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maintain the status quo (cf. pp. 269-270). 'The Ochakovaffair' (1790-1), with which the Foxite Whigs in collusionwith the Russian minister made such play, ended in theresounding victory of Catherine. She did not yield toSweden or Prussia and kept what Pitt was clumsily tryingto intimidate her into giving up, namely the Black Seastrip between the Bug and the Dniester with the fortressof Ochakov. Pitt was less swayed by fears for the safetyof the Ottoman empire than by other considerations, andhe had no popular support in standing against Russia;but none the less the eastern question in its modern formbegins to take shape for England in 1791.By that date the French Revolution was far unleashed.By the next year Austria and Prussia were at war withFrance; by 1793 Great Britain. Catherine was anxiousenough to stay the Revolution and urge on coalitionagainst it, the more readily since Austria and Prussiawould thereby have their hands full in the West. Forher main energies were absorbed in making an end ofPoland (see pp. 210-211). Thus Russia, too far distantand too otherwise engrossed, did not take more thana nominal part in the first coalition against France(1792-95).Thereafter it was very different. Russia fought Francein the second coalition (1798-99) in Holland and aboveall in northern Italy and Switzerland, where Suvorov(1730-1800) performed his last and most brilliant feats.She fought France in the third coalition (1805-7), in1812, and in the final coalition that ended on the fieldof Waterloo. Twice she swerved to the side of France:first, momentarily in 1800-1 owing to the incalculableemperor Paul; a second time, after bloody defeats in1807 when Alexander I was constrained to ally himself,very uneasily, with Napoleon, much as Austria wasconstrained after Wagram (1809).The fundamental reason for Russia's participation inthe Napoleonic wars was the same as that for the participationof the other powers—fear of an over-mighty Francegiving the law to Europe. Russia, in the eyes at any rateof her government, was a great European power, inevitablybound up with the West; even though throughout397