Even the extremest East was brought in contact with the West.  As a result of the Opium War of 1840, China was compelled to open her doors to foreign trade.  She was also compelled to surrender territory to England.  Japan, which for more than two centuries had jealously excluded Europeans from her shores, received her memorable awakening from the friendly American expedition of Commodore Perry. [Footnote:  See The Opening of Japan.]

THE CRIMEAN WAR

Russia sought to have her share also in the appropriation of territory and “spheres of influence.”  She and England were the only two European Powers which had not been seriously shaken by the upheavals of 1848.  It seemed that they might almost divide between them the helpless Eastern world.  England having already begun operations, Russia assumed a sort of protectorate over the Christians in Turkish lands, and proposed to England that the entire Turkish Empire should be divided between the two despoilers.  The British Government refused the plan, mainly because it would give Russia a broad highway to the sea and make her a dangerous commercial rival.  So Russia attempted to carry out her scheme single-handed, and began seizing Turkish provinces.  She destroyed the Turkish fleet.  Once before in 1828 the threat of a general European alliance had checked the Russian bear at this same game; but Europe was weaker now, the Czar stronger, and England far off and undecided.

Thus perhaps the Czar might have had his way but for Napoleon III.  This new Emperor had been permitted by Frenchmen to usurp his power largely because of the military repute of his great namesake; and he felt that to hold his place he must justify his reputation.  Frenchmen resented exceedingly the Czar’s haughty assumption that only England was able to oppose Russia; and Napoleon III promptly asserted himself in the role of the former Napoleon as “dictator of Europe.”  The title so pleased the insulted pride of his people that they followed him eagerly, and remained blind to many failings through more wars than one.  The self-constituted dictator insisted that his whole desire was for peace and the artistic beautifying of his country; yet if Russia persisted in extending her power and ignoring France—.  In 1854 he joined England in the war of the Crimea against Russia.

It cannot be said that the allies achieved any great success against their huge antagonist.  Their fleets bombarded the Baltic fortresses with small result.  Their armies, hastening to protect Turkey, attacked the Russians in the Crimea, gained the Battle of the Alma, and then for an entire year besieged the fortifications of Sebastopol. [Footnote:  See The Capture of Sebastopol.] But distance and changeful climate proved Russia’s aids as they had in 1812.  The allies’ commissary and sanitary departments could hardly be managed at all; their troops died by thousands, and, though they finally