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This table, for all its uncertainties and deficiencies,brings out two broad facts:(i) Prior to about the end of the eighteenth centuryRussia did not have far the largest population of anyEuropean state. Behind the Great Northern War thedarkness thickens. Such evidence as there is indicatesthat the population of Muscovy after the Time ofTroubles (1604-13) increased steadily, whereas between1570 and 1620 it had very likely dropped. But until thelater seventeenth century she was almost certainly weakerin man-power than Poland-Lithuania. Only then didthe defection of much of the Ukraine and the probablenatural increase in Muscovy proper begin to turn thescale in her favour.(ii) Since the French Revolution conquest, acquisition,and natural increase have resulted in a phenomenal risein the population of the Russian empire; on a scalesurpassed (apart perhaps from India and China) only bythe United States, where very large immigration has tobe added to the above three factors. In mere numbersRussia already by 1871 was more than twice as big asany single European state. On the other hand, thanksto the attainment of German unity there was between1800 and 1914 an even larger relative increase in thesubjects of the Hohenzollerns than in those of theRomanovs.Absolute numbers can mean little. Russian manpowerwas too often terribly offset by inability to utilizeit, by lack of organization and modern training, equipmentand communications, by very grave social andeconomic disharmonies. The new world born out ofthe industrial revolution and modern science told againstenlarged Russia between 1725 and 1871 and the U.S.A. between 1800and 1871, and Prussia from 1871 is Germany. The 1939 figure forRussia is that of the Soviet census, covering a smaller area than theRussian empire. France is the 1789 France except in 1871 and 1914,when it excludes Alsace-Lorraine. Austria in 1871 and 1914 meansAustria-Hungary, in 1700 and 1800 the Austrian dominions excludingterritory in Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy. Prussia from 1871is Germany; the figure" for 1939 includes Austria, but not any of Czechoslovakia.The area of 1939 Poland was much smaller than that of preparationPoland. Eire is excluded in the British 1939 figure. TheJapanese figures are for Japan proper, excluding her empire.391

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