How successful was the Great Embassy of Peter the Great ?

How successful was the Great Embassy (1697-1698)?

There is no yes or no to answer this question. The number of factors which influence the way to answer makes that the answer have to be paradoxical. The Great Embassy failed to accomplish all its main goals, but there were lot of good points which made it useful. There is a degree of difference between Peter’s aims and what succeeded and it is what we are going to show in the purpose to answer the question.

At first we are going to list the original aims of the Great Embassy, then we will tell what peter did and achieved during his journey and finally we will conclude by answering the question as precisely as possible.

The original aims of Peter for this Embassy were to get knowledge about all maritime and military affairs ; to recruit foreign agents ; to improve his skills ; to gain allies to help him for a war against the Ottomans ; to ensure Augustus (candidate supported by Russia)  becomes king of Poland ; to avoid Russia’s isolation. There were three main aspects : society, technology and diplomacy.

The theme of society can only be seen as a partial success.

When Peter met Sophia, the Electress of Hanover, and her daughter Sophia-Charlotte, the wife of Frederick, the Elector of Brandenbourg-Prussia he realize that the social conditions of women in the Russian society were completely reactionary compared to European societies.  Because of that, Peter chose to tackle the issue of gender inequality in Russia by creating a law, which gave the right to the women to take part to parties. Peter started to transform a rustic and reactionary society into a more civilised one. Peter brought also with him the western fashion : court clothes ; hairstyles ; architecture (the Winter Palace in Saint Petersbourg, dutch-designed bridges, …).

All that seems positive for Russia but the problem is that at this time, mostly because of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian people disliked this new link with European culture and resulted of that political tensions.

We can conclude that the Great Embassy has been only partially successful in improving the Russian society.

The second big aim of the Embassy was to learn new techniques to improve the Russian technologies (agriculture and military). Peter was very interested in boats because he wanted to build a Russian navy. He went to Holland and England to learn about shipbuilding and he brings that knowledge to Russia. Weapons technology was a big success of the Great Embassy : he equips the Russian army with muskets (he had bought 25000 flintlocks in) and bayonets. This replaced the obsolete Russian infantry. The military improvement thanks the Great Embassy was good but the agricultural advancement was quite non-existent.

Despite, we can say that the technological advancements were a success : Peter success to built an efficient navy, he established a large ship building industry, military and industry were reorganised. He was helped by many specialists (naval officers, engineers,…) who came back with him in Russia after his voyage through Europe.

The Great Embassy was quite useful in improving the Russian technologies and army.

Diplomacy was not a failure but also not a success. Peter wanted to sign treaties to get allies to start a war against Ottomans but he failed because countries such as England and Austria were worried about the aggressive politic of Louis XIV preferred to make peace with Turks. But he made some important relations with European rulers and became friend with some of them such as Frederick and the new Polish king Augustus. He signed a treaty of friendship with Prussia, formed an anti-swedish alliance against Charles XII.  During the absence of Peter a second Strestly revolt happened and it could have been bad for Peter’s reign if he didn’t had rush back to Moscow after he learnt about this revolt.

...