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RUSSIA self. On February 6, 1807, at Eylau, the Russian troops under Bennigsen, after a bloody battle in which they lost 26,000 men killed and wounded, were compelled to retreat. On April 25, 1807, Russia and Prussia signed the convention of Bartenstein, by which those two powers became allied against France; and on June 14 of the same year the decisive defeat of Bennigsen at Friedland led Alexander to conclude with Napoleon the treaty of Tilsit, which was ratified October 12, 1808, at Erfurt. At peace with France, Russia turned her arms against Turkey, whose armies were defeated at Batynia by Kamenski (1810), and at Slobodsia by Kutuzoff (1811). The congress of Bukarest (1812) insured to Russia the possession of Bessarabia. At the same time Russia was at war with Persia.

The Polish question and the Russian national sentiment, which was excited to a high degree against the French, brought about the great war between Russia and France, a war that led to the ruin of the Napoleonic empire. The French army, consisting of 600,000 men of the various European nationalities, crossed the Russian frontiers, entered Vilna, and on August 18, 1812, fought the Russians in a bloody battle at Smolensk. The battle of Borodino was fought on September 7, and cost the Russians 40,000 men, while the French lost 30,000. On September 14 Napoleon entered Moscow to the sound of the Marseillaise. The city was set on fire. On the other hand an exceptionally severe winter set in. After a stay of thirty-five days at Moscow, Napoleon began the retreat, during which he was obliged to defend himself, not only against the regular Russian troops, but also against the Cossacks and the peasants in search of booty. Between 26 and November 29, on the right bank of the Beresina, near Studienka, 40,000 men of the Grand Army held 140,000 Russians in check, and with Napoleon succeeded in making a safe retreat. On December 30, after Homeric struggles, Marshal Ney recrossed the Niemen with the remnant of the army. The Grand Army of Napoleon had left 330,000 men killed and wounded in Russia. Russia had repelled the invader from her soil, and on February 28, 1813, allied herself to Prussia by the Treaty of Kalish.

The military genius of Napoleon and his victories were unable to save his throne. On March 31, 1814, Alexander I and the allied armies entered Paris. The Congress of Vienna (1815) placed the Kingdom of Poland again under the scepter of the Tsars, and withdrew that unhappy nation from the number of the free peoples. Its autonomy, however, remained to it under Alexander I, who also organized Finland as an independent grand duchy. That prince had a mind that was open to Liberal ideas, which found a convinced promoter in the minister Speransky (1806-12); but the intrigues of Speransky's enemies undermined the influence that he exercised with Alexander, and his place was taken by Araktcheyeff, a man whose name in Russia is synonymous with blind reaction and ferocity. The reformist policy of Speransky ceased, and measures of the severest intolerance were adopted in politics, and even in the sciences and literature. Alexander I was becoming more and more of a mystic, when death overtook him at Taganrog on December 1, 1825. The popular imagination transformed him into a legendary hero, into a sovereign who, to expiate his faults, adopted the garb of a muzhik, and lived and died unknown among his most humble subjects.

Alexander was succeeded on December 24, 1825, by Nicholas I, third son of Paul I. The beginning of his reign was marked by a revolution that broke out in December, and brought to its authors the name of Dekabristi or Decembrists. The most cultured and eminent men of Russia were engaged in this conspiracy, among them Pestel, Ryleeff, Muravieff-Apostol, and Bestuzheff-Riumin, who sought to establish a constitutional regime. Nicholas was most severe. The Decembrists ended their lives in Siberia or on the scaffold. They are regarded as the most illustrious martyrs of liberty in Russia. In his domestic policy Nicholas I continued the work of his predecessors with regard to the codification of the Russian laws. In 1830 there appeared the "Complete Collection of Russian Laws"; in 1838 the "Collection of Laws in Force", and in 1845 the penal code. The work of canal-making was continued, and the first railways in Russia were built; but every literary or political manifestation of Liberal ideas found in Nicholas I a fierce and inexorable adversary.

In his foreign policy Nicholas continued the war with Persia, which by the treaty of February 22, 1828 was compelled to cede the Provinces of Erivan and Nakhitchevan, to pay a war indemnity, and to grant commercial concessions. The Russian fleet, together with the French and the English fleets, took part in the Battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827), in which the Turkish fleet was destroyed, and by which the independence of Greece was established. Russia continued the war against Turkey in 1828 and 1829, until the Treaty of Adrianople (1829) secured to her the gains which she expected from her victories: the acquisition of Turkish territory and commercial advantages. After a series of military expeditions, the Khan of Khiva finally became a vassal of the tsar (1854). The Polish insurrection of 1830, which was desired by the people rather than by the cultured and leading classes, put Poland and Lithuania at the mercy of fire and sword in 1830 and 1831, and cost Poland her autonomy, brought on her the policy of russianization, and led to the exile of thousands of victims to Siberia. Austria and Germany gave to Russia their moral support in her severe repression of the Polish revolution, which on the other hand found many sympathizers in France. Nicholas I was the most determined enemy of the European revolution of 1848. In 1849 the Russian army suppressed the Hungarian revolution, and saved the throne of Francis Joseph. In 1853 the question of the Holy Places, the antagonism of France and Russia in the East, and the ambition of Nicholas for a Russian protectorate over all the Orthodox states of the Balkans brought about the war between Russia and Turkey, and in 1854 the Crimean War. Turkey, England, and France, and later Piedmont allied themselves against Russia. The allied fleets burned or bombarded the maritime strongholds of Russia, and in 1854 the allied armies invaded the Crimea, where on September 20 the battle of the Alma opened to them the way to Sebastopol. The Russians had prepared to make a desperate defense of that city, under one of the most daring and talented generals of the Russia of our day, Todleben. But the fortunes of the Crimean campaign now appeared disastrous for Russia. Nicholas I was heart-broken by it, and unable to withstand the blow that it dealt to his pride, he died of a broken heart March 3, 1855, while the star of Russian power in the East waned.

The first care of his successor, Alexander II (1855-1881), was to bring the Crimean War to an honorable termination, and to prevent the political and economic ruin of Russia. Sebastopol had fallen on September 8, 1855. The war had cost Russia 250,000 men, and the Government had not funds to continue it. The Congress of Paris, on February 25, 1856, obliged Russia to accept terms of peace by which all the efforts and sacrifices of Peter I) Catherine II, and Alexander I to establish their power at Constantinople came to naught. The Black Sea was opened to all nations, and Russia was refused the protectorate over Christians in the East. Alexander II understood that, to remedy the evil results of the Crimean War, it was