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This sealed the fate of Russia. There could be no compromise after that. Upon that first battlefield, on the steppes near the sea of Azof, there were left six Princes, seventy chief boyars, and all but one-tenth of the Russian army. After this thunderbolt had fallen an ominous quiet reigned for thirteen years. Nothing more was heard of the Mongols but a comet blazing in the sky awoke vague fears.
I wonder why Carlyle or Froude has not bolstered up and defended this great hyperborean giant for doing evil that good may come. Casuistry is in their line; the defence of scoundrels seems to be their vocation. Well, then, bear in mind that Peter, feeling that he must have Azof for the good of Russia, irrespective of right or wrong, went straight forward to his end.
The triumphant Russians pursued them all the way back to the city of Azof, cannonading them with the artillery and the ammunition they had wrested from their foes. Here the Turks attempted to make a final stand, but a chance shot from one of the guns penetrated the immense powder magazine, and an explosion so terrific ensued that two thirds of the city were entirely demolished.
It does not seem that he fulfilled literally all his promises, for the Venetians still continued to sail to and from their colony of Tana, at the head of the Sea of Azof, though it is certain that they had no longer the sovereignty of those waters; and the Genoese now planted on the shores of the Black Sea three large and important colonies to serve as entrepots for the trade taken from their rivals.
In the year 1825, Alexander, sick, anxious and melancholy, took a long journey, with his wife, to Tanganroy, a small town upon the Sea of Azof, fifteen hundred miles from St. Petersburg. He had for some time looked forward with dread to his appearance before the bar of God. A sense of sin oppressed him, and he had long sought relief with prayers and tears.
The Czar, on his side, agreed to give up Azof as soon as he returned; destroy all the forts and burn all the vessels that he had upon the Black Sea; allow the King of Sweden to return by Pomerania; and to pay the Turks and their Prince all the expenses of the war.
The sea of Tenue is that of Tanna or Azof, the town at the mouth of the Tanais or Don having been known by both of these names, the former evidently derived from the ancient name of the river, or the river from the town, and of which the modern name Don is a mere corruption.
Sugar, largely produced in this part of Russia from beet-root and "bounty-fed," and corn, brandy, wool and hides from the central provinces, are largely sold at the five fairs held each year at Kharkof, which has also reason to be proud of its university with upwards of six hundred students, and of its connection by rail with the shores of the Baltic and those of the Black and Azof Seas.
Not very long after this the emperor had an opportunity to make a commencement in converting his nautical knowledge to actual use by engaging in something like a naval operation against an enemy, in conjunction with several other European powers, he declared war anew against the Turks and Tartars, and the chief object of the first campaign was the capture of the city of Azof, which is situated on the shores of the Sea of Azof, near the mouth of the River Don.
Two other similar but less violent ejections of fire and smoke followed at short intervals. These appearances were the accompaniments of an eruption of black fetid mud, which overspread the ground at the foot of the mountain to a considerable depth. A still more striking phenomenon occurred in the Sea of Azof, on the 10th of May 1814.
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