Gulf on the one hand,
and over the mountain frontiers of India on the other, naturally
appeared highly menacing to Britain. It was the direct cause of the
advance of the British power from the Indus over North-Western India,
until it could rest upon the natural frontier of the mountains--an
advance which took place mainly during the years 1839-49. And it formed
the chief source of the undying suspicion of Russia which was the
dominant note of British foreign policy throughout the period.

Another feature of these conquests was that, taken in conjunction with
the French conquest of Algeria and the British conquest of India, they
constituted the first serious impact of European civilisation upon the
vast realm of Islam. Until now the regions of the Middle East which had
been subjugated by the followers of Mahomed had repelled every attack
of the West. More definite in its creed, and more exacting in its
demands upon the allegiance of its adherents, than any other religion,
Mahomedanism had for more than a thousand years been able to resist
with extraordinary success the influence of other civilisations; and it
had been, from the time of the Crusades onwards, the most formidable
opponent of the civilisation of the West. Under the rule of the Turk
the Mahomedan world had become stagnant and sterile, and it had shut
out not merely the direct control of the West (which would have been
legitimate enough), but the influence of Western ideas. All the
innumerable schemes of reform which were based upon the retention of
the old regime in the Turkish Empire have hopelessly broken down; and
the only chance for an awakening in these lands of ancient civilisation
seemed to depend upon the breakdown of the old system under the impact
of Western imperialism or insurgent nationalism. It has only been
during the nineteenth century, as a result of Russian, French, and
British imperialism, that the resisting power of Islam has begun to
give way to the influence of Europe.

The third line of Russian advance was on the Pacific coast, where in
the years 1858 and 1860 Russia obtained from China the Amur province,
with the valuable harbour of Vladivostok. It was an almost empty land,
but its acquisition made Russia a Pacific power, and brought her into
very close neighbourhood with China, into whose reserved markets, at
the same period, the maritime powers of the West were forcing an
entrance. At the same time Russian relations with Japan, whic