t of enthusiasm in Moscow, where it
was hoped that "all the Slav streams would unite in the great Russian
Sea." It required no great political perspicacity to foresee that in
any confederation of Slav nationalities the hegemony must necessarily
devolve on Russia, the only Slav State which has succeeded in becoming a
Great Power.

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Crescent on St. Sophia had not been replaced by the Cross; the Slavophil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