The Rise and Fall of the Russian Imperial Navy. From Peter the Great to the Reign of Anna Ioannovna
Yu. Kushevsky. "A New Case in Russia"
Regular Russian naval military fleet, as is well known, was created under Peter the Great. Since then, many resounding victories have been achieved, and Russian warships have appeared not only in the Black and Baltic Seas, but also in the North and Pacific Oceans. There is also a Caspian battle flotilla. However, there have also been several tragedies, after which Russia has lost a huge number of painstakingly built ships. The first of these occurred during Peter the Great's lifetime: after the disastrous and poorly prepared Prut campaign of 1711, the Tsar was forced to destroy the ships of the long-suffering Azov Fleet (which had been built several times, but the ships fell into disrepair whenever the Tsar was distracted by other matters). All recently captured fortresses were also forced to be returned to Turkey—including Azov, Kamenny Zaton, and the proposed future capital, Taganrog. And in 1727, the shipyard in Voronezh burned down, along with all the ships either ready or under construction there.
But the problem was also that immediately after the end of each war, Russian monarchs usually lost interest in naval affairs, and when a new war began, the fleet was found to be in complete decline, the ships unprepared for sea, and the crews poorly trained. And many emperors and empresses could echo Catherine II:
We have an abundance of ships and people, but there is no fleet or sailors.
Unfortunately, there were also cases of flagrant theft. After the defeat in the Crimean War, in 1857, the St. Petersburg newspaper "Golos" published a speech by Alexander Manuilov, delivered at a meeting of the Free Economic Society. It included the following words:
For a thousand years history Nowhere was there such a predatory and useless waste of public funds as in the construction of warships on the Black Sea... A fifty-year epic of theft, baseness and bribery remained as a shameful stamp on the conscience of those who made bottoms from rotten wood and sewed sails from worthless canvas.
In 1858, Rear Admiral Grigory Butakov, the military governor of Sevastopol and Nikolaev, wrote to the Grand Duke and General Admiral Konstantin Nikolaevich:
Almost all of Nikolaev, with its enormous houses, most of which quietly display only three, and often five, windows to the street, was built from them (stolen state funds). Many surrounding villages grew from the same source.
The result was unexpected: Konstantin, whom many contemporaries suspected of close ties to Black Sea thieves and embezzlers, issued Butakov a severe reprimand, and six months later the overly principled governor was transferred to the Baltic.
But let's not get ahead.
Peter I's Naval Victories
Peter I nevertheless succeeded in creating the Baltic Fleet. And it wasn't just the monarch's great love of seagoing ships. After the resounding victory at Poltava and the capitulation of the remnants of Charles XII's army at Perevolochna, the only circumstance allowing Sweden to delay signing the inevitable peace with a formal acknowledgment of territorial losses was Russia's lack of sufficient warships capable of engaging the Swedish fleet and threatening the country's coast. However, 17 ships of the line were purchased in England and Holland, 20 were built in St. Petersburg, 7 in Arkhangelsk, two each in Novaya Ladoga and at the Olonetsk shipyard. Seven frigates were purchased from Holland, and two more from England. In addition, the new Baltic Fleet included 16 shnyavs (two-masted vessels with 14-18 cannons) and over 200 galleys.
Incidentally, it should be noted that buying ships abroad was usually significantly cheaper than building them in one's own shipyards - despite the fact that they were built abroad not from raw, but from dried wood and served approximately twice as long.
Friedrich Wilhelm Bergholz, the son of Peter the Great's general, who left Russia in 1727, cites in his diary the reasons for the short service life of ships built in Russian shipyards:
The timber here is not good, at least it is cut at the wrong time and does not rise as it should, and partly because the Kronslot and Revel harbors are washed by not very good sea water.
The British envoy C. Whitworth wrote about the same thing in 1710:
Because of the forest - partly green, partly overgrown, mostly cut down in the spring, after the sap has risen, which makes the wood loose - because of the humidity of the air and the dampness of the earth, all the ships rot as soon as they are built.
Let us note, by the way, that ships were often built not from sawn, but from hewn boards - and therefore from a huge log one board was obtained.
However, Peter the Great's fleet achieved several major victories in the Baltic Sea. A separate article could be written about each of them, but many such articles have already been written, and the battles have been described almost minute by minute, so it's hardly worth repeating here. We'll simply note that the main role in most naval battles of the Northern War was played not by large sailing ships, but by rowboats. This is clearly visible in contemporary engravings. Here, for example, is what the Battle of Gangut (1714) looks like in an engraving by Mauritius Baku:
Here, the Russians were confronted by a Swedish squadron consisting of 15 ships of the line, three frigates, two bombardiers (two-masted sailing vessels with 12-14 large-caliber cannons or two-four mortars, used for bombarding fortresses and ports), and nine galleys. They were not confronted by large naval vessels, but by 99 Russian galleys, scampavii (lightweight galleys with two masts for lateen sails and armed with one or two small-caliber cannons, capable of carrying up to 150 soldiers), and auxiliary vessels. This battle became the largest naval engagement between Sweden and Russia in the Great Northern War; in honor of this victory, the name "Gangut" was given to five large warships. However, as already noted, it was the rowing vessels that attacked the large Swedish ships that had "lost the wind."
And this is an engraving by A. Zubov, “The Battle of Grengam” (1720), painted a year after this battle:
The Swedish squadron included a ship of the line, four frigates, three galleys, three skerryboats (sailing and rowing vessels with one mast and 6-8 pairs of oars, carrying 4-6 light cannons), a shnyava, a galiot (a small two-masted vessel for messenger and transport service), and a brigantine. On the Russian side, M. M. Golitsyn's skerry squadron entered the battle—61 galleys and 29 boats. Despite the strong artillery Despite enemy fire, which severely damaged 42 Russian galleys (many of which were later burned), they managed to capture four frigates and nearly boarded a ship of the line. The nearby English squadron, allied with the Swedes, did not dare engage in battle.
Interestingly, the battles of Gangut and Grengam took place on the feast day of the healer and holy great martyr Panteleimon. In 1735, a church was founded in St. Petersburg in honor of these victories, consecrated on July 27, 1739.
Panteleimon Church (Church of the Holy Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon) in a photograph from the early 1900s in St. Petersburg
The Battle of Ösel Island (Saaremaa, 1719) became a true naval battle, in which N. Senyavin's squadron, consisting of six ships of the line and one shnyava (a light, two-masted warship for reconnaissance and dispatch service, armed with 14 to 18 medium-caliber guns), captured three Swedish vessels—a ship of the line, a frigate, and a brigantine. The Swedes were commanded by a member of the renowned Wrangel family: seven Wrangels became field marshals, more than thirty became generals (18 of them Russian), and another seven became admirals (two of them Russian).
Ludwig Richard. “The battleship Wachmeister battles against the Russian squadron in 1719.”
Successful landings on the Swedish coast began in July 1719, with Russian troops commanded by F. Apraksin and P. Lassi. They captured eight towns and 1363 villages, burned 140 country houses and castles of Swedish aristocrats, and destroyed 21 factories, 21 mills, and 26 military warehouses.
Meanwhile, Peter I launched a campaign in Persia in 1723, during which the Russian army captured Derbent and Baku. To support the troops, a Caspian flotilla was established in Astrakhan in 1722, consisting of 200 island boats (islands—flat-bottomed rowboats with a capacity of up to 40 people, capable of navigating only in shallow waters) and 45 lastovs (cargo, transport, and auxiliary vessels for the sailing fleet).
In 1723, a strange adventure took place, attempting to accept Madagascar pirates into Russian citizenship. However, two frigates sent to the island immediately sprang leaks and returned to Reval. Vitus Bering's First Kamchatka Expedition proved far more successful.
The First Kamchatka Expedition on the Map
Even Peter the Great's beloved brainchild, the Baltic Fleet, began to decline even during the emperor's lifetime. In recent years, the number of ships being laid down sharply declined: one in 1722, one in 1723, two in 1724, and one in 1725. Meanwhile, at that time, maintaining the fleet's strength required three ships per year.
During the reign of Peter the Great, 90 large ships were built—58 ships of the line and 32 frigates. Five and 13, respectively, were dismantled due to dilapidation. Two ships of the line and six frigates had to be rebuilt, three ships of the line were sold, and one ship of the line and three frigates were captured by the Swedes. Another 10 ships of the line and three frigates were simply lost for various reasons. One frigate remained unfinished. As a result, at the time of Peter the Great's death, there were approximately 800 vessels in the Baltic, and only 48 of them were ships of the line and frigates. Their fate was tragic: practically never sailing, Peter's ships quickly rotted at their moorings, as they were built from damp timber.
The fleet under Catherine I and Peter II
Peter's first successors had no time for naval vessels. Empress Catherine I spent the rest of her life at the dinner table, and 10% of the Russian budget was then spent on purchasing Tokaj wine for the royal court. It was no coincidence that I. M. Vasilevsky called Peter I's widow
a wonderful housekeeper, a very good maid of those who have been considered devotees for all ages and only in old age manage to steal a tidy sum from the benefactor who trusts her.
Ekaterina Alekseevna, engraving, 1724
The state of the fleet can be judged by the account of General Admiral F. Apraksin, who testifies that soon after the death of the first emperor, in 1725:
Not only did not all ships sail in an orderly manner and did not follow their commander (flagship)... some captains did not sail as prescribed by maritime art.
And also that many of the sailors did not have "They were naked and barefoot, some of them even had shirts, and some of them were wearing no uniforms.".
The funds allocated were so small that in May 1726 Apraksin was forced to lend the naval treasury two thousand rubles from his own funds.
F. Apraksin in a portrait by an unknown artist of the 18th century.
Peter II, the Emperor's grandson, who ascended the throne in May 1728, was, contrary to popular belief, a very promising teenager. Vice-Chancellor A. Osterman, appointed as Peter Alexeevich's tutor and mentor, discovered that at the time of their meeting, the 11-year-old boy knew four arithmetic operations, Latin, and spoke French and German fluently, as well as being an excellent marksman with real rifles and cannons. He was tall, strong beyond his years, and even "angelically beautiful".
A.P. Antropov. Portrait of Emperor Peter II in a wig
But the young emperor fell in with the "bad company" of the Dolgorukys, who took him hunting, taught him how to play cards, and "how to treat women." However, he was only 14 years old at the time of his death, and the example of Charles XII proves that even frivolous and flighty scoundrels can sometimes grow into excellent warriors. Even the French king Louis XIV, if he attracted attention in his early years, was only for his misbehavior.
Under the second emperor, five ships of the line and one frigate, construction of which had begun under Peter the Great, were commissioned. Of the new vessels, only galleys were built. One of his decrees, Peter II ordered that existing sailing warships be "preserved," but not deployed to sea. "to avoid losses"Conclusions can be drawn about the condition of these vessels. In his November 1728 report to Stockholm, the Swedish envoy praised the Russian ground forces, but wrote of the navy that the number of galleys, despite the construction of new ones, had greatly diminished, and the naval fleet "in utter ruin" — the ships of the line are almost rotten and only four or five of them can go to sea.
Peter II himself once said:
When necessity requires the use of ships, I will go to sea; but I do not intend to stroll along it like my grandfather.
The young emperor died unexpectedly of smallpox at the age of only 14, and the following inscription was carved on his tombstone:
Having briefly given hope to his subjects for great blessings, by God's will he passed away in the year 1730, January 18. The joy of our hearts was scattered, our face turned to weeping, the crown fell from our heads, woe to us, for we have sinned.
The Russian imperial throne now passed to the daughter of the "senior" tsar, Ivan V. Anna Ioannovna became the last pure-blooded Russian representative of the Romanov dynasty on the Russian throne.
We will discuss naval affairs during the reign of the "female reign" of three Russian empresses in the next article.
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