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made lieutenant colonel at the age of twenty-seven. The war against Prussia, to which the empress Elizabeth became a party, afforded Suwarof, in 1759, the first exemplification of that art, the theory of which he had so ardently studied. It taught him the inestimable importance of celerity, by exhibiting a contrast between the enterprise and activity of Frederick, and the slowness of the Russian commanders, whose ignorance in the art of war, and particularly in the great point of provisioning their armies, rendered unavailing the superiority of their numbers in the field. Our countryman, general Lloyd, who has written an admirable history of the seven years' war, proncunces that the Russians never had a settled plan of operations; that they knew only how to ravage and retreat; and that, in his opinion, it was almost impossible to make them good soldiers. During this war, Suwarof's station was generally with the vanguard; and he already displayed that impetuous courage, that promptitude of discrimination, and that skill in leading the minds of men, for which he was afterward so eminent. He was present at the sanguinary battle of Cunersdorf in 1759, and at the capture and sack of Berlin in 1760. The war ended soon afterward; and, being made a colonel in 1762, he was stationed with his regiment at Petersburg.

The resistance of the Polish confederates, to the interference of the empress Catherine in their national affairs, gradually burst into open hostility; and in 1769 Suwarof proceeded to Poland with the rank of brigadier general. He marched with his usual rapidity, having conducted two regiments over a distance of seven hundred miles in the space of a month, during the depth of winter. In Poland, military operations must be carried on in the midst of marshes, woods, and deserts; and the Russian troops were reduced by the breaking out of a war with Turkey, to a VOL. IV. 2 H

number that was sufficient to check but not to overthrow the confedetates. Under these circumstances, that celerity which has the effect of multiplying numbers, and which overtakes an enemy unawares in his inmost recesses, was of the last importance to the Russian cause; and such was the celerity of Suwarof. His chief opponents were Dumouriez, Vioménil, and Casimir Poulauski, a young Polish nobleman of great resources and intrepidity. One of the principal actions was fought at Landskronn, a fortress in the Carpathian mountains, where Dumouriez had taken post, supporting his right by a wood and his left by the fort; a position in which he supposed himself to be invincible. Suwarof, however, attacked him without hesitation, broke his centre, and scattered his whole force. He next turned his arms against Poulauski, whom he followed so closely as to traverse three hundred miles in little more than a fortnight. Equally skilful in pacifying and in fighting, Suwarof had subjected a great part of Poland, and had nearly dissolved the confederacy, when in 1772 the struggle was entirely terminated by the treaty between Austria, Russia, and Prussia; by which these powers agreed to unite against the unfortunate republicans, and to divide a third part of the Polish territory among themselves. Suwarof received from the empress the military order of St. George, and proceeded in 1773 to serve under marshal Romanzoff against the Turks.

Though the Russians had often defeated the Turks in pitched battles, they had made little progress in extending or retaining their conquests. The martial character of the Crimean Tartars had formed a great obstacle to their success. These barbarians were Mohammedans, and were attached to the Turkish Sultan as the head of their religion. It had long been the aim of the Russians to detach them from their connexion

with the Porte, but in vain; and neither the policy of Peter the Great, nor the military talents of the cele brated Munick, in a subsequent reign, had been able to win or to subjugate them: but they retained the power of sallying from their own territory, and of laying waste the fair. est provinces of Russia. Although the conquests of the empress extended sufficiently into Turkey to separate the Tartars from that empire, she well knew the impolicy of any sudden attempt to incorporate them among her subjects; and she confi ned her first endeavours to the object of gaining their good will by acts of generosity. The peculiar mode of Turkish warfare is another reason for the conquests of the Russians not having been in proportion to the number of their victories. The Turks, when their ranks are broken, disperse and fly with great expedition, laying waste the country around, and depriving their pursu ers of the means of subsistence. The wild state of the provinces which had been the scene of war, and the unskilfulness of the Russians in provisioning their armies, had prevented them from those rapid and continued pursuits which alone could render effectual their superiority in the field; while the Turks rallied and returned in a few days to a fresh attack. The empress, wearied with this tedious warfare, and alarmed by a revolt which was excited by the Russian clergy, whose influence she had en deavoured to lessen, concluded a peace with the Turks in 1774. By this treaty she obtained for her self the territory of Azoph, with the free navigation of the Euxine, and for the Crimean Tartars an acknowledgment of their independence of the Porte; an act by which she ho ped to procure to herself the attachment of those restless neighbours.

Suwarof had been made a majorgeneral in Poland, and, before the conclusion of the Turkish war, he

had been created a lieutenant general, and had commanded a division of twelve thousand men. In 1775 he married the daughter of prince Prosorouski, an alliance which was deliberately formed, and was suita ble in rank to both parties: but Suwarof had lived too long in camps to be fitted for domestick life; and after a union of sufficient length to make him the father of a son and a daughter, an end was put to the discordant connexion by a formal separation.

The ambitious Catherine pursued her aggrandizement in peace with the same steadiness as in war, Having formed a powerful party among the Tartars of the Crimea and Cuban, and having thrown a very large body of troops into the most commanding positions, she boldly assumed the sovereignty of the country, and prevailed on its haughty chiefs to swear allegiance to her government. A dangerous revolt of the Cuban Tartars was repressed by the vigour of Suwarof; and in 1787, when tranquillity was completely reestablished, the em press and her court made a journey in state through her recently ac quired provinces, and dispensed favours among her new subjects with the magnificence and liberality of a mighty sovereign. It was in this journey that the emperour Joseph joined her, and concerted a new war against Turkey, which threatened the partition of that empire. Suwarof had devoted the interval of peace to professional studies, and received, in his fifty sixth year, the rank of general in chief. The Turks, desirous of striking the first blow, declared war in 1787, and Suwarof bore a distinguished share in the earliest encounters. Success, as usual, attended him. But he exposed himself in such perilous situations, that the wounds which he received had nearly terminated his life, and obliged him to withdraw, for a season, from the field. In 1789, the

Turks, encouraged by the success of their desultory efforts against the tardy routine of the Austrians, determined to assume the offensive, and to direct their principal exertions against that part of the hostile force. Having been apprized that prince Cobourg was encamped near Forhani with only 18,000 men, they assembled to attack him with a force of three times the number. Cobourg called on Suwarof to come speedily to his aid; and the Russian, taking with him 7,000 veterans, and a few pieces of field artillery, but no baggage, marched straight forwards across woods and hills, and, without stopping to rest by night, traversed a distance of seventy miles in thirty six hours. He arrived at the Austrian camp in the afternoon; and, after having resisted the repeated solicitations of their general to see him, he employed himself in collecting such information as enabled him to fix, decisively, the method of attacking the Turks. At the late hour of eleven at night, he transmitted to prince Cobourg the following plan of operation; which, while it bears marks of the singularity of its author, discovers his sagacity in adopting a style that was calculated to put an end to the wavering of the Austrian general:

to avoid communicating with prince Cobourg was characteristick, and deserves to be mentioned. He received three urgent invitations in the course of the evening, and contrived to evade them all. To the first message he directed his servants to answer that he was at prayers, and could not be disturbed; to the second. that he was taking refreshment; and to the third, that he was taking rest. To an ordinary observer, such conduct bore no other appearance than that of contradiction and obstinacy, but it was in reality the result of profound reflection. Prince Cobourg was his senior, and, like other Austrian generals, full of plan and system; Suwarof was aware that they should not agree in their manner of fighting the Turks; and he was unwilling to waste a precious interval in fruitless altercation. He judged it less disrespectful to evade than to refuse, and he delayed the communication of his plan of attack, till it was too late to make alterations, or to suffer any hazard of its becoming known to the enemy His wishes were fulfilled; Cobourg acquiesced in his scheme of operation; the army passed the Putra; repulsed, by their close order, the impetuous attacks of the Turkish cavalry; marched up to the enemy's cannon; and carried the intrenchments at the point of the bayonet, with a prodi gious slaughter of the Turks. Such was the battle of Forhani, which took place on the 21st July 1789. Suwarof soon afterward withdrew from Cobourg, and resumed his separate station: but the the Grand Vizir, having taken the field in person, and having assembled, by his popularity, an immense army, Suwarof received on the 16th September a pressing letter from Cobourg, requesting him to join the Austrians. His answer was given in two words, "I come." An hour afterward, his army was on the march; and in the course of two days, it was in the The method which he had taken Austrian camp. The Turks soon

"The army to be in motion at two in the morning; to march in three columns; the Austrians on the right and left, the

Russians in the centre. Let us attack the enemy's posts with our collected force, and not lose time in driving their detach ed parties from the brush-wood on our right, as our object should be to reach the river Putra by daybreak, and pass it to continue the attack. I am told that only 50,000 Turks are now here, but that 50,000 more are a few marches behind. It had been better if they had been all here together; since they would then have been beaten on the same day, and an end be put to the business at once. But, as it is otherwise, we will begin with those who are on the spot; and with the bravery of our troops and the blessings of God, we will be victorious."

came within a few leagues of the Austrians, and occupied themselves in forming an encampment on the banks of the Rymnik, as a depôt for their heavy artillery and stores previously to their intended attack on Prince Cobourg. They had in front a fortified village, and on their right an open wood. Suwarof having urged that they should be attacked without delay, the allied army set out on their march at dusk, the Russians occupying the left, and the Austrians the centre and right. They advanced in silence, and formed in square batallions, with open intervals, to allow the enemy's cavalry to pass. The Turks were ignorant of their approach till the outposts were driven in: but, perceiving by daybreak the inferiour number of their adversaries, the Vizir bore down with the mass of his army on the Austrians. An obstinate conflict ensued, during which Suwarof turned the fortified village, cut off the enemy from their artillery, and excited a panick which drove into the wood a great part of the Turkish main body, who were already yielding to the firmness of the Austrians. Here, however, the Turks resumed courage; the position was favourable; and they were still greatly superiour in numbers to the whole allied army. Suwarof urged Cobourg to wheel round to his support, formed the Russian infantry into columns, attacked the wood, and, with the aid of the Austrians, carried it in the space of an hour. The pursuit was sanguinary. The loss of the Turks in killed, wounded, and drowned, was immense; and an army of 110,000 men was extinguished, or dispersed, by a force which was not more than one third of their number. Honours were now heaped on Suwarof; the emperour Joseph created him a count of the German empire; and Catherine made him a Russian count, and conferred on him, in imitation of the Roman policy, the sur. name of Rymnikski.

In the next year, the death of Joseph took place, and the alarming insurrections in the low countries induced his successour, Leopold, to make peace with Turkey. Suwarof kept the field: but the operations lingered, the chief part of the Russian army being occupied in besieging Ismail, a name which will recall to our readers the most sanguinary of all Suwarof's conflicts. This city stands near one of the mouths of the Danube, and was defended by a garrison whose numbers were such as to render it an army. The besiegers had made little progress during the whole summer, and winter was advancing; when Potemkin, wearied with delay, sent orders to Suwarof to repair to Ismail, and, collecting under its walls the scattered forces of the Russians, to effect its reduction at any price. The manner of accomplishing it was left to Suwarof; who, having assembled a force of forty thousand men, determined to resort to the dreadful expedient of assault: but, while he was secretly preparing his fascines and scaling ladders, he assumed to the enemy the appearance of a regular siege. In an enterprise in which so much depended on the firmness of the common soldiers, he laboured to prepare them to undertake it with cheerfulness and confidence, by mixing familiarly with them, and affecting to make light of the danger. On summoning the Pacha to surrender, he received for answer, that "the Danube should stop short in its course, and the heavens sink down to the earth, before Ismail should be surrendered to the Russians.” On the 10th December, Suwarof, having called together his generals and a number of officers, declared his determination to make the assault forthwith, reminded them of the glory of their late exploits, and desired them to repeat his words to the soldiers. At three o'clock in the morning, a rocket from his tent was the signal to the army to prepare; a second rocket-at

four o'clock was the signal to form into columns; and a third, at five, was the order to advance.

The attack was made in nine columns; six on the land side, and three from the shipping in the river. The Turks allowed them to advance within a hundred yards, and then opened a tremendous fire of grape shot: but the Russians pushed on, filled the ditch with their fascines, and, applying their scaling ladders, boldly attempted to climb the walls. The regular troops succeeded; the Cossacks, unable to resist the Turkish sabre, were driven from the walls and the ladders into the ditch: but, being afterward supported by the regulars, the whole Russian army was formed on the ramparts by eight o'clock. It was then that the conflict began in the town. The Turks were equal in numbers, and disputed every inch of ground. Six hours were passed in battle and carnage, before the town was complete ly in possession of the Russians. Their cavalry then scoured the streets; and the pillage of the city having been promised to these barbarians, the unhappy inhabitants were exposed to death and outrage during three days. The mind shudders at the waste of blood in these inhuman conflicts, to which the guilty ambition of sovereigns impels their deluded subjects! The Russians lost between 4 and 5,000 men, and the Turks 33,000 killed, and 10,000 prisoners.

This capture of Ismail was the last exploit of Suwarof against the Turks. He was invited to Petersburg, and loaded with honours; and in the next year peace was concluded, the death of Potemkin having removed the principal obstacle to that event in the Russian court. The conditions were favourable to the Turks, who made no other sacrifice than the cession of Oczakow and its territory, and the acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the empress over Little Tartary. The

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An interval of peace now ensued; but it brought to Suwarof only a change in the manner of his active labours. He passed three years in new modelling, against a future struggle, the military resources of Russia on the side of Finland against Sweden, as well as on the side of Little Tartary against Turkey. However, the state of Poland soon summoned him to exertions of a different kind. Animated by the example of the French revolution, the Poles had risen on the Russian troops, and, under the direction of Kosciusko, obtained several advantages over them. The Polish regiments in the Russian service, kindled with the spirit of their countrymen, were on the point of turning their arms against the Prussians, when Suwarof, by a sudden march, and a happy mixture of temperance and energy, succeeded in disarming them, to the number of eight thousand, without shedding a drop of blood. Advancing afterward into Poland to cooperate with the Prussians, he had the mortification to learn that they had retreated from Warsaw: but, though deprived of the aid of his allies, he determined to proceed, and marched at the head of 12,000 men in quest of the Polish army under Sirakouski, which. he found intrenched behind a bog, and covered on their flanks with hills and woods. Having ascertained that the bog was passable, he attacked the Poles in front with the bayonet, and obtained a victory. The enemy, however, making good their retreat, Suwarof saw that they would be speedily reenforced, and pursued them by night marches; by means of which, after having traversed nearly fifty miles, he overtook them unawares near the Bug, where an obstinate action ensued, and the Polish army was nearly annihilated He then advanced to the Vistula,

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