The brilliant career of Betancourt in Russia (October 1808 – August 1820) A trip around Imperial Russia (August 27th 1820 to December 1820) The decline of Betancourt’s career and life (1821 – July 1824)
The brilliant career of Betancourt in Russia (October 1808 – August 1820)
In December 1808 he enters the Russian army as a Major General for special missions of his Imperial Majesty in the Department of Ways of Communication (analogous to the Spanish Inspección de Caminos y Canales).
In Spain the Napoleonic soldiers assault the palace of Buen Retiro producing losses in the collections of the Gabinete de Máquinas, which are moved to the palace of Buenavista until 1813.
Betancourt soon enters as a consultant of the newly created Ways of Communication Corps in 1809 and in September he is named Inspector of the new Institute of the mentioned body created through his influence; he is named this month, likewise, Lieutenant General of the Russian army. December brings to light the foundational manifesto of the Institute, where they state the amount of pupils, subjects, exam systems, workshops, etc.
On the other hand on December 5th the Canarian engineer is named academic of the Institut de France (Class of Physical and Mathematical Sciences).
During 1809 Betancourt visited the ammunition factory of Tula with the idea of its modernization. The factory, that had been one of the principle centres of the Russian empire, had become old-fashioned and thus made the Canarian engineer order a powerful steam engine and lathes to finish off the rifles, which will be installed in the following years.
During 1810 Betancourt proposes for the cleaning of the port of Kronstadt (a little fortified isle in the golf of Finland, near St Petersburg) a powerful steam dredge that the Ministry of the Navy begins to finance. Also this year and the following two, our engineer exercises as a bridge construction engineer: over the rivers Izhora and Slavianka on the road to Moscow, an arc bridge in Catalina’s park, and those of Ijor, Peterhof and Tula.
This year Betancourt asks for some French engineers for the Ways of Communication Corps: Alexandre Fabre, Charles Potier, Maurice Destrem and Dominique Bazaine. The first two will be incorporated to teaching labours at the Institute, the last two to engineering tasks. There are admission exams for the Institute in October and the classes began in November, everything organised by Betancourt and being a professor of the institution as well.
The first generation of engineers from the Institute finish in May 1811, after passing their exams, they do practicals in St Petersburg and surroundings. In November a second plan of studies will be proposed.
In the summer Betancourt had been granted with the Order of St Alexander Nevsky. And during the course of the year he had projected the first permanent big arc bridge in Russia: the wooden bridge over the Little Neva, between Kamenny and Aptekarsky islands, the Kamennoostrovski Bridge.
In 1812 Napoleon’s troops cross the Russian border and 33 of the 133 men that had finished their studies at the Institute of Ways of Communication are called up for the army; the French engineers are deported to Siberia. On September 15th Napoleon enters Moscow and the Muscovites burn the city down and they withdraw. The French begin to counterfeit Russian banknotes in an alarming way.
The French army begins to withdraw on October 19th.
1813 is considered the year of the foundation of the Central Museum of Railway Transport of Russia, due to an initiative of Betancourt, they begin to receive objects and models for the special halls of the Museum and they also create workshops for it.
The Canarian engineer was subordinated to the tsar as Inspector of the Institute of Ways of Communication, out of which comes the first promotion of sixteen engineers. Also, Betancourt’s family travels to London at this time; his son Alfonso will stay in this city completing his formation until 1818.
The Kamennoostrovsky Bridge begins to work in 1813.
The next year, 1814, they install the steam engine at the factory of Tula.
In the correspondence of this year –Betancourt kept an assiduous epistolary relationship with his family in Tenerife during his Russian stage- he tells his brother José about:
- The reasons why he left Spain and decided to go to Russia, “Since I observed the hostility that reigned in Spain between the Prince of Asturias (today Fernando VII) and Godoy, I supposed that there would be a revolution in Spain and that in such a case it was necessary, to not perish with my family, to find asylum in a foreign kingdom for them to be safe, and I thought that Russia would be the best for the purpose.”
- The warm reception on behalf of the Russian Imperial family, the treatment dispensed by the tsar Alexander I and the honours received: “The Emperor and all the members of the Imperial family received me with distinctions that, I could not aspire nor expect. Of course I was invited by the Emperor to eat with him every day I wished (being very few those who enjoy this privilege): he set 25.000 roubles a year as a salary (each one was worth 8 Spanish reales) and he gave me the rank of Field Marshall, similar to the rank I had in Spain, but none of this pleased me as much as having to depend only on his single person, without the intermediation of any Minister; that is it, every time I wish to speak to him I enter his Cabinet without having to ask licence to anybody… After being here for just over a year he made me Lieutenant General, and a little later he gave me the Sash of St Alexander which after St Andrew is the most distinguished Order of Russia, and last year he sent me his portrait set with diamonds.
- The works that he has carried out in Russia in his first years of his stay: “From my part I correspond to him in what I can serving him in every way. I have formed an Institute or a Military College, to instruct the engineers and those who have already finished have corresponded in the last war much better than was expected of them. (I can flatter myself that in no other place Mathematics are better taught than at my establishment). I have made a machine to clean the port of Kronstadt, moved by a fire pump, plans that you saw me working on in Paris, it has turned out with such perfection that every two minutes it drags out a cubic yard of mud from a depth of 20 feet. I have constructed several wooden bridges and I am sending you the plan that I have sketched out with ink and pen of the last one that I have executed in this city and of which Araus can give you news. I have established a bronze canon foundry following a completely new plan and I have done other things that would take a long time to write about.” [See Letter from Agustín de Betancourt to his brother José in La Orotava September 15th 1814: Letter 31].
In 1815 the French engineers deported to Siberia return to St Petersburg and they are incorporated as professors of advanced teaching in mathematics. Meanwhile in Spain the collections of the Gabinete de Máquinas leave the palace of Buenavista and they are moved to the premises of the Real Sociedad Económica of Madrid, in the Calle del Turco.
From March 1816 Betancourt assumes the setting up of a new factory of paper money beside the Fontanka Canal. For two years Betancourt will direct and control the works, designing, building or ordering the different departments, the printing press and the machinery, and by doing himself, likewise, the drawings of the banknotes. Later on, between 1818 and 1820, they proceeded to the complete change of the circulating banknotes all over Russia.
On April 26th, 1816 the brother of our engineer: José de Betancourt y Castro dies in La Orotava.
In St. Petersburg, at mid May of this year, the Committee of Constructions and Hydraulic Works is created by Imperial Decree, which will be directed by Betancourt by order of the tsar. Its functions are to look after the urbanism and ornamentation of the city, this is, improve the layout of the streets, urbanize the suburbs of the city, construct bridges, upkeep the canals, etc.
The enthusiasm after the defeat of Napoleon’s troops in 1812 is transformed into commemorative monuments and in the public works of the city so the labours of this organism in the period when Betancourt was in charge was enormous: they erected the buildings of the Senate square, the Elagin and Mikhailovsky palaces and their adjacent zones, they reconstructed the stables on the Moika, they built the St Isaac Cathedral, etc.
Recommended by Breguet, the young Auguste de Montferrand, who had arrived this summer from Paris, began to work as a draughtsman at the Committee of Constructions. Later on, at request of Betancourt, he will present a reconstruction project of the St Isaac cathedral that will be approved by the tsar and it will help him to be named as an imperial engineer (the supervision of the works will be, however, Betancourt’s job).
In August a fire destroys the Makariev Fair the most important Russian commercial fair on the Volga. The tsar entrusts the Obvodny canal in St Petersburg to De Wolant and Betancourt in September 1816.
In October Betancourt’s collaborator in Spain, Rafael Bauzá (Rafael Rafailovich in Russia) is incorporated to the Ways of Communications Corps with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He, at the orders of the Canarian engineer, will be destined in first instance to the works of the new mint in Warsaw, the building is built between 1816 and 1818 (possibly projected by Betancourt) and where they shall install an innovative steam engine.
During 1816 the professor of the Institute Dominique Bazaine will work on the development of steam navigation in Russia, a request from Betancourt. The next year he publishes a Memoir upon the theory of the movement of the steamboat and its appliance to canals, rivers and tributaries, that sets the basis of this kind of steam locomotion with paddle wheels in Russia.
In 1817 the Russian Cabinet of Ministers entrusts Betancourt with the construction of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair; this same year he will present a project for its realization. This is accepted, and in it are included the plans of the commercial and administrative buildings, the urban development scheme and the design of a canal in the shape of a horseshoe beginning at the Meshcherskoye lake. This will be, surely, the summit project of Betancourt in Russia. Once made, the complex consisted of a big central building, two administrative buildings, eight commercial centres, forty-eight shops and a church, accesses through the canal and a movable bridge over the river Oka.
Montferrand works this year at the St Isaac cathedral under Betancourt’s orders, who is only able to be directly involved with the foundations and the construction of the machinery for the actual building – the scaffoldings and the elevating mechanisms (the scaffoldings, created to erect the columns, are still exhibited today in the cathedral).
In December 1817 the building called the Exercise Hall of Moscow will be ready, a project of Betancourt that was executed in five months by L. L. Charbonier. The building housed a hall for equestrian exercises for the army in winter, without interior columns and with a heating system.
In 1818 Betancourt is given 1000 roubles per month for the construction of the Nizhny Novgorod fair, the Spaniard Joaquín Espejo who had just been incorporated to the Ways of Communication Corps joins the project in January. Another Spaniard, Joaquín Viadó, also incorporated to the Corps will be commissioned for the construction of roads around St Petersburg and the Russian central regions.
A third Spaniard arrives in Russia in July. He is the collaborator of Betancourt José Sureda, who stays in the country until the following spring, working with him on the invention of a machine to spin wool.
In September Betancourt projects new boats for the St. Isaac Bridge over the Great Neva.
In April 1819 there is promotion in Betancourt’s career. Agustín Agustinovitch Betancourt is named Managing Director of the Department of Ways of Communication, conserving the post of Inspector of the homonymous Institute, and being able to be present in the sessions of the Council of Ministers. In July he is also named, member of the Russian Imperial Society of Mineralogy.
In addition, the Spanish engineers who arrive in Russia also are ascending to the direction of the Corps of the Ways of Communication; this is the case of Joaquín Espejo. In a letter of October of that year Betancourt says that he can employ all the engineers that he wants, and carries on saying: “there are more than fifty million Spanish reales yearly at my disposition, to spend them on works on canals, roads and I am needing people whom I can entrust them to. All the ones that I propose to this Emperor will be well admitted, as have already been the four Spanish officials that I have proposed.” [See Letter from Agustín de Betancourt to his sister Catalina in La Orotava October 1st 1819: Letter 37].
This summer they set the foundations of the main buildings of the site of the Nizhny Novgorod fair: the administrative buildings, the Cathedral and the Chinese Pavilions.
They publish this year in St Petersburg the Description de la Salle d’Exercice de Moscou written by Betancourt. Meanwhile, in Paris, the second edition is published, with several additions made by Lanz, of the Essai sur la composition des machines, but without Hachette’s programme of the first edition.
The Spanish engineer Joaquín Espejo, mentioned above, marries Carolina, Betancourt’s eldest daughter in January 1820.
This year they open in St Petersburg, following Betancourt’s project, two formative schools for assistant technical personnel: the Military in Constructions and the Machinists. In a letter of June 10th, 1820 to his sister María del Carmen, and after mentioning the marriage of his daughter Carolina to Joaquín Espejo, he carries on saying: “…he is employed building [J. Espejo], with other Spaniards and under my orders, the famous fair of Makariev, that I have had moved to Nizhny Novgorod. This fair will be one of the most curious things that there will be in Europe, as you could judge if I had time to make a description. For the time being, I will tell you that it is at the confluence of the famous Volga and Oka Rivers, the buildings are to contain three thousand spacious shops, in front of which there is a gallery supported by three thousand two hundred cast iron columns, also there are several buildings for the housing of the Governor, for the stock exchange, cafeteria, halls for the general assemblies, three churches, etc. etc…I think that next year it will all be finished. This is a minimum part of what I have at my cargo. Under my direction are all the roads and canals of the Empire, the navigation on all the rivers, all the buildings of the city of St Petersburg; three colleges for the instruction of the engineers, etc.” [See letter from Agustín de Betancourt to his sister María del Carmen of June 10th 1820: Letter 38].
The Canarian engineer sent a copy of the Description de la Salle d’Exercice de Moscou in June to his sister Catalina and her husband, asking them to send him two or three dripstones for the distillation of water. Betancourt, on the other hand, gives his brother-in-law Antonio de Monteverde an unlimited power of attorney, legalized by the Spanish consul, for the administration of his goods. In a letter of June 1820, Betancourt makes a brief description of the Exercise Hall of Moscow: “It was two years ago that I built in Moscow, under orders of the Emperor, a hall for the troops to exercise during the winter. I gave this hall 150 English feet in width and more than 500 length, the roof being supported just by the four walls something that that does not exist up to now anywhere and it has been celebrated.” [See Letter of Agustín de Betancourt to his brother-in-law Antonio Monteverde y Rivas, in La Orotava, June 10th 1820: Letter 40].
A trip around Imperial Russia (August 27th 1820 to December 1820)
On August 27th 1820 Betancourt goes, as he does during these summers, with his family to Nizhny Novgorod and from there he begins a long journey down the Volga to know the state of the ways of communication of the interior of Russia. [Video "Viaje de Betancourt por el Antiguo Imperio Ruso" (only in Spanish)].
The journey that will last four months, begins at the Tartar capital, Kazan, along the river Volga; here he will look for possible forms of water supplies for the population, as well as improving the docks and drying the swamps. From here, he went up the river Kama until he reaches Laishevo, where he will build a machine to hoist the masts of the ships proposed by himself. Later he goes to the fluvial ports of Seratov and Astrakhan, where he proposes reforms and improvements. Crossing the Caucasus he arrives at Georgia, where he visits several industries at its capital Tbilisi; and from there continues his journey towards the ports of the Black Sea. At Sebastopol he proposes the construction of a shipyard and in Crimea he projects a damn to channel the waters of the Dnieper. At Odessa he approves several projects for the port, paving and water supplies. And after inspecting several rivers, following the course of the Oka he returns to St Petersburg. The contrast between the modern city of St Petersburg, with good services, and the rural Russia that he has just visited is very notable and shocks Betancourt.
After returning from this journey, in December, Betancourt presents to the tsar quite a critical report upon the Russian ways of communication, and he complains of the small assignation dedicated to public works. It seems that this report annoyed the tsar.
Even so, while he carried on as director of the Department of Ways of Communication they did several important works on diverse canals –the Tijvinka, the Mariinsky or the Vyshni Volochyok-, they constructed the North canal and the first steamboats appeared on the Volga.
At this time they built, as well, the St Isaac Bridge over the Great Neva in St Petersburg. This direct work of Betancourt was put on floating piles that rested on boats, a system easy to rig up and to up keep.
In 1820 the first edition in English of the essay on machines appeared, with the title An Analytical Essay on the Construction of Machines. And in Spain the Escuela de Caminos y Canales is re-established in November.
The decline of Betancourt’s career and life (1821 – July 1824)
In 1821 two Spaniards are incorporated to the Corps of Engineers of Ways of Communication. The first of them is Betancourt’s nephew Agustín de Monteverde y Betancourt, posted to the construction of roads in St Petersburg and Moscow, and, later on to the water supplies in Odessa and the second one was Miguel Espejo, younger brother of Joaquín, also assigned to the construction of roads and bridges.
The tsar refuses audience to Betancourt for the first time in September of this year, and the distance between the Spanish engineer and the tsar begins to increase. Several episodes contribute to this: the protection given by Betancourt to a Spanish liberal, Juan van Halen, who enters the Russian army thanks to him, and will be expelled for supporting the liberal revolution of colonel Riego in Spain; the fact that Betancourt himself was sympathetic towards the liberal revolutions in Spain and Russia, as it happened with the episode of the Septembrists; and it seems that in both cases disciples of Betancourt participated in the revolutions.
In October of this year he writes a letter to his sister María del Carmen –Maruca- where you can see the nostalgia of the happy times of youth in Tenerife: “I have received your two appreciable letters of February 24th and June 14th of this year that have produced me the biggest pleasure that you could imagine, remembering every word, of the happy times we spent together weaving the tapes of satin and velvet making braids, etc, etc. I can assure you that of all I have learnt in my life nothing has been so useful as the exercise that I had then of threading, yarning, dyeing and other things we did just as a pastime: this knowledge that I acquired in play, has been the origin of my love for the mechanical arts, and all of my happiness…” [See Letter of Agustín de Betancourt y Molina to his sister María del Carmen, in La Orotava. October 10th 1821: Letter 41]
Betancourt tells the tsar the following month that his collaborators the French engineers Charles Potier, Alexandre Fabre, Dominique Bazaine and Maurice Destrem, had been decorated by the king of France with the Order of the Légion d’honneur.
Under the supervision of Betancourt two Russian engineers reconstruct the Moscow canal aqueduct at Rostokino. And the Canarian engineer is also responsible for the water supplies of the Summer Palace of Tsarskoye Selo and of the town of Kazan on the banks of the Volga.
In January 1822 Betancourt’s career enters into a franc decline when the tsar reprimands him for the elevated expenses of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, and certain financial irregularities committed by one of his subordinates. Two months later the tsar ordered to reduce the works entrusted to the Department of Ways of Communication and he refuses to receive Betancourt for months. He is received in August to be communicated that the relative of the tsar the duke Alexander of Württemberg will be his chief and he is named General Administrator of Ways of Communication, this means in fact the destitution of Agustín de Betancourt. The duke, on the other hand, will try to humiliate Betancourt and will show disdain towards his work. In a letter of December 1822 to his family, Betancourt evokes his destitution: “You already know that I was Managing Director of the Corps of Engineers of Interior Communication. The work that this gave me was very superior to my strength, so I pleaded several times to the Emperor to exempt me of it… this far from being a disgrace, has been a great favour, because I can assure you that I did not have time even to eat in peace…” [See Letter of Agustín de Betancourt to Antonio Monteverde Rivas and wife -Catalina de Betancourt y Molina-, in La Orotava, December 26, 1822: Letter 43]
A few days before these events happened, on July 27th, they had opened the installations of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair –except for a few works to be finished the following year. The fair brought more 200.000 merchants to the city, obtaining more than 500.000 roubles of profit for the State in this first summer fair.
In January 1823 Betancourt’s son Alfonso, enters the First Cavalry Regiment of the Russian Imperial Guard as a pupil. In Spain the Escuela de Caminos y Canales is shut down again and will not open its doors again until the death of Fernando VII in 1834. Betancourt travelled to Nizhny Novgorod in the summer for the last time; here he will work with V. Geste on a project for the reconstruction of the city of Nizhny.
Also this summer the death of his eldest daughter Carolina occured, due to an ill-fated childbirth. Betancourt was very taken back by this event.
In 1824 Fernando VII creates in Madrid the Real Conservatorio de Artes where they place the collections of the Real Gabinete de Máquinas, in the Calle del Turco. Juan López de Peñalver will be named director until his death in 1835.
In February this year Betancourt sends the director of the Institute of Ways of Communication Dominique Bazaine the programme of a “scientific literary magazine of the Russian empire on ways of communication”, that will be edited by the General Direction at the death of our engineer.
On the 16th February, after a last interview with the tsar, Betancourt presented his resignation from all his posts, on his 66th birthday. In April the tsar Alexander I concedes him a 6000 roubles pension. This allows him spend his last months living in a humble neighbourhood of the city, interested in painting and remembering his early days in Tenerife.
In July, Betancourt, who is already ill, asks the tsar for protection for his family, petition that is well received.
On July 26th, 1824 (July 14th in the Julian calendar) Agustín de Betancourt y Molina dies in St Petersburg at the age of 66. His burial was attended, by order of the tsar, by all the generals, chiefs and officials of St Petersburg. His wife, Anna Jourdain, received from the emperor the concession of the salary of her husband. The tsar Alexander I himself died a few months later.
