Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power (26 page)

After having disarmed her daughter-in-law, the Empress thought that she had only to disarm one other adversary, who was hateful in a different way: Frederick II. She was set against the king of Prussia not only because he opposed her personal political views, but even more so because he had won over the heart of too many Russians, who were blinded by his insolence and his gleaming armor. Fortunately, Maria Theresa seemed as resolved as she to destroy the Germanic hegemony, and Louis XV, at the urging of Pompadour, it was said, was now engaging to reinforce the army he had launched against Frederick II’s troops. On December 30, 1759, a third treaty of Versailles renewed the second and guaranteed to Austria the restitution of all the territories that had been occupied during preceding campaigns. That should be enough, thought Elizabeth, to revive the allies’ flagging energies.

In parallel to all this official business, she conducted (with an almost youthful delight) a friendly correspondence with the king of France. The letters between the two monarchs were written by their respective secretaries, but the tsarina liked to think that those from Louis XV were really dictated by him and that the solicitude expressed in the letters was the sign of a genuine autumnal flirtation. Elizabeth was suffering from open wounds on her legs, and Louis XV stretched his compassion as far as to send her his personal surgeon, Dr. Poissonier. Certainly, it was not his skill with the scalpel and his ability to prescribe medications, but his capacity to collect information and to weave intrigues that had earned Poissonier the king’s high regard. Having been invested with this secret mission, he was welcomed as an intelligence specialist by the Marquis de l’Hôpital. The ambassador counted on him to relieve the tsarina of her scruples, after having relieved her of her ulcers. One doctor is as good as another; why not provide Her Majesty with a second Lestocq?

However, as much as she trusted in Dr. Poissonier’s curative science, Elizabeth resisted allowing him to guide her in her political decisions. The French were now proposing to land a Russian expeditionary force in Scotland in order to attack the English on their home territory, while the French fleet would meet the enemy in a naval action; Elizabeth considered the plan too hazardous and preferred to restrict her troops to land-based actions against Prussia.

Unfortunately, General Fermor had even less fight in him than the late Field Marshal Apraxin. Instead of leading the charge, he was marching in place, waiting at the borders of Bohemia for the arrival of hypothetical Austrian reinforcements. Annoyed by these delays, the Empress relieved Fermor and replaced him with Peter Saltykov, an old general who had spent his entire career in the Ukrainian militia. Known for his timidity, his weak appearance and his white militiaman’s uniform (of which he was very proud), Peter Saltykov made a poor impression on the troops, who called him
Kurochka
(the Pullet) behind his back. However, from the very first engagement, the “pullet” turned out to be more combative than a cock. Taking advantage of a tactical error by Frederick II, Saltykov boldly moved toward Frankfurt. He had given notice to the Austrian regiment under General Gedeon de Laudon to meet him at the Oder. As soon as they met up, the road to Berlin would be open.

Frederick II, alerted to this threat against his capital, hastily returned from the depths of Saxony. Learning from his spies that his adversary’s commanders, the Russian Saltykov and the Austrian Laudon, had fallen into dispute, he decided to take advantage of this dissension to launch a final attack. During the night of August 10, he crossed the Oder and advanced on the Russians, who were cut off in Kunersdorf. However, the Prussians’ slow maneuvering deprived them of any benefit of surprise, and Laudon and Saltykov had time to reorganize their troops. Nonetheless, the battle was so violent and confused that Saltykov, in a flourish of theatricality, threw himself to his knees before his soldiers and beseeched “the god of Armies” to give them victory.

In fact, the decision was dictated by the Russian artillery, which had remained intact despite repeated attacks. On August 13, the Prussian infantry and then the cavalry were crushed by cannon shot. The survivors were overcome by panic. Of the 48,000 men originally commanded by Frederick II, only 3000 remained. This horde, exhausted and demoralized, was barely able to keep together a rearguard during its retreat. Overwhelmed by this defeat, Frederick II wrote to his brother: “The downstream effects of the matter are worse than the matter itself. I have no more resources. All is lost. I will not survive the loss of the fatherland!”

In giving his account of this victory to the tsarina, Saltykov showed himself more circumspect: “Your Imperial Majesty should not be surprised by our losses,” he wrote, “for she is not unaware that the king of Prussia sells his defeats dearly. Another victory like this one, Majesty, and I will see myself constrained to walk to St. Petersburg, staff in hand, to bring you the news myself - for I will have no one else left to serve as courier.”3 Thoroughly reassured as to the outcome of the war, Elizabeth ordered “a
real
Te Deum” to be celebrated this time, and she declared to the Marquis de l’Hôpital: “Every good Russian must be a good Frenchman, and every good Frenchman must be a good Russian.”4 As a reward for this great feat of arms, old Saltykov, “the Pullet,” received the title of Field Marshal. Did this honor go to his head? Instead of pursuing the enemy in his retreat, he fell asleep on his laurels. All of Russia seemed to fall into a happy torpor at the idea of having demolished a leader as prestigious as Frederick II.

After a brief moment of despair, the Grand Duke Peter went back to believing in the German miracle. As for Elizabeth, dazed by the hymns, the artillery salvos, the ringing bells and the diplomatic congratulations, finally was delighted to be able to pause and reflect. Her bellicose temper was followed by a gradual return to reason: what harm would it do to allow Frederick II, having been taught a good lesson, to stay on his throne for a while?

The main objective, surely, was to conclude an arrangement that was acceptable to all parties. But alas! it seems that France, at one time disposed to listen to the tsarina’s concerns, returned to its old protectionist ways and recoiled at the thought of leaving her with a free hand in Eastern Prussia and Poland. One would almost think that Louis XV and his advisers, who had so ardently sought her assistance against Prussia and England, now feared that she would take too large a role in the European game, should victory be theirs.

To back up the Marquis de l’Hôpital, who was getting a bit old and tired, Versailles appointed the young baron of Breteuil. He arrived in St. Petersburg, all full of life. He was charged by the duke of Choiseul with convincing the Empress to delay further military operations in order not to “increase the embarrassments of the king of Prussia,” since that could compromise the signing of a peace accord. At least, that is what the French envoy in Elizabeth’s entourage was told. She was shocked by this call for moderation at the very hour when the spoils were to be divided. In front of Ambassador Esterhazy who, in the name of the Austro-Russian alliance, accused General Peter Saltykov of foot-dragging and thus helping England (whom he hinted might be paying for this indirect assistance), she flushed red with indignation and exclaimed: “We have never made a promise that we did not endeavor to hold ourselves to!… I will never allow that glory, bought at the price of the precious blood of our subjects, to be sullied by suspicions of insincerity!” And, in fact, at the end of the third year of a senseless war, she could say that Russia was the only power in the coalition that seemed ready to make every sacrifice to obtain the capitulation of Prussia.

Alexis Razumovsky supported her in her intransigence. He too had never ceased believing in the military and moral supremacy of the fatherland. However, when it came time to make the decisions to commit her troops in merciless combat, she consulted not her old lover, Alexis Razumovsky, not her current favorite, Ivan Shuvalov (so cultivated and so learned), nor her too-cautious and too-clever chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov, but the awesome memory of her grandfather, Peter the Great. It was he whom she had in mind on January 1, 1760, while everyone was making New Year’s resolutions, when she publicly wished that her army would prove to be “more aggressive and more daring” in order to oblige Frederick II to submit. As a reward for this supreme effort, she stated that she would ask for nothing more than to take possession of Eastern Prussia, subject to a territorial exchange with Poland (which could, if need be, retain a semblance of autonomy).

That last clause should be enough, she judged, to alleviate Louis XV’s concerns.

To prepare for such delicate negotiations, the king of France rested his hopes on the assistance that the baron of Breteuil could lend to the aging marquis de l’Hôpital. In fact, it was not the baron’s diplomatic experience that he counted on in circumventing the tsarina, but the seductive influence that the 27-year-old dandy seemed to have over women. Elizabeth knew the game too well not to see through Breteuil’s false admiration of her glory; moreover, in analyzing his ploy, she understood that it was not she but the grand duchess whom he sought to allure into cooperating in furthering the interests of France. In order to win favor with Catherine, he offered her a choice - to allow him to make love to her as only a Frenchman knows how to do, or to persuade the tsarina to bring back Stanislaw Poniatowski, moldering as he was in his dull Poland. Whether she accepted either one of these offers or combined them both for her pleasure, she surely would be so grateful towards France that she would not be able to refuse him anything.

The time was right for such a charm offensive - especially given that the young woman had just suffered two serious heartaches: the death of her daughter, young Anna,5 and that of her mother, who had recently passed away in Paris. However, in spite of this twofold mourning, it happened that Catherine had finally overcome the depression that had held her back all these years and, better yet, she felt no need to take up again with her former lovers nor to entertain another one, even if he were French.

The truth is that she had not waited for the baron of Breteuil to come up with a successor to the men who used to brighten her days. Her newly-anointed had the unique qualities of being of purely Russian blood and a superb, well-built man, athletic, brash, and deep in debt, renowned for his escapades and ready to undertake any folly to protect his mistress. This was Grigory Orlov. He and his four brothers all served in the imperial guard. His dedication to the traditions of his regiment reinforced his hatred of the Grand Duke Peter, who was well known for his contempt of the Russian army and its leaders. The very idea of this histrionic poltroon swaggering about in a Holstein uniform, a self-proclaimed follower of Frederick II despite being heir to the throne of Russia, left Orlov feeling morally obliged to defend the grand duchess against her husband’s irrational maneuvers.

Although exhausted by disease, age, political concerns and excesses of food and drink, the tsarina kept abreast of these developments. She viewed her daughter-in-law’s escapades with a mixture of reprobation and envy. She approved the deception for, in her opinion, the Grand Duke Peter deserved to be betrayed by his wife a hundred times over, having himself betrayed Russia with Prussia. But she was afraid that, by diverting the course of events, Catherine might prevent the realization of her dearest wish: the peaceful transfer of power, over the head of Peter, to his son, young Paul, who would be assisted by a regency council.

Admittedly, Elizabeth could have proclaimed this change in the dynastic order, right then. However, such an initiative inevitably would have entailed skirmishes between rival factions, revolts within the family and perhaps in the street. Wouldn’t it be better to leave things as they were, for the time being? There was no need to rush; Her Majesty still had a clear head; she might live on a few more years; the country needed her; her subjects would not understand her suddenly ignoring current issues to deal with the succession.

As though to encourage her in maintaining the status quo, the “Conference,” the supreme political council created at her initiative, was considering a march on Berlin by the combined allied armies. However, Field Marshal Saltykov being ill, General Fermor hesitated at the idea of such a large-scale action. Then, in a daring move, the Russian general Totleben launched an attack on the Prussian capital, surprised the enemy, penetrated the city and accepted its surrender. Although this “raid” was too fast and too poorly exploited to lead Frederick II to give up his entire territory, the king was sufficiently shaken that one might reasonably expect the ensuing negotiations to be highly profitable.

In such a context, Elizabeth felt that France should set an example of firmness. Ivan Shuvalov was so much persuaded of that, that his mistress would laugh and say that he was more French than the French. In addition, she believed that Catherine was on good terms with the baron of Breteuil only insofar as the politics of France did not contradict too directly that of Russia.

However, Breteuil, obeying his principal, the duke of Choiseul, advised the tsarina that Louis XV would be grateful to her if, exceptionally, she would agree to sacrifice “her particular interests to the common cause.” In short, he asked her to settle for a compromise. But, in spite of the illness that kept her confined to her room, Elizabeth refused to let go before she received assurances that Russia would receive its due. In her view, prolonging the truce would only help Frederick II. She understood him well enough to know that he would take advantage of the suspension of hostilities to rebuild his army and to prepare to fight again, with a new chance of success. The Empress’s mistrust and vindictiveness being abruptly awaked, she took the bit in her teeth. On her deathbed, she wanted to ensure that Russia would live on after her - and thanks to her. While in her shadow hushed rumors on the future of monarchy were circulating again, she and her advisers from the Conference were planning to attack Silesia and Saxony. As a final inspiration she named Alexander Buturlin commander-in-chief; his principal qualification for the position was that he had once been her lover.