Thus order was restored for some time, but the direction of affairs really passed out of the hands of the grand prince into those of Monomakh. Under his leadership the Russian princes were now united against the Polovtsi, and there ensued a series of campaigns of which no clear account has come down to us. The Russians generally had the upper hand, but for a long time the balance wavered, and the enemy seemed so dangerous to the princes that, following the example of Sviatopolk, they entered into matrimonial alliances with him. Thus Monomakh, as well as the two sons of Sviatoslav, David and Oleg, took Polovtsian wives for their sons. But the year 1111 witnessed a decisive campaign, in which Monomakh is again seen at the head of the Russian princes. After crossing the Dnieper and the Vorskla, the Russians pressed on into the enemy’s country as far as the Don. Two Polovtsian cities were taken, and one was reduced to ashes; the Don was crossed, and on March 24th and 26th a great battle was fought. The Russians were on the Sula, the last tributary of the Don before reaching the sea of Azov, in a most unfavourable position and surrounded from all sides by the Polovtsi. But the scales were turned when the drujinas of David and Monomakh, which had been kept all the time in the rear, made a terrific onset on the exhausted enemy, who fled in panic. According to tradition, angels preceded the Russians and smote the Polovtsi with blindness. _Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125 A.D.)_ After a reign filled with civil war and misfortune Sviatopolk died (April 16th, 1113), and all eyes turned toward Monomakh. Legally, however, the throne belonged to his cousin Oleg, son of Sviatoslav, and Monomakh seemed at first resolved to recognise his superior right. But the Kievans were determined to accept no one but Monomakh, and an uprising of theirs, which was directed primarily against the Jews, whom Sviatopolk had employed for fiscal purposes, but which threatened to assume larger dimensions, induced him to yield to the universal demand. Thus the race of Sviatoslav--otherwise called the Olgovitchi--was excluded, and Monomakh succeeded in bringing a large part of Russia under his house. During his reign he continued the wars against the Polovtsi, as well as against the Finns in the north and east, and the Poles in the west. The steppe was cleared so thoroughly that tradition, with its customary exaggeration, says that he forced the Polovtsi back into the Caucasus.