Let us briefly review the leading events of the period referred to, and consider their bearing upon Roumania of to-day. After the unsuccessful campaign of Peter the Great in which the voivodes, Cantemir and Brancovano, were enlisted on the side of the Russians, the latter made no serious attempt to interfere with the government of the Principalities until about the year 1735, when, under the Empress Anne, and in alliance with the German Emperor Charles VI., they endeavoured to expel the Turks, and partially succeeded in doing so. After two campaigns, however, the allies were ingloriously defeated at Belgrade; and by the treaty of that name (1739 A.D.) they were not only compelled to restore all their conquests, but even to relinquish some of the territory of which the Porte had been deprived in the seventeenth century. The hospodars who ruled at that time in Wallachia and Moldavia were Constantine Mavrocordato and Gregory Ghika.[163] About twenty-five years later the Russians returned to the charge under Catherine IV., and this time with better success. Their operations extended over about six years, and the war commenced in 1768 by an act of hostility on the part of the Sultan, provoked by a Russian propaganda. In 1769-70 the Muscovites overran Moldavia and Wallachia; the former, it is said by some, with the connivance of the reigning prince, Constantine Mavrocordato III.; and, having defeated the Turks in several pitched battles, and even penetrated into Bulgaria, they actually ruled in the country until 1774 A.D., and introduced many useful reforms. Then, however, owing to the interference of Maria Theresa, Empress of Germany, who, as Queen of Hungary, herself claimed rights of suzerainty over Wallachia, and largely also in consequence of the passive resistance of the Porte, the Czarina agreed to the Treaty of Kainardji, by which, under conditions favourable to the Principalities, they were once more restored to the Porte. Amongst the conditions were a complete amnesty; the restitution of lands and goods to their rightful owners; freedom of worship for Christians, and liberty to build or restore places of worship; the privilege of sending two _chargés d'affaires_ (one from each principality) to Constantinople; and the right on the part of the Court of St. Petersburg to speak in favour of the Principalities in cases of complaint, with the further provision that such remonstrances should be treated with the respect due from one friendly power to another. In 1777 the Porte ceded Bucovine to Austria. The signature of the ruling Hospodar of Moldavia, Gregory Ghika, was necessary to validate the cession, but that patriotic 'Phanariote' refused to append it, whereupon he was deposed and cruelly murdered by the creatures of the Porte. We have already referred to his patriotism and its results.