e in Peloponnesos was a fitting culmination to
her work; for, brief though it was, it effectively broke the Ottoman
tradition, and left behind it a system of communal self-government among
the Peloponnesian Greeks which the returning Turk was too feeble to sweep
away. The Turks gained nothing by the rapid downfall of Venice, for
Austria as rapidly stepped into her place, and pressed with fresh vigour
the attack from the north-west. North-eastward, too, a new enemy had
arisen in Russia, which had been reorganized towards the turn of the
century by Peter the Great with a radical energy undreamed of by any
Turkish Koeprili, and which found its destiny in opposition to the Ottoman
Empire. The new Orthodox power regarded itself as the heir of the Romaic
Empire from which it had received its first Christianity and culture. It
aspired to repay the Romaic race in adversity by championing it against
its Moslem oppressors, and sought its own reward in a maritime outlet on
the Black Sea. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia
repeatedly made war on Turkey, either with or without the co-operation of
Austria; but the decisive bout in the struggle was the war of 1769-74. A
Russian fleet appeared in the Mediterranean, raised an insurrection in
Peloponnesos, and destroyed the Turkish squadron in battle. The Russian
armies were still more successful on the steppes, and the Treaty of
Kutchuk Kainardji not only left the whole north coast of the Black Sea in
Russia's possession, but contained an international sanction for the
rights of the sultan's Orthodox subjects. In 1783 a supplementary
commercial treaty extorted for the Ottoman Greeks the right to trade under
the Russian flag. The territorial sovereignty of Turkey in the Aegean
remained intact, but the Russian guarantee gave the Greek race a more
substantial security than the shadowy ordinance of Mustapha Koeprili. The
paralysing prestige of the Porte was broken, and Greek eyes were
henceforth turned in hope towards Petersburg.

[Footnote 1: 1699-1718.]

By the end of the eighteenth century the condition of the Greeks had in
fact changed remarkably for the better, and the French and English
travellers who now began to visit the Ottoman Empire brought away the
impression that a critical change in its internal equilibrium was at hand.
The Napoleonic wars had just extinguished the Venetian Republic and swept
the Ionian Islands into the struggle between England and France for