The Turks were now finally beaten back from their conquests in Hungary. The war which they had begun with the siege of Vienna was continued by the celebrated Austrian general, Prince Eugene, the companion of Marlborough against Louis XIV. Eugene won victory after victory, and finally by the capture of Belgrad (1717) drove the Mahometans forever from Hungarian territory, reduced them from a universal menace to become an ever-fading "Eastern question."[12] Russia also, at first under Peter the Great and later under Catherine II, began to reach out for Turkish territory. The Turks had risen by the sword, and now, as other nations progressed and they stood still, the power of the sword was failing them. Russia expanded toward the Black Sea, as before she had expanded toward the Baltic, feeling out from her boundaries everywhere, moving along the line of least resistance, already looking toward Poland as her next tempting mouthful. In Asia too the Turks had troubles to encounter. Asia, the vastly productive, multitudinous through unprogressive, could still raise up conquerors of the Turkish type to stand against them. The last of those sudden waves of temporary, meaningless, barbarian conquest swept over the Asian plains. Nadir Shah, a Persian bandit, freed his country from the yoke of its Afghan tyrants, assumed its throne, and by repeated battles enlarged his domains at Turkish expense. He subdued Afghanistan, and then extending his attention to India made a sudden invasion of that huge land, overthrew the forces of the Great Mogul, and, having captured both him and his capital, permitted him to continue to reign as a sort of subject prince. Returning from this distant expedition, Nadir Shah was beginning to push his conquests over Northeastern Asia when he was slain by a conspiracy among his Persian followers, driven to desperation by his savage tyranny. His dominions fell to pieces with his death.[13] Europe meanwhile was going through a series of wars which seem small improvement over those of Nadir, except that they have had more polished historians. The selfish principles of Louis XIV had not lost their influence, the passion for territorial aggrandizement had not disappeared. In all history it would be hard to find a war more brazen in the avowed selfishness of its beginning, more utterly callous in its persistence, than that into which all Europe plunged in 1740.