But even after having acted so promptly and so energetically, and after having got possession of the capital and the principal part of the army and the navy, Catherine had still a great deal to do, and her penetrating genius did not underrate the danger of the situation in which she found herself. All her successes in the capital among officers had been secured by the fraudulent assertion that the Czar had died suddenly, and there was no certainty whether Peter’s sudden appearance at the capital, or a well-authenticated report that he was still among the living and was hastening toward the capital, might cause a sudden change in public sentiment. Undaunted by these secret apprehensions, and impelled by the restless energy of her devouring ambition, she never wavered in her resolution, but pressed onward toward the consummation of her dangerous but tempting project, which seemed to be almost within her grasp. Through the active agitation of her friends, and the strong and widespread hostility of the people and the army against Peter’s ill-advised measures of “reform,” she could, almost from the first announcement of her accession to the throne, command an army of fifteen thousand well-equipped men, who were ready to die for her against any pretender, Peter the Third included.
The outbreak of the revolution was so sudden that Peter was taken entirely by surprise, and would not listen to the first reports when they reached him. He had gone on that very day to Oranienbaum, an imperial summer resort, about twenty miles from St. Petersburg, where he enjoyed himself with his Holstein guards, his favorites, and his mistress, Elizabeth Woronzow. There were altogether about two thousand soldiers with him; but there was also Field-marshal Münnich, Russia’s most renowned soldier, and a man of great authority in the army. Moreover Münnich was a man of great personal courage, and if Peter had followed his counsels, he might have saved his crown and his life. Münnich’s advice was to take immediate and bold measures, to meet aggression by aggression, and to oppose the immense prestige of the legitimate ruler to the revolutionary usurpation of an ambitious and adulterous wife. But neither Peter’s personal character, nor his immediate surroundings would admit of the acceptance of such bold and aggressive action. He was like a helpless child, hesitating and vacillating, sending out orders, and revoking them the next hour; asking everybody’s advice, and following nobody’s. His mistress was bewailing his misfortune, cursing Catherine and her treachery, and falling into hysterics at the mere thought of a bloody struggle for supremacy between Peter and his wife. It was easy to foresee the outcome of so much indecision, vacillation and cowardice on one side, and of so much determination, firmness and courage on the other.