from Tula on 1 August, 1793 / 23 Zilhicce, 1207, and bypassing Serpukhov, the ancient fortress of the Muscovite principality, on 7 August, 1793 / 29 Zilhicce, 1207 arrived at Moscow.92 It looks that the whole

⁹⁰ “Maharet kasdiyle sarf-i dikkat itmeleri muayene-i ma’mulat san’atleri olmuşdur”. Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 34.

⁹¹ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 34.

⁹² Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 35.

month of Muharram the embassy stayed there, since the date of its departure from the first capital of the Muscovite state is given in the official ambassadorial record as 5 Safer⁹³, which falls on 12 September 1793. While in Moscow, the Ottoman delegation were shown the ancient treasury of the Russian crown, and particularly the throne of the Muscovite monarchs, the chambers filled with jewels and precious stones, ancient suits of armour, chain-mails, gold and silver utensils, rifles and pistols. The soldier guardian, whether trying to aggrandize the history of his state in the eyes of the foreigners, or, what is probable, not knowing himself the earlier history of the Muscovite principality, told the Ottoman guests that the presents in the treasury are being collected for a fabulous period of 800 years.⁹⁴

 

 

Despite all of the distortions and misspellings of the Ottoman orthography, as well as extremely hard for an ear of the Ottoman scribes Russian place-names, it is quite possible, having armed oneself with maps of modern Tula, Moscow, Tver, Novgorod and Leningrad oblasts of the Russian Federation, to trace down the way of Mustafa Rasih’s mission, as it is given in the ambassadorial record. It is amazing, but the smaller places the Ottoman embassy had been passing by more than two hundred years ago did not change their names neither during the tsarist, nor Soviet, nor post- Soviet times. More than that, the general route by which the Ottomans were moving, obviously due to the local topographic features, almost completely corresponds to the web of the modern high roads.

 

Accordingly, the Ottoman embassy proceeded through Klin (nowadays a town in Moscow oblast), village of Zavidovo (Konakovo district, Tver oblast), village of

⁹³ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 36.

⁹⁴ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 35-36.

Gorodnia (Konakovo district, Tver oblast), Tver, village of Mednoye (28 km West of Tver), Torzhok (Tver oblast). At this point, in Torzhok, the Ottomans encountered with the Russian winter, since they were right there when the snow first fell that year, on 13 Safer, 1208 / 20 September 1793.⁹⁵ Then the mission of Mustafa Rasih continued its way making stations at Vydropuzhsk, Vyshniy Volochek (both- in Tver oblast), then across the Msta River the embassy headed for the village of Khotilovo (Tver oblast), Yedrovo (Valday district, Novgorod oblast), Valday, Yazhelbitsy, Krestsy, villages of Zaytsevo and Bronnitsa (all- in Novgorod oblast). On 29 Safer 1208 / 6 October 1793 Mustafa Rasih Pasha arrived at Novgorod.⁹⁶ From here Mustafa Rasih sent the letters to the leading Russian officials in St. Petersburg (to Chancellor Ivan Osterman, Foreign Minister Alexander Bezborodko and the Tsarina’s minion (imparatoriçe cenabına musahib ve mukarreb) General Platon Zubov) informing about his arrival. This was done in correspondence with the precedent of the previous Ottoman embassy to Russia of Abdulkerim Pasha, who, while he had been away from Moscow at approximately the same distance, also sent the similar letters to the Russian government.⁹⁷ On the next day, 1 Rebiülevvel 1208

/ 7 October 1793, Mustafa Rasih left Novgorod and, going through Podberez’ye, Spasskaya Polist’ (both-Novgorod oblast) and Liuban’ (Leningrad oblast), on 12 Rebiülevvel 1208 / 18 October 1793 finally arrived at St. Petersburg.⁹⁸ Thus the Ottoman embassy reached the capital of the Russian Empire after four months since it entered the Russian lands. In two days (on 20 October) the extraordinary ambassador of the Sultan paid a visit to the Chancellor (Başvekil) Ivan Andreievich Osterman. Then, on the next day, Mustafa Rasih was a guest of the Foreign Minister

⁹⁵ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 36.

⁹⁶ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 37.

⁹⁷ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 38.

⁹⁸ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 38.

(Hariciye Naziri, or also at times called in the Ottoman text Vekil-i Sani, the Second minister) Alexander Andreievich Bezborodko.⁹⁹

 

 

By coincidence, the Ottoman delegation entered the Russian capital at the special moment. Nine days earlier St. Petersburg had become the scene of wedding of the grandson of Catherine II, 15-year-old Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich (future Emperor Alexander I),¹⁰⁰ and the festivities that were organized on this occasion (vürudumuzden mukaddemce velime-i tezvic) still continued at the time of the arrival of Mustafa Rasih’s embassy.¹⁰¹ The Ottoman guests were also invited to a masquerade with illumination (came-i tebdil fişenk şenliği), where they could see in the evening sky along with the fire flowers and various figures of motley colours the flaming names of the Empress, heir apparent and the closest courtiers.¹⁰²

 

 

On 19 Rebiülevvel 1208 / 25 October 1793 the reception at the Empress’ palace took place. Mustafa Rasih arrived at the palace with the presents, which were placed on thirty two plates and trays. After the greeting speeches made by the ambassador and the Russian chancellor Osterman, Mustafa Rasih handed over to the Russian authorities the imperial letter (Nâme-i Hümayun) of Selim III¹⁰³ that after the numerous official titles of the Russian Empress and the Ottoman Sultan was containing the general wishes to stop the enmity and keep the eternal peace between the two countries.

 

⁹⁹ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 46.

¹⁰⁰ Kititsyn, Turetskoie posol’stvo, p. 28. On 9 October, 1793 Alexander married 14 year old Louise of Baden, who took the name Elizabeth Alekseievna.

¹⁰¹ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 47.

¹⁰² The description of the festivity and illumination is available at: Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 46-47.

¹⁰³ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 47-48.

In this way, in delivering the Sultan’s imperial letter to the Russian Empress the Ottoman envoy accomplished the official duty of his mission. Mustafa Rasih was now waiting for the Empress’ answer to the Sultan and he concerned himself with another important issue that was in his responsibility, namely the fate of the Muslim prisoners of war (or, to use the Ottoman term, üsera-i muharebe). According to the 8^th Article of the Jassy Peace Treaty all of the prisoners of war who did not change their religion were to be set free without any ransom. The issue seems to be much complicated in view of the fact that sometimes the conversions on both sides could be forceful as well, and in realities of the time along with the change of religion the individual also changed his/her name. Moreover, as far as the Ottoman prisoners are concerned, the Christians who fought in the last war on the Ottoman side, like the subjects of the two Danubian principalities, Poles, Greeks, Georgians etc. were also to be released from captivity. Mustafa Rasih Pasha had instructions to help such people, who would address him during his stay in Russia, with clothing and money, and to secure their return back home.¹⁰⁴

 

 

It can be said without any doubt that this question embittered the whole stay of Mustafa Rasih in St. Petersburg. During the first month of his sojourn in the Russian capital, the Sultan’s envoy met with his guiding officer, Major General Il’ya Andreievich Bezborodko and the Russian career diplomat and dragoman Sergei Lazarevich Lashkarev on several occasions¹⁰⁵, to discuss the sore subject of the

¹⁰⁴ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 40.

105 In the Ottoman records, and respectively in some few Turkish publications relating to the subject,

Sergei Lashkarev appears as mysterious “Ceneral Serciyus”. Lashkarev, though born in Russia, was of the Georgian descent, and in his youth years was enlisted at the Russian Collegium of Foreign Affairs (predecessor of the Foreign Ministry) as a student in the Oriental languages. Having finished his studies and knowing ten languages (most of which were the Near Eastern ones, like Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Tatar, Georgian, Armenian), Lashkarev since 1760-s started his service at the Russian Embassy in Istanbul. By the early 1790-s he had already a unique experience, being probably the most knowledgeable Russian expert in the sphere of Russian affairs with the Ottoman court. Lashkarev was

Ottoman captives.¹⁰⁶ Again, like with the issue of the customs tariff (see the section on the Russian embassy in Istanbul), the arguments of the Ottomans rather referred to the initial spirit of the concluded treaties, while the position of the Russian side was based on the formal observance of their clauses. Mustafa Rasih argued that those people who were addressing to his embassy were in fact Muslims, as they came to the Ottoman embassy on their own free will, testified their Muslim religious affiliation, and thus should be released according to the 8^th article of the Jassy treaty. The Russians simply replied that, of course, Mustafa Rasih was right, and the Muslim prisoners in accordance with the treaties should be returned back home. However, those people whom the Ottoman ambassador was talking about and whom he by force held in the building of the embassy were all Orthodox Christians now. Therefore the Ottoman side has no right to claim these people, and they as serfs will stay in Russia with their masters.

 

 

Mustafa Rasih ordered his dragoman to compose the list of the prisoners in French and to hand it over to Alexander Bezborodko, Russia’s Foreign Minister and brother of Il’ya Bezborodko. The Ottoman ambassador became enraged with the fact that the dragoman of the embassy, who was supposed to discuss the same problem with Alexander Bezborodko, due to various excuses made by the Russian side for one month could not get through to the Russian minister. Another point, which incurred the displeasure of Mustafa Rasih, were the guards put at the street entrance

 

 

also the third Russian representative (murahhas-i salis), who signed the peace treaty of Jassy. A rather exhausted and very interesting biography of Lashkarev has been published in Russia in late 1980-s: G.

L. kessel’brenner, Khronika odnoi diplomaticheskoi karyery: Diplomat vostokoved S. L. Lashkariov i ego vremia (Moscow, 1987).

¹⁰⁶ See the minutes of conferences held by Mustafa Rasih with Il’ya Bezbordko and Sergei Lashkarev at: Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 52-55.

and at the stairs of the embassy building, so that nobody would neither freely enter nor come out of the embassy.¹⁰⁷

 

 

Finally, on 16 November 1793 / 11 Rebiülahir 1208 the Foreign Minister received the Ottoman dragoman. Bezborodko did not say anything new, agreeing that the Muslim prisoners should be returned, whereas Mustafa Rasih should not keep by force anyone in his embassy and to give all of the prisoners who applied to the Ottoman ambassador to the Russian authorities. Then there will be made an investigation, and the Muslims would be given back to the Ottoman side, while the Orthodox would be returned to their masters (vaftiz ve hıristiyan olan sahibine virilür).¹⁰⁸ As to the complaints of Mustafa Rasih about the guard, which had been stationed at the entrance to the building of his embassy, the Russian side replied that even the palace of the Empress was being guarded and that there is nothing special about it. This was done exclusively from considerations of safety of the Ottoman guests, so that no one would disturb them.¹⁰⁹

 

 

Besides the general demands, the Ottoman ambassador would also wish the Russians to extradite him the two special prisoners that fell into the Russian hands during the last war. The first was Janikli Tayyar Bey¹¹⁰, of the Janikli dynasty of the local notables of North Eastern Anatolia. He and his father, Battal Hüseyin Pasha,¹¹¹ during the last war with Russia were appointed to defend the Caucasus and Anapa.

¹⁰⁷ “Konağımızı vefret üzere soldatlar (nöbetçiler) mahsur idüb tarafımıza bir kimesne gelüb gidemez”, Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 59. Also, see: Uğur İyigünler, Mustafa Rasih Efendi’nin Rusya Sefareti, pp. 2-3.

¹⁰⁸ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 60-61.

¹⁰⁹ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 59.

¹¹⁰ He is mentioned in the large compendium of the biographies of the renowned Ottoman officials, composed by Mehmed Süreyya, as Tayyar Mahmud Pasha: Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî yâhûd Tezkire-i meşāhir-i 'Osmāniyye (4 vols.; Istanbul, 1311), Vol. 3, pp. 258-259.

¹¹¹ Some information on Battal Pasha’s biography is available at: Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî yâhûd Tezkire-i meşāhir-i 'Osmāniyye (4 vols.; Istanbul, 1311), Vol. 2, pp. 217-218.

Because of internecine feuds and feeling offended by the Ottoman government in their rights to succeed the Trabzon governorship after the death of Janikli Ali Pasha (the founder of Janikli dynasty), instead of defending Anapa Battal and Tayyar surrendered it to the enemy, and themselves also defected to the Russian side. While after the peace of Jassy Battal Pasha due to the Russian patronage was restored on his posts at Sinop and Janik, Tayyar remained in Russia.¹¹² Another important prisoner whom Mustafa Rasih mentioned during his conferences with the Russian government was Sheikh Mansur (Ushurma), the leader of the Caucasian mountaineers who raised an anti-Russian uprising in the Northern Caucasus in 1785 and was captured by the Russians at the fall of the Ottoman fortress of Anapa in summer 1791.

 

 

In both cases, the Russian government claimed that the demands of the High Porte were groundless. Alexander Bezborodko brought to notice of the Ottoman dragoman that Tayyar Bey was not a prisoner and fled to Russia on his own free will out of fear for the Porte. Thus he was not a prisoner of war, but a refugee, and in this way wass not a subject to extradition. At the moment Tayyar Bey has a military rank of Russian colonel, and those having such a rank would certainly not be given by Russia to some other state.¹¹³ As for Sheikh Mansur, he simply was declared a criminal, who, in addition, was not a subject of the Ottoman Sultan.

 

The reports of Mustafa Rasih addressed to Reis-ül-Küttab (dated by 11 January 1794¹¹⁴ and 26 January 1794¹¹⁵) provide a distinct idea of the character of further

¹¹² More detailed account of Janikli Battal Hüseyin Pasha and Janikli Tayyar Pasha is available at: Stanford J. Shaw, Between Old and New, p. 216.

¹¹³ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 61-62.

¹¹⁴ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 101-104.

negotiations with the Russian authorities, which continued throughout December 1793 and January 1794. The Ottoman ambassador bombarded the Russian government with many notes and each note, much to the indignation of Mustafa Rasih who had to wait again and again, was answered in the term of ten to fifteen days. Nothing new appeared, however, in the argumentation of the Russian side, whose position was still firm and unchanging. Except may be for Tayyar Bey, about whom the Russian officials said that the Russian state did not accept him and that no one knew where he was at the present moment.¹¹⁶

 

 

Fruitless discussions continued, the Cossacks with the approval of the Russian government were arresting the Muslim prisoners on the streets of St. Petersburg¹¹⁷, and Mustafa Rasih was angered by his own inability to intervene. Having no necessary diplomatic experience, all the Ottoman extraordinary envoy could do was to complain on and on, at times rather excessively, to his government in Istanbul. These complaints were of little use and not welcomed by the Sultan.¹¹⁸

 

 

One more very symptomatic event that came upon Mustafa Rasih during his mission in Russia should be mentioned. While still on the way, the personnel of the embassy in best traditions of the Janissary revolts refused to move further until they were paid additional salary. Having arrived at Moscow they told the ambassador that the previous embassy of Abdülkerim Pasha came only to Moscow, and in order to make his personnel go to St. Petersburg Mustafa Rasih must pay one hundred guruş more for each of them. Should the ambassador not do this, they would feel free to

¹¹⁵ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 78-79.

¹¹⁶ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 79.

¹¹⁷ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 76.

¹¹⁸ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 64, 74.

ask this money from the Russian Empress. Thus in the letter to Reis-ül-Küttab Mustafa Rasih informs his government that he had to spend additional 8.500 guruş. Later on, already in St. Petersburg, the ambassador allotted for the living expenses of the whole personnel the sum of 1000 roubles. And once again the officials of the embassy protested, saying that previously each member of the delegation was given 150 roubles. All attempts of the Ottoman ambassador to appeal to their conscience, to remind them that they dishonour themselves, their state and their sovereign were of no avail.¹¹⁹

 

 

As one would clearly see the members of Mustafa Rasih’s ambassadorial train even in Russia remained an integral part of the over-corrupted Ottoman state machine. The embassy personnel, in the same way as the smaller drop of water still is a part of the bigger ocean, had brought to Russia a small piece of the Ottoman Empire. All those practices Selim III so ardently tried to change and to get rid of in his domains manifested themselves even on the Russian soil, many miles away from the Ottoman borders. It seems that for the overwhelming majority of the embassy personnel their own well-being was much more important than anything else, including the pride for their country. The Ottoman envoy, initially inexperienced in the diplomatic art, apart from having continuous complicated debates with the Russian officials, had also to cope somehow with his own personnel, which were supposed to help him.

 

The formal answer of the Russian government to the Imperial Letter (Nâme-i Hümayun) of Selim III was finally transferred to Mustafa Rasih on 21 January

¹¹⁹ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 68-69.

1794.¹²⁰ His official duty at the Russian court thus could be considered finished. On 8 February 1794 the Ottoman embassy left the Russian capital¹²¹, and in the end of May¹²² came to Dubossary. There, on 5 June 1794¹²³ the exchange ceremony with the Russian embassy of Kutuzov, who was also returning back home, took place. Upon his return Mustafa Rasih was deprived of his temporary title of Pasha, and again assumed the title of Efendi.¹²⁴ Stephan Conermann rightly calls the ambassadorial mission of Mustafa Rasih Efendi one of the highest points of his career.¹²⁵ However, it was surely not the highest one. Mustafa Rasih was yet to become twice the Reis-ül-Küttab,¹²⁶ though not due to some exclusive merits. A portrait, given to Mustafa Rasih by Thomas Naff in the context of his activities as the head of the Ottoman foreign affairs office, would also explain much with respect to his mission in Russia:

An ineffectual, upright individual who was incapable of comprehending general political affairs, to say nothing of the intricacies of diplomatic relations. Rasih had, in fact been appointed, as a compromise candidate acceptable to the various rival political factions.¹²⁷

 

Returning to the embassy of Mustafa Rasih in Russia, it is possible to observe that throughout the three months since his arrival to St. Petersburg the Ottoman

¹²⁰ The text of the answer of Catherine II to the Sultan’s Nâme-i Hümayun is available at: Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 74-75.

¹²¹ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 88.

¹²² Kititsyn, Proyez chrez Yekaterinoslavskoe namestnichestvo, p. 505.

¹²³ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 88-89.

¹²⁴ Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, p. 91; Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî yâhûd Tezkire-i meşāhir-i 'Osmāniyye (4 vols.; Istanbul, 1311), Vol. 2, p. 347.

¹²⁵ Stephan Conermann, ‘Das Eigene und das Fremde: der Bericht der Gesandtschaft Musafa Rasihs nach St. Petersburg 1792-1794’ Archivum Ottomanicum, 17 (1999), p. 263.

¹²⁶ First term: 17.08.1796- 18.08.1797; second term: 14.04.1799 -24.07.1800. See: Ahmed Resmî,

Halifetü'r-Rüesâ veya Sefinetü'r-Rüesâ (İstanbul, 1269), pp. 140-41.

¹²⁷ Thomas Naff, ‘Reform and the Conduct of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Selim III, 1789- 1807’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, 83 (1963), p. 297. The narrow-mindedness and indecision of Rasih when he occupied the post of Reis Efendi are also mentioned by the French ambassador to the Porte in 1796-1797 Aubert du Bayet and the representative of the Polish émigrés Micha³ Ogiñski who stayed in Istanbul at the same period. See: İsmail Soysal, Fransız ihtilali ve Türk- Fransız diplomasi münasebetleri (1789-1802) (Ankara, 1999), p. 154; Michał Kleofas Ogiński, Mémoires de Michel Oginski sur la Pologne et les Polonais, depuis 1788 jusqu’à la fin de 1815. (4 vols.; Paris, 1826), Vol. 2, p. 209.

ambassador was engaged in futile discussions concerning the situation of those Ottoman prisoners of war who were still staying in Russia. Being unable to change something, or to influence somehow the Russian side, Mustafa Rasih was simply continuously, at times in a childish manner, complaining about innumerable injustices he suffered from the Russian bureaucrats. Even Selim III became somewhat irritated at these permanent complaints. At the same time Mustafa Rasih made no political negotiations or meetings with the ambassadors of other countries, neither did other foreign ambassadors visit him.¹²⁸ In general, without the necessary diplomatic experience and not knowing any European languages, Mustafa Rasih did not become something more than just a technical envoy, whose mission appeared to be confined to delivering of the royal letter of his sovereign to the foreign court and receiving the official answer to it. Another most tangible result of Mustafa Rasih’s mission were the detailed observations of the Russian economy, finances, army and society collected in sefâretnâme, the ambassadorial report presented at the Porte upon the mission’s return.

 

 

 

 

3.4.  Russian Embassy in the Ottoman Empire

 

Since the very beginning, as it is seen from the secret instruction “On political matters”, signed by Catherine II and given to Kutuzov before his departure¹²⁹, the plans of the Russian court as regards the Ottoman state were of a two-fold kind. On

¹²⁸ For example, Mustafa Rasih wrote to the Porte, that no one of the foreign ambassadors visited him since his arrival. However, it looks like the Ottoman ambassador was only waiting until his other colleagues from the diplomatic corps would pay him their visits, making no attempts to meet with them: “Şimdiye kadar [this relates to mid-November 1793; V.M.] kübrai devletlerinden kimesne ile görüşülüb söhbet olamadı. On güne mütecavirdir bir kimesnenin tarafıma geldiği yokdur”, Nedim. Bir elçinin tarihçe-i sefareti, pp. 66-67.

¹²⁹ ‘Directive of Catherine II to M. I. Kutuzov with a secret instruction “On political matters”. 4 March (21 February) 1793’ In: L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, pp. 195-203.

the one hand, right at the moment Catherine needed peace. On the other hand, though, it was as well clear that she was not going to give up her earlier projects concerning the fate of the Ottoman Empire, and under the different circumstances would take a chance to put them into practice.

 

 

So, in view of the heavy financial burden inflicted upon the treasury by all the recent wars, and being preoccupied by a whole set of troubles in and around the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian government regarded the new war with the Ottomans at this point much undesirable. Therefore, Kutuzov got clear-cut instructions to do his best to prevent any possibility of the Ottoman entrance into war. In practice this meant to counteract the influences of other foreign diplomats, first and foremost the French, who might be and indeed were trying to drag the High Porte into another open conflict with Russia. Moreover, aware of the reform movement of Selim III, St. Petersburg was very interested to know about the combat capability of the Ottoman army and to what extent the Sultan could progress with his military reforms.¹³⁰ A career soldier, Kutuzov was the right man to make his own observations and conclusions on that matter.

 

It was also important that the Ottomans would stay indifferent to the developments going on in Poland. The ambassador was recommended not to raise the Polish issue at all, unless the Ottoman side itself touches upon this subject. In this case Kutuzov was to answer that he has not any idea about it, and that his only duty is to reinforce friendly relations between his own government and that one of the Sultan. Should the Ottomans still insist, Kutuzov had to resort to the veiled threat.

¹³⁰ L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 196.

Acting secretly through his agents in order not to risk the reputation of his embassy, the Russian ambassador was to inculcate the Ottoman officials indirectly with the thought that interfering into the matters that were so unrelated to those of their own would be quite dangerous for the Ottoman state itself.¹³¹

 

 

At this very point, while seeking peace with the Porte, the Russian government by no means abandoned the idea that someday the war against the Ottomans would be resumed, and, should that day come, it wanted to be properly prepared. First, it was quite a logical step to acquire more sympathizers inside the Ottoman society. Catherine’s instructions to Kutuzov prescribed her extraordinary envoy by all means to maintain good relations with the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan, encourage the anti-Ottoman feelings among them and to reassure in Russia’s unchanging sympathies towards its coreligionists. Making allusions on the history of the Muscovite Principality and suggesting that it got its independence from the Golden Horde in an open fight, Kutuzov was to make it clear, though, that in order to get rid of the Muslim oppression (igo agarianskoie) the Ottoman Christians should only be using every effort on their own.¹³² In other words, the Russian envoy was instructed to gain and nurture the sympathies of the Ottoman Orthodox subjects by confining himself only with broad promises of support. Needless to say, that all these activities were to be conducted with an extreme caution and kept in the deep secrecy.

 

Further still, another specific activity common in the work of all diplomatic missions has to be mentioned. Sending an embassy to the Ottoman Empire was naturally viewed in St. Petersburg as a superb opportunity to gather vast first-hand

¹³¹ L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, pp. 197-98.

¹³² L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, pp. 198-99.

intelligence information on the country. Along with all kinds of secretaries, interpreters, quartermasters, musicians, doctors and servants, a large group of military experts, engineers, topographers and draughtsmen had been also included into the Russian ambassadorial delegation. Among these, in particular, were Lieutenant Colonel (Podpolkovnik) Korf, First Major (Premier Maior) Len, Captain Derenikin, Naval Lieutenant (Flota Poruchik) Petinioti, Navigator (Shturman) Lepini and Engineer Lieutenant Colonel (Inzhener-Podpolkovnik) Trusson.¹³³

 

 

In the same time when the embassy was slowly moving on through the Ottoman lands, many of its staff thus were busy reconnoitring the local topographies, drawing maps, calculating natural resources, getting the plans of fortresses and composing the schemes for conducting war operations in the area all the way to Istanbul. Hardly this hypothetical new war with the Ottoman state was regarded by Russia as defensive, in view of the fact that it was the territories of the Ottoman Balkan possessions that were viewed as a potential theatre of hostilities.¹³⁴ As to the usual snail pace with which the ambassadorial train was crawling for the whole summer of 1793 towards its destination, doing many rest breaks on the way¹³⁵, it must have greatly facilitated the work of the Russian military experts.

 

 

¹³³ I. M. El’terman, Posol’stvo Kutuzova, p. 70.

134 Very remarkable in this context is a description of the way from Ruschuk (now Ruse in Bulgaria)

to Istanbul, quite specific in terms of its contents and aims, made in 1793 by an anonymous member of Kutuzov’s entourage. This manuscript, published in the tsarist Russia in 1878 (a year when yet another Russo-Ottoman war broke out) provides a more than eloquent testimony of the fact that Catherine II at the point of making peace was exploring the possibilities of the offensive warfare against the Ottomans. See: ‘ Podrobnoie opisanie puti chrezvychaynogo i polnomochnogo rossiiskago imperatorskogo posol’stva, posle Yasskago mira, ot Rushchuka chrez Shumlu v Konstantinopol’, v 1793 godu. S voiennymi zamechaniyami o zemle, s pokazaniem sposoba provest’ i prodovol’stvovat’ ot 30-ti do 40-ka tysiach voiska’ Russkaia starina, 21 (1878), pp. 100-124.

¹³⁵ A thorough roster of the journey with the stations, distances between them and the time spent at each place is available at: Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, pp. 203-205. Between the village of Kriulen on the right bank of the Dniester and Istanbul the Russian embassy had made in total 52 resting stations.

What is more, by crossing in such a manner the dominions of the Sultan, the embassy officials could see with their own eyes the real state of affairs in the Ottoman Rumelia. Both Reimers and Struve equally mention that the Rumelian countryside was infested with the highway robbers, and the Porte despite implementing severe punishments could not cope with that situation. Throughout their way the Russian officials saw many by then already putrefied in the summer sun bodies of the criminals, who were impaled alive and exposed to the general public to serve as a striking example of the fate awaiting those who disobeyed the central authorities.¹³⁶ However, as the Russian officials observed, even such brutal repressive measures were useless in preventing disorders and chaos in the Ottoman provinces.

 

 

The Russian delegation finally arrived at Istanbul on 7 October 1793¹³⁷ and, as it turned out later, was to stay in the Sultan’s capital for almost half a year. Its numerous staff with Kutuzov at the head had been quartered in Pera¹³⁸, a suburb district of Istanbul known as a home of large European community. It was right here, on the other side of the Golden Horn, where resided most of the European merchants as well as members of the diplomatic corps. The building of the Russian embassy was likewise situated in Pera.

 

 

 

 

¹³⁶ Johann Christian von Struve, [published anonymously]. Travels in the Crimea; a History of the Embassy from Petersburg to Constantinople in 1793, including Their Journey through Krementschuck, Oczakow, Walachia & Moldavia with their Reception at the Court of Selim the Third (London, 1802), pp. 141-42; Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, pp. 185-186.

¹³⁷ Struve, Travels, p. 158; Reimers gives the Julian date, which is 26 September: Reimers, Reise, Vol. 1, p. 207.

¹³⁸ Nowadays this area is known as Beyoğlu district, which is the very heart of the bustling modern metropolis of Istanbul, lying to the North of the Golden Horn inlet of the European bank of the Bosporus.

On the next day after the Russian mission’s arrival to Istanbul the First Dragoman of the Porte visited the Russian embassy and on behalf of the Grand Vizier handed over the presents for Kutuzov and his entourage. During the next few days the representatives of the diplomatic corps of other foreign powers accredited at the High Porte also paid courtesy visits to the Russian extraordinary ambassador.¹³⁹ In return, observing the usual formality, Kutuzov in the same way visited his colleagues the ambassadors of the European states resident in Istanbul. Not only an interesting, but also a very meaningful detail to point out is the order of priority according to which Kutuzov’s official visits to other foreign representatives had been made. The first European diplomat Kutuzov went to see was the British ambassador Sir Robert Ainsley. Then the ambassadors of other countries had also been visited, in the following order: Venetian, Austrian, Prussian, Swedish and some days later Neapolitan, Danish and Spanish.¹⁴⁰ The yet formally unrecognized by the Ottomans representative of the French Republic Citizen Marie Louis Henri Descorches for quite obvious reasons was ignored. More than that, it was strictly forbidden for all personnel of the Russian embassy to have any contacts whatsoever with the French republicans.¹⁴¹

 

The official reception at the Porte was to take place only some month later after the arrival of the Russian delegation, by the mid-November. In the meantime Kutuzov was paying visits to his colleagues-ambassadors, taking over the ambassadorial duties from the Charge d’Affaires Colonel Khvostov and writing reports to the Russian Empress, while many people of the numerous staff of his mission had an opportunity to explore the beauties and places of interest of the

¹³⁹ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 19.

¹⁴⁰ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 24.

¹⁴¹ Mun’kov, Diplomaticheskaia deyatel’nost’ M. I. Kutuzova, p. 57.

Ottoman capital. Some of them were interested, though, not only in beauties of nature or old relics and monuments.

 

 

Owing to the written accounts left by the members of the delegation, Reimers and Struve, a historian has a unique possibility to look in detail at the circumstances of the Russian embassy’s stay in Istanbul in autumn 1793- winter 1794 through the eyes of ordinary officials of Kutuzov’s mission. Having come to the ultimate destination of their journey, the people of the embassy staff each had their own set of responsibilities, which determined the type of work they were doing and eventually their free time. Quite naturally, the lesser officials had more time to walk around the city and to learn about the daily life of the Ottoman society. For many of them their duties with the embassy consisted for the most part in attendance at numerous official ceremonies.

 

 

The inner side of the embassy work like gathering the intelligence information or conducting various political negotiations was a special realm accessible only to a limited group of persons among the whole number of the embassy staff. While the auxiliary personnel were enjoying the sights of Istanbul, the ambassador and his team continued to fulfil their duties without a break either during the journey through the Ottoman Balkan dominions nor, and all the more so, in the Ottoman capital proper. Understandably, the Russian military experts were doing their own specific job as well. For example, Reimers, who obviously did not have a special aim to describe this sort of activities, incidentally gives a clue about what some members of the Russian embassy were occupied with when in Istanbul. A Russian Engineer with a rank of Lieutenant Colonel made a trip along the Bosporus taking the plans of its

coasts. Then being invited by a commandant of the Ottoman fortress situated at the entrance into the Black Sea, this Russian Lieutenant Colonel made his observations about the fortress and its strong and weak points.¹⁴² Similarly, Struve in his travel notes mentions that when the Russian embassy was already returning back home, in April 1794, Kutuzov sent to the local commandant in Silivri (an area close to Istanbul, along the Sea of Marmara coast) a Colonel of artillery accompanied with two officers ostensibly to thank for an escort of two hundred men he provided for the Russian ambassadorial train, and to give him the presents of gratitude. On the other hand, as Struve puts it, “the secret motive of his mission was to observe the works of the fortress and to bring away the plan of it”.¹⁴³

 

 

It should be mentioned that the usual practice at the time was to use the services of paid agents, and the embassy of Kutuzov was not an exception to the rule. The Russian ambassador was secretly getting information from an engineer named Kaufer, who was employed in the reinforcement of the Ottoman Danube fortresses.¹⁴⁴ Besides, the secretary of the Kapudan Pasha Küçük Hüseyin, Hançerli, even though Kutuzov had reasons not to trust him completely, provided the Russian ambassador with the secret materials about the proceedings at the Divan from time to time.¹⁴⁵

 

Outwardly the stay of the Russian delegation in Istanbul might have looked as an unending succession of receptions and balls, organized by various Ottoman officials, other European diplomatic representations and Kutuzov himself. The first

¹⁴² Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 42-43.

¹⁴³ Struve, Travels, p. 248.

¹⁴⁴ ‘Letter of M.I. Kutuzov to P. A. Zubov, on condition of the Turkish border fortresses. 13 / 2 July 1793’ In: L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 216.

¹⁴⁵ I. M. El’terman, Posol’stvo Kutuzova, pp. 122-23.

formal audience at the High Porte was held on 9 November 1793, when the Russian delegation was received by the Grand Vizier.¹⁴⁶ Three days later, on 12 November, took place Kutuzov’s audience with the Sultan.¹⁴⁷ These ceremonies were accompanied with reciprocal exchange of fabulously expensive presents¹⁴⁸, serving the purpose of showing the wealth and dignity of both empires. Formal assurances of both courts’ peaceful intentions had been made, and during the audience with Selim III, which in the very strict sense lasted not more than fifteen minutes¹⁴⁹, the Russian extraordinary envoy handed over the imperial letter of his monarchess addressed to the Sultan.

 

 

Following the ceremony at the Topkapı Palace¹⁵⁰, Kutuzov attended the galas especially organized in his honour by all of the highest statesmen of the Ottoman Empire in turn. First Kutuzov was a guest of the Grand Vizier (18 November)¹⁵¹, then of the Kapudan Pasha (Grand Admiral) (28 November)¹⁵², the Kâhya Bey (Minister for Home Affairs) (3 December)¹⁵³, the Yeniçeri Ağası (Commander in chief of the Janissary corps) (9 December)¹⁵⁴, the Defterdar (Minister of Finance) (14

¹⁴⁶ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 46-50; Struve, Travels, pp. 173-78.

¹⁴⁷ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 53-65; Struve, Travels, pp. 178-81.

¹⁴⁸ I. M. El’terman, Posol’stvo Kutuzova, pp, 72. The presents delivered to the Sultan included the brilliant pen studded with various jewels valued at 40.000 roubles, golden incense-burner, as well studded with diamonds, emeralds and other precious stones (24.316 roubles), a tray, also decorated with gemstones (12.000 roubles); among the gifts for the Grand Vizier there were a dagger in golden sheath with gemstones, a ring and a clock. Besides, rich presents were given to all of the leading Ottoman statesmen. The overall value of the presents for all Ottoman officials reached the sum of more than half a million roubles.

¹⁴⁹ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 65.

¹⁵⁰ Famous official residence of the Ottoman Sultans until 1853.

¹⁵¹ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 70-76; Clément-Simon, Un ambassadeur extraordinaire, p. 32.

¹⁵² Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 84-92; Struve, Travels, pp. 185-90; Clément-Simon, Un ambassadeur extraordinaire, p.33; ‘Letter of M. I. Kutuzov to his wife, E. I. Kutuzova. 18 / 7 December 1793’ In:

L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 270. The witnesses unanimously agree, that the gala made by the Kapudan Pasha exceeded in its splendour even the one organized by the Grand Vizier.

¹⁵³ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 95-98; Struve, Travels, p. 190; Clément-Simon, Un ambassadeur extraordinaire, p. 34.

¹⁵⁴ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 102; Struve, Travels, p. 191; Clément-Simon, Un ambassadeur extraordinaire, p. 34.

December)¹⁵⁵ and the Reis-ül-Küttab (Minister for Foreign Affairs) (26 December)¹⁵⁶ respectively.

 

 

As an extraordinary and plenipotentiary envoy of the Russian Empire Kutuzov was giving the official receptions as well as visiting them. One of the most impressive receptions in the Russian embassy occurred on the occasion of the Saint Catherine’s day (the Patron Saint of the Russian Empress) on 5 December 1793.¹⁵⁷ Made mainly for the European diplomatic corps, it witnessed also some Ottoman officials, present incognito. These included the mihmandar¹⁵⁸ of Kutuzov Abdullah Bey¹⁵⁹, the Kapudan Pasha and the Topçubaşı (Master-General of the Artillery).¹⁶⁰ On this and other similar occasions no expenses were spared to demonstrate the grandeur of the Russian state and its Empress. In letter, written to his wife, Kutuzov indicates, that on that day the evening meal was served for 200 persons.¹⁶¹

 

 

Against the background of all the mentioned festivities but behind the scenes, as is usually the case, the important political issues involving the interests of the main European powers had been addressed. Among the most pressing themes regarding the relations of the two neighbouring empires there were the fears of both sides of the new war. Neither the Ottomans nor Russians each for their own specific reasons wished at the time to engage into a new massive conflict. The former

¹⁵⁵ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 103.

¹⁵⁶ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 127-34; Struve, Travels, pp. 191-92.

¹⁵⁷ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 98-100; Struve, op. cit., p. 183; Clément-Simon, Un ambassadeur extraordinaire, p. 35-36. The Russian Orthodox Church commemorates the day of St. Catherine on 24 November (Julian style), which corresponds to 5 December (Gregorian style).

¹⁵⁸ An officer, appointed to receive and escort foreign ambassadors on their way through the Ottoman territories

¹⁵⁹ Abdullah had the title of Kapıcıbaşı, which in the Ottoman court-rank system was meaning the Head of the Palace door-keepers.

¹⁶⁰ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 99; Clément-Simon, Un ambassadeur extraordinaire, p. 36.

¹⁶¹ ‘Letter of M. I. Kutuzov to E. I. Kutuzova. 18 / 7 December 1793’ In: L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.)

Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 270.

embarked on large-scale reforms and were facing a number of serious challenges inside the country, whereas the latter following the abolition of the 3 May Constitution faced the uprising of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility and currently were busy with the Second partition of the Polish-Lithuanian state.¹⁶²

 

 

St. Petersburg was greatly concerned about the possible reaction and the stand of the Porte regarding the affairs in Poland, as it was seen from the instructions, which Kutuzov got from the Empress. These concerns were even more substantiated in view of the fact that the representative of the French Republic Descorches, who arrived to Istanbul that very year exactly four months earlier than Kutuzov, on 7 June 1793¹⁶³, did his best to make the Ottomans to recognize the French republican government and to persuade them again to declare war on Russia. Descorches promised the Ottomans that they would not stay alone within a wider framework of anti-Russian coalition including the Poles, Swedes, Tatars and Cossacks, which could easily be created with the help of France.¹⁶⁴ On 19 October 1793 the French representative even presented to the Porte a note proposing an alliance between France and the Ottoman Empire.¹⁶⁵ Thus, insofar as the Russian ambassador was concerned, the main aims of his activities in Istanbul, apart from mentioned earlier gathering of intelligence, were first, to secure the Ottoman neutrality in Polish affairs; and second, to counteract and whenever possible to downplay the French

 

 

¹⁶² The Russo-Prussian Convention about the second partition of Rzeczpospolita had been signed on 23 January 1793, and finally confirmed by the Grodno Sejm in the end of September 1793, i.e. approximately at the time of Kutuzov’s arrival to Istanbul.

¹⁶³ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 117.

¹⁶⁴ See, for example, the instructions of the French Foreign Minister Lebrun given to Descorches on 19 January 1793, before the departure of the latter from Paris to the Ottoman Empire: Soysal, op. cit.,

p. 99.

¹⁶⁵ Constantin de Grunwald, ‘Une Ambassade Russe à Constantinople au XVIII^e Siecle’ Miroir de l'Histoire, 82 (1956), p. 496.

influence at the Porte. Throughout the 1790-s both remained the primary objects of the Russian diplomatic activities in Constantinople.

 

 

The Sultan’s government, in its turn, acting in line with its own interests and not with those of the Russian, French or some other ambassadors, was to frame a course of policy which would correspond to the Ottoman perspective of the current international situation. Despite the traditionally strong French influence at the Porte and personal pro-French sympathies of many Ottoman statesmen, including the Sultan himself, the Porte was persistent in its desire to stay neutral and avoid conflict with any of the warring states in Europe. In this respect the French projects to draw the Ottoman state into a new war against Russia, for the third time after two defeats, in its present troubling times, in face of wide European anti-French coalition, stood very little chance of success.

 

 

All these were explained again and again by the leading Ottoman officials at their conferences with the French representative in winter-spring 1794.¹⁶⁶ Objectively the Ottoman Empire was in no position to enter into alliance with France and to support the cause of the Polish insurgents openly, although its sympathies were with them and it even secretly assisted them financially.¹⁶⁷ This fact, as well as diplomatic support of other diplomatic missions of the anti-French in Constantinople, without a doubt played in the hands of the Russian diplomacy. The recent developments on the international arena and in Ottoman domestic politics largely facilitated the tasks assigned to Kutuzov and his embassy. The Ottomans themselves

¹⁶⁶ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, pp. 123-25; Grunwald, Une Ambassade Russe, p. 497.

¹⁶⁷ ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II, about the order received from Turkey by the Moldovan Hospodar M. Soutzo to deliver 120 thousand chervonniie (gold coins) to T. Kościuszko. 6 June (26 May) 1794’ In: L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 337.

were not going to fight against Russia, neither were they ready to put to risk their own chance for peace on behalf of Poland, or France, or both of them.

 

 

Besides, there were some vexed questions remaining in the Ottoman-Russian relations which still gravely threatened the durability of the newly concluded peace. These were by no means resolved and continued to be a bone of contention between the two empires well until the end of 1790-s when a new international situation emerged. Furthermore, they could even potentially trigger a new conflict at any moment, leaving both countries poised for a war continuously, notwithstanding all of the mutual peaceful assurances. Should any party decide to go to war it would already have a number of convenient pretexts at hand.¹⁶⁸ Still, in large part due to the unwillingness of both sides to escalate the existing tension at this point, a new Ottoman-Russian war did not ensue.

 

 

The controversial affairs were simply pending without being resolved for years, though not leading to any dangerous and massive confrontation. One of the most disputed issues was concerning the customs tariff on import and export duties for Russian merchants trading with the Ottoman Empire. According to the Ottoman- Russian Commercial treaty of 1783¹⁶⁹ (Article 20) the customs tariff was established at 3 per cent of total value of the imported/exported products. The value of the products had been calculated in prices existing in 1783. In view of inflation, ten

¹⁶⁸ The French, as it could be expected, tried to make use of this fact for their propaganda purposes. Le Moniteur Universel, the official newspaper of the French Republic, in particular published the following comments of an anonymous author as regards the Ottoman-Russian negotiations in Istanbul: “Catherine II a, selon son usage, caché dans ses derniers traités avec la Porte les semences de querelles toujours prêtes à revivre à sa volonté. Déjà des explications ont eu lieu sur des tariffs de douanes et sur demarcations de frontières, source commode et interminable de chicanes politiques”, Le Moniteur Universel, № 130, 10 pluviôse, l’an II (29 January 1794). Quoted in: Edouard de Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople : la politique orientale de la Révolution française (2 vols.; Paris, 1927), Vol. 2, p. 86.

¹⁶⁹ Russian text: PSZRI, Vol. XXI, № 15757, columns 939-56.

years later the actual prices quite naturally increased, whereas on paper, according to the fixed treaties, they stayed just the same as used to be a decade ago. In this way the duties that were paid were in fact much less than those specified by the treaty. No wonder that the Ottoman government sought, while keeping the tariff of 3 per cent unchanged, to reconsider the customs duties according to the current prices. The Russian side defended its own position through referring to the legal basis, insisting that all the earlier treaties had been recognized by the Porte at Jassy and thus nothing should be changed at all.¹⁷⁰ In the end the Ottomans stepped back from their claims in June 1794¹⁷¹, although the issue on the whole came to a deadlock and stayed unresolved throughout 1790-s.

 

 

Another sore, and by no means minor, subject in the Ottoman-Russian relations were the raids of the Circassian tribes into the Russian territory across the Kuban River. The Circassians who were nominally the subjects of the Ottoman Sultan during 1792-1796 made a number of raids against the Black Sea Cossacks inflicting the latter certain damage. The Russian side through its ambassadors demanded from the Porte compensation, which had been finally paid in 1798.¹⁷²

 

Yet the most important issue for St. Petersburg, one way or another, was to know whether there was any possibility that the Ottomans could attack. The reports Kutuzov addressed to the Empress and other Russian officials regularly touched upon this subject and always the extraordinary envoy voiced an opinion that the declaration of war on the part of the Ottoman Empire was very much unlikely. The

¹⁷⁰ G. A. Kleinman, Russko-Turetskii soyuz 1799 goda. In Moskovskii Gosudarstvenniy Universitet. Istoricheskii Fakul’tet. Doklady i soobshcheniia. Vol. 3 (Moscow, 1945), p. 16.

¹⁷¹ Nicolae Iorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (Gotha, 1913), Vol. 5, p. 111.

¹⁷² Kleinman, Russko-Turetskii soyuz, p. 16.

line of argumentation of Kutuzov came down to the following basic points. First, as an experienced soldier Kutuzov pointed out the fact that the Ottomans were still militarily unprepared, the reinforcements of the fortresses of Ruschuk, Bendery and Ismail were uncompleted, and it would be an absolute folly to start war under such conditions.¹⁷³ Second, the Porte was struggling hard to assert central authority all over the Empire; the Russian envoy mentioned the movements of Abd-al-Wahhab, Mahmud Pasha of Skutari, the uprising near Trapezund (Trabzon) and the general chaos in Rumelia among other troubles. Kutuzov stated that Mahmud Pasha was currently so strong that the Porte simply could not think of war with Russia or some other state.¹⁷⁴ Third, the issue of customs tariff, whatever important it may be, would not alone make the Porte to put in danger the advantages of peace. The Ottomans would not be silent, they would continuously protest, but would not risk going further.¹⁷⁵

 

 

Thus, at least in the most important respect, the embassy of Kutuzov brought the Russian Empress certain additional reassurance that despite all the circulating rumours currently there was not much danger of the Ottoman attack. However, no radical overall improvements in the Ottoman-Russian relations took place. Catherine II due to various circumstances apparently just postponed her earlier aggressive projects as regards the Balkan domains of the Sultan and was not going to refuse from them completely, the proof of which could be seen in taking the plans of the roads, places and fortresses on the Ottoman soil; there were still unresolved vexed

¹⁷³ ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II, 1 September (21 August) 1793’ In: L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, pp. 225-26.

¹⁷⁴ ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II, 31 / 20 December 1793’ L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 275-77; ‘Letter of M. I. Kutuzov to A. V. Suvorov, 17 / 6 March 1794’ L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 317.

¹⁷⁵ ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II, 31 / 20 December 1793’ L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 275-77.

issues (customs tariff, border skirmishes between the Kuban Cossacks and the Circassians), which at any time could exacerbate the relations between the two empires and even grow into a new conflict. The spectre of yet another war, much undesired in St. Petersburg in view of the complications in Poland, was even more threatening for the Ottoman side, which tried to complete the military preparations and reinforcements of the border fortresses as soon as possible.

 

 

In the meantime, the concentration of the Russian troops within the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, just like the Ottomans’ armaments along their borders with Russia, would not contribute to feelings of security on both sides of the Dniester. Even though decreased, the potential threat remained and had to be counted with by both neighbouring powers. Departing back home, Kutuzov left his successor Viktor Pavlovich Kochubei, appointed to be the Russian permanent ambassador at the Porte, a lot of work to do.

 

 

By the early spring of 1794 the official mission of the extraordinary Russian embassy with General Kutuzov at its head was completed. On 11 March 1794 the Russian envoy, followed by 17 men from his delegation, bade a farewell to the Sultan Selim III.¹⁷⁶ In two days, on 13 March, Kutuzov took leave of the Grand Vizier,¹⁷⁷ and on 26 March the embassy train set out on the way back to Russia.¹⁷⁸ The exchange ceremony with the Ottoman embassy of Mustafa Rasih that was returning from its mission at the Russian Empress’ court took place on 5 June¹⁷⁹,

¹⁷⁶ Mun’kov, Diplomaticheskaia deyatel’nost’ M. I. Kutuzova, p. 83.

¹⁷⁷ Mun’kov, Diplomaticheskaia deyatel’nost’ M. I. Kutuzova, p. 84.

¹⁷⁸ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 201.

¹⁷⁹ ‘Report of M. I. Kutuzov to Catherine II about the exchange ceremony with the Turkish Ambassador. 5 June (26 May) 1794’ In: L. G. Beskrovnyi (Ed.) Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 336.

while one and a half months later, on 13 July 1794¹⁸⁰, Kutuzov arrived in St. Petersburg.

 

 

3.5.  Conclusions

 

The peace Treaty of Jassy marked the beginning of a new era in the Ottoman- Russian relations. It confirmed the crucial geopolitical changes that took place in the Black Sea region as a result of the earlier Ottoman-Russian wars waged throughout the 18^th century. The Black Sea, which for centuries used to be virtually an Ottoman lake, faced on its northern shores the rise of a new mighty power of the Muscovites. Within a few generations the old Muscovite principality became the nemesis of the Ottomans and grew into the huge Russian Empire that placed under its control the vast territories along the northern coast of the Black Sea, including the Crimean Peninsula. The long history of the Ottoman-Russian confrontation could not develop in both nations other feelings than those of mutual distrust and hatred. While the notorious grand entreprise of Catherine II contemplated the ousting of the Ottomans from the Balkans, the Ottoman side with Selim III at the head was determined to bring back the territories lost to Russia. Especially grievous in this sense was the recent loss of the Crimea, which became the first predominantly Muslim territory under the Ottoman suzerainty that fell into the hands of the infidels.

 

 

Despite all of the previous conflicts and animosity, by the early 1790-s St. Petersburg and the Porte appeared in a situation when to wage war against each other would be equally destructive for both. For Russia the difficult financial situation, the expenses of almost unceasing wars that continued for the last several decades, the

¹⁸⁰ Mun’kov, Diplomaticheskaia deyatel’nost’ M. I. Kutuzova, p. 86.

serious consequences of the Pugachov uprising, the unpredictable unfolding of the French Revolution and the Polish problems were a sufficient cause to seek an agreement with the Ottoman Empire.

 

 

In regard to the Porte, by the time under discussion it had to deal with a serious internal crisis threatening the very existence of the Ottoman state. By the end of the 18^th century the central Ottoman authorities could not effectively cope with the growing disorder and anarchy in virtually all spheres of life, the Ottoman countryside being dependent on the Sultan’s government only in name. Even though he might cherish secret hopes to return the Crimea and other lost territories, Selim III was not going to aggravate his already very precarious positions with a new war. For another thing, the Porte badly needed a breathing space for the projected large-scale reforms of Nizâm-i Cedîd.

 

 

According to the 10^th article of the Jassy Peace Treaty, the extraordinary ambassadors were to be sent reciprocally to Constantinople and St. Petersburg in order to confirm the recently concluded peace treaty and to assure the opposite side in peaceful intentions of their sovereigns. The secret part of both missions, however, was gathering of intelligence information on the countries of their stay. Both neighbouring powers could not exclude the possibility when the war one day would be renewed and for that reason continued with their war preparations even while seeking peace.

 

It is worthy of note that the Russian side was represented by M. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a very experienced military commander and not a career

diplomat. Apparently, a professional soldier like Kutuzov could far better than any diplomat evaluate the military potential of the Ottoman state along with the current fighting capacity of the Ottoman army, and thus to calculate whether the Ottomans would be able to attack Russia in the nearest future. For St. Petersburg it was especially important to know this in the context of the Polish affairs and the planned last partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In order to gather the secret information such as the location of the places, the roads, the population, the fortifications, the dispositions of the troops, the ammunition depots etc., the Russian delegation included a large group of military experts, engineers, topographers and draughtsmen. Moreover, the slow movement of the embassy train through the Balkans helped the Russian specialists to do their job in the most effective way. Considering the fact that it was the territories of the Ottoman Balkan possessions that were viewed as a potential theatre of hostilities, the hypothetical war the Russians were preparing for was expected to be offensive. Obviously, with the same end in view the Russian extraordinary envoy was instructed to secretly cultivate the sympathies of the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan.

 

 

Just like Kutuzov, the Ottoman envoy Mustafa Rasih Pasha was not a professional diplomat either. In accordance with a long tradition of handling its affairs with other countries, the Porte by this time simply had neither experienced diplomatic staff nor permanent diplomatic missions abroad. The extraordinary embassy to Russia was thus entrusted to a high standing Ottoman bureaucrat, initially lacking the necessary experience, and who had no trained diplomatic personnel at his disposal. Notably, the members of the Ottoman delegation instead of supporting the envoy rebelled on their way to the Russian capital, demanding the increased salaries

and not caring at all about the prestige of their state. Having delivered the letter of the Sultan (Nâme-i Hümâyûn) to the Russian Empress, Mustafa Rasih Pasha completed the formal part of his mission. As to the negotiations with the Russian side about the Muslim prisoners of war still kept in Russia, they continued for the whole three-month stay of the Ottoman envoy in St. Petersburg and ended inconclusively. Probably one of the most important results of the embassy of Mustafa Rasih Pasha was the ambassadorial report (sefâretnâme) of his mission, containing a rather extensive description of the Russian economy, society, army and state. This kind of information, no doubt, was of special interest for the Sultan Selim’s circle of the Nizâm-ı Cedîd reformers.

 

 

Following the exchange of the extraordinary embassies the Ottoman-Russian relations remained strained. Apart from continuous distrust, there were still some unresolved practical issues, like revision of the Trade Tariff or the raids of the Circassian tribes, which negatively influenced the relations between the two empires. The threat of a new war was still a big concern for both parties. However, both extraordinary embassies confirmed the mutual wish of St. Petersburg and the Porte to maintain the current status quo. In a way, both sides could be satisfied. The Russians had now their hands untied in order to deal with the Polish question, and the Ottomans gained an opportunity to use the advantages of peace for their massive internal reforms.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV

 

 

WAR CANNOT BE PEACE, 1794-1798

 

Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum (Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, “Epitoma Rei Militaris”, Liber III)

 

 

 

4.1.  Arrival of V. P. Kochubei to Istanbul and the Polish-Lithuanian question

To handle its affairs with the Porte St. Petersburg appointed Viktor Pavlovich Kochubei, a scion of the noble Ukrainian Cossack family of Tatar descent and nephew of the influential Catherinian statesman Alexander Andreievich Bezborodko. It was, actually, to the latter circumstance that the new Russian ambassador in Istanbul owed his appointment, which was made when Kochubei still was 23 years old (he celebrated his 24^th birthday exactly one month later).¹ At the age of 8 Kochubei was taken from his native home in Ukraine and subsequently brought up in the house of his uncle in St. Petersburg. When he was sixteen, Kochubei got his first

¹ Kochubei was born on 22 / 11 November, 1768 and the Decree of his appointment as the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Constantinople had been signed on 22 / 11 October, 1792. For this and other details of Kochubei’s biography see: N. Chechulin, Kochubei Voktor Pavlovich. Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ (25 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1903), Vol. 9 “Knappe- Kiukhelbecker”, pp. 366-82; the date of Kochubei’s appointment has also been confirmed by himself, in letter to S. R. Vorontsov, written on the next day of this event. See: ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 23 / 12 October, 1792’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18,

p. 63.

diplomatic experience, being sent for two years to Sweden. In 1784-1786 he stayed at the Russian mission in Stockholm, at the same time attending lectures at Uppsala University. After a short return to Russia and escorting the Empress during her famous trip to the Crimea, Kochubei had been again appointed to the Russian mission abroad. In the spring of 1789 he arrived at London, where at the request of his uncle he was put under the special care of the Russian ambassador in the Great Britain, Semion Romanovich Vorontsov. For the rest of his life, Kochubei retained a close friendship both with the ambassador Vorontsov and the whole Vorontsov family, the best proof of which is the voluminous correspondence published in “The Archive of Prince Vorontsov”.

 

 

In summer 1792 Kochubei was called back to Russia, in view of the plans of Bezborodko regarding his nephew’s further career. Among the existing options there were ambassadorial posts in Madrid or Istanbul, though the whole issue of the expected Kochubei’s appointment was known then only to a very limited circle of the highest Russian officials. While Bezborodko and Catherine II were willing to see Kochubei as the Russian envoy at the Porte, Bezborodko’s nephew himself would rather prefer Madrid and was not much enthusiastic about his prospected sojourn in the Ottoman capital. In his letters, regularly written to London, Kochubei was constantly conferring on this subject with S. R. Vorontsov², asking for his advice whether to accept the post of ambassador in Istanbul or to wait for some other position.

 

 

 

² ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 28 / 17 August, 1792’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 40; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 4 September (24 August), 1792’

Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, pp. 42-45.

Despite the fact that the place prepared by Bezborodko for his nephew was both highly prestigious and very profitable, the doubts of Kochubei about accepting this post were quite explainable. The young man of his age, lacking experience, was from the very beginning to be faced with a vast field of difficult and complicated work demanding huge responsibility and sound professional background. Moreover, Kochubei was afraid that his tenure in Istanbul would estrange him in his young age from society and the social environment he used to live in while in St. Petersburg and Western Europe (“la vie qu’on mène dans la capital turque me rendra étranger à la société”) and would not allow him, still, any leisure time to proceed with the studies of some other subjects he was interested in.

 

 

Even though Bezborodko’s nephew was not too eager to go to the Ottoman Empire, it is clear from his own correspondence with S. R. Vorontsov that his appointment was already decided in principle between his uncle and the Empress. It simply remained for him to wait throughout the summer and autumn of 1792 for the official imperial order, which at last had been issued on 22 / 11 October, 1792. Awaiting in St. Petersburg for his final appointment, young Kochubei stroke up a friendship with the heir apparent to the throne Pavel Petrovich (future Emperor Paul I) and his son, crown prince Alexander Pavlovich (future Emperor Alexander I). Later on, this detail of Kochubei’s biography would also have an important effect upon his life.

 

Upon the completion of all formalities, in late 1792 Kochubei left St. Petersburg for Vienna, where he was again to wait, for the whole summer and autumn of 1793, when the extraordinary mission of General Kutuzov would be

finished. The slow pace with which Kutuzov’s embassy was moving, and then its rather long stay in Istanbul, was the object of some private complaints by Kochubei who felt at a loose end in the Austrian capital and would prefer to start his duties immediately.³

 

 

Finally, in late February of 1794 the new Russian ambassador arrived at the shores of Bosporus. Kutuzov’s mission by this time was closing to the end though the huge Russian delegation still remained in Istanbul. Heinrich Christoph von Reimers, one of the numerous members of Kutuzov’s extraordinary embassy, left a short comment of his general impression about Kochubei when the latter just came to his new post. Reimers speaks of the nephew of Bezborodko as “a nice, young, well- educated man of about 26-27 years of age (Kochubei was 25 then; V. M.), who was brought up mostly in France and then spent a few years in England. He owes this important office to his uncle, Count Bezborodko”.⁴ As was the usual practice, upon his arrival Kochubei paid on 1 March (18 February) an official visit to the Grand Vizier, followed by an audience with the Sultan, which took place on 4 March (21 February), 1794.⁵ In this way, the young Russian ambassador, who in view of his family name (Kochubei’s name was of Turkic origin, being a derivative of “Küçük bey” or, “little lord”) sometimes had been called in joke “Büyük bey” (big lord) by the Ottomans⁶, started to serve on the first post of high responsibility in his subsequently long and successful career.⁷

³ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 31 / 20 July, 1793’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, pp. 11-12.

⁴Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 188.

⁵ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, pp. 192-99. Reimers, who in accordance with the order of Kutuzov together with some other members of the Russian delegation had joined the entourage of the new ambassador during the latter’s visit to the Sultan, gives an expanded account of this particular audience.

⁶ Reimers, Reise, Vol. 2, p. 189.

⁷ V. P. Kochubei, as a close friend of Emperor Alexander I would later become a quite influential person in Russian foreign and domestic policy, being a member of the celebrated Alexander’s Privy

Kochubei was destined to appear in Istanbul in those early spring days of 1794 when the rest of Europe witnessed the ever-accelerating course of both appalling and fascinating developments of the French revolution, and on the East of the continent the Polish rebels with General Kościuszko at their head were preparing to engage into heroic but largely doomed attempt to liberate their country from foreign oppression. The Polish uprising officially started on 24 March 1794, as General Kościuszko at the market of the ancient Polish capital, the city of Kraków, declared its beginning and took a solemn oath to stand at its head. At the same time in France, the period of unrestricted authority of the Committee of the Public Safety, known as the Reign of Terror, reached its climax, which meant as well the highest point of the revolution. The summer month of Thermidor, however, was also closing in.

 

 

On the very day when Kościuszko was taking his oath in Kraków, the execution of such an iconic revolutionary figure as Jaques Hébert took place in Paris. A few weeks later, on 5 April, there were guillotined other living symbols of revolution Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins. Moreover, the war France had been waging against almost all Europe was still underway. Thus, in terms of their foreign policy both the Polish patriots and the French revolutionary government at the moment were very much interested in gathering international support of any kind. Both hoped to find it first of all at the court of the Ottoman Sultan. For Russian ambassador in Istanbul, respectively, the principal task was to prevent the possibility of the Polish-Ottoman or Franco-Ottoman alliance and to derail the attempts of the French diplomacy to set the Ottoman and Russian Empires at loggerheads.

Committee, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1801-1802), twice the Minister of the Interior (1802-1807 and 1819-1823) and the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers (1827-1832), to name just the most important of his future offices.

When still waiting in Vienna for the departure to the place of his new duty, Kochubei shared the general nature of instructions he got for the forthcoming diplomatic mission in Istanbul with S. R. Vorontsov. These instructions unambiguously prescribed the Russian ambassador to maintain amicable relations with the Ottomans, indicating the wish of St. Petersburg to avoid any conflicts on the Southern border of the empire at this point. For all that, Kochubei was not to make whatever concessions the Ottoman side might demand in some controversial issues, but insist on the strict adherence to all previously concluded treaties.⁸

 

 

It should be mentioned as well that the current desire of St. Petersburg for peace did not exclude other more aggressive plans for settlement of the Eastern question, which were, no doubt, also contemplated by the Russian Empress. There are many evidences, like the earlier ideas of grande entreprise, specific instructions of Catherine II to Kutuzov, persistent rumours about the impending war, which may serve as a proof of bellicose attitudes towards the Ottoman state existing in Russia. What is more, some Russian noblemen at the beginning of 1794 believed that the war was unavoidable. For instance, F. V. Rostopchin, in the future the Foreign minister of Paul I and the governor of Moscow during the Napoléon’s invasion, who was at this time only a young courtier close to the heir apparent Pavel Petrovich, and who was not much liked by Catherine, wrote to S. R. Vorontsov:

Il me semble que la guerre est inévitable pour la Russie, puisque l’Impératrice la veut, malgré les réponses modérées et pacifiques de la Porte. Elle persiste dans l’intention de parvenir à son but et de remplir les gazettes du bombardement de Constantinople. Elle dit, à sa table,

 

 

⁸ V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 18 January, 1794. In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 75.

qu’elle perdra un jour patience et fera voir aux Turcs qu’il est aussi aisé d’aller à leur capitale que de faire le voyage de la Crimée.⁹

 

That the expectations of the new war in the 1^st half of 1794 were quite real can also be clearly seen in the official correspondence between St. Petersburg and the Headquarters of the Black Sea Admiralty Department in Nikolayev (currently Mykolayiv, Ukraine), concerning the combat readiness of the Black Sea fleet. In January 1794 Catherine II issued the order to the then Chief of the Black Sea Admiralty Department Admiral Nikolay Semionovich Mordvinov to get the fleet fully operational in the event of war with “the enemy of the Christian name”.¹⁰ Whereas in the first lines of this document it is implied that the Ottomans, encouraged by the French incitements and the current imbroglio in Poland, may break the peace and attack Russia, it had also been prescribed for the Black Sea fleet not to confine itself only to defensive operations, but to be ready as well to deliver a preventive strike on the Ottoman naval forces dispersed in the area, so that the latter would not have enough time to join up. Nevertheless, the general contents of some other related documents suggests, that the Russian Empire was rather more agitated by the possibility of the Ottoman aggression, and first of all sought to ensure the security of its own borders, rather than embark on offensive campaign, still having unresolved problems in Poland and experiencing substantial financial difficulties caused by the last war.¹¹ The clear-cut supposition of Rostopchin indicates, though, that the Russian Empress despite the requirements of current situation still could entertain some designs about the Ottoman Empire.

⁹ ‘F. V. Rostopchin to S. R. Vorontsov, 20 / 9 March, 1794’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 24, p. 260.

¹⁰ ‘Order of Catherine II, 27 / 16 January, 1794’ R. N. Mordvinov (ed.) Admiral Ushakov (3 vols.; Moscow, 1951) Vol. 1, pp. 597-600.

¹¹ ‘Letter of N. S. Mordvinov to P. A. Zubov, 20 / 9 May, 1794’ In: Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, pp. 604-605; ‘F. F. Ushakov to N. S. Mordvinov, 1 July (20 June) 1794’, Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, pp. 611-12.

Thus one of the driving forces behind the Ottoman war preparations was the anticipation of the Russian assault, much as the similar military preparations of the Russian side were triggered in no small part by the apprehension of the Ottoman attack as a result of the hypothetical alliance of the Porte with France and/or the Polish insurgents. For that reason the Ottoman-Russian relations at the moment could hardly be called unstrained. The representatives of both the Sultan and the Russian Empress while speaking at the conferences about mutual peaceful intentions clearly could not rule out in their minds the still existent possibility of war.

 

 

The whole situation may be defined by a formula “war cannot be peace”, and it was up to both sides to decide where to put comma, after the first word or before the last one. Despite their own ideal preferences both the Ottomans and Russians, taking into consideration their best interests and the circumstances of the current moment, were more inclined to choose the second, peaceful option. Another war would be madness and come equally destructive for each side.

 

 

Particularly deplorable was the situation of the Ottoman state. After having stayed for about half a year in the Ottoman Empire Kutuzov, for instance, was quite positive that the Ottomans by no means would start the new war on their own will. Upon his return the Russian extraordinary ambassador was pointing out that the Ottoman fortresses were not yet prepared to meet full defensive requirements, the Ottoman fleet was not yet strong enough, the reformative activity of the government was still immature, and, above all, the Ottoman state was harassed by domestic disturbances in all parts of the vast empire from the Balkans to the Arabic peninsula.

As a result, Kutuzov was making a conclusion that the declaration of war would be against any common sense and for sure not in the interests of the Ottoman government.¹²

 

 

An attitude, taken by the Porte in regard to the Polish uprising along with the climb-down over the issue of the new Trade Tariff in summer 1794¹³ offer a sharp evidence of the Ottoman wish to stay out of war. At the conferences with the Russian ambassador throughout spring and summer 1794, the Ottoman officials repeatedly assured Kochubei that the Porte would always keep its neutrality in the Polish affairs. Kochubei, in his turn, tried to soothe the concerns of the Ottoman side about the Russian armaments in close vicinity to the Ottoman border and on the Black Sea.¹⁴ Meanwhile the French representative in Istanbul Marie Louis Descorches¹⁵, acting also on behalf of the Polish insurgents, unsuccessfully sought to gain from the Porte the official recognition of the French Republic. At the moment this seemed highly unlikely, the same as an open support by the Porte of the Polish uprising. To do that would mean for the Ottomans to incur the enmity not only of Russia but also the other two co-participants of the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Austria and Prussia, as well as all adversaries of the French, that is, the whole Europe.

¹² ‘M. I. Kutuzov to General Field-Marshal P. A. Rumiantsev, 11 June (29 May) 1794’ In: Beskrovnyi, Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 339; Mun’kov, Diplomaticheskaia deyatel’nost’, pp. 74-75.

¹³ The Porte gave up its claims regarding the new Trade Tariff on 26 June. See: Iorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, Vol. 5, p. 111; Also see: ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 July, 1794’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 79.

¹⁴ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 26 April, 1794’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 31; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 June (30 May), 1794’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, pp. 32-34; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 June, 1794’ (the date is the same as that one of the previous letter). Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, pp. 34-36.

¹⁵ Since the French Republic by then was not officially recognized by the Ottoman government, Descorches stayed in Istanbul incognito, as a simple merchant and under an assumed name, d’Aubry. See: Onnik Jamgocyan, ‘La Révolution Française Vue et Vécue de Constantinople (1789-1795)’ Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française, 282 (1990), p. 465.

Neither the long-standing sympathies for France, nor the attractive, albeit chimerical, propositions of Descorches, nor the French help with military instructors and engineers, nor even the deep anti-Russian feelings, could make the Ottoman side to openly discard the adopted principle of neutrality in the international politics. Also, the above mentioned advantages of the French side seemed even more not at all that convincing as compared with the most telling Russian trump card, which was, by a witty observation of Kochubei, 60 thousand men and count Suvorov on the Ottoman borders.¹⁶ The policy implemented at this point by the Ottoman government in its foreign relations appeared to be the best advisable under the given circumstances, that is, not to interfere into any rivalries of big European powers and in the meantime to concentrate on its own military preparations.

 

 

It is beyond any doubt that the Sultan’s government, despite the urgent necessity of the moment to keep neutrality, could not remain indifferent to the events in the neighbouring Poland. Yet to openly declare itself a champion of the Polish independence and to start war, as it had happened in 1768, was absolutely impossible for the Porte. According to Kochubei, the Ottomans apparently were sympathising with the Polish uprising since it diverted the attention and resources of St. Petersburg, which otherwise could be used against the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, evaluating the chance of the Ottoman interference into the Polish affairs, the Russian ambassador deemed that the Ottomans could hardly lend a substantial support to the rebels of General Kościuszko.¹⁷

 

¹⁶ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 June, 1794’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 35.

¹⁷ Ibidem.

Descorches, who had not so long ago been the French ambassador in Warsaw¹⁸, was doing his best to call attention of the Ottoman highest officials to the Polish question. On 11 May 1794 the representative of as yet unrecognised French Republic delivered a note to the Reis-ül-Küttab Mehmed Rashid, asking for assistance to the Poles. Then Descorches was once again accepted by the Reis-ül-Küttab on 29 July. Mehmed Rashid reassured him that the well-being of Poland was very important for the Ottoman Empire, that the Porte felt great sympathy for Poles, but at the present moment could not help them. At the same time Reis Efendi gave his word that the Ottomans, even though not rendering direct assistance to the Polish patriots, in the same way would not prevent the secret attempts to provide them a helping hand.¹⁹

 

 

In fact, while constantly emphasizing to the Russian ambassador in Istanbul their expressed neutrality in the Polish question, the Ottomans whenever possible indeed were facilitating the struggle of the Polish insurgents. Many political refugees from Poland as well as the rebellious Polish officers in search of asylum, much to the annoyance of the Russian side, were accepted on the Ottoman territory. Furthermore, a sum of 20 thousand Flemish ducats had been secretly sent to Kościuszko through the agency of the Moldovian Hospodar Michael Soutzos (Mihai Suţu).²⁰ Another by no means unimportant point is that already by its own continuing military preparations the Ottoman Empire indirectly aided the cause of the Polish rebels, as

 

 

¹⁸ Marie Louis Descorches, or d’Escorches de Saint-Croix (after the Revolution he changed the aristocratic spelling of his name) served as the French ambassador to Poland during July 1791- August 1792. Catherine II issued a special order (27 / 16 August 1792) to the Russian military commander in Poland General Kachowski, prescribing him to make sure that the French representative would be expelled from Poland. See: Władysław Smoleński, Konfederacya Targowicka (Cracow, 1903) pp. 307-308, 370-71.

¹⁹ Jan Reychman, ‘1794 Polonya İsyanı ve Türkiye’ Belleten, 31 (1967), pp. 87-88.

²⁰ Reychman, 1794 Polonya İsyanı, pp. 88-89; ‘M. I. Kutuzov to General Field-Marshal P. A. Rumiantsev, 11 June (29 May) 1794’ In: Beskrovnyi, Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, p. 339.

Russia was thus bound to keep a sizeable part of its troops on the Ottoman border, instead of using them in Poland.

 

 

On the whole, by the autumn of 1794 the relations of Istanbul and St. Petersburg remained just distrustful as earlier, though neither side was willing to rush into both devastating and unnecessary war. At the end of September Kochubei wrote to S. R. Vorontsov that the Russian court is “full of good will to keep the best possible terms with the Porte” and the Ottomans at the moment “want to stay in tranquillity”. Kochubei for this reason was making a conclusion that until winter nothing would change, and only then it would be possible to judge more or less thoroughly about the further intentions of the Porte.²¹ In other words, everything was going just as the Russian diplomatic representatives in Istanbul, first Kutuzov and then Kochubei, envisioned it in their reports. The Porte obviously could not run the risk of breaking the peace with Russia, becoming after the suppression of the Polish uprising in the end of the year more and more convinced that the line of policy it chose was the only one possible.

 

 

All of the indefatigable efforts of Descorches to win the Ottomans on his side appeared in vain. On the verge of the final defeat of Kościuszko’s armies Piotr Krutta, former interpreter (tercüman) at the old embassy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth appointed to act in the capacity of plenipotentiary of the Polish insurrectionist government (Rada Najwyższa Narodowa), arrived at Constantinople. Having come to the Ottoman capital early in November, Krutta was to give the Porte the first hand information about the uprising and to ask for help with one thousand

²¹ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 22 / 14 September, 1794’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, pp. 85-86.

ducats and 40 thousand rifles.²² By this time not only Kościuszko had already been captured by Russians for about one month (after the battle of Maciejowice, on 10 October), but also Warsaw fell (on 5 November). The fight was over and before long the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would be wiped out from the map of Europe for good.²³

 

 

The military success in Poland evidently strengthened the Russian positions in Istanbul and caused additional difficulties for Descorches. In Kochubei’s opinion, the Ottomans even earlier never thought to interfere into the Polish affairs seriously. As he put it, they “were listening to the Swedes and to the French, they may be were giving some hopes, and that is all”.²⁴ By the end of November, the Russian ambassador at the Porte was fully confident that, after receiving the news about the capture of Kościuszko and overall defeat of the Polish uprising, the Ottoman government, would certainly not dare to open hostilities against Russia at least until the next year. Kochubei was positive that if Russia would take the whole Poland, not to mention undertaking another partition, there would be no need to be afraid of the Ottoman attack.²⁵

 

The subsequent developments showed that the Russian ambassador was right in his assumption. As Iorga observes, the Ottoman government received the news of the destruction of Poland with great sorrow, as it might mean a grave omen for the Porte itself as well. However, Descorches still did not manage to persuade it into declaring

²² Reychman, 1794 Polonya İsyanı, p. 90.

²³ The third, and last, partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth officially took place on 24 October 1795, when the three partitioning powers (Russia, Prussia and Austria) signed a treaty, dividing the remaining territories of the Commonwealth.

²⁴ ‘V. P. Kochubei to A. R. Vorontsov, 27 / 16 November, 1794’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 37.

²⁵ Ibidem; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 December (24 November), 1794’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 40.

a war on Russia.²⁶ The only thing, which the Porte could afford at the moment was a protest against “the massacres in Poland” made by Reis Efendi to Kochubei in December 1794.²⁷ To risk its own interests for the sake of the doomed Poland, though, would be a complete folly. Without breaking their neutrality, trying to keep up peaceful relations with Russia and not seeking war, the Ottomans simply felt bound to prepare for it as best as they could, all the more after the downfall of Poland.

 

 

4.2.    Diplomatic struggle at the Ottoman capital throughout 1795- 1796

Meanwhile the French Republic was gradually gaining the upper hand against its enemies at the western end of the European continent. At the very beginning of 1795 the Batavian Republic, the first among the French client states of the epoch of the Revolutionary wars, had been proclaimed.²⁸ On 5 April, in Basel France signed peace with Prussia. The Prussian king recognised the French Republic and all of its territorial acquisitions on the left bank of Rhine. Somewhat later, in summer, the similar treaty had been signed with Spain, terminating the War of the Pyrenees.²⁹ As for the Ottomans, who earlier were in no haste to recognise the French revolutionary government as long as some other state would do it first ³⁰, the recognition of the

 

 

²⁶ Iorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, Vol. 5, p. 111.

²⁷ Edouard de Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople: la politique orientale de la Révolution française, (2 vols.; Paris, 1927), Vol. 2, p. 144.

²⁸ 19 January, 1795.

²⁹ War between Spain and the French Republic, waged throughout 17 April 1793- 22 July 1795.

³⁰ Many times the officials of the Sultan’s government were explaining to Descorches that the Ottoman Empire would not be the last state to recognise the French Republic, though at the same time it could not be the first one. For example, see: Onnik Jamgocyan, ‘La Révolution Française Vue et Vécue de Constantinople (1789-1795)’ Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française, 282 (1990),

p. 465.

revolutionary France by Prussia, one of the bigger European powers, cleared the way for the Porte to follow the same path.

 

 

Therefore, when Raymond de Verninac³¹, the new diplomatic representative of the National Convention, arrived on 14 April to Istanbul³² the hearsay was floating in the air that the Porte may recognise the French Republic and Verninac as its official ambassador quite soon. In a letter written to S. R. Vorontsov on 10 May 1795, i.e. one week before the recognition of Verninac, Kochubei shared with his friend and senior colleague his apprehension that the Porte might follow the example of Prussia, though he hoped that there were still chances for this not to happen.³³ The Russian ambassador in Istanbul noted at the same time that all the French projects to raise the Ottomans against Russia and the Habsburg Empire could by no means be achieved this year, since the Porte was not yet ready either on sea or on land.³⁴ Regarding the Swedish diplomatic cooperation with the French in the attempts to bring the Ottoman government into some kind of anti-Russian coalition, Kochubei thought that the Swedes rather wished to obtain both the French and Ottoman subsidies than to fight against Russia. Kochubei concluded his letter by deriving a clear satisfaction from the fact that at the moment the Porte more than ever before distrusted the Christian powers and suspected all of them. Such a state of affairs when the Porte trusts no one,  concludes  Kochubei,  was  very favourable  for  Russia  as  the  Ottoman

 

³¹ Raymond de Verninac Saint-Maur (1762-1822) before his appointment to Istanbul represented France at the court of the Swedish king, in 1792. Apart from being a diplomat he was also a poet. It may worth remarking that Verninac was brother-in-law of famous French painter of the 19^th century Eugène Delacroix, as he married the older sister of Delacroix. See: Maurice Tourneux, A foreword to “Journal intime de l’abbé Mulot”. In: Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île-de- France, 29 (1902), p. 26.

³² Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople, Vol. 2, p. 247.

³³ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 May, 1795’ In: Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 50.

³⁴ Ibidem, p. 51.

government in any case never trusted the Russians as its natural enemies (n’a jamais eu de confiance en nous, comme dans son ennemi naturel).³⁵

 

 

As expected, Verninac was recognised by the Porte as plenipotentiary of the republican France on 18 May 1795. “The Porte recognised the French Republic”, - this was the very first sentence Kochubei wrote in his next letter to S. R. Vorontsov. From now on, as the Russian ambassador characteristically puts it, “the door of Verninac was decorated with the coat of arms of anarchy, of which he was a representative”.³⁶ A natural consequence of such an event would be an even more increased diplomatic activity of France within the Sultan’s domains. Despite this fact, Kochubei once again repeated his opinion that the Porte would retain its neutrality at least until the end of the current year, remaining an “indifferent spectatrix” of the developments going on in Europe.³⁷ Moreover, the very personality of Verninac compared poorly to that one of Descorches. As Iorga stated, the Porte after all the solemn ceremonies was not taking Verninac seriously and his cause seemed to be lost from the very beginning.³⁸ Kochubei, already after Verninac’s stay in Istanbul for more than one year, also thought that Descorches had been a much more talented person than his successor.³⁹ Not everything depended on the French ambassador alone, though.

 

For the time being, the Ottoman government used the peace as an opportunity to continue its military preparations and the large-scale reformative programme of

³⁵ Ibidem, p. 52.

³⁶ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 26 / 15 May, 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 53.

³⁷ Ibidem; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 June (30 May), 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova

(40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 93.

³⁸ Iorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, Vol. 5, p. 113.

³⁹ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 25 / 14 August, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 116.

Nizâm-ı Cedîd. In general, the two widespread concerns among the people of the Ottoman Empire at this time were the childlessness of Selim III and his various innovations.⁴⁰ The scope of the work to be done was extensive, including the attempts to create new troops trained and organised along the European lines, building new battleships for the navy, the reinforcement of the old border fortresses (Bender, Akkerman, Ismail) and the construction of the new ones (in Burgas, at the mouth of the Danube, and at the entrance of the Black Sea), the creation of the new factories for production of the gunpowder and artillery foundries.⁴¹ This drove the need for many experts in the respective areas, able to perform the required tasks. Quite understandably these were to be invited from abroad. It is worthy of note, that the Porte, guided by its own interests, was using the engineers, workers, military and naval instructors from the Western Europe quite regardless of their nationality. In the Ottoman Empire at the same time were working the French, the British and the Swedes, i.e. the representatives of the states currently fighting with each other in Europe jointly served the Sultan.⁴²

 

 

Touching upon the subject of the European military instructors serving in the Ottoman army, one simply cannot avoid mentioning the fact that in September 1795 a young French General Napoléon Bonaparte, then aged twenty-six and having no inviting career prospects in France, also presented a report to the National Convention expressing his wish to go to the Ottoman Empire in the capacity of an

⁴⁰ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 May, 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 51.

⁴¹ Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople, pp. 139-44.

⁴² In this way, the British engineer White and six Swedish naval officers arrived to serve at the Ottoman Empire in summer 1795. See: ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 25 / 14 June, 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 55; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 August (30 July), 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18,

pp. 95-96; Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 160.

artillery instructor.⁴³ A bit more than a fortnight after this request, when Bonaparte was already preparing for departure to the domains of the Sultan, a fateful event occurred in Paris that changed all of these plans and young General Bonaparte’s future life and career altogether. The successful suppression of the royalist insurrection in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire an IV (5 October 1795) under the direct command of Bonaparte paved the way for the young General’s fast rise to prominence. As a result, Napoléon Bonaparte was to step on the Ottoman land somewhat later and in quite different circumstances.

 

 

It is easy to notice that the majority of the Ottoman fortresses and other strategic locations to be fortified in the first place were either situated not far from the Russian border (like Bender, Akkerman, Ismail or Khotyn) or could easily be exposed to a hypothetical Russian aggression (the Ottoman Black Sea littoral). Objectively, even in time of peace, Russia remained the most serious external threat for the Ottoman state and the vast military preparations rather of defensive than the offensive character, made by the Porte, were a good proof of the Ottoman living concerns about the Russian attack.

 

To sum up, the continuing reforms, the military unpreparedness, the internal crisis, the decentralization tendencies and ineffectiveness of the central authorities, the growing wide dissatisfaction with the reformative movement of the Sultan, the lack of security for life and property of the subjects, and on top of that the spread of plague⁴⁴ would not allow the Ottoman Empire to wish at this point something other

⁴³ The full text of this request, dated 17 September 1795, is given in the Turkish translation at: Soysal,

Fransız ihtilâli, p. 162.

⁴⁴ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 August (30 July), 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 96-97.

than tranquillity and peace. Despite all of the ongoing armaments, the declaring of war against Russia was for the Porte out of the question.⁴⁵

 

 

For the same reason, the Ottoman reaction to the third and final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian state in the end of 1795 was in full accordance with the earlier predictions of the Russian ambassador made already a year before.⁴⁶ After the partition had been completed, Kochubei commented in December 1795 on the Ottoman attitudes towards this issue:

Our Polish affair has been accepted here as a grievous and predestined event... For now I am even more assured that it [the Porte; M.V.] would keep the tranquillity with us for long, and, without any unexpected occurrences, neither the French nor the Swedes would manage to shake the beards that belong to here [meaning the beards of the Ottoman officials; M. V.](не удастся поколебать здешних бород).⁴⁷

 

Although the defeat of the Polish insurrection and the ensuing final partition of the Commonwealth further undermined the chance of involving the Ottomans into any kind of military anti-Russian alliance, the French diplomacy kept working towards its goals. The first and foremost was the conclusion of an offensive alliance between Paris and the Porte. In spite of this primary objective of the French the only thing Verninac managed to achieve by the spring 1796 was a project of a defensive alliance, adopted by Selim III and then additionally discussed and agreed upon by the Consultative Council (Meclis-i Meşveret) under the presidency of the Grand Vizier

⁴⁵ The idea that the Ottoman Empire badly needs peace and would not declare war on Russia on its own will constantly recurs in the letters of Kochubei, written throughout the summer-autumn 1795. Check: ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 August (30 July), 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, pp. 94-97; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 3 November, 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, pp. 97-100; ‘V. P. Kochubei to

S. R. Vorontsov, 24 / 13 December, 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol.

18, pp. 100-103.

⁴⁶ ‘V. P. Kochubei to A. R. Vorontsov, 27 / 16 November, 1794’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 37.

⁴⁷ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 24 / 13 December, 1795’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 102.

on 19 May 1796.⁴⁸ On 24 May, it was signed by the Reis-ül-Küttab Ratıb Efendi and Verninac. According to this project, France was assuming the obligation to aid the Ottoman Empire, should it be attacked by some other state, with the army of 30 thousand men, or eight ships of the line and twelve frigates, or the subsidy in the amount necessary for maintaining of such a military force. The Ottoman side also guaranteed that the Black Sea would be opened to the French commercial vessels. By a special clause the Kingdom of Great Britain was excluded from the countries this treaty would be directed against. In other words, instead of the offensive treaty, which had been expected in Paris, Verninac could sign only a defensive one. What is more, according to the project of treaty the Porte was not obliged to help France in its war against Britain.

 

 

On 28 May 1796 (7 prairial an IV) Verninac sent the text to the Foreign minister Charles-François Delacroix, his future father-in-law,⁴⁹ asking to accept the conditions of the proposed Ottoman-French defensive alliance.⁵⁰ The given treaty, being rather exclusively in the interests of the Ottoman state and not exactly the one Paris hoped for, was not ratified by France. At the beginning of August Verninac received the negative answer from his ministry, of which he had to inform the Ottoman government. The Porte, understandably, remained stunned upon learning this news.⁵¹ In such a manner by August 1796 the French Directory had discredited itself enough in the eyes of the Ottomans.

 

⁴⁸ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 142.

⁴⁹ In 1798 Raymond de Verninac would marry Henriette Delacroix, the only daughter of Charles- François Delacroix (the French Foreign minister in 1795-1797) and the older sister of painter Eugène Delacroix. A. Dry [Fleury Adrien]. Soldats ambassadors sous le Directoire, an IV- an VIII (Paris, 1906), p. 41.

⁵⁰Dry, Soldats ambassadors, pp. 142-43.

⁵¹ Dry, Soldats ambassadors, p. 144.

While Verninac was occupied with the ill-fated project of the allied treaty, a representative of the Polish emigrant circles appeared on the shores of the Bosporus as well. Already in early November 1795, Michał Kleofas Ogiński departed incognito from Venice for Istanbul.⁵² It is impossible not to mention that Ogiński, aside from his diplomatic duties, was also a composer and is the very same author of the immortal sounds of the polonaise “Farewell to the Homeland” (Pożegnanie Ojczyzny) for which he is more widely known than for his other activities. In fact, with the aid of the French consul (then not yet a political term) in Livorno Ogiński sailed off from this port only on 5 February 1796 and arrived at Smyrna (Izmir) after about one and a half months of the sea trip.⁵³ In the end Ogiński came to Istanbul, judging by his own memoirs, somewhere in April 1796.

 

 

As is seen from the written directives⁵⁴ given to Ogiński by the Polish emigrant committee based in Paris, the objectives of his mission much corresponded with those of Verninac. In the first place, as it might have been expected, the Polish émigrés aspired to restore the Polish state and for that reason were seeking the military support from any country which could be regarded as a potential ally. Among the most general tasks formulated in Ogiński’s instructions were to work for the Ottoman recognition of independent Poland and conclusion of an offensive military alliance between the Poles and the Ottomans that was to be directed against the common enemies. This actually meant that the High Porte was supposed to take the burden of fighting against the three co-participants of the Polish-Lithuanian

⁵² Ogiński left Venice on 4 November 1795 accompanied by another Polish émigré, Brigadier General Kolysko. Both used the false British passports and the assumed names. Michał Kleofas Ogiński, Mémoires de Michel Oginski sur la Pologne et les Polonais, depuis 1788 jusqu’à la fin de 1815 (4 vols.; Paris, 1826), Vol. 2, p. 115.

⁵³ Ogiński, Mémoires, pp. 120-21.

⁵⁴ The full text of the orders sent to Ogiński by the Polish emigrant committee is available at: Ogiński,

Mémoires, pp. 104-113.

partitions. To bring the Ottomans to the prospected alliance, Ogiński, much like the French ambassadors, was recommended to entice the Porte with the promises to return the Crimea and all of the territories that had been lost during the recent war.

 

 

Besides, it was planned to create a broad anti-Russian coalition including France, the Polish insurrectionists, Sweden, Denmark and the Ottoman Empire. Along with such a fundamental purpose Ogiński had more specific orders, like to securing asylum for the Polish émigrés in the Danubian principalities of the Ottoman Empire and creating an effective combat unit from them to continue the fight for independent Poland. Should the Ottoman government agree to give asylum for the Polish insurrectionists, Ogiński was also to procure the Porte’s permission to transport through the Ottoman territories the French munitions and artillery, which Paris might have sent in military aid for the Poles. In addition, the instructions of the Polish emigrant committee prescribed Ogiński to keep correspondence with two other Polish diplomatic agents in Stockholm and Copenhagen, and to act in close cooperation with the French ambassador.

 

 

On the day of his arrival to Istanbul, Ogiński was met by dragoman from the French embassy, citizen Dantan, who carried him to the Hôtel de France⁵⁵ to meet with Verninac. This was the time of intensive negotiations over the eventually failed Franco-Ottoman treaty of alliance, mentioned earlier. The French ambassador, then still waiting for the Ottoman reply to his propositions, told Ogiński that he had orders to help the representative of the Polish emigrants, and he suggested to join their efforts, and advised Ogiński to be careful and to avoid other foreign diplomats

⁵⁵ The building of the French Embassy in Istanbul, where Verninac was officially residing

residing in Istanbul in order not to disclose his incognito.⁵⁶ It was Verninac who organized the meeting of Ogiński with the First dragoman (Baş Tercüman) of the Porte Gheorghe Moruzi (Mourousis),⁵⁷ which took place on 13 June 1796. That day Ogiński visited Moruzi at his home at seven in the evening,⁵⁸ and the conversation, focused on the Polish question, lasted deep into the night.

 

 

The First dragoman voiced the position of the Porte regarding the affairs of Poland, which did not add to the optimism of the emissary of the Polish emigrants. Ogiński became assured that the Ottomans were paying careful attention to everything which was going on in Poland. Much to Ogiński’s surprise, Moruzi described him the characters of all principal figures of the Polish politics in detail and told that the Porte had its secret agents there and was receiving the necessary information through the Danube principalities.⁵⁹ The Ottoman official assured that his government, beyond all doubt, sympathized with the Poles and had no reasons to like Russians, but this could not change anything at the moment. Moruzi also pointed out that if it were not for the Ottomans who indirectly helped the Poles by diverting certain part of the Russian forces from the battlefields in Poland to the Russo- Ottoman border, the Kościuszko uprising would have been suppressed far earlier.⁶⁰ Moreover, the First dragoman reproached the Poles for lack of unity among them, showing Ogiński a huge batch of letters, memoirs and projects proposing mutually

⁵⁶ Ogiński, Mémoires, pp. 125-26. Despite these precautionary measures the arrival of the Polish agent was well known to the Russian ambassador, and Ogiński all the time was under the strict watch of the spies working for the Russian embassy. Kochubei, the ambassador, was perlustrating all correspondence of the Polish diplomatic representative. Later, in 1802 Kochubei himself told about this to Ogiński when the latter returned to Poland, which remained under the Russian rule. See: Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 199.

⁵⁷ His brother Alexander Moruzi was the Hospodar of Wallachia (1793-1796; 1799-1801) and Moldavia (1792; 1802-1806; 1806-1807).

⁵⁸ Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 165.

⁵⁹ Ogiński, Mémoires, pp. 166-68.

⁶⁰ Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 171.

exclusive measures and sent to the Porte by many separate groups of Polish emigrants. Upon that Moruzi quoted the French ambassador in Basel Bartélemy, noting that the latter had reason in saying that il fallait tout fair pour les Polonais, sans les Polonais.⁶¹ In Moruzi’s opinion, it was not fair of the Poles to accuse the Ottomans of indifference towards the Polish cause, and it was in fact France who forgot about Poland while signing the Basel peace treaty with Prussia. On the other hand, the First dragoman asked whether the Poles would expect the Ottoman Empire fighting for their cause against the three co-participants of Poland’s partitions alone.⁶²

 

 

Approaching to the issue rather more from the Polish perspective and obviously ignoring the Ottoman considerations in this respect, Ogiński in return replied that if the Porte would not confine itself to passive military demonstrations and would attack Russia during the uprising of Kościuszko, there would be more chances for the Poles’ victory. As a result, the strong Poland would always keep Russians on the alert, which meant that the Ottoman Empire could also be less worried about possible Russian aggression. The Polish agent reminded Moruzi of Catherine’s intentions to create an Orthodox state in the Balkans for her grandson, adding that the Porte would be sorry for its current indecisiveness when Russia would occupy Moldavia and Wallachia, excite the Greeks, augment its naval forces on the Black Sea.⁶³ It was hard not to agree with Ogiński, whose arguments looked quite logical and consistent. Indeed, a strong Poland would be a good ally for the Porte, and to cancel out the consequences of the last war with Russia would be in itself a perfect idea. The evil was, as usual, in the details.

⁶¹ Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 173.

⁶² Ogiński, Mémoires, pp. 173-74.

⁶³ Ogiński, Mémoires, pp. 176-177.

In course of his conversation with the Ottoman First dragoman Ogiński grew more and more convinced that the Porte assumed a wait-and-see attitude and was not going to undertake any serious steps to change its current policy of neutrality in international affairs. In point of view of the Ottoman side any hasty moves would be disastrous. All what was needed was to continue with the yet unfinished military preparations in order to face the dangers so dramatically described by Ogiński. The Ottoman official was not at all surprised by the gloomy predictions he heard, but remarked that the Sultan’s empire still had enough resources to frustrate the threatening projects of the Russian empress, and a lot of water will flow in the Danube till these plans could be realized.⁶⁴ As for the Poles, Moruzi once again assured in the Ottoman sympathies towards them, promised that in case of the successful Swedish diversion against Russia the Ottomans would also start hostilities, and for the time being wished the Poles to keep patience and prudence. In practice the meeting ended in nothing but vague promises made by the Ottoman side and the increased the disappointment of the Polish agent at his clear inability to change the Ottoman resolution to stay away from the war.

 

In the meantime, according to the testimony of the Russian ambassador in the Ottoman Empire Kochubei, in spring-summer 1796 the rumours about the close break-off between the Porte and Russia, spread in large part by the French emissaries, became quite an ordinary event in Istanbul.⁶⁵ However, it seems that

 

 

⁶⁴ Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 178.

⁶⁵ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 25 / 14 May, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 110; ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 9 July (28 June), 1796’ Arkhiv

kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 113.

these rumours did not result in any detrimental consequences on the general character of the Ottoman-Russian relations then.

 

 

Both the Ottomans and Russians simply continued to monitor each other’s motions closely, without embarking on hostilities. Thus the Ottoman authorities were well aware of the inspection tour of General Suvorov made in summer 1796 to examine the Russian forces quartered along the Ottoman border, despite the fact that Suvorov moved rather fast and was followed by the staff of not more than 15-20 men. The route of Suvorov went through Kamyanets’ (Ott. Kamaniçe) and Zhvanets’ (Ott. İjvaniçe, situated on the left bank of Dniester in front of the Ottoman fortress of Khotyn; nowadays a village in Kmelnytskyi oblast’, Ukraine), then the Russian commander marched past the Ottoman fortress of Bender and moved further to Khadjibey (Ott. Hocabey; nowadays Odesa, Ukraine) and the Crimea.⁶⁶ Apparently the Porte could not but be alarmed by any military developments in the immediate vicinity of its borders, even though the Russians, in contradiction with their actual deeds, kept telling about their amicable dispositions and that there was no danger for the Ottoman Empire. In any case, according to the observation of Kochubei, the Ottomans seemed to be nurturing pacific dispositions, in spite of the fact that, as Kochubei puts it, “Suvorov and his army did everything to bring about the contrary”.⁶⁷

 

As a matter of fact, the Porte just continued the policy best suited for its own interests, seeking to avoid an untimely conflict with the Northern neighbour. The

⁶⁶ A report addressed to the Commander-in-chief of the Ottoman army, dated 17 Safer 1211 (22 August 1796). T. C. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi [The Ottoman Archives of the Prime Ministry of the Republic of Turkey], Hatt-i Hümayun, Dosya no. 201, Gömlek no. 10314.

⁶⁷ ‘V. P. Kochubei to A. R. Vorontsov, 12 / 1 August, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 66.

French and the Polish diplomatic agents, having not reached their objectives of dragging the Ottoman Empire into an offensive military alliance against Russia, usually made reference to the increased Russian influence in Istanbul by the second half of 1796. Such a view seems to be somewhat exaggerated, as it ascribes the Ottoman neutral stance on the international arena almost exclusively to the intrigues of the Russian diplomacy and some transcendental treacherousness of the Ottoman side, refusing to look at the problem from the Ottoman perspective.

 

 

Appointed to the post of the French consul in Bucharest and waiting in vain for the Ottoman approval of his appointment, Constantine Stamaty (Konstantinos Stamatis) wrote about the Ottomans in summer 1796: “One had to be Russian or German to be well received by this vile and grovelling canaille”.⁶⁸ Neither was optimistic the Polish representative Ogiński, noting towards the end of summer that the influence of the French ambassador declined while that one of his Russian counterpart augmented. The dismissal of the pro-French Reis-ül-Küttab Ebubekir Ratib Efendi⁶⁹ and the Grand Dragoman Gheorghe Morouzi, which took place on 19 August 1796 (14 Safer 1211)⁷⁰, and their replacement with Mustafa Rasih Efendi and Constantine Ypsilanti (Konstantinos Ypsilantis; the son of the then Hospodar of Wallachia) respectively, who were both deemed to be pro-Russian, normally was considered as a token of growing influence of Russia at the Porte.⁷¹ Another inauspicious sign for the French and Polish diplomacy was the Russo-Swedish

⁶⁸ “Il faut être russe ou allemand pour être bien reçu par cette canaille vile et rampante”. Letter of Constantine Stamaty to M. -L. Descorches, 22 Thermidor an IV (30 July 1796). In: Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople, p. 285.

69 More information about Ebubekir Ratib’s career is available at: Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i 'Osmânî,

Vol. 2, p. 346; Ahmed Resmî, Halifetü'r-Rüesâ, p. 139.

⁷⁰ Recep Ahıshalı, Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilâtında Reisülküttâblık (XVIII. Yüzyıl) (İstanbul, 2001), p. 45.

⁷¹ On the next day, 20 August 1796, Ogiński discussed this occurrence with a French renegade at the Ottoman service, named Ibrahim. Ogiński, Mémoires, Vol. 2, p. 209; Also see the letter of V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 25 / 14 August, 1796. Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 116.

rapprochement, and, consequently, the estrangement between the French and Swedish embassies in Istanbul.⁷²

 

 

Inability of the French to make the Porte to come out openly on their side, beyond all doubt, played into the hands of St. Petersburg and its representative at the Ottoman capital. For all that, it was largely not due to the special wish of the Ottoman officials to listen to the Russian ambassador that the Sultan’s government refused to accept the French propositions of the offensive anti-Russian alliance. A number of external and domestic factors had been necessarily reflected in the Ottoman foreign policy making, determining that discreet attitude the Porte had adopted. Among these were the fear of the Russian aggression, substantiated by the Russian military presence on the borders of the Empire, the overall strengthened strategic positions of Russia after partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian state, the Ottoman own massive internal crisis and ongoing large-scale reforms. Taking into account the abovementioned circumstances it would be more logical to speak not about the increased Russian influence at the Sultan’s court, but rather of inefficiency of the French and Polish political propaganda.

 

Despite all odds, the French diplomacy continued its attempts to win the Ottomans to its side. By the end of 1796 the mission of unsuccessful Verninac was taken over by Jean Baptiste Annibal Aubert-Dubayet.⁷³ The new ambassador of the French Republic was quite a conspicuous figure, holding the rank of General and being both soldier and politician. Born in 1757 in New Orleans, then a part of the

⁷² Letter of Constantine Stamaty to M. -L. Descorches, 22 Thermidor an IV (30 July 1796). In: Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople, Vol. 2, p. 285.

⁷³ Some details of his biography are available at: Charles Gayarré, Aubert Dubayet or the Two Sister Republics (Boston, 1882); Dry, Soldats ambassadors, pp. 347-486.

overseas French colony of Louisiana (New France), Aubert-Dubayet took part in the American War for Independence under command of the famed General Lafayette, during the French Revolution was elected to the National Legislative Assembly, and for two weeks even held the office of its President (8-22 July 1792). Following the establishment of the Directory and before nomination to the post of ambassador in the Ottoman Empire, Aubert-Dubayet was the War Minister of France (3 November 1795 - 8 February 1796). The new French ambassador arrived to his Istanbul residence on 2 October 1796⁷⁴, at seven in the evening, whereupon on the same day was introduced by Verninac to the Polish diplomatic agent Ogiński. Aubert-Dubayet explained Ogiński that among the objectives of his mission were the restoration of Poland and the retrieval of the Crimea from Russia.⁷⁵ As is seen from instructions given to Aubert-Dubayet in Paris, the French ambassador was to work towards conclusion of the defensive and offensive alliance with the Ottomans, to which it was planned to bring also Sweden, Denmark and Prussia. Moreover, it would also be helpful to stir up a rebellion among the Cossacks and the Tatars.⁷⁶

 

 

Along with Aubert-Dubayet arrived a large group of military experts, engineers and craftsmen of all trades, mainly to work at the Ottoman naval construction facilities.⁷⁷ However, it did not help Aubert-Dubayet to persuade the Ottomans to

⁷⁴ Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 220; Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 151; Aubert-Dubayet was accompanied by four army officers: Carra Saint-Cyr, Menant, Caulaincourt, Castéra. Dry, Soldats ambassadors, p. 373; Russian ambassador Kochubei also mentioned in his letter to S. R. Vorontsov that in early October the embassy of the French Directory arrived at Istanbul. Its chief Aubert-Dubayet, a Creole from New Orleans, was escorted by two secretaries and three or four other persons. ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 October, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18,

p. 117.

⁷⁵ Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 221.

⁷⁶ Marcère, Une ambassade à Constantinople, pp. 259-62.

⁷⁷ Kochubei mentions more than hundred craftsmen. ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 November / 30 October, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 117,

p. 119; Ogiński speaks about around 300 of the French craftsmen and workers, disembarked at Istanbul port on 21 October 1796. Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 226.

accept the alliance with France. The majority of these people stayed in Istanbul not more than half a year, and left the Ottoman Empire in June 1797.⁷⁸

 

 

Since the very beginning of his arrival Aubert-Dubayet experienced both vague and ambiguous ways in which the Ottoman side preferred to talk. Only a few days after his arrival, answering to Ogiński’s question about how he felt in Istanbul, the French ambassador replied that he could not stand the word “bakalım” (Ottom./ Tur.: We will see). It was this word Aubert-Dubayet always heard from the Ottoman officials as a reaction to all his propositions. The time was passing by and at each meeting with Ogiński Aubert-Dubayet used to repeat ironically “bakalım”.⁷⁹ Apparently this meant nothing other than unwillingness of the Ottomans to commit themselves to the obligations France asked from them for the moment, and which they could not carry out into practice under the current circumstances.

 

 

Thus, the proposition of an offensive alliance made by the French ambassador in early November 1796 was declined by the Porte.⁸⁰ Equally unsuccessful were the two Persian emissaries, who came to Istanbul in mid-January 1797 and also sought to drag the Ottomans into the war against Russia.⁸¹ The Ottoman government at the time was more preoccupied with the danger of the Russian aggression rather than planning its own attack. As Kochubei put it, the Ottomans “think, see and dream about nothing but us.”⁸² In this respect great attention was paid by the Porte, among other things, to enlargement of its naval forces so that to make them able to compete

⁷⁸ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 159.

⁷⁹ Ogiński, Mémoires, p. 226.

⁸⁰ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 156.

⁸¹ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 February, n.s., 1797’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 130.

⁸² ‘V. P. Kochubei to A. R. Vorontsov, 12 / 1 November, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), p. Vol. 14, p. 69.

with the Russian Black Sea fleet. On the other hand, the Porte was equally disturbed by the recent successes of the French arms in Europe by the end of 1796.⁸³

 

 

4.3.     Two empires after the death of Catherine II: A thaw in relations, 1797-1798

On 17 November 1796 at about ten in the evening⁸⁴ the reign of Catherine II, which proved to be so disastrous for the Ottoman state, ended. The Russian Empress passed away, and was succeeded by her son Pavel, who had been known to be unloved by his mother. This news was received by the Ottomans with unconcealed joy as well as with some credence for Pavel’s peaceable intentions.⁸⁵ Upon his ascending the throne, Paul I indeed declared his amicable dispositions towards all of his neighbours and in the first place turned to domestic affairs, in all earnestness trying to get rid of the abuses that were taking place during the rule of his mother.

 

 

The Russian ambassador in Istanbul hoped that under the new emperor the relations between two countries would change for the better and that he himself would also feel much more tranquil.⁸⁶ Kochubei wrote to S. R. Vorontsov, his senior colleague in London, about his personal satisfaction with the “wise system, which we have adopted for our policy with the Porte.”⁸⁷ “The instructions I have received and

 

 

⁸³ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 25 / 14 November, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 122.

⁸⁴ ‘F. V. Rostopchin to S. R. Vorontsov, 18 / 7 November, 1796’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1876), Vol. 8, p. 157; ‘A Note of Prince Rostopchin about the last day of life of Empress Catherine II and the first day of reign of Paul I’ Ibidem, p. 170.

⁸⁵ ‘V. P. Kochubei to A. R. Vorontsov, 26 / 15 February, 1797’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 74.

⁸⁶ Ibidem.

⁸⁷ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 10 February, n.s., 1797’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1880), Vol. 18, p. 128.

the frank manner of the Emperor to express himself”, continued Kochubei, “make me believe that all we wish is to have peace with all our neighbours.”⁸⁸

 

 

In general, the tension in the Ottoman-Russian relations began gradually subside starting from the end of 1796. At the time the Ottomans continued to follow the political developments in Europe closely and kept reinforcing their land and naval forces. The Russian side in its turn had any reason to believe that the risk of an Ottoman assault was minimal, if any. This did not mean, however, that the necessary defensive measures were not taken. With a view to protect Russia from any unexpected dangers, in case of a hypothetical Ottoman-French attack, the commanders of the Russian Black Sea fleet were given orders to regularly monitor the situation in the Ottoman Empire and on the borders, to strengthen the coastal fortifications as well as patrol the Black Sea along the Russian coastline.⁸⁹ What is worth noticing is that the instructions to the Russian naval forces at the given point look to be of exclusively defensive character. Even the doctrine of preventive naval strike, quite common a couple of years ago during the rule of Catherine II⁹⁰, had been not mentioned. Preparing to protect his Empire from the smallest possibility of foreign aggression, Paul I himself did not contemplate any aggression of his own then.

 

A good example of Ottoman-Russian peaceful coexistence at the moment may be seen in the situation around the frigate “Tsar Konstantin”, a vessel of the Russian

⁸⁸ Ibidem.

⁸⁹ ‘Rear Admiral P. V. Pustoshkin to F. F. Ushakov, 26 / 15 February, 1797’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, pp. 643-44; ‘F. F. Ushakov to Paul I, 26 / 15 February, 1797’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, p. 644; ‘F. F. Ushakov to Paul I, 7 March (24 February) 1797’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, pp. 646-47.

⁹⁰ See, for example: ‘N. S. Mordvinov to P. A. Zubov, 20 / 9 May, 1794’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, 604-5.

Black Sea fleet that had to spend the winter of 1796-1797 in Istanbul. In November 1796 “Tsar Konstantin” headed out to the sea from Ochakov, carrying various cargos for Sevastopol. Because of heavy weather she sustained a serious damage and had been drifted to the Ottoman coast, after which she had to enter Bosporus and to stay there for the whole winter.⁹¹ The officers of “Tsar Konstantin”, apart from the Ottoman naval preparations that were going on in Istanbul with the participation of some French specialists, also noted in their reports the kind treatment afforded them by the Ottoman side. These officers of the Russian navy “except friendliness did not notice anything that would indicate at the hostile attitudes on the part of the Porte”, and, according to their evidence, “one could not see any troubles in Constantinople” and the Russian merchant vessels were treated with the “utmost politeness, quietude and pleasantry”.⁹²

 

 

“Tsar Konstantin” arrived in Sevastopol only in late April 1797. The Ottoman official who escorted the Russian ship received a warm welcome in Sevastopol and was offered a gold watch, fox fur and 200 roubles as a present.⁹³ Moreover, Vice Admiral F. F. Ushakov, a hero of the recent Ottoman-Russian war and for that moment the Deputy Head of the Black Sea Admiralty, asked the Russian ambassador at the Porte V. P. Kochubei to express his gratitude personally to Kapudan Pasha (the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy).⁹⁴ Ushakov also ordered to send to the Ottoman Admiralty two anchors and two naval ropes, which had been lent by the Ottomans instead of those the Russian frigate lost in the storm.⁹⁵ The occurrence

⁹¹ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, p. 662.

⁹² ‘F. F. Ushakov to Paul I, 1 May (20 April) 1797’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, pp. 662-64.

⁹³ ‘F. F. Ushakov to V. P. Kochubei, 4 June (17 May) 1797’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1, pp. 664-65.

⁹⁴ Ibidem, p. 664.

⁹⁵ Ibidem, p. 665.

with “Tsar Konstantin” is yet more proof showing that by spring-summer 1797 the Ottoman-Russian relations experienced even if not an outright warming, at least certain détente.

 

 

When it comes to the further French military successes in Europe, the Porte obviously could not turn a blind eye to the new territorial acquisitions made by France throughout 1796. At a time when the bellicosity of the French Republic kept growing and General Napoléon Bonaparte started to gain one by one his first victories as an army commander on the battlefields in the Northern Italy, the potential French expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean necessarily raised the Ottoman concerns. These concerns proved well-founded especially after the French secured themselves a foothold not only on the Apennine Peninsula, but also on the Ionian Archipelago not far off the coast of continental Greece and Albania.

 

 

In spite of the fact that the Ionian Islands were officially transferred to France in the Treaty of Campo Formio, signed on 17 October 1797, the French had de facto occupied them already in summer.⁹⁶ Such a neighbourhood naturally disturbed the Porte, as the Russian ambassador Kochubei put it, “not because it [the Porte; V. M.] suspects the intentions of the Directory, but because the French orders are dangerous on their own”.⁹⁷ The Sultan’s government grew more anxious with the forthcoming evidences of the French revolutionary propaganda among the Ottoman subjects in the Balkans. Moreover, the French emissaries were seeking contacts with the powerful

 

⁹⁶ The Island of Corfu was occupied on 29 June 1797, later the French troops landed also on other islands

⁹⁷ ‘V. P. Kochubei to Paul I. 26 / 15 January, 1798’ The Archive of the Foreign Politics of the Russian Empire (Архив Внешней Политики Российской Империи), Moscow. (Hereafter AVPRI). Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 8/4. Delo 862, f. 29.

Ottoman local power magnates Osman Pazvantoğlu and Tepedelenli Ali Pasha, who were de facto independent rulers in their Balkan possessions.⁹⁸

 

 

The governor of Morea Hasan Pasha informed the Porte in late 1797 about the surreptitious French propaganda activities in Greece. Hasan Pasha even assumed that, together with the Ionian Islands, France could be secretly guaranteed other old Venetian territories in the Mediterranean including Crete and Morea, which had later been conquered by the Ottomans in the 17^th century. No matter how wrong the assumptions of the Morean Pasha could be, his report only added to the Ottoman suspicions in regard to the French intentions.⁹⁹ Somewhat later, the Ottomans also intercepted the proclamation of General Bonaparte inciting the Greeks and Albanians to rebellion. In reply to the queries submitted by the Ottomans to the French government Talleyrand on 15 March 1798 (i.e. when the project of Egyptian expedition had been already officially confirmed) falsely assured that the Directory never engaged in anything like that and would always be a good friend of the Ottoman state.¹⁰⁰ Obviously, that evasive answer of the French Foreign minister could hardly satisfy the Ottoman side.

 

As one would expect, the anxiety of the Porte about the French vicinity to the Ottoman borders and possible pernicious consequences of such a neighbourhood was gladly observed by the Russians. V. P. Kochubei wrote in September 1797, that the Ottomans were very anxious in view of the neighbourhood of the French. So, the Ottoman authorities monitored the trip of some French officers from the Island of Zante to Patras in the Peloponnese Peninsula with utter suspicion. It was generally

⁹⁸ Enver Ziya Karal, Fransa-Mısır ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu 1797-1802 (İstanbul, 1938), p. 42.

⁹⁹ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 172.

¹⁰⁰ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 173.

accepted in Istanbul that under the pretext of the touristic curiosity they could have well used their journey for field reconnoitring.¹⁰¹ From the Russian point of view, sure enough, the more distrust would appear between the French and the Ottomans the more favourably would stand the Russian positions at the Porte. In this respect Kochubei noted that the Sultan’s government was quite satisfied with Russia and he would like to see the French “occupy our place in their [the Ottomans’; V.M.] hearts and mouths”.¹⁰² What is more, Kochubei by the end of September 1797 did not even exclude the possibility of the Ottoman – Russian alliance:

La Porte s’est très-bien conduite dans cette occasion, et je puis assurer votre excellence que ses intentions à notre égard sont on ne peut pas meilleures. Elle se méfie et craint les Français depuis qu’ils sont venus se nicher dans les îles vénitiennes, et je ne serais même pas surprise, bien entre nous soit dit, qu’elle voulût se rapprocher beaucoup plus intimement de nous. Une alliance avec les Turcs serait sans doute un événement assez singulier en politique.¹⁰³

 

It came to the point when the Russian ambassador at his secret meeting with Reis Efendi on 8 December 1797 in a friendly way warned the Ottoman minister about the disturbing activities of the agents of General Bonaparte in Greece and Albania. Kochubei, in spite of his personal opinion that the French would not have enough forces to attack the Balkans, still recommended the Ottomans to be always ready to face such a possibility. Besides, Kochubei advised the Porte to send the secret agents to Italy and to dispatch the necessary instructions to its ambassador in Paris, Esseyid Ali Efendi.¹⁰⁴ Somewhat later, in January 1798 Kochubei again was admonishing the

 

 

 

 

¹⁰¹ ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 9 September, n.s., 1797’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 87.

¹⁰² ‘V. P. Kochubei to S. R. Vorontsov, 25 (14) September, 1797’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40

vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 88.

¹⁰³ ‘V. P. Kochubei to A. R. Vorontsov, 26 (15) September, 1797’ Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40

vols.; Moscow, 1879), Vol. 14, p. 90.

¹⁰⁴ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 173.

Ottoman side against the dangerous diplomatic intrigues of Paris, which Esseyid Ali Efendi with the best will in the world could not cope with.¹⁰⁵

 

 

Under the present circumstances, the prospect of a new Ottoman-Russian war had increasingly diminished. The new Russian Emperor consistently made it clear that he was not going to engage in risky projects of his mother, whereas for the Ottoman government the war with Russia was also out of the question. The Porte appeared to be faced at this time not only with the new threat stemming from the fact of the common borders with the French Republic, but also found itself in an open armed conflict with rebellious governor of Vidin Osman Pazvantoğlu by the end of 1797. In the full sense of the word this was a real wide-scale war that had been taking the most of attention and resources of the central Ottoman government throughout the second half of 1797- the first half of 1798. Quite obviously, the Porte was simply in no position to embark on hostilities also with Russia.

 

 

Despite the apparent anxiety of the Ottoman government as to the immediate neighbourhood with the French Republic the possibility that the Ottomans may conclude an alliance with France, albeit out of mere fear of the French might, had also been considered in St. Petersburg. In the end of 1797 Paul I issued the order demanding that the Russian Black Sea fleet should be prepared at any time to fend off a hypothetical Franco-Ottoman attack. Equally the Russian army in the Crimea under the command of General Mikhail Vasilievich Kakhovskii received the orders to concentrate in the Peninsula around Karasubazar and the River of Salğır in order to prevent the chances for landing of the foreign troops in the Crimea. What is worth

¹⁰⁵ ‘V. P. Kochubei to Paul I. 26 / 15 January, 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 8/4. Delo 862, f. f. 27- 27 ob.

of attention is that all the above mentioned defensive measures were to be taken secretly, with an obvious aim not to affect the currently pacific relations with Istanbul.¹⁰⁶

 

 

Along with having apprehensions about a possible Franco-Ottoman alliance, the Russian side also kept an eye on the developments around the rebellion of Pazvantoğlu in Rumelia. A selfdependent rule of the latter over the large territories between the Danube and the Balkan range remained the source of a constant headache for the Porte, and, as it was already said, the strained relations between the Vidin governor and the central Ottoman government escalated by the end of 1797 to the point of war. When it comes to Russia, its chief concern lied in the presence of sizeable Ottoman military forces in close vicinity from the Russian border. Thus the regular fortnightly reports of V. P. Kochubei to St. Petersburg necessarily included the observations of the Porte’s military preparations against Pazvantoğlu.

 

 

At the very beginning of 1798 Kochubei informed Paul I about the meeting that took place on 4 January (24 December 1797, Old style) between the dragoman of the Russian embassy Fonton and the Reis-ül-Küttab Rashid Efendi. The Ottoman minister was authorised by the Sultan to officially notify the Russian ambassador on the measures taken by the Porte to subdue the disobedient Governor of Vidin. The conversation that followed reflected the wish of the Ottoman government to reassure the Russian side that it did not have any hidden motives behind the sending of a large army to the Danube area and to emphasize once more the peaceful character of relations between the two empires. Rashid Efendi told that he would also like to

¹⁰⁶ ‘Paul I to F. F. Ushakov, 11 November (31 October) 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 1,

p. 695; Also published in: Arkhiv grafov Mordvinovykh (St. Petersburg, 1901), Vol. 1, pp. 653-54.

dispel the rumours about the purposes and final destination of the squadron of three or four combat ships ready to set off from Istanbul. This was to proceed to Varna and enter the mouth of the Danube, being sent exclusively against the Pazvantoğlu rebels.¹⁰⁷

 

 

On the next day, on 5 January 1798 (25 December 1797, Old style), Kochubei sent his answer to the Reis-ül-Küttab in which indicated that all these peaceful assurances made by the Porte were unnecessary, and that he personally never had any doubts as regards to the true purpose of the ongoing Ottoman armaments. In Kochubei’s words, addressed to Rashid Efendi, it was not Russia, but France and the French policy oriented towards the total domination everywhere (“владычествовать везде”) that constituted a real threat for the Ottoman state. The Russian ambassador continued that Paul I, on the contrary, intended to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, which appeared necessary for keeping the existing balance of power in Europe.¹⁰⁸

 

 

It is very interesting and ironical, though to some extent may be wandering off the point, that approximately at the same time when Kochubei sent his note to Rashid Efendi, the opinion of certain French diplomatic agents regarding the Ottoman Empire was quite similar to that one of the Russian ambassador. The only difference was that according to the French perspective the Ottoman dominions were threatened by “the ambitious views of the two Powers [meaning the courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg; V. M.], which for a long time have been coveting these beautiful

 

¹⁰⁷ ‘Report of V. P. Kochubei to Paul I. 12/1 January 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 862, f.f. 1- 2a ob.

¹⁰⁸ Ibidem, f.f. 2a ob- 3 ob.

lands”¹⁰⁹ and it was the French Republic alone who could save the integrity of the Ottoman state.

 

 

Turning back to the note of the Russian ambassador to Reis-ül-Küttab, apart from the declarations of friendship and warnings against the potential French encroachments, Kochubei even offered the Ottomans the Russian help. He pointed out that in view of the different religions in Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and some related to this difference circumstances, he was not proposing the assistance with the army, but should the communication between Istanbul and the Danube region be interrupted, Russia could help the Porte with delivering munitions, artillery, rifles etc.¹¹⁰ However, this was nothing more than a tricky diplomatic move, as Kochubei himself in his report to the tsar wrote that “the offer like that... was made by me in full persuasion that it would not be accepted”.¹¹¹

 

 

As a matter of fact, Russia was not willing to upset relations neither with the Porte nor with Pazvantoğlu. General A. A. Bekleshov, the Military Governor of Kamenets-Podolskiy (nowadays Kamyanets-Podilskyi, Ukraine) exercising control over Volhynian, Minsk and Podolsk Provinces, and the highest commander of the troops located on the South-Western borders of the Russian empire, received the respective instructions from Kochubei in January 1798. The ambassador demanded that in case if Pazvantoğlu suffered a defeat and applied to the Russian border authorities for asylum, he should be denied access to Russia under the pretext of the border quarantine. The orders concerning this delicate subject, continued Kochubei,

¹⁰⁹ ‘Dubois Thainville to Foreign Minister Talleyrand, 5 Brumaire an VI / 26 October 1797’ Archive des Affaires Étrangères, Paris. (AAE), CP Turquie 197, fol. 56.

¹¹⁰ ‘V. P. Kochubei to Paul I. 12/1 January 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 862, f. 4 ob.

¹¹¹ Ibidem, f. 5.

should be issued with the utmost care so that neither the Porte nor Pazvantoğlu would know about the abovementioned Russian decision. On the one hand, the Porte could feel offended as on this occasion it would definitely like to see Pazvantoğlu arrested and given over to the Ottoman authorities. On the other hand, should the rebellious Vidin Governor learn of the intentions of the Russian side, the interests of the Russian merchants conducting trade across the Danube would be seriously jeopardized.¹¹²

 

 

When for Russia it was sufficient to know that nothing threatened its southern borders for the moment, for the Sultan’s government the conflict with Pazvantoğlu became the most central issue of the first half of 1798. Meticulous preparations of the costly punitive expedition against Vidin, under the Kapudan Pasha Küçük Hüseyin, continued throughout the winter and spring. The Porte spent about 28 thousand purses, or 14 million gurushes for the whole expedition.¹¹³ In compliance with the advice of the court astrologers the departure of Küçük Hüseyin and his expedition from Istanbul took place on 9 April at six hours and eighteen minutes in the morning.¹¹⁴ Having gathered his forces at the place called Davutpaşa, Küçük Hüseyin Pasha moved on 12 April towards Vidin.¹¹⁵ The army amounting to about 80 thousand men¹¹⁶ besieged Pazvantoğlu in his well-fortified capital city of Vidin. For all that, to gain a victory over Pazvantoğlu appeared not that easy. Due to the

 

 

¹¹² V. P. Kochubei to General A. A. Bekleshov. (No date). Ibidem, f.f. 34-35.

¹¹³ V. S. Tomara to Paul I. 27 / 16 April, 1798. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 15 ob.

¹¹⁴ V. S. Tomara to Paul I. 12 / 1 April, 1798. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 4.

¹¹⁵ Записка Константинопольских вестей и разглашений [Note of Constantinople News and Announcements]. April 1798. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871,

f. 19.

¹¹⁶ Dry, Soldats ambassadors, p. 484.

lack of coordination among the Ottoman forces¹¹⁷ and the impregnable fortifications of Vidin, the rebellious Pasha managed to withstand the siege. Upon the news of the French aggression against Egypt in summer 1798 the siege of Vidin became even more inefficient and did not bring the desired results.

 

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Ottoman-Russian border the Russian authorities kept watching the events that were taking place on the Danube. Even though the chances of the serious threat to the Russian dominions were quite small, if at all, the Russian Black Sea fleet still had the orders of Paul I to stay on high alert. Taking into consideration that the Porte intended to send a naval squadron to the Black Sea, which was to proceed to Varna and then to the mouth of the Danube with the alleged aim of acting against Pazvantoğlu, the Russian emperor demanded from the Black Sea fleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral N. S. Mordvinov to place both the fleet and the coastal fortifications in operational readiness.¹¹⁸

 

 

Moreover, upon receiving the news about the martial preparations going on in the Ottoman Empire, there appeared some rumours on the Ottoman-Russian border to the effect that these would be directed not against the governor of Vidin, but rather against Russia. The commander of the Russian Dniester army General Bekleshov, shared his concerns in this respect with Kochubei, asking whether it was possible that the Ottomans could give a free passage to the French troops moving towards the

¹¹⁷ There were even certain bloody conflicts among the soldiers of different military units of the Ottoman army. So, for example, in April 1798 a quarrel had been reported between the troops of the Anatolian Beylerbey and those of Kurd Osman Pasha, both participating in the same expedition against Vidin. Several dozens of men on both sides were killed. See: Zapiska Tsaregradskikh vestei I razglashenii. April 1798.. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 40.

¹¹⁸ ‘Paul I to N. S. Mordvinov, 15 / 4 February, 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 3; ‘Paul I to N. S. Mordvinov, 15 / 4 February, 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, pp. 4-5. Also: Arkhiv grafov Mordvinovykh Vol. 1, pp. 265-67.

Russian borders. The Russian ambassador at the Porte, in his turn, ruled out such a possibility completely. Kochubei believed that the French merely did not have the necessary amount of troops in the Adriatics and, furthermore, the Ottomans would have never accepted the French into their domains inhabited by the Christian peoples who could easily be affected by the “ideas of freedom”. In conclusion, Kochubei wrote: “You should not be surprised on hearing that the Divan and a part of people look on us, may be, as on their best friends”.¹¹⁹

 

 

Following the principle that caution is the parent of safety, the Russian side in winter – spring 1798 obviously still sought to exclude all surprises on the part of the Ottomans. First, although the Russian ambassador in Istanbul reported in January 1798 that the Sultan’s government at the moment was greatly satisfied with Russia and would hardly conclude an alliance with France,¹²⁰ St. Petersburg never abandoned the concerns about the preponderance of the French influence upon the Porte, in which case it could lead to the latter’s decision to open war on Russia.¹²¹ Second, the fact of the presence of the Ottoman naval squadron not far from the Russian coasts was itself a reasonable cause for the Russian authorities to increase the vigilance on the borders. Together with this, the instructions of Paul I to his commanders emphasized the wish of the Russian Emperor that “all the good harmony that exists now with the Ottoman Porte and there would be not the slightest pretext to upset it” should be observed.¹²² In this way, even while taking the necessary precautions against a surprise attack, St. Petersburg preferred to keep the

¹¹⁹ Kleinman, Russko-Turetskii soyuz, p. 15.

¹²⁰ “Порта с трудом склонится заключить союз сей, ежели б Франция оным лакомить её и теперь вздумала, будучи наипаче совершенно спокойна и до крайности Россиею довольная”. ‘V. P. Kochubei to Paul I. 26 / 15 January, 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 8/4. Delo 862, f. 30.

¹²¹ ‘Paul I to F. F. Ushakov, 15 / 4 February, 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 5.

¹²² ‘Paul I to N. S. Mordvinov, 15 / 4 February, 1798’ Ibidem, p. p. 4-5.

existing peaceful state of affairs with the Ottoman Empire and tried not to provoke undesired conflicts on its southern borders.

 

 

Consequently, as regards the Ottoman-Russian relations during the discussed period, neither party intended to attack the other and both had all reasons to be satisfied with their neighbours. On the other hand, one still had to take the necessary defensive precautions in order to be ready for any unexpected surprises that might come up. It is important to note that both the Ottomans and the Russians were not planning any offensive moves and were in the first place preoccupied with considerations of their own security.

 

 

4.4.   Arrival of V. S. Tomara, the new Russian ambassador at the High Porte

Vasilii Stepanovich Tomara (1746 – 1819)¹²³, the successor of Kochubei at the ambassadorial post in Istanbul, and like him also of the Ukrainian origin, had been appointed ambassador to the Porte under the imperial decree signed by Paul I on 8 June (28 May) 1797.¹²⁴ The instructions concerning Tomara’s future mission, dated by 25 / 14 October 1797, once again clarified the focal points of the Russian policy towards the Ottoman Empire. Paul I ordered his new ambassador to further maintain good relations with the Porte, as well as continue to counteract the French attempts to restore the former influence of Paris on the shores of the Bosporus. “Our main wish is to preserve peace and good harmony with the Ottoman Porte... Any spirit of

¹²³ For Tomara’s detailed biography see: P[avlov] S[il’vanskii], N. Tomara Vasilii Stepanovich. Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ (25 vols.; Moscow, 1999), Vol. 7 (additional) “Tobizen- Turgenev”,

pp. 129-33.

¹²⁴ ‘A. A. Bezborodko to V. S. Tomara, 13 / 2 June, 1797’ AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1289, f. 2.

conquest is alien to us...”, were the words of the Russian Emperor addressed to Tomara,¹²⁵ who finally arrived at the Ottoman capital on 24 / 13 March 1798.¹²⁶

 

 

In a week the previous ambassador Kochubei paid a farewell visit to the Grand Vizier (2 April (22 March) 1798)¹²⁷ while Tomara was first received by the Grand Vizier (16 / 5 April 1798)¹²⁸ and then by the Sultan (24 / 13 April 1798).¹²⁹ On 25 / 14 April 1798, that is, the day after the new ambassador had been presented to the Sultan, his predecessor Kochubei departed from Constantinople.¹³⁰ The latter soon afterwards became a member of the board of the College of Foreign Affairs, Vice- Chancellor, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and in 1802 took the post of the first Minister of the Interior of Russia.

 

 

Tomara descended from the Ukrainian Cossack aristocratic family of Greek origin. As it was usual at that time in Russia, he received his first education at home (outstanding Ukrainian philosopher of the 18^th century Hryhorii Skovoroda is reported to be his tutor) and continued his studies in Italy and Germany. Since 1768, at the age of 22, Tomara started his diplomatic career at the College of Foreign Affairs. Then, in 1772, during the war with the Ottoman Empire, Tomara was assigned to serve at the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army P. A.

¹²⁵ A. M. Stanislavskaia, Politicheskaia deyatel’nost’ F. F. Ushakova v Gretsii 1798-1800 g.g.

(Moscow, 1983), p. 66.

¹²⁶ ‘V. S. Tomara to Chancellor A. A. Bezborodko. 26 / 15 March, 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 879, f. 11.

¹²⁷ V. S. Tomara to Paul I, 12 / 1 April, 1798. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 5 ob.

¹²⁸ Zapiska bytnosti Chrezvychainogo Poslannika i Polnomochnogo Ministra Tomary na tseremonial’nyi visit u Verkhovnogo Viziria izzet Mehmed Pashi Aprelia 5/16 1798 goda. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f.f. 23- 24 ob.

¹²⁹ Zapiska bytnosti Chrezvychainogo Poslannika i Polnomochnogo Ministra Tomary na audiyentsii Ego Sultanova Velichestva Aprelia 13/24 1798 goda. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f.f. 25- 26 ob.

¹³⁰ V. S. Tomara to Paul I, 27 / 16 April, 1798. AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, L. 15.

Rumiantsev- Zadunaiskii, and took part in the negotiations of the Küçük Kaynarca Peace treaty. Thereupon he was attached to the office of the Russian Charge d’Affaires in Istanbul Kh. I. Peterson as a translator. At that point, it was yet unknown that this 28 years old young man would return to Istanbul some quarter of century later, in the capacity of the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Russia at the Porte.

 

 

For one year (1777-1778) Tomara served at the Russian embassy in Madrid, and left his mark in history as the person who brought the ratified copy of the Georgievsk Treaty (1783) from the Caucasus to St. Petersburg.¹³¹ He later participated in the war of 1787-1792 staying at the headquarters of the Russian and the Austrian armies. At the very end of the war, early in 1791, Tomara was appointed by Prince Potemkin to command the Russian flotilla in the Aegean Archipelago, composed partly of the vessels bought in Europe and armed in Syracuse, and partly of the squadron of the Greek vessels of Lambros Katsonis. However, due to the fact that in August 1791 truce had already been signed, Tomara was not able to engage into the sea combats. Having not received any new appointment, Tomara resigned in May 1796, half a year before the death of Catherine II. As it happened to many other state officials buried in oblivion during the Catherinian times, during the reign of Paul I Tomara had been remembered and appointed the Russian ambassador to Constantinople.

 

From the very beginning of Tomara’s arrival to the Ottoman capital, the new ambassador continued the line of conduct, which had earlier been adopted by

¹³¹ The famous treaty that placed Georgia under the formal Russian protectorate, signed on 4 August (24 July) 1783 by the King of Kartli-Kakheti Erekle II at the fortress of St. George (Georgievsk, Northern Caucasus).

Kochubei. Like Tomara himself put it in his first report to the Tsar, “for some time past my predecessor here had adopted the tone of Minister of a state, which was sincerely interested in prosperity of the Porte”.¹³² Accordingly, since the notification of his arrival, Tomara pursued the same aim, which was defined by Kochubei in the letter addressed to his successor as “to consolidate the amicable dispositions of the Porte towards Russia, to remove her suspicions against Russia, and to strengthen her belief in Russia’s sympathy towards her”.¹³³ Assurances of mutual friendship were repeated once and again by both the Russian diplomatic representatives and the Ottoman officials. For instance, in April 1798 at the reception on the occasion of the notification of the ambassador’s arrival, the first dragoman of the Porte told the counsellor of the Russian embassy Iakovlev: “What a difference we came to see in our affairs with Russia; formerly each your word caused distrust, and now this is one of the most friendly powers for us”.¹³⁴ Even though these words could be somewhat exaggerated, the very fact that they had been pronounced was by no means unimportant.

 

The audience of the newly arrived Tomara with the Sultan took place, as was mentioned before, on 24 / 13 April 1798. At 4.30 in the morning the ambassador left his residence in Pera, followed by the retinue, mihmandar (an Ottoman official assigned to the foreign delegations as a guide) and a company (orta) of the Janissary honour guard. The Russian delegation came down to the shore of the Golden Horn at the Tophane quay, crossed to the other side of the gulf and moved on to the Topkapı Palace, the celebrated residence of the Ottoman Sultans. After having approached the

¹³² ‘V. S. Tomara to Paul I, 12 / 1 April, 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 2 ob.

¹³³ Kleinman, Russko-Turetskii soyuz, p. 17.

¹³⁴ Ibidem, f. 2.

Procession Pavillion (Ottom. Alay Köşkü) the Russian ambassador, in conformity with tradition, stopped and waited for the Grand Vizier to come. Then Tomara was taken inside the palace. There, at the second gate, the ambassador dismounted and was met by the First Dragoman of the Porte. Then, he sat on the bench waiting for a permission to proceed to the Divan.

 

After waiting for some time, Tomara continued his way, now met by the Çavuşbaşı, and while approaching to the Divan the ambassador was welcomed by the Kapıcılar Kâhyası. As Tomara entered the Divan, from the side-door appeared the Grand Vizier, who delivered a greeting speech to the ambassador through the Dragoman of the Porte. When the official part of the ceremony was over, the tables were brought and the meeting in the Divan ended with a meal. The ambassador was invited to the table of the Grand Vizier, whereas other members of the delegation occupied two other tables together with the Defterdar and the Nişancı Efendi. Upon the completion of the meal, sprinkling with rose water and fumigation, the master of ceremonies guided the Russian ambassador to the third gate, where Tomara was clad in a sable fur coat, and the rest of the delegation members were also given fur coats. Once again the ambassador was to wait.

 

 

Then, as the Grand Vizier came to the Audience Chamber, the ambassador and twelve members of his retinue, each accompanied by two guardians, were taken in. The Sultan was sitting on the throne, with the Grand Vizier and Miralem (since the Kapudan Pasha was away in the expedition against Pazvantoğlu) on his right and the Eunuchs on his left. Tomara, after bowing for three times, gave a speech whereupon handed over his letter of credence to Miralem, the latter passed it to the Grand Vizier, and the Grand Vizier upon a sign made by the Sultan put the credentials of the

Russian ambassador on the throne near his monarch. Afterwards the Grand Vizier made a speech in return, and the audience ended. Tomara, followed by the Ottoman guardians, and again having made three bows, walked backwards until he left the Audience Chamber.¹³⁵

 

 

Following the ceremonial receptions, there started the normal day-to-day diplomatic activities of the new Russian ambassador. Thus, one and a half week after the audience with the Sultan, on 4 May 1798, Tomara met with Reis-ül-Küttab Ahmed Atıf Efendi, who also only recently took up his post.¹³⁶ For about of two hours they talked on the mutual friendly approaches, and the situation around the Pazvantoğlu’s uprising. The Russian ambassador especially tried to draw attention to the threat of the French revolutionary propaganda, equally pernicious “for all the thrones in the world”, including the Ottoman one.¹³⁷ In this regard, the Ottoman statesman chose to speak in the same vein as the Russian ambassador, mentioning the threat of the French republican system, somewhat flattering the Russian side. Ahmed Atıf Efendi told Tomara, for example, that “the only means to protect oneself from the influences of the visible, though secret, enmity of this nation [the French; V. M.] is the close, and not overshadowed by any kind of cupidity, mutual friendship of the great sovereigns”.¹³⁸ To what extent was Reis Efendi sincere with the Russian ambassador is not clear, though it is obvious that the Ottoman side was rather interested in the yet unresolved issue of the trade tariff, as Ahmed Atıf Efendi

¹³⁵ ‘Zapiska bytnosti Chrezvychainogo Poslannika i Polnomochnogo Ministra Tomary na audiientsii Ego Sultanova Velichestva Aprelia 13 / 24 1798 года’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f.f. 25- 26 ob.

¹³⁶ Ahmed Atıf Efendi had been appointed to the office of Reis-ül-Kittab on 5 March, 1798 after the unexpected death of his predecessor, Mehmed Raşid Efendi. Ahıshalı, Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilâtında Reisülküttâblık, p. 45.

¹³⁷ ‘V. S. Tomara to Paul I, 12 / 1 May, 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 32 ob.

¹³⁸ Ibidem, f. 33.

touched upon it in the further conversation.¹³⁹ Together with this, both the Russians and the Ottomans by spring 1798 were indeed much alarmed with the growing might of the French and the potential French threat, first of all to the domains of the Sultan.

 

 

4.5.  On the way towards further Ottoman- Russian rapprochement

 

Not only the fact of the French possessions adjoining the Ottoman border but also the preparations of the French fleet that were going on in Toulon raised a great deal of suspicion in Europe as regards the plans and intentions of France. Some rumours ascribed the preparations in Toulon to the aim of aggression against the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. According to other comments one could also expect the appearance of the French fleet in the Black Sea. Besides, even the French agents, in order to conceal the real destination of the squadron anchored in Toulon (i.e. Egypt), were themselves spreading various rumours concerning the potential aim of the prepared expedition. Neither the Russian nor the Ottoman Empires could ignore such a threat, all the more when it was looking quite plausible. So, already in February 1798 the Ottomans were contemplating the defensive measures in case of the French aggression against the Morea,¹⁴⁰ while Paul I ordered Vice-Admiral F. F. Ushakov to set the Russian Black Sea fleet ready for a possible appearance of the French combat ships in the vicinity of the Russian shores.¹⁴¹ Even if it seemed very unlikely that the Porte would give the French fleet a free passage to the Black Sea, Paul I preferred to be prepared for any challenge that might occur. The Russian Emperor in a similar order to Ushakov, issued in early July 1798, compared the situation with an approaching storm when, regardless of whether it would rain or not,

¹³⁹ Ibidem, f.f. 33- 33 ob.

¹⁴⁰ Moskovskiie Vedomosti, 10 April, 1798.

¹⁴¹ ‘Paul I to F. F. Ushakov, 20 / 9 April, 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 21.

one should still think of rain protection.¹⁴² For all that, the relations between Istanbul and St. Petersburg remained more amicable than ever before.

 

 

Despite the rumours coming from time to time from Wallachia, saying that the armies of the High Porte after the victory over Pazvantoğlu would turn against Russia, Tomara assured the Tsar that such rumours were completely unfounded and thus fully rejected any possibility of the Ottoman aggression. The Russian ambassador in Istanbul wrote to Paul I in his report of 19 April 1798: “I cannot fail to notice in every their [the Ottomans’; V. M.] deed both towards my predecessor and towards me, the apparent feelings of respect towards Your might and forces, the great credence to Your practices, as well as the inclination for inertness and rest”.¹⁴³ Tomara also added that the Porte was respecting Paul I not under constraint, as it had been the case with Catherine II, but due to the difference of his policy. As regards the rumours of an imminent war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, the Russian ambassador addressed the Porte asking to prevent their spreading, and the latter issued the necessary orders.¹⁴⁴

 

 

When it comes to the Ottoman view of the international situation that had developed in Europe by the spring 1798, a very valuable piece of information can be retrieved from a memo composed at this time by Reis-ül-Küttab Atıf Efendi.¹⁴⁵ Starting with an analysis of the recent past, the Ottoman minister in the first instance spoke about the calamitous consequences of the French revolution that set all of

¹⁴² ‘Paul I to F. F. Ushakov, 2 July (21 June), 1798’ Arkhiv grafov Mordvinovykh, Vol. 1, p. 669.

¹⁴³ ‘V. S. Tomara to Paul I, 19 / 8 April, 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 12 ob.

¹⁴⁴ Ibidem, f. f. 12 ob – 13.

¹⁴⁵ Muvâzene-i politikaya dâir Reis-ül-Küttab Atıf Efendi’nin lâyihası. Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet

(12 vols.; Istanbul, 1294), Vol. 6, pp. 311-17.

Europe aflame. The establishment of the republican form of government, the anti- monarchical fervour and the massive campaign of dechristianisation, followed by the purposeful spread of the revolutionary propaganda abroad made several European nations to unite against France. By then, it was only Britain and Austria that left in the anti-French coalition. Even though the British naval forces could gain the upper hand over France and its allies on the high seas, Austria alone could not resist the French armies on the land and necessarily had to conclude a peace agreement with Paris.

 

 

Atıf Efendi argued that the declarations of the French stating that they did not have any aggressive intentions towards their neighbours were simply a blatant lie. The Ottoman statesman recounted the territorial acquisitions made by the French Republic, which included the Netherlands (where the political regime was changed on the French model¹⁴⁶), the region of Savoy taken from Sardinia, the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo in the New World, Northern Italy (where again the French satellite Cisalpine Republic had been created¹⁴⁷), the left bank of the Rhine. The Venetian Republic, despite its neutrality, had been split by General Bonaparte between France and Austria. In such a way, the first part of Atıf Efendi’s memo explicitly indicated that the Porte was quiet well aware of the inherent dangerous character of the ideas of the French revolution along with the ever growing aggressivness of the French Republic in Europe.

 

 

 

 

¹⁴⁶ Tavır-i hükümetini tebdil ve Fransa’nın usul-i hükümetine tatbik itdirdiler... Ahmed Cevdet, Târih- i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1294), Vol. 6, p. 313.

¹⁴⁷ Fransa’nın nizamına mümasil kavanin ve ahkâm vaz’ iderek Çizalpin namile suret-i istiklâlde cumhuriyet kıyafetine koydular... Ibidem.

Having outlined the process of the recent French expansion all over the European continent, Reis-ül-Küttab approached the central for the Porte question whether or not the Ottoman Empire was exposed to the same threat like other European countries. Atıf Efendi pointed out that even though the Sultan’s government remained all the time neutral, this neutral stance amidst the flames of the general European war became in fact a moral support (manevî ianet) to France. Moreover, apart from moral support the French Republic, which had remained isolated from the rest of the continent and experienced the food shortages during the years of revolution and war, received supplies from the Ottoman Empire that helped the revolutionary France to cope with the problem of famine.¹⁴⁸ Meanwhile, after the partition of the Venetian Republic, France occupied the Ionian Islands along with the small coastal strip of the former Venetian possessions on the Balkan Peninsula including the towns of Butrinto (currently Butrint, in Southern Albania), Parga, Preveza and Vonitsa (the latter three are located today in the Northern Greece). Such a neighbourhood opened the way to the malicious French revolutionary propaganda among the Ottoman Christian subjects, in the first place among the Greeks. Atıf Efendi also mentioned the French preparations that were going on in Toulon, on the Mediterranean coast. In opinion of the Ottoman minister, the Ottoman Empire had to continue with its own military preparitions in order to defend itself should it appear necessary.¹⁴⁹

 

 

 

¹⁴⁸ Fransanın ziyade müzayakası ve kemal-i kaht ve cu’a ibtilâsı hengâmında Memalik-i mahrusa’dan zahair-i vefire ihracına ve Fransa iskelelerine nakl ve isala ruhsat birle dağdağa-i cu’dan tahlis itdi... Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1294), Vol. 6, p. 317.

¹⁴⁹ Elhaletü hazihi İngiltere aleyhine olan tedarikâtdan başka iç denizde Toulon tersanesinde tedarikât-i kuvviye dahi ma’lumdur. Bu gûne tedarikâtın tahtında bir fesad-i azîm olması ihtimalden baid değildir. Binaen berin şöyle vakitde Devlet-i Aliye bunların mahuf olan şerlerinden masun olmak içün kuvve-i tedarikde bulunub aleldevam esbab-i hıfz ve hiraseti boşlamıyarak her hal ve hareketlerini taharri ve tecessüsden hali olmamak vacibat umurdandır... Ibidem.

Considering these circumstances of the growing French threat the Reis-ül- Küttab went so far as to accept the theoretical possibility of the alliance between the Porte and its traditional enemies Russia and Austria. Ahmed Atıf Efendi argued that any state should have two modes of foreign politics. While one of these is constant and founded on tradition, the other is dictated by the current conjuncture and the current state interests. In this respect both Russia and Austria were traditional enemies of the Porte which normally should be fought against, but depending on the situation and the given specific circumstances, another and more suitable mode of foreign policy could be adopted. When the dangerous situation would change, one could again return to the traditional political mode of behaviour.¹⁵⁰

 

 

In this way by the spring of 1798, the prospects for further Ottoman-Russian rapprochement grew more visible. At the time when one of the key figures in the Ottoman government accepted the theoretical possibility of the joint action with the traditional enemies of the Porte, the Russian Emperor instructed his ambassador in Istanbul to make a proposition for the Ottoman side to send an authorized representative to Sevastopol¹⁵¹ so that the latter could inspect everything what was going on there and thus to assure the Porte that Russia had no aggressive intentions whatsoever against the Ottoman Empire.¹⁵²

 

¹⁵⁰ Lazıme-i vakt ve haldendir zira her devletin iki nev’ mesleki olmak lazımdır. Biri kâffe-i ifal ve harekâtda esas ittihaz olunan meslek daimidir. Ve biri mukteza-i vakt ve hale nazaran bir müddet içün ittihaz olunan meslek halidir. Devlet-i Aliye’nin daimi mesleki mevki’ hasebiyle tabii düşmanları olan Rusya ve Nemçe devletlerinin tezayüd kuvvetini men’ itmek ve anların kuvvetine iras-i kesir idebilecek tabii dostu olan devletlerle mürettebat olmakdır lâkin vakt ve hale nazaran maslahatına evfak olan meslek şimdilik bu ateş-i fitne ve fesadın itfasına var kuvvetini bezl idüb husul-i meram müyesser oldukda yine meslek-i daimî muktezası üzere hareket etmekdir... (The underlining is mine; V. M.). Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1294), Vol. 6, p. 318.

¹⁵¹ In 1797 Paul I renamed the city, and throughout 1797-1826 it was also known as Akhtiar. The Crimean Tatar name for the city is Aqyar.

¹⁵² ‘Paul I to V. S. Tomara, 18 / 7 May, 1798’ Arkhiv grafov Mordvinovykh, Vol. 1, p. 271; See also: ‘Paul I to N. S. Mordvinov, 18 / 7 May, 1798’ Ibidem, pp. 270-71.

In fact, everyone in Europe during the spring 1798 was greatly alarmed by General Bonaparte in view of his military successes in Italy, the occupation of the Ionian archipelago and, above all, the ongoing warlike preparations in and around the French Mediterranean port city of Toulon. Equally, neither the Ottomans nor the Russians knew for sure the final destination of the huge naval squadron that had been prepared there. One had to expect anything and the Russian Emperor Paul I already in March and April proposed the Ottoman side his help against the potential French attack with the object to preserve the integrity and security of the Ottoman Empire. These propositions, however, were declined by the Porte at that time.¹⁵³ In the meantime on 12 June (1 June Old style) the Russian Black Sea fleet got the orders to start patrolling the sea and to return to the ports by mid-August.¹⁵⁴

 

 

Tomara, in line with the instructions of Paul I, in May once again notified the Ottoman government about the decision of his Emperor to offer help. In order not to raise suspicions of other diplomatic representatives in Istanbul by frequent meetings with the Reis-ül-Küttab, Tomara preferred to make his notification through Fonton, the First dragoman of the Russian mission. The Porte was to be informed that upon the news of the French intentions to send a strong squadron to the Aegean Sea,¹⁵⁵ the Russian naval forces received the order to patrol the basin of the Black Sea and Paul I would gladly help the Ottoman state with his Black Sea fleet in the event of a French aggression. Fonton on 24 May 1798 talked to the First dragoman of the Porte Ypsilanti and the latter promised to communicate with the Reis-ül-Küttab about the

¹⁵³ Kleinman, Russko-Turetskii soyuz, p. 17; Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, pp. 205-6.

¹⁵⁴ ‘The Edict of Paul I to the Admiralty College on the appointment of F. F. Ushakov the Commander of the Black Sea Squadron for the 1798 campaign. 11 April (31 March) 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 19.

¹⁵⁵ Usually both the Aegean and Mediterranean seas were called in the contemporary sources the White Sea (Bahr-i Sefid in the Ottoman; or Белое море in Russian)

proposal of the Russian side.¹⁵⁶ In less than two weeks the Porte made known its answer to the Russian Emperor.

 

 

At the conference with Tomara that took place on 9 June (29 May) 1798, the Reis-ül-Küttab told the Russian ambassador that the Porte would accept the offered help and in case of necessity would ask for it.¹⁵⁷ Ahmed Atıf Efendi closed the meeting with the statement that both the Russians and the Ottomans were the enemies of the French, and that in Russia he saw a protection for the Ottoman Empire.¹⁵⁸ Selim III after having read the proceedings of the given conference expressed his readiness to start consultations with the Russian side concerning the Ottoman participation in the anti-French alliance.¹⁵⁹ The capture of Malta by Napoleon (12 June 1798) and, above all things, the landing of the French troops at Alexanderia (1 July 1798) largely accelerated the pace of the Ottoman-Russian negotiations. The news that Bonaparte attacked Egypt first came to Constantinople on 17 July, though at that point there still remained some hope that it was only yet another rumour.¹⁶⁰ However, as the same information reached the Ottoman capital again a week later¹⁶¹, the Porte became this time seriously worried. Finally, on 24 July Ahmed Atıf Efendi made an official request to Tomara, asking the Russian side in accordance with earlier propositions of Paul I to send the promised naval squadron to Istanbul. Besides, the Sultan wished to conclude with the Tsar an alliance, and

 

 

¹⁵⁶ ‘V. S. Tomara to Paul I, 26 / 15 May, 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Relations of Russia with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 871, f. 61; A note to the First dragoman Fonton. Ibidem, f. 63; Report of the First dragoman Fonton, 24 / 13 May 1798. Ibidem, f.f. 65- 65 ob.

¹⁵⁷ A. M. Stanislavskaia, Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’ F. F. Ushakova v Gretsii, 1798-1800 g. g.

(Moscow, 1983), p. 69.

¹⁵⁸ Stanislavskaia, Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’ F. F. Ushakova, p. 70.

¹⁵⁹ Ibidem.

¹⁶⁰ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 234.

¹⁶¹ Ibidem.

ordered the Reis-ül-Küttab to begin the negotiations on that matter with Russia,¹⁶² which started on 28 July.¹⁶³

 

 

The Russian Emperor expected the Sultan to accept his offer and was also going to lend his help for the Porte not only with the naval forces, but also with the regular army, should the circumstances require that. It is very notable that Paul I on 17 August (and yet not knowing that the Porte officially requested the Russian help), issued the instructions to the Governor General of Kiev, General I. V. Gudovich, to wait for the news from the ambassador in Istanbul Tomara and be ready to enter the Ottoman territories and to proceed where it would be deemed necessary, in case of a special invitation in that respect from the Porte.¹⁶⁴ Ironically, already on the next day Paul I was to send his orders to Gudovich and other military and naval commanders again, as the news reached St. Petersburg that the French took Alexanderia and that the Ottoman Sultan had agreed to accept the Russian aid.

 

 

On 18 August, already knowing that the Porte officially requested the Russian aid, Paul I issued a number of orders concerning the possible expedition of the Russian troops abroad to lend a helping hand to the Ottoman Empire. General Gudovich was to inform the Russian ambassador in Istanbul and through him the Sultan’s government about his readiness to come to the help of the Porte.¹⁶⁵ The Quartermaster General of the Russian army Lieutenant General Ivan Ivanovich Hermann, to whom the commander of the Ottoman forces in Kuban Battal Pasha had

¹⁶² Stanislavskaia, Politicheskaia deiatel’nost’ F. F. Ushakova, p. 73.

¹⁶³ Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 259.

¹⁶⁴ ‘Paul I to General I. V. Gudovich, 17 / 6 August 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 2. Internal College Affairs. Op. 2/2. Delo 205, f. f. 30-31; ‘Paul I to Lieutenant General Dashkov, 17 / 6 August 1798’ Ibidem, f.

f. 31 ob. - 32.

¹⁶⁵ ‘Paul I to General I. V. Gudovich, 18 / 7 August 1798’ Ibidem, f. f. 41-45.

surrendered in 1790, and later the commander of the unfortunate Russian expedition against the Batavian Republic in 1799, received the orders to follow Gudovich.¹⁶⁶ Count Mikhail Vasilievich Kakhovskii, the commander of the Taurida division, was to communicate with Gudovich and stay responsible for the security of the Russian borders.¹⁶⁷ It was very important in this situation that the Russian frontier territories newly acquired from Poland remained under the watchful eye of the government and that the troops leaving abroad were to be replaced. Accordingly, the Governor General of Moscow, Field Marshal Ivan Petrovich Saltykov the Second, was to be prepared to move on Kiev in order to assume the duties of Gudovich in case of need.¹⁶⁸

 

 

An almost unthinkable event in the European politics, that is the alliance between the Ottoman and the Russian empires, was thus in the making. There certainly were the fresh memory of the recent wars and mutual distrust. However, both sides still were unwilling to stir up new hostilities under the new international conjuncture. Throughout the 1790s Constantinople and St. Petersburg simply preferred to maintain the existing status quo that satisfied them both. Even despite the certain thaw in relations a full-fledged alliance would sound as something rather chimerical and surely not applicable in real life. Real life, however, appeared more unpredictable than expected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

¹⁶⁶ ‘Paul I to Lieutenant General Hermann. 18 / 7 August 1798’ Ibidem, f. 47.

¹⁶⁷ ‘Paul I to General Count Kakhovskii. 18 / 7 August 1798’ Ibidem, f. f. 48-49 ob.

¹⁶⁸ ‘Paul I to Field Marshal Count Saltykov the Second. 18 / 7 August 1798’ Ibidem, f. f. 49 ob- 51 ob.

4.6.  Conclusions

 

Throughout the years between 1794 and 1798 the two empires were balancing on the verge between peace and war, and were very much interested in preventing a new conflict. In mid-1790s one of the central issues defining the agenda of the European diplomatic representatives in Constantinople was the Polish question. While being busy with the affairs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and preparing its last partition, St. Petersburg sought to secure the neutrality of the Porte. On the other hand, the French diplomacy, supported by the Polish emigrant circles, tried by all means to involve the Ottomans into an offensive alliance against Russia.

At this point the interests of Russia and the Ottoman Empire to avoid war coincided. All attempts of the French ambassadors Descorches, Verninac and Aubert-Dubayet to drag the Ottomans into an anti-Russian alliance ended in failure. The Porte in view of the deepest internal crisis and the ongoing reforms of Nizâm-i Cedîd simply could not risk breaking its peace with Russia for the sake of the restoration of Poland. The Ottoman government at the time was more preoccupied with the danger of the Russian aggression rather than planning its own attack. Following the death of Catherine II and the ascension of Paul I to the Russian throne the threat of the Ottoman-Russian war decreased even more.

 

 

Unlike his mother, the new Russian Emperor was not going to wage any wars with the Ottomans, having embarked on extensive domestic reforms. Paradoxically enough, while the relations between the Porte and its inveterate enemy Russia towards the end of 1790-s were slowly improving, the Ottomans were increasingly concerned with the growing aggressiveness of their traditional friend and ally, France. According to the Peace of Campo Formio (1797) the French gained control

over the Ionian Islands along with the small coastal strip of the former Venetian possessions on the Balkan Peninsula. This meant that France now had a common border with the Ottoman Empire and became a potential threat to Balkan possessions of the Sultan. Moreover, the French revolutionary propaganda could be more easily spread among the Ottoman Christian subjects, raising the serious concerns of the Porte.

 

 

Thus, in spring 1798 there appeared a memo of the Reis-ül-Küttab Atıf Efendi, allowing the theoretical possibility of an alliance of the Ottoman Empire with Russia and Austria. The opinion of the Ottoman minister was that even though both these monarchies historically were the biggest enemies of the Porte, under extraordinary circumstances they could become allies. As the preparations of a huge French naval squadron were going on in Toulon, everyone in Europe was anxious about its final destination. Among the possible targets of General Bonaparte, according to many speculations, could be the British Isles, Egypt or the Balkans. Even before the actual French descent in Egypt took place, the Russian Emperor proposed (in March and April 1798) his military aid to the Ottomans. Following the occupation of Egypt the Porte agreed to accept the Russian proposition and in late August 1798 the Black Sea squadron of Vice Admiral Ushakov sailed off from the Crimea to Constantinople. In this way, the French aggression in the Eastern Mediterranean brought about a heretofore unthinkable thing such as the Ottoman-Russian military cooperation and paved the way to conclusion of a defensive alliance between the Sultan and the Tsar.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V

 

 

BIRTH OF THE ALLIANCE

 

Nichts Bessers weiß ich mir an Sonn- und Feiertagen Als ein Gespräch von Krieg und Kriegsgeschrei,

wenn hinten, weit, in der Türkei, Die Völker aufeinander schlagen. (J.W. von Goethe, “Faust”, I)

 

 

5.1.  Russian fleet visits the Ottoman capital

 

On 18 August 1798 the Russian government received the news about the French landing in Egypt, along with information about further plans of General Bonaparte to spread his conquests over the holy cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem and even to restore in the latter the Jewish Republic.¹ Apart from this, Paul I learned about the final decision of the Sultan to ask the Russian aid against the French, or, in terms of Pavel, “the enemies of all kingdoms and the destroyers of the general order”.² While the military commanders of the Russian armed forces quartered in the close vicinity of the Ottoman border were ordered to stay prepared for a possible campaign abroad at the request of the Porte, the naval squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Ushakov was to proceed directly to the Bosporus in

 

 

¹ ‘Paul I to General I. V. Gudovich, 18 / 7 August 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 2. Internal College Affairs. Op. 2/2. Delo 205, f. 41.

² Ibidem, f. 41 ob.

order to act jointly with the Ottoman and the British fleets.³ Besides, Paul I ordered to form one more reserve squadron, which in the absence of Ushakov until further notice was to patrol the Russian Black Sea coastline. Rear Admiral Ivan Tikhonovich Ovtsyn had been appointed the commander of this reserve squadron.⁴

 

 

It can be clearly seen, that even having the official request of the Ottoman side for aid, St. Petersburg did not forget to take the necessary precautions regarding the security of the Russian borders, as well as the safety of Ushakov’s squadron. When sending the promised naval force to Istanbul the Russian government was still unsure about how the Porte would behave in respect to its new ally. Together with the Tsar’s order Ushakov was provided with a detailed instruction of the Vice-President of the Admiralty Board (Admiralteistv-Kollegiia) Grigorii Grigorievich Kushelev,⁵ which demanded from him the utmost care and attention. Kushelev once again reminded Ushakov a number of reasons for being extremely cautious in communicating with the Ottomans. First, the alliance between the Porte and the Russian Empire was quite a novel matter. Second, there should be remembered long previous rivalry of the two nations. Third, one could not be sure to what extent would the Ottomans keep their loyalty to a Christian state.

 

Taking into consideration the abovementioned circumstances Ushakov was given certain practical instructions. So, the Russian Admiral before entering the Bosporus was to make sure that the Porte would guarantee his free return back to the

³ ‘Paul I to F. F. Ushakov, 18 / 7 August 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1289, f. f. 25-26; the same document can also be found at: AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1396, f. f. 25-25 ob.

⁴ ‘Paul I to N. S. Mordvinov, 18 / 7 August 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1289, f. 24.

⁵ ‘G. G. Kushelev to F. F. Ushakov, 18 / 7 August 1798’ Ibidem, f. f. 23-23 ob.; this document has been published at: Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, pp. 91-92.

Black Sea. Among other things recommended to Ushakov was to merge the Russian and the Ottoman ships, so that the experienced Russian crews would set an example to the Ottomans, restraining them from escape. Also, the Russian side was concerned with the fact that many French specialists were then serving the Porte. Should it appear necessary to defend the Dardanelles from a French attack, Ushakov was to recommend the Ottomans to take care that there should be no French engineers in the coastal fortresses, for they might betray the Porte in favour of their fellow countrymen. As the latter directive implies, St. Petersburg at this point still pondered the possibility of the French invasion of other parts of the Ottoman Empire, including the Black Sea Straits. Further lines in the instructions explain that while preparing them one of the highest officials of the Russian Admiralty was yet unaware of the battle of Aboukir Bay (1-2 August 1798), that the French fleet had been destroyed there and that the threat of Bonaparte’s landing at another point of the Ottoman coastline ceased to exist.⁶

 

 

Meanwhile on 23 August 1798 Vice Admiral Ushakov in accordance with the received orders before his own departure sent to Istanbul a light dispatch boat “Panagia Apotomengana” under the command of Lieutenant Tiesenhausen. Her task was to deliver to the Russian ambassador Tomara the letter informing that the Black Sea squadron set out towards the Bosporus in order to carry out the duties assigned to it by the Emperor.⁷ Ushakov together with his whole sqadron departed from Akhtiar (Sevastopol) on the next day.⁸ In his letter to Tomara the Russian naval commander asked the ambassador to notify the Porte of his impending arrival. Ushakov wrote,

⁶ Ibidem.

⁷ ‘F. F. Ushakov to V. S. Tomara, 23 / 12 August 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1396 (Correspondence of Ambassador Tomara with Admiral Ushakov), f. f. 6-7.

⁸ D. Miliutin, Istoriia voiny 1799 g. mezhdu Rossiyey I Frantsiyey (3 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1857), Vol.1, p. 68.

that he will stay in the close vicinity of the Straits waiting for the return of Lieutenant Tiesenhausen with the permission of the Ottoman government to enter the Bosporus and the instructions defining the exact place where the Russian squadron should drop anchor in Istanbul. In his secret letter Ushakov specified the reasons for which he would not enter the Straits until the return of the dispatch boat, asking Tomara to confirm at the Porte the right of free passage back to the Black Sea and to send Ushakov detailed written instructions in that respect.⁹ On 3 September 1798 the Black Sea squadron of Vice Admiral Ushakov, including six battleships, seven frigates and three dispatch vessels that were carrying altogether 7476 men,¹⁰ approached the Bosporus. Having received the explanatory letter from the ambassador Tomara¹¹ on the same day, Ushakov still asked for yet another assurance that he could freely return to the Black Sea.¹² Finally, on 5 September the Porte issued a declaration about the free passage of the Russian war and commercial ships through the Straits.¹³ On the same day (5 September 1798) the Russian squadron entered the Straits and dropped anchor at Büyükdere, on the European coast of the Bosporus.¹⁴

 

 

 

 

⁹ ‘F. F. Ushakov to V. S. Tomara, 23 / 12 August 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1396 (Correspondence of Ambassador Tomara with Admiral Ushakov), f. f. 9-10.

¹⁰ For full roster of Ushakov’s squadron see: The Table of the Black Sea Fleet squadron including the general officers, staff-officers and company-officers serving on the battleships, frigates and other vessels [Табель Эскадры Черноморского корабельного флота о состоящих на кораблях, фрегатах и других судах господах генералитете, штаб и обер офицерах служителях] Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1396 (Correspondence of Ambassador Tomara with Admiral Ushakov), f. f. 60-62; With some minor differences it has been published at: Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, pp. 87-90.

¹¹ . ‘F. F. Ushakov to V. S. Tomara, 3 September (23 August) 1798’ Ibidem, f. 11.

¹² ‘F. F. Ushakov to V. S. Tomara, 4 September (24 August) 1798’ Ibidem, f.f. 12-13.

¹³ Declaration of the Turkish government about the free passage of the Russian war and commercial ships through the Straits, the reciprocal extradition of the deserters, and the assistance on the sanitary measures to avoid the spread of the infectious diseases. 5 September (25 August) 1798. Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 78-79.

¹⁴ Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1288), Vol. 4, p. 58.

The Russian squadron had hardly hauled down the sails when the ambassador Tomara appeared on the flagship of Ushakov “Sviatoi Pavel”. There, the ambassador and admiral had a long conversation, after which there also came an Ottoman official (kâhya) sent by the Grand Vizier. He congratulated Ushakov on the happy arrival of the Russian Black Sea fleet to Istanbul and as a token of high esteem presented the Russian admiral lots of flowers and fruits. On the same evening the Sultan himself came incognito on the six-oared boat to examine the ships of the Russian squadron. Selim III especially liked the design of the flagship “Sviatoi Pavel”, and the sketches of it were immediately sent to the Sultan through the agency of Tomara.¹⁵

 

Next day, on 6 September, at 8 p. m. the First Dragoman of the Porte Ypsilanti also paid a visit to Ushakov. In the name of the Sultan Ypsilanti presented Ushakov a snuffbox encrusted with diamonds. The First Dragoman in addition handed over to Admiral the declaration granting the Russian vessels the free passage through the Straits, issued by the Porte one day ago.¹⁶ Besides, when standing at Büyükdere, the Russian fleet was provided by the Ottoman side the technical assistance. The unreliable rudders of the ship of the line “Sviatoi Pavel” and the frigate “Sviatoi Nikolai” were taken to the shore, and the Liman Reisi (the Head of the Port) was asked to take care that the new ones would be made. Upon this request the workmen from tersane (naval docks) were immediately sent to make the new rudders for the Russian ships.¹⁷

 

 

 

¹⁵ Ie. Metaxa, Zapiski flota kapitan-leitenanta Iegora Metaksy, zakliuchayushchiie v sebe povestvovaniie o voiennykh podvigakh Rossiiskoi eskadry, pokorivshei pod nachal’stvom admiral Fiodora Fiodorovicha Ushakova Ionicheskiie ostrova pri sodeistvii Porty Ottomanskoi v 1798 i 1799 godakh (Petrograd, 1915), p. 12.

¹⁶ Ibidem.

¹⁷ Ibidem.

A few days before the arrival of the Russian fleet to the Ottoman capital, on 2 September, there had been issued a fetva authorizing the declaration of war against France.¹⁸ Apart from this, the French charge d’affaires Pierre Ruffin had been called to the Porte. He was arrested and closed together with other members of the French mission in the Seven Towers fortress, a traditional Ottoman move meaning the declaration of war. Interestingly enough, the British ambassador Lord Elgin chose to settle down in the former building of the French mission ¹⁹. Other French officials who were residing in the Ottoman Empire (like the consuls in Smyrna, Bucharest, Jassy and the personnel of their consulates) and merchants were also arrested and transferred to the fortresses in the Black Sea coast area such as Amasya, Samsun, Sinop and Giresun.²⁰ Moreover, the Porte had created a special commission headed by Moralı Osman Efendi, appointed to search for the property of the French citizens in the Ottoman Empire.²¹

 

 

It was at this point that the report of Moralı Esseyid Ali Efendi came to Istanbul. As it turned out, the Ottoman ambassador in Paris was still deceived by the French diplomacy and personally by Talleyrand in regard to the Egypt expedition of General Bonaparte and remained anaware of the real state of affairs between France and the Ottoman Empire. The report of Esseyid Ali, which reached Istanbul on 4 September, got the famous note of Selim III about its author: “What a foolish jackass!” (Ne eşek herifmiş).²² Not long after that (12 September 1798)²³ the

¹⁸ Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1288), Vol. 4, p. 58.

¹⁹ For more details see: Henri Dehérain, ‘La rupture du gouvernement ottoman avec la France en l'an VI’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 39 (1925): 9-43; Also see: Maurice Herbette, Une Ambassade Turque sous le directoire. (Paris, 1902), p. 238.

²⁰ P. Pisani, ‘L’expédition Russo-Turque aux îles ioniennes en 1789-1799’ Revue d’Histoire diplomatique, 2 (1888), p. 207.

²¹ ‘V. S. Tomara to A. A. Bezborodko, 27 / 16 October 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 89. Russia’s Relations with Turkey. Op. 89/8. Delo 881, f. 45.

²² Soysal, Fransız ihtilâli, p. 242.

Ottoman government announced a manifest declaring war on France to all diplomatic missions in Istanbul.²⁴

 

 

Now when the Russian war ships were waiting at Büyükdere, the highest Ottoman officials, the Russian and the British ambassadors, along with Admiral Ushakov gathered to discuss how to use the newly arrived Russian naval squadron. After the two conferences on 8 and 10 September²⁵ it was decided that the Russian fleet of Ushakov would join forces with the Ottoman fleet commanded by Kadir Bey and then under Ushakov’s general command would proceed to the Ionian Archipelago in order to take it from the French. The joint Russo-Ottoman squadron was also to protect the Balkan coastline of the Ottoman Empire against the possible French descents, which could be any time expected from the French-controlled Italian town of Ancona. Apart from that, two Russian and two Ottoman frigates were separated from the main forces to escort ten Ottoman gunboats to the Rhodes and then, should these gunboats appear to be necessary for the British navy operating along the coast of Egypt, to move there.

 

 

As good hosts the Ottomans invited Ushakov to examine their fleet anchored at Beşiktaş, not far from the Sultan’s palace, and visit the naval docks (tersane) of Istanbul. Having inspected these on 12 September Ushakov wrote in his report to

 

 

 

²³ Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1288), Vol. 4, p. 58.

²⁴ Herbette gives the text of the Manifest in French: “Manifeste de la Sublime Porte Ottomane relative à la guerre contre la République Française”. Herbette, Une Ambassade Turque, p. 313-24. Following the text in Herbette’s book there are two dates for document, 1 Rebiülakhir 1213 and 9 September 1798. However, a Hijri date does not correspond to that one of the Gregorian calendar, which should be 12 September.

²⁵ ‘F. F. Ushakov to Paul I. 29 August (9 September) 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, pp. 81-83; ‘F. F. Ushakov to Paul I. 31 August (11 September) 1798’ Ibidem, pp. 85-86.

Paul I²⁶ that everywhere he was received with the utmost kindness and trust. The Russian Admiral found the Ottoman fleet “even though not flawless on comparing to the European fleets, but by far better than earlier, and partly in perfect order”.²⁷ The only criticism was about the cannon balls, which Ushakov judged to be unsatisfactory and advised the Ottoman side to change them. At the naval docks Ushakov was shown in all details the newly built 120-cannon ship as well as the ships which were still under construction.²⁸ Made on the French pattern, the Ottoman vessels in a technical sense, according to the observation of the Russian guest, little differed from the French ships.²⁹ Thus the same person who less than ten years ago was successfully fighting in the open sea with the Ottoman fleet, was now inspecting it and even giving advices how to improve its fighting efficiency.

 

 

Upon spending two weeks in Istanbul the Russian squadron on 19 September 1798 at noon ³⁰ departed from Büyükdere and moved to the Dardanelles.³¹ Having arrived to the Dardanelles Ushakov joined forces with the Ottoman squadron of Vice Admiral³² Kadir Bey. Here the Russian and the Ottoman commanders made one another’s acquaintance³³, and Ushakov expressed a very favourable opinion of his

 

²⁶ ‘F. F. Ushakov to Paul I. 17 / 6 September 1798’ Ibidem, pp. 98-100. Also, the fact of Ushakov’s inspection of the Ottoman fleet and naval installations had been published by the Russian newspaper of that time: Moskovskiie Vedomosti, Saturday, 16 October, 1798 (the date is given here as it stands in original, i.e. according to the Julian style, this corresponds to 27 October of the Gregorian calendar)

²⁷ Ibidem, p. 99.

²⁸ Ibidem, p.98.

²⁹ Ibidem.

³⁰ Metaxa, Zapiski, p. 21; The date for the departure of the Russian fleet from Büyükdere provided by the Ottoman historian Ahmed Cevdet is 8 Rebiülahir 1213, which also corresponds to 19 September 1798: Ahmed Cevdet, Târih-i Cevdet (12 vols.; Istanbul, 1288), Vol. 4, p. 59.

³¹ ‘F. F. Ushakov to V. S. Tomara, 26 / 15 September 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1396 (Correspondence of Ambassador Tomara with Admiral Ushakov), f. f. 69-69 ob.; ‘F. F. Ushakov to Admiralty College, 26 / 15 September 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 106.

³² The title, Ushakov uses while reporting to Tomara on his meeting with the Ottoman commander

³³ On 22 September Kadir Bey together with the Dragoman of Kapudan Pasha (The Chief Commander of the Ottoman Navy) and some other officials paid his first visit to Ushakov. Next day,

Ottoman colleague.³⁴ At the request of Kadir Bey, in order to maintain better communication between the Russian and the Ottoman squadrons four Russian mariners had been appointed by Ushakov to serve on the flagship of the Ottoman Admiral.³⁵ Lieutenant Yegor Metaxa, a Greek by origin who also knew Ottoman Turkish, was to be an aide-de-camp of Kadir Bey. Two former midshipmen degraded to seamen, Alexander Oleshev and Karl Uexküll, as well as one sub-steersman (podshturman) from frigate “Soshestviie Sviatogo Dukha” were assigned to help Metaxa in his mission.³⁶ In this way, by the end of September 1798 the joint Russo- Ottoman squadron was ready to leave the Dardanelles and embark on its further journey. The following are the full lists of both the Russian and Ottoman squadrons gathered at the Dardanelles by 25 September 1798 under command of Vice Admiral Ushakov:

Table 1. The Russian Squadron. Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, 2, p. 112.

RUSSIAN SQUADRON

Ships of the line

74-cannons, “Sviatoi Pavel”, Vice Admiral Ushakov and Captain Sarandinaki 74-cannons, “Sviatoi Piotr”, Captain Seniavin

74-cannons, “Zakharii i Yelizaveta”, Captain Selivachov

72-cannons, “Bogoiavleniie Gospodnie”, Captain Aleksiano

72-cannons, “Sviataia Troitsa”, Rear Admiral Ovtsyn, Commander Poskochin 68-cannons, “Maria Magdalina”, Commander Timchenko

Frigates

50-cannons, “Grigorii Velikiia Armenii”, Lieutenant-Commander Shostak 48-cannons, “Sviatoi Mikhail”, Commander Sorokin

46-cannons, “Sviatoi Nikolai”, Lieutenant-Commander Marin

44-cannons, “Soshestviie Sviatogo Dukha”, Lieutenant-Commander Konstantinov 44-cannons, “Kazanskaia Bogoroditsa”, Lieutenant-Commander Messer

the Russian Admiral, made a reciprocal visit to the flagship of his Ottoman colleague. Metaxa,

Zapiski, p. 28.

³⁴ “The Commander of the Turkish squadron... seems to be a very gentle and polite person, and we decided everything in a friendly manner. As regards his courtesy and our mutual consent in taking decisions I express to Your Excellency my gratitude and commendation...I hope that, as it can be seen at the beginning, should this continue in the same way we would be contented with each other and one may expect the good results owing to this...” ‘F. F. Ushakov to V. S. Tomara, 26 / 15 September 1798’ AVPRI. Fond 90. Constantinople Mission. Op. 90/1. Delo 1396 (Correspondence of Ambassador Tomara with Admiral Ushakov), f. f. 69-69 ob.

³⁵ Metaxa, Zapiski, p. 28.

³⁶ ‘F. F. Ushakov to Ye. P. Metaxa, 26 / 15 September 1798’ Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 107.

40-cannons, “Navarkhiia Vozneseniie Gospodnie”, Lieutenant-Commander Count Voinovich

Repeating frigate

32-cannons, “Shchastlivyi”, Lieutenant-Commander Baillie

Dispatch boats

18-cannons, Akat “Sviataia Irina”, Lieutenant Vlito

14-cannons, Transport ship “Krasnoselie”, Lieutenant Riabinin

14-cannons, Transport ship “Panagia Apotumengana”, Captain of the sea battalions Skandrakov

Total: Ships.......................... 6

Frigates....................... 7

Small vessels.............. 3

Grand Total...................... 16

Table 2. The Ottoman Squadron. Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2, p. 113.

OTTOMAN SQUADRON

Ships of the line

86-cannons, under the flag of Kapitan Bey, Kadir Bey 80-cannons, under the flag of Patron Bey (Vice-Admiral)

76-cannons, under the flag of Real Bey (Rear Admiral) Ahmet Bey 74-cannons, Captain İbrahim

Frigates

1-   Captain Hüseyin

2-   Captain Abbas

3-   Captain Zeynel [Zeyner]

4-   Captain Süleyman

5-   Captain Kerim [Kherim]

6-   Captain Ahmet

Corvettes

1-   Captain Mustafa

2-   Captain Hüseyin

3-   Captain Ali Bey

4-   Captain Mehmet

14 gunboats

Total: Ships.......................... 4

Frigates....................... 6

Corvettes................... 4

Gunboats................. 14

Grand Total...................... 28

The first vessels that left the Dardanelles (on 25 September 1798) were two Russian (“Sviatoi Mikhail” and “Kazanskaia Bogoroditsa”) and two Ottoman frigates, under Commander Alexander Andreievich Sorokin.³⁷ These were to escort

³⁷ ‘F. F. Ushakov to A. A. Sorokin, 24 / 13 September 1798’. Mordvinov, Admiral Ushakov, Vol. 2,

pp. 103- 104.

ten Ottoman gunboats to the island of Rhodes, and, should the mentioned gunboats prove to be necessary for the British navy of Vice Admiral Nelson operating in the vicinity of the Egyptian coasts, to proceed further to Egypt.

 

 

In a few days the rest of the Russo-Ottoman joint fleet would also set the sails and take off in the direction of the Ionian islands. In the meantime, its Commander- in-Chief Ushakov was preoccupied with writing and sending numerous reports, dealing with the supplies issues³⁸, and making consultations with his Ottoman colleagues regarding the plan of the future combat operations.³⁹ The final departure, which had been initially fixed for 27 September, due to the unfavourable weather conditions was postponed until 1 October. On that day, the Russo-Ottoman squadron left the Dardanelles⁴⁰ and entered the Aegean archipelago.