Russia came into existence as a nation on the day of the victory of the Muscovite troops under Peter the First over the Swedes and allies under Charles XII. of Sweden, at Pultowa, A.D. 1709. What Russia has attained to since that date is known and startling significant; what she was previous to that date is insignificant.

As Creasy says: “Yet a century and a half (two centuries) have hardly elapsed since Russia was first recognized as a member of the drama of modern European history—, previous to the battle of Pultowa, Russia played no part. Charles V. and his great rival (Francis I.), our Elizabeth and her adversary Philip of Spain, the Guises, Sully, Richelieu, Cromwell, De Witt, William of Orange, and the other leading spirits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thought no more about the Muscovite Czar than we now think about the King of Timbuctoo.”

Sweden lost on that dread day when “fortune fled the royal Swede”, all that she had toilsomely gained thro’ the slow centuries. At one blow her fairest provinces were torn from her; and the rival Russian throne ascended to European prominence over the prostrate power of Sweden.

Peter the Great even upon the field of victory fully realized that Pultowa was for him the key to the Baltic. Even amid the carnage of the slaughter-field where ten thousand men lay dying or dead and the Vorksla river ran red, his eagle gaze beheld the Russia resultant from the Treaty of Nystadt. Exultantly he cried out that “the sun of the morning had fallen from Heaven, and the foundation of St. Petersburg at length stood firm.”

From dread Pultowa’s day even to the hour, Russia has steadily advanced by slow, gigantic strides unto a dominating prominence among the family of nations. The cabinets of Turkey, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, and England are secretly tho’ effectively influenced by Russia.

Republic or Empire.

Napoleon said that all Europe would ultimately become either Muscovite or Republican. Which shall it be? The answer as deduced from present tendencies might be—Republican: but no thoughtful observer can fail to regard attentively and apprehensively that sullen Sclavonic dominance extending insidiously and simultaneously into India, Persia, Mongolia, Turkey, the Balkans, and Central Europe.

Amalgamation, the mergence of the many into one, sameness—quiescent and content under a powerful, capable, and just administration, seem to be and ever to have been the ideal form of government. The empires of the past—Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, Roman; the Holy Roman Empire and the Socialistic commune of the future—all include as fundamental principle this solidarity. So far, indeed, it has proved a marsh-light leading to the marsh; but we dream that it will yet lead out of and beyond the muddy, bloody marsh and ultimately light up millennial realms of world-wide oneness, goodness, gladness, peace.

Charles XII. of Sweden.

When Charles set out on that expedition having for its object the castigation and possible subjugation of the upstart Tartar hordes weakly held together by Peter of Russia,—all Europe believed that Charles would briefly and successfully accomplish that object.

Sweden was then a power for whose alliance and friendly interest the most powerful monarchs of Europe contended. Louis XIV. of France sought the aid of Charles in the war then waging between France and England; and Marlborough, leader of the English forces in France, went personally to the court of Charles in order to solicit that monarch’s aid or at least his neutrality in the great struggle then in progress.

Charles himself was fully confident of victory; and in his romantic plans drawn up for the future, the overthrow of Peter formed only an episode. A year, perhaps, would be required for the full accomplishment of the Russian enterprise; then he, Charles of Sweden, victor of Moscow and arbiter from the Kremlin, would hastily return to western Europe and begin preparations on a gigantic scale for his master-achievement—the dethronement of the Pope of Rome, and the demolition of the Papacy.

Desire-dream of many; achievement of none: for this magic Gibraltar elusively endures bearing its age-old scars as brightest ornamentations. Charles XII. did not, indeed, attack Rome; but did Pultowa save the Papacy? No: the missiles of the Madman of the North whether hurled in the real or only in that futile future plan, would have been equally ineffectual; the magic rock would, perhaps bear another scar bright shining today as trophy of its past struggle and victory.

The lesson of history would seem to teach mortals to expect the unexpected. At Saratoga, at Valmy, at Pultowa, in the Teutoberger Wald, at Marathon, and at Babylon—the undreamed of, the altogether unanticipated, unprepared for, both by the combatants themselves and the world-spectators—took place.

Charles XII., who had set out from Sweden with an army of eighty-five thousand men, Swedes and allies, escaped from the shambles of Pultowa only by swimming across a river red with blood and thus reaching an alien shore weak, wounded, a fugitive, and comparatively alone. Eighty-five thousand men died for the gratification of the personal ambition of the Swedish king; and, by the irony of fate, for the ruination of their native land and the aggrandizement of Peter the First, subsequently and, perhaps, consequently Peter the Great, of Russia.

Sclavonic versus Teutonic.

The battle of Pultowa was the first decisive victory of the Sclavonic race over the Germanic. Arnold, in his Lectures on Modern History, says that the last chapter of the history of Europe will narrate the achievements leading to Muscovite ascendency and the glories of world-dominant Panslavism.

Do nations and races attain only to a certain degree of excellence and then deteriorate? And is that the plan fatefully fixed for the planet Earth? MycenÆ, Troy, PhilÆ, Babylon, Athens make answer in the affirmative.

A poem, Christ in the Universe, by Alice Meynell comes to mind. In a few master touches the writer describes God’s way of revealing Himself to us mortals:

“With the ambiguous earth

His dealings have been told us; these abide:

The signal to a maid, the human birth,

The lesson, and the Young Man crucified.”