already exists in Germany – landwehr, a rural settlement in which a weapons warehouse for training is located, and the young villagers are trained by a retired officer in their spare time. At the same time, we note that there is a ban on any corporal punishment. In general, the landwehr is popular, the youth, who are exempt from conscription, consider these infrequent military exercises quite amusing. Almost half of the army in war time is made up of militiamen from the landwehr, they serve very well.
Remind military settlements and «arable soldiers», respectively, Cossack villages and Cossacks – but in the latter case, the organization and life are created by free people, at their discretion, and therefore are viable.
The emperor conveys his idea to the very executive officer, Count Arakcheev. He starts dealing with all his official zeal. To begin with, a battalion of lower ranks of the regiment settles in Novorossia, with wives and families. The servicemen who are completely weaned from agricultural work are resisting; then in the course go steeples and rods. But, these people are now not peasants in the full sense of the word – sowing, haymaking, harvesting, etc., are not performed when the time really comes, but according to the schedule approved by the higher-ups.
General Ermolov is trying his hand at the North Caucasus, in forging a peaceful life. Given the fanaticism of the mountain tribes, their hostile attitude towards the Russians, he decides that it is absolutely impossible to establish peaceful relations with them. The troops conduct a planned siege of the Caucasus – they build roads, cut through the woods clearings, and establish new fortresses. This activity is bearing fruit, but, in 1825, Nicholas I recalled Yermolov in connection with suspicion of ties with the Decembrists (they really assumed that the general would assume the post of minister of war) and would resign.
In 1818 under the patronage of Russia pass, first the Elder, then the Junior and Middle Kazakh Juzes (a kind of large clans). Since 1822, under the decree of Alexander the First, the khan’s power in zhuzes is abolished.
At the end of life, Alexander loses interest in politics, strikes mysticism, travels a lot and, on December 1, 1825, dies in Taganrog from a severe cold and «brain inflammation.» According to the legend, which can be authentic, the emperor dramatizes his death and begins a wandering life under the name of Fedor Kuzmich. The first documentary information about this person appears in the autumn of 1836; For vagrancy the 60-year-old elder receives 20 blows with a whip and is sent to Siberia. In Tomsk province, he acquires freedom of movement, teaches children to read and write, while taking only food as a payment. In 1850, the famous writer Leo Tolstoy visited the wanderer, spending the whole day in conversations with him. There is information about the correspondence of Kuzmich (initially completely illiterate) with Nikolay First and Alexander II.
Fedor Kuzmich is introduced in 1864 in Tomsk, leaving encrypted, and not read with all the authenticity of the note. In place of the crypt, a chapel is put, in 1936 it is destroyed. In place of the ruins are found relics, in 1995, they find refuge in the Kazan Church of the Tomsk Virgin Mary-Alekseevsky Monastery.
On November 27, 1825, the population of Russia, as well as the Senate and the Synod, was sworn in to the brother of Alexander the First, Constantine. But Constantine himself does not want to rule, suggesting that otherwise «… they will strangle me, as they strangled my father.» He is comfortable enough in Warsaw, the Kingdom of Poland, where the prince is in fact the governor of the Russian monarch. In addition, he does not have his legitimate children, he concluded a morganatic marriage with the Polish countess, which in the future can cause complications in the succession to the throne.
At the beginning of the reign, Nicholas the First had to give orders for the execution of five members of the uprising, the so-called Decembrists. More such orders are not required; for the lower ranks they are replaced by corporal punishment, which usually have the same sad result. That is why Nikolai Pavlovich receives from the Russian people the unofficial epithet «Palkin». If the coup succeeds, a civil war would most likely occur, but, as it seems, this blood would lead the great terror and revolution of 1917.
In 1817, Nicholas, then still not considered the main pretender to the throne, married Friederike Louise Charlotte of Prussia, the daughter of Prussian King Frederick William III. As usual, the bride takes Orthodoxy, the name of Alexander Fedorovna, teaches Russian, but this does not reach the degree of perfection of Catherine II, and, as a rule, prefers to speak German.
The Interregnum and the Decembrist uprising are seen in Persia as a convenient moment for unleashing a war against Russia, returning the lost lands. The main goal of the Iranian Shah is Tiflis (Tbilisi). The first blow, July 16, 1826 on the Russian territory is inflicted by the 16 thousandth detachment of the Erivan (part of the territory of present-day Armenia and Turkey) serdar (leader), supported by the Kurdish cavalry of 12 thousand people. Then, on July 18, the border river Araks is crossed by the 40,000-strong army of Abbas Mirza. Russian troops are few and scattered, individual posts can not contain the onslaught of the enemy. The local Muslim population joins the Iranians, Armenians find refuge in the mountainous terrain, or fortresses with strong enough garrisons. On September 15, the Russian detachment smashes the 18,000-strong avant-garde of the Iranian army on the approaches to Tiflis with a swift bayonet attack: the losses of the parties, respectively, 27 and 2,000 people. Furthermore, on October 13, a separate Caucasian corps crushes the 35,000-strong Iranian army near the city of Elisavetpol (Ganja, now Azerbaijan), losing 60 people against 2000. Erivan (Yerevan) is being liberated, the military forces of the Persians are being forced into Iranian Azerbaijan (the historical region of Iran). On February 22, 1828, the Turkmanchai Peace Treaty was signed – the possessions of Russia were confirmed, the Armenian region (including Karabagh-Karabakh) was created from the territories of the Nakhichevan and Erivan khanates, as well as the Eastern (Persian) Armenia, to which 30,000 Armenians were resettled, 20 million rubles in silver.
In 1828 another Russian-Turkish war begins. Before that, the united Russian-French-English fleet, helping the Greek national revolution, broke the Turkish-Egyptian fleet in the Navarino battle (1827). In the Ionian Sea (between Greece and Italy), after refusing to accept an ultimatum, the murders of an English parlementer, go to the bottom of 60 ships of the Turkish-Egyptian fleet, the allies do not lose a single one. Offended Turkey closes the Bosporus Strait, and this is the reason for declaring really large-scale military actions.
The Russian 100,000-strong corps, acting against the 200,000-strong army Ports on the territory of present-day Romania and Bulgaria, in a series of battles, sieges of fortresses, etc., is making significant progress. In Transcaucasia, in the east of modern Turkey, several originally Ottoman cities are captured – Kars, Poti and Bayazet. It also surrenders Adrianople, the former capital of the Ottoman Empire (west of Turkey), Russian regiments march unhindered to Constantinople. Sultan agreed to all conditions, September 14, 1829 in Adrianople (Edirne) signed the Adrianople Peace Treaty. The possessions of Russia are confirmed, for the Russian and foreign ships the Bosporus opens. Poti and Anapa become part of the Russian Empire. The Porte recognizes the autonomy of Serbia, as well as the Moldavian and Valassian principalities. The governments of these state formations are now being formed under the control of Russia.
But, between Turkey and Russia, there are moments of complete mutual understanding. In 1831, Istanbul was threatened with the seizure of troops by the former vassal of Porta, Muhammad Ali of Egypt. The Sultan requests assistance from Russia, then on the shores of the Bosporus a 10,000-strong corps of Russian troops is landed. It prevents the capture of Istanbul and the possible disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
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