In the first half of the nineteenth century, this isolation and Russia’s own imperial ambitions helped turn the country, in the West’s estimation, into a mortal threat. After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, it didn’t take Britain long to substitute Russia in his place as the tyrant du jour. From Whitehall to the popular press and streets of London came the image of the Russian bear threatening to claw its way through Europe—but with none of the French emperor’s enlightened mindset. Instead, the only gift Russia could offer its victims was Eastern despotism and enslavement.
By mid-century its imperial drive seemed to confirm this as it marched through the Caucasus and Central Asia en route to ruling nearly a sixth of the world. Certainly the oppressed peoples of Eastern Europe, such as the Poles, could attest to Russia’s implacable predatory nature. It did not take much for Britain—while still fearing French invasion—to see that expansion as a direct threat to its own empire, in particular its terrestrial links to India.
Ironically it was Karl Marx, certainly no friend of capitalist Britain, who gave voice to the fears of many in the West. One could never trust Russia, he warned at the time, since “its methods, its tactics, its maneuvers may change, but the polar star of its policy—world domination—is a fixed star.” Russia did little to assuage such fears. With pride it stood solidly and stubbornly as the “gendarme of Europe,” its army always ready to pounce on any expression of freedom or liberty no matter where such sentiments might be found—even outside its borders.
The latest to discover this had been the Hungarian nationalists in their struggle for independence from their Austrian overlords. When revolution flared across Europe in 1848, including in Budapest, Russia had sent an army across its border to quash them since it could not countenance any threats to Europe’s political order.
Gregory Carleton, Crimean Quagmire: Tolstoy, Russell and the Birth of Modern Warfare (6-7). (Function). Kindle Edition.
