WORLD HISTORY TIMELINE

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Timeline: 1711 to 1720

1711  In Britain, the joint-stock South Sea Company is founded for the purpose of trading in the South Seas and parts of America.

1711  In Britain's Carolina Province in America, tensions have existed between Quakers and those associated with the Church of England. Thomas Cary leads a rebellion against the governorship of Edward Hyde, a member of the Church of England. The rebellion fails, followed by Quakers being effectively excluded from North Carolina politics.

1711  European settlement in North Carolina has been a disaster for Tuscarora "Indians." In September they attack British, Dutch and German settlers, beginning the Tuscarora War.

1712  The English use a steam powered device to pump water out of a mine. It is the first commercially successful engine.

1712  A slave rebellion in New York results in the death of six whites and the execution of twelve slaves.

1713  Small pox brought to the Cape Town region decimates Khoikhoi people and kills many whites.

1713  The Treaties of Utrecht end the War of Spanish Succession and Queen Anne's War. France and Britain are exhausted, and Britain signs after fearing an alliance between Spain and Austria. The British receive what they rename Nova Scotia. They also receive fur trading posts in the Hudson Bay area. Philip V, grandson of France's Bourbon king, Louis XIV, is recognized as King of Spain. Spain's loses much of its empire, with Savoy getting Sicily and part of Milan, Naples, Sardinia, part of Milan and possession of what had been the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium). The latter passes to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI of Austria and becomes the "Austrian Netherlands." British acquire control of Gibraltar. The French are now to view Austria as their nation's primary rival on the European continent. And with the war's end a bigger effort can be made against piracy.

1713  Spain and Britain sign a 30-year contract in which Britain is to have a monopoly in supplying Spain with slaves for the Americas.

1714  Charles of Sweden and 1500 of his troops make it back to Sweden by way of Vienna, with help from the Habsburg monarchy in Vienna, which sees Sweden as a counter to the growing power of Prussia.

1714  Some Anglican conservatives have been trying to revive the union between the state and the Church of England, fearing that if people were left free to choose their religion there would be a dramatic spread of religious sectarianism and dissent. Conservatives also believe that religious disunity is an affront to God, that it threatens the salvation of individuals and national security. Some Anglican conservatives blame crime and vice on religious disunity.

1715  The Ottoman Turks take advantage of the weakness of Venice and reconquer Morea (the Peloponnesian Peninsula Peninsula) lost by the Turks with the Treaty of Karlowitz in the year 1699. People in Morea are glad to be rid of the Venetians, who taxed them more than the Ottomans.

1716  The Austrians are alarmed by Ottoman expansion. To defend Christians they declare war and defeat the Ottomans at the Battle of Peterwardein (Petrovaradin) 70 kilometers northwest of Belgrade.

1717  To help against the Ottomans, Pope Clement XI finances a Spanish fleet, which the Spanish use instead to regain Sardinia and Sicily.

1717  For 3,000 rupees, the Mughal emperor, Farukh-siyar, grants the British East India Company duty-free trading rights. The British are given the right to mint their own silver rupee coins for use within the Mughal empire.

1718  In North Carolina, the English pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, is hunted down and killed.

1718  Sweden's Charles XII dies fighting on Sweden's frontier with what today is Norway.

1718  The French colonist Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founds New Orleans, choosing a site seen as having strategic advantages militarily as well as having access to the gulf and trading advantages. The spot is dry, but it is the fall season.

1719  In the spring season New Orleans floods, and the building of levees begins, to continue for three centuries.

1719  The British, Dutch and Austrians have teamed up against Spain's move into Sardinia and Sicily. The British sink the Spanish navy. Austria has settled with the Ottomans, gaining northern Bosnia, Banat, Belgrade, much of Serbia and a part of Walachia. Morea is to remain under the Ottomans.

1720  In agreement with Austria, the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, trades Sicily for Sardinia. Sicily is to be ruled by Austria.

1720  Plague arrives at the port of Marseilles, France – the last of the great bubonic plagues in Western and Central Europe.

1720  Observing constitutional government by the British and Dutch, and influenced by John Locke, opposition to absolutism has been growing among the Swedes. King Fredrik I and Queen Ulrica Leonora have agreed to become constitutional monarchs.

WORLD WAR I

WORLD WAR I 
n late June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia. An escalation of threats and mobilization orders followed the incident, leading by mid-August to the outbreak of World War I, which pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (the so-called Central Powers) against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan (the Allied Powers). The Allies were joined after 1917 by the United States. The four years of the Great War–as it was then known–saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction, thanks to grueling trench warfare and the introduction of modern weaponry such as machine guns, tanks and chemical weapons. By the time World War I ended in the defeat of the Central Powers in November 1918, more than 9 million soldiers had been killed and 21 million more wounded.

WORLD WAR I BEGINS (1914)

Though tensions had been brewing in Europe–and especially in the troubled Balkan region–for years before conflict actually broke out, the spark that ignitedWorld War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was shot to death along with his wife by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie set off a rapid chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many in countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Slavic nationalism once and for all. As Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention, which would likely involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

Did You Know?

The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche or “blank check” assurance of Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept. Convinced that Vienna was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize, and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

WORLD WAR I’S WESTERN FRONT (1914-17)

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting mighty Russia in the east. On August 4, 1914, German troops under Erich Ludendorff crossed the border into Belgium, in violation of that country’s neutrality. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal–enormous siege cannons–to capture the city by August 15. Leaving death and destruction in their wake, including the shooting of civilians and the deliberate execution of Belgian priest, whom they accused of inciting civilian resistance, the Germans advanced through Belgium towards France.

In the First Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading Germany army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. Under the French commander Joseph Joffre, the Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to north of the Aisne River. The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches, and began the bloody war of attrition that would characterize the next three years on World War I’s Western Front. Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Somme (July-November 1916); German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

WORLD WAR I’S EASTERN FRONT AND REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA (1914-17)

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded East Prussia and German Poland, but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at theBattle of Tannenberg in late August 1914. Despite that victory, the Red Army assault had forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne. Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win with the Schlieffen Plan.

Over the next two years, the Russian army mounted several offensives on the Eastern Front but were unable to break through German lines. Defeat on the battlefield fed the growing discontent among the bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants, and its hostility towards the imperial regime. This discontent culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. One of Lenin’s first actions as leader was to call a halt to Russian participation in World War I. Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the other Allies on the Western Front.

GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN (1915-16) AND BATTLES OF THE ISONZO (1915-17)

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europthe Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which had entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914. After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces were forced to stage a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula, after suffering 250,000 casualties.

British-led forces also combated the Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia, while in northern Italy Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations. The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side; in the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, or the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory. After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French–and later American–troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the initiative on the Italian Front.

WORLD WAR I AT SEA (1914-17)

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, the German navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its strategy at sea on its lethal U-boat submarines. The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break the Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

It was Germany’s policy of unchecked submarine aggression against shipping interests headed to Great Britain that helped bring the United States into World War I in 1917. Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion steadfastly against Germany, and in February 1917 Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month and on April 2 President Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

OWARD AN ARMISTICE (1917-18)

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive. On July 15, 1918, German troops under Erich von Ludendorff launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne. Thanks in part to the strategic leadership of the French commander-in-chief, Philippe Petain, the Allies put back the German offensive, and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later. After suffering massive casualties, Ludendorff was forced to call off a planned German offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which he had envisioned as Germany’s best hope of victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed. By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts. Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt had combined to destroy the Ottoman economy and devastate its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918. Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the home front and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

WORLD WAR I’S LEGACY

World War I took the life of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties caused indirectly by the war numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle. The war also marked the fall of four imperial dynasties–Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such devastating scale. The Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve this objective. Saddled with war guilt and heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations, Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a “peace without victory” as put forward by Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918. As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II.

The Great Depression of the 1930s and Its Origins

The Great Depression of the 1930s and Its Origins 

The terrible, terrible conditions which occurred in the United States and the rest of the world in the 1930's are known as the Great Depression. This depression was not only an economic catastrophe, it was social and political catastrophes as well. Its origins then were a mystery and even now among the general public are not clear. This document is an attempt to tell the story of the Depression and its origins in terms of statistics in the form of graphs and tables.

In identifying the cause of almost any event one finds not just one cause but a chain of causes, working backwards from the immediate cause and terminating with an ultimate cause. There may also be multiple causes for events in this chain.

The first statistic for demonstrating the decline of the economy into depression is the unemployment rate.

As the above graph indicates the economy descended from essentially full employment in 1929 when the unemployment rate was 3.2 percent into massive unemployment in 1933 when the unemployment rate reached 25 percent. The first question is why was there such high unemployment in 1933. The answer is that the economy was not producing as much output as it was capable of producing with full employment of the labor force. It was not producing as much as it could because it could not sell that amount.

The output of an economy is measured by its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the graph below shows the decline in production from its high point in 1929 to its low point in 1933.

The decline in GDP, while dramatic, is not so spectacular as the explosion in the unemployment rate. This is because the umemployment rate represents what was not produced that could have been produced. A graph showing the percentage of the labor force employed would look much the same as the GDP graph. While the Depression was a catastrophe it is well to keep in mind that at worst there was still 75 percent of the labor force who were employed. But, the important question is why production had fallen off so much in 1933 compared with 1929. Here it is instructive to look at the components of the demand for the nation's output. The output of any nation is purchased by four categories of buyers; consumers, business investors, governments and foreign buyers as exports. The purchases of U.S. output by foreign buyers is offset by American purchases of foreign production as imports. A glance at the table below tells what was happening to the components of demand.

EAR	GDP	CON SUMP TION	INVEST MENT	GOVERN MENT PUR CHASES	EXPORTS	IMPORTS	NET EXPORTS
1929	790.9	593.9	92.4	105.4	35.6	46.3	-10.7
1930	719.7	562.1	59.8	116.2	29.4	40.3	-10.9
1931	674.0	544.9	37.6	121.2	24.4	35.2	-10.8
1932	584.3	496.1	9.9	117.1	19.1	29.2	-10.1
1933	577.3	484.8	16.4	112.8	19.2	30.4	-11.

The above table indicates that consumer purchases fell somewhat, governments' purchases did not fall at all compared with 1929 but there was a catastrophic collapse of investment purchases. Exports fell but imports fell as well so that there was not much of a change in net exports. It is investment purchases, the purchases of new equipment and buildings and inventory, which is the dramatic case, as shown below.

Consumer purchases fell also but this may well have been an effect of the Depression rather than a cause of it. People's incomes fell and quite naturally they reduced their purchases. It is therefore reasonable to look into the collapse of investment purchases for an explanation of the Depression. The collapse of investment purchases can be considered the immediate cause of the Depression. The next question is why did investment purchases collapse so dramatically.

Interest rates affect investment. They are not the only thing that determines the amount of investment and are not necessarily even the most important determinant of investment but they do affect investment and so interest rates need to be considered. The important thing concerning the effect of interest rates on investment is that it is not the nominal interest rate, the rate the lenders charge, that is important but instead it is this interest rate relative to the rate of inflation, the so-called real interest rate. The real interest rate is roughly the difference between the nominal rate and the rate of inflation. For the precise definiton of the real interest rate see Real Interest.

The problem in the early 1930's was that the rate of inflation was negative; i.e., there was deflation instead of inflation. This meant that borrowers would have to pay back more valuable dollars than the ones they borrowed.

EAR	PRICE INDEX	RATE OF INFLATION %	NOMINAL INTEREST RATE %	REAL INTEREST RATE %
1929	13.12		5.85
1930	12.60	-3.96	3.59	7.87
1931	11.34	-10.00	2.64	14.04
1932	10.05	-11.38	2.73	15.92
1933	9.78	-2.96	1.73	4.54

As the above table shows the nominal interest rate was declining over the course of the economic decline from 1929 to 1933 but because the rate of inflation was negative the real interest rate was much higher than the nominal interest rate. The following graph shows the trends. In 1932 the real interest rate was almost 16 percent per year. The long term average real interest rate for the U.S. is about 3 percent.

The high real interest rates which came as a result of deflation could have been a major factor in the collapse of investment which was the immediate cause of the Depression. Once excess capacity and expectations of decreased sales develop the level of investment drops to zero. After excess capacity develops investment purchases will not rise even if the real interest rate drops. Nonzero investment in such circumstance is maintained only from the emergence of new products, for which there is no existing capacity, and the finishing up of investment projects that are already started.

To find a cause of the deflation in the early 1930s we should look at what was happening to the money supply during those years. For a quick look at those matters here is what happened to the money supply (M1) during those years. M1 is the amount of currency in circulation plus the amount of funds held in the form of demand deposits (checking accounts).

The Federal Reserve Banking System (the Fed) was created to stabilize the financial system and control the money supply. The Fed however probably did not know the money supply was decreasing. The Fed saw only the statistics on the monetary base, the currency in circulation plus the funds held as reserves by the banks with the twelve Federal Reserve Banks. What the monetary base was showing was this.

Accepted theory held that the money supply was equal to a multiple of the monetary base. The multiple was known as the money multiplier. The money multiplier was determined by, among other things, the fraction of deposits the Fed required banks to hold as reserves. Other factors that determined the money multiplier were the proportion of savings which the general public held as currency rather than as bank deposits and the amount of excess reserves held by the banks.

If the money multiplier remained constant then an increase in the monetary base would mean the money supplies would be increasing. It thus appeared to the Fed that the money supply was increasing and there was no problem concerning the money supply. However the money supply was a serious problem as shown by the statistics on the M2 money supply. The M2 money supply is the currency in circulation plus the funds held in checking and savings accounts in the banks.

The problem was what was happening to the money multiplier. The Fed in the late 1920's was trying to end the speculative bubble in the stock market. The Fed managers applied more restrictive monetary policy than they realized. The U.S. is unique in the number of its independent banks. The U.S. had about twenty five thousand banks in the 1920's. In contrast Japan in the 1980's had less than one hundred independent banks. The large number of independent banks was an artifical condition brought about by state legislation that prohibited interstate banking. Number of banks was declining in the prosperous times of the 1920's. The Fed welcomed the decline in banks. Often banks went out of business not because they went bankrupt but because the owners saw more profitable investment opportunities for their capital.

When the restrictive monetary policies of the Fed started to create bank closures due to financial conditions the Fed did not become alarmed. However, the banks and the banking public were alarmed. Some people withdrew their funds from the banks. The banks became worried about withdrawal of deposits and even runs on banks. The banks reacted by holding reserves in excess of what the Fed required. These factors decreased the money multiplier. The multiplier decreased so much that the money supply decrase in spite of the fact that the monetary base was increasing. For more details on these topics see Monetary Policy and the Money Supply and the derivation of the money multiplier.

Once the Fed's policies led to deflation and the collapse of investment purchases it was found that the Fed could not undo what it had done concerning investment purchases. For information on the recovery from the Great Depression see Depression Recovery.

The chain of causes of the Great Depression thus leads back to the restrictive monetary policies of the Federal Reserve System. Those policies led to fear of bank collapses which caused the money multiplier to decline thus leading to a decrease in the money supply. This decrease in the money supply led to deflation which raised the real interest rate to extraordinary levels. This drastically discouraged investment purchases causing the level to decline by about 90 percent. Businesses found they were not selling as much as they had been producing. This led to cutbacks in production and layoffs of the labor force. The decline in employment then resulted in reduced incomes and consequently reduced consumer purchases leading to further cutbacks in employment and reductions of income.

As is often the case the chain of causes may be extended backward indefinitely. The speculative bubble in the stock market in the late 1920's can be attributed to the easy money policy of the Fed starting in about 1927. The Fed initiated this easy money policy to accommodate Britain. Britain had decided to go back on the gold standard in 1926. This in itself would not have created a problem but Britain tried to value the pound relative to other currencies at the level that existed before world War I. This led to funds being taken out of pounds and being held in other currencies. To discourage that withdrawal Britain needed to increase the interest rates in Britain relative to the interest rates in other countries, particularly the United States. The disasterous action of trying to go back onto the gold standard at pre-World War I levels had led to a severe recession in Britain and a general strike. Britain did not want to exacerbate the economic recession by raising its interest rate so its representatives talked the Fed in the U.S. into taking actions to reduce the U.S. interest rates by pursuing easy money policies.

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american civil war

CIVIL WAR BACKGROUND

In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions. While in the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of black slaves to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco. Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in america–and thus the backbone of their economy–was in danger.

Did You Know?

Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned his famous nickname, "Stonewall," from his steadfast defensive efforts in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas). At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who mistook him for Union cavalry. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia eight days later.

In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in “Bleeding Kansas,” while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery’s extension into the western territories. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the “peculiar institution” that sustained them. Lincoln’s election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states–South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas–had seceded from the United States.

OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR (1861)

Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Sumter’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after less than two days of bombardment, leaving the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more southern states–Virginia,Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee–joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens.

Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing (including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation. They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and institutions, chief among these being slavery. In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat towards Washington, D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides’ initial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a limited or short conflict.

THE CIVIL WAR IN VIRGINIA (1862)

George B. McClellan–who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme commander of the Union Army after the first months of the war–was beloved by his troops, but his reluctance to advance frustrated Lincoln. In the spring of 1862, McClellan finally led his Army of the Potomac up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, capturing Yorktown on May 4. The combined forces of Robert E. Lee and Jackson successfully drove back McClellan’s army in the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cautious McClellan called for yet more reinforcements in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused, and instead withdrew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union general-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac.

Lee then moved his troops northwards and split his men, sending Jackson to meet Pope’s forces near Manassas, while Lee himself moved separately with the second half of the army. On August 29, Union troops led by John Pope struck Jackson’s forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). The next day, Lee hit the Federal left flank with a massive assault, driving Pope’s men back towards Washington. On the heels of his victory at Manassas, Lee began the first Confederate invasion of the North. Despite contradictory orders from Lincoln and Halleck, McClellan was able to reorganize his army and strike at Lee on September 14 in Maryland, driving the Confederates back to a defensive position along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg. On September 17, the Army of the Potomac hit Lee’s forces (reinforced by Jackson’s) in what became the war’s bloodiest single day of fighting. Total casualties at Antietam numbered 12,410 of some 69,000 troops on the Union side, and 13,724 of around 52,000 for the Confederates. The Union victory at Antietam would prove decisive, as it halted the Confederate advance in Maryland and forced Lee to retreat into Virginia. Still, McClellan’s failure to pursue his advantage earned him the scorn of Lincoln and Halleck, who removed him from command in favor of Ambrose E. Burnside. Burnside’s assault on Lee’s troops near Fredericksburg on December 13 ended in heavy Union casualties and a Confederate victory; he was promptly replaced by Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker, and both armies settled into winter quarters across the Rappahannock River from each other.

AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION (1863-4)

Lincoln had used the occasion of the Union victory at Antietam to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the rebellious states after January 1, 1863. He justified his decision as a wartime measure, and did not go so far as to free the slaves in the border states loyal to the Union. Still, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put international public opinion strongly on the Union side. Some 186,000 black soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

In the spring of 1863, Hooker’s plans for a Union offensive were thwarted by a surprise attack by the bulk of Lee’s forces on May 1, whereupon Hooker pulled his men back to Chancellorsville. The Confederates gained a costly victory in the battle that followed, suffering 13,000 casualties (around 22 percent of their troops); the Union lost 17,000 men (15 percent). Lee launched another invasion of the North in early June, attacking Union forces commanded by General George Meade on July 1 near Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania. Over three days of fierce fighting, the Confederates were unable to push through the Union center, and suffered casualties of close to 60 percent. Meade failed to counterattack, however, and Lee’s remaining forces were able to escape into Virginia, ending the last Confederate invasion of the North. Also in July 1863, Union forces underUlysses S. Grant took Vicksburg (Mississippi), a victory that would prove to be the turning point of the war in the western theater. After a Confederate victory at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in September, Lincoln expanded Grant’s command, and he led a reinforced Federal army (including two corps from the Army of the Potomac) to victory in Chattanooga in late November.

TOWARD A UNION VICTORY (1864-65)

In March 1864, Lincoln put Grant in supreme command of the Union armies, replacing Halleck. Leaving William T. Sherman in control in the West, Grant headed to Washington, where he led the Army of the Potomac towards Lee’s troops in northern Virginia. Despite heavy Union casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania (both May 1864), at Cold Harbor (early June) and the key rail center of Petersburg (June), Grant pursued a strategy of attrition, putting Petersburg under siege for the next nine months. Sherman outmaneuvered Confederate forces to take Atlanta by September, after which he and some 60,000 Union troops began the famous “March to the Sea,” devastating Georgia on the way to capturing Savannah on December 21. Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, fell to Sherman’s men by mid-February, and Jefferson Davis belatedly handed over the supreme command to Lee, with the Confederate war effort on its last legs. Sherman pressed on through North Carolina, capturing Fayetteville, Bentonville, Goldsboro and Raleigh by mid-April.

Meanwhile, exhausted by the Union siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee’s forces made a last attempt at resistance, attacking and captured the Federal-controlled Fort Stedman on March 25. An immediate counterattack reversed the victory, however, and on the night of April 2-3 Lee’s forces evacuated Richmond. For most of the next week, Grant and Meade pursued the Confederates along the Appomattox River, finally exhausting their possibilities for escape. Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. On the eve of victory, the Union lost its great leader: The actor and Confederate sympathizerJohn Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14. Sherman received Johnston’s surrender at Durham Station, North Carolina on April 26, effectively ending the Civil War.

In the spring of 1861, decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including states’ rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War (1861-65). The election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America; four more joined them after the first shots of the Civil War were fired. Four years of brutal conflict were marked by historic battles at Bull Run (Manassas), Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, among others. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, pitted neighbor against neighbor and in some cases, brother against brother. By the time it ended in Confederate surrender in 1865, the Civil War proved to be the costliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and the population and territory of the South devastated.

russia peter the great

Peter the Great (Russian: Пётр Вели́кий, tr. Pyotr Velikiy; IPA: [ˈpʲɵtr vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj]), Peter I (Russian: Пётр I, tr. Pyotr I;IPA: [ˈpʲɵtr ˈpʲɛrvɨj]) or Peter Alexeyevich (Russian: Пётр Алексе́евич; IPA: [ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ]; 9 June [O.S. 30 May] 1672 – 8 February [O.S. 28 January] 1725)^[a] ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May (O.S. 27 April) 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars he expanded the Tsardom into a much larger empire that became a major European power. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized, and based on The Enlightenment.^[1] Peter's reforms made a lasting impact on Russia and many institutions of Russian government traced their origins to his reign.

By the grace of God, the most excellent and great sovereign prince Pyotr Alekseevich the ruler all the Russias: of Moscow, of Kiev, of Vladimir, of Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan and Tsar ofSiberia, sovereign of Pskov, great prince of Smolensk, Tversk, Yugorsk, Permsky, Vyatsky, Bulgarsky and others, sovereign and great prince of Novgorod Nizovsky lands, Chernigovsky, of Ryazan, of Rostov,Yaroslavl, Belozersky, Udorsky, Kondiisky and the sovereign of all the northern lands, and the sovereign of the Iverian lands, of the Kartlian and Georgian Kings, of the Kabardin lands, of the Circassian and Mountain princes and many other states and lands western and eastern here and there and the successor and sovereign and ruler.

Early years

From an early age, Peter's education (commissioned by his father,Tsar Alexis I) was put in the hands of several tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon, and Paul Menesius. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peter's elder half-brother, the weak and sickly Feodor III. Throughout this period, the government was largely run by Artamon Matveev, an enlightened friend of Alexis, the political head of the Naryshkin family and one of Peter's greatest childhood benefactors. This position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family (Maria Miloslavskaya was the first wife of Alexis I) and Naryshkin family (Natalya Naryshkina was the second wife) over who should inherit the throne. Peter's other half-brother, Ivan V, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind. Consequently, the Boyar Duma (a council of Russian nobles) chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent. This arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, and was ratified. Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis' daughters from his first marriage, led a rebellion of the Streltsy (Russia's elite military corps) in April–May 1682. In the subsequent conflict some of Peter's relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, and Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence.

The Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys (the clan of Ivan) and their allies, to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, with Ivan being acclaimed as the senior. Sophia acted as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat. A large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Ivan and Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and problems. This throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow.

Peter was not particularly concerned that others ruled in his name. He engaged in such pastimes as shipbuilding and sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peter's mother sought to force him to adopt a more conventional approach, and arranged his marriage to Eudoxia Lopukhina in 1689.^[4] The marriage was a failure, and ten years later Peter forced his wife to become a nun and thus freed himself from the union.

By the summer of 1689, Peter planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, who continually aroused disorder and dissent. Peter, warned by the Streltsy, escaped in the middle of the night to the impenetrable monastery of Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra; there he slowly gathered adherents who perceived he would win the power struggle. She was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name and her position as a member of the royal family.

Still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother, Natalya Naryshkina. It was only when Nataliya died in 1694 that Peter became an independent sovereign.^[5] Formally, Ivan V remained a co-ruler with Peter, although he was ineffective. Peter became the sole ruler when Ivan died in 1696.

Peter grew to be extremely tall as an adult, especially for the time period. Standing at 6 ft 8 in (203 cm) in height, the Russian tsar was literally head and shoulders above his contemporaries both in Russia and throughout Europe.^[5] Peter, however, lacked the overall proportional heft and bulk generally found in a man that size. Both Peter's hands and feet were small, and his shoulders were narrow for his height; likewise, his head was small for his tall body. Added to this were Peter's noticeable facial tics, and he may have suffered from petit mal, a form of epilepsy.^[6]

Capture of Azov, 1696

Early reign

Peter implemented sweeping reforms aimed at modernizing Russia.^[7] Heavily influenced by his advisors from Western Europe, Peter reorganized the Russian army along modern lines and dreamed of making Russia a maritime power. He faced much opposition to these policies at home, but brutally suppressed any and all rebellions against his authority: Streltsy,Bashkirs, Astrakhan, and the greatest civil uprising of his reign, the Bulavin Rebellion. Peter implemented social modernization in an absolute manner by introducing French and western dress to his court and requiring courtiers, state officials, and the military to shave their beards and adopt modern clothing styles.^[8] One means of achieving this end was the introduction of taxes for long beards and robes in September 1698.^[9]

To improve his nation's position on the seas, Peter sought to gain more maritime outlets. His only outlet at the time was theWhite Sea at Arkhangelsk. The Baltic Sea was at the time controlled by Sweden in the north, while the Black Sea and theCaspian Sea were controlled by the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Empire respectively in the south. Peter attempted to acquire control of the Black Sea; to do so he would have to expel the Tatars from the surrounding areas. As part of an agreement with Poland which ceded Kiev to Russia, Peter was forced to wage war against the Crimean Khan and against the Khan's overlord, the Ottoman Sultan. Peter's primary objective became the capture of the Ottoman fortress of Azov, near theDon River. In the summer of 1695 Peter organized the Azov campaigns to take the fortress, but his attempts ended in failure. Peter returned to Moscow in November of that year and began building a large navy. He launched about thirty ships against the Ottomans in 1696, capturing Azov in July of that year. On 12 September 1698, Peter officially founded the first Russian Navy base, Taganrog.

The Peter the Great statue inTaganrog by Mark Antokolski

Peter knew that Russia could not face the Ottoman Empire alone. In 1697 he traveled incognito to Europe on an 18-month journey with a large Russian delegation–the so-called "Grand Embassy"—to seek the aid of the European monarchs.^[4]Peter's hopes were dashed; France was a traditional ally of the Ottoman Sultan, and Austria was eager to maintain peace in the east while conducting its own wars in the west. Peter, furthermore, had chosen the most inopportune moment; the Europeans at the time were more concerned about who would succeed the childless Spanish King Charles II than about fighting the Ottoman Sultan.

The "Grand Embassy", although failing to complete the mission of creating an anti-Ottoman alliance, continued. While visiting the Netherlands, Peter learned much about life in Western Europe. He studied shipbuilding in Zaandam (the house he lived in is now a museum, the Czar Peter House) and Amsterdam, where he visited, among others, the upper-class de Wilde family.Jacob de Wilde, a collector-general with the Admiralty of Amsterdam, had a well-known collection of art and coins, and de Wilde's daughter Maria de Wilde made an engraving of the meeting between Peter and her father, providing visual evidence of "the beginning of the West European classical tradition in Russia".^[10] According to Roger Tavernier, Peter the Great later acquired de Wilde's collection.^[11] Thanks to the mediation of Nicolaas Witsen, mayor of Amsterdam and expert on Russia, the Tsar was given the opportunity to gain practical experience in the largest shipyard in the world, belonging to the Dutch East India Company, for a period of four months. The Tsar helped with the construction of an East Indiaman especially laid down for him: Peter and Paul. During his stay the Tsar engaged many skilled workers such as builders of locks, fortresses, shipwrights, and seamen—including Cornelis Cruys, a vice-admiral who became, under Franz Lefort, the Tsar's advisor in maritime affairs. He later put his knowledge of shipbuilding to use in helping build Russia's navy.^[12] Peter paid a visit toFrederik Ruysch, who taught him how to draw teeth and catch butterflies. Ludolf Bakhuysen, a painter of seascapes and Jan van der Heyden the inventor of the fire hose, received Peter, who was keen to learn and pass on his knowledge to his countrymen. On 16 January 1698 Peter organized a farewell party and invited Johan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen, who had to sit between Lefort and the Tsar and drink.

Portrait of Peter I by Godfrey Kneller, 1698. This portrait was Peter's gift to the King of England.

In England Peter met with King William III, visited Greenwich and Oxford, was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and saw a Royal Navy Fleet Review at Deptford. He travelled to the city of Manchester to learn the techniques of city-building he would later use to great effect at Saint Petersburg. The Embassy next went to Leipzig, Dresden, and Vienna. He spoke with August the Strong and Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.^[13]

Peter's visit was cut short in 1698, when he was forced to rush home by a rebellion of the Streltsy. The rebellion was, however, easily crushed before Peter returned home from England; of the Tsar's troops, only one was killed. Peter nevertheless acted ruthlessly towards the mutineers. Over 1,200 of the rebels were tortured and executed, and Peter ordered that their bodies be publicly exhibited as a warning to future conspirators.^[14] The Streltsy were disbanded, and the individual they sought to put on the Throne—Peter's half-sister Sophia—was forced to become a nun.

In 1698 Peter sent a delegation to Malta under boyar Boris Sheremetev, to observe the training and abilities of the Knights of Malta and their fleet. Sheremetev investigated the possibility of future joint ventures with the Knights, including action against the Turks and the possibility of a future Russian naval base.^[15]

Peter's visits to the West impressed upon him the notion that European customs were in several respects superior to Russian traditions. He commanded all of his courtiers and officials to cut off their long beards—causing his Boyars, who were very fond of their beards, great upset^[16]—and wear European clothing. Boyars who sought to retain their beards were required to pay an annual beard tax of one hundred rubles. He also sought to end arranged marriages, which were the norm among the Russian nobility, because he thought such a practice was barbaric and led to domestic violence, since the partners usually resented each other.^[17]

In 1699 Peter changed the date of the celebration of the new year from 1 September to 1 January. Traditionally, the years were reckoned from the purported creation of the World, but after Peter's reforms, they were to be counted from the birth of Christ. Thus, in the year 7207 of the old Russian calendar, Peter proclaimed that the Julian Calendar was in effect and the year was 1700.^[18]

Great Northern War

Main article: Great Northern War

Peter made a temporary peace with the Ottoman Empire that allowed him to keep the captured fort of Azov, and turned his attention to Russian maritime supremacy. He sought to acquire control of the Baltic Sea, which had been taken by the Swedish Empire a half-century earlier. Peter declared war on Sweden, which was at the time led by King Charles XII. Sweden was also opposed by Denmark-Norway, Saxony, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Peter I of Russia pacifies his marauding troops after taking Narva in 1704 by Nikolay Sauerweid, 1859

Russia was ill-prepared to fight the Swedes, and their first attempt at seizing the Baltic coast ended in disaster at the Battle of Narva in 1700. In the conflict, the forces of Charles XII used a blinding snowstorm to their advantage. After the battle, Charles XII decided to concentrate his forces against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which gave Peter time to reorganize the Russian army.

Peter the Great Meditating the Idea of Building St Petersburg at the Shore of the Baltic Sea by Alexandre Benois, 1916

Portrait of Peter I

As the Poles and Lithuanians fought against the Swedes, Peter founded the city ofSaint Petersburg (Germanically named after Saint Peter the Apostle) in Ingermanland(province of Swedish empire, which he had captured) in 1703. He forbade the building of stone edifices outside Saint Petersburg, which he intended to become Russia's capital, so that all stonemasons could participate in the construction of the new city.

Following several defeats, the Polish King August II abdicated in 1706. Swedish king Charles XII turned his attention to Russia, invading it in 1708. After crossing into Russia, Charles defeated Peter at Golovchin in July. In the Battle of Lesnaya, Charles suffered his first loss after Peter crushed a group of Swedish reinforcements marching from Riga. Deprived of this aid, Charles was forced to abandon his proposed march on Moscow.^[19]

Peter I in the Battle of Poltava (a mosaic by Mikhail Lomonosov)

Charles XII refused to retreat to Poland or back to Sweden, instead invading Ukraine. Peter withdrew his army southward, destroying along the way any property that could assist the Swedes. Deprived of local supplies, the Swedish army was forced to halt its advance in the winter of 1708–1709. In the summer of 1709, they resumed their efforts to capture Ukraine, culminating in the Battle of Poltava on 27 June. The battle was a decisive defeat for the Swedish forces, ending Charles' campaign in Ukraine and forcing him into exile in the Ottoman Empire. In Poland, August II was restored as King.

Peter, overestimating the support he would receive from his Balkan allies, attacked the Ottoman Empire, initiating the Russo-Turkish War of 1710.^[20] Normally, the Boyar Duma would have exercised power during his absence. Peter, however, mistrusted the boyars; he instead abolished the Duma and created a Senate of ten members. Peter's campaign in the Ottoman Empire was disastrous, and in the ensuing peace treaty (Treaty of Pruth), Peter was forced to return the Black Sea ports he had seized in 1697.^[20] In return, the Sultan expelled Charles XII.

Peter's northern armies took the Swedish province of Livonia (the northern half of modern Latvia, and the southern half of modern Estonia), driving the Swedes into Finland. In 1714 the Russian fleet won the Battle of Gangut. Most of Finland was occupied by the Russians. In 1716 and 1717, the Tsar revisited the Netherlands, and went to see Herman Boerhaave. He continued his travel to the Austrian Netherlands and France. The Tsar's navy was so powerful that the Russians could penetrate Sweden. Peter also obtained the assistance of the Electorate of Hanover and the Kingdom of Prussia. Still, Charles XIIrefused to yield, and not until his death in battle in 1718 did peace become feasible. After the battle near Åland, Sweden made peace with all powers but Russia by 1720. In 1721 the Treaty of Nystad ended what became known as the Great Northern War. Russia acquired Ingria, Estonia, Livonia, and a substantial portion ofKarelia. In turn, Russia paid two million Riksdaler and surrendered most of Finland. The Tsar retained some Finnish lands close to Saint Petersburg, which he had made his capital in 1712.^[21]

Later years

Diamond order of Peter the Great

Peter's last years were marked by further reform in Russia. On 22 October 1721, soon after peace was made with Sweden, he was officially proclaimed Emperor of All Russia. Some proposed that he take the title Emperor of the East, but he refused. Gavrila Golovkin, the State Chancellor, was the first to add "the Great, Father of His Country, Emperor of All the Russias" to Peter's traditional title Tsar following a speech by the archbishop of Pskov in 1721.

Peter's imperial title was recognized by Augustus II of Poland, Frederick William I of Prussia, and Frederick I of Sweden, but not by the other European monarchs. In the minds of many, the word emperor connoted superiority or pre-eminence over kings. Several rulers feared that Peter would claim authority over them, just as the Holy Roman Emperor had claimed suzerainty over all Christian nations.

In 1718 Peter investigated why the ex Swedish province of Livonia was so orderly. He discovered that the Swedes spent as much administering Livonia (300 times smaller than his empire) as he spent on the entire Russian bureaucracy. He was forced to dismantle the province's government.^[22]

The 1782 statue of Peter I in Saint Petersburg, informally known as theBronze Horseman

In 1722 Peter created a new order of precedence known as the Table of Ranks. Formerly, precedence had been determined by birth. To deprive the Boyars of their high positions, Peter directed that precedence should be determined by merit and service to the Emperor. The Table of Ranks continued to remain in effect until the Russian monarchy was overthrown in 1917. Peter decided that all of the children of the nobility should have some early education, especially in the areas of sciences. Therefore, on 28 February 1714, he issued a decree calling for compulsory education, which dictated that all Russian 10- to 15-year-old children of the nobility, government clerks, and lesser-ranked officials, must learn basic mathematics and geometry, and should be tested on it at the end of their studies.^[23]

Peter introduced new taxes to fund improvements in Saint Petersburg. He abolished the land tax and household tax, and replaced them with a poll tax. The taxes on land and on households were payable only by individuals who owned property or maintained families; the new head taxes, however, were payable by serfs and paupers. By this same time, the once powerful Persian Safavid Empire to its neighbouring south was heavily declining. Making advantage of the profitable situation, Peter launched the Russo-Persian War of 1722-1723 otherwise known as "The Persian Expedition of Peter the Great" by the Russian histographers, in order to drastically increase Russian influence for the first genuine time in the Caucasus andCaspian Sea, as well as to prevent the Ottoman Empire from making territorial gains in the region at the expense of declining Safavid Iran. After considerable successes and the capture of many provinces and cities in the Caucasus and northern mainland Persia, the Safavids were forced to hand over their territories to Russia, comprising Derbent, Shirvan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Baku, and Astrabad. However, 9 and 12 years later all territories would be ceded back to Persia, now led by the charismatic and military genius Nader Shah, as part of the Treaties of Resht andGanja respectively, and the Russo-Persian alliance against the Ottoman Empire, which was the common enemy of both.^[24]

In 1725 the construction of Peterhof, a palace near Saint Petersburg, was completed. Peterhof (Dutch for "Peter's Court") was a grand residence, becoming known as the "Russian Versailles".