rn to attach less importance to
the schemes of kings, and their selfish territorial wars, horrible as
these may be in their exhibitions of human heartlessness and
blood-guilt, destructive as they have ever been in their consequences of
suffering and degeneration.

The Turks were now finally beaten back from their conquests in Hungary.
The war which they had begun with the siege of Vienna was continued by
the celebrated Austrian general, Prince Eugene, the companion of
Marlborough against Louis XIV. Eugene won victory after victory, and
finally by the capture of Belgrad (1717) drove the Mahometans forever
from Hungarian territory, reduced them from a universal menace to
become an ever-fading "Eastern question."[12]

Russia also, at first under Peter the Great and later under Catherine
II, began to reach out for Turkish territory. The Turks had risen by the
sword, and now, as other nations progressed and they stood still, the
power of the sword was failing them. Russia expanded toward the Black
Sea, as before she had expanded toward the Baltic, feeling out from her
boundaries everywhere, moving along the line of least resistance,
already looking toward Poland as her next tempting mouthful.

In Asia too the Turks had troubles to encounter. Asia, the vastly
productive, multitudinous through unprogressive, could still raise up
conquerors of the Turkish type to stand against them. The last of those
sudden waves of temporary, meaningless, barbarian conquest swept over
the Asian plains. Nadir Shah, a Persian bandit, freed his country from
the yoke of its Afghan tyrants, assumed its throne, and by repeated
battles enlarged his domains at Turkish expense. He subdued Afghanistan,
and then extending his attention to India made a sudden invasion of that
huge land, overthrew the forces of the Great Mogul, and, having captured
both him and his capital, permitted him to continue to reign as a sort
of subject prince. Returning from this distant expedition, Nadir Shah
was beginning to push his conquests over Northeastern Asia when he was
slain by a conspiracy among his Persian followers, driven to desperation
by his savage tyranny. His dominions fell to pieces with his death.[13]

Europe meanwhile was going through a series of wars which seem small
improvement over those of Nadir, except that they have had more polished
historians. The selfish principles of Louis XIV had not lost their
influence, the passion for territorial aggrandize