ept the
empire fully occupied for a considerable period.

This condition is easily understood if we remember that at that time
of all the great European nations Russia was the least developed,
the least advanced, and the least modernized. The many reforms
instituted at that time contributed their share in changing this
condition and resulted in bringing the Russian Empire rapidly to the
forefront of European nations. With the details of the reforms we
are not concerned, but as their actual accomplishment had an
important bearing on Russia's future activities in the field of
world politics it will be well to state that they consisted chiefly
of five great measures: the emancipation of the serfs; the
institution of the zemstvos or county councils; trial by jury;
regulation of the public press; and reorganization of the army. Some
of these reforms were instituted by the government only after public
opinion had made such a course inevitable, and of the history of
this entire period it may well be said that it was written in the
very lifeblood of the Russian people. Two forces continuously
combated each other; on one side were the large masses of the
people, on the other the ruling classes. The former it is true were
not always in solid union and, indeed, more frequently left the
burden of fighting their cause to a small group of intellectuals.
Their demands in many instances were unreasonable, but the ruling
classes were just as unreasonable in their attitude, and the result
was a period of terrorism during which assassination of officials
abounded and even the life of the emperor was threatened a number of
times.

During the war of 1866 between Prussia and Austria and in 1871
between France and Germany, Russia observed a friendly neutrality
toward Prussia. This attitude was the outcome of the long-standing
personal friendship between the Russian and Prussian dynasties, a
condition which at that period counted much more than in more modern
times. Although Russia kept out of any active participation in these
two struggles it used the Franco-Prussian War, when all the other
European powers were tied down by its possibilities, to declare, in
October, 1870, that it refused to be bound further by the provisions
of the treaty of Paris, made in 1856, establishing the neutrality of
the Black Sea. As a result of this a conference was called to London
the following year, 1871, which affirmed in the name of all powers
represented