(^302) The Military Settlements
'we need no tsar' .27 There was also a tale that the authorities had been bribed
by the Poles with five million roubles-a curious echo of Nicholas I's initial
belief that Polish revolutionaries were rcsponsible.^2 ~
Few of the north-western settied districts escaped ihe rn11iagion. The aciivc
battalions were away fighting in Poland, and few reliable troops were available.
Some officers, including Lieutenant-General A. A. Eyler (Euler), who was in
charge of the Novgorod colonies, seem 10 have lost their heads. But it was only
a question of time before order was re-established. The tsar's adjutant-general,
A. F. Orlov, master-minded the repressive measures, and Nicholas arrived in
person to hear the settlers' pleas for forgiveness. After appropriate religious
services had been held the men were marched off, 'chained to an iron bar in
groups of ten';^29 some of them had been duped into believing that they could
expect a pardon. The military-labour battalion in which the trouble had
started was confined in the fortress of Kronstadt and every man court-
martialled. In all over 3,600 individuals of both sexes were tried and punished,
of whom I I 9 died from the effects. The rebels had taken nearly two hundred
lives. It was the gravest outbreak of popular violence in the empire since
Pugachev's uprising half a century earlier.
The nature of the reprisals will come as no surprise. The only novelty was
the scrupulous care taken by the tsar in prescribing personally the exact number
of blows that were to be administered to each culprit-with whip, knout, or
the thongs used in the gauntlet ritual. A soldier in the Astrakhan; Grenadier
regiment, a loyal unit selected for the grim task, records that loaded cannon
were placed at each corner of the square lest the men disobey their orders, and
that the general in charge, P. F. Danilov, urged them to show no mercy. 'The
groans and weeping of the victims, the thunder of horses' hooves, the clank of
chains and the heart-rending beat of the drums-all these sounds intermingled
and hung in the air ... ' Of the men from the King of Prussia regiment one lost
an eye and two or three victims' entrails spilled to the ground. 'I saw enough
horror in two hours to last me a lifetime'.^30 The liberal emigre N. I. Turgenev
compared the massacre with Peter l's execution of the stre(tsy in 1698.^31 The
parallel was not inapt-yet these rebels, unlike their forerunners, could claim
to have won a victory of a kind.
It was clear to Nicholas I that the settlement system would have to be reformed,
if only to improve the regime's security. To a group of Novgorod landowners
he said: 'I know, gentlemen, that you were bothered during this affair, but
21 Panayev, 'Rasskaz·, p. 78.
2x For 1he supcrstirions: Panaycv, 'Rasskat", p. 79; Kamov, 'O voycnnykh poseleniyakh', 4,
p. 97.
2~ Panayev, 'Ra<.skaz', p. 127.
JO Yevstaf"yev, Vosstuniye, pp. 224-34; in English, l'crguson, 'Se11lements, 1825-66',
pp. 114-15. RBS vi. 81 reprc,cnls Danilov as humane and mild. On rhe repression generally, cf.
Schiemann, Nikoluus I, iii. 150-J; Curtiss, Rimiun Army, pp. 282-5.
JI Turgenev, Lu Russie, i. 319.
wang
(Wang)
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