Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/502

 CHAPTER XXX RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA BECOME EUROPEAN POWERS I. THE BEGINNINGS OF RUSSIA; PETER THE GREAT 644. Emergence of Two New European Powers. We must now turn to the study of two European powers which hitherto it has not been necessary to mention Russia and Prussia. During the past two hundred years, however, these states have played an increasingly important part in the affairs of Europe and the world. The aggressions of Prussia finally united most of the civilized nations against her in the World War, the results of which will affect mankind more profoundly than any previous event in history. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia hastened by the war seemed to many to threaten the whole political, social, and economic order. The decisions of the leaders of the Russian workmen and peasants are now viewed with more con- cern throughout the world than the decrees of any of the old- fashioned kings who have been able to hold their thrones. We must therefore turn to the shores of the Baltic and the vast plains of eastern Europe in order to see how these two states grew up and became actors in the great drama of humanity. 645. The Slavic Peoples. We have had little occasion, in deal- ing with the history of western Europe, to refer to the Slavic peoples, to whom the Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Serbians, and many other nations of eastern Europe belong. Together they form the most numerous race in Europe, but only recently has their history begun to merge into that of the world at large. Before the World War, which began in 1914, the realms of the Tsar which lay in Europe exceeded in extent those of all the other rulers of the continent put together, and yet they were scarcely more than a quarter of his whole dominion, which embraced in addition great 374