east
coast, and who considered, like the Europeans on the coast of Africa at
the present day, that the barbarous natives of the interior should not
be supplied with arms and ammunition. All the other routes to the West
traversed likewise the territory of rivals, who might at any time become
avowed enemies. Under these circumstances the Tsars naturally desired to
break through the barrier which hemmed them in, and the acquisition
of the eastern coast of the Baltic became one of the chief objects of
Russia's foreign policy.

After Poland, Russia's most formidable rival was Sweden. That
power early acquired a large amount of territory to the east of the
Baltic--including the mouths of the Neva, where St. Petersburg now
stands--and long harboured ambitious schemes of further conquest. In the
troublous times when the Poles overran the Tsardom of Muscovy, she took
advantage of the occasion to annex a considerable amount of territory,
and her expansion in this direction went on in intermittent fashion
until it was finally stopped by Peter the Great.

In comparison with these two rivals Russia was weak in all that regarded
the art of war; but she had two immense advantages: she had a very large
population, and a strong, stable Government that could concentrate the
national forces for any definite purpose. All that she required for
success in the competition was an army on the European model. Peter the
Great created such an army, and won the prize. After this the political
disintegration of Poland proceeded rapidly, and when that unhappy
country fell to pieces Russia naturally took for herself the lion's
share of the spoil. Sweden, too, sank to political insignificance, and
gradually lost all her trans-Baltic possessions. The last of them--the
Grand Duchy of Finland, which stretches from the Gulf of Finland to
the Polar Ocean--was ceded to Russia by the peace of Friederichshamm in
1809.

The territorial extent of all these acquisitions will be best shown in
a tabular form. The following table represents the process of expansion
from the time when Ivan III. united the independent principalities and
threw off the Tartar yoke, down to the accession of Peter the Great in
1682:

English
Sq. Miles.
In 1505 the Tsardom of Muscovy contained about 784,000
" 1583 " " " " 996,000