Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

CAUCASUS AND THE COSSACKS

Der Kaukasus und das Land der Kosaken in den Jahren 1843 bis 1846. Von Moritz Wagner. 2 vols. Dresden und Leipzig, 1848.

A handful of men, frugal, hardy, and valiant, successfully defending their barren mountains and dearly-won independence against the reiterated assaults of a mighty neighbour, offer, apart from political considerations, a deeply interesting spectacle. When, upon a map of the world's eastern hemisphere, we behold, not far from its centre, on the confines of barbarism and civilisation, a spot, black with mountains, and marked "Circassia;" when we contrast this petty nook with the vast territory stretching from the Black Sea to the Northern Ocean, from the Baltic to Behring's Straits, we admire and wonder at the inflexible resolution and determined gallantry that have so long borne up against the aggressive ambition, iron will, and immense resources of a czar. Sixty millions against six hundred thousand – a hundred to one, a whole squadron against a single cavalier, a colossus opposed to a pigmy – these are the odds at issue. It seems impossible that such a contest can long endure. Yet it has lasted twenty years, and still the dwarf resists subjugation, and contrives, at intervals, to inflict severe punishment upon his gigantic adversary. There is something strangely exciting in the contemplation of so brave a struggle. Its interest is far superior to that of any of the "little wars" in which Europe, since 1815, has evaporated her superabundant pugnacity. African raids and Spanish skirmishes are pale affairs contrasted with the dashing onslaughts of the intrepid Circassians. And, in other respects than its heroism, this contest merits attention. As an important section of the huge mountain-dyke, opposed by nature to the south-eastern extension of the Russian empire, Circassia is not to be overlooked. On the rugged peaks and in the deep valleys of the Caucasus, her fearless warriors stand, the vedettes of southern Asia, a living barrier to the forward flight of the double eagle.

Matters of pressing interest, nearer home, have diverted public attention from the warlike Circassians, whose independent spirit and unflinching bravery deserves better than even temporary oblivion. Not in our day only have they distinguished themselves in freedom's fight. Surrounded by powerful and encroaching potentates, their history, for the last five hundred years, records constant struggles against oppression. Often conquered, they never were fully subdued. Their obscure chronicles are illumined by flashes of patriotism and heroic courage. Early in the fifteenth century, they conquered their freedom from the Georgian yoke. Then came long wars with the Tartars, who could hardly, perhaps, be considered the aggressors, the Circassians having overstepped their mountain limits, and spread over the plains adjacent to the Sea of Azov. In 1555, the Russian grand-duke, Ivan Vasilivitch, pressed forward to Tarki upon the Caspian, where he placed a garrison. A Circassian tribe submitted to him; he married the daughter of one of their princes, and assisted them against the Tartars. But after a while the Russians withdrew their succour; and the Circassians, driven back to the river Kuban, their natural boundary to the north-west, paid tribute to the Tartars, till the commencement of the eighteenth century, when a decisive victory liberated them. Meanwhile Russia strode steadily southwards, reached the Kuban in the west, whilst, in the east, Tarki and Derbent fell, in 1722, into the hands of Peter the Great. The fort of Swiatoi-Krest, built by the conqueror, was soon afterwards retaken by a swarm of fanatical mountaineers from the eastern Caucasus. It is now about seventy years since Russian and Circassian first crossed swords in serious warfare. A fanatic dervise, who called himself Sheikh Mansour, preached a religious war against the Muscovites; but, although followed with enthusiasm, his success was not great, and at last he was captured and sent prisoner into the interior of Russia. With his fall the furious zeal of the Caucasians subsided for a while. But the Turks, who viewed Circassia as their main bulwark against the rapidly increasing power of their dangerous northern neighbour, made friends of the mountaineers, and stirred them up against Russia. The fortified town of Anapa, on the north-west coast of Circassia, became the focus of the intercourse between the Porte and its new allies. The creed of Mahomet was actively propagated amongst the Circassians, whose relations with Turkey grew more and more intimate, and in the year 1824 several tribes took oath of allegiance to the sultan. In 1829, during the war between Russia and Turkey, Anapa, which had more than once changed hands in the course of previous contests, was taken by the former power, to whom, by the treaty of Adrianople, its possession, and that of the other Turkish posts on the same coast, was finally conceded. Hence the chief claim of Russia upon Circassia – although Circassia had never belonged to the Turks, nor been occupied by them; and from that period dates the war that has elicited from Russia so great a display of force against an apparently feeble, but in reality formidable antagonist – an antagonist who has hitherto baffled her best generals, and picked troops, and most skilful strategists.

The tribes of the Caucasus may be comprehended, for the sake of simplicity, under two denominations: the Tcherkesses or Circassians, in the west, and the Tshetshens in the east. In loose newspaper statements, and in the garbled reports of the war which remote position, Russian jealousy, and the peculiarly inaccessible character of the Caucasians, suffer to reach us, even this broad distinction is frequently disregarded.[A] It is nevertheless important, at least in a physiological point of view; and, even as regards the resistance offered to Russia, there are differences between the Eastern and the Western Caucasians. The military tactics of both are much alike, but the character of the war varies. On the banks of the Kuban, and on the Euxine shores, the strife has never been so desperate, and so dangerous for the Russians, as in Daghestan, Lesghistan, and the land of the Tshetshens. The Abchasians, Mingrelians, and other Circassian tribes, dwelling on the southern slopes of Caucasus, and on the margin of the Black Sea, are of more peaceable and passive character than their brethren to the North and East. The Tshetshens, by far the most warlike and enterprising of the Caucasians, have had the ablest leaders, and have at all times been stimulated by fierce religious zeal. As far back as 1745, Russian missionaries were sent to the tribe of the Osseti, who had relapsed from Christianity to the heathen creed of their forefathers. Every Osset who presented himself at the baptismal font received a silver cross and a new shirt. The bait brought thousands of the mountaineers to the Russian priests, who contented themselves with the outward and visible sign of conversion. These propagandist attempts enraged the Mahomedan tribes, and then it was that they thronged around Sheikh Mansour, as they have done in our day (in 1830) around that strange fanatic Chasi-Mollah, when in his turn he preached a holy war against the Russian. In the latter year, General Paskewitch had just been called away to Poland, and his successor, Baron Rosen, found all Daghestan in an uproar. He immediately opened the campaign, but met a strenuous resistance, and suffered heavy loss. The defence of the village of Hermentschuk, held against him, in the year 1832, by 3000 Tshetshens, was an extraordinary example of heroism. When the Russian infantry forced their way into the place with the bayonet, a portion of the garrison shut themselves up in a fortified house, and made it good against overwhelming numbers, singing passages from the Koran amidst a storm of bombs and grapeshot. At last the building took fire, and its undaunted defenders, the sacred verses still upon their lips, found death in the flames. In an equally desperate defence of the fortified village of Himri, Chasi-Mollah met his death, falling in the very breach, bleeding from many wounds. The chief who succeeded him was less venerated and less energetic, and for a few years the Tshetshens remained tolerably quiet, but without a thought of submission. Nevertheless the Russians flattered themselves that the worst was past; that the death of the mad dervish was an irreparable loss to the mountaineers. They were mistaken. Out of his most ardent adherents Chasi-Mollah had formed a sort of sacred band, whom he called Murides, gloomy fanatics, half warriors, half priests. They composed his body-guard, were unwearied in preaching up the fight for the Prophet's faith, and in battle devoted themselves to death with a heroism that has never been surpassed. From these, within a short time of their first leader's death, Chamyl, the present renowned chief of the Tshetshens, soon stood forth pre-eminent, and the Murides followed him to the field with the same enthusiasm and valour they had shown under his predecessor. He did not prove less worthy of guiding them; and the Russians were compelled to confess, that it was easier for the Tshetshens to find an able leader than for them to find a general able to beat him. And victories over the restless and enterprising Caucasians were of little profit, even when obtained. For the most part, they only served to fill the Russian hospitals, and to procure the officers those ribbons and distinctions they so greedily covet, and which, in that service, are so liberally bestowed.¹ Thus, in 1845, Count Woronzoff made a most daring expedition into the heart of Daghestan. He found the villages empty and in flames, lost three thousand men, amongst them many brave and valuable officers, and marched back again, strewing the path with wounded, for whom the means of transport (the horses of the Cossack cavalry) were quite insufficient. With great difficulty, and protected by a column that went out to meet them, the Russians regained their lines, harassed to the last by the fierce Caucasians. This affair was called a victory, and Count Woronzoff was made a prince. Two more such victories would have reduced his expeditionary column to a single battalion. Chamyl, who had cannonaded the Russians with their own artillery, captured in former actions, possibly considered himself equally entitled to triumph, as he slowly retreated, after following up the foe nearly to the gates of their fortresses, into the recesses of his native valleys. ²

The interior of Circassia is still an unknown land. The investigations of Messrs Bell, Longworth, Stewart, and others, who of late years have visited and written about the country, were confined to small districts, and cramped by the jealousy of the natives. Mr Bell, who made the longest residence, was treated more like a prisoner than a guest. Other foreigners find a worse reception still. Even the Poles, who desert from the Russian army, are made slaves of by the Circassians, and so severely treated that they are often glad to return to their colours, and endure the flogging that there awaits them. The only European who, having penetrated into the interior, has again seen his own country, is the Russian Baron Turnau, an aide-de-camp of General Gurko; but the circumstances of his abode in Circassia were too painful and peculiar to allow opportunity for observation. They are well told by Dr Wagner.

"By the Emperor's command, Russian officers acquainted with the language are sent, from time to time, as spies into Circassia,³– partly to make topographical surveys of districts previously unknown; partly to ascertain the numbers, mode of life, and disposition of those tribes with whom no intercourse is kept up. These missions are extremely dangerous, and seldom succeed. Shortly before my arrival at Terek, four Russian staff-officers were sent as spies to various parts of Lesghistan. They assumed the Caucasian garb, and were attended by natives in Russian pay. Only one of them ever returned; the three others were recognised and murdered. Baron Turnau prepared himself long beforehand for his dangerous mission. He gave his complexion a brownish tint, and to his beard the form affected by the aborigines. He also tried to learn the language of the Ubiches, but, finding the harsh pronunciation of certain words quite unattainable, he agreed with his guide to pass for deaf and dumb during his stay in the country. In this guise he set out upon his perilous journey, and for several days wandered undetected from tribe to tribe. But one of the works (nobles) under whose roof he passed a night, conceived suspicions, and threatened the guide, who betrayed his employer's secret. The baron was kept prisoner, and the Ubiches demanded a cap-full of silver for his ransom from the Russian commandant of Fort Ardler. When this officer declared himself ready to pay, they increased their demand to a bushel of silver rubles. The commandant referred the matter to Baron Rosen, then commander-in-chief of the army of the Caucasus; the baron reported it to St Petersburg, and the Emperor consented to pay the heavy ransom. But Rosen represented it to him as more for the Russian interest to leave Turnau for a while in the hands of the Ubiches; for, in the first place, the payment of so large a sum was a bad precedent, likely to encourage the mountaineers to renew the extortion, instead of contenting themselves, as they previously had done, with a few hundred rubles; and, secondly, as a prisoner, Baron Turnau would perhaps have opportunities of gathering valuable information concerning a country and people of whom little or nothing was known. The unfortunate young officer was cruelly sacrificed to these considerations, and passed a long winter in terrible captivity, tortured by frost and hunger, compelled, as a slave, to the severest labour, and often greatly ill-treated. Several attempts at flight failed; and at last the chief, in whose hands he was, confined him in a cage half-buried in the ground, and withal so narrow that its inmate could neither stand upright nor lie at length."

Thus immured, a prey to painful maladies, his clothes rotting on his emaciated limbs, the unhappy man moaned through his long and sleepless nights, and gave up hope of rescue. No tender-hearted Circassian maiden brought to him, as to the hero of Pushkin's well-known Caucasian poem, deliverance and love. Such luck had been that of more than one Russian captive; but poor Turnau, in his state of filth and squalor, was no very seductive object. He might have pined away his life in his cage, before Baron Rosen, or his paternal majesty the Czar, had recalled his fate to mind, but for an injury done by his merciless master to one of his domestics, who vowed revenge. Watching his opportunity, this servant, one day that the rest of the household were absent, murdered his lord, released the prisoner, tied him with thongs upon his saddle, upon which the baron, covered with sores and exhausted by illness, was unable to support himself, and galloped with him towards the frontier. In one day they rode eighty versts, (about fifty-four English miles,) outstripped pursuers, and reached Fort Ardler. The accounts given by Baron Turnau of the land of his captivity could be but slight: he had seen little beyond his place of confinement. What he did relate was not very encouraging to Russian invasion. He depicted the country as one mass of rock and precipice, partially clothed with vast tracts of aboriginal forest, broken by deep ravines and mountain torrents, and surmounted by the huge ice-clad pinnacles of the loftiest Caucasian ridge. The villages, some of which nestle in the deep recesses of the woods, whilst others are perched upon steep crags and on the brink of giddy precipices, are universally of most difficult access.

Dr Wagner, whose extremely amusing book forms the text of this article, has never been in Circassia, although he gives us more information about it, of the sort we want, than any traveller in that singular land whose writings have come under our notice. His wanderings were under Russian guidance and escort. During them, he skirted the hostile territory on more than one side; occasionally setting a foot across the border, to the alarm of his Cossacks, whose dread by day and dreams by night were of Circassian ambuscades; he has lingered at the base of Caucasus, and has traversed its ranges – without, however, deeming it necessary to penetrate into those remote valleys, where foreigners find dubious welcome, and whence they are not always sure of exit. He has mixed much with Circassians, if he has not actually dwelt in their villages. It were tedious and unnecessary to detail his exact itinerary. He has not printed his entire journal – according to the lazy and egotistical practice of many travellers – but has taken the trouble to condense it. The essence is full of variety, anecdote and adventure, and gives a clear insight into the nature of the war. Professedly a man of science, an antiquary and a naturalist, Dr Wagner has evidently a secret hankering after matters military. He loves the sound of the drum, and willingly directs his scientific researches to countries where he is likely to smell powder. We had heard of him in the Atlas mountains, and at the siege of Constantina, before we met him risking his neck along the banks of the Kuban, and across the wild steppes of the Caucasus. He has travelled much in the East, and prepared himself for his Caucasian trip by a long stay in Turkey and in Southern Russia. Well introduced, he derived from distinguished Russian generals, intelligent civilians, and Circassian chiefs, particulars of the war more authentic than are to be obtained either from St Petersburg bulletins, or from the ordinary trans-Caucasian correspondents of German and other newspapers, many of whom are in the pay of Russia. His African reminiscences proved of great value. The officers of the army of Caucasus take the strongest interest in the contest between French and Arabs, finding in it, doubtless, points of similitude with the war in which they themselves are engaged. Amongst these officers he met, besides Russians and Germans, several naturalised Poles and Frenchmen, Flemings and Spaniards, who gave in exchange for his tales of razzias and Bedouins, details of Circassian warfare which he highly prized, as likely to be more impartial than the accounts afforded by the native Russians. His own journey to the Caucasus took place in 1843; but a subsequent correspondence with well-informed friends, on both sides the Caucasian range, enabled him to bring down his sketch of the struggle to the year 1846.

Many English writers on Circassia have been accused of an undue preference for the mountaineers, of exaggerating their good qualities, and of elevating them by invidious contrasts with the Russians. There is no ground for suspecting a German of such partiality; and Dr Wagner, whilst lauding the heroic valour and independent spirit of the Circassians – qualities which Russian authors have themselves admitted and extolled – does not forget to do justice to his Muscovite and Cossack friends, to whom he devotes a considerable portion of his book, many of his details concerning them being extremely novel and curious. He carefully studied both Cossacks and Circassians, living amongst the former and meeting thousands of the latter, who go and come freely upon Russian territory. At Ekaterinodar, the capital of the Tchernamortsy Cossacks, the Friday's market swarmed with Circassians. In Turkey, and elsewhere, Dr Wagner had met many individuals of that nation, but this was the first time he beheld them in crowds. He describes them as very handsome men, with black beards, aquiline noses, and flashing black eyes. He was struck with their lofty mien, and attributes it to their mental energy, and to a consciousness of physical strength and beauty.

"This superiority of the pure Circassian blood does not belie itself under Russian discipline, any more than it does in Mahometan lands, where, as Mamelukes in Cairo, and as pashas in Stamboul, the sons of Caucasus have ever played a prominent and distinguished part. The Turk, who by certain imposing qualities awes all other Orientals, tacitly recognises the superiority of the Circassian ousden, or noble. The Emperor Nicholas, who preserves so rigid a discipline in the various corps of his vast army, shows himself extraordinarily considerate towards the Circassian squadrons of his guard. Persons well versed in the military chronicles of St Petersburg relate many a characteristic trait, proving the bold stubborn spirit of these Caucasian men to be still unbroken, and showing how it more than once has so imposed upon the emperor, and even upon the grand-duke Michael, reputed the strictest disciplinarian in Russia, that they have shut their eyes even to open mutiny. At a review, where the Caucasian cavalry formally refused obedience, the emperor contented himself with sending a courteous reproof by General Benkendorf. Beside the coarse common Russians, the Circassian looks like an eagle amidst a flock of bustards. Even capital crimes are not visited upon Circassians with the same severity as upon the other subjects of the emperor. A Circassian who had struck his dagger into the heart of a hackney-coachman at St Petersburg, in requital of an insolent overcharge, was merely sent back to the Caucasus. For a like offence a Russian might reckon upon the knout, and upon banishment for life to the Siberian mines.

"Amongst the Circassians at Ekaterinodar, a work, or noble, of the Shapsookian tribe, was particularly remarkable for his beauty and dignity. None of the picturesque figures of Arabs and Moors furnished me by my African recollections, could bear comparison with this Caucasian eagle. I afterwards saw, in Mingrelia, a more ideal mould of feature, resembling the antique Apollo type: but there the expression was too effeminate; the heroic head of the dweller on the Kuban pleased me better. I stood a good while before the Shapsookian, as if fettered to the ground, so extraordinary was the effect of his striking beauty. What a study, I thought, for a German painter, who would in vain seek such models in Rome; or for a Vernet, whose Arabian groups prove the great power of his pencil! The Arabs, rather priestly than knightly in their aspect, produce far less effect upon the large Algerine pictures at Versailles than the Circassian warrior would do in a battle-piece by such masters as Vernet or Peter Hess. The Shapsook chief at Ekaterinodar seemed conscious of his magnificent appearance. With proud mien, and that light half-gliding gait observable in most Caucasians, he sauntered amongst the groups of Cossacks upon the market-place, casting glances of profoundest scorn upon their clumsy sheepskin-wrapped figures. His slender form and small foot, the grace and elegance of his person and carriage, the richness of his costume and beauty of his weapons, contrasted most advantageously with the muscular but somewhat thickset figures, and with the ugly woolly winter dress of the Tchernamortsies. By help of a Cossack I made his acquaintance, and got into conversation. His name was Chora-Beg, and he dwelt at a hamlet thirty versts south of Ekaterinodar."

Chora-Beg wondered greatly that his new acquaintance was neither Russian nor English. He had heard vaguely that there was a third Christian nation, which, under Sultan Bunapart, had made war upon the Padisha of the Russians, but he had no notion of such a people as the Germans. He greatly admired Dr Wagner's rifle, but rather doubted its carrying farther than a smooth bore, and allowed free inspection of his own arms, consisting of pistols and dagger, and of the famous shaska– a long heavy cavalry sabre, slightly curved, with hilt of silver and ivory. At the doctor's request he drew this weapon from the scabbard, and cut twice or thrice at the empty air, his dark eyes flashing as he did so. "How many Russians has that sabre sent to their account?" asked the inquisitive Doctor. The Circassian's intelligent countenance assumed an expression hard to interpret, but in which his interlocutor thought he distinguished a gleam of scorn, and a shade of suspicion. "It was long," he replied, "since his tribe had taken the field against the Russians. Since the deaf general (Sass) had left the land of the Cossacks, peace had reigned between Muscovite and Shapsookian. Individuals of his tribe had certainly been known to join bands from the mountains, and to cross the Kuban with arms in hand." And as Chora-Beg spoke, the expression of his proud eye belied his pacific pretensions.

The general Sass above-named commanded for several years on the line of the Kuban, and is the only Russian general who has understood the mountain warfare, and proved himself a match for the Circassians at their own game of ambuscades and surprises. His tactics were those of the Spanish guerilla leaders. Lavish in his payment of spies, he was always accurately informed of the musters and projects of the Circassians; whilst he kept his own plans so secret, that his personal staff often knew nothing of an intended expedition until the call to "boot and saddle" sounded. His raids were accomplished, under guidance of his well-paid scouts, with such rapidity and local knowledge that the mountaineers rarely had time to assemble in force, pursue the retiring column, and revenge their burnt vilages and ravished cattle. But one day the report spread on the lines of the Kuban that the general was dangerously ill; shortly afterwards it became known that the physicians had given him up; and finally his death was announced, and bewailed by the whole army of the Caucasus. The consternation of the Cossacks, accustomed, under his command, to victory and rich booty, was as great as the exultation of the mountaineers. Hundreds of these visited the Russian territory, to witness the interment of their dreaded foe. A magnificent coffin, with the general's cocked hat and decorations laid upon it, was deposited in the earth amidst the mournful sounds of minute guns and muffled drums. With joyful hearts the Circassians returned to their mountains, to tell what they had seen, and to congratulate each other at the prospect of tranquillity for themselves, and safety to their flocks and herds. But upon the second night after Sass's funeral, a strong Russian column crossed the Kuban, and the dead general suddenly appeared at the head of his trusty lancers, who greeted with wild hurrahs their leader's resurrection. Several large auls (villages) whose inhabitants were sound asleep, unsuspicious of surprise, were destroyed, vast droves of cattle were carried off, and a host of prisoners made. This ingenious and successful stratagem is still cited with admiration on the banks of the Kuban. Notwithstanding his able generalship, Sass was removed from his command when in full career of success. All his military services could not shield him from the consequences of St Petersburg intrigues and trumped-up accusations. None of his successors have equalled him. General Willaminoff was a man of big words rather than of great deeds. In his bombastic and blasphemous proclamation of the 28th May 1837, he informed the Circassians that "If the heavens should fall, Russia could prop them with her bayonets;" following up this startling assertion with the declaration that "there are but two powers in existence – God in heaven, and the emperor upon earth!"⁴ The Circassians laughed at this rhodomontade, and returned a firm and becoming answer. There were but few of them, they said – but, with God's blessing, they would hold their own, and fight to the very last man: and to prove themselves as good as their word, they soon afterwards made fierce assaults upon the line of forts built by the Russians upon the shores of the Black Sea. In 1840 four of these were taken, but the triumph cost the victors so much blood as to disgust them for some time with attacking stone walls, behind which the Russians, perhaps the best defensive combatants in the world, fight like lions. Indeed, the Circassians would hardly have proved victorious, had not the garrisons been enfeebled by disease. During the five winter months, the rations of the troops employed upon this service are usually salt, and the consequences are scurvy and fever. Informed by Polish deserters of the bad condition of the garrisons, the Circassians held a great council in the mountains, and it was decided to take the forts with the sabre, without firing a shot. It is an old Caucasian custom, that, upon suchlike perilous undertakings, a chosen band of enthusiastic warrors devote themselves to death, binding themselves by a solemn oath not to turn their backs upon the enemy. Ever in the van, their example gives courage to the timid; and their friends are bound in honour to revenge their death. With these fanatics have the Circassian and Tshetshen chiefs achieved their greatest victories over the Russians.

When it was decided to attack the forts, several hundred Shapsookians, including gray-haired old men and youths of tender age, swore to conquer or to die. They kept their word. At the fort of Michailoff, which made the most obstinate defence, the ditch was filled with their corpses. The conduct of the garrison was truly heroic. Of five hundred men, only one third were fit for duty; the others were in hospital, or on the sick-list. But no sooner did the Circassian war-cry rend the air than the sufferers forgot their pains; the fever-stricken left their beds, and crawled to the walls. Their commandant called upon them to shed their last drop of blood for their emperor; their old papa exhorted them, as Christians, to fight to the death against the unbelieving horde. But numbers prevailed: after a valiant defence, the Russians retreated, fighting, to the innermost enclosures of the fortress. Their chief demanded a volunteer to blow up the fort when farther resistance should become impossible. A soldier stepped forward, took a lighted match, and entered the powder magazine. The last defences were stormed, the Circassians shouted victory. Then came the explosion. Most of the buildings were overthrown, and hundreds of maimed carcases scattered in all directions. Eleven Russians escaped with life, were dragged off to the mountains, and subsequently ransomed, and from them the details of this bloody fight were obtained.