Many books have been written dealing with Russia’s Foreign Policy, but I feel that this one deserves particular attention.¹ The author draws in brief, but vivid, sketches the main phases of this tangled question, and has made it a coherent whole. There is no doubt that the eighties and nineties of the last century presented many critical moments, not only for Russia, but also for England, France, and Germany. That was the time when Russia was ruled by Alexander III., who was visibly hostile to England, and clashed with her in Turkey, Persia, and the Far East. And these collisions reacted on her pride, and created indignation and enmity. Baron Korff writes: “England had an absolute lack of knowledge about Russia and Russians; the Russian nation remained to her a constant riddle, unsolved up to the end of the century; she knew no more about it than the ancient history of Aztecs or Peruvians.”

England did not understand the yearning of Russia for Constantinople, which is for all true Russians the symbol and birth-place of the Orthodox Church. She saw in this yearning only a menace to her interests in Turkey, and the extension of the threat of Muscovy.

Yet some Englishmen could be found, even then, who desired to co-operate with Russia, and scouted the idea of a “Russian danger in Asia.” I need only mention Mr. Gladstone. But such people were few, and their voice was like “the voice crying in the wilderness.”

It was only in 1908 that the political horizon became clearer, and the relations between Russia and England then gradually improved. After the Russo-Japanese War, when Russia’s influence in the Balkans became weaker, then England drew closer the old bonds of friendship between the two countries. But even then “the secretive methods of Downing Street hid away from the British people the real motives of that new and strange alliance of Liberal England with reactionary Russia. The English nation did not understand the full meaning of this rapprochement, nor did it realize at large the growing German danger, and that an understanding with Russia became imperative; the alliance with Russia from the point of view of an uninformed Liberal was preposterous. As Professor Browne exclaimed, ‘It was a monstrous conception of a peaceful Russia and a belligerent Germany!’ To him, as to many Englishmen, Russia was still the old enemy and constant aggressor.”

But you must not think that the book of Baron Korff treated only of the Anglo-Russian relations. The author endeavours to show the foreign policy of Russia, and it can be justly said that he has accomplished his task splendidly. “Russia’s Foreign Relations” will be still more interesting after Russia has outlived a very distressing situation, but her future is an enigma. Yet in searching for the solution of that enigma the words of the great historian Plutarch must not be forgotten, who said that “the past and the future of a nation are close bound together.”

I hope that the book of Baron Korff will be read with great interest, and the author will receive the reward that he merits for his splendid work.

1. “Russia’s Foreign Relations during the Last Half-Century.” By Baron S.A. Korff, D.C.L. (Macmillan.) 10s. 6d. net.