Peter was the policy-maker. In the early years of the reign, Gordon and Lefort seem to have exerted their influence to encourage Peter to return to war with the Ottomans, and aftertheir death the rise of Golovin and Menshikov similarly reflected the new foreign policy. Golovin died in 1706, and by the time of Poltava Peter seems to have made his foreign policy with much consultation with his favourites, but less with the aristocracy. Menshikov certainly had opinions, and as Peter's commander in Germany in 1713 made decisions on his own that Peter did not like, but they were not major changes of direction, and Peter reversed them. Later on there is no information to suggest that Prince V. V. Dolgorukii in his time of favour (1709-18) or Iaguzhinskii, a favourite from about 1710 onwards had any consistent vision of foreign policy or influence over it. The basic factional breakdown at court after 1709 was about the position of the aristocracy, pitting the Dolgorukiis and their allies against Menshikov and his. Legends aside, Peter was not a monarch who refused to consult his ministers and generals, like Charles XII. On campaign he regularly held councils of war and seems to have generally gone with the majority, even when he had doubts, as in the decision not to invade Sweden from Denmark in 1716. Yet his foreign policy was his own, made with the technical assistance of Golovkin, Shafirov, the diplomats and the generals, but not with the great men of the court.
Russian foreign policy, 1725-1815
HUGH RAGSDALE
In Russian foreign policy in the era, certain basic generalisations apply: Peter I had dealt remarkably successfully with the Swedish challenge; he had devised a novel and rather satisfactory solution for the Polish problem; but he had failed to resolve satisfactorily the issue of the Ottoman Empire, a challenge for the future. Moreover, these three sensitive areas were so inextricably interdependent in Russian foreign policy that St Petersburg could not isolate them from each other and deal with them separately. A crisis in any one of the three states almost invariably involved complications with the others. The coming of the French Revolution magnified these problems, and the coming of Napoleon Bonaparte to some extent supplanted them by grander geostrategic challenges.
Era of palace revolutions
The first period following Peter's reign was most conspicuous for the instability of the throne and the resultant inconsequence that it inflicted on Russian foreign policy. The diplomatic chancery of the time was not by any means in incompetent hands; it simply lacked the constancy of government support to give it proper effect.
The early post-Petrine era exhibited clear elements of the continuity of Peter's policy in foreign affairs.1 The most significant such element was the continuation of Russian policy in the experienced hands of Vice-Chancellor
For critical readings and comments I am grateful to Paul Bushkovitch, Claudine Cowen, Anatoly Venediktovich Ignat'ev, Dominic Lieven, Roderick McGrew, Valery Nikolaevich Ponomarev, David Schimmelpenninck and Vladlen Nikolaevich Vinogradov.
1 Considerations of space prohibit entering into all of the issues of the period, in particular the complex marriage alliances that Peter I made in northern Germany For a clear and authoritative account, see Hans Bagger, 'The Role of the Baltic in Russian Foreign Policy 1721-1773', in Hugh Ragsdale and Valery N. Ponomarev (eds.), Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (Washington and New York: Wilson Center and Cambridge Univerity Presses,
1993), pp. 36-72.
Andrei Ostermann. From the days of the Habsburg-Valois - subsequently Habsburg-Bourbon (1589) - rivalry, France had cultivated the favour of the East European border states hostile to Habsburg Austria, and the rise of Russia naturally threatened these border states and therefore French interests in Eastern Europe. In the circumstances, Ostermann defined Russian policy naturally by forming an Austrian alliance hostile to France.
It was thus natural enough upon the death of King Augustus II of Poland in 1733 that the Russians and the French fielded different candidates for the Polish throne. St Petersburg and Vienna supported the son of Augustus II (Saxon dynasty), while Paris supported former King Stanislaus Leszczynski (1704-9). In the War of Polish Succession (1733-6), Russia and Austria prevailed, and Augustus III became King of Poland (1734-63).
It was equally natural that the Turks perceived in this development a shift of the balance of power against their interests in south-eastern Europe. Border clashes and raiding parties aggravated tension, but the decisive precipitant of conflict was undoubtedly Russian success in the disputed Polish succession. In the Russo-Turkish War (1735-9), Russia and Austria fought a lacklustre campaign, and while Russia re-annexed (Treaty of Belgrade) the territories of Azov and Taganrog (previously annexed in 1700, relinquished in 1711), it surrendered the right to fortify these areas and accepted the humiliating principle of trading on the Black Sea exclusively in Turkish ships.
As the name of the period suggests, discontinuity and volatility were as conspicuous features of the time as was continuity. Ostermann, having served as foreign minister during four transient reigns since 1725, was unseated by a web of intrigues culminating in the palace coup of Elizabeth Petrovna in November 1741. Elizabeth brought a semblance of stability to the throne (1741-62), and she appointed Alexis P. Bestuzhev-Riumin to the office of vice-chancellor and the duties of foreign minister. Bestuzhev was to guide Russian foreign policy during the turbulent and fateful period of the two great European wars of mid-century.
The first challenge to the European order of the time came from the youthful new king of Prussia, Frederick II, who seized the opportunity of the death of Emperor Charles VI in May 1740 to invade and conquer the rich Habsburg province of Silesia, thus precipitating the War of Austrian Succession (17408). Europe at once divided into its two traditional warring camps, Prussia and France against Austria and Britain, and Bestuzhev continued the spirit of Ostermann's policy in the form of the Austrian alliance. Thus he naturally listed Prussia among Russia's enemies and Austrian ally Britain among Russia's friends. The bulk of Bestuzhev's activity during this war consisted not of genuine foreign policy, however, but rather of combating the plethora of intrigues mounted by the foreign powers in St Petersburg for the favours of Russian diplomatic and military assistance. Inparticular, a strong and well-financed French party appealed with some success to the sentiments of Empress Elizabeth, who had as a child entertained romantic illusions, fostered by Peter I, of marrying Louis XV of France. Bestuzhev succeeded in maintaining an independent Russian policy, but the intrigue and counter-intrigue confined that policy largely to an awkward neutrality such that Russia took little part in the war and none in the peace settlement. The only power to profit by the war was Prussia, which maintained its conquest of Silesia (Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle).