The night was freezing cold, a chill April wind sweeping the mists over the heights, upon which the two hosts, exhausted and bleeding, slept upon their arms, each fearing a midnight surprise. With the earliest dawn of the next morning the battle was renewed; both armies defiantly and simultaneously moving down from the hills to meet on the plains. Mstislaf rode along the ranks of his troops, exclaiming:
"Let no man turn his head. Retreat now is destruction. Let us forget our wives and children, and fight for our lives."
His soldiers, with shouts of enthusiasm, threw aside all encumbering clothes, and uttering those loud outcries with which semi-barbarians ever rush into battle, impetuously fell upon the advancing foe. Mstislaf was a prince of herculean stature and strength. With a battle-ax in his hands, he advanced before the troops, and it is recorded that, striking on the right hand and the left, he cut a path through the ranks of the enemy as a strong man would trample down the grain. A wake of the dead marked his path. It was one of the most deplorable of Russian battles, for the dispute had arrayed the son against the father, brother against brother, friend against friend.
The victory, however, was now not for a moment doubtful. The royal forces were entirely routed, and were pursued with enormous slaughter by the victorious Mstislaf. Nearly ten thousand of the followers of Georges were slain upon the field of battle. Georges having had three horses killed beneath him, escaped, and on the fourth day reached Vladimir, where he found only old men, women, children and ecclesiastics, so entirely had he drained the country for the war. The king himself was the first to announce to the citizens of Vladimir the terrible defeat. Wan from fatigue and suffering, he rode in at the gates, his hair disheveled, and his clothing torn. As he traversed the streets, he called earnestly upon all who remained to rally upon the walls for their defense. It was late in the afternoon when the king reached the metropolis. During the night a throng of fugitives was continually entering the city, wounded and bleeding. In the early morning, the king assembled the citizens in the public square, and urged them to a desperate resistance. But they, disheartened by the awful reverse, exclaimed:
"Prince, courage can no longer save us. Our brethren have perished on the field of battle. Those who have escaped are wounded, exhausted and unarmed. We are unable to oppose the enemy."
Georges entreated them to make at least a show of resistance, that he might open negotiations with the foe. Soon Mstislaf appeared, leading his troops in solid phalanx, with waving banners and trumpet blasts, and surrounded the city. In the night, a terrible conflagration burst forth within the city, and his soldiers entreated him to take advantage of the confusion for an immediate assault. The magnanimous conqueror refused to avail himself of the calamity, and restrained the ardor of his troops. The next morning, Georges despairing of any further defense, rode from the gates into the camp of Mstislaf.
"You are victorious," said he. "Dispose of me and my fortunes as you will. My brother Constantin will be obedient to your wishes."
The unhappy prince was sent into exile. Embarking, with his wife and children, and a few faithful followers, in barges, at the head waters of the Volga, he floated down the stream towards the Caspian Sea, and disappeared for ever from the observation of history.
Constantin was now raised to the imperial throne through the energies of Mstislaf. This latter prince returned to his domains in Novgorod, and under the protection of the throne he rivaled the monarch in splendor and power. Constantin established his capital at Vladimir, about one hundred and fifty miles west of Moscow. The warlike Mstislaf, greedy of renown, with the chivalry of a knight-errant, sought to have a hand in every quarrel then raging far or near. Southern Russia continued in a state of incessant embroilments; and the princes of the provinces, but nominally in subjection to the crown, lived in a state of interminable war. Occasionally they would sheath the sword of civil strife and combine in some important expedition against the Hungarians or the Poles.
But tranquillity reigned in the principality of Vladimir; and the adjacent provinces, influenced by the pacific policy of the sovereign, or overawed by his power, cultivated the arts of peace. Constantin, however, was effeminate as well as peaceful. The tremendous energy of Mstislaf had shed some luster upon him, and thus, for a time, it was supposed that he possessed a share, no one knew how great, of that extraordinary vigor which had placed him on the throne. But now, Mstislaf was far away on bloody fields in Hungary, and the princes in the vicinity of Vladimir soon found that Constantin had no spirit to resent any of their encroachments. Enormous crimes were perpetrated with impunity. Princes were assassinated, and the murderers seized their castles and their scepters, while the imbecile Constantin, instead of avenging such outrages, contented himself with shedding tears, building churches, distributing alms, and kissing the relics of the saints, which had been sent to him from Constantinople. Thus he lived for several years, a superstitious, perhaps a pious man; but, so utterly devoid of energy, of enlightened views respecting his duty as a ruler, that the helpless were unprotected, and the wicked rioted unpunished in crime. He died in the year 1219 at the early age of thirty-three. Finding death approaching, he called his two sons to his bedside, and exhorted them to live in brotherly affection, to be the benefactors of widows and orphans, and especially to be the supporters of religion. The wife of Constantin, imbibing his spirit, immediately upon his death renounced the world, and retiring to the cloisters of a convent, immured herself in its glooms until she also rejoined her husband in the spirit land.
Georges II., son of Vsevelod, now ascended the throne. He signalized the commencement of his reign by a military excursion to oriental Bulgaria. Descending the Volga in barges to the mouth of the Kama, he invaded, with a well-disciplined army, the realm he wished to subjugate. The Russians approached the city of Ochel. It was strongly fortified with palisades and a double wall of wood. The assailants approached, led by a strong party with hatchets and torches. They were closely followed by archers and lancers to drive the defenders from the ramparts. The palisades were promptly cut down and set on fire. The flames spread to the wooden walls; and over the burning ruins the assailants rushed into the city. A high wind arose, and the whole city, whose buildings were constructed of wood only, soon blazed like a volcano. The wretched citizens had but to choose between the swords of the Russians and the fire. Many, in their despair, plunged their poignards into the bosoms of their wives and children, and then buried the dripping blade in their own hearts. Multitudes of the Russians, even, encircled by the flames in the narrow streets, miserably perished. In a few hours the city and nearly all of its male inhabitants were destroyed. Extensive regions of the country were then ravaged, and Bulgaria, as a conquered province, was considered as annexed to the Russian empire. Georges enriched with plunder and having extorted oaths of allegiance from most of the Bulgarian princes, reascended the Volga to Vladimir. As he was on his return he laid the foundations of a new city, Nijni Novgorod, at the confluence of two important streams about two hundred miles west of Moscow. The city remains to the present day.
It will be perceived through what slow and vacillating steps the Russian monarchy was established. In the earliest dawn of the kingdom, Yaroslaf divided Russia into five principalities. To his eldest son he gave the title of Grand Prince, constituting him, by his will, chief or monarch of the whole kingdom. His younger brothers were placed over the principalities, holding them as vassals of the grand prince at Kief, and transmitting the right of succession to their children. Ysiaslaf, and some of his descendants, men of great energy, succeeded in holding under more or less of restraint the turbulent princes, who were simply entitled princes, to distinguish them from the Grand Prince or monarch. These princes had under them innumerable vassal lords, who, differing in wealth and extent of dominions, governed, with despotic sway, the serfs or peasants subject to their power. No government could be more simple than this; and it was the necessary resultant of those stormy times.
But in process of time feeble grand princes reigned at Kief. The vassal princes, strengthening themselves in alliances with one another, or seeking aid from foreign semi-civilized nations, such as the Poles, the Danes, the Hungarians, often imposed laws upon their nominal sovereign, and not unfrequently drove him from the throne, and placed upon it a monarch of their own choice. Sviatopolk II. was driven to the humiliation of appearing to defend himself from accusation before the tribunal of his vassal princes. Monomaque and Mstislaf I., with imperial energy, brought all the vassal princes in subjection to their scepter, and reigned as monarchs. But their successors, not possessing like qualities, were unable to maintain the regal dignity; and gradually Kief sank into a provincial town, and the scepter was transferred to the principality of Souzdal.
André, of Souzdal, abolished the system of appanages, as it was called, in which the principalities were in entire subjection to the princes who reigned over them, these princes only rendering vassal service to the sovereign. He, in their stead, appointed governors over the distant provinces, who were his agents to execute his commands. This measure gave new energy and consolidation to the monarchy, and added incalculable strength to the regal arm. But the grand princes, who immediately succeeded André, had not efficiency to maintain this system, and the princes again regained their position of comparative independence. Indeed, they were undisputed sovereigns of their principalities, bound only to recognize the superior rank of the grand prince, and to aid him, when called upon, as allies.
In process of time the princes of the five great principalities, Pereiaslavle, Tchernigof, Kief, Novgorod and Smolensk, were subdivided, through the energies of warlike nobles, into minor appanages, or independent provinces, independent in every thing save feudal service, a service often feebly recognized and dimly defined. The sovereigns of the great provinces assumed the title of Grand Princes. The smaller sovereigns were simply called Princes. Under these princes were the petty lords or nobles. The spirit of all evil could not have devised a system better calculated to keep a nation incessantly embroiled in war. The princes of Novgorod claimed the right of choosing their grand prince. In all the other provinces the scepter was nominally hereditary. In point of fact, it was only hereditary when the one who ascended the throne had sufficient vigor of arm to beat back his assailing foes. For two hundred years, during nearly all of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it is with difficulty we can discern any traces of the monarchy. The history of Russia during this period is but a history of interminable battles between the grand princes, and petty, yet most cruel and bloody, conflicts between the minor princes.
The doctrine of the hereditary descent of the governing power was the cause of nearly all these conflicts. A semi-idiot or a brutal ruffian was thus often found the ruler of millions of energetic men. War and bloodshed were, of course, the inevitable result. This absurdity was, perhaps, a necessary consequence of the ignorance and brutality of the times. But happy is that nation which is sufficiently enlightened to choose its own magistrates and to appreciate the sanctity of the ballot-box. The history of the United States thus far, with its elective administrations, is a marvel of tranquillity, prosperity and joy, as it is recorded amidst the bloody pages of this world's annals.
According to the ancient custom of Russia, the right of succession transferred the crown, not to the oldest son, but to the brother or the most aged member belonging to the family connections of the deceased prince. The energetic Monomaque violated this law by transferring the crown to his son, when, by custom, it should have passed to the prince of Tchernigof. Hence, for ages, there was implacable hatred between these two houses, and Russia was crimsoned with the blood of a hundred battle-fields.
Nearly all the commerce of Russia, at this time, was carried on between Kief and Constantinople by barges traversing the Dnieper and the Black Sea. These barges went strongly armed as a protection against the barbarians who crowded the banks of the river. The stream, being thus the great thoroughfare of commerce, received the popular name of The Road to Greece. The Russians exported rich furs in exchange for the cloths and spices of the East. As the Russian power extended toward the rising sun, the Volga and the Caspian Sea became the highways of a prosperous, though an interrupted, commerce. It makes the soul melancholy to reflect upon these long, long ages of rapine, destruction and woe. But for this, had man been true to himself, the whole of Russia might now have been almost a garden of Eden, with every marsh drained, every stream bridged, every field waving with luxuriance, every deformity changed into an object of beauty, with roads and canals intersecting every mile of its territory, with gorgeous cities embellishing the rivers' banks and the mountain sides, and cottages smiling upon every plain. Man has no foe to his happiness so virulent and deadly as his brother man. The heaviest curse is human depravity.
We now approach, in the early part of the thirteenth century, one of the most extraordinary events which has occurred in the history of man: the sweep of Tartar hordes over all of northern Asia and Europe, under their indomitable leader, Genghis Khan.
In the extreme north of the Chinese empire, just south of Irkoutsk, in the midst of desert wilds, unknown to Greek or Roman, there were wandering tribes called Mogols. They were a savage, vagabond race, without any fixed habitations, living by the chase and by herding cattle. The chief of one of these tribes, greedy of renown and power, conquered several of the adjacent tribes, and brought them into very willing subjection to his sway. War was a pastime for their fierce spirits, and their bold chief led them to victory and abundant booty. This barbarian conqueror, Bayadour by name, died in the prime of life, surrendering his wealth and power to his son, Temoutchin, then but thirteen years of age. This boy thus found himself lord of forty thousand families. Still he was but a subordinate prince or khan, owing allegiance to the Tartar sovereign of northern China. Brought up by his mother in the savage simplicity of a wandering shepherd's hut, he developed a character which made him the scourge of the world, and one of its most appalling wonders. The most illustrious monarchies were overturned by the force of his arms, and millions of men were brought into subjection to his power.
At the death of his father, Bayadour, many of the subjugated clans endeavored to break the yoke of the boy prince. Temoutchin, with the vigor and military sagacity of a veteran warrior, assembled an army of thirty thousand men, defeated the rebels, and plunged their leaders, seventy in number, each into a caldron of boiling water. Elated by such brilliant success, the young prince renounced allegiance to the Tartar sovereign and assumed independence. Terrifying his enemies by severity, rewarding his friends with rich gifts, and overawing the populace by claims of supernatural powers, this extraordinary young man commenced a career of conquest which the world has never seen surpassed.
Assembling his ferocious hordes, now enthusiastically devoted to his service, upon the banks of a rapid river, he took a solemn oath to share with them all the bitter and the sweet which he should encounter in the course of his life. The neighboring prince of Kerait ventured to draw the sword against him. He forfeited his head for his audacity, and his skull, trimmed with silver, was converted into a drinking cup. At the close of this expedition, his vast army were disposed in nine different camps, upon the head waters of the river Amour. Each division had tents of a particular color. On a festival day, as all were gazing with admiration upon their youthful leader, a hermit, by previous secret appointment, appeared as a prophet from heaven. Approaching the prince, the pretended embassador from the celestial court, declared, in a loud voice,