ABSTRACT
Cut off by Poland, East Prussia, and Sweden from the Baltic, and by the Ottoman Turks from the Black Sea, Russia had for a long period no access to European waters save by Archangel, which for a considerable part of the year was blocked by ice. When Russia did adopt Christianity she adopted it not in the Western but in the Eastern form; she looked for spiritual leadership not to Rome but to Constantinople. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars Russian policy, dictated solely by self-interest, pursued a devious course. The gallant struggle of the Greeks for national independence and the emancipation of their country from the tyranny of the Turkish yoke did bring England and Russia into collaboration, against Turkey. Joseph Stalin was one of the first statesmen in Europe to penetrate and expose Hitler's designs. The British Empire stood absolutely alone in grim determination to interpose between Hitler and world domination.
