Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin - Grand Chancellor of The Russian Empire

Grand Chancellor of The Russian Empire

Bestuzhev's chance came when the empress Elizabeth, immediately after her accession (6 December 1741), summoned him back to court and appointed him vice-chancellor. For the next twenty years, during a period of exceptional difficulty, Bestuzhev practically controlled the foreign policy of Russia.

At this time, Bestuzhev judged France the natural enemy of Russia. The interests of the two states in Turkey, Poland and Sweden clashed diametrically, and Russia needed always to fear the intrigues of France in these three countries, all of which bordered it. The enemies of France thus necessarily became the friends of Russia, and her friends were conversely viewed as Russia's enemies. Consequently, Great Britain and Austria became Russia's "natural" allies, while the aggressive and energetic king Frederick II of Prussia, then engaged in the War of the Austrian Succession of 1740–1748, presented a danger to guard against. Bestuzhev therefore adopted the policy of bringing about a quadruple alliance between Russia, Austria, Great Britain and Saxony, to counterpoise the Franco-Prussian league. He however stood on dangerous ground. The empress Elizabeth herself had an aversion to an alliance with Great Britain and with Austria, whose representatives had striven to prevent her accession; many of her personal friends, in the pay of France and Prussia, took part in innumerable conspiracies to overthrow Bestuzhev. Despite these hindrances, Bestuzhev, aided by his elder brother Mikhail, carried out his policy step by step.

Russia and Sweden had commenced hostilities in 1741. On 11 December 1742 Bestuzhev concluded a defensive alliance between Great Britain and Russia. He had previously rejected with scorn the proposals of the French government to mediate between Russia and Sweden on the basis of a territorial surrender on the part of the former. Bestuzhev conducted the war so vigorously that by the end of 1742, Sweden lay at the mercy of the empress. At the peace congress of Åbo (January — August 1743) Bestuzhev insisted that Sweden cede the whole of Finland to Russia, thus completing the work of Peter the Great. But the French party contrived to get better terms for Sweden by artfully appealing to the empress Elizabeth's fondness for the house of Holstein. The Swedes, at the desire of Elizabeth, accepted Adolphus Frederick, duke of Holstein, as their future king, and, in return, received back Finland, with the exception of a small strip of land up to the Kymmene River.

Nor could Bestuzhev prevent the signing of a Russo-Prussian defensive alliance in March 1743. He however deprived it of all political significance by excluding from it the proposed guarantee of Frederick's Silesian conquests. Moreover, through Bestuzhev's efforts, the credit of the Prussian king (whom he regarded as more dangerous than France) at the Russian court fell steadily, and the vice-chancellor prepared the way for an alliance with Austria by acceding to the Treaty of Breslau of 11 June 1742 on 1 November 1743).

The bogus Lopukhina Conspiracy, however, got up by the Holstein faction, aided by France and Prussia, who persuaded Elizabeth that the Austrian ambassador had intrigued to restore Ivan VI to the throne, alienated the empress from Austria for a time. Thus Bestuzhev's ruin appeared certain when, in 1743, the French agent, Jacques-Joachim Trotti, marquis de la Chétardie, arrived to reinforce his other enemies. But Bestuzhev found a friend in need in Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov, the empress's confidant, who shared his political views. Still his position remained most delicate, especially when the betrothal between the grand-duke Peter and Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst (afterwards Catherine II) took place against his will, and Elizabeth of Holstein, the mother of the bride, arrived in the Prussian interests to spy upon him. Frederick II, conscious of the instability of his French ally, now keenly wished to contract an offensive alliance with Russia; and the first step to its realization required the overthrow of Bestuzhev, "upon whom," he wrote to his minister Axel von Mardefeld, "the fate of Prussia and my own house depends." But Bestuzhev succeeded, at last, in convincing the empress of Chétardie's impudent intrigues, and on 6 June 1744, that diplomatist received orders to quit Russia within twenty-four hours. Five weeks later Bestuzhev became grand chancellor (15 July 1744). Before the end of the year Elizabeth of Holstein also suffered expulsion from Russia, and Bestuzhev remained supreme.