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often as not she was one of the decisive factors in them.History would have been unrecognizably different hadRussia played no part in the Turkish, Polish, and Balticquestions, in the Seven Years' War, in the struggleagainst Napoleon, in the 1848-49 revolutions, in the FarEast, in the First World War. By the end of the eighteenthcentury Russia loomed ponderously, in size andnumbers; "a kingdom, almost unknown in Europeduring the last century, and gradually aggrandized at theexpense of all her neighbours, . . . has menaced forforty years the political balance of power. . . . Thisvast empire . . . embraces all varieties of climate, andcomprehends every species of resource. . . . Solitaryresistance is vain against an empire which can producesoldiers like grains of sand.. . ." x Russian man-power,though sometimes exaggerated in the West, for the lasttwo centuries has bulked more and more impressively.Look at the relative population figures of the principalstates, even though they are but dubious estimates forthe earlier years and are no guidance to density, economicpotential, or organized power. 2Russia .France .Austria .Prussia .Poland .ItalyGreat Britainand Ireland.United States .Japan .1700c.13(1725)?10211.5(1760)7.5[260,000]1800c.3627.5209165In millions1871c.87363341273238.5331914c.174415067364698541939c.1704273354547131731The Danger of the Political Balance of Europe, attributed toGustavus III of Sweden (London, 1790). The original, in French,was published in the same year in Stockholm.2 Except in the case of the thirteen American colonies in 1700, thefigures are for states, and the extent of the states (except Japan) differsat the different dates; thus, e.g., conquest and acquisition enormously390