The Romanov family, who ruled Russia for 300 years, may be the most tragic royal family in Europe. Many wise monarchs who worked hard to create hope and prosperity for the Russian Empire died of misfortune. For example, the Peter the Great, who brought the backward and conservative small ice and snow country into the forest of European powers, died of his second wife.

Of course, the Russian court and the official claims to the outside world were that Peter the Great unfortunately died of a stroke.

But in fact, since Peter the Great, every Russian Tsar who was overthrown or assassinated had a cause of death among the "stroke", including Paul I, who was executed in 1801 by a coup. Talleyran made a sarcastic suggestion: "The Russians should invent a new and fatal disease to explain the cause of the death of the Russian emperor."

In fact, Russia's regicide has a long history, and more than half of the tsars have been murdered. It has become common in his political life for his wife to kill her husband in order to seize power and the nobles have eliminated disobedient monarchs. The Russian public has long been accustomed to it.

Usually, the regicides would stand beside the tsar's body and shout the slogan "The king is dead, long live the king!" and assist a seemingly obedient Romanov family member to become the new tsar. For example, Alexander I, after Paul I.

Rather than saying that the Russian Empire is a typical example of monarchy-centered power-authorized system, it is better to describe it as a joint rule of the Russian aristocrat and the serf-owner. This is very similar to Poland, which is also a Slavic nation. But there are two different points: Russia is hereditary monarchy, and the Tsar is also a pope of the Orthodox Church; however, the Polish king was in trouble, and even the right to choose the title of the monarch is in the hands of the parliament.

Therefore, when an incompetent tsar ousted, the Romanov family still belonged to the Russian royal family, while Poland needed cumbersome parliamentary democratic elections, and the future monarch (crown prince) must be recognized by every noble MP - the right to veto.

Of course, the supreme rulers of Russia - the Tsar, even Peter the Great and Caterina the Great, were just tools to maintain the rule of the nobles. When the monarch is in line with his interests, the nobles will show respect and obedience; otherwise, everyone will fight and fight.

In history, the Russian aristocracy's actions were not always successful. In the era of Ekaterina, the outstanding Russian female tsar successfully calmed the "Pugachev Uprising" incited by the Moscow nobles behind the scenes.

Not long after, Emperor Catherine used his superb political skills and, with the help of many lovers, reached mutual compromise with the conservative nobles based on Moscow, ultimately avoiding the division between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Under the wise rule of Emperor Caterina, this world power with a vast territory and spanning the Eurasian states finally got rid of the embarrassing state of decline in national strength for decades after the death of Emperor Peter the Great, and returned to the European power club. Because Emperor Caterina did not spare any effort to actively interfere in the affairs of European countries, Russia was called the "European military police."

However, in the heart of this German woman who married into St. Petersburg since childhood, replaced her husband and became the Russian Tsar, she still had deep hostility towards the conservative nobles of Russia, especially those who gathered in the old capital Moscow.

However, at that time, the Great, who worked hard to govern, focused his main attention on the wars between Prussia, Poland, Turkey and Persia, and had no time to make drastic rectification of the conservative forces in the country. So the female monarch placed all her hopes on her grandson Alexander. For this reason, she carefully selected a choice to make a Swedish who supported the monarch and was deeply influenced by enlightenment ideas, and sympathized with the French Jacobins. Alarp served as Alexander's private tutor.

On weekdays, Alarp, ​​a Swiss liberal, adhered to the will of Catherine, and in addition to teaching the Russian crown prince fluent French, he also talked about philosophy, morality and politics, and instilled French revolutionary ideas into this future absolute monarch, repeatedly emphasizing that after Alexander was in power, he must respect the will of the people.

Of course, this type of people is understood by Alexander as free people and rich people who pay taxes through laws and have the right to vote.

But the good times did not last long. When the last beloved lover of Katerina, Praton Zhupov, publicly teased Alexander's newlywed wife, Elizabeth, the Russian crown prince dared to become extremely embarrassed and angry. He was angry when facing his grandmother's lover, but he threw all the bad luck on his wife Elizabeth and the teacher Alarpus hired by his grandmother.

At the same time, because Alarp was unwilling to publicly condemn the French regicide, the Jacobins, and he was unanimously opposed by the Romanov royal family and the St. Petersburg nobles, the Swiss eventually chose to leave the office and left Russia.

Since then, Alexander's education has been transferred from the Enlightenment thinker and the Jacobins to the inherent field of conservative thought in Russia, because he is surrounded by flatterers who praise and praise Russian traditions.

Although he was not very happy, Alexander still had to study as if he was serious. After the Russian teachers turned around, he would pick up the British history and Magna Carta secretly sent by a Lithuanian noble who was committed to Russia and read it tirelessly.

A year later, Caterina died of illness. Paul I, who advocated Prussian style, succeeded to the throne as the new Tsar of Russia, and Alexander also became the crown prince. Soon at the request of Paul I, the young heir to the throne announced that he had given up his damn Russian-style studies and then experienced military life in the Russian Guards with great pleasure.

At the beginning of Paul's tenure, he changed the political and diplomatic strategies of the era of Catherine Emperor.

He could not wait to join forces with Russia's military stubborn enemy and Prussia, and then he unprepared and promoted the reform of the Russian social system with great fanfare. In the end, Paul I was so excited that he shook hands with Napoleon, the common enemy of the royal family of various European countries, from Corsica.

Paul I's various "reversal" practices naturally made the Russian conservatives unable to bear it. Finally, under the instigation of the British ambassador, a court coup ruined Paul I's life and pushed Prince Alexander to the throne of the Tsar.

Although Alexander heard of his personal knowledge when the conservatives were actively planning an assassination against Paul I, he did not take the initiative to participate, and of course he did not expose the conspiracy of the coup to his father who was extremely disgusted with him.

In this way, while enjoying the fruitful results of the palace coup, Alexander I, the Tsar, who became the Russian monarch, had to bear the charge of killing the (father) monarch.

In order to get rid of the bad political image of the regicide conspirators as soon as possible in front of the monarchs of Europe, Alexander I ordered the Russian army to rejoin the anti-French alliance advocated by the British.

If you don’t believe that the Battle of Austerlitz (the famous Battle of the Three Emperors), and the subsequent Battle of Erlao Friedland, a series of military failures caused the young Russian Tsar to fall into a trough, and the domestic support rate plummeted...

The extraordinary experiences over the years have also led to Alexander I's hesitation, paranoidness, stubbornness, strong, firm and indecisiveness, advocating Western European-style liberal reforms, and not wanting to touch Russia's inherent traditional interests.

No matter where he went or what he did, Alexander I hoped to appear before the public as a savior, and hoped that Russian society would be further opened and liberalized with the most sincere wish, but it was incompatible with the reality of Russia.

It is obvious that the young Tsar received the bloody lesson of Paul I being killed by the rebels, and he was unwilling to have direct and direct conflicts with the conservative forces of society. Therefore, after every reform measure was introduced, Alexander I stopped it and retreated in a brief manner. In the end, no measure could be effectively implemented.

So in late July 1811, when the serf owners in Moscow reached a mutual compromise with the nobles of St. Petersburg, who, together with Romanov's female royal family members, demanded that the Tsar and his responsible cabinet stop the discussion on the serf issue, Alexander I continued to accept the good and decided to give up his political support for his chief secretary of the State.

However, before that, Alexander I had to solve an extremely difficult problem, that is, how to deal with some military confrontation actions caused by border conflicts between Russia and the Principality of Warsaw.

50,000 Russian regular troops plus 100,000 militias, claiming to be 300,000, it has been nearly two months since the Tsar's original idea. According to the Tsar's original idea, he simply asked brave Russian soldiers to intimidate the Duchy of Warsaw, which was determined to restore the two words "Poland" and "Poland", with the intention of making the Eastern Slavs retreat and no longer dreamed of the Polish Kingdom, which had been destroyed for more than 10 years.

However, what made Alexander I extremely angry was that the Russian general who was responsible for the border leadership exercises refused to disband the 100,000 militia and went home to rest despite repeated orders from the Tsar and the Privy Council. He also disagreed with transferring half of the 50,000 Russian recruits to the Black Sea battle front and incorporated the Moldavian Front, which was being led by Marshal Kutuzov to fight against Turkey.

According to the opinion submitted by the Russian general, he simply crossed the Neman River, completely occupied the Principality of Warsaw, and incorporated it into the Russian territory. As for whether this action, which was originally a military exercise, would trigger a full-scale war between the French allies against Russia after it turned into a large-scale military invasion, the reckless Russian commander had not considered it, or was unwilling to think too much.

But Tsar Alexander must seriously consider and measure the pros and cons. In fact, in St. Petersburg, even the most arrogant anti-French generals publicly admitted that Russia was not ready for a war against France, at least before the end of the Seventh Russian-Turkish War.

From 1806 to 1811, the Moldavian Front, which had been tortured for five years, replaced several commanders in succession but failed to achieve the final victory. Instead, it suffered continuous losses in front of the Turkish army with obvious advantages.

It was not until Marshal Kutuzov took office that the war situation in the south stabilized.

Although Kutuzov defeated the Turkish army with a disadvantage in the just-concluded Russian army, which had an advantage in military strength, the main force and morale of the Turkish army were not seriously damaged, and it was too early to finally admit that Istanbul would admit defeat. For this reason, Kutuzov strongly demanded that the Tsar and the Privy Council transfer reinforcements from near the Neman River, which originally belonged to the Moldavian Front, in order to fight to the death with the Turkish army and completely end the stalemate on the southern battlefield.

So just yesterday afternoon, Alexander I immediately ordered Balek Tory, a foreign general who was born in Britain but loyal to Russia, to serve as the commander of the Neman River Front, to instruct him to eliminate tensions on the western border, disband 100,000 militias, and to send at least 20,000 regular troops to reinforce Marshal Kutuzov's Moldavian Front.

However, this morning, another bad news came, and the border conflict between Russia and the Principal of Warsaw became uncontrollable. However, this time, it was not the Russians who took the initiative to provoke, but the Poles' Grand Duke of Warsaw and Andrew Desay.
Chapter completed!