Thanks for the encouragement. I need it.
Chapter I, "The Title of This Book and Its Scope"
Some general stuff about history, subjectivity vs. objectivity, how hard it is to find reliable data, especially about Eastern European countries, etc etc. Nothing that would blow your socks off, trust me. And then...
(..) "In truth, a history of the Romanian-speaking peoples is beyond the reach of today's historians. Our inquiry shall focus on the fate of Wallachia and Moldavia, the two Romanian-speaking countries in the East of Europe, and on their quest to reunite fellow Romanian speakers into a modern European nation.
The Romanian language - 19th century Wallachians and Moldavians felt - was a mission in itself. Let us perceive what they felt and thought, or else their political and military endeavors will seem meaningless to us.
Romanian is a awkward language as far as historians are concerned. And that is because it shouldn't exist, or at least it shouldn't exist in its current form. After the retreat of the Romans in the 3rd century AD, and after the waves of Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs and Bulgars (to quote only the more important barbarian tribes), Latin should have disappeared as a language north of the Danube.
Aaaaaaaaaalright, look north of Macedonia. You see an horizontal blue line? That's the Danube. North of it, you can barely make out the letters W (Wallachia), M (Moldavia) and T (Transylvania - Marsh's book will refer to it in a second). Those are the geographical locations of the states in Vicky. What the map doesn't show is that Transylvania is separated from the other two by the Carpathian mountains. And, boy, did that turn out to be important later
And yet Latin didn't disappear. All through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to the north of Danube one could encounter two Christian kingdoms whose population spoke a Latin-heavy language called Romanian.
'Encounter', did I say?
OMG he'll try to be funny. 'Encounter', yes, if the Turkish infantrymen would step out of the way and ceremoniously point north.
OMG he tried to be funny. :wacko: Endless wars with the Turks could lead only to one ending - the sourest kind: in the 18th century Wallachia and Moldavia became vassals of the Sultan. They were spared forced conversion to Christianity unlike their southern neighbors, the Bulgarians. But the suffering, the cultural isolation and the gigantic tributes ravaged their heritage. The land-owners (boyars) cooperated; the peasants attempted to survive.
Oh, and I liked this one: In Wallachia and Moldova, the peasants had will but didn't have the power, and the boyars had mediocre amounts of both, enough to complain but never to take dramatic action.
A third group of Romanian-speakers, located west of the Carpathians - which is to say north-west of Wallachia and west of Moldavia - fell early in the Middle Ages under the rule of the kingdom of Hungary, and their province was named Transylvania. Hungarians, and then Austrians and Germans developed urban life, established a strong religious and soldierly tradition, controled and improved trade. Transylvania became a jewel in Hungary's crown and then among the domains of the Habsburgs.
Most Romanians, however, lacked the possibility or the will to become city dwellers and worked the land. Some converted to Catholicism, hoping thus they would gain political leverage. Others clung to the religion of Wallachians and Moldavians and remained Orthodox Christians, the faith started by Byzantium a thousand years before. Political representation was denied to them.
He goes on to say how depending on whether you read Hungarian or Romanian modern historians you get the feeling that Romanians were the minority or the majority in Transylvania. I'm sparing you the tables and the statistics :wacko:
Through internal dissention and external pressure, all hopes of independence or re-unification remained dormant until 1821.
Chapter II: "The Stage is set"
And then this man came along:
The best account concerning the 1821 rebellion is that of an observer, namely Count of Durtzenberg, Austrian Embassador to the Domn of Wallachia, in a letter dated December 9th, 1821 and adressed to Ferdinand I, the heir to the Austrian crown :
" (...) After the revelations which have smothered the ears and minds of all men of honor in the last few weeks, it is beyond doubt that the fate of our strategic interests south of the Karpathians has been spared a true catastrophe. Tudor Vladimirescu, a Wallachian, had been a captain in the Russian army during the Napoleonic wars, where he gained many medals and trinkets such as the Czar sees fit to give to men of valour. Tudor's mercifully brief rebellion had thousands of peasants follow him to the capital, where the boyars welcomed him. Could it be that it had all been planned beforehand, peasants, Tudor and boyars aiming together to disturb Turkish rule in their lands? My eyes and ears within the Wallachian kingdom gave me no warning, but the proof is there for the discerning eye.
Firstly, there was almost no burning of cottage manors from what me and other loyal servants of the Crown could gather. Even more distressing was the almost perfect timing of the rebellion with a similar attempt in Greece, led by that odious group, the Philikí Etaireía, of which Your Highness has been already made aware of. The desire of this southern people to remove the yoke of their Turkish masters should be noted by Your Highness, and perhaps utilized to their full measure later. In the matter of Wallachians in particular, one should take particular care that they are cut off from all said attempts, since despicable verbiage
(! Try saying that outloud! Isn't it true that you get a British accent while doing it? Darn Austrians! ) about union of some kind with Romanians in Transylvania has been circulating for some time and is known to all as a danger to the stability of our interests in the East. The wickedness of their planning, as obvious by the facts I have laid before Your Highness, makes all future union of purpose between them and the Crown even less desirable.
The end to this dreary tale of confusion and malice came none to soon, as I am happy to transmit to Your Highness. God, with his ever watchful eye, punished this insolence towards the status quo crafted with infinite wisdom by kings and sultans only a few decades ago. The situation in which Tudor found himself was desperate, and the daring Wallachian realized it soon: the Turks, or us, or the Russians would step in and crush his pathetic endeavor into the oblivion of history
(Wow! How true this will be throughout the whole 19th century!) Upon trying to negotiate an agreement with the Turks he was assassinated by Wallachian boyars and Greek allies, who felt he was about to betray them."
What the Count's letter fails to point out was how rapidly the Turks intervened with armed forces from across the Danube, trying not as much to stamp the rebellion (which had de facto already ended) but to show that they were and had been in control of the region all along...
but the die had been cast.
" We, Alexander I, by the grace of God Czar of Russia, Ruler of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland
and
We, Francis the First, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria,King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Würzburg, Franconia, Styria,
(tired yet?) Carinthia and Carniola, Grand Duke of Cracow, Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia, Duke of Sandomir,
(I bet I saw a llama somewhere among this titles) Masovia, Lublin, Upper and Lower Silesia, Auschwitz and Zator,
(llamas are absolutely wonderful to have around the house! Really! They are nice and obedient, just the perfect kind of pet for anybody with a short temper, which is most of us. Don't trust all you read about llamas. There are many evil people out there who want to spread bad rumors about them beca...) Teschen and Friule, Prince of Berchtesgaden and Mergentheim, Princely Count of Habsburg, Gorizia and Gradisca and of the Tyrol, and Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria
and
Frederik William III, Duke of Prussia, Grand Duke of the Lower Rhine, Ruler of Swedish Pomerania, Saxony, Posen, and Westphalia
in the name of the glorious Holy Alliance which has brought together our wills and hearts under the watchful eye of our Lord
rule
that Alexander I, by the grace of God Czar of Russia, Ruler of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, shall be the protector of Holy Alliance interests in Wallachia and Moldavia;
that he shall act as he sees fit to bring order to these lands and to maintain the integrity of our fellow friendly power, the Ottoman Empire;
that support from the other members of the Holy Alliance towards that goal will be undending,
that all who interfere with his duties shall be harmed by the will of the Holy Alliance and by that of God.
All provisions will be brought to the attention of Mahmud II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
Agreed today, October 3rd, 1825 since the birth of Christ, Our Lord,
In plain English, people: it's RUSSIA time! And this is the Czar you've been waiting for - can we have a biiiiiiiiiig clap of hands for Aaaaleeeexaaaaaandeeeeeeeeer the fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirst!
The Holy Alliance designated Russia as the "protector" of Wallachian and Moldavian interests. And the Russian Czar chose to adopt a radically new strategy concerning the two countries: rather than see them as financial dependencies to be dealt with as one wants, he wished to transform them into allies.
In charge of the two countries was Pavel Dmitrievici Kiseliov, or Pavel Kiseleff as speakers of Romanian knew him. A forward-thinking man,
(forward-thinking? what has Marsh been smoking? This Russian dude doesn't look forward-thinking in the least. His face says '17th century' to me. Seriously!) Kiseleff introduced the Organic Regulations, constitution-like laws which set the political and legal environment upon a clear footing. The Russian officers brought French culture among the ruling class; this caused a snowball effect for several generations, as many young boyars or old boyars' sons would get their education abroad and thus modernize society even further.
Yet Moldavians couldn't trust the Czar's intentions. Half of Moldavia had been remitted to the Czarist Empire some twenty years before, as the map below shows:
The river running north-to-south through Moldavia became the new border of the Russian empire. All land east of it became a direct possession of the Czar.
I take back what I said about Kiseleff. He must've been an awesome guy, because I can't imagine him going around Moldavia twenty years after this happened and not getting killed or something. He must've been very very very charismatic.
Wheeew, long post. Hope you're not asleep yet. We'll get to the Vicky part in a second, don't worry . It's just that the campaign has a deep historical background, which is very very relevant to what will actually happen. So, don't worry: reading this post was *not* a waste of time, but rather an integral part of the AAR experience. Trust me