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Russians and even imposed a considerable degree ofunited action upon the diverse peoples of the easternCaucasus. It is a tribute to him and typical of hiscaptors that, after he was at last brought to bay andsurrendered (1859), he and his family were treated withevery consideration in Russia, though kept under closesurveillance, and that he himself was officially ennobled.The mountaineers were in constant connexion with theTurks. Gun-running and contraband trade along thewild Black Sea coast were perpetual preoccupations forthe Russians. Unofficial British agents were activeamong the tribesmen and, notably in the thirties, aggravatedthe very strained relations between Great Britain andRussia. For long, British opinion was fed on stirringaccounts of the Circassians battling for independenceagainst the Cossack and the knout. Naturally enoughduring the Crimean War (1853-56) Russian fears of alarge-scale expedition to the western Caucasus ran high;but in fact the Turks and their allies signally failed to takeadvantage of their command of the sea and nothingbeyond small-scale operations was attempted in thatregion. Twenty years later during the war of 1877-78two serious mountaineer risings threatened the Russianrear, but they were only incidents. The fortress of Karswas again captured from the Turks, and this timeretained; Batum, the Black Sea outlet for Transcaucasia,was at last ceded (1878). Russia had conquered and anew Caucasia was about to take shape.The century of struggle for the Caucasus speltcampaign after campaign, astonishing feats of arms, yetmore astonishing feats of endurance; it spelt massacre,burning villages, raided herds, devastation. There wasindeed all too much fire and sword, especially in thegrim contest with the mountaineers. 1 But the conquestmeant other things as well. In the North Caucasussteppes it meant security for Russian colonization, thevictory of the farmer settler and all that follows1Read Tolstoy's Hadji Murad, an episode in the struggle againstShamil; finished in 1903; published only in 1911 after Tolstoy's death,and then heavily censored owing to his unbridled invective againstNicholas I; various translations, including the World's Classics series.294