ions of anarchy still
survived; and the establishment of order and peace in the middle area
of this single natural region was difficult, so long as the areas on
either side remained in disorder and war. In 1844 France found it
necessary to make war upon Morocco because of the support which it had
afforded to a rebellious Algerian chief, and this episode illustrated
the close connection of the two regions. But the troops were withdrawn
as soon as the immediate purpose was served. France had not yet begun
to think of extending her dominion over the areas to the east and west
of Algeria. That was to be the work of the next period.

Further south in Africa, France retained, as a relic of her older
empire, a few posts on the coast of West Africa, notably Senegal. From
these her intrepid explorers and traders began to extend their
influence, and the dream of a great French empire in Northern Africa
began to attract French minds. But the realisation of this dream also
belongs to the next period. In the Far East, too, this was a period of
beginnings. Ever since 1787--before the Revolution--the French had
possessed a foothold on the coast of Annam, from which French
missionaries carried on their labours among the peoples of Indo-China.
Maltreatment of these missionaries led to a war with Annam in 1858, and
in 1862 the extreme south of the Annamese Empire--the province of
Cochin-China--was ceded to France. Lastly, the French obtained a
foothold in the Pacific, by the annexation of Tahiti and the Marquesas
Islands in 1842, and of New Caledonia in 1855. But in 1878 the French
dominions in the non-European world were, apart from Algeria, of slight
importance. They were quite insignificant in comparison with the
far-spreading realms of her ancient rival, Britain.

On a much greater scale than the expansion of France was the expansion
of the already vast Russian Empire during this period. The history of
Russia in the nineteenth century is made up of a series of alternations
between a regime of comparative liberalism, when the interest of
government and people was chiefly turned towards the west, and a regime
of reaction, when the government endeavoured to pursue what was called
a 'national' or purely Russian policy, and to exclude all Western
influences. During these long intervals of reaction, attention was
turned eastward; and it was in the reactionary periods, mainly, that
the Russian power was rapidly extended in three directions