m from the summit of St. Sofia at Constantinople.
But Britain's ironclads, Austria's legions, and German diplomacy barred
the way in the very hour of triumph; and Russia drew back. To the Slav
enthusiasts of Moscow even the Treaty of San Stefano had seemed a
dereliction of a sacred duty; that of Berlin seemed the most
cowardly of betrayals. As the Princess Radziwill confesses in her
_Recollections_--that event made Nihilism possible.

As usual, the populace, whether reactionary Slavophils or Liberals of
the type of Western Europe, vented its spleen on the Government. For a
time the strongest bureaucracy in Europe was driven to act on the
defensive. The Czar returned stricken with asthma and prematurely aged
by the privations and cares of the campaign. The Grand Duke Nicholas was
recalled from his command, and, after bearing the signs of studied
hostility of the Czarevitch, was exiled to his estates in February 1879.
The Government inspired contempt rather than fear; and a new spirit of
independence pervaded all classes. This was seen even as far back as
February 1878, in the acquittal of Vera Zazulich, a lady who had shot
the Chief of the Police at St. Petersburg, by a jury consisting of
nobles and high officials; and the verdict, given in the face of damning
evidence, was generally approved. Similar crimes occurred nearly every
week[223]. Everything therefore, favoured the designs of those who
sought to overthrow all government. In a word, the outcome of the war
was Nihilism.

[Footnote 223: _Ibid_. chap. xvii. The Government thereafter dispensed
with the ordinary forms of justice for political crimes and judged them
by special Commissions.]

The father of this sombre creed was a wealthy Russian landlord named
Bakunin; or rather, he shares this doubtful honour with the Frenchman
Prudhon. Bakunin, who was born in 1814, entered on active life in the
time of soulless repression inaugurated by the Czar Nicholas I.
(1825-1855). Disgusted by Russian bureaucracy, the youth eagerly drank
in the philosophy of Western Europe, especially that of Hegel. During a
residence at Paris, he embraced and developed Prudhon's creed that
"property is theft," and sought to prepare the way for a crusade against
all Governments by forming the Alliance of Social Democracy (1869),
which speedily became merged in the famous "Internationale." Driven
successively from France and Central Europe, he was finally handed over
to the Russians and sent