JBO'C's Historical Reference

Field Marshal Prince Ivan Fedorovich Paskevitch

Image from The Russian conquest of the Caucasus By John Frederick Baddeley

Paskevitch, Ivan Fedorovich, a Russian field- marshal, Prince of Warsaw, and Viceroy of Poland, was descended from a family of the Greek religion, bearing the name of Paskiewicz, which was driven from Poland in the 17th century by the persecution of the Jesuits. He was born on the 19th of May (new style) 1782, at Poltava or Pultava, famous for the battle which decided the ascendancy of Russia over Sweden. After receiving his education at St. Petersburg, he held the appointment first of page and afterwards of aide-de-camp to the Emperor Paul, and subsequently to the Emperor Alexander. He first saw service at the great battle of Austerlitz in 1806. In 1806 he was sent with the Russian ultimatum to the Porte, and in those days of Turkish barbarism owed to his own determination and activity his escape from Constantinoplewith his life. Not long afterwards he was taken up for dead from the ditch of Brailov, where he had mounted to the assault : he was promoted as a reward to the rank of colonel, and from that time his advancement was rapid. In the great campaign against the French in 1812 he fought at Borodino, and afterwards being put in command of a division, which at first amounted to only 4000 men, but subsequently rose to 30,000, took an active share in the triumphant campaign in Germany, and was one of the captors of Paris. After the peace he accompanied the Grand Duke Michael on a three years' tour through Europe. On the accession of the Emperor Nicolas in 1825 he was named successor to Yermolov, in command on the Persian frontier, at the time of the outbreak of the war with Persia. So high had the name of Yermolov risen, that it was doubted by the Russians, probably for the first time in Russian history, if a subject would yield obedience to the emperor's orders, and it even occasioned some surprise that 'the King of the Caucasus' allowed himself to he dethroned so easily. Paskevitch, on the 25th of September 1826, defeated the Persians under Abbas-Mirza at Elizavethpol ; later in the same year he crossed .the Araxes ; early in the next he conquered all Persian Armenia, and on the 13th of October he took by assault Erivan, and thenceforth by the emperor's order bore the name of Paskevitch-Erivansky to commemorate the exploit. The peace with Persia, established by the treaty of Turkmanchai (22nd of February 1828), was almost immediately followed by war with Turkey. In 1828 Paskevitch took Kars, and in the following year Erzurum, receiving in reward the title of field-marshal. A year of desultory warfare against the Circassians in 1830 was followed in 1831 by the campaign against the Poles, to whom the name of Paskevitch sounded as that of a countryman. He took the command of the Russian army after the death of Diebitsch, and, more fortunate than his predecessor, was soon able to announce the fall of Warsaw. Raised to the rank of Prince of Warsaw, and made Governor-general of Poland, he promulgated the organic statute of the 26th of February, 1832, which unites Poland to Russia, and for the next sixteen years carried out his plan of subjecting the country, one of the main points of which was the: conversion of Warsaw into a strong fortress against its own inhabitants not less than against an invading army. He succeeded so well, that 1848 passed over Russian Poland without a revolt, and in 1849 the Emperor Nicolas could spare him to crush the Hungarians. As on former occasions, his plans did not meet the approbation of military critics, but with his usual good fortune he was enabled to commence a dispatch to the emperor in August with the words, “Hungary is at your feet." In 1850 the jubilee of his fiftieth anniversary in the service was celebrated with great rejoicings at Warsaw, and on this occasion the Emperor); of Austria and the King of Prussia nominated him a Field-marshal in their respective armies. This was the culminating point of Paskevitch long career. When the recent war broke out between Russia and Turkey, the veteran was again summoned to the field, much, it is said, against his will. He planned the campaign against the Turks, which terminated disastrously for the Russians in the repulse of their attack on Silistria, and in that repulse Paskevich himself, then past his seventieth year, received a severe contusion. From this time he seems never to have thoroughly rallied, and after a long and tedious illness he expired at Warsaw on the 29th of January 1856.

Marshal Paskevitch was married to a lady who was a relative of the poet Griboyedov, his companion in some of his Persian campaigns, and had by her four children, one of whom, a son, Fedor, is a colonel of the Russian guards, and has also made his appearance as an author. A separate life of the marshal in French was published by Tolstoy at Paris in 1835.
The Second Supplement To The Penny Cyclopaedia Of The Society For The Diffusion Of Useful Knowledge. Complete In One Volume. London: Published By Knight & Co., 90, Fleet Street. MDCCCLVIII.

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