dahar, and that as the 400 miles which would still intervene between the rivals is mostly desert, their armies would meet where water and forage are abundant. Those of Mr Curzon's way of thinking would hold that such a contingency would be almost impossible were Seistan connected with India by rail and colonised. 135 CHAPTER VIII. ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA. THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA-BLOCKED IN EUROPE, BUT STILL POSSIBLE 1 ant expan ment in EVERY educated man knows that Russia has long The peasbeen, and still is, an expanding Power. In early sion movedays the instinct of necessity was the impelling Russia. cause for the wandering forth of her people, that of self-interest for their rulers' corrective-serfdom. But serfdom failed to tie the muzhik to his miserable home, and so the growth of Russia, though impeded, was never stopped. The movement began in the fifteenth century, and was rather spon Expansion by order Peter the Great's time. taneous than State-regulated, until the reign of Peter the Great. In the vast lone forest-lands of the north and west nature passively but ineffectually opposed the human irruption. In the south and south-east nature invited whilst man resisted it. The Steppes were the home of independent nomads, who plundered and murdered all intruders; hence the muzhik preferred to seek a new home in the inhospitable north rather than in the temperate south. The difficulty was overcome by the formation of military settlements. Such was the origin of the Cossack colonies of the Don, the Dnieper, and the Volga. To the west and south-west Russia found rivals in Poland and Sweden, as instinctively expansive as herself. In the art of war both of those States were in advance of clumsy, barbaric Russia, until the genius of Peter the Great created a muzhik army on the Western model, and enabled him to crush the two Powers who had hitherto lorded it over his people. From that time the initiative in all territorial only since acquisition has sprung from the Government, and the people have merely obeyed where formerly they led. When Peter the Great proclaimed that to be a nation Russia must have access to the open sea, he voiced the hitherto vague and inarticulate aspiration of his country. The immediate goals of his ambition were the Baltic and the Black Sea. He only lived to attain the former. It was not until seventy years after his death that Catharine II. achieved the latter. But though Russia is mistress of the Black Sea, the Turk still stands sentinel at Constantinople, and, supported by the Western Powers, is able to close the Mediterranean against her. On the land side the road to Constantinople is now more blocked than at any previous period in Russia's history. Her position, as territorially and in armed strength the greatest empire in the world, excluded from free access to any perennially open sea in Europe owing to the jealousy of smaller rival nations, is intolerable and almost humiliating. Tenacity of purpose is one of the strongest characteristics of the Slav race; hence, no doubt, Russia will some day achieve her legitimate ambition and become a Mediterranean Power. No doubt, too, so long as the Turk retains a foothold in Europe, Europe's Eastern Question will continue to agitate Cabinets and cause wars and rumours of wars. extension Europe, ble in For all practical purposes the further extension of Russian Russia in Europe, except at the cost of hazardous blocked in and exhausting wars, is at an end-unless perhaps but possiby directly threatening India she would so intimi- Asia. date England as to secure that Power's neutrality. Checkmated in Europe for the time, Asia remains open to Russia. In that continent she has apprehensive neighbours - China, Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan but no rival, except England in India, more than a hemisphere from her base. All those neighbours are at present offensively impotent against Russia, and only seek to retain what they still possess. China is still an unwieldy antique Russia's true policy Turkey in only. empire struggling against her internal disruptive forces. Turkey in Asia only exists as such because Russia to attack will persist in attacking Turkey in Europe instead Asia Minor of confining her operations to the Sultan's Asiatic dominions. Were Russia to do so, she would have a free hand from Europe, attain a harbour on the Mediterranean in an easy campaign or two, and by the achievement precipitate the partition of the Turkish empire or reduce it to vassalage-objects unattainable so long as the old policy of direct invasion in Europe is the aim of her statecraft. The whole of Northern Persia, including Khorasan, is already under Russia's domination, ripe for absorption whenever politically advisable. As for Afghanistan, it is India's only remaining buffer against Russia. The part it may play in the future, if the two great rivals for dominion in Asia approach still nearer to each other, is an important factor in the problem of the Indo-Russian question. Asia open for Russian Yes; Asia is open to Russia. She already posexpansion. sesses Siberia, vast, sparsely populated, and in the south rich in soil and in minerals. Though Siberia annually attracts tens of thousands of hardy muzhik settlers, she has room and to spare for generations to come for the whole surplus population of Europe. But Russia invites no immigrants except her own people. Circassia too is being gradually peopled by Russian colonists, as the old Muhammadan inhabitants prefer expatriation, and the easy shiftless rule of the head of their faith, to continued residence at |