e gulf between Russia and its
western neighbors, Germany and Austria, widened in the same
proportion as the friendship between Russia on one side and France
and England on the other increased. To a certain extent undoubtedly
this may be traced back to the new czar's personal relations with
the rulers of other nations; for the czarina was a sister of
Alexandria of Denmark, then Princess of Wales and later Queen of
England, and the daughter of that King of Denmark who in 1864 had
lost to Germany and Austria Schleswig-Holstein.

The beginning of Alexander III's reign was marked with the beginning
of a series of terrible persecutions of the Jewish inhabitants of
the Russian Empire which, though subsiding from time to time, have
continued throughout the years until the present time. With the
causes of these persecutions we are not concerned here, for they
were undoubtedly much more of an economic than of a political
nature. In one respect, however, the results had an important
bearing, at least for a time, on Russian politics. For during many
years both France and especially England found it difficult and
almost next to impossible to enter into a close alliance with a
country which apparently absolutely refused to acknowledge some of
the most fundamental principles of modern government in which they
themselves believed: religious and personal freedom.

With Alexander III came also a return to a more reactionary form of
government which in its turn brought about a revival of terrorism
and Nihilism with all its horrors and bloodshed. In spite of the
continuance of these conditions in Russian internal affairs Russia
participated actively in the general movement for expansion which
made itself felt in the latter decade of the nineteenth century. Its
interest in Near Eastern affairs became deeper and more active and
its advances in the Far East kept step. In the Near East, however,
Russia found determined opposition and the gradual development of
the independent states of Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece,
most of which were formed, at least partly, out of what was once the
Turkish Empire, made it clearer and clearer every day that Russia's
hope for gaining a maritime outlet through the conquest of
Constantinople would never be realized. Though never giving up
entirely this hope Russia's endeavors turned more and more toward
the Far East. One of the most important results of this new policy
was the beginning of the constru