The British were also much better placed as regards new acquisitions on the periphery. As Russian southward expansion brought them within range of Constantinople and even sent their fleet into the eastern Mediterranean they were entering a region which other great powers considered as crucial and where they could intervene effectively to block the Russians. Moreover, though southward expansion brought Russia gains in ‘Ukraine’ and on the Black Sea shore which were of great significance, they could not compare with the enormous advance of British power between 1793 and 1815. With the French, Spanish and Dutch navies all more or less eliminated, the British were able to take over much of South America’s trade, eliminate their key rivals in India, begin to use Indian exports to break into the Chinese market and consolidate their hold on naval bases which stretched across the globe and greatly enhanced their control of international trade. The basic geopolitical realities underlying the Napoleonic era pointed towards future British global predominance, especially since geopolitics was reinforced by the first signs of Britain’s Industrial Revolution. This had to cause unease in some Russian minds. On the other hand, the overriding current geopolitical priority was that both Russian and British security would be in great danger if any other power dominated continental Europe.14
The most prominent representative of the ‘Old Russians’ between 1807 and 1812 was Count Nikolai Rumiantsev, the foreign minister in this period. Before Peter the Great’s time the Rumiantsev family had been middling gentry, far beneath the status of the princes Volkonsky, Lobanov or Golitsyn, but Nikolai’s grandfather, Aleksandr Rumiantsev, had been a close associate of Peter from childhood and throughout his reign. He died a full general, a count and a wealthy man. Peter ensured that Aleksandr Rumiantsev married into the core of the old Muscovite aristocracy. As a result, his grandson Nikolai’s connections were formidable: he was for example the first cousin of Aleksandr Kurakin.
The relationship which really mattered, however, was with Nikolai’s father, the great hero of Catherine’s reign, Field-Marshal Count Petr Rumiantsev. As the Foreign Minister once said to Caulaincourt, ‘only the hope of achieving a great benefit for his country could inspire the son of Field-Marshal Rumiantsev’ to remain in public service. Acutely conscious of his heritage, Nikolai Rumiantsev was a ferociously proud Russian patriot, determined that his country should be second to none. One aspect of his patriotism was his enormous interest in old Russian manuscripts and other artefacts. Not only did he fund the collection, publication and display of these treasures, he also participated enthusiastically in expeditions across Russia to find them. Many of the greatest old Russian and Slavic collections in contemporary Russian libraries and museums owe their origins to this remarkable man, who ultimately bequeathed his treasures to the public.15
In Rumiantsev’s youth not only had Russia been on the march southwards under his father’s command, it had also been Europe’s leading producer of iron. As Rumiantsev was well aware, however, by 1807 its relative economic position was slipping. During Rumiantsev’s service as Foreign Minister, Russia established diplomatic relations with the United States. The first American envoy to Russia was John Quincy Adams, the son of an American President and himself to hold this office in the 1820s. Rumiantsev once confided to Adams that ‘it was no subject for exaltation to a great empire that the choicest of its productions for exportation were hemp and tallow, and bees-wax and iron’. His interest in economic affairs was partly that of an immensely wealthy landowner, very aware of the impact of new farming methods in western Europe. In addition, however, he had run the empire’s canals and other waterways for many years, and had served as minister of trade since 1802. This was a unique background for a Russian foreign minister.16
