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nople. Amid these multiplied calamities, Achmet II., seized by the same disease that had proved fatal to his three brothers, and sick at heart as well as oppressed by bodily ailments, died on the 6th February 1695.

He left a son aged two years, but the infant was put aside in favour of a nephew, the son of the deposed Mohammed IV. This prince was thirty-three years of age when he came to the throne. He soon proved that had he reigned in happier times he might have been a formidable personage. Three days after his accession, he issued a remarkable declaration in which he traced the misfortunes of the Empire to the departures from ancient usage that had gradually crept in, announced his determination of returning to the old paths, and as an earnest of that design intimated that he would himself lead his troops in the war he had resolved to continue. The Divan vainly sought to dissuade him from this purpose. At first his resolution was rewarded by considerable victories. He recaptured several important fortresses, and succeeded, though with a greatly superior force, in inflicting a severe defeat upon the Austrian leader, General Veterani, at Lugos. The consequences of this triumph were felt far away from its scene. It gave new heart to the defenders of Azoff, which Peter the Great was besieging at the head of a Russian force, for they sallied forth and drove back the assailants with a loss of about 30,000 men. It is true that next year the indomitable Czar returned to the attack with improved appliances and better trained troops; and that, after defeating a Turkish naval squadron which had sailed for its relief, as well as warding off the attempts made for the same purpose by troops from the Crimea, he became master of the place on the 28th of July, beginning ere the winter came to improve the harbour and to fit out ships of war on a scale which sufficiently revealed the object of his ambition. Yet, in the west, Sultan Mustapha had again a fair success. He relieved Temeswaer, defeating the Duke of Saxe with great slaughter; he strengthened all his own garrisons in Hungary; and then, solacing himself for not doing more by the difficulty experienced in getting up reinforcements to supply the place of the men thus disposed of, he returned in triumph to Adrianople. Then was the time he might have negotiated a favourable peace; but next year the arrangement with France which followed on the treaty of Ryswick liberated the German forces employed against Louis XIV.; Prince Eugene once more appeared as commander of the Imperialists in Hungary; and the effects of his genius and resolution speedily threw dire eclipse upon the faint lustre that had begun anew to gild the Crescent. He overthrew the Turks at Zenta with a loss greater than anything they had suffered since the deliverance of Vienna-their own disputes and mismanagement being potent auxiliaries to his success. He then pressed on to Bosnia, great part of which he overran with immense rapidity. He was only prevented from advancing to further conquests, for there was nothing and nobody to oppose him, by orders from Vienna to hold back. The Sultan, who witnessed from the Eastern bank of the Theiss the discomfiture of his army at Zenta, had fled from thence in disguise to Temeswaer, whence he arrived in a state of profound dejection at his capital. Meanwhile European intervention was at work to bring about a pacification.

Lord Paget, the British ambassador at Constantinople, was the prime agent in this move. He proposed to the Porte that Britain should use her influence to obtain an arrangement upon the basis of what diplomatists and international lawyers term the uti

The

possidetis,—that is, that each party should keep what belongs to it at the moment. Germans might very well claim credit for magnanimity in listening to such a proposition, seeing their chances of largely increasing the territory they possessed were so favourable. But her recent wars had been very costly and exhausting to Germany; the Emperor Leopold was a tame and easy-going man; and, besides, in the prospect of the succession to the Spanish throne becoming vacant, the most ordinary prudence must have dictated the propriety of husbanding and recruiting his resources for the great struggle that might then be expected. Accordingly, it became an easier thing to win attention from Germany than from others interested. The Czar Peter was very unmanageable for a long time, while Poland and Venice had each their pet stipulations on which they felt disposed to insist; and even the Sultan strove hard for certain modifications of the suggested preliminary terms before he would consent to negotiate. At length, the way was cleared for a meeting of fully accredited plenipotentiaries, Holland being conjoined with Britain as an intermediary Power. They assembled at Carlowitz, and spent three months in argument and deliberation. A treaty was finally adjusted which differed in several respects from the original scheme. The Ottoman Empire, it was provided, should henceforth be defined by the Dniester, the Save, and the Unna. Austria kept Transylvania, all Hungary north of the Marosch and west of the Thiess, and Sclavonia. Poland kept Podolia, and was given Kamienec, which she described as the key of her home. Venetia was confirmed in her possession of the Morea, received a strong frontier in Dalmatia, and relinquished all she had won north of the Isthmus of Corinth. The representatives of Russia would agree to nothing beyond a two years' armistice, seeing that they were refused the important town of Kertch in the Crimea, which the Czar ardently coveted, as well as of Azoff and the conquered districts lying north of the sea so-named. The bargain was, however, soon extended to a period of thirty years, Charles XII. of Sweden giving the Czar enough to do for some time.

The treaty of Carlowitz is memorable for many reasons, apart from the important territorial changes which were then ratified. In connection with it, the Porte and Russia first took part in a general congress. The plenipotentiaries of each, by consenting to meet with the representatives of Britain and Holland, who were not belligerents, solemnly sanctioned the principle of intervention as a proceeding valid in international law. Above all, from it there dates the cessation in the European mind of all dread arising from Turkey as an aggressive Power. In the preceding narrative, two periods of its history have been traced. The reader has seen its gradual progress under the three first sovereigns of Othman's house, its rapid extension under Bajazet, the momentary danger of extinction which befell it after that Sultan's defeat by Tamerlane, its restoration under the second Amurath, its full establishment by his son Mohammed II., and its advance to meridian glory under his great grandson Suleiman the Magnificent. It has likewise been told how, though his successor Selim seemed to uphold its power and prestige, both were seriously affected by the battle of Lepanto; how, during reign after reign, there came a sensible declension in the wisdom, the vigour, or at least the success by which it was guided; how its last great effort of an offensive character was the second siege of Vienna; and how, from that time onward till the close of the seventeenth century, the ceaseless attempts made to retrieve its fortunes were subjected to frustration and defeat. The first

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period was one of triumphant progress. The second period was one of perpetual intimidation and menace. What remains is a story of rapid decay. From the year 1699, Turkey has never dreamt of extending her conquests. She has acted always on the defensive. Her only care has been to preserve, as far as she could, the integrity of the dominions remaining to her. In this task she has succeeded very ill. Province after province has been wrenched from her, till her European boundaries are now circumscribed within much narrower limits than those drawn at Carlowitz. She has shrunk and dwindled as her great northern rival constantly increased her huge bulk. Throughout, Russia, which in 1699 had only begun to show herself formidable, who at the date named was sent home sulky and displeased, because her hunger for territory had not been gratified to a larger extent, has been the open or secret agent in every proceeding by which Turkey has been stripped and squeezed in. The two are still, as they have long been, at deadly and irreconcileable feud. It becomes necessary, before procceding to trace the exciting history which records the progress of their quarrel, to describe the rise and character of this strong and insatiable antagonist.

T

Part EEE.

THE RISE OF RUSSIA.

CHAPTER I.

THE ABORIGINES OF RUSSIA-THE RELIGION, HABITS, AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE SLAVONIANS-THE APPEARANCE OF RURIK THE PIRATE AND SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY-HIS SUCCESSORS, OLEG, OLGA, AND SVIATOSLAF-ACCESSION OF VLADIMIR-HIS CONVERSION TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH-EFFECTS UPON THE COUNTRY.

HE authentic history of Russia begins with the ninth century. Before that date all is more or less vague and legendary. It may be esteemed as certain, however, that of the numerous tribes which inhabited the country, the vast majority were of Slavonian origin, belonging to an aboriginal European branch of the great Scythian race. In all probability they occupied it long before the foundation of Rome. Plain it is that had a Roman geographer in the days of the Empire advanced across the two continents from the Atlantic to the Pacific he would have found the exact succession of races that now exist. First, he would have lighted upon Celts occupying as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to the Vistula and the Carpathian, he would have found Germans; beyond them and stretching away into Central Asia, he would have come upon the Scythians-a race which, had he possessed our information, he would have divided into the two great branches of the Slavonians or European Scythians, and the Tartars, Turks, or Asiatic Scythians; while beyond these were the Mongolian hordes who overspread all Eastern Asia. The Slavonians were known by various names. The Latins called them Veneto, their German neighbours Wenden, the northern Scandinavians Vanar, while they themselves took the designation of Serbi. All these names have been superseded by that of Slavonian, which is of comparatively recent origin, and is derived either from the native word slava meaning glory, or slovo which means speech. Their original territories were very extensive; but the chief seat of the European branch was to the north of the Black Sea and the Carpathian mountains, and between the Baltic and the Volga. The appellation of Russians seems to have been