Chapter XI: The Baltic Lands (2)

After the loss of Rügen, Denmark had little to do with the Slavonic lands, except so far as the possession of Holstein carried with it the possession of the old Slavonic land of Wagria. Still the advance of Denmark at the end of the twelfth century had a lasting effect on the Slavonic lands by altogether shaking the Polish dominion on the Baltic. But it shook it to the advantage, not of Scandinavia, but of Germany. Between the twelfth century and the fourteenth Poland lost all its western dominions. _Pomore_, _Pommern_, _Pomerania_, the seaboard of the Lechish Slaves, is strictly the land between the mouth of the Vistula and the mouth of the Oder; but the name had already spread further to the West. ♦Pomerania falls away from Poland.♦ After the fall of the Danish power on this coast, Pomerania west of the Riddow altogether fell away from Poland. ♦Duchy of Slavia.♦ As the duchy of _Slavia_, it became, like Mecklenburg, a land of the Empire, though ruled by Slavonic princes. ♦1298-1305. Loss of western territory by Poland.♦ But the eastern part of Pomerania, _Cassubia_ and the mark of _Gdansk_ or _Danzig_, remained under Polish superiority till the beginning of the fourteenth century. Then the greater part fell away, partly for ever, to the Pomeranian duchy of _Wolgast_, partly, for a season only, to the Teutonic Knights. ♦1220-1260.♦ To the south _Barnim_ and _Custrin_ passed, after some shiftings, to the mark of Brandenburg. ♦Silesia. 1289-1327.♦ Further to the south, Silesia, divided among princes of the house of Piast, gradually fell under Bohemian supremacy. Thus the whole western part of the Polish kingdom passed into the hands of princes of the Empire, and was included within the bounds of the German realm.

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The fate of Silesia brings us again to the history of the inland Slavonic land of the Czechs. _Bohemia_ went on, as duchy and kingdom,[65] ruled by native princes as vassals of the Empire. Moravia was a fief of Bohemia. In the end Bohemia passed to German kings, but not till it had become again the centre of a dominion which recalls the fleeting powers of Samo and Sviatopluk. ♦Bohemia and Ottocar. 1269-1278.♦ Ottocar the Second united the long-severed branches of the Slavonic race by annexing the German lands which lay between them. ♦His German dominion.♦ Lord of Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, the Czech king reigned on the upper Oder and the middle Danube as far as the Hadriatic. The same lands were in after times to be again united, but from the opposite side.

♦Luxemburg kings of Bohemia. 1308.♦

The successors of Ottocar reigned only over Bohemia and Moravia. Early in the next century the Bohemian crown passed to the house of Luxemburg. Under them Bohemia became a powerful state, but a state becoming more and more German, less and less Slavonic. ♦Silesia, 1355.♦ The gradual extension of Bohemian superiority over Silesia led to its formal incorporation. ♦Lusatia. 1320-1370.♦ In the same century _Lusatia_, High and Low, was won from Brandenburg. ♦Brandenburg. 1373-1417.♦ The mark of Brandenburg itself became for a while a Bohemian possession, before it passed to the burgraves of Nürnberg. ♦1353.♦ The Bohemian possession of the Upper Palatinate lies out of our Slavonic range. Among the revolutions of the fifteenth century, we find the Bohemian crown at one time held conjointly with that of Hungary, at another time held by a Polish prince. ♦Conquests of Matthias Corvinus, 1478-1490.♦ Later in the century the victories of Matthias Corvinus took away Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, from the Bohemian crown. ♦Bohemia and Austria. | Its losses. 1635. | 1740.♦ But it was the fourfold dominion of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, which finally passed to the House of Austria, to be shorn of its northern and eastern lands to the profit, first of Saxony, and then of Brandenburg or Prussia.

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Thus far the Teutonic advance, both on the actual Baltic coast and on the inland Slavonic region, had been made to the profit, partly of the Scandinavian kingdoms, partly of the princes of the Empire. ♦German corporations.♦ But there were two other forms of Teutonic influence and dominion, which fell to the share, not of princes, but of corporate bodies, mercantile and military or religious. ♦The Hansa.♦ The Hanseatic League was indeed a power in these regions, but it hardly has a place on the map. ♦Second foundation of Lübeck. 1158.♦ Even before the second foundation of Lübeck by Henry the Lion, German mercantile settlements had begun at Novgorod, in Gotland, and in London. ♦Extent of the League.♦ Gradually, in the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the League into which the union of the merchant towns of Germany grew spread itself over the Baltic, the Westfalian, and the Netherlandish lands. A specially close tie bound together the five _Wendish_ towns, _Lübeck_, _Rostock_, _Wismar_, _Stralsund_, and _Greifswald_. ♦Nature of the union.♦ But the union of a town with the Hansa did not necessarily affect its political position. It might, at least in the later stages of the League, be a free city of the Empire, a town subject to some prince of the Empire, or a town subject to a prince beyond its bounds. Not only the Pomeranian and Prussian cities under the rule of the Knights, but Revel in Esthland under Danish rule formed part of the League. ♦The Hansa not a territorial power.♦ The League waged wars, made peace, overthrew and set up kings, as suited its interests; but territorial dominion, strictly so called, was not its object. Still in some cases privileges grew into something like dominion; in others military occupation might pass for temporary dominion. ♦The Hansa in Gotland and Scania. | 1361. | 1368-1385.♦ Thus in the isle of _Gotland_ the Hansa had an ascendency which was overthrown by the conquest of the island by the Danish king Waldemar, a conquest avenged by a temporary Hanseatic occupation of Scania. In fact the nature of the League, the relations of the cities to one another, geographical as well as political, hindered the Hansa from ever becoming a territorial power like Switzerland and the United Provinces. In the history of the Baltic lands it takes for some ages a position at least equal to that of any kingdom. But it is only casually and occasionally that its triumphs can be marked on the map.

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The other great German corporation was not commercial, but military and religious. ♦The Swordbearers and the Teutonic Order.♦ The conquests of the Order of Christ and of the Order of Saint Mary—better known as the _Sword-brothers_ and the _Teutonic Order_—were essentially territorial. These orders became masters of a great part of the Baltic coast, and wherever they spread their dominion, Christianity and German national life were, by whatever means, established. ♦Their connexion with the Empire.♦ As both the chiefs of the Order and the Livonian prelates ranked as princes of the Empire, the conquests of the Knights were in some sort an extension of the bounds of the Empire. Yet we can hardly look on Livonia and Prussia as coming geographically within the Empire in the same sense as Pomerania and Silesia. ♦Effects of their rule.♦ But whether strictly an extension of the Western Empire or not, the conquests of the Knights were an extension of the Western Church, the Western world, and the German nation, as against both heathendom and Eastern Christianity, as against all the other Baltic nationalities, non-Aryan and Aryan.

♦The Swordbearers in Livland. 1201.♦

The first settlement began in _Livland_. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Knights of the Order of Christ were called in as temporal helpers by Bishop Albert of Riga, and they gradually won the dominion of the lands on the gulf called from his city. ♦The Danes in Esthland.♦ For a while they had a partner in the Danish crown, which held part of _Esthland_. ♦Extent of their dominion. | Dago and Oesel.♦ But the rest of Esthland, Livland in the narrower sense, Curland, Semigola, the special Lettish land, and the Russian territory on the Duna, made up this Livonian dominion, which was afterwards enlarged by the isles of Dago and Oesel and by the Danish portion of Esthland. ♦Esthland. 1346.♦ _Riga_ and _Revel_ became great commercial cities, and Riga became an ecclesiastical metropolis under a prince-archbishop. The natives were reduced to bondage, and the Russian powers of Novgorod and Polotsk were effectually kept away from the gulf.

♦The Teutonic Order in Prussia. 1226.♦

The dominion of the Knights of Saint Mary, the Teutonic Order, in Prussia and in a small part of Lithuania, began a little later than that of the Sword-brothers in Livland. Invited by a Polish prince, Conrad of Mazovia, they received from him their first Polish possession, the palatinate of _Culm_. ♦Union of the Orders. 1237.♦ Eleven years later the Prussian and Livonian orders were united. Their dominion grew. ♦Purchase of Pomerelia. 1311.♦ The acquisition of _Pomerelia_, the eastern part of the old _Pomore_, immediately west of the lower Vistula, cut off Poland from the sea. ♦Conquest of Samogitia. 1384.♦ Later in the century, Lithuania was equally cut off by the cession of _Samogitia_. ♦Occupation of Gotland. 1398-1408. | The New Mark pledged to the Order. 1402.♦ The isle of _Gotland_ was held for a while; the _New Mark_ of Brandenburg was pledged by King Sigismund. ♦Their coast line.♦ The whole coast from Narva on the Finnish gulf to the point where the Pomeranian coast trends south-west formed the unbroken sea-board of the Order.

♦Losses of the Prussian Knights.♦

Of the two seats of the Order the northern one proved the stronger and more lasting. Livland remained untouched long after Poland had won back her lost ground from the Prussian Knights. ♦Samogitia restored to Lithuania. 1410.♦ The battle of Tannenberg won back Samogitia for Lithuania, and again parted the Livonian and Prussian lands of the Order. ♦Peace of Thorn. 1646.♦ By the peace of Thorn its Prussian dominion was altogether cut short. ♦Cessions of the Order to Poland.♦ _Culm_ and _Pomerelia_, with the cities of _Danzig_ and _Thorn_, went back to Poland. And a large part of Prussia itself, the bishopric of _Ermeland_, a district running deep into the land still left to the knights, was added to Poland. ♦Vassalage of the Order.♦ The rest of Prussia was left to the Order as a Polish fief.

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The thirteenth century was the special time when Teutonic dominion spread itself over the Baltic lands. ♦Advance of Christianity.♦ It was also the time when heathendom gave way to Christianity at nearly every point of those lands where it still held out. But, while the old creeds and the old races were giving way, a single one among them stood forth for a while as an independent and conquering state, the last heathen power in Europe. ♦Lithuania the last heathen power.♦ While all their kinsfolk and neighbours were passing under the yoke, the _Lithuanians_, strictly so called, showed themselves the mightiest of conquerors in all lands from the Baltic to the Euxine. ♦Advance of Lithuania. c. 1220.♦ From their own land on the Niemen they began, under their prince Mendog, to advance at the expense of the Russian lands to the south. ♦Mendog king. 1252.♦ Mendog embraced Christianity, and was crowned King of Lithuania, a realm which now stretched from the Duna to beyond the Priepetz. But heathendom again won the upper hand, and the next century saw the great advance of the Lithuanian power, the momentary rule of old Aryan heathendom alike over Christendom and over Islam. ♦Conquests from Russia. 1315-1340. 1345-1377.♦ Under two conquering princes, Gedymin and Olgierd, further conquests were made from the surrounding Russian lands. ♦1315-1360.♦ The Lithuanian dominion was extended at the expense of Novgorod and Smolensk; the Lithuanian frontier stretched far beyond both the Duna and the Dnieper; Kief was a Lithuanian possession. ♦Volhynia and Podolia.♦ The kingdom of Galicia lost _Volhynia_ and _Podolia_, which became a land disputed between Lithuania and Poland. These last conquests carried the Lithuanian frontier to the Dniester, and opened a wholly new set of relations among the powers on the Euxine. ♦Perekop. 1363.♦ By the conquest of the Tartar dominion of _Perekop_, Lithuania, cut off from the Baltic, reached to the Euxine.

♦Consolidation of Poland. 1295-1320.♦

Meanwhile Poland, from a collection of duchies under a nominal head, had again grown into a consolidated and powerful kingdom. The western frontier had been cut short by various German powers, and the Teutonic Order shut off the kingdom from the sea. Mazovia and Cujavia remained separate duchies; but Great and Little Poland remained firmly united, and were ready to enlarge their borders to the eastward. ♦Conquests of Casimir the Great. 1333-1370. | Red Russia. 1340.♦ Casimir the Great added _Podlachia_, the land of the _Jatvingi_, and in the break-up of the Galician kingdom, he incorporated _Red Russia_ as being a former possession of Poland. ♦Annexed to Hungary. 1377.♦ But, as it had also been a former possession of Hungary,[66] Lewis the Great, the common sovereign of Hungary and Poland, annexed it to his southern kingdom.

♦Union of Poland and Lithuania.♦

The two powers which had thus grown up were now to be gradually fused into one. ♦1386.♦ The heathen Lithuanian prince Jagiello became, by marriage and conversion, a Christian King of Poland. ♦Volhynia and Podolia added to Poland.♦ He enlarged the kingdom at the expense of the duchy, by incorporating _Podolia_ and _Volhynia_ with Poland, making Poland as well as Lithuania the possessor of a large extent of Russian soil. ♦Recovery of Red Russia. 1392. | Moldavia. | Pledge of Zips. 1412.♦ The older Russian territory of Poland, Red Russia, was won back from Hungary; _Moldavia_ began to transfer its fleeting allegiance from Hungary to Poland; within Hungary itself part of the county of _Zips_ was pledged to the Polish crown. ♦Recovery of the Polish duchies. 1401.♦ The Polish duchies now began to fall back to the kingdom. ♦1463-1476.♦ _Cujavia_ came in early in the fifteenth century, and parts of _Mazovia_ in its course. Of the relation of the kingdom to the Teutonic order we have already spoken. Lithuania meanwhile, as part of Western Christendom, remained, under its separate grand dukes of the now royal house, the rival both of Islam and of Eastern Christendom. ♦Conquests of Witold. 1392-1430.♦ Under Witold the advance on Russian ground was greater than ever. _Smolensk_ and all _Severia_ became Lithuanian; Kief was in the heart of the grand duchy; Moscow did not seem far from its borders. ♦Loss of Perekop, 1474.♦ Lithuania was presently cut short further to the south by the loss of its Euxine dominion. ♦Closer union of Poland and Lithuania. 1501.♦ At the beginning of the sixteenth century Poland and Lithuania were united as distinct states under a common sovereign. But by that time a new state of things had begun in the lands on the Duna and the Dnieper.

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♦Revival of Russia.♦

While the military orders had thus established themselves on the Baltic coast, and had already largely given way to the combined Polish and Lithuanian power behind them, a new _Russia_ was growing up behind them all. ♦Power of Moscow.♦ Cut off from all dealings with Western Europe, save with its immediate western neighbours, cut off from its own ecclesiastical centre by the advance of Mussulman dominion, the new power of _Moscow_ was schooling itself to take in course of time a greater place than had ever been held by the elder power of Kief. The Mongol conquest had placed the Russian principalities in much the same position as that through which most of the south-eastern lands passed before they were finally swallowed up by the Ottoman. ♦The Russian princes dependent on the Golden Horde.♦ The princes of Russia were dependent on the Tartar dominion of _Kiptchak_, which stretched from the Dniester north-eastwards over boundless barbarian lands as far as the lower course of the Jenisei. Its capital, the centre of the _Golden Horde_, was at _Sarai_ on the lower course of the Volga. ♦Homage of Novgorod. 1252-1263.♦ Even Novgorod, under its great prince Alexander Nevsky, did homage to the Khan. But this dependent relation did not, like the Lithuanian conquests to the west, affect the geographical frontiers of Russia. The Russian centre at the time of the Mongol conquest was the northern Vladimir. ♦Moscow the new centre, c. 1328.♦ Towards the end of the thirteenth century, _Moskva_, on the river of that name, grew into importance, and early in the next century it became the centre of Russian life. ♦Name of _Muscovy_.♦ From _Moskva_ or _Moscow_ comes the old name of _Muscovy_, a name which historically describes the growth of the second Russian power. Muscovy was to Russia what France in the older sense was to the whole land which came to bear that name. Moscow was to Russia all, and more than all, that Paris was to France. It was to Moscow as the centre that the separate Russian principalities fell in; it was from Moscow as the centre that the lost Russian lands were won back. ♦Other Russian states.♦ Besides Novgorod, there still were the separate states of _Viatka_, _Pskof_, _Tver_, and _Riazan_. Disunion and dependence lasted till late in the fifteenth century. ♦Decline of the Mongol power.♦ But the Tartar power had already begun to grow weaker before the end of the fourteenth, and the invasion of Timour, while making Russia for a moment more completely subject, led to the dissolution of the dominion of the older Khans.

♦Break-up of the Mongol power.♦

In the course of the fifteenth century the great power of the Golden Horde broke up into a number of smaller khanats. ♦Khanat of Crim;♦ The khanat of _Crim_—the old Tauric Chersonêsos—stretched from its peninsula inwards along the greater part of the course of the Don. ♦of Kazan, 1438;♦ The khanat of _Kazan_ on the Volga supplanted the old kingdom of White Bulgaria. ♦of Siberia;♦ Far to the east, on the lower course of the Obi, was the khanat of _Siberia_. ♦of Astrakhan.♦ The Golden Horde itself was represented by the khanat of _Astrakhan_ on the lower Volga, with its capital at the mouth of that river. Of these Crim and Kasan were immediate neighbours of the Muscovite state. ♦Deliverance of Russia. 1480.♦ The yoke was at last broken by Ivan the Great. ♦1487.♦ Seven years later he placed a tributary prince on the throne of Kazan, and himself took the title of _Prince of Bulgaria_. ♦Crim dependent on the Ottoman.♦ By this time the khans of Crim had become dependents of the Ottoman Sultans, the beginning of the long strife between Russia and the Turk in Europe.

♦Advance of Moscow in Russia.♦

But before Muscovy thus became an independent power, it had taken the greatest of steps towards growing into Russia. ♦Annexation of Novgorod. 1470;♦ Novgorod the Great, the only Russian rival of Moscow, first lost its northern territory, and then itself became part of the Muscovite dominion. ♦of Viatka, 1478; | of Tver, 1493.♦ The commonwealth of _Viatka_, the principality of _Tver_, and some small appanages of the house of Moscow followed. ♦Reign of Basil Ivanovitch, 1505-1533. | Annexation of Pskof and Riazan.♦ The annexation of what remained, as _Pskof_ and _Riazan_, was only a question of time, and it came in the next reign. Of the three works which were needful for the full growth of the new Russia, two were accomplished. ♦Russia united and independent.♦ The Russian state was one, and it was independent. And the third work, that of winning back the lost Russian lands, had already begun.

♦Survey at the end of the fifteenth century.♦

Thus, at the end of the fifteenth century, five powers held the Baltic coast. Sweden held the west coast from the Danish frontier northward, with both sides of the gulf of Bothnia and both sides of the gulf of Finland. Denmark held the extreme western coast and the isle of Gotland. Poland and Lithuania had a small seaboard indeed compared to their inland extent. Poland had only the Pomeranian and Prussian coast which she had just won from the Knights. Lithuania barely touched the sea between Prussia and Curland. To the west of the Polish coast lay the now Germanized lands of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. To the north-west lay the coast of the German military Order, under Polish vassalage in Prussia, independent in its northern possessions. Thus almost the whole Baltic coast was held by Teutonic powers; the Slavonic powers still lie mainly inland. The Polish frontier towards the Empire has been cut down to the limit which it kept till the end. Pomerania, Silesia, a great part of the mark of Brandenburg, have fallen away from the Polish realm. On the other hand, that realm and its confederate Lithuania have grown wonderfully to the east at the cost of divided and dependent Russia, and have begun to fall back again before Russia one and independent. Bohemia, enlarged by Silesia and Lusatia, has entered so thoroughly into the German world as almost to pass out of our sight.

§ 4. _The Growth of Russia and Sweden._

♦Changes of the last four centuries.♦

The work of the last four centuries on the Baltic coast has been to drive back the Scandinavian power, after a vast momentary advance, wholly to the west of the Baltic—to give nearly the whole eastern coast to Russia—to make the whole southern coast German. These changes involve the wiping out, first of the German military Order, and then of Poland and Lithuania. ♦Growth of Russia and creation of Prussia.♦ This last change involves the growth of Russia, and the creation of Prussia in the modern sense, a sense so strangely different from its earlier meaning. These two have been the powers by which Sweden and Denmark have been cut short, by which Poland and Lithuania have been swallowed up. In this last work they indeed had a third confederate. Still the share of Austria in the overthrow of Poland was in a manner incidental. But the existence of such a Polish and Lithuanian state as stood at the end of the fifteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century was inconsistent with the existence of either Russia or Prussia as great European powers.

The period with which we have now to deal takes in only the former stage of this process. Russia advances; Prussia in the modern sense comes into being. ♦Greatness of Sweden.♦ But Sweden is still the most advancing power of all; and, if Denmark falls back, it is before the power of Sweden. The Hansa too and the Knights pass away; Sweden is the ruling power of the Baltic.

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The sixteenth century saw the fall of both branches of the Teutonic Order. Out of the fall of one of them came the beginnings of modern _Prussia_. ♦Separation of the Prussian and Livonian knights. 1515.♦ The two branches of the Order were separated; the Livonian lands had an independent Master. ♦Beginning of the Duchy of Prussia. 1525.♦ Before long the Prussian Grand Master, Albert of Brandenburg, changed from the head of a Catholic religious order into a Lutheran temporal prince, holding the hereditary _duchy of Prussia_ as a Polish fief. ♦Geographical position of Prussia.♦ That duchy had so strange a frontier towards the kingdom that it could not fail sooner or later either to be swallowed up by the kingdom which hemmed it in, or else to make its way out of its geographical bonds. ♦Union of Prussia and Brandenburg. 1611.♦ When the Prussian duchy and the mark of Brandenburg came into the hands of one prince, when the dominions of that prince were enlarged by the union of Brandenburg and Pomerania, the second of these solutions became only a question of time. ♦Prussia independent of Poland. 1647.♦ The first formal step towards it was the release of the duchy from all dependence on Poland. Prussia became a distinct state, one now essentially German, but lying beyond the bounds of the Empire.

As the rights of the Empire had been formally cut short when Prussia passed under Polish vassalage, they were also formally cut short by the dissolution of the northern branch of the Teutonic order. ♦Fall of the Livonian Order. 1558-1561.♦ The rule of the Livonian Knights survived the secularization of the Prussian duchy by forty years; their dominion then fell asunder. ♦Duchy of Curland.♦ As in the case of Prussia, part of their territory, _Curland_ and _Semigallia_, was kept by the Livonian Master Godhard Kettler, as an hereditary duchy under Polish vassalage. The rest of the lands of the order were parted out among the chief powers of the Baltic. ♦Momentary kingdom of Livonia.♦ A Livonian kingdom under the Danish prince Magnus was but for a moment. ♦Denmark takes Dago and Oesel.♦ Denmark in the end received the islands of _Dago_ and _Oesel_, her last conquests east of the Baltic. ♦Sweden takes Esthland.♦ Sweden advanced south of the Finnish gulf, taking the greater part of Esthland. ♦Livland goes to Poland and Russia.♦ Northern Livland fell to Russia, the southern part to Poland. ♦All Livland Polish. 1582.♦ Twenty years later all Livland became a Polish possession.

♦Greatest Baltic extent of Poland and Lithuania.♦

This acquisition of Livland and of the superiority over Prussia and Curland raised the united power of Poland and Lithuania to its greatest extent on the Baltic coast. ♦Union of Lublin, 1569.♦ Meanwhile the union of _Lublin_ joined the kingdom and the grand duchy yet more closely together. But, long before this time, the eastern frontier of Lithuania had begun to fall back. ♦Russian advance.♦ The central advance of Russia to the west had begun. ♦Its causes.♦ A revived state, such as Russia was at the end of the fifteenth century, must advance, unless it be artificially hindered; and the new Russian state was driven to advance if it was to exist at all. It had no sea-board, except on the White Sea; it did not hold the mouth of any one of its great rivers, except the Northern Dvina, a stream thoroughly cut off from European life. The dominions of Sweden, Lithuania, and the Knights cut Russia off from the Baltic and from central Europe. To the south and east she was cut off from the Euxine and the Caspian, from the mouths of the Don and the Volga, by the powers which represented her old barbarian masters. Russia was thus not only driven to advance, but driven to advance in various directions. She had to win back her lost lands; she had, if she was really to become an European power, to win her way to the Baltic and to the Euxine. ♦Advance to the north-east.♦ Her position made it almost equally needful to win her way to the Caspian, and made it unavoidable that she should spread her power over the barbarian lands to the north-east. Of these several fields of advance the path to the Euxine was the longest barred. ♦Order of Russian advances.♦ First, at the end of the fifteenth century, began the recovery of the lost lands, a work spread over the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Then, in the sixteenth, came the eastern extension at the cost of the now weakened Mongol enemy. Strictly Baltic extension was in the sixteenth century merely momentary; it did not become lasting till the beginning of the eighteenth. ♦The Euxine reached last.♦ But Russia had been established on the Caspian for more than two centuries, she had become a Baltic power for more than two generations, before she made her way to the oldest scene of her seafaring enterprise.

♦Recovery of the lands conquered by Lithuania.♦

The recovery of the lands which had been lost to Lithuania began before the end of the fifteenth century. Ivan the Great won back _Severia_, with _Tchernigof_ and the Severian _Novgorod_ and part of the territory of _Smolensk_. ♦1514. | 1563.♦ Under Basil Smolensk itself followed; under Ivan the Terrible Polotsk again became Russian. Then the tide turned for a season. Russia first lost her newly-won territory in Livland. ♦Recovery of Smolensk by Poland. 1582. | Polish conquest of Russia, 1606.♦ The recovery of Smolensk by Poland was followed by the momentary Polish conquest of independent Russia, and the occupation of the throne of Moscow by a Polish prince. ♦Second revival of Russia, and second advance.♦ The Muscovite state came again to life; but it was shorn of a large part of the national territory, which had to be won again by a second advance. ♦Cessions to Poland.♦ Smolensk, Tchernigof, and the greater part of the Lithuanian conquests beyond the Dnieper, were again surrendered to the united Polish and Lithuanian state. In the middle of the century came the renewed Russian advance. ♦Lands recovered by the Peace of Andraszovo, 1667.♦ The Treaty of Andraszovo gave back to Russia most of the lands which had been surrendered fifty years before. ♦Recovery of Kief. 1686.♦ By the last advance in the seventeenth century Russia won back a small territory west of the Dnieper, including her ancient capital of Kief. ♦Superiority over the Ukraine Cossacks.♦ At the same time Poland finally gave up to Russia the superiority over the Cossacks of Ukraine, between the Bug and the Lower Dnieper. ♦Russian lands still kept by Poland.♦ But, with this exception, Poland and Lithuania still kept all the Russian lands south of Duna and west of Dnieper, with some districts beyond those rivers. Nor was Russia the only power to which Poland had to give way on her south-eastern frontier. ♦Podolia lost to the Turk.♦ In this quarter the Ottoman for the last time won a new province from a Christian state by the acquisition of _Kamienetz_ and all _Podolia_.[67]

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But Poland had during this period to give way at other points also. This was the time of the great growth of the Swedish power. ♦Growth of Sweden and Russia compared.♦ The contrast between the growth of Sweden and the contemporary growth of Russia is instructive. The revived power of Moscow was partly winning back its own lost lands, partly advancing in directions which were needful for national growth, almost for national being. The growth of Sweden in so many directions was almost wholly a growth beyond her own borders. ♦Russian advance lasting. | Swedish advance temporary.♦ Hence doubtless it came that the advance of Russia has been lasting, while the advance of Sweden was only for a season. Sweden has lost by far the greater part of her conquests; she has kept only those parts of them which went to complete her position in her own peninsula.

On the Swedish conquest of Esthland followed a series of shiftings of the frontiers of Sweden and Russia which lasted into the present century. ♦Advance under and after Gustavus Adolphus. 1611-1660.♦ During the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, and the period which we might almost call the continuation of his reign after his death, Sweden advanced both in her own peninsula and east of the Baltic, while she also gained a wholly new footing on German ground, both on the Baltic and on the Ocean. ♦Wars between Sweden and Russia. 1576-1617. | Peace of Stalbova.♦ A long period of alternate war and peace, a time in which Novgorod the Great passed for a moment into Swedish hands, was ended, as far as Sweden and Russia were concerned, by the peace of Stalbova. ♦Sweden gains Ingermanland.♦ The Swedish frontier thus fixed took in all _Carelia_ and _Ingermanland_, and wholly cut off Russia from the Baltic and its gulfs. Such an advance could not fail to lead to further advance, though at the expense of another enemy. ♦Wars between Sweden and Poland. 1619-1660. | Swedish conquest of Livland, 1621-1625;♦ The long war between Sweden and Poland gave to Sweden Riga and the greater part of Livland. ♦of Dago and Oesel, 1645.♦ Her conquests in this region were completed by winning the islands of Dago and Oesel from Denmark.

♦Advance of Sweden against Denmark and Norway.♦

This last acquisition, geographically connected with the Swedish conquests from Russia and Poland, was politically part of an equally great advance which Sweden was making at the cost of the rival Scandinavian power, the united realms of Denmark and Norway. ♦Conquest of Gotland and Bornholm. 1645. | Of Jämteland.♦ Along with the two eastern islands, Denmark lost the isle of _Gotland_ for ever and that of _Bornholm_ for a moment,[68] and the Norwegian provinces east of the mountains, _Jämteland_ and _Hertjedalen_. The treaty of Roskild yet further enlarged Sweden at the expense of Norway. ♦Of Trondhjemlän. 1658.♦ By the cession of _Trondhjemlän_ the Norwegian kingdom was split asunder; the ancient metropolis was lost, and Sweden reached to the Ocean. ♦Of Bohuslän, and Scania, &c.♦ With Trondhjem Sweden also received _Bohuslän_, the southern province of Norway, and, more than all, the ancient possessions of Denmark in the northern peninsula, with her old metropolis of _Lund_. Here comes in the application of the rule. ♦Trondhjem restored to Norway. 1660.♦ In annexing Trondhjem Sweden had overshot her mark; it was restored within two years. It was otherwise with Bohuslän, Scania, and her other conquests within what might seem to be her natural borders; they have remained Swedish to this day.

♦Lands held by Sweden in Germany, Pomerania and Rügen, Bremen and Verden. 1648.♦

The Swedish acquisition of the eastern lands of Denmark was made more necessary by the position which Sweden had now taken on the central mainland. The peace of Westfalia had confirmed her in the possession of _Rügen_ and _Western Pomerania_ on the Baltic, and of the bishoprics of _Bremen_ and _Verden_ which made her a power on the Ocean. These lands were not strictly an addition to the Swedish realm; they were fiefs of the Empire held by the Swedish king. Here again comes in the geographical law. The Swedish possession of the German lands on the Ocean was short; part of the German lands on the Baltic was kept into the present century.

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The peace of Roskild, which cut short the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in the northern peninsula, also marks an epoch in the controverted history of the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein. ♦Denmark gives up the sovereignty of the Gottorp lands. 1658.♦ The Danish king gave up the _sovereignty_ of the Gottorp districts of the duchies. Even if that cession implied the surrender of his own feudal superiority over the Gottorp districts of Sleswick, he could not alienate any part of the Imperial rights over Holstein. ♦Fluctuations in the duchies. 1675-1700.♦ This sovereignty, in whatever it consisted, was lost and won several times between king and Duke before the end of the century. ♦Danish possession of Oldenburg. 1678.♦ Meanwhile the Danish crown became possessed of the outlying duchies of _Oldenburg_ and _Delmenhorst_, which in some sort balanced the Swedish possession of Bremen and Verden.

♦Sweden after the peace of Oliva.♦

The wars and treaties which were ended by the peace of Oliva fixed the boundaries of the Baltic lands for a season. They fixed the home extent of Sweden down to the present century. They cut off Denmark, save its one outpost of _Bornholm_, from the Baltic itself, as distinguished from the narrow seas which lead to it. They fixed the extent of Poland down to the partitions. What they failed to do for any length of time was to cut off Russia from the Baltic, and to establish Sweden on the Ocean. But for the present we leave Sweden ruling over the whole western and the greater part of the eastern coast of the Northern Mediterranean, and holding smaller possessions both on its southern coast and on the Ocean. The rest of the eastern and southern coast of the Baltic is divided between the Polish fief of Curland, the dominions of the common ruler of Pomerania and Prussia,—now an independent prince in his eastern duchy,—and the small piece of Polish coast placed invitingly between the two parts of his dominions. In her own peninsula Sweden has reached her natural frontier, and has given back what she won for a moment beyond it. While Sweden has this vast extent of coast with comparatively little extent inland, the vast inland region of Poland and Lithuania has hardly any seaboard, and the still vaster inland region of Russia has none at all in Europe, except on the White Sea. Thus the most striking feature of this period is the advance of Sweden; but we have seen that it was also a time of great advance on the part of Russia. It was a time of yet greater advance on that side of her dominion where Russia had no European rivals.

♦Eastern advance of Russia.♦

In the case of Russia, the only European power which could conquer and colonize by land in barbarian regions,[69] her earlier barbarian conquests were absolutely necessary to her existence. No hard line can be drawn between her earliest and her latest conquests, between the first advance of Novgorod and the last conquests in Turkestan. But the advance which immediately followed the deliverance from the Tartar yoke marks a great epoch. The smaller khanats into which the dominion of the Golden Horde had been broken up still kept Russia from the Euxine and the Caspian. ♦Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. 1552-1554.♦ The two khanats on the Volga, _Kazan_ and _Astrakhan_, were subdued by Ivan the Terrible. The coast of the Caspian was now reached. But the khans of _Crim_ remained, unsubdued and dangerous enemies, still cutting off Russia from the Euxine. ♦Superiority over the Don Cossacks. 1577.♦ Yet, even in this direction an advance was made when the Russian supremacy was acknowledged by the Cossacks of the Don. ♦Beginning of Siberian conquest. 1581. | 1592-1706.♦ The conquest of the Siberian khanat, with its capital _Tobolsk_, next followed, and thence, in the course of the next century, the boundless extent of northern Asia was added to the Russian dominion.

§ 5. _The Decline of Sweden and Poland._

In the last section we traced out the greatest advance of Sweden and a large advance of Russia, both made at the cost of Poland, that of Sweden also at the cost of Denmark. We saw also the beginnings of a power which we still called _Brandenburg_ rather than _Prussia_. ♦Growth of Prussia.♦ In the present section, describing the work of the eighteenth century, we have to trace the growth of this last power, which now definitely takes the Prussian name, and which we have to look at in its Prussian character. ♦Decline of Sweden. | Extinction of Poland.♦ The period is marked by the decline of Sweden and the utter wiping out of Poland and Lithuania, Russia and Prussia in different degrees being chief actors in both cases. ♦Kingdom of Prussia. 1701.♦ At the beginning of the period Prussia becomes a kingdom—a sign of advance, though not accompanied by any immediate increase of territory. ♦Empire of Russia. 1721.♦ A little later the ruler of Russia, already Imperial in his own tongue,[70] more definitely takes the Imperial style as _Emperor of all the Russias_. This might pass as a challenge of the Russian lands, Black, White, and Red, which were still held by Poland.

♦Russia on the Baltic.♦

But more pressing than the recovery of these lands was the breaking down of the barrier by which Sweden kept Russia away from the Baltic. To a very slight extent this was a recovery of old Russian territory; but the position now won by Russia was wholly new. ♦Wars of Charles and Peter. 1700-1721. | Foundation of Saint Petersburg. 1703.♦ The war with Charles the Twelfth made Russia a great Baltic power, and Peter the Great, early in the struggle, set up the great trophy of his victory in the foundation of his new capital of Saint Petersburg on ground won from Sweden. ♦Cession of Livland, &c., by Sweden.♦ The peace of Nystad confirmed Russia in the possession of Swedish Livland, Esthland, Ingermanland, part of Carelia, and a small part of Finland itself. ♦Further advance of Russia. 1741-1743.♦ Another war, ended by the Peace of Åbo, gave Russia another small extension in Finland.

At the same time Sweden was cut short in her other outlying possessions. ♦Sweden loses Bremen, Verden, and part of Pomerania.♦ Of her German fiefs, the duchies of Bremen and Verden passed, first to Denmark, then to Hannover. But her Baltic possessions were only partly lost, to the profit of Brandenburg. The frontier of Swedish Pomerania fell back to the north-west, losing Stettin, but keeping Stralsund, Wolgast, and Rügen. Denmark meanwhile advanced in the debateable land on her southern frontier. ♦Danish conquest of the Gottorp lands. 1713-1715.♦ The Danish occupation of Bremen and Verden was only momentary; but the Gottorp share of Sleswick and Holstein was conquered, and the possession of all Sleswick was guaranteed to Denmark by England and France. ♦The Gottorp lands in Holstein restored.♦ But the Gottorp share of Holstein, as an Imperial fief, was given back to its Duke. ♦They pass to Denmark in exchange for Oldenburg. 1767-1773.♦ Lastly, when the house of Gottorp had mounted the throne of Russia, the Gottorp portion of Holstein was ceded to Denmark in exchange for Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, which were at once given to another branch of the family.

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♦First partition of Poland. 1772.♦

In the latter part of the eighteenth century the three partitions of Poland brought about the all but complete recovery of the lands which the Lithuanian dukes had won from Russia. ♦Russian share.♦ The first partition gave Russia Polish Livland, and all the lands which Poland still kept beyond Duna and Dnieper. The greater part of _White Russia_ was thus won back. ♦Prussian share. | Brandenburg and Prussia geographically united.♦ At the same time the house of Hohenzollern gained its great territorial need, the geographical union of the kingdom of Prussia with the lands of Brandenburg and Pomerania, now increased by nearly all Silesia. This union was made by Poland giving up _West Prussia_—Danzig remaining an outlying city of Poland—and part of _Great Poland_ and _Cujavia_, known as the _Netz District_.[71] ♦Austrian share. | Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ The Austrian share, the new kingdom of _Galicia and Lodomeria_, was a kind of commemoration of the conquests of Lewis the Great:[72] but, while it did not take in all _Red Russia_, it took in part of _Podolia_ and of _Little Poland_ south of the Vistula, making Cracow a frontier city. ♦Russian territory held by Austria.♦ Austria thus became possessed of a part of the old Russian territory, most of which she has kept ever since.

♦Second partition. 1793.♦

The Polish state was thus maimed on all sides; but it still kept a considerable territorial extent. The second partition, the work of Russia and Prussia only, could only be a preparation for the final death-blow. ♦Russian share.♦ It gave to Russia the rest of _Podolia_ and _Ukraine_, and part of _Volhynia_ and _Podlasia_. _Little Russia_ and _White Russia_ were thus wholly won back, and the Russian frontier was advanced within the old Lithuanian duchy. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia took nearly all that was left of the oldest Polish state, the rest of _Great Poland_ and _Cujavia_, and part of _Mazovia_, forming the _South Prussia_ of the new nomenclature. Gnesen, the oldest Polish capital, the metropolis of the Polish Church, now passed away from Poland.

The remnant that was left to Poland took in the greater part of _Little Poland_, part of _Mazovia_, the greater part of the old _Lithuania_ with the fragment still left of its Russian territory, _Samogitia_ and the fief of _Curland_. ♦Third partition. 1795.♦ The final division was delayed only two years. This time all three partners joined. ♦Russian share.♦ Russia took all _Lithuania_ east of the Niemen, with its capital _Vilna_, also _Curland_ and _Samogitia_ to the north, and the old Russian remnant to the south. ♦Austrian share.♦ Austria took _Cracow_, with nearly all the rest of _Little Poland_, as also part of _Mazovia_, by the name of _New Galicia_. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia took _Danzig_ and _Thorn_, as also a small piece of _Little Poland_ to improve the frontiers of South Prussia and Silesia, perhaps without thinking that this last process was an advance of the Roman Terminus. The capital _Warsaw_, with the remnant of _Mazovia_ and the strip of _Lithuania_ west of the Niemen, also fell to Prussia. The names of Poland and Lithuania now passed away from the map.

♦No original Polish territory gained by Russia in the partitions.♦

It is important to remember that the three partitions gave no part of the original Polish realm to Russia. Russia took back the Russian territory which had been long before won by Lithuania, and added the greater part of Lithuania itself, with the lands immediately to the north. ♦The old Poland divided between Prussia and Austria.♦ The ancient kingdom of Poland was divided between Prussia and Austria, and the oldest Poland of all fell to the lot of Prussia. ♦Poland passes to Prussia,♦ Great Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, the Polish lands which had passed to the mark of Brandenburg, once united under Polish rule, were again united under the power to which they had gradually fallen away. ♦Chrobatia to Austria.♦ Austria or Hungary meanwhile took the rest of the northern Chrobatia, seven hundred years after the acquisition of the former part, and also the Russian land which had been twice before added to the Magyar kingdom.

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♦Advance to the Euxine.♦

Meanwhile Russia made advances in other quarters of nearly equal extent. As the remnant of the Saracen at Granada cut off the Castilian from his southern coast or the Mediterranean, for more than two hundred years, so did the remnant of the Tartar in _Crim_ cut off the Russian for as long a time from his southern coast on the Euxine. ♦Occupation of Azof. 1696-1711.♦ Peter the Great first made his way, if not to the Euxine, at least to its inland gulf, by the taking of _Azof_. But the new conquest was only temporary. After seventy years more the work was done. ♦Independence of Crim 1774. | Annexation of Crim. 1783.♦ First came the nominal independence of the Crimean khanat, then its incorporation with Russia. The work at which Megarian and Genoese colonists had laboured was now done; the northern coast of the Euxine was won for Europe.[73] The road through which so many Turanian invaders had pressed into the Aryan continent was blocked for ever. ♦Conquest of Jedisan. 1791.♦ The next advance, the limit of Russian advance made strictly at the expense of the barbarian as distinguished from his Christian vassals, carried the Russian frontier from the Bug to the Dniester.

♦Russian conquests from Persia. 1727-1734.♦

The chief Asiatic acquisition of Russia in the eighteenth century took a strange form. It was conquest beyond the sea, though only beyond the inland Caspian. Turk and Russian joined to dismember Persia, and for some years Russia held the south coast of that great lake, the lands of _Daghestan_, _Ghilan_, and _Mazanderan_. ♦Superiority over Georgia. 1783.♦ Later in the century the ancient Christian kingdom of _Georgia_ passed under Russian superiority, the earnest of much Russian conquest on both sides of Caucasus. ♦Superiority over the Kirghis. 1773.♦ And nearly at the same time as the first steps towards the acquisition of Crim, the Russian dominion was spread over the _Kirghis_ hordes west of the river Ural, winning a coast on the eastern Caspian, the sea of Aral, and the Baltash lake.

♦Survey at the end of the eighteenth century.♦

Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, the Swedish power has fallen back. Its territory east of the Baltic is less than it was at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Denmark, on the other hand, has grown by an advance in the debateable southern duchies. All Sleswick is added to the Danish crown; all Holstein is held by the Danish king. Poland has vanished. The anomalous power on the middle Danube, whose princes, it must be remembered, still wore the crown of the Empire, has thrust itself into the very heart of the old Polish land. But the power which has gained most by the extinction of Poland has been the new kingdom of Prussia. If part of her annexations lasted only a few years, she made her Baltic coast continuous for ever. But Prussia and Austria alike, by joining to wipe out the central state of the whole region, have given themselves a mighty neighbour. Russia has wholly cast aside her character as a mere inland power, intermediate between Europe and Asia. She has won her way, after so many ages, to her old position and much more. She has a Baltic and an Euxine seaboard. Her recovery of her old lands on the Duna and the Dnieper, her conquest of new lands on the Niemen, have brought her into the heart of Europe. And she has opened the path which was also to lead her into the heart of Asia, and to establish her in the intermediate mountain land between the Euxine and the Caspian.

§ 6. _The Modern Geography of the Baltic Lands._

♦The French revolutionary wars.♦

The territorial arrangements of Northern and Eastern Europe were not affected by the French revolutionary wars till after the fall of the Western Empire. At that moment the frontier of Germany and Denmark was still what it had been under Charles the Great; “Eidora Romani terminus Imperii.” Only now the Danish king ruled to the south of the boundary stream in the character of a prince of the Empire. ♦Holstein incorporated with Denmark, and Swedish Pomerania with Sweden. 1806.♦ The fall of the Empire put an end to this relation, and the duchy of Holstein was incorporated with the Danish realm. In the like sort, the Swedish kingdom was extended to the central mainland of Europe, by the incorporation of the Pomeranian dominions of the Swedish king. ♦Russian conquest of Finland, 1809.♦ Before long, the last war between Sweden and Russia was ended by the peace of Friderikshamn, when Sweden gave up all her territory east of the gulf as far as the river Tornea, together with the isles of _Aland_. ♦Grand Duchy of Finland.♦ These lands passed to the Russian Emperor as a separate and privileged dominion, the _Grand Duchy of Finland_. Thus Sweden withdrew to her own side of the Baltic, while Russia at last became mistress of the whole eastern coast from the Prussian border northward. ♦Union of Sweden and Norway. 1814-1815.♦ The general peace left this arrangement untouched, but decreed the separation of Norway from Denmark and its union with Sweden. This was carried out so far as to effect the union of Sweden and Norway as independent kingdoms under a single king. ♦Swedish Pomerania passes to Denmark.♦ Denmark got in compensation, as diplomacy calls it, a scrap of its old Slavonic realm, Rügen and Swedish Pomerania. ♦Exchanged with Prussia for Lauenburg.♦ These detached lands were presently exchanged with Prussia for a land adjoining Holstein, the duchy of _Lauenburg_, the representative of ancient Saxony.[74] ♦Heligoland passes to England.♦ Denmark kept Iceland, but the Frisian island of _Heligoland_ off the coast of Sleswick passed to England. Thus the common king of Sweden and Norway reigns over the whole of the northern peninsula and over nothing out of it. No such great change had affected the Scandinavian kingdoms since the union of Calmar.

♦Holstein and Lauenburg join the German Confederation.♦

Meanwhile the king of Denmark, remaining the independent sovereign of Denmark, Iceland, and Sleswick, entered the German Confederation for his duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg. ♦Disputes and wars in the Duchies.♦ Disputes and wars made no geographical change till the war which followed the accession of the present king. The changes which then followed have been told elsewhere.[75] ♦Transfer of Sleswick and Holstein, with Lauenburg to Prussia. 1864-1866.♦ They amount to the transfer to Prussia of Lauenburg, Holstein, and Sleswick, with a slight change of frontier and a redistribution of the smaller islands. A conditional engagement for the restoration of northern Sleswick to Denmark was not fulfilled, and has been formally annulled.

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♦Losses of Prussia. 1806.♦

In the lands which had been Poland and Lithuania, the immediate result of the French wars was the creation of a new Polish state; their final result was a great extension of the dominion of Russia. Prussia had to surrender its whole Polish territory, save West Prussia.[76] ♦Bialystok added to Russia. | Danzig a commonwealth.♦ A small Lithuanian territory, the district of _Bialystok_, was given to Russia; _Danzig_ became a separate commonwealth. ♦Duchy of Warsaw♦ The rest of the Prussian share of Poland formed the new _Duchy of Warsaw_. This state was really no bad representative of the oldest Poland of all. Silesia was gone; but the new duchy took in Great Poland and Cujavia, with parts of Little Poland, Mazovia, and Lithuania. It took in the oldest capital at Gnesen and the newest at Warsaw. ♦Enlarged by part of Austrian Poland. 1810.♦ The new state was presently enlarged by the addition of the territory added to Austria by the last partition. Cracow, with the greater part of Little Poland, was again joined to Great Poland. ♦Extent of the Duchy.♦ Speaking roughly, the duchy took in nearly the whole of the old Polish kingdom, without Silesia, but with some small Lithuanian and Russian territory added.

♦Arrangements of 1815.♦