In the north-west we had to continue the efforts of Tsars John III. and IV. to drive Sweden from the Baltic littoral, and so push forward our frontier to the coast-line. In the west, to proceed with the work of Tsar Alexie-Michaelovitch, and wrest White Russia and Little Russia from Poland. In the south, to follow the course indicated by the Grand Dukes Sviatosloff and Oleg, of advancing to the Black Sea coast and creating unrest in Turkey, as a preparation for our further move forward. In the south-east, to carry on the struggles of Tsar Theodore-Ivanovitch and Boris Godunoff to convert the Caspian into a Russian inland sea, and obtain a firm foothold on the ridge of the Caucasus. In Asia, to extend the Empire in two directions—towards Central Asia, for protection against raids, and towards Russia’s natural outlet in the East, the Pacific Ocean. During this century it was only the first three of these projects that we really set ourselves to carry out. Our attempt in 1717 to gain possession of Khiva ended in complete failure, which for a long time arrested our advance in Central Asia; while in Siberia, thanks to the peaceful attitude of the Chinese and Japanese, and to the weakness of the Kirghiz, we were enabled to protect our 6,000-mile Chinese frontier with an insignificant number of men. Of the three tasks seriously attempted, the first—that of gaining possession of the Baltic sea-board—was the most difficult. For twenty-one years had that able commander, Charles XII. of Sweden, fought with a small but veteran army against the might of Russia led by Peter the Great. Even the genius of the latter did not avail to avert our complete defeat at Narva in 1700, but his determined efforts to create an army well trained and numerically superior to the enemy were crowned by our victory at Poltava just nine years later. This struggle—the Great Northern War—only came to an end in 1721 with our annexation, under the Treaty of Nishtabtski, of Ingermanland (the province of St. Petersburg), Esthonia, Livonia, and a small part of Finland, altogether 3,500 square miles. The reasons of our defeat at Narva were that we put too few men—50,000—in the field in the first instance, and that they were unreliable. During the course of the war the army was increased in numbers to 136,000, and at Poltava Peter the Great had a very large superiority in numbers, besides the assistance of experienced subordinates and veteran troops. During the whole war we put in the field a total of 1,700,000 men. Our access to the Baltic cost us 120,000 killed and wounded, excluding missing, and 500,000 invalided, but in gaining it Russia won a place among the great Powers of Europe. Our progress towards the Black Sea proved almost as difficult, and necessitated four wars with Turkey. In the first—in 1711—we again committed the same initial error as we had against Sweden, and started operations with insufficient numbers, with the result that, in spite