Product Overview
Empress Catherine II, building on the military and diplomatic successes of Emperor Peter I and Empress Elizabeth, in less than two decades of rule brought Russia to the forefront among European powers. Her creation of a League of Armed Neutrality, uniting several mercantile states of Northern Europe, was intended to guarantee the security of maritime shipping on the high seas from arrest and seizure. The fledgling thirteen United States desperately needed more than their single ally, France (from 1778), to pursue their war for independence. Unwilling to engage in traditional European diplomatic behavior, they developed a concept of “militia diplomacy,” under which merchants would be sent to foreign ports to initiate friendly trading relations. Not fully realizing Catherine’s intention to maintain absolute neutrality in order to mediate peace between Great Britain and its breakaway colonies, the Americans sent to St. Petersburg, uninvited and unannounced, a would-be ambassador. The empress refused to collude in any way.
