But before Muscovy thus became an independent power, it had taken the greatest of steps towards growing into Russia. ♦Annexation of Novgorod. 1470;♦ Novgorod the Great, the only Russian rival of Moscow, first lost its northern territory, and then itself became part of the Muscovite dominion. ♦of Viatka, 1478;
of Tver, 1493.♦ The commonwealth of Viatka, the principality of Tver, and some small appanages of the house of Moscow followed. ♦Reign of Basil Ivanovitch, 1505-1533.
Annexation of Pskof and Riazan.♦ The annexation of what remained, as Pskof and Riazan, was only a question of time, and it came in the next reign. Of the three works which were needful for the full growth of the new Russia, two were accomplished. ♦Russia united and independent.♦ The Russian state was one, and it was independent. And the third work, that of winning back the lost Russian lands, had already begun.

Thus, at the end of the fifteenth century, five powers held the Baltic coast. Sweden held the west coast from the Danish frontier northward, with both sides of the gulf of Bothnia and both sides of the gulf of Finland. Denmark held the extreme western coast and the isle of Gotland. Poland and Lithuania had a small seaboard indeed compared to their inland extent. Poland had only the Pomeranian and Prussian coast which she had just won from the Knights. Lithuania barely touched the sea between Prussia and Curland. To the west of the Polish coast lay the now Germanized lands of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. To the north-west lay the coast of the German military Order, under Polish vassalage in Prussia, independent in its northern possessions. Thus almost the whole Baltic coast was held by Teutonic powers; the Slavonic powers still lie mainly inland. The Polish frontier towards the Empire has been cut down to the limit which it kept till the end. Pomerania, Silesia, a great part of the mark of Brandenburg, have fallen away from the Polish realm. On the other hand, that realm and its confederate Lithuania have grown wonderfully to the east at the cost of divided and dependent Russia, and have begun to fall back again before Russia one and independent. Bohemia, enlarged by Silesia and Lusatia, has entered so thoroughly into the German world as almost to pass out of our sight.

§ 4. The Growth of Russia and Sweden.

The work of the last four centuries on the Baltic coast has been to drive back the Scandinavian power, after a vast momentary advance, wholly to the west of the Baltic—to give nearly the whole eastern coast to Russia—to make the whole southern coast German. These changes involve the wiping out, first of the German military Order, and then of Poland and Lithuania. ♦Growth of Russia and creation of Prussia.♦ This last change involves the growth of Russia, and the creation of Prussia in the modern sense, a sense so strangely different from its earlier meaning. These two have been the powers by which Sweden and Denmark have been cut short, by which Poland and Lithuania have been swallowed up. In this last work they indeed had a third confederate. Still the share of Austria in the overthrow of Poland was in a manner incidental. But the existence of such a Polish and Lithuanian state as stood at the end of the fifteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century was inconsistent with the existence of either Russia or Prussia as great European powers.

The period with which we have now to deal takes in only the former stage of this process. Russia advances; Prussia in the modern sense comes into being. ♦Greatness of Sweden.♦ But Sweden is still the most advancing power of all; and, if Denmark falls back, it is before the power of Sweden. The Hansa too and the Knights pass away; Sweden is the ruling power of the Baltic.

The sixteenth century saw the fall of both branches of the Teutonic Order. Out of the fall of one of them came the beginnings of modern Prussia. ♦Separation of the Prussian and Livonian knights. 1515.♦ The two branches of the Order were separated; the Livonian lands had an independent Master. ♦Beginning of the Duchy of Prussia. 1525.♦ Before long the Prussian Grand Master, Albert of Brandenburg, changed from the head of a Catholic religious order into a Lutheran temporal prince, holding the hereditary duchy of Prussia as a Polish fief. ♦Geographical position of Prussia.♦ That duchy had so strange a frontier towards the kingdom that it could not fail sooner or later either to be swallowed up by the kingdom which hemmed it in, or else to make its way out of its geographical bonds. ♦Union of Prussia and Brandenburg. 1611.♦ When the Prussian duchy and the mark of Brandenburg came into the hands of one prince, when the dominions of that prince were enlarged by the union of Brandenburg and Pomerania, the second of these solutions became only a question of time. ♦Prussia independent of Poland. 1647.♦ The first formal step towards it was the release of the duchy from all dependence on Poland. Prussia became a distinct state, one now essentially German, but lying beyond the bounds of the Empire.

As the rights of the Empire had been formally cut short when Prussia passed under Polish vassalage, they were also formally cut short by the dissolution of the northern branch of the Teutonic order. ♦Fall of the Livonian Order. 1558-1561.♦ The rule of the Livonian Knights survived the secularization of the Prussian duchy by forty years; their dominion then fell asunder. ♦Duchy of Curland.♦ As in the case of Prussia, part of their territory, Curland and Semigallia, was kept by the Livonian Master Godhard Kettler, as an hereditary duchy under Polish vassalage. The rest of the lands of the order were parted out among the chief powers of the Baltic. ♦Momentary kingdom of Livonia.♦ A Livonian kingdom under the Danish prince Magnus was but for a moment. ♦Denmark takes Dago and Oesel.♦ Denmark in the end received the islands of Dago and Oesel, her last conquests east of the Baltic. ♦Sweden takes Esthland.♦ Sweden advanced south of the Finnish gulf, taking the greater part of Esthland. ♦Livland goes to Poland and Russia.♦ Northern Livland fell to Russia, the southern part to Poland. ♦All Livland Polish. 1582.♦ Twenty years later all Livland became a Polish possession.

This acquisition of Livland and of the superiority over Prussia and Curland raised the united power of Poland and Lithuania to its greatest extent on the Baltic coast. ♦Union of Lublin, 1569.♦ Meanwhile the union of Lublin joined the kingdom and the grand duchy yet more closely together. But, long before this time, the eastern frontier of Lithuania had begun to fall back. ♦Russian advance.♦ The central advance of Russia to the west had begun. ♦Its causes.♦ A revived state, such as Russia was at the end of the fifteenth century, must advance, unless it be artificially hindered; and the new Russian state was driven to advance if it was to exist at all. It had no sea-board, except on the White Sea; it did not hold the mouth of any one of its great rivers, except the Northern Dvina, a stream thoroughly cut off from European life. The dominions of Sweden, Lithuania, and the Knights cut Russia off from the Baltic and from central Europe. To the south and east she was cut off from the Euxine and the Caspian, from the mouths of the Don and the Volga, by the powers which represented her old barbarian masters. Russia was thus not only driven to advance, but driven to advance in various directions. She had to win back her lost lands; she had, if she was really to become an European power, to win her way to the Baltic and to the Euxine. ♦Advance to the north-east.♦ Her position made it almost equally needful to win her way to the Caspian, and made it unavoidable that she should spread her power over the barbarian lands to the north-east. Of these several fields of advance the path to the Euxine was the longest barred. ♦Order of Russian advances.♦ First, at the end of the fifteenth century, began the recovery of the lost lands, a work spread over the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Then, in the sixteenth, came the eastern extension at the cost of the now weakened Mongol enemy. Strictly Baltic extension was in the sixteenth century merely momentary; it did not become lasting till the beginning of the eighteenth. ♦The Euxine reached last.♦ But Russia had been established on the Caspian for more than two centuries, she had become a Baltic power for more than two generations, before she made her way to the oldest scene of her seafaring enterprise.

The recovery of the lands which had been lost to Lithuania began before the end of the fifteenth century. Ivan the Great won back Severia, with Tchernigof and the Severian Novgorod and part of the territory of Smolensk. ♦1514.
1563.♦ Under Basil Smolensk itself followed; under Ivan the Terrible Polotsk again became Russian. Then the tide turned for a season. Russia first lost her newly-won territory in Livland. ♦Recovery of Smolensk by Poland. 1582.
Polish conquest of Russia, 1606.♦ The recovery of Smolensk by Poland was followed by the momentary Polish conquest of independent Russia, and the occupation of the throne of Moscow by a Polish prince. ♦Second revival of Russia, and second advance.♦ The Muscovite state came again to life; but it was shorn of a large part of the national territory, which had to be won again by a second advance. ♦Cessions to Poland.♦ Smolensk, Tchernigof, and the greater part of the Lithuanian conquests beyond the Dnieper, were again surrendered to the united Polish and Lithuanian state. In the middle of the century came the renewed Russian advance. ♦Lands recovered by the Peace of Andraszovo, 1667.♦ The Treaty of Andraszovo gave back to Russia most of the lands which had been surrendered fifty years before. ♦Recovery of Kief. 1686.♦ By the last advance in the seventeenth century Russia won back a small territory west of the Dnieper, including her ancient capital of Kief. ♦Superiority over the Ukraine Cossacks.♦ At the same time Poland finally gave up to Russia the superiority over the Cossacks of Ukraine, between the Bug and the Lower Dnieper. ♦Russian lands still kept by Poland.♦ But, with this exception, Poland and Lithuania still kept all the Russian lands south of Duna and west of Dnieper, with some districts beyond those rivers. Nor was Russia the only power to which Poland had to give way on her south-eastern frontier. ♦Podolia lost to the Turk.♦ In this quarter the Ottoman for the last time won a new province from a Christian state by the acquisition of Kamienetz and all Podolia.[67]

But Poland had during this period to give way at other points also. This was the time of the great growth of the Swedish power. ♦Growth of Sweden and Russia compared.♦ The contrast between the growth of Sweden and the contemporary growth of Russia is instructive. The revived power of Moscow was partly winning back its own lost lands, partly advancing in directions which were needful for national growth, almost for national being. The growth of Sweden in so many directions was almost wholly a growth beyond her own borders. ♦Russian advance lasting.
Swedish advance temporary.♦ Hence doubtless it came that the advance of Russia has been lasting, while the advance of Sweden was only for a season. Sweden has lost by far the greater part of her conquests; she has kept only those parts of them which went to complete her position in her own peninsula.

On the Swedish conquest of Esthland followed a series of shiftings of the frontiers of Sweden and Russia which lasted into the present century. ♦Advance under and after Gustavus Adolphus. 1611-1660.♦ During the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, and the period which we might almost call the continuation of his reign after his death, Sweden advanced both in her own peninsula and east of the Baltic, while she also gained a wholly new footing on German ground, both on the Baltic and on the Ocean. ♦Wars between Sweden and Russia. 1576-1617.
Peace of Stalbova.♦ A long period of alternate war and peace, a time in which Novgorod the Great passed for a moment into Swedish hands, was ended, as far as Sweden and Russia were concerned, by the peace of Stalbova. ♦Sweden gains Ingermanland.♦ The Swedish frontier thus fixed took in all Carelia and Ingermanland, and wholly cut off Russia from the Baltic and its gulfs. Such an advance could not fail to lead to further advance, though at the expense of another enemy. ♦Wars between Sweden and Poland. 1619-1660.
Swedish conquest of Livland, 1621-1625;♦ The long war between Sweden and Poland gave to Sweden Riga and the greater part of Livland. ♦of Dago and Oesel, 1645.♦ Her conquests in this region were completed by winning the islands of Dago and Oesel from Denmark.

This last acquisition, geographically connected with the Swedish conquests from Russia and Poland, was politically part of an equally great advance which Sweden was making at the cost of the rival Scandinavian power, the united realms of Denmark and Norway. ♦Conquest of Gotland and Bornholm. 1645.
Of Jämteland.♦ Along with the two eastern islands, Denmark lost the isle of Gotland for ever and that of Bornholm for a moment,[68] and the Norwegian provinces east of the mountains, Jämteland and Hertjedalen. The treaty of Roskild yet further enlarged Sweden at the expense of Norway. ♦Of Trondhjemlän. 1658.♦ By the cession of Trondhjemlän the Norwegian kingdom was split asunder; the ancient metropolis was lost, and Sweden reached to the Ocean. ♦Of Bohuslän, and Scania, &c.♦ With Trondhjem Sweden also received Bohuslän, the southern province of Norway, and, more than all, the ancient possessions of Denmark in the northern peninsula, with her old metropolis of Lund. Here comes in the application of the rule. ♦Trondhjem restored to Norway. 1660.♦ In annexing Trondhjem Sweden had overshot her mark; it was restored within two years. It was otherwise with Bohuslän, Scania, and her other conquests within what might seem to be her natural borders; they have remained Swedish to this day.

The Swedish acquisition of the eastern lands of Denmark was made more necessary by the position which Sweden had now taken on the central mainland. The peace of Westfalia had confirmed her in the possession of Rügen and Western Pomerania on the Baltic, and of the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden which made her a power on the Ocean. These lands were not strictly an addition to the Swedish realm; they were fiefs of the Empire held by the Swedish king. Here again comes in the geographical law. The Swedish possession of the German lands on the Ocean was short; part of the German lands on the Baltic was kept into the present century.

The peace of Roskild, which cut short the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in the northern peninsula, also marks an epoch in the controverted history of the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein. ♦Denmark gives up the sovereignty of the Gottorp lands. 1658.♦ The Danish king gave up the sovereignty of the Gottorp districts of the duchies. Even if that cession implied the surrender of his own feudal superiority over the Gottorp districts of Sleswick, he could not alienate any part of the Imperial rights over Holstein. ♦Fluctuations in the duchies. 1675-1700.♦ This sovereignty, in whatever it consisted, was lost and won several times between king and Duke before the end of the century. ♦Danish possession of Oldenburg. 1678.♦ Meanwhile the Danish crown became possessed of the outlying duchies of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, which in some sort balanced the Swedish possession of Bremen and Verden.

The wars and treaties which were ended by the peace of Oliva fixed the boundaries of the Baltic lands for a season. They fixed the home extent of Sweden down to the present century. They cut off Denmark, save its one outpost of Bornholm, from the Baltic itself, as distinguished from the narrow seas which lead to it. They fixed the extent of Poland down to the partitions. What they failed to do for any length of time was to cut off Russia from the Baltic, and to establish Sweden on the Ocean. But for the present we leave Sweden ruling over the whole western and the greater part of the eastern coast of the Northern Mediterranean, and holding smaller possessions both on its southern coast and on the Ocean. The rest of the eastern and southern coast of the Baltic is divided between the Polish fief of Curland, the dominions of the common ruler of Pomerania and Prussia,—now an independent prince in his eastern duchy,—and the small piece of Polish coast placed invitingly between the two parts of his dominions. In her own peninsula Sweden has reached her natural frontier, and has given back what she won for a moment beyond it. While Sweden has this vast extent of coast with comparatively little extent inland, the vast inland region of Poland and Lithuania has hardly any seaboard, and the still vaster inland region of Russia has none at all in Europe, except on the White Sea. Thus the most striking feature of this period is the advance of Sweden; but we have seen that it was also a time of great advance on the part of Russia. It was a time of yet greater advance on that side of her dominion where Russia had no European rivals.

In the case of Russia, the only European power which could conquer and colonize by land in barbarian regions,[69] her earlier barbarian conquests were absolutely necessary to her existence. No hard line can be drawn between her earliest and her latest conquests, between the first advance of Novgorod and the last conquests in Turkestan. But the advance which immediately followed the deliverance from the Tartar yoke marks a great epoch. The smaller khanats into which the dominion of the Golden Horde had been broken up still kept Russia from the Euxine and the Caspian. ♦Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. 1552-1554.♦ The two khanats on the Volga, Kazan and Astrakhan, were subdued by Ivan the Terrible. The coast of the Caspian was now reached. But the khans of Crim remained, unsubdued and dangerous enemies, still cutting off Russia from the Euxine. ♦Superiority over the Don Cossacks. 1577.♦ Yet, even in this direction an advance was made when the Russian supremacy was acknowledged by the Cossacks of the Don. ♦Beginning of Siberian conquest. 1581.
1592-1706.♦ The conquest of the Siberian khanat, with its capital Tobolsk, next followed, and thence, in the course of the next century, the boundless extent of northern Asia was added to the Russian dominion.

§ 5. The Decline of Sweden and Poland.

In the last section we traced out the greatest advance of Sweden and a large advance of Russia, both made at the cost of Poland, that of Sweden also at the cost of Denmark. We saw also the beginnings of a power which we still called Brandenburg rather than Prussia. ♦Growth of Prussia.♦ In the present section, describing the work of the eighteenth century, we have to trace the growth of this last power, which now definitely takes the Prussian name, and which we have to look at in its Prussian character. ♦Decline of Sweden.
Extinction of Poland.♦ The period is marked by the decline of Sweden and the utter wiping out of Poland and Lithuania, Russia and Prussia in different degrees being chief actors in both cases. ♦Kingdom of Prussia. 1701.♦ At the beginning of the period Prussia becomes a kingdom—a sign of advance, though not accompanied by any immediate increase of territory. ♦Empire of Russia. 1721.♦ A little later the ruler of Russia, already Imperial in his own tongue,[70] more definitely takes the Imperial style as Emperor of all the Russias. This might pass as a challenge of the Russian lands, Black, White, and Red, which were still held by Poland.

But more pressing than the recovery of these lands was the breaking down of the barrier by which Sweden kept Russia away from the Baltic. To a very slight extent this was a recovery of old Russian territory; but the position now won by Russia was wholly new. ♦Wars of Charles and Peter. 1700-1721.
Foundation of Saint Petersburg. 1703.♦ The war with Charles the Twelfth made Russia a great Baltic power, and Peter the Great, early in the struggle, set up the great trophy of his victory in the foundation of his new capital of Saint Petersburg on ground won from Sweden. ♦Cession of Livland, &c., by Sweden.♦ The peace of Nystad confirmed Russia in the possession of Swedish Livland, Esthland, Ingermanland, part of Carelia, and a small part of Finland itself. ♦Further advance of Russia. 1741-1743.♦ Another war, ended by the Peace of Åbo, gave Russia another small extension in Finland.

At the same time Sweden was cut short in her other outlying possessions. ♦Sweden loses Bremen, Verden, and part of Pomerania.♦ Of her German fiefs, the duchies of Bremen and Verden passed, first to Denmark, then to Hannover. But her Baltic possessions were only partly lost, to the profit of Brandenburg. The frontier of Swedish Pomerania fell back to the north-west, losing Stettin, but keeping Stralsund, Wolgast, and Rügen. Denmark meanwhile advanced in the debateable land on her southern frontier. ♦Danish conquest of the Gottorp lands. 1713-1715.♦ The Danish occupation of Bremen and Verden was only momentary; but the Gottorp share of Sleswick and Holstein was conquered, and the possession of all Sleswick was guaranteed to Denmark by England and France. ♦The Gottorp lands in Holstein restored.♦ But the Gottorp share of Holstein, as an Imperial fief, was given back to its Duke. ♦They pass to Denmark in exchange for Oldenburg. 1767-1773.♦ Lastly, when the house of Gottorp had mounted the throne of Russia, the Gottorp portion of Holstein was ceded to Denmark in exchange for Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, which were at once given to another branch of the family.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century the three partitions of Poland brought about the all but complete recovery of the lands which the Lithuanian dukes had won from Russia. ♦Russian share.♦ The first partition gave Russia Polish Livland, and all the lands which Poland still kept beyond Duna and Dnieper. The greater part of White Russia was thus won back. ♦Prussian share.
Brandenburg and Prussia geographically united.♦ At the same time the house of Hohenzollern gained its great territorial need, the geographical union of the kingdom of Prussia with the lands of Brandenburg and Pomerania, now increased by nearly all Silesia. This union was made by Poland giving up West Prussia—Danzig remaining an outlying city of Poland—and part of Great Poland and Cujavia, known as the Netz District.[71] ♦Austrian share.
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ The Austrian share, the new kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, was a kind of commemoration of the conquests of Lewis the Great:[72] but, while it did not take in all Red Russia, it took in part of Podolia and of Little Poland south of the Vistula, making Cracow a frontier city. ♦Russian territory held by Austria.♦ Austria thus became possessed of a part of the old Russian territory, most of which she has kept ever since.

The Polish state was thus maimed on all sides; but it still kept a considerable territorial extent. The second partition, the work of Russia and Prussia only, could only be a preparation for the final death-blow. ♦Russian share.♦ It gave to Russia the rest of Podolia and Ukraine, and part of Volhynia and Podlasia. Little Russia and White Russia were thus wholly won back, and the Russian frontier was advanced within the old Lithuanian duchy. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia took nearly all that was left of the oldest Polish state, the rest of Great Poland and Cujavia, and part of Mazovia, forming the South Prussia of the new nomenclature. Gnesen, the oldest Polish capital, the metropolis of the Polish Church, now passed away from Poland.

The remnant that was left to Poland took in the greater part of Little Poland, part of Mazovia, the greater part of the old Lithuania with the fragment still left of its Russian territory, Samogitia and the fief of Curland. ♦Third partition. 1795.♦ The final division was delayed only two years. This time all three partners joined. ♦Russian share.♦ Russia took all Lithuania east of the Niemen, with its capital Vilna, also Curland and Samogitia to the north, and the old Russian remnant to the south. ♦Austrian share.♦ Austria took Cracow, with nearly all the rest of Little Poland, as also part of Mazovia, by the name of New Galicia. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia took Danzig and Thorn, as also a small piece of Little Poland to improve the frontiers of South Prussia and Silesia, perhaps without thinking that this last process was an advance of the Roman Terminus. The capital Warsaw, with the remnant of Mazovia and the strip of Lithuania west of the Niemen, also fell to Prussia. The names of Poland and Lithuania now passed away from the map.

It is important to remember that the three partitions gave no part of the original Polish realm to Russia. Russia took back the Russian territory which had been long before won by Lithuania, and added the greater part of Lithuania itself, with the lands immediately to the north. ♦The old Poland divided between Prussia and Austria.♦ The ancient kingdom of Poland was divided between Prussia and Austria, and the oldest Poland of all fell to the lot of Prussia. ♦Poland passes to Prussia,♦ Great Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, the Polish lands which had passed to the mark of Brandenburg, once united under Polish rule, were again united under the power to which they had gradually fallen away. ♦Chrobatia to Austria.♦ Austria or Hungary meanwhile took the rest of the northern Chrobatia, seven hundred years after the acquisition of the former part, and also the Russian land which had been twice before added to the Magyar kingdom.

Meanwhile Russia made advances in other quarters of nearly equal extent. As the remnant of the Saracen at Granada cut off the Castilian from his southern coast or the Mediterranean, for more than two hundred years, so did the remnant of the Tartar in Crim cut off the Russian for as long a time from his southern coast on the Euxine. ♦Occupation of Azof. 1696-1711.♦ Peter the Great first made his way, if not to the Euxine, at least to its inland gulf, by the taking of Azof. But the new conquest was only temporary. After seventy years more the work was done. ♦Independence of Crim 1774.
Annexation of Crim. 1783.♦ First came the nominal independence of the Crimean khanat, then its incorporation with Russia. The work at which Megarian and Genoese colonists had laboured was now done; the northern coast of the Euxine was won for Europe.[73] The road through which so many Turanian invaders had pressed into the Aryan continent was blocked for ever. ♦Conquest of Jedisan. 1791.♦ The next advance, the limit of Russian advance made strictly at the expense of the barbarian as distinguished from his Christian vassals, carried the Russian frontier from the Bug to the Dniester.

The chief Asiatic acquisition of Russia in the eighteenth century took a strange form. It was conquest beyond the sea, though only beyond the inland Caspian. Turk and Russian joined to dismember Persia, and for some years Russia held the south coast of that great lake, the lands of Daghestan, Ghilan, and Mazanderan. ♦Superiority over Georgia. 1783.♦ Later in the century the ancient Christian kingdom of Georgia passed under Russian superiority, the earnest of much Russian conquest on both sides of Caucasus. ♦Superiority over the Kirghis. 1773.♦ And nearly at the same time as the first steps towards the acquisition of Crim, the Russian dominion was spread over the Kirghis hordes west of the river Ural, winning a coast on the eastern Caspian, the sea of Aral, and the Baltash lake.

Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, the Swedish power has fallen back. Its territory east of the Baltic is less than it was at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Denmark, on the other hand, has grown by an advance in the debateable southern duchies. All Sleswick is added to the Danish crown; all Holstein is held by the Danish king. Poland has vanished. The anomalous power on the middle Danube, whose princes, it must be remembered, still wore the crown of the Empire, has thrust itself into the very heart of the old Polish land. But the power which has gained most by the extinction of Poland has been the new kingdom of Prussia. If part of her annexations lasted only a few years, she made her Baltic coast continuous for ever. But Prussia and Austria alike, by joining to wipe out the central state of the whole region, have given themselves a mighty neighbour. Russia has wholly cast aside her character as a mere inland power, intermediate between Europe and Asia. She has won her way, after so many ages, to her old position and much more. She has a Baltic and an Euxine seaboard. Her recovery of her old lands on the Duna and the Dnieper, her conquest of new lands on the Niemen, have brought her into the heart of Europe. And she has opened the path which was also to lead her into the heart of Asia, and to establish her in the intermediate mountain land between the Euxine and the Caspian.

§ 6. The Modern Geography of the Baltic Lands.

The territorial arrangements of Northern and Eastern Europe were not affected by the French revolutionary wars till after the fall of the Western Empire. At that moment the frontier of Germany and Denmark was still what it had been under Charles the Great; “Eidora Romani terminus Imperii.” Only now the Danish king ruled to the south of the boundary stream in the character of a prince of the Empire. ♦Holstein incorporated with Denmark, and Swedish Pomerania with Sweden. 1806.♦ The fall of the Empire put an end to this relation, and the duchy of Holstein was incorporated with the Danish realm. In the like sort, the Swedish kingdom was extended to the central mainland of Europe, by the incorporation of the Pomeranian dominions of the Swedish king. ♦Russian conquest of Finland, 1809.♦ Before long, the last war between Sweden and Russia was ended by the peace of Friderikshamn, when Sweden gave up all her territory east of the gulf as far as the river Tornea, together with the isles of Aland. ♦Grand Duchy of Finland.♦ These lands passed to the Russian Emperor as a separate and privileged dominion, the Grand Duchy of Finland. Thus Sweden withdrew to her own side of the Baltic, while Russia at last became mistress of the whole eastern coast from the Prussian border northward. ♦Union of Sweden and Norway. 1814-1815.♦ The general peace left this arrangement untouched, but decreed the separation of Norway from Denmark and its union with Sweden. This was carried out so far as to effect the union of Sweden and Norway as independent kingdoms under a single king. ♦Swedish Pomerania passes to Denmark.♦ Denmark got in compensation, as diplomacy calls it, a scrap of its old Slavonic realm, Rügen and Swedish Pomerania. ♦Exchanged with Prussia for Lauenburg.♦ These detached lands were presently exchanged with Prussia for a land adjoining Holstein, the duchy of Lauenburg, the representative of ancient Saxony.[74] ♦Heligoland passes to England.♦ Denmark kept Iceland, but the Frisian island of Heligoland off the coast of Sleswick passed to England. Thus the common king of Sweden and Norway reigns over the whole of the northern peninsula and over nothing out of it. No such great change had affected the Scandinavian kingdoms since the union of Calmar.

Meanwhile the king of Denmark, remaining the independent sovereign of Denmark, Iceland, and Sleswick, entered the German Confederation for his duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg. ♦Disputes and wars in the Duchies.♦ Disputes and wars made no geographical change till the war which followed the accession of the present king. The changes which then followed have been told elsewhere.[75] ♦Transfer of Sleswick and Holstein, with Lauenburg to Prussia. 1864-1866.♦ They amount to the transfer to Prussia of Lauenburg, Holstein, and Sleswick, with a slight change of frontier and a redistribution of the smaller islands. A conditional engagement for the restoration of northern Sleswick to Denmark was not fulfilled, and has been formally annulled.

In the lands which had been Poland and Lithuania, the immediate result of the French wars was the creation of a new Polish state; their final result was a great extension of the dominion of Russia. Prussia had to surrender its whole Polish territory, save West Prussia.[76] ♦Bialystok added to Russia.
Danzig a commonwealth.♦ A small Lithuanian territory, the district of Bialystok, was given to Russia; Danzig became a separate commonwealth. ♦Duchy of Warsaw♦ The rest of the Prussian share of Poland formed the new Duchy of Warsaw. This state was really no bad representative of the oldest Poland of all. Silesia was gone; but the new duchy took in Great Poland and Cujavia, with parts of Little Poland, Mazovia, and Lithuania. It took in the oldest capital at Gnesen and the newest at Warsaw. ♦Enlarged by part of Austrian Poland. 1810.♦ The new state was presently enlarged by the addition of the territory added to Austria by the last partition. Cracow, with the greater part of Little Poland, was again joined to Great Poland. ♦Extent of the Duchy.♦ Speaking roughly, the duchy took in nearly the whole of the old Polish kingdom, without Silesia, but with some small Lithuanian and Russian territory added.

It was the Poland thus formed, a state which answered much more nearly to the Poland of the fourteenth than to the Poland of the eighteenth century, which, by the arrangements of the Vienna Congress, first received a Russian sovereign. ♦Danzig and Posen restored to Prussia.♦ Prussia now again rounded off her West-Prussian province by the recovery of Danzig and Thorn, and she rounded off her southern frontier by the recovery of Posen and Gnesen, which had been part of her South-Prussian province. The Grand Duchy of Posen became again part of the Prussian state. ♦Cracow a commonwealth. Annexed by Austria. 1846.♦ Cracow became a republic, to be annexed by Austria thirty years later. ♦Kingdom of Poland united to Russia. 1831-1863.♦ The remainder of the Duchy of Warsaw, under the style of the Kingdom of Poland, became a separate kingdom, but with the Russian Emperor as its king. ♦Russia takes old Polish territory for the first time.♦ Later events have destroyed, first its constitution, then its separate being; and now all ancient Poland, except the part of Great Poland kept by Prussia and the part of Little Poland kept by Austria, is merged in the Russian Empire. Thus the Russian acquisition of strictly Polish, as distinguished from old-Russian and Lithuanian territory, dates, not from the partitions, but from the Congress of Vienna. It was to the behoof of Prussia and Austria, not of Russia, that the old kingdom of the Piasts was broken in pieces.

The changes of the nineteenth century with regard to the lands on the European coasts of the Euxine have been told elsewhere.[77] ♦Fluctuation of the Russian frontier towards Moldavia. 1812-1878.♦ They amount, as far as the geographical boundaries of Russia are concerned, to her advance to the Pruth and the Danube, her partial withdrawal, her second partial advance. ♦Advance in the Caucasus.♦ Meanwhile the Russian advance in the nineteenth century on the Asiatic shores of the Euxine and in the lands on and beyond the Caspian has been far greater than her advance during the eighteenth. It is in our own century that Russia has taken up her commanding position between the Euxine and the Caspian seas, one which in some sort amounts to an enlargement of Europe at the expense of Asia. The old frontier on the Caspian, which had hardly changed since the conquest of Astrakhan, reached to the Terek. The annexation of Crim made the Kuban the boundary on the side of the Euxine. ♦Incorporation of Georgia. 1800.♦ The incorporation of the Georgian kingdom gave Russia an outlying territory south of the Caucasus on the upper course of the Kur. ♦Advance on the Caspian. 1802.♦ Next came the acquisition of the Caspian coast from the mouth of the Terek to the mouth of the Kur, the land of Daghestan and Shirwan, including part of the territory which had been held for a few years in the eighteenth century. ♦Advance in Armenia and Circassia. 1829.♦ The Persian and Turkish wars gave Russia the Armenian land of Erivan as far as the Araxes, Mingrelia and Immeretia, and the nominal cession of the Euxine coast between them and the older frontier. ♦1859.♦ But it was thirty years before the mountain region of Circassia was fully subdued. ♦1878.♦ The last changes have extended the Trans-Caucasian frontier of Russia to the south by the addition of Batoum and Kars.