A Sketch of the Military and Political Power of Russia (1817)

ROBERT WILSON

Sir Robert Wilson's survey of Russian territorial ambition and "frontier creep" grew out of his career interest in the health and security of the British Empire. Though his highest post was the governorship of Gibraltar (1842–49), he served in several theaters of war as a young man, mainly in connection with the Napoleonic Wars and most notably the British expedition to Egypt, about which he wrote a best-selling history in 1802.

These experiences gave Wilson (1777–1849) a unique perspective on Britain's global fortune and a correlative suspicion of all possible threats to it. In this selection his cartographic precision is punctuated by his palpable alarm at the prospect of what an ambitious Russia means for global security, from Eastern Europe to Persia and beyond. Lest there be any doubt, his chief concern is India, that focal point of British diplomacy and military strategy since the Battle of Plassey (1757). Here Wilson calculates that by virtue of its capacity to mobilize its forces from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, Russia was in easy striking distance of both Bombay and Madras (Chennai).

Anticipating critics who doubted Russia's determination to attack, Wilson was unequivocal: "The answer is, She can." In his view it was a matter of urgency for all governments, not least because Alexander I had ambitions for a maritime as well as a land empire: a global imperium, in short, that would know no earthly bounds. Wilson asks, "Must the fiat of Alexander be the law of the universe?" And, as if to set the Great Game afoot, he asks, "is Russia, like Rome under the image of Milo the wrestler, to be looking round in vain for an antagonist"?

In the year 1800, Russia rested her right flank on the North Sea; her frontier line traversing Russian Lapland, ran fifty miles in advance of the White Sea: then covering the province of Olonetz, approached the Lake Ladoga within twenty miles, and fell upon the Gulf of Finland, at the distance of only one hundred and fifteen miles in a direct line from Petersburgh; so that Sweden not only commanded near two thirds of the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, but ranged herself in view of, and at the distance of not more than thirty miles from, the port of Revel, situated in the province of Livonia, wrested from her by Peter the Great, and which she might always hope to re-occupy, so long as she preserved such contiguity.

The frontier of Russia opposed to the frontier line of Prussia, commenced near Memel; and reaching the Niemen, between Tilsitz and Kovno, continued along that river as far as Grodno, when it ran in a southern direction upon the Bug river between Drogutchin and Brestlitov; then descending to Wlodowa, on the frontier of Austrian Gallicia, continued along that province until it reached the Dniester, near Chotev when it followed the course of that river into the Black Sea.

On the side of Asia, the frontier was separated from the Turkish possessions by the Cuban, a small river, which flows at a little distance from the very narrow strait which divides the Crimea from the continent of Asia, and connects the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea. It then continued along that river to its source, and passing in front of Georgiesk, and behind or to the northward of the mountains of Caucasus, joined the river Terek, and followed its course into the Caspian.

In the year 1817, the right of the frontier still rests on the Northern Ocean, but, advancing a hundred and sixty miles, touches the frontier of Norway, and bends round it for a hundred and ninety miles, until it reaches a line drawn due north from the Torneo, when it descends on that river, and continues running parallel until it falls into the Gulf of Bothnia, intersecting a country through which the Swedish troops always passed into Finland, but where, from the severity of the climate and the poverty of the soil, none can move without previous arrangements.

The difficulty, indeed, of the communication contributed to the loss of the Swedish provinces; since Sweden could not sustain with a population of little more than two millions of people, and a revenue of not much more than one million, the heavy expenditure of men and money. These difficulties, however, will be less felt by Russia, since the command of the Gulfs of Finland and of Bothnia would facilitate the operations.

A line is then drawn through the Gulf of Bothnia, which sweeping round Aland, regains the continent in the province of Livonia, thus giving to Russia the ports of Abo and of Sweaborg, which was the great naval establishment of the Swedes on the coast of Finland, and all the numerous islands which cluster between Aland and the main land, and which are inhabited by a rich and happy population. But the island of Aland is distant from the shore of Sweden only twenty-four miles, from the Archipelago of islands in advance of...