Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/731

 The Russian Empire in the Nineteenth Century 553 most despotic of all the long list of autocratic rulers. His harsh measures speedily produced a revolt in Poland. Europe made no response to Poland's appeals for assistance, and the Tsar's armies soon crushed the rebellion with great cruelty. To all intents and purposes Poland became henceforth merely a Russian province, governed, like the rest of the empire, from St. Petersburg. 1 999. Stern Efforts of Nicholas to check Liberalism. The Tsar adopted strong measures to check the growth of liberalism. His officials sought to prevent in every way the admission into Russia of Western ideas. Books on religion and science were carefully examined by the police or the clergy ; foreign works containing references to politics were either confiscated or the objectionable pages were blotted out by the censors. Private letters were opened, even when there was no reason to suspect their writers. It may be said that, except for a few short intervals of freedom, this whole system continued down to the revolution of 1917. II. RUSSIA AND THE NEAR-EASTERN QUESTION J THE CRIMEAN WAR 1000. The Turkish or Near-Eastern Question. 2 Before the end of his reign Nicholas I became involved in a war with Eng- land and France over the perennial Turkish question. Russia had always been anxious to seize portions of the Sultan's posses- sions and was eager in time to get control of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. Austria, England, and France, on the other hand, were, not unnaturally, hotly opposed to this ambition, and the rivalries and struggles of the European powers over the remains of the once wide realms of the Turkish Sultan constitute an important chapter in the history of the nineteenth century and led finally to the World War of 1914. 1 Thirty years later, in 1863, the Poles made another desperate attempt to free them- selves from the yoke of Russia, but failed. Napoleon III refused to assist them, and Bismarck supported the Tsar in the fearful repression which followed. 2 The Near-Eastern question concerning the Turkish realms is to be distinguished from the Far-Eastern question of European claims in China and the Orient.