Life of Schamyl Part 10

Then began the fight. The hostile tribes of all the region round were up in arms, and waiting in the depths of the woods for the enemy. As his vanguard reached the first narrow and precipitous defile they were received by a murderous fire from behind numerous trunks of trees which, felled across the way, served as breast-works for the one party and obstacles to the progress of the other. Besides these barricades, the barriers no less difficult of removal, which were woven by nature, of thousands of vines and flower-bearing creepers, the narrowness and steepness of the paths, added to the opposition of the enemy, rendered the march so difficult that on an average it did not exceed one and a half wersts the hour. Still Woronzoff fought his way through; and as the shades of night began to gather under the woods he was in sight of Dargo. But it was the aoul in flames which, joined to the reappearing stars, now lit up the way; for Schamyl, having gathered together whatever of wood, straw, and grain could not be taken away, had set it all on fire, thereby leaving to the enemy the conquest of merely the blackened stone walls of the houses. Indeed the burning ruins of his own residence supplied the bivouac fires by which the weary soldiers cooked their evening meal, and then lay down to sleep.

The next day the fight was renewed. Schamyl had retired with a force of about six thousand warriors to a height which commanded the aoul, and thence opened a fire upon the Russians with their own cannon, the trophies of former victories. The "emperor's pistols" consumed indeed too much powder to be fired with any great rapidity, nor did the mountaineers know how to take aim over a six-pounder as well as they did along the barrels of their rifles; still one ball came bounding into the very tent of the staff of officers, and it became necessary, therefore, in order to prevent accidents, to scale the height. After not a little hard fighting this was finally done at the point of the bayonet; but the Circa.s.sians retired, dividing the honors of the field with the enemy, for they carried off the guns.

Dargo was taken, but not Schamyl. What then was to be done? Woronzoff finally decided that he would send the half of his force back to Gogatel to get a supply of provisions, and on their return push through the woods and regain the Russian line by the route northward. But this movement on Gogatel gave the mountaineers another chance at their enemies. With Schamyl at their head and strengthened by reinforcements, they attacked the escort party both going and returning. The Circa.s.sians give themselves no rest until they have had blood for blood; and the two preceding days their own had flowed pretty freely. Not satisfied with the slow though certain work of the rifle they now rushed in upon the battalions, and with shaska and poniard fought hand to hand. Generals Wiktoroff and Pa.s.sek fell defending themselves with their swords. Rain and tempest made the battle still more terrific. The brave General Klucke did his best; but when he arrived at Dargo he had left thirteen hundred of his men, together with the two generals, behind in the woods.

Three hundred mules also with their packs, and a considerable number of wagons loaded with grain, besides one cannon, fell into the hands of the enemy.

But with what of the convoy was saved Count Woronzoff set out from Dargo on his return. The soldiers were put on half rations, and the horses had nothing to eat but gra.s.s. Through the valley of the Aksai, to the Russians a valley of death, inasmuch as General Grabbe had before strewn it with his slain, led the way. Nor was it now scarcely less wet with blood. For Schamyl's men fought the retiring battalions step by step.

Wherever the mountains projecting up to the very bank of the Aksai left only a narrow pa.s.sage for the troops, the way was stopped by barricades.

The Circa.s.sians taking aim from behind the rocks and the beech trees, brought down so many victims that the few horses of the Cossacks sufficed not to transport the wounded, so that whoever was disabled was necessarily abandoned to his fate.

When then the commander saw that so many of his brave soldiers were left behind to fall into the hands of a foe whose hate left no room in his breast for mercy, he resolved to make a halt, and send for reinforcements. Fortunately for him some natives who, bribed by large sums of gold, had undertaken under cover of night to carry despatches to the fortress of Girsel-aoul, succeeded in getting through, and conveying to the garrison intelligence of the hazardous situation of their countrymen. Thereupon three thousand infantry and three hundred Cossacks under General Freitag hastened to their relief. And great indeed was the joy of the famished battalions when their comrades arriving shared with them the contents of their knapsacks, took the wounded upon their horses, and helped to beat off the enemy. The march then proceeded without further difficulty, and on the first of August the conquerors of Dargo, less three thousand of their dead, arrived in safety at Girsel-aoul.

For this sad service of his master, heralded at St. Petersburg and through Europe as a great victory--and such are Russian victories in the Caucasus--Count Woronzoff was made a Prince! But when a few months afterward he met the emperor at Sebastopol for the purpose of exchanging views respecting the future conduct of the war, it is understood that the latter became at last fully convinced that the Caucasus could not be subjected by the method of direct invasion, but only by adhering to the policy of gradually drawing closer and closer around the mountains the line of the fortresses, in connection with the use of light, movable columns as a means of supporting them. Accordingly no more hostile expeditions into the interior have since been undertaken, and no more such triumphs as that at Dargo have been gazetted. Woronzoff, convinced himself that the successful termination of the war was to be hoped for only from long-continued perseverance in maintaining the armed blockade and active siege of the mountains, contented himself during the half a dozen years of his command in the Caucasus with attempting to carry these views into execution, and also in endeavoring to accomplish the Augean task of cleansing the administration of both government and army of the corrupt practices which had long prevailed in both. In the latter undertaking he met with a good degree of success; but in the former, though aided by all army in both Cis and Trans-Caucasia of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand men, he made on the whole no progress. Nor have his successors, Generals Read and Mouravieff been able to do more. The genius of Schamyl and the Circa.s.sian love of liberty, combined with the natural resistance of Caucasian rocks and forests, have proved to be more than a match for them.

x.x.xVIII.

SCHAMYL'S PROCLAMATION TO THE KABARDIANS.

Nor only did the double wall of rocks and human b.r.e.a.s.t.s throbbing with the love of independence prove impenetrable to the Russian columns led on by a chief of transcendent abilities, but that wall was gradually strengthened and enlarged. Schamyl could not be kept within bounds. The year after the fall of Dargo he broke through the cordon of fortresses, and pouncing upon the neutral provinces of Kabarda, performed the most brilliant exploit in his whole career.

The Kabardas, the great and the little, are twin provinces lying on the northern side of the Caucasian range midway between the two seas, and in a north-westerly direction from the Lesghian and Tchetchenian highlands.

It is a land of green valleys and sunny hill-sides, more broken on the side where it joins on to the mountains; softly undulating in the central portions; and to the north, where it falls down to the banks of the Terek and to the level of the steppes, a plain almost as smooth as a sheet of water. Here, until the coming of the Russians, a people mainly pastoral had kept their flocks and herds for centuries. Simple in their modes of life, yet trained to arms, they were of the blood of the gallant race of the Adighes or Circa.s.sians of the western Caucasus.

Scarcely less lovers of freedom than the tribes who dwelt higher up in the mountains, nor less ready to lay down their lives in defence of it, they contended for a quarter of a century or more with the invaders who came into their land, pretending to a right to rule over them. But in this long period of resistance the chivalry of the Kabardas was gradually wasted, whereas army after army came out of the north as from a womb of men which was inexhaustible. These semi-barbarous knights had also to contend with a more advanced civilization; and nature besides had not come to their aid with those bulwarks of rock and forest with which she so fondly encircled the free homes of the highlanders. A half century ago, accordingly, they were finally obliged to succ.u.mb to superior numbers, though not to superior valor. But they came out of the contest with the honors of war, it being stipulated in their capitulation that they should retain their arms, and be still governed by their chiefs, on condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the czar. Gradually, however, as the foreign civilization got a foothold with its advantages of trade and its superior modes of tillage, the influence of the conquerors grew stronger. Their colonists, consisting mostly of Germans, pushed forward into the fertile and pleasant valleys.

Many of the chiefs, long courted by gifts and pensions, were seduced into favoring the Russian ascendency; a species of militia was drafted among the warriors to a.s.sist in the subjugation of the other tribes; and the hot young bloods, captivated by the sight of the epaulettes and plumes of the imperial cavalry, allowed themselves to be enrolled in its ranks, and formed that splendid body of horse having the guard of the person of the empress in St. Petersburg.

Previously to his invasion of the territory of these Russianized Kabardians, Schamyl had made various attempts to incite them to throw off their yoke. He had sent emissaries to scatter among them his proclamations, urging them in glowing words to strike a blow for independence and for Allah; he had caused these to be followed by many of his most eloquent murids who preached in their valleys that new faith of the union of all believers in a holy war against the infidels which had taken such strong root among the rocks of the mountains; and finally he had despatched his zealous partisan Achwerdu-Mahomet at the head of an armed force to compel them to take sides with him. But the Kabardians who, formerly converted from paganism to Muscovite Christianity and afterward to Mahometanism, were not zealots in religion, turned a deaf ear to both proclamations and preaching, and even put Achwerdu-Mahomet to death. For alike despising the threats of Schamyl, and fearing the artillery of the Russians, they determined to remain neutral. The following is one of the proclamations referred to, and may be taken as a specimen of Schamyl's State papers.

"In the name of Allah, the all-merciful, whose gracious Word flows like the spring before the eyes of the thirsty wanderer in the desert, who has made us the chief pillars in the temple of his faith, and the bearers of the torch of freedom! Ye warriors of great and little Kabarda, for the last time I send to remind you of your oath, and to incite you to war against the unbelieving Muscovites. Many are the messages I have already sent, and the words I have spoken to you; but ye have scorned my messengers and have not regarded my admonitions.

Therefore hath Allah given you over into the hands of your enemies, and your aouls to the sword of the spoiler; for the Prophet hath said,

"'The unbelievers who will in nowise believe shall G.o.d deal with as with the vilest of the beasts.'

"Say not in reply: we believe, and have always held the doctrines of the Prophet holy. Verily, G.o.d will punish you--liars. Say not: we faithfully perform our was.h.i.+ngs and our prayers, give alms, and fast, as it is written in the Koran. Verily, I say unto you, for all this shall ye appear black-faced before the judgment-seat of Allah. The water shall become mud in your mouths; your alms, the wages of sin; and your prayers, curses. The true believer has the faith in his heart, and the sword in his hand; for whoso is strong in faith is strong in battle.

More accursed even than our enemies are ye; for they are ignorant and wander in darkness; but the light of truth shone before you, and ye have not followed it. Say not: they have overpowered us and by their great numbers put us to flight. For how often shall I repeat to you the words of the Prophet when he says,

"'Ye faithful, though the unbelieving come against you by hosts, turn not your back to them; for whoso then turneth his back, even though in the thick of the fight, him shall the wrath of G.o.d smite, in h.e.l.l shall be his resting-place, and verily the way thither is not pleasant!'

"Wherefore have ye doubted the truth of my mission, and listened rather to the threats of the enemy than to my admonitions? G.o.d himself hath said,

"'Rouse, O Prophet, the faithful to battle; for twenty of you standing fast shall overpower two hundred, and a hundred of you shall put to flight thousands of the unbelieving, for they are a people that have no knowledge.'

"G.o.d has made your way easy, for he knew that you were weak. Had ye joined yourselves in league with us, ye would never have become the slaves of the infidels, and their touch had never defiled you. But now is it not easy to wash yourselves clean of their dirt. Was it then I who united together the tribes of the mountains, or was it rather the power of G.o.d working through me with wonders? The Prophet saith,

"'Though thou hadst squandered on them all the treasures of the earth, thou couldst not have united their hearts; but G.o.d hath made them one, for he is almighty and all-wise. O Prophet, with G.o.d and the faithful on thy side, thou hast nothing to be afraid of.'

"Believe not that G.o.d is with the many! He is with the good, and the good are always fewer than the bad. Look about you, and see if my words be not true. Are there not fewer n.o.ble war-steeds than bad ones? Are there not fewer roses than weeds? Is there not more mud than pearls, and more lice than cattle? Is not gold scarcer than iron? And are we not better than the gold, and the roses, and the pearls, and all the horses and cattle put together? For all the treasures of the earth pa.s.s away; but we are immortal. But if the weeds be more numerous than the roses, shall we instead of rooting them out, suffer them to grow and choke the n.o.ble flowers? And if the enemies be more than we, shall we, instead of hewing them down, suffer them to take us in their snares? Say not: the enemy has conquered Tscherkei, and destroyed Akhulgo, and taken possession of Avaria. When the lightning strikes one tree, do all the others bow their heads and cast themselves down, lest it strike them also? O ye of little faith! would that ye might take example from the green wood! Verily, the trees of the forest might shame you if they had tongues. Or when the worm destroyeth one kind of fruit, do then all the other kinds perish for fear lest they may be pierced through also?

Wonder not that the unbelievers multiply so rapidly, and send army after army to take the place of those whom we cut off; for I say unto you that thousands of mushrooms and poisonous weeds shoot up out of the earth, while one good tree is growing to maturity. I am the root of the tree of freedom; my murids are the trunk; and ye the branches. But think not because one branch rots the whole tree will go to ruin. Verily, the rotten branches will G.o.d lop off and cast them into h.e.l.l-fire; for he is a good husbandman. Repent, therefore, and return to the ranks of those who fight for the faith, and my grace and protection shall overshadow you. But if ye continue to trust to the enticing words of the flax-haired Christian dogs rather than to my warnings, I will surely fulfil that which Khasi-Mollah long ago promised you. Like dark clouds shall my warriors overshadow your aouls, and take by force what you refuse to kindness; blood shall mark my path, and terror and desolation shall follow in my footsteps; for where words do not suffice, deeds shall."

Of the Russian proclamations in the Caucasus, on the other hand, the following, issued in reply to Schamyl's, may serve as a specimen.

"In the name of G.o.d, the almighty.

"The Adjutant-general, commander of the Caucasian corps, and chief of the civil government of the Cis and Trans-Caucasian territories, to the Khans, Beys, Cadis, Effendis, Mollahs, and to all the people of Daghestan and Tchetchenia.

"The commotions and bloodshed which during so many years have taken place among the Caucasian mountaineers have attracted the most serious attention of our lord, the emperor; and his Imperial Majesty has resolved this year to introduce the reign of peace and prosperity into all these unhappy districts. To carry this purpose into execution fresh troops have arrived, and in case of need still greater numbers can be drawn from the terrible hosts of Russia. And how numerous, and powerful are her armies, those of you who have been in that country can best tell.

"Ye inhabitants of Daghestan and Tchetchenia! I a.s.sure you that these troops have in nowise been sent to root out the doctrine of Mahomet and to destroy his people, but simply for the punishment of Schamyl and his followers. For he is a shameless deceiver, who from purely personal motives, from the desire of self-aggrandizement and the love of dominion, has stirred up the tribes to revolt, and exposed them to all the horrors of war; who seeks himself to avoid every danger, while he delivers you, deluded ones, to death; who preaches equality of rights and abolition of all hereditary rights of property simply to get possession himself of the inheritances of your khans and beys; who fills your aouls with his murtosigators, who spare neither the lives nor the property of the innocent inhabitants; who lays on your settlements the burdens of his taxes and the hateful yoke of his despotism; who calls himself your protector and defender, while everywhere his presence is marked by death and desolation. So, for example, was it in Khasik.u.muck, Avaria, and Andi, in the Sechamschal district, and in Itchkeria, where he acted such a faithless and inhuman part towards the inhabitants of the aoul of Zoutera, sparing neither the aged, nor women, nor children.

In place of your ruined prosperity he gives you nothing but false and delusive promises, as when he encouraged you with the hope of the speedy appearance of a Turkish army for your relief; whereas the sultan has just renewed to us his word never to interfere in the affairs of the Caucasian tribes, in opposition to their rightful emperor.

"Ye people of Tchetchenia and Daghestan! Soon will the Russian army appear in your midst. And I repeat to you that our troops will come only to deliver you from the yoke of your oppressor, to protect the weak, and those who turn from the error of their ways with repentance, as well as all those who have risen in revolt against the power of the despot. In the name of the great ruler of men, the emperor of all the Russias, who has delivered all power into my hands to punish the fomenters of strife as they deserve, but who nevertheless desires to throw over their offences the covering of his gracious forgiveness, do I promise full pardon to all those who by word or deed have labored for the cause of Schamyl, provided they now come to me with tokens of repentance and submission. I promise that all necessary means shall be taken for the preservation of your faith, of your mosques, of your customs and usages, and of the rights of property of all those who will now present themselves before me and take the oath of subjection and fidelity. All these their rights and privileges shall be placed on secure and ever-enduring foundations.

"But at the same time I inform you that all the aouls and tribes who join the party of Schamyl and oppose themselves to our rightful authority shall be subjected to the most terrible punishments. The same shall be inflicted also on all those who seek to retire into the mountains, and all those who, having fled thither, do not immediately return to their former habitations. And these habitations likewise shall be razed to the ground.

"As to the tribes of Akuska and Zudakera, the conditions on which their submission will be accepted will be made known to them by the commander of the forces in Daghestan.

"Ye people of Tchetchenia and Daghestan! In this year will your destiny be decided. It depends on yourselves. Choose! In case you submit yourselves to the rightful and beneficent rule of Russia, you will receive the inexpressibly great gift of the grace of our lord the emperor, who watches equally over the happiness and prosperity of all his subjects. But if you obstinately continue in your errors, and place yourselves in the ranks of our enemies, you will share in the punishment inflicted on Schamyl, and will be torn in pieces by the claws of the Russian eagle, which at the same time appears at the rising of the sun and where it goes down in the west, and which wings its flight over Elbrus and Kasbek as though they were mere mole-hills."

x.x.xIX.

HIS INVASION OF THE KABARDAS.

The black cloud of vengeance, though so small as not to be noticed by the Kabardians, was now gathering in the south-east. Schamyl, surveying the posture of affairs in the spring of 1846, with the eye of a warrior who was at the same time a prophet, saw that the concentration of Russian troops was mostly in the fortresses of Temir-Chan-Chura and Grosnaja; that Woronzoff was busy looking after his kreposts and his stanitzas; and that consequently there was an opening for himself by means of fast galloping to break through the enemy's line, and make a raid in the Kabardas. It was an inspiration of genius to conceive the plan; it would require the boldest riders in the world to execute it.

But notwithstanding the loss of Dargo, the year preceding, "Sultan Schamyl," as the mountaineers sometimes fondly called him, had attained to such an influence that he was now at the head of the largest force which had ever been mustered in the highlands. Among the tribes of the western Caucasus, their proudest chiefs, Guz-Bey, and Dschimbulat, had never been able to raise a troop for crossing the Kuban of more than four thousand riders; Scheik Mansur, the Schamyl of the eastern Caucasus in the preceding century, and Khasi-Mollah had never taken the field with upward of eight thousand; nor had the Russians in their hostile incursions, as at Akhulgo and Dargo, a.s.sembled under their eagles a greater force than from twelve to fourteen thousand. But the Imam after all the losses of the preceding years had now under him no less than twenty thousand warriors, a large proportion of them cavalry, and waiting only his order to spring into their saddles.

In the beautiful month of May, when nature in bud and full leaf throughout the mountains inspired the breast of the warrior as well as of the husbandman with hope, Schamyl set forth for the Kabardas. The week before, the highlands lay as peaceful in the midst of the spring's blossoming as they had under the protecting mantle of the winter's snows. The steed was cropping the first tender blades of gra.s.s in the vale, long unaccustomed to the bit and saddle which hung suspended against his master's wall; while the Lesghian himself was sitting listless at the door of his sakli apparently basking without a thought of war in the genial beams which s.h.i.+ne in the time when the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.

But suddenly there was a hot riding of messengers from one end of the little empire of the Imam to the other. In a week all the men of Himri, Akhulgo, and Dargo, the riders of Arrakan and Gumbet, Avaria and Koissubui, Itchkeria and Salatan, the dwellers on the four branches of the Koissu and the still blood-stained banks of the Aksai, Lesghians, Tchetchenians, and warriors of Daghestan, tribes of different origin and speaking various dialects, but freemen all, were in the stirrup, shaskas at their sides, and millet at their saddle-bows.

Two rivers flowed between their land and the Kabardas; and across their war-path ran two lines of hostile fortresses. Among these latter was the strong-hold of Wladikaukas, besides others scarcely less impregnable; and in them all lay an army of seventy thousand troops well armed and ready for service. In the intervals between stretched the settlements of the Cossacks; and beyond, the Kabardians themselves had been born warriors, and still retained their arms. On the other hand, Schamyl had no artillery, and no regular convoys of provisions and ammunition.

Without fortresses, depots, or communications of any sort to fall back upon in case of need, he would in fact have nothing behind him to rely upon, but only that which was before. It would be therefore a dash at a venture, and with, for order of march, "The devil take the hindmost."

But the Imam was conscious of his strength, and was justly proud of his twenty thousand men of the mountains, every one of whom held in contempt the plains below and all they that defended them. Seeing beforehand both the victory and the way of escape, he confidently set forward. It was at the season of the year when the banks of the rivers were filled full from the melting of the snows in the mountains; but the horses swam where they could not ford the currents. To no purpose was it that the Cossack, seeing from his tall look-out the approach of the foremost riders of this host, lighted his beacon, or that the sentries of the kreposts fired their alarm-guns. Schamyl rode down the Cossacks, plundered the stanitzas, and left behind the forts which were not carried amid the whirlwind of his first coming. There was no stopping; and before the garrisons along the line knew that Schamyl had come, he was gone; and when the Kabardians believed that the braggart who had threatened their land with plundering was shut up in his mountains six hundred wersts away, he was in their midst.

No less than sixty populous aouls of the Kabardians were plundered; twenty Cossack stanitzas were destroyed; and ravaging on either side the lands through which he pa.s.sed, the Imam seriously threatened the strong places of Mosdok, Jekaderinograd, and Stavropol. It was easy galloping over the smooth valleys and softly rolling hills of the Kabardas; nor having once broken the bounds of the mountains were Schamyl's riders content to turn back their horses until they had watered them on the Kuban, and even filled with consternation the stanitzas on the still more distant banks of the Laba.

To retreat from these remote steppes in safety to the mountains was indeed a triumph. For the generals Freitag and Nestoroff, on hearing the news of Schamyl's incursion, had immediately mustered their battalions, and occupied the Terek to intercept his return; and the Cossacks, those of the Don, of Tchernomozen, and of the line, riding at full speed, had come in from the plains with a strength of several thousand lances.

Schamyl well knew that he could not retire by the way in which he had advanced. But when the work of devastation and pillage was done, he suddenly turned his horses' heads south from Jekaderinograd; overran the Cossack colonies in that direction; and with a considerable number of Kabardians forced into his ranks, with his cruppers loaded with the booty of the plains, and his saddle-bows well furnished with both millet and mutton, regained the mountains. It was still the beautiful month of May when his riders unloosed their saddle-girths at the doors of their saklis; the time of the singing of birds was not past; nor had the voice of the turtle yet ceased in the land.