Empire, and we thereby became directly involved in the political problems of Europe, the greater portion of our troops was required to garrison the country west of the Dnieper. In 1799 about 100,000 men were stationed across the frontier,[12] approximately 130,000 formed two armies in the south-western districts,[13] and in the north some 50,000 were distributed around the capital; the rest were scattered throughout the country, about 25,000 being on the Siberian and Caucasian frontiers. Though a continuation of what had gone before, the military problems of the nineteenth century had to be faced under more complicated conditions. In the north-west Russia had still to put the finishing touch to her effort towards an outlet on the Baltic by gaining possession of the northern shores of the Gulf of Finland and the eastern shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. In the west the Poles had to be kept in subjection, and our frontier defended from Prussia and Austria. We had to maintain the position we had won, and also to oppose Napoleon’s army of a million men. In the south we had to make permanent our footing on the shores of the Black Sea, and to guard its coasts from oversea attack. In the Caucasus and the Far East everything remained to be done. The consolidation of our position in the two latter directions, so as to protect, before all else, the Russian population of the southern districts, demanded an energetic advance. It was upon the army that a large share of the execution of these projects naturally fell. Firstly, the beginning of the century was remarkable for our colossal struggle with France, of which Suvoroff’s campaign in 1799 was the commencement. We advanced against Napoleon as the ally of Austria and Germany, whom he was in the process of destroying; but the campaigns ended in our utter defeat at Austerlitz in 1805, and Friedland in 1807. The war in our country of 1812–14 was a continuation of the first two Napoleonic wars, and, notwithstanding the invasion of Russia by an immense army, and the fact that our troops were driven back beyond Moscow, Napoleon was defeated, Europe was freed from his yoke, and Poland became an integral portion of the Russian Empire. The determination with which Peter the Great and Alexander I. conducted their struggles against such opponents as Charles XII. and Napoleon is in the highest degree instructive. In both cases we commenced hostilities with inadequate numbers, suffered complete initial defeat at Narva, Austerlitz, and Friedland, but nevertheless continued the contest. In both cases our troops were reinforced, and gradually became trained and seasoned; leaders were created by the war itself, and our numbers increased until we obtained superiority over the enemy, and finally ended the struggle victoriously by winning the battle of Poltava in the one case, and by marching into Paris in the other.