Peter the Great's Grand Embassy (1697-1698): A Tsar in Europe

The Grand Embassy was a Russian diplomatic mission that travelled through Europe from March 1697 to August 1698, with Tsar Peter I hidden among its members under a false name. Officially it sought allies against the Ottoman Empire. In practice it became Peter’s personal education in Western shipbuilding, science and government, and it shaped the reforms that turned Russia into a European power.

Background

When Peter I (1672–1725) became sole ruler of Russia in 1696, his country was large but technologically behind its western neighbours. It had no navy and only one seaport, Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, which was ice-bound for much of the year. Peter had grown up among the foreign merchants and soldiers of Moscow’s German Quarter and had become fascinated by boats, artillery and Western ways.

In 1695 he besieged the Ottoman fortress of Azov at the mouth of the Don and failed, largely because he could not block it from the sea. Over the winter he had a river fleet built at Voronezh, and in July 1696 Azov surrendered. The victory convinced Peter that Russia needed a proper navy and men who knew how to build and sail one.

Russia was then a member of the Holy League with Austria, Poland-Lithuania and Venice, fighting the Ottomans. The stated purpose of the embassy was to strengthen that league and to win new support from the Protestant powers of northern Europe.

The embassy sets out

The mission left Moscow in March 1697. It numbered about 250 people, including soldiers, servants, priests and some 35 young “volunteers” sent to learn navigation and shipbuilding. It was led by three “great ambassadors”: the Swiss-born general Franz Lefort, Peter’s close friend; the diplomat Fyodor Golovin; and the experienced official Prokopy Voznitsyn.

Peter travelled as Pyotr Mikhailov, a sergeant of the Preobrazhensky Guards. No tsar had ever travelled abroad in peacetime, and the disguise allowed him to avoid ceremony, work with his hands and ask questions freely. Since he stood about 2.03 metres (6 ft 8 in) tall, few were deceived, but most hosts played along.

The first major stop was Riga, then a Swedish city. When Peter tried to inspect its fortifications, the Swedish governor, Erik Dahlbergh, had guards stop him. Peter took this as an insult and later cited the Riga reception as one of his grievances against Sweden. In Königsberg, the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg received the embassy warmly, and Peter took lessons in artillery.

In the Dutch Republic

Peter hurried ahead of the main party to the Dutch Republic, then Europe’s leading maritime and commercial power. In August 1697 he spent about a week at Zaandam, a shipbuilding town north of Amsterdam, where he lodged in the small wooden house of a smith he had known in Moscow. Crowds gathered to see him, and he soon moved to Amsterdam.

With the help of the Amsterdam burgomaster Nicolaes Witsen, a scholar with a strong interest in Russia, Peter was given work in the Dutch East India Company (VOC) shipyard. For about four months he and his companions worked on the construction of a frigate, the Peter and Paul, from laying the keel to launching. He also visited workshops, hospitals, anatomy lectures and printing presses, and in Delft he met the microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.

Peter came to feel that Dutch shipbuilding relied too much on practical experience and not enough on theory. The Dutch hosted a mock naval battle on the IJ in his honour, and he met William III, who was both Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic and King of England, at Utrecht.

In England

In January 1698 Peter crossed to England on a yacht sent by William III and stayed for about four months. He studied ship design at the royal dockyard at Deptford and lived at Sayes Court, the house of the writer John Evelyn. Peter’s party damaged the house and garden so badly that the government paid compensation after the visit.

Peter toured the arsenal at Woolwich, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the Tower of London and the Royal Mint. He watched a session of Parliament out of public view and saw a naval review off Portsmouth. He also agreed to let the English merchant Peregrine Osborne, Marquess of Carmarthen, import tobacco into Russia, a trade the Orthodox Church had long opposed.

Vienna and the return home

By the spring of 1698 the embassy’s diplomatic purpose was failing. The Western powers were preparing for a struggle over the Spanish succession and had little interest in fighting the Ottomans, while Austria was moving towards a peace with them. In Vienna, in June and July 1698, Peter could not persuade Emperor Leopold I to keep up the war.

Peter planned to go on to Venice, but in July news arrived of a revolt by the Streltsy, Moscow’s musketeer regiments. He left at once. On the way home, at Rawa in Poland, he spent several days with Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Their talks laid the ground for an alliance against Sweden. Peter reached Moscow on 25 August 1698 (Old Style), and the next day he began cutting off the beards of his leading nobles.

Key people

• Peter I (1672–1725), tsar of Russia, who travelled in disguise and treated the journey as a study tour.
• Franz Lefort (1656–1699), Genevan soldier and Peter’s friend, first ambassador of the embassy.
• Fyodor Golovin (1650–1706), diplomat who later directed Russian foreign policy.
• Nicolaes Witsen (1641–1717), Amsterdam burgomaster who arranged Peter’s shipyard work.
• William III (1650–1702), Dutch stadtholder and English king, who hosted Peter in both countries.

Consequences

The embassy recruited several hundred foreign specialists, many of them Dutch, including shipwrights, naval officers, engineers, gunners and surgeons. Among them was the Norwegian-born Dutch naval officer Cornelius Cruys, who helped build the new Russian navy. The mission also bought large quantities of weapons, tools, instruments and books.

Back home, Peter crushed the Streltsy with mass executions and began his first reforms: beard-shaving, Western dress at court, and a new calendar from 1700. Diplomatically, the failure to keep the Holy League going pushed Russia towards a separate settlement with the Ottomans and a new aim. Within two years Peter had joined Saxony-Poland and Denmark against Sweden, opening the Great Northern War.

Legacy

The image of the tsar in a carpenter’s apron became one of the best-known stories of Russian history. The Zaandam house where Peter stayed, known as the Czar Peterhuisje, has been preserved as a museum since the 19th century, and there are statues of him in Zaandam and Deptford.

Historians see the journey as a turning point in Peter’s thinking. It showed him the sea power, trade and technical skill of the Dutch and English and confirmed his belief that Russia had to learn from them. That belief lay behind his later navy, his reformed army and his new capital, Saint Petersburg.

Timeline

• 1696, July: Russian forces capture the Ottoman fortress of Azov.
• 1697, March: The Grand Embassy leaves Moscow, with Peter travelling as Pyotr Mikhailov.
• 1697, August: Peter arrives at Zaandam and then begins work in the VOC shipyard in Amsterdam.
• 1698, January: Peter crosses to England and works at the royal dockyard at Deptford.
• 1698, June–July: The embassy negotiates in Vienna without success.
• 1698, July: News of the Streltsy uprising reaches Peter, who cancels his visit to Venice.
• 1698, August: Peter meets Augustus II at Rawa and reaches Moscow on 25 August (Old Style).

Why it matters

The Grand Embassy was the first time a Russian ruler went to western Europe to learn. It failed as diplomacy but succeeded as education, and the experts, ideas and alliances it produced shaped Peter’s transformation of Russia and its rise as a European power.