6 Introduction
na1ionally dislinct (anceslors of lhe Ukrainians and Belorussians) as well as of
various non-Slavic peoples in the Volga valley, some of whom were Muslims;
!hereupon Muscovy expanded across the Urals into Siberia, subduing the scat-
lered indigenous groups (Turco-Talars, Yaku1s, Buryats, etc.).
In the early eighteenth century it was the turn of lhe peoples of the eas1ern
Baltic littoral. The partitions of Poland then brought within the empire many
Jews and Lithuanians as well as Belorussians and Poles. In the south Catherine
II ( 1762-96) implanted 1he cross of St. George firmly on the shores of the
Black Sea, absorbing the Crimean khanate, and initiated action to win control
of the Caucasus. In the course of this epic eigh1y-year slruggle Russia acquired
sovereignty firs! over lhe peoples of the Transcaucasian valleys (Georgians,
Armenians) and then over the hardy mountaineers (Daghestanis, Chechens,
Ossetians, and others), who were subdued only after repeated military forays
into their territories. By the end of our period Russia was enlarging her Asiatic
dominions at both ends, so to speak: in the Far East (Maritime province) at the
expense of China, and in Turkestan at the expense of the independent Muslim
khanates. Meanwhile, Finland was won in 1809 and in south-eastern Europe
Russia obtained Bessarabia (1812), of which she had to cede part in 1856, and
a sphere of innuence in the Balkans.
This imperial expansion played a major part in instigating the wars which
Russia fought with other European powers. This was the case with the many
armed conlfo:ts with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and the
Livonian Order. In the 1670s the Ottoman sultan entered the list openly in
support of his vassals, the Crimean Tatars, as Moscow's power extended
southward across the Ukrainian steppe; and thereafter the two empires found
themselves at war roughly once in each generation until 1914-18. War with
Persia occurred twice ( 1804-13, 1826-8) after Peter I's reign, and was similar in
character. On the other hand, Russia's participation in the European coalitions
formed against Prussia (1756-62) and post-revolutionary France ( 1799-1800,
1805, 1806-7) was motivated primarily by a desire to maintain an advantage-
ous balance of power. In 1812 the empire was itself the victim of aggression by
Napoleon's Grande Armee, which contained a large international contingent;
but the invaders' defeat led the Russian armies in hot pursuit across the conti-
nent, from Moscow to Paris, in 1813-14. The hegemonic position which
Russia enjoyed in European affairs for the next forty years owed a good deal
to fear of her armed might, demonstrated inter alia by the action taken against
Polish and Hungarian insurgents in 1830-1 and 1849 respectively. That 'the
giant had feet of clay' was not apparem until the Allies invaded the Crimea.
Even so, the Russian troops fought back well, as they had done on earlier
occasions; it was not so much Nicholas's army that failed but its supply system
and the underlying political and economic structure.
While there are several good studies of Russia's imperial wars,^8 the historical
significance of which is undeniable, there has been no work in any language
8 Two excellent recent Western studies arc Duffy, Russia"s Military Way and Curtiss, R11ssia's
wang
(Wang)
#1