Russia

Those two currents of national feeling ran parallel to, and intermingled with, the policy of the Government. Desirous of becoming a great naval Power, Russia has always striven to reach the sea-coast and obtain good harbours. In the north and north-west she succeeded in a certain degree, but neither the White Sea nor the Baltic satisfied her requirements, and she naturally turned her eyes to the Mediterranean. With difficulty she gained possession of the northern shores of the Black Sea, but her designs were thereby only half realised, because the Turks held the only outlet to the Mediterranean, and could effectually blockade, so far as the open sea is concerned, all her Black Sea ports, without employing a single ship of war. Thus the possession of the Straits, involving necessarily the possession of Constantinople, became a cardinal point of Russia's foreign policy. Any description of the various methods adopted by her at different times for the attainment of this end does not enter into my present programme, but I may say briefly that the action of the three factors above mentioned—the religious feeling, the Panslavist sentiment, and the political aims—has never been better exemplified than in the last struggle with Turkey, culminating in the Treaty of San Stefano and the Congress of Berlin.

For all classes in Russia the result of that struggle was a feeling of profound disappointment. The peasantry bewailed the fact that the Crescent on St. Sophia had not been replaced by the Cross; the Slavophil patriots were indignant that the "little brothers" had shown themselves unworthy of the generous efforts and sacrifices made on their behalf, and that a portion of the future Slav confederation had passed under the domination of Austria; and the Government recognised that the acquisition of the Straits must be indefinitely postponed. Then history repeated itself. After the Crimean War, in accordance with Prince Gortchakoff's famous epigram, La Russie ne boude pas elle se recueille, the Government had for some years abandoned an active policy in Europe, and devoted itself to the work of internal reorganisation; whilst the military party had turned their attention to making new acquisitions of territory and influence in Asia. In like manner, after the Turkish campaign of 1877-78, Alexander III., turning his back on the Slav brethren, inaugurated an era of peace in Europe and of territorial expansion in the east. In this direction the expansive force was not affected by religious feeling, or Panslavist sentiment, and was controlled and guided by purely political considerations. It is consequently much easier to determine in this field of action what the political aims really are.

In Asia, as in Europe, the dominant factor in the policy of the Government has been the desire to reach the sea-coast; and in both continents the ports first acquired were in northern latitudes where the coasts are free from ice during only a part of the year. In this respect, Nikolaefsk and Vladivostok in the Far East correspond to Archangel and St. Petersburg in Europe. Such ports could not fulfil all the requirements, and consequently the expansive tendency turned southwards—in Europe towards the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and in Asia towards the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Pechili.

In Persia the Russian Government pursues the policy of pacific infiltration, and already the northern half of the Shah's dominions is pretty well permeated with Russian influence, commercial and political. In the southern half the infiltration is to some extent checked by physical obstacles and British influence, but it is steadily advancing, and the idea of obtaining a port on the Persian Gulf is coming within the range of practical politics.

In Afghanistan also the pressure is felt, and here too the expansive tendency meets with opposition from England. More than once the two great Powers have come dangerously near to war—notably in 1885, at the moment of the Penjdeh incident, when the British Parliament voted 11,000,000 pounds for military preparations. Fortunately on that occasion the problem was solved by diplomacy. The northern frontier of Afghanistan was demarcated by a joint commission, and an agreement was come to by which this line should form the boundary of the British and Russian spheres of influence. For some years Russia scrupulously respected this agreement, but during our South African difficulties she showed symptoms of departing from it, and at one moment orders were issued from St. Petersburg for a military demonstration on the Afghan frontier. Strange to say, the military authorities, who are usually very bellicose, deprecated such a movement, on the ground that a military demonstration in a country like Afghanistan might easily develop into a serious campaign, and that a serious campaign ought not to be undertaken in that region until after the completion of the strategical railways from Orenburg to Tashkent.